Israel

Israel’s Independence Day varies year by year in the Western calendar—the Hebrew calendar differs from the Gregorian calendar, and the Israeli Independence Day falls on Iyar 5, a date that falls between 14 April and 14 May each year. This year, Iyar 5 is on 8 May. On the Gregorian calendar, the declaration of independence took place on 14 May in 1948.

In 1947, the United Nations approved the division of the Mandate of Palestine into two states, an Arab and a Jewish state. We all know that since that time, the region has been in a state of constant tension, if not outright conflict. The name “Israel” derives from the Old Testament/Pentateuch book of Genesis in which Jacob is renamed Israel after wrestling successfully with an angel of God. The biblical nation that descends from Jacob as such became known as the “Children of Israel” or the “Israelites.” (Entirely incidentally, I’ve been thinking about the nineteenth century proto-Zionist movement, as I’ve been writing a paper on George Eliot’s Daniel Deronda recently.)

Large waves of immigration to modern-day Israel began late in the 19th century as Jews fled pogroms in Eastern Europe. This is known as the First Aliyah, or עלייה. The Second Aliyah began after the Kishinev pogrom, an anti-Jewish riot that took place in 1903 in what is now the Moldovan capital Chişinău. Some of the migrants of the Second Aliyah were early socialists who were responsible for the kibbutz movement. The Third and Fourth Aliyahs took place between the two World Wars, and the Fifth Aliyah took place during the aftermath of World War II.

The last fifty years have seen repeated conflicts in the region—the Six-Day War of 1967; the massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics followed by the Israeli Operation Wrath of God; the Lebanese Civil War; the First Intifada (a Palestinian uprising against Israeli rule); the first Gulf War; the Second Intifada; the five-week war known in Israel as the Second Lebanon War.

I have to see the Judean desert for myself one day. I must.

Today’s poem is by the poet Yehudi Amichai—it was a toss-up. There are certainly other Israeli poets I admire as well. Still, there comes a moment that I have to choose. I chose. I love this poem. I found it here.

Jerusalem

On a roof in the Old City
Laundry hanging in the late afternoon sunlight:
The white sheet of a woman who is my enemy,
The towel of a man who is my enemy,
To wipe off the sweat of his brow.

In the sky of the Old City
A kite.
At the other end of the string,
A child
I can’t see
Because of the wall.

We have put up many flags,
They have put up many flags.
To make us think that they’re happy.
To make them think that we’re happy.

—Yehuda Amichai
translated from the Hebrew by Irena Gordon