Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on January 23, 2020

Rabbi Berel Wein Rabbi Berel Wein is a noted scholar, historian, speaker and educator, admired the world over for his audio tapes/CDs, videos and books, particularly on Jewish history.

This weeks Torah reading contains the four famous words of redemption that signal the exodus of the Jewish people from Egypt. Much has been made over the centuries as to the meaning and implication of each of these four Hebrew verbs. The fact that there are four such words used in the narrative of redemption fits the pattern that we find in the Hagaddah of Pesach four sons, four questions, four cups of wine.

None of this is naturally random chance. That is not the way of the Torah or of the tradition of Rabbinic commentary and understanding of the words of the Torah. Since there are 70 facets to all Torah words and thoughts, the use of these four verbs contains different messages, all of them valid and important, that can be experienced and understood by different generations of the Jewish people.

Every era has its own circumstances and its own necessities. The eternity of Torah is that it is able to address each and every one of these differing times and circumstances in a meaningful fashion. The Torah speaks to our generation in a way that could not necessarily have been so clearly understood by a past generation which experienced different circumstances than the ones that we face today.

It is one of the extraordinary features of Torah study that it is applicable to so many different times and situations. The Rabbis of the Talmud implied this in their statement that the words of Torah sometimes seem to be poor and without meaning in one place and time while they are rich and of enormous value in another.

The use of different verbs to indicate the advent of the promised deliverance from Egyptian bondage indicates a process of redemption a series of events and understandings and the development of a relationship between the Jewish people and the God of Israel that will fulfill the promise of redemption made to Abraham.

I have always felt in reviewing the events of the past century in Jewish life that we were in the midst of a process engineered by Heaven and accomplished by humans to restore us to our homeland and to our independence and greatness. Anything that is a process takes time and very rarely has immediate general impact. People view events and circumstances as they occur, one by one, and with of the passage of time and constantly changing circumstances, rarely are able to discern the general process that is unfolding before their very eyes.

This process of redemption outlined for us in this weeks Torah reading, a process which was not instantaneous in its result, but most gradual in its unfolding, is a harbinger of much of what is happening today in the Jewish world. The Jewish State in the Land of Israel is flourishing against all odds and Torah and Jewish life are strengthened daily within its borders. Even though the Jewish situation in the diaspora is of a very mixed quality, the strength of Torah and its resilient quality is being proven once more in front of our gaze. We are still in the middle of the process but I think there is little doubt regarding the actuality of the process itself.

Shabbat Shalom

Rabbi Berel Wein

See more here:

The four words of redemption Rabbi Berel Wein - Arutz Sheva

Category: Talmud | Comments Off on The four words of redemption Rabbi Berel Wein – Arutz Sheva
Tags:

Posted By admin on January 23, 2020

Asking for the Millennium

City Announces Agreement to Expand FiDis Millennium High School

City Council member Margaret Chin (center), Community Board 1s Youth and Education chair Tricia Joyce (center left) and Millennium High School principal Colin McEvoy (right) look on as the Citys Schools Chancellor, Richard Carranza, announces that the school will expand to an additional floor (now under construction).

On January 15, jubilant elected officials, community leaders, and education officials toured the new space into which the Financial Districts Millennium High School (MHS) will expand over the next two years. This was the culmination of a multi-year campaign to win approval and funding for the schools growth.

Founded as part of the revitalization of Lower Manhattan in the wake of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Millennium (which opened in 2003) occupies three floors (the 11th, 12th, and 13th stories) within 75 Broad Street, a 1928 skyscraper originally built as the headquarters of the International Telephone and Telegraph Corporation (ITT). But the school quickly became a victim of its own success, attracting high-performing students along with top-flight faculty and staff, which led to a flood of applications and severe overcrowding.

In the years since, various plans were floated to expand MHS. In 2010, the City tried to lease the 34th floor within 75 Broad Street, but fire safety officials could not devise a plan that would reliably evacuate hundreds of students quickly in an emergency. In 2011, the City, leased a much larger space nearby, at 26 Broadway, and Millennium lobbied to move into that facility. But the Department of Education (DOE) decided instead to give the space to the Richard R. Green High School of Teaching, which was transplanted from the Upper East Side.

The most recent plan contained an element of serendipity: The owner of 75 Broad Street, JEMB Realty, announced two years ago that the floor directly above MHS had become available, and asked whether the school would be interested in expanding.

This triggered a massive lobbying effort by City Council member Margaret Chin, Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer, State Assembly member Yuh-Line Niou, State Senator Brian Kavanagh, and Community Board 1 (CB1) member Tricia Joyce, who chairs that panels Youth and Education Committee, among others.

In the face of this campaign, officials at the DOE and the Citys School Construction Authority scrambled to come up with funding for both the annual rent and the cost of retrofitting the former office space as a school. In mid-2019, they provisionally agreed to try to negotiate a lease. These discussions were successfully concluded before the close of the year, and construction work to convert the space into classrooms recently began. But even with a signed lease, more than two years will be needed before the space is ready for students. The new facility is expected to open in the fall of 2022.

At the January 15 walk-through, Ms. Chin said, when we heard that this beautiful space was available, we were all excited. It took a long time, but this shows what we can do by working together: the principal, the Community Board, the Parents Association.

Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer said, its marvelous to see this wonderful space coming to fruition, because we have been working on it for a while. This is a great school, a school that students want to attend. This is an example of the kind of institution we want: one that is desired and has great faculty and great families.

The former headquarters of International Telephone & Telegraph Corporation, at 75 Broad Street, now houses the highly regarded Millennium High School in its 11th, 12th, and 13th floors. The school is now slated to expand and take over the 14th story of the building as well.

The Citys Schools Chancellor, Richard Carranza said, Margaret Chin has been an incredible advocate. And our incredible principal, Colin McEvoy, has utilized every square inch of space he had available. But were going to give him another 25,000 square feet to play with. So get out of his way.

Mr. Carranza noted with pride that, this is a school that has a 100 percent graduation rate. This is what we want for all of our students. He was referring to the fact that one-quarter of New York City public high school students are unable to graduate within four years (a significant subset of these never earn a diploma), while 40 percent of those who do graduate do not enroll in college. MHS not only graduates all of its students, but sends all of them to college with many of these being accepted at highly selective universities.

What Council member Chin and I saw as we toured an environmental classroom was students interpreting data, actively engaged with data, Mr. Carranza continued. When we asked questions about their sources, they were able to authenticate them. They knew what they were talking about. This is whats happening right here, at Millennium.

But we also saw that these students need more space, he added. So were proud to announce that MHS will grow by an additional 25,000 square feet. And that doesnt count the additional square feet that Principal McEvoy will now be able to repurpose.

Mr. McEvoy said, the new space will be transformative, not only in terms of what we can do on the 14th floor, but on the new uses we can bring to the existing three floors. He added words of thanks for the co-presidents of the MHS Parents Association, Lisa Wong and Marilyn Francescon. Then, his voice catching, he continued, if Im emotional, its because Im thinking about all the work that has gone into this, and what it will mean for out students.

Joseph L. Jerome, president of JEMB Realty, said with pride, this school was ground-breaking when we did this 18 years ago it was one of the first times that the City put a school within an office building. About the expansion, he added, thanks go to Margaret Chin, who has championed this effort.

