Israel is still the wonder that we Jews were able to build magnificently in fifty four years, after coming out from the ashes of the Holocaust. It is the land in which every man is a soldier (well, almost), yet still every soldier is a human being. It’s soldiers complain forever about their conditions and the need to go every year to forty five days of reserve duty, yet when it comes to do it they enjoy the “chevre” (friends/slang) as if it was a therapeutic retreat from everyday life. They hated the service in Lebanon and now in West Bank or the Gaza strip, but they still do the job when they are called up. Over 100% of reporting to units lately showed this indeed, when called up for Operation Defensive Shield, or Chomat Magen, Defensive Wall.
This is a country that experienced already six wars and endless terrorist attacks. Too many homes were already affected by death and bereavement. There are those who call this time as our seventh war, for understandable reasons. At the same time we have more people killed on the roads than in wars, and we need to pay much more attention to this issue.
This is a country that most its inhabitants today were already born into a reality of a strong, existing state, but who can still relate to the potential danger of losing it due to the possibility that one day we will not be strong enough to meet the security challenge that still lays ahead. Israel is no more a temporary fragment or adventure in the Middle East, but still many of the surrounding nations have a hatd time to admit it’s right to a long term, peaceful existence among our neighbors.
It is a land in which the mothers learn the mother tongue from their children, but the children sometimes distort it by using slang words. We have a very low rate of illiteracy, printing thousands of new books every year, but still have to make an effort in promoting the love for books amongst our children.
This is a country that brought it’s residents from four corners of the world, but still treats immigrants as if they are taken for granted, as they struggle to adapt to their new life. There is aneed fo continued effort until we all melt again into one new nation. It takes a lot to unify Olim from about seventy different countries, and eliminate unnecessary inside ethnic tensions.
Israel is a country that builds roads faster than ever, but at the same time buys more cars than those roads can support, therefore it’s people being constantly stuck in a huge traffic jam.
It’s a country that can offer a lot of “Jewish Sechel”, yet lets the drain brain flow towards the Silicon Valley, instead of offering better and more attractive conditions to its brilliant youngsters. It is a nation that still has an unsolved problem with Israelis that decide to leave Israel in favor of living abroad, those are the “Yordim”. Serious and meaningful steps need to be taken to bring those back, or to keep them from leaving.
It is a strong democracy in which the law is above all, but where some ministers think they can be above it. Most of it’s party leaders greatly support and respect it’s democracy, but sometimes try to bend it to their particular election needs. It is a country with no racism, but one that needs to improve relations between Ashkenazim and Sepharadim. Regarding Arab and Druse Israelis feel we have long ways to go until they will achieve full and equal civilian rights and opportunities, in spite of their proven loyalty to the country.
It is a country that brings thousands of young Jews from America and from all over the world to visit Israel each year, in order to foster their Jewish identity, and should also send Israelis to America to learn about religious diversity and bring the lessons learned back home.
It is a nation that still keeps many traditions, but sometimes forgets what is important about them and where they came from. It’s people plant hundreds of thousands of trees each year, changing desert into fertile land. Teaching our children to love and guard nature is for many a daily task.
It is a country where everybody stops driving on Yom Kippur, and even go to shul. The social meetings of youth outside the synagogue are sometimes louder than the sounds of davening, but youth still enjoy the sound of “Kol Nidrey” and the empty streets that allow them to enjoy the only full “bicycle and roller skate day” in the year.
It is a nation that loves the country, but would not skip the “rite the passage” of taking a trip to Australia, Nepal and Thailand, even if that means you can return with possible exotic mushroom related hallucinations, or get in trouble with the law there.
This nation does not hate Arabs, but prefers to see a long-range solution based on “live and let live”, rather separated from one another. It is divided into endless oppinions, factions, coalitions and fronts, and is mainly led by the ever vocal merciless talk-show interviewers on television. Its people can still accomplish a miraculous raid in Enthebe, Iraq or the Himalaya, if needed, but find it hard to agree on a common status for keeping the Shabbat in our malls and towns.
This nation lives in a country that is the twelfth strongest economy in the world, judged by income per capita, by far exceeding all the surrounding neighbors, yet one that still complains about the situation. Right now, indeed, the economical situation is far from prosperous, but we all look forward for and make efforts for better times to come. Even though, you can find many people tha volunteer, help others and enjoy the good feeling that volunteering gives to you.
I wish to say a few words regarding the current events in Israel.
Before Yitzhak Rabin wa assasinated, after the Oslo process began, many in Israel, including me, were extremely optimistic about the future. Peace was ‘breaking out’ everywhere, and new horizons seemed to be opening for all the people in the area. The peace process with the Palestinians, the peace agreement with Jordan and the talks with Syria all gave a sign of a new dawn in our region.
