MY SAY: A NEW YEAR FOR JUDAISM 5,775 YEAR AND GOING STRONG
Dear E-Pals: I love Jewish holidays. I love gathering with my four children and six grand children and eating traditional foods, laughing, retelling anecdotes about my late husband, my parents and their own childhoods. I also love the idea that something which began with the Patriarchs Abraham and Sarah in Hebron continues in an unbroken chain despite all the millennia of efforts to destroy my people.
Seventy nine years ago the Nuremberg Laws were established in Germany, heralding the Holocaust which killed one in every three Jews in the world. The answer to that catastrophe is Israel.
I think my friend and e-pal and one of my favorite journalist David Hornik sums it up today:
“The statistics for 2013 are in, and they confirm that Israel’s amazing demographic trajectory continues. The population now stands at 8.25 million, up by well over a hundred thousand from the previous year, double what it was thirty years ago. And during the Jewish year that began last September, just about 25,000 immigrants came to the country—the highest total in five years. Meanwhile Israel’s birthrate remains by far the highest among Western countries.
Is there an overarching explanation for all this success—awesome economic achievements, dramatically outsize military power, attracting immigrants, an evident love for life despite the difficult environment?
There is—and it’s this: the Jewish people’s return to their land after two millennia, the revival of their language and culture, the concentration of so much talent, the memory of catastrophe and the unfathomable will to survive release huge energies. Israel will stay on this trajectory of success, which all the region’s dark hatred can’t stop.”
I wish you all a sweet and happy holiday. In the Bronx, whose importance cannot be understated,since it is the only borough preceded by the word “the”- we always abbreviated our message and wished one and all “A Happy and a Healthy”….May we have peace and happiness in America, this most wonderful nation.
Sincerely,
rsk
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