On the evening of May 11, a day after Jerusalem came under rocket fire from the Gaza Strip, I went to the Tower of David to honor the new batch of outstanding English-speaking immigrants awarded the Sylvan Adams Nefesh B’Nefesh Bonei Zion (Builders of Zion) Prize. The laureates were:
• David Blatt, the legendary American-Israeli basketball coach who made aliyah in 1981 from Boston. (Culture, Art & Sports)
• Debbie Gross, founder and director of Tahel-Crisis Center for Religious Women and Children who made aliyah in 1978 from Monsey. (Community & Non-Profit)
• Dore Gold, president of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs and Israel’s former ambassador to the UN who made aliyah in 1980 from West Hartford. (Global Impact)
• Deborah Rund, a leading medical researcher who made profound contributions in the field of hematology and made aliyah in 1987 from New York. (Science & Medicine)
• Reuven Asch, former chief psychologist for Israel’s Education Ministry who made aliyah in 1970 from New York. (Education)
• Zo Flamenbaum, who founded the School of Shine as a value-based educational platform for women and made aliyah in 2010 from Atlantic City. (Young Leadership); and
• Avraham Infeld, who founded or headed a series of innovative educational institutions including Hillel, Melitz and Taglit, and made aliyah in 1959 from Johannesburg, South Africa. (Lifetime Achievement).
Due to the security situation, only 150 guests attended the low-key event, in the presence of Jerusalem Mayor Moshe Lion, KKL-JNF Chairman Avraham Duvdevani, Nefesh B’Nefesh co-founders Rabbi Yehoshua Fass and Tony Gelbart, and Sylvan Adams, the benefactor of the prize who made aliyah with his wife from Canada at the end of 2015.
Infeld, in a stellar speech on behalf of the recipients, noted that the ceremony was being held in the midst of festivals from Jerusalem Day to Shavuot, of tragedies and the loss of life, and of tension in the political arena.
“It was the late Shimon Peres who used to say that being young or old has nothing to do with age – it has to do with dreams and memories,” Infeld said. “He or she whose dreams are greater than their memories is always young and vice versa. Memories and dreams – the two essential components of both Judaism and Zionism.
“With only his dreams Herzl could have built the Jewish state in Uganda or Argentina. It was thanks only to the simple Jew whose memories far exceeded his biological age that the Jewish state came to be the only place in which it made sense – Eretz Yisrael. The only place to which Jews living abroad would have been attracted to make aliyah and to make their contribution to the world in and through the State of Israel, as Israeli Jews who were driven here by their membership in the Jewish people.
“The Jews are not a collective of coreligionists. We may have a religion, perhaps even a religion of several different interpretations, but we are not a religion. Religion is something one chooses to believe in, but the Jewish people is something to which one belongs. Perhaps that is the true interpretation of Ruth’s words to her mother-in-law, Naomi, ‘Your people are my people and your God is my God.’ The order is not accidental.”
As I left the prize ceremony, I pondered the worrisome war between Israel and Hamas, and the harm done to Arab-Jewish relations. Inspired by Infeld and the other Bonei Zion laureates, I recalled another inspirational quotation from Shimon Peres: “There are no hopeless situations, only hopeless people.” Let’s not give up hope for peace and coexistence.