Doubling down’ on our Zionism

For the first time since October 7, 2023, Israelis will celebrate Yom Ha’atzmaut with everyone that was taken in Hamas’s onslaught now back home.

But at the same time as I write this, Israel is also 10 days into an existential war with the Islamic Republic of Iran. The stakes could not be higher. The leaders of Tehran’s despotic regime have made no secret of their desire to annihilate the world’s only Jewish state.

Of course, there is no way to tell at this point, how events will have played out by the time you read this. But we hope and pray for the safety of our friends and family in Israel, we salute the valiant heroics of Israel’s soldiers, and we take inspiration from the strength of its people.

Just think of what Israel has had to endure in its 78 years. Endless attacks and wars in which its enemies have sought its complete destruction. The first and second intifadas, and then the horrors and barbarism of the Hamas-led attacks on October 7, the largest loss of Jewish life in a single day since the Holocaust.

And yet in defiance of all of this, Israel the nation has thrived. Today it is a multi-ethnic society of more than 10 million people, living in cosmopolitan cities that sprung up from the desert. It is a sole beacon of democracy in a region of autocracies. It gives back to the world with its hi-tech industry and advanced medical research.