IMRA March 16, 2005

According to Jewish tradition, the day begins at evening, at sundown, continues in the morning and bursts out of the night until the following evening. Therefore, according to Jewish tradition - we are still at the height of the day which began yesterday with the inauguration of the Holocaust Museum, and continued with the conference in which you participated this morning, “Remembering the Past, Shaping the Future”.

For the Jewish people, the establishment of the State of Israel was itself a bright morning which burst out of the night of horrors of the Holocaust - and marked its end.

Yesterday I told you about Esther Horonchik, her husband Nissan and their son Richard, who were murdered by the Nazis. Esther had two sisters and two brothers. All of them married and had families. The Germans desire was to destroy everyone, and indeed many of them were murdered in the Holocaust. However, there were those who survived. Some immigrated to Israel and built their homes here.

Had the two-year-old Richard survived, he would now be 65 years old. Three of his cousins live in Israel and are here with us now. I especially invited them so that they would be present at this event, and they are - Nelly, Fanny and Francine. Francine has a daughter, two sons and three grandchildren. Her son works in the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and is currently on a mission to Cameroon. The other son works for a commercial company, and the daughter is a journalist.

Fanny, who is a lecturer in the French Department at Bar-Ilan University has 2 daughters. Nelly has 2 daughters, a son, 4 grandchildren and one more on the way. Her sister Solange lives in France, and has 2 sons who immigrated to Israel. One of them, Daniel, fell during his military service. Her brother Rafael has 2 sons in Israel: Richard, named after Richard who was murdered in the Holocaust, who is a dentist with 5 children; and Emanuel, who is a lecturer in History at the University.

Nelly, Fanny, Francine and their children - they are the State of Israel.

The broad media coverage which Israel’s determined war against terror receives, portrays Israel as a country entirely covered in the smoke of war. This is a very misleading image. The struggle which we have been forced to wage against terror does not engulf our entire world. The opposite is true. It allows us to continue living the lives we have built for ourselves here - lives of creation, which has generated wonders on this tiny piece of land. Despite our being a country with scant precipitation, Israeli agriculture is one of the most developed in the world, and Israeli agricultural experts are invited to establish model farms in Africa, Asia and South America.

Despite its small size, Israel is one of the world leaders in the field of high-tech, and is a member of the very limited club of countries which have launched satellites into space. On the NASDAQ, only 338 stocks are those of non-American companies. 70 of them belong to Israeli companies, a number which testifies to Israel’s place on the map of modern technology.

The standard of science and medicine in Israel invokes envy. Just this year, two Israeli scientists won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry. This is a country whose engineers are valued as the best in the world - and this is why international giants like IBM, Intel, Motorola, Lucent, Sisko and many others make sure to establish their development centers here in Israel.

This is a country in which was resurrected the world of the Torah and Hasidism - a world of the Yeshivas - which was destroyed in the Holocaust, and is today a part of the landscape of Israel.

This is a country in which, even during times of war and at the height of cruel terror attacks, the muses do not cease, and in which the concert halls and theaters are always full.

And this is a country in which, in one decade, 5 million inhabitants absorbed an additional one million citizens, without any shocks to society - an almost unprecedented operation by any international standard.

Distinguished Guests,

This day which you have spent here in our country, in the land of the Jewish people, out of a desire to unite with the past - while scrutinizing the most horrible crime in history - the Holocaust - will remain engraved on our hearts. I wish to thank you for this.

During the conversations we held, we were obliged to spend most of the time discussing the issues which concern us today - problems in the region, the war against terror and Israel’s need to defend itself from those who still refuse to recognize its right to exist. I hope the day will come when meetings of this type can be dedicated entirely to issues such as cultural exchanges, cooperation in the field of science, joint projects in the field of space research and the environment. I hope that, G-d willing, this day is not too far off. I intend to make every effort to ensure that it will arrive quickly.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 17th, 2005 and is filed under opinion.