Humankind's Mysterious Ways

Out of the ashes of millions of Jews incinerated in death camps, grew a Phoenix of a country.

Israel established as a legitimate modern state, on the very historical geography that gave birth to its singular people as a cultural, ethnic, religious entity five thousand years earlier. That the people of such ancient lineage could manage somehow to forge its way through millennia of misfortune, retaining an intact vision of its destiny as a nation is in itself a miracle.

That the fledgling country managed, post-1948, to defend itself against a collective and determined onslaught of neighbours intent on dislodging it from its perch in the Middle East is yet another miracle. But then, we're hard-wired, as a species among other animal species to endure by virtue of our genetic inheritance, and our primary need to survive.

And survive the Jews did do. But not without horrendous sacrifice; giving up six million souls that another six million might pursue their destiny. Along with the primary dedication of all living organisms to survive, there is that other instinct, of territorial imperative. Without one, the other cannot be achieved.

For the world's Jews to survive as an intact and whole entity, there must be some place of refuge for them, a country of their own, a country whose singularly noble purpose is to offer the refuge of home, security. Those who see their home there, migrate there. Those who live elsewhere as Jews, tuck the homeland away in the security of their inner beings.

Now Israel is preparing to celebrate its 60th anniversary as a modern nation. And the leading representative of the very country whose balefully deadly intent was the extinguishment of all world Jewry has revealed itself as a friend and ally. The country whose careful fashioning of an elaborate death machine to destroy the Jewish nation, that country whose almost-success resulted in the establishment of the State of Israel, now sends its federal cabinet to Israel to convene in Jerusalem.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel will address a plenary session of the Knesset on the morrow. The Israeli parliament, accustomed to conducting its business in Hebrew, the language of Israel, will lend itself to the language of Goethe, and one wonders how many Ashkenazic Jews will be present in the chamber, to understand the German language, without interpretation?

Who might have imagined, in 1939, 1940, 1945, that the day would dawn when official Germany and official Israel would join hands in comradeship, a partnership of countries with common interests; a common regard for human rights, an steadily emerging trade partnership, would ensue from the ghastly presence of the death camps?

Yet here they are, the Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, and the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, firmly clasping hands in amity and mutual concern.