The Lions’ Trail – Ma’aleh Adumim

Dedication Plate

“The boundary ascended from Emek Achor to Devir and turned north to Gilgal, facing Ma’aleh Adumim…” (Joshua 15:7)

וְעָלָה הַגְּבוּל דְּבִרָה, מֵעֵמֶק עָכוֹר, וְצָפוֹנָה פֹּנֶה אֶל-הַגִּלְגָּל אֲשֶׁר-נֹכַח לְמַעֲלֵה אֲדֻמִּים

The Jewish people have lived here for over 3,000 years.

The Lion of Maale Adomim, initiated by Benny Kashriel, Mayor of Ma’aleh Adumim, in cooperation with the Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation.

Design and fabrication: Sam Philipe – Sculptor

January 2023

A unique, long-term partnership between Galut and Israel resulted in Ma’aleh Adumim being the beneficiary of two huge Lion sculptures. The two Lions of Judah, each eight feet in height and ten feet in length, majestically supine and serene, are sited at the city’s entrance for maximum visibility. They are just below the large, bold I Love Ma’aleh Adumim/Welcome Visitors sculpture. 

The Lions, donated by the Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation, are the artistic creations of noted Jerusalem sculptor Sam Philipe. They are part of a national ten-sculpture series that JASHP and Philipe have named the Lion’s Trail.   

The Lions of Judah are strong, physical affirmations of Jewish historical presence and legitimacy, the Jewish Kesher (connection) to the Land.  Each Lion has a dedication plate with a biblical text that links the Lion(s) to the site with a declarative sentence, Jews have lived here for over three thousand years.”

Ma’aleh Adumim was founded in 1975 on barren, empty land across the Green Line in the West Bank (land to the West of the Jordan River).  The Green Line was, literally, a green line drawn on the 1948 maps demarcating the Israeli-Arab ceasefire lines after the 1948 Israeli War of Independence.  Final, permanent borders were to be negotiated later with a peace treaty.

A permanent negotiated peace with defined borders was never possible. Jordan annexed the disputed West Bank and the Old City of Jerusalem to itself. Great Britain legitimized the Jordanian annexation.

Between 1948 and 1967, repeated terrorism was launched against the State of Israel from Jordanian territory.  In June 1967, Jordan joined Egypt and Syria in a coalition to exterminate the Jewish state.  The coalition was defeated in an ensuing war, an incredible lightning Six-Day War.  The Jordanian West Bank fell to Israel.  For the first time in 2,000 years, the Old City of Jerusalem was again under Jewish dominion.  The State of Israel vowed Jerusalem would never be divided or surrendered ever again.

To protect Jerusalem and Israel’s access to the Jordan Valley, in the absence of the hoped-for negotiated peace treaty, Israel began permitting Jews to live over the Green Line.  Ma’aleh Adumim was again, as in Biblical times, strategically significant.

Today, Ma’aleh Adumim is one of the largest Jewish cities in the disputed West Bank, with a population of almost 40,000. Ma’aleh, as it is commonly called, just three miles from Jerusalem, has become an integral Jerusalem suburb, a Jerusalem bedroom community.

For the anti-Jewish world, who wish to destroy the Jewish State, Ma’aleh Adumim has become a mantra, a central obstacle to a negotiated peace. They characterize Ma’aleh as a “settlement on occupied Palestinian land.”  

Yet, to obtain a negotiated peace with Egypt, Israel uprooted and withdrew its settlements from the Sinai Peninsula.  More than twenty years ago, at great risk and repeated warnings not to do it, Israel unilaterally removed all Jewish settlements from Gaza. Israel demonstrated its willingness to make the hard decisions seeking a two-state solution to the Palestinians.

Hamas and the Gazans’ genocidal October 7 attack and the maniacal blood-lusting chanters of “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free” revealed Ma’aleh and the settlements are not the obstacles to peace.

The haters who wish to destroy Israel are.

Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis are fanatical Islamists who are funded and supplied with materials of death by Iran.  Their objective is not a two-state solution but the extermination of Jews in Israel and everywhere.  They have stated that Israel is the small Satan that must be destroyed.  The West and America are the big Satan that they are really aiming at.

