The Writer Haim Be'er
Professor (Emeritus) in the Department of Hebrew Literature

 

"There was a military parade in Jerusalem, after the War of Independence. The parade passed through Jaffa Street in Jerusalem, and my cousin Yehuda Azoulay, was already a brave soldier in the Signal Corps. He was supposed to travel by jeep with the Signal Corps flag, along with the driver and two other soldiers in front of him and two more behind him. I was around 6-7 years old and in those days there was rationing, and my family had a shop, a Tnuva branch in the Geula neighborhood. On the morning of the march, my cousin turned up with the jeep and three friends from his unit. They stopped near our house, parked and came inside. My mother made them a breakfast full of dairy products, and omelets, and coffee with cream. After the meal, they took me for a spin; there were four of us in the speeding jeep. My cousin let me hold the flag, and I – a child in shorts – was overwhelmed by the significance of the moment as we drove through the streets of Jerusalem. We passed by the Schneller camp and through the city's main streets, and I was the happiest person in the world. 

Another Independence Day sticks in my mind for the wrong reasons. It was in 1990. On Sunday evening I was supposed to light a torch on Mount Herzl, and on Saturday evening after Havdalah, a giant blaze suddenly invaded our home. I later learned that fanatic right wingers set our front door on fire "because of what I had done against the State". Their court had decided that I should be burned alive. We barely managed to put out the fire. My son Avraham, who is now a researcher at the Jacob Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research, went into action. He quickly picked up a blanket and smothered the fire. That is how our lives were saved on Independence Day in 1990.

Read about other BGU faculty, alumni and honorees describing significant moments in their lives, linking them to the nation's history >>>>​​​