A Passion for Israel: Adventures of a Sar-El Volunteer by Mark Werner, Gefen Publishing House, ISBN 9789657-023242 © 2020, 466 pages.
SAN DIEGO – As literature, I was indifferent to this book, so filled is it with repetition, routine, and manual drudgery. And yet, as a vehicle for idealism, I found it to be an exceptional piece of work.
Mark Werner is a retired corporate attorney from North Carolina, who at least once a year for the past 18 years has traveled to Israel at his own expense to sweat and grunt for three weeks as a manual laborer at various installations maintained by the Israel Defense Force. The jobs varied from assignment to assignment, but they all involved hard work, typically in the hot sun of Israel and inside even hotter warehouses.
Sometimes Werner had to pull down heavy crates from shelves, remove and replace materials that had passed their expiration dates, and then hoist the crates back up onto the shelves. He unpacked and repacked artillery shells. One time he installed guide wires along a steep trail; another time he removed fire-prone dry brush near ammunition dumps. He shared such chores with other members of the Sar-El, a corps of volunteer men and women ranging in age from their teens to their 70s, who are inspired to help Israel to be always ready to defend itself.
Throughout the years, Werner and his compatriots prided themselves on being able to quickly finish whatever work was assigned to them — so quickly, in fact, that they would do in a few hours what had been expected to take a full day. Their pace often would outrun the available materials, giving them time to take much needed showers, eat together, and learn about each other and about the soldiers with whom they came in daily contact.
Werner had one pet peeve: laziness. Whether fellow volunteers or soldiers, those who shirked their work irked him. He also was offended—and quick to speak against—any instances of sexual harassment in the mixed gender workplaces.
Typically, the Sar-El volunteers were rewarded with lectures and field trips to different points of military and cultural interest in Israel, providing them with insights which Werner dutifully passes along. To provide readers with a timeline, Warner recites the chronology of major events in Israel and the Jewish world between and during his assignments. The book was completed so recently tht it includes a reference to last year’s armed attack on Chabad of Poway, right here in San Diego County, that took the life of Lori Gilbert Kaye.
*
Donald H. Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World. He may be contacted via donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com