With our bare hands we toiled the soil. Our pioneers laboured under enormous hardships.
To eat they had to grow their own vegetables.
To sleep peacefully they had to guard their humble kibbutz from hostile Arabs.
Our kibbutzniks were the unsung heroes of modern Israel but had a determined mission.
To rebuild the Jewish people after half of them were murdered during WW2.
There was no Palestine before the British defeated the Turks and created a Mandate which lasted until the State of Israel was formally declared in 1948.
Just a barren desert, loosely named Palestine as nothing more than a piece of land.
But in just over 75 years since the State was declared, Israel has become a powerhouse in growth and significant creativity for which many countries all around the world have benefited.
And it started with the kibbutzniks who had vision, determination and the will to succeed under such difficult circumstances.
Strong and Dedicated
The Israeli Jew seems to bear little relation to the Jew of earlier centuries.
The young Israelis are tough. They work hard. They fight to save the country from evil raiders surrounding the country and are noted for bravery under the most critical conditions.
The Israeli Jew is a proud Jew. Proud to live in Israel and uphold the true Jewish spirit of living in freedom.
They are strong and dedicated.
And yet, the world remains blindfolded. They don’t see, they don’t want to see how Israel has advanced the welfare of millions of others, many in impoverished countries elsewhere in the world.
The rise of antisemitism around the world highlights the antiquated image people have of Jews.
How often do we see the Jew portrayed as greedy and dishonest in business, an image created by the likes of Shakespeare and other authors and an image that has never died?
The world refuses to see how the Jewish people have risen, almost from the ashes to contribute so much to the welfare of the world.
And the world is probably ignorant of the fact that Israel has absorbed millions of Jews from other countries who were persecuted and threatened, just because they were Jewish.
At this point in time, the Jewish world is facing challenges in many forms and in many places. It’s nothing new, we have faced similar pressures over the centuries.
Our will to survive still provides our greatest asset.
