Ted was a big man. He towered above most of the people he met in Israel and his booming voice often dominated the conversation. He loved Israel because he loved G-d and he was determined to follow G-d’s direction and do everything he could to help Israel.
My father was a committed Jew and very active in the Jewish community of Cleveland before moving to Israel more than a decade ago. When we were children, he supported the local Bnei Akiva religious Zionist youth group, ensuring that his children and all our friends had quality activities and meaningful Jewish experiences. He was active in the synagogue, the Jewish school, the Jewish federation. He loved Israel and was always there, ready to help, whenever Israel faced a crisis.
Even though summer weather continues in Israel until well into October, as August draws to a close and September begins, we mark the end of summer. Probably because school begins on the 1st of September. So last night, a few friends of mine got together to mark the end of summer by going out to the beach in Herzliya. We were five middle-aged women, at the shore of the Mediterranean Sea, sitting on blankets or beach chairs, chatting. We watched and listened to the waves crashing onto the shore, we got our feet wet in the water, and we breathed the fresh sea air.
Yesterday, we were all surprised to learn that the United Arab Emirates, a key Gulf State, is planning on signing a peace treaty with Israel to include full normalization of relationships. The White House was very involved in the process and announced that in exchange for this recognition by the UAE, Israel had agreed to suspend any moves towards applying sovereignty in Judea and Samaria.
A few weeks ago, we held our first annual CFOIC Heartland Conference of Judea and Samaria communities. This was a dream of mine for some time — to gather together in one room the representatives of all the communities we work with as well as the various mayors, to share experiences and ideas and just interact with one another.
The world is in crisis. The COVID19 pandemic has not only not gone away but in many places, including in Israel, the situation has become more serious. While draconian measures helped ensure that the spread of the virus would be maintained at relatively manageable levels, the economy suffered immeasurable harm. And today, as the economy has begun to open up, we are witnessing the rise, once again, of the numbers of those infected.
The Trump Plan as announced in January of this year, is not a perfect plan. It does provide for Israeli annexation of the areas where there are Jewish communities.
I was a child in the US in 1967, but I remember vividly the excitement that we all felt when Jerusalem was liberated. And the talk in my house, school and synagogue, was all about the new / ancient places that Jews were now free to visit – Hebron, Shiloh, the mountains of Judea and Samaria. But the excitement was immediately muted by widespread international criticism of Israel for “occupying” Arab territory.
For those of you who wanted to come and visit with us, or are seeking a more intimate, direct connection to Israel and to us, the people of this wonderful land, we created this film for you. We can’t visit with you in person but we wanted to stay in touch.
There are many statistics that I love to remember on Israel Independence Day — that we are the only western country with a growing birth rate, that we are the only western country that has more trees today than we had 100 years ago, that we consistently rank as one of the countries with the highest happiness index, that we have one of the best air forces in the world — imagine that only 72 years after that rickety four-plane group.