| --- |
| title: "House Oversight: Estate Documents (Nov 12) (HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_011500)" |
| source: "House Oversight: Estate Documents (Nov 12)" |
| sourceUrl: "https://www.justice.gov/epstein" |
| date: "2026-01-01" |
| category: "House Oversight" |
| eftaNumber: "HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_011500" |
| ocrPages: 1 |
| ocrChars: 2657 |
| ocrElapsed: 0.0 |
| parseTier: "external-legacy" |
| engine: "engine undisclosed (ep-nov-12.greg.technology mirror)" |
| externalSource: "greg-ep-nov-12" |
| externalLicense: "not granted" |
| externalCredit: "ep-nov-12.greg.technology" |
| externalUrl: "https://ep-nov-12.greg.technology" |
| --- |
| |
| Chapter Two |
| The 1948 war and the decade that followed remain vivid in my mind not just |
| for the obvious reason: they secured the survival of the infant state of Israel and |
| saw it into a more assured and independent young adulthood. It was also the |
| time when I grew from a young child - introspective and contemplative, aware |
| of how quickly my mind seemed to grasp numbers and geometric shapes and |
| musical notes, but also small for my age and awkward at the sports we'd play |
| on the dusty field at the far edge of the kibbutz - into a sense of my own place |
| in the family and community and the country around me. I did, along the way, |
| become arguably the most effective left defensive back on our kibbutz soccer |
| team. But that was not because I suddenly discovered a buried talent for the |
| game. Physically, I was like my father. I had natural hand coordination which |
| made delicate tasks come easily - one reason I would soon discover a pastime |
| that lent itself to acts of kibbutz mischief bordering on juvenile delinquency. |
| But when it came to larger muscles, I was hapless, if not hopeless. My prowess |
| as a soccer defenseman was because no opposing player in his right mind, once |
| I'd inadvertently cut his knees from under him when aiming for the ball, felt it |
| was worth coming anywhere close to me. |
| But when the war broke out in earnest in the spring of 1948, my focus, like |
| that of all Israelis, was on the fighting, which even the youngest of us knew |
| would determine whether the state would survive at all. Day after day, my |
| father helped me to chart each major advance and setback on a little map. |
| Dozens of kibbutzim around the country were in the line of fire. Some had soon |
| fallen, while others were barely managing to hang on. Just five miles inland |
| from us, an Israeli settlement came under attack by an Iraqi force in the nearby |
| Arab village of Qaqun. |
| But inside Mishmar Hasharon, I had the almost surreal feeling that this great |
| historical drama was something happening everywhere else but on our kibbutz. |
| If it hadn't been for the radio, or the newsreels which we saw in weekly movie |
| nights in the dining hall, and the little map on which I traced its course with my |
| father, I would barely have known a war was going on. One Arab army did get |
| near to us: the Iraqis, in Qaqun. If they had advanced a few miles further, they |
| could have overrun Mishmar Hasharon, reached the coast and cut the new |
| Jewish state in half. I can still remember the rumble of what sounded like |
| thunder one morning in June 1948, as the Alexandronis, one of the twelve |
| brigades in the new Israeli army, launched their decisive attack on the Iraqis. |
| 29 |
| HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_011500 |
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