In part of the world’s mightiest Empire, far from the Empire’s capital, what started as a revolt against unjust tax laws turned into a revolution in the name of independence from the oppression of foreign monarchs and reclamation of the inalienable rights endowed upon them by the Creator.
The American Colonies, 1776? No. Seventeen-hundred and ten years earlier: The Roman Provence of Judea, 66.
Unlike the American Revolution, the Great Jewish Revolt did not succeed, and on the 17th day of the Hebrew month of Tammuz, the Romans breached the walls of Jerusalem beginning the destruction of the city and the Second Temple. It is a day of mourning in Jewish tradition.
In 1788, the anniversary of 17 Tammuz fell on July 22, the day a mass demonstration was planned in New York City in support of the Federalists’ effort to secure New York’s ratification of the Constitution. To fix this conflict, the organizers risked the success of the event to postpone it for one day, so that their Jewish allies could take part in this seminal event in the ratification debates, and therefor be a part of the founding of our Constitutional Republic.
That the citizens of New York would show such compassion toward the Jews as they mourned the catastrophe that befell Jerusalem is a touching reminder that today the one and only monument in the middle east to the victims of September 11th is in Jerusalem.
The bonds that bind America to the Jewish people and the Jewish state of Israel are comparable only to the bonds between brothers – with a common heritage of the struggle for freedom forging a shared commitment to liberty, tolerance and democracy. This is why our enemies are the same. This is why the forces of evil do not discriminate between us.
America and Israel are the good guys of the world. We must stand together to defend what is Right.
God Bless Israel. And God Bless the United States of America.