I was lucky enough to visit Israel in October 2004. During my trip to the Promised Land I lived almost the whole month in Tel Aviv and was a guest of my relatives, Rachel and Shmuel Tsveigorn. From the moment I landed at the Ben Gurion airport they took good care of me while I was visiting Israel. I felt again the care and warmth of people who were close to me, and I am grateful to them for the attention and support they gave me and their sincere and genuine affection towards me. They not only took care of me, but also spent their time showing me a lot.
I toured almost the whole country by bus – from the northern border with Syria and Lebanon to the southern border with Jordan and Egypt.
Israel is a small and wonderful country!
I was strolling along the narrow, ancient stone streets of Jerusalem’s Old City, walking through tortuous alleys lined with shops that originated in ancient times in the cities of Akko and Jaffa, I saw the archeological excavations and the restored historic structures of Caesarea, Gamla and other places. I stood before the Wailing Wall in prayer and felt the breath of centuries and my belonging to people who thousands of years ago lived, fought with the enemy, prayed, and built. Everything that was created in Eretz Yizrael (the Land of Israel) is a history of the entire Jewish people. And the high antiquity imbued me with the powerful spiritual energy and emotional strength of my historical homeland.
Israel is the country that turned deserts into blooming gardens. Of course, it did not just happen by itself. There was much blood, sweat, and tears shed to achieve that. I saw skillful agricultural work in stony valleys and hills where farmers harvest a few times a year; I saw swamps drained and converted into fields; agricultural plastic film that covered the seedbed and then was converted into fertilizer; oases in the desert; palm-trees; fruit gardens; banana plantations; the handmade groves of coniferous and deciduous trees. One of those trees, according to the Sinai Memorial Chapel, was planted in memory of my wife, Musia Rykliansky, who passed away on November 18, 2002 (Kislev 13, 5763).
May her memory live on in the hearts and minds of those who knew and loved her... now and forever!
I visited the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial Complex in Jerusalem, the Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority, the largest museum in the world that reflects the story of the European Jewish community during the Holocaust. I felt that it is the most mournful place in the world. I was especially touched by the room dedicated to the 1.5 million Jewish children who perished during years of the Catastrophe. One of those innocent victims of genocide was my elder brother Isaac [′aizək], who was 15-year-old boy at the time. He was shot by the Nazis and their Lithuanian allies in the pine forest of Pivonija in Lithuania. Likely, the voice that in beautiful literary Yiddish was constantly announcing the names of the murdered children and countries they were from, will always say the name of my brother as well. In 1999 I sent the testimonial documents to Yad Vashem to immortalize the memory of my family members who perished tragically during the Holocaust, the greatest crime in the history of humankind.
I spent time admiring the modern buildings and architectural ensembles of Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Haifa, Eilat, Ramat Aviv, Herzliya, Ashkelon, Katzrin, and other cities. I also admired the green agricultural settlements (the kibbutzes and the moshavs). All of those were created under difficult conditions with self-sacrificing hard work, skills, knowledge, and the talent of the Jewish people.
And how attractive are the Mediterranean Sea, the Red Sea, the Dead Sea, and Lake Kinneret! Modern, comfortable hotels were built on their shores for tourists who come from all over the world. Fira Dubinovsky, a cousin of my late wife Musia, organized a five-day vacation trip to a resort in Eilat, and a trip to the Dead Sea where I enjoyed swimming.
I was also shown certain places of victorious combat between the Israel Defense Forces and the Arab countries.
I fell in love with the young Israeli people. Almost all young men and women are patriots and they are ready to defend their country with their last drop of blood. Nobody dodges the army draft, regardless of the social and economic status of their parents. A youth considers being in the army not only a full-time duty, but a privilege. I have heard the opinion of young people many times, "If it is not me, then who will defend our country?"
During my stay with Rachel and Shmuel, our conversations often touched on events of their lives and the Catastrophe of the Jewish people. (Both of them were prisoners of the Kaunas Ghetto and the Nazi concentration camps.) We spoke mostly in Yiddish, which I love very much. A majority of Lithuanian Jews have kept the language of their ancestors, Yiddish, and they call it mame-loshn (the language of our mothers). Not many Lithuanian Jews have ever been ashamed of calling themselves Jewish and they did not hide their belonging to a persecuted people.
