Not New News
Not new news. Let's learn from our recent history. I woke up October 8 and thought the entire world had shifted. 5 months later I'm waiting to get my "sea legs" to find a way through this "new" reality. I was so wrong. I was wrong because nothing was new October 8, I was late to the reality party. The fight at the OK Corral between good and evil had been going on for years without me.
Case in point: August 2, 2018 an American born Rabbi, IDF soldier, father of 4, wrote the attached blog post for his upcoming new website. In it you'll see a UNRWA video from 2014 using costume characters to teach Palestinian children the fine arts of mutilation, murder and jihad. (that's TEN years and over $4 Billion that was channeled through UNWRA since).
The year prior, in March 2017, Ari wrote in memory of his friend Yehoshua Friedberg who had been slaughtered by terrorists 24 years prior.
A month after this post, a Palestinian crept up behind Ari Fuld in a supermarket parking lot, stabbed him in the back and ended his life.
I came upon this post while I was reading about a new addition to a shul that was Ari's shul which his family foundation just helped expand. The dedication was done with the families of 16 soldiers from Ari's home (the "settlement" area of Gush Etzion) who have given their lives during today's war on terror.
There is so much I take from this chain of web surfing, but here are a few thoughts:
1. The Jewish people, we are truly one family. I haven't known Stephen Leavitt (though I read his work on Jewish Press) but he's been building spiritual and physical defenses for us via the Ari Fuld Project. I haven't know his wife Miriam Fuld but we've been raising children with the same hopes.
2. The violence, the hatred, the successful indoctrination of generations of angry mobs who have no value for human life and only value martyrdom- this is not new, it is pervasive and it will go on and on and on. Our job is not rehabilitation because that is literally "fools' gold." Our job is to love, honor and protect the rest of the world, and make it impossible for the others to achieve their nefarious goals of the total annihilation of the Jewish people.
3. עם ׳שראל ח׳ The people of Israel, the Jewish people, live and will continue to live. We are threaded together for thousands of years. We speak and hear truth from our written words passed from generation to generation. We speak and hear truth at the synagogues and schools like this one newly dedicated. We speak and hear truth from the words of great people both long gone and recently taken from this world.
And if you don't believe me, if you're online in 2024 and read anything about Jews or Israel, you'll likely have read the truths from Ari's brother...none other than Hillel Fuld
I might have been late, but I know how this ends: love will win. It always does.
