While the decision-makers are contemplating the future of IDF Lt.-Colonel Shalom Eisner, many are stepping forward to express their support for him as a person and an officer. Eisner is credited with many good deeds, as well as heroism, and this was particularly true during the Second Lebanon War, when he risked his own life repeatedly to extricate the bodies of fallen soldiers to make certain they are brought to kvuras yisrael.
One such case is the story of Major Benaya Rein HY”D who fell in the line of duty. When officers arrived at the home of his parents, they were told the levaya would be delayed since his body was not recovered from the tank.
Chanit, his mother, explains that three days passed and they were unsuccessful in recovering the body. “Suddenly an angel appeared, Battalion Commander Eisner. He asked [IDF Chief Rabbi Brigadier-General] Rav [Avichai] Ronsky ‘what is going on here’. The rav explained they are trying to get the body for kvura. ‘What!’ he explained. He grabbed a flak jacket, got into a jeep and drove into Lebanon to the tank. He extricated the body and brought it back and told Rav Ronsky ‘now we can bury him’.
“By his merit, placing himself in life-threatening danger entering the area during daylight we finally merited to bury our son. I do not want to get into the condition of the body after three days. If not for Shalom [Eisner] there would not be a body. We began to cry together and he remained in touch with us till this day – this wonderful warm sensitive person. He did not know Benaya personally… He is simply a man of peace, runs after peace, a sensitive person”.
Regarding the now infamous video in which Eisner is seen striking the ISM activist, http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/article.php?p=124580, Mrs. Rein admits it is not easy to look at. “We spoke with Shalom and he told us that he erred. He told us that I am human and humans err. The army will probe and the recommendation will be published in the media. Unfortunately, the reverse is true and the media conducted the investigation first”.
“I do not say that he should not be punished and don’t say he was not wrong, but it was wrong to jump to conclusions. Let me make it simple. If my children have to go to war today, I want them to be under his command. Is that clear enough for you?”
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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7 Responses
He’s too nice when he admits that he “erred”. I don’t think he erred at all, I think he did the right thing. The guy was coming at him, so he pushed him with the butt of his rifle. These ISM people are enemies of Israel, no different from enemy soldiers in war. That they don’t carry weapons is irrelevant — most soldiers in war don’t carry weapons; the “long tail”, remember? They are actively engaged in an organised and serious attempt to destroy Israel and resume the Holocaust where their grandparents left it off all those years ago, and they must be treated that way.
True, if my children were going to war, I would want them under Col Eisner’s command. But, if my children were engaged in nonviolent protest (something they are allowed to do in a democratic country), I would certainly not want Col. Eisner there for crowd control.
Its sad, really. The IDF made the mistake of putting a top-notch hardened combat veteran in a position where he needed to act with calm and restraint, and he was pushed by the protesters to the breaking point. An annoying distasteful protester (unfortunately) gets injured and (correctly) receives world sympathy, and a good soldier (properly) needs to be punished.
Wrong place, wrong time, everyone loses.
Here we have a microcosm of the problem of our generation. The unassuming Jewish men of the quiet and patient faith of yesteryear who embodied inner strength have been replaced with these pseudo ‘heroes’ taken out of a bad Western. These charlatans have poisoned the air since Basel and the time has come to denounce this whole perversion of Judaism.
RSRH, the ISM is at WAR with Am Yisroel. They have no “right” to do this. Even when they’re not personally engaging in violence, they’re no different than a non-combat soldier in an enemy army, who may be shot on sight. And in any case these “nonviolent protests” are usually anything but.
Eisner is a good man, but where is his Torah, where was his sechel when he drove into Hitzballah-invested Lebanon to single-handedly retrieve the body of a fellow Yid? This is heroism only by non-Jewish standards.
I remember reading of a young Lubavitcher chassid joining the IDF. He commented that the soldiers currently in the Israeli army should be sent wholesale to learn in yeshivos, while the yeshiva talmidim should do army duty. The young chassid seems to have a point.
“Dovid2” – first of all, you don’t know how dangerous or not dangerous it was at the time. Obviously, Eisner thought he could do it, & was successful.
Secondly, today is Yom HaShoah. I saw a video about a new Chareidi Holocaust museum that is going to be opened up in BNEI BRAK. One of the people in the video showed a tiny piece of a Tefillin shel Rosh, that made the rounds in one of the concentration camps. He noted that it was certainly no Mitzva to put one’s life in danger in order to put on Tefillin in the camp. Nevertheless, many Jews ran to put on these Tefillin. IS THAT NOT A KIDDUSH HASHEM. Eisner’s is not really less!
Dovid2:
Where is your Torah that you can speak this way?
First of all, when asking where was Eisner’s Torah, you should know that he grew up in a home FULL of Torah, the son of Rav Benny Eisner zt”l. He married into a family of Bnei Torah as well. His father-in-law is a prominent R”M.
As for the halachic question of risking one’s life to retrieve the body of a dead soldier, the matter is very complex. (This is because it involves b’davka a dead soldier and affects morale of all the fighting men.)