Israel is my team. I follow it daily. I pray for it. My commitment is total—unfettered.
I also consider myself a red-blooded American devoted to my country, where I was born. I can be both without hesitation.
My love of Israel began as a child. My family was not particularly religious but clearly identified as Jewish. My parents did not know anybody that died in the German concentration camps, but I became almost obsessed with the Nazis’ evil in grade school. I was born in 1944, so they weren’t just a distant history book tale.
The number 6,000,000 became an emotional tattoo while I was a kid. How could the Germans do this to members of my extended family? They exterminated them, they crammed them in ovens and baked them to death. It was terrifying, nauseating, utterly perplexing, and I could not get it out of my head.
The story of Hitler and the Nazis sickened me, but the story of the small living remnant of European Jewry leaving the refugee camps to join the Jews who left the pogroms of Russia and Poland around 1900, rather than going to America captivated me.
I devoured their drama in books, movies, and TV shows. They were Gunsmoke and Bonanza to me.
Ari Ben Canaan, the hero of the book and movie Exodus, was my Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth combined. Paul Newman played him in the movie. I wanted to be as brave and humane and manlike as him.
Israel became a country in 1948 and had to fight the Arabs, who would never accept their existence.
Every few years there was another war to survive. My country, the United States, always helped, but with reluctance.
I have only visited Israel twice—in 1985 and at the end of the century, 1999–2000.
I also toured a concentration camp in Poland, Majdanek, where 100,000 Jews and Poles, Russians, and Gypsies (Roma) were gassed or cremated. The image of the ovens never goes away.
The excitement and joy of being a part of the land of Israel also never goes away.
I am amazed how these remnants, these immigrants, these descendants of mine who left Russia around 1900 to be pioneers of the new Israel rather than come to America, have built this dynamic, powerful country with so few people, while their neighbors devise new ways to kill them every few years.
These days I read every fragment of news I can find. Old media like The New York Times and CNN have turned against the country. I am repelled by how Academia has become propagandists for its destruction.
I am saddened that young Israelis go to war so often and then come back to join their families in safe rooms and communal missile shelters.
These are my people. I will always be with them and help as I can.
Despite the wars and the threat of nuclear annihilation by Iran, rich with oil but hated by its people, Israel keeps building.
It has become a start-up nation filled with scientists and entrepreneurs. Its technical people come and go from Silicon Valley. Google just bought an Israeli cybersecurity firm for $32 billion.
I hate the almost constant wars, but the grit and resilience of my people inspires me.
To its enemies, Israel shouts that it will never give up.
I will always cheer for my team—my people.
4 Comments
Lloyd – As a Catholic I stand and cheer with you. October 7th is a day that will live in infamy. I will never forget!
Marc, thank you so much. I truly value your friendship and support.
Hi Lloyd,
I had to take the bait on this one.
In my experience, once we get past the masks we wear, people are all fairly similar with basic wants, needs, fears, etc that are somewhat similar. In my experience, I have found this to be generally true with high net worth individuals down to the financial level slightly above homelessness.
The problem I have with tribalism is that there will be a charismatic leader (Perhaps a Sociopath) with a hawkish group of followers who will lead the lemmings off a cliff or into warfare with other tribes. And the solution doesn’t seem to be laying down arms as the liberals would suggest. All that is necessary is for the dominant leader to not play by “the rules”. The dominant tribe may likely make the submissive tribe their slaves.
Lloyd: I do not have a solution; I am just sharing my current view on the problem of tribalism.
John
Lloyd: That was a very strong article. I have the perspective of being born before WWII and growing up during the war, and afterward seeing all the horrors of the Holocaust, and the elation of the formation of the state of Israel. I can proudly and defiantly say, “Never Again!”
My father-in-law escaped Nazi Germany and fortunately was able to get to the US in the late 1930s. He enlisted in the US Army just after Pearl Harbor, and proudly served for the duration of the war. He won two Bronze Star medals for bravery, one in 1942 fighting in the Aleutians, and one during the Battle of the Bulge in 1944 and 1945.