The State of Israel does not generally impose the death penalty.
But for you . . .
Capital punishment had never been imposed by Israel until Adolf Eichmann was put to death. Shalom Nagar, the prison guard tasked with releasing the trap door underneath Eichmann, thus causing his death by hanging, died himself in Israel two weeks ago. He was in his late 80s.
Nagar was out walking with his wife and infant son on 5/31/62 when a van screeched to a stop and he was grabbed. He knew immediately what it meant, but he had to talk the driver into turning around so he could let his wife know he wasn’t being kidnapped. “If I don’t, she’ll kill me — imagine the irony,” he said. (No he didn’t.)
Speaking of irony, of the 22 prison guards assigned to protect Eichmann, only Nagar wished not to be the executioner. But he was chosen by lottery and convinced to accept the assignment by being shown atrocities for which Eichmann was responsible.
Nagar talked about how careful they were to protect Eichmann during this period. To prevent a retaliatory attack on him, all the guards were Sephardic Jews unrelated to victims or survivors of the Holocaust, and his food was delivered in locked containers. “Before I gave him his meal, I had to taste it myself,” Nagar said. “If I didn’t drop dead after two minutes, the duty officer allowed the plate into his cell.”
The job of removing the noose from the dead body and preparing it for cremation was terribly gruesome. Nagar was supposed to accompany the ashes to a port so that a Coast Guard vessel could take them to be scattered beyond Israel’s territorial waters, but he was too shaken and was sent home instead. When he arrived, covered in blood, his wife was stunned, and the hanging haunted Nagar for the rest of his life.
In discussing the execution years later, Nagar invoked Amalek, the biblical archenemy of ancient Israel, to justify his task. In spite of the trauma, he said, he appreciated the value of his experience: God “commands us to wipe out Amalek, to ‘erase his memory from under the sky’ and ‘not to forget.’ I have fulfilled both.”
Shalom Nagar, alav hashalom, is survived by all the rest of us, we who are still here.
Where else but in Owl Chatter will you find a segue from that story to today’s NYTXW? At 65A the clue was “Repositions, as tires,” and the answer was ROTATES.
My mechanic Marvin suggested I rotate my tires, but I said “Don’t they rotate by themselves as I drive?”
I was horrified to learn he had become addicted to brake fluid. I said “Marvin, that’s very dangerous.” And he said, “Don’t worry, I can stop whenever I want to.” Here are the hallowed grounds.
At 15A, the actress who said “I generally avoid temptation unless I can’t resist it” was MAE WEST. I guess she was the Ana de Armas of her day.
Take a load off, girl — you ever hear of Fresca? Georgie — get our guest a cold one!!
As some of you already know, we welcomed a new owlet to our Owl Chatter family (Michigan branch): Harold Barney Crane Liveson, born 11:49 last night (12/10), at 5 lb 4 oz, Morris’s baby bro. Welcome aboard little fella. We have so much nonsense to share with you!! Scads of it!!
Kooz! — you got anything for us on this special day?
This is one of my favorites, from Winter Morning Walks.
Walking in darkness, in awe,
beneath a billion indifferent stars
at quarter to six in the morning,
the moon already down
and gone, but keeping a pale lamp burning
at the edge of the west,
my shoes too loud in the gravel
that, faintly lit, looks to be little more
than a contrail of vapor,
so thin, so insubstantial it could,
on a whim, let me drop through it
and out of the day,
but I have taught myself
to place one foot ahead of the other
in noisy confidence
as if each morning might be trusted,
as if the sounds I make might buoy me up.
Today’s puzzle’s theme involved the five senses. You know, sight, smell, etc. And Commenter Anoa Bob just had to show off:
“As an aside, there are more than five senses. For example there’s proprioception, a sense of body position, the vestibular sense of gravity and acceleration/deceleration and the haptic sense, the ability to identify familiar objects by touch only.”
Okay — thanks!
The letters for SMELL were embedded, not too painfully I hope, in the actor SAM ELLIOTT. TIL he’s married to Katherine Ross — Elaine from The Graduate. They’ve been married for 40 years — which is also the age of their daughter Cleo — what are the odds? You may recall KR was very pretty and very alluring in The Graduate? Then you won’t be surprised to see what Cleo looks like. Brace yourself, fellas. Our beauty and culture consultant, Ana, notes the effective use of both smoky eyes and bed head. Thanks, Armas.
Let’s end tonight with two pet pix shared by Rex from his commenters. First is Freya. Rex’s comment: “Freya is concerned this sweater makes her butt look big. (How do you people even get your cats into these get-ups? When I imagine trying to put a sweater on either of my cats, I can already feel claws slashing my arms and (probably) face).”
And here’s Woody, “who’s just glad to be here,” says Rex. “He thinks his left side is his good side. All your sides are good, Woody!”
Woof, woof. See you tomorrow!
The Wellington Files 