"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth."
Rabbinical commentary on this opening sentence of the Bible explains that the entire world belongs to God - He created it and He gave it to those He saw fit.
Eretz Israel, a small but very special piece of land, is the ancient legacy promised by God to the People of Israel. The Land is connected, by an unbreakable bond, to the destiny and vocation of the Jewish People.
Over thousands of years, Eretz Israel has undergone unprecedented transformations with its people enduring unparalleled upheavals: changes in government and conquest by foreign empires, centuries of growth and decay, eras of ingathering and dispersion.
And maybe the greatest miracle of all - despite a Diaspora of some 2,000 years, despite continuous persecution and a terrible Holocaust - the Jewish people reunited and returned to rebuild Eretz Israel, bringing about the birth of the modern State of Israel.
The term Gola (Diaspora) implies a connection of the People to the Land. One cannot be in the Diaspora unless one is not living in ones homeland. And over the long period of dispersion, Eretz Israel remained the eternal homeland of the Jewish People. Thousands of years could not sever this link, so deeply is the Land imprinted on the very soul of its people.
Their spiritual connection and continuous yearning to return to the Land, together with a belief in the coming redemption, resulted in the miraculous survival of the People of Israel and their rebirth in Eretz Israel - The Promised Land.
t "I really wish the Jews again in Judea an independent nation...".
(John Quincy Adams, 1825)
t "Restoring the Jews to their homeland is a noble dream shared by many Americans."
(Abraham Lincoln in his meeting with Canadian Christian Zionist, Henry W. Monk, in 1863)
t "We toiled up one more hill and every pilgrim and every sinner swung his hat on high! Jerusalem!
Perched on its eternal hills, white and domed and solid, massed together and hooped with high grey walls, the venerable city gleamed in the sun. So small! Why, it was no larger than an Jerusalem... American village of 4,000 inhabitants only numbers 14,000 people".
(Mark Twain, "Innocents Abroad", 1869)
t "Why not give Palestine back to [the Jews] again? According to God's distribution of nations it is their home, an inalienable possession from which they were expelled by force."
(Rev. William E. Blackstone, The Blackstone Memorial, 1891)
t "You (the Jews) have prayed for Jerusalem for 2000 years, and you shall have it."
(Winston Churchill, cited in "The Times", London, May 5, 1938)
t "I had faith in Israel before it was established, I have faith in it now. I believe it has a glorious not just as another... future nation, but as an embodiment of the great ideals of our civilization".
(Harry Truman)
t "How easy it should be... to understand and support the right of the Jewish People to live in their ancient Land of Israel. All men of good will exult in the fulfillment of God's promise, that His people should return in joy to rebuild their plundered land. This is Zionism, nothing more, nothing less."
(Martin Luther King Jr., 1967)
t "Jerusalem is the focal point of the ideals of all the universe, of the entire history of Salvation; it is the place that has witnessed the fusion of all the peoples with the Jewish people - beloved of God".
(Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini of Milan, 1992)
Text: Dr. Benjamin Ilan, Moshe Ilan, Penina Cohen
Graphic Design: Sigal Shefi / Poenta Ltd.