{"id":12594,"date":"2023-12-14T05:49:52","date_gmt":"2023-12-14T03:49:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jppi.org.il\/?p=12594"},"modified":"2024-02-27T13:59:20","modified_gmt":"2024-02-27T11:59:20","slug":"the-next-generation-of-israelis-we-need-your-tonal-zionism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jppi.org.il\/en\/the-next-generation-of-israelis-we-need-your-tonal-zionism\/","title":{"rendered":"The Next Generation of Israelis:\u00a0 We need your Tonal Zionism"},"content":{"rendered":"

The heroism of young Israelis following the October 7 massacre has united the next generation and has led to a Zionist redemption<\/span><\/h3>\n

Dearest Young Israelis,<\/p>\n

Since October 7, we have watched you see the unseeable, do the unthinkable, save our country, and keep bouncing back. Hamas particularly enjoyed kidnapping, killing, raping, and torturing members of your generation, in uniform, at home, while dancing. Their war aims included terrorizing you into finding Israel unlivable.<\/p>\n

Boy, did they underestimate you. Instead of breaking you, they made you, instantly forging you into one super-powered generation. As good Zionists, you don\u2019t cut-and-run \u2013 you fight and rebuild.<\/p>\n

Your heroism turned\u00a0the October 7 pogrom\u00a0into the Zionist redemption of October 7.2.<\/p>\n

Rising from the ashes<\/h2>\n

House-by-house, you liberated our invaded communities. Now, you enter Gaza\u2019s three-dimensional fortified hellholes, threatened by terrorists in tunnels below, rockets from afar, snipers above.<\/p>\n

You make split-second decisions whether people in the HaMosques, the Hamospitals, the killergartens, are innocents sheltering there or killers lurking there.<\/p>\n

You take bullet hits, absorb grenades, mourn friends, and keep defending us, even when exhausted, dirty, smelly, hungry, thirsty, and scared. Being terrified makes sense, you just can\u2019t become petrified; great soldiers transform their fear into determination.<\/p>\n

We also honor the spiritual power and steely discipline of our young heroes up North \u2013 and throughout Israel. For trained, motivated soldiers, who saw what this Amalek, Hamas, did, who know how many killers and missiles Hezbollah has, waiting is harder than fighting.<\/p>\n

Deterrence and proactive arrests in the territories require a Zen power.<\/p>\n

October 7 showed what happens when armies devalue guard duty, intelligence warnings, and preemptive strikes. Never let strategic inaction demoralize you.<\/p>\n

We also appreciate those not fighting who volunteer, donate, support, mourn, normalize life, and launch your new generational mission of remaking Israel.<\/p>\n

DAY-BY-DAY\u00a0we mourn amazing fallen heroes,\u00a0from loving families. Their too-short lives nevertheless overflowed with relatives, friends, community, wisdom, idealism, goodness, values, Judaism, Zionism, patriotism, and love. Their smiling, vital, glowing photos haunt me nightly.<\/p>\n

Staff Sgt. Lavi Lipshitz, 20, an impish Givati soldier, forever captured on his playful Instagram posts, wrote in a computer file called \u201cTzahal,\u201d if something happened: \u201cThanks to this country Israel that gave me this opportunity, and thanks to my friends who gave me this opportunity to bond with them in such special ways.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNothing productive can flourish\u201d from wallowing in mourning, he insisted. Instead, he urged, \u201cbuild\u2026 be active constantly.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another Givati sergeant, Pedaya Mark, lost his father to terrorists in 2016, and a cousin fighting the first Hamas assault. Mark wrote: \u201cThe people of Israel are strong. Tzahal is strong!… We will wipe out our enemies\u2026 Am Yisrael Chai.\u201d<\/p>\n

And a paratrooper, Shachar Fridman, 21, fought house-to-house on October 7, seeing death, smelling death, losing six brothers-in-arms. A TV crew interviewed him days later. He admitted that the harassment of Jews praying on Yom Kippur by some secular Tel Avivians made him wonder if he even had a place in Israel.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut now,\u201d he said, \u201cI see we have a future. I am willing to fight for a country like this. There is no country like this in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fridman believed this evil war saved us from a civil war. You must save us from reverting to such ugliness.Fridman wrote a will \u2013 at 21! This prose poem of menschlechkeit says, \u201cBe good people\u2026 smile\u2026 strive to make every person you meet smile too… And most importantly, be good people in your own way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Finally, he implores: \u201cLove yourselves and the world. When you radiate happiness, a circle of joy will slowly form that will create a better world.\u201d<\/p>\n

EVERY DAY in this war-torn yet soulful Israel, I feel that love, that joy, mushrooming. I have been on wedding dance floors giving new meaning to the phrase \u201cheavy metal dancing\u201d \u2013 as you dance wildly with an extra, life-affirming ecstasy, while bumping into Tavor X95 assault rifles that can spray 750 to 950 rounds per minute.<\/p>\n

I have heard newlywed grooms who are asked: \u201cWhere are you living now?\u201d answer casually: \u201cOn the Lebanese border.\u201d And I have toasted new engagements, new babies \u2013 3,200 born in Jerusalem in October alone, double our losses that hellish day.<\/p>\n

But we must do better. We must champion the IDF\u2019s non-partisan, patriotic approach. Tone counts. The days of \u201czilzul,\u201d (a dismissive attitude) of Left and Right demeaning one another, calling rivals \u201ctraitors,\u201d must end.<\/p>\n

If we need new, less divisive, TV stations, let\u2019s launch them. If we need to stop being demagogic on social media, start yesterday. If you must tell your parents, especially if they\u2019re politicians or journalists, to knock it off, it\u2019s time. And if we must fire every politician, let\u2019s start recruiting you, younger leaders.<\/p>\n

Your renewed Zionism must be this Tonal Zionism too. How we do politics, manage disagreements, and talk to one another, must become as important as the positions we take. Let\u2019s change the dynamics ruining democracies worldwide, by penalizing demagogues, ostracizing them, cauterizing their hatred \u2013 not rewarding them.<\/p>\n

Tonal painters use one color, lightening or darkening shades. Today, in Israel, we paint our future in two colors, blue and white, united against Hamas\u2019s blood-soaked-green and the Jew-hater\u2019s green-with-envy. Inevitably, we will quibble about various shadings \u2013 but never again can we return to the pre-October 7 tribal, internecine, insanity that consumed us.<\/p>\n

We must never forget our true colors, how united we are by Jewish values, history, faith, tradition, and common decency, not just by evil enemies. We owe this new Zionism, this renewed Israel, to Shachar, Lavi, Pedaya, and hundreds of others who fell, were wounded, were kidnapped, and are mourning. Most important, we owe it to ourselves.<\/p>\n

Published by Jerusalem Post<\/a>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The heroism of young Israelis following the October 7 massacre has united the next generation and has led to a Zionist redemption<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":12584,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"tags":[377,440,521,520,431],"class_list":["post-12594","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-hamas","tag-israel","tag-israel-hamas-war-2023","tag-jewish-nation-state","tag-the-october-7-massacre","topics-identity","topics-swords-of-iron","library-op-ed","library-publications"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jppi.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12594","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jppi.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jppi.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jppi.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jppi.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12594"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/jppi.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12594\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14385,"href":"https:\/\/jppi.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12594\/revisions\/14385"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jppi.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12584"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jppi.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12594"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jppi.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12594"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}