Karol at Alarming News has a beautiful story to tell:
The band starts the Hebrew music, I look over at my friend Frank, and we head to the dance floor. The place goes wild. We form a circle, clap our hands. People get in the middle and dance like our forefathers must've danced, arms linked, kicking. "Hava nagila, Hava nagila, Hava nagila venis'mecha...."
I think, as we're dancing that, so far, the Jews in this room are the luckiest Jews in history. We didn't live through Pograms, Extermination, War. We escaped the Soviet Union, a place were they made sure to note we were Jews, and therefore different and inferior, on our passports. We ended up here, in America, this amazing place, my home, my love. And we all hold Israel in our hearts, as a place we love and must defend, if not with our presence there, then with our words here.
If Israel ceases to exist then as a people the Jews have failed. We have come this far, where not everybody is trying to kill us at all time. The security of Israel is just the last step. We don't want war, we never did. The words above "Ose shalom..." mean "make peace". We want to. But they kidnap our soldiers and kill our teenagers. They do it on purpose. We can't survive this way. And for Jews, it's always been about survival.
If you've never had to think about not only your own survival but also the survival of your entire people, consider yourself lucky. If you have, remember that there are people fighting for all of us--and that they fight because there are others that want to kill all of us. Even us lucky ones dancing to Hebrew songs on a hot New York summer night.
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