Culture
Introducing: Unpacking Israeli History, Season 4!
In this episode of Unpacking Israeli History, host Dr. Norm Weissman delves into the harrowing events of May 13, 1974, when Palestinian terrorists launched a brutal attack in Israel, resulting in the ...
Introducing: Unpacking Israeli History, Season 4!
Culture •
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Interactive Transcript
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Hey, it's Rift Kistern, head of podcast here at Unpacked, and the producer of Nice Jewish Girls.
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This week we're going to do something a little different.
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We want to share with you another one of our podcasts, Unpacking Israeli History.
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If you like Nice Jewish Girls, I bet you'll enjoy this one.
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In Unpacking Israeli History, host Dr. Norm Weissman does a deep dive into some of the most
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intense, historically fascinating, and often misunderstood events and stories surrounding
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Israeli history.
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Because I'm convinced that you'll love it, we're going to run the first episode of Season
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4 right here.
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But to catch the rest, subscribe and Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to this
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show.
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Just search for Unpacking Israeli History.
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We hope you'll enjoy it, and as always, we'd love to hear from you.
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Shoot us an email at podcastacjewishunpack.com.
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And with that, Yala, let's do this.
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Hey, I'm Norm Weissman, and you're listening to Unpacking Israeli History.
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The podcast that takes a deep dive into some of the most intense, historically fascinating,
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and often misunderstood events and stories linked to Israeli history.
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And welcome to Season 4.
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Unpacking Israeli History is generously sponsored by Marcy and Andrew Spitzer.
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And this episode is generously sponsored by my parents, Iman Abba, or Neil and Pam Weissman
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as the rest of the world refers to them.
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They are the inspirations, but enough sap for one intro.
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Especially because today's episode may make your hair stand up or your heartbeat thump
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a little quicker.
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Okay, folks.
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Yala, let's do this.
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Ah, no mashtar, ving badoff.
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Allah akhamat, yubinah yubinah, yubinah, yubinah, yubinah, yubinah, yubinah.
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Three people of Israel are prepared and anxious to meet the representatives of our neighbors
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without any preconditions.
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Hello, my name is Erdino.
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Our people in Israel and elsewhere say it's impossible to make peace between their
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ups and Israel or the Jewish people.
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I think they are.
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Thirty seconds can either sound like no time at all, or a ton of time.
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It's only 30 seconds.
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That's like half a minute, technically.
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But 30 seconds was all it took to devastate a nation.
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In under a minute, Palestinian terrorists killed 22 Israeli teenagers held hostage in
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a school as their parents and the Defense Minister waited helplessly outside.
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It was the worst attack on Israeli soil to date.
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A failure for the elite Sa'yarat Makhkha'ulunit that had been dispatched to rescue the hostages
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and embarrassment for the Prime Minister Golden Mayor less than a year after the embarrassment
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of the Yom Kippur War and a shocking blow to the entire country.
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Twenty two Jewish children killed in the name of the state that was created to keep them safe.
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Was this the price of the Zionist dream?
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We talk a lot about pain on the show.
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Yes, Israeli history is rich and gorgeous and in many ways miraculous.
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But it's also heartbreaking.
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I have to say, this is one of the most difficult for me to tell.
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I want to warn you that this episode might be difficult to listen to.
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But it's also critically important.
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In the wee hours of May 13th, 1974, three men crossed into Israel from Lebanon loaded
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with machine guns, hand grenades, and explosives.
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Depending on who you ask, they were dressed as either IDF soldiers or Israeli police.
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Their victims were meant to feel safe until they didn't.
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All three men were members of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
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If that name sounds familiar, it's probably because you're thinking of the popular front
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for the Liberation of Palestine.
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A different terrorist group.
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But the DFLP were Marxists, whose stated aim was the formation of a single Palestinian state
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against all forms of class abjugation, where Arabs and Jews have the right to develop
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their national culture while being hostile to colonialism, imperialism,
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Zionism, and Arab-Palestinian reaction.