Ms. Joyce observed, this is a gem of a school that arose from the ashes of September 11. It was funded, in part, by CB1, which helped raise $14 million to open Millennium. And in part by Bill and Melinda Gates, and funds from the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation.

So many people came together to make this school happen, she added. Over these very short 18 years, it has turned into one of the most sought-after schools, which now receives more than 6,000 applications each year for just 170 seats, which is a real testament to this school and its leadership.

Its not easy to add space without enrollment, she noted, in a reference to the Department of Educations policy that an expanded school must accept more students. But, in a reference to the fact that the DOE has agreed to hold off on this requirement (at least for the time being), she added, we know the hoops that everybody had to jump through. Its a great thing to see City agencies come together to put the school first.

In response to a question about the possibility of being required to expand the schools student body once the new space is open, Mr. McEvoy said, we are going to first prioritize serving students who are already here. We are currently serving 675 students in a space designed for 525. We are using hallway space, and space originally designed for lounges, as instructional space. The first space to come online will be new classrooms, to make sure our students have an appropriate learning environment. Once thats in place, we can look at evaluating how many additional students, if any, we can serve. But we first want to address the overcrowding. Thats going to make a profound change for students and staff.

Senator Kavanagh said, afterward the walkthrough, Millennium High Schools long-awaited expansion is a laudable development that will increase opportunities for students.

The additional space within 75 Broadway will allow MHS to add five new classrooms, and 5,000 square feet of physical education space, as well as a new staircase connecting all the facilitys floors. The funding for the expansion will also provide for a modernization of the schools security camera system. One issue that remains to be resolved is elevator capacity. The crowding conditions at MHS often result in students waiting up to 30 minutes for space in an elevator to take them into or out of the school. In a 2018, resolution endorsing the proposed expansion, CB1 requested that, at least one, but preferably two additional elevators, dedicated for the school, be made available along with the expansion.

See more here:
The BroadsheetDAILY ~ News of Lower Manhattan ~ 1/23/20 - ebroadsheet.com

Category: Jewish American Heritage Month | Comments Off on The BroadsheetDAILY ~ News of Lower Manhattan ~ 1/23/20 – ebroadsheet.com
Tags:

Posted By admin on January 23, 2020

Of all the sorts of travel available these days - slow, fast, staycation, voluntourism, and the rest - there remains one format all but out of reach.

Time travel.

It will likely never be possible in the HG Wells sense - turning back the centuries to explore societies past - but below is a list of 20 cities that may offer a similar experience.

The definitive ranking of the worlds oldest cities is one of the great controversy, with the exact timings of habitation and definitions of cities at the heart of much debate.

With that in mind, we have sourced if not the worlds 20 oldest cities, then 20 of the worlds oldest cities. To add a little literary context, weve added a quote from a famous writer or diarist to each inclusion.

Would-be time travellers step this way.

Some of the below are subject to Foreign Office travel restrictions. Please check its advice before travelling.

When did the earliest inhabitants settle? 1,000 BC

Found on the west bank of the Ganges, Varanasi - also known as Benares - is an important holy city for both Hindus and Buddhists. According to legend, it was founded by the Hindu deity Lord Shiva 5,000 years ago, though modern scholars believe it to be around 3,000 years old. Our expert Gill Charlton says: "Varanasi is India for the experienced."

Author Mark Twain said of the city: Benares is older than history, older than tradition, older even than legend and looks twice as old as all of them put together.

When did the earliest inhabitants settle? 1,100 BC

On a narrow spit of land jutting out into the Atlantic Ocean, Cdiz has been the home of the Spanish navy since the 18th century. It was founded by the Phoenicians as a small trading post and fell to the Carthaginians around 500BC, becoming a base for Hannibals conquest of Iberia. It then came under Roman and Moorish rule, before experiencing a renaissance during the Age of Exploration.

Robert Browning, the English poet and playwright, wrote: Nobly, nobly Cape Saint Vincent to the North-west died away/ Sunset ran, one glorious blood-red, reeking into CdizBay.

When did the earliest inhabitants settle? 1,400 BC

A major rival of ancient Athens, Thebes ruled the Boeotian confederacy and even lent assistance to Xerxes during the Persian invasion of 480 BC. Archaeological excavation has revealed a Mycenaean settlement dating back even further. Today, Thebes is little more than a market town.

John Milton, English poet, said: "Sometime let gorgeous Tragedy/ In sceptred pall come sweeping by/ Presenting Thebes, or Pelops' line/ Or the tale of Troy divine."

When did the earliest inhabitants settle? 1,400 BC

Founded as 'Citium' by the Phoenicians, Larnaca is well-known for its pretty seafront lined with palm trees. Larnaca is seen as a sleepier alternative to high-living Limassol on the island, and archaeological sites and numerous beaches attract modern visitors.

Robert Byron, poet and travel writer, said: "History in this island is almost too profuse. It gives one a sort of mental indigestion".

When did the earliest inhabitants settle? 1,400 BC

The cradle of Western Civilization and the birthplace of democracy, Athens's heritage is still very evident. It is filled with Greek, Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman monuments and remains a hugely popular tourist destination. Telegraph Travels expert Rachel Howard says: For a city with so much mythical and cultural baggage, Athens is surprisingly modern. Sure, there are Byzantine churches tucked among the tightly knit apartments and the Parthenon looms into view around nearly every corner. But come expecting a living postcard and youll be in for a shock. Three million people are crammed into this hectic, 24-hour city. Yet theres an intimacy to the way life is lived outdoors in neighbourhood squares, rooftop bars, and balconies where neighbours gossip in their nighties. And theres an irrepressible energy that has propelled Athens through a decade of austerity to become southern Europes most happening cultural capital.

Alexander the Great once said: "How great are the dangers I face to win a good name in Athens."

When did the earliest inhabitants settle? 1,500 BC

Known as Bactra to the ancient Greeks, Balkh is found in northern Afghanistan and is described as the 'Mother of Cities' by Arabs. It reached its peak between 2,500 BC and 1,900 BC prior to the rise of the Persian and Median empires. Modern Balkh is home to the region's cotton industry.

W.C. Fields, American actor and writer, wrote: "During one of my treks through Afghanistan, we lost our corkscrew. We were compelled to live on food and water for several days."

When did the earliest inhabitants settle? 2,200 BC

Located around 150 miles north of Baghdad, Kirkuk stands on the site of the ancient Assyrian capital of Arrapha. Its strategic importance was recognised by the Babylonians and the Media, who have also controlled the city. The ruins of a 5,000-year-old citadel are still visible, while the city is now the headquarters of Iraq's petroleum industry.

When did the earliest inhabitants settle? 2,300 BC

North of Kirkuk lies Arbil, ruled at various times by the Assyrians, Persians, Sasanians, Arabs and Ottomans. It was a major stop on the Silk Road while its ancient citadel - which rises 26 metres from the ground - still dominates the skyline.

When did the earliest inhabitants settle? 2,750 BC

The legendary birthplace of Europa and Dido, Tyre was founded around 2,750 BC, according to Herodotus. It was conquered by Alexander the Great in 332 BC following a seven-month siege and became a Roman province in 64 BC. Today, tourism is a major industry: the city's Roman Hippodrome is a Unesco World Heritage Site. The Foreign Office does not advise against travel to Tyre (Sour), but has issued restrictions to nearby territory.

The Bible mentions the city: "Tyre, the crowning city, whose merchants are princes."

