Last week this really old article about high tuition at Jewish schools in the U.S. made the rounds of my Facebook and Twitter newsfeeds. I reposted the piece, since it seemed to have new relevance three years after it had been written and because after all, I’m an education writer at Kars for Kids.
I posted the piece from 2011 with the comment, “Nu? Make Aliyah,” because that is what we always say, those of us who have made Aliyah.
We call it, “Coming home.”
That’s why I was surprised when my friends didn’t necessarily agree with my knee-jerk response. “Nope,” they said. “Don’t come because education is affordable; come to Israel because you want to come to Israel.”
I thought of them this morning while listening to PM Netanyahu’s remarks regarding the wave of terror in France:
Netanyahu urged French Jews to come live in Israel, the implication being that Israel can serve as a safe haven for these Jews who can no longer safely walk the streets of France. For quite awhile now, Jews have been uncomfortable wearing visible symbols associating them with their religion in public. Now they will fear to purchase kosher food and will pray under armed guard.
But just as one might wonder whether affordable education is reason enough to motivate Aliyah, one might reasonably wonder if the terror now overtaking Europe is a good enough reason to move to Israel. Is Israel a safe haven for the Jews? It wouldn’t seem so from the news.
Every day we hear of terror in Israel. Rocks, firebombs, drive over attacks, and more. The enemy targets us in our synagogues as we pray, on our trains as we ride to work, and in our supermarkets, too.
We may have a better army and more security people on duty at public venues, but can we rightly claim that European Jews should flee to Israel as a refuge from terror?
I wouldn’t think so. That might have been true when I first made Aliyah in 1979. The Arabs had been so badly trounced by Israel in ’67 that they were pretty much cowed into submission. The language of power is one they understood. Having achieved the upper hand, Israel was safer for Jews than it had been for thousands of years. The Arabs, meek and apologetic, could now engage in commerce with Israeli Jews. We could walk through the shuk and haggle with the merchants. We could go into a grocery store in Bethlehem and buy delicious yellow pears spurting with juicy goodness tinged with a hint of anise.
Oslo changed all that. Oslo brought death. It also imposed a narrative where none had been necessary before. We didn’t need the lies imposed on us by the left. We had the truth on our side.
I don’t want to talk about the blood and death now. I don’t want to talk about Oslo or about the expulsion from Gaza of 8,500 Jews, followed by endless missiles. I don’t want to talk about Lebanon and Hezbullah and Iran.
And I won’t lie. Israel is not a safe haven for the Jews.
But you knew that, didn’t you, in your heart of hearts?
Here’s the thing: there’s safety in numbers.
Come live in Israel to make us stronger, so strong as to be invincible. We need you. We need your warm bodies. We need you to live unashamed and JEWISH, in our indigenous, God-given land.
Come to Israel because here at least your life means something, no matter how and when it ends. Here, even a street cleaner has a higher purpose. Everything you do, every step you take will be imbued with strength and meaning.
