WhatsappWhere in the world is there a nation that was dispersed to all of the four corners of the earth , and then returned from all over the world to rebuild the Promised Land? If there is one short movie about Israel Independence Day that does the State of Israel justice, it is this excellent Mizrachi film.
There is a story that occurred in the 1950’s about a visit to the United States by Israel’s founding Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion. The US Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, mockingly asked Ben-Gurion to explain what an Israeli is. Is an Israeli an immigrant from Poland? Is he a Russian, Moroccan, or Yemenite? The insinuation was that Israel is just a hodge-podge gathering of Jewish people who are not truly indigenous to the area that had become the State of Israel. Ben-Gurion’s response, allegedly, went something like this. Secretary Dulles, “If you ask 10 American children to tell you the name of the ship that discovered America, the name of the captain of the ship, and how long the voyage took, would any of them know all of the answers?” Ben-Gurion continued, “But if you ask any ten Jewish children from anywhere around the entire world to tell you who was the leader of the Jewish people who led them out of Egypt, and how long did it take them to get to the Promised Land, they will all tell you the answer!” Ben-Gurion’s point is right on. The Jewish people are the indigenous people of the Land of Israel, as proven by their centuries-old undying connection to the Land of Israel. So, despite the exile, the Jewish people are unified more than anything else by their deep connection to the Land of Israel!
