Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By richards on December 26, 2017

Authors

Doron M. Behar, Rambam Health Care Campus, IsraelFollowMait Metspalu, Estonian Biocentre, Evolutionary Biology Group, EstoniaYael Baran, Tel-Aviv University, IsraelNaama M. Kopelman, Tel-Aviv University, IsraelBayazit Yunusbayev, Estonian Biocentre, Evolutionary Biology Group, EstoniaAriella Gladstein, University of ArizonaShay Tzur, Rambam Health Care Campus, IsraelHavhannes Sahakyan, Estonian Biocentre, Evolutionary Biology Group, EstoniaArdeshir Bahmanimehr, Institute of Molecular Biology, National Academy of Sciences, ArmeniaLevon Yepiskoposyan, Institute of Molecular Biology, National Academy of Sciences, ArmeniaKristiina Tambets, Estonian Biocentre, Evolutionary Biology Group, EstoniaElza K. Khusnutdinova, Estonian Biocentre, Evolutionary Biology Group, EstoniaAljona Kusniarevich, Estonian Biocentre, Evolutionary Biology Group, EstoniaOleg Balanovsky, Russian Academy of Sciences, RussiaElena Balanovsky, Russian Academy of Sciences, RussiaLejla Kovacevic, Institute for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, SarajevoDamir Marjanovic, Institute for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, SarajevoEvelin Mihailov, University of Tartu, EstoniaAnastasia Kouvatsi, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, GreeceCostas Traintaphyllidis, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, GreeceRoy J. King, Stanford University School of MedicineFollowOrnella Semino, Universit di Pavia, ItalyAntonio Torroni, Universit di Pavia, ItalyMichael F. Hammer, University of ArizonaEne Metspalu, University of Tartu, EstoniaKarl Skorecki, Rambam Health Care Campus IsraelSaharon Rosset, Tel-Aviv University, IsraelEran Halperin, Tel-Aviv University, IsraelRichard Villems, Estonian Biocentre, Evolutionary Biology Group, EstoniaNoah A. Rosenberg, Stanford UniversityFollow

Open Access Preprint

The origin and history of the Ashkenazi Jewish population have long been of great interest, and advances in high-throughput genetic analysis have recently provided a new approach for investigating these topics. We and others have argued on the basis of genome-wide data that the Ashkenazi Jewish population derives its ancestry from a combination of sources tracing to both Europe and the Middle East. It has been claimed, however, through a reanalysis of some of our data, that a large part of the ancestry of the Ashkenazi population originates with the Khazars, a Turkic-speaking group that lived to the north of the Caucasus region ~1,000 years ago. Because the Khazar population has left no obvious modern descendants that could enable a clear test for a contribution to Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry, the Khazar hypothesis has been difficult to examine using genetics. Furthermore, because only limited genetic data have been available from the Caucasus region, and because these data have been concentrated in populations that are genetically close to populations from the Middle East, the attribution of any signal of Ashkenazi-Caucasus genetic similarity to Khazar ancestry rather than shared ancestral Middle Eastern ancestry has been problematic. Here, through integration of genotypes on newly collected samples with data from several of our past studies, we have assembled the largest data set available to date for assessment of Ashkenazi Jewish genetic origins. This data set contains genome-wide single-nucleotide polymorphisms in 1,774 samples from 106 Jewish and non- Jewish populations that span the possible regions of potential Ashkenazi ancestry: Europe, the Middle East, and the region historically associated with the Khazar Khaganate. The data set includes 261 samples from 15 populations from the Caucasus region and the region directly to its north, samples that have not previously been included alongside Ashkenazi Jewish samples in genomic studies. Employing a variety of standard techniques for the analysis of populationgenetic structure, we find that Ashkenazi Jews share the greatest genetic ancestry with other Jewish populations, and among non-Jewish populations, with groups from Europe and the Middle East. No particular similarity of Ashkenazi Jews with populations from the Caucasus is evident, particularly with the populations that most closely represent the Khazar region. Thus, analysis of Ashkenazi Jews together with a large sample from the region of the Khazar Khaganate corroborates the earlier results that Ashkenazi Jews derive their ancestry primarily from populations of the Middle East and Europe, that they possess considerable shared ancestry with other Jewish populations, and that there is no indication of a significant genetic contribution either from within or from north of the Caucasus region.

