WHY ISRAEL MATTERS

 

“Israel doesn’t exist because the Holocaust happened. The Holocaust happened because Israel didn’t exist.”

We are currently in the “sandwich” between the twin tragedies of the Holocaust and Day of Remembrance for the 24,000 Israeli soldiers killed in battle since the state began.

Since its inception in 1988, every year, more than a quarter of a million participants have marched down the same 3-kilometer path leading from Auschwitz to Birkenau on Holocaust Remembrance Day -  as a tribute to the most significant loss in the history of the Jewish people, and humanity. This March of the Living bears witness to one of history’s darkest hours, recommitting to the Never Again imperative.

 Another imperative was the horrendous progroms being perpetrated against the Jews in Russia  during World War I -  the worst progroms Eastern Europe had ever known. Jews living in villages and towns along the front lines had been expelled, and horrific attacks ensued. After the Bolshevik Revolution, the plight of Russian Jews worsened even further. The former empire was beset by civil war; the situation in Ukraine was especially chaotic. Once again savage violence was directed against Jews. By the end of this period, more than 100,000 individuals had been killed and entire communities wiped out.

In late November of 1919, a run-down cargo ship set sail to Palestine from Odessa, the Ukrainian port city.  The 600 plus passengers included refugees fleeing the progroms, returning residents who had been banished to Europe by the British during World War I, and fervent Zionists coming to build up the land. The ship, the SS Rusian, served as an emblem for a key wave of immigration, the Third Aliyah (1919-1923), which shaped the Zionist enterprise, transforming agricultural and urban life.

Because of the many notable personalities on board, people who would later make vital contributions to Israel, the Rusian is often called Israel’s Mayflower.

 

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