?Referendum Day? has passed. It was a chance to show the world, or at least our Prime Minister, that we believe concessions to terrorists lead to more terror. And all day I couldn?t stop thinking of Anatevka.
Remember the little shtetl from Fiddler on the Roof? I was a little girl when I first saw the movie, and I was so upset at the end. All the poor Jews were being evicted from their homes, trundling their belongings on carts, resigning themselves ?to wait for the Moshiach somewhere else?. It was probably the first time I realized that being Jewish meant that sometimes we could be treated unkindly, not to mention with bestial brutality or inhuman indifference. (It was before I learned about the Holocaust.) My family comforted me with an assortment of American Jewish truisms:
?Anti-Semitism is over. The world would never tolerate it again.?
?Things like that can?t happen here. This is America.?
?We can?t get trapped. If things get bad we can always go to Israel.?
And so on.
Things look different now. Anti-Semitism in Europe is flaring to a level uncomfortably reminiscent of the 1930s, and the world seems quite prepared to tolerate it. Incredible lies about Jews and Israel are spouted from mosques and Arabic newspapers; even international podiums are used to disseminate absurdities about the Jewish conspiracy to take over the world. But why should we worry? We have Israel now: a safe haven to run to, a Jewish state to defend us among the nations, a Jewish army to protect us?
And then I remember Anatevka. Except that now I?m imagining the incredible sequel if Ariel Sharon has his way: over seven thousand Jewish families being dragged off Jewish land by Jewish soldiers, told to wait for the Moshiach ?somewhere else?.
I don?t get it. I thought this was just what the State of Israel was supposed to put an end to. No more seizures of our homes and property; no more being booted out of our villages by threats of force; no more being blamed for being the victim of bullies and terrorists; no more defenselessness before the world; no more craven acceptance of the opprobrium of the nations.
I don?t get it. Gaza and the rest of Judea and Samaria weren?t part of the inheritance of the children of Israel? They weren?t part of the 1922 League of Nations Mandate for a Jewish homeland? Our national rights there weren?t reaffirmed in Article 80 of the United Nations Charter? Gaza, Judea and Samaria weren?t illegally occupied by Egypt and Jordan in 1948? We didn?t fight and win them back in a defensive war in 1967?
I don?t get it. We are told to withdraw from the battlefield created by our enemies, and call it peace. We are told to surrender, as a free gift, all that we built there - homes, businesses and infrastructure - and call it a punishment for the Palestinians. We are told to make it harder for our intelligence services to monitor terrorist activity originating from Gaza, and call it an improvement in our security. We are told to promise to let Gaza?s Arabs continue to cross the border to jobs in Israel, and to believe that thereby homicide bombing will be reduced.
I don?t get it. We have been unable to stop the terrorists from smuggling weapons and explosives into Gaza despite our presence there, and we are supposed to believe it won?t get worse after we pull out? Withdrawal from Lebanon got us the intifada and a northern border bristling with missiles, but withdrawal from Gaza is going to lead to less terror? We are conceding territory to Palestinians who dream of genocide, and they will be so satisfied they?ll kill fewer of us, and maybe even allow us to keep Maale Adumim and Gush Etzion in the bargain? I just don?t get it.
The Arabs say they want to squeeze us bit by bit into smaller pieces of territory, until we will no longer be able to defend our borders. I believe them. They say that they plan to take over Jerusalem, and I believe them. They preach that any Jew in Israel is an illegal settler and that any Jew anywhere in the world is a fair target for terror attacks, and I believe they mean it. They say that every square meter of Israel is occupied territory they intend to liberate, and that they intend to fight until they throw every last Jew into the sea, and I believe them. Failing that, they intend to overwhelm Israel with Arab citizens, and then democratically vote us out of existence. They are unashamedly proclaiming their intentions, and I believe them.
I just can?t believe us.
Maybe it is time to reconsider what we are doing here:
We are fulfilling G-d?s promise that we would eventually return from exile and rebuild the nation.
