In the locker room at the gym, an older Israeli man shared a riddle with me. He asked, "What is black and knocks at your door"? I was sure he wasn't being racist, so I said, "I give up. "He chuckled and said, "Israel's future."
I am aware of this kind of black humor found in circles that I am not part of, but I know it is "out there." Historically, Jewish black humor was a coping mechanism, but in modern-day Israel, it is more sinister than that.
Since the historic first defeat (and failure to return to power in subsequent elections ) of the anti-Torah Left in 1977, the press and academia (Left-wing strongholds) have had a mission: demoralize and instill fear and panic among the Israeli Jewish public. If they can't rule through the ballot box, they are determined to rule by other means while defaming and instilling doubt amongst the Jewish public.
They describe Israel's situation as that of a ship that is engulfed in waves that will sink if not saved now (by them)!
What are the waves that threaten the ship?
Certainly, chunks of our biblical homeland that "threaten" democracy, "Jewish" morality, and, of course, our security, by becoming the sites of vibrant Jewiish communities.
We have "tried war", they say ingenuously. "Give peace a chance!" (never mind that there is no one to do it with.)
The growing religious presence and so-called "messianism" that must be curtailed and kept from the corridors of power to ensure a "western, Liberal society" - just like America, is another threatening wave.
For two thousand years, Jews have turned their face to Eretz Yisrael. The anti-Torah establishment - children of the founders of the state (the generation that merits our admiration for their idealism and courage), seek deliverance from what it deems an all too parochial and confining country with too many Jews who are "too Jewish".
We are bombarded with statistics about the number of Israelis living abroad and leaving in increasing numbers. They have given up on an Israel that is "too Jewish." We are warned that we must become more "Western" or lose these them. We are not told that a significant percentage are non-halakhically Jewish immigrants who do not identify with the Jewish state.
If they can't have Berlin or New York here in the Jewish state because of narrow-minded Jews who insist on a "Jewish outlook" and also charge too much for cottage cheese, they are gone.
I told the riddle teller that I heard a far different knock that took me away from the Paradise so many seek. I asked him what an Israeli tells his grandchildren when they ask him why he left Israel. A bigger car, house? Will he explain to them that this is the legacy that he chose for them and their children? Will that satisfy them?
Would you trade land, people, history, and dreams to become an American or European with dollars or euros? Would you agree to be the last link in the chain of your Jewish ancestors, for a big car? Do you want to exchange your people's challenges for those of a strange land and people who don't really need or want you among them - an understatement in these days of rising antisemitism?
He didn't expect my lecture, but he listened closely and then announced to others, "I like this guy. We need more like you, but there aren't many." I told him that there are and they are a majority - just look at our soldiers - but he won't meet them if he spends his time among those telling riddles like the one he told me.
Sad, but he is typical of the education forced on him and millions like him when their parents fulfilled a dream and came to Eretz Yisrael after the founding of the state.
Those elites who "integrated " them into the Jewish state methodically robbed them of the priceless treasure kept by their ancestors in Morocco, Iraq, and Yemen. When they came in the nineteen fifties and sixties, they were at the mercy of an establishment that feared the mass of newly arrived religious Sephardic Jewish "fanatics". They were afraid thaat these newcomers with ancient Jewish values would pollute the country socially and culturally, and not willingly vote for the existiing anti-Torah parties.
Unless.. unless the elites controlled the "education" of the young. And how does one convince a religious parent to send their children to such a school? Jobs, housing, and everything of material need, even school buses, were in the hands of the anti-Torah establishment. It was a period of extreme scarcity, and they were beholden to the machine. The results were quick and religiously devastating.
A generation lost, ashamed of their "backward" parents, ultimately heard a knock on the door, different from the one their parents heard when they left North African and Middle Eastern countries for the Holy Land of their dreams.
My gym frieind was very thankful for my words. It was refreshing and nourishing to the spark in his soul that knew something was wrong.
A younger man heard part of our conversation and said, "I can make much more in Silicon Valley than here, without IDF reserve duty. Why should I stay"? Why, indeed?
The good news is that in place of those seeking a "normal, good" life in Berlin and New York, there are other Jews with other values, they are here and they are coming, and they are changing the country, the future, the world.
This is the knock that I hear- and it rings loud and clear.
Shalom Pollack is a well-known, veteran tour guide and the author of "Jews, Israelis and Arabs." shalompollack613@gmail.com