On a recent Sunday night, I was privileged to go to the kick-off Aliyah Revolution concert in downtown Jerusalem, in conjunction with Kumah.org. The band was great, the music jiving and the attendees were young, energetic and overall thrilled to be in Israel.
New immigrants to Israel from the United States, Canada and other developed countries share one thing in common: their aliyah is based on ideology, not persecution; based on a love of Israel, not a hate of their home country; based on commitment and not fear. With all the problems facing the Jewish state at this time, the new immigrants are perhaps the most guaranteed success Israel has to look forward to ? even if the people of Israel do not recognize it.
Israel was founded in part as a response to anti-Semitism and a rise of anti-Semitic incidents in Europe (Ze'ev Jabotinsky warned several times that the Jews of Europe should leave before it was too late), but as a whole, the State was founded by those who chose the Land of Israel above the United States. They had a profound understanding of the importance of Eretz Yisrael, the Land of Israel, for the historic People of Israel. When Uganda was proposed as an alternative to the Land of Israel, the overwhelming majority of Zionists rejected it. There was only one option and that was Israel. This commitment and understanding is crucially missing in mainstream Israeli thought.
The State of Israel has lost its direction and is in vital need of a resurgence of Jewish understanding. I am afraid to think of what the consequences might be if Israel should continue to be ignorant of the history, culture and ideas that led a people scattered to the four corners of the earth to walk back to a single piece of land in the Middle East.
I was hit most with this concern at the Aliyah Revolution concert through a conversation with a young Israeli woman.
The boyfriend of the Israeli woman asked me to persuade her to visit Hebron, the City of our Patriarchs and Matriarchs, with him. She was apparently afraid of the danger in going to the heartland of the Jewish people. Her boyfriend was aware that I had frequented the city that Abraham had purchased several times this summer and only had positive experiences to relate.
I started off by saying that Hebron is the source, the fountainhead from which the entire State, the entire Jewish people, flows. I stated that without the precious people buried in the Cave of the Patriarchs, there would be no Jewish people, no Torah, no Land of Israel and certainly no State of Israel.
Her answer to me could not have more reflected the sentiment of the young Israeli population: "I am not religious. I do not feel the same way about these ancient places. After all, the Tanach [Hebrew Bible] worked well for the Exile, but we are in Israel now."
I was nearly knocked off my chair upon hearing those words. How far we have strayed. There was a time in Israeli history when even the most adamantly secular Zionist understood the importance of the Tanach to the continuation of the Jewish enterprise in the Holy Land.
If we do not link ourselves to Jews of every age who have prayed, struggled and dreamed of returning back to their land, then we are no better than racist colonialists. It does not matter if we have now been here for multiple generations as a sovereign State of Israel; mere existence is not enough. If we forget our glorious past that connects us through the generations to King David, who secured the borders of Israel, or King Solomon, who built the Temple of G-d on Mt. Moriah in Jerusalem, or Ezra, who led a weakened, exiled people back to their land from the Rivers of Babylon, then we have no right to be here whatsoever. It is only the Heritage of Israel that provides us an anchor in the land where "the Eye of G-d is upon it from the beginning of the year to the end."
After this troubling conversation, I was comforted when I once again looked out at the audience of young, committed Jews who, with full heart and full understanding, are returning to their holy land. These Jews, who, like the early Zionists, appreciate who we are and what we are doing here - but who unlike the early Zionists also practice the heritage of Israel - are the future of the State of Israel. We must continue to strengthen the aliyah of these Jews and, with the help of G-d, bring thousands more of them home.
We also must reach out to the vast majority of Israelis who, like that girl at the concert, have no clue why they are in the Land of Israel and not in California. For the sake of Jewish Unity and Jewish Love, we must educate and inform the people of Israel who they are once again. If we are educated about our heritage and appreciate why we are here, we can proudly stand with the Degel Yisrael, the Flag of Israel, on the beaches of Gush Katif and the hilltops of Judea and Samaria, and our mouths will truly be "filled with laughter" as "like dreamers, we recall our return to Zion."
New immigrants to Israel from the United States, Canada and other developed countries share one thing in common: their aliyah is based on ideology, not persecution; based on a love of Israel, not a hate of their home country; based on commitment and not fear. With all the problems facing the Jewish state at this time, the new immigrants are perhaps the most guaranteed success Israel has to look forward to ? even if the people of Israel do not recognize it.
Israel was founded in part as a response to anti-Semitism and a rise of anti-Semitic incidents in Europe (Ze'ev Jabotinsky warned several times that the Jews of Europe should leave before it was too late), but as a whole, the State was founded by those who chose the Land of Israel above the United States. They had a profound understanding of the importance of Eretz Yisrael, the Land of Israel, for the historic People of Israel. When Uganda was proposed as an alternative to the Land of Israel, the overwhelming majority of Zionists rejected it. There was only one option and that was Israel. This commitment and understanding is crucially missing in mainstream Israeli thought.
The State of Israel has lost its direction and is in vital need of a resurgence of Jewish understanding. I am afraid to think of what the consequences might be if Israel should continue to be ignorant of the history, culture and ideas that led a people scattered to the four corners of the earth to walk back to a single piece of land in the Middle East.
I was hit most with this concern at the Aliyah Revolution concert through a conversation with a young Israeli woman.
The boyfriend of the Israeli woman asked me to persuade her to visit Hebron, the City of our Patriarchs and Matriarchs, with him. She was apparently afraid of the danger in going to the heartland of the Jewish people. Her boyfriend was aware that I had frequented the city that Abraham had purchased several times this summer and only had positive experiences to relate.
I started off by saying that Hebron is the source, the fountainhead from which the entire State, the entire Jewish people, flows. I stated that without the precious people buried in the Cave of the Patriarchs, there would be no Jewish people, no Torah, no Land of Israel and certainly no State of Israel.
Her answer to me could not have more reflected the sentiment of the young Israeli population: "I am not religious. I do not feel the same way about these ancient places. After all, the Tanach [Hebrew Bible] worked well for the Exile, but we are in Israel now."
I was nearly knocked off my chair upon hearing those words. How far we have strayed. There was a time in Israeli history when even the most adamantly secular Zionist understood the importance of the Tanach to the continuation of the Jewish enterprise in the Holy Land.
If we do not link ourselves to Jews of every age who have prayed, struggled and dreamed of returning back to their land, then we are no better than racist colonialists. It does not matter if we have now been here for multiple generations as a sovereign State of Israel; mere existence is not enough. If we forget our glorious past that connects us through the generations to King David, who secured the borders of Israel, or King Solomon, who built the Temple of G-d on Mt. Moriah in Jerusalem, or Ezra, who led a weakened, exiled people back to their land from the Rivers of Babylon, then we have no right to be here whatsoever. It is only the Heritage of Israel that provides us an anchor in the land where "the Eye of G-d is upon it from the beginning of the year to the end."
After this troubling conversation, I was comforted when I once again looked out at the audience of young, committed Jews who, with full heart and full understanding, are returning to their holy land. These Jews, who, like the early Zionists, appreciate who we are and what we are doing here - but who unlike the early Zionists also practice the heritage of Israel - are the future of the State of Israel. We must continue to strengthen the aliyah of these Jews and, with the help of G-d, bring thousands more of them home.
We also must reach out to the vast majority of Israelis who, like that girl at the concert, have no clue why they are in the Land of Israel and not in California. For the sake of Jewish Unity and Jewish Love, we must educate and inform the people of Israel who they are once again. If we are educated about our heritage and appreciate why we are here, we can proudly stand with the Degel Yisrael, the Flag of Israel, on the beaches of Gush Katif and the hilltops of Judea and Samaria, and our mouths will truly be "filled with laughter" as "like dreamers, we recall our return to Zion."