by Nadene Goldfoot
Israel is the only Jewish country in the Middle East and is fighting for its life, being threatened by Iran's president. It holds as of the 2006 population records 40.6% of the Jews in the world and barely has more Jews than the United States, which has 40.3%. The third country with the most Jews is France with only 3.8% of the Jewish world population, so you can see that most of us are either in Israel or the USA, with teeny pockets of Jews here and there.
Israel is also the only democracy in the Middle East, which is why the USA should be supportive. It's harder to be a democracy amongst Muslims who are gaining in their religious beliefs and seem to revert back to their 7th or 8th century beginnings than being a democracy amongst the freer European nations. Iran is a good example. This means that not only are the Muslims negating friendship to Israel because of their religion but also for their political beliefs. You know the old adage; don't talk about religion or politics with friends. This leaves very little to talk about with their neighbors.
This gives us something to think about, though. Israel holds half of our brothers. It's important for us to remember that they are our brothers and what happens to them can happen to us. That's one reason I'm continuing to work on fighting against lies that I come across about Israel that seem to permeate in the world. When I see things in the newspapers or hear on TV, as I just have this past week, I fight against it with all my knowledge and capabilities. People are not accusing us of poisoning the wells, anymore, but can think of the darndest things to say about us that simply are not true. I hope that everyone will start collecting facts and be ready to verbally defend Israel when you hear false accusations. We cannot remain silent and sluff it off.
Remember what happened in the holocaust. There was too much silence and not enough said in defense. We are lucky to be living in such a free society, but we can't forget our responsibility for others. This is a part of our Judaism; looking out for our brothers, too.
Remember what happened in the holocaust. There was too much silence and not enough said in defense. We are lucky to be living in such a free society, but we can't forget our responsibility for others. This is a part of our Judaism; looking out for our brothers, too.
2 comments:
I saw a statistic somewhere that said Jews are 1/20th of 1% of the world population. I don't remember where I saw it, but it could be true. What percent is 14 million of 6billion? Tamar Boussi's comment to me personally.
Upon further research I find that as of 2007 we had about 13.2 million Jews in the world and 6 billion 783 million, 557 thousand people for a world population. (6,783,557,000) Can someone tell me the %?
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