In 2015, a German court convicted a former SS guard at Auschwitz of complicity in the murders of 300,000 people. At 94, the guard admitted his crimes. In the New York Times article about the trial, a remarkable tidbit surfaced:

“As the judge took the court on a journey to what he described as a seemingly distant past, the only sound in the makeshift courtroom — a meeting hall converted to accommodate interest in the trial — was the low background buzz of interpreters working in English, Hungarian and Hebrew.”

And Hebrew.

Remarkable. Remarkable.

The world has changed dramatically since 1945, when the war ended and thousands of living skeletons staggered out of the death camps of Europe. A high number of them were Jews targeted for death by the demons who ran Germany for 12 long years.

I remember visiting Prof. Benzion Netanyahu, the acclaimed scholar. He was also controversial, because he believed passionately in Zionism and the right of Jews to defend themselves. Isn’t that amazing…his views were considered “controversial”? Well, such is the world we live in in 2016.

In any event, Netanyahu once told me that “Russia hated the Jews before she knew them.”

This is a profound statement, and shows the level of madness present in those who are Jew-haters. Anti-Semitism is an irrational sickness that has plagued man for 4,000 years.

Happily today, though, the state of Israel exists, and Jews there can and do defend themselves. The famed Israel Defense Forces is such a deterrent in the Middle East that the Jewish state survives and thrives despite constant threats, and a neighborhood that has been burning down for years.

Here’s to the remarkable family known as Israel. May you always be vigilant, and may you live forever.