Avraham, the Jews and the Right to the Land of Israel
This is the line the anti-Semites espouse: "The land should belong to the racial descendants of Abraham."
The next line is: "The Ashkenazis are all descendants of converts, the Khazars."
That is not true, but would that it were!*Avraham was the first convert*. His greatness was that he, of his own free accord, realized that God is One and became a monotheist.To say that Jews must be the physical descedants of the first convert is the height of ignorance and folly.
It is far greater in Jewish reckoning to be like Avraham, to accept Jewish absolute monotheism, of one's own accord, than to be born Jewish.Every convert is called ben Avraham if he is a man and bat Sarah if she is a woman. They are the original converts, the greatest converts.It is far greater to be their *moral/spiritual* children, to be like them in one's Soul, than to simply be born a Jew.
The Holy Land belongs to the *moral/spiritual* descendants of Avraham, as God said - the Jews - most of all to those who are converts by choice.
I'm sure there will be those who think I'm saying this because I'm a convert. No, I am not a convert. I am a born Jew and a true Jew. Being a true Jew I know that the place of Jewish converts is greater than those born into Judaism.
Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat, Israel