Why Live Here?

by Irwin E. Blank 
July 5, 2014

Kidnappings. Murder. Riots. Missiles. And all that is still going on 
albeit much of it not reported in the media every day.  So much of what 
we see and hear on the TV news, or read in the newspapers or trolling 
through the internet, makes one want to throw up one's hands and say, 
"G-d, what the hell have you wrought?" In the Middle East, if you believe 
10% of what you see and 5% of what you hear, you might be right 2% of 
the time,

There is an old Jewish adage, actually, a sentence written by the great 
Yiddish author, Sholem Aleichem, who wrote about a traveling salesman's 
woes and agonies while trying to eke out a living, shlepping his goods from 
shtetl to shtetl-"If I sold umbrellas, it would stop raining, if I sold clocks, 
time would stop." Sounds like it could be the motto of Israel's poorer than poor 
public relations department. But, in our hearts, we all know that if some 
Israeli scientist found a cure for cancer, it would be boycotted(especially if, 
G-d forbid, the scientist made the discovery at a medical center in 
"Occupied West Bank") or it would be labelled a Zionist plot by our enemies 
to control the human race through the manipulation of the international 
healthcare system. Nu, why don't we all be "good" Israelis and admit that 
we all should have stayed in the Exile and let this land revert to its pristine, 
empty, desert, full of denuded hills and malarial swamps. Then, the world 
would go on persecuting Jews for no other reason except we don't worship 
their versions of faith, or because we like our pastrami sandwiches on rye bread 
with mustard instead of (ycchh) white bread with mayonnaise( oy).

Ah, I'm digressing, but I was always accused of that by many a social studies 
or English class professor when I got tired of the monotony of insipid poetry 
or ridiculously inept historical rants by professors who, otherwise, would have 
been tossed through the plate glass windows of many a bar for their opinions. 
I don't even want to go into what I did to escape the ennui of classes in 
geometry or algebra, except for the fact that I always tried to find the seat 
behind the girl with the nicest rear end (don't be shocked-if you were a 
15 year old boy, what would you prefer to look at? A gorgeous girl or the 
math teacher with the hairy upper lip and wart on her nose?).

Since the horrific murder of the three yeshiva boys and the incessant rocket fire 
from Gaza upon our southern communities, my phone hasn't stopped with calls 
from my nervous sister and mother.  Like the dentist in 
"Marathon Man" I get the question-Is it safe?

My answer is what is safe? Is anything in life safe anywhere? There are more 
murders in a week in some American cities than there are in Israel in a year? 
Kidnappings don't happen in the US? Come on folks, I used to see parents 
in the malls with plastic chains and handcuffs on the wrists of their kids! 
Riots? Even sporting events in the US cause agitated fans to burst out 
of the stadiums and wreak havoc on cars and shop windows and people 
do get hurt, sometimes, trampled. Missiles? What were the aircraft on 9/11, 
but jets turned into flaming rockets? What is safe? Nothing is safe anymore. 
But, at least here, I am protected, defended, and I sleep very well-even in 
the middle of the Judean Desert surrounded by Arab cities and Beduins.

But there is always the eternal query from my family-why did you move 
to Israel, the most targeted piece of real estate on Earth? 
Really? Maybe there are thousands of rockets pointed at my head 
from Gaza, Lebanon, Syria and Iran, but you don't have Iron Dome 
or Arrow 3 or a permanent combat air and sea patrol-you can't even stop 
illegal alien kids from swarming over your southern borders! 
Oh, and you really trust the former Soviet KGB thug, Putin, from keeping 
whatever nuclear missiles he still has or railroad cars from pointing 
at New York, Washington or even Los Angeles? And how many good, 
decent people never venture out of their homes at night to go to a movie 
or a play without some trepidation-especially into neighborhoods that 
are deemed, no longer as safe as they once were.

I have never felt more at home in my life than I do here, in this Middle Eastern 
desert cauldron.  Everyone here is in the same boat, as rickety as it may be, 
with a sail full of holes and a constant leak that forever needs pumping. 
Because we have to bail the water, sew the holes in the canvas together 
and we, as we have learned after 20 centuries of relentless slaughter and 
persecution, we can only depend on ourselves, we can only rely on our 
fellow Israelis, on my neighbors, to keep us afloat.

