Criminal shofar-blower

    "I didn't do it," says Murray Greenfield with a rollicking laugh. Mind you, he didn't really mind going to jail for the crime.
    He didn't exactly break one of the commandments. He was hauled off for blowing a shofar at the Kotel in 1947, an act of defiance against the British, a put-up-yer-dukes dare to the surly Arabs.
    "But it wasn't me. When the shofar sounded -- loud and long -- dozens of British police pounced on the crowd, using their batons indiscriminately. My friend Harold and I tried to disappear into the crowd by standing still, but a policeman spotted me and lunged. Harold swung and hit him, but the policeman pushed him aside. He wanted only me. I was arrested and taken to the police station in the Old City, where I was accused of being the one who blew the illegal shofar."
    Murray is a memory mill, a yarn-spinner from a time we young 'uns can only imagine.
    He arrived in Jerusalem on erev Yom Kippur, after months of incarceration in Cyprus for another illegal act: rescuing Holocaust survivors.
    "Oh, it was exhilarating! On the Egged bus ride -- a sign said 'speak Hebrew only' -- we were squeezed in together, and there were live animals on the roof. It was like being on an overloaded rollercoaster: the road zigged and zagged. There was room for two mini-cars to pass, but anything bigger, they had to pull over.
    "Well, except for the British cars. They didn't care where they drove as long as it was down the middle of the road."
    In those days, you didn't complain about the conditions -- well, not formally. You expected to suffer.
    "We came to a roadblock, and we all had to get off, unload our belongings and show the British officer our identity cards."
    That was a bit of a problem for Murray, then 21: he hadn't yet memorized the name and ID number given him by the Hagana. "Thanks to luck, or British incompetence, I got through."
    The starry-eyed young man was not yet wised up to the nuances of this strange land.
    "For the remainder of the journey I noticed that all the oncoming cars blinked their lights. It seemed a little queer. Later, I learned that they were flashing their acknowledgments: our bus was in fact flashing them, that there was a roadblock ahead; that gave warning to Jews on a mission, or with poor papers. Our bus had itself been warned before coming upon the British -- and the driver then hid something he was carrying."
    Israeli drivers still alert each other in the same way -- that ol' Smokey is up ahead, lying in wait for highway speeders.
    Murray laughs again, and the memories spill out.
    "Arriving in Jerusalem was like a crazy dream. People rushing all which way. It reminded me of a movie running too fast. There were people wrapped in bath towels, heading for the public baths; others walked around with pots of food."
     Murray and his friend, Harold Katz, hurried to their accommodations in Rehavia before the city shut down for the holiday. Rabbi Simha Assaf, who would become one of the first justices of the High Court, was rather surprised to find these two weary travelers in his home. But no matter: what Jewish home in 1947 wouldn't receive a couple of volunteer American sailors fresh out of internment?
    "Although the Jews of Palestine had been warned by the British to stay away from the Wall that Yom Kippur, Harold and I felt it was our duty, and our right, to be there. As we walked from Rehavia, we discussed the names we would give and the stories we would tell if we happened to be picked up. After all, we were here with false papers.
    "The sun was already setting when we arrived at the Wall, and the singing -- it sounded like crying -- was loud and emphatic, and could be heard for miles around. Everyone was crowded into a small space not more than 12 feet square."
    Then that ram's horn sounded -- for the last time at the Kotel in 20 years. And Murray became probably the last Jew ever arrested for blowing a shofar.
    "You know," he mulls, "I had my circumcision on Yom Kippur, in 1926. As the family story goes, the Bronx police -- Irish to a man -- cleared the way from our home to the synagogue where the brit took place."
    If Murray seems to bring out the best, and worse, in police forces, he ain't finished yet.
    "I'm thinking," he says with a mischievous twinkle in his eye, "maybe I should get a shofar and go blow it on the Temple Mount. Maybe I should go to Jerusalem and get arrested again."
    This time, by the Israeli police.