The hope of two thousand years,
Lih'yot am chofshi be'artzeinu
Eretz tzion viyerushalayim
To be a free people in our land
The land of Zion and Jerusalem
Yom HaAtzma’ut is the day that we celebrate the reestablishment of the State of Israel, the day we became am chofshi be'artzeinu, a free people in our land.
Hatikvah [1] speaks of the two thousand year longing for freedom and return to the land, but it does not speak of peace. Maybe it’s implied, or maybe the writers were just being realistic. Looking at the long Jewish history it must have been clear that once you are living in your own land, whether you live as a free and democratic people is up to you. But living in peace often depends on others.
Our history over the last two millennia is largely one with neither freedom nor peace. It’s easy to summarize its repetitiveness. Limitations on the practice of Judaism, often done in hiding. Pogroms. Forced labor. Inquisition. Forced conversion. Repeated expulsions. Limitations on where we could live. Mass murders by governments and by our neighbors. Even during what is called the Golden Age of Islam, when Spain was ruled under Sharia law and Muslims, Christians and Jews are said to have lived in peace, we were third class citizens known as dhimmi. If we avoided the punishment of torture or death under rules that make Jim Crow look like the Bill of Rights, then there was peace. It was said that we ate the blood of Christian children. And In what I’m sure is one of history’s greatest ironies, we were accused as killers of Christ, when it was us who died century after century, by the thousands and by the millions, because of the sins of the world.
In 1948 the river of our history changed course. In a miracle we prevailed over the onslaught of our neighbors. We were free to govern ourselves as a sovereign nation. The timeless dream became reality. We were finally am chofshi b’artzenu, a free people in our land.
But we must remember that at that same time Jews were not free everywhere. There were still Jews living in displaced persons camps in Europe, unable to return home or recover their property, let alone their families. A million of us would be expelled from our homes in Muslim countries [2], waiting in the night to be rescued in dramatic airlifts to Israel [3] [4]. Millions of other Jews became locked behind the Iron Curtain for decades more [5]. In the US we were still restricted from places like universities and exclusive clubs. We can only speculate about how things would have continued for us around the world without the reestablishment of Israel. Who knows how the world would have dealt with its Jewish problem.
The more our enemies fought to get rid of Israel the more miracles occurred. In 1967 “next year” finally came. Colonel Motta Gur of the IDF said: “The Temple Mount is in our hands!” [6] and Jews returned to Jerusalem, where we are still rebuilding from the destruction of Jewish sites by the Jordanian army [7]. Each time Israel was attacked it was able to push the enemy armies farther and farther away. The West Bank, Golan, Sinai, southern Lebanon. It was through victory that Israel achieved a modicum of peace.
But the peace is cold. Egypt allows weapons to be smuggled into Gaza for use against Israeli civilians [8]. Jordan revokes Jordanian citizenship from Palestinians to keep them pressed against Israel [9]. Other countries fund terrorist armies bent on the killing of Jews and the destruction of Israel. Their reach has extended to attack Jews around the world as we’ve seen in South America and Europe and India. I think it’s fair to say that a good portion of the world, including the 57 nations that belong to the Organization of the Islamic Conference, still will not accept that the Jewish state is here to stay. They have changed the point of their spear, but land for peace is like the emperor with no clothes. The only thing concessions have done for Israel since the treaties with Egypt and Jordan is return enemy armies to its borders. The still freshly gained freedom of Israel and the freedom of Jews everywhere must not be dealt away for a false peace.
Israel has gone and continues to go to extraordinary lengths for peace. The question is not whether Israel wants peace. It’s so called partners refuse to return to the negotiating table.
The real question is this: do we believe things have changed so much that if we let them put the blade to our neck they won’t cut off our heads? If the world has changed, why is Israel the only nation that cannot have a seat on the UN security council [10]? Why are dictators that deny freedom to billions allowed a seat at the table but not Israel? Why is Israel the focus of condemnation by the UN human rights council when there is so much oppression in so many countries? Why are there over one hundred UN resolutions that speak of Arab refugees but none that speak of the nearly one million Jewish refugees who were forced out of the Muslim countries where their communities lived for 2,000 years? Why must lands that Israel turns over to its enemies in the name of peace immediately become Judenrein, cleansed of Jews? Why have anti-Semitism and anti-Israelism become chic again? Why is Israel held to high standards when others are held to none? Why do President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton, who both once told voters they believed that Jerusalem must forever remain the undivided capital of Israel[11] [12] [13] [14] [15] now say that Jews should not build homes in Jerusalem[16] [17] [18]? Why is Jerusalem the focus of their Middle East policy when there are real barriers to peace like rocket fire from the Gaza Strip and the funding of Hamas and Hizbullah? Why is Israel under increasing attack by our President, who now says that Israeli policies are responsible for the deaths of American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan[19] ? Why is Mahmoud Abbas referred to as a moderate without ever a reference to his PhD thesis in which he denies the holocaust ever happened, or to his follow-up book titled “The Other Side: The Secret Relationship Between Nazism and the Zionist Movement,”[20] which purports to refute “the fantastic lie that six million Jews were killed” in the Holocaust. Abbas wrote that the German gas chambers were never used to kill Jews, but only to disinfect them. And to the extent that Jews did die in World War Two Abbas wrote that this was a joint effort between Jewish leaders and the Nazis. These were the result of three years of study for his PhD. Why is someone like that called “a man of peace”? Why is no other country treated like Israel? Why, why, why. The list is as endless as it is shameful.
I was going to read from parts from Israel’s Declaration of Independence tonight but I decided instead to read something else. These are the words of one of America’s founding fathers which speak so well for the state of affairs facing Israel today. He said:
“We have done everything that could be done to avert the storm which is now coming on. We have petitioned; we have remonstrated; we have supplicated; we have prostrated ourselves before the throne. Our petitions have been slighted; our remonstrances have produced additional violence and insult; our supplications have been disregarded; and we have been spurned with contempt. If we wish to be free we must fight!
I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided; and that is the lamp of experience. What terms shall we find which have not already been exhausted? The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?”
He went on to say:
“Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!”
The words of Patrick Henry.
If we are serious about the Jewish people remaining free then it is the responsibility of each of us to protest the current state of affairs loudly and clearly. We must write and call our senators and representatives, our secretary of state and our president, and let them know that the singling out of Israel as the Jew among the nations is unacceptable. We must let them know that our support for them is conditional based on a change of treatment and policy toward Israel. Silence is acquiescence. If we do not speak up now we are enabling a potentially fatal assault on the security of the Jewish state. We are now bearing witness to the beginning of that assault. A generation from now Jews will be asking, “what did you do to protect Israel?” I pray we all have a good answer.
Coming just off of Passover and Yom HaShoah, we must also remember everything in between and everything since as if we ourselves went forth. Our present and our future are illuminated by the light of our past. We must never forget our history, we must never forget our connection to all other Jews, we must never forget our connection to the land of Israel. We must never forget to tell our children.
Because we are still finding our way out of mitzrayim. Because Amalek is still attacking. Because in every generation there really are those who rise up to destroy us. Because the security of Israel is the security the Jewish people the world over. Because the freedom of Israel is the freedom of our children and our grandchildren. Because the world shows us week after week that after 2 millennia and a Holocaust we must still wait for change we can believe in.
That is why I pray, that Israel and all Jews, will always love freedom more than peace, so that we will forever remain am chofshi b’artzenu, a free people in our land, and a free people everywhere.
Chag Sameach