Sure, our fellow Jews in the Exile have helped us enormously. Unlike many 
Israelis who toss off the assistance of American and European Jews as 
"guilty conscience money" or "insurance policy premiums" I know the value 
and the extreme generosity of our fellow Jews and of well meaning and 
supportive gentiles. I have often got into heated debates with some of 
these obnoxious Israelis and I tell them that the next time they need 
a hospital's facilities, take the time to read the names on the plaques 
on the walls and see where the money to build their health facility came from. 
Sure, their Israeli taxes sustain the place, but there would be no place 
albeit for the billions, yes billions, of dollars, pounds, marks and francs 
that were so generously sent here. All Jews are responsible for one another, 
geography be damned.

Someone much wiser than me once compared the security situation 
in Israel and United States very succinctly during the 1960s, at the 
height of the Cold War and the after effects of the Six Day War. 
I can't recall his name (even this writer when it comes to history, 
sometimes forgets things, must be age creeping up on me, 
or I drank a little too much wine at Friday night dinner yesterday) 
but what he said then, makes just as much sense today:

"In America there is day to day security, but general danger. 
In Israel, there is day to day danger, but general security."

I don't look at the beautiful blue, cloudless desert sky during 
the day for Israeli Air Force jets flying overhead, usually they 
are way too high and too fast to notice, although you can hear them 
from time to time. I just enjoy the sun shining on the small bit of 
independent, Jewish sovereign land in 2000 years. I know that 
there are young men and women in the ground forces that are 
on patrol to keep me safe and I worry for them as I worry for 
my own children. But these soldiers and border police do their 
duty to protect me as well as their own families. I also know that 
our Navy is keeping watch on the seas and making certain that 
no enemy vessel endangers our long coastlines.

When I go up to Jerusalem, would ya believe to the, ugh, dentist, 
I don't look over my shoulder to see if there is someone lurking 
behind me to attack me. I see my people, working, shopping, or 
going about their daily business, and the weirdest thing for me, 
still, is knowing that they are Jews just like me.

I’m home, WE are home. It has a beautiful sound, the word "home" 
to a people divorced from their ancestral land for centuries. 
Yes, there were always Jews living here. No, we didn't all come 
after 1945 no matter what Hollywood movies like "Exodus" or 
"Cast A Giant Shadow" seem to portray-with their scenes of 
immigrants leaping into the water and avoiding British patrols. 
The never ending  Arab propagandists whose eructations of 
nauseous fabrications full of hate, ignorance and bigotry fill 
the all ready too accommodating anti-Israel atmosphere into 
the atmosphere. The simple, plain truth is that Jews have always 
been here and always will be here. Hopefully, millions more 
will join us in the homeland.

I can't lie, I miss the Bronx of my youth, my friends, family that 
has long since passed on, games that I played in the "guttah" 
(that is "street" to you non-Bronx folks) and all the people I knew. 
That's only natural as one grows older, to romanticize about 
one's early life and childhood.

I am grateful to America for rescuing my grandparents from 
a devastated post-World War One Europe, that taught me 
the love for freedom and liberty and the supreme benefit of 
individual rights and love of country. No, I do not hate America, 
I love America because growing up in the USA, made me a better man 
and a better Jew-it made me a Zionist.

The late Felix Frankfurter, a justice on the US Supreme Court, 
who became very active in Zionist affairs, was asked why an 
American Jew should be a Zionist-why should he believe in 
the redemption of Israel and the rebirth of a sovereign Jewish state. 
He said:

"To be a better American, I must be a better Jew, and to be 
a better Jew, one must be a Zionist."

So, why do I live in this land of turmoil, incessant terror and 
existential threat? Because, well, I like frankfurters.

Shabbat Shalom from Maaleh Adumim im liberated Israeli 
Yehudah, guarding the eastern approaches to Jerusalem, 
the eternal, united and indivisible capital of the Jewish people.