About Us Israelis - Jerusalem

Humans, each to a different degree, combine cognitive reasoning with other less-cognitive elements. The latter group mainly includes components of their identity, their sense of history, their ideologies, their nationalist orientation, their faith, their spiritual beliefs, their emotional characteristics, their political worldview etc. With this well in mind, and in very general terms, I shall try to explain how the majority of Jews living in and outside of the State of Israel regard Jerusalem.

Our connection to the eternal city is more than 3,000 years old; and as the last 2,000 years of Jewish history clearly demonstrate – the connection is not only physical; it is first and foremost spiritual and it constitutes one of the most important bases of our national and personal identities. No matter what the historical circumstance were, harsh or favorable, the Jews in the Diaspora kept looking to the east, longing to reunite someday with their ancient homeland. For generations, they promised themselves and their families, every single day of the week, to be "next year in Jerusalem."

3,000 years ago, King David established Jerusalem as the capital of his secular kingdom. His son, Solomon, built the Holy Temple in the city (which the Babylonians destroyed some five decades later), thus soldering its symbolic national and religious significance to Jewish identity. Since that ancient era, and throughout history, Jerusalem's status as the holiest city for the Jewish people grew ever-stronger.

The Jews were expelled from Jerusalem by the Babylonians but returned and eventually erected the Second Temple. Crashing the Jewish rebellion in the year 135, the Romans destroyed the second temple and expelled the Jews from Jerusalem, banning their return for centuries to come. All that was left of what had been for Judaism the holiest place on the face of the earth was its Western Wall. This Wall remains – until this very day – the most important religious place of ritual for Jews.

No other people but the Jewish people ever considered Jerusalem a political, spiritual or religious capital. All through history, and like no other people, Jews maintained a substantial presence in Jerusalem. All through history, and like no other people, Jerusalem, both as a physical and a spiritual place, played a major role in Jewish life, theology, teachings and yearnings.

19^th century Zionist thoughts and deeds brought about a massive immigration of Jews into the Ottoman-ruled "Eretz Israel" (known then, internationally, as Palestine), an administration later replaced by the British Mandate. This immigration greatly bolstered the existing Jewish population of Jerusalem, as well. By the time the United Nations approved the partition plan, and the State of Israel was established (14 May 1948), Jerusalem's population was characterized by a clear Jewish majority.

Although Israel's War of Independence resulted in a phenomenal military and political triumph, it left Jerusalem divided. The Western part of the city was now controlled by the new State of Israel and the Eastern part, which included Jerusalem's Old City and the Western Wall, was controlled by the Jordanians. This meant devastation for religious Jews, who were deprived of a basic right that had hitherto been given both by the Ottomans and by the British – i.e. to practice their religious rituals in their holiest of places.  

The Jordanians, who were in total control of the Holy places from 1948 until 1967, provided limited access for Christians and no access whatsoever for Jews. Israel liberated Eastern Jerusalem during the 1967 Six Days War, immediately implementing freedom of religious practice to all faiths and denominations. The reunification of Jerusalem also brought about recognition of the rights of these faiths to manage their respective holy sites. Israel even went further and granted the Muslims in Jerusalem the right to administer what Judaism considers its holiest site – the much contested Temple Mount.

It should be noted that History has witnessed an absurd process with regards to Muslims and Jerusalem. Although there is no evidence that the prophet Muhammad ever visited Jerusalem, or that Jerusalem was ever an Arab city for that matter, Muslims still consider the city holy. Studies by the finest Islamic scholars claim that Muhammad was influenced by Judeo-Christian ideas, those adhering to Monotheism, Judgment-Day and one's moral responsibility for his/her actions. The holy importance of Jerusalem, they claim, was a part of this set of beliefs and values. It seems that the Israeli-Arab conflict, and the rise of a new tribe of Arabs during the 20^th Century called Palestinian, shifted the focus of Islamic theology from Mecca as its holiest city to Jerusalem.

With this in mind, the Arab claim for East Jerusalem has no historical basis. What it really means – at the end of the day – is that Arabs control the most sacred Jewish and Christian holy sites. One has to consider past and present experience with Arab intolerance toward other faiths, mainly with Christianity, before supporting such an idea. One has to also consider Terror.

Jerusalem has experience terrorist attacks by so called Palestinian Arabs like no other city in the world. Horrific attacks, inhumane ones, which targeted innocent civilians – woman and children. Dozens of innocent people have been killed on Jerusalem's streets, in its busses and cafés. The proponents of these barbaric onslaughts wish to make our lives in the city so unbearable that we will forfeit our historical right to it. They have been at it since the 1920s but have failed to learn from experience. Nothing will ever make us Israelis give up Jerusalem – Nothing!