When did the earliest inhabitants settle? 2,800 BC

The spiritual centre of the Jewish people and Islam's third-holiest city, Jerusalem is home to several key religious sites, including the Dome of the Rock, the Western Wall, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and the al-Aqsa Mosque. During its history, the city has been besieged 23 times, attacked 52 times, captured 44 times and destroyed twice.

Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield; former prime minister, said: "The view of Jerusalem is the history of the world; it is more, it is the history of earth and of heaven."

When did the earliest inhabitants settle? 3,000 BC

Lebanon's capital, as well as its cultural, administrative and economic centre, Beirut's history stretches back around 5,000 years. Excavations in the city have unearthed Phoenician, Hellenistic, Roman, Arab and Ottoman remains, while it is mentioned in letters to the pharaoh of Egypt as early as the 14th century BC. Since the end of the Lebanese civil war, it has become a lively, modern tourist attraction.

Jan Morris, Welsh historian and travel writer, said: "To the stern student of affairs, Beirut is a phenomenon, beguiling perhaps, but quite, quite impossible."

When did the earliest inhabitants settle? 3,650 BC

Found in southern Turkey, close to the border with Syria, Gaziantep's history extends as far back as the Hittites. The Ravanda citadel - restored by the Byzantines in the sixth century - is found in the city centre, while Roman mosaics have also been discovered.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, English poet and philosopher, said: "They have no past; they are not an historical people; they exist only in the present."

When did the earliest inhabitants settle? 4,000 BC

The second-largest city in Bulgaria, Plovdiv was originally a Tracian settlement before becoming a major Roman city. It later fell into Byzantine and Ottoman hands, before becoming part of Bulgaria. The city is a major cultural centre and boasts many ancient remains, including a Roman amphitheatre and aqueduct, and Ottoman baths.

Roman writer Lucian said: "This is the biggest and loveliest of all cities. Its beauty shines from faraway."

When did the earliest inhabitants settle? 4,000 BC

Around 25 miles south of Beirut lies Sidon, one of the most important - and perhaps the oldest - Phoenician cities. It was the base from which the Phoenician's great Mediterranean empire grew. Both Jesus and St Paul are said to have visited Sidon, as did Alexander the Great, who captured the city in 333 BC.

French artist Charles Mryon said: "Few persons new to the climate escape a rash of some description."

When did the earliest inhabitants settle? 4,000 BC

Southwest of Cairo, Faiyum occupies part of Crocodilopolis - an ancient Egyptian city which worshipped Petsuchos, a sacred crocodile. Modern Faiyum consists of several large bazaars, mosques and baths, while the Lehin and Hawara pyramids are found nearby.

Greek historian Herodotus wrote: "Egypt is an acquired country, the gift of the river."

When did the earliest inhabitants settle? 4,200 BC

Susa was the capital of the Elamite Empire before being captured by the Assyrians. It was then taken by the Achaemenid Persian under Cyrus the Great and is the setting of The Persians, an Athenian tragedy by Aeschylus and the oldest surviving play in the history of theatre. The modern city, Shush, has a population of around 77,000.

Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St. Alban; English philosopher and author, said: "Persia, a country imbarred with mountains, open to the sea, and in the middle of the world."

When did the earliest inhabitants settle? 4,300 BC

Cited by some sources as the world's oldest inhabited city, Damascus may have been inhabited as early as 10,000 BC, but this is debated. It became an important settlement after the arrival of the Aramaeans, who established a network of canals, which still form the basis of its modern water networks. Another of Alexander the Great's conquests, Damascus has since been in Roman, Arab and Ottoman possession. Its wealth of historical attractions made it a popular tourist destination, until recent unrest struck.

Hilaire Belloc, English-French writer and historian, wrote: "Damascus is... a symbol. One might call it a bunch of symbols. It is a symbol of the permanent physical conditions that run throughout history; the permanent geographical limits of human settlement, government and war."

When did the earliest inhabitants settle? 4,300 BC

Syria's most populated city, with around 4.4 million citizens, Aleppo was founded as Halab in around 4,300 BC. As the ancient site is occupied by the modern city it is barely touched by archaeologists. The city was under Hittite control until around 800 BC, before passing through Assyrian, Greek and Persian hands. It was later occupied by the Romans, Byzantines and Arabs, besieged by the Crusaders and then taken by the Mongols and Ottomans. Many of the city's architectural gems have been devastated by recent conflict.

When did the earliest inhabitants settle? 5,000 BC

Founded as Gebal by the Phoenicians, Byblos was given its name by the Greeks, who imported papyrus from the city. Hence the English word Bible is derived from Byblos. The city's key tourist sites include ancient Phoenician temples, Byblos Castle and St John the Baptist Church - built by crusaders in the 12th century - and the old Medieval City Wall. The Byblos International Festival is a more modern attraction, and has featured bands such as Massive Attack, John Legend, and Patti Smith.

When did the earliest inhabitants settle? 9,000 BC

The world's oldest continually-inhabited city, according to sources, archaeologists have unearthed the remains of 20 successive settlements in Jericho, dating back 11,000 years. The city is found near the Jordan River in the West Bank, as well as the Monastery of the Temptation, where Jesus is believed to have fasted for 40 days and 40 nights, and is today home to around 20,000 people.

For the record, Europe's other oldest cities include Lisbon (ca. 1000 BC), Rome (753 BC), Corfu (ca. 700 BC) and Mantua (ca. 500 BC). London was founded in 43 AD.

Sign up to Telegraph Travel's new weekly newsletterfor the latest features, advice, competitions, exclusive deals and comment.

You can also follow us onTwitter,FacebookandInstagram.

Read more:
Which are the oldest cities in the world? - Telegraph.co.uk

Category: Jewish American Heritage Month | Comments Off on Which are the oldest cities in the world? – Telegraph.co.uk
Tags:

Posted By admin on January 23, 2020

THE CONVERSATION via AP I learned a lesson when conducting research for my recently published book, Family Papers: a Sephardic Journey Through the Twentieth Century. I had discovered the story of a young Jewish man forgotten to history until now, a story that taught me that neither cultural affiliation nor family history is a reliable predictor of future behavior. In short, identity is not destiny, and all of us can fall prey to the tides of history.

Vital Hasson was a native of Thessaloniki, Greece, a cultural capital of the Sephardic Jewish world and a city that once boasted a majority Jewish population, who knew their home as Salonica. He came from an educated, middle-class family of journalists, writers, educators and political leaders.

But Hasson diverged, fatally, from his familys enlightened values.

Get The Times of Israel's Daily Edition by email and never miss our top storiesFree Sign Up

Hasson became intoxicated by a populist regime and chose to be swept up by its violence, its false promises, its hatred. He used a position of power to degrade the vulnerable. He was publicly denounced by family for his excesses. After World War II, Hasson was the only Jew in all of Europe to be tried and executed by a state, Greece, for collaborating with the Nazi occupiers.

Hassons family, like most of the Sephardic Jews of Salonica, were descended from Jews expelled from Iberia in the 15th century who spoke and wrote in a Judeo-Spanish language known as Ladino. For five centuries, they called the Ottoman Empire, southeastern Europe and Salonica home.

But before the war he was not important, less than nothing, according to one of the dozens of Jewish survivors who would subsequently testify against him.

