Memories: Past, Present, and Future

Dr. Bob Fineman
June 15, 2002

Why would an American doctor and his occupational therapist wife (that is, two people who have spent most of their lives trying to help others) pay their airfare and an administrative fee to perform manual labor for three weeks at an Israeli Defense Forces military base in 1999? Why would tens of thousands of others from 34 countries, ages 18-80, males and females, Jews and non-Jews, do the same thing from 1982 to the present? I cannot speak for them, but I can describe why I participated in the non-political, non-profit Volunteers for Israel (VFI) program in January 1999, and again in May 2002. As far as I’m concerned, it all has to do with my past, present, and future.

I remember very well the day John F. Kennedy was assassinated and the several days that followed that tragic, senseless event. Virtually all of my teenage friends and I were very much affected by his death.

Around the time President Kennedy was shot, quite by happenstance, I became interested in my genealogy. I remember vividly calling my “ancient” relatives (anyone over 60 was ancient) to ask them about my ancestors. Much to my surprise, I found out that many of my mother’s relatives were Holocaust victims.

I had heard about the Holocaust by the time I was a teenager but, for whatever reason, it was not something we discussed at home. I don’t think most teenagers living in the U.S. in the 1960’s cared how their relatives died in the 1940’s. Many of my mother’s relatives died simply because they were Jews. To me, their deaths were as tragic and senseless as the murder of President Kennedy.

Over the years, I have tried to make sense of what happened to my mother’s relatives and to so many other Jews, including those who have been maimed and murdered in Israel over the past 20 months by religious fanatics and terrorists. What happened to them caused me think not long ago of a Jewish holiday, Passover (of which I have many memories), and a sentence in the Passover Haggadah (Hebrew for “the telling” of the story of the Jews’ deliverance from Egyptian bondage). “For not only one enemy has risen up to destroy us, but in every generation do men rise up against us seeking to destroy us; but the Holy One, blessed be He, He delivers us from their hands.” I believe that this passage in the Haggadah is true, and Yassir Arafat, Sadam Hussein and many others like them proves it.

During the first four months of 2002, when fanatics and terrorists were causing death and destruction in Israel almost every day, I made the decision to go to Israel again as a VFI volunteer. Many of my friends and relatives, including my mother (my father is deceased), questioned my sanity. “Why do you want to go to a war zone?” they asked. To most of them, I said “it is just something I have to do.” To be honest, I was not interested in getting into a debate or discussion about my reasons. To my mother who was putting a lot of pressure on me, I responded by asking a question I always wanted to ask her, “What did you and dad do during the Holocaust to help save Jewish lives?” My mother said she and my father did very little.

Far be it for me to say something that would be critical of my mother and father for things they did or did not do in the 1930’s and 1940’s. I did not walk in their shoes. But as for me (a 57-year-old married physician and father of three children), when my children and grandchildren ask me what I did I for our brethren in Israel in their time of great need, I will proudly say I supported them as a VFI volunteer and recruiter. I will also show them pictures, and I tell them about the Israeli soldiers the volunteers worked with. More than anything else, I will tell my children and grandchildren how much of an honor and a privilege it was for me and the other volunteers to work with heroes…those young Israeli men and women who frequently were placed in dangerous situations to combat fanaticism and mindless terrorism.