All those who favor Arab total claims for Jerusalem or the division of the city must understand the implications on the Jewish people as a whole and on us Israelis in particular. For Jews living in Israel and out, disengagement from  the Old City, which is located in East Jerusalem, means spiritual desolation

Unified Jerusalem is the Capital of the State of Israel. This is an undisputable fact for us Israelis, and confronting us with baseless claims about the rights of others to the Holy City will not change it. No amount of terrorist attacks on our populations, no amount of political pressure and no international posturing for dividing the city could ever change what Jews feel towards Jerusalem. In fact, all of those do just the opposite – they unite us and strengthen our convictions.

This is how we feel as a People. This is how most of us feel as individuals. So please remember to take all of that into consideration when forming your opinion about us Israelis.

A link for a short movie about Jerusalem: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mR2W43t6tI&feature=youtu.be

About Us Israelis – Israel's Major Achievements at 65

Israelis have become notorious for their country's geo-political circumstances. Less is known about their great achievements and their contribution to humanity. So, let me try and give you a taste of the latter. 

The Jewish People is more than 3000 years old but its nation state is only 65 – a toddler in historic terms. Yet, never in modern history has such a young country achieved so much. We are only humans and we have and continue to disperse our share of mistakes along the timeline; but in the final account of things, it seems that we are doing rather well. In fact, Israelis rated their country in the 14^th place, out of 155 countries, in the latest annual "Happiness Report", conducted by the Earth Institute of Columbia University. We are happier than Brits, Belgians, Germans, Japanese and the French. Surprising, isn't it? Well, not for us!

What is considered by most to be natural and undisputed – the simple notion that people have a God-given right to exist – is by no mean natural and undisputed for Jews living inside and outside Israel. Israel rose out of the ashes of the holocaust with the clear, declared and unequivocal aim of creating a national home for the Jewish People – the most persecuted people in history. This is also one of the greatest Jewish achievements in history.

In this respect, Israel's greatest achievement up to date is its mere existence. This achievement is astonishing when you take into account the hostile forces that surround it, their monumental financial capabilities, the number of players in the international arena and their overwhelming numbers in population. The threat of annihilation is always hanging over our heads, not as a metaphor, but for real. It is stated publically before roaring crowds by all sorts of lunatics – some of them leaders of nations. Bearing in mind our kind of history, don't blame us for taking these threats very seriously.

The years have seen Israel growing strong, absorbing millions of immigrants, making friends with the peoples and nations of the world, and flourishing socially and economically. The Israeli Defense Forces have grown ever-stronger, successfully meeting military challenges and ever-adapting itself to the complicated realities of our region and to new technologies. Our greatest friends, the American People, with their generosity and shared values, have stood by us and helped us grow stronger and more secure. It is a fact that, while still facing many security challenges, Israelis today feel more secure than in the past.  

Another great achievement for us Israelis is the realization of the Zionist dream. Zionism is, not only the dream of returning and settling the Promised Land. It is also to see the day when most of the Jews in the world will be living in it. Well, that day is already here. In 2013, the majority of Jews, some six million strong, are living in Israel. This has taken a high birth-rate, long life-expectancy and years of absorbing new Jewish immigrants from all over the globe to achieve. Although one must admit with all honesty that this so called achievement has also to do with the unfortunate decline in numbers of American Jewry – primarily through low birth rate and assimilation.

Another monumental achievement of our 65 year development is Israel’s miraculous economic success. Defying the annoying lack of natural resources in an area packed with oil and gas mega-powers, Israel today is a proud member of the exclusive OECD club, enjoying one of the most stable economies in the world, led by industries based on cutting-edge technologies, innovation and scientific brilliance.

In the last 20 years, the Israeli market has grown by a stunning 270% while Israel's population grew by only 140%. Israel's 21% growth in the last five years is higher than in all 34 OECD countries. Its GDP per capita is approximately $US 30,000 and its unemployment rate in 2013 is lower than in the United States and in most European countries. Israel's high-tech industry is second only to the United States in the number of start-up companies, in innovation and in its contribution to the world's technological advancement. Suffice to say that if you look at the inside of a computer, cellular phone or tablet, you will find many Israeli hand-prints; and when you switch these on, you will encounter many Israeli applications, vital for these devices mere functioning.

Furthermore, the Jewish state has been ranked number 20 by The Economist in its research bearing the title "the best place to be born." The project's aim is to identify which of the countries of the world will offer their citizens in 2030 the best living conditions, health system, public safety and general prosperity. Not bad considering the world comprises 196 countries – as I write these words. We’re in the top 10 countries for life expectancy and our young population is expected to grow more than 6% by 2020. This insures economic strength and sustainable success for generations to come.  

Another remarkable achievement is Israel's educational system – on all levels. The People of the book always regarded education as its highest priority. While Israeli higher education institutions enjoy immense respect in and outside of Israel, recent years have witnessed a fierce debate among us Israelis with regards to the quality of education provided to primary and high-school pupils. The debate is ongoing and it deals with both the condition of the state-run education apparatus and its curriculum. Critical as we are of everything, Israelis have been bashing and slashing the government for what is perceived as a constant deterioration in the quality of education.

Surprisingly for many of us, studies show otherwise. In fact, they show the opposite. The Progress International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) and the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), which performs comparative literacy, Mathematics and Science tests, have ranked Israeli children second in the world in literacy, seventh in Mathematics and eighteenth in Sciences. So I guess our educational system is not so awful after all.

Having an efficient public health system is another huge achievement worth mentioning. An international team, consisting of OECD and external experts, studied Israel’s medical services immediately after the country became a member of the Organization. They visited the country's five largest hospitals and many community health funds clinics in Jewish development towns and in numerous Arab villages. They stated in their report that Israel has one of the best healthcare systems in the world. This achievement is unprecedented in light of the fact that the Israeli system covers each and every single Israeli citizen, regardless of age or chronic diseases.
Israel’s health system is especially praiseworthy for its early diagnosis of chronic diseases, which prevents unnecessary hospitalization – this again, according to the European experts’ report.

Another far-reaching Israeli achievement continues to be our Agriculture. Since its birth, our agriculture sector has been forced to provide our citizens with advanced solutions to agricultural challenges. Situated in one of the world’s most arid regions, Israel had to find ways to overcome the grave desert limitations. This led the country to become a pioneers in what is known today as Agri-Tech, namely, finding technological solutions to agricultural problems. Soon, Israelis gave mankind ground-breaking inventions like drip irrigation, recycling, purifying and the reuse of wastewater for agriculture purposes, the genetic engineering of fruits and vegetables durable for desert surroundings, and hot-house technology, which allows growing all kinds of crops regardless of weather conditions. Israeli farmers and researchers, together with government funding and the Israeli agriculture-related industry, have found ways to overcome most of the problems introduced by the harsh Israeli terrain – for the benefit of Israelis as well as humanity.

This brings me to another unprecedented achievement of Israelis - our contribution to humanity. In the first decade of the 21^st century, Israelis of the Jewish faith are ranked first in Nobel Prize laureates. This is an amazing figure considering the fact that Israel's population is 0.2% of the world's population. Israeli Nobel Laureates have conducted research in economics, medicine, chemistry and mathematics, adding to humanity’s understanding of our universe – of our lives.

We have many more achievements to brag about, but I think the point has been made. So when thinking about us Israelis, remember that there is much more to us than the hard-news images the international media chooses to show on your TV screens; and that behind, beside, and ahead of every attention-grabbing news item, there’s usually an equally fascinating story of humanity and the human spirit on the other side. 

The Declaration of Independence of the State of Israel

These days my beloved Israel is celebrating 65 years of existence. It's Declaration of Independence from 14 May 1948 still best represents its ideals and values. I recommend to decent people, who really wish to understand Us Israelis better, to read it. For your convenience, here is its text in English:

The Declaration of Independence of the State of Israel
May 14, 1948
In the Land of Israel the Jewish People rose. Here their spiritual, religious and political identity was shaped. Here they first attained to statehood, created cultural values of national and universal significance and gave to the world the eternal Book of Books.
After being forcibly exiled from their land, the people kept faith with it throughout their Dispersion and never ceased to pray and hope for their return to it and for the restoration in it of their political freedom.
Impelled by this historic and traditional attachment, Jews strove in every successive generation to re-establish themselves in their ancient homeland. In recent decades they returned in their masses. Pioneers, defiant returnees, and defenders, they made deserts bloom, revived the Hebrew language, built villages and towns, and created a thriving community controlling its own economy and culture, loving peace but knowing how to defend itself, bringing the blessings of progress to all the country's inhabitants, and aspiring towards independent nationhood.
In the year 5657 (1897), at the summons of the spiritual father of the Jewish State, Theodore Herzl, the First Zionist Congress convened and proclaimed the right of the Jewish people to national rebirth in its own country.
This right was recognized in the Balfour Declaration of the 2nd November, 1917, and re-affirmed in the Mandate of the League of Nations which, in particular, gave international sanction to the historic connection between the Jewish people and Eretz-Israel and to the right of the Jewish people to rebuild its National Home.
The catastrophe which recently befell the Jewish people—the massacre of millions of Jews in Europe—was another clear demonstration of the urgency of solving the problem of its homelessness by re-establishing in Eretz-Israel the Jewish State, which would open the gates of the homeland wide to every Jew and confer upon the Jewish people the status of a fully privileged member of the community of nations.
Survivors of the Nazi holocaust in Europe, as well as Jews from other parts of the world, continued to migrate to Eretz-Israel, undaunted by difficulties, restrictions and dangers, and never ceased to assert their right to a life of dignity, freedom and honest toil in their national homeland.
In the Second World War, the Jewish community of this country contributed its full share to the struggle of the freedom-and peace-loving nations against the forces of Nazi wickedness and, by the blood of its soldiers and its war effort, gained the right to be reckoned among the peoples who founded the United Nations.
On the 29th November, 1947, the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution calling for the establishment of a Jewish State in Eretz-Israel; the General Assembly required the inhabitants of Eretz-Israel to take such steps as were necessary on their part for the implementation of that resolution. This recognition by the United Nations of the right of the Jewish people to establish their State is irrevocable.
This right is the natural right of the Jewish people to be masters of their own fate, like all other nations, in their own sovereign State.
Accordingly we, members of the People’s Council, representatives of the Jewish Community of Eretz-Israel and of the Zionist Movement, are here assembled on the day of the termination of the British Mandate over Eretz-Israel and, by virtue of our natural and historic right and on the strength of the resolution of the United Nations General Assembly, hereby declare the establishment of a Jewish state in Eretz-Israel, to be known as the State of Israel.
We declare that, with effect from the moment of the termination of the Mandate being tonight, the eve of Sabbath, the 6th Iyar, 5708 (15th May, 1948), until the establishment of the elected, regular authorities of the State in accordance with the Constitution which shall be adopted by the Elected Constituent Assembly not later than the 1st October 1948, the People’s Council shall act as a Provisional Council of State, and its executive organ, the People's Administration, shall be the Provisional Government of the Jewish State, to be called "Israel."
The State of Israel will be open for Jewish immigration and for the Ingathering of the Exiles; it will foster the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; it will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture; it will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions; and it will be faithful to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations.
The State of Israel is prepared to cooperate with the agencies and representatives of the United Nations in implementing the resolution of the General Assembly of the 29th November, 1947, and will take steps to bring about the economic union of the whole of Eretz-Israel.
We appeal to the United Nations to assist the Jewish people in the building-up of its State and to receive the State of Israel into the community of nations.
We appeal—in the very midst of the onslaught launched against us now for months—to the Arab inhabitants of the State of Israel to preserve peace and participate in the upbuilding of the State on the basis of full and equal citizenship and due representation in all its provisional and permanent institutions.
We extend our hand to all neighboring states and their peoples in an offer of peace and good neighborliness, and appeal to them to establish bonds of cooperation and mutual help with the sovereign Jewish people settled in its own land. The State of Israel is prepared to do its share in a common effort for the advancement of the entire Middle East.
We appeal to the Jewish people throughout the Diaspora to rally round the Jews of Eretz-Israel in the tasks of immigration and upbuilding and to stand by them in the great struggle for the realization of the age-old dream—the redemption of Israel.
Placing our trust in the Almighty, we affix our signatures to this proclamation at this session of the provisional Council of State, on the soil of the Homeland, in the city of Tel-Aviv, on this Sabbath eve, the 5th day of Iyar, 5708 (14th May, 1948).
Signatories:
David Ben-Gurion, Daniel Auster, Mordekhai Bentov, Yitzchak Ben Zvi, Eliyahu Berligne, Fritz Bernstein, Rabbi Wolf Gold, Meir Grabovsky, Yitzchak Gruenbaum, Dr. Abraham Granovsky, Eliyahu Dobkin, Meir Wilner-Kovner, Zerach Wahrhaftig, Herzl Vardi, Rachel Cohen, Rabbi Kalman Kahana, Saadia Kobashi, Rabbi Yitzchak Meir Levin, Meir David Loewenstein, Zvi Luria, Golda Myerson, Nachum Nir, Zvi Segal, Rabbi Yehuda Leib Hacohen Fishman, David Zvi Pinkas, Aharon Zisling Moshe Kolodny, Eliezer Kaplan, Abraham Katznelson, Felix Rosenblueth, David Remez, Berl Repetur, Mordekhai Shattner, Ben Zion Sternberg, Bekhor Shitreet, Moshe Shapira, Moshe Shertok.