Each year, countless Jewish communities around the globe, including ours, read the Natan Alterman poem Magash HaKesef (The Silver Platter), as part of their Yom HaZikaron—Israeli Memorial Day—observance. The poem, which speaks to the price paid to secure and maintain Jewish statehood, quotes Israel’s first president, Chaim Wietzman, who stated, “A state is not handed to people on a silver platter.”
Alterman’s poem features two war-torn soldiers, a man and a woman, stepping forward into the midst of a celebration of freedom. When asked for their identities, they quietly reply, “We are the silver platter on which the Jewish state was given.”
Alterman’s reminder that Jewish freedom and statehood carries a heavy price has become a cornerstone of Israeli national identity, codified through the calendaring of Yom HaZikaron the day prior to Yom HaAtzmaut—Israeli Independence Day. The juxtaposition of sorrow and elation beckons us to mourn the sacrifices necessary to secure Jewish statehood and to consider what obligations must be met to maintain it into the future.
Though we have not been called upon—like those honored on Yom HaZikaron—to give our lives in defense of the State of Israel, we have been called upon to do our part to ensure the safety of its future as a free and democratic state. As a proud supporter of an Israel that embraces liberty and equality for all its citizens, I encourage you to vote today in the World Zionist Congress elections for the Reform slate, to ensure that representatives we trust, such as Rabbi Yoshi, will help Israel remain a bastion of freedom for its citizens and a beacon of hope for Jews across the globe. VOTE TODAY
—Rabbi Josh Knobel