The New Islamic unified world they dream of will be guided by the principles outlined by their Spiritual mentor, Iran’s Ruhollah Khomeini, in his book Islamic Government: Governance of the Jurist. 

Non-Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, Hindus, and Jews living anywhere under Islamist dominance will be reduced to second-class existence.  Khomeini called for the reinstitution of Dhimmi status. 

Islamists envision the world subject to the restrictions of the Pact of Umar from the 7^th century.  Dhimmis will be forced into ghettos, wearing easily distinguishable clothing. They will not be permitted to build new churches or synagogues nor to repair older ones. They will be required to pay a toleration tax to the Islamic state, the jizyah.  

Five years ago, JASHP donated a Philipe sculpture of Anne Frank to Ma’aleh Adumim. The sculpture, entitled the Anne Frank Children’s Human Rights Memorial, is sited adjacent to a high school on one of Ma’aleh’s main roads. 

Engraved into the stone base of the sculpture is the vision of the Memorial.

“Children are the ultimate victims of adult hatred, bigotry, and ignorance.”

President Rivlin wrote to JASHP about the sculpture…

“Children are, indeed, often victims of adult hatred, bigotry, and ignorance…I certainly can agree with you that when all people, everywhere, protect the children of today, peace will be one step closer.”

Golda Meir wrote in her biography, “When peace comes, we will perhaps in time be able to forgive the Arabs for killing our sons, but it will be harder for us to forgive them for having forced us to kill their sons. Peace will come when the Arabs will love their children more than they hate us.”

Ma’aleh is not the obstacle to peace and a possible future two-state solution.

The Lion(s) of Judah stands.  Israel and the Jewish people will stand.

Jerry Klinger is the President of the Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation

www.JASHP.org

Honoring the Women of the IDF (?)

The Tatzpaniot (the Watchers) stared at their monitor screens.  That was their job, staring at screens every day, 24/7, that relayed activity along the Gaza border.  Boring, mind-numbing work. The young IDF women stared, getting to know the patterns, the faces of the Gazans who came near the security fence.  For weeks they saw something was different along the Gaza border. The patterns were different. Something was being planned.  They reported it up the chain of command.

Nothing happened.  No response to the warnings. Their eyes were discounted. Their reports were arrogantly disparaged by the higher-ups.

The Women Soldiers who watched were not even allowed to carry weapons.  They were that far down on the totem pole. 

On October 7, the Gazan monsters burst through the fence with blood and lust on their minds. The few women who could carry weapons at Tatzpaniot bases, and or everywhere along the Gaza border, fought ferociously.

Many died.  Many Tatzpaniot died.

Tanks, manned by female crews, fought heroically and successfully. 

Leora Eren Fruct wrote succinctly about Women that day in Hadassah Magazine, 12/20/23.

“Most of the women who answered the call of duty that dark day will never be known. And even those who are—a soldier from Modi’in, a medic from Ramat Beit Shemesh, a midwife from Alumim, to name just a few—will not get a medal or a mural for their courage. But many in Israel owe them their lives.”

Nor were they, or are they, looking for medals.

Israel has never honored, with any permanent dignity, the contributions of Women who have defended the State. 

From the earliest struggles to live on the land, women have defended Israel.

The Lion of Tel-Hai, for Joseph Trumpeldor and the fighters who died alongside him, is a shrine to the Jewish defender’s memory.  How many know or remember Devorah Drechler, a member of the “Female Guardians of the Galilee”? She died fighting next to Trumpeldor.

How many know or remember Miriam Shachor, an elite soldier in the Palmach, who died fighting terrorists in 1947?  Her sacrifice enabled other Palmachniks to escape to fight another day.   

Recently, President Rivlin wrote a poignant remembrance of Women who fought in the War of Independence.

Women have fought, actively or in support capacities, in every single war or security or needs situation Israel has faced, the years before its birth and to today. 

Where is the Tribute Memorial to the Women, to the Women of the IDF…

Israel had made lots of noise lately about how women responded and fought when called upon to. 

A lot of noise is just noise fading in the wind.

