JEAN VALJEAN?

 "Who am I? Jean Valjean." And apparently not good enough, no help therein to heal wounds of the soul, the painful memories and acknowledgements of who he indeed was, what he had done, what he had allowed. His implicit and complicit acquiescence to and contributions towards awful repressive, murderous state policies. Unable to tolerate this never-ending pain, he ended it via suicide. 

For Jews there was and never will be the 'out' of suicide. By doing so we acquiesce to our own extermination, free those blackened with the guilt and responsibility of our deaths. It would be to validate their dehumanization and legalization of policies of murder beyond any prior attempt. A plan to exterminate an entire people, their history, their contributions, their errors, their everything. Guilty of naught other than being born Jewish. A proud determined people who flipped the bird at history, to the Nazis, to the Iron Cross, to the Greeks and Romans, the white extremists who march with hate and flaming torches, chanting their hate.

We defy them all. We vow we are here; we never will be gone; we will outlive you as we have done so many times before. This inner drive, this defiance, kept people alive in beyond belief conditions, yet there they were. Some gave their last piece of minuscule fake bread so someone would survive and tell the world the truth, would see justice and even revenge. Two thirds of the European and North African Jewry gone. In smoke and ashes. Gone in burials as they lived, burned, tortured, shot, drowned, watched their babies smashed, their children murdered, their aged beaten, dying of starvation, thrown callously onto transports to an ugly death. The world? Silent. Total deadly silence.

 And survivors there were, a pitiful determined remnant and thus - Israel. No more desperate search for sanctuary. This time a land of our own, our historical homeland never having been forsaken, abandoned or forgotten. It was time.  A state of our own, of Jews, amid surrounding, hostile Moslem states, many Christian nations backed equally opposed to such a development. 

Tzion, Zion.  Medinat Yisroel. The State of Israel.

 Able to stand tall, proud, an equal among equals. Contributing to the world, and yes, committing errors, having misdirection at times- as all states. Yet Israel was held to, judged by a double standard demanding impossible perfection, of both state government and population. Lo and behold -impossible to achieve, set up for failure, Israel is again condemned, demonized, disrespected, delegitimized, threatened with death, destruction of both state and people. 

The world? The same silence, or a corrosive vocal support of the enemies of Israel. A complete disregard of a truth of a G-d given historical imperative. Our homeland, returned to its original people; not those who wandered in seeking work, escaping the poverty, hopelessness and class system of Arab lands. No, they were not indigenous. We were. Always will be

 And so Israel rebuilt, took in desperate refugees, had thrilling airlifts of embattled, forgotten Jewry.  They disagreed amongst themselves as do all nations. These disagreements are discussed, analyzed, as if with proprietary right by foreign nations. Yes, Israel, like other nations today, has a strong division in its population, extremely concerning, yet not state ending.  Been there, done that throughout history. Yet, here we are, against all odds and nefarious plans and faulty thinking.

 Here are some words you might find illuminating regarding Jewry and Israel. 

                             'I Wasn't One of the Six Million"

I wasn't one of the six million who died in the Shoah.

I wasn't even among the survivors.

I wasn't one of the six hundred thousand who went out of Egypt.

I came to the Promised Land by sea.

No. I was not in that number, though I still have the fire and the smoke within me, pillars of fire and pillars of smoke that guide me

by night and by day. I still have inside me the mad search

for emergency exits, for soft places, for the nakedness 

of the land, for the escape into weakness and hope. 

Yehuda Amichai

"To be a Jew is to be a link in the chain of generations, a character in a drama that began long before we were born and will continue long after our death." (It is about establishing a bedrock foundation of Jewish identity.)

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, as quoted in Unearthed by Meryl Frank ")

Today, I repeat my daily plea and tomorrow the same but also a joining of yesterday and today.

Please feel free to send comments. I think I fixed the issue.

Together and together to rebuild America.

Together. Together. Together.

Together we can

HEAL THE WORLD.

HEAL YITZY!

Yitzchak Elimelech ben Chana Sarah

May he be granted refuah shelaymah bimheyrah beyameinu.