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Their rosy vision of a single, peaceful, democratic state may have been more convincing
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if their tactics didn't include murdering kids.
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Okay, Noah, am I here you saying this is a cute crash course on Palestinian ideology,
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but let's get serious.
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Who cares what group they are part of or what they believed in?
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It's a fair question.
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Honestly, I think it both does and doesn't matter because on the one hand,
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the end result is the same.
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Innocent people being targeted, used, and murdered.
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On the other, I think it's important to understand the vast ideological differences
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between different Palestinian groups.
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From the start, Palestinians were ideologically fractured,
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splinter group after splinter group making their own demands and having their own brands.
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And that, I think, is a big part of why we still don't have peace.
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They still have not had their Al-Talena moment.
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If you don't know what I'm referring to, what are you waiting for?
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Check out our episode on the Al-Talena.
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On the Palestinian side, there's still no one strong enough or influential enough to make peace with.
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But their Marxism wasn't the most interesting thing about these guys.
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No, the most interesting and horrifying thing about them was this.
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Two of the three were Israeli Arabs from Haifa.
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And at least one knew the north of Israel well.
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He had lived for a time in the northern Arab-Israeli village of Taiba
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and even worked at a restaurant in Svat.
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You know, I believe that's really hard to hate someone once you know them,
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once you've experienced their culture, learned their language.
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But these guys, I don't know, they're the exception.
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Two were Israeli.
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They spoke Hebrew.
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They knew Jews.
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And still, they were able to murder both Jews and Arabs without hesitating.
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All the name of building a democratic,
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by national state.
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Lovely.
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So back to May 13th, 1974.
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The three men spent all of the previous day hiding in a cave.
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They moved only undercover of night heading toward Mahalot,
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a so-called development town.
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Six miles from the Lebanese border.
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Most of the town's Jewish residents were poor,
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North African immigrants raising first generation Israeli children in a Jewish state.
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But the terrorist first victims were not Jews.
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They were Arabs.
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At a quarter to midnight just before,
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May 13th, bladens of May 14th, Israel's 26th independence day,
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a small truck made its way up the road where the terrorists lurked.
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Inside were eight Arabs, a male driver and seven women other way back from work.
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And actually, women is not the right word because three of the passengers were teenagers.
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Kids, the terrorists flagged down the truck but the driver didn't stop.
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So they opened fire, killing one woman and injuring every other person in the truck.
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The Israeli authorities called to the scene thought that this was the attack,
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that the terrorists had completed their mission.
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So they centered their search efforts near the border to catch the terrorists before they made
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it back to Lebanon.
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They didn't realize that the shooting was just part one.
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A small-scale, hideous rehearsal before the main event.
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The three terrorists reached Maalot at 2.30am,
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where a single light burned in the window of a small apartment building.
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This was the home of Yosef and Fortuna Cohen, and their three young children.
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Fortuna was heavily pregnant with their fourth.
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As the terrorists stomped through the building looking for victims, Yosef opened the door.
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He was killed instantly in a hail of bullets,
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providing just enough time for Fortuna to hide their death,
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mute 16-month-old son Nitschak, knowing he couldn't cry out.
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Her four and five-year-old were not as lucky.
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They must have heard the shots that killed their father.
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They must have cried and screamed because they too were shot along with their mother
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and unborn sibling.
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Of the entire Cohen family, only five-year-old Bia and baby Yitzrak survived.
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But the night wasn't over for the three terrorists.
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They had a third mission to complete.
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They were looking for a school.
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As they fled the Cohen's building, the early hours of the morning,
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they came across a local janitor.
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Remember, they were dressed as either IDF soldiers or Israeli police,
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and they spoke fluent Hebrew.
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He had no reason to be suspicious when they asked them for directions to the school,
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not until they shot him and left him for dead.
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The Nativ Meir Elementary School should have been empty at 330 in the morning
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of Israel's 26th Independence Day, but it wasn't.
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Between 1, 115 students from religious school and Sfat,
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along with a few teachers were bunking down there as part of an overnight
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field trip.