We are attempting to create a society of justice and kindness that will be an example to the rest of the world.
We are attempting to prepare our people to welcome Moshiach and rebuild our Temple.
We are maintaining a State that can act effectively to defend or rescue Jews wherever and whenever it is needed.
Okay, I?ve reconsidered and decided that these are worthy goals and I plan to continue here, with G-d?s help. But it won?t be easy, because to continue, we really need more. We religiously motivated settlers are a minority here in Israel. The majority of Israelis are willing to make amazing and self-defeating sacrifices because they believe it is the only way to stave off extermination. They lack the training in Jewish history and Jewish faith that sustains our communities in the settlements and in the Diaspora, and so they invest in impossible schemes designed to placate our enemies, or at least postpone the next Holocaust, G-d forbid.
So we need more religious olim to strengthen our moral influence on Israeli society and to strengthen with our votes those politicians who believe in our future and cannot be dismayed or corrupted. We need more religious olim to show the nations that we intend to stay here and fulfill the role G-d has assigned us and that we cannot be separated from our land again. We especially need more religious olim to make a statement before the Heavenly Throne that we truly feel as one with all Jews, including the ones who are holding the fort here in Israel: the strong and the weak, the wise and the deceived, even the wounded and the bereaved.
It goes without saying that Hashem?s plans for us will certainly be fulfilled, with our active assistance or without it. But if we are going make this the moment, if we are going to deserve redemption now, if we are going to convince Hashem that we are determined to be a fragmented people no longer, just feeling for each other might not be enough. Sending money to support worthy causes in Israel might not be enough. Marching in the Israel Day parade and writing letters to Congress might not be enough.
In fact, at the rate things are going, even raising your children to believe in aliyah might not be enough, soon enough.
So please, take a few moments to reconsider, my brothers and sisters in the Galut. What are you still doing there? What would it take to bring you here? If you are waiting to join the avalanche of North American aliyah, who is supposed to get the ball rolling? If you are waiting for the leaders of our Galut communities to organize it, ask them these questions. If you have the potential to be a leader, ask yourself. And then come home. Because we really do miss you.
Remember the little shtetl from Fiddler on the Roof? I was a little girl when I first saw the movie, and I was so upset at the end. All the poor Jews were being evicted from their homes, trundling their belongings on carts, resigning themselves ?to wait for the Moshiach somewhere else?. It was probably the first time I realized that being Jewish meant that sometimes we could be treated unkindly, not to mention with bestial brutality or inhuman indifference. (It was before I learned about the Holocaust.) My family comforted me with an assortment of American Jewish truisms:
?Anti-Semitism is over. The world would never tolerate it again.?
?Things like that can?t happen here. This is America.?
?We can?t get trapped. If things get bad we can always go to Israel.?
And so on.
Things look different now. Anti-Semitism in Europe is flaring to a level uncomfortably reminiscent of the 1930s, and the world seems quite prepared to tolerate it. Incredible lies about Jews and Israel are spouted from mosques and Arabic newspapers; even international podiums are used to disseminate absurdities about the Jewish conspiracy to take over the world. But why should we worry? We have Israel now: a safe haven to run to, a Jewish state to defend us among the nations, a Jewish army to protect us?
And then I remember Anatevka. Except that now I?m imagining the incredible sequel if Ariel Sharon has his way: over seven thousand Jewish families being dragged off Jewish land by Jewish soldiers, told to wait for the Moshiach ?somewhere else?.
I don?t get it. I thought this was just what the State of Israel was supposed to put an end to. No more seizures of our homes and property; no more being booted out of our villages by threats of force; no more being blamed for being the victim of bullies and terrorists; no more defenselessness before the world; no more craven acceptance of the opprobrium of the nations.
I don?t get it. Gaza and the rest of Judea and Samaria weren?t part of the inheritance of the children of Israel? They weren?t part of the 1922 League of Nations Mandate for a Jewish homeland? Our national rights there weren?t reaffirmed in Article 80 of the United Nations Charter? Gaza, Judea and Samaria weren?t illegally occupied by Egypt and Jordan in 1948? We didn?t fight and win them back in a defensive war in 1967?
