Temple Hillel             

Israeli Affairs Committee

With great pride we will be celebrating Israel’s sixtieth birthday. Temple Hillel will be no bystander in these celebrations. Our Israel Affairs Committee is planning great events in honor of Israel at sixty. We all have a sense of history and each of us has played a part in ensuring Israel as a vital, strong, and vibrant country that is a beacon of hope for mankind and a moral compass unto nations. David Ben Gurion, the founder of Israel, stated, that “in Israel to be a realist you have to believe in miracles.” And miracles did happen.  The long lost Dead Sea Scrolls were found on the eve of Independence Day symbolizing its return to the people of the book for safekeeping and galvanizing it’s people with strength and honor to liberate Israel from its captives.

 The first Israel Defense Forces Parade took place in July 27, 1948 during the War of Independence. The last Israel Defense Forces Parade took place in ‘1973.  Thereafter, each year Israel has been celebrating its Independence Day with ceremonies, awards, and exhibitions portraying the interests of its people and their accomplishments in the fields of science, industry and humanities.

 The current President of Israel Mr. Shimon Peres knows as perhaps no other the hardships, trials, and tribulations that Israel endured through the ages, its perseverance, and extraordinary successes. Mr. Peres is a nation builder in the truest sense of the word; the father of Israel’s defense establishment; a visionary of global proportion; Nobel Peace Prize winner; and Israel’s strongest living link to the late David Ben Gurion himself. 

The same Shimon Peres dreamed for the current “baby boomer” generation a better and safer future and continues to do so today, in office, with an eye to a world that is scientifically progressive, cognizant of its social compact with nature; independent of fossil fuels; without hunger; a world that is civilized. 

His vision coupled with deeds of Israel’s captains of industry, its entrepreneurs, and workforce, have produced a prosperous economy, now anchored on a vast array of globally sought after high-tech products and services.  For those that will continue in his step, the motto should be that each generation steps-up for the next.

In Israel each generation has indeed improved upon the last one to create a uniquely wonderful nation with a future that is even brighter than its extraordinary past.

For those that will act, know thy all present that we were there!

Congratulations  O’Israel!

Eli Shiloah

Bruce Lindenman

Co-chairs of the Israel Affairs Committee