Ariel Sharon, a Jew with a Jewish Heart
Writing for the Times of Israel, Rabbi Dovid Eliezrie, Shliach to Yorba Linda, California, reminisces about a terse encounter he had with Ariel Sharon and their dispute over the events following his visit to the Rebbe in the late 1960s:
A thousand people had converged on the Hyatt in Irvine to hear Ariel Sharon. It was some 21 years ago. As the leader of the opposition he was on a tour to raise money for Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria. I had encountered Sharon some thirty years earlier as a Yeshiva student and decided to remind him of that evening in my introduction.
“Ariel Sharon is not just a great general,” I told the sellout crowd, “but also a great Jew. Years ago in 1969 I was a yeshiva student in Kfar Chabad,” the Chabad town just outside of Tel Aviv. “Sharon had been in New York and visited with the Lubavitcher Rebbe who had asked him to give over regards in Kfar Chabad. The town’s mayor Rabbi Shlomo Maidinchek met him at the airport and told him that before anything else he must come to the community. A crowd gathered late at night in the main synagogue to welcome him.”
I recalled what Sharon had said that night. “The Rebbe had asked me to put on tefillin every day. This morning I was in Paris visiting my uncle and I performed the mitzvah of laying tefillin. My uncle was astonished, so I told him I would leave the tefillin as a gift so he too could perform the mitzvah on a daily basis.”
Sharon’s story had deeply inspired us. We would travel weekly to Tel Aviv to ask Jews to put on tefillin, I thought to myself at the time “Wow if he can ask his uncle I can for sure do the same in Tel Aviv.”
After I finished the story Sharon who was sitting on the stage next to me looked up at the podium, gruffly he told me in Hebrew “it never happened.” I look back at him, my memory clear as day, and responded strongly “it did occur.” The verbal confrontation continued for a few moments, the crowd of a thousand looking on as we sparred in Hebrew. Neither of us gave any ground. I realized that I had touched a chord.
Truth be told I had a deeper agenda. I doubted that Sharon was still performing the mitzvah. I wanted remind him of his promise to the Rebbe. His Chabad connection had started earlier and lasted through his life. In 1968 Sharon had his first meeting with the Rebbe in New York. The Rebbe asked “what flight are you returning to Israel on?” Sharon said from New York to London and then on to Israel.
“Change your flight” the Rebbe told him without giving a reason. After leaving London, the EL Al flight was hijacked by Palestinian terrorists and diverted to Algeria. As his son writes in a biography of his father, Rabbi Maidinchek of Kfar Chabad was his personal rabbi. His sons’ bar mitzvah’s were held in Kfar Chabad. Sharon introduced his young secular nephew from Haifa to Rabbi Maidinchek. Eventually the nephew was drawn to the Chassidic way of life, became religious and married Madinchek’s daughter.
The next day I met him at a radio station in Los Angeles, He was slated as a guest on the top LA talk radio outlet. I stood on the sidewalk to welcome him as he exited the limo. Clearly the story about the tefillin was still on his mind. He gave me a harsh look and erupted with a few terse sentences. “I spoke to Lily,” referring to his wife who was in Israel. “The story about the tefillin is true.” It seems that my true agenda had been accomplished.
Spare crocodile tears for this rasha.
a real “Jew with a Jewish Heart ” does not expel Jews from their homes, destroy Yeshivas and Jewish cemeteries in order to save his sorry rear-end from legal troubles. Besides he was not even Jewish. His Russian schicksa mother went trough questionable “giur” after his birth.
Ezra
The Rebbe wrote to him as a fellow Jew (Igros Kodesh, vol. 25, p. 4), and urged him to put on tefillin (ibid. p. 5, and vol. 26, p. 452). So your last two sentences, at least, are flat-out wrong.
All these articles disgust me!
Why is everyone making Sharon into a Tzaddik? He ended his term in office by doing the exact opposite of what the Rebbe wanted from him. Furthermore, he carried out his goal with an extra unnecessary force and harmed yidden who used to live in certain settlements in Eretz Yisroel. Why do certain Lubavitchers feel that that need to write articles about him – and glorifying him? Yes, maybe he once was good, but he will forever go down in History for the evil acts that he committed against the yidden in Eretz Yisroel. See his acts for what they are and stop created something good out of him.
Seriously?
Yes He was a Jew with a Jewishish Heart. Woopdedoo. He did some seriously bad things to many people. From this article it seems that Rabbi Eliezre is just looking for some time in the limelight. Spare us your mushy stories.
Danile
Was his mother Jewish? Yes or no? Was her conversion valid? Yes or no? It’s really two simple questions. I read nowhere that he was ever converted. Was his mother, Vera, a Jew at the time of his birth???
Sydney, Australia
I really dislike the comments of his non Jewishness.
I cannot imagine The Rebbe asking a goy to put on Tefillin.
If it is an aveira to say that kosher food is treif when it isn’t, how much more so is it to call a yid a goy.
sad
If you watch the video of his funeral his sons did not wear kipot but goyim (Biden &Blair) did.
wow
Such hatred. Im sure he did tshuva duting the coma. It is a big aveira to talk lashon hora especially someone who passed away. And he merited to pass away on the auspicios da u of yud shvat. Yes, he made a mistake. But do not judge. You were not in his shoes. He was extremely pressured and maybe he did realize he made a mistake. Please stop judging and mourn ariel sharon’s loss.
Milhouse
How could he do teshuvah while he was unconscious?
And every day of the year is somebody’s yortzeit, or some other “auspicious” day. Dying on a particular date is no indication of merit. The Mitzrishe bechorim had the “zechus” to die on Pesach, and their parents had the similar “zechus” to drown on Shevi’i Shel Pesach. Homon also had the “zechus” to die on Pesach.
We have a mitzvah to hate Evil
Would you express such sorrow and compassion towards dead members of Yevseczia too? Keep your “non judgement” to yourself. We have a long history of the worst suffering at the hands of our own (including Sharon) because we did not “judge” or fight them back.
REGARDLESS
whether he was legally a Jew or not is really not the issue, he behaved towards his fellow Jews worse than any goy could. How many lives and families were shattered and broken because of him.
JUST FOR THE RECORD
The great and noble Sharon did not listen to the Rebbe’s advice with the 67 war either. The Rebbe told him to go all the way in but he didn’t listen.
So@so
Opinion does not equal a fact.