When his city was still Ottoman, in the 1870s and 1890s, his great-grandfather introduced the first French- and Ladino-language newspapers to Salonica, chronicling and shaping modernity as it was experienced by southeastern European Jews.

In time, war redrew borders around the family, transforming them from Ottomans to Greeks. Emigration pulled them in many directions, with cousins relocating to England, France, Spain, Portugal, India and Brazil. Hasson himself moved to Mandatory Palestine for a time, returning to his native town in 1933.

Then, war came, transforming Hasson from a nonentity to an important person.

Four generations of Hassons family were living in Salonica when German forces occupied the city in April 1941. Two years later, Hasson assumed the position of head of the Jewish police of Salonica under ambiguous circumstances.

The position gave him authority over about 200 unarmed men, all local Jews. Among Hassons first acts was to volunteer himself as a human bounty hunter, exceeding his charge.

In May 1943, he crossed from German-occupied Greece into Italian-occupied Greece in pursuit of Salonican Jews fleeing the Nazis, whom he was uniquely qualified to identify. His efforts were thwarted, but it hinted at the lengths he was willing to go to satisfy those in power.

When a ghetto was created within Salonica by the Nazis, the depth of Hassons depravity made itself known. The Baron Hirsch ghetto, one of two areas in which all Jews were concentrated, existed from March to August 1943, by which time Nazi officials completed the deportation of Greek Jewry.

Within the ghettos wooden walls, which were surrounded by barbed wire and control towers, more than 2,000 Jewish women, men, and children were crammed into 593 rooms. Disease and crime were rampant.

A 23-year-old German SS officer was technically in charge of the Baron Hirsch ghetto. But Hasson appears to have been granted great latitude to execute Nazi orders on the ground. Recollections of Hassons actions, which swirl through Greek-, Hebrew-, Ladino- and English-language survivor testimony, are nightmarish.

Hasson, it was said, raced through the ghetto in a horse-drawn carriage, and made his fellow Jews sweep the streets. He strutted about, using the glistening boots of the occupiers to knock down both doors and people. He stole from the imprisoned, carrying around the ghetto an open bag into which women and men were expected to place what jewels or money they had managed to hang on to. And he identified young men to be inducted into forced labor.

In the words of one survivor, a woman by the name of Bouena Sarfatty, He was like a lion let out of a cage.

Hasson reserved particular cruelty for girls and women. He forced them to strip naked, searched their genitals for hidden money, sheared their hair, raped them and pimped them to others.

To protest her forced marriage to Hassons brother Dino, who long harbored an obsession with the young woman, Sarika Gategno wore the same dress for three months and consumed nothing but alcohol and cigarettes.

Illustrative: People hold a banner as they walk towards the old railway station in Thessaloniki during a commemoration marking the departure of the first train from the northern Greek city to the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland, held on March 18, 2018. (SAKIS MITROLIDIS/AFP)

From March to August 1943, Nazi overseers directed 19 transports of Salonicas Jews, totaling 48,533 souls, to depart from the train station adjacent to the Baron Hirsch ghetto. One of these trains would head for the concentration camp of Bergen-Belsen; 18 for Auschwitz.

The journey to Auschwitz took between five and eight grueling days. Nearly all the Salonican Jews brought there were gassed upon arrival.

On August 2, a special deportation carried away the families of Salonicas wartime Jewish community leadership (including the Jewish police) to the concentration camp at Bergen-Belsen. Before his own deportation, on this very train to Bergen-Belsen, Hassons father publicly disowned his son, who yet remained in Salonica.

By August 1943, Salonica, like Greece as a whole, had been virtually emptied of Jews by the Nazis.

Thessalonikis Jews were deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau in railway cars like this one, currently on display at the citys Railway Museum. (Gavin Rabinowitz/JTA)

Hasson himself arranged to flee eastward with his wife, daughter and pregnant lover in August 1943.

Several times in the dramatic, confused weeks and months that followed, he was recognized by Jewish refugees from Salonica (in Albania, Italy and Egypt) and arrested by Allied representatives, but amid the chaos of war Hasson repeatedly escaped or was released.

Finally, upon the liberation of Greece in October 1944, the British captured him and returned Hasson to Greece for trial. In the summer of 1946 that trial, a sensational event that gripped the city of Thessaloniki and the Salonican Jewish diaspora, resulted in a guilty verdict. Hasson was sentenced to death and executed.

Jews across the political spectrum, from Bernie Sanders to Benjamin Netanyahu, claim to seek inspiration in Jewish tradition to explain and propel their political values.

But cultural inheritance does not necessarily determine a persons behavior or destiny. And Jewish history ought not be sanitized. What Hassons story teaches is that under the right circumstances, the politics of hate are seductive, even to those who might otherwise be a target.

Read the original post:

The Jew who worked for the Nazis and hunted down refugees in WWII Greece - The Times of Israel

Category: Sephardic | Comments Off on The Jew who worked for the Nazis and hunted down refugees in WWII Greece – The Times of Israel
Tags:

Posted By admin on January 23, 2020

By JLNJ Staff | January 23, 2020

(Courtesy of Institute for Jewish Ideas and Ideals) The Institute for Jewish Ideas and Ideals promotes an intellectually vibrant and inclusive Jewish vision to the broader community. Based on an unwavering commitment to the Torah tradition and to the Jewish people, it fosters an appreciation of legitimate diversity within Orthodoxy.

Rabbi Marc Angel founded the Institute in 2007 and his son Rabbi Hayyim Angel joined the organization in 2013. Together, the Rabbis Angel reach a wide variety of people who seek voices representing an intelligent, inclusive Orthodoxy. Rabbi Marc Angel specializes in Sephardic history and thinkers. He focuses on how diversity benefits the entire Jewish community. Rabbi Hayyim Angel is a longtime member of the undergraduate mens Jewish Studies faculty at Yeshiva University. His passion is Tanach and its impact on religious thought and experience.

The Institutes vision bridges the spectrum of Jewish thought, uniting these voices in Jewish life and learning. Speaking to and connecting with Jewish people of all ages, backgrounds and levels of observance, the Institute presents Judaism as a world religion which thoughtfully explores the interface between values of tradition and those of the modern world.

By exploring a multiplicity of voices through their scholarshiptogether they have published over 50 books and hundreds of articlesthe Rabbis Angel teach that there are many avenues into tradition. A healthy Judaism respects diversity and promotes unity without conformity. We must engage through respectful dialogue and healthy disagreement. Ideas and questions are to be embraced and explored with the guidance of Torah, scholarship and love. The more traditional voices accessed by our community, the stronger we all become. All Jews must be welcomed and engaged by the Orthodox community. Through its programs and publications, the Institute for Jewish Ideas and Ideals does just this.

Thanks to its growing membership base and the generosity of its visionary donors, the Institute reaches many thousands of people each month through an exciting array of classes, symposia and the stimulating articles and resources published on its website (jewishideas.org) and in its print journal, Conversations. The Institute mixes a wide variety of speakers and writers who keep the doors of lively discussion open in a thoughtful, inclusive engagement of tradition and contemporary society.

The Institute currently serves over 400 college students through its free University Network program. The Institute provides resources relevant to the interface of tradition and university life to students thirsting for a forum to discuss and process the unique religious and intellectual challenges confronted on campus. Students have opportunities to assume leadership roles through the Institutes Campus Fellowship program. Students receive a budget and stipend to run meaningful and relevant programs which engage fellow students and promote the Institutes dynamic vision.