Two months ago, the Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation asked where the Tribute Memorial to the Women of the IDF was located.  The chagrined response…you are right.  There should be one.  There is none.

JASHP contacted noted Jerusalem artist and sculptor Sam Philipe to develop a concept design for a sculpture honoring the Women of the IDF. JASHP asked for a realistic visual, not an abstract interpretation that requires a docent to tell the less artistically erudite what they are looking at. 

The message must be direct.  The message must be clear.

Sam came up with a concept, two Women soldiers, one from 1948 and one from 2024. 

JASHP secured funding to fabricate the proposed 9-foot sculpture, which would be publicly placed with honor, dignity, and accessibility.

Everyone says it is the right thing to do.

JASHP reached out to multiple cities, women’s groups, governmental agencies, and even President Rivlin with the proposal to do what should have been done many years ago. It is a process JASHP is very familiar with, having completed over 25 projects in and for Israel.

Incredulously, no one responded…

Our search continues.  Doing the right thing means not letting the right thing wither away with vacuous words from the establishment.

 Surely, somewhere in Israel, somebody wants to do the right thing.

One tiny opportunity for memory for the Tatzpaniot was presented to us.  Even after their terrible sacrifices have been made public, the women still live in tiny, allocated spaces, poorly equipped for personal living, some lacking even a TV to distract them.

JASHP has funded and arranged for televisions and other items to be delivered to five front-line Tatzpaniot bases. A tiny stone plaque will be affixed to their living quarters.

They will know they are respected. They will know they are remembered.  They will know their courage is honored.

Jerry Klinger is the President of the Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation.

www.JASHP.org

The Lion’s Trail – Beit She’an

January 28, 2024, Sam Philipe and I distributed emergency medical equipment to the devastated Gaza Kibbutzim, pulling themselves together from the genocide they experienced.  On October 7, Hamas and thousands of thrilled Gazans poured into the defenseless Kibbutzim, killing and raping.  They stole everything that they could carry away, from TVs to mutilated bodies of Israelis living or half-dead. 

The next day, January 29, Sam and I dedicated the Lion’s Trail – Beit She’an in the north of Israel.  It was a surreal parallel of reality, courage, and life that refused to give up. The mayors of Beit She’an, Kiryat Shemona, Beit Jann, and the Council Rep from the Golan Regional Council came to join us.  Each of their communities is under attack by Hezbollah.  Each of their communities has a Lion.  Each of their communities refuses to give up.

The Lion’s Trail—Beit She’an is powerful. It is nine feet tall, eleven if you include the Jerusalem stone base. The Lion is prominently sited at the northern entrance to Beit She’an on the Rt. 90 roundabout. The Lion is looking north towards Tiberias, 40 Km away.  The Jordanian border is only 8 Km to the East.

Beit She’an is one of the oldest settled sites in Israel, dating from the fifth millennium E.  It is a crossroad between the Jezreel and Jordan Valleys, with verdant farming land and water nearby.  The Egyptians conquered Beit She’an because it sat astride a major access road to the north for them.  In the 15^th Century B.C.E, a coalition of 300 local Canaanite rulers united to overthrow the Egyptians.  They met in a major battle that determined the region’s fate for centuries.  April 16, 1457 B.C.E., the Canaanites were defeated on the plain below the Canaanite City of Megiddo.

Megiddo is central to later Christian and Islamic end-of-times writings. They believe that at the end of time, before the return of Jesus or Mohammed, there will be a great battle. It will be fought before the Walls of Megiddo. The battle will be the final struggle of light vs. darkness—Armageddon.

The Egyptian tide eventually receded. Beit She’an returned to Canaanite control when a new major attacking force emerged from the direction of Egypt: the Jews under Joshua. Beit She’an held out but was forced to accept Jewish settlement in the area. The Biblical era began.

Centuries passed. Beit She’an became Jewish after King David conquered the city.  David had a particular animus to Beit She’an.  King Saul, his predecessor, had been defeated by the Philistines on Mt. Gilboa, a few miles south of the city.  The city celebrated by beheading Saul and hanging his body, along with his son Jonathan, from the city walls to rot.  David, not king yet, gathered a group of fighters about him and retrieved the body in a daring night action.  David never forgot nor forgave the perfidy of the Canaanites.  He returned as King to destroy them and their city.

