An inspired thought on Yom Ha'atzmaut - Why I love being a Jew


By DaddyDay
April 29, 2009
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Unfortunately, I can't take credit for writing this. However, since it really struck a chord with me, I wanted to share it with you too.

This is why I love being a Jew

Our condition, in Israel, has never been better than it is now! Only the television and the media make people think that the end of the world is near.

Only 65 years ago, Jews were brought to death like sheep to slaughter. NO country, NO army. Only 60 years ago, seven Arab countries declared war on little Israel, the Jewish State, just a few hours after it was established.

We were 650,000 Jews against the rest of the Arab world. No IDF (Israeli Defense Forces) or Air Force. We were only a small group of stubborn people with nowhere to go.

Remember: Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Jordan, Egypt, Libya, and Saudi Arabia, they all attacked at once. The state that the United Nations "gave" us was 65% desert. We started it from zero.

Only 41 years ago, we fought three of the strongest countries in the Middle East , and we crushed them in the Six Day War.

Over the years we fought different coalitions of Arab countries with modern armies and with huge amounts of Russian-Soviet ammunition, and we still won.

Today we have a beautiful country, a powerful Army, a strong Air Force, an adequate Navy and a thriving high teach industry. Intel, Microsoft, and IBM have all developed their businesses here.

Our doctors have won important prizes in the medical development field.

We turned the desert into a prosperous land

We sell oranges, flowers, and vegetables around the world

We launched our own satellite! Three satellites at once! We are in good company; together with the USA (280 million residents), Russia (220 million residents), China (1.3 billion residents) and Europe ( France , England and Germany 350 million residents), we are one of the only countries in the world that have launched something into space!

Israel today is among the few powerful countries that have nuclear technology & capabilities. (We will never admit it, but everyone knows.)

To think that only 65 years ago we were disgraced and hopeless.

We crawled out from the burning crematoriums of Europe.

We won in all our wars. With a little bit of nothing we built an empire.

Who are Khaled Mashal (leader of Hamas) or Hassan Nasrallah (leader of Hezbollah) trying to frighten us? They are amusing us.

As we celebrate Independence Day, let's not forget what this holy day is all about; we overcame everything.

We overcame the Greeks; We overcame the Romans; We overcame the Spanish Inquisition; We overcame the Russians pogrom; We overcame Hitler, we overcame Germany and overcame the Holocaust; We overcame the armies of seven countries.

Relax chevray (friends), we will overcome our current enemies.

Never mind where you look in human history. Think about it, the Jewish nation, our condition has never been better than now. So let's lift our heads up and remember:

Never mind which country or culture tries to harm us or erase us from the world. We will still exist and persevere. Egypt ? Anyone know where the Egyptian empire disappeared to? The Greeks? Alexander Macedon? The Romans? Is anyone speaking Latin today? The Third Reich? Did anyone hear news from them lately?

And look at us, the Bible nation – from slavery in Egypt , we are still here, still speaking the same language. Exactly here, exactly now.

Maybe The Arabs don't know it yet, but we are an eternal nation. All the time that we keep our identity, we will stay eternal. We are not worrying, complaining, crying, or fearing…

Business here is beseder (fine). It can definitely be much better, but it is still fine. Don't pay attention to the nonsense in the media, they will not tell you about our festivals here in Israel or about the people that continue living, going out, meeting friends.

Yes, sometimes morale is down, so what? This is only because we are mourning the dead while they are celebrating spilled blood. And this is the reason we will survive after all.

I AM A JEW

COMMENTS

Diary of a Stan...

3 May, 2009 - 09:24

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Fortunately the two-thirds of world Jewry that stayed intact at the end of WW2 and who formalised the Jewish state were more pragmatic and less altruistic than Dan Sporn ( who is he ? ).

Business here is b'seder ? Tell that to redundant CIOs who have held senior positions in Israeli companies and who now E-mail me asking if I know of any IT jobs ( or any jobs ) in Europe. Tough if they don't have work permits. Tell that to the poorer Israelis who eat in soup kitchens for which we raise money here in London. If everything's fine should we stop raising funds for the soup kitchens ?