Behar, Doron M.; Metspalu, Mait; Baran, Yael; Kopelman, Naama M.; Yunusbayev, Bayazit; Gladstein, Ariella; Tzur, Shay; Sahakyan, Havhannes; Bahmanimehr, Ardeshir; Yepiskoposyan, Levon; Tambets, Kristiina; Khusnutdinova, Elza K.; Kusniarevich, Aljona; Balanovsky, Oleg; Balanovsky, Elena; Kovacevic, Lejla; Marjanovic, Damir; Mihailov, Evelin; Kouvatsi, Anastasia; Traintaphyllidis, Costas; King, Roy J.; Semino, Ornella; Torroni, Antonio; Hammer, Michael F.; Metspalu, Ene; Skorecki, Karl; Rosset, Saharon; Halperin, Eran; Villems, Richard; and Rosenberg, Noah A., "No Evidence from Genome-Wide Data of a Khazar Origin for the Ashkenazi Jews" (2013). Human Biology Open Access Pre-Prints. 41. https://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/humbiol_preprints/41

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"Genetics of Ashkenazi Jewish origins " by Doron M. Behar ...

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Posted By simmons on December 24, 2017

Opposition to the Talmud

Despite the central place of the Talmud in traditional Jewish life and thought, significant Jewish groups and individuals have opposed it vigorously. The Karaite sect in Babylonia, beginning in the 8th century, refuted the oral tradition and denounced the Talmud as a rabbinic fabrication. Medieval Jewish mystics declared the Talmud a mere shell covering the concealed meaning of the written Torah, and heretical messianic sects in the 17th and 18th centuries totally rejected it. The decisive blow to Talmudic authority came in the 18th and 19th centuries when the Haskala (the Jewish Enlightenment movement) and its aftermath, Reform Judaism, secularized Jewish life and, in doing so, shattered the Talmudic wall that had surrounded the Jews. Thereafter, modernized Jews usually rejected the Talmud as a medieval anachronism, denouncing it as legalistic, casuistic, devitalized, and unspiritual.

There is also a long-standing anti-Talmudic tradition among Christians. The Talmud was frequently attacked by the church, particularly during the Middle Ages, and accused of falsifying biblical meaning, thus preventing Jews from becoming Christians. The church held that the Talmud contained blasphemous remarks against Jesus and Christianity and that it preached moral and social bias toward non-Jews. On numerous occasions the Talmud was publicly burned, and permanent Talmudic censorship was established.

On the other hand, since the Renaissance there has been a positive response and great interest in rabbinic literature by eminent non-Jewish scholars, writers, and thinkers in the West. As a result, rabbinic ideas, images, and lore, embodied in the Talmud, have permeated Western thought and culture.

The Talmud is first and foremost a legal compilation. At the same time it contains materials that encompass virtually the entire scope of subject matter explored in antiquity. Included are topics as diverse as agriculture, architecture, astrology, astronomy, dream interpretation, ethics, fables, folklore, geography, history, legend, magic, mathematics, medicine, metaphysics, natural sciences, proverbs, theology, and theosophy.

This encyclopaedic array is presented in a unique dialectic style that faithfully reflects the spirit of free give-and-take prevalent in the Talmudic academies, where study was focussed upon a Talmudic text. All present participated in an effort to exhaust the meaning and ramifications of the text, debating and arguing together. The mention of a name, situation, or idea often led to the introduction of a story or legend that lightened the mood of a complex argument and carried discussion further.

This text-centred approach profoundly affected the thinking and literary style of the rabbis. Study became synonymous with active interpretation rather than with passive absorption. Thinking was stimulated by textual examination. Even original ideas were expressed in the form of textual interpretations.

The subject matter of the oral Torah is classified according to its content into Halakha and Haggada and according to its literary form into Midrash and Mishna. Halakha (law) deals with the legal, ritual, and doctrinal parts of Scripture, showing how the laws of the written Torah should be applied in life. Haggada (narrative) expounds on the nonlegal parts of Scripture, illustrating biblical narrative, supplementing its stories, and exploring its ideas. The term Midrash denotes the exegetical method by which the oral tradition interprets and elaborates scriptural text. It refers also to the large collections of Halakhic and Haggadic materials that take the form of a running commentary on the Bible and that were deduced from Scripture by this exegetical method. In short, it also refers to a body of writings. Mishna is the comprehensive compendium that presents the legal content of the oral tradition independently of scriptural text.