Beit She’an became a regional administrative center under David and his son, King Solomon. 

Tensions were growing between the ten northern Tribes of Israel and the Jewish monarchy and theocracy-centered Jerusalem.  After Solomon’s death, civil War permanently separated Beit She’an from Jerusalem.

Beit She’an remained in the Northern Jewish alliance until it was conquered by the Assyrians in the 8^th century B.C.E. Waves of conquerors followed; the Babylonians, the Greeks, the Romans, the Byzantines, and the Arabs in the seventh century C.E.  The Arabs brought Islam spread by the sword. 

Under the Romans and Byzantines, Beit She’an had reached its pinnacle of influence and economic power. The Arab conquests continued Beit She’an’s decline, doing little to revitalize the lands after a devasting earthquake in 749.

Jews lived in and around Beit She’an throughout these periods, albeit in diminishing numbers, until there were no Jews left.  

The Jews never left the land.

Since Joshua, Jewish communities have dotted both sides of the Sea of Galilee to the north of Beit She’an. Following the Romans’ destruction of Jerusalem in 70 C.E., Tiberias emerged as a major Jewish religious and cultural center, not Beit She’an. It remained so for the next two thousand years. Some of the Jewish communities along the Sea became important in Jesus’s life and the newly emerging religion, Christianity.

Beit She’an never recovered beyond an impoverished, underpopulated backwater village of little consequence. Two events changed Beit She’an’s modern history.

Beit She’an had been ruled by the Ottomans (Turkey) since the 16th century. With the coming of the Hejaz railroad in the early 20^th century, a road that ran from Istanbul to Damascus to Medina, the Turks recognized Beit She’an’s key military and economic potential and invested heavily. The second major catalyst to economic growth and revitalization began with the return of the Jews and Zionism. 

But the Turkish vision would never be. Britain and France defeated the Ottomans, who were allied with the Germans, in the Levant during WWI. The British were given the Mandate of Palestine. It encompassed Beit She’an and a huge tract of land to the East, Trans-Jordan (modern Jordan). In 1920, the British gave Trans-Jordan, despite its majority Palestinian population, to Hashemite Bedouins as a separate Kingdom.

Tensions in the Beit She’an area grew as Arabs and Bedouins jockeyed for power while the “Sick man of Europe,” the name given to Turkey and its Ottoman empire, teetered.  Cultural and historical religious animosity of Islam to the reintroduction of Jews, especially Zionist Jews, did not sit well with them.

Small groups of Jews from Kurdistan settled in Beit She’an in the early 20th century. They were followed by Ashkenazi Jews who purchased land nearby and established themselves as Kibbutzim for ideological and defensive reasons.

Arab Mandate Palestinians did not like the British any more than the Ottomans.  1920, 1929, and 1936, they rioted against the British and their hated neighbors, the Jews.

The 1920 Arab riots impacted Jews in other parts of Mandate Palestine more than in Beit She’an.  The Jewish population continued to grow.  By 1929, about 250 Jews were living in Beit She’an. Arab animosity towards the British and the Jews grew even more.  Jewish urban life in Beit She’an became precarious. 

When the 1936 Arab riots broke out, there were only ten Jewish families left in Beit She’an.  One year later, Jewish Beit She’an physician Dr. Yoseph Lehrs answered his door one night and was shot dead.  He was the last Jew left in Beit She’an after more than 40 years of Jewish return. 

Beit She’an was Judenrein again. 

Beit She’an became a military center for Arab army action against the nascent state of Israel during its 1948 War of Independence. Though the United Nations had declared Beit She’an to be in Israel when the Mandate was partitioned, Israel fought to defend itself and captured Beit She’an. The Arabs fled. 

Beit She’an was repopulated by Jewish refugees, forced from their homes in the Arab world of North Africa and Iran when they ethnically cleansed their countries.   

Today, Beit She’an is a city of 30,000 Jews with a 3,000-year history of Jews living there. 

The Lion’s Trail – Beit She’an – dedication text reads.