Through its Sephardic Educational Network, the Institute aspires to create a more inclusive day school curriculum that seamlessly incorporates the contributions of Sephardic thinkersparticularly from the past 500 yearsso all students may study the wholeness of the Jewish people. The Institute runs training programs for educators and sends free resources to Jewish day schools, most recently publishing its first volume for educators: Insights from the Sephardic Tradition: An Educational Guide.

In order to address a wide array of topics of pressing concern in the Jewish community, the Institutes National Scholar program runs many teacher trainings, scholar-in-residence programs and a variety of symposia. Having moved with his family to Teaneck in 2017, the Institutes National Scholar Rabbi Hayyim Angel has taught extensively throughout Bergen County. He serves as the Tanach Education Scholar at Ben Porat Yosef (BPY) yeshiva day school in Paramus, where he works with senior administration to design a Tanach curriculum singular in its scholarship, inclusiveness and expansiveness. After nearly two years of this unique program, young BPY elementary students are excited to learn the whole of Tanach and display a knowledge impressive for any age. He also serves as the regular Tanach teacher at the successful Beit Midrash of Teaneck (BMT) where learning comes to life.

Rabbi Hayyim Angel has also taught in a number of local communities including Ahavath Torah (Englewood), Bnai Yeshurun (Teaneck), Darchei Noam (Fair Lawn), East Hill Synagogue (Englewood), Keter Torah (Bergenfield), Netivot Shalom (Teaneck), Ohr Saadya (Teaneck), Rinat Yisrael (Teaneck), Shaarei Orah (Teaneck), the Young Israels of East Brunswick, Fair Lawn, Fort Lee and Teaneck. He has also taught regularly at Lamdeinu of Teaneck and CareOne Teaneck.

Members of the Institute help the organization to build programs and publications which unite the Jewish community in respectful and inclusive dialogue. We live in a time with many rifts at personal, interpersonal and communal levels. Good scholarship coupled with an inclusive religious philosophy can help heal and strengthen the individual and the community. To learn more and get involved, please visit http://www.jewishideas.org. You may register online for free.

Read the original post:

Good Scholarship to Promote Jewish Unity: The Institute For Jewish Ideas and Ideals - Jewish Link of New Jersey

Category: Sephardic | Comments Off on Good Scholarship to Promote Jewish Unity: The Institute For Jewish Ideas and Ideals – Jewish Link of New Jersey
Tags:

Posted By admin on January 23, 2020

To The Editor:

The Forward recently published an article by Marcin Wodzinski that was framed as a response to an article we wrote for the Forward more than a year ago about womens underrepresentation in our field of Jewish Studies. Our original article expressed profound concern that a new 850-page history of Hasidism had no women among its eight editors. Wodzinski, one of those eight editors, argued in his response that gender discrimination was less of a problem in Jewish Studies than its dominance by Ashkenazi Jews from English-speaking countries.

We do not entirely disagree with his critique of Jewish Studies; as we all know, discrimination rarely targets just one group or category. That is why it is important to recognize the basic principle that biases co-exist and that we cannot target one without recognizing the underlying structures that affect multiple identities for example, scholars who are female and not Ashkenazi or not Jewish.

Recognizing and analyzing the complexity of multiple categories of identity is the method called intersectionality. We, too, are concerned about the exclusion of non-Jews, for example, and worry about making Jewish Studies relevant for the academy at large.

In addition, Wodzinski writes about our gender critique of the volume, Are they really aiming at combating exclusion of women or maybe at some other goals? This question has a disturbing tenor. What other goals is he suggesting? Our critique is quite clear, and our stated goals are equally obvious: We are seeking greater inclusion.

Our concern is for the larger field of Jewish Studies, and we saw the volume as Hasidism as merely one example from prominent and well-regarded scholars. We were concerned that although there are many women who are competent scholars of Hasidism, only one was asked to work on this important volume (she later withdrew for personal reasons).

In addition, we noted that the book falsely implies women had little to do with the history of Hasidism, and that the authors pay no attention to the construction of gender in the texts of the Hasidic movement, one of the most gender- and sexuality-obsessed religious movements of Judaism.

The volume ignores the women who help finance the Hasidic movement, either with cash, property or their own labor. Changes in womens religious practice, the role of their piety, differences in Hasidic marriages and relations between husbands and wives, interactions between women and the rebbes they consult, even the tremendous Hasidic concern with sexuality there are so many gender-related topics central to Hasidism that were ignored by the volumes authors with their dismissive suggestions that women played only supporting roles in Hasidism, a claim that is simply not true.

We argued that these gaps were reflective of a disturbing trend in the field of Jewish Studies: collective work and anthologies that include few women as authors and little attention to gender.

Our concerns are not limited to gender, but about the kinds of questions posed by the field of Jewish Studies, the methods we employ, and overcoming a parochial atmosphere. Jewish Studies should not simply be located at a university, but partake fully in its modes of inquiry, debates and collegial conversations.

Noting one omission does not need to exclude others; in fact, it gestures toward them. To take one example, the traditional religious study of Jewish texts was long a province of Jewish men. While that is gradually changing as opportunities for women and non-Jews are opening, its exclusionary impact on the field has been significant. Wodzinski seems to have missed this important point about the way discrimination often works against more than one group at a time.

The weaknesses in the volume about Hasidism prove our point: we believe a group of authors from diverse backgrounds, ages, genders and theoretical training would have been better able to present the multifaceted nature of a religious movement that spans more than 200 years, appeals to a vast range of people, and preserves its vitality despite radical societal transformations. Hasidism has been one of the most important and influential movements within Jewish history. Multiple perspectives and disciplinary training is precisely what gives academic analyses their depth and vitality; that is the goal we see as crucial.

Susannah Heschel is the Eli Black Professor of Jewish Studies at Dartmouth College. Sarah Imhoff isAssociate Professor of Religious Studies and Jewish Studies at Indiana University.

See original here:

Yes, exclusion of women in Jewish Studies is still a problem - Jewish Journal

Category: Ashkenazi | Comments Off on Yes, exclusion of women in Jewish Studies is still a problem – Jewish Journal
Tags:

Posted By admin on January 23, 2020

(JTA) The latest episode of PBS celebrity genealogy show Finding Your Roots was a lesson in Jewish history.

Titled Beyond the Pale a reference to the Pale of Settlement, the region of what was then Imperial Russia where many Ashkenazi Jews have roots the episode that aired Tuesday night explored the family trees of actor Jeff Goldblum, NPR host Terry Gross and comedian Marc Maron.

As host Henry Louis Gates, Jr. explained, each of them has deep Jewish roots, but they all knew next to nothing about their ancestors. Heres a quick breakdown of their individual Jewish histories.

Jeff Goldblum

On Goldblums mothers side, his great grandfather Abraham Temeles left his hometown of Zloczow, a town in the Austrio-Hungarian empire, in the early 1900s because of the rampant anti-Semitism. Historians on Gates team believe that like many Jewish migrants at the time, he likely traveled 1,000 miles across Europe by train to the Dutch port of Rotterdam, where he boarded a ship for Halifax, Novia Scotia.

The trip wasnt easy. Temeles, who was 50 at the time, likely stayed in steerage for several days during the journey. He traveled on the SS Vulturno, which sunk two years later, killing over 100 Jewish migrants.

