Join us for a
Purim Celebration & Dinner
Featuring:
Operation Thunderbolt: The Greatest Hostage Rescue In History
with Sassy Reuven, an IDF Veteran who took part in the Miracle at Entebbe
Purim Evening, Thursday 24th March
For more details contact Rabbi Reuven Cohen at [email protected]
or call 07814 856 360
Sasson (Sassy) is a veteran of the Israeli Defense Force, who served in the IDF's elite “Red Beret” paratrooper unit. He has participated in many covert operations in Israel's mighty struggle with those who seek to destroy it.
Operation Raid on Entebbe was a counter-terrorist hostage-rescue mission carried out by commandos of the Israel Defense Forces at Entebbe Airport in Uganda on July 3-4, 1976. A week earlier, on June 27, 1976, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PLO) and the German Revolutionary Cell (CZ), hijacked an Air France plane with 248 passengers en route to Paris from Tel Aviv, Israel. The hijackers rerouted the plane to Entebbe, Uganda, where the local government and dictator Idi Amin supported the terrorists. While many of the non-Jewish hostages were released, more than 100 Israeli and Jewish passengers remained. The non-Jewish pilot, Captain Bacos, and his crew, chose to stay behind with the hostages. The hijackers threatened to kill the hostages if their demands to release 58 detained terrorists were not met. This threat led directly to the rescue operation Raid on Entebbe.
While on duty in the Golan Heights Sassy was called to take part in the Raid on Entebbe. On July 3rd and 4th 1976, Sassy, along with the members of his elite unit, flew through the night in hostile territory from Israel to Entebbe, Uganda to free the hostages. Sassy was the second solider to jump out of the Hercules C130 transport aircraft as it slowly taxied on the Entebbe airport runway. His story takes you through the preparation of the mission, to its completion with the safe return of the hostages to Israel.
Sassy lives in Calabasas, California with his wife Susan and is the father of three children.
Sassy's story is Israel's story: one of courage, endurance, defiance, and willingness to sacrifice it all, for the right to live in peace as a Jew. He can bring this current and most important message with enthusiasm.