Guest Post: Jewish Connection to the Land of Israel
Shifra Horn
According to the Encyclopedia.com entry:
Shifra Horn is one of the most popular contemporary female novelists in Israel. Her fiction regularly makes the bestseller list in her native land, and it has been translated into more than a half-dozen foreign languages, including German, French, Italian, Greek, and Mandarin. Horn's novels are set in Israel, and the tensions and tribulations of that country's politics form a background for the stories.
It’s an honour to have Shifra share a few thoughts on the Jewish connection to the land of Israel.
Shifra was born in Tel Aviv but has spent most of her life in Jerusalem. After majoring in Bible Studies and Archeology - BA (Hons)- at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, she studied for MA degree in Bible Studies. Horn also studied mass communications and completed a teaching degree.
Her IDF service was in the Israel Air Force
Shifra worked as educational officer for the World Union of Jewish Students, and helped to organize the airlift of Ethiopian Jews to Israel. Horn also participated in the campaign to free Soviet and Syrian Jews, producing films and written material.
In the course of her work with Jewish students from oppressed communities around the world, she visited a Portugese village of Jewish Marranos who had kept their Jewish identity secret for over 500 years. Shifra’s activity in the village of Belmonte in northwest Portugal resulted in the entire population converting fully to Judaism.
Shifra was a spokesperson for the Israel Absorption Ministry until her departure for Japan, where she served as Far East correspondent for the Israel Defense Forces Radio station and Ma'ariv daily newspaper for five years. Horn worked as the director of the Tokyo Jewish Community Centre and taught Bible Studies and Hebrew at the Bible College in Ginza, Tokyo.
Upon her return to Jerusalem, she opened a public relations firm, and lectured on Japan and literary topics. Her books have been translated into ten languages . She has been invited to participate in many literary festivals around the world and been awarded prizes in a number of countries.
The Jewish Connection to Israel
“Now the Lord said to Abram, Go out from your country and from your family and from your father's house, into the land to which I will be your guide... to your offspring I will give this land.”
Genesis chapter 12 is one of the most crucial sections in the entire book, as the relationship of God with Israel started here. God's first word to Abram was “Go”. Abram is given two instructions — go and to. Abram has to go to an unnamed land which God will show him.
The Jewish connection to this land goes back circa 3000 years The lands of the Jewish tribes of Israel from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River and beyond can be clearly established and proven by archaeology , by written records and artifacts . The Jews are indeed the Indigenous people of this historical land.
And it must be understood that in the land of Israel there were three exiles:
First Neo - Assyrian 740 BCE
Second Babylonian 586 BCE
Third Roman 70 (CE) AD
This song from Psalms 137 demonstrates the connection of the Jewish people in exile to their homeland and specially to Zion-Jerusalem.
By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down. Yes, we wept, when we remembered Zion.
On the willows in its midst, we hung up our harps.
Those who led us captive asked us for songs. Those who tormented us demanded songs of joy: “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!”
How can we sing Yahweh’s song in a foreign land?
If I forget you, Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its skill.
Let my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth if I don’t remember you; if I don’t prefer Jerusalem above my chief joy.”
The following phrase is an example of the deep connection to the land.
L'Shana Haba'ah - "Next year in Jerusalem", is a phrase that is sung at the end of the Passover Seder and at the end of the Ne'ila service on Yom Kippur. The phrase evokes a common theme in Jewish culture and expresses the hope for future redemption, the desire to return to a rebuilt Jerusalem and the Temple.
After the destruction of the Second Temple, and the loss of the country forcing Jews for the third time in the history of the country into exile, they never gave up the idea of coming back to the Holy land. A substitute to the Temple was the creation of the synagogues all around the world where Jews lived. And in order to keep the affinity with Jerusalem, in these synagogues throughout the world, there is a niche within which the five books of Moses are kept and directed toward the city of Jerusalem.
The miracle of the foundation of a democratic homeland for the Jewish people was not without a heavy price -the six million Jews that perished in the Holocaust.
The coming back of the Jews to the land of their ancestors was a revival or historical renaissance that had never happened in history before. Even the leader of the Zionist movement Herzl who was compromised and tried to create the Jewish land in Uganda reversed that decision when he realized that this was not the solution for the Jewish people. The Jews had to return to their homeland-Eretz Israel
After WW2 Israel became the refuge and homeland for the Jews from the Jewish Diaspora even though they did not live in the country. But Israel is also the homeland of non-Jews that live here-Muslims, Christians, Druze , Armenians , Bedouin and Circassians that lives among us. They are all citizens of Israel and enjoy all benefits that the democratic country offers them.
Another miracle has happened in Israel. The awakening of the “sleeping beauty” - the Hebrew language which was the written and spoken language in the country for two thousand years BC. The Hebrew language never died. Almost all Jews in the Diaspora, learn to read and even to talk in ancient Hebrew. They read the bible, pray in Hebrew, write love poems in Hebrew, negotiate in Hebrew and so on. It is and always has been a living language.
The second miracle that had happened in Israel was making the old Hebrew language, which was called the Holy language into an everyday language. More and more new words were added all the time to this ancient language and Hebrew once again became a spoken language.
Today we have nine million Hebrew speakers in Israel and almost six million of them use Hebrew as their mother tongue.
The major principles that are the foundation of the creation of Israel as a modern nation is first of all being Jewish and democratic. The common democracy that connects people is the language, the historical consecutiveness, the national memory, and the pure monotheism in which Jerusalem is the capital and regarded as the most sacred place in the country.