OPINION:
When Naftali Herz Imber wrote “Hatikvah” within the borders of what is today Ukraine, he was speaking to the ages. “Hatikvah,” or “The Hope,” was written in 1878 and now serves as the Israeli national anthem.
At the time, the Jewish people had already faced the rampages of Rome, the insidious Spanish Inquisition and centuries of catastrophic killing. Nevertheless, we still had yet to face the horrors of the Holocaust and the hideous massacres by Hamas.
Imber’s poetry radiates through time in this line: “As long as within our hearts/The Jewish soul sings/As long as forward to the East/To Zion looks the eye/Our hope is yet not lost/It is two thousand years old/To be a free people in our land/The Land of Zion and Jerusalem.”
Today, the soul of the Jewish people feels the pain of continued attempts at our extermination.
As an American Jew, I am reminded that we will outlast our blood-soaked persecutors. We will meet the Islamic fascists on the turf of our ancestors and reclaim what is rightfully our land. We will annihilate Hamas with the same purpose, and without mercy, with which we destroyed Nazi dictatorship at Dresden during World War II.
I have full confidence that America, Israel, Ukraine — and yes, Taiwan — will be at the tip of the spear in what is quickly becoming a last stand for global liberty. I strongly implore the world to join our crusade for freedom. Just as Imber implied, within the Jewish soul and all life, where there exists the heart of humanity also breathes hope.
HENRY J. WILSON
Washington
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