Its just a random piece of luck that Im here at all I guess, Goldblum said.

On his fathers side, great-great-grandfather Zelik Povartzik left his hometown of Starobin, Russia, in 1911, just a year before it was overcome by anti-Semitic violence. In 1941, when the Nazis invaded Russia, they killed most of the remaining Jews in Starobin, wiping a large chunk of Goldblums family out of the historical record.

The only descendant Gates team could track down was a second cousin once removed who died fighting for the Soviet army against the Nazis.

Its moving, its very moving, Goldblum said as he held back tears at the end of the episode.

Terry Gross

All Terry Gross knew about her grandparents Jewish history was that they all hailed from what they called the old country.

When she and her parents once visited the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., her father teared up seeing part of a fence from a Jewish cemetery in Tarnow, Poland.

As Gates researcher discovered, both of her paternal grandparents were born there in the 1880s and immigrated to the U.S. in early 1900s. Each had family that chose to stay, despite the rising anti-Semitism around them.

When Hitler invaded Poland in 1939, Tarnows Jewish population of about 25,000 quickly found itself cloistered in a ghetto. In 1942, Nazis began slaughtering them a firsthand account said that the Nazis knocked childrens heads against cobblestones and bayoneted adults, killing 7,000 people in days. Most of Gross relatives from Tarnow disappeared from the record at that point except for one survivor named Nathan Zeller, who only lived a few more years until his death at the Flossenburg concentration camp in Bavaria.

Its made everything I know about the Holocaust very specific and concrete, she said. I always ask myself if it was time to flee, would I know, would I have the courage to leave?

Marc Maron

Maron spent most of his segment expressing shock at the details revealed about his family, such as the fact that his maternal grandmother spent 13 days in steerage on a ship to migrate to the United States before World War I.

I dont know how they did it just the idea that youre gonna leave your country, youre gonna pack up, everybodys gonna go and get on a boat? Are you kidding? he said at one point. A boat? I cant be on a boat for an hour without getting sick.

Marons maternal great-great-grandfather worked in a petroleum factory in Drohobycz, in what was then part of the newly formed republic of Poland. In 1914, at the outset of World War I, Russia invaded the Galicia region of which Drohobycz was a part of. Russian soldiers beat, raped and killed many of its Jews.

Gates traced Marons fathers side back to a great-great-grandfather named Morris Mostowitz, who owned a chain of grocery stores in the Charleston area in the late 19th century. Mostowitz had moved there with a wave of other Jews looking to fill needs for merchants and tradesmen in the wake of the Civil War.

But Morris was no saint he was involved in at least a dozen crimes, including horse theft and illegal liquor sales, and wound up getting sued by his son Barney over a loan he never paid back.

Maron comically found some similarities in personality between himself and Morris, before ending his segment on a self-reflective note.

It does resonate, the fact that no matter how religious you are or what makes you a Jew in your particular life, the fact that you are defined on some level in a very real way by the reality of anti Semitism theres something about that awareness that is still and currently tremendously important, he said.

Original post:

Jeff Goldblum, Terry Gross and Marc Maron get emotional tracing their Jewish heritage on 'Finding Your Roots' - JTA News

Category: Ashkenazi | Comments Off on Jeff Goldblum, Terry Gross and Marc Maron get emotional tracing their Jewish heritage on ‘Finding Your Roots’ – JTA News
Tags:

Posted By admin on January 23, 2020

For a brief time, Albert Einstein was a winter bird, flying to the comfortable climes of Pasadena for three winters, 1931, 1932 and 1933. He stayed the second and third time at Caltechs Athenaeum at what is now known as the Einstein Suite.

In a one-night-only performance, Einstein will be back at Caltech as an unseen presence in Kres Merskys one-woman play, The Life and Times of A. Einstein, at 8 p.m. Saturday at Beckman Auditorium.

Although Einstein was a visiting professor at Caltech, he ultimately decided to accept a position at Princeton University in New Jersey. But he had fond memories of Pasadena: Here in Pasadena it is like Paradise, he once wrote. Always sunshine and clear air, gardens with palms and pepper trees and friendly people who smile at one and ask for autographs.

In Merskys play, the audience is a throng of reporters waiting to interview him in 1934 after his time in California, and when he was already settled in at Princeton. The occasion is Einsteins birthday, and his secretary Ellen Schoenhammer (Mersky) is attempting to entertain and answer questions as the reporters await his arrival. She will reveal aspects of Einsteins household when the new housekeeper, Anna, has made a mistake, and shell tell reporters what not to ask, what to expect and even attempt to explain in layman terms Einsteins theory of relativity. Youll meet her again, 17 years later after the World War II has ended, and as she announces Einsteins death in 1955.

Between those three time jumps, Einstein and his generation had seen many changes. Born in 1879 into an Ashkenazi Jewish family, Einstein was a citizen of the German Empire from 1879 to 1896. After renouncing his German citizenship, Einstein became a Swiss citizen in 1901. By 1934, he was already renowned for having been awarded a Nobel Prize in 1921. Yet, 1934 was a turbulent time for Europe, and an increasingly dangerous place for Jews.

In Germany, Adolf Hitler became chancellor in 1933, then Fhrer the following year. In 1939, Germany invaded Poland. Einstein became a US citizen in 1940, five years before the end of World War II.

Ellen Schoenhammer is completely fictionalized creation by Mersky but based on Helen Dukas (1896-1982), Einsteins secretary from 1928. Dukas was with Einstein and his second-wife Elsa when they were in Pasadena. She remained with him after Elsas death in 1936. Dukas went on to protect Einsteins legacy, including co-writing books on him; Einstein was effectively Dukas life work until her own death.

After researching Dukas for five years, Mersky wrote a play about what being a genius secretary might have been like. Her Ellen, like Dukas, is a German Jewish woman and devoted to her employer. In one of its previous iterations, the play received a good review from the LA Weekly during its one-month run at Theatre West in 2010.

Under the direction of her husband, Paul Gertson, Mersky has taken this show to a variety of venues, most recently for a one-night performance in Modesto, but surely there are few venues better suited than Beckman Auditorium for such a show. There will undoubtedly be audience members who better understand Einsteins theories and his impact on science, as well as modern culture. But the play will also surely leave future scientists with the notion that secretaries matter and good secretaries can burnish ones reputation and preserve ones legacy, and even become a reflection of themselves.

The Life and Times of A. Einstein begins at 8 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 25, at the Beckman Auditorium, 1200 E California Blvd, Pasadena. Tickets are $10 to $40. For tickets an more information, call the Caltech Ticket Office at (626) 395-4652 or visit events.caltech.edu/series/pa/einstein.

Read the original:

Kres Mersky's one-woman play 'The Life and Times of A. Einstein' is performed one night only at Caltech - Pasadena Weekly

Category: Ashkenazi | Comments Off on Kres Mersky’s one-woman play ‘The Life and Times of A. Einstein’ is performed one night only at Caltech – Pasadena Weekly
Tags:

Posted By admin on January 23, 2020

It looks like the New York Times is reining in the Opinion sectionor at least wants to be seen as doing so.

Today, following a series of embarrassing incidents, Times brass announced in an email to the company that the Opinion section will be subject to some level of counsel from the papers well-regarded standards editor, Phil Corbettknown, among other things, for his criticisms of the papers curious unwillingness to credit the work of competitors.

