The Human Spirit: Goodwill Ambassador
September 25, 2008
I recently received by e-mail a short Kol Yisrael radio
interview with Michal Elboim, of blessed memory, taped several months
before her death. Elboim, a vivacious, dark-haired sabra from Hod Hasharon,
was serving as a young emissary of the Jewish Agency when she slipped
off the bow of a motor boat in the Perdido Bay and was mortally injured
by the propeller. She was just 24.
The subject of the radio interview was Elboim's weekly telephone study
sessions with a very religious woman in Israel.
Listening to the broadcast, it's impossible not to be moved by Elboim's warmth and conviviality. Indeed, her magnetism, her enthusiasm for Israel and her love of people attracted young and old, Jews and non-Jews in North Florida and nearby states. Soon after arriving in Pensacola, she was teaching Sunday School, leading kids in Young Judaea youth movement activities and representing Israel in campus fairs and debates. She organized letter-writing campaigns to the children of Sderot. She was successful at finding and inspiring previously uninvolved young Jews to take part in the birthright israel program. She sought them out in the community and from nearby US military bases. In the process, she discovered Dan, a Hebrew-speaking Jewish navy pilot who became the love of her life.
When this spunky young woman with patchy English managed to lecture about her beloved Israel in synagogues, on university campuses and even in evangelical churches, mostly she shared the passions of her own life. She told audiences how she was a peer-counselor in the scouts, about the year she volunteered with Ethiopian immigrants in Migdal Ha'emek, about the two and a half years she served as an officer in the IDF, and even the post-army backpacking trip in South America.
IT WAS in Peru that she met young emissaries from the Jewish Agency and decided that she'd like to serve still another year for the Jewish people before starting university. She flew through the multiple stages of the admissions process. By all accounts, she was dazzling and irresistible. She had everything it takes to be the perfect goodwill ambassador - that is, nearly everything.
One day, the Pensacola community asked her to prepare something called a Dvar Torah. She was stumped. What exactly was a Dvar Torah? "I'm totally secular," explained Elboim on the air. "My Judaism is expressed through being an Israeli. For the community in Pensacola, it is centered on synagogue and Jewish holidays."
She understood the paradox: She'd come to lead and inspire Diaspora Jews, but in matters of Judaism proper they knew more than she did.
Not that she'd been assigned to Crown Heights. The Jewish community of Pensacola, she explained on the air, has many non-affiliated Jews, a large Reform temple and a smaller Conservative congregation.
Elboim surfed the Internet to find an answer for herself, and came across
the Web site of the Ayelet Hashahar Hevruta program. She could study by
phone with an Israeli woman far more knowledgeable in Judaism than she
was. The program was free - even the phone call.
So, over the international phone lines she met Giti Kenning, 32, a haredi
mother of four from Yeroham.
Kenning was recruited to the program by her sister-in-law who worked in the Ayelet Hashahar office in Jerusalem, where literally thousands of study shidduchim are made. Kenning works in the Yeroham schools as a teacher of children with speech and motor challenges. Both busy women initially committed half an hour for the weekly phone sessions.
Kenning put a lot of thought into the weekly discussions. They began with the weekly Torah portion and its relevance for modern life, and she let Elboim's questions and interests guide the choice of sources. "Michal was so thirsty for knowledge. Half an hour grew to an hour and a half and even that wasn't enough. I was unsure if I should be including material on Jewish practice as well, but in the end I decided against it."
The subject of becoming more religious never came up, Elboim told the radio interviewer. "Besides, I'm opposed the idea that you have to be religious to study Judaism." Nonetheless, last Pessah, when Elboim and friends went hiking in the Smoky Mountains, she surprised her friends by insisting on eating matza. She dragged them from one sleepy hollow to the next seeking a corner store that stocked unleavened bread.
THE TRUE gift of their study was her first exposure to a mindset in which studying Judaism was cherished and even fun.
"I hadn't opened a Bible since high school, and suddenly I was reading in my spare time and finding it interesting."
For Kenning, the weekly Torah discussions were opportunities to see the Torah from a fresh perspective. "Each of us brings a unique understanding to the Torah, and I could tell from the beginning what a special person Michal was."
Her 10 months in Florida were coming to an end. In the synagogue newsletter, Elboim thanked the community and urged its members to keep their Jewish identity and Jewish commitment strong. She wasn't sure she would continue learning about Judaism when she returned to Israel. She was already looking forward to starting her BA in anthropology and Israel studies at Ben-Gurion University in Beersheba, and to living in a service-oriented village of students in the Negev, helping children at risk.
Not far, actually, from her hevruta in Yeroham. For sure they would meet face to face.
When Kenning didn't hear from her study partner in July, she assumed Elboim had left without saying good-bye. They'd become close through the study. Then Kenning's husband happened to see an article in an extremely religious newspaper - one that rarely carried news about the secular community - reporting Elboim's death. Kenning was devastated.
A thousand people attended Michal's funeral, according to her mother Shoshana Elboim. "Michal knew people from every walk of life, but suddenly I saw a woman wearing long sleeves, a long skirt and a kerchief on her head. She didn't seem to fit in." Kenning had traveled by bus from Yeroham to part from the study partner she'd never met but "who was as close as a sister." She introduced herself to Elboim's parents.
SHOSHANA ELBOIM still doesn't understand why her daughter never told the family about her weekly Jewish studies. She hadn't mentioned the radio program to them, either. They heard it only after her death.
In the radio broadcast, Elboim is critical of the lack of Jewish education in the Israeli education system, that she had to go to the Diaspora before she understood the beauty of Jewish study.
But before we nod in angry and easy agreement, let's remember what this young woman did receive at home, at school and in the scouts: love and commitment to Israel, motivation to devote years to doing good deeds, and a passionate desire to serve the Jewish people. We need all of this and a knowledge of Judaism, too.
That would mean that we'd have to acknowledge and respect each other's strengths and gifts. A tall order indeed, but a worthy goal for all of us.
The Jewish community of Pensacola recently dedicated a symphonic evening celebrating Israel's 60th anniversary to Elboim's memory. The religious staff members of the Ayelet Hashahar study program adopted a program of study and good deeds for her sake, and the next issue of the organization's magazine will be dedicated to her, so that the circle of those who honor her memory will be enlarged.
And so, Michal Elboim, who was able to bridge the chasms between religious and secular, Israel and Diaspora, continues to be a goodwill ambassador even after her death.
