From Ezekiel’s Dry Bones to Startup Nation
From Ezekiel’s Dry Bones to Startup Nation: How We Reached Israel’s 78th Independence Day and Still Can’t Find Parking
Ezekiel Saw Bones. We See Traffic Jams
The prophet Ezekiel stood in front of a valley full of dry bones and basically asked:
“Be honest – is there really any chance here?”
A fair question.
If you were standing in front of the Jewish people somewhere between exile, destruction, Romans, inquisitions, pogroms, the Holocaust, and the average building committee meeting in Tel Aviv, you would ask the same thing.
But Ezekiel, unlike the average television commentator, believed the answer was yes.
He saw bones and imagined revival.
We, 2,500 years later, see food delivery apps at 11 PM, parking inspectors at 8 AM, and property tax bills – and somehow, this is also revival.
Israel’s 78th Independence Day is not just a holiday.
It is a historical slap in the face to everyone who spent two thousand years predicting our funeral.
And there were many volunteers.
Chapter One: The Eternal People Are Not Afraid of a Long Journey. They Just Complain About It the Entire Way
The Jewish story is a bit like an Israeli football club:
Everyone is sure it is finished.
It is sure it is finished.
And then somehow, in the 93rd minute – goal.
From Abraham to the family WhatsApp group during Passover, Jews specialize in staying alive.
Not always elegantly.
Often with a lot of shouting.
But alive.
Ezekiel’s vision was not only religious.
It was national.
Bones receive tendons, flesh, spirit – and rise.
Not “a successful Jewish community in Paris.”
Not “comfortable life in Berlin until history gets bored again.”
A people returning to its land.
In simple words: Zionism, just without the branding department.
Chapter Two: The Holocaust – When the World Said “Never Again” and Meant “Please Handle It Yourselves”
Let’s say it clearly:
The Holocaust did not create the State of Israel.
Zionism was already here.
But the Holocaust made one thing obvious even to those still addicted to the fantasy of “integration”:
Nobody will save the Jews except the Jews.
Not the UN.
Not Europe.
Not enlightened humanity, which was very busy explaining why the Jewish neighbors had mysteriously disappeared.
Six million Jews were murdered, and the world suddenly discovered it was “shocked.”
Touching.
About as moving as a thief returning half your wallet and calling it personal growth.
Israel was established in 1948 not because the world felt sorry, but because David Ben-Gurion understood that pity does not stop tanks.
Only an army does.
And Jewish stubbornness at a clinical level.
Chapter Three: 1948 – Everyone Against Us, So Basically, Tuesday
When the state was declared, people were not exactly lining up with flowers.
Five Arab armies invaded.
Weapons were limited.
Resources were laughable.
Half the population were Holocaust survivors, and the other half were still trying to understand why this place was so unbelievably hot.
And yet – we won.
Because there is something very dangerous about a Jew with nowhere left to retreat.
Since then, that has basically been the business model.
Wars, terror, intifadas, missiles, Hezbollah, Hamas, Iran, the UN, and a British journalist with strong opinions about morality.
And still – here we are.
Not only surviving.
Building.
Chapter Four: Startup Nation – From Orange Groves to an 800 Million Dollar Exit
If you told a Zionist pioneer from 1936 that one day Israel would export chips, cyber security, missile defense systems, water technology, and medical innovation, he would first ask what a microchip is, and then ask you to help with the oranges.
But it happened.
This tiny country, with no oil, no natural markets, and neighbors who mostly preferred our existence as a rumor, became a technological powerhouse.
Why?
Because Jews are a people genetically incapable of sitting quietly.
If there is no problem – we will find one.
If there is a problem – we will build a startup.
Mobileye, Check Point Software Technologies, Waze, Iron Dome – all born from the same national condition:
Jewish anxiety with broadband internet.
Chapter Five: Regional Power – Or How We Went from Middle East Punching Bag to Landlord
Once, Israel was “the small state surrounded by enemies.”
Today, Israel is the state its enemies check before making breakfast.
The Abraham Accords did not happen because of spiritual love for Zion.
They happened because in the Middle East, people respect power, stability, technology, and the ability to make Iran sweat.
Suddenly, Arab states discovered that maybe we were not “the Palestinian problem,” but perhaps part of the solution to the Iranian one.
Quite a plot twist.
Who would have guessed that Abu Dhabi would say, “Maybe cooperation with the Jews is actually smart,” while American campuses scream revolutionary slogans between gender studies seminars?
History has a sense of humor.
Chapter Six: And Then Came Us – The Israelis
Now we reach the truly impressive part.
After exile, genocide, national revival, wars, innovation, and diplomacy, we managed to create a country where the central national debate is whether someone cut the line at the coffee shop.
That is achievement.
Israelis are a special people.
We build a state and then complain about it as if someone sold it to us second-hand.
Everyone is an expert.
Everyone is a general.
Everyone is an economist.
Everyone knows exactly what the government should have done – especially yesterday.
And yet, when it matters, everyone shows up.
For reserve duty.
For donations.
For hospitals.
For the funeral of someone they never met.
That is the real country.
Not parliament.
The people.
Even when they are yelling.
Especially when they are yelling.
Chapter Seven: Independence Day 78 – Neither Obvious nor Guaranteed
Seventy-eight years of Jewish sovereignty after two thousand years of exile.
If that is not a miracle, it is at least an extremely aggressive statistical anomaly.
Especially after recent years, when it sometimes feels like we spend more time fighting each other than remembering why we came back here in the first place.
The enemies outside did not disappear.
The stupidity inside did not either.
But the larger story remains:
The Jewish people came home.
Not as a tolerated minority.
Not as temporary guests.
Not as a footnote in someone else’s civilization.
As the landlord.
With an army.
With a flag.
With an air force.
And with a neighborhood Facebook group complaining about fireworks.
That is sovereignty.
Conclusion: Ezekiel’s Vision of Dry Bones, 2026 Edition
Ezekiel saw bones and hoped for life.
We see a loud, complicated, expensive, beautiful, exhausting, brilliant, infuriating, strong country – and we have to admit:
He was right.
The bones rose.
They even started a WhatsApp group.
Israel’s 78th Independence Day is not just a national celebration.
It is a reminder.
That what looks impossible can happen.
And that sometimes, the most stubborn people on earth are also the ones who survive everything.
Including themselves.
הירשמו כדי לקבל את הפוסטים האחרונים אל המייל שלכם
