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ZOA VIP ISRAEL LEAD
An Inside Perspective from ZOA’s VIP Israel
Mission, February 2019
by Deborah Peretz, ZOA’s regional director of
Long Island and associate director of NY Metro.
I had lived in Israel, led Birthright tours
(among others) and knew Israel better
than I knew New York. I spent many years
as a Jewish educator, teaching about modern
Israel, the conditions in Judea and Samaria,
the disastrous consequences of Israel’s withdrawal
from Gaza, and the false narrative of
Israel’s “occupation.” I prided myself on being
able to convey to young students the passion I
felt for the pioneers who lived in our ancient
homeland and were able to make the desert
bloom.
Despite my knowledge of Jewish history
and my dedication to Israel, I hadn’t actually
been to many of the places that were part of
the itinerary for the ZOA’s VIP Leadership
Mission; it was the missing piece in my experiential
education about Israel. I couldn’t
let the opportunity go, so I signed on. And
I wasn’t disappointed. This truly was a life
changing experience!
We were all excited as we approached
the new U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem2,, and
meeting U.S. Ambassador to Israel David
Friedman was a thrill. As I always reminded
my students, Jerusalem is the eternal capital
of the Jewish people. After all, what do we say
at the end of every Passover seder? And we’ve
been saying it for thousands of years! With
this in mind, I could truly appreciate the significance
of the U.S. moving its embassy in
Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. And now,
other countries are following America’s lead
and establishing their embassies in Israel’s
capital, Jerusalem. What a great way to begin
the mission!
We traveled to Hebron, where we entered
the Tomb of the Patriarchs1, and were given
a tour of the city by a former soldier in the
Duvdevan Unit of the Israel Defense Forces
(IDF), an elite unit dedicated to fighting and
preventing terrorism. This soldier explained
the truth about how Arab terrorism caused so
much desolation in this ancient city holy to
Jews. We watched young girls playing soccer
behind a wire fence; They are part of the
brave families who have chosen to reclaim an
essential part of our ancestral homeland, and
are the pioneers of today.
We visited City Hall in Jerusalem6 – the
eternal capital of the Jewish people – for a
meeting with Mayor Moshe Lion. As I looked
up at the perimeter of the ceiling, I saw the
emblems of the twelve tribes of Israel. It was
a special reminder that while the modern
Jewish state of Israel is only 71 years old, the
Jewish people’s presence in this land spans
more than three thousand years. And here
we were, listening to the Mayor tell us of the
future of Jerusalem. Dayenu!