It’s really mysterious. Difficult to understand and puzzling.
What is the secret of the Jewish enigma, our ability to survive critical attempts to destroy us and the reality of how we continue to grow in so many different and productive ways?
Is our Public Relations so effective we can swallow all the tragedies and avoid getting indigestion?
Our Public Relations is Lousy!
You hear it often. Day after day, month after month, year after year.
Perhaps it could be more effective, but this is not convincing.
Why? Because we’ve been on the receiving end of bad publicity for 2000 years and we’re still here.
So, How Have We Managed to Survive?
We need to dig deeper. We survive because we understand the meaning of the word.
It’s really not an enigma at all, we survive because of Jewish life and tradition.
Whereas some of the world’s biggest religions worship after-life, Jewish prayer is built around leading present-life.
Let’s think about Jewish food.
For instance, Jewish life is built around the Jewish family getting together for the evening meal on Erev Shabbat, lighting candles and reciting kiddush before starting to eat.
On Pesach we conduct the Seder to remind us of former slavery in ancient Egypt.
On Purim we eat hamantaschen, on Chanukah latkes, traditional foods to recall our glorious history.
It’s more than just the tradition of being Jewish, it’s also a welcome opportunity to bring the family together in a happy and observant way.
Then there’s Jewish humour.
Like the story about a young man knocked down by a car in a busy street in New York.
A little old lady rushes over to the scene of the accident and queries the ambulance driver.
“Is he Jewish?”
On one occasion at the Rosh Hashanah evening meal, a son commented to his mom about the kneidlach.
“It is beautiful this year.”
“So, what was wrong with last year?”
We can visualise the people in these quips. So very Jewish.
We love to eat Jewish food and there’s no shortage of the best-known recipes.
And why do we laugh, why is Jewish humour so important?
Because it helps to lift the burden off our shoulders, for we constantly carry a very heavy load.
The Jewish mosaic comprises many parts from the ultra-orthodox to the secular, but the Jewish tradition enables the spirit of Judaism to remain intact, no matter in what form terror and antisemitism persist.
Back Over Time
Although we don’t expect food and laughter to be the key components in keeping Judaism alive, sometimes it’s the simplicity of day-to-day living that carries a warmer feeling of togetherness than more formal Public Relations at the official level, whether through government or its agencies doesn’t carry.
Regular Jewish traditions maintained in the home are valuable assets certainly worth preserving.
We can readily identify with them for it’s part of our culture.
This is the case wherever Jews live and whatever levels of Jewish observance they follow from the ultra-orthodox to the secular.
One last point. Looking back over time it is simply astonishing that Judaism has been battered and beaten so often, but has survived.
Without a state, the diaspora kept Jewish life intact.
Now, with our own state we do have the tools to cement Judaism in a significant manner to counterattack antisemitism and anti-Zionism.
How we do this is open to opinion and action, but anybody who believes they have the perfect solution, they are plainly foolish.
We are quite familiar with challenges and difficulties.
This is just another major issue we have to face!
Our fundraising campaign ends in a few days and we still are well short of our target to keep Israellycool going:
