Posted on 07/02/2011 12:30:38 AM PDT by Stoat
Friday, 01 July 2011 14:26
July 4th is, of course, a special day for Americans, and we Israelis celebrate it as well. We celebrate with you because America’s independence is essential to Israel’s independence. Your love of liberty is the same as ours and our reverence for democracy is identical. We rejoice because your Founding Fathers were inspired by our Founding Fathers.
Back in 1776, American patriots compared King George III to the ancient Pharaoh who enslaved the Jews. George Washington, in their minds, was Moses and John Adams was Joshua steadfast by his side. The Atlantic Ocean was like the Red Sea—an obstacle but also a corridor to freedom, and the thirteen colonies were the twelve tribes that united and triumphed. Ezra Stiles, the great Hebrew scholar and president of Yale University, calculated that the population of the United States at the time of its independence—three million—was precisely the number of Jews who received the Law at Mount Sinai. And Alexander Hamilton saw America’s history, like the history of the Jews, as part of a single providential plan.
Fittingly, then, Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin proposed that the Great Seal of the newly-declared United States should show Moses leading the Children of Israel out of slavery. Though the proposal was ultimately not chosen, the connection between the Exodus and America’s march to freedom remained indelible.
Today, 235 years later, Israel and United States are still bound by the same values first inscribed in the Bible. We are bound by the same vision of leaders who lead according to the law and never above it; a vision of people endowed with rights that no government can deny them. Americans and Israelis alike follow the Biblical injunctions to pursue justice tirelessly and to declare “peace, peace, both far and near.” Indeed, both peoples are committed to achieving justice and peace—for ourselves as well as for all those in the Middle East who are rising up against tyranny.
As in the past, Israelis and Americans face many challenges and, once again, we will overcome them. But on the Fourth of July, we can turn our attention from our weighty tasks and enjoy the fireworks. We can lift a hotdog and raise a glass and join with our closest friends in the world and wish a happy birthday to the United States of America.
Michael Oren
Israel’s ambassador to the United States
Embassy of Israel
Washington, DC
 Photo by Anne Mandelbaum |
Biography
Ambassador Oren has written extensively for The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and The New Republic, where he was a contributing editor. His two most recent books, Six Days of War: June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East and Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East, 1776 to the Present, were both New York Times bestsellers. They won the Los Angeles Times' History Book of the Year prize, a National Council of the Humanities Award, and the National Jewish Book Award.
Raised in New Jersey, where he was an activist in Zionist youth movements and a gold medal winning athlete in the Maccabia Games, Ambassador Oren moved to Israel in the 1970s. He served as an officer in the Israel Defense Forces, in the paratroopers in the Lebanon War, a liaison with the U.S. Sixth Fleet during the Gulf War, and an IDF spokesman during the Second Lebanon War and the Gaza operation in January 2009. He acted as an Israeli Emissary to Jewish refuseniks in the Soviet Union, as an advisor to Israel's delegation to the United Nations, and as the government's director of Inter-Religious Affairs.
Ambassador Oren is married to Sally, and they have three children-Yoav, Lia, and Noam.
http://www.israelemb.org/index.php/en/meet-the-ambassador
Ping :-)
It’s good to have a friend.
Look at my tag line. Look at the Ambassador. Doesn’t fit the mold.
We celebrate with you because America’s independence is essential to Israel’s independence. Your love of liberty is the same as ours and our reverence for democracy is identical. We rejoice because your Founding Fathers were inspired by our Founding Fathers.
...most references to the concept of 'tzaddik' are usually made with Yosef HaTzaddik in mind, who, according to Kabbalah, is affiliated with the sixth sefirah, Yesod, which means "Foundation," as it says, "V'tzaddik YESOD olam - And the righteous person is the foundation of the world" (Mishlei 10:25). This is why Yosef was destined for such a primary position, from which he was able to sustain the world, spiritually and physically.Furthermore, Kabbalah teaches, another name for the sefirah, Yesod is "river." Thus, the Zohar learns that the river that watered the Garden of Eden back at the beginning of creation, on the level of the Sefiros, was in fact this sefirah. And, like this primordial river, tzaddikim such as Yosef have continued to be the source of the world's nourishment in every generation since that time.
Vayigash: A Fundamental of "Foundation" By Rabbi Pinchas Winston
Israel appoints talent to their ambassadorships.
Ours favor leading fundraisers and hacks.
Hey, not all the folks at NASA are fundraiser/hacks - doesn't their use as a Muslim Outreach count for anything.
Our once-great Nation is becoming the world's laughingstock...
Some one better tell that ObamaNation in the White House (and as well as the daughter of a Chicago Ward Heeler who also resides there) that this country is respected and honored in counties that practice and love Liberty.
A graduate of Princeton and ColumbiaDoesn't seem to have harmed him much.
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