My advice to Mr Sporn would be to stop writing such altruistic nonsense on Facebook. The media may hype things up a bit but Mr Sporn (if he exists ) plays the same game by writing this all up on Facebook. No credibility for him.


dansporn

7 May, 2009 - 16:14

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my name is dan sporn and i am from Israel .
i DID NOT wirte this essay.
i translate this essay from Email that a friend send me few years ago in Hebrew .
American friend (I work in summer camp in the US) help me with the translation .

last May on the 60s to Israel I decide to translate this essay ,I try to fined who is the one that write it in Google but in all the result
in Google it show that people receive this essay from someone and no Name .
I translate the essay but I never send it like i want .

on January 3,2009 I receive a call from the army that tell me that i need to go back to the army (me and more then 30,000 solider gat this call )
we all know what we going to do , we didn’t know for how long we going and if we will be back home ever .
I thought that it good time to send this essay so i post it on Facebook before i left home .

3 weeks after we all back home (and i am happy that most of us the reserve back home with our families in one pace ) .
i guess that someone (i don’t know who ) copy it from my facebook(only friends can see my page ) and add the line that i wrote it , and email it .
few weeks after i back home i start to get emails from friend that receive this email ,
i was happy to see it spread around ,
i wasn’t happy that my name was on it .

I’m sure that the person that write this word want this
essay to spread around .

i will never take is credit for writing this .

NOW , i am really believe in any word that
this essay say .

NO.... Do Not stop raising funds for the soup kitchens , they will always people that will be
need this help , but who will help to this people
if not the Jews around the world and in Israel .

they are few ways to look on it , your friend that call
to see if they are any job for him in Europe . are
you really think that he can’t find a job in Israel ??

My brother was working in Microsoft for long time and then
in 2000 he was fired , he sit at home 3 years till he
fined a job . you know way ?? because he was use to have a good conditions in is job before . and he didn’t want to get less .

i was the same till few years ago .
after the army i was traveling and work in summer camp in NY , it was fun every year (i do it for 5 years ) , every time that i was coming back to Israel i was complaining how thing here in Israel is bad .
and how everything in Israel is shady , and how
politician are corrupt .

but in some point on my travels i was understand
that we have only ONE country that really care about
us . maybe some time is not good here in israel but we can not complain , you can ask the people that
survive the holocaust (the news here say that a lot
of them needs this money from the funds that you talk about ) , ask them if it bad here like it was
there ? ask your self if somewhere in the world
Jews will be send to death if you see other country then Israel really trying to help them ?
you can ask any Israeli and any Jew . if he will gat call from the ISRAELI army for this war if he will come ,and today I am sure they all will say YES .
that was not our condition 70 years ago .

and that what this essay say . (or
that what i think that it say)

we can cry , complain and wait for people to take care
of us , or we can take care of out self .

sorry it it was to long .

I will be happy to answer any question you have .

and if someone sending you this essay again
or if you see it online somewhere i will appreciate
if you will correct them that i am only the one that
translated from Hebrew .

thank you

Dan Sporn
Israel

I Know my english is not like in the Essay .
this time no one help me .


Lord Reith

7 May, 2009 - 16:34

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If Israel didn't waste money on settlements and yeshivot it would have enough funding for the poor, the education system, the Holocaust survivors and the disabled. Don't send money to Israel till Israel starts getting its priorities right.


dansporn

7 May, 2009 - 17:55

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"waste money on settlements and yeshivot "

if they will not be settlements or yeshivot
they are no reason for us to live in israel ,
it will be more easy for everyone to live
out of israel , right .
israel existent today because this place that in the 40's people call them settlements .

i know i can't convince you .

i will tell you my opinion it not ISRAEL opinion.

my opinion say : you dont need to send
us your money or clothing or food
we all appreciate you any way , just be
a friend , if you not live here please do not
criticize us , be our Friend .

thank you

dan


Lord Reith

7 May, 2009 - 18:04

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Israel needs to sort itself out and decide whether it wants to be a democracy or the next apartheid South Africa. It already rules more non-Jews than Jews.


