Israel’s celebration of Yom Ha’atzmaut – Independence Day – on April 29 was a joyous occasion mixed with sombreness. As the country went under lockdown to contain the spread of COVID-19, Israelis were required to stay at home rather than celebrate together, as we usually do.
The annual Independence Day torchlighting ceremony on Mount Herzl, normally a festive event, was held without an audience, with most of it filmed in advance. The theme this year was “Connections in Israeli Society,” and President Reuven Rivlin’s message was particularly poignant.
“Today, on Yom Ha’atzmaut, in the shadow of the disease and its victims and the economic crisis, we must not give up on our ‘togetherness.’ We must not and we will not,” Rivlin declared.
The president called the State of Israel “a miracle and a wonder.”
“We created advanced industry, we established wonderful and innovative agriculture that the whole world looks to. We have created a rich and diverse culture and become a country with a world-class reputation in development and invention, entrepreneurship and technology, medicine, research and science,” he said. “That is why even on this Independence Day, there is no one like the Israeli people. In terms of solidarity, mutual obligation, the willingness to give and to extend a helping hand, there is no one like us. These days require those who can to reach out to those of lesser ability. This is the Israeli spirit that helps us grow from the crises we face, to grow time and again, stronger than ever.”
Rivlin then made a plea for the purchase of Israeli-made goods.
“Now is the time to buy local,” he said. “To choose Israeli industry and agriculture again, to support the self-employed and small businesses, to strengthen the Israeli economy. The way we deal with this crisis... will show that the Israeli spirit can overcome this challenge too.”
Rivlin’s words reminded me of an interview I did five years ago with Murray Greenfield, who founded Gefen Publishing House in Jerusalem together with his late wife, Hana Lustig, a Czech-born Holocaust survivor, in 1981.
One of Israel’s unsung heroes, the New York-born Greenfield made aliya in 1947 and is now 93. He recounted in his book, The Jews’ Secret Fleet, how he and other North American volunteers smashed through the British blockade after World War II and shipped thousands of Holocaust survivors to Palestine. A founding member of the Association of Americans and Canadians in Israel (AACI), he is credited with establishing the first loan funds and a host of housing projects for immigrants.
A superb storyteller, he showed me a photograph in his Ramat Aviv home of Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, addressing the inaugural AACI dinner at Tel Aviv’s Sheraton Hotel on March 7, 1961 – with a young Murray Greenfield by his side. He had used his charm to persuade Ben-Gurion’s bureau chief at the time, Yitzhak Navon, to get the prime minister to come to the dinner. “And guess what, he shows up!” Greenfield recalled in delight. “And me, I’m happy. Well, he gets up and he starts to talk, calling on American Jews to make aliya, and his wife, she says, ‘Oy, again he’s talking about aliya!’”
I just read a report saying that Israel expects the coronavirus pandemic to bring 100,000 new immigrants to the country this year, almost three times last year’s number. But the reason I thought of Greenfield as I watched Rivlin’s speech on TV was the slogan he had come up with to counter the BDS movement against Israel.
“For me, it’s B-I-G: Buy Israeli Goods,” Greenfield said. “That’s it, that’s what we can do. Think BIG!”