Rubicon3

Israel at 60

A video from the American Jewish Committee, with original footage of the 1947 UN partition vote:

From Front Page Magazine, a comparison of earlier Israel to the Israel of today:

Growing up in the Israel of the 1960’s meant experiencing a bonding intimacy of idealism grounded in the soil of this newly liberated Jewish homeland. The Holocaust was put behind us, and was perhaps even a taboo for discussion. But the lessons of the Holocaust remained fresh and real to young Israelis.

Self-reliance and sacrifice were the demands of the day. Israel in the early 1960’s was an idealistic society and nobody needed to be lectured on Zionism. Israelis resented anyone’s fulminations on idealistic Zionism, since it was practiced rather than discussed.

In today’s Israel, the leftist post-Zionists no longer see Zionism beyond a topic for discussion. Does it indicate the death of Zionism and an end to the idealism that made several generations of pioneers toil the soil and shed their blood to make the dream of a Jewish State a living reality? Not really!

The State of Israel is a reality cemented in established institutions, rooted in a strong and flourishing civil society that enjoys a free press, the rule of law, and a democratic government. Like all modern states, Israel is no longer a “developing country,” but part of the developed world with an average per capita income of $30,000. Its GNP is larger than that of all its Arab neighbors combined and it exports to other western countries some of the most sophisticated computer technology, optics, electronics, military hardware and software, and the best medical devices that high–tech can produce. While the lives of many of those living in the greater Tel Aviv and Haifa areas may resemble those of western Europeans and Americans, the pioneering spirit can still be found in the communities of Judea, Samaria, Golan, the Negev and Galilee and even in a few Jerusalem neighborhoods.

The intimacy of a small-beleaguered nation of the 1960’s has, in 2008, given way to great material expectations. The streets of Tel Aviv are a testament to such material changes. In the 1960’s, only two out of ten Israelis owned a motor vehicle. Today, it is about 9 out of 10. Israelis own the latest and the best gadgets, and the fashion leaders in New York, LA, Paris, or London can be assured that what’s “hip” in Soho is “cool” in Tel Aviv too.

Veteran Israelis who put their lives on the line in successive wars have sought more comfortable lives for their children. They have reasoned that if their sons and daughters must still depend on arms to preserve their country from attack, at least let them enjoy the luxuries of life. Israelis travel abroad more than virtually any other people per capita. Israelis can be found trekking the far corners of the earth in what has become a rite-of-passage following completion of their compulsory military service.

Link

Six decades of Israeli history as seen in photographs from private albums.

The European Jewish Press discusses commemoration plans:

Israel was founded on May 14, 1948, when its first Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion, declared statehood as Britain's UN mandate over historic Palestine was expiring.

Holidays in Israel, however, are marked according to the Hebrew calender, so the celebrations are to begin on May 7, the eve of what in Israel is known as Independence Day.

As part of dozens of additional projects, children have begun collecting 1.5 million marbles, symbolizing the 1.5 Jewish children who died in the Nazi Holocaust. Artists plan to use these marbles to construct a memorial to them.

A highlight of the celebrations is a three-day international conference hosted by President Shimon Peres in Jerusalem.

Many of the world's leaders  are to attend the festivities, including US President George Bush, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, former Soviet president Michael Gorbachev and former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.

Like Bush, some of the other dozen presidents on the list have been to Israel before, but this will be a first visit for Mongolian President Nambaryn Enkhbayar, among others.

Other presidents to attend the conference include Victor Yushchenko of Ukraine, resident Lech Kaczynski of Poland, Paul Kagame of Rwanda, Michael Saakashvili of Georgia, Stjepan Mesic of Croatia, Bamir Topi of Albania, Blaise Campoare of Burkina Faso, Danilo Türk of Slovenia and Valdis Zatlers of Latvia.

As a Nobel Prize winner, Peres invited other Nobel Prize laureates, at least seven of whom will be coming to Israel to share their views of the future.

Prominent figures from the private sector who will attend include Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, Google co-founder Sergey Brin and media tycoon Rupert Murdoch.

The agenda for the conference covers a myriad of topics, including the future of the world economy, the content and meaning of a Jewish state, the extent to which Jewish tradition is relevant in tomorrow's world, whether a green Israel is possible, the tipping point of the geopolitical arena, Israel's ability to continue to be a leading contender in the world of science and cultivating future leaders of Israel and the Jewish people.

Link

Columnist David Brumer asks why Israel is cast as the obstacle to peace in the region when it has "said yes to virtually every partition plan put forth in modern times while the Palestinians have said no" :

For more than 3,000 years, Jews have been spiritually as well as corporeally bonded to the land of Israel. In 1921, Winston Churchill proclaimed, "It is manifestly right that the Jews, who are scattered all over the world, should have a national center and a national home. And where else could that be but in this land of Palestine, with which for more than 3,000 years they have been intimately and profoundly associated?" For French President Nicolas Sarkozy, the recreation of a sovereign Jewish state "is the most significant event of the 20th century." He described Israel's re-establishment as "the 20th century's miracle" and noted that "defending its existence is an international duty."

So why, 60 years later, or 3,060 years, if you will, is Israel living under such a barrage of existential threats? Why does Israel still have to prove itself worthy of being included in the family of nations? Why indeed is Israel singled out as the one nation on Earth whose very existence is questioned? Cynthia Ozick bristles at the "the scandal of calling into question a living nation's existence ... The Big Lie that demonizes Israel and contaminates the viler estuaries of what is nowadays dubbed 'the international community' ... ."

Yet among "progressive" intellectuals, especially in Europe, it is axiomatic that Israel is not merely "not doing enough to for peace in the Middle East," but is responsible for Islamist "outrage" against the West; that the Palestinian-Israeli conflict remains at the core of the Arab world's grievances, and, if only this conflict could be solved, peace would ensue. Leaving aside the illogical nature of this proposition (al-Qaida and other radical Islamists have as much a gripe against Christian nations whom they see as usurping their place in history), it is hard to find a country that has striven more for peaceful co-existence with its neighbors than Israel. No nation has taken more demonstrable risks for peace. Israel proved its intention to live in harmony with its neighbors when it enacted peace treaties with Egypt in 1979 and Jordan in 1994. Israel has shown its willingness to make painful sacrifices in the name of peace, withdrawing from all of Gaza in 2005 while evacuating more than 8,000 Israeli citizens from their homes.

