By JOE CHARLAFFPorath reading an article to the author(photo credit: COURTESY JOE CHARTOFF)
“I NEVER imagined in my wildest dreams that I would see the Zionist dream of a Jewish State materialize in my lifetime or that I would personally take part in helping the dream come true” were the words of Zipporah Porath.Seated on her high-backed wing chair, in her ninth floor sunny Ganei Tikva living room. She is surrounded by photos of her early Hagana days, diplomats, government officials, family and friends. Zippy, as she prefers to be called, was relaxed and composed throughout the interview. At 94, (in August she will be 95) she is well dressed with classic pearls, eye shadow and lipstick that she still applies herself.Answering my questions spontaneously, she often pulled out scraps of paper from a plastic bag next to her and read from her original hand-written letters to her parents, and her sister Naomi in New York, the basis of her well-known book “Letters from Jerusalem 1947-1948.”After 70 years in Israel her English is still marked with a Brooklyn accent, having grown up in Borough Park. She is direct, down to earth, and while her involvement in Israel’s early days has had the greatest influence on her life, she is totally up to date on current events. Her office door is covered with new age inspirational and humorous quotes.She had the privilege of attending the 1994 peace signing ceremony in Jordan, steps away from then Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and King Hussein.This impressive lady is computer savvy and her speaking style is “Millenium Modern “. At her age she is still writing, and giving lectures to schools, organizations and study missions, sharing her experiences during Israel’s founding days, bringing history alive.In October 1947, Zipporah Porath (Borowsky) arrived in Jerusalem on a ZOA one-year scholarship to the Hebrew University, and was soon caught up in the War of Independence. She abandoned her studies and enlisted in the underground Haganah, where she served as a medic during the siege of Jerusalem and later helped set up infirmary services for the fledgling Israel Air Force.“When I came I had no way of knowing that I would arrive in the Holy Land at the right moment in Jewish history” she said excitedly “and that 1947-1948 would be a fateful year”.She describes the excitement about the UN vote on the Partition Plan for Palestine. She will never forget the night of 29 November, 1947. Zippy and several of her pajama-clad fellow students had crowded around a beaten-up battery radio in her room to hear the United Nation’s vote from Lake Success, New York, approving the Partition Plan to create a Jewish and an Arab state.For Zippy, a passionate Zionist, the vote was “a dream come true.” Upon hearing the news, she and her friends shared ecstatic hugs and kisses, made toasts with wine and sweets, and sang “Hatikvah” fervently. They were soon celebrating with the euphoric crowds in the streets of downtown Jerusalem.
“I walked in a semi-daze through the crowds of happy faces, through the deafening singing past the British tanks and jeeps piled high with pyramids of flag-waving, cheering children,” wrote Zippy the following day in a letter to her parents and sister.Later that night news spread of attacks on the road from Haifa to Jerusalem.She said that she left America for what was supposed to be only one year of study at the Hebrew University and “it turned out to be a year that changed my whole life”.When I asked her what motivated her to come to Palestine, she explained “my father was a renowned Hebrew scholar and one of the founders of Young Judea,(an American peer- led Zionist youth organization) and dedicated his life to bringing Hebrew alive as a modern language. He heard that the ZOA was offering one-year scholarships to the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and submitted an essay I had written: “Why a Jewish State?“ She was invited for an interview, and no one was more surprised than she, on receiving a scholarship.Writing letters to her Zionist family she shared her impressions and experiences, and captured the events going on around her with an immediacy that puts today's readers right at the scene.Speaking about the bombing on Ben Yehuda street she describes the scene “what devastation, what destruction. Not a window remained. It was frustrating to think that these are the very same buildings and windows that were repaired after the bombing of the Palestine Post a few days earlier”.