YORAM ETTINGER AT AMERICANS FOR A SAFE ISRAEL
I have always been very proud of my participation in AFSI. Last night our wonderful Chairman Mark Langfan, whose maps clearly illustrate the existential danger to Israel from any territorial concessions, hosted an evening and lecture by Israel’s finest diplomat…my friend….Yoram Ettinger. His talk included some staggering statistics about the burgeoning birthrate among Israelis and the decline in Arab births within Israel including Judea and Samaria. All these statistics puncture holes in the myth of a “demographic time bomb” that is used to intimidate proper discussion of Israel’s legitimate rights in what sissies still call “The West Bank.”
However, it was something else that Ambassador Yoram Ettinger said that resonated with me. By “normative” statistical standards- given the centuries of oppression, dislocation, expulsion, torture, murder, and genocide- Jews should be extinct. One in every three Jews in the entire world was exterminated during the Holocaust. But, as Yoram Ettinger stated we seem to defy the word and definition of “normative.” Not only have we survived, but Israel is now a powerhouse- in economy, technology, science, medicine, culture, standard of living, education and social institutions- all in the land where it all started.
Now that is something to ponder as we approach Passover. Thank you Yoram Ettinger and thank you Mark Langfan.
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