Betar Basics

From "This Is Betar", South Africa, 1945:

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Betar Activity in Washington, DC

Confronting CODEPINK folks.

Confronting Rep. Ilhan Omar.

Being confronted by Rep. Ilhan Omar.

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Two Traffic Accident Stories

Lev Shreiber was asked:

"What is the closest you’ve ever come to death?

And he replied:

A car accident in British Columbia 35-40 years ago. I was driving too quickly on a dirt road and lost control of the car, and it went off a cliff and got stuck in some treetops. We were not at all hurt; we actually just climbed out."

And that reminded me of my own experience. 

In 1968, I was at Camp Betar in Neversink, NY and a few madrichim had a day off and decided to visit friends at Camp Moshava in Pennsylvania.  We were five in the car and we were coming down a slight hill when the driver realized he should have made a turn and began to slow down and he turned the wheel slightly to the right. However, the car behind us was driving fast and coming over the hill probably did not adequately notice we were slowing down. He smacked into us, luckily, not at full speed, and off we went into a field with little control. After a 100 meters or so, we came to a stop. There may have been a few cows but I am not sure. We checked ourselves but no one was injured.

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The Anthem of Betar

The Anthem of Betar

authored by Ze’ev Jabotinsky, Paris, 1932

 

Betar

From the pit of decay and dust,

With blood and sweat

Shall arise a race

Proud, generous and fierce.

The captured Betar, Yodefet, Masada

Shall arise again in all their strength and glory.

 

Hadar

Even in poverty a Jew is a prince.

Whether slave or tramp

You have been fashioned the son of kings

Crowned with the diadem of David.

Whether in light or in darkness

Always remember the crown

The crown of pride and Tagar

 

Tagar

Overcoming any obstacle and enemy.

Whether you ascend or go down,

In the revolt’s flame -

Carry the kindling fire of

"Never mind!"

For silence is filth

Forsake blood and soul

On behalf of the hidden glory.

 

To die or to conquer the mount -

Yodefet, Masada, Betar.

 

Translated by Yisrael Medad

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Jabotinsky is Coming to America - 1926

 

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From "The New Palestine", April 5, 1940

From the official organ of the World Zionist Organization:

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The First Salute to Israel Parade, Ted Comet and Betar

In a May 22, 2024 item, marking Ted Comet's 100th birthday, JTA noted that:

is the co-founder, in 1965, of New York’s Salute to Israel Parade.

David Sprung accused Ted Comet of "stealing someone else’s thunder and taking credit for something we did."

He explains:

"The first parade was in 1964 by Betar, especially Reuven Genn and myself. Almost all the Jewish organizations objected, even the consulate and one of the most vehement objectors was Ted Comet. He did everything to stop it. Only when he saw that we succeeded and two  Senators participated and we marched with our rifles, then he claimed that the next one should be done professionally and that the Sochnut would take over. We at that time didn’t care. We wanted it done and achieved our objective. Reuven had gone to the Jewish schools and organizations in Brooklyn and I in Manhattan. Every Jewish organization refused to paricipate claiming that you can’t march for Israel in America  The only school principal that thought it was a good idea and encouraged me was Dr. Axelrod, the principal of the Manhattan day school!"

According to a history of the Parade by Marissa Gross:

The Salute to Israel Parade, originally named the Youth Salute to Israel Parade, was developed in 1964 by a team of American and Israeli Jews. At the forefront of this project were Haim Zohar, Charles Bick, and Ted Comet, who collaborated with Dr. Alvin Schiff and Dr. Dan Ronen to create this demonstration of American Jewish solidarity with Israel...

...In 1964, Haim Zohar was working at the Israeli consulate in New York...Working on the East Side, Zohar would often see other ethnic-pride parades and wondered why the Jews did not follow suit. A parade seemed to be a way not only to unite American Jews but also to bring Israel into their lives and let them show support for it. Zohar believed such events would strengthen Jewish identity and create solidarity among klal Yisrael (the nation of Israel). As an Israeli, he also sought to strengthen bonds between Israel and the United States as a whole.

Backing for the parade was initially difficult to attain...But Abe Harman, then Israeli ambassador to the United States, encouraged Zohar to continue. As a foreign agent, he knew that he needed American leaders to officially organize the parade. He successfully approached the American Zionist Youth Foundation headed by Chairman Charles Bick and Director Ted Comet.

Comet was very receptive upon hearing the idea....After receiving support from Comet and Bick, Zohar began to assemble a team to implement their vision. Comet was appointed chairman of the parade and Dan Ronen was named its director. Ronen was then a representative of the Jewish National Fund (JNF) from Israel, who had come to promote JNF’s activities throughout the country. Dr. Alvin Schiff, then director of the Day School Department of the Board of Jewish Education in New York, also worked with the group by encouraging schools to participate.

Recruiting participants for the parade was sometimes a trying task. The youth movements and schools all responded positively to the idea...Among the adult communities, however, there was hesitation about the idea. People thought it did not fit the New York Jewish intellectual tradition, or that a parade was not a “Jewish” activity. Others were still reluctant about showing their Jewishness publicly. Hence it was difficult to obtain initial funding.

Some Orthodox Jews also saw the parade as problematic. Certain Orthodox groups objected to boys and girls marching together, or to the participation of non-Jewish marching bands with members wearing crosses on their uniforms. Choosing a day for the parade was also an issue...Comet and Bick, however, were able to get permission from rabbis to have the parade during this period, as well as solutions to the other problems.

The First Parade

The first mini-parade took place in 1964 when Zohar marched with the Manhattan Day School and their principal from the school to a theater on Broadway holding the Israeli flag. Smaller parades that year featured schools in Queens. The Salute to Israel Parade officially began in 1965...he final route that was chosen stretched from 72nd Street and First Avenue to 72nd Street and Fifth Avenue, with the parade then turning onto Fifth Avenue and continuing until 59th Street.

The JTA report on the 1965 Parade:

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Bernard Dov Troy, former Netziv, Dies at age 94

His son Gil's remembrance:

Avatar of Zionism and Americanism: My father, Bernard Dov Troy, of blessed memory

By GIL TROY, MAY 7, 2024 

My father, Bernard Dov Troy, died last Thursday at 94, shortly after meeting his first great-grandchild at the second Passover Seder. That child – my grand-nephew – is named “Pela” – meaning miracle, wonder, marvel. Those words describe Dad’s life. He emerged from the 1930s’ Great Depression and the Holocaust’s Great Despair to witness – and join – two counter-cultural, history-making adventures: the launching of Israel and the transformation of so many American Jews from outsiders to insiders. Pessimists will say he died with both wonders threatened, even doomed. Realists will draw reassurance from his trajectory; he saw Jews overcome far worse.

Bernie Troy was born into a seemingly perpetual state of Jewish statelessness, homelessness, and precariousness. By his 15th birthday – in 1945 – the Nazis had slaughtered six million fellow Jews. But rather than being imprisoned in bitterness, Dad and his peers liberated themselves with that wonderful miracle cure: hope. As Zionists, they didn’t whine; they dreamed of a better tomorrow and then built it.

Dad was a Betari, a Revisionist Zionist following Ze’ev Jabotinsky, emphasizing Jewish pride and dignity, fusing Judaism with liberal-democratic nationalism. Joining Betar may have been his one rebellious move in a quite conventional life.  

He re-Christened himself “Dov.” “Bernard” reflected the goody-two-shoes American he was supposed to be. His mother’s pronounciation, “Boinie,” represented how far down the chain of American respectability his parents were. Dov – Hebrew for bear – evoked the strong, proud pioneers Zionism helped Jews become.

Through Betar, Dad built up himself – and his people. As Jews emerged dazed from the Holocaust in 1945, young American Jews felt humiliated. Surrounded by macho World War II veterans, who saved the world, Jews felt defined by the ghoulish newsreel images of bulldozers pushing gassed skeletal corpses into mass graves. It wasn’t polite to admit, but these European survivors were embarrassing, un-American.

Fortunately, 6,000 miles away in Palestine, Zionists were writing a different chapter in Jewish history, starring The New Jews. These bronzed Socialist Kibbutzniks and muscular, urban-based Jabotinskyites farmed, fought, and built the state’s infrastructure. A Polish survivor, Menachem Begin, succeeded Jabotinsky as the Revisionist leader, vowing, “Every Jew in our homeland will fight!” 

This appeal for self-defense roused Dad and his dejected buddies. They helped smuggle weapons to Palestine in huge, sealed paint cans with false bottoms.

On May 14, 1948, the old-new State of Israel emerged. Fewer and fewer Jews remain alive who recall that thrill when the Jewish people fulfilled this 2,000-year-old hope. Days later, newsreels broadcast in movie theaters nationwide captured Dad marching in his crisp Betar uniform in a New York city-wide parade.

This minor contribution had a major impact on his life – and on mine. It reflected the Troy family’s stake in this great Jewish adventure. Having seen the worst in Jewish powerlessness – and the Israelis’ new ability to overcome seemingly-impossible odds – he always marveled at Israel’s pelah, miracle. He never despaired, no matter how brutal Israel’s enemies were and no matter how daunting the odds were against us. We certainly need that confidence in the Zionist mission now.

Staying in America for family reasons, my father and mother invested in us, their three sons. As New York schoolteachers and Jewish educators – chronically underpaid, increasingly disrespected – they nearly bankrupted themselves by sending us to Jewish day schools, buying whatever books we wanted and all the glasses we needed and then, most insanely, bankrolling Ivy League tuitions at Cornell, Harvard, and Columbia Law School.

Those schools represented America’s golden promise. More than launching pads to good careers, these intellectual hothouses cultivated creative thoughts, robust debate, open inquiry, and truly liberal-democratic ideas. Jews were welcomed, not just tolerated – and never targeted, demonized, rejected. Not then.

That marvelous gamble paid off. My older brother Dan became a super-lawyer; my younger brother Tevi worked in the White House. Both parents pushed us hard to do well – while pushing us even harder to be good. Unlike so many achievement-machines then – and now – my parents grounded us in Jewish history and Jewish values, in American ideals and American dreams. They bequeathed us two sweeping stories far more compelling than the latest TikTok craze or even – trigger warning! -- Taylor Swift’s latest album.

It’s fitting, given his rootedness in Jewish history and Zionism, that Dad was buried on the eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day and his shiva mourning period will end just before our most painful Remembrance Day for Israel’s Fallen Soldiers and Terror Victims and most confusing Independence Day.

Last week, as we sat with Dad and thanked him, I felt the gap between his full life and the more than 1,500 mostly young Israeli lives that Hamas’s killers ended so abruptly, so violently. They, too, deserved long lives, multiple grandchildren, and the dignity of calm goodbyes.

Spiritually, every loving gesture we made toward him came to feel like it somehow honored each recent Israeli loss as well. Treating him respectfully started filling the huge existential void – the unfathomable deficit in love, respect, and dignity that Hamas’s evil spawned.

This transference – and tikkun (repair) – was one of Elaine and Dov Troy’s enduring lessons. They were simcha junkies, never skipping an excuse to celebrate life. They never stopped dancing, albeit arhythmically.

We cannot undo the worst moments of Jewish history – or of our lives. But we can refuse to be undone by them. You never stop mourning.  But you also never stop waking up every morning to undo the bad and expand the good. We remember the best of yesterday, do our best today – spiritually, morally, personally, and communally – and build an even better tomorrow.

-----

From Chuck/Shachna Waxman:

Dov Troy is in the middle, back row. Don't remember the name of our counselor next to Dov.

Also in the picture, beside me are - David Kandel, Uriel Messa, Steve Goldberg (?), Michael Lebenberg, Tzvi Pickel, .....don't remember the rest 

And a visit in 2022:

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Eileen Solomon at Camp Betar - 1965

 

Anti-Von Karajan Pigeon Protest

The New York Times, March 31, 1955:

National Jewish Post & Opinion, April 9, 1955:

Fallout:

On Herbert Von Karajan.

Mitchel Agoos recalls. And wrote to me on May 2, 2024 so:-

I was assisted by Joseph Churba who signaled when to release the Pigeons (there were about 10 in the bag) . I was detained by law enforcement for about an hour and then released. Tel Hai Mitchel Agoos

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Baruch Kraus - Jerusalem - Dec 1965

 

Visiting Baruch on Machon when I attended the 10th Kinus Olami.

Kinus Olami - Opening Ceremony - Kfar Raziel - Dec 1965

 

Sheldon Lerman & Mickey Bar-Neder - Kinus Olami - Dec 1965

 

Bet Sefer Lemadrichim Misdar - 1966 (1967?)

 LtoR: Efraim (Frank) Dimant, Yisrael (Winkie) Medad, Barak (Bruce) Koffler

Zamira Miller - Jabotinsky shav lamoledet - NYC July 7, 1964

 

Aaron Zvi Propes visit to Betar Toronto - 1965

Left to right: Standing – Sheldon Lerman, Marty Jacobson, Harry Wolle, Bruce Koffler, Sammy Polster Seated – Annie Jacobs, Aaron Zvi Propes, Renee Starkman

The Anti-German Soccer Team Action, 1950

 

The movement received threatening letters as well as letters of support.

And a contribution of $2 to cover the cost of the tomatoes.

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Winter Camp in Canada

From Barak Koffler:

Here are 3 winter camp pictures taken in the mid-1960's at the Canadian Youth Hostel north of Toronto.

The first one is me and Carla Gringorten.

The second one, a Toronto Betaria but I cannot remember her name.

The third one is the gate to the hostel and under it are Sam Polster, Zamira Miller, kneeling: Risa Gringorten,  back 3-- I do not remember but I think the girl was named Debbie, kneeling: Sarah Schwartzburg, beside her I think is Miriam Kalina?, kneeling in front is Mel Laytner, and at far right is Michael Brender (Danny Rosing's stepbrother).

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Camp Betar, First Year at Liberty, NY

 

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Camp Betar, 1950

 

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