Rabbi Druckman Promotes Aliyah at Herzliya Conference

From Arutz-7:

The speakers at the recent prestigious 5th Herzliya Conference were not limited to experts on geo-political and economic affairs.

Rabbi Chaim Druckman, head of the Yeshivot Bnei Akiva countrywide school network in Israel, addressed the conference, and spoke about the spiritual dangers facing world Jewry.

"During a visit to the U.S., I saw a Holocaust survivor, a man who is very active in deepening and spreading Holocaust awareness. His daughter is married to a non-Jew... This is a terrible phenomenon." So said Rabbi Druckman, a Holocaust survivor himself.

INN.com correspondent Ruti Avraham reports that Rabbi Druckman devoted his remarks to the "very critical period" the Nation of Israel is undergoing, and to the importance of calling on the Jewish Nation to come home to Israel.

"I believe in the eternity of the Jewish People," he said, "not only because of what our rabbis and sources teach us, but also because of what we see with our own eyes. All the ancient nations have disappeared – even great ones that ruled large parts of the world, those that were considered super-powers; they have all disappeared, while a small people, which was persecuted and exiled – what didn't they do to destroy us in every possible way throughout the generations? – is still here to say Am Yisrael Chai, the People of Israel lives."

"The People of Israel are eternal, because they have an eternal destiny: We must be, as the Prophets said, a light unto the nations. But all this is true when we live in our Land, not when we are dispersed throughout the exiles. It's only when we live as a paradigm as a sovereign nation in our own land, a model of goodness, truth and justice in every way."

Rabbi Druckman, 72, who is busy until all hours of the night in the framework of his many educational and hessed (kindness) endeavors, said he is optimistic: "Yet it still hurts greatly to see what we are doing to ourselves. I'm referring to assimilation, something that is causing a genuine Holocaust. I'm not talking about the CIS [the former Soviet Union]; I'm talking about America the free, where intermarriage is simply cutting off children from the Jewish people. We must talk about this and fight this and persuade them that Jews' place is in the Land of Israel."

"It used to be that the Land was desolate," he said. "But now, what excuse can there be for not coming? This is our place. There are difficulties, and problems – but I dare say, and it pains me to say it, that they need not wait for anti-Semitism to kick them out; they shouldn't come from 'no choice,' but of their own free will. Aliyah must be first priority – and there must therefore be true Jewish education to restore them to their roots. If they don't nourish from the past, if they ignore the past, there won't be a future. We must know what our task is, and where we can fulfill it – in the Land of Israel."