<HTML>10 Most Important Jews of the Millennium
It has become a habit amongst us to commemorate round number jubilees by
retrospection of the period elapsed between the jubilees. As the time
unit becomes greater so does the motivation for this retrospection. A
Jubilee however does not necessarily coincide with an actual demarcation
of a historic or any other kind of period ? we simply wish to mark the
jubilee as such. This being the case, I follow the growing discussion of
the "Jews of the millennium list" with growing discomfort. What exactly
is it that we as Jews are commemorating as the Christian millennium draws
to its end? I am well aware that the common date is exactly that ? and
is therefore widely used by non-Christians as well. I do feel however
that we should be at least sadly aware of the meaning implicit in the
title: "Jews of the millennium".
I would like to share with the readers a remark made by Rabbi Y. L. Maimon
in the introduction to his work, "Sarei Ha'Meah" which puts the entire
discussion within a certain context and makes one wonder:
"I recall that at the turn of the century our Hebrew authors published
scores of articles summarizing the blessings and wealth the nineteenth
century brought us...much was said about all that we acquired during the
past one hundred years to the counting of the Christians....at the time I
was young but even then I felt a burning embarrassment...seeing how our
Hebrew authors, with the song of nationality on their lips so eagerly
dance at "a stranger's wedding". We now stand on the threshold of the
eighth century of the sixth millennium according to our counting....and
not a single Hebrew newspaper or author saw it fit to write a single
article commemorating and summarize these past one hundred years of ours".
Moshe Pinchuk.
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