Israelis can flee Israel, but they cannot escape their Jewish destiny - opinion

The recent, mysterious disappearance of mother and daughter Mali and Liel Yahalomi held the nation of Israel spellbound for more than a week. Everyone wanted to know: Where have they gone? Have they been kidnapped? Are they lying dead in some remote field, the victims of yet another antisemitic crime?

Israelis love suspense stories – the more sordid, the better – perhaps because it gives us temporary pause and takes us away, for a few exciting hours, from the more serious, harrowing headlines that we encounter every day.

One of the many conspiracy theories held that Mali had absconded with huge sums of money drawn from the Bank of Jerusalem, where Mali worked.

So pervasive were these rumors that shares of the bank actually dropped, as investors feared there might be a run on the bank.

They undoubtedly recalled the 2002 scandal when Eti Alon, the deputy head of investments at the Tel Aviv-based Trade Bank, embezzled more than $65 million (over NIS 250 million) over a five-year period, to cover the massive illegal gambling debts of her brother, Ofer Maximov.

Speculations found to be false

None of these wild speculations turned out to be accurate. The two were found – by an Israeli police officer “on loan” to Argentina – on a bus in Buenos Aires. They were unharmed and, according to the bank, no money was missing.

They had ditched their cellphones to avoid being traced or contacted by their family, and were headed from Prague to Vienna to Argentina to an unspecified country to “start life over again.” They had seemingly deserted their loved ones and planned to take on new identities with new passports in a new country.

Many of the questions still remain unanswered, but perhaps the key question – “Why?” – has a simple response: They wanted to escape the life they knew; they wanted out.

There’s nothing all that earthshaking about this. Let’s be truthful: how many of us have, at one time or another, fantasized about going off the grid and fleeing to some remote corner of the planet? To a place that is serene, free of war or terrorism, a place where no one asks – or cares – what God we worship or what flag we fly. Just a place where passersby casually smile at us and go about their business as if we don’t exist.

We have prominent role models to draw from.

Jonah – we’ll soon recount his tale – hopped on a boat and descended to its lowest deck to escape his responsibility as a prophet and avoid his mission of saving the Assyrian capital of Nineveh.

Prophet Elijah ran to the desert, not only to evade evil Queen Jezebel, but to reconnect with God after a life of frustration.

I might even conjecture that Moses took a full 40 days on Mount Sinai – rather than a brief weekend – because he needed a real break from being our leader – we can be a difficult people, you know!

Sadly, no small number of Israelis have indeed fled the Holy Land since we became a state. The Institute for Jewish Policy Research estimates that roughly 630,000 Israeli citizens – our population when the state was founded! – live outside of Israel (about 6% of the country’s population). When you include their foreign-born children, that number nears one million.

Many of them maintain they are “just visiting,” and almost all claim they will come back at some point. Many indeed do, especially if it’s to join a war in progress, or to vote. But many others are quite comfortable blending into their new habitats.

In Koh Samui, Thailand, which we recently visited (thank God, we came back), there are no less than 17 kosher restaurants, and the lingua franca is Hebrew. And Israeli-Americans are the backbones of many Jewish communities in the US, often keeping the Jewish day schools there viable.

In fact, has anyone reading this article actually been in a place where there are no Israelis at all? (North Korea, maybe, unless you count the Mossad agents.)

Yet I maintain that, ultimately, the expat Jews will someday return. This will happen for two reasons – one negative, one positive.

On the negative side, the odious effort to isolate, demonize, and make life miserable for the Jews is increasing exponentially.

It is led and funded by radical Islam, but is also avidly supported by any number of non-Muslim Jew-haters, as well as general crazies who just love to hate Jews. This even includes no small number of delusional Jews themselves; as Hawkeye of MASH fame once said, “If we had more people like you, we’d have less people like you!”

Historically, Jews – sooner or later – become primary targets throughout the Diaspora, and that will not change. Pressed to either engage in self-immolation – condemning their own people and culture – or pick up and leave, significant numbers of Jews will choose the latter. It’s really not fun being in a place where you are not wanted.

Even in docile Koh Samui last week, an Israeli family was denied entry and ordered to leave an animal park, after the owners learned of their nationality when they heard Hebrew being spoken.

But on the positive side, Israelis (and Jews) abroad will come to see Israel as the long-awaited fulfillment of ancient prophecy, and the natural habitat we have always longed for. They will sense that history is reaching out to them, and they will want to be part of the miracle that Israel embodies every day, in every way.

This movement will be led by the young, who are always in the forefront of risk-taking, pioneering, and the ability to discern and desire the future.

These two approaches are indicated in the famous verse from Isaiah 60:8, “Who are these that fly along like clouds, like doves to their coves?” Some of our brothers and sisters will return here, pushed and driven by gloomy clouds and ill winds; others will flock here, pulled like birds who swiftly fly to their welcoming nests.

The Talmud in tractate Sukkah tells the story of two of King Solomon’s scribes who were “wanted” by the Angel of Death. They decided to escape to the city of Luz, a place where the angel had no power to enter. But as they approached the gates of Luz, it was precisely there that the Angel of Death was waiting for them.

The Talmud concludes, “Where a person is meant to be, there his feet will take him.”

A very different kind of angel awaits us here, in the holiest of all lands, and it is here that we shall find our destiny. The inevitability of God – and Israel – cannot and will not be denied.

The writer is director of the Jewish Outreach Center of Ra’anana. rabbistewart@gmail.com