My name is MaiNoah Katz. I’m an eighth grader living in the town of Neve Daniel in Gush Etzion, which is in Judea in the Land of Israel. (short pause) I live next to an ancient highway where a big part of the history of our people took place.
When I walk from my house to the bustop, I pass the spot where our father Abraham first saw the place where G-d told him to sacrifice Isaac. It’s the road that Joseph took when he was sent by his father to look for his brothers. A little further on is where Elazar the Maccabee was crushed by an elephant in one of the battles against the Greeks, which is why the community next to mine is called Elazar. A short distance from there is an ancient mikveh, where pilgrims coming to Jerusalem would immerse during Second Temple times. Close to our own time, the defenders of Gush Etzion held off the Egyptian army in 1948 and that way saved Jerusalem for the State of Israel.
And now: President Obama wants to tell me that this is not my home?!?!? (short pause) That I’m a stranger and a foreigner here? (short pause) If I don’t belong here, where do I belong? (long pause)
Any Jewish kid knows that whenever the world called us strangers and foreigners, the next step was to chase us out and try to destroy us. We all heard our grandparents describe, how even though we Jews were peaceful and productive citizens in every land we lived in, we were always eventually hated and hunted. (short pause) That is until G-d showed us open miracles and we finally returned home . . . because this was our only home. Just like our prophets foretold thousands of years ago.
When I was 9 years old, my parents took me to Gush Katif. They said they wanted me to see with my own eyes what the world really means when they talk about “peace.” My brother and I played on the beaches and in the parks. We stayed in the beautiful town of Neve Dekalim that was filled with people and life and singing. And then I saw the most terrible sight in all Jewish history: I saw masses and masses of Israeli soldiers dressed in black, marching into town like the Romans did 2,000 years before to destroy it all.
Gush Katif taught me what politicians mean when they talk “peace” and that history hasn’t changed: the world continues to blame the Jews for all kinds of terrible things, telling all kinds of terrible lies. But, because I’ve been lucky enough to grow up here -- not only learning the Bible, but surrounded by it; not only learning Jewish history, but living it -- I know who I am and I know where I belong. (pause) And that’s right here. (pause) Because this is the only place where the Jewish people do belong. (pause)
Thank you.
