sentence had been reduced, and he was preparing to go home br

after having served a mere eighteen years.

There were some seventy prisoners in the wing, fifty-eight br

of them Jewish. Of those, the overwhelming majority were Jews br

from Eastern or Arab lands, Sephardim. Perhaps more than any- br

thing else, this is the accusing finger that points at the Israeli br

Establishment, for what the Muslims could not do during more br

than 1,000 years of domination of the Jews in their lands, the br

Jewish Establishment of Israel accomplished in less than 25: the br

spiritual destruction of hundreds of thousands of Sephardic Jews br

who came to the Holy Land with their religion, Zionism, and br

basic Jewish values. Less than three decades later, they were br

deep into crime, violence, drugs, prostitution, and pell-mell emi- br

gration from the country. In my wing alone there were four br

Yemeni Jewish murderers. I doubt that there had been a total of br

four Jewish murders in the 2,000 years of exile in Yemen. . . .

The greatest enemy of modern man is boredom. In prison, br

it can drive men mad. And so I instituted a stiff, disciplined br

daily regimen of study and writing that would keep me busy br

from early morning (4:30 A.M.) until lights-out (midnight). br

This schedule included regular study not only of Bible, Talmud, br

and Law but also of other writings of various kinds. I have, for br

example, been creating a biblical commentary for the past ten br

years, and, ironically, never did I have so much time—and peace br

and quiet—to work on it as in prisons. It is a labor of love, and br

I spent many hours on it, daily, while in Ramle.

That in itself gives more than a passing clue to the attitude br

of the prison guards and officials toward me. It goes without br

saying that the Jewish prisoners treated me with respect and br

admiration. Not only did I represent, in the eyes of these Jews br

from Arab lands, opposition to the Establishment they so hated, br

but they had a genuine gut feeling that the Arab poses a terrible br

threat to Jews within Israel. No Ashkenazic Jew from Europe br

can really appreciate this, for he has not lived with an Arab br

majority. He has not tasted the bitter dregs of Jewish minority br

status under Muslim rule.

Even more significant, the average guard was over- br

whelmingly sympathetic to me. It was clear to all that I was not br

an ordinary criminal and that I had been imprisoned for my br

ideas—ideas that so many of those guards, as well as Jews br