Into the Blue: A Yalie in Israel's Civil Guard

20 November 2002

Dear Friends:

I am a volunteer in the Israel Police Force's Civil Guard. When I was approached to write a "Letter From Israel," it seemed natural to write about this aspect of my experience here; it is quite a stretch from the things I used to do during my four years in New Haven, and I thought my experiences and ruminations about them might be of interest to current students.

Like many people who grew up within the American-Jewish post-Yom Kippur War generation, I maintained, somewhere in the back of my mind, a promissory note that committed me to coming to Israel in case a war broke out, in order to help my fellow Jews in their time of need. During Israel's 1982 Lebanon War, it wasn't realistic for me to come to Israel as a junior high school student and when Israel was attacked in the Gulf War in 1991, for a variety of reasons (some good and some not so good) I decided to stay at Yale and lead prayer services on the airy expanse of Cross-Campus on behalf of those huddled in sealed rooms with their gas masks on. Despite my failure to live up to what I believed was my responsibility at those moments, I felt that I still had a personal commitment to Israel's security and thought I'd do my part in the "next" war.

In time, I made Aliya, and figured that as part of this process I would get called up for army reserve service and in this way feel like I had fulfilled my commitment. However, after a brief day-long call up on which I was administered a battery of tests and interviews by army doctors and psychologists, I never heard from them again. When I found out my wife was pregnant with my first child, I wrote to the army asking to be called up before rather than during the birth but after a series of telephone calls with the officers in charge, they left me with the distinct impression that they "appreciated" my input but that they'd call me when they needed me.

Following the breakdown of the Camp David peace talks in September 2000, and the onslaught of Palestinian terrorist attacks against Israeli civilian targets which followed, I, like many Israelis, looked for a way to do something active to protect our country. Here was a war, and I still possessed that unredeemed promissory note.

I decided to enlist in Israel's Civil Guard. This is a unit of civilians under the Israeli police who patrol the cities in which they live, protecting them from terrorist incursions. On the one hand it is a relatively easy commitment - a few patrols a month in an area which, until now (thank God), has been nearly free of terror attacks. On the other hand, as my wife pointed out, it puts me more in harms way than I would be just staying at home watching events on television. While my decision has caused a lot of family tension, I felt like it was the least I could do.

Civil Guard training is (frighteningly) short. The first step is undergoing the Civil Guard's legal and practical training session which is basically a primer on how and when to arrest suspects. A week later I got called up for marksmanship training. The marksmanship training at the firing range included lectures on the history of the weapons, parts, use, loading and clearing, rules of engagement and of course, firing practice. I was morally and physically uncomfortable with the idea and practice of firing a weapon. In the past, I have had a number of opportunities to fire a gun, but always declined and was always against citizens owning guns. The situation has changed now, and so have my beliefs.

One of the things that I was very happy to see was the respect and fear which the instructors had for the weapons. They conveyed this to us in no uncertain terms. As soon as the magazines entered the weapons, everyone went into hyper-concentration mode. No talking was allowed and everyone was made to focus on the fact that we were holding a device which could be deadly.

The head instructor asked if there was anyone in the room who had never fired a weapon. Of the 50 people at the session, me and two girls in their late teens raised our hands. Everyone else had been in the army (or was lying) so this wasn't new to them. They took me outside to do some "beginners training" but when an appropriate room couldn't be found they returned me to the regular session. When it came time to go up to the firing line, they asked again if anyone had not fired a gun before, and this time, I made sure to actively not hear the question. I figured that while I had never fired anything more powerful than a water pistol, I had logged numerous hours on army computer games and that should count for something.

I was one of the first five people up and was quite nervous because as the target was set at only 30 meters away (100 feet) the instructor said he expected tight concentrations of hits from all of us, otherwise our status in the unit was in jeopardy. At the instructor's signal, I loaded the magazine, chambered a round, took the safety off the rifle and took aim. Maybe it's my eyesight, but 30 meters seemed quite a distance and as the target was only about a third of the size of a man, it was hard to even make out its details.

As luck would have it, my rifle jammed on the first shot. By the time I was done clearing the jam, all the others on the line had pressed the button which returned their target to them and I looked around and saw that they hadn't all done so well. The guy to my left, whom I had know from my synagogue and who told me earlier in the day that he had extensive shooting experience and could field strip and assemble an Uzi blindfolded, showed me his target and he didn't hit the target even once. Now I got really nervous. After emptying my magazine, I returned my target and anxiously waited to see if they were going to kick me out of the civil guards. To my great surprise, all the rounds had found their target and there was a tight group of holes all within the outline of the body. An instructor looked at the target and said, "Wow…that's really good." I was so proud of myself, but after a few seconds of reflection I realized that if this is what you can do, on your first try, it proves how tremendously easy it is to kill people with guns. Still, I left the range with a very confident feeling (especially because of the anxiety I had felt earlier) knowing that while the range is not a good approximation for what you see in the field, the mechanics at least are the same.

Following the marksmanship training, I wrote down the instructions we received for clearing, loading and firing the rifle for my personal use. I got to thinking though that there were a fair number of English speakers at the training session who, by the questions they asked me, made it clear that they weren't getting some of the most basic instructions. I laid out the information I had jotted down in an attractive way and when I came to the police station to start my first patrol, I gave a copy to the officer in charge of the Civil Guard. My wife and friends had a laugh about what kind of reaction gritty police officers would have to this Yale graduate's attempts to document the training in English. However, my superior seemed genuinely impressed. He also asked if I would mind coming to the next firing training session as an instructor for the English speaking recruits. It was quite a head rush to go from never firing a gun before to firearms instructor in one week.

One of the people in the office at the time was the person in charge of the Civil Guard's "elite" quick response team. This a squad of Civil Guards members who keep their weapons at all times and in case of an emergency get a call to rush to help. I asked about what they did and after a few minutes he said, "Well I guess I should interview you now to join the quick response team." The commanding officer overruled him and said, without disrespecting me, that I just joined the unit and it was ridiculous to have me join the quick response team. The other guy said we should still do the interview anyway and the commanding officer accepted it. He started asking me questions but my patrol was ready to leave, so he said we would finish later. For better or worse, we never got around to completing the interview.

Patrols in the Civil Guard range from mind-numbing boredom to heart pounding excitement, often during the same shift. Sometimes, the patrol consists solely of riding around in a police cruiser for four hours with a couple of other people, creating a police presence around sensitive sites in the city and keeping your eyes out for trouble.

However, if you go out with a police officer, or veteran Civil Guards who take their job seriously, you are liable to see some action. Over the course of the past year, my unit has been involved in car chases with stolen vehicles and investigated "suspicious objects" . On one occasion we got a call during a patrol to check out a suspicious package left in the center of a residential neighborhood. We were first on the scene and determined the package was indeed suspicious so we called in the police bomb unit. While we waited for the yellow bomb robot and its handlers to set up, we cordoned off the area and evacuated people in the immediate vicinity. We knew the event was wrapping up when we heard the loud boom of the robot discharging its shotgun to dispose of the potential explosive but it turned out that the package was harmless and we opened up the streets and moved on.

We've also participated in man hunts for terrorists suspected of having slipped into our region. In one incident we had the name and description of a "ticking time bomb", a terrorist who was known to be wearing a bomb belt and on an imminent suicide mission in the Sharon area where we were patrolling. Another bomber had killed two earlier that week in a shopping mall in the neighboring town. Our communications devices kept crackling with orders to go from one side of the town to the other to check out suspicious people and vehicles. At one point we were told to be on the lookout for a white GMC Savannah Van in the vicinity of one of the city's sensitive areas. We started patrolling that sector and spotted a white GMC Savannah Van parked at an odd angle in the middle of the street. With my heart beating wildly as I tried to keep a safe distance, I got out of the cruiser and called in the license plate number over the radio into Israel's central police headquarters and started to clear people from the scene. They identified the van as stolen but assured us it wasn't connected to the terrorist infiltrator. Without giving any details they informed us that the high state of alert we were operating under was reduced. Later when we got back to the station at the end of the patrol, we found out that the bomber was spotted trying to break through a police checkpoint, several miles east of here, and that when he was confronted, he blew himself up. Thankfully, there were no police casualties.

