CHAG SAMEACH - HAPPY HOLIDAY

     Chag Sameach! Happy Holiday. Happy Yom Ha'atzmaut, Israel Independence Day.
     Today is the day that the modern state of Israel turns 67, an easy way to keep track of one's own age, and it is a day of great celebration in the Jewish community. Special prayers are said, kids dance in their schools, blue and white cakes, donuts and cookies are dispensed and in addition to the spectaculars that are staged in Israel, there are flyovers and the air is rife with the odor of barbecues as Israel takes to the parks for this annual tradition. Even here in Palm Beach County there are ten days of celebration, of Israel, from mourning in  Holocaust ceremonies to remembrance of the dead who died giving their all to defend Israel and those who died in acts of horrendous terror to the day of great joy - Independence Day.
     The modern State of Israel is founded on a Biblical basis. This is our land, always has been since the day G-d promised it to the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and towards that Zion we have prayed and wished to return all the years of our Exile, our Diaspora. But do not think that there was EVER a time when there was not a Jewish presence there for you would be wrong, so wrong. In more modern times, there developed a more intense interest in rebuilding the ancient homeland, especially among the younger generation in Europe who saw no future for us there and how sadly prescient they were. By the time of the Holocaust there was a vibrant, growing and important Jewish population in what was then called Palestine after the name of the Phillistines, a now extinct people, a nation of the Bible living mainly in the Gaza area, though NOT related to current Palestinians.
     The desert began to bloom, swamps were drained, cities were built, including the great modern city of Tel Aviv, birthed on the sand dunes of the beach, science began to flourish, agricultural innovations were formulated and employment grew, especially among the Arab population who liked the wages that the Jewish employers were paying. More Arabs flowed into the area from the areas of Syria, over the river of Jordan and Egypt. In fact, the whole area, in the Arab world, was known as Greater Syria and much of the Arab land was owned by rich effendis, landowners, who lived in Damascus and other Syrian cities. They were happy to sell their land to the  crazy Jews who bought it - and then revived it. Those rusty keys that are flourished as supposedly belonging to a front door mean nothing. They are a dime a dozen in antique and semi antique stores and are even reproduced quite realistically.
     The doomed Jews of Europe came to the land even as the British tried to block them, the Palestinian Jews fought the British in the land and became allies of them with their Jewish Brigade which fought against the Axis in Europe. No other nation in the world took them with an open arm or heart and most, in fact, banned them, limited them, including the USA. After the war, the remnants of the Jewish population were again only welcome in their ancient homeland, blocked again by the British. The right to the land, the impetus towards a homeland were there and inevitably would have grown into a state, but the guilt of the nations of the world in allowing the Holocaust to exist, to run its course, their attempts to deny that they knew of it long before they entered the camps though the papers, including the Times, and messengers from Europe had long ago exposed the truth, the determination of the Jewish people to nevermore have no land where they were welcomed, all combined to almost force the establishment of the modern State of Israel into existence at that moment in time.
     Now the world has once again allowed the ugly head of vicious anti - Semitism to rise once more and in fact, has allowed it to become fashionable. The vicious states and Islamic extremists and their allies do not only speak in tirades against Israel, but also speak against and threaten the everyday Jew. They are attacked, burned, slaughtered all over the world once again with institutions being endangered all over the world. Even here in WPB there are times when the synagogues have established security guards, never mind what we know is going on in the big cities all over the world, including the USA, with the increased cost and necessity of security and watchfulness.
     But we know that we always have a home, and truthfully, I feel I have two - the USA and Israel. My attachments to both are deep in my soul and I sing the anthems of both with emotion, knowing what they both have meant to me and my family and will, G-d willing, always mean to us long into the future.
     So today we rejoice and renew our thanks to G-d who has allowed this modern day miracle and pray that it will long remain so. We dance in joy and sing songs of gratitude, songs of hopes for peace even as we watch the door.
     Am Yisrael Chai! The people of Israel live!
                  CHAG SAMEACH TO ALL!!!