Page 22 - HaMizrachi Yom HaAtzmaut 5783 USA

Reveal the Light!

Miriam Peretz

Five years ago on Yom HaAtzmaut, as Israel celebrated its 70th year, Miriam Peretz was awarded the Israel Prize
for Lifetime Achievement and Special Contribution to Society for her work with Israeli youth. Her story of faith,
resilience and hope in the face of losing two sons in the IDF, as well as her husband, has captured the hearts of
Israelis of all backgrounds. At the award ceremony, she delivered the following speech, broadcast throughout
Israel on national television. Within a few weeks, it was announced that her speech would be incorporated into
the educational curriculum of Israeli schools. We are honored to share the full speech translated into English.

feel both unworthy and deeply moved to stand here today Torah, and todah (thanks). Every night, my father told me about
and speak on behalf of the award recipients. I pray that I a city he didn’t know, that he never saw in pictures, and whose
will not stumble in my words and that my simple language description was passed from father to son – Jerusalem, where
a
c
I n properly express our deep gratitude to the State of there are trees dripping with milk and honey, and at their feet
Israel, who found us worthy of receiving this award, and to our lie lions and lambs. Every time my father spoke the word “Jeru-
families and close friends, who have supported us and encour- salem,” he put his two fingers to his lips and solemnly mumbled
aged us all along the way. her name in holiness, as he kissed each one of its letters.
Much of the audience sitting here today are missing loved ones One night in the summer of 1963 my father announced that the
who did not have the opportunity to see us reach this moment. Mashiach would come tonight. When I asked him how I would
Two of them are my parents, Ya’akov and Ito Ohayon, who were recognize him, he answered, “He will wear an open shirt, shorts
born at the foot of the Atlas Mountains in Morocco. They could and sandals.” I met the Mashiach – the shaliach of the Jewish
not read or write, and did not speak Hebrew. If they were sitting Agency – who took us out of the Mellah (Jewish Quarter) of Casa-
here today they would blanca, where I lived as a girl until I was 10, and brought us to
understand only a “Jerusalem” – to an apartment complex in Be’er Sheva, where
few of my words, I lived until 1969. We lived without gas, without a refrigerator,
words which with beds made of iron, and the struggle of klitah (absorption)
for them were and a new language. But there was also great joy, that we had
a code: Jerusa- merited to come to Eretz Yisrael.
lem, shalom,
I learned to love the country through its songs, thanks to a radio
that my father received from his job as a road sweeper. Every
Wednesday, I waited with intense anticipation at the door
of our shack, notebook and pencil in hand, ready to
write the lyrics of the songs taught by Effi
Netzer on his program. That’s how
I came to know the Land; the
Chermon, through “Malchut
HaChermon,” Beit Lechem
via “Re’i Rachel Re’i”
and Emek Yizrael
through “Shir
HaEmek.”

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