re: #250 Obdicut

Not much, really. It means that’s where my ancestors came from. It doesn’t mean that I have any right to that land.

What does homeland mean to you? Perhaps I just don’t get what you mean.

Zionism’s a bit more involved, though. Jew were a people without a state (as recognized by their status as ‘aliens’ and de facto foreigners in every land in which they dwelt). Wherever Jews lived, we were always subject to persecution, pogrom, or simple discrimination and exclusion from social and national life.

Following WWII, the remaining Jews in Europe came away with the impression that perhaps Europe was not the place for them to live. Following countless ages of reciting “Next year in Jerusalem!” to mark their miraculous delivery from Egypt, and countless centuries of Rabbinical encouragement to settle in the land of Zion, and to live in the land in which so many devoutly hoped and prayed to be buried, they moved.