Waves of Freedom

March 13, 2009

“Somebody on the phone asked me if I wanted to help my people,” begins Waves of Freedom, a moving documentary about the experience of about a half dozen young Americans of the more than 200 volunteers (mostly, but not all, Jews) who crewed “ships” attempting to run the British blockade of Palestine in 1947 and 1948, before independence was declared. I say “ships” because as one of the participants comments, “a boat you can put on a ship, this is not a ship, this is a boat.” Almost everybody has read Exodus by Leon Uris or seen the movie starring Paul Newman. The Hollywood version of this dramatic episode in the creation of Israel is only one of many stirring examples of these heroic rescue efforts. The English-speaking Friends of Tel Aviv University sponsored a showing of Waves of Freedom, which is one such story, and invited the director, Alan Rosenberg, two of the crew members, Murray Greenstein and Harold Katz (now in their early 80s), and one of the rescued to a panel discussion after the showing. These then young men were recruited because they were known to have either navy or merchant marine experience during the war. Through subterfuge orchestrated by the Haganah, the boat (ultimately named Hatikvah (Hope)) was purchased in New York, repaired in Miami and sailed across the treacherous Atlantic for outfitting in Lisbon to ferry 1500 Displaced Persons who had made the perilous journey across the Alps to get to their rendezvous point on the Mediterranean. The movie wonderfully captures the spirit and commitment of these young men. Imagine graduating from college and instead of taking your passion to the Peace Corps or American Jewish World Service, you volunteer to risk your life crewing barely seaworthy boats attempting to shepherd desperate people to freedom and new lives.

I wish the panel discussion had been as stirring. Perhaps because this audience of about 150 people was, on average, probably 15 years older than I, they seemed to know what they knew and did not want to be bothered by what they did not know. The first person “asked,” “I think this movie should be shown to all Israeli school children.” The person “asked,” “No, I think this movie should be shown to all children in England.” Emboldened by these questions, when called upon, I stood up and said, “I rise in respect to your courage and commitment to kol Yisrael areyvim ze la ze (all Jews are responsible, one for another). Kol hakavod (with all respect). Here’s my question for you and really everybody in the audience. Where would you direct the courage and commitment of today’s young Jews to make a difference for our people, as you did 60 years ago?” One responded that young Jews should go to synagogue and the other said that they need more education. Not really what I was hoping for. Finally, there was a question about what their parents thought of their decisions to do this. As Murray Greenstein said, in those days in the growing middle class Jewish community, if you did not go to college, you were not really considered Jewish! However, his mother said to him in Yiddish, “if it’s good for the Jews, you don’t have to go to college.” See the movie.