“And Manasseh had in Issachar and Asher Beth She’an, and it’s towns…” (Joshua 17:11)

The Jewish people have lived here for over 3,000 years.

Donated by the Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation in cooperation with the Bet She’an municipality

Sam Philipe sculptor, May 2023

Jerry Klinger is the President of the Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation.

www.JASHP.org

The Lion’s Trail – Ariel

Dedication Marker inscription

“Oh, Ariel, Ariel, the city where David settled! Add year to year, and let your cycle of festivals go on…” Isaiah 29:1

The Jewish People have lived here for over 3,000 years.

Donated by the Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation in cooperation with the City of Ariel.

Sam Philipe: Sculptor”

Twenty years ago, I went to Ariel with Harris Gulko, the retired head of JNF Canada.  We were looking for somewhere, anywhere, in Israel that was willing to receive with honor the remains of Stephen Norman, the last descendent of Theodor Herzl. 

Stephen was the grandson of Herzl.  He was the only Herzl to have been a Zionist.  He was the only Herzl to have been to Mandate Palestine (1946.) He wanted to return to help build the State of Israel. 

Norman, a recently demobilized WWII British Military officer, was specifically barred from returning to Mandate Palestine to help the Jewish people by the British because he was a Herzl.  The last thing the British wanted was a leader, even a symbolic one, for the Jews.

Norman committed suicide in Washington, D.C., after becoming deeply depressed when he learned his family had been exterminated in the Holocaust. He was a Herzl and could not do anything to help the Jews trapped in Displaced Person’s Camps.

Norman was buried in an obscure cemetery and forgotten until I found his remains. My wife framed what I had to do.  She said, “If he were our son, we would bring him home.”  

The ideals and the reality of Israel were shocking, sclerotic Zionism at best.  No place wanted him.  Even Herzl’s namesake city, Herzliya, turned him down, saying, try Jerusalem.  Jerusalem was not responsive.  Only Ariel said to come and talk.

Ariel wanted Norman.  Having his bones buried in their soil was a needed, affirmative, Zionist political message for Ariel. The Zionism of Herzl was changing, divisively fragmenting.  In Israel, “settlements,” such as Ariel, were increasingly seen as obstacles to peace and not as bastions “for” peace by the Left.    

Bring him to Ariel was idealistic, but wrong…. Bringing the Lion’s Trail to Ariel was right.

Ariel is an Israeli city of 20,000, primarily Jewish residents. Its name translates as “Lion of God.” It is located twelve miles east of the “Green Line” and twenty-one miles west of the Jordan River, pretty much in the center of the horseshoe-shaped area Palestinian Nationalists call the heart of their homeland, the “West Bank.”

The “Green Line,” literally a green line drawn on a map of the 1949 Armistice Agreement, temporarily halted fighting in the “West Bank” during the Arab-Israeli War of Independence. The “Green Line” demarcated the positions of the Iraqi and Jordanian armies, local Arab militias, and Israeli forces.  

The “Green Line” was not intended as a permanent border between the Arabs and the Israelis.  The permanent border was to be negotiated at a future time.

Unilaterally, Jordan annexed the West Bank into Jordan in 1950. Four years later, in 1954, it extended Jordanian citizenship to its Palestinian residents. Only Great Britain officially recognized the annexation. The U.S. quietly acquiesced to the facts on the ground.

The “Green Line” never stopped Arab Fedayeen and terrorists from crossing over into Israel to kill and destroy.  Nor has it stopped counter-insurgency responses from the Israelis.

In 1967, Syria, Jordan, Egypt, Iraq, and local Arab militia combined forces to militarily destroy Israel.  Israel warned Jordan not to join in the War effort.  They did not want another front to fight.

For Jordan, the West Bank “Green Line” border was a tempting strategic opportunity to split Israel in two. From the “Green Line” to the Sea, Israel was extremely vulnerable. Israel was only nine miles wide near Netanya. Israel could be choked to death.

Jordan refused to heed the warning.

Spectacularly, some say with Divine intervention, Israel defeated the combined might of the Arab world in six days, “The Six-Day War, June 5-10, 1967.”  The West Bank fell to the Israelis.

