As we celebrate Yom Ha’atzmaut 2025, a hard truth remains: Israel has yet to fully win its war for independence. While we secured vital territory and established a state in 1948, our enemies never formally acknowledged defeat or accepted Jewish self-determination. This stands in stark contrast to how other conflicts ended, like Nazi Germany’s unconditional surrender or Vietnam’s Paris Peace Accords. These endings created historical clarity and facilitated transitions to new political arrangements. But for Israel, no such closure exists.
From the first attack by the Arab League in 1948 through the October 7 massacre, the Jewish state has been engaged in one continuous existential struggle. The miracle of Israel’s survival and thriving Jewish communities worldwide defies logical explanation, pointing to something beyond mere historical coincidence. Yet the ideology that drove the rejection of Jewish sovereignty in 1948 remains the same force driving our enemies now.
Understanding the True Nature of the Conflict
This war is not about land. For decades, we’ve been sold a fantasy that negotiating on borders will bring peace—that if we stopped building Jewish towns and schools in contested areas, our Jihadist neighbors would allow us to live in peace. But these neighbors have been crystal clear: they will not accept a Jewish state.
This is a religious war of Islamist ideology against the Western civilized world. Our adversaries don’t hide this fact, so it’s time for the Western world to recognize this reality that Israel understands after 77 years on the front lines.
Transforming Jewish Education in North America
So, what does this mean for North American Jews? We must transform our educational and cultural institutions to reflect these realities.
The current crisis in Jewish education stems from an artificial separation between Jewish studies and Israel. Our educational institutions have mastered teaching about dead Jews while failing to prepare those living to advocate for themselves. Curricula treat Israel as a controversial political add-on rather than an integral dimension of Jewish civilization and continuity. A quick survey of Jewish school courses about the ancient world would reveal that our children spend more time on ancient Rome than on ancient Israel - the cradle of Jewish civilization.
Two fundamental shifts must therefore occur in how we educate our youth:
- We must reject the false narrative that Jews are “colonialist settlers in ancient Palestine.” We must teach our children that Jews are from Judea. This truth stands firmly on archaeological discoveries, genetic evidence, historical records, and millennia of unbroken cultural traditions. Jewish indigeneity disrupts colonial narratives that frame Israel as a European project. Zionism represents the modern political expression of a 3,000-year connection to our ancestral homeland, not a 19th-century invention as often portrayed in educational settings like AP World History
- We must reverse the damage done by decades of teaching Jews that Judaism is “just a religion.” We are a people, a nation, an entire civilization with religious practices and cultural traditions. A century ago, community leaders in Western Europe and then in the US decided it would be safer to present ourselves as mere practitioners of a faith tradition. This was never true, and it still isn’t.
A New Framework for Jewish Education
American Jewish communities must teach Peoplehood as the foundation of Jewish identity. David Gedzelman of The Steinhardt Foundation for Jewish Life articulated through his research that authentic Peoplehood transcends mere religious observance to embrace a shared historical consciousness and destiny.
This isn’t Hasbarah. This is teaching our children to advocate for themselves as Jews in America. Because until young Jews see themselves as part of a family with a shared history and destiny—indigenous to the Middle East, not merely people sharing theological beliefs—they will remain disconnected from Israel and will be ill-equipped to navigate contemporary Jew-hatred, which manifests as anti-Zionism.
A Vision for the Future
This Yom Ha’atzmaut, we celebrate Israel’s achievements and the resilience of the Israeli spirit—the same spirit that has defended our ancestral homeland since 1948. But true celebration of independence demands independence of thought. We must reject narratives that diminish Jewish indigeneity or suggest that peace can be purchased through territorial concessions. The tragic events of October 7 demonstrated the bankruptcy of this approach.
Moving forward requires educational transformation and strategic conditions that make continued rejection of Israel’s existence costly for our adversaries. By fostering a generation of Jews who boast their indigenous connection to the land and their place within the Jewish people, we create internal resilience. By supporting Israel’s security and right to defend itself, we create external conditions for eventual peace.
Masha Merkulova is the CEO of Club Z, a Jewish Zionist space for teens to connect to each other, Jewish history, and Zionism.
This op-ed is published in partnership with a coalition of organizations that fight antisemitism across the world. Read the previous article by Adam Milstein.