We are praying for all our family members who have been mobilized and for all of Am Yisrael. To all our friends in chutz la’aretz, particularly the readers of The Jewish Link:
We are grateful for the many messages of concern for our well-being that we have been receiving from relatives, friends and people I have had the pleasure of meeting through my guiding in Israel. The best response that I can give is: Remember how you felt on 9/11. We have lost the proportional equivalent of 36,000 Amerians in one horrendous and incomprehensible day. They were gunned down in the streets, shot in cold blood in their homes, and massacred by the hundreds at a music festival. Our children, grandchildren, husbands and neighbors have been mobilized and are fighting for the future of Israel and the Jewish people. We are scared and worried and saddened and trying to function. We are gathering whatever we can for our soldiers and for our fellow Jews in the Gaza area. And we are fervently praying that someone can find a way to bring 130 men, women, children and senior citizens safely home from the clutches of a ruthless and inhuman enemy.
So with a sense of deep love and respect for all of you who are asking about us, I turn the question around—How are you doing? And what are you doing? Seven hundred Jews were murdered by a vile, religiously motivated enemy on Shemini Atzeret/Simchat Torah (in Israel). As our president, Isaac Herzog pointed out, that is the largest number of Jews to be slaughtered in a single day since the Holocaust.
Are you active in letting the world know what we have known for 100 years? That there is no acceptance of the existence of Israel in radical Islam and never has been. That the cause of what we are suffering now has nothing to do with occupation or settlements. We are depending on you to scream that message loud and clear!
Seventy Jews were massacred in Hebron in 1929 before there was a State of Israel and a Green Line. There were riots and murders in the 1930s because the Arab world wouldn’t tolerate Jews living and building in our ancient homeland. The Grand Mufti of Jeusalem was Hitler’s personal guest in Berlin during the Shoah, and they were plotting for the annihilation of the Jews of Palestine. The Arab world rejected the U.N. Partition Plan of November 1947 and, as we declared independence in May 1948, they declared a war of extermination against us—a war which we miraculously won. In April 1948 a convoy of doctors, nurses and patients on their way to Hadassah Hospital on Mount Scopus was ambushed, and 79 people died. At “pro-Palestininan” rallies, we frequently hear the chant “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” and we who know the map fully understand what they are saying—that there is no place for Israel in their Middle East. The Hamas charter views the “problem of Palestine” as a religious-political Muslim issue, and the Israeli-Palestinian confrontation as a conflict between Islam and the “infidel” Jews for which jihad is the only solution.
So thank you for your caring and concern about us, which we know is sincere and deeply felt. But also realize that we are equally concerned about you because we are one people with one common destiny and a single fate. Let your prayers reach the gates of heaven and shake the throne of the Almighty, but also remember that at a critical moment of Jewish history as we stood on the shores of the Red Sea and enjoined Moshe to pray for our salvation, God’s answer to Moshe was “מה תצעק אלי, דבר אל בני ישראל ויסעו,” “Why are you crying out to me, speak to the children of Israel that they should move forward.” There is a time for prayer and a time for action!
Dr. Peter Abelow of Efrat, Israel is a licensed tour guide and a one of the directors of Keshet, the Center for Educational Tourism in Israel.
