Israel Forever

For the week ending 3 January 2004 / 9 Tevet 5764

A Long History of Short Memories

by Rabbi Mendel Weinbach zt'l
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The world has a short memory especially when it comes to Jews and what is owed to them!

A half-century ago the world understood that a nation which had lost six million of its members in a holocaust perpetrated by a tyrant and his "willing executioners" in Germany and other European nations deserved a state of its own. Yet that same world has chosen to conveniently forget the United Nations resolution establishing the Jewish state and to abandon it to the mercy of Arab terrorists committed to another holocaust.

Then, too, there is the short memory of a world which forgets what Jews have done for it and shrugs its shoulders when the head of a Moslem country publicly rails against Jews "running the world by proxy" and a poll of Europeans names Israel as "the greatest danger to world peace".

Take a look at the list of scores of Jews who have been awarded Nobel Prizes for peace, the sciences and literature and compare it to what our detractors have contributed to the world in any of these fields.

But this is hardly news for anyone who reads this weeks Torah portion about the decisive role that Yosef played in saving Egypt from being wiped out by a famine. Nevertheless, less than half a century after Yosefs passing, a new king ascends the throne, conveniently forgets what this Hebrew ex-slave did for his country, and turns all of his Hebrew citizens into slaves.

The nations of the world may have short memories but the Jewish People have a long memory of how little they can rely on those nations and must put their faith in Heaven to remember Israel forever.

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