A Million a Minute

There was little doubt as to where the majority of Americans stood. In Chicago's Loop, Mayor's Row restaurant changed the name of one of its dining rooms from "Little Egypt" to the "Tel Aviv Room." In Miami, a group of Cuban exiles approached a rabbi and offered to fight against the Arabs. In Boston, Cardinal Gushing and 18 other high-ranking Catholic and Protestant churchmen came out for Israel. So did more than 3,700 university professors from around the country in a signed newspaper statement.

Scores of politicians, reflecting their constituents' sympathies, appeared at rallies for Israel. Said Dallas Fund Raiser Jack Kravatz: "Our donations are from Jew and non-Jew alike. We've had inquiries from church groups and from people walking in off the street to hand us a check. They have all called themselves friends of Israel who want to know how they can best help."

Blood & Money. The heaviest support came, naturally, from the 5,720,000 American Jews. At a luncheon meeting in New York's Waldorf-Astoria on the day the fighting started, $1,000,000 a minute was pledged during one quarter-hour. That night in Chicago, another $2.5 million was raised. Next night in Atlanta, $1.1 million more was forthcoming. The pace was so fast that officials often had no idea how much they had collected. In New York, where the United Jewish Appeal set up an Israel Emergency Fund, Executive Vice President Herbert Friedman jotted down a flood of big-money pledges on odd scraps of office memo paper. "This," he said, "is a hell of a way to raise millions of dollars."

The little man was also contributing heavily. A newly bar-mitzvahed Denver 13-year-old gave the $500 relatives had just given him. "You have got it all now," said a Jewish Theological Seminary professor in a letter accompanying a check for $25,000. A Negro woman in St. Louis sent $25 in gratitude for the help she had received from Jewish agencies. Donors went into debt, sold their cars, cashed in securities and life insurance policies. "If Israelis can give their blood," said one man, "we can give what we have." By week's end more than a million had given $90 million to the Emergency Fund. It will all go towards welfare programs in Israel and is therefore taxdeductible.

Clear as Neon. There were other kinds of gifts, too. A Manhattan cab driver marched into the headquarters of the Jewish Agency for Israel with two sturdy youths, announcing: "I have no money to give you, but I'll give you my sons." More than 8,000 young Americans volunteered to go to Israel, and 200 of them managed to get in before the U.S. State Department barred travel to the area. They were expected to help with the harvest that is due soon and to fill in for men at the front. Many Americans already in Israel fled the area (see following story), but a goodly number insisted on staying and helping. Cabled a Brooklyn girl to her worried parents: SINCE WHEN HAS OUR FAMILY BEGUN TO RAISE CHICKENS?

No Americans were known to have joined the fighting--or were needed--but at least one, the Rev. Vendyl Jones of Sudan, Texas, lent civilian support. Wandering near the Jordan border from a kibbutz where he had been working, the Baptist minister started talking to the Israeli commander, who soon discovered that the Rev. Mr. Jones possessed a rare skill. His eyes, though colorblind, are somehow uniquely sensitive to the kind of synthetic dyes used in camouflage fabrics. "When I see that kind of dye," he explained, "it shines like new money." Peering through binoculars, he soon spotted, clear as neon, the important details of a neatly concealed Jordanian gun emplacement a mile away. Using Jones as a spotter, the Israelis quickly knocked out the guns and began the march that a day and a half later ended in the capture of Jerusalem's Old City.

New Hawks. Back in the U.S., relatives and friends anxious for news from Israel clogged phone lines so badly that they had to reserve calls three weeks in advance. Calls to Arab countries were also delayed by a week; Arab support across the nation, however, was all but nonexistent. Some 200 Arab demonstrators, including a few Black Muslims and Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee members, mounted a picket line in front of the White House. But they were drowned out by some 20,000 demonstrators across the street who assembled to urge U.S. support for Israel and wound up celebrating Egypt's agreement to a ceasefire.

The pro-Israel rally provoked more than a few ironic smiles in Administration circles. Hawkish on Israel, many Jewish leaders have been among the most dovish in the U.S. on Viet Nam. SANE, which had been planning an anti-Viet Nam war rally last week, was forced to cancel the meeting, partly because so many members were out demonstrating for Israel.

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