Lord Reith

7 May, 2009 - 20:05

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Israel killed thousands of unarmed civilians in two intifadas and in its latest Gaza offensive. There are places in Israel where entry for Arabs is forbiden (any Tel Aviv beach) and where they are not allowed to live (Nazareth Elite, Katzir to name but two). Forget the two-state solution, because Israel is creating the one-state solution where the Jewish minority rules the non-Jewish majority. And that is very much like the whites and blacks in apartheid South Africa.


dansporn

7 May, 2009 - 20:11

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for some reason it post before i end to write
so i edit it .


dansporn

7 May, 2009 - 20:18

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wow , like i say i know i can't convince you .
but i will answer you what it my opinion .
i say my opinion because i dont want you
or other to think ithat my opinion it waht
all Israeli think .
like you know in israel we have democracy that
everyone can say what they think .

i like the way you use slogans(i think this the
right word ) and i will explain .

to say israel will become the next apartheid .
that is a slogan .

when President Obama say" two-state solution where Israelis and Palestinians can live side by side in their own states with peace and security.”
that is a slogan .

when people say around the world that the I.D.F
is like the Nazis . that is a slogan .

you can not compare what happend in Israel to
waht was in the apartheid in Sout Africa .
i dont see a mall in israel that say "no enters for arabs". or a beach that say "only for Jews " .
i dont see the Police kill 69 protester .
in israel government you have arabs israelis
that all the time talk against israel and call them
self Palestinian .
tell me that not a democracy .

when Obama say " two-state solution where Israelis and Palestinians can live side by side in their own states with peace and security.”

are you really believe that this so easy to achieve.

we are really want it but look what happend after we
want out of Labnon we vacated the strip that was for defense our north border and they still try to kill us all , look what happend in Gaza after we vacated.

I.D.F Mean Israel Defense Forces . when the arab
will agree with us that we can tooth live together
i am sure that the I.D.F will be only for Defense like
it mean to be .

i can tell you we all wish even the really really religious say it every day in they prays . that god
will make peace on all of us and i will add and
say the i wish for the day that will no be a fence
between us and that i will can sit in Gaza beach
and play with my Kids , and that in the all world it
will be the same , i just can wish for that .


dansporn

7 May, 2009 - 20:27

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did you ever been in the beach on the Lake Kinneret(Sea of Galilee) in the weekend , or Haifa beach .
did you ever see a police stand on the beach in Tel Aviv and take arabs out of the water ?


Lord Reith

8 May, 2009 - 06:18

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Yes, Dan, I have seen the police prevent Arabs even getting on to the beach at Tel Aviv and Herzlia. And Tiberius. I have seen the police take Arabs off buses just for being Arab. What you sow, you reap.


dansporn

8 May, 2009 - 07:20

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do you live in israel ???
where you getting this information ???

i live in israel 28 years and i never see
police tell arab to leave some place just
because they arab .


Lord Reith

8 May, 2009 - 17:42

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I have lived there and I have seen the way Arabs are treated. It shames me as a Jew that the supposedly Jewish state indulges in such racist actions. Israel has become a hinderance in our fight against anti-Semitism.


dansporn

8 May, 2009 - 20:12

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the new anti-Semitism is anti-Israel .
people say . We dont hate Jews but we
hate Israeli , and you my friend falling
exactly to this trap, if you not the one that
lead it .

you keep calling me (yes in this case Israel its me )
a killer , a racist a hinderance of what you call
fight against anti-Semitism ,
but you NOT live here , so how you can say
this stuff ?

you say you lived here before , so if this issues
really bother you WAY you didnt stay here and
try to correct them .

it is easy to come and say : you doing this bad and this bad or dont do that or
that but people run a way and dont try to correct
them .

now , like i say before i know i can't convince you .
but i cant continue answer you when you keep
calling me a killer and racist .

I am inviting you to come again to Israel and show me where you see this terrible acts , and if you
dont want to stay here and help to correct them,
i will try to . (or you can wirte here what you sew)

have a nice weekend .


Lord Reith

8 May, 2009 - 20:35

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It is in Israel's interests to foster anti-Semitism. If there were no anti-Semitism, there wouldn't be a need for Israel. What was it Ben-Gurion said? "If I had the choice between saving all the Jews by letting them go to England or saving half the Jews by bringing them to Eretz Yisrael, I would choose the second option." The life of Jews has never really been in Israel's interests. Otherwise, how would you explain the sale of arms to Argentina when the junta was disappearing or killing Jews? Or the Iran-Contra affair? Israel, as a state, has interests, and these do not necessarily coincide with those of the Jewish world.
Israel wants to show that it is helping Jews in the fight against anti-Semitism, when in fact nowadays most anti-Semitic attacks are caused by Israel's actions. World Jews should really dissociate themselves from Israel. We'd do a lot better that way.


Diary of a Stan...