Serving at a police checkpoint is probably both the most interesting and most frightening mission in the Civil Guard. Checkpoints throughout Israel have managed to stop hundreds of suicide bombers in the last two years, although in the process a number of police officers have been injured. For these reasons, my wife had asked me to make sure I never got called to do a checkpoint shift. I told her that while I would never volunteer to man the checkpoint between the Palestinian city of Qalqilya and Israel (which is one of the missions of my Civil Guard unit) if I was asked to man the checkpoint on the road leading into my town, I wouldn't refuse. She wasn't happy with my answer, but since we both thought that the issue wouldn't come up, we both let it go.

One night when I showed up to sign in and pick up my weapon for my shift, I was informed that it was going to be a checkpoint mission. In that moment, I had thought about refusing to do it. For a variety of reasons (not wanting to let the squad down, not wanting to embarrass myself, not wanting to shirk my responsibility) I decided to go through with it. I knew though, that I would get sent to the doghouse later because of my decision.

One of the Civil Guards took me and a few others out to the checkpoint site in a police cruiser. It was late at night but the roads were still packed with drivers, some in ties and fancy dresses coming back from the theater, some bare-chested and in flip flops coming back from ... I don't know where. Evidently, this is the hour when most terrorists try to slip into Israel and that determined our timing. Picking a site for the checkpoint is a little bit of an art and there are a lot of operational issues which need to be considered. Without getting too specific, you want to surprise unsuspecting drivers but you also need a spot which you can defend in case things go awry. It's surprising how fast you can set up the checkpoint. There is a little bit of equipment involved, including those tire slashing strips you may have seen on the show, America's Wildest Police Chases (whose officers I have begun to feel a kinship with :) ).

Setting up and manning the checkpoint was more interesting than the mobile patrol as there were a variety of functions and more human interaction with the drivers whom we checked. I tried to stay away from the job of physically stopping the cars and briefly checking them out and talking to the drivers to determine if they were suspicious and in need of a more thorough investigation. I thought that was the most dangerous job and while it might have been interesting on a professional and personal level, I figured I could tell my wife that I didn't take that job and maybe I would get some points for that.

I started out doing the more detailed questioning of suspect drivers. You begin the questioning by asking for their license, registration etc. but basically you are trying to gauge their reaction under pressure. The point is to put the driver into a situation which would make a terrorist nervous and give away his intentions, in the same way airline officials ask you security questions before you board (they don't actually expect you to say "Yes, I did pack a bomb in my luggage" but should be looking to see if you are sweating and fidgeting when they ask you). While we did catch several people with broken tail lights and expired insurance, we let most off with a warning as these weren't the people we were out to stop. The police officer in charge taught us that when he was convinced these people weren't terrorists, it was counterproductive to write them up because it took our resources away from looking for terrorists. However, if someone mouthed off to him or was otherwise disrespectful he took the time to issue a ticket. I had informed the officer that I speak both Russian and Arabic and a few times the officer in charge called me away from what I was doing to translate into Russian. While I hadn't used the words for "high beams" or "traffic ticket" in a long time, fortunately, they came back to me quickly.

After working for about half an hour interviewing suspect drivers, I got the call which I have been waiting for since my first army movie when I was a kid. The officer in charge said, "Samuel, take point." He gave me some instructions of what to look out for on this specific roadblock and reminded me of the strict orders circumscribing opening fire. I moved out to the position to cover the roadblock, put in my magazine and thought about the prayer I made earlier (as I do before every shift) about not having to use my weapon and if called upon to do so, to use it properly. I chose a spot which met all the operational requirements of my mission but also made me visible to drivers (so they wouldn't try anything funny) and put my mind into "hyper alert" mode. One of the things which I was always curious about was how I would react in situations where my natural urge is to be friendly but I know that a friendly demeanor might endanger myself, my squad mates and even drivers whose reaction to my friendliness might lead them to feel that today they are "lucky". I found myself fighting my natural urge to smile at the drivers, and hoped to cast an imposing figure. "I'll make friends with the drivers in other circumstances," I told myself. I stayed in this role for the rest of the night.

The night was quite warm though there was some unseasonable rain. When it started raining harder I thought about my bad luck of manning the checkpoint on the only night in weeks that it rained but the air was so warm that the downpour was actually pleasant. My wife had called me earlier to see if I remembered to bring an umbrella. I didn't want to inform her over the phone what I was doing and how ridiculous an umbrella would have been in this situation. The rain interfered a little with my concentration, though frankly it's somewhat difficult to stay focused for three hours straight, car after car. I tried my best though.

