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Every solution creates a new challenge because a solution triggers change, and change creates a new challenge.

In my previous blog, I said that a dream solution to the Palestinian problem is to change the frame of mind and culture of both the Palestinian and Jewish people. To seek a way to live at peace with each other we need to act out of faith rather than fear.

Assume that this, granted, improbable solution is implemented and what appears as a dream becomes reality. What is the next problem that would be born out of this solution?

A Personal Memory

Years ago, when I was in high school, I was a member of a youth movement, Noar La Noar. Those of us who were from well-to-do families served as "big brothers" to those of the same age from less fortunate families.  One of our efforts was to bring Arab youth from Jaffa to be part of our group so that we could play together, get to know each other, and feel good about each other. This is what my dream in my previous blog was all about.

And what happened? One of the Arab boys fell in love with my sister. I imagined them falling in love and getting married, and then the question arose: what happens with the children?

My Personal Reality

This fear that I felt then is now my reality. Five out of my six children married non-Jews, and my grandchildren from them probably will only know they had a Jewish grandfather. They are unlikely to be affiliated with Judaism, and I feel terrible. I feel I broke a chain of 2,000 years because I did not raise my children with Jewish values and traditions.

How did this happen?

During the Second World War, to survive we hid in Albania among Muslims. After the war, practicing religion in Yugoslavia was discouraged by the communist regime. When I came to Israel, I knew nothing about what it means to be Jewish. And in Israel, they did nothing to teach me. I learned it is good to die for your country.  I was taught about Zionism, but not how to run a Shabbat dinner or celebrate Passover or any of the Jewish traditional holidays. All I was taught was to love Israel, but what does it mean to be Jewish? I had no idea. How to pray in a synagogue was alien to me and still is. I feel stranger during prayers.  So, it's no surprise that I did not raise my kids as Jews, and the price I pay is that my grandchildren are not going to be Jewish.

The Challenge of Peace

So, what might happen if there is real peace between Israel and the Palestinians? Intermarriage on a massive scale.

In a play I saw many years ago, Shabtai Tzvi asks Hertzl: "Maybe you too are a false messiah.” Like Shabtai Tzvi, who led thousands of Jews to become Muslims, maybe Zionism without religious backbone will cause millions to convert or lose their Jewish identity. Is that what we want?

Strange, I did not expect it, but quite a few Israelis I speak with are totally ok if Judaism disappears. Israeli communities abroad have no connection, any relations with the local Jewish community.

Israel was established to save Jews from extinction. Are we achieving just the opposite?

Jews lived through generations—thousands of years—in ghettos. I don't think they were put there only by the Gentiles. Beyond the religious reason to be close to the synagogue, I believe there was another reason to congregate and stay far from the Gentiles: so that our children would not associate with their children, which might lead to intermarriage.  See how we treat the Israeli Arabs. We want peace but we don t want them close.

The Path Forward

In order to make peace not a threat to our religious identity, I believe we need to strengthen Jewish education in our schools. Democratic schools teach nothing about the Old Testament or about Jewish practices. Not any Jewish religious rituals, Jewish value system or philosophy.

It seems to me that what identifies us as Jewish is our acting as victims. Even though I am a holocaust survivor I am sick and tired of how we nonstop talk about the holocaust and why the world has to protect us.

Instead of holocaust museums, maybe, we should have museums of Jewish pride. We sure have contributed to humanity. We are an asset. Not a liability.

Enough being a victim and start presenting to the world what we contribute.

Feeling proud of who we are and what we stand for can make our willingness to make peace more realistic. To feel faith rather than fear, which I believe is a condition for reaching a lasting peace, a precondition for it is that we must have faith in who we are.

I am not ignoring that the Palestinians have to make changes too. To free themselves from their agenda of world domination. Not all Muslims are hostile to the western world. Look at Azerbaijan or Albania. Granted, it is a BIIIIG task, but unless we and they change, we will continue to pay a price in losing our children in an ongoing war.