Report from Israel #2 - Beurlings and Bagels

By Janice Beurling, Director of Communications

The car is packed and we're ready to head to the airport!

I mentioned in my previous note that the catalyst for today's journey from Toronto to Israel was the Israeli government's desire to honour my uncle, George Beurling. Canadians who lived through World War II will probably remember reading about George in the newspapers. Younger Canadians may remember studying about him in history classes at school.

Let me refresh your memories by telling you a little about George Beurling.

George was born in Montreal almost 90 years ago. As he grew up, George became a wonderful athlete -- swimming, diving and mastering marksmanship. But what George loved to do more than anything was fly; piloting an airplane was his greatest joy.

One day, England declared war on Germany, and George said, “Maybe I can help.” Soon he was helping in Europe as a fighter pilot with England’s Royal Air Force.

Before long, everyone was amazed at his almost supernatural eyesight and his genius with air strategies and the way he had completely mastered the science of deflective shooting.

By the end of the war, George had shot down more enemy aircraft in his Spitfire fighter plane than any other Canadian pilot. When he returned home to Canada, he was received with great fanfare and was regarded as a singular hero.

Not long after this war, the Jewish people of the world began to prepare for another war, which they knew would take place as soon as Israel proclaimed her independence. So the call went out for Jewish airmen who could help defend the new state of Israel.

George said, “Maybe I can help.”

But when he volunteered to join the fledgling Israeli Air Force, they said to him, “You can’t help, you’re not Jewish!”

Then the enemy nations came to George and said, “Come and fight for us instead. We will give you a great deal of money!”

But George answered, “If I fight against Israel, I know that I will be fighting for the wrong side.”

So he persisted and eventually convinced the Israeli Air Force to accept him as one of their fighter pilots.

The Israelis sent him from Canada to Rome. From Rome he was to fly an airplane to Israel but, just after his plane took off, it caught fire and crashed. George was killed. He was only 27 years old.

The Jewish people buried him in Israel and inscribed on his gravestone, “Killed in Action.”

Even though I was born after George's death, the events of his life have shadowed me most of my life.

Like George, I was carefully nurtured from birth by believing parents and grandparents. In fact, my father led me to place my trust in Jesus when I was only three years old.

Like George, the heroes of my childhood were the men and women of the Bible, people like Moses and Daniel, Esther and Paul. I was taught to be like them -- to honour God, to serve God and to love God as they did.

As a child, I thought that since the people of the Bible were Jewish and we were like them, then it logically followed that we were Jewish too. After all, my grandfather read his Bible in Hebrew, and I knew that my Uncle George, the great hero, was revered by the Jewish people and was buried in Israel. Didn’t that mean we were Jewish too?

As I grew up, I gradually realized that we were not Jewish. It was quite a disappointment to me. But I had to admit that all the bagels on Bathurst Street -- and I love bagels! -- could not change the fact that I was a Gentile.

Nevertheless, at an early age, I began to understand that God’s work in my life was not rooted in my identity, but in His. God loves me because of Who He is, not because of who I am.

The Jewish community has continued to express appreciation for George and an interest in my family. Sometimes, this has been difficult for me to understand. George has been a story to me. He died decades ago. Yet the Jewish community keeps telling his story over and over.

Then something happened to ignite my passion and compassion for Israel and her people. In 1985, an Israeli official spoke briefly at the funeral of my grandfather (George’s father). The Israeli said that Grandpa had given to Israel the greatest gift a man could give -- the life of his son.

I could not believe my ears! How I wanted to make this man understand that what he was describing was precisely what God Himself had done for Israel as well as the whole world! He gave the life of His Son!

"For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life" (John 3:16).

Many of the Jewish people of Israel and Canada have identified the Beurling family, my family, as righteous Gentiles. Well, I am a Beurling who wants every Jewish person to know that my righteousness is not because of my name. Like any other person on this earth, Jewish or Gentile, the only righteousness I will ever know is because of Messiah Jesus. He is our righteousness.

"But by His doing you are in Messiah Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption, so that, just as it is written, "LET HIM WHO BOASTS, BOAST IN THE LORD" (1 Corinthians 1:30-31).

Janice Beurling
(My next post will be from Jerusalem!)