(This is my first preambular entry in the Tikkun Olam section. Its title is a jocular reverse of the Latinized, courtesy of Phaedrus, classic Aesopian fable about a mountain giving birth to a mouse. (“Mons Peperit Murem.”) Here, it is a “mouse” giving birth to a “mountain.” Being consummately metaphorical, just as the Greek original, one cannot possibly protest that my comparison of a nation to a mouse could ever be misconstrued as demeaning to that nation, just as, by the same token, calling a Christian priest a “pastor”, that is, a “shepherd,” does not necessarily equate his parishioners to sheep.)
In Aesop’s fable, after a long and violent labor a great mountain gives birth to… a mouse. In our case, a tiny nation on the fringes of history has managed to bring about unquestionably the most momentous event of all time, in the continuously unfolding drama of human civilization, and today, more than two thousand years after that earthshaking event, this little nation’s influence on world history is even more enormous than ever, completely disproportionate to its formal statistical rankings by numerical (but by no means geographical, considering the globality of the Jewish Diaspora) size, and several other standards.
“...And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great.” (Genesis 12:2.)
It is tempting, for the upholders of the Bible, to make the mystical connection between God’s election of the Jewish people in the Genesis and the inordinate prominence of the Jews throughout the ages, culminating in their super-prominence during the past few decades. But whether or not such a mystical connection exists is beside the point, because the super-prominence we are talking about is easily discernable in purely secular terms, as a cold and demonstrably objective fact.
Indeed, the Jewish factor has long become the single most important factor in international relations, which fact has been implicitly acknowledged by friends and foes alike.
In Aesop’s fable, after a long and violent labor a great mountain gives birth to… a mouse. In our case, a tiny nation on the fringes of history has managed to bring about unquestionably the most momentous event of all time, in the continuously unfolding drama of human civilization, and today, more than two thousand years after that earthshaking event, this little nation’s influence on world history is even more enormous than ever, completely disproportionate to its formal statistical rankings by numerical (but by no means geographical, considering the globality of the Jewish Diaspora) size, and several other standards.
“...And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great.” (Genesis 12:2.)
It is tempting, for the upholders of the Bible, to make the mystical connection between God’s election of the Jewish people in the Genesis and the inordinate prominence of the Jews throughout the ages, culminating in their super-prominence during the past few decades. But whether or not such a mystical connection exists is beside the point, because the super-prominence we are talking about is easily discernable in purely secular terms, as a cold and demonstrably objective fact.
Indeed, the Jewish factor has long become the single most important factor in international relations, which fact has been implicitly acknowledged by friends and foes alike.
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