Ezra the scribe who, according to the Book of Ezra, reestablished and reformed the Jewish religion in the 5th century bce, began the search in the Law . . . to teach in Israel statutes and ordinances.

His work was continued by soferim (scribes), who preserved, taught, and interpreted the Bible. They linked the oral tradition to Scripture, transmitting it as a running commentary on the Bible. For almost 300 years they applied the Torah to changing circumstances, making it a living law. They also introduced numerous laws that were designated words of the soferim by Talmudic sources. By the end of this period, rabbinic Judaismthe religious system constructed by the scribes and rabbiswas strong enough to withstand pressure from without and mature enough to permit internal diversity of opinion.

At the beginning of the 2nd century bce, a judicial body headed by the zugotpairs of scholarsassumed Halakhic authority. There were five pairs in all, between c. 150 and 30 bce. The first of the zugot also introduced the Mishnaic style of transmitting the oral tradition.

Hillel and Shammai, the last of the zugot, ushered in the period of the tannaimteachers of the Mishnaat the end of the 1st century bce. This era, distinguished by a continuous attempt to consolidate the fragmentary Midrashic and Mishnaic material, culminated in the compilation of the Mishna at the beginning of the 3rd century ce. The work was carried out in the academies of Hillel and Shammai and in others founded later. Most scholars believe that Halakhic collections existed prior to the fall of Jerusalem, in 70 ce. Other compilations were made at Yavne, a Palestinian town near the Mediterranean, as part of the effort to revitalize Judaism after the disaster of 70 ce. By the beginning of the 2nd century there were many such collections. Tradition has it that Rabbi Akiba organized much of this material into separate collections of Midrash, Mishna, and Haggada and introduced the formal divisions in tannaitic literature. His students and other scholars organized new compilations that were studied in the different academies.

After the rebellion of the Jews against Roman rule led by Simeon bar Kokhba in 132135, when the Sanhedrin (the Jewish supreme court and highest academy) was revived, the Mishnaic compilation adopted by the Sanhedrin president became the official Mishna. The Sanhedrin reached its highest stature under the leadership of Judah ha-Nasi (Judah the Prince, or President); he was also called Rabbi, as the preeminent teacher.

It seems certain that the official Mishna studied during his presidency was the Mishna we know and that he was its editor. Judah aimed to include the entire content of the oral tradition. He drew heavily from the collections of Akibas pupils but also incorporated material from other compilations, including early ones. Nevertheless, the accumulation was such that selection was necessary. Thus almost no Midrash or Haggada was included. Colleagues and pupils of Judah not only made minor additions to the Mishna but tried to preserve the excluded material, the Baraitot (Exclusions), in separate collections. One of these was the Tosefta (Addition). Midrashic material was gathered in separate compilations, and later revisions of some of these are still extant. The language of all of the tannaitic literature is the new Hebrew developed during the period of the Second Temple (c. 6th century bce1st century ce).

The expounders of the Mishna were the amoraim (interpreter), and the two Talmudsthe Palestinian (or Jerusalem) and the Babylonianconsist of their explanations, discussions, and decisions. Both take the form of a running commentary on the Mishna.

The foundations for these two monumental works were begun by three disciples of Judah ha-Nasi: Joanan bar Nappaa, Rav (Abba Arika), and Samuel bar Abba, in their academies at Tiberias, in Palestine, and at Sura and Nehardea in Babylonia, respectively. Centres of learning where the Mishna was expounded existed also at Sepphoris, Caesarea, and Lydda in Palestine. In time new academies were established in Babylonia, the best known being those at Pumbedita, Mahoza and Naresh, founded by Judah bar Ezekiel, Rava, and Rav Pappa, respectively. The enrollment of these centres often numbered in the thousands, and students spent many years there. Those who no longer lived on the academy grounds returned twice annually for the kalla, a month of study in the spring and fall.

Academies differed in their methods of study. Pumbedita, for example, stressed casuistry, while Sura emphasized breadth of knowledge. Students often moved from one academy to another and even from Palestine to Babylonia or from Babylonia to Palestine. This kept open the channels of communication between the various academies and resulted in the inclusion of much Babylonian material in the Palestinian Talmud, and vice versa.

Despite the overwhelming similarity of the two Talmuds, however, they do differ in some ways. The Palestinian Talmud is written in the Western Aramaic dialect, the Babylonian in the Eastern. The former is invariably shorter, and, not having been subject to final redaction, its discussions are often incomplete. Its explanations tend to remain closer to the literal meaning of the Mishna, preferring textual emendation to casuistic interpretation. Finally, some of the legal concepts in the Babylonian Talmud reflect the influence of Persian law, for Babylonia was under Persian rule at the time.

The main endeavour of the amoraim was to thoroughly explain and exhaust the meaning of the Mishna and the Baraitot. Apparent contradictions were reconciled by such means as explaining that conflicting statements referred to different situations or by asserting that they stemmed from the Mishnayot (Mishnas) of different tannaim. The same techniques were used when amoraic statements contradicted the Mishna. These discussions took place for hundreds of years, and their content was passed on from generation to generation, until the compilation of the Talmud.

The portion of the Palestinian Talmud dealing with the three Bavot (gates)i.e., the first three tractates of the fourth order of the Mishna (for orders and tractates, see Talmudic and Midrashic literature, below)was compiled in Caesarea in the middle of the 4th century and is distinguished from the rest by its brevity and terminology. The remainder was completed in Tiberias some 50 years later. It seems likely that its compilation was a rescue operation designed to preserve as much of the Halakhic material collected in Palestinian academies as possible, for by that time the deterioration of the political situation had forced most Palestinian scholars to emigrate to Babylonia.

The Babylonian Talmud was compiled up to the 6th century. Some scholars suggest that the organization of the Talmud began early and that successive generations of amoraim added layer upon layer to previously arranged material. Others suggest that at the beginning a stratum called Gemara, consisting only of Halakhic decisions or short comments, was set forth. Still others theorize that no overall arrangement of Talmudic material was made until the end of the 4th century.

The statement in the tractate Bava metzia that Rabina and Rav Ashi were the end of instruction is most often understood as referring to the final redaction of the Talmud. Since at least two generations of scholars following Rav Ashi (died 427) are mentioned in the Talmud, most scholars suggest that Rabina refers to Rabina bar Huna (died 499) and that the redaction was a slow process lasting about 75 years to the end of the 5th century.

According to the tradition of the geonimthe heads of the academies at Sura and Pumbedita from the 6th to the 11th centuriesthe Babylonian Talmud was completed by the 6th-century savoraim (expositors). But the extent of their contribution is not precisely known. Some attribute to them only short additions. Others credit them with creating the terminology linking the phases of Talmudic discussions. According to another view, they added comments and often decided between conflicting opinions. The proponents of the so-called Gemara theory noted above ascribe to them the entire dialectic portion of Talmudic discourse.

The Mishna is divided into six orders (sedarim), each order into tractates (massekhtot), and each tractate into chapters (peraqim). The six orders are Zeraim, Moed, Nashim, Neziqin, Qodashim, and ohorot.

1. Zeraim (Seeds) consists of 11 tractates: Berakhot, Pea, Demai, Kilayim, Sheviit, Terumot, Maaserot, Maaser sheni, alla, Orla, and Bikkurim. Except for Berakhot (Blessings), which treats of daily prayers and grace, this order deals with laws related to agriculture in Palestine. It includes prohibitions against mixtures in plants (hybridization), legislation relating to the sabbatical year (when land lies fallow and debts are remitted), and regulations concerning the portions of harvest given to the poor, the Levites, and the priests.

2. Moed (Season or Festival) consists of 12 tractates: Shabbat, Eruvin, Pesaim, Sheqalim, Yoma, Sukka, Betza, Rosh Hashana, Taanit, Megilla, Moed qaan, and agiga. This order deals with ceremonies, rituals, observances, and prohibitions relating to special days of the year, including the Sabbath, holidays, and fast days. Since the half-shekel Temple contribution was collected on specified days, tractate Sheqalim, regarding this practice, is included.

3. Nashim (Women) consists of seven tractates: Yevamot, Ketubbot, Nedarim, Nazir, Soa, Giin, and Qiddushin. This order deals with laws concerning betrothal, marriage, sexual and financial relations between husband and wife, adultery, and divorce. Since Nazirite (ascetic) and other vows may affect marital relations, Nedarim (Vows) and Nazir (Nazirite) are included here.

