REUVEN RIVLIN: EULOGY FOR BEN-ZION NETANYAHU ” A PROUD ZIONIST”
http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=1809
“In a eulogy for Zionist leader Max Nordau in 1931, Benzion Netanyahu said, “With all the love he had for man and society, and with his active participation in public life, the truth of the matter is that he was lonely. When the people began to diverge from Zionism, again he remained lonely, now among his brothers. His big eye examined the events as they unfolded and he cried out in pain, but his cry was carried only by the wind. I am puzzled by his deep optimism, the optimistic serenity within this volcano of a man. He died in loneliness with a contented face.”
“So wrote Professor Netanyahu, from the bottom of his heart, and it appears that today, as we stand over his own grave, that he had actually delivered his own eulogy back then: “He died in loneliness with a contented face.”
When I learned of the death of Professor Benzion Netanyahu, a great sadness came over me. A great sadness came over Jerusalem.
One hundred and two years of man and spirit have left behind a huge void that, for me, represents the scenes of my childhood and evokes the feeling of my childhood home. In my parents’ house, where my late father toiled, together with Professor Netanyahu and Dr. Abba Ahimeir, on the ambitious endeavor of compiling the Hebrew Encyclopedia, Netanyahu’s name was said with the utmost respect and appreciation. With him gone, a giant in a generation of giants that lived among us, an entire world has disappeared. A world for which he served as a spokesman and a preserver.
He had access to the world’s history, literature and culture. Halls of fame and coveted professional positions were available to him had he desired them. But he didn’t. He chose to focus on his own people, and the most marginalized and lonely ones at that: the anusim, the Spanish Jews who were forced to convert to Christianity in the 15th century. He chose to focus on the painful disillusionment of Spanish Jewry’, who went from a Golden Age to learning that they could not living peacefully in the Diaspora.
With great dignity, he carried with him until his dying day the pain that never subsided, the pain of losing his beloved son Yonatan.
Professor Netanyahu, the researcher and the ideologue, was a man of truth, not a man of compromise. He arrived at many conclusions that many people didn’t like, and he never hesitated to defend his arguments and issue warnings. After all, the man who served as Ze’ev Jabotinsky’s right-hand man, who accompanied him on his travels to warn the complacent pre-Holocaust European Jews, couldn’t possibly forget the lessons learned.
The lessons were clear, obvious, harsh. An uncompromising truth that laughed in the face of political constraints. In his eyes, any concession is dangerous and harmful. Only proud, pro-active Zionism and a total commitment to the land of Israel and to Jerusalem will ensure the future of the Jewish people. Professor Netanyahu was an anti-politician who was willing to pay the price of the loneliness that is the lot of those who disapprove of compromise. He preferred loneliness over compromise and the bitter truth over the sweet taste of consensus.
In a eulogy for Zionist leader Max Nordau in 1931, Benzion Netanyahu said, “With all the love he had for man and society, and with his active participation in public life, the truth of the matter is that he was lonely. When the people began to diverge from Zionism, again he remained lonely, now among his brothers. His big eye examined the events as they unfolded and he cried out in pain, but his cry was carried only by the wind. I am puzzled by his deep optimism, the optimistic serenity within this volcano of a man. He died in loneliness with a contented face.”
So wrote Professor Netanyahu, from the bottom of his heart, and it appears that today, as we stand over his own grave, that he had actually delivered his own eulogy back then: “He died in loneliness with a contented face.”
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