The assassination of Charlie Kirk has left millions feeling like they have lost a champion, a man of principles, faith and amazing empathy.
The depth of his loss has been felt keenly here in Israel. Charlie loved and appreciated Israel. He was an unabashed supporter and felt a deep kinship with us.
We at Im Tirtzu were privileged to have had a relationship with Charlie. Charlie came to Israel and spent time with several Zionist groups. What we did with Charlie clearly had an emotional impact on him, and might in some small way have honed his gifted approach to all he met.
Years ago, Im Tirtzu began an initiative called Filming the Filmers. For years anarchists and anti-Israel activists have been confronting our soldiers and checkpoints and other sensitive locations.
They take their smart phones, stick them literally in the face of a soldier, all the while berating, often screaming, at the soldier for his horrific deeds.
Of course, the goal of this interaction is to elicit an angry response from the soldier, which can then be uploaded onto various social media platforms as irrefutable proof of the savagery of the IDF.
It is a fair question to ask why these lowlifes are allowed to stand so close to our soldiers in clearly provocative and hostile stances. Suffice it to say it has been allowed.
But to us such behavior is intolerable. Therefore, we began an initiative whereby our activists come to the same check point and confront the confronters.
We too stand as close as we can get to these provocateurs and in commensurate fashion yell at them to leave our soldiers alone and to get away and to go home.
We too are eager to capture their faces on camera for the purposes of shaming them. Happily, we have been very successful in getting lots of these would-be exposers to leave our soldiers alone.
Charlie saw this in action and it hit home. Later that day, he addressed a large and informal group of our activists and supporters at a bar near Mamilla in Jerusalem.
Charlie was blown away by the stoicism of the soldiers and kept referring to it in his remarks. How were these young men so able to maintain their composure, to not take the bait and to strike out, either physically or even verbally at their instigators?
What a message it sent to anyone who was fortunate enough to behold it!
It also reflected Charlie’s own unique and unmatched ways of interaction: making his points clearly and plainly, always listening to the other person, and never becoming ad hominem. He never stooped to insult and never made his disagreements personal.
Who knows but perhaps, just perhaps, his exposure to our soldiers maintaining their composure and not stooping to the level of their adversaries might have had a reinforcing effect on Charlie.
Seeing the power of not taking the bait, not getting down to the other person’s level might have been a corroboration for Charlie, a direct third party exposure to the wisdom and effectiveness of his own way of being.
On October 23 we at Im Tirtzu, together with our friends at Israel365, will plant a fruit tree orchard in Charlie’s memory on the Uri Farm in the Gush. An orchard seems like a particularly appropriate way to keep remembering this incredible man. It is a place of life, of growth, of hope.
Charlie was all of these things and so much more. Like our stalwart soldiers, he maintained his principles, his bearing, his faith in the face of denigration. Charlie loved what America was about at its core, and that core led to him a love of Israel.
I thought I saw Charlie coming over the hill with Abraham, Martin and John, as in the song about also-assassinated Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr. and John F. Kennedy. Charlie, we hardly knew ye, and we miss you fiercely. May you rest in peace, and may your memory be a blessing and an inspiration.
Douglas Altabefis the Chairman of the Board of Im Tirtzu and a Director of the Israel Independence Fund