Israel has said yes to virtually every partition plan put forth in modern times while the Palestinians have said no, starting with the Peel Commission in 1937, which would have given the Palestinians nearly 80 percent of the land between the "River and the Sea." In 1947, the Palestinians again rejected statehood on 45 percent of the land, while Israel agreed to the remaining 55 percent divided into three cantons (60 percent of which is desert). Finally, in 2000 Israel offered the Palestinians more than 96 percent of contiguous West Bank land and all of Gaza in the hopes that the century-old conflict could end. The Palestinian response to that offer was the Second Intifada, more aptly understood by Israelis as a Terror War unleashed against the Jewish State.

Yet Israel continues to be viewed as the obstacle to peace in the Middle East.

Link

Why we should support Israel:

The last living witness to the birth of Israel, at 93, recalls what it was like:

Arieh Handler participated in Israel's birth on two separate occasions. The lesser event, in his view, was on May 14, 1948, when he was among some 200 persons invited to the Tel Aviv hall where David Ben-Gurion proclaimed the establishment of the state. Handler, 93 this month, is believed to be the only one of those present still alive.

"...The Arabs were quite strong and the British didn't like us," said Handler. "We didn't know whether we could oppose the British empire."

Some delegates favored accepting the American proposal for very different reasons; they believed that if the partition proposal were scrapped the Jewish state could expand beyond the territory allocated to it in the UN resolution.

The debate was stormy, Handler remembers, and lasted close to six hours. "It seemed at times that people might come to blows."

In the end, it was Ben-Gurion who decided the issue with a passionate speech. Despite the fact that neighboring Arab states had 40 times the population of the Yishuv, he said, and despite the abundance of weapons in the hands of the Arabs and the assistance they were receiving from the British, no Jewish settlement had yet been captured or abandoned. (This would change shortly.) The most difficult test still lay ahead, with the incursion of the Arab armies, he said, but the Yishuv would prevail if it summoned up the powers inherent in it.

When the issue was put to a vote, Ben-Gurion won a clear victory. "We have decided," said the concluding resolution, "relying on the authority of the Zionist movement and the support of the entire Jewish people, that upon the termination of the mandatory regime there shall be an end to foreign rule in Palestine and the governing body of the Jewish state shall come into being."

Says Handler: "This event was more important than the actual signing of the Declaration of Independence. We felt at the time very clearly that the meeting was decisive."

Long article - read the whole thing.

From the Jewish Chronicle (London), some Haiku:

Haiku Mania

By Rabbi Elizabeth Tikvah Sarah

To mark Israel’s upcoming 60th anniversary, we challenged JC readers to write a haiku —the traditional Japanese verse form — to sum up what the country means to you.

This obviously struck a chord, with over 100 readers taking on the tricky three-line, 17-syllable structure of the haiku to express views about Israel, from the poetic to the political.

A variety of themes emerged, with many entrants extolling Israel for providing oppressed Jews with a homeland, this example by Ruth Landsman being fairly typical:

Israel means to me
A safe haven for all Jews,
A place to call home

A sizeable number of readers chose to lament the enduring conflict with the Palestinians. Witness this entry from Hannah Hutchinson:

Jew and Muslim, sons
Each of Abraham — long-term
Sibling rivalry

Some opted for the humorous approach (which we said might win extra points), and found a rich source of amusement in the restrictions of the haiku form itself. This from Barry Hyman:

Eretz at sixty?
How can you do it justice
In just five syllab…?

Food, naturally enough, figured large, particularly falafel, as this example by 10-year-old Jasmine Sadlik demonstrates:

Feeding the people
Falafel in pitta bread
Ever so tasty!

Falafel was one attraction that inspired Adam Mizler to express his enthusiasm for Israel. There was another:

Beautiful women,
And the best fresh falafels…
Man, I love Israel!

Some, like Rose Abrahamson, simply strived to conjure up a memorable image:

The train was chugging
Through sweet-scented orange groves
To Jerusalem

A few more:

She-ma Yis-ra-el,
A-do-nai E-lo-hei-nu,
A-do-nai E-chad

Moshe Rabbennu

(sent in by
Jonathan Samuel)

Children of Israel;
Wandered for thousands of years.
Where were the adults?

Adam Grossman

Sixty years have passed
It’s about time we had peace
In the Middle East

Joseph Adams

Shalom Aleichem
Two brothers in God’s own house
Salaam Aleikum

David Ury

Sixty years ago
Israel became our homeland
But we’re still fighting

Laura Gold

Tattoos on bodies
Dent on cars. Cellphone clubbers
In non-kosher bars

Monty Goldin

I'm not reprinting them, but also included were some anti-Israel haikus.  The author of the article deplores them and so do I.

Some of you might be familiar with the fact that Israel has a long history.  There's an Ancient Book called, "The Bible" that tells the story. Jews read it in its original Hebrew, one section at a time, in temple throughout the year.

American Thinker has some of the background:

The nation of Israel is about to commemorate its 60th birthday. That's the official, politically correct, line. But to be truly accurate, a cake celebrating the milestone should have more candles than 60 -- thousands more.

While it is most certainly true that David Ben-Gurion stood in Tel Aviv in front of a portrait of Zionist Patriarch Theodor Herzl and proclaimed Israel's independence from Britain on May 14, 1948, (immediately after which the armies of five Arab nations attacked the Jewish state), this year's celebration would more accurately be "Israel 3,200" or perhaps even "Israel 3,400."

In other words, the popularly promoted notion that Israel was "founded", "created", or "established" just in 1948 to give the Jews a piece of land by the Western powers out of guilt over the Holocaust is not accurate. Israel's detractors use this claim to try to delegitimize the Middle East's only true democracy.

After all, Israel has really been in existence since at least 1200 BCE and some experts place the establishment of Israel as the home of the Jewish people as early as 1406 BCE.

