Listen to the BBC report about the first Shabbat service at Bergen-Belsen after its liberation, and you will hear Jewish voices raised twice:
First, in the singing of Hatikvah.
Video: March of the Living
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Second, in the British army rabbi's assertion: "Am Israel Chai! The children of Israel still liveth!"
Note that translation: the "children" of Israel, rather than the "people" of Israel.
Amidst the ruination of the Shoah, that rabbi was already trusting that a new generation of Jews would rise from the ashes.
And we must similarly have faith in the future – especially here.
For what is the March of the Living if not a march of time, with young Jews, proud and unbowed, symbolically reversing the doomed transports at Auschwitz?
Even as we mourn our six million martyrs, let us rejoice in everything our people have managed to rebuild in the eight decades since.
And even as we sing "Hatikvah" for our beloved Israel as she turns 75, let us wed the "hope" that is at the heart of that anthem to conviction and confidence that Am Israel Chai. Or, to use the fuller phrase: Am Israel Chai ve-Kayam.
Our nation lives and will live on!
Adapted from a speech delivered at main ceremony of the March of the Living on April 18, 2023, where Dr. Adelson lit a memorial torch. Dr. Miriam Adelson is the publisher of Israel Hayom.
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