Natalio Steiner, Founder and Director of the newspaper "Comunidades Plus" from Israel for Poder & Dinero and FinGurú
Seventy-seven years after its birth, Israel remains much more than a country. It is an act of historical justice. It is the resounding answer of a people who were persecuted for centuries, expelled from kingdoms, demonized from pulpits, deported on trains. Israel is the cry of a people that refused to die. It is the revenge of life over death.
Let’s not be confused: the Jewish state was not born in peace, it was not conceived in calm, it was not welcomed with pleasure. It was born in war. It was born besieged. It was born with half the world against it. And yet, against all odds, it flourished. Against five Arab armies in 1948. Against diplomatic blockade. Against scarcity, hatred, exile. It flourished. And today, 77 years later, it is still there: firm, strong, imperfect, and absolutely indispensable and, until recently, threatened on 7 different fronts, including the shadow of a nuclear attack and a cynical and ruthless terrorism.
Israel is not simply a nation. It is a line in the sand that the Jewish people drew with blood and hope to say: up to here. It is the end of the ghetto and the beginning of sovereignty. It is the first time, in more than two thousand years, that Jews do not have to ask for permission to exist. That they do not have to rely on the mercy of kings, emperors, or presidents. Israel is the guarantee that if the world turns against them once again, there will be a place that never turns its back.
And yet, even today, there are those who deny it. There are those who reduce it to “colonialism,” to “political project,” to “historical mistake.” As if the dead of the persecutions and the Shoah did not speak. As if the extermination camps did not scream. As if the Jews expelled from Arab countries did not count. As if the millennia-old connection to Jerusalem, Hebron, Tiberias, or Safed could be erased by ignorance or bad faith.
The fight for Israel continues. In the headlines, in classrooms, online. Because antisemitism did not die: it is disguised. It changed the swastika for flags of noble causes. It speaks of human rights while denying the right to exist of the only Jewish state on the planet. It points to it, demonizes it, isolates it. As if Israel, and not Iran, were the problem. As if it were the Israeli soldiers, and not the Hamas terrorists, who sow hatred.
Israel does not need to be perfect to deserve to exist. Just look around. What other democracy in the Middle East allows free elections, freedom of the press, LGBT rights, equality before the law? Where else do Arabs, Druze, secular Jews, and religious Jews all coexist, voting in the same ballot boxes? Where else is there such passionate debate, such strong protest, such love for the land, even when it hurts?
And yes, Israel hurts. Because it is always under tension. Because living there means living with sirens, with hot borders, with neighbors who do not recognize your right to breathe. Because raising children knowing they might go to war is not natural. But it is necessary. Because without Israel, there would not be a "Jewish home" today. There would be exile again, supplication again, dependence again.
That is why, on this 77th anniversary, it is not enough to celebrate. We must defend it. With words, with ideas, with actions. We must say it fearlessly: Israel is a political, moral, and human miracle. And those who do not see it do so because they do not want to see. Because they prefer the comfortable myth of the “European colonizer” to the real testimony of Ethiopian, Yemeni, Moroccan, Soviet, Argentine, and French Jews, who found there not a privilege, but a home.
Israel is not the perfect solution, but it is the only possible one. It is the anchor and the sail of the Jewish people. Its refuge and its challenge. Its past it does not forget, and its future it does not resign itself to. Internal differences regarding the character of the state, its wartime government policy, the hostages who do not return, and many other issues persist and sharpen. But we will overcome them. There is no other alternative.
As long as the blue and white flag flies in Jerusalem, as long as Hebrew is spoken on the streets of Haifa, as long as a Jewish young person can stand in Tel Aviv and know they are home, the project of Israel remains alive. And with it, the hope that the Jewish people will never again have to beg for their place in the world.
Israel turns 77. And it is not just any birthday. It is a victory. A declaration. A promise fulfilled. And a warning to those who still dream of wiping it off the map: they could not, they cannot, they will not
Natalio Steiner is a prominent essayist, lecturer, writer, and editor of the newspaper "Comunidades Plus." He was a teacher at the ORT School for 39 years until he decided to relocate to Israel, where he currently lives.
He is a regular columnist for Radio JAI, the radio of the Jewish community in Latin America.
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