Israel: A Place of Family and Familiar Strangers

Part of The Yom Haatzmaut Project

Why I admire our State so much:

1. Israel has created a community in its truest sense: an environment conducive to interaction and dialogue. It is a community with a common center, disparate points of circumference and yet it fosters a sense of unity. The heterogeneous composition of Jews allows each to define his or herself against the other—an other, though, that is really part of a greater We.

2.

An opportunity to celebrate Shabbat like They did.

3.
The evening was cool and the quiet then and the streets were empty. It was the first night of Channukah and I was lighting the candles later than planned. I paused before reciting the bracha—an effort to escape the haste and hurriedness of life—and began. And then down below, I heard someone answer amen.

4.
Israel is. And continues to be in the mind of every Jew. That is her greatest accomplishment.