A Reason to Celebrate Israel

By Dov Berkman
Binghamton University

In Israel, a teenager in military uniform walking down the street or sitting next to you on a bus is the norm. When I visited Israel, I found that the sight of scores of teenagers wearing the military uniform of the sovereign nation-state of the Jewish people sparked a strong emotional response in me, especially after my visit to Yad Vashem, Israel's Holocaust Museum and Memorial. Remembering the tragedy of my people and my family in a Jewish state with its own defensive capabilities – proof that we have survived and flourished despite Hitler's genocidal campaign against us – instilled in me deep Jewish pride and support for Israel.

To this day, writings of Jewish victims of the Shoah (a Hebrew word meaning calamity and used to refer to the Holocaust), continue to surface. In many of these writings, such as those by Mordechai Anielewicz, leader of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, the victims ask their readers to remember their struggle and avenge their torture. Their requests have been heeded – in the form of the creation of a Jewish state, where Jews can be safe from the threat of extermination and have the power to defend themselves as they see fit. To remember the tragedy is to ensure, through support of the state of Israel, that the Holocaust against the Jews will truly never happen again.

To avenge those who perished in the Shoah does not only mean bringing the living perpetrators to justice, something which Israel still does today. To avenge the victims means defeating Hitler's vision once and for all by creating a new chapter in the history of the Jewish people, in which a sovereign Jewish people can be a strong, defensible moral nation in their ancestral homeland. As Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz said, "we had morality on our side during the Second World War, but we didn't have the ability to defend the Jewish community. Thank God for Israel, thank God for its military, thank God for the ability that we now have to defend our morality!"

Israel has honored the memory of Shoah victims by carrying out the mitzvah (commandment) of being an Or lagoyim (a light unto the nations) and constantly striving to help others. Despite obsessive criticism from the international community, Israel, one of the smallest countries in the world, sends a disproportionately high level of aid (including physicians, medications and free care) to impoverished countries; Israel's emergency response to natural disasters worldwide-from Haiti to Japan-has not been duplicated, and it is the only country in the world that accepts Muslim refugees from the Darfur genocide.

Though Israel is not perfect – no country is, especially not one that faces the threats Israel does – it does strive to correct its mistakes and serve its people with equality. Contrary to the claims of many of Israel's detractors, the Shoah is not used to excuse Israel's wrongdoings. Academics such as Anna Baltzer and Norman Finkelstein tour college campuses making that claim, but the accusation is baseless and designed to undermine the legitimacy of Israel's right to self-defense. Rather than being the reason Israel exists, the Shoah is evidence of the necessity of Israel to the Jewish people.

The upcoming anniversary of Israel's founding is a time for celebration, a time for commemorating the defiance, survival, and success of the Jewish people, even in the face of those who would destroy us. Happy 63^rd birthday, Israel! May you continue to be a tribute to those we have lost by serving those who still live.

Dov Berkman is a sophomore at Binghamton University and a fellow for the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America.

[Posted 5/4/11]