MY SAY: REFLECTIONS ON A NEW YEAR IN JEWISH HISTORY
On Sunday night, September 9th at sunset the Jewish New Year begins….5,779 years of Jewish history which is really a miracle. Great and mighty empires have disappeared and despite centuries of pogroms, oppression, dislocation, and genocide we are still here.
Including the expulsion from England in 1290, actually 109 nations have expelled the Jews since AD250. See the list at https://www.biblebelievers.org.au/expelled.htm
If the highest estimates are assumed there are 15 million Jews in the world and their outsize contributions to science, technology, medicine, the arts and charitable institutions are astonishing.
Jewish families blessed by courage and determination still live in Hebron, home of the Patriarchs whence the unbroken chain of faith that binds us to this day was forged.
I reject dwelling on woe and mourning. I prefer the stanza from “I Will Survive “written by Freddie Perren and Dino Fekaris in 1978 and premiered by the great Gloria Gaynor and added to the Library of Congress national registry of recording in 2016. In an interesting choice, the other recording added was a performance of Mahler’s ninth symphony by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, recorded just two months before Germany invaded Austria in 1938, when all of the Jewish musicians were fired and subsequently many were killed.
Edited:
“Weren’t you the ones who tried, to hurt us with goodbye.
You’d think we’d crumble, you’d think we’d lay down and die
Oh no not us. We will survive! We will survive!”
And on that note, as we always abbreviated in the Bronx…….” A happy and a healthy to you all.” שנה טובה ומתוקה
RSK
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