It is dutifully recorded in Scripture (Book of Joshua, ArtScroll Edition) that after the Children of Israel had gathered on the eastern bank of the Jordan River, as instructed to do so by G-d, that "When the bearers of the Ark [of the Covenant] arrived at the Jordan and the feet of the Kohanim, the bearers of the Ark, were immersed in the edge of the water - and the Jordan was overflowing its banks all the days of the harvest season - the waters descending from upstream stood still and they rose up in one column ... and was cut off; and the people crossed opposite Jericho. ... [A]ll Israel crossing on dry land until the entire nation finished crossing the Jordan." Joshua 3:14-17

Next, G-d commanded Joshua to select 12 men - one from each Israelite tribe -- to each gather one stone from amidst the river bed, bring it into the land of Israel and erect a memorial "and these stones shall remain a remembrance for the children of Israel forever." Joshua 4:7.

Scripture chronicles the date of this miracle: "The people ascended from the Jordan on the tenth of the first month, and encamped at Gilgal at the eastern end of Jericho." Joshua 4:19.

Nisan is the first month of the Jewish calendar, and this year the 10^th of Nisan coincides with April 15 in the Gregorian calendar. [Note: Though Nisan is the first month, the Jewish New Year is marked in a different month.]

The Children of Israel -- better known today as the Jewish People -- has inhabited the land of Israel continuously ever since, despite a string of wars, conquests and expulsions.

Read the rest.

The Original Source.

Dennis Prager: The Case For Judaism

Prager recently gave a talk on this subject which I can't recommend highly enough.  It is summarized here. 

Happy Passover!

Heading out of town to visit relatives.

L'shanah haba'ah yerushalayim!

Leora of HP

An overdue link and recommendation:  Every once in a great while I come across a blogger whose interests line up with mine and with whom I feel an immediate affinity.  Leora is one of those.  But more, she's a wonderful writer and artist, very knowledgeable about Judaism and a very nice person as well.  I am glad that she stopped here and commented weeks ago, thus allowing me to find her blog and make her acquaintance.

For those interested in art, Judaism, nutrition, psychology, parenting, website design and/or Highland Park, New Jersey, or if you simply want to read an excellent new blog, I highly recommend visiting Here in HP.  Oh and by the way, there's a wonderful interview of Leora up on the Iconia blog, regarding the intersection of faith and art.

Let Them Eat Horseradish

An Open Letter to Senator Obama

MUST READ

It's Up to the Jews to Save Judaism

Rabbi David Gutterman writes:

The first historic testimony from a non-Jewish source for the existence of the Jewish people appears on a black granite chronicle called a stele housed in the Cairo Museum. It's called the Merneptah stele after the 13th century B.C.E. Egyptian pharaoh. On it was recorded a virtual litany of his military conquests.

Yet when historians encountered the following line, they were fascinated and piqued. Couched within this elaborate panegyric to Merneptah's military prowess is the boast that "Israel is laid waste, her seed is no more." Is it not intriguing, if not ironic, that the first historical non-Jewish document about the Jewish people is an obituary?

From Merneptah to Mein Kampf, Amalek to Antiochus, Haman to Hitler, Chmielnicki to Khomeini, Achashverosh to Ahmadinejad -- there have been endless attempts at writing the epitaph of the Jewish people.

This Shabbat is special; it is already referred to in our Mishnah (circa 180 C.E.) as Shabbat Zakhor -- the Sabbath of Remembrance. No other people is as consumed with the notion of remembering as the Jews. No other people is as intoxicated with its imperative.

No, Jews don't live in the past; rather, as Elie Wiesel has written, "the past lives in us."

This Shabbat, we conclude the Torah reading with a reminder about our history's first intended author of our genocide. His name was Amalek. Amalek was a person, a nation and a concept. He is the architect and archetype par excellence of anti-Semitism.

But it's worth noting that the Torah has two approaches when dealing with Amalek, and they both warrant our attention. One text concludes with God promising: "I will eradicate Amalek," and the other text concludes with the admonition to the Jewish people: "You will eradicate Amalek." So which is it?

Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik resolved this contradiction. The Torah is admitting of two scenarios. When it comes to our physical survival -- when the Amaleks and Hamans of the world attempt to write our obituary notice -- God has promised to protect the Jewish people. Even against the fact of our historic dislocations and exiles, Inquisitions and a Holocaust, the Jewish people will survive.

But when it comes to our spiritual survival, when our ideals and faith are assailed and assaulted, God says: "Jewish people, take ownership; be the protagonists; be proactive." As Rabbi Soloveitchik so piquantly taught, "God will see to it that Jews survive. Jews have to see to it that Judaism will survive."

A major accomplishment: Middle son is coming with me to services on Friday night.

Polish Rabbis Meet as a Group For the First Time Since the Holocaust

A sign of the re-growth of Jewish community in Poland:

Nearly 70 years after its demise, the Rabbinical Association of Poland was relaunched over the weekend at a ceremony in Lodz attended by Israel's Chief Ashkenazi Rabbi Yona Metzger.

Metzger signed a special scroll together with Polish Chief Rabbi Michael Schudrich and other community rabbis serving in Warsaw, Krakow, Wroclaw and Lodz declaring the formal reestablishment of the group, which prior to the Holocaust had united all of Poland's rabbis.

The event took place as part of a weekend conference arranged by the Shavei Israel organization for Poland's "Hidden Jews" which brought together 150 people from across the country, many of whom only recently learned that they have Jewish roots.

"Jewish life in Poland has been growing stronger in recent years, as many young Poles have begun to discover their family's Jewish ancestry, which was often hidden out of fear of persecution by the Nazis and the Communists," said Shavei Israel Chairman and Jerusalem Post columnist Michael Freund.

"This trend towards embracing - rather than concealing - one's Jewish identity in a place where the Germans sought to extinguish it six decades ago, is testimony to the unbreakable spirit of the Jewish people," Freund added.

Metzger said he was impressed by the revival taking place among young Polish Jews, and he also praised the establishment of the rabbinical group, asserting that it would help to bolster Jewish and Zionist identity.

"I was deeply moved to see the awakening that is taking place among young people in Poland who are reclaiming the Jewish identity that was hidden from them," Metzger told the Post. "These were days filled with much emotion and many tears." The newly-established rabbinical group, he said, "will hopefully serve as an address for those Jewish souls that are stirring anew, and will enable them to come to appreciate the value of Torah, Zion, Yiddishkeit and Israel."

On the eve of World War II, Poland was home to over 3,000,000 Jews, more than 90 percent of whom were murdered in the Holocaust. While the current community officially numbers some 4,000 people, it is estimated that there are tens of thousands of "hidden Jews" living throughout the country.

