What is the secret of the Jews ?

We begin 2019 with a horrifying level of antisemitism being openly displayed in Europe and beyond, on a scale unprecedented since the days of Nazi Germany. 

But we must not be disheartened.

Instead we should energize ourselves by revisiting our unique mission statement.

Watch here:  

He took Torah into war

Tomorrow is Judgement Day.

It is also the 45^th anniversary of the Yom Kippur War, when our enemies attacked us in the style of the Amalekites 3,000 years before; striking when we were ‘weak and weary’ through fasting and at prayer.

Though 1973 was an age before mobile phones, which can now mobilise the IDF reserves in seconds, our enemies forgot one thing. The fact that most Israelis were in or around their synagogues on Yom Kippur enabled the alert to spread instantly and mobilisation took a fraction of the time that it would have on a normal working day in the generation before iPhones.

That was only the first showing of the Almighty’s hand in this war, which over the following days produced stories of deliverance that defied all logic and reason. Legends like Zvika Greengold who singlehandedly held off and destroyed columns of Syrian tanks for 20 hours while reserves were being mustered to the Golan Heights frontline.

One of the iconic photos of the war was of my cousin Hillel Unsdorfer carrying a Sefer Torah in the Sinai desert. He was the young rabbi of Kibbutz Beit Rimon doing his reserve duty on Yom Kippur in a bunker along the Suez Canal. Wherever he went, he took the Torah and this bunker was no exception. After Egyptian forces sprang over the canal, his unit was soon surrounded on all sides and after brave resistance in the opening 48 hours of the war, he was ordered by Moshe Dayan to surrender to the Egyptian army. He did so very reluctantly.

He and his comrades languished in an Egyptian dungeon for a long time until prisoners were finally exchanged. He never spoke of the interrogations and harsh treatment suffered during that time.

Hillel survived the war and Egyptian captivity, but not Israeli roads. He tragically died some years later in a road accident.

His legacy is an iconic image of taking the Torah into war, as it must be with us in every other aspect of Jewish life.

As I write these lines, there is only one airport on the entire planet that is now closed for the next 24 hours. It is the airport of the Jewish state. Our one and only nation state. May G-d always protect it as He did 25 years ago, always and forever.

A Heartwarming Torah Story

With the Knesset soon to vote on a new Basic Law (much like a constitutional amendment) declaring Israel as a Jewish State, it’s nice to see that this is not just a legal definition but a reality.

I'd like to share with you this story which was told in shul the other week by Rabbi Yehoshua Hartman in London.

He told of his nephew in Israel who became part of a group of young men who decided that they would each put aside 200 shekels a month for as long as it took to pay for a Sefer Torah to be written. They maintained this commitment for 17 years, many months with great sacrifice as young people with heavy mortgages and some bad patches at work and in business.

At the end of the 17 years, after paying the scribe they had to decide on a ‘home’ for their new Torah.

They decided to advertise for suitable shuls and communities that didn’t already have a Sefer Torah of their own. There were many replies. But the one that impressed them most was from a secular kibbutz right on the edge of the Gaza Strip. It’s called Kibbutz Kerem Shalom – famous for the nearby crossing point for transporting goods to Gaza and also the regular target of mortar attacks from Hamas.

A date was fixed for the dedication ceremony and the first shabbat reading. Two days prior, there was an outbreak of missile attacks from Gaza, and they thought about postponing it to another quieter week. In the end they decided to go ahead as planned and read from it on their first shabbat service.

Here is a video of the celebrations, and an announcement from the head of this secular kibbutz that, from now on, there will be a minyan every shabbat in Kerem Shalom.