“Soldiers who fight for Israel are unlike any other soldiers in the world. They are fighting for their own souls. Israel — our history, the land — is a part of each of us. Every battle is a battle for our collective soul.”

These are the words of Hallie Lerman, Los Angeles resident, photographer and author of “Crying for Imma: Battling for the Soul on the Golan Heights.” Twenty years after the Yom Kippur War of 1973, she decided to create a book that would immortalize a little-known battle that both began the war and prevented it from ending Israel.

“Jews, especially American Jews, forget so much — our history, our struggles, our suffering,” Lerman told me. “But in Israel our history and the land are eternally connected. Our soldiers fight for the freedom of each of us to live as Jews.”

This year’s 50th anniversary of the war is especially fraught. Yes, Israel still stands strong. “But has anything really changed?” Lerman asked. “Our enemies still want to destroy us.” In fact, because their lies have captivated the left, leading to funding the terrorism that could destroy Israel, “the country’s situation is more dire 50 years later.”

“For Jews, it is our stories — our existential struggle — that propel us forward. Our stories inspire us, teach us resilience. We can’t allow ourselves to forget our 3,500-year history; we have no choice.”

The Yom Kippur War began when the Syrians invaded the Golan Heights on Saturday, October 6, when most Israelis were in synagogue, and ended 19 days later with a peace agreement with Egypt. “For Jews, it is our stories — our existential struggle — that propel us forward. Our stories inspire us, teach us resilience. We can’t allow ourselves to forget our 3,500-year history; we have no choice.”

Jacob

Lerman’s story begins with her Russian-immigrant grandfather, who was selected by Theodore Herzl to be a delegate to the Zionist conventions of the early 20th century. Her father had studied medicine in Nazi Germany and well understood the importance of a Jewish state. Lerman has called Israel her “light in a world of darkness.” 

During September 1973, she spent time in Israel. She was 22 and had just gotten married the year before. Her 19-year-old cousin, Jacob Reyman, an army medic in the IDF, had taken a 24-hour pass to see her.

“We stayed up and talked until 4 am at his home and then he walked me to my room. He turned around, and we said our goodbyes. When he turned around, there was this strange aura of light surrounding him. I suddenly froze and said to myself, ‘I’m never going to see him again.’”

A month later, her mother told her that Jacob had been sent to rescue colleagues trapped in a bunker in the Golan Heights. He ended up perishing in the very first battle of the Yom Kippur War at a tiny outpost called Tel Saki. 

Jacob was just one month away from completing his three-year army duty.

Tel Saki

The story of the Yom Kippur War begins with a little-known battle in the southern Golan Heights. When the Syrian army and air force began their offensive, five young men were trapped in a small bunker for 36 hours with no food or water and eventually no ammunition. 

Two armored rescue carriers, each with a crew of 10 soldiers, including Jacob, arrived at what ended up being a suicide mission. Fifteen reservists died almost immediately. 

The rest, badly wounded, suffered lost eyes and serious head injuries, but fought until they were entirely out of ammunition, water, food and first aid.

But they were able to convince the Syrians that there were thousands of Israeli soldiers waiting in ambush behind the hill. As a result, these young courageous soldiers delayed and thus prevented an army of thousands of Syrians from entering Israel. 

“It is a miracle the Syrians didn’t go all the way into Israel and that a tiny, vastly outnumbered group of Israeli soldiers held them off. After Tel Saki, the Syrians could have captured Tiberias, it was completely open. No one was there to stop them. Tel Saki was the only thing that held the war back in that part of the north. It’s amazing any survived.”

By stalling the Syrians, the IDF was able to mobilize the reserves. During the first two days, 1,200 soldiers fell on the Golan.

Crying for Imma

In 1995, Lerman went to Israel to write a book, “a combination of my great love for Israel, Jungian psychology, and Judaism,” Lerman says. “I wasn’t sure yet what the topic would be and went to Israel to explore topics.” 

She visited Morty Reyman, Jacob’s father, who lived in Ma’ale Adumim. “We were talking about Jacob and he said, ‘you really need to talk to Menachem Ansbacher, the commanding officer at the battle of Tel Saki.’ So I called Menachem and he invited me over. He was one of the founders of the Ma’ale Adumim; he started it with Morty after the 1973 war. We talked until 2 a.m. He told the entire story of Tel Saki for the first time and the story of the whole battle. He had not shared it with anyone since the war. It was the first time he had spoken of it.

“As I left that night, the moon was very full. Looking at it, suddenly I saw the entire book before me, and I knew this was the book I was there to write. I knew what my mission was.”

At the time, very little was known about the battle. Between 1995 and 1998, Lerman flew to Israel from Los Angeles about 30 times to conduct research. The research phase took about 1.5 years, which included all the interviews and photography, then 1.5 years to write the book. The beautiful, haunting book contains 130 photos: 90 are Hallie’s; the rest are from the IDF. The IDF keeps photos in huge bins in a warehouse; the bins are broken up by battles and wars and months.

”I only wanted to shoot in black and white because we see the world in color but black and white can’t hide the truth. It is raw and the purest form of photography. Black and white tells a truth in a way that color cannot.”

“As a photographer and a writer, the photographs were as important to me as the text. I only wanted to shoot in black and white because we see the world in color but black and white can’t hide the truth. It is raw and the purest form of photography. Black and white tells a truth in a way that color cannot.”

From there, it was a struggle. Menachem gave her the names of the soldiers in the unit who were in the bunker with him and the soldiers from the rescue missions. “But the thing about this particular battle is that no one stayed in touch with anyone else and no one knew where anyone lived. This is extremely unusual in Israel because they have miluim (reserve duty), and you stay in touch with your army buddies for simchas and births and celebrations.”

But the soldiers from Tel Saki had nothing to do with each other for 22 years after the battle.

“I later realized that the battle was so horrific and there was so much death, the soldiers felt like it was a failure; they were ashamed of their actions, too close to death, too desperate. They couldn’t even talk about it let alone try to be with someone they had shared this horrific, miraculous survival experience with. The battle didn’t bring them closer but broke them apart. And they were all just months shy of finishing their army duty.”

”The soldiers who survived still go to sleep with nightmares and wake up every morning as if they’re still in the bunker.”

Lerman began tracking down every soldier connected to Tel Saki and, one by one, they each met with her. “With some it took a struggle to get them to open up. The soldiers who survived still go to sleep with nightmares and wake up every morning as if they’re still in the bunker.”

If a soldier had died on the rescue mission, Lerman interviewed their families and how the trauma was passed on. “There was little understanding of PTSD or its impact back then. Families just had to figure it out on their own.”

Over the course of writing the book, Lerman would go to Israel for two weeks at a time (she had two young girls at home in L.A.) and work 16-hour days. “I went to Tel Saki repeatedly even though at the time it was just a deeply gutted dirt road that took 45 minutes just to get up to the Tel, which is the small hill where the bunker was. It was isolated. There was nothing there. Nothing. It was just like it was in 1973, an outpost that could hold a handful of men and ended up holding 25-26 men, nearly all of whom were killed. I found out later that there were landmines all over the area. There were no markings or warnings. I was lucky.”

The book was published on Yom Kippur in 1998. It was well received both in Israel and the U.S. Lerman spoke at almost 200 venues, including West Point and the Israeli Consulate in Washington, D.C. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave it as a gift at the Wye Conference. “[Your book] is a sensitive tribute to the great sacrifice we made in securing our northern gateway – and one that should always be remembered,” Netanyahu wrote. “Hallie Lerman has transmuted her love and her pain into a work of art,” Rabbi David Wolpe wrote. The book led to a movie about the battle, “Battle Over the Soul,” which came out in 2009.

I choked up reading every page of the 255-page book. Lerman has the ability to weave photos and words together to create a memorial that’s both poetic and powerful, lyrical yet haunting. The battle of Tel Saki emerges as a microcosm of war’s horrific destruction, the unwavering loyalty and indomitable spirit of Israeli soldiers, and the tortuous grieving of families who are not supposed to bury their children.

The section on Jacob’s father ends with these words: “What father is supposed to say kaddish for his son? What father?”

50 years later

Tel Saki now has a major road, an enormous flag that you can see from miles away, and a parking lot because so many tourists — 70,000 last year — visit the site. At least 15,000 IDF soldiers now visit each year.

Just as meaningful, after the book was published, the survivors of Tel Saki started to find each other again, which led to them re-connecting. They began to meet and finally talk about what happened, through pain and tears.

Lerman believes the story is as relevant today as it was then. “Nothing has changed. This kind of battle and the harrowing stories still go on today. Israel is still fighting for its survival. If Israel lets down its guard for five minutes, they’re done.”

“Tel Saki is the story of Jewish survival, of a very few against many, fighting with tremendous ingenuity and courage. It is about knowing what you’re living for and what is worth dying for, knowing that there is God, that there is a force much greater than ourselves, and that all of these battles tell the individual story and the collective story of the Jewish people.”

Tel Saki “is the quintessential battle that tells that story of Jewish survival,” Lerman says. “There is no other battle quite like this. It is not accidental that Jacob died there.”

Indeed, Tel Saki “is the quintessential battle that tells that story of Jewish survival,” Lerman says. There is no other battle quite like this. It is not accidental that Jacob died there.”

Vastly outnumbered, the battle of Tel Saki has become a metaphor for Israeli determination against all odds and for love of country. “The people and the country are the same,” Lerman says. “You fight for a part of yourself.” And yet, after months of watching the country tear each other apart this past year, I can’t help wondering: Does this dedication and love still exist? Does the metaphor of Tel Saki still stand? Even the question is too painful to consider.

Karen Lehrman Bloch is editor in chief of White Rose Magazine.