I don?t get it. We are told to withdraw from the battlefield created by our enemies, and call it peace. We are told to surrender, as a free gift, all that we built there - homes, businesses and infrastructure - and call it a punishment for the Palestinians. We are told to make it harder for our intelligence services to monitor terrorist activity originating from Gaza, and call it an improvement in our security. We are told to promise to let Gaza?s Arabs continue to cross the border to jobs in Israel, and to believe that thereby homicide bombing will be reduced.
I don?t get it. We have been unable to stop the terrorists from smuggling weapons and explosives into Gaza despite our presence there, and we are supposed to believe it won?t get worse after we pull out? Withdrawal from Lebanon got us the intifada and a northern border bristling with missiles, but withdrawal from Gaza is going to lead to less terror? We are conceding territory to Palestinians who dream of genocide, and they will be so satisfied they?ll kill fewer of us, and maybe even allow us to keep Maale Adumim and Gush Etzion in the bargain? I just don?t get it.
The Arabs say they want to squeeze us bit by bit into smaller pieces of territory, until we will no longer be able to defend our borders. I believe them. They say that they plan to take over Jerusalem, and I believe them. They preach that any Jew in Israel is an illegal settler and that any Jew anywhere in the world is a fair target for terror attacks, and I believe they mean it. They say that every square meter of Israel is occupied territory they intend to liberate, and that they intend to fight until they throw every last Jew into the sea, and I believe them. Failing that, they intend to overwhelm Israel with Arab citizens, and then democratically vote us out of existence. They are unashamedly proclaiming their intentions, and I believe them.
I just can?t believe us.
Maybe it is time to reconsider what we are doing here:
We are fulfilling G-d?s promise that we would eventually return from exile and rebuild the nation.
We are attempting to create a society of justice and kindness that will be an example to the rest of the world.
We are attempting to prepare our people to welcome Moshiach and rebuild our Temple.
We are maintaining a State that can act effectively to defend or rescue Jews wherever and whenever it is needed.
Okay, I?ve reconsidered and decided that these are worthy goals and I plan to continue here, with G-d?s help. But it won?t be easy, because to continue, we really need more. We religiously motivated settlers are a minority here in Israel. The majority of Israelis are willing to make amazing and self-defeating sacrifices because they believe it is the only way to stave off extermination. They lack the training in Jewish history and Jewish faith that sustains our communities in the settlements and in the Diaspora, and so they invest in impossible schemes designed to placate our enemies, or at least postpone the next Holocaust, G-d forbid.
So we need more religious olim to strengthen our moral influence on Israeli society and to strengthen with our votes those politicians who believe in our future and cannot be dismayed or corrupted. We need more religious olim to show the nations that we intend to stay here and fulfill the role G-d has assigned us and that we cannot be separated from our land again. We especially need more religious olim to make a statement before the Heavenly Throne that we truly feel as one with all Jews, including the ones who are holding the fort here in Israel: the strong and the weak, the wise and the deceived, even the wounded and the bereaved.
It goes without saying that Hashem?s plans for us will certainly be fulfilled, with our active assistance or without it. But if we are going make this the moment, if we are going to deserve redemption now, if we are going to convince Hashem that we are determined to be a fragmented people no longer, just feeling for each other might not be enough. Sending money to support worthy causes in Israel might not be enough. Marching in the Israel Day parade and writing letters to Congress might not be enough.
In fact, at the rate things are going, even raising your children to believe in aliyah might not be enough, soon enough.
So please, take a few moments to reconsider, my brothers and sisters in the Galut. What are you still doing there? What would it take to bring you here? If you are waiting to join the avalanche of North American aliyah, who is supposed to get the ball rolling? If you are waiting for the leaders of our Galut communities to organize it, ask them these questions. If you have the potential to be a leader, ask yourself. And then come home. Because we really do miss you.