Israel… is a miracle.

It is the embodiment of 2000 years of hopes and dreams. The hopes and dreams of your parents, your grandparents, your great grandparents and your ancestors before them. It embodies the dreams of generations who were repeatedly forced to move across kingdoms and continents, of generations who were persecuted and exterminated over blood libel after blood libel. They were accused of killing Christ. Accused of using the blood of children in the baking of Passover matzos. Accused of blocking the path of the “master race.” Accused as enemies of the state. From Rome to the inquisition to the concentration camps to the gulags to the Arab street. Accused, hated and executed for lie after bloody lie.

It is painful to remember all of this on such a happy and momentous occasion as this 60th anniversary of the founding of the modern State of Israel. But we are commanded to remember. It is part of our collective and individual history. In a world where the old blood libels are raised anew, in a world where children are taught that it is their duty to die killing Jews. In a world where Israel is treated like the Jew among the nations, we must remember, because Israel is still today the embodiment of our hopes and our dreams and our future.

What does Israel mean?

Israel means challenge. It challenges every single one of us to play a role in our history, to be active instead of passive. It challenges us to do something, anything, instead of nothing. It challenges us to defend ourselves and to save ourselves. It challenges us to stand up for our rights to live in a world that has time and again denied us the right to live. It challenges us to keep ourselves from falling into another 2,000 years of living at someone else’s pleasure. For every single one of us, it challenges us to survive, not just individually, but as a people.

Israel means courage. It gives us courage and it demands courage from each of us. Courage to travel to Israel. Courage to live in our place in history. Courage to speak out against a growing voice questioning Israel’s right to exist and questioning our rights to have a say in our government here in the United States. It means courage to be angry when Jews are the victims of suicide bombers and gunmen, or assaulted or killed on the streets of Europe. Courage to be angry when synagogues and cemeteries are attacked or defaced. Courage to speak out for the release of kidnapped Israeli soldiers. Courage to speak out against rocket attacks on homes and schools in Sderot. Courage to cry for the last words of Daniel Pearl. Courage to refuse to be a victim. And it demands the personal and individual courage to act.

Israel means being chosen. To quote from an article in the March issue of Commentary Magazine [1]: What it is about this strange little people that continually finds itself at the center of international attention, repeatedly on the front lines against totalitarian forces of evil—Nazism, Soviet Communism, now jihadism—all of which have marked the Jews as their primary obstacle to achieving world domination. But…here we are…living with the miracle of a resurrected and thriving Israel. We live in an age when one might think that the chosenness of the Jews had become impossible to doubt.

Israel means home. A refuge for the tired, the poor, the oppressed Jews of Europe, South America, the Arab world, Russia, Ethiopia, and yes it is even home to Americans who have chosen to make it home. It means home to Bedouins, Arabs, Muslims, Armenians, Christians, B’Hai and other minorities who have the right of citizenship, the right to vote for elected representation and the freedom to practice their religion. Israel means home to Holocaust survivors, who even after the war faced displacement, pogroms and death at the hands of their neighbors. Israel means home to people who could live elsewhere but who choose to live there. It means home for our people and it beckons us to come home.

And Israel means hope. Perhaps more than anything else…hope. Hope that our future is better than our past and our present. Hope that our people endure. Hope that each of us will see and act on our role in history. And it means hope that we will teach our children to do the same. With moral clarity and courage our actions will define the future. As Herzl said: If you will it, it is no dream.

May Adonai cause a new light to shine over Zion, and may we all soon be worthy of that light.

Am Yisrael Chai


1: Soloveichik, Meir. “Mysteries of the Menorah.” Commentary Magazine. March 2008: 37-42

June 2008

Arab and Israeli journalists share panel

Arab and Israeli journalists shared a panel during the American Jewish Committee's 102 Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C. Correspondents from the New York Times, Channel 2 TV News (Israel), Al-Hayat and LBC Satellite TV (Lebanon) discussed the challenges of covering the Middle East. The session was aired on C-Span and can be watched on the internet at http://tinyurl.com/3jrpkz.