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Boys on the first floor girls on the second, they shouldn't have been up there
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at all according to the students.
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They were supposedly outside under the stars,
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but the northern part of the country was on high alert,
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so the students and their teachers had been diverted at the last moment from their
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original route and asked to bunk down somewhere safer.
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What a hideous, ugly irony.
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Here's one of the teachers describing their ordeal for the Israeli media.
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At first, I didn't know what to do.
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There was a matter of seconds.
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I pouted on the door.
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It opened.
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I ran towards the window and said,
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everyone after me, jump out the window.
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The boys on the first floor were lucky,
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it was easier for them to escape.
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Many of the teachers terrified jumped with them,
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but not everyone managed to flee.
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85 students, two teachers and the medic remained in the building with the three terrorists.
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The terrorists hurt everyone into a classroom,
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which they booby-trapped,
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surrounding their hostages with explosives.
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Here's how survivor Shula Benjamin Rubin describes the next 16 hours.
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They made everyone sit in the classroom.
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80 something kids, and we waited.
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They didn't let us talk.
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They didn't let us go to the bathroom at first,
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but after that each time,
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they take three kids and put them toward a window in the corridor.
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They'd shoot between our feet,
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so we'd cry and scream to the government,
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or to whomever was responsible for freeing the prisoners they wanted.
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The terrorists sent out a student with their demands.
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Israel would release between 20 and 26 terrorists,
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being held as prisoners by 6 p.m.,
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or else they'd blow up the school with everyone in it.
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To make matters even worse,
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the Israeli government was in something of a shambles.
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Prime Minister Goldemeyer had resigned the month prior,
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profoundly disheartened by the failure of the Yom Kippur War
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in Israel's subsequent economic downturn.
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Israeli law dictated that her cabinet was forced to resign with her.
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The new government wasn't poised to take power until June,
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so the decision rested on a prime minister and a cabinet
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who knew they were on their way out.
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Every person in Goldemeyer's government was acutely conscious of their legacy.
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They wanted the government who let terrorists kill children.
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On the other hand,
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did they want to be the government that gave them to terrorist demands?
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The 76-year-old prime minister was actually willing to negotiate,
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insisting that one doesn't wage war on the backs of children.
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But her defense minister,
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legendary war hero, Musha Dayan, disagreed.
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The only way out of the situation he argued was to kill the terrorists
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and save the students for Dayan Israel would never be a weak country that
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bowed to terrorist demands.
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The cabinet debated for 14 hours.
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All the while, the students waited,
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knowing that any moment could be their last.
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Eventually, the Kinesa agreed to the demands.
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They even brought 20 prisoners to the scene blindfolded and bound,
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as though to prove they were serious.
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By some accounts, this is where the terrorists started dismantling the explosives.
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The students, though still terrified,
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breathed a sigh of relief.
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Soon their ordeal would be over soon, they would get to go home.
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But as the Kinesa negotiated with the three terrorists,
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the Army's most elite unit was preparing to storm the building.
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You might remember Sayyar Makhal from our episode on the most
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side last season if you don't go back and take a lesson.
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The super elite commando unit had been around for less than 20 years,
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and yet their exploits were already this stuff of legend.
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Only a year before they'd sneaked into Beirut dressed in drag no less,
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and taken down several heads of the PLO.
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They were confident that they'd be able to storm a school,
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eliminate three terrorists, and save the hostages.
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They were wrong.
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15 minutes before the 6pm deadline, Sayyar Makhal made their way into the school
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from two separate entrances.
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A team of snipers watched their backs, ready to take out the terrorists.
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Tactically, it seemed like a good plan, but things went wrong almost immediately.
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The first team which went in through the front doors immediately took a folly of gunfire,
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and rather than engage in a protracted firefight,
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they threw a phosphorus grenade.
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Sounds efficient, right?
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But here's the thing about phosphorus grenades.
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In addition to burning their victims, they create a lot of smoke.
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Smoke that blinded the IDF snipers in the second Sayyar Makhal team
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as they combed the school for the hostages.
