Anxious County Jews Wait for News, Expect Revenge : Israel: A phone network keeps relatives in touch. The attack on Tel Aviv ‘shows what kind of neighborhood’ it’s in, a rabbi says.

As Israel was reluctantly but suddenly drawn Thursday into the Persian Gulf War, Orange County Jews set into motion a telephone network to reassure each other about the safety of friends and relatives in the Middle East.

And many said Israel would not be wrong if it counterattacked.

“We deeply regret the attack,” said Jerry Werksman, a spokesman for the Jewish Federation of Orange County, an umbrella group of synagogues and Jewish groups. “But Israel has said all along it would retaliate if attacked. Their situation has to be assessed by them.”

U.S. forces attacked military targets, but “the Iraqis have attacked metropolitan areas of Tel Aviv,” he said. “It is another example of the inhumanity of Saddam Hussein.”

About 80,000 Jews live in Orange County. Many of them--from religious leaders to parents of college students spending a year in Israel to editors of Jewish newspapers--reacted to news of the attack with outrage and sadness.

“I’m sick to my stomach,” said Rabbi Lawrence Goldmark of Temple Beth Ohr in La Mirada about the attack on Israel. “It was the one thing we were afraid of more than anything else. I thought that it had been prevented because of all the armaments directed on Iraq. On the other hand, the President and the secretary of defense were correct when they said this would take some time. It’s very distressing, very distressing.”

The news also brought personal moments of anguish for Goldmark on Thursday when he was initially unable to learn the whereabouts of his son, Air Force Senior Airman Joshua Goldmark, who was recently transferred from a duty station in Nevada, but the rabbi learned Thursday night that his son is guarding an installation in Washington.

Iriet Peshkess, an Israel-born clinical psychologist with a practice in Irvine, said: “I think it’s pretty awful. I’ve got a brother-in-law and a sister-in-law and a whole family back there.

“I think Israel desperately wanted to stay out of this. On the other hand, you can’t expect a nation that’s been attacked to not somehow defend themselves.”

“I’m shocked,” said Rabbi David Eliezrie of the Chabad Center of North County in Yorba Linda and vice president of the Rabbinical Council of Orange County.

“This barbaric and unprovoked attack on the Jewish people . . . shows what kind of neighborhood Israel is in. It shows that the Jewish people cannot put their security in the hands of anybody, including the armed forces of the United States.”

Gerald and Dorothy Lasensky of Irvine--whose son, Scott, a UCLA political science major, is spending his junior year at Hebrew University in Israel--anxiously flipped TV channels Thursday night for details of the attack on Israel.

“As parents, we’re very concerned for his safety,” Lasensky said. “But of course, we are very proud of him for wanting to be there.”

Rabbi Allen Krause of the 350-family Temple Beth El in Laguna Niguel said: “There is tremendous sadness in the Jewish community. There was hope that this could be avoided. There is sadness that this has expanded the war, making this more dangerous for the U.S. military. It’s a horrible feeling.”

Richard C. Goodman, a lawyer who is president of the American Jewish Committee of Orange County, said that from the time the United States launched its Wednesday attack on Baghdad, Israel and its supporters have had to be on alert.

The missile attack “was an unprovoked attack on civilian people in Israel by Saddam Hussein, and I think it should evoke outrage from the entire world,” Goodman said. “Israel has clearly tried to stay out of this conflict.

“This shows that Saddam Hussein is the dangerous monster that Israel has been warning the world about for a long time. It also shows that President Bush was correct in his assessment of Saddam Hussein and how the world should deal with him.”

Dan Brin--editor of the Heritage, a Jewish newspaper published in Los Angeles, Orange County and San Diego--said there will be an outpouring of support for Israel from the U.S. Jewish community.

Guy Ziv, a political science major and president of the Friends of Shimon Perez at UC Irvine, said retaliation is the only answer.

“I’m heavy-hearted and sad, but we can’t let our emotions get in the way,” he said. “We have to act rationally. The rational thing to do is to attack Iraq.”

Staff writers Jim Newton and Anita M. Cal also contributed to this story.