[Interview conducted by Sharona eshet-Kohen]
Sharona Eshet-Kohen (SEK): Mrs. Bohrer, it is such an honor to interview you! You and your late husband Rabbi Dr. Yehuda Bohrer are legends in Bet El - one of the very first families to move here over 40 years ago! Tell me, where did it all begin? How did you get to Israel?
Helen Bohrer (HB): I'm originally from New York. As a young woman I went to Israel and had planned to stay, but then my father got sick and I had to go home. After he passed away, on the last day of shloshim [30 days of mourning following a family member's death], I met my husband Yehuda, who was studying at Yeshiva University at the time. He was the first Israeli to learn at YU on a visa. He never became a US citizen and had always planned to return to Israel after finishing his degree, so it was always understood that we would go. By the time we moved to Israel we already had four children.
SEK: Wow, sounds like it was meant to be. How did you meet?
HB: I had been accepted to Columbia graduate school, but while I waited for the following school year to begin, I began teaching at a local Jewish day school. Most Jewish kids at that time went to public school and then attended a "Talmud Torah" [Hebrew school] in the afternoons, based out of day schools. One day, as I was leaving the school, the Talmud Torah principal passed by me on his way in. He stopped me and asked for my phone number and I gave it to him! It took him a few days to call, but we eventually went out and three weeks later we were engaged! We were engaged in March and our wedding was three months later in June. We were married for 56 years until his passing.
SEK: And how did you and Yehuda get from New York to Bet El?
HB: Well, we came, my husband and four kids and I, to Israel in 1970, in between the Six Day War and the Yom Kippur War. We came without an apartment or work or anything and lived out our first year in Ramle. Yehuda got a job teaching Jewish history at Hebrew University. Our second year we spent in the moshav Beit Meir where Yehuda headed an institute while continuing to teach at Hebrew U. Then we bought an apartment in Jerusalem, where we lived for five years. During that time we lived through the Yom Kippur War and the rise of Gush Emunim [Judea and Samaria settlement movement led by Rav Tzvi Yehuda HaKohen Kook]. We were convinced by the goals of Gush Emunim - that we can't hold land without Jewish settlement - and I still believe that's true today. We called them up and told them we were interested in helping to establish a new yishuv [Jewish community in Judea and Samaria].
The nucleus of the first 17 families was formed and we left for Bet El. I still remember the night we moved. It was incredibly foggy, as only Bet El can be, and I thought, "What am I doing moving my kids to the end of the world?" By that time we already had seven! But everyone was very nice and very helpful, and soon a sense of community developed and we felt part of it - the good parts and the challenges. And there were lots of challenges! But once we were a part of it, we never considered leaving. I asked Yehuda when we first moved, "What if nothing develops and we stay stuck in these army barracks?" He said we would give it half a year and see, and by the time six months came around we were so involved there was no question of leaving.
The first 17 families were all quartered at the end of the army base - the area doesn't exist anymore. Every family was given one and a half rooms, but since we were the biggest family we were given two and a half rooms. All 17 families shared one common bathroom and we didn't have a kitchen either, just a table, a few chairs, and a stove top. Our two eldest slept on a pullout couch, we had a baby in a crib, and four more in a room cramped with bunkbeds and trundle beds. I remember the first time my mother-in-law came to visit. She just stood there and cried. And then she went out and bought us a secondhand fridge, which we had to keep outside for lack of space. But we managed! And we got so used to managing that, a few months later when trailers arrived with a bathroom and a kitchen, it felt like luxury beyond measure!
About five months after that came the really difficult part. At the entrance of today's Bet El was a building large enough for 30 families that we had to move into before they finished the infrastructure - meaning no water, no electricity, and no sewage system. The Palestinians had brought a court case claiming the land was theirs - now that happens often, but then it was one of the first of its kind - and since possession is 9/10 of the law, overnight everyone had to move into their homes before they were finished. By the time our first Shabbat there came around someone had pulled an electric line from the army base, but there was only enough electricity for our fridge and a small light. We had running water but the sink was not connected to a pipe, so we had a pail under the sink collecting the water. And because we had no sewage system we had to use chemical toilets. The sewage caused a lot of people to get hepatitis. In our family, the baby got sick first, and then I caught it, and it ultimately spread to all my other kids as well. I was pregnant at the time so I stayed sick for the longest, but we all eventually recovered. It was after the hepatitis outbreak that the court allowed us to install a sewage system, which is the most complicated and permanent infrastructure required for a community to function.
SEK: Why was it so important for you and your husband to live in Judea and Samaria? So important that you were willing to live through incredibly difficult, uncomfortable, and often even dangerous moments.
HB: In short, it's ours. But the world is such that that's not enough. An historical claim is not enough. We have to live here. Without active communities, you can't hold down a land, and that's why it's very important to live here. So firstly, it's ours. But secondly, strategically, it's also very important. Israel can't hold Tel-Aviv, Jerusalem, Haifa, if we don't also have Judea and Samaria, because, with the weaponry of today, from the high ground Palestinians could destroy the soft underbelly of Israel.
SEK: So you really have lived on the front lines of the struggle. It seems like you've lead a very meaningful life. Switching gears a little bit, what would you say is your most important accomplishment.
HB: My family. I raised eight children with a husband who could not be home very often because his work required him to be teaching, or leading tours, or abroad for the Yeshiva. But I managed to raise eight beautiful children who all have good professions and who all live in yishuvim in Judea and Samaria. I have (bli ayin hara) 44 grandchildren - 50 if you count our adopted daughter's children - and 15 great grandchildren so far.
SEK: And what would you suppose was your husband's most important accomplishment?
HB: I wish he was here so I could ask him. His whole life was one of positive activity, from the time he came to Israel as a small child after his father was killed in Dachau [German concentration camp]. At the age of 15 he was already serving in the Hagana in Tel-Aviv. As part of the pluga datit unit he participated in the famous attempt to break the blockade of Jerusalem to bring the Yerushalmi Jews food and supplies. He also served in Ben Shemen for a year, when it was cut off for about half a year until Moshe Dayan came and freed them, and then he took part in the battle of Lod. After the War of Independence, he obtained two degrees from Hebrew University and then met Rav Lookstein, who arranged for him to attend Yeshiva University. He was the first Israeli to receive smicha [rabbinical ordination] from YU, and he obtained his Masters and Doctorate there as well. I don't know how he would answer your question, but I do know that any cause he believed in, whether it was to move to Bet El, or to raise a family, he put his full heart into. He was a very unique individual.
SEK: Last question - what is your favorite memory with Yehuda?
HB: Oh, I don't know how to answer that - how do you put 56 years of love and meaningful experiences into one memory?