Israel's dilemma over opening hospitals to Gazans

The BBC, often criticized for unbalanced anti-Israel reporting, ran a story about Israel’s care for Gazans in Israeli hospitals and the challenges this presents for Israel. In addition to the crossing being bombarded over 200 times by mortars, rockets and sniper fire since last June, Israel’s care has been exploited by suicide bombers. The complete article is available at http://tinyurl.com/6fmylf.

Yad Vashem Launches YouTube Channels, puts 130,000 photos online

Yad Vashem, the Holocaust remembrance and education center in Jerusalem, has launched two YouTube channels, in English and Arabic. The English channel contains testimonies from Holocaust survivors, including archival footage, historians’ lectures on key issues related to the Holocaust, footage from visits to Yad Vashem, and human interest stories, such as family reunions. The Arabic channel has testimonies and archival footage about the Holocaust, with Arabic subtitles. You can watch the videos at http://www.youtube.com/user/YadVashem. Yad Vashem has also added 130,000 images to its Online Photo Archive at www.yadvashem.org.

Israel at Sixty Exhibit - Fulfilling the Dream

The American Zionist Movement has a new photo exhibit available for rent and display at community centers and synagogues. This special exhibit contrasts early scenes of the State of Israel with modern scenes using a hologram form of photography. For more information about renting the exhibit visit http://azm.org/exhibit.shtml.

Israeli Foreign Minister Livni visits Qatar

In a speech at a conference in Qatar, Livni extended Israel’s hand in friendship. She said "We hope that other Arab states will follow the example of Qatar, as a means for promoting co-existence, understanding and peace in the entire region....To the Arab states of our region, some represented in this conference, we extend our hand in friendship." Her entire speech is available at http://tinyurl.com/6axa6x.

Yom Yerushalayim - June 2008

June 2nd marks Yom Yerushalayim, the anniversary of the liberation and reunification of Jerusalem in 1967. It marks the first time in thousands of years that the entire city of Jerusalem, the holiest city in Judaism, was under Jewish sovereignty. The destruction of Jerusalem was a watershed event in Jewish history that began thousands of years of mourning for Jerusalem; so, it follows, that the reunification of Jerusalem should be a joyous celebration that begins the process of reversing thousands of years of destruction and exile. (http://tinyurl.com/2mowqa)

You can hear the historic and dramatic sounds of Israeli Defense Forces entering the Old City of Jerusalem and reclaiming the Western Wall on June 7, 1967, including the sound of Army Chief Chaplain and Brigadier General Shlomo Goren sounding the shofar, soldiers saying prayers, including the shehechianu, singing HaTikvah and crying. A transcript is also available. Visit http://tinyurl.com/23a4ej.

Between 1948 and 1967, the Jordanians who had captured old Jerusalem refused to allow Jews to enter, and systematically destroyed Jewish monuments. In 1967, Egypt provoked another pan-Arab war against Israel (the Six-Day War) by ordering U.N. peacekeepers out of the Sinai Peninsula and blockading the Straits of Tiran. When Israeli soldiers recaptured Old Jerusalem a few days later, they discovered that Jordanians had not only dynamited synagogues; they had torn up Jewish tombstones and paved roads and built latrines with them. (http://tinyurl.com/3x6lqs)

Yet, soon after the victory of 1967, Israel unilaterally awarded control of the Temple Mount to the Islamic Authority of Jerusalem — the Waqf. In 1996 the Waqf changed the accepted status quo that was kept for generations and converted two ancient underground Second Temple Period structures into a new large mosque. Both structures, known as Solomon’s stables and the Eastern Hulda Gate passageway, were never mosques before. The new mosque extends over an area of 1.5 acres, thus being the largest mosque in Israel, able to accommodate 10,000 people. In November 1999, the Waqf opened what it called an “emergency exit” to the new mosque. The exit expanded into a gaping hole, 18,000 square feet in size, and up to 36 feet deep. Thousands of tons of the ancient fills from the site, subsequently found by Israeli archeologists to contain artifacts dating as early as the First Temple Period, were dumped into the Kidron Valley. Since the creation of the gaping hole and up until now, without any archaeological supervision, thousands of square-meters of the ancient surface level of the Temple Mount are dug up by tractors, paved and announced as open mosques. You can learn more about the archaeological destruction of the Temple Mount at www.har-habayt.org.

