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| Middle East | |
| Israel’s first Esquimeaux soldier | |
| 2003-12-09 | |
| Eighteen-year-old Eva Ben Sira is training to become a squad commander in the Negev desert - a far cry from the frozen wastes of her homeland. Eva was born to a Yupik Eskimo mother and a Cherokee American father before being adopted by an Israeli couple. Her twin brother, Jimmy, will become the army’s second serving Eskimo, when he joins the force next year. The twins’ remarkable journey to Israel began when their mother, Minnie, found herself unable to support Eva and Jimmy after their father walked out. Alaskan social services stepped in and, at the age of two, the twins were sent to live with their grandmother, who struggled to raise the children herself. Their plight came to light when an Orthodox Jewish couple, Meir and Dafna Ben Sira, came to visit Minnie’s neighbour - Dafna’s mother - a Swiss Catholic woman, who had emigrated to Alaska from Israel in 1989. The Ben Siras offered to adopt Eva and Jimmy, but had to overcome a welter of religious and cultural obstacles to get the adoption approved by both tribal elders and an Alaskan Orthodox rabbi. "We got to know the children and they needed a home," Dafna told BBC News Online. "We wanted to have a family and the children had no place to go," she said. They remained in Alaska for five years until the adoption process was completed. Eva and Jimmy were brought to Israel (they learned to speak Hebrew in three months), converted to Judaism and integrated into Israeli society among the Orthodox community of Nir Etzion, a village near Haifa. EFL
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| Posted by:Chuck Simmins |
| #9 The Alaska National Guard has long had Inupaq (northern and northwestern Alaska) and Yupik (Western Alaska, including St. Lawrence and Little Diomede islands) in their units. They are great cold weather soldiers. On winter manouvers, they would always bring some of their winter gear, like mittens and hats, which were superior to issued equipment. They would always bring along dried fish and seal oil to supplement the MRE's. In cold weather, seal oil give one heat and energy, I can personally testify. I had a sister-in-law that used to be in the guard. They had a picture of her in the Fairbanks News-Miner. Beautiful face you can fall in love with, but she was very deadly in her tight groups with the M-16. |
| Posted by: Alaska Paul 2003-12-9 9:01:45 PM |
| #8 Does this go in the classix? If so, then please put the California Loon article there too. |
| Posted by: Atrus 2003-12-9 4:35:19 PM |
| #7 OP - Brief, hilarious image of two guys in mukluks with grins and harpoons posing on either side of a dead Binny... |
| Posted by: Fred 2003-12-9 4:21:26 PM |
| #6 Ain't that America for you. That's almost as multicultural as the night I had dinner with my Gurkha buddy in an Indian restaurant across the street from a foot-washin' Baptist church . . . in Columbus, Ohio. |
| Posted by: Mike 2003-12-9 3:57:45 PM |
| #5 The Paleos don't have a chance if the Yapik start joining forces with Israel. Those people are phenomenal - in some ways better than the Israelis. A division of Inuit in Afghanistan would do wonders. Bin Laden and all his friends would surrender, just to ask for protection. I'll laugh all day on this! |
| Posted by: Old Patriot 2003-12-9 3:56:30 PM |
| #4 I stand corrected. |
| Posted by: Robert Crawford 2003-12-9 1:35:16 PM |
| #3 Robert: HER Cherokee blood. The picture with the article reveals she's a cutie pie. |
| Posted by: Chuck Simmins 2003-12-9 1:24:27 PM |
| #2 Don't forget his Cherokee blood! |
| Posted by: Robert Crawford 2003-12-9 12:44:59 PM |
| #1 Not just an Israeli Inuit soldier, but an Israeli Orthodox Jewish Inuit soldier. I got a kick out of this story. |
| Posted by: liberalhawk 2003-12-9 12:17:03 PM |
