Israel’s resurgence - To focus on the magnificent.

Reflections for Israel’s 65th Independence Day: Belief in the power of Jewish history, animated by ancient faith, explains much about Israel today. It explains our willingness to sacrifice so much for independence. It explains our drive to succeed in the arts and sciences and to share our advances with the world. It explains our attachment to Jerusalem. It explains why we sometimes stubbornly refuse to accept rational calculations of diplomatic cost and benefit politely impressed on us by well-meaning allies… Those who consider history only in temporal terms underestimate and misjudge Israel.

David M. Weinberg..
A Citadel Defending Zion..
12 April '13..

Press reviews of the state of this country on its Independence Day commonly miss the spiritual, meta-historic significance of Israel’s achievement. They tend to calculate a balance sheet of Israel’s successes and failures in defense, economy, democracy and peace-making, but fail to fathom the processes at work behind the curtain of current affairs.

It’s valid to apply temporal yardsticks of measurement to Israel, but such evaluations undershoot the deeper challenge: to understand the resurgence of Israel in grand historical terms; to discern the mystic movement, the Divine drama – if you will, at play.

It cannot be otherwise. There is nothing global, or even massive, about the State of Israel in political terms. This is a small piece of earth. We Israelis are but a tiny fraction of the human family. In the sweep of history, there have been greater battles, larger transfers and emigrations of populations, bigger construction and technological projects, more eminently impressive displays of might.

So in secular terms, Israel is not all that big a deal. But as vindication of spirit, as validation of tenacious faith, as proof of the Jewish People’s – indeed humanity’s – power to overcome, Israel’s establishment and advancement is a very big deal indeed.

History knows no parallel to the prophecies of the Bible, which foretold the break-up of a people into a thousand pieces across the world, yet destined to persevere for centuries and return to their indigenous homeland.

This is a defy-all-odds saga of metaphysical union spanning centuries between a people, their G-d, and a land. This, wrote the late Ambassador Dr. Yaacov Herzog, “is the celebration of a nation who, at the moment of ultimate nadir, of devastating Holocaust, rose from the ashes, armed with little more than conviction and a historical consciousness that promised renewal, to stake claim to their ancestry. This is redemption, providential consolation.”

Both the scythe and the sword

Dror Eydar..
Israel Hayom..
04 January '13

Is there hope? For the situation, I mean. That’s what we’re hearing from various places. The question pops up as a defiant challenge whenever we reach the logical conclusion that in light of the geopolitical situation, which is changing before our eyes, and after twenty years during which the Palestinians have avoided making peace with us, we see no chance for real peace with our neighbors. Contrary to the usual propaganda, the dispute with them is not territorial, but much deeper. It has to do with the roots of the ancient myths and the religious disagreement between us and the Muslims.

As far as Islam is concerned, the Jews have no right to sovereignty over even part of the Land of Israel, which they consider wakf — sacred Muslim land. Even the moderate Ahmad Tibi was heard saying this week that he did not recognize the concept of the “Land of Israel.” So where is the hope?

Maybe this is where the fixing starts. For 2,000 years we held onto the hope of returning to our ancestral land and resuming life here as a free nation living in security on our own soil. During that time, there were those who gave up and vanished into the current of history. Those who believed kept on living as Jews in the shadow of death among the various peoples and nations, and waited.

Tisha B’Av and Jewish Power

Adam Levick
CiF Watch
16 July '10


“People resent the Jews for having emerged from their immemorial weakness and fearlessly resorted to force. They thereby betrayed the mission that history had assigned to them – being a people…that did not get tangled up in the obtuse narrowness of the nation-state.” – Pascal Bruckner, The Tyranny of Guilt

Soon, Jews in Israel and around the world will observe Tisha B’Av, a day of mourning to commemorate the many tragedies that have befallen the Jewish people throughout their history on the same date on the Hebrew calendar – the ninth day of the month of Av. Tisha B’Av primarily commemorates the destruction of the first and second Temples, but on this day we also reflect on the many other tragedies which occurred on this date, from the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492 to the mass deportation of Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto.

Like many in Jerusalem, I intend to spend some time on this day at the Kotel participating in what represents a public bereavement for the many victims of our collective calamities. Typically, however, in addition to such mourning, I can’t help but reflect on this painful annual recollection of suffering and catastrophe in the context of the Jewish community’s often ambivalent relationship with power. Such ruminations are only heightened by my new citizenship in the modern state of Israel, a nation often forced to exercise power in order to prevent additional tragedies from befalling the Jewish people.

Indeed, Israel’s rebirth can be seen as a direct response to these calamitous events – an attempt to turn history around and act instead of being acted upon. Whether defending itself in war, or aiding/rescuing endangered Jewish communities around the world, the Jewish collective has had at its disposal for the past 62 years – and for the first time in over 2000 years – a state apparatus with the means (logistically, politically, diplomatically, and militarily) to protect its people’s interests, just as other communities represented by nation-states have had through the ages.

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