4. Neziqin (Damages) consists of 10 tractates, the first three of which were originally considered one (the Bavot): Bava qamma, Bava metzia, Bava batra, Sanhedrin, Makkot, Shevuot, Eduyyot, Avoda zara, Avot, and Horayot. This order deals with civil and criminal law concerning damages, theft, labour relations, usury, real estate, partnerships, tenant relations, inheritance, court composition, jurisdiction and testimony, erroneous decisions of the Sanhedrin, and capital and other physical punishments. Since idolatry, in the literal sense of worship or veneration of material images, is punishable by death, Avoda zara (Idolatry) is included. Avot (Fathers), commonly called Ethics of the Fathers in English, seems to have been included to teach a moral way of life that precludes the transgression of law.

5. Qodashim (Sacred Things) consists of 11 tractates: Zevaim, Menaot, ullin, Bekhorot, Arakhin, Temura, Keretot, Meila, Tamid, Middot, and Qinnim. This order incorporates some of the oldest Mishnaic portions. It treats of the Temple and includes regulations concerning sacrifices, offerings, and donations. It also contains a detailed description of the Temple complex.

6. ohorot (Purifications) consists of 12 tractates: Kelim, Ohalot, Negaim, Para, ohorot, Miqwaot, Nidda, Makhshirin, Zavim, evul yom, Yadayim, and Uqtzin. This order deals with laws governing the ritual impurity of vessels, dwellings, foods, and persons, and with purification processes.

The Tosefta (Addition) closely resembles the Mishna in content and order. In its present form it at times supplements the Mishna, at other times comments on it, and often also opposes it. There is no Tosefta on the tractates Avot, Tamid, Middot, and Qinnim. The Talmud quotes from many other collections of Mishnaiot and Baraitot: some are attributed to tannaim, and predate the established Mishna; and others, to amoraim. The original material is lost.

Although the entire Mishna was studied at the Palestinian and Babylonian academies, the Palestinian Talmud (Gemara) covers only the first four orders (except chapters 2124 of Shabbat and chapter 3 of Makkot) and the first three chapters of Nidda in the sixth order. Most scholars agree that the Palestinian Talmud was never completed to the fifth and sixth orders of the Mishna and that the missing parts of the other orders were lost. A manuscript of chapter 3 of Makkot was, in fact, found and was published in 1946.

The Babylonian Talmud does not cover orders Zeraim (except Berakhot) and ohorot (except Nidda) and tractates Tamid (except chapters 1,2,4), Sheqalim, Middot, Qinnim, Avot, and Eduyyot. Scholars concur that the Talmud for these parts was never completed, possibly because their content was not relevant in Babylonia.

Halakhic Midrashim are exegetic commentaries on the legal content of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. The five extant collections are Mekhilta, on Exodus; Mekhilta deRabbi Shimon ben Yoai, on Exodus; Sifra, on Leviticus; Sifre, on Numbers and Deuteronomy; Sifre zua, on Numbers. (Mekhilta means measure, a norm or rule; Sifra, plural Sifre, means writing or book.) Critical analysis reveals that Mekhilta and Sifre on Numbers differ from the others in terminology and method. Most scholars agree that these two originated in the school of Ishmael and the others in that of Akiba. In their present form they also include later additions. Mention should also be made of Midrash tannaim on Deuteronomy, consisting of fragments recovered from the Yemenite anthology Midrash ha-gadol.

Haggadic Midrashim originated with the weekly synagogue readings and their accompanying explanations. Although Haggadic collections existed in tannaitic times, extant collections date from the 4th11th centuries. Midrashic compilations were not authoritatively edited and tend to be coincidental and fragmentary.

Most notable among biblical collections is Midrash rabba (Great Midrash), a composite of commentaries on the Pentateuch and five Megillot (Song of Songs, Ruth, Ecclesiastes, Esther, Lamentations) differing in nature and age. Its oldest portion, the 5th-century Genesis rabba, is largely a verse-by-verse commentary, while the 6th-century Leviticus rabba consists of homilies and Lamentations rabba (end of 6th century) is mainly narrative. The remaining portions of Midrash rabba were compiled at later dates.