9 May, 2009 - 15:58

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" Lord Reith " and " Dan Sporn " -------- you don't happen to be one and the same person just having a lark and taking the p*** out of all of us ?


dansporn

9 May, 2009 - 16:31

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important to say that this was Attributed to Ben-Gurion by Martin Gilbert in "Israel was everything" in The New York Times (21 June 1987)
it 15 years after Ben-Gurion die . so you can not
know if he really say it because it didnt come from
Ben-Gurion it come from someone that hear him say
it , and this article come 15 years after he die so
Ben-Gurion dont have opportunity to respond .

''If I knew that it was possible to save all the children of Germany by transporting them to England, and only half by transferring them to the Land of Israel, I would choose the latter, for before us lies not only the numbers of these children but the historical reckoning of the people of Israel.''

you take out some important words.

it not all the jews like you say it "save all the children of Germany"
and he add in the end " for before us lies not only the numbers of these children but the historical reckoning of the people of Israel.''

i add in the end the part of this article
that talk abou this sentence , it sound
different when you read it all .

any way .... like i say before
the new anti-Semitism is anti-Israel .
you all the time say exactly what this
anti-Semitism people say ,
Israel killers , a racist , and they"help" kill jews that
they will have right to exist .
the next thing you will say Israel responsible for
all the terror in the wold (like 9/11).
if you really think about it you will see that
this words was even before Israel was exist but it was not say Israel it was say Jews
.
but you know , that when you will realy need help
we will be here for you even you dont like us now .
so you can keep saying " World Jews should really dissociate themselves from Israel. We'd do a lot better that way. " for now ...

i wish you a realy good life out there .

Dan

for you this is part of the article , it sound
different when you read it all .

"By 1933 the achievements of Ben-Gurion did not seem to call for further extraordinary exertions. In 1933, however, Adolf Hitler's rise to power shook the slow evolutionary pattern out of its then somewhat languishing mold (there was one 12-month period shortly before 1933 when more Jews decided to leave Palestine than decided to immigrate there).

Six years after Hitler came to power in Germany, there was a further stimulus to the demand for statehood when the British Government closed the gates of Palestine to all but a fragment of those who were then trying to reach its shores in rapidly growing numbers. At a conference in London in January 1939, Ben-Gurion pleaded in vain for the British to allow the Jews to become a majority in Palestine (as Churchill had envisaged in 1922 and reiterated in 1937).

Ben-Gurion returned to Palestine on the eve of World War II convinced that Britain would now never agree to a Jewish majority in Palestine. Immediately after his return he told a secret meeting of his party: ''If I knew that it was possible to save all the children of Germany by transporting them to England, and only half by transferring them to the Land of Israel, I would choose the latter, for before us lies not only the numbers of these children but the historical reckoning of the people of Israel.''

Was this statement - which, surprisingly, Teveth does not publish - that of a cynic writing off the future of half of Germany's Jewish children for the sake of a political aim, Jewish statehood? Or was it a desperate attempt to explain to his closest colleagues that without Jewish statehood in Palestine (itself impossible without massive and immediate immigration) no Jews anywhere in the world would be safe from a threat to their survival? One would very much like to believe the latter, though it would have been particularly helpful had Mr. Teveth been able to give us guidance on this point.

Mr. Teveth is in no doubt that in regard to rescue, Ben-Gurion adhered to a ''philosophy of what might be called the beneficial disaster.'' This is almost exactly what the British playwright Jim Allen accused Ben-Gurion of in his play ''Perdition,'' which recently aroused such indignation among British Jews, myself included. Yet Mr. Teveth is emphatic that before the summer of 1944, when Ben-Gurion and his colleagues first appreciated the true scale of the Holocaust, he regarded it as ''a relatively modest catastrophe that his Zionist concept defined as suitable for exploitation.''

