The Courage of the Axe

On March 25, 1927, a baby was born in Poland…his parents were Jewish. He had a sister and a younger brother by the time the Nazis came and destroyed his home, murdered his parents and all his relatives…except for those three children – Isaac, his sister, and his brother.

I don’t know what happened to his sister and brother – but I know that Isaac miraculously survived the war and in 1947 made his way to the land of Israel where he did something that was denied him in Europe – he fought for himself, for Israel, for his future. He married a young woman named Riva, worked as a plasterer, and had two children.

He worked all his life…and when he retired, he decided he wanted to keep busy so he kept working. In 1994, days after his 67th birthday, he was hard at work, on his knees fixing a floor…when two Arabs attacked him from the back with axes. He died two days later.

His murderers will be set free because the Israeli government thinks it can buy a peace partner; because Obama and Kerry want to write their place in history with our blood. How much courage does it take to attack a Holocaust survivor, a 67-year old man – from behind…with an axe? It takes courage to make peace, courage to dare.

There is no courage, no honor, in releasing these terrorists and nothing good comes from something so rotten. I am deeply ashamed of the Israeli government for betraying the memory of Isaac Rotenberg who survived the horrors of the Holocaust, had the courage to come to a land destined for war, raise a family and work to build this land.

May Isaac’s memory be blessed. May his family find comfort in knowing that even if Netanyahu has turned the Israeli justice system into a farce, Isaac’s killers still face the greatest Judge of all.

2 Comments

  1. I too, have Jewish blood in my veins – you ask me why I’m so angry and why the desecration of Isaac Rotenberg’s good name and countless others like him offends me so much!

    For me justice is the supreme value – without it there is no decency and no claim to anything we rightly call civilization. We won’t ever have peace without it.

    By releasing Arab killers of Jews, the Israeli government in effect says we understand the enemies of the Jewish people have a right to butcher them with axes and that in effect we forgive them when they take a human life and the value of a Jewish human life I suppose naturally means nothing to the Arabs for this is fully in keeping with their national character.

    To see some Jews come to agree with them that Jewish blood is cheap makes me feel ashamed! Where is the national honor and self-respect? It all has to be traded down for a photo op moment in Washington with the killers of Jewish children.

    I cannot bring myself to look into Rotenberg’s eyes at this travesty of justice and I cannot defend before my late revered father this wretched theater of the absurd! The only thing I do know from subverting justice is what has been purchased with the blood of Jewish children will never lead to peace!

    In this world, for me some lines exist I myself cannot cross to remain a sane and decent person. Of course the Arabs will revel in Jewish humiliation and lack of self-respect! Their taking wanton pleasure in self-inflicted Jewish agony reminds me again why in truth peace with them is impossible.

    After all, they – the killers of Jewish children have not asked for forgiveness! As I think of this national disgrace inflicted upon Rotenberg’s good name and that of the Jewish people, I keep thinking of Israel’s revered national poet, Haim Nahman Bialik.

    He fittingly wrote in the aftermath of the Odessa pogrom that – “not even Satan has yet invented revenge for the murder of a small child.” Nor can Israel see fit to keep the killers of Jewish children in prison where they belong! Its the enactment of a national disaster we’re witnessing and desecrating the dead and subverting justice does not make any of us feel good!

    Right now peace is far, far, far and far away!

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