Defending home

Israel is faced with another military operation, another call to defend our home.

As the Israel Defense Forces move to protect the 900,000 residents of southern Israel who have been pummeled with approximately 8,000 rockets over the last eight years, politicians and militants have repeatedly said the operation’s purpose is to defend our home.

It seems that in recent years we are using this term often to the point where we almost forgot its meaning.

The concept “bayit” in Hebrew has multiple and deep meanings. It not only connotes “home” and “house” but also refers to the First and Second Temple eras, in which the people of Israel were living in their homeland.

Israelis deeply understand those various definitions. For us, defending home means defending both personal home and the public home — our national homeland.

Twenty percent of IDF soldiers now serving in Gaza live within range of the rockets launched from Gaza. But all IDF soldiers — even those who do not live in Sderot, Beersheba and Yavne — feel the passionate call to defend their national home.

Supposedly, the State of Israel is not in existential danger; most Israelis believe that the fact of the state’s existence is secure and unconditional. If so, why do homemade Kassam rockets succeed in threatening our home?

The threat is not entirely physical. Kassam or Grad rockets will not destroy our cities or cause the end of our state. In Israel’s 60 years, we’ve survived much stronger threats.

But our losses are felt in the disintegration of normal life. Sderot has survived eight years of Kassam rockets, but lost its vibrancy. People don’t go to work or school or attend cultural events.

Families sleep together in shelters night after night. How can you feel home when even your home is not a safe place?

The goal of terror is to shatter a sense of stability and security. Kassam rockets have succeeded in terrorizing more than one-tenth of Israel’s citizens, people who may survive the attacks but have lost the freedom to live normal, healthy lives. In that sense, Kassams indeed pose an existential threat to the State of Israel.

The walls of the Israel’s houses are at risk — but they can be fixed. The normal life in our national homeland is also at risk — that is what Israel’s military is fighting to defend.

Rakefet Ginsberg is Israel emissary and director of the Milwaukee Jewish Federation’s Israel Center.