Walid (an alias) had hoped that Justice Shammai Becker, a judge in the Tel Aviv Magistrate Court, would consider his circumstances and not impose a lengthy jail sentence on him. He had been caught staying in Israel illegally and carrying forged documents. He was on probation for committing the same offense, for which he had been tried in the past. Walid was shaking when he was brought into the courtroom to hear the verdict.
Even though he never denied the charges, he certainly never dared to dream that an Israeli judge in an Israeli court would not only forgo a prison sentence, but go so far as to describe him as a kind of "Righteous Among the Nations" (an honorific title describing non-Jews who risked their lives during the Holocaust to save Jews). But the judge did just that in recognition of Walid’s brave action in his village.
