While watching the armada of ships making their way through the New York Harbor on July 4, 1976, a small ticker at the bottom of the television set came on and read: “Israeli military rescues hostages held at the Entebbe Airport in Uganda.”
I was at my parents’ home in Queens, New York, getting ready to leave the next day for Israel on the One Year Program at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. I started screaming, in a combination of utter disbelief, extreme relief, and sheer exultation, knowing that Israel had executed this daring rescue operation.
It was a period that I’ll never forget, beginning with the mounting tension that began on June 27, 1976, when Air France Flight 139 was hijacked. I was in a state of nervous excitement, knowing that within hours I would be on a flight to Israel and would be together with the Jewish nation that was celebrating this historic rescue mission.
But by the time our flight landed in Israel on July 6, all the national euphoria had come and gone. Everyone was busy tending to their daily routines. There was still some confetti on the streets of Jerusalem, and friends who had arrived in Israel the week before told me of the rapture that had engulfed the country. Talk about FOMO. I had definitely missed the celebrations that some said compared to Israel’s 1948 declaration of independence.
But there were still signs of the unprecedented Israeli mission to save hostages. Everyone seemed to be donning T-shirts with Idi Amin’s photo, with the speech bubble saying, “Kol Hakovod Le’Zahal” (Well done, IDF) from the Ugandan president’s mouth. To this day, I kick myself for not buying one of those shirts, but I was too young to understand the historic significance that a shirt like that would someday have.
Hebrew University after the Entebbe raid
After completing an intensive summer Hebrew ulpan on Hebrew University’s Givat Ram campus, where I was housed with the rest of the One Year Program participants, I was relocated in September to the university’s Mount Scopus campus. Eager to improve my halting Hebrew, I opted to room with an Israeli.
Ruthie, newly discharged from army intelligence (and an English literature major at the university, so my good intentions to improve my Hebrew were thwarted), told me later that year that she had been part of the team that prepared the soldiers who went to Entebbe. She personally knew Yoni Netanyahu and all of the fighters who participated in the historic mission. Somehow, I felt that I was closer to that fateful event.
Ruthie said that she never, ever listened to the radio news. But during those hours that the mission was taking place, she was glued to the radio at her parents’ home in Netanya. Her parents knew something extraordinary was happening, she said, but they knew better than to probe her with any questions.
Looking back, Israel’s modern history is not something that I just read in books. Having lived in Israel, now for several decades, I’ve come to realize that my personal history and Israel’s modern history are inextricably intertwined. For all this – both the exhilarating and the excruciating times, and everything in between – I am blessed.