It was only in the early summer of 1944 that the Jewish Agency leaders in Jerusalem realized the full extent of the disaster. Ben-Gurion at once intervened directly with the British authorities in Palestine to try to save the Jews of Hungary, then being deported to Auschwitz, by urging the British to follow up the Gestapo offer of ''blood for goods.'' Here again, surprisingly, Mr. Teveth does not refer to Ben-Gurion's personal appeal to the British High Commissioner in Palestine for acceptance of the Nazi offer (on May 26, 1944). Instead, in a sentence dark with the potential for misuse, Mr. Teveth writes: ''Two facts can be definitively stated: Ben-Gurion did not put the rescue effort above Zionist politics, and he did not regard it as a principal task demanding his personal leadership; he never saw fit to explain why, then or later.'' It was not rescue, says Teveth, but the rallying of world Jewry and especially Palestinian Jewry to the creation of a Jewish state, to which Ben-Gurion ''devoted his efforts.'' Here we have an oversimplification of motive that may not be sustained by the evidence, for Mr. Teveth abandons at this point in his narrative the rigorous scrutiny of Ben-Gurion's day-to-day thoughts and activities that is so impressive a feature of this book in the period up to 1940."

the link : http://www.nytimes.com/1987/06/21/books/israel-was-everthing.html?pagewa...


dansporn

9 May, 2009 - 16:49

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Diary of a Stanmore accountant
i dont know who is Lord Reith , i never been
in this web sit ,
few days ago i Google my name( i want to see if this essay was spread around more then i thought and it realy spread ) and that how i was fined
all this sit that poeple post this with my name .
even that i dont like to sign for this kined of web sit i was siting all day
and try to sign to all the web sit that wrote my name , and
i post the same thing i post here .
just to make sure i will not get cradit for something i didnt write .

i think it not honest of
you to come and say who is dan sporn and when
I answer , you think i am larking .

if you have other way you want me to contact you
i will be happy to give even more information
about me .

i dont know who is Lord Reith but i thought it
web sit for jews that live in the UK so it important
for me to hear any thought that you have over there .

I will be happy to hear who is Diary of a Stanmore accountant and way he dont respond to what i worte him before .

thank you

dan

by the way i know the name Dansporn sound funny
but if you know English well you will know that it come
from German name and when you say it right it will sound Shporn and not Sporn .


Lord Reith

9 May, 2009 - 18:08

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Martin Gilbert is impeccable on Israel and on Ben-Gurion. He is also known for being excedingly pro-Israel, which is why I paraphrased him. Yes, BG referred to Jews of Germany, but he might as well have been referring to all Jews. And it shows his mindset and that of the Zionist movement. He wanted Jews in "Eretz Yisrael" not to save them but for the greater glory of the movement. As for Shavtai Teveth, he was a Mapai crony who worshipped the very ground that BG stood on.
I see from Google that you live in Elkana, which is a West Bank settlement, possibly one of the more radical kahanist ones, up there with Yizhar, Tapuach and Kiryat Arba (Maaleh Baruch Goldstein). I hope you are happy there, but I hope also that you realise that because of Elkana and other of its like, Israel's lifespan will not be long. Those settlements will lead to the one-state solution (a binational state, from the River to the Mediterranean, where Jews and Rabas have equal rights).
By the way, you are raising a straw man argument (and I trust you understand the concept since it strikes me that your use of poor English is somewhat forced) when you argue that I am claiming that Israel is responsible for 9/11. But as you say in your language, Nu, nicha.
Jews around the world don't need Israel's help, because Israel has an agenda and that agenda, which is political, contaminates the fight against anti-Semitism, bigotry and racism.


dansporn

9 May, 2009 - 18:47

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wow , i am happy you Google me , but you
really need to Google Map all this place you
mention . you will see Elkana not even close to
this places.
Yizhar and Tapuach are near Nablus , and
Kiryat Arba is near Hebron .

Elkana is not even close to what you call
radical kahanist .

but that what happened when someone that not
live here try to criticize , if you really want to know
everything you try to say you know , you need
to live here and see all in yours eyes and not
in GOOGLE .

NOW . that is my English , let see you try to argue
with me in Hebrew and then laugh on my
language .

i didnt need to use english till i was 22 when i start
know people out of israel .

so if you going so low .
i dont see any reason to keep have
this correspondence .(by the way this word come
from Morfix , it good translation website , i use it
a lot for words i dont know but some time i am not
sure it the right word )

i have a good life in where i Live and i am
welcome you to come and see this place in
your eyes .


Lord Reith

9 May, 2009 - 19:43

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I know where Elkana is physically in the occupied territories. And I also know where it is ideologically, that is close to Yitzhar, Tapuach and Kiryat Arba (Maaleh Baruch Goldstein).
I am sure you have a good life where you live, especially since the land you are on is stolen and those that occupy it now didn't have to pay for it. Enjoy it while you can.
I wasn't making fun of your english, except to say I don't actually buy the poorness of it. It reads too false.

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