Yom HaAtzma'ut - May 2008

Israel Independence Day: On May 8th we celebrate Yom Ha'atzmaut, Israel Independence Day. This year is the 60^th anniversary of the founding of the modern State of Israel. It is preceded by Yom Hazikaron, Memorial Day for the Fallen Soldiers, a reminder that Israel owes its independence and existence to the many soldiers who sacrificed their lives. For nearly 2000 years the idea of the re-establishment of the Jewish State was barely a dream. Efforts to re-establish Israel took hold with the First Zionist Congress, called by Theodore Herzl, on August 29, 1897 in Basle, Switzerland. Herzl wrote in his diary after the congress, “In Basle I founded the Jewish state . . . Maybe in five years, certainly in fifty, everyone will realize it.”

Fifty years and 9 months later, on May 14, 1948, approximately six months after the UN General Assembly voted in favor of the plan for the partition of Palestine, just a few years after 6 million Jews were murdered by the Nazis and European Jewry looked down the shaft of extinction, and while Egyptian fighter-bombers flew overhead, David Ben Gurion proclaimed the independence of the State of Israel. One day later the armies of Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon invaded the Jewish state. Thousands of Jewish soldiers died defending their reborn country. For a summary of the events leading up to and after independence, titled Israel's War of Independence, visit http://isracast.com/articles/548.aspx.

During the war approximately 600,000 Palestinian Arabs fled their homes. Only Jordan offered them citizenship. Refugee camps for the Palestinians were set up and maintained, and are still maintained today, primarily by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, which is dedicated entirely to the welfare of this one group. Not the Holocaust before nor subsequent genocides or ongoing world strife since have warranted the creation of another relief agency dedicated to the continuous maintenance of a single people as refugees. They are still denied citizenship and basic rights by their hosts including the right to work.

In 1944 there were over 1 million Jews in ten Arab countries and Iran. Today there are approximately 27,000. In reaction to the establishment of Israel, these Jews whose communities existed in the Middle East, North Africa and the Gulf region for more than 2,500 years were expelled from their homes by Arab countries. Approximately 600,000 of these refugees sought refuge in Israel, including more than 100,000 Iraqi Jews who emigrated in 1951 in a dramatic airlift. The Jewish refugees were forced to abandon virtually all of their property, especially as they fled from the most hostile countries of Egypt, Syria, Iraq, and Libya. (See http://tinyurl.com/2ukwe7 and www.justiceforjews.com/jjac.pdf.) They were gradually absorbed and integrated into Israeli society without any assistance from the United Nations. Since 1947 the U.N. General Assembly has adopted over 680 resolutions on the Middle East conflict, including over 100 resolutions on Palestinian refugees. During that same time period, there were no U.N. resolutions, nor any recognition or assistance from the international community for Jewish and other refugees from Arab countries. (See http://tinyurl.com/2gpoz5, http://tinyurl.com/2ofl9v and http://tinyurl.com/2vz2b6.) Today efforts are underway to catalogue the loss of their communal and individual assets and document the mass human rights violations committed against them (www.wojac.com and www.justiceforjews.com).

The story of these people is told in a film titled The Forgotten Refugees. After the showing of the film at a Jewish film festival a few years ago, there was a discussion with two of these refugees. One gentleman told the story of his family, how they secretly traveled from Syria, hid in Lebanon, lived under threats against their lives and of their desperation to leave. He was unable to contain his emotions as he told how his family learned on Passover that they had received permission to enter Mexico, living their own personal Exodus. You can learn more about this film and the Forgotten Refugees at www.theforgottenrefugees.com. It is currently available on DVD.