The email, from editor in chief Dean Baquet, Opinion editor James Bennet, and managing editor Joe Kahn, said that Corbett will formally work with and advise the Opinion department in addition to the newsroom. It continued:

While our news and opinion journalists will continue to have separate, distinct missions, their work is rooted in common standards for accuracy, fairness and integrity. Phil will work with the three of us to take on this role while ensuring we maintain our strict separation between our news and opinion journalism.

The email, now posted to the Times website, also announced changes to the Times work on audience and engagement.

Do you work at the New York Times? We'd love to hear from you. Contact the writer at laura.wagner@vice.com or laura.wags@protonmail.com.

The Opinion section is regularly slammed for running lazy, pointlessly provocative, and/or embarrassing columns. This weekend, in a singular fuck-up, they mounted a reality TV show to announce their endorsement of a Democratic presidential contender and then somehow endorsed two people. The change (interestingly, two days ago the Times posted a job opening for managing editor for the Opinion section) thus doesnt come as a huge surprise. However, todays email from Times honchos seems to contradict what it told VICE just last monththat standards were the same for Opinion and the newsroom.

On Dec. 19, 2019, a Times flack told VICE, in response to a question about the Opinion sections Privacy Projectan ambitious reporting effort that was carried out under the Opinion bannerthat the standards for accuracy are as rigorous for our Opinion journalism as they are for the newsroom.

Just over a week later, the Opinion section published a column called The Secrets of Jewish Genius by Bret Stephens, which argued for the genetic superiority of Ashkenazi Jews. It cited a discredited 2005 study co-authored by Henry Harpending, a racist who repeatedly advanced the idea that Black people are genetically less intelligent than white people, and Gregory Cochran, a man who has expressed the belief that homosexuality is a disease caused by a pathogen. Before long, the column was heavily edited and the argument reframed, with an unbylined editors note added to the top of the piece chiding readers for not understanding what Stephens was saying. The Times flack did not answer VICEs questions about whether peddling race science met the newsrooms rigorous standards of accuracy.

All of this probably doesnt bode well for Bennets chances of succeeding Baquet as executive editor, a role for which he's long been a rumored candidate. (Do you know anything about it? Email me.)

Continued here:

The New York Times Is Doing Something About Their Embarrassing Opinion Section - VICE

Category: Ashkenazi | Comments Off on The New York Times Is Doing Something About Their Embarrassing Opinion Section – VICE
Tags:

Posted By admin on January 23, 2020

Recently, on a friends Facebook page, an Arab Supremacist Israel-hater wrote the following to me:

I respect Judaism for what it is, a religion. European Zionism is Colonialist and racist. Arab Jews and Arab Muslims lived in a relatively peaceful state of co-existence until the intrusion of European Zionism. The European Zionists sowed the seeds of hatred and mistrust between Arab Jews and Arab Muslims which resulted in hundreds of thousands of Arab Jews being forced out of Arab countries and into Palestine. It then forced hundreds of thousands of Arab Muslims out of Palestine and into the Arab countries from whence the Arab Jews came.

The European Zionists manipulated and displaced the indigenous Arab Jews and Arab Muslims for the sake of their own Colonialist ambitions. The Arab Jews(Mizrahi) soon became the silent victims of European Zionist oppression and racism.

As this ahistorical antisemitic nonsense is often part of the talking points of the antisemitic Arab Supremacists and their allies on both the far-right and far-left (ironically), I thought I would share my response.What follows is what I wrote to him:

********************

What a colonialist Arab Supremacist and thoroughly patronizing screed which is what one should expect from a racist supremacist trying to sound enlightened and trying to couch his racism and supremacism in modern politically correct rhetoric.

Let us take your above historically inaccurate and baseless claims one at a time:

First: I respect Judaism for what it is, a religion.

No. As I have written before and which you have not even tried to respond to Judaism is not just a religion.It is plainly and has always been a tribal faith and a peoplehood. It is why one can have Jewish atheists and why according to the Tanach and the Talmud and the writings of all great Jewish thinkers and philosophers that even if a Jew converts to another religion or faith, he or she remains a part of the Jewish people. It is why Ruth, the great-grandmother of King David, and the most famous person to undergo the tribal acceptance process called giyoor (very loosely translated to be a conversion) in order to become a member of our tribe, first and famously said, Your people shall be my people as literally every person undergoing a giyoor first avers to this very day. Peoplehood joining the Jewish people, becoming a member of our tribe is literally the first oath and commitment undertaken by someone who was not born Jewish becoming a Jew. Because, Judaism is not just a religion it is a nationality, an ethnicity, a peoplehood. Always has been.

Second: European Zionism is Colonialist and racist.

Coming from someone who plainly supports Arab colonialism and wants all of the lands in the MENA to remain under the control of arguably the most racist, misoyginst, homophobic regimes in the world, where the most common way to refer to indigenous Africans is abeed the Arabic word for slave this is particularly rich.To be clear, all Jews are indigenous to the land of Israel. The land of Israel is where the Jewish people had its ethnogenesis. Our language, culture, tribal faith, literally everything that matters to making a Jew a Jew, originated in the land of Israel. For the Arabs occupying the rest of the MENA, everything that defines them as Arabs had its ethnogenesis in Arabia. To the extent they exercise dominion and control over any lands outside of Arabia, that is purely the product of brutal conquest and colonialization.

Also, Zionism is not European. Zionism is Jewish. For over 2,000 years, Jews have been saying next year in Jerusalem in our prayers. The centrality of the land of Israel and of a return to Zion has always been ubiquitous in Jewish faith, culture and literature for over 2000 years. One of the original Zionist communities that established new neighborhoods in Jerusalem in 1882 were Jews who were in the Diaspora in Yemen. The second wave of Zionist Yemenite Jews came to the land of Israel in 1907 and the third wave in 1912. For centuries through today, almost all Jews have been, and are, Zionists.

Regardless of where our ancestors spent their time in the exile (Diaspora), we have always dreamed of Zion and of a return to Jewish sovereignty in the land of Israel. The Beta Yisrael, Ethiopian Jewish, holiday of Sigd is pure Zionism. It is literally about the yearning for a return to Israel and Jerusalem. Your claim that Zionism is somehow European is not only offensive because no Jews, whether we were in the Diaspora in Europe or any Arab conquered lands are either European or Arabs we are Jews (and the Europeans certainly always made that clear to us), it is also offensive because it denies the centrality of the land of Israel and the importance of the return to Zion and Jerusalem to all other Jewish communities that were in the Diaspora outside of Europe.

Third: Arab Jews and Arab Muslims lived in a relatively peaceful state of co-existence until the intrusion of European Zionism.

Setting aside that there is no such thing as Arab Jews and the Arab colonialist supremacist dictatorships always made that clear to the Jews in the MENA, this claim by you is the most laughably ahistorical.Only a rampant Arab Supremacist or someone incredibly ignorant of the actual history of Jews in the MENA under Arab and Turkish colonial rule could make such an insulting comment.

