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Religion

Remembering, celebrating, worrying

Israel's Memorial Day and independence celebration comes ata time when the nation faces new threats.

By EILEEN SCHULTE
Published May 6, 2006

This year's Israeli Memorial Day held special, if not urgent, significance for many who celebrated the event earlier this week.

"It's more important than ever because of the turmoil in the Middle East,'' said Dan Sultan, executive director of the Golda Meir/Kent Jewish Center. "Especially if we look at what Iran said, that if the U.S. attacks Iran, Iran will attack Israel.''

Israeli Memorial Day is called Yom Hazikaron in Hebrew. The day, celebrated before Israel's Independence Day Yom Ha'atzma'ut, remembers those who have given their lives for the state of Israel.

Sultan and about 75 others, including Rabbi Michael Torop, Rabbi Jacob Luski and Rabbi David Weizman, celebrated Tuesday night at Temple Beth-El in St. Petersburg during a communitywide observance.

They don't want it to be the last celebration with entertainment and food rather than somber prayer and a song for what once was.

But they think they have reason to worry.

On Tuesday, as they gathered at the temple, the United States and its European allies worked to develop a U.N. resolution insisting that Iran immediately cease its nuclear pursuits. That same day, the Iranian Student News Agency released a quote from Gen. Mohammad Ebrahim Dehghani: "Wherever (in Iran) America does make any mischief, the first place we target will be Israel.''

Michael Lifshitz felt the pressure.

The actor and playwright from West Palm Beach was scheduled to perform for the audience, and it was important that he get his performance just right.

Lifshitz portrayed Theodor Herzl, the Austrian journalist who is considered to be the father of the modern Zionist movement, in a one-man show.

Dressed in a black, turn-of-the-century costume, Lifshitz addressed the audience in a resonant voice.

"Good day,'' Lifshitz said. "For those of you who do not recognize me, my name is Theodor Herzl, journalist, playwright, activist and, I suppose, dreamer. Notice if you will how close in my resume activist and dreamer sit. Coincidence? I think not.''

He then told Herzl's story, which he researched for six months and wrote over a weekend.

Born on May 2, 1860, in Budapest, Hungary, Herzl felt the increasing anti-Semitism in Europe and recognized that Jews had failed to gain social equality. So he decided the scattered Jewish people should gather into a their own nation. Herzl's work, The Jewish State, was published in 1896 and drew many people to the Zionist movement.

Herzl died in 1904, years before Israel officially was founded in 1948 on a narrow strip of land in southwestern Asia on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea.

To Lifshitz, Herzl was "a leader, one who sets goals and pursues it no matter what obstacles stand in the way.''

"I believe that definition effectively summarizes all that Theodor Herzl stood for,'' Lifshitz said. "His determination, his drive and his creativity are the foundation for much of modern Jewish life. His unceasing efforts to secure a Jewish homeland are the stuff of legends. Whether it took a battering ram or a nail file, Herzl made it past doors that many thought were unbreachable.''

[Last modified May 6, 2006, 06:11:07]