When Shloime Wertenteil was left for dead in a Chevron ambush back in 1976, his yeshivah buddies scooped him up and fled to safety, but would he ever walk, write, or have any kind of quality future?
F orty years is a metaphor for transition change and growth; what do we see when we look back 40 years — those of us who’ve lived past four decades? Do we know how we’ve changed? When Shloime Wertenteil looks back 40 years he sees near-death a broken body waiting to be rehabilitated a spirit desperate to succeed against the odds. And then he sees his journey fraught with challenges and victories and knows that just as he’s done his best his life can serve as an inspiration for others.
He flashes back to Erev Yom Kippur of 1976 in Chevron. The Jewish community of Kiryat Arba had been established on the outskirts of the City of the Patriarchs five years before but Jewish resettlement in Chevron proper was still a few years away. Still the area was under IDF protection and what better way to enter the Day of Atonement than with heartfelt prayers at Mearas Hamachpeilah the resting place of the holy Avos? But that morning Arabs were burning sifrei Torah in Mearas Hamachpeilah and trying to break into the ancient boarded-up Beit Knesset Avraham Avinu. Paratroopers called in to quell the violence later described Chevron as “hotter than the core of a nuclear reactor.”
Unaware of the tension in the city seven American yeshivah bochurim from Jerusalem set off to daven at Mearas Hamachpeilah. All of them would return traumatized but only Shloime Wertenteil came back in a coma. Yet after hovering on the brink of dying al kiddush Hashem he woke up determined to live al kiddush Hashem instead.
“We left our yeshivah Mercaz HaTorah right after davening so we could get to Chevron and back in plenty of time for seudas hamafsekes ” recalls Rabbi Zvi Teitelbaum one of ill-fated group who is today a rabbinic personality in Silver Spring Maryland. “On our way to the Mearah Arabs started throwing rocks at our taxi and we were coughing from the smoke of the burning tires. Near the shuk an Arab waved our driver to a stop and warned him not to go any further so he killed the engine while another friend Avraham went to ask the police if we should wait for an escort.
Create a free account to keep reading.
