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CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
ica where Jews, Negroes, and dogs are not wanted, where antiSemitism, discrimination, and race hatred still rule. Here we
are men. We are fighters. What the Nazis did to us no one
can do to us here. Israel is our new home—the home of those
unwanted because they are Jews."
Miriam from Boro Park, Brooklyn, said to me: "I came
eight months ago to get my doctorate in sociology at Hebrew
University. One day my friend Moshe was killed—cut to
pieces, and bis body burned. Another day they brought a
bloodsoaked body to the hospital. It was my fiance. Many of
my other friends have died here. I cannot desert them. I shall
stay to take their place. Israel, their graveyard, will become
my new home, my country. Every dead friend I shall try to
replace with a living baby."
A decorated ex-GI gave this answer: "If the German bullet
had come four inches nearer my heart I'd have been dead
now. I fought for Uncle Sam because I believed in democracy.
I am fighting now because I believe in democracy for my people. What is the difference where you fight for these things?
Since I was born a Jew what is more natural than to fight for
my convictions here?"
They fought—the ex-GI, Miriam, the young man from
Chicago—with hundreds like them from all parts of the
world. They spoke in a babel of accents but t