I Can’t Believe It’s Not Israel

In times past the Forward newspaper celebrated the fast of Yom Kippur with a feast and in keeping with that tradition it celebrated Israel's Independence Day by rewriting its anthem to remove the word "Jew" from it. The linguistic purge from the notoriously anti-Israel paper was meant as a way to help Muslims feel better about singing the Israeli national anthem. The yearning of the Jewish soul becomes the yearning of the Israeli soul and the eyes turned east no longer long for Zion, but the generic "our country". The proposal made by a self-proclaimed linguist seems rather devoid of understanding when it comes to the origin and meaning of words. Purging Jewish souls from the anthem and replacing them with Israeli souls doesn't actually solve anything.