My mother's father came from Poland, a town called Rozhan.  He came over to the US in the early part of the 20th century. He learned to speak English, but could only read and write in Yiddish until the day he died.  He was a tailor and owned his own dry cleaning shop.

Thank God he came to the US, because there were precious few survivors of the Holocaust from Rozhan.  The town was decimated. Sometimes I visit Jewish Generation's Rozhan memorial book, and read stories of what the town was like before, during and after:

...Early next morning S.S. men woke us up shouting "Come out, come out!" They led us to the market place at the end of the town, near the synagogue. At the time we were: my parents o.b.m. (of blessed memory) Abraham Isaak and Esther Shafranovitch, my elder brother Fishel, my sister Golda and my younger brother Menahem. My sister Freda-Leah was already married and was not with us and my sister Tsivel was staying at Warsaw. My two eldest brothers were in Eretz-Israel: Nahman at Ein-Hashofet and Haim-Meir near Tel-Aviv. Of all these only Nahman, Haim-Meir and myself survived. May God revenge the others! They forced us to raise our hands and they took pictures. The town was in flames. The Poles were allowed to leave in horse carts with their belongings, using a small bridge not far from the synagogue, but the Jews were stopped at the market place, which was full of men, women and children, who were kept standing there for hours on end with their hands up. We didn't know what they'd do to us.

Some said they'd throw a bomb and kill us. Our uncle Geltshinsky, my mother's brother-in-law, tried to escape together with the Poles, but a Gentile betrayed him to the Germans who shot him on the spot for all to see. Thereafter any rumour could be believed, but the Nazis had a nefarious plan of their own. They led us from the market place to the synagogue and blocked all the doors. Many of the houses around were on fire and we were afraid that they were about to burn us.

Some of the Nazis came in and announced that all the able-bodied men would be taken to work. They wanted to take my brother Fishel too, but my parents entreated them with tears to leave him, as he had a crippled hand, and they agreed. That was before we knew of their intention to burn us, and we were happy that he was allowed to stay with us. After a while we saw that the house next to the synagogue was on fire. Then my parents were distressed that they had not let my brother go. The cries and wailings in the synagogue were indescribable. Some people were injured. I saw an old woman with a wound in her belly - and nobody to help her. Many confessed themselves, prayed whatever prayers came to their lips. Utter despair reigned.

The synagogue and its courtyard were full of people. Some were standing near the bridge and all around were German guards. Just then a German officer crossed the bridge in his car; he heard the wailings, stopped and asked what it was all about. The soldiers told him that one of them had been found dead the night before and that the Jews had done it. Therefore they had decided to roast us alive. A miracle happened: the officer had mercy and he gave the order to let us out and bring us to the other side of the river. Some of the soldiers even helped old people to cross the bridge. There we were told not to budge. So we sat on the spot and witnessed how the synagogue with all the Tora scrolls of Govorovo and Rozhan was burned to the ground.

That night we slept in the open. Meanwhile the men were burying the dead. In the morning no soldier was to be seen. They had left Govorovo and it was all in ashes. We went back and found a few pear trees with fruit on them wasted in the fire. From there we moved on to Dlugoshlodlo, where we stayed until the end of the Sukkoth holiday; then we were handed over to our Russian "brothers" at Zambrov. And here began a new chapter of sufferings - but that is for others to tell.

I am glad that the Jewish community is growing, but I don't know how anyone could live there, amongst those horrible memories.

The Jewish Conscience

Shira Bat Sarah writes:

Every aspect of Jewish life is rooted in respect for life. A discussion during Shabbat services three weeks ago brought this to the forefront. In the d'var Torah, we were asked the question: Which is the easiest commandment to follow and which is the hardest?

The easiest commandment is not to take eggs or chicks from a nest while the mother bird is present. This is to prevent the mother bird pain from seeing her eggs or chicks taken. Kashrut is followed for similar reasons. These rules are meant to make us conscience of all our actions. It governs our speech as well.

Read the whole thing.

The Jewish Americans: A Review

Interesting thoughts from Joseph Epstein on the PBS show.  In Humanities Magazine, he writes:

As someone who feels a strong link with Israel, I have never for a moment thought of abandoning the United States to live there. As a writer it would cut me off from my subjects; as a man it would uproot me painfully. One of the greatest strokes of good luck in my life has been to be born and live in the United States. And yet, as a Jewish American with an historical sense, it is impossible for me to be unaware of how important the state of Israel is. Letty Cottin Pogrebin puts it well when she says, “This [America] is our country, that [Israel] is our home,” and then goes on to quote Robert Frost saying that “home is where they have to take you in.”

The Jewish Americans ends on a note of slightly confused promise. Anti-Semitism appears less currently than at any time in the history of Jewish Americans. Much in the Jewish religion is itself undergoing radical change, at least in its Reform and Reconstructionist branches, where women are now among the majority of those studying for the rabbinate. At the same time, there has been a resurgence of Orthodox Judaism among younger Jews in the United States. So we see in this excellent documentary some Jews doing yoga sessions under the guidance of a woman rabbi, while others walk the streets in silken kaftans and long white socks as if living in eighteenth-century Poland.

What The Jewish Americans does not take up is that, irony of ironies, the relative absence of anti-Semitism in America today along the increase of mixed marriages between Jews and gentiles may ultimately be the biggest threat faced by Jewish Americans who wish to continue to live fully as Jews and as Americans both. The consequence of perfect assimilation, so longed for by earlier generations of Jewish Americans, could mean the end of the Jews as a distinctive people in America. Like the man said, it's a complex fate, that of being a Jewish American. 

Huge Archaeological Find in Israel

From the Jerusalem Post:

A stone seal bearing the name of one of the families who acted as servants in the First Temple and then returned to Jerusalem after being exiled to Babylonia has been uncovered in an archeological excavation in Jerusalem's City of David, a prominent Israeli archeologist said Wednesday.

The 2,500-year-old black stone seal, which has the name "Temech" engraved on it, was found earlier this week amid stratified debris in the excavation under way just outside the Old City walls near the Dung Gate, said archeologist Dr. Eilat Mazar, who is leading the dig. 

...

"The seal of the Temech family gives us a direct connection between archeology and the biblical sources and serves as actual evidence of a family mentioned in the Bible," she said. "One cannot help being astonished by the credibility of the biblical source as seen by the archaeological find."

Palestinians continue in their unconscionable attempts to destroy archaeological evidence of Jewish history in order to support false claims that Jewish temples never existed on the Temple Mount and thus reinforce their hold on the territory. Thankfully, this is one piece of history left unscathed.

(Hat tip: Chaya)

From the Jerusalem Post:

A stone seal bearing the name of one of the families who acted as servants in the First Temple and then returned to Jerusalem after being exiled to Babylonia has been uncovered in an archeological excavation in Jerusalem's City of David, a prominent Israeli archeologist said Wednesday.

The 2,500-year-old black stone seal, which has the name "Temech" engraved on it, was found earlier this week amid stratified debris in the excavation under way just outside the Old City walls near the Dung Gate, said archeologist Dr. Eilat Mazar, who is leading the dig. 

...

"The seal of the Temech family gives us a direct connection between archeology and the biblical sources and serves as actual evidence of a family mentioned in the Bible," she said. "One cannot help being astonished by the credibility of the biblical source as seen by the archaeological find."

Palestinians continue in their unconscionable attempts to destroy archaeological evidence of Jewish history in order to support false claims that Jewish temples never existed on the Temple Mount and thus reinforce their hold on the territory. Thankfully, this is one piece of history left unscathed.

(Hat tip: Chaya)

From Pinsk to America

Beryl, pious but poor, was applying for a job as shamesh of a synagogue in Pinsk. The interview was going well, until the president of the shul handed Beryl the shul bulletin, in Yiddish, to read. Embarrassed, Beryl admitted that he was illiterate.

"We can't hire a shamesh who doesn't know how to read," the synagogue president said.

With no other prospects in Pinsk, Beryl sailed to America. Like other immigrants, he became a peddler. He prospered. Quickly he was a business owner, then a magnate, then a multi-millionaire.

In a business meeting one day, one of Beryl's employees handed him a report to read. "I don't know how to read," Beryl told him.

The employee was amazed. "Do you know where you would be today if you knew how to read?" he asked.

"Of course," Beryl answered. "I'd be a shamesh in Pinsk."

Link

Self-Hating Jews

A vote is being held for 2007's most self-hating Jews of the year at Yid With Lid. There are 4 categories:

1. Self Hating Jews of 2007-24 Nominees
2. Not Self Hating---JUST STUPID- 8 Nominees
3. Self Hating Ex-Jews-2 Nominees
4. Self Hating Media- 3 Nominees

Each Nominee has at least one hyper-linked article supporting their case--why they should win in their category.

Jewish Comedy

Why are there so many Jewish comedians?

 

Guilt and Pleasure

"Guilt and Pleasure" is a terrific magazine, each issue of which is devoted to a different subject - all of Jewish orientation, though many would be of interest to anyone and everyone.  The publishers intend it to be used to engender salon-like discussion.  I don't know how they stay in business because they post each and every article in its entirety on the internet. I suspect that if and when they gather enough regular readers, they will stop doing so.  In the meantime, there are a few excellent and interesting pieces from their latest issue (the "sound" issue, which includes many articles about the music industry) that I'd like to bring to your attention. They are well-written and as my kids like to put it, "edumacational":

1.  The Jewish roots of scat?

Scat — vocal solo composed of nonsense syllables — first appeared in Louis Armstrong’s 1926 song “The Heebie Jeebies Dance.” Armstrong initially claimed that back in the days of one-take recording, with no technology to add in an overdub, he had dropped the sheet music and just began singing sounds on the spot as a substitute for the missing lyrics. However, Armstrong reportedly later told fellow bandleader Cab Calloway and others that scat derived from the sound he described as “the Jews’ rockin,” which he had heard growing up in a mixed black-Jewish neighborhood in New Orleans.

Fans have come up with two interpretations of this: either Armstrong was walking past a synagogue and heard rapid-fire davening, which struck his ear as nonsense, or he heard nigunim, Hasidic melodies intended to induce a meditative state before prayer (nigunim can also serve as lullabies).

In his writings, Armstrong also recalled lullabies sung by a Mrs. Karnofsky — a woman whose family befriended and employed him as a kid, and to whom he largely attributes his admiration of Jews and Jewish life.

Could Hebrew have inspired the “heebie jeebies”?

Scat was soon ubiquitous, with Armstrong’s friend Calloway becoming a second master of the form. In his greatest hit, “Minnie the Moocher,” Calloway calls out scat phrases and his band responds in black gospel style, yet the minor key and sweeping sound of his scat also recalls cantorial song. More

2.  Tin Pan Alley - A Jewish industry killed by a Jew.  Guess who and how?

During the sweltering summer of 1962, Neil Sedaka’s “Breaking Up Is Hard to Do” piped over and over — and over — through transistor radios and up the charts. Its catchy hook and painfully simple lyrics (Remember when you held me tight / And you kissed me all through the night / Think of all that we’ve been through / And breaking up is har d to do) were the sort of formulaic ingredients that fed the Tin Pan Alley hit factory where Sedaka worked and that dominated popular music at the time.

“Every time I ran out of lyrics, I’d throw in a ‘doo-be-doo,’ and it became a trademark,” Sedaka told Mix magazine a few years ago. “In fact, the night before we tracked ‘Breaking Up Is Hard to Do,’ I called up our arranger, Alan Lorber, and told him I wanted to incorporate ‘down dooby doo down down’ as a prominent part of the vocal arrangement. The record came to be known as the sandwich song. There’s a piece of bread to begin with — the syllabization — then the meat and finally another piece of bread. All of my hits in the ’50s and ’60s used this same technique.”

