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We are not like them — and we should be damn proud of that.
This was Israel’s second War of Independence, not from the British, but from all the world’s other nations.
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This is a guest essay written by Ted Goldstein, a Jewish poet and educator.
You can also listen to the podcast version of this essay on Apple Podcasts, YouTube Music, YouTube, and Spotify.
In the heart of Los Angeles’ San Fernando Valley, just west of where the 101 freeway meets the 405, there is a font of wisdom — a man whose trueness is known by all who have been lucky enough to cross his path.
That man is Yossi Dressner, Shamash and spiritual guardian of Valley Beth Shalom Temple, paratrooper in the 1956 Suez Crisis, and teacher of thousands.
Standing no more than 5 feet and 6 inches (167.64 centimeters) off the ground, speaking with a thick Israeli accent, Yossi has tutored more than 5,000 students in his time, of whom I am one.
And he is the humblest man who ever lived.
If he knew I wrote this about him, he would be terribly embarrassed — so please do not tell him.
But when I think of what it means to be a tzaddik, a righteous person, I think of Yossi Dressner. He has led the daily minyan¹ on time, everyday, since long before anyone could remember.
As the Talmud teaches in tractate Kiddushin, 30a: “Whoever teaches Torah to children, also teaches their children’s children, and so on, to the end of time.”
Yossi taught my parents Torah, who taught me the Torah, and I have taught students and campers the Torah, and even some of my students and campers have taught their own students and campers the Torah.
So Yossi has, more or less, four generations of Torah per student he has taught, and he has taught more than 5,000 students.
When I told my old yeshiva² students about him, their eyes lit up — “Mr. Goldstein, do you have any idea how high Yossi’s Mitzvah level is? He’s an S-tier mensch.” (S-tier is a video game term that signifies something that is higher than A-tier. And Yossi is most definitely an S-tier mensch.)
Yossi is someone whose wisdom I hold in the highest regard, so when he speaks about the situation in Israel, I listen.
When my mom was talking to him in the immediate aftermath of October 7th, he said: “We have to pick up the flag and carry it forward.”
That first Shabbat after the attack, he draped an Israeli flag over a chair on the bima³ for the hostages, a flag which still remains there to this day. That was a sight I will never forget.
And when Yossi calls this war Israel’s “Second War of Independence,” I think about what that means.
On the surface, it matches Israel’s 1948 War of Independence in both its length and its horrors. Not since 1948 has such sexual violence been visited upon the Jewish People, and that, like all of the pogroms before it, is a pain which will never be forgotten.
But, in other ways, it does not make sense.
What is Israel seeking independence from? Certainly not from Britain.
As I thought about this more, I realized how profoundly true it was: This was Israel’s second War of Independence, not from the British, but from all the world’s other nations. Israel is its own country, but it is by no means independent to act how it chooses. The reality is that Israel has always made strategic and political concessions to the major powers of the world — most recently, the United States.
Israel, however, is not just the name of the state that was formed in 1948; it is also the name of the Jewish People as a whole. And is the Jewish nation, as a whole, independent?
Certainly not; just look at what happened in Amsterdam on the anniversary of Kristallnacht a couple of weeks ago. Many Jews (globally speaking, most Jews) always knew that the world saw them now as, at best, second-class citizens, and at worst, subhuman. However, those of us privileged enough to grow up in the West, grew up in an ahistorical time where antisemitism was not prevalent enough to affect our day-to-day lives.
After October 7th, we woke up and understood that the world had not changed. Neither the International Red Cross nor the United Nations Human Rights Council has done anything to free or even check on the hostages kidnapped by Palestinian terrorists. There could be no clearer signal that the world does not care for its Jews.
We are not like them — no matter how hard we try to assimilate and fit in, we will always be Jews in their eyes. And we should be damn proud of that.
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Recently, the United Nations Special Rapporteur said that Israel should leave the UN, and it was the first reasonable thing she has ever said. I have said it once, I will say it again: We never should have trusted an organization called “Goyim⁴ United” — it was always in the name. (Although honestly, the “League of Goyim” may have been worse.)
It might sound scary to consider the idea of Israel leaving the United Nations, but we should seriously consider, what has the United Nations done for Israel? What does participating in it provide for the Israeli people?
In many ways, the failures of the UN reflect the failures of the nations who it represents. For two and a half millennia, the nations of the world have led global affairs while the Jewish People were exiled from their homeland. In those two and a half millennia, what has been the state of the world?
Perpetual war.
Now, for the first time in 2,500 years, the Jewish People once again have an opportunity to be sovereign in our homeland, but the nations of the world try to stymy us at every turn.
The Nation of Israel is a strong nation, a beautiful nation, a transcendent nation. In truth, it does not operate by any of the same functions as the rest of the world; it is the only nation who has retained its national character without living in its ancestral land for 2,500 years. It produces geniuses at a preposterous rate, and it has gifted the world everything from the Bible to “Seinfeld.”
The Nation of Israel is a nation like no other. We have passed our glorious tradition down, from generation to generation, never wavering from our conviction that one day we would return to the land and re-establish our sovereignty there. Hence why it is time for a new generation of Israelites to pick up the flag and carry it forward.
In truth, the Jewish People were failed twice on October 7th — once by the nations of the world who failed to care about our plight, and once by our own leaders who failed to keep our people safe, both in Israel and across the Jewish Diaspora.
Yossi, tzaddik⁵ that he is, is in his 80s. Benjamin Netanyahu, however you feel about him, is in his 70s. It is time for a new generation of Jewish leaders to pick up the flag and carry the torch forward, to gird our people with strength, to stand tall against the vicissitudes of the world’s nations, and to rebuild our sovereignty in the land of our forefathers.
This is what is at stake in this war.
The United Nations has already declared that it is firmly opposed to the very idea that the Nation of Israel is a nation of human beings. That much they have made abundantly clear.
But forget the nations of the world for a moment, and forget the failures of Jewish leadership on October 7th and thereafter. Think about the Israeli soldiers; think about the reservists; think about the civilians helping them at every turn; think about yourself and everything you have done for our people in this past year. It is not for nothing.
Maybe you did not give as much as you could have, maybe you did not speak out as much as you should have, maybe you only were able to just barely make it out and keep yourself sane — but all of that is a tremendous success. The people of Israel have performed miracles beyond measure in this past year.
I am so proud of my friends in Israel, fighting this horrible war, who have not let anger dominate their lives. Who continue to sing, and celebrate, and live life despite the darkness.
The brave men and women of the IDF, the ones whose names we will never know, they have somehow managed to wage this war with the fewest civilian casualties of any urban conflict by a major margin.
Any other nation of the world would have flattened Gaza if October 7th had happened to them, but Israel is a nation like no other.
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A quorum of ten men (or in some synagogues, men and women) over the age of 13 required for traditional Jewish public worship
A Jewish school or college where students study religious texts, such as the Torah and Talmud, and other Jewish subjects
An elevated platform used as an orator’s podium in a Jewish synagogue
Plural for a non-Jewish person or gentile
A righteous person
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