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Published on Friday, May 09, 2008
By Jerry Berrios
He's 80 now, with a lifetime of experiences that includes escaping the Holocaust, fathering two sons and traveling the world for his jewelry business.
But one of Ernie Goldberger's most vivid and enduring memories is the day nearly 60 years ago that the state of Israel was created, a landmark event in his life and the lives of the world's Jews.
"There was dancing, crying. You couldn't get the people out of the streets," he said of the scene in Tel Aviv on May14, 1948. "Rich, poor - everyone got together. It was a dream of 2,000 years realized."
Goldberger was just a young man at the time, living in the Mideast after fleeing Eastern Europe and escaping the Holocaust that killed his parents, three brothers and 6million other Jews. He joined a special forces unit of the Haganah, a precursor of the Israeli Defense Forces.
"You had to do what you had to do to survive and create something so it should never happen again," said Goldberger, who now lives in Beverly Hills
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