Jew of the Week: Muki Betser

Israel’s Legendary Commando

Moshe “Muki” Betser (b. 1945) was born in the moshav of Nahalal in the north of Israel, the grandson of the founders of Degania Alef, Israel’s first kibbutz. He fought valiantly as a young soldier in the Six-Day War, and remained in the military thereafter. Soon, he became a commando in Israel’s elite Sayeret Matkal special forces unit. In 1971, after repeated terrorist attacks coming from Lebanon, Betser and his unit launched a cross-border raid into the town of El-Khyam, killing at least 10 terrorists and blowing up two terrorist bases. Despite the loss of fellow commando Lt. Dov Adar, all of the mission’s objectives were achieved. During the Yom Kippur War, Betser defended the Golan Heights. He then co-founded another special forces unit, Shaldag (now a division of the Israeli Air Force). That same year, Betser led another raid into Lebanon. In a daring night-time mission, his unit quietly entered Beirut from the sea, and eliminated three unsuspecting PLO terror leaders to retaliate for the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre. The following year, on the anniversary of Israel’s declaration of independence, three Palestinians terrorists took 115 Israeli hostages at a school in the town of Ma’alot. Betser led one of the teams in the rescue mission which, unfortunately, did not go as planned. While the three terrorists were ultimately killed, they managed to tragically take the lives of 22 students and 3 teachers first. For Betser, this experience was especially traumatic, but taught him important lessons that he implemented while commanding Operation Thunderbolt—the famous rescue of hostages in Entebbe, Uganda—two years later. Betser planned most of the mission, and was credited with ensuring its success. In fact, he was so instrumental because, several years prior, he had actually gone to Uganda to train their military! Betser continued to serve in the military until his retirement in 1986, with the rank of colonel. Since then, he has worked as a city planner and real estate developer, and co-founded the Galilean towns of Neve Ziv and Tamar (where he still lives). In 2005, he also co-founded a pre-military training school, where he continues to play a key leadership role. Betser has been called “one of Israel’s most legendary commandos”.

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Words of the Week

I had faith in Israel before it was established, I have in it now. I believe it has a glorious future before it – not just another sovereign nation, but as an embodiment of the great ideals of our civilization.
– President Harry Truman

Jew of the Week: Joel Brand

The Man Who Tried to Save a Million Jews

Jenő Yoel Brand (1906-1964) was born in what is now Romania to a family of traditional Hungarian Jews. He spent a part of his childhood in Germany, and then moved to New York when he was 19. He struggled to make a living, working difficult odd jobs, and eventually joined the International Communist Party, soon becoming one of their sailors and traveling across the Pacific. He returned to Germany in 1930, but when Hitler came to power Brand was arrested for being a communist. He was released the following year and returned to Hungary, joining the communist-Zionist Poale Zion organization, and then the Jewish National Fund. He started a clothing business with his wife, and the couple grew wealthy, employing over 100 people in their factory. The Brands were planning to make aliyah and join a kibbutz, but an influx of German Jews entering Hungary compelled them to stay and support the refugees. By 1943, they had set up the Aid and Rescue Committee, forging documents and running an underground network of safe houses. All in all, the committee saved about 25,000 Jews, at times collaborating with people like Oskar Schindler and Rudolf Kastner. In 1944, the Nazis invaded Hungary, and notorious SS officer Adolf Eichmann requested a meeting with Brand. He offered 1 million Jews in exchange for supplies from the Allies to help German soldiers fighting the USSR. Eichmann called it the “blood for goods” deal, and wanted 1000 trucks full of supplies for every 100,000 Jews. After three meetings, he gave Brand several weeks to come back with an answer. Brand immediately got on a train to Istanbul, planning to meet up with future Israeli president Chaim Weizmann. When he arrived, it was a different “Chaim” waiting for him, offering no assistance. Brand felt betrayed by the Jewish Agency, who told him to now go to Aleppo and meet another future Israeli president, Moshe Sharett. On the way, Brand was stopped by the British and arrested, imprisoned in Egypt and brutally tortured. The British had no interest in saving Jews, nor bringing in anymore refugees into the Holy Land. (In fact, during the little-known 1943 Bermuda Conference, the British and Americans had already decided to do nothing about the Holocaust and resolved not to help the Jews of Europe.) Brand eventually went on a hunger strike, and was only released after 17 more days. By that point, most of the Jews he was trying to save were already murdered. Brand was not permitted to return to Hungary, and resettled in Israel. Not surprisingly, he joined the Stern Gang that fought passionately against the British to expel them from the Holy Land. Brand went on to testify at the 1954 Kastner trial, as well as the 1961 Eichmann trial, where the latter denied that he ever had the authority to stop the mass-killings. Some say the “blood for goods” deal was a Nazi ruse and only meant to confuse and split the Allies. Others say it was a legitimate offer made by desperate Nazis, and a million Jews could have been saved. Brand himself believed a bit of both. Shortly before his death, Brand told a reporter: “An accident of life placed the fate of one million human beings on my shoulders. I eat and sleep and think only of them.” Brand died, quite literally, of a broken heart, suffering a fatal heart attack at the young age of 58.

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Words of the Week

The local population in Palestine is racially more closely related to the Jews than to any other people… It is quite probable that the fellahin in Palestine are direct descendants of the Jewish and Canaanite rural population, with a slight admixture of Arab blood… it is impossible to distinguish between a Sephardic porter and an Arab labourer…
– Dov Ber Borochov (1881-1917)

Jews of the Week: Edith Head & William Wyler

Two Oscar Record Holders

Edith Claire Posener (1897-1981) was born in California to Jewish parents of German heritage. She studied languages at UC Berkeley and Stanford and became a high school language teacher. To make a little more money, she offered to teach art as well, although she had no professional training in the subject. A year after marrying Charles Head, she got a job as a costume sketch artist for Paramount Pictures. Very quickly, she became one of Hollywood’s most popular costume designers. She was the go-to choice for top stars like Audrey Hepburn, Elizabeth Taylor, and Bette Davis. Nominated for a whopping 35 Academy Awards, Head won 8 times, giving her the record for most Oscars won by a woman to this day. All in all, Head worked for 43 years at Paramount Pictures and another 14 at Universal Pictures, designing costumes until her very last days. She also designed the women’s uniform for the US Coast Guard. Head made cameo appearances in a number of TV shows and films, and was the inspiration for the character of Edna Mode in Pixar’s The Incredibles. Among her other honours is a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and a 2003 commemorative stamp from the US Postal Service. Edith Head passed away in the same year that another famous Jewish-German Oscar record holder did:

William Wyler (1902-1981) was born in France, where he grew up very poor, and often skipped school to sneak into movies. His mother eventually called up her wealthy cousin in America—Carl Laemmle, the founder of Universal Pictures—to ask for help. Laemmle brought young Wyler to New York, where he first served for a year with the National Guard. Wyler then moved to Hollywood and got his first job cleaning stages and moving sets. He then broke off on his own to become a director. Wyler worked round-the-clock, and by the early 1930s made a name for himself as a creative filmmaker. He churned out some of the greatest hits of the era, including Wuthering Heights and Mrs. Miniver, which won 6 Oscars, including the first Best Director for Wyler. During World War II, he focused on making anti-Nazi and pro-British films, but many of them were blocked by the US government, who wanted to maintain a neutral stance at first. Mrs. Miniver changed that, with both Roosevelt and Winston Churchill loving the film, the latter even declaring: “Mrs. Miniver is propaganda worth 100 battleships!” In 1942, Wyler enlisted in the US Army and served as an Air Force major. He continued to make films while literally risking his life flying over battlefields. He got injured, lost hearing in one ear, and returned to America at the end of the war a disabled veteran. He eventually went back to Hollywood and continued to make huge hits. The biggest was 1959’s Ben-Hur, which won a record-breaking 11 Oscars, with Wyler winning his third for Best Director. The film saved MGM from bankruptcy (making $90 million on a $15 million budget). It was also Wyler that brought Barbra Streisand to cinema when he cast her in the 1968 Funny Girl, for which she won a Best Actress Oscar—making her one of 14 people to win the award thanks to Wyler (another record). He retired in 1970, having made 67 films, 13 of which won Best Picture. He was known as “40-take Wyler” because he would retake scenes over and over again to get them perfectly right. He remains the most-nominated director in Oscar history, and was voted one of the top 50 “outstanding Americans”.

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Words of the Week

A word is worth one coin, silence is worth two.
– Talmud, Megillah 18a

Some of Edith Head’s costume designs for Anne Baxter’s Nefertari character in the 1956 classic ‘The Ten Commandments’.