Fight the hopelessness

Editorial

It was like something out of the Middle Ages or the worst days of the czarist regime. At a synagogue in Kiev, Ukraine, last weekend, about 50 assailants invaded evening prayers, smashing windows and beating worshippers.

Gratefully, no one was killed in this horrific incident, but it should serve as a clarion call to Jews and decent people the world over. The attack was a reminder of the perilous existence of Jewish populations throughout the world.

A synagogue desecration in Saskatoon and other terrible cases in Canada and the United States remind us that even in comparatively civilized societies, hideous incidents like these are not unknown.

This brings back to mind – as if it were ever far away – that Israel was created as the final and infinite place of safety for the Jewish people.

It is worth remembering that Zionism’s great ideologue Theodor Herzl was moved to agitate for a Jewish state after he was jarred from his comfortable European existence by the stunning anti-Semitism demonstrated during the Dreyfus Affair in France. It was that incident that led Herzl to conclude that Jews would never be home in a nation dominated by others.

Of course, Herzl’s dream of a homeland where all Jews can live in peace is proving ethereal, faced as it is by hostile neighbors and murderous infiltrators. Yet it is a dream from which the Jewish people must not awaken. The Kiev attack, as well as similar vicious acts in France, Tunisia and around the world, must be the call to arms that rededicates us to the sanctity and necessity of Israel.

A world without Israel is a real possibility. It is a dream of the suicide bombers. It is a nightmare for people like the Jews of Kiev, for whom, though thousands of miles away, Israel can still provide a light of hope for refuge in a desperate time.
Critics say Israel is to blame for Palestinian violence. The United Nations constantly points an accusing finger at Israel, charging Ariel Sharon with human rights abuses and condemning the policies in the territories as being the cause of refugee hopelessness.

But there is another brand of hopelessness – the hopelessness of the terrorized Jews of Kiev and elsewhere who see no end to the violence and, possibly, a future without safety.

Among the greatest tragedies of the current crisis is the effect it has on the Zionist dreams of those who have never even set foot on Israeli soil. To protect that dream of a place free of violence and hatred must be our first priority.

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