Flag of Israel. A source of inspiration
Photo: MCT
Celebrating Israel’s independence: A story of hope, courage and freedom
Op-ed: Today, we are no longer stateless, no longer voiceless and no longer without a national home. Today, the Jewish nation has regained our independence, our sovereignty, our army and control of our destiny.
This week, the State of Israel will celebrate 70 years of independence
of the modern Jewish state. This ought to be a great source of pride and celebration not only in Israel, but for all the Jewish people.
Theodor Herzl, the father of modern Zionism, famously said: “If you will it, it is no dream”.
Today, 121 years after that historic First Zionist Congress in Basel, the State of Israel is no longer just a dream. It is a living, thriving reality!
Today, we are no longer stateless, no longer voiceless and no longer without a national home.
Today, 121 years after that historic First Zionist Congress in Basel, the State of Israel is no longer just a dream. It is a living, thriving reality! (Photo: AP)
Only last week, we marked Yom HaShoah, the Holocaust Remembrance Day. This is all the more meaningful, for it serves as a searing reminder that had State of Israel been born only a few years earlier, the Jewish people could have avoided this great catastrophe, and that our existence today is an unequivocal guarantee that another such catastrophe shall never befall our people.
Today, the Jewish nation has regained our independence, our sovereignty, our army and control of our destiny.
Although the modern State of Israel is a mere 70 years young, the Jewish people have an unbroken and inextricable connection to the Land of Israel going back millennia.
We often forget that we too have a story, a deeply compelling one.
Ours is a story of hope, courage and freedom.
It is the story of a people who were exiled from their home and scattered across all the corners of the earth.
For 3,000 years we were subject to persecution, pogroms and, ultimately, the Holocaust, but never did we give up hope.
We refused to succumb to hatred and despair.
Even through the darkest of chapters in our history, we remained unwavering in our yearning to Return to Zion and to rebuild a nation-state in our ancestral homeland.
Fueled by faith, determination and our time-hallowed traditions, we returned to that homeland and created a thriving Jewish state based on the ideals of liberty, democracy and the rule of law.
Today, the Jewish people are again free in our land—the land of Zion and Jerusalem (Photo: Reuters)
A homeland for all the Jewish people.
A unified capital in the Holy city of Jerusalem.
A strong army, capable to thwarting any foe near and far who may seek to harm the State of Israel and the Jewish people.
An ancient language revived.
Where we do not have to fear walking in the streets wearing our kippahs or celebrating Jewish festivals.
Innovation, technology and a dynamic creativity that is truly the envy of the world.
We have become a source of inspiration to the champions of human hope and human dignity, serving as a role model for all those struggling for their inalienable right to self-determination, just as we have done.
And all this has been achieved against insurmountable odds, against enemies who still today refuse to accept our very existence!
In 1886, 11 years before the First Zionist Congress, which gave birth to the idea of the modern Jewish state, and 62 years before its actual realization, Naphtali Herz Imber, a Jewish poet from Ukraine, inked the lyrics to the poem Tikvateinu (“Our Hope”).
In 1948, that dream became a reality and that poem became the national anthem of the State of Israel.
Today, the Jewish people are again free in our land—the land of Zion and Jerusalem.
Arsen Ostrovsky is the executive director of The Israeli-Jewish Congress (IJC).