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Blinded by the smoke, they went to the wrong floor.
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Worst of all, the snipers couldn't get a clear line on the terrorists.
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It took 30 seconds, maybe less, for the IDF to realize it's mistake.
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But that 30 seconds was enough time for the DFLP.
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You're going home now, one of the terrorists reportedly said to the students,
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then they opened fire.
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A hail of bullets, a clutch of grenades, in 30 seconds,
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26 people, 22 of them students under the age of 17 were dead.
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Here's Shula bin Amin Rubin again.
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A lot of kids died, a lot were wounded.
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Whoever was able, we climbed on top of the bodies and shumped out the window and
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ran toward the soldiers if we could.
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Whoever couldn't was evacuated to a hospital.
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Sayyar Makhal eventually made their way to the right classroom,
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where they killed the terrorists.
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This site that greeted them was like something out of a nightmare.
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A news broadcast from the next day described the scene.
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Broken furniture mingled with pieces of clothing, large bloodstains,
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cans of food and loaves of bread,
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her mind of the trip had never finished.
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A silent witness to the drama that took place here.
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Then principal of the school, Shalomati described it like this.
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The whole classroom was full of blood.
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They threw grenades at them.
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There was air stuck to the walls, the girls and the kids.
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We had to create it off the walls.
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It was, it was horrible.
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Equally horrible were the funerals of the next day,
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26 caskets, most holding children.
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Parents and relatives whaling, collapsing onto the earth.
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Disstellable relatives had to be restrained or comforted by the police.
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A group of demonstrators calling for the death penalty for terrorists and urging revenge
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surrounded the president and the deputy prime minister.
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Troops and bodyguards had to move into protect them,
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and the chief rabbi was led away.
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Because how do you respond to something like this?
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How do you recover?
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It's been nearly 50 years and still, the wound hasn't healed.
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Not for the families of the dead and not for the survivors,
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whose trauma haunts them to this day.
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The global Jewish community was shocked.
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10,000 people protested in New York, some even shanning themselves to the fed surrounding
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UN headquarters.
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A few even beat up the chairman of the action committee on American Arab relations
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who happened to be passing by.
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But other communities chose a different path.
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You've probably heard of Rabad, also known as the LeBavits Chacidden.
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In the wake of Ma'alot, the LeBavits Chirebi called on his community to step up their efforts
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to bring world jury closer to Judaism.
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Rabad Yosef Hech was there in the first Shabbat after the massacre in Ma'alot.
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That Shabbat, I remember the rabbi coming into the Fabringian, his face was awesome.
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The rabbi spoke about bringing the Jewish people to deeper their actions of Torah,
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especially Mifzana Muzuzah.
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A Muzuzah is a parchment's goal, inked with biblical verses and a fix to the right
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doorposts of Jewish homes and institutions.
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Why? Check out the links in the show notes.
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And in response, the LeBavits community took up the call.
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Big time.
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You decided to rent the van and go out to the streets with microphones.
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They would step in the most busy corners.
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And there, young Rabad men would encourage fellow Jews to wrap the fill in or light Shabbat candles
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or stick Muzuzah to their doorposts.
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Heck, you probably seen these men around.
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Excuse me, are you Jewish?
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Became their casteries.
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They spent their days doing all they could to bring their fellow Jews just a little bit closer
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to Jewish ritual.
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To Mitzvok.
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They called their trucks tanks against assimilation.
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And to me, this kind of image is strangely beautiful.
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A tank can maneuver around any obstacle, even an obstacle as big as ignorance.
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Apathy or assimilation.
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This was how they responded to the murder of teenagers, not with violence, not with anger.
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And it's so hard.
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But with renewed commitment to Jewish education and pride.
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And I like to think that the students who were religious would have approved.
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Each Mitzvah sent the Jewish people a little bit closer to God.
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So that's the story of Ma'alot.
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And here are your five fast facts.
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Number one, Israel approached its 26th birthday in a bit of a quarter-life crisis.
