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The Bond Between
Judaism and Israel
By Yair Harvard
The connection between Judaism and Israel has long, deep, historic
roots. The holy Torah clearly shows, that the land of Israel
belongs to the Jewish people, and that the great fathers of the
Jewish nation – Avraham, Yitzhak and Yaakov – lived in "Kenaan"
land (which is Israel of nowadays). The modern claim of Arab
leaders, that Israel (or, as they call it, "Palestine") belongs
historically to the Palestinians, is absolutely false and
historians specializing in the Middle east proves that the Jewish
people lived in that area much earlier. Further than that, the
Muslim religion was founded only 1400 years ago, while historic
evidences shows that Judaism was rooted in the land of Israel much
earlier than that.
However, the connection between Judaism and Israel is not just
historical, and is not similar at all to the connection between
other nations and their lands. The importance of Israel to the
Jewish people is mainly religious. For over 2000 years, when Jews
were not allowed in Israel, they kept praying for their return.
Israel has many sites that are holy to the Jewish people, such as
the Western Wall (a wall in Jerusalem which was a part of the
original Temple), the tombs of the Jewish biblical characters
Avraham, Yitzhak, Yaakov, Sarah, Rivka, Leah, Rachel, Yosef,
David, as well as other biblical sites and important Rabbis from
the Jewish history.
Although the connection between the Jewish people to the land of
Israel is clear and obvious, there are some nations and states
that refuse to recognize the existence of the Jewish state of
Israel (such as Iran, whose president recently said that Israel
should be "wiped off the map", Syria, the Palestinian authority
etc.). Actually, the question of the Israeli state is often
discussed within international forums (UN, Security Council) and
raised in the diplomatic ties between countries in the
international community. The legitimacy of Israel to exist is
obvious and well-agreed, but the extremist arab countries are
trying to narrow the Israeli government ability to fight terror
and to defend itself and its citizens from threats by hostile
countries (such as Iran, who develops an Atomic program) and
terrorist organizations (such as Al-Qaeda, Hamas, Islamic Jihad,
Hezbollah etc.).
For this reason, the support of the Jewish communities across the
world in the state of Israel is so important. Most Jewish people,
wherever they live, hold the Jewish faith and the Jewish heritage,
and they are faithful to the state of Israel and the idea of
Zionism. But being faithful is not enough, especially in the
current situation when extremist Arab countries are trying to harm
Israel and to influence other countries to do so as well. Jewish
people must be active (and proactive) in helping Israel to
survive, and can do so in several ways: They can influence the
representatives in whatever country they live in to defend the
interests of Israel in their parliament and in bilateral
connections with other countrys; They can contribute directly to
Israel and to their institutes (for example, Jewishop – an online
Judaica store, that all of its products are made in Israel and
helping strengthening the Israeli industry); They can write
articles to their local media and convince their friends and
family to do so as well, etc.
But the most important thing, and the bottom line of my editorial,
is not to be silent. The current situation in the international
community is similar to the biblical story of David vs. Goliath:
Israel is David – a young, vibrant country with high moral values
– and the extremist Arab countries are Goliath – corrupt and
despicable, with the oil weapon on its side. But this time we must
not leave David alone in the battlefield. We must help David, We
must help Israel, for the sake of the free world and the western
societies.
Yair Harvard is an Israeli businessman, working as a division
manager in Jewishop (http://www.jewishop.com) |
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