28/6/91

A Bargain at $225 Million

By: Sam Orbaum

ENOUGH SNIDE remarks about Americans, American Jews, American Jewish leaders and American Jewish leaders with lots of money. They are the undeserving butts of a rather curious "damned if you do, damned if you do," syndrome prevalent not only among Israelis but among people helped by the Americans the world over.
    So some Americans may be lordly, or naive, or provincial, or cynical wheeler-dealers. But I can tolerate that a lot more easily than some Israelis who are arrogant, inconsiderate, bullying, boorish, brash, truculent, pushy or undemocratic. Judging by broad generalizations and national-cultural traits of all the world's peoples, there's nobody I like at all except maybe the Danes and Peruvians, who seem nice enough, and perhaps the Canadians, who are not in any way objectionable because no one in the world even knows what a real Canadian behaves like. Even in Canada, Canadians think other Canadians are just polite Americans. (Quebec is the exception, of course, but I still have family there, so I'd best leave that alone. )
    Americans are easy targets for derision because they take themselves so seriously. Indeed, I have noticed that all countries that own atom bombs take themselves seriously.
    I bring all of this up now because last week I accompanied a UJA mission at Ben-Gurion Airport to greet Soviet olim. UJA, Bonds and all Diaspora fundraisers do take themselves very seriously, but they neither own atom bombs nor are they countries. Yet.
    A UJA mission. Cartoonists - and we are all frustrated cartoonists at heart - would be merciless. They'd give us a toupeed pot-bellied figure in Bermuda shorts and a Yankees baseball cap jabbing a fat pinky-ringed hand at a dazed, bedraggled, beshmattaed refugee taking his first wobbly step onto holy tarmac. "Shuhlom, shuhlom, I'm Irving Finkelstein of Finkelstein Fashions in Flatbush, U.S.A. My card. May I say I'm proud to welcome you to Israel in the name of all the Jewish people. Shuhlom, shuhlom. And hey, best o' luck, awright?"
    It wasn't like that.
    I don't know these people. I only spent a couple of hours with them. I suspect I wouldn't want to be employed by them, and maybe I would not want to count them as my closest friends, if ever they thought to suggest it. But I honestly did enjoy observing them for two hours.
    I didn't feel the need to investigate how they made their money, or how they spend it, or if they flaunt it. And yes, they took themselves seriously, they believed in what they were doing, and to a jaded eye they might have come across as a bit too gung-ho. In fact, they came across exactly as all Israelis did when news of Operation Solomon broke.
    These were the same sort of people upon whom we heaped undue derision both for flying to Israel to be here when the Scuds fell, and for not flying here then. Frankly, I don't see why anyone should spend over $1,000 to come and be attacked by Scuds. The people of Ramat Gan would probably agree.
    These 38 members of UJA's New York Leadership Mission spend a lot of time and effort - and a helluva lot of money - for Israel's sake, for the right to be called Jewish leaders. Yes, they buy the privilege to meet with Yitzhak Shamir, Teddy Kollek and a lot of other important and self-important people. (It is interesting to note that, although their fundraising and their tour were entirely related to immigration and absorption, their extensive itinerary did not include a session with our minister of immigration and absorption. )
    It's quite a bargain, no? We boost their egos, and they go home and raise an absolutely gargantuan sum for Project Renewal, for building a new school in a development town, or financing the rescue of throngs of refugees, or developing the country in every nook big enough to erect a name-plaque.
    UJA New York was told there would be 300,000 new immigrants. They promptly set out to raise $80 million. Then the aliya figures were upped, and they adjusted their bid to $100 million. One hundred million dollars, from one city alone! Finally, at the height of the immigrant influx, UJA New York was informed that Israel may get a million olim over the next few years - and they promptly raised their pledge to $225 million!
    And you know what? They're most of the way there.

THE UJA GROUP of Big Apple big cheeses bused from Jerusalem to Ben-Gurion Airport early in the morning to welcome the new immigrants.
    Harvey Schulweis is a first generation American whose parents fled Europe as refugees. In the frivolous atmosphere of the bus ride, he told me that he had welcomed new immigrants once before. The first time, he "saw the same faces of my ancestors coming down those steps. They could have been my parents."
    Thirty-eight American Jews - precisely the type we like to poke fun at - gathered in a clutch on the tarmac, the jocularity of the bus ride giving way to awed quiet.
    Greeting Jewish refugees was to be the tangible climax to their sincere efforts.
    The El Al plane with "their" immigrants landed, and taxied to a halt alongside them. After a few breathless moments the door finally opened, and a boy emerged. Gasps and sobs swept through the humbled entourage. The Americans gazed in wonder at each traumatized Russian Jewish face.
    Then, the procession suddenly stopped. A frail and fearful 96-year-old woman balked at the top of the steps, the last leg of her treacherous journey, afraid of falling.
    Schulweis bolted up the steps. He gathered the old woman in his arms, and gently guided her down to sanctuary.
    He watched her disappear into the crowd on the tarmac. I approached him for his thoughts, but he held up his hand, silently beseeching me not to intrude. And then I saw that he was crying.
    The face of his ancestors.