AZM Biennial Assembly
Remarks by William D. Hess, Incoming President of AZM
On Current Affairs
Our problems are hardly just internal. What has happened to the world we live in? People question the need for Israel today?! British academics are calling for boycotts of Israeli professors while Ahmadinejad speaks just across the Hudson River there at Columbia under the banner of democracy and free speech. Meanwhile, 3 IDF soldiers: Gilad Shalit, Udi Goldwasser and Eldad Regev have yet to be repatriated and the families of 5 other IDF soldiers anxiously await news of their sons’ fates. Can you believe this is the world today? Can 2000 years of yearning, dreaming and fighting be overturned after only 60 years? Are we going to stand quietly for this? It is said that prior to 1948 that the Jews had never held sovereignty over Israel for more than 70 years. This is the 60th year of Israel’s independence. Does that mean we have but a decade left? Is that an acceptable Zionist vision? I say, “No!!!” Do you join me? I want to be sure we are all in this together.
I ask you to join me and the AZM individually and as organizations to engage in the fundamental Zionist activity of organizing the American Jewish community working with the Conference of Presidents, AIPAC, JNF, UJC and others in order to bring a larger, united community to stand on behalf of the Jewish state.
The early pioneers, chalutzim, drained the swamps, made deserts bloom, built Tel Aviv the first Jewish city in modern times, and Haifa and Ashkelon and the new Jerusalem. 4 generations later their successors are re-filling the drained swamps to be eco-friendly and settling the Galilee and the Negev, revolutionizing water usage and still building in Haifa and Ashkelon, where Marty Davis lives and in Jerusalem whose 40th anniversary of unification we also celebrate in this year of celebration.
Yet the dreams of the Zionists are not yet fulfilled. Thankfully the declaration of a "post-Zionist" era fell flat. The 4 tenets of classical Zionism are there waiting for us: Building the State, bringing Jews home, Hebrew education and literacy throughout the Jewish world and the continuing mobilization of the Jewish people with reminders that as a nation we have accomplished great things and that great things are on the horizon for us and Israel. There is modern housing to build and there are still shikunim, housing from the 1950s, to renovate. There are parks whose fountains no longer work for lack of endowments and reduced municipal budgets. There are empty malls to rebuild or renovate. There is still plenty of desert to make bloom, lots of partially completed projects and others on drawing boards awaiting implementation. We don't always see this side of Israel on our tours, missions and site visits; but it is there nonetheless. There are olim to absorb and others looking to make aliyah. And there is lasting, meaningful peace to achieve.
There is a cadré of new young-ish American Jews with energy and time and money that does not know a world without Israel, Jews to whom Jewish powerlessness is inconceivable. Through the Zionist Congress we are mandated to include 25% "young" people in our factions, delegations and committees. That fact is one about the Zionist movement of which I often boast. How many institutions do you know with a similar mandate? There is a new opportunity for the Zionist movement to show these folks how we Zionists bring light to dark corners, hope and rescue to a beleaguered people no matter where they may be, knowledge to buoy those seeking direction, medicine and food to ghetto hovels, the warmth of people hood to hearths where those embers glow only faintly in the chill of regionalism and isolation. This is where Israel’s future lies as does our own.
So, chaverot ve chaverim, the call of Zionism is ripe for sounding in this, Israel's 60th anniversary of independence and the Zionist movement's 110th anniversary of activity on behalf of the Jewish people and their state. The AZM, through you, its members, helps keep alive the spark of Israel the concept and Israel the place. I know that together we can provide tools, forums, blogs and seminars over the coming months that we can bring to your communities and together show federations and parties that a positive Zionist fire still burns in Jewish hearts where Israel is concerned.
MR. HERZL, OUR GENERATION WILL NOT LET YOU DOWN
