This year the holiday of Shavuot falls exactly on the anniversary of the start of the Six Day War, in 1967. Before 1967, Jerusalem — the heart and soul of our land, our people and our prayers, was cleaved in two, sliced like a sharp knife running through it. Like all cuttings create wounds and blood, so did this wound and this divide.
The Kotel of our thousands of years of yearning was beyond reach.
The nascent modern state’s borders were referred to as “Auschwitz borders,” but then, with the stranglehold of the surrounding Arab nations closing in on Israel, it seemed this stranglehold would be the end of the new young modern state. The grip of destruction would be final — the Holocaust a recent and still very fresh trauma, having only ended 22 years earlier.
Just a few days ago, for the first time, the following story about Rabbi Eliakim G. Elinson, was shared by his grandson, Israeli author Netanel Elinson.
In the spirit of this week’s confluence of the Six Day War and Shavuot, I paraphrase it here in honor of this week:
My grandfather, Eliakim Elinson, was called the “white sheep” of the family. While his family in Gateshead, England, were part of the Jewish community associated with the more haredi elements of the Jewish community, he caught the Zionist “bug.” Despite having been an esteemed rabbi in England, he insisted on leaving it all behind and ascending to the land of Israel.
But his wife, my beloved Grandma Rut (Ruth), was from the prestigious Rothschild family, a great-granddaughter of one of the Rothschild barons. Not of the same vintage as my grandfather Rabbi Elinson, no way was great-grandfather Yosef Rothschild about to let his princess — Rabbi Elinson’s wife — live a life in primitive Palestine, a place both drenched in rain and beaten by heat waves, and whose existence at that time demanded a life punctured and scratched by thorns.
But ultimately, when great-grandfather Rothschild internalized how serious — or perhaps crazy — my grandfather Rabbi Elinson was about leaving behind the manicured emerald green of Europe (Switzerland) and building a life in the still bare and sundrenched land, he requested of him one commitment and promise as a condition for his blessing for this departure.
“If Israel is ever on the cusp of a second Holocaust, you immediately return my daughter and my grandchildren to Switzerland.”
On the eve of the Six Day war, who in their wildest dreams ever thought Israel would be victorious? The feeling was, a second Holocaust is upon us.
Grandfather Eliakim had no choice but to fulfill the promise he had made.
With a heavy heart, Rabbi Elinson mounted the plane with his wife and two children — my father and his eldest sister — and flew to Switzerland. It was the day before what would come to be known as the Six Day War.
Upon his arrival at the house father-in-law’s Joseph Rothschild, Elinson said the following to Rothschild:
“Here are Ruth and I and the children. I have fulfilled my promise. We are here.”
But then to the great shock of Grandfather Yosef, he quickly added, “The little ones will remain with you in Switzerland, but I, together with your daughter Ruth, are returning to Israel today.”
“What?” his father-in-law fumed. “Are you crazy? Do you know what is about to transpire there?”
And then Grandfather Eliakim Elinson, who was headstrong by nature — but still who knows from where he found the guts — turned and looked his father-in-law in the eye, and roared from the depths of his soul in the Ashkenaz accent:
“What am I, Machlon? What am I, Kilyon?”
Silence reigned.
Machlon and Kilyon, the sons of Elimelech in the story of the Book of Ruth, abandoned the land and people of Israel when times got tough. They left for greener pastures, ultimately getting sick, leaving no memory of themselves, or descendants behind.
On that very same day, Grandfather Eliakim — together with his Ruth, my grandmother — boarded the plane from Switzerland back to Israel. On that flight there were three people, the two of them, and the pilot. For who in their right mind would be entering a land on the cusp of all out devastating war?
My grandfather and grandmother, that’s who. They were those two crazy, out of-their-right-mind people.
“Am I Machlon?” “Am I Kilyon?”
Grandma Ruth has merited long life. This week another one of her granddaughters was born.
This past Shabbat, I had the opportunity and pleasure to study the Book of Ruth together with my parents and children, whereupon for the first time, with great emotion, my father shared this story with me. This is the story that connects the Six Day War and Shavuot.
Netanel Elinson is an author and influencer on the Israeli scene. His website is netanelinson.co.il.
