A Letter from a Defender of the Old City
The War of Independence lasted eighteen months, during which more than 5,600 Israelis were killed. One of them was a young woman named Esther Cailingold, who died defending the Old City of Yerushalayim.
Esther was born in London, shaped by a Religious Zionist home and her years in Bnei Akiva. In 1946, she made Aliyah and became an English teacher in Yerushalayim. When war broke out, she was one of the 150 defenders of the Old City, fighting to hold back the Arab advance. On May 26th, an explosion left her with severe spinal injuries. Despite her wounds, she left her hospital bed to rejoin the fight – and was then struck by a bullet.
She lay dying without morphine; there were no supplies left. Someone offered her a cigarette. She refused – it was Shabbat. She asked for a siddur, davened Kabbalat Shabbat, and passed away during Shabbat Bechukotai, May 29th, 1948.
After her death, a letter was found addressed to her parents, urging them not to grieve but to be proud. In recent years, letters and ethical wills of fallen Israeli soldiers have surfaced across the country, each one a window into the souls of those who built this state. Here is one of the earliest: the letter of a fighter of Yerushalayim, from Israel’s first war.
Dear Mummy and Daddy, and everyone –
If this reaches you at all, it will be, I suppose, typical of all my rushed, messy letters. I am writing to beg you: find it in yourselves to accept what has happened to me, to accept it in the spirit I intended – and know that I have no regrets. We have fought a bitter fight and we have been through gehenom – but it has been worth it, because I am completely convinced that in the end we will see a Jewish state and the realization of everything we dreamed of.
I will be only one of many who fell. I felt compelled to write this because someone very close to me was killed today, and the grief I felt made me want you to receive any such news differently – to remember that we were soldiers with the greatest and most noble cause anyone could fight for. G-d is with us, I know, in His Holy City. I am proud, and I am ready to pay whatever price is asked of me.
Don’t think I took unnecessary risks. When human resources are few, there is no other choice. I hope you will have the chance to meet some of my fellow fighters who survive, if I do not – and that you will feel proud, not sad, when you hear how they speak of me. Please, please, don’t be sadder than you can bear. I have lived my life fully, if briefly, and I believe this is the best way – “short and sweet.” Very sweet it has been, here in our own land. I hope you will find in Mimi and Asher the nachas you didn’t get from me. Let it be without regrets – and then I, too, will be happy. I am thinking of every one of you, every single member of this family, and I feel a deep joy knowing that one day – very soon, I hope – you will come and enjoy the fruits of what we are fighting for.
Much, much love. Be happy, and remember me in happiness.
Shalom and lehitraot,
Your loving Esther