I now realize that my grandfather was right after all. ‘We’ — meaning the Jewish nation — did survive. Boy, did we survive!
From the edge of genocide, we have come back to build our own state with arguably the most feared army and air force in the world. Without oil, gas or any natural resources other than brains and determination we have built cities, highways, skyscrapers, airports and seaports.
And with those brains we have a higher ratio of university degrees, and annually produce more patents and scientific papers per capita than any other country in the world. Even in these troubled times, Israel is ranked number two in the world for venture capital funds, right behind the United States. And its $100 billion economy is larger than all its oil-rich neighbors combined. The world’s computers run on the chips we designed and are protected by the anti-virus systems our people have invented. We pioneered the cellular phone, voice mail and instant messaging. One in four prescriptions filled in the United States is for a medication made in Israel. Not least, we are a responsible nuclear power and have already launched our own satellites into space.
All this, in a 55-year-old speck of a country that in some places is only eight miles wide.
Anyone still not believing in G-d? Step outside.
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I finish my story in our eternal city of Jerusalem. A city of such beauty and wonder, not even the darkest shadow of terror can have domain for longer than an hour or two. That is the time it takes to clear a scene of carnage so that it appears never to have happened.
As I drive by the shuttered frontage of the latest bombing, I see it is aglow with the light of a hundred flickering memorial candles. I still have fresh memories of similar candle glasses perched on those rails at Birkenau and I realize that, even after 60 years and in our very own capital city, we are still not free of our pursuers.
My father lived just long enough to see Jerusalem liberated in 1967 but, much as he had dreamed of it, he never had the chance to pray at the Western Wall. I think of him every time I go there, knowing he would be proud that my two eldest sons are learning in local yeshivas.
On Friday night, I have the choice of countless synagogues in this area of Jerusalem but, whenever I am here, my preference is Breslov. It is a shul that attracts all types, from chassidim to hippies; a place where the ‘Lecha Dodi’ is a half-hour celebration of singing and dancing.
I looked around the place as this unlikely mix of Jews sang and clapped their rousing welcome to the Sabbath Queen. I realized that most of these locals lived within earshot of the latest bombing and many must have been deeply affected by it. But you would never know it. Those faces were as joyous and happy as if, despite the terror and the recession, they had not a care in the world.
It came home to me that, for our people, Shabbos is a process of weekly renewal that cleanses us just as surely and efficiently as those volunteers who clear the sidewalks of any vestige of terror and tragedy.
Only a nation capable of such renewal could possibly have risen from the ashes of the Holocaust, let alone reached such world-beating heights. Such a nation — our Jewish nation — will surely overcome any obstacle and every challenge placed in its path.
