Can a Homeland Be Built in Shifts?

Levi Eshkol, Israel’s third prime minister, was one of the main political leaders responsible for the upbuilding of the Jewish state in the period prior to independence and through Israel’s first two decades. Born near Kiev in 1895, Eshkol immigrated to Palestine in 1914. He worked as a manual laborer in the Jewish settlements, and was among the founders of the first kibbutz, Degania, on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. During the War of Independence, Eshkol served as one of David Ben-Gurion’s top advisors, and was charged with acquiring vital supplies of food and ammunition for Israeli forces. A year later, in 1949, as head of the Absorption Department, he oversaw the settlement of the waves of immigrants that doubled Israel’s population within three years.

Eshkol served as finance minister from 1952 to 1963—the decisive decade in Israel’s development—during which he formulated a sound fiscal policy, constructed permanent immigrant housing, and laid the foundation of Israel’s industrial infrastructure. Following the resignation of Ben-Gurion in 1963, Eshkol became prime minister and defense minister, helping to transform the Israel Defense Forces into a versatile, modern army. He served as prime minister during Israel’s victory in the Six Day War in 1967, a position which he held until his death in 1969.

Endowed with a deep sense of Jewish unity, Eshkol spoke often to diaspora communities, urging them to promote Jewish immigration to Israel and to contribute to the Jewish state’s success. The following speech, presented here for the first time in English translation, was given in Jerusalem on September 25, 1967, to a group of over six thousand volunteer youths who had come to Israel at the time of the Six Day War. In it, he calls on Jewish youth around the world to contribute to building the Jewish state.

My dear young men and women: First of all, I must say that I was not invited to address this gathering, though I do not say this by way of complaint. I received a letter inviting me to send written greetings to your assembly. But this morning, as I sat in my office and was about to sign the letter of greeting, I asked myself whether I could make do with such a letter, even if it were to be well written, and turn down an opportunity to see you, young volunteers from the diaspora, and to speak to you face to face. I have always regretted that we members of the government, and that I personally, have not had enough opportunities to meet with all of the thousands of young men and women who have come to Israel, to speak with you as one would speak with a friend or with a brother. Now that I have the opportunity before me, can I pass it up?

The issue before us is serious, solemn, and dramatic. One of the earlier speakers mentioned the approaching High Holidays—Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur. I had wondered at first whether the young people here would know enough of Judaism, its customs and prayers, that I could begin with a passage that came to mind from the liturgy. But once the High Holidays were being discussed, I concluded that perhaps I, too, could venture to say what was on my mind. Among the prayers of Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, there is a prayer that begins with the words “Here I stand, poor in deeds,” which is recited by the cantor before he begins the musaf prayer. In it he expresses his wish that he be worthy of leading the prayers of the Jewish people before the Master of the World.

I asked myself: How are we, the few Israelis appearing before you, worthy of explaining to you the solemn, historic importance of these days, days about which you will one day be able to say with special pride, “I was in Israel during the six days of the war?”

As an aside, perhaps we should ask your forgiveness for having done the job too quickly. After all, you have come here. You have added greatly to the honor of the Jewish people, for you have come in person, not contenting yourselves with merely adding to the financial assistance that we received—without which it would have been impossible for us to do what we did—and to the mobilization of political influence and assistance. It is of the greatest importance that eight thousand volunteers acted decisively and came here. If the war had gone on longer, even more would undoubtedly have come. This is an awe-inspiring act. You have contributed to the honor of the Jewish people, even as many people have been despairing over what is taking place in Jewish communities throughout the world. And now, these six days have proven that the Jewish spark has kindled a great flame, a sacred flame. Thousands of young women and men have come here at this, of all times, a time of war. You are truly fortunate, and so are we.

I wish to make it clear that I do not—nor does Israel as a whole, to tell the truth—consider volunteerism sufficient. That is not what Israel needs. It is very good when people come to help for three or six months, especially when those who come know how to handle a rifle or to fly an airplane—and I do not know if there are many among you like that. It is also important for people to come and take jobs that free the soldiers from their civilian work. But we stand here today after the six great days of deeds, the most solemn in Israel’s history, and we ask ourselves—and I would like this question to enter your hearts as well: Can a state, a homeland, be built in shifts? Is it enough for someone to come for three months, and then go home, and after that for someone else to come for another three months? Is this how homelands are built? Is this how South Africa or the United States was built? Is this how the Jews built who left the shtetls of southern Russia? While we came one by one to Israel, they went en masse to the United States, where they built industries. Together with others they built a country, and their role in its creation was tremendous. Did they go there as volunteers, for a few months?

It is incumbent upon us to do whatever it takes to make you understand that a new era has begun in the life of Israel, in the life of the state, and that every one of you should be among the pioneers of this era. Each of you ought to think of this land as if it were empty, as if you were beginning to build it yourselves. There is no government in Israel, and no Jewish Agency. There is only a flame in the heart—if that. There is only the longing for Jewish independence. There is a desire to be whole Jews, as I heard from several of my colleagues who spoke here. And if you look at things in this way, you will also leave aside the fact that there are two and a half million Jews here. Instead, each of you must think of himself as if he went forth from Egypt, and must begin to rebuild the homeland of the Jewish people. Otherwise, why come at all? Why did we fight the war? What were we defending? Why did you come to help us with the war, and what were you looking to defend? If you have come, I say to myself, it means that some spark has been kindled within you, just as a spark was kindled within some of us fifty or seventy years ago.

The first pioneers who came to Israel, as individuals, had no one to whom they could address their complaints. They thought: “The Jewish people needs a homeland of its own. It needs national sovereignty.” And they came here. True, many of them left in the end, but those who remained knew that they were fighting for something, and some among them even dreamed of the future, envisioning the day when we would have a state and a prime minister. If such a spark has been kindled within you as well, and you have come to defend the Jewish state, then know this: It has not yet come to be. Two and a half million Jews are not enough to maintain a state, particularly one that is surrounded by tens of millions of enemies, from Syria and Iraq to Jordan and Egypt, and with other Arab states joining them as well.

We must build the state each day; we must create it anew each day. It is a great privilege to have arrived here at the border between two historical periods. What has happened until now has become part of the past; we are entering a different era, for which we will need more people. We are speaking here about many different things: About the kevutza, the kibbutz, and the moshav;* about members of the professions, about scientists. If I were to sum up in a single sentence, it would be this: We need many Jews, everywhere, in every settlement, in every kind of labor.

We do not live in a world of multi-national states. We wanted to find a place under the sun for ourselves, and not just any place but the land of Israel; to be a people that dwells in its land, that is not a minority, but at the same time does not rule over others and oppress them. We wanted a piece of land beneath our feet on which to establish our independence, to develop our cultural, spiritual, and economic gifts, and we wanted to continue the ancient historical thread of the Jewish people.

We are in a united Jerusalem, in which there live about two hundred thousand Jews and seventy thousand non-Jews; as long as a third of the residents are non-Jews, we cannot be at ease. We need more Jews here and in other places. I do not know if any of you have already been to the Syrian heights.** Anyone who has visited there recognizes the threat under which the Jordan and Hula Valley settlements had been living. We must build settlements on the heights. To this end we need Jews. We need to develop modern industry, and for that we need Jews as well.

Someone here said that you wish to know what we ask of this generation—of the Jewish people as a whole, and not just of its youth. I will answer in brief: Come to Israel. Let the Jews who are forty or fifty years old come too and build factories, and let engineers and technicians come with them and after them. And factory workers and farmers must come, along with simple Jews, and do everything that needs to be done. And let us not forget that you came here for a war, and I am not prepared to say that it was the last war. After three wars and three defeats that we have inflicted on our neighbors, they still have not come to terms with our existence, and they continue trying, and they will try again, to wield their sword against us to turn us back.

I ask you: How do you see our future, in another five or ten years? Perhaps there will not be another war, but common sense bids us consider that there is no guarantee that this last war was the final one. And if something like that were to happen, you would then, in all likelihood, rush to our aid, once again too late to help. For who knows how long such a war would last? It could well be done, not in six days, but in four, or even three. And if, God forbid, we were to remain few in number, as we are today, who knows how it would end—and yet you have come here to defend the future of the Jewish state.

We would like you to come and to bring your friends with you. You may well be more successful than the emissaries that we have sent, because you are able to speak in a different language, one that is better suited to the young men and women of your generation. Perhaps you will tell them, quite simply, “Come and let us build a Jewish state.” The United States and other countries are unable to offer them such a mission.

When the late President Kennedy announced the founding of the Peace Corps, many thousands of young Jews went and signed up. Our young Israelis saw them in the African jungle. I have often thought to myself: Young people are seeking some sort of ideal; they are tired of living in comfort, in cities where they do not see the sun by day or the stars by night, and they are searching for something new. Why do they not come here by the tens of thousands, to be builders, the builders of their land, their country, their people? Not many of us Jews are left in the world. Hitler made sure of that. For our people, there are only two places where we are free: In the State of Israel, and in the Western world—America and Europe. After the Balfour Declaration, Chaim Weizmann issued the call:” O people of Israel, where are you?” But the Jews did not stir themselves up to come. I hope that this will not happen again. In the wake of the Six Days, there is tremendous potential for heeding such a call, and it is crucial that there be those who will make it and who will mobilize our nation.

You can be six thousand first-rate ambassadors to the lands of the diaspora. We have nothing to compare with such a force. We do not have the ability to send the countries of the world thousands of young people to say to the Jews: Do not be content with the aliya of only a few thousand, a few thousand out of six million. Now, after the great war, the awakening and the exhilaration, after the electric jolt that has coursed through the Jewish world, thousands and tens of thousands of olim should come to Israel. We cannot possibly resign ourselves to the immigration of only a few thousand, who could offer little help if a new war were to arise, one that might be more trying and bitter than the Six Day War. If, heaven forbid, our strength failed us, your children would have cause to ask: ׂYou had a land, you had a country, you had wars, you defeated the enemy, but what has become of Israel?׃ It was given to you in trust, but you did not know how to keep it. For you left everything as it was—just two and a half million Jews.

The Jewish people must see you as emissaries of the Jewish historical imperative, so that we may double our numbers, at least, by the end of the century. Accept this task upon yourselves, and in so doing you will fulfill your historic mission. Go forth to the hundreds of thousands of Jewish students and bring them back by the tens of thousands. You have the ability to establish the Jewish people firmly in its land, in its homeland, and to develop its culture and its spirit.

Forgive me if I have spoken too long. But I thought I could not pass up such an opportunity to explain our situation as it appears to me. This is what we want from the Jewish people and from its youth. We need them, we are relying upon them. It is up to you to bring them.

Azure no. 12, Winter 5762 / 2002

Can a Homeland Be Built in Shifts?