By STACEY MORRIS
Staff Writer
Published in The Post-Star newspaper 9/30/02
FORT ANN -- Raphael Colb gazed at the lush green forest spread out before him. From the view off his deck, a nearby stream glistened in the sun.
The secluded 35 acres is a legacy from his parents, Dr. Sidney and Elkie Colb, that he enjoys every summer.
"It's heaven," said Colb as his eyes flickered from the stream to a blue jay gliding toward the branch of an oak tree.
A beautiful house in the countryside isn't the only gift the Colbs left their son. Their most enduring legacy is the reason Raphael spends only the summer in Fort Ann.
Thirty-five years ago, Sidney Colb presided over a thriving dental practice in Glens Falls, with Elkie working as the office manager.
Then came Yom Kippur of 1967 and Israel's Six Day War, a struggle that Colb said threatened Israel's existence.
"My parents felt they had to do something personal to contribute to Israel's safety," he recalled. "So they closed their office and went."
For six weeks, his father taught and practiced dentistry at Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem. His parents made six trips to Israel in all to volunteer their services.
Colb got his chance to visit Israel during the summer of 1968 following high school graduation.
"I fell in love with it," he said.
When war broke out in Israel again in 1973, Colb wanted to help. He hopped a bus to New York City to inquire at the Israeli Consulate -- "You couldn't get through by phone," he said.
But he lacked any special skills and he didn't speak Hebrew, so the consulate declined his offer. But he was told to prepare himself in case his help was needed in the future.
So in 1977, Colb moved to Israel and became a part of the volunteer program "Service to the People." He performed children's theater shows in the country's poor neighborhoods and, at 29, he became a soldier in the Israeli Army.
"I didn't want to be reading about Israel during the next war...I wanted to be able to actually do something. My parents were my inspiration," he said. "They made Israel a real place, not just somewhere in the news."
Holy Land clowning
Colb was
born and raised in Glens Falls, bar mitzvah'd at Temple Beth El, where he learned
liturgical Hebrew.
In 1977, while in basic training for the Israeli Army, he found himself immersed in more than just Army training.
"I think my first words of Hebrew I learned were 'push-up' and 'gun','" he remembered with a smile.
The longer he stayed, the more intensely he felt about the country.
"I decided to make my life in Israel," he said.
A graduate of Ringling Bros. Clown College in Venice, Fla., Colb spent time in Israel performing and teaching clowning. He also landed a gig playing piano at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem before being drafted into the army in 1979.
Colb said that, because of the security situation in Israel, every able-bodied citizen is drafted into the army, with the exception of Arabs and ultra-Orthodox Jews.
Normally, the length of service is three years for men and two for women. But because Colb was almost 30, he was drafted for a year and a half.
For the next 15 years, he would serve a mandatory 30 days a year in the Army.
"If you're a citizen and they call you, you go," he said. "People go to jail for not doing it."
In the meantime, he worked for six years in agriculture on a kibbutz in the southern part of the country, on the Jordanian border. He spent another two years clowning before taking a job in 1989 teaching English at Hebrew University.
For 10 years, he was on the faculty for the university's school for overseas students -- most of his students were from the former Soviet Union and needed to learn Hebrew and English.
After his father died in 1987, Colb returned to Glens Falls for a year, earning a master's degree in Teaching English as a Foreign Language.
"That's when I started my new career as a teacher," he said. "It's a method of learning English based on counseling...You listen to people and help them to share their world, but in the target language."
What started out as sideline tutoring has become a full-time vocation. Mostly, Colb tutors executives at the Joint Distribution Committee, a philanthropic organization. His clients have included media figures and politicians.
"Israel is a salad of Jews from all over the world, from every nationality," he said. "My clients are from South America, Ethiopia, Europe, and include native born Israelis, of course."
The demands of his teaching and translating career leave Colb with little free time, but he manages to set aside a few days out of each month for what he calls his hobby -- guarding the Wailing Wall as a volunteer with the Jerusalem Police.
"It's my sideline and it's my duty," he said. "Because of the security situation everyone has been asked to do what they can because the army and police are stretched to the limit."
But Colb has no intention of leaving his hometown behind.
"I have the best of both worlds. I love living in Israel and I love the privacy of my little paradise in the woods. I work here, translate here, students come for immersion to study privately," he said. "I love coming home to Fort Ann and I love Jerusalem. They're both home."