On the other hand
While thousands of Australians and New Zealanders are stranded overseas, for over a year in some cases, Israelis are free to leave and return to the Promised Land.
While corona in many parts of the world is either rising or still stubbornly high, positive cases in Israel are decreasing.
While some countries are still either in lockdown, bubbles or social quarantine, Israel is open for business and the economy is strong.
While Jews in various countries are still locked out of their Synagogues and access to kosher food is limited, here in Israel the supermarkets are overflowing, minyanim abound and olim are arriving.
TRUTH IS SOMETIMES STRANGER THAN FICTION
Last week witnessed one of those modern-day almost unbelievable events which our parents and grandparents would never in their wildest dreams have ever envisaged.
A joint flypast by the Israeli and German air forces took place over the Capital and surrounding areas. Flying over the Knesset as well as low over our city this demonstration of solidarity would have been in the realm of fiction over seventy years ago.
Ironically, German planes flying over all parts of Jerusalem and Judea took place at the same time as the German Government and the EU convulsed over Jews building homes in these very same historic places.
Another example of international hypocrisy in action.
In another one of those ironies of history, the Cyrus cylinder demonstrates how the ruler of ancient Persia encouraged Jews living in exile in Babylonia to return to their homeland and rebuild the Temple on the Temple Mount.
This should be a stark lesson for today’s Iranian despots who plot to destroy the Jewish homeland and for those deniers who maintain that Jews have no connection to either the Temple Mount or Israel itself.
AN EMOTIONAL PERSONAL SAGA
This is a video which you must watch from beginning to end.
It is the amazing true journey of the German son of a Nazi Army officer, from childhood, teenager to adulthood and how he uncovered the true story of his father.
His transition from an average German youth who knew nothing about Jews and the Shoah to his discovery of the true nature of what his father had been involved in which lead in turn to his eventual conversion to Judaism, aliyah and service in the IDF is riveting.
It should be shared with as many people as possible.