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The Yom Kippur War had left the country severely shaken.
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The Prime Minister resigned in April.
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But the new government hadn't yet taken control.
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Number two, shortly before Israel's independence,
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stay three men from the DFLP sneaked through the Lebanese border into Israel,
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heavily armed and disguised as Israeli soldiers or police.
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Two of the men were Israelis who spoke fluent Hebrew.
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Number three, the three men started their killing spree by shooting up a van of Israeli Arabs,
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killing a 27-year-old woman.
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But instead of going back to Lebanon as Israeli police had assumed,
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they went further into Israel.
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Their next stop was an apartment block in Ma'alot.
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There, they killed almost the entire Cohen family,
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leaving behind a 16-month-old boy and a badly wounded five-year-old girl.
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Then fled into the night.
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Number four, their next stop was an elementary school,
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where they found over 100 religious high school students and their teachers
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bunking down as part of a field trip.
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Though some managed to escape 85 were taken hostage,
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the terrorists demanded the release of tens of prisoners, most of them Palestinians.
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If the government failed to comply, they'd blow up the school with everyone in it.
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And number five, Prime Minister Goldemeyer was ready to negotiate.
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She didn't want to be remembered as the Prime Minister who fought a war in the backs of children.
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Her defense minister, Moshe Dayan, disagreed.
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So they split the difference.
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The government agreed to release the prisoners, but shortly before the deadline,
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and a Lee Army unit entered the school to rescue the hostages.
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They failed.
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And under a minute, the terrorists murdered 22 students and four adults,
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leaving behind a wound that has never fully healed.
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I've usually got a lesson prepared after five fast facts and say the
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slide which you've come to know by heart.
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Those are the facts, but here's one of the dirty lessons I see it.
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But today's lesson isn't from me.
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It's from 15-year-old Ilana Turkaman, which some sources call Ilana Nehaman,
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who was murdered in Malo to log with 21 of her classmates.
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Shortly before her death, she'd written her parents a letter,
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which I'm going to read you in translation.
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I don't know if Ilana was born this wise or if her last few harrowing hours on earth
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granted her an unusual sensitivity.
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I do know we can all learn from her final words, no matter how old we are,
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or what our circumstances are.
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Here they are.
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Dear mom and dad, hello.
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It's 11.25 am and I don't know how many hours I have left to live.
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So I'm writing to you.
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I'm sorry mom, that I didn't listen to you and went on this trip.
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Yes, I know you didn't force me to stay, but you were worried and prefer to I didn't go.
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But I went because I knew what I needed to do.
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I wanted to say thank you for the education you gave me and for the beautiful years I had.
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All thanks to you.
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Right now I'm 15 and a half and if I'm faded to die, I'll die quietly with honor and faith.
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Yes, faith which you gave me.
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You always told me that without faith, life is dull and a lot more painful.
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And now in these difficult hours, I have a lot of faith and I also believe you were right.
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Life doesn't give much to a person.
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He can't choose much, not when or where he'll be born or to which parents.
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But I was happy.
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I was a religious girl in the land of Israel with wonderful parents.
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You, I didn't have many hours.
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I didn't have that privilege and I guess I won't.
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But thanks to you, I passed tests of honor both in the small, dark hours and in the regular,
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everyday hours.
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Mom, don't cry too much when I die.
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When Rifka has her baby, name it after me, Yilan or Yelana.
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Give the baby the education you gave me.
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So he'll be strong and know his life's purposes and why he was born.
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I know your lives are difficult before and after I was born.
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And that when I die, they'll be even harder.
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But always remember that the suffering always brought with the hours of joy and satisfaction.
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I'm not crying.
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My eyes are dry.
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It doesn't hurt that I'm going to die and I'm not sorry.
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When I say to my Israel in my last hour, I'll think about you.
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I was supposed to go on this trip.
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We can't stop living life.
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The day your lies everywhere and if heaven makes a decree, it will happen.
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It's better to live morally and to be killed for the sake of sanctifying God's name.
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Please give this letter which will be my last ever to all our relatives to read and send them
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my love.
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Wish all my friends and neighbors the best of luck.
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This is my last chance.
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In the another hour, I'll leave you.
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Goodbye forever.
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With much love, your daughter, Ilana.
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Ilana, this episode is dedicated to you.
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And I wanted to make sure that it was not just your relatives who read the letter,
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but the thousands of people who listened to our podcast.
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Ilana was killed a few hours after she wrote that letter.
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Just as she requested, her sister Rifka did name the baby after her.
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Her nephew Ilana Shohat was Israel's youngest ever mayor, presiding over the city of Tsfa,
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where his aunt was born and buried.
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I don't know if he grew up knowing his purpose as Ilana had hoped,
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but I do know that Ilana was right about one thing.
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We can't choose our circumstances or how much time we have,
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but we can choose how we spend our small hours.
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We can choose to live with honor, even in the darkest moments.
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So in the words of American poet Mary Oliver,
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what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?
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That was intense. Thank you all for listening.
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If you haven't yet, I'm begging you be in touch with us.
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I love being in touch with you.
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Shoot me an email at noamatjewishunpack.com.
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Now it's time for our final segment.
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You know what's coming?
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Israel Nurtalk, where we highlight one of you our amazing listeners.
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We get the best emails from you guys.
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And we want to share them with the world.
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This week I want to highlight an awesome letter from an awesome listener.
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Who asked we don't use his real name, so let's call him Jamil.
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Here's much Jamil wrote.
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Hello Dr. Weissmann.
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Jamil, come in home please.
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I hope this email reaches you well.
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I'm one of your dedicated podcast listeners from Sydney, Australia.
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Thank you so much for providing such a wonderful explanation
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of Israeli and Zionist history for laymen like me.
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It's truly captivating and provides so much more context
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that is graspable for all, unlike traditional news outlets.
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Perhaps I'm not the typical demographic or target audience of unpacked.
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I'm an Australian born to Afghan refugees who fled the Soviet invasion.
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Ever since Afghanistan has been overrun by jihadist militant groups,
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in fact the last Afghan Jews sadly left the country
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after the Taliban's return to power last August erasing the country's diversity.
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Today's new generation of Afghans both inside the country and in the diaspora
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are struggling to connect to their country, culture and identity.
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In addition to four decades of war misinformation on social media,
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it's disseminating polarizing historical narratives,
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revising and simplifying to fuel identity politics.
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I want to challenge the misinformation the way open or media
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and unpacked us through a nuance and honest approach.
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Jamil, as soon as I got this email I knew we had to open season four with it
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because it's so freaking powerful I was blown away.
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Who would have thought that an Afghan listener from Sydney, Australia,
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would connect to Israeli history of all things
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and use it as a model for how to teach young Afghans
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the beauty of their legacy, their culture, their history.
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Seriously Jamil, this letter really impacted me.
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I thank you.
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Listeners, if you have thoughts, comments, suggestions,
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ruminations, whatever to share don't hesitate.
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Be like Jamil, send me a message at knowamadjewishunpack.com.
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Unpacking Israeli history is a production of unpacked a division of open-door media.
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Check out jewishunpack.com for everything unpacked related
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and subscribed to our other podcast.
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Follow unpacked at all the social media places like TikTok,
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Instagram, blah blah blah all the places and one more time don't hate me
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right to me at knowamadjewishunpack.com.
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Your email might even get in the show.
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This episode was produced by the great Rifty Sturd.
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Our team for this episode includes our DL Buz and Rob Perra.
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I'm your host, Noam Weissman.
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Thanks for listening.
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See you next week.
Topics Covered
Unpacking Israeli History
Nice Jewish Girls podcast
Israeli history
historically fascinating events
Palestinian terrorists
Maalot massacre
Zionist dream
Israeli-Arab relations
Marxist ideology
Israeli Defense Forces
Golda Meir
hostage situation
terrorist demands
Israeli government response
historical events in Israel