We stayed out until about 2 in the morning and there were no incidents. Most everyone who was pulled over checked out ok. The officer issued very few summonses and only one person resisted. At the end of the shift, we dismantled the roadblock, and drove back to the police station in a cruiser. For some reason we had more people in our car on the return trip than on the leg going to the site. We had to stuff 6 people into the car. On the way back to the station the officer saw some kids drinking, and I think he was inclined to let it go until they opened up their mouths to him. He pulled over and then one, two, three, four, five and then six rifle bearing officers got out of the car. I don't know if the sight was intimidating or ridiculous (in a Shriner's car at the circus kind of way). The kids' attitude changed immediately and after the officer gave them a lecture we piled back into the car to turn in our weapons and equipment at the station.

I walked home and getting into bed I woke up my wife. I had hoped to be able to save this conversation until the morning but no luck. She was pretty angry and felt like I wasn't sensitive to her feelings. I tried to explain that although I was very sensitive to her feelings and thought frequently before and during the shift how much my actions would upset her, I felt like I still had to do what I thought was the right thing. I don't think she forgave me, but I think she understands why I do it and why I have to do it and doesn't keep me in the doghouse too long. Reflecting on my experience of that night, I put together another manual on how to do set up and man a checkpoint, and sent it to the police for their review. They find me a bit of a curiosity as it seems none of the other 700 recruits ever thought of doing this.

The other type of mission I've performed in the Civil Guard is providing security at synagogues on the Sabbath and holidays. A synagogue is considered a very soft and attractive target to terrorists, and each synagogue is supposed to insure that at least 4 congregants come to prayer packing weapons. To supplement these numbers or more likely to fill in gaps when there aren't 4 congregants with weapons (as is the case in many synagogues in my town; it is pretty hard for a private citizen to get a gun license today), Civil Guards take shifts providing security. I have ambivalent feelings about this type of mission as it involves me willfully violating the Sabbath, something I haven't done for many years. Judaism believes preserving human life takes precedence over every law, including something as precious as the Sabbath (though murder, idolatry and incest are exceptions to this rule). Every rabbi I have ever heard of has ruled that safeguarding a synagogue's congregation justifies bearing arms and communication equipment on the Sabbath though one should try to minimize the Sabbath violations if possible. The Religious Zionist philosophy to which I subscribe posits a triangle of values made up of: the people of Israel, the Torah of Israel and the land of Israel. In situations like this, you learn in a very concrete way that protecting the lives of the people of Israel sits at the top of the triangle, above the other two values.

One incident which put my various beliefs into concrete terms was when I was called to provide security at a synagogue during Rosh Hashanah. I arranged to guard at the synagogue where I generally pray because I had a prior commitment to be the cantor there, leading the prayers during one of the services. The metaphysical change of roles going from policeman to cantor was accompanied by the physical change as I took off my vest and hat and stowed my rifle and then donned the white kittel robe worn by Cantors on the high holy days.

For eternity man has defined himself (or at least his role) by his garments. However, I felt like I underwent something in the realm of art as I shed the police uniform with all its connotations of security and protection and war and put on the white kittel with all of its connotations of holiness, beseeching the Lord for your and your congregation's welfare, and confronting the specter of your own mortality (as the kittel is also the burial robe). It is interesting and typical of the Hebrew language (which frequently travels two thousand years back into Jewish history in order to find a new term to describe a modern invention) that the word for the tactical load bearing vest which I wear is "Efod", the same word used to describe the cultic garment last worn in 70 CE by the high priest during his ministrations in the Holy Temple in Jerusalem. I have not fully processed the meaning of my garment change in the context of the high holy days but I am possessed by the feeling that the action had mythic as well as apparel implications.

As you can see, I have found that joining the Civil Guard has had ramifications far beyond keeping my promise to myself to defend Israel when threatened physically. It has also been a concrete vehicle in which I explored many of my own childhood experiences, personal philosophies and long held beliefs. I hope that you have found my journey interesting and would be happy to correspond with any of you who would like to hear more.

Regards,

Sam Schwartz
TC 91
Sam.schwartz@aya.yale.edu