I am a Jew

By Rolene Marks

I am a Jew. I am the daughter of Israel. I am the descendant of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, of Sarah, Rachel, Rebecca and Leah.

I am the descendant of the great Kings David, Solomon and Saul.

I am the descendant of the wise Judges, the esteemed prophets.

I am Yael, the warrior. I hope by my actions to live up to Yael, the namesake of the heroine whose Hebrew name I bear.

My language is Hebrew. I may get my grammar wrong but it is the language of my soul. My soul and spirit belong to the land and now the State of Israel.

I am created from this land. I am its fruits. I am its covenant. I am its promise. I am the daughter of Zion, of Jerusalem.

I am bound by the chain of generations to the great sages, the learned Rabbis, the Nobel prize winners. I am the 12 tribes and the 1 tribe.

I carry the dreams of the scattered and the exiled because I am home.

I carry the hopes and the dreams of those who perished in inquisitions, in pogroms, in the Holocaust. I am the living dream of those who wandered the desert, marched through hostile lands to return to Zion.

I am a modern liberation movement, I determine my future. I have Jerusalem in my bones. Today I am hunted, I am vilified and I am abused. But I am not going anywhere for what was in my ancestors is in me.

I too, will survive. I too will be proud. I too will shout my name loud. The bitter words may wound me but will not defeat me. The violence may cut me but will not break me.

I stand strong. I stand proud. I will wear the symbols of my faith and identity with pride and strength. I will pursue peace with all my might but defend myself with all I am. I am a Jew. 

While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves.  LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO)