Anti-Semitism no longer shocks people.

When legions of “Palestinian martyrs” started blowing themselves up in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Afula and Karnei Shomron, the British daily Guardian ran an editorial titled “Israel Has No Right to Exist”.

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Two events happened on Wednesday which should send a shiver down the spine of everyone concerned about the future of the American Jewish community. But to understand their importance it is important to consider the context in which they occurred.

On January 13, The New York Times reported on a series of virulently anti-Jewish comments Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi made in speeches given in 2010. Among other things, Morsi said, “We must never forget, brothers, to nurse our children and our grandchildren on hatred for them: for Zionists, for Jews.”

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Few countries have accomplished as much as the Jewish State of Israel has in 65 years of existence. To avoid any misunderstanding, the 65 years refer only to its modern existence, not to the Two Israelite Jewish Commonwealths that included Kings David and Solomon, as well as Ezra, Nehemiah, and the Hashmonaim dynasty. In between modern Israel and the two Commonwealths, the Jewish nation lived in exile, suffering persecution and ultimate genocide known as the Nazi Holocaust. Next week, the resurrected Jewish nation will celebrate its 65th birthday.

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A popular children’s story features a little locomotive put to the test in front of a great, heavy train. As it neared the top of the grade, it reduced speed, but kept saying, “I—think—I—can, I—think—I—can.” Drawing on bravery, it reached the top and then went on down the grade, congratulating itself by saying, “I thought I could, I thought I could.”

Like the little engine that could, Israel is the little nation that could. The history of Israel involves unprecedented obstacles, including forty years of wilderness wanderings; seemingly endless warfare, blood baths (Masada), brutal captivity and enslavement (Assyria, Babylon, Egypt); displacement and persecution; rabid anti-Semitism, pogroms (Russia), Intifadas and riots; plundering, and genocide.

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MICHAEL FREUND, JPOST—

OF ALL the festivals on the Jewish calendar, it is Passover which contains some of the boldest and most powerful imagery.

The departure of our ancestors from Egypt, their pursuit by Pharaoh and his chariots, and the climactic splitting of the Red Sea, are just some of the themes that we continue to celebrate more than 3,300 years later.

Indeed, it is a testimony to the power of Jewish memory as well as the potency of the Passover saga that even after so many generations, we continue to retell and relive this crucial part of our ancient past.

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In serious conversation, Israelis acknowledge that the horrors of the Holocaust propelled the 660,000 Jews in Israel - many who had escaped the death chambers - to such desperation that against overwhelming odds they forged the rebirth of the ancient Jewish nation. Just as the birth of the modern state is a part of the DNA of all Israelis, so is the death of one third of its people.

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Recently “Christianity Today,” the prominent evangelical journal, spotlighted the “Top 5 Books on Israel & Palestine,” as asserted by Gary Burge, a professor at Chicago-area evangelical Wheaton College, one of evangelical America’s most prestigious schools.

Burge is a crusader for trying to shift evangelicals away from their typically pro-Israel stance. All five books naturally tout a pro-Palestinian perspective to varying degrees. Evidently a book offering the Jewish experience did not merit attention.

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If you still think the future of Israel looks bleak, think again.

A few months ago it looked like the Jewish state might not survive until 2013. Rockets were raining down from Gaza; revolution was about to install one Islamicist government in Egypt, and another was poised to take over in Syria. Iran was threatening to finish what Hitler’s Holocaust started, with an atomic bomb. The Obama administration seemed unwilling to stop that happening-- while Israel’s only alternative to nuclear annihilation was a preemptive strike that was bound to start a major shooting war in the Middle East.

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1. The international community opposes Israel because it is an “ethnic nation-state.”

A cover for Jew-hatred, this argument is applied only against Israel and the Jewish people.

2. Judea and Samaria (the “West Bank” of the Jordan River) belong to the “Palestinians.”

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Reality, especially in 2012, is very hard to face. So many hopes dashed; so many bad things happening. So people can be forgiven for taking refuge in wishful thinking. Sometimes, not telling the truth has its value in public affairs, especially when you are looking at a president with four more years in office and no elections ahead of him.

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