Why is Israel important to the Jews?

Israel is cherished by Jews for several reasons: Firstly, it is our historical homeland, and the religious centre of Judaism. All of the holy Jewish sites are there. Secondly, history has shown, over and over, that it is just not safe for Jews to be without a national homeland, and to just be minorities in other nations. And as if any more proof of this was needed, the Holocaust, and the death of six million Jews, proved that Jews had to have one tiny corner of the globe where they could determine their own fate and control their own security. Before Israel was re-established, in 1948, the majority of Jews felt acutely vulnerable in other countries. The classic racist remark that was thrown at Jews was 'Go back where you came from!'. Can you imagine how that must have felt, to people who HAD no place to go, if the country they lived in turned against them? Israel has restored to Jews a sense of pride. If we'd had Israel back in WW2, we wouldn't have lost six million of our fellow Jews, or suffered in the death camps, because Israel would have come to help us. No other country even tried to bomb the railway tracks leading to the concentration camps - the Allies could have, but chose not to. To understand more fully what Israel means to us, I recommend the wonderful novel EXODUS, by Leon Uris. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------