During a reserve-duty deployment I finished reading a hefty book on Jewish history in the diaspora.
Here’s the summary I came away with:
When we kept to ourselves, they hated us for being separate and arrogant,
so we tried to assimilate, and they hated us for polluting the pure blood of the nations.
When we were dirt poor, they hated us for being filthy parasites,
so we grew wealthy, and they hated us for exploiting the masses.
When we sided with the monarchy and the landowners, they hated us,
so we moved to the side of the fighters for equality and socialism — and they hated us too.
When we were farmers, they dispossessed us of our lands,
when we studied Torah, they burned our books,
when we engaged in commerce, they shut down our opportunities,
and when we were scholars, they expelled us from the universities.
When we were scattered across the whole world, they hated us because it wasn’t normal,
so we gathered into one country somewhere in the Middle East: and still many hate us.
And while lugging a sweat-soaked stretcher on reserve duty, I smiled and said: well, that’s the essence of the difference between the Land and the diaspora. Here we care much less whether they hate us.
Because this is what I’m grateful for every day:
That in the Land of Israel, rivers of sweat flow from us instead of rivers of blood.
