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In Every Generation They Rise Up to Destroy Us

(Jerusalem Post) Warren Goldstein - The recent murderous attacks in Israel had no specific political objective other than to murder Jews. They followed the general objective issued in countless public statements and enshrined in the Hamas charter: the eradication of the Jewish state and the elimination of Jews from every inch of Israel. There is a word for violent, unprovoked attacks against innocent Jews going about their ordinary lives: pogrom. But unlike the situation in late 19th-century Russia, when Jews relied on the czar's good graces for protection, today we can defend ourselves, thank God. These terrorists are modern-day Cossacks, and they are not perpetrating terrorist attacks with clear political objectives but pogroms. Theodor Herzl, who helped form the modern Zionist movement, believed that if Jews, the only nation in Europe without a country of their own, could only have their state, it would end the hatred. But it didn't. The bitter irony is that the Jewish state has become the new focus of anti-Semitic hatred. How is it possible that this country, on a sliver of land smaller than New Jersey, has been the target of more UN Human Rights Council resolutions than the rest of the world combined? The only country in the world with a global movement denying its right to exist. How can it be that within living memory of the Holocaust, there is a new credible threat to obliterate another six million Jews, only this time with a single detonation? For generations, Jews have understood the biblical prediction: "Vehi sheamda" - "In every generation they rise up to destroy us" - which we recall every year on Passover. We must sing those words on Seder night not with fear or sadness or bitterness. Instead, we should feel the pride of the generations of brave Jews who came before us, and hand these truths to our children so they will know who they are, so they will know our enemies and not fear them. The writer is Chief Rabbi of South Africa.
2022-04-18 00:00:00
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