Yechezkel Goldberg, a”h, was known for telling people that if one attendee showed up to hear him lecture, he would speak to that person with the same passion as if he or she were a room of people. And he would consider the evening a success. After all, the Jewish way of thinking is that to save one life is to save the entire world.

Yechezkel’s lesson was brought home on Thursday, May 6, in Washington, DC, at the Remember Israel rally sponsored by Christians for Israel and ZAKA, the Orthodox volunteer group that painstakingly retrieves body parts after terrorist attacks. A few good men, women and children showed up to defend Israel and Jewish lives.

That was all that was needed. Just a few. On the other hand, there was no missing the terrible statement made by DC Jewry to the world: Jews are too busy to care about a bus of dead commuters who gave their lives so that American Jewry can live the good life. 

Jews do care. Selectively. Synagogues from across America, along with Jewish organizations like Hadassah, walked in Planned Parenthood’s recent March for Women, thronging DC streets in the largest pro-abortion rally yet. Jews march for gay/lesbian/transgender rights and against the International Monetary Fund.

In the case of this pro-Israel rally, synagogues were notified, as were schools, rabbis, cantors, chaplains, and of course, readers of Chezi Goldberg’s columns. But how many people actually showed up? A handful. Yeshiva girls. Law enforcement personnel. Politicos. There were a few members of Jews for Jesus and Neturei Karta.

The Jews for Jesus, it must be said, were quick to go after the Neturei Karta, who unabashedly stood in defiance of the memory of those Israelis killed on Bus 19. The people from Christians for Israel, meanwhile, could not understand how Jews could applaud the brutal murder of eleven innocent people. Ranks were closed by the handful of Jews present (other than Neturei Karta); the dead were honored and Israel’s right to live in peace was defended. All it takes is a handful to stand up against apathy. It took a handful in the Holocaust. The Warsaw Ghetto. Mila 18.

On any given day, Jews from around the world roam the DC streets with political agendas. They call it ‘cultivating friends of Israel.’ A friend, according to the dictionary, is “one attached to another by affection or esteem.” The people being cultivated are not friends. They are politicians with the goal of staying in office.

Sen. Hillary Clinton spoke from the dias at the pro-abortion rally. As did many other prominent figures. None of them found the time to come to the Remember Israel rally. After all, the excuse went, there was no notifying announcement that the twisted wreckage of Bus 19 was coming to Washington. By contrast, speakers were booked for the pro-abortion rally a year ago. In response to the excuses an e-mail was sent: “Will book talking time with you the next time a bomb murderer gives notice he intends to slaughter innocent Jews.”

Blocks away from Bus 19, at the Capitol Hilton, Jewish attendees at a national conference were scurrying to and from sessions on how to make political friends for Israel. A lone conference attendee, suffering from a variety of ailments, took a cab to Bus 19. “I offered to pay cab fares over,” she said. “No one came. No one cared.” She owns an apartment in Israel. This was personal.

And, yes, Christians can like Jews. Without wanting to convert them. Without secret agendas. This was not the day to get choosy. Or maybe it was. A minister friend once told me, “Go where you are celebrated, not tolerated.” Other cities are calling Bus 19. Denver, Colorado. Detroit, Michigan. Brookline, Massachusetts. Baltimore, Maryland.

American Jews are learning who are our friends are. Yechezkel Goldberg knew. That is why he asked, in a column circulated around the world, whether we had lost our souls. That is why he shared with readers advice on how to keep the few friends Israel had. Paraphrasing the actress Sally Fields, “They like us. They really like us.” If only Jews took the time to listen. And hear.

Israel has few friends. Value the ones who declare themselves and don’t turn them away with rude assumptions. Israel cannot afford to lose any more friends. It already lost Chezi Goldberg. Bus 19. 1-29-04.