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| Chaim Silberstein and his family |
Sharona Cohen: Tell me about your childhood.
Chaim Silberstein: I grew up in Johannesburg, South Africa, in a traditional but not observant family. I became religious and Zionist in my late teens through the Beitar and Bnei Akiva youth movements. After high school I was drafted to the South African army, where I spent two years.
While I was in the army I became shomer Shabbat [Sabbath observant] and I also decided at that time to make Aliyah and leave South Africa. I had come to the realization that South Africa was not my country and that I was wasting my time in a foreign army.
Additionally, my Zionist education had led me to want to live full Jewish life and I realized that a full Jewish life meant being religious and living in Israel. I’d never been to Israel before. In 1980, within one month of completing my army service, I made Aliyah.
SC: What is your Aliyah story?
CS: I arrived in Israel in January 1980, exactly 40 years ago. I joined the Mechina [pre-university prep] program at Hebrew U, which was a great social and educational framework for me, because I didn’t know many people in Israel and there were several other South Africans in the program. I stayed at Hebrew U for the next six years, completing my first degree in economics and business, and then an MBA.
During my time at Hebrew U, I became active in student politics, and I was involved with the student union there together with people like MK Israel Katz, MK Avigdor Lieberman, and MK Tzachi HaNegbi. Then I joined a Beit Midrash [Torah learning] program at Hebrew U to strengthen my Judaism.
During my Masters, I continued to learn in a morning kollel [intensive Torah learning group] at Hebrew U, in a synagogue overlooking Har Habayit [the Temple Mount]. At that point I decided want to be more religious and learn in yeshiva.
After getting my Masters I wasn’t under pressure from my parents (or myself) to continue in academia, and I felt comfortable to go learn at a yeshiva. People asked me, "How can you go learn in yeshiva, now you have an MBA - go work!" I would answer them, "In university I learned how to do business. At yeshiva I want to learn how to behave in business."
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| Chaim with his son, daughter-in-law, first grandchild, and wife |
SC: Why did you choose the Bet El Yeshiva?
CS: When I started looking at yeshivas, I knew I wanted a place that was in Judea or Samaria, because I was idealistic, and I wanted it to be Hebrew speaking, because I felt my Hebrew was advanced enough after being in Israel for nearly six years.
I had friends from South Africa living in Bet El and learning in the yeshiva here, and I came to spend some Shabbatot with them. At that time, 1985, Bet El Bet had only about 200 families and the yeshiva was also relatively small. But when I visited I fell in love with the place.
SC: When and what did you learn in the Bet El Yeshiva?
CS: At the time, the Yeshiva offered a unique program for hutznik [students from abroad] graduate students. We had a few separate classes, but the rest were with everyone else. We learned in Hebrew, but because we were all older, and had all come from other countries, the program gave us a certain framework to learn together.
They didn't emphasize Gemara skills, which a lot of people who went to other Yeshivot first had already. Those of us who came straight to Bet El had to jump in headfirst.
Rav Eliezer Melamed (the author of Pninei Halakha and son of the Rosh Yeshiva) was one of our rabbis there. He was very harif [controversial], very strict about not going back to galut [Diaspora] and staying in the Land of Israel. That’s why the Bet El Yeshiva never really had a one year program - because anyone who came, stayed.
I learned on and off at the Yeshiva from 1985-1989. During that period I also did my Israeli army service as a combat medic, and I was also the founding Chairman for Yavneh Olami, the World Organization of Religious Students.
I also took off six months to go on shlichut [working in education in a Jewish community abroad] in South Africa as the Director and Educational Director of the South African Union of Jewish Students.
SC: How did you come to live in Bet El and raise your family here?
CS: After I left the Yeshiva I decided to stay in Bet El. I was working as the VP of a construction company in Bet El and I bought a house in the Nitzanit neighborhood. I got married relatively late, at the age of 32. I was one of the few bachelors in Bet El and it was like having a disease - I couldn’t even become a member of the yishuv!
I eventually met my wife Liora in 1992 and we got married in 1993. She was also originally from South Africa, but raised in Australia. After we got married we moved into the house...and we still live there today.
SC: Speaking of family, what can you tell us about them?
CS: We have seven children, two of whom are married. My daughter Shira and her husband live in Alon Moreh and my son Ariel and his wife live in Tel Aviv and are part of a Garin [religious-Zionist outreach group] there.
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| Four of Chaim's seven children |
CS: Today I own a real estate company, but I am also the Founder and President of a public diplomacy organization for Jerusalem, called Keep Jerusalem-Im Eshkachech. I'm also involved in land reformation in east Jerusalem. And I'm a member of the Bet El Municipal Council and I chair several of its committees.
SC: How has your time at the Yeshiva influenced your life? Do you have any connection with the yeshiva today?
CS: The greatest influence of the Yeshiva on my life was the emuna [faith] it taught me. My experience at the Bet El Yeshiva was priceless - it gave me a very strong basis for understanding why I made Aliyah in the first place, and the importance of living in the heartland of Eretz Yisrael. And it definitely influenced my decision to stay in Bet El and raise my family in this beautiful environment. I still have a connection to the Yeshiva today and some of my best friends are guys I learned with in the Yeshiva.
SC: Your daughter, Shira Ish-Ran, was a victim in an awful terrorist attack about a year and a half ago. Can you relay the story and any lessons you took from the experience?
CS: On the last night of Hanuka in 2018, my daughter Shira and her husband Amichai were standing at a bus stop outside Ofra. Two terrorists - brothers from the Barghouti clan - opened fire on them and others standing at the bus stop. Both Shira and Amichai were shot. Shira was critically injured and she was seven months pregnant at the time. Amichai was moderately injured. Five or six others were lightly wounded.
Because of Shira's critical situation the baby was given an emergency C-section but he didn’t survive. He died after three days. Shira and Amichai got a psak [halakhic ruling] from Rav Shmuel Eliyahu to name the baby and give him a proper burial. They named him Amiad Yisrael.
Shira is still in rehab and has a lot of healing to do both physically and emotionally. It's an ongoing process. Amichai too, although physically he is doing quite well.
Last week the court gave the psak din [court verdict] against the terrorist who survived - Asam Barghouti - after a year long court procedure. His brother, Salah, had been shot and killed during the attack. Asam received four life sentences with a recommendation to never be traded. We hope he'll rot in jail.
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| Shira and Amichai Ish-Ran |
Regarding lessons learned, I was amazed how much emuna and internal strength Shira and Amichai had after the attack, despite the incredible trauma they went through and are still going through. Their reaction was a direct result of the education they received. Both were educated in Bet El Institutions - Amichai learned at the Bnei Tzvi Yeshiva for Boys, as did my son, and Shira learned at the Jeanie Gluck High School Academy for Girls.
SC: What message would you like to give to our readers abroad?
CS: Your support for Israel, and specifically for right-wing and Jewish nationalist organizations, is critical, cannot be underestimated, should continue, and should strengthen. But I think one of the important takeaways from the Corona situation should be a wake up call for Jews all over the world to realize that Israel should be your home - not your second or third choice - but your first choice of home, and we’re looking forward to welcoming you and your children back home as soon possible!