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The Jewish State

Challenges and Opportunities

Rabbi Doron Perez

Next month, Mizrachi Press will release The Jewish State – From Opposition to Opportunity,

by Rabbi Doron Perez, Executive Chairman of the Mizrachi World Movement. World
Mizrachi is proud to partner with Gefen Publishing House in publishing this timely
and important work. The following essay is adapted from the book’s introduction.

J ewish sovereignty is the greatest destroyed in Europe have been rebuilt in establishment of the State of Israel – are

invariably met with the greatest opposi-
opportunity of our generation. It is
Israel with more Torah study today than
tion and condemnation by her enemies.
also our greatest challenge.
arguably any other time in history. Grow-
The collective return of the Jewish ing more than tenfold from a population It is this very opposition which highlights
people to the Land of Israel after two thou- of six hundred and fifty thousand Jews the holiness and spirituality of the enter-
sand years of wandering and statelessness in 1948 to a Jewish population of over prise itself.
is one of the most remarkable human and seven million and a general population The 75th anniversary of Israel is a historic
Jewish stories in all of history. approaching ten million, Israel is an ongo- milestone and therefore a significant
ing miracle and the fulfillment of scores moment to reflect on the meaning of the
It is almost beyond belief that so soon after of biblical prophecies which envisioned endeavor of Jewish statehood. Under-
the horrific ovens of Auschwitz and the the return of the exiles and the revival of standing the centrality of sovereignty in
wholesale decimation of European Jewry the barren Land. the Jewish mission is critical to under-
the Jewish people would somehow rise standing Israel and the transformative
like a phoenix from the ashes and estab- This marvel has been met with violent contribution it can make to Jewish and
lish an independent state for the first and vitriolic opposition – not only major human history.
time in two thousand years. Withstanding regional wars aimed at Israel’s destruction
three full-scale wars aimed at its destruc- but the ongoing threat of nuclear anni- This book aims to address both a meta-
tion in its first twenty five years, Israel hilation, consistent terror attacks from physical understanding of the great
transformed adversity to blessings of bib- within and an incessant global delegitimi- opportunities Israel provides as well as
the spiritual meaning of the unparal-
lical proportions – gathering in millions zation campaign against the very right of leled opposition it faces – and indeed the
of immigrants from every corner of the a Jewish state to exist. connection between this opposition and
globe, reviving an ancient language and Rabbi Yosef Dov Soloveitchik of blessed opportunity.
revitalizing a desolate land. In seventy five memory, the great rabbinic leader of
short years Israel has become a leading American Jewry in the 20th century, As such, the following penetrating ques-
first world country – a regional economic highlighted this point in his masterful lec- tions will be addressed in this book:
and military superpower and one of the tures on the spiritual meaning of Zionism 1. Why has the Jewish state not solved the
leading global hubs of high-tech innova- and Jewish statehood. He taught that the problem of antisemitism, as Herzl believed
tion, research and development. Many greatest spiritual endeavors of the Jewish it would, but become the cause of a new
of the great yeshivot and learning centers people in every generation – such as the and no less virulent type of antisemitism

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