One month after the capture of the West Bank, Yigal Allon proposed to the Israeli cabinet to return most of the West Bank to Jordan, possibly creating a demilitarized Palestinian State.  Allon’s plan envisioned retaining 1/3 of the captured land. Militarily, the plan was to protect Israel from potential invasion from the East by creating Jewish settlements and forward listening areas along and through the Jordan Valley. 

King Hussein of Jordan and the Palestinian leadership rejected the “Peace” proposal. 

With Israeli cabinet-level approval, Ariel was born out of necessity in 1978. Forty families, led by Ron Nachman, later long-term mayor of Ariel, settled on barren, unpopulated land close to multiple biblical-era Jewish communities.

Ariel grew quickly, becoming the “Capital” of Samaria, the Biblical name for the West Bank. For the first time in nearly 2,000 years, the exiled Jews had returned to the “Land.”

The West Bank/Samaria is filled with Jewish archeological sites.  Jews have persistently lived in the area, returning after repeated conquests and expulsions by invaders, the Assyrians, the Babylonians, and the Romans. 

With Biblical King Solomon’s death, the ten tribes of Northern Israel, subjugated to the centralized, exploitative control of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin in Jerusalem and religiously dominated by the Jerusalem Temple-centered theocracy, revolted. A separate Kingdom of Israel emerged in Samaria, with a separate Kingdom of Judaea in Jerusalem.

The weakened Kingdom of Israel fell first to the Assyrians, who, with particular cruelty, ethnically cleansed Samaria of its Jewish leadership, leaving the pheasant farmers to struggle on. Next, the Assyrians conquered and destroyed the Kingdom of Judaea and sacked Jerusalem, laying waste to the Temple.

The Babylonians and, later, the Romans conquered all the lands of the 12 Tribes of Israel.  Jewish life, dispersed throughout the Middle East, even with the rebuilding again of the Jerusalem Temple, struggled. 

Jewish life never began to recover in Samaria until Ariel was founded. Like many of the “settlers” in Samaria/West Bank, the founders of Ariel were imbued with a unifying belief.  That belief sticks in the face of the Arab officer who joyously proclaimed after Jerusalem’s Old City fell to the Jordanian Legion in the Arab- Israeli war of 1948, “For the first time in 1,000 years, Jerusalem is free of Jews.”

The Jewish “settlers,” extremists to some and patriots to others, share a unifying belief: Jews have a right to live in their ancient homeland.

Will Israel listen to Abraham Lincoln’s 1858 warning to America?

“A House divided cannot stand.”

Will October 7 change things?

Jerry Klinger is the President of the Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation.

www.JASHP.org

The Lion’s Trail – Golan

The dedication plates on the 9’ Lion’s Trail – Golan are unfinished. The bottom half, the second part of the historical dedication, has not been placed because where the sculpture is located is closed. The last bit of work cannot be safely completed.

The Lion’s Trail – Golan sculpture is located adjacent to the Israeli National Historical site of Ein Keshatot, “Spring of the Arches.” It is a “hidden” Jewish archeological treasure, a huge, reconstructed synagogue from the sixth century, high up in the Golan Heights.

https://einkeshatot.org.il/en/home/

The site was correctly documented by proto-Christian Zionist Laurence Oliphant in 1884. He trekked across the largely depopulated Golan Heights plateau on a mission of exploration to identify Judeo-Christian biblical sites in Ottoman Palestine. It was not all that hard for Oliphant to recognize the ruins as having been a synagogue. Though it had been more than a thousand years since the great earthquake of 749 destroyed the site, Oliphant clearly saw a Menorah carved unto one of the remaining Corinthian, still standing, columns next to an Oron HaKodesh, a Holy Ark, where Jews had stored their Torahs.

The earthquake did not just destroy the synagogue at Ein Keshatot. It destroyed more than 30 synagogues that existed in the Golan, and possibly the same number of Churches.

The Golan Heights had been a significant area of Jewish life. After the earthquake, Jews could not and were not permitted to return to live in the Golan by the occupying Muslim powers and later the Ottoman Turks. Jews could not return to live in the Golan until after the Israeli victory over the Syrians in the 1967 war.

