By Donald H. Harrison

SAN DIEGO, Calif. — More than $2.5 million was raised in a single hour by San Diego Jews  in an emotional response to a webcast appeal for help from Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who said his country is fighting an existential war not just against Hezbollah but against the terrorist group's state sponsors, Syria and Iran.

Speaking to Jewish Federations across North America, Olmert said the "fundamental difference between us and the Hezbollah and the Iranians and the Syrians is that when we unfortunately hit a civilian we consider it a failure. When they kill the civilians they feel that this is a great success.

"More than 3,000 rockets  were shot ever since this began, all of them are aimed at houses of innocent people because that is what they want. They want to kill, they want to destroy, they hope that they would help fulfill the promise made by the President of Iran (Mahmoud Ahmadinejad) that Israel will be wiped off the map.  Because this is really the nature of this war."

Although he expressed confidence that Israel will win the war, Olmert said that Israel will face a tremendous economic burden as a result of rockets and bombs falling from Israel's northern border as far south as the coastal city of Hadera.

"If you will come today to Kiryat Shemona, you will not recognize that place; if you will come to Haifa, you will not recognize Haifa, and Nahariya, and Akko, and Afula and so many other places," Olmert said. "This is a huge burden that we will have to take on ourselves, and I know that there is a great tradition of solidarity and partnership between the Jewish communities and the state of Israel…. I know that you will rise to this challenge."

The prime minister said much attention has been given to the plight of refugees in Lebanon.  However, he said, "almost nothing is said about the displaced people of Israel – the hundreds of thousands of people that we have moved out of their homes, and out of their woods, and out of their streets in order to save them by taking them away from where they live into safer places in central and southern Israel. This is indeed a very difficult war. Until now, over 100 people were killed both on the battlefield and on the battlefields in the cities and in the streets.  Just last night two people in Haifa were killed as a result of a rocket shot directly hit their home."

Karnit Goldwasser, wife of one of two soldiers who were captured in a July 12 cross-border raid by Hezbollah in which eight other soldiers were killed, sparking the current war, followed Olmert on the webcast. 

She told of her conflicting emotions when 
Carnit and Ehud Goldwasser

she heard about the 10 soldiers, not knowing whether her husband was one of the living victims who had been kidnapped, or one of the eight soldiers who died in defense of Israel.  Under such circumstances, she said, hearing that her husband had been kidnapped was the better of the two terrible alternatives.

Following the video, Andrew Viterbi, retired co-founder of Qualcomm, was introduced as a co-chair of the Emergency Campaign to help Israel in its time of need.  The other co-chair, Claire Ellman, was reported flying back to San Diego, but her husband, David, was present in her stead.

Viterbi noted that Qualcomm has a plant in Haifa, and that he has been very much involved with the Technion (Israel's Institute of Technology), and that both so far are continuing to operate notwithstanding the daily rocket barrages.   He added that both Ehud and Karnit Goldwasser are graduate students at the Technion, so he said the war hits close.

He called the current conflict the fourth existential war in Israel's short history—the others being the 1948 War for Independence, the 1967 Six Day War, and the 1973 Yom Kippur War.  What exactly "winning" means is not clear, Viterbi said but  at a minimum Israel would "protect its  population from these tremendous rocket attacks from Iran—because they (the missiles) are shot by the proxies, but it is Iranian."

"Israel is on the front line on the war against militant Islam, that is all there is to it," Viterbi said. "But if it doesn’t win this decisively enough, to the extent of pushing back the threat of instant death from the north, it will become the target of all the forces of evil, and we with them."

Well-known for his philanthropy, Viterbi said he had checked with his wife Erna and his son, Alan, (both of whom attended the meeting in the UJF building named for Erna's parents, Joseph and Lenka Finci) and they decided that their family foundation would match any other contributions raised at yesterday's meeting, up to a certain limit, the amount of which he did not disclose, but which he said ought to be sufficient.

First to take Viterbi up on his challenge was Dr. Bob Shillman, who introduced himself as someone who arrived in San Diego only two years ago, and found the people particularly friendly.  He said that knowing nothing about him that Andrew and Alan Viterbi asked him what he was doing to "break the fast" after Yom Kippur, and when he replied that he supposed he would go back to the small apartment he then was renting in La Jolla, they insisted that he join their family for the celebration.

Jill Spitzer, executive director of Jewish Family Service,
congratulates Bob Shillman on his $1 contribution

So, to support Israel, and in honor of Andrew Viterbi, he declared, he wanted to contribute $1 million.

There was a collective intake of breath coupled with applause among approximately 50 other people who attended the meeting in the UJF's board room.  When Barbara Sherman, UJF's financial resource development director, inquired whether there were "anyone else who feels they want to announce anything," members of the audience broke out in nervous laughter. 

Nobody else wanted to announce the size of their contribution, in light of Shillman and Viterbi together accounting for $2 million in the first few minutes of the meeting, but many people, while pledging to add some amount, wanted to voice heart-felt feelings about the conflict.

Among them was Eyal Dagan, the Israeli shaliach assigned to San Diego, who said he was just an infant in when the last existential war erupted against Israel in 1973 on Yom Kippur.  His mother was  returning from prayers at a synagogue in Haifa "with me in a stroller, and she had to throw away the stroller and take me in her arms and run to the shelter," he recalled in a voice that briefly quavered.

Today,  Dagan's twin three-year-old nieces also are facing sudden death from missiles, and they don't understand what is going on.  So his sister and her husband, who live in a small community in the Galilee, have to make a game of it.  When people say tilim, the Hebrew word for missiles, the parents pretend people have said pilim —"elephants"—that everyone is running from the elephants, and that is the way the children understand the danger.

Lori Bolotin, campaign chair for Federation's women's division,  said she has a great sense of solidarity with the people of Israel, adding that as the mother of of four children ages 20 through 26, she doesn't have to worry about them fighting in the Army, or about borders, or about going into bomb shelters. "All I have to do is give money and that is so very much the least that I can do." 

Linda Platt said she wants to contribute not only because she is moved by the present situation, but
Lori Bolotin and Linda Platt stand and deliver

to safeguard Israel in the future. "Our grandkids range in age from 13 to 3—and we want them to grow up and have the right that any kids can have in any country."

Zuri Michan told how he had returned to San Diego from Israel just 10 hours before the meeting after attending a summer seminar with 300 other teens who decided to remain in Israel notwithstanding the outbreak of war.  "We all stayed there and supported Israel," he said to applause. Carlos Michan, his proud father, said while fundraising among Jewish community activist certainly is valuable, "I think we should go outside and convey this message to more people… that will be very important."  Sherman responded that copies of Olmert's speech would be sent out to a large list of people, and there would be notifications of the emergency campaign and Israel's situation sent by postal mail, internet and via synagogues.

Others who spoke briefly at the meeting included David Ellman, Marjory Kaplan, Danny Dabby, Ruth Gold and Lou Kaplan. Shillman was granted the opportunity for the last word—he had earned it!  He said as important as contributions to Israel by the Jewish community are, they are but a fraction of the foreign aid provided to Israel by the United States, its ally. He urged everyone present to become involved in the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which lobbies the Congress and the executive branch on matters concerning the Middle East.

He also suggested that members of the Jewish community put aside their feelings about such other kinds of issues as stem cell research, women's rights, gay rights, education and gun control if politicians holding adverse positions on these controversies are supportive of Israel.  In his own case, he said, he hosted a fundraiser and contributed to U.S. Sen. Conrad Burns (R-Mont.) whom he described as a "right-wing nut" on other issues because Burns votes solidly in favor of Israel.