For months now, I've been having an ongoing conversation about the viability of aliyah with a family member who I love very much. Drawn to the spiritual potential that he knows exists in a life lived in Israel, he has all the same concerns that you might expect. How will he make a living? How will the transition impact his family, especially his young teen? If living in Israel is so important, why are some of his rabbis actively discouraging him from making aliyah?I've been sharing concrete information, brainstorming communities where his family would fit in, encouraging him to attend aliyah meetings, referring him to job leads and resource people who can help answer his most pressing questions.
But what I can't seem to communicate as clearly as I wish to is this thought. Once upon a time, a Jew could decide where she or he wanted to live. Israel was a fine choice, but so was Monsey. Or Lakewood. Or Toronto. Or Baltimore. Today, I feel so strongly that we no longer have that luxury.
Things in the world are changing dramatically and time is running out for American Jews. The balance of power in the world is demonstrably changing from the good guys to the bad guys. For myself, my response is to get my Jewish family out of America to Israel where I believe Gd will protect us from what's coming this way. Though I wish that every Jew I love would come with us, I understand this may not be their response. But what I really want to say is, "Folks! Wake up! You're clinging to a withering vine!"
Geert Wilders, a controversial Member of Parliament of The Netherlands, recently gave a speech to the Florida Security Council about the Islamic threat to which Europe is already succumbing and to which America is exceedingly vulnerable. I am not, by nature, a political animal, but I do believe his speech is of urgent importance for Americans, and especially American Jews, to watch. Please take the time to watch these two 10-minute clips so that at least you understand better the enemy that Europe and America is facing because, in time, Gd-forbid, this knowledge could radically change your life.
And if you get it, if you feel in your kishkes that the clock is running out on the lives we have enjoyed in America, I'm sure there's still room on our aliyah flight.
5 comments:
Wait, let me get this straight. You're so afraid of the Muslim menace, that you advocate that Jews living in America, a country whose Muslim populace accounts for 0.6% of its population, to come to Israel, a country where almost 50% of the people under Israeli control are Muslims, and is surrounded by numerous Muslim states with an aggregate population in the hundreds of millions. Bluh?
RESPONSE - PART 1
The “voice of the people” in Israel would like to speak in response to the comments made by vox populi on this blog so please indulge me for a moment. I address this to all who question Bat Aliyah's motives and thoughts.
Firstly, let's get something straight. There are no Muslims under Israeli control. Israel is a democracy that does NOT "control" anyone. Anyone who chooses to leave is free to leave - as long as they are not imprisoned for criminal activities or terrorist attacks against innocent civilians. While there are Arabs who live in Israel, most of them are very happy to live here - where they enjoy freedom unheard of in their fellow Arab/Muslim countries, including the freedom to peacefully protest when they disagree with the government. (Try protesting against the government in Arab countries - not only "radical" Islam controlled countries such as Iran and Syria, but even in "moderate" Arab states such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia.)
Secondly, the Arab population in Israel is less than 20% of the total and even if you were to include the "west bank" - is less than 35%, not 50% as you suggest.
Thirdly, the political correctness of the USA and other western countries in the identifying and acting on Muslim situations is often very scary in the USA, while the law of the land in Israel is quite different. We know who the enemy is and we are not afraid to safeguard our citizens, even when the world labels our self defense as “War Crimes”! Yet, even when we must wage war against our enemies who wish to destroy us, the Jewish nation makes it clear that we fight not to conquer territory but to defend ourselves and our right to live in our land. We do our utmost to ensure that civilians are removed from military targeted areas before we attack by making phone calls to our Arab neighbors in the areas of conflict and dropping hundreds of thousands of pamphlets warning of impending danger, unlike our enemies - the arab terrorists who terrorize, brainwash and manipulate their own populations to stay in power and use their citizens as human shields.
But the real crux of this issue is that while we live a very "Bad" neighborhood - this is the land that our God - and the God of our ancestors Abraham, Isaac and Jacob - gave to the Jewish people. If you do not believe in the Torah, the five books of Moses, than you cannot fathom this concept. This is the land that Abraham not only divinely received but actually paid for a portion thereof (the cave of the patriarchs in Chevron,) as recorded in the book of Genesis. Jacob too purchased a portion of the land in Shechem, as recorded in the book of Genesis, where tradition tells us Joseph was later buried by Joshua and the returnees from Egypt. King David, too, purchased Mount Moriah in Jerusalem, as recorded in the book of Samuel, where King Solomon built the Temple nearly 1500 years before the birth of Mohammad. The details of these purchases were recorded in scripture so that future generations would have no question about who owned this land.. Even after the Romans destroyed the Temple in Jerusalem and exiled many of the Jewish inhabitants of Israel in the first century of the common era, Jews still lived here, albeit in small communities, for the next two millennia.
continued...
RESPONSE - PART 2
Unfortunately the world doesn't see the Jewish historical experience the same way we religious Jews do and consequently there is dispute over this land, to say the least. Both the Christian world and the Muslim world have over the past two millennia been very busy trying to either convince the Jews to convert to their respective “religion of love” or to annihilate the Jewish people while the rest of the "civilized" world looked on and did nothing. Now we have a state of our own. It is the only country in the world that welcomes Jews. It is the only country we Jews can call home and it is the only country we look to for strength in confronting our enemies while working hard to keep whatever friends we have. And when you look at the recent debates in the UN, including the UN vote on the Goldstone Report, you will notice we have very few friends.
And so you may ask why a person would want to leave the good ole USA and come to Israel? Well for those of us who believe we must be here, it is in our souls. It is part of our collective heritage and the blood that runs through our veins. There must be a gene somewhere in our Jewish bodies that beckons us home. You cannot explain it, you cannot define it any better than I have above and that beckoning of our homeland calls to our people living in the four corners of the world. It is time we all come home and defend our right to exist, to stand up and be a light unto the nations that our homeland is unequivocally ours and we will continue to live here from generation to generation…..someday in peace, but for all time.
An American in Israel
I've authored two books about how to cope with medical crises with stress-busting suggestions and Global Resources for free or low-cost medical assistance (insurance, medication, medical appliances, medical treatment and more). As I updated the 2009 editionI was stunned to realize something nogeah bdavar: unlike the 2007 book, FAR MORE of the resources in the back of the book are now located in Israel rather than in other parts of the world. Indeed, resources of all kinds (compassion, charitable endeavors, etc.) are decreasing in chutz. It is becoming harder to thrive outside Israel. Medical tourism in Israel is growing. This is just one of the many signs HKBH is displaying to an apparently learning disabled Am Yisrael. It literally forgot the purpose of its name. As Rabbi Pinchas Winston teaches, that failure to heed warning signs usually results in wholesale slaughter. Exactly what muslims want. I pray that Geula will save the stubborn Jews resisting millenia of learning aids.
Yocheved Golani http://www.linkedin.com/in/yochevedgolaniink
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http://itsmycrisisandillcryifineedto.blogspot.com/
A "joke" I heard recently: Those who say America will go down in history as good for the Jews, long-term, are like the guy who jumped off the Empire State Building and, halfway down, said, "So far, so good."
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