My father, Edward Honigman, of blessed memory, returned home after spending four years as a gunner in the US Navy in World War II, met my mother, Sylvia, and soon sired another baby boomer – me. While their timing wasn’t perfect back then, it was close enough.


I made my debut on May 8, 1948, Harry Truman’s birthday. He was the President who fought his own State

I've watched Israel emerge from the ashes - the risen phoenix of my millennially persecuted people.

Department by recognizing the rebirth of Israel on May 14. Thirteen years later, I would become a Bar Mitzvah on that date.
I guess you could say that modern Israel and I have grown up together.


I've watched Israel emerge from the ashes - the risen phoenix of my millennially persecuted people. It did so on a minuscule portion of the world’s real estate, where Jews have 4,000 years of history, producing one of the most vibrant, advanced societies on Earth - things which only make assorted anti-Semites (including those masked as anti-Zionists) hate it even more. While humanly imperfect, compared to the largely tyrannical mess which surrounds it, Israel is indeed a light unto the nations, true to its Biblical mission of “chosenness.” While Arabs target Jewish innocents, Israel’s hospitals fly in Arabs from elsewhere for life-saving treatment.
 
Recall when Theodor Herzl, the father of modern political Zionism, approached Pope Pius X for support around the turn of the 20th century, he was told this would be impossible since Jews, the alleged Deicide People - were condemned as perpetual wanderers since they rejected the divinity of Jesus. Herzl was later quoted saying that, in retrospect, maybe his refusal to kiss the Pope’s ring didn't help matters.
No surprise, however. The road to Auschwitz was paved by many “sacred” teachings, including those of the Vatican’s nemesis, Martin Luther and, even earlier, the Christian New Testament itself. The Gospel of John calls Jews - not “just” Pharisees - children of the Devil. (Not to mention similar problems in the Muslims’ Koran.)
But if ever a sacred teaching could send positive chills up one’s spine, then certainly Ezekiel 37 rang true in the aftermath of the slaughter of one third of all world Jewry during the Holocaust. Some excerpts:


The hand of the Lord was upon me... set me down in the midst of the valley full of bones.... there were very many... and, lo, they were very dry.
And He said unto me, "Son of man, can these bones live?" And I answered, "O Lord God, thou knowest."


Again He said unto me, "Prophesy upon these bones, and say unto them, 'O ye dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus saith the Lord God unto these bones; "Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you, and ye shall live: And I will lay sinews upon you, bring flesh upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you..."'"


So I prophesied... and there was a noise... a shaking, and the bones came together, bone to bone. And... sinews and flesh came up upon them, and skin covered them above: but there was no breath in them.
Then said He unto me, "Prophesy unto the wind, Son of man, and say to the wind, 'Thus saith the Lord God: "Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live."'"
So I prophesied... and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood up upon their feet....
Then He said unto me, "Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel: behold, they say, 'Our bones are dried, and our hope is lost....'
"Therefore prophesy and say, 'Thus saith the Lord God; "Behold, O my people, I will open your graves, and cause you to come up out of your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel...."'"
Within a few years of the Holocaust, besides remnants from the West, more Jews would flee Arab and Muslim

While Arabs target Jewish innocents, Israel’s hospitals fly in Arabs from elsewhere for life-saving treatment.

lands of the East and come into Israel than Arabs who fled in the reverse direction due to the Arab invasion of the resurrected Jewish State in 1948.
I've watched as Israel - constantly in the spotlight’s glare, subjected to hypocritical double standards - struggled as hard as humanly possible to honor the moral imperatives of its Hebraic traditions while fighting enemies who delight in disemboweling Jewish children and turning their own into shahids. As I've often noted, Jews want, in one tiny state covering far less than one per cent of the Middle East, what Arabs carved out for themselves in almost two dozen nations on over six million square miles of territory. Recall that most of that territory was forcibly conquered and Arabized from native, non-Arab peoples.
To understand the meaning of resurrected Israel to the Jew, one needs to know what Jewish history was like for two thousand years after the Jews took on the conqueror of the world for their independence. A reading of Roman-sponsored historians - Tacitus, Dio Cassius, Josephus, etc. - gives a "non-Zionist" account of the fervor with which Jews fought for the freedom of their land.


Vol. II, Book V, The Works of Tacitus:


Vespasian... succeeded to the command... inflamed his resentment that Jews were the only nation that had not yet submitted.... Titus was appointed by father to complete subjugation of Judaea... commanded three legions in Judaea itself... added the twelfth from Syria and the third and twenty-second from Alexandria.... [A]mongst allies were band of Arabs, formidable and harboring towards the Jews the bitter animosity usually subsisting between neighboring nations.
Later, the emperor Hadrian became so enraged at the Jews' persistence that in 135 CE, after their second major revolt, he renamed Judaea Syria Palaestina – "Palestine" - after the Jews' historic enemies, non-Semitic, non-Arab Philistines (from the area around Crete), in an attempt to end the Jews' hopes forever.
Forced conversions, being branded the “Deicide people,” Inquisitions, demonization, ghettos, blood libels, massacres, expulsions, the Holocaust, and perpetual existence as strangers in someone else's land became the plight of the Wandering Jew. Estimates have placed Jews murdered prior to the Holocaust, in both the Christian West and in the Muslim East, in the millions.
With all the real and potential sins of nationalism, if ever a people needed their own state for just their very survival and dignity, the Jews certainly are it. Even General Ulysses S. Grant (future US President) issued expulsion orders to the Jews of the South during the Civil War.
As we approach both of our birthdays, my wish for Israel is that it regains leaders who will still strive for Israel to be a light unto the nations, but not at the sacrifice of its own essential interests - no matter who is tightening the screws from abroad. The dreams and prayers of countless Jews over the ages are at stake.
Finally, as a footnote, I will receive a very special gift this year. Modern Israel, on the Hebrew Calendar, also turns sixty on May 8.