“It seems I finished my first aid course just in time to be useful. I was looking for a first aid station to lend a helping hand. I couldn’t find one, so I took out my lipstick and drew a big Magen David on the door of a building, and before I knew it I was in business.” The workers from Solel Boneh who were digging for bodies, came in to have their cuts and abrasions treated. I collected a group of children wandering around waiting to hear news of their parents. I have no words to describe the senseless human tragedy. Can I ever forget this day.These Jerusalemites have superhuman guts and patience to absorb blow after blow-from the Arabs and from the British. I know that on shmirah tonight I’ll be gripping my stun gun a little bit more firmly, for it is events like this that ignite a burning anger that can transform even a peace loving person into a fighter, a soldier.Induction into the Haganah came unexpectedly in December 1947. One day, while I was sitting at Café Brazil, a student hangout, someone I didn’t know passed me a note asking if I would do my share to help defend Jerusalem. I said “Yes,” never realizing what I was letting myself in for. He whispered to me to look at the guy at another table, wearing a hat and holding a newspaper, and said: “when he gets up and puts the newspaper under his arm, follow him at a safe distance”.The guy led me around and around until we reached the basement of the Rehavia High School where the impressive swearing-in ceremony took place, in the best cloak and dagger tradition. The room was dark, with only a dim light shining on a table draped with a Jewish flag. Sitting behind the table were three men, their faces hidden in the shadows, who questioned me carefully.Then, handed me a Bible and a pistol. I was sworn in with a simple, powerful, pertinent pledge. Only a select group had been chosen-those whose background, loyalties and attitudes had been thoroughly investigated.The siege of Jerusalem was broken on June 11, 1948, when a small convoy of jeeps with Palmach soldiers bearing arms, ammunition, and food came via the hills, using a secret route that bypasses Latrun, where the main battle for the road is going on. They broke the siege and sent morale sky high. The jeep track became known as the Burma Road.Zippy relates how she was able to relay a packet of letters through to Tel Aviv “where there was a State” and from there by plane to Czechoslovakia, on its way to collect weapons and ammunition, where her letters were mailed.On May 14,1948 the establishment of the State of Israel was proclaimed in a moving ceremony at the Tel Aviv Museum hall. Light years away in Jerusalem which was not yet linked to the state, we never heard the broadcast.Finally, a ceasefire. I accompanied the first convoy of wounded soldiers, mostly amputees, out of Jerusalem under the auspices of the UN. I had no morphine and the soldiers were in sheer agony from the bumpy road.Eventually I realized we were in Kfar Bilu where there was a hospital where I had to leave them. This was in the new State of Israel. There was overwhelming joy and relief.Patients banged their crutches and canes on the ambulance floor. I stayed on and served in the IDF in the medical corps, setting up infirmaries in the north.Haifa Bay, November 29,1948- From the roof of the hospital I watched this morning’s parade, a parade of soldiers of the Jewish State – not partisans or underground fighters. Soldiers standing erect and proud, in rain puddles six inches deep, wearing shabby outfits – winter uniforms hadn’t reached Israellistening to lofty words of accomplishment and tribute.After the war, Zipporah returned briefly to the United States and served as the Executive Assistant to the Consul General in New York where she met her husband- to- be, Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Porath, then Israel’s assistant Military Attache.She is now a widow with two sons and four grandchildren. and has been living in Israel, where she has been working as a freelance writer, editor, and publications consultant.“When I wrote the letters I did not expect to see them again seventy years later. Rereading these letters I realized the meaning for my children and grandchildren, and others, because I WAS THERE”.She found the letters four decades later after her parents died, and the book which she later published “Letters from Jerusalem 1947-1948” based on those letters, describe day-to-day life in Jerusalem, and capture the thrill and excitement of the historic events as they were happening.The feisty nonagenarian and grandmother of four said “They didn’t count us in. We were American. They didn’t believe for a minute any of us would stay.” But she did, and when her friends challenged her about her decision to come to Israel, Zippy took them on one by one and gave them a piece of her mind. “Israel is a country for all Jews, she told them, and she had just as much right to be there as they did. Americans, she argued, bring not only instant coffee and cigarettes, but valuable assets such as education, training and a democratic tradition.”We count here, not what you own, not what you have. You count as an individual. All you have to do is make your own way. Put yourself forward and do what you can.Porath finds it uncanny that the very same thing is happening in Israel today that took place in 1947–1948: Israel is celebrating its 70th birthday and we are still fighting for Israel’s right to exist. Terror is still affecting our lives, but we survived and thrived. “Am Yisrael Chai!” (The people of Israel live).
