In a recent interview with podcaster Marc Maron, Hollywood actor Seth Rogen questioned the logic of having a Jewish State of Israel, saying, “It doesn't make sense to me.” To help Rogen make sense of it all, I suggest that he go to Israel for a listening tour. In that tour, he could learn more about Jewish history, talk to the people of Israel, and ask their opinion about the need for having a Jewish state. In the interview, Rogen claims, “As a Jewish person, I was fed a huge amount of lies about Israel my entire life. They never tell you, that 'Oh by the way, there were people there.'” To address this issue, I would take Rogen to Independence Hall in Tel Aviv. There he would learn that the Jews did absolutely recognize there were another people there. That's why the Jewish leadership accepted the UN Partition Plan of 1947 that created two states for two peoples. If only the Arabs had accepted the plan and not attacked the new Jewish state in 1948, there never would have been a conflict, and the tragedy of the Palestinian refugees could have been avoided. Rogen would learn that according to the Partition Plan, the UN assigned to the Jews the areas of Palestine they had acquired through legal land purchases from the Arabs beginning in the late 1800s. He would also learn that the land area assigned to the Jewish state was a miniscule 5,500 square miles, and 70% of the territory was the Negev Desert, an area that was virtually empty of any population. (By comparison, my home state of Indiana is 36,000 square miles). In the interview, Rogen argued, “If it is for truly the preservation of Jewish people, it makes no sense, because again, you don't keep something you're trying to preserve all in one place – especially when that place is proven to be pretty volatile, you know?” On his Israel listening tour, Rogen could have a conversation with my wife's family and ask if Israel “makes sense” to them. They were among the 120,000 Jews who fled Iraq in 1951-1952 due to rising antisemitism. Had they remained, they would now be targets of ISIS and other extremists. And they were not alone. Rogen would learn that today more than half of the Jewish population of Israel includes Jews from families who have never left the Middle East or North Africa. Following the creation of Israel in 1948, more than 850,000 Jews fled growing antisemitism in the Arab world. Most of them came to Israel. I CAN GUARANTEE Seth Rogen that given the chaos and fanaticism that has overtaken so much of the Middle East and North Africa, Israel makes perfect sense to them. Rogen could then have a conversation with any of the 150,000 Ethiopian Jews who live in Israel. They would tell him that their ancestors had dreamed of coming back to the Land of Israel for 2,000 years. Thanks to the determination of their leaders, they convinced the government of Israel to help them to realize that dream. He would learn that beginning in the 1980s, Ethiopia was in the midst of a civil war and the people of Ethiopia were suffering from famine and starvation. If that was not enough, the Jews of Ethiopia faced an additional danger: antisemitism. Recognizing the threat, the government of Israel under the leadership of prime minister Menachem Begin began a series of secret operations to rescue the Jews of Ethiopia with the financial support of the American-Jewish community. In spite of the fact that Ethiopian Jews have faced discrimination, there is no doubt they are thankful to be in Israel, and not in Ethiopia. Finally, I would take Seth Rogen to Yad Vashem, Israel's national Holocaust museum. It is there that he would come to understand a basic historical fact. During World War II, six million Jews were murdered for two reasons: Hitler and the Nazis wanted to murder them, and they had nowhere to go. To drive that point home, he would learn the story of the ship called the St. Louis that left Europe in May 1939 with 900 Jews who were looking for a safe haven. The passengers of the St. Louis were first refused entry into Cuba, then they were refused entry into the United States, and finally refused entry into Canada, the country where Seth Rogen was born and raised. The ship was forced to return to Europe where most of the passengers perished in the Holocaust. If Rogen were able to talk to the passengers of the St. Louis, the idea of a Jewish state would make perfect sense to them. I would hope that Seth Rogen will come to realize that he was simply lucky to have been born and raised in Canada and now lives in America. Most importantly, he will recognize that the Jewish people need that place that author Ari Shavit calls, “a home for the homeless people.” The writer is community relations director for the Jewish Federation of St. Joseph Valley in South Bend, Indiana.
