By Barry Shaw
NETANYA, Israel — What was so special about this Yom Ha’Azmaut (Israel’s Independence Day), coming so quickly after 700 enemy rockets? What is Independence Day if not part of Jewish history?
But why is Jewish history different from other nations’ histories?
If history is a list of chronological facts and information, our history is a continuous story, a remembrance.
Remembrance is identity, and our Independence Day, following on after Holocaust Day and Remembrance Day commemorating our fallen soldiers and terror victims, is part of that identity.
The Bible is not just a chronological list of facts and information. It is our special story. A long chapter in our story.
And we are the next chapter in the continuation of that story.
We are living that mission: To fix the world, even as our enemies continue to try to destroy us.
It is the greatest story that mankind has ever known.
Yom Ha’Azmaut Sama’ach!
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Barry Shaw is the International Public Diplomacy Director at the Israel Institute for Strategic Studies. He is the author of Fighting Hamas, BDS, and Anti-Semitism.