Mark David: Flipping A Switch

I have a distinct memory, as a young child, of eavesdropping on a discussion between my parents and their friends, and hearing a comment to the effect that “..had Israel existed during World War II, the Holocaust would never have happened…” While I was vaguely aware of Israel’s military prowess, and had already set off on a road of amateur interest in military history that continues to this day, I had no idea what the comment meant. Surely it did not mean that Israel could have defeated the Nazis in a war. And since I had been “listening in”, I did not dare ask what that comment meant.

My state of confusion did not last terribly long. I soon came to understand in abstract terms that Israel was the national home of the Jewish people and would have provided a place of sanctuary for the persecuted Jews of Europe when almost every other nation, including Canada, refused to open their doors when the likely fate of those desperate refugees was abundantly clear. Even when I went to Israel for the first time in 1985, despite my Zionist background, the concept remained somewhat abstract – in fact, if anything, the particular memory I hold from that trip is of being told by recent olim that if I did not make aliyah to Israel, I was somehow deficient as a Zionist.

Fast forward to the spring of 2005, when I had the privilege of participating on an adult version of The March of the Living. After witnessing the depths of the Jewish experience in Europe, our group (being the sole Atlantic Canadian, I was grafted on to the Coast-to-Coast Mission, a great group of people from various spots in Canada but primarily Winnipeg, Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver) held a final memorial service at The Warsaw Ghetto Fighters Memorial and prepared to fly El-Al to Israel. On the bus to the airport, the group was almost giddy with joy at the prospect of being in Israel within a few hours.

 

 

While in Israel over the following week, we observed Yom HaZikaron at Tel Hai and at Kaztrin. The next day we celebrated Yom Ha’atzmaut in Yerushalayim – a party like no other. We traveled all over Israel, rural and urban.

 

 

And somewhere in the midst of all that, a switch was flipped on inside me, and it was then that I think I really realized in palpable and concrete terms what Israel is really all about. A Jewish state. The national home of the Jewish people. Debunking crude antisemitic stereotypes, built by Jews from all over the world into an economic, scientific, cultural and artistic powerhouse far out of proportion to its size. Not a theocracy, but governed by a democratically elected parliament and the rule of law. Influenced by Jewish values and adherence to many Jewish religious customs. Freedom of religion. Freedom of the press. All accomplished while being a major focal point of the world’s attention (also far out of proportion to its size), dealing with numerous internal issues (religious/non-religious, Ashkenazic/Sephardic, Jewish/non-Jewish, and so on), and defeating constant existential threats at an enormous human cost.

And for all of that, my personal experience is that Israel is one of the most normal places I know.

And everyone should experience it firsthand to make sure that their Zionist switch is in the “on” position.

Article imported from: http://www.cija.ca/antisemitism/mark-david-flipping-a-switch/