07/23/2023 – “Rebbe Itzik and the Sabra” – Apr.-May 1948 C.E. – Level 1 / “Ongoing Group Fellowship and Discussion
First, Check out the attached link below, a summarized historical account of the liberation of Sabra despite overwhelming odds against it. God is sovereign. Once again, “The Source” is a novel, but the fictional characters are placed in an historically accurate setting. On the top of pg. # 929, we are given the situation as it was: “On November 29, 1947, the United Nations meeting at lake Success in New York, had voted 33 to 13 to accept England’s decision to hand back the mandate given her by the old League of Nations, under which they had been responsible for the government of what came to be known as British Palestine.
Let’s look at how the Jews were “pathetically outnumbered”:
“600,000 Jews against 1,300,000 Arabs in undivided Palestine, plus 36,000,000 others determined to attack from Egypt, Transjordan, Syria and Lebanon, all of who had common boundaries with Palestine, and from Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Iraq, which did not. (pgs # 929 – 930)
“In Salad itself, where the first blow would probably be struck, an accurate census of Jews had been made: 1214 Jews surrounded by an estimated 13,400 Arabs. ” (pg. #930)
https://www.safed.co.il/safed-1948.html
Nancy and I still dream of going to Israel. I was looking at the annual Safed Klezmer Festival, three days in early August for 2023 this year.
What a shock at the end of this chapter to find out that Isidore Gottesmann was in fact Ilan Eliav, one of the three main archaeologists on this Tell Makor dig, having lost his beloved Ilana Hacochen at the very end of the battle for Safed.
And then within the short Tell section on pgs. #987 through #990, in a conversation between Cullinane, Eliav and Tabari: We are told Tabari was the commander of the Arab forces defending Acre. With overwhelming manpower and ammo, Cullinane asks: “What happened?”, as in “How did you lose! To which , Tabari tellingly responds: “I’m the only general in history to command four thousand one-man armies.”
We are told on page #927, that Ilana Hachohen, granddaughter of Shmuel Hachohen of Kfar Kerem , from our last chapter, is a model of a “true sabra –‘flower of the cactus’ as those born in Palestine were called, ‘prickly on the outside, sweet on the inside’. The cultural clash between the sabra and the rabbi (“rebbe” – Yiddish) refugee religious leaders of the Hasidic sect is played out at length in the heated argument between Ilana and Rabbe Itzik running between pgs. 979 to the top of pg. # 987.
Thoughts? / Reflections?:
In the aftermath of the Holocaust, was it any wonder that Rabbi Gedalia and other leaders countermanded Rebbe Itzik’s orders by demanding: “Go out and help the fighters. Do anything they demand of you, for with God’s help they shall win.”? (pg. #996)
By the grace of God, Cullinane recounts how the British cultural attache insists that the Jews are actually going to win. I wonder if in fact there were Brits that were that savvy?
A very telling observation as Zodman, the British Cultural Attache and Culinane walked the flight of stairs dividing the Muslims from the Jews: “… to the left they could see the deserted mosque, so marvelously proportioned and with such pleasing juxtapositions of wall and dome and minaret; it was a mini work of art gracing the hill and lending character to the deserted Arab houses that clustered about its base; while to the right they could see the blunt, squat old synagogue of the Vodzher Rebbe. It lent neither the countryside nor its encroaching mud-walled houses any artistic dignity, but it did cry out the fact that to its doors had come through the centuries, stubborn men who believed that there was a God who was one, and who in the affairs of men played a significant role, if the men would permit Him to do so.”
Will we have such stubborn Christian warriors with the 144,000 Messianic Jewish remnant when Jesus takes command in a flash to establish His kingdom on earth with Jerusalem as the capital at the 2nd coming, when all had seemed lost? I submit we can’t lose because God can’t lose!
I thoroughly enjoyed the 2nd journey through this classic novel. Study groups can continue to bring God’s Word into it. We could theoretically continue to participate with brothers and sisters we don’t know by commenting on pithy and winsome questions from new studies years hence. It’s the beauty of the blog vehicle.
Soli Deo Gloria!