As the bitter New York cold ushers in the new semester with uninviting weather and street salt that stains the floors of our hallowed universities, we once again find ourselves facing shockingly exorbitant text book prices. The solution? Well, ten million dollars certainly couldn’t hurt.
And, as I discovered on Thursday, January 20, they’re yours -– if you can locate confirmable information about Ron Arad and pass it on to the Born to Freedom Foundation. I was at the press conference announcing Born to Freedom’s $10 million reward for information about Mr. Arad at the Israel consulate in New York.
Captain Ron Arad is an Israeli air force pilot who was captured by the Iranian-backed Shiite Amal group on October 16, 1986. Israeli intelligence acts as if Mr. Arad were still alive, but it has never confirmed it in the media. The Winograd commission (2002) set up by Israeli defense minister Shaul Mofaz suggested that Arad is alive and in captivity, in the absence of proof otherwise.
Born to Freedom rests on that assumption: its mission is “to help locate and bring home Ron along with the other Israeli MIAs.” The foundation claims to be supported by family and close friends of Arad’s, as well as by “leading public figures and several public bodies along with the State of Israel,” although, strangely, neither Danny Eisen – the Chairman of The International Coalition for Missing Israeli Soldiers – nor the Coalition itself seem to be involved in this effort. Possibly, this is because of a long-standing Israeli policy not to offer such rewards in cases like Arad’s.
At the press conference, I heard Ambassador Mr. Arye Mekel, the Consul General of Israel in New York, and Uri Chen, CEO of the Born to Freedom Foundation. Ambassador Mekel sat at the head of the table with a large cardboard slab in front of him, and a prominent Israeli flag behind him.
I asked him why his organization—given that it seemed in a position to raise the $10 million—had decided to allocate the funds to a project of this sort. After all, it’s far from certain that Arad is alive, and many starving Israelis are in immediate need. He told me that since he is not the Israeli government, Israeli poverty isn’t his problem. Then he stressed the importance of pidyon sh’vuyim—literally, redeeming captives—as a Jewish value. It still seems strange to me, though, to invoke a halakhic imperative of saving a prisoner who may not be alive above and beyond an immediate quantifiable need. I ask Mr. Mekel whether the money will be sent to any charitable organizations if the project fails, or if it will simply disappear. I hear some snickers, and Mr. Mekel assured me that they are counting on success.
The strategy, after all, derives directly from Sir Thomas More’s “Utopia,” which suggests the military strategy of offering large sums of money to anyone who kills the opposing king or officials. Despite any questions of mine as to where the money might better be spent, the technique seems to have worked with the war in Iraq as well, so it is clearly a smart strategy.
I applaud the Consulate General and Born to Freedom for their efforts in this regard, and I encourage interested students to get involved, which they can find more information about at http://www.israelfm.org/.
