Tribute from his student, David Bedein, 46 years later.

People in Israel who do not have a loved one to mourn often choose someone to think about on Yom HaZikaron, Israel’s day to mourn those who have fallen for the state as solidiers, in the defense of our nascent country.

This year, I think of Aryeh Toeg, our Tanach teacher at the Pardes Institute, 1972-1973, the first year of Pardes. Aryeh was a scholar of the Bible, with few pretensions. He would answer every question as a man with deep knowledge who would not make you feel less intelligent than he was. A mentche of a person. I thought of Aryeh as a model teacher.

Towards the end of that year, Aryeh told the class that he would be heading off to serve for his annual obligatory month service in the IDF. We in his Tanach class were saddened by the prospect of not finishing what we were learning. The next day, as I recall, Aryeh reassured us that he had pushed his IDF obligation to Rosh HaShana- Yom Kippur.

Aryeh would miss his family during the holidays, but not the obligation that he felt towards his students.

From that, we best understood the expression, TALMUD TORAH KINEGED KULOM.

Soon after the Yom Kippur war broke out, we heard the shock that Aryeh Toeg was killed at his outpost on the Suez Canal when the war broke out. That is what we knew.

The grueling circumstances of Aryeh Toeg’s death only came to me this past year.

Avi Yaffe, owner of a recording studio that my office uses to produce films of UNRWA, is a scholar of the Yom Kippur war. Avi was called to service at the Suez canal & happened to have his radio equipment with him when the war broke out.

Avi has created an audio history of what he heard and witnessed during those traumatic days

The IDF now allows him to share the treasure that he has.Amongst other things, Avi interviewed people who were eyewitness to the murder of  IDF POWs.

One of the IDF soldiers murdered by the Egyptian troops was Aryeh Toeg – Our teacher from Pardes  was captured and executed by the Egyptian troops during the first few days of the war.

Aryeh never returned to his family and never returned to Pardes. Aryeh paid the ultimate sacrifice for Israel

46 years later, I can hear Aryeh Toeg’s soft voice, teaching insight into the Tanach.

May Aryeh’s blessing remain with us.

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David Bedein
David Bedein is an MSW community organizer and an investigative journalist.   In 1987, Bedein established the Israel Resource News Agency at Beit Agron to accompany foreign journalists in their coverage of Israel, to balance the media lobbies established by the PLO and their allies.   Mr. Bedein has reported for news outlets such as CNN Radio, Makor Rishon, Philadelphia Inquirer, Los Angeles Times, BBC and The Jerusalem Post, For four years, Mr. Bedein acted as the Middle East correspondent for The Philadelphia Bulletin, writing 1,062 articles until the newspaper ceased operation in 2010. Bedein has covered breaking Middle East negotiations in Oslo, Ottawa, Shepherdstown, The Wye Plantation, Annapolis, Geneva, Nicosia, Washington, D.C., London, Bonn, and Vienna. Bedein has overseen investigative studies of the Palestinian Authority, the Expulsion Process from Gush Katif and Samaria, The Peres Center for Peace, Peace Now, The International Center for Economic Cooperation of Yossi Beilin, the ISM, Adalah, and the New Israel Fund.   Since 2005, Bedein has also served as Director of the Center for Near East Policy Research.   A focus of the center's investigations is The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). In that context, Bedein authored Roadblock to Peace: How the UN Perpetuates the Arab-Israeli Conflict - UNRWA Policies Reconsidered, which caps Bedein's 28 years of investigations of UNRWA. The Center for Near East Policy Research has been instrumental in reaching elected officials, decision makers and journalists, commissioning studies, reports, news stories and films. In 2009, the center began decided to produce short movies, in addition to monographs, to film every aspect of UNRWA education in a clear and cogent fashion.   The center has so far produced seven short documentary pieces n UNRWA which have received international acclaim and recognition, showing how which UNRWA promotes anti-Semitism and incitement to violence in their education'   In sum, Bedein has pioneered The UNRWA Reform Initiative, a strategy which calls for donor nations to insist on reasonable reforms of UNRWA. Bedein and his team of experts provide timely briefings to members to legislative bodies world wide, bringing the results of his investigations to donor nations, while demanding reforms based on transparency, refugee resettlement and the demand that terrorists be removed from the UNRWA schools and UNRWA payroll.   Bedein's work can be found at: www.IsraelBehindTheNews.com and www.cfnepr.com. A new site,unrwa-monitor.com, will be launched very soon.