MY SAY: ON ISRAEL
When I was a young girl and Israel was one year old, my family- parents and my “kid”brother and I traveled to Israel. I confess to callow boredom as my parents met friends and distant relatives from Poland. We tired of the retelling of unending grief and disbelief . The Holocaust was the significant event in our education and our lives. All our relatives- cousins, aunts, grandparents- were all killed – and we were schooled in the horror.
One hot morning on a drive to Beersheba, the car broke down and when we got out there was a whirring sound in the air. As we looked up we saw airplanes in formation….they looked small and tinny but they had the Star of David on the underside of both wings.
My father started to cheer and wave madly and my brother shouted “Jewish planes! Jewish planes!” and that was an epiphany for me. Imagine! Airplanes and an army in our ancient homeland to defend that precious link that started in Hebron with the Patriarchs . Other great civilizations crumbled and Jews survived in spite of unending oppression and genocide and there we were on sacred ground again. My love for Israel has been a lifelong commitment of pride in its accomplishments and outsize contribution to the welfare of the entire world.
As Bret Stevens put it so well on anti-Semitism in our century: “For Jews, it’s a painful, useful reminder that Israel is not their vanity. It’s their safeguard.”
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