The Tanuma (after the late-4th-century Palestinian amora Tanuma bar Abba), of which two versions are extant, is another important Pentateuchal Midrash. Additional Midrashic compilations include those to the books of Samuel, Psalms, and Proverbs. Mention should also be made of Pesiqta (Section or Cycles) deRab Kahana (after a Babylonian amora) and Pesiqta rabbati (The Great Cycle), consisting of homilies on the Torah (Pentateuch) readings that occur on festivals and special Sabbaths.

Haggadic compilations independent of biblical text include Avot deRabbi Natan, Tanna deve Eliyyahu, Pirqe (Chapters) deRabbi Eliezer, and tractates Derekh eretz (Correct Conduct). These primarily deal with ethics, moral teachings, and biblical narrative.

Among the medieval anthologies are the Yalqu (Compilation) Shimoni (13th century), Yalqu ha-makhiri (14th century), and En Yaaqov (Eye of Jacob, 16th century). The two most important modern Haggadic anthologies are those of Wilhelm Bacher and Louis Ginzberg.

The Talmuds dialectic style and organization are not those of a code of laws. Accordingly, codification efforts began shortly after the Talmuds completion. The first known attempt was Halakhot pesuqot (Decided Laws), ascribed to Yehudai Gaon (8th century). Halakhot gedolot (Great Laws), by Simeon Kiyyara, followed 100 years later. Both summarize Talmudic Halakhic material, omitting dialectics but preserving Talmudic order and language. The later geonim concentrated on particular subjects, such as divorce or vows, introducing the monographic style of codification.

Codification literature gained impetus by the beginning of the 11th century. During the next centuries many compilations appeared in Europe and North Africa. The most notable, following Talmudic order, were the Hilkhot Harif, by Isaac Alfasi (11th century), and Hilkhot Harosh, by Asher ben Jehiel (13th14th centuries). Though modelled after Halakhot gedolot, the Hilkhot Harif encompasses only laws applicable after the destruction of the Temple but includes more particulars. The Hilkhot Harosh closely follows Alfasis code but often also includes the reasoning underlying decisions.

The most important of the topically arranged codifications were: the Mishne Torah, Sefer ha-urim, and Shulan arukh. (1) The Mishne Torah (The Torah Reviewed) by Maimonides (12th century), is a monumental work, original in plan, language, and order; it encompasses all religious subject matter under 14 headings and includes theosophy, theology, and religion. (2) The Sefer ha-urim (Book of Rows, or Parts), by Jacob ben Asher (14th century), the son of Asher ben Jehiel, introduced new groupings, dividing subject matter into four major categories (urim) reminiscent of the Mishnaic orders; it includes only laws applicable after the destruction of the Temple. (3) The Shulan arukh (The Prepared Table) by Joseph Karo (16th century), the last of the great codifiers, is structured after the Sefer ha-urim, but presents the Sefardic (Middle Eastern and North African) rather than the Ashkenazic (Franco-German and eastern European) tradition, with decisions largely following those of Alfasi, Maimonides, and Rabbi Asher. When the 16th-century Ashkenazic codifier Moses Isserles added his notes, this became the standard Halakhic code for all Jewry.

The interpretive literature on the Talmud began with the rise of academies in Europe and North Africa. The earliest known European commentary, though ascribed to Gershom ben Judah (10th11th centuries), is actually an eclectic compilation of notes recorded by students of the Mayence (Mainz) Academy. Compilations of this kind, known as qunresim (notebooks), also developed in other academies. Their content was masterfully reshaped and reformulated in the renowned 11th-century commentary of Rashi (acronym of Rabbi Shlomo Yitzaqi), in which difficulties likely to be encountered by students are anticipated and detail after detail is clarified until a synthesized, comprehensible whole emerges.

The commentaries of ananel ben ushiel and Nissim ben Jacob ben Nissim, the first to appear in North Africa (11th century), are introductory in nature. They summarize the content of Talmudic discussions, assuming that details will be understood once the general idea becomes comprehensible. This style was later followed by the Spanish school, including Joseph ibn Migash and Maimonides. However, as Rashis work became known, it displaced all other commentaries. (Note its predominant role in the sample page of Talmud.)

A new phase in Talmudic literature was initiated by Rashis grandchildren, Rabbis Isaac, Samuel, and Jacob, the sons of Meir, who established the school of tosafot. (These medieval additions are not to be confused with the tannaitic Tosefta discussed above.) Reviving Talmudic dialectic, they treated the Talmud in the same way that it had treated the Mishna. They linked apparