Yom HaAtzma’ut (Israel Independence Day) is the celebration of the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948.
For many Humanistic Jews, Yom HaAtzma’ut is a time to reaffirm their commitment to Israel as a center of Jewish culture and creativity, to express solidarity with the Jewish people, and to join their Israeli brothers and sisters and their wider Jewish community in celebration of the establishment of the Jewish state.
At the same time, many Humanistic Jews cannot celebrate wholeheartedly (or at all) without acknowledging the national aspirations of the Palestinian people, or addressing the global challenges of nationalism in general.
The holiday is inevitably a political one, and members of Humanistic Judaism have as diverse a range of opinions as in the wider Jewish community. SHJ’s board has at times taken positions, including our longstanding call for both national aspirations to be achieved through a two-state solution.
The Secular Humanistic Judaism movement is wonderfully represented in Israel by Tmura-IISHJ, which advocates for secularity, religious pluralism, equality and fairness for all peoples in the region.
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