It’s not often that one Jew’s life refutes so many anti-Israel lies. But when a relative of mine in Israel recently mentioned a chance meeting with Avigdor Kahalani, I was reminded of the numerous ways in which he is a living symbol of truth in a world of anti-Israel liars.
Kahalani is the son of Jewish immigrants from Yemen. They lived in the same city where the Houthi terrorists today have their headquarters, Saadia. Which makes him and his family “people of color” just as much as Rashida Tlaib or Ilhan Omar. “Jews of color,” in fact, constitute a majority of Israel’s population.
A recent study by the Pew Research Center found that only 45% of Israeli Jews are of Ashkenazi, or European, descent. Fully 55% are immigrants, or children of immigrants, from the Middle East, Africa or Asia. The old stereotype that all, or even most, Israelis are descended from European Jews who came to Israel because of the Holocaust should be relegated to the dustbin of history.
Which makes it especially ironic that at many of the pro-Hamas rallies on U.S. college campuses over the past year, demonstrators have yelled, “Go back to Poland!” or “Go Back to Germany!”
Not that those protesters were the first antisemites to indulge in such rhetoric. Hearst News Service columnist Helen Thomas, who was widely regarded as the dean of White House correspondents for decades, infamously said the same thing in 2010. Asked for her comments on Israel, Thomas blurted, “Tell them to get the hell out of Palestine.” The interviewer asked, “Where should they go?” To which Thomas responded: “They can go home. Poland. Germany.”
The Kahalanis won’t be going back to terrorist-infested Yemen any time soon. The Iraqi-born Jews in Israel won’t be going back to the land of the Farhud, the mass murder of Jews by their Baghdad pogromists neighbors in 1941. Syrian Jews in Israel are not anxious to return to the country where they were systematically tortured and oppressed. Ethiopian Jews prefer Israel to the land of famine and persecution where they were born.
This month marks the 40th anniversary of the U.S. airlift of 800 starving Ethiopian Jews who were stranded at the Sudan-Ethiopia border—a shining example of American-Israeli cooperation. It was part of the rescue mission launched by former Prime Minister Menachem Begin to bring more than 10,000 Ethiopian Jews home to Israel. He showed the world that “Black Jewish lives matter.” What other nation in history ever went into Africa with the sole purpose of bringing Africans out to freedom, honor and safety? The answer is: none.
In the years since then, Ethiopian-born Israelis have served as cabinet ministers, members of Knesset and ambassadors. Like the Kahalanis and other Yemenites Jews, they are fully integrated into society.
While Arab countries were refusing to absorb and resettle Palestinian Arabs who fled newborn Israel in 1948, the Israelis were absorbing and resettling the hundreds of thousands of Jews expelled from Arab countries with nothing but the clothes on their backs.
Avigdor Kahalani is one of those countless success stories, the living embodiment of Jews of all backgrounds forging a new multiethnic country. Their Israel is a true land of diversity, by contrast with the exclusionary fundamentalist dictatorships that fill the Middle East.
Kahalani’s education included a stint at the U.S. Command and General Staff College, at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas. That program is a symbol of the longtime close cooperation between the Israeli and American militaries. The top military brass from both countries have learned much from each other—especially when politicians have not gotten in the way.
Despite suffering serious wounds in the 1967 war, Kahalani returned to the front. He commanded a tank brigade on the Golan Heights that helped save Israel from Syrian aggression in the 1973 Yom Kippur War.
From there, Kahalani entered the tumultuous world of Israeli politics, following a well-worn path that many ex-Israeli generals have trod. He was deputy mayor of Tel Aviv, a Knesset member for seven years and a cabinet member. Can you imagine a Jew enjoying that kind of career in Yemen?
During his Knesset years, Kahalani chaired the Golan Lobby, which advocated for the interests of the Golan Heights region and its residents as a part of the State of Israel. What’s notable is that he did so as a member of Israel’s left-wing Labor Party. It’s a reminder that in Israel, there is a very broad consensus from left to right in favor of keeping the Golan as part of Israel.
Kahalani’s story is Zionism, the dream of 2,000 years that has become reality—the beautiful and eternal love of the Jewish people for one another.