Sublime

Rabbi Irving “Yitz” Greenberg, all human beings are endowed with three “intrinsic dignities”: infinite worth, equality, and uniqueness.10

Jewish history is a living testimony to the power of ideas,

One might add that the decision to create the state and take power also constitutes a commitment to end the martyrdom tradition of Jewish history. Since martyrdom means the risk of total annihilation, it is no longer acceptable.

Since ancient times, in every place they have ever lived, Jews have represented the frightening prospect of freedom. As long as Jews existed in any society, there was evidence that it in fact wasn’t necessary to believe what everyone else believed, that those who disagreed with their neighbors could survive and even flourish against all odds. The J

The present generation is neither the slavish follower of the tradition handed down by past generations nor an autonomous community free to tamper with past practices or to reject past goals. Each generation is a partner entering into the covenantal responsibility and process and thus joining the transgenerational covenantal community.

A major factor in the colossal moral failures which made the Shoah possible was the nonresponse of the bystanders.

Brenner, complex though he was, was perhaps the cultural icon of the Second Aliyah. His work, still considered brilliant, surfaced issues with which Israel continues to wrestle. He would have undoubtedly done even more than he managed in his brief life, but he was murdered by an Arab mob in the 1921 Jaffa riots.

Ever since the First Zionist Congress in 1897, Zionists had seen themselves as the central address for the world’s Jews. As the Nazis had eradicated Polish Jewry, American Jews were now the largest and most significant Jewish community in the world—and they were warning Israel to back off that sentiment.