It was, for a time, an unbeatable system. But the following year brought an attack on Tin Pan Alley, the Midtown Manhattan hit-making industry that produced so many songs like Sedaka’s and whose hooks still resonate more than forty years later. While Sedaka, along with Jerry Leiber, Mike Stoller, Carole (Klein) King, Gerry Goffin, Cynthia Weill, Howie Greenberg, Barry Mann, Jeff Barry, Burt Bacharach, Ellie Greenwich, and dozens of others churned out hits from cramped offices in the Brill Building at 1619 Broadway and its sister (and rival) center at 1650 Broadway — the heart of Tin Pan Alley — Greenwich Village was nurturing an assault on popular music that in the end resulted in the demise of the hit-making business uptown. More

3. Jonathan Richman, suburban Jew, outsider, and with his band the Modern Lovers, a forerunner of punk rock:

For the purpose of making sense of Jonathan Richman, the ideas of Polish-Jewish Marxist Isaac Deutscher are helpful. In his famous 1958 essay “The Non-Jewish Jew,” Deutscher attempted to explain why Jews ranked highly among modern Europe’s most innovative thinkers: people such as Spinoza, Marx, and Freud. He did not attribute this to superior genes or religious values; instead, Deutscher came up with a sociological explanation. Many of Europe’s great iconoclasts, he said, were Jews who had “looked for ideals and fulfillment” beyond Jewry but could not gain full entry into the larger, gentile society. As outsiders twice over, these “non-Jewish Jews” adhered to no entrenched beliefs. They could perceive what members of the majority could not, leading them to develop all sorts of subversive theories in the arts and sciences. Those theories were born out of a certain Jewish condition without expressing any directly Jewish beliefs.

Deutscher did not write “The Non-Jewish Jew” with young, postwar, suburban Jews in mind; he likely would have seen them as too affluent, assimilated, and contented compared to the people he discussed. What Deutscher wouldn’t have been able to perceive, however, was the dissonance many Jews felt in suburban America. Jewish kids typically weren’t captains of the football team or homecoming queens. They weren’t likely to be voted Cutest or Most Desired Desert Island Companion, although they stood a good chance of winning Funniest or Class Treasurer. They worried about their noses and hard-to-manage hair and the humiliation of having to shave a nascent moustache in the seventh grade. They faced occasional taunts and the odd punch. And they suffered through Hebrew school several days a week while their gentile peers ran free. Those suburban Jews were not ostracized, but they didn’t quite fit into the mainstream, either.

They had two basic choices, the Jews of suburbia. They could try to adapt (which entailed its own psychological and practical challenges) or go their own way. Jonathan Richman chose the second route. More

Shir La'maalot

Sung by Yosef Karduner:

121:1 A Song of Ascents. I will lift up mine eyes unto the mountains: from whence shall my help come? 121:2 My help cometh from the Lord, who made heaven and earth. 121:3 He will not suffer thy foot to be moved; He that keepeth thee will not slumber. 121:4 Behold, He that keepeth Israel doth neither slumber nor sleep. 121:5 the Lord is thy keeper; the Lord is thy shade upon thy right hand. 121:6 The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night. 121:7 the Lord shall keep thee from all evil; He shall keep thy soul. 121:8 the Lord shall guard thy going out and thy coming in, from this time forth and for ever.

The Rebirth of Jewish Community in Germany

Discussed in a brief but interesting article here.

Being a Jew

I wouldn't trade places with the Queen of England.  I only wish I could put into words how much, the unmeasurable value, that being a Jew* means to me.  But there's no doubt that the heritage brings along some baggage with it. 

I am in the middle of a very slow reading of Ruth Wisse's "Jews and Power." Unfortunately, my memory stinks and I don't have the time/opportunity to sit down and read uninterrupted very often.  I do a lot of writing (it doesn't all find its way here by any means, and a good deal of it just gets deleted).  I don't consider myself a writer (no talent for it) but I still enjoy doing it and find it helps me sort out thoughts.  So, a great deal of the time I might spend reading is devoted elsewhere.  I plan on taking Wisse's book with me when we go on vacation in a few days.  Think I'll bring a long a highlighter as well.  It's very relevant to me right now, and I want to learn and remember what she has to teach.

John Podhoretz touches upon some of Wisse's ideas in a must-read post at Contentions.  He also describes some episodes of antisemitism through the eyes of a  new documentary film, and some thoughts that make me stop and say: This is important to make note of.

*I deliberately frame it as "being a Jew" rather than "being Jewish," because I abhor the fact that the term "Jew" was turned into an epithet.  It's just my own small expression of protest. "Being a Jew" encompasses both religion and identity; it is a declaration that I am who I am and I don't care what anyone else thinks.

Dov Shurin

This song has been called the "theme song of the struggle against disengagement."  More information about it can be found here. After watching this video, I'm thinking Mr. Shurin probably lived in California in a past life:

Jackie Mason on Freedom of Religion in America - Updated

We sing Ma'oz Tzur every Chanukah on the first night.

Coming back later to add:

In the video above, Jackie Mason speaks about Jewish appreciation for America.  Just wanted to add that I agree with every word of what he had to say.

On a related note, Bookworm has a must-read post that I've been meaning to link to.  She wrote about a discussion she attended at a San Francisco synagogue.  The speakers were well-known Jewish conservatives Dennis Prager, John Podhoretz, and Mona Charen.  After the speakers gave their talks, Bookworm came up with a terrific question about dual loyalty to the US and Israel:

...At the end of the evening, I asked a question that got some very interesting answers. I didn’t go into the evening expecting to ask this question, by the way, but it seemed an appropriate question by evening’s end. You see, it was patently clear, both from the conversation at the front of the room, the periodic audience applause, and the audience questions, that people in that room were both fiercely supportive of Israel and deeply patriotic Americans. That love for and belief in two countries reminded me of a question that’s been thrown at me over the years (or, perhaps, it could be categorized more accurately as an accusation): “How can you support Israel and call yourself a loyal American?” So when Michael Medved went around the room with a microphone, I caught his eye, and quickly asked “For those people who claim that America’s and Israel’s interests are antithetical to each other, how do we justify or explain our loyalty to both?”

Read the responses of the speakers and the very interesting blog comments that follow.

In Honor of the Last Night of Chanukah...

...my favorite Chanukah song, Light One Candle by Peter, Paul and Mary. Love the lyrics. Love the music. Not fond of Peter Yarrow's hocking before the song begins, but he did write it and for that I applaud him:

Chinese Food on Christmas

This song underwent a nice upgrade from the version that was floating around last year: 

Hat Tip: Mark

The Steven Spielberg Archive of Jewish Film

A short film overview of Spielberg's collection of rare 20th century footage which gave me goosebumps.

Among Other..er...uh..Things

Mark is telling the story of Chanukah, a little bit at a time each night.  Nice.

My site is G-rated (more or less), his site is not.  Thankfully, he's not a snob and links to me anyway.