What was left behind was a significant elevated sculpture base, stone paved foundation and the magnificent, photogenic view of the Galilee spreading below. It was worth thousands of dollars. It would also be torn down unless it could be suitably repurposed.

Having visited Ein Keshatot, and not being involved in the incident, I did not have the embarrassment and ill feelings of others. I recognized an opportunity to tell a story of Jewish historical legitimacy and presence that was roiling then and still does today.

Anti-Israel political narratives deny Jews lived in the Golan. Some reluctantly admit a few Jews may have lived a long time ago in the Golan, but they are long gone. Pseudo-historians insist, Jews returning are occupiers, thieves, and

usurpers. Their quasi-River to the Sea, Palestine Must be Free (of Jews) slogan is politically popular.

The argument was and is absurd.

Benny Kashriel, the past mayor of Maaleh Adummim, shared with me, his community is living on Jewish land cited in the book of Joshua. “Jews,” he said, “have lived here for over 3,000 years. There is no question about Jews, Jewish historical legitimacy, and the land.”

The thought stuck. I wondered if the same is true about the Golan.

Jews living in the Golan are referenced in the Old Testament, the Book of Joshua, the Book of Chronicles, the Psalms, even the New Testament.

An idea crystalized: could the empty sculpture platform be used to place a something interpreting Jewish historical legitimacy and the land?

I shared my idea with Sam Philipe, an internationally recognized sixth-generation Jerusalemite, sculptor, and friend. We have worked together for years to fill in the holes of Jewish memory through art and artistic interpretation. His interest is purely art. He has worked with Jews and across the aisle. My interest is messaging.

The artist took the input and came back after extensive research with a proposal, the giant Menorah on the base with a lion sitting in front. Lions lived in the Golan.

Scouring museums, Sam found a model, a Hittite Lion. It was unique. It was powerful. It was an artistic opportunity. It would attract eyes and legs to see it. The messaging would be on the plates below.

Much time progressed. My idea expanded into a national project. What if we could create a Lion’s Trail, with a Lion of Judah throughout Israel? Wherever the Lion of Judah was found, was a part of biblical Israel. They all would have a quote from the bible about the location. The Lions of the Lion’s Trail would all be big – 9’ plus.

The Golan Lion’s fabrication dragged on slowly, delayed with social and political caution. The Lion’s Trail, a tourism network of adventure and history, developed.

Ten Lions have been placed so far, from the Golan to Dimona in the South.

The Golan Lion is almost complete. It is still missing the second and most important plaque, President of the United States, Donald Trump’s 2019 recognition, the Golan is part of Israel. Lighting and a pathway to Ein Keshatot Park have not been completed.

Tens of thousands of visitors used to come to Ein Keshatot before October 7, 2023. Today, no one comes.
The danger of missile attack from Hezbollah or from the Syrians is very, very real. The area is closed, even to Israelis.

When peace can finally return, the Lion and the plaque will be completed.

Jerry Klinger is the President of the Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation.

http://www.JASHP.org

Stephen Norman – Herzl’s Last Descendant and the Gaza War

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Stephen Norman at the Jewish Agency in Jerusalem – 1945

Stephen Norman, his last name was anglicized from Neuman before he entered the British Army in 1941, was the grandson, and the last descendant of Theodor Herzl. 

He grew up in Vienna.  His mother, Trude, was Theodor Herzl’s daughter and the only one of Herzl’s three children to have had a child. 

The Neuman family, as were Herzl’s children, Hans, Pauline, and Trude, were not strong Zionists.  To them, Herzl’s Zionist dream had been a failure.  Herzl had spent his fortune and his wife’s significant dowry on his “Crazy” Zionist dream.  He gave the last drop of his blood to Zionism, dying and being buried in Vienna at 44 years of age.

There was no Jewish State.

It was not surprising that Stephen grew up knowing little about his grandfather. 

The Jewish Agency did know about Stephen. 

As the darkening clouds of the Holocaust circled Europe, the Neumans were terrified for their future but, especially for their only child, Stephen.  They appealed to the Jewish Agency for help and funding to get Stephen to England. 

