Certain phrases have a way of jolting the heart, and “Free Palestine” has become one of them. It appears on campuses, in marches, on social media feeds, often shouted with a certainty that leaves little room for questions. Yet the phrase raises a simple one: What does it actually mean? To answer that, we need to travel far deeper than today’s headlines. We need to return to a moment that shaped the very identity of our people.
Long before politics and protests, there was a man standing in the dark on the banks of a river. Jacob was about to face his brother Esau for the first time in 34 years. Their last encounter ended with Esau’s vow to kill him. In the years that followed, Jacob survived betrayal and exploitation, always relying on the same instinct: When danger loomed, he ran. On the night before their reunion, Jacob prepared to do what he had always done — slip away under cover of darkness. But Heaven intervened. A mysterious angel seized him and refused to let him escape. Our sages teach that this was not an attack but a divine intervention. Jacob had reached the boundary of who he had been. It was time to become someone new. All night they wrestled. Jacob did not surrender, even after sustaining injury. And at dawn, he received a new name: Israel — “the one who wrestles and prevails” (Genesis 32: 29). This was not merely a change of title; it was a transformation of character. Jacob the runner became Israel the fighter. The Jewish people were born from a moment of refusing to flee. To this day, we remember that transformation through the prohibition of eating the gid hanasheh — the sciatic nerve — that Jacob injured. Every kosher butcher and every Jewish table silently carries this reminder: Do not turn your back to your fears. Do not run from challenges. Face it. Wrestle with it. Prevail. Each time we avoid the rump, we are reminded to never turn our tuchus to our troubles.
Once we understand the essence of the name Israel, the modern slogan “Free Palestine” takes on an unexpected dimension. Few realize that the word Palestine is not Arabic, nor did it originate in the Middle East. It comes from the Greek term Palaistinē, first recorded by Herodotus 2,500 years ago. And the Greek root of that word, palaistēs, means wrestler. Palestra — the gymnasium where wrestlers trained — is still used today, and the famous sports arena in Philadelphia is literally named The Palestra. The Greeks, encountering the nation known as Israel — the wrestlers — translated the identity of the people into their own language. In other words, “Palestine” is simply “Israel” in Greek. The land was named after the very people whose defining trait was the struggle Jacob endured that night.
The linguistic layers continue. Arabic contains no letter P, then or now. The word Palestine does not appear in the Quran. For centuries, Arab leaders referred to the region as Southern Syria. As recently as 1977, PLO official Zuheir Mohsen stated openly, “There is no Palestinian people,” and Syria’s President Hafez al-Assad echoed the same. The modern national usage of the term emerged only after Israel’s miraculous victory in 1967. And then last month, history added a new chapter. Israel deployed its Arrow-3 missile defense system on German soil as part of a landmark $4.4-billion agreement — the largest arms deal in Israel’s history. The nation that once sought to annihilate us now turns to us for protection. The grandchildren of Jews who hid in forests stand today in uniform on German ground, not as victims but as allies.
At the ceremony, an Israeli officer delivered a speech so poignant it seemed to carry the voices of generations:
Jew, do you hear? You who fought in the forests, who rebelled in the ghettos, who survived on that other planet.
Jew, do you hear? You who embraced your sick mother, who held your frightened children, and in helplessness could do nothing to save them from the hands of death.
Jew, do you hear? You who were led to the gas chambers, who were murdered in the killing pits, when a German officer pulled out a pistol and shot you just like that — only because you were born a Jew.
And Grandpa, do you hear? My grandfather, whose beloved wife and only daughter were murdered by the Nazis.
And Herr Hitler, what about you — do you hear?
And you, SS officer who murdered in Auschwitz, in Treblinka, in Babi Yar, and never stood trial — do you hear?
And what about you, ordinary German citizen, who cheered at the rallies in Nuremberg — do you hear?
This is our revenge.
We, who swore for ten generations to remember and never forget — we are here.
And our revenge is in our victory.
And we are not only at home, with our Arrow system, protecting our people.
We are also here, with you. In your country and on your soil — soaked with our blood.
And it is not you killing us, but we — we are the ones protecting you.
And before the commander of the German Air Force, the Luftwaffe, who receives from us the key to our system, the orchestra of your army is playing our anthem.
And we stand here in our uniforms.
Standing, saluting, crying out —
The Jewish soul yearns.
As if to underscore the moment, our own family recently celebrated the wedding that same day of our niece to a young rabbi, Ari Havlin, who was born and bred in Frankfurt, Germany. In a city once soaked in Jewish tears, a Jewish couple stood beneath a chuppah. Joy rose from the ashes of history. The children of Jacob became Israel all over again.
The Rebbe taught that every Jew carries hidden reservoirs of courage that surface the moment we stop running. When we confront darkness with light, when we wrestle with fear until dawn breaks — that is the moment Jacob becomes Israel, not only in our ancient story but in each of us today.
The world believes we are fighting for territory. We are fighting for identity. For the right to be Israel — the people who wrestle, who rise, who refuse to disappear.
Rabbi Dovid Vigler is the spiritual leader at Chabad of Palm Beach Gardens, with over 85,000 subscribers to his YouTube channel, youtube.com/jewishgardens. Email him at [email protected].