Since then a lot of blurry water went down the small and almost dry river of Jordan. Rabin was killed, our nation split in argue, the Syrian talks came to a halt, and now the dramatic deadlock in which we are all caught with the Palestinians. Very few of us are optimistic about a positive outcome in the next few years ahead.
Our leaders are silent or puzzled, the ordinary people on the edge of dispair, if not beyond it, and our children seek direction and security while trying to lead a normal life in the existing chaos. One thinks twice before going to a movie or letting his kids wander around a mall, and no one knows where the next blow will come from.
A few days ago, as we were sitting down to the Sedar night, starting to read the Haggada, again the terrible terror struck. We were just reading the line that says “NOT ONE ONLY HAS RISEN UP AGAINST US, BUT IN EVERY GENERATION SOME HAVE ARISEN AGAINST US TO ANNIHILATE US” when the news of the attack in Netanya hit us. Our thoughts were disturbed, and the Sedar was no more what it intended to be. No wonder that this saying was the next Mornings newspaper headline. The world saw the huge blood stain that covered all the floor in Park hotel’s festive dining room.
The sentence that follows in the Haggadah is “BUT THE MOST HOLY, BLESSED BE HE, ALWAYS DELIVERED US OUT OF THEIR HANDS”. At this time we hope that our leaders and our military will do what is necessary to ensure our children’s future. I believe that we will find the strength to fight the terror, then find the hard compromises that will stop violence and blodshed once and for all.
The picture of Tzipi Shemesh Z”L and her husband Gadi that were murdered in the terrorist attack in Jerusalem, leaving behind two orphan girls, Shoval, who is seven years old, and Shachar, only three years old, and the two fetuses that Tzipi carried in her womb, this picture is one that we can not be at peace with. This has nothing to do with Sharon, it has nothing to do with Oslo or any peace talks. Nor is the killing of many elderly people, that all their fault was that they wanted to spend a peaceful Sedar night in company, in order not to be alone on this festive night. 28 of the were already been burried.
During the month of March 2002 only there were more than seven hundred Israelis wounded, 72 of them still hospitalized, and only between the Sedar night and the end of Pesach more than fifty killed and many dozens wounded.
One more word about our soldiers, again. These young men and women face terrible dilemmas. On the one hand they follow orders, they fight terror day and night, they do the maximum to keep peace and quiet back home. On the other hand, they have to make extremely diffcult decisions, squeezing the trigger or holding back, all in a matter of seconds, a test they face every day. They need to decide between humanitarian needs and very dangerous threats. And yet they deal with the situation, also facing lots of criticism, but they do it as moral human beings, trying as much as possible not to damage civilian life.
The task is so delicate. They walk a thin line between the lies of the PLO, the bad propaganda, the biased media and the human duty not to harm those who need not to be harmed, those who are innocent. All this with so very little support, form home and abroad as well.
The other day, while Mr. Powell was visiting here, a CBS reporter was interviewed and sincerely said, after shooting the last Jerusalem suicide attack done by a Palestinian young woman: “Only now do I fully understand what Israelis are going through. No man can understand it, no matter how good your public relations will be, unless he witnessed it in person”.
So then, this is our Israel, the one that struggles for peace and freedom, many years after it’s people came out “from slavery to freedom” from Egypt. We do not want to keep being the prisoners of terror. Our children want to be free to enjoy life as any other kid in the world, their father wants not to carry his pistol every day to school and in the street. Exactly the same we wish to all the Palestinian children as well.
Yes, Israel is all of this and long ways to go with lots of work to do, but it’s the only country that we have. It has the most wonderful, crazy, sunburn, loud, mad and cheerful people, and it is the only country we have! It is a country that we all, Israeli and American Jews, have to love and cherish, the only one we need to continue to develop and strengthen forever!
Our students, present here, come from the Hadera, a town that has tasted several harsh terrorist attacks in the last months. We lost citizens, mothers, fathers and children. We help the wounded, and try to get back to normal life as well as we can. These students are bringing you today the best part of Israel, the youth, the hope, the decision to live! They are our future! They will not give in to terror! Their wonderful talent and extreme youthful energy will soon dazzle you all!
On Thursday, April 18, all Israelis will attach a green balloon on their car antenna, homes and flag poles in order to show support to all our soldiers, in active duty and reserves, in the security services and the Police forces, all who fight for the safety of our children and our future! The balloon will also symbolize our support for the government and its actions, in a time that is crucial to be united in Israel! Let us pray for our soldiers and citizen’s safety, for a fast end and a good solution to this terrible situation, and for many better, peaceful and prosperous years to Israel, her neighbors and all the peaceful communities around the world!
Yom Atzmaut Sameach (Happy Independence Day)!