Lets examine some basic historical facts:

Plainly, many of these massacres pre-dated modern Zionism and the increased migration of Ashkenazi Jews to Ottoman and then British controlled Palestine. But to the extent you want to try and claim this mass murder and persecution of Jews by Arabs in the MENA is a relatively new phenomena that you can somehow blame on Ashkenazi Jews (which given the above facts would be a bizarre claim in and of itself) here are some more historical facts that demonstrate the inescapable conclusion/reality that Arab colonialist supremacist dictatorships and tyrants in the Middle East have been persecuting, trying to kill and killing Jews simply for the crime of being Jewish for almost 1400 years:

As Dhimmis living in most Arab and Ottoman dictatorships Jews had to pay a special tax, called a Jizya; we were excluded from public office, and we were forbidden to bear arms. We were not allowed to ride horses or camels, and our synagogues as a matter of law had to be smaller than any mosque. We were also not allowed to pray or mourn in loud voices, as that might offend the ruling class (similar to how the Palestinian Arabs are so easily offended by the notion of Jews praying at the Temple Mount, the holiest site in Judaism). As Dhimmi living under Arab or Ottoman dictatorships, we were required to always show public deference toward any Muslim, including always yielding to a Muslim the center of the road. Dhimmi were not allowed to give evidence in court against a Muslim, and a Jews oath was not acceptable in an Islamic court, which was generally the only court available to seek redress against a non-Jew that hurt you or stole from you. To defend himself, a Dhimmi would have to literally pay for Muslim witnesses (at great expense). This left Jews with little legal recourse when they were harmed by a non-Jew under Arab or Ottoman rule.

As Dhimmis living under Arab or Ottoman rule we were often forced to wear distinctive clothing. In the year 850 A.D., Baghdads Caliph al-Mutawakkil issued a decree ordering that all Jews have to wear garments to distinguish them from Muslims; he ordered all synagogues destroyed, ordered that demonic effigies had to be nailed to the doors of all Jewish homes, and he prohibited Jews from being involved in any government matters. Caliph al-Mutawakkil actually designated a yellow badge that he required all Jews to wear in public, setting a precedent that would be followed centuries later in the Venice Ghetto in the year 1516 and later in Nazi Germany.

But the more than 1000 years of persecution of Jews under Arab and Ottoman rule was certainly not limited to only Nuremberg type laws of codified discrimination. As early as 627 A.D., there were Islamist inspired pogroms and massacres of Jews simply because we had the temerity to remain Jewish.

And while much of the world is familiar with the pogroms and massacres that were pervasive in Russia and Eastern Europe, pogroms and massacres were sadly always part of Jewish reality in the Diaspora, whether we were ruled by a Czar, Caliph or Sultan.

Some more examples:

So much for the notion that before modern Zionism or the increased migration of Ashkenazi Jews in the late 19th Century, Jews and Arabs in the MENA lived in a relatively peaceful state of co-existence. Due to Arab/Islamist Supremacist dogma and indoctrination, as well as Jews being labeled for centuries as less worthy and even treacherous dhimmi, the life of Jews in Arab controlled lands was always (at best) one of a second class citizen people who needed to know their place. And even then, the Arab supremacist colonialist dictatorships and tyrants often did not leave us in peace. Your claim is akin to a White Supremacist in the South claiming that before the end of slavery and the civil rights movement, white people and African-Americans in the South lived in a lived in a relatively peaceful state of co-existence. Spoken like a true racist who dreams of a day when those uppity Jews return to being stateless and powerless Dhimmi that know their place.

Fourth: The European Zionists sowed the seeds of hatred and mistrust between Arab Jews and Arab Muslims

As noted above, no such thing as Arab Jews there are Ashkenazi Jews, Mizrahi Jews, Sephardi Jews, Beta Yisrael Jews, and Bnei Menashe Jews. You, as a non-Jew, particularly one who wants us to return a state of Arab colonial rule over our indigenous land, do not get to define us.

But, more importantly, your fake narrative here ignores the 1000 plus years of Arab and Islamist supremacist dogma that already sowed the seeds of hatred and mistrust between Arabs and Mizrahi Jews. It also ignores the seeds of virulent hatred sowed by the Arab leadership before the Arab dictatorships started in the 1940s their respective campaigns to expel the Jews from the Arab-colonized lands of the MENA.

Perhaps the best example of the seeds of vicious antisemitic hatred being sowed by an Arab and Islamist Supremacist can be found with Nazi collaborator Haj Amin al-Husseini, the ideological predecessor to the ideology that animates Islamic Jihad, the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, etc. and Hamas, which also makes it is easy for anyone who is intellectually honest to understand the actual cause of the Arab-Israeli conflict and the expulsion of nearly 1,000,000 Mizrahi Jews from their homes throughout the MENA.

Haj Amin al-Husseinis 1937 Proclamation to the Muslim World, began with this doozy of a Nazi-like claim:Since the earliest days of their history, the Jews have been an oppressed people and there must begoodreason for that.

Just like Hitler, the Czar of Russia, and many other Jew-haters who did not need any factual reason to murder Jews, Haj Amin al-Husseini argued that the good reason for murdering Jews was alleged Jewish corruption as well as the Jews purported immoral and exploitative behavior. Notably, an argument Mahmoud Abbas (the so-called moderate President for Life of the Palestinian Authority) recently made regarding what caused the Holocaust.

In his 1937 Proclamation al-Husseini compared Jews to animals and to disease-spreading pathogens:The Jews are also spreaders of diseases like the plague, the reason that the Jews are to this day called microbes. Speaking of his kindred spirits in Germany in 1937, al-Husseni wrote: likewise energetic measures are undertaken in Germany against the Jews and they are driven off like mangy dogs.

After taking up residence as Hitlers guest in Berlin in 1941, Haj Amin al-Husseini began helping Germany broadcast Nazi propaganda to the Arab world. And in anticipation of Nazi Germany defeating the British in North Africa, on July 7, 1942, the Voice of Free Arabism played a program titled, Kill the Jews Before They Kill You.

Just like the violence incited against Jews by both Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, this broadcast began with a lie:A large number of Jews residing in Egypt and a number of Poles, Greeks, Armenians, and Free French have been issued with revolvers and ammunitionto fight against the Egyptians at the last moment, when Britain is forced to evacuate Egypt.

The hateful, antisemitic broadcast continued:

In the face of this barbaric procedure by the British we think it best, if the life of the Egyptian nation is to be saved, that the Egyptians rise as one man to kill the Jews before they have a chance of betraying the Egyptian people. It is the duty of the Egyptians to annihilate the Jews and to destroy their property. You must kill the Jews, before they open fire on you. Kill the Jews, who have appropriated your wealth and who are plotting against your security.

Arabs of Syria, Iraq, and Palestine, what are you waiting for? The Jews are planning to violate your women, to kill your children and to destroy you. According to the Muslim religion, the defense of your life is a duty which can only be fulfilled by annihilating the Jews. This is your best opportunity to get rid of this dirty race, which has usurped your rights and brought misfortune and destruction on your countries. Kill the Jews, burn their property, destroy their stores, annihilate these base supporters of British imperialism. Your sole hope of salvation lies in annihilating the Jews before they annihilate you.

But you want to blame European Jews for sowing the seeds of hatred and mistrust between Arabs and Jews how racist, hateful and ahistorical can you be?

See the rest here:

Responding to the Claims that Judaism is Just a Religion and Zionism is European Racism - Jewish Journal

Category: Ashkenazi | Comments Off on Responding to the Claims that Judaism is Just a Religion and Zionism is European Racism – Jewish Journal
Tags: