Ziva Ben Reuven

Shalom, Mispocha!

Today is 26 Av, 5772....on the Gregorian Calendar it is August 14...Eighty years ago today, August 14, 1932, a remarkable woman was born...Ziva Ben Reuven is a legendary figure in the world of Israel that I work with and for...She is a true Sabra...born and raised in The Land of Eretz Yisrael...daughter of Russian parents who, by the grace of G-d, had come to Israel before the Horrors of the Holocaust swept Europe...

Ziva's life story is the 'stuff of legends'...I have encouraged her to write her story and put it into book form so that her grandchildren and the multiple thousands of lives she has touched, will have a record of this extraordinary life...I certainly want a copy of it even though her stories are pretty indeligibly etched in my heart's mind...

Speak to her of 'Golda' as folks like Ziva who knew and worked with her called Israel's first and only Female Prime Minister...ask her to tell you of the mission she was sent on by 'Golda' when the famous 3AM phone call was placed to President Nixon as Israel was under attack by those bent then - and now - on Her destruction...

Ask her to tell you of the Palmach and Haganah...and Uncles and a dear Husband who fought in these pre-IDF organizations...of the death of a beloved Uncle killed by arab terrorists as he fought to defend his Land...She will tell you of a night that there was music in the home which suddenly stopped when the news of the murder of this beloved Uncle was brought to them...

Music has played a very important part of this woman's life...a beloved husband who could play nearly any instrument given him...a son whose piano abilities and beautiful singing would have probably led him to a musical career had not the Yom Kippur War drawn him into the IDF, where he would rise to become one of the ONLY 20 Major Generals that Israel has ever had...she will tell you of a third generation of music that was birthed into a beautiful little 'porcelain doll' as the beautiful daughter of this famous Major General is called...

Israel owes much to this woman...she has given over 60 years of her life to raise monies and awareness for it...travelling back and forth across the Atlantic and all over the world in her quest for foundational support of this Land of G-d...she also gave an Uncle, a husband, and has shared her only child - Major General Eyal Ben Reuven - with this Land...

Many times when I introduce Ziva before she speaks to audiences I have shared her with, I begin to list all her accomplishments and legendary feats...then when she comes to the microphone, she simply says: 'I am a Mother of a Major General in the IDF'...she views her primary role as being the Mother of this highly decorated IDF Major General...

On this day that G-d brought into His World a woman named Ziva Ben Reuven, a life began that would touch so many and do so much for His Eternal Covenant Land and Children...and now, eighty years later, she is as youthful and full of passion and energy as ever...I am deeply thankful to The Most High G-d of Israel that He allowed me to meet and become friends with this woman...together, she a Jew and I a Christian Zionist, are working side by side to do all we can to build a solid bridge of mutual support and trust between His True Children:Jews and Christians...the Journey of my life is much sweeter because of this wonderful woman!

Mazl Tov, my dear Sister! Kol Ha Kavod! May you have many more! And may we, together, live to see the Messiah come to His Temple Mount in His Eternal City, Jerusalem! Many Prayers and MUCH LOVE and SHALOM!

The Measure Of A Man

Shalom!

The Sabbath is concluded and the new 'day' has begun...today is
Av 23, 5772...we are drawing closer to Rosh HaShanah as each page of the calendar is turned...

One often wonders 'what is the measure of a man?' What tangibles and intangibles go into articulating what that 'measure' is...today I was blessed to be able to readily see the 'measure of a man' for whom I have enormous respect...his name is Gal Hirsch...actually the name he is known by in Israel is 'Brigadier General (Res.) Depth Corp Commander Gal Hirsch of the Israel Defense Force, the renowned IDF...

The middle daughter his beautiful wife bore to him is a 'sabra' like her Mother and Father...a native-born Israeli young woman who has been raised to understand and respect the HERITAGE of her People, the Eternal Covenant Children of The Most High G-d of Israel...and The Land of G-d that she lives in...

She, like her other two sisters, is a beautiful woman - INSIDE and OUTSIDE...she carries herself with the dignity of knowing WHO she is and WHO she came from...and she does this with PRIDE in the HERITAGE of her renowned family...

This young woman is in Poland now...yes, Poland - that Country which has so much Jewish Blood on its' hands...blood that is never blotted out of the memory of any Jewish Man or Woman worldwide...she was there today - in this blood-soaked County - at Maidanek Death Camp - one of the Death Camps where multiple thousands of her Brothers and Sisters were murdered by the Nazis and those complicit with their horrific determination to annihilate the Jews...

Today, this middle daughter of one of Israel's most beloved and respected IDF Generals and Family, carried the Israeli Flag INTO this Death Camp...a LIVING TESTIMONY to the G-d of Israel and His PROMISED OATH to Avraham, Yitzchak and Ya'akov that HE would give them the LAND OF ISRAEL for ALL ETERNITY and that their descendants would INHABIT and INHERIT this LAND for all Eternity...

Later, she carried the Flag of the Nation of Israel into the remains of the Warsaw Ghetto...into this place where the Jews of Poland FOUGHT TO THE DEATH against the forces of Hell aligned against them...

Then she and her colleagues went to Auschwitz - the vilest of the Death Camps of Hitler - and this is what she did there: she gave a speech to her Israeli colleagues gathered in this Crematorium where multiple thousands of Jews were gassed, tortured, abused, starved and butchered ...in her speech, she spoke the exact same words her Decorated and Revered War Hero Father had spoken to the IDF Cadets of the Israel Officers Academy when he was in Command of the IDF Officers Academy...

While Hitler and the thousands of those like him are in the deepest depths of Hell, this young Israeli Woman, the daughter of legendary parents whose lives have been spent serving and protecting their Nation, STOOD STRONG AND PROUD as an Israeli Sabra born of the Biblical Remnant of Israel - and told the listening world:
                               AM YISRAEL CHAI!

How do you 'measure the worth of a man?'...look at his LIFE'S LEGACY!!! This man and his beloved wife have produced a second generation of Israeli Sabras whose LIVES are the MEASURE OF THE MAN!!!