A New Year, But With a Different Type of Admiration

I just finished a week in Israel with the most inspiring group from Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan, as part of my work as the Director of Educational Programs at Sharaka. We bring delegations of arabs and muslims from across the muslim world to Israel (with the support of the Claims Conference) to become ambassadors for Holocaust education, to combat antisemitism and to learn what this country has to give, and how they can collaborate with us.

I’ve been doing this for a while now and each group brings a different sense of admiration for the little things in this country we take for granted. As we enter a new year, the few weeks before elections, and another season of the High Holidays, I wish for us all to look around this country and recognize the mini-miracles around us and the ones we’ve given to the world. These are miracles it takes a group of visitors from Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan to help me see.

Let’s start with simply walking around Jerusalem. You’ll easily see a headscarf (mitpachat) next to a Manchester United kippah, next to a hijab, next to an American Christian tourist trying to find their way through the three of them. A daily sight in the capital city, but one every visitor from across the region is astounded by when they come to this country. From there we head to the National Library, where I was once sent a line from Rabbi Jonathan Sacks’s vision for the library “It is therefore my hope and my dream that the day will come when visitors to the State of Israel, be they presidents, prime ministers, or popes, will be taken not first to Yad Vashem, however important that is, but here to the new national and international library, which I propose should be subtitled, ‘The Home of the Book for the People of the Book.’ Let us show the world not only how Jews died but how Jews live.”

Living out that vision, from the library we continue to Yad Vashem. The part that gets every group I bring to Israel isn’t that it happened  it’s that it isn’t known about back in their own countries. People don’t understand the level of atrocity that took place. Then they reach the Hall of Names. They see the pictures of children, of old people, taken for being Jewish, and they understand that six million is six million lives taken. They make an internal vow, and in that very moment, Israel makes a little more sense to them too, the need for a Jewish state.

From there we continue to a lady so very dear to me, a lady named Rena, who I have had the privilege of knowing for eight years. Rena Quint may be the highlight of all my delegations of Muslims and Arabs I bring here through Sharaka. She brings them a story of joy, pain, and Zionism a story of going through the worst life has to offer, of losing her whole family, but of raising a tribe dedicated to the terms of tikkun olam, giving light to the world. Rena has shared her story with thousands of people and dignitaries, and yet I’ll always remember my conversation with one participant from Azerbaijan who looked at me and said: during the Holocaust, Jewish people were killed for being Jewish, and yet in Israel, I was hugged for being Azerbaijani, never mind being a Muslim. That is the miracle of our nation. Rena is the first, and maybe only, Holocaust survivor these groups meet, and she leaves them with the true essence of our people.

We go down south, where we hear the story of a Nova survivor who was rescued by a Bedouin man named Younnes from Rahat a true story, and yet once again our groups are baffled. This isn’t what they see on the news, but this is one of many similar stories from October 7th, stories of hope. As we approach Tel Aviv, I share one story with every group: when they enter and see the Azrieli Towers, I tell them the story of David Azrieli, someone who fled Nazi persecution, lost his entire family, and yet whose personal legacy lives on in the tech scene of a whole city, and in the landscape of the whole country itself. The purpose is to make sure they understand the importance of becoming an ambassador for educating people about the true horrors of the Holocaust, and of the power of interfaith dialogue while understanding how this part of our history is evident in every aspect of society but never stopped us from blossoming. Again, a miracle.

So as we prepare for the weeks leading up to elections, the memorial day of October 7th, and the High Holidays, my wish is for us all to look around and notice the miracles we miss daily. Notice the Christian tourist finding their way through the kippah and the hijab, and notice the backstory behind that walk because the ordinary in this country was never supposed to be possible, and yet here we are, still walking through it together.