Calling All Israeli/Jewish Music Mavens

Does anyone know the name of the singer and the song that begins about 3 minutes and 10 seconds into this video? I thought it might be David Broza, but I am not sure.  Neshama Carlebach's David Melach and Mazel Tov are played after the ceremony. The groom plays Eshet Chayil on the guitar. And then a minute or two later, more of the mystery song is played.

Jewish Philosophy

It is wrestling with our nature, rather than perfection, which constitutes true righteousness...Jews look up to Abraham, who made mistakes in his parenting of Ishmael. Jacob is criticized for favoring Joseph. Moses was so imperfect that he was not allowed to enter the promised land. What, then, made these men great? It was their capacity to wrestle with their nature and do the right thing amid a predilection to do otherwise. Jews believe in struggle. The angelic model of he for whom goodness is intuitive is not compelling to Jews. Rather, we admire those who act altruistically amid the pull to behave with selfishness.

Therefore, Jews, while of course condemning hypocrisy, still understand the concept in a totally different way. Most people are inconsistent rather than hypocrites. They preach one thing and practice another not because they don't believe in goodness, but because they cannot always master their natures to do the right thing. No matter. Imperfect people can still vastly contribute to the perfection of the world.

All it takes is one good deed.

- Shmuely Boteach

Searching For Dear Ones - Holocaust Survivors

Jews continue to search for their lost relatives to the bitter end.  Some will never be found.  Others might be thanks to Yaron Enosh:

Jewish genealogy has become something of an obsession among Jews who lost relatives in the Holocaust or who do not know whether their relatives survived. Thanks to an Israel-based radio program, however, their chances of obtaining that precious information have greatly improved.

Yaron Enosh conducts a daily program called Hamador L'hipus Krovim (Searching for Dear Ones) on Israel Radio at 16:50 in which listeners seek to find data about missing relatives or about relatives or friends with whom they have lost contact. He has been inundated with so many requests that he is setting up a nonprofit organization dedicated to tracing Jewish individuals and families.

...It was initiated in the early 1950s by the Jewish Agency, which had extensive records about Holocaust survivors who came to Israel and who were looking for relatives who either came here before the war, had escaped during the war, or who were also survivors of Nazi inhumanity.

Every day for several years an announcer would read names of missing people or the names of people who were looking for relatives. But successes were few, says Enosh, because the announcers could not pronounce many of the European names and distorted them to the extent that they were unrecognizable.

However there was a wonderful resource at the Jewish Agency, Batya Untershatz, who for many years was the director of the Agency's Bureau for Missing Relatives and who took her work very seriously.

During his stint as chairman of the Jerusalem Journalists Association, Enosh had so many hassles with the management of the Israel Broadcasting Authority that he quit Israel Radio, and the program remained off the air for two years. But it was nagging at him that there were so many desperate people making a last bid to find someone who had disappeared in Europe. So he returned to Israel Radio as a freelancer and began broadcasting the program again.

Additional incentive came after his daughter came home from school and said she was doing a "roots" project and wanted information from her parents. Enosh's wife, who comes from Italian background, had all the necessary knowledge about her side of the family at her fingertips. Enosh, who comes from Polish background, knew nothing, and suddenly it became important for him to help his daughter.

His father had died, and the only person who could really help was his mother who was born in a northern Polish village and who, for reasons best known to herself, would not provide any information. Even though he remains frustrated regarding his own family, he realized the significance of helping others. So he reinaugurated the program and asked people to send in requests. Within three days, there were 2,000 requests. He was dumbfounded.

Now the requests have dwindled slightly to between 200-300 per day, but he cannot deal with them to the extent that he would like because he has insufficient manpower and the IBA will not allow him to use a team of volunteers. On top of that, the maximum number of requests that he can broadcast on any given day is seven.

Once the demand for information started growing again, it inspired him to set up a nonprofit organization that will also enable him to publicize names of missing persons and those who are looking for them on the Internet and on television.

He is also in touch with genealogical associations and search bureaus worldwide - both Jewish and non-Jewish - and aims to set up a central voluntary search bureau in Israel using all the archive material of the Jewish Agency.

By having a nonprofit organization, Enosh can also make use of volunteer research teams. He also hopes to involve schools and will put the idea to the Education Ministry after its problems with the teachers are resolved.

Although there are more failures than successes in the search process, every success is a major triumph. Sixty percent of requests are Holocaust-related, while 10% involve searches for Israelis who were here from the end of the 19th century to the establishment of the state. Out of 12 requests related to the War of Independence, he was able to trace five people. The remaining 30% of requests come from abroad from people who lost contact with their families in Israel 30 or 40 years ago and now want to track them down.

Anyone who wants to contact Enosh can get in touch with him via e-mail: mador2@gmail.com or through a telemessage service at (052) 999-0006.

Link

Visiting Israel - Maybe

Meryl has become a Bat Mitzvah.  She is an inspiration. As daunting as it is to do as a 13 year old, maybe it's even more so as an adult.  The expectations are so high, the memory capacity so much lower...

I have thought about becoming a Bat Mitzvah from time to time. Technically, I believe that just going up for an Aliyah, which I have done many times, makes one a Bar or Bat Mitzvah - or so I've been told.  But actually reading from the Torah in front of the whole congregation (yikes, I get sweaty palms just thinking about it), well, there's no substitute.  My kids always try to egg me on - they'd love to see me do it. Maybe one of these days... 

Right now, the most major Jewish accomplishment I have coming down the pike is getting to visit Israel.  I have husband's preliminary agreement that we will go this summer.  I hope, I hope.  There's is no place on earth I'd rather see. 

10 days: Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and which - Haifa or Eilat? I will have to do more reading before making plans.

By the way, here is a video which re-enacts an aliyah, gives several details about handling the Torah (the rabbi appeared to be a bit rushed and nervous, maybe because he was on camera. In my synagogue, the Torah is handled more delicately) and what goes on during Jewish services:

Jerusalem of Gold - Ofra Haza

From Wikipedia:

Ofra Haza (Hebrew: עפרה חזה‎, IPA: [ʕofrɑːh ħazzɑːh]) (November 19, 1957 – February 23, 2000) was a popular Israeli singer, actress and international recording artist.

Of Yemenite Jewish ancestry, Haza was born the youngest of nine children in the poor Tel Aviv neighborhood of Hatikvah. She became an instant local and then national success story, the subject of great pride for many Israelis of Yemenite origin.

