In our historical memory there is a group of Jews, whose special action can evoke the feeling that the impossible is possible.
Even in our time, under completely different circumstances and in a period of uncertainty and social rift, will people of similar stature be found?
In all the countries where the Holocaust took place there were thousands of Jews, who as individuals and in groups took on the seemingly futile task of saving souls, not necessarily from among their family members or friends.
We find this phenomenon even in ghettos and camps, and see with amazement that there were people who overcame the natural tendency, certainly in times of extreme distress: to concentrate on personal survival.
For example, in Hungary during the Holocaust, hundreds of Jews, mostly very young, took on a far-reaching task: to adopt a false identity, trick the local fascists and the Nazis, and risk their lives to help other Jews be saved.
The hundreds of members of the Zionist youth movements established a rescue underground, took in thousands of refugees from other countries in Hungary and later smuggled thousands in the opposite direction, across the border.
They produced "kosher" certificates, distributed food and located hiding places.
Even if they failed, their activity was an example of courage intended to achieve a moral goal.
Let us mentally compare ourselves, and our children and grandchildren - today's school students in Israel: would they and we be up to such a task?
It seems that the human soul is charged with forces that are not visible at times as their correction.
From the Holocaust we can learn on the one hand that some sane people may deteriorate to the point of mass murder;
And on the other hand - in the souls of "ordinary" people lies the ability to face extreme challenges and succeed in them.
Israeli society is good in our eyes because it is ours, but there is room for great improvement.
In recent generations, norms of hatred of difference and of focusing on private needs at the expense of the common have strengthened.
This trend is replaced by a culture of equal human value and placing helping others and contributing to the whole at the center.
Tomorrow, three holocaust survivors from Hungary, in their 90s, who are also lifesavers, will meet at Kibbutz Zora.
Hundreds of second and third generation members will also come to the meeting.
At the gathering, the survivors and their families will receive the sign of the Jewish savior in the Holocaust.
The committee to honor the heroism of the Jewish rescuers and the worldwide Bnei Brith organization will thus honor 210 Jews, almost all of whom have already passed away.
Their story is not only that of the persecuted and survivors - and some of them did not survive at all;
This is a story about those who risked and acted to save others, who were not members of their family, from death at the hands of the Nazis and their assistants.
Such a gathering places before the youth in Israel and the world, and perhaps also before our leaders of their parties, a historical and current model of adherence to values, of courage and resourcefulness.
Unparalleled leadership.
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