The Jewish Agency reluctantly agreed.  Stephen arrived in the U.K. in 1938 to attend University.  It was at University that Stephen learned about his grandfather and Zionism.  He became a Zionist. But first, the war called.

Stephen Norman enlisted, becoming an officer in the Royal Artillery posted to Sri Lanka.

Late 1945, on his way back to England for demobilization, he had a stop in Cairo. His air connection went awry, leaving him with time and opportunity.

Stephen arranged for a short Air Stop, just a few days, to Mandate Palestine to see what his grandfather had begun. What he saw changed him from a curious Zionist into an ardent Zionist. 

He expressed his feelings in his diary when his connections were reestablished to England.

On a wall next to the Herzl Educational Center on Mt. Herzl are inscribed Stephen’s words.  In a very short text, he summarized the meaning, the essence of Zionism and Israel. 

Many student groups, tour groups, soldiers, and visitors sit in the garden and can read the words easily.  If they come away from their lectures with nothing else, Stephen’s words seared into their minds.

“You will be amazed at Jewish Youth in Palestine…They have the look of freedom.”

What was Herzl’s dream, what was and is the dream of all Jews everywhere…to be free, to live free and for their children to know freedom in their own ancient homeland- Israel.

It would seem the concept of freedom for Jews is a given.  It is far from a given.  The hoary head of antisemitism has arisen from its supposed Grave again, strengthened, energized and given frightening life by the Gaza War.

What is Hamas’ objective? What is Palestinianism’s objective? What is the objective of antisemitism but to take away, remove, exterminate Jewish Freedom. 

The terrible belatedness of the IDF response to the horrific Hamas attack of Jewish genocide on October 7, amplified by hubris and arrogance, has brought the words of the Last Herzl back into focus. 

Jews are fighting and dying for the continued survival of Jewish freedom. 

Stephen tragically committed suicide in Washington, D.C., in 1946, a victim of genetically transmitted depressive illness. He had learned of the death of his family in the Holocaust. He knew survivors of the Shoah languished unwanted in European DP camps.  He was a Herzl. He was specifically barred by the British from ever returning to what he hoped would be Israel because he was a Herzl.  He could do nothing.

Despondent, in November of 1946, he walked to the Rock Creek Bridge, which spanned the creek 90’ below.  The location was horribly ironic on that frost-filled morning as the sun rose.  At one end of the bridge was the British Embassy.  On the other end was the later Islamic Mosque and Cultural Center.  He was trapped, the Jew in the middle between the intransigence of the British and the hate of the Muslim.

A passing cab driver observed the young man neatly fold his tweed jacket over the railing. The driver was shocked when the man suddenly leapt over the side.  The last Herzl died on the rocks below. He was buried in a Jewish cemetery by the Adas Israel community and the Jewish Agency.

Stephen Norman’s Grave site, Washington, D.C. post reburial, foot stone added by JASHP

 He was forgotten. 

At the end of Amos Elon’s biography on Herzl is a short paragraph saying his last descendant had committed suicide in Washington, D.C.  Living in Washington, I wondered where to go to put a stone on his Grave.

Stephen’s Grave the day after reburial on Mt. Herzl

So began a seven-year odyssey, unexpectedly ugly, hard-fought against Zionist sclerosis, to bring him home. Stephen was reburied on Mt. Herzl in the Plot for Zionist Leaders in late December 2007.  His grave site is off centered, at the end of the row from the rest of his family.  There had been no provision or intention to bring home the only Zionist in Herzl’s family until they were forced to.

Ironic; the only member of Herzl’s direct family who had ever been to Israel and who had ever wanted to live in Israel would have to fight to be part of Israel.

Stephen’s story, his words for all to read forever on Mt. Herzl ring again, even more truly today, why we must fight.

Israel has been required to confront its national meaning against a world of hate, ignorance, and bigotry, intent on taking Jewish Freedom and life away, permanently if possible.   

Someday, Dk when, I should write the full behind the scenes story of the unexpected struggle to bring Stephen home.  Olmert, Bielski, Rabbi Amar, Chaim Weizman, and many names play in the background.

It was and remains a strange honor to be the last living person to have held the bones of Herzl and felt his Dream as Stephen came home.