Her voice has been described as mezzo-soprano, of near-flawless tonal quality, capable of lending itself to a variety of musical styles with apparent ease.

Inspired by a love of her Yemenite-Jewish culture, the appeal of her musical art quickly spread to a wider Middle Eastern audience, somehow bridging the divide between Israel and the Arab countries. As her career progressed, the multi-lingual Haza was able to switch between traditional and more commercial singing styles without jeopardising her credibility. The music, too, fused elements of Eastern and Western instrumentation, orchestration and dance-beat. Success was to follow in Europe and the Americas; during her singing career, she collected many platinum and gold discs.

...Ofra Haza died at the age of 42 on the 23rd February 2000 – the cause being widely reported as organ failure or pneumonia, reportedly arising from HIV/AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome) complications. Her family declined to confirm or deny these reports, however, stating that it was Haza's wish that the matter should remain private.

...After Haza's death was announced, Israeli radio stations played non-stop retrospectives of her music and Prime Minister Ehud Barak praised her work as a cultural emissary, commenting that she also represented the Israeli success story – "Ofra emerged from the Hatikvah slums to reach the peak of Israeli culture. She has left a mark on us all".

Jewish Feminism

A very interesting video of an interview on this subject with Dr. Susan Handelman, professor of English Literature at Bar Elon University in Israel, can be found at Life-of-Rubin blog. Dr. Handelman did research in Brooklyn, NY with the Chassidim, a very religious sect of Judaism.  She describes herself as a strong feminist in the 70s, notes that she was extremely concerned about the role of women in Judaism, and  discusses a profound discovery she made during her research.

Jewish History

What has been taken away from Judaism and the Jewish people over the past 2,000 years?  Taken away and forgotten in some distant past - and the world moves on.  But some people study history, and maybe as suggested in the article below, such study can border on obsession, but it's an obsession I can understand.  Jews are directly affected today, and Jewish right to Israel is questioned based upon lies, the origin of which gets forgotten. Theft is forgotten, wrongs are not righted and there is no accountability.

But even as I say this, I am reminded of those who would say that others have been wronged too, that other civilizations died off completely - that at least the Jewish people still live, and what am I complaining about?

However, in my view, each people has a story of their own and are responsible for it and for carrying on their civilization and culture.  My responsibility and focus is on Jewish civililization and culture.  I have a double responsibility in supporting American civilization and culture - but America is not in nearly as much need of my help and focus, having many others to help it.  Jews are few and far between and each of us has to shout louder and more frequently to make up for our lack in number. 

This doesn't mean I don't care about other cultures, but of course I think about mine and what concerns me and my family first and foremost.  Yes, that's blunt, but true. And it's true of everyone (or should be) who cares about their culture and feels it has something to offer them and their descendents and the rest of the world.

I see Judaism and the Jewish people as being endangered - and not only from hostile forces, but from our own lack of interest and assimilation into the cultures in which we live. I see something there, a lot actually, worth fighting for, and I try my best to get my children to understand and see it too.  Frankly, I don't know how well I've succeeded.

My concerns play out on this blog - I keep coming back to them, though I don't always write about it overtly, I just keep posting articles showing different aspects of the same thing - Judaism, Jews and Israel endangered, and the misinterpretation of the facts - both deliberately and in ignorance - by other cultures who would like to conquer Jewish territory and by the media.

The article below is a discussion of a book called God's Gold, written by an archeologist who specializes in the archeology of the Holy Land.  His views are disputed by some Israeli archeologists.  In my opinion he may or may not be wrong, but the one thing his book does do is help to focus interest on the area, its meaning to the Jewish people and their historical claim.  From the Jewish World Review: 

The boundary between quest and obsession is not defined until it is crossed. By then it is too late — and extremely perilous. This is inevitable when the search is for some of the most precious and potentially explosive objects in the world: religious icons that, if found, will further agitate the roiling cauldron that is the Middle East.

In "G-d's Gold: A Quest for the Lost Temple Treasures of Jerusalem," archaeologist Sean Kingsley provides a dramatic account of his personal journey in search of the golden menorah, silver trumpets, and jewel-covered Table of Divine Presence taken from the Second Temple of Jerusalem in the year 70. These iconic artifacts were spirited away by the Roman emperor Vespasian and his son, Titus, during the razing of Jerusalem that followed the First Jewish Revolt. Back in Rome, the treasures became the centerpiece of a massive victory parade, the report of which can still be read 2,000 years later as intricate carvings on the Arch of Titus.

Although missing since antiquity, there are enough written references to them, and more than enough conspiracy theorists who claim that they reside in the Vatican, to suggest that the treasures were not melted down for pagan purposes. This is all Kingsley needs to launch what seems to be an impossible mission — one that is both delicate and dangerous because of the ever-present tensions that surround the jurisdiction of the Temple Mount.

I visited the Vatican several years ago and was shocked to see not only the extent and value of the treasures it owns, but the fact that there were Jewish artifacts in its posession. I no longer remember exactly what I saw, but I do remember the flash of anger that the objects were owned by someone else and not exhibited in a Jewish museum. I wondered at the time how it was they came to be there.

In a narrative that is part history, part travelogue, and all action movie, Kingsley describes his 10 years of travels from the Holy Land to Rome to Tunis to Istanbul, digging for clues in the dusty texts of ancient scribes and the dangerous dirt of Hamas-controlled territory.

Has Kingsley crossed over, then, from quest to obsession? Perhaps. He is absolutely obsessive about knowing the objects of his search, although this is just excellent methodology. Part forensics investigator and part profiler, Kingsley is adamant that the key to any search is the understanding of both the material and psychological properties of the missing objects. It is not enough to know what the Temple treasures were made of, and their design; it is just as important to know their significance to Second-Temple Jews, and to the Romans and Vandals after them. It is Kingsley's hypothesis that the icons survived not because of their monetary value, but because they could be used to support the founding myths of all those who held them, an ultimate source of "via fide" — street cred — in a world breaking free from Roman rule.

Read the rest.

A review from the Boston Globe which discusses the archeological controversy raised by God's Gold.

The History Channel has a 2-part series based on the book which I have not seen.  Part 2 will be shown on 10/15 and part 1 will be repeated on 10/27.

"Vi Ahin Zol Ich Geyn?" (Where Can I Go?)