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My mother, Sarah Ivashkovsky, on the eve of.her aliyah
to Eretz Israel in 1921. The four young men followed her
shortly. She was the first from her shtetl Sapotzkin in
what is now Belarus.
. -
My father, Yosef, doing the wash In his first house in Little
Tel Aviv in 1925. He is in the middle.
A Reason To Rejoice
I
n Pirkei Avot — Ethics of the Fathers,
which is a repository of Jewish wis-
dom — it is written that the age of 60
symbolizes old age. Well, perhaps it was
true as far as a human being is concerned,
but it is hardly true
for a country.
A country
observing its
60th birthday is
considered young
and at its prime.
However, in the
case of the State of
Israel, it is indeed
celebrating only a
60th birthday, but
this is in its mod-
ern manifestation
being that an independent Jewish entity in
the Land of Israel or Palestine existed in
biblical times until the destruction by the
Romans of 70 CE.
I will never forget the afternoon of
Friday, May 14, 1948, when we were all
huddled around the radio to listen to the
charismatic and extremely courageous
leader of the Jewish Yishuv (the name
of the Jewish community of Eretz Israel,
Land of Israel) David Ben-Gurion, later to
become the independent Jewish state's first
prime minister, proclaim the establishment
of a Jewish state in Eretz Israel to be called:
Medinat Israd — the State of Israel.
The joy of the Yishuv was indescrib-
able My family and I joined the throngs
of people who went to the street to dance
and sing. But actually, it really started
already on the night of Nov. 29 when
the U.N. General Assembly voted on the
partition of the land into a Jewish state
and Arab state, a vote the Jews accepted
happily yet the Arabs rejected out of hand
and declared war on the not-yet-born
Jewish state with the help of seven Arab
countries.
My parents were the greatest patriots
one can imagine. I'll never forget that
night of Nov. 29, 1947, when my father
woke me up to tell me with a choked voice
that we have a state as tears rolled his
cheeks.
And although he lost everything
when an Arab mob torched his small
factory in Jaffa, he never said one
derogatory word against Arabs and
neither did my saintly mother, Sarah.
All they wished for was to see the day
when peace will prevail in the land they
so loved.
My mother passed away one day follow-
ing Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Memorial
Day 20 years ago, and my father preceded
her by several years. Would they be happy
to celebrate Israel's 60th birthday were
they still alive? Needless to say, that they
would be sad to see that peace between
Jews and Arabs is as elusive as ever; and
there is still bloodshed on a daily basis.
Yet, there is a strong Jewish state, which
they helped establish. And Jews are no
longer at the mercy of others.
Both my parents lost their entire
families in the Shoah. Imagine how many
innocent Jews could have been saved if
there were an independent Jewish state
then?
This is reason enough to rejoice and say
the Jewish traditional blessing of shehe-
heyanu, the blessing of thanksgiving, and
in spite of it all, to continue to wish for
peace to prevail in the land. ❑
Rachel Kapen is a West Bloomfield resident.
3, Doesn't have a new
financial product to
sell you yet
the modern revolutions, is still relevant
and far from being fulfilled.
The fulfillment of Maimonides' grand
humanistic dream is undergoing the
incredible experiment of our generation.
As the nation of victims, we must not
claim for ourselves a monopoly on suffer-
ing. We must not be closed or apathetic
to the sufferings of others "because our
trauma is bigger than yours."
We must transform our suffering to a
model for the world — of good against
evil, of light against darkness. The cry
"never again" means never again for
anyone who is suffering or is persecuted,
never again to the evildoers and the
malicious — not, heaven forbid, never
again for the Jews alone.
The Jewish future means undergoing a
revolutionary change from Holocaust to
recovery, from trauma to trust, from vic-
tim to protector of victims, from an era
of enslavement to an era of fellowship.
We will secure our existence by being
a model for the world and for ourselves.
We must go from a nation of victims to
a nation that is of the righteous among
the nations, for the entire world. We must
be there for suffering people around the
world who need us as we needed others
— even though, except for a few isolated
cases, there were no others there when
we needed them.
We can have no loftier a national goal.
It carries on its wings the promise for
the future of the Jewish people in these
enlightened and open modern times into
which we have been fortunate enough to
have been born. ❑
2. Is busy playing golf
Light To Nations from page A32
of the entire world and think about our
contribution to humanity.
The strategy for the Jewish people can
be found in our past. We must return to
a position in which our contributions to
the world will be so vital and unique that
neither we nor the world can afford to
forego our existence.
In the medieval era, when the daugh-
ters of Judaism — Islam and Christianity
— blossomed, Maimonides said, "There
is no difference between our days and the
messianic era except for the subjugation
of the nations."
What he meant was the only difference
between history and post-history is that
in the messianic era, nations will not
subjugate other nations; people will not
conquer other peoples; individuals will
not humiliate or oppress other individu-
als; men will not abuse women.
This universal Jewish call for peace,
equality and justice, which preceded all
Reasons
Why Your
Advisor
Hasn't
Called
You..
Avraham Burg is former speaker of Israel's
.
1 0. Hasn't updated your
contact information
9. Your account is
down
8. Doesn't know what
to say
7. Doesn't think about
you until you call
him
6. Too many papers
on his desk
5. Afraid you'll ask him
questions
4. Has other clients
with more money
1, Doesn't remember
your name
..,.
(06,
0
Citrin Expect More...
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Knesset, former chairman of the Jewish
Agency for Israel and author most recently
of "Defeating Hitler." This piece was trans-
29200 Southfield Rd, Suite 201A
Southfield, MI 48076
lated from Hebrew by JTA associate editor
Uriel Heilman.
Financial Advisor I Stocks I Bonds
401 k I IRA I Retirement
1387970
May 8 • 2008 A33