JRV1319

We Were Called Upon – Now, More than Ever, We Must Answer that Call

#1319 April 26,, 2026

This week in Israel was Yom Hazikaron followed next day by Yom Ha’atzmaut, memorial to the fallen followed by celebration of redeemed independence. Both have meaning and a call for action for us.

We Were Called Upon – Now, More than Ever, We Must Answer that Call

“Our call goes out the Jewish people all over the world to rally to our side in the tasks of immigration and development, and to stand by us in the struggle for fulfillment of the dream of generations for the redemption of Israel.” David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s Declaration of Independence (emphasis added)

At nightfall on Wednesday this week, our fellow Jews in our people’s historic homeland of Israel went through a transition beautifully captured by Arlene Kushner, grandmother and blogger in Israel (From Israel: Embracing Yesterday’s Pain and Tomorrow’s Joy, arlenefromisrael.info):

“At 8 PM on Yom Hazikaron, a single siren sounded, and the mood shifted. In the blink of an eye it was Yom Ha’atzmaut, and the nation pivoted from mourning to celebration.

“For many years now this startling transition – which I doubt is seen anywhere else in the world – has made sense to me: The soldiers who lost their lives in battle did not die for nothing: They died for the protection of our state. They made it possible for the state to endure. And so there is great meaning in celebrating Israel, which has been able to flourish because of their sacrifices.” (emphasis added)

Charles Krauthammer grasped that this great meaning in celebrating Israel must be felt by us all:

“After all, the Jewish people are living through a miraculous age: the rebirth of Jewish sovereignty, the revival of Hebrew (a cultural resurrection unique in human history), the flowering of a new Hebraic culture radiating throughout the Jewish world.”

But we must not kid ourselves.  More than justified celebration’s involved.  Israel’s the most vilified nation on earth, and it’s getting worse. E.g.:

“UN Condemned Israel More Than All Other Countries Combined in 2022 – Monitor,” headline of Times of Israel, 1/3/23. 

Last week: World Israel News, Thursday, 4/16/26, Majority of Democrats Vote To Block Arms Sales to Israel:

“A majority of Democratic senators in Congress voted in favor of measures aimed at blocking U.S. weapons sales to Israel, marking a significant shift in what had long been considered solid bipartisan support for the Jewish state.” (emphasis added)

And it’s not just Israel that’s in the world’s hair-trigger condemnation, it’s also us.  Yes, It Does Happen Here.  Recall that during the Darkest Hour of Diaspora Jewish history (from which we still haven’t restored our numbers), not just the fate of the passengers on the ill-fated St. Louis, but the deliberate [n.b.] failure of the U.S., along with Britain, to lift a finger to save Jews during the Holocaust – not even bombing the railroads to the death camps their bombers virtually flew over. [If you don’t believe me, read chapter 20 of Yoram Kaniuk’s masterful bio of Yossi Harel, Commander of the Exodus, in which he summarizes David Wyman’s The Abandonment of the Jews.]  Anti-Semitism was for a while since then more quiescent in the United States, but Not Now.  It’s back raging in the Open, and not just on Poison Ivy League campuses. And all the attacks on Jews and synagogues here. 

What, By Me, We U.S. Jews Should Not and Should Do

In last week’s #1318, in pleading with U.S. Jews who are Democrats not to jump to the GOP in protest of 40 Democratic Party U.S. Senators voting to block U.S. sales of military equipment to Israel, but to stay in their party and get this animosity toward Israel revoked, I quoted a prominent Democrat, Professor Dershowitz, that it’s critical that U.S. support of Israel be bipartisan.  This week I read he’s switched to the GOP.  Not that Republicans shouldn’t be happy to have him, but he was doing us Jews more good where he was. 

One of my readers responded to my plea to stay and fight:

“Good article. The Democratic Party is going to be an anti-Israel party. I may have no choice left but to move to Israel then, as the Republican policies financially are for people with net incomes of several million. So I’m in a real bind.”

In posting his comment, I answered:

“Certainly Aliyah is always a homeland-helpful choice, but I think we American Jews of both parties have a unique critical task here – making the case that U.S.-Israel alliance is strongly beneficial to both countries and the free world. I can’t think of a time making this case has been more needed than now.:

Now, let’s get down to specifics.  I agree utterly with ZOA’s Morton Klein that supporting a “two-state solution” is “not a pro-Israel position”:

“While I understand that someone who wants a Palestinian state may be well-intentioned or believe that he is pro-Israel, in fact promoting a Palestinian Arab state is not a pro-Israel position.  The Israeli people understand that such a state would be an existential threat to Israel and every Jew.  Indeed, in July 2024, the Knesset voted overwhelmingly to reject a Palestinian Arab state, which only the nine Arab Knesset members opposed.” [What Does It Mean To Be Pro-Israel in 2025, ZOA.org, emphasis added]

Another reader commented last week: “The two-state solution is dead.”  I responded: “I wish two-state solution were dead.  I fear the world’s demand that the Jews can never win a war is immortal.  We must be as tough.”

The 1949 Israel-Jordan ceasefire lines which the two-state solution would restore are not based on defensible geographical features (compare the post-Six Day War line of the Jordan River backed by the highland ridge) but on where the armies then stood.  Historic Jerusalem and Judea-Samaria biblical heartland belong to Israel. They’re its heart & soul.  Ripping them from our people’s Jewish national home would render it an indefensible Jewishly meaningless Jewish national ghetto.  “Unthinkable,” as one Israeli news source puts it.

One final thing: I was eight years old when Ben-Gurion called on the Jews of the World to stand by Israel in its struggle for fulfillment of the Dream of Generations for its sovereign redemption, and it was some years before I understood he’d been speaking to me.  It hit home when, in “going through the leadership chairs” of my Cardozo Lodge of the fraternal order Brith Sholom, it was my turn to chair its annual support for Israel charity drive.  At the annual dinner, I held up the pledge card: “To every Jew who ever died in a pogrom, an Inquisition, a Holocaust, who might have been saved had our redeemed homeland been there to ingather our persecuted exiles, This Is Our Pledge.”