I was feeling kind of down about the state of affairs in the world this morning. The pogrom committed by Iran and Hamas in Israel. The young people dead at a peace concert. The babies murdered. The animals run rampant in our world. I decided to peruse social media for something hopeful while I listened to the 82 Airborne Division All-American Chorus sing “I am here”. That did the trick. I found an “X” post that gave me hope:

IAF Spectre gunship has been orbiting in northern Israel all morning. He can make mincemeat out of a paraglider. pic.twitter.com/LudqhQBeD3

— John The Main Guy – Am Yisrael Chai (@JohnTheMainGuy1) October 11, 2023

I really appreciate the idea of making “mincemeat out of a paraglider”. I love the idea of eyes in the skies watching over us as we sleep safely in our beds at night. The other thing that struck me was that John the Main Guy had added “Am Yisrael Chai” to his X handle. What did that mean? Here is what I found on Aish.com:

When the Jews of Bergen-Belsen concentration camp were liberated on April 20th 1945, they sang Hatikvah. At the end of the anthem, British Army Chaplain Rabbi Leslie Hardman, cried out, “Am Yisrael Chai – the People of Israel live!”

When Golda Meir visited the Great Synagogue in Moscow as the Israeli Ambassador in 1948, the crowd of 50,000 ecstatically welcomed her with shouts of “Am Yisrael Chai!”

In 1965, in order to energize the Soviet Jewry movement, Shlomo Carlebach was asked to compose a song. He wrote the famous version of Am Yisrael Chai.

In 2009, Prime Minister Netanyahu visited Wannsee Villa in Berlin, where the Final Solution for the destruction of Europe’s Jews was planned in 1942 by Hitler and leaders of the Third Reich. In the visitors’ book he wrote just three words in Hebrew and then translated them into English: “Am Yisrael Chai – The people of Israel live.”

As a slogan, Am Yisrael Chai affirms that despite the systematic attempts to exterminate and annihilate the Jewish people, thanks to God’s guiding hand and the tenacity and resilience of the Jewish People, we stubbornly persevere. God has made an eternal covenant with the Jewish People; He has their back.

What comfort! Those words bring comfort. And then, down I go again. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, for who I held a modicum of hope the other day, ran her Progressive bus back and forth over the Jews as our Darleen wrote here. Beheaded babies and, in Sidney, calls of “Gas the Jews” after the world said, “Never again”. Jamie Raskin, a Maryland Democrat Congresscritter should have studied history.

Democrat Rep. Jamie Raskin: “[Democrats] are absolutely unified behind Israel’s right to exist!”

Q: “What do you make of the comments from your colleagues that sort of indicate otherwise?”

Raskin: “Well, I just— I haven’t seen any of those” pic.twitter.com/G5aNszaN2f

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) October 11, 2023

That in itself is history repeating itself. Maybe Jamie Raskin thinks denying history can change the future. Wrong! As the Holy Days end, let’s finish with the song. This is my favorite kind of propaganda:

Am Yisrael Chai.

One of my favorite places is Newport, Rhode Island. In Newport is Touro Synagogue, the oldest synagogue building in the United States, 1763. George Washington visited and afterwords wrote this to the people of Touro Synagogue:

On August 17, 1790 President George Washington visited Newport, RI accompanied by a delegation including Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson, Governor George Clinton of New York, U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Blair of Virginia, and U.S. Congressman William Loughton Smith of South Carolina.

The day was filled with tours, ceremonies, and an evening banquet at Town Hall.

Perhaps the most significant result of Washington’s visit to Newport was the letter he wrote in response to Moses Seixas, warden of the Touro Synagogue, who wrote to the president seeking assurance of religious freedom for Jews. President Washington responded with a letter “To the Hebrew Congregation in Newport” which gave an unequivocal guarantee that the new government would “give to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance.”

In what is now known as the Touro Synagogue Letter, President Washington, a year before the Bill of Rights was ratified, reassured those who had fled religious tyranny that life in their new nation would be different, that religious “toleration” would give way to religious liberty, and that the government would not interfere with individuals in matters of conscience and belief.

Am Yisrael Chai!

Featured Image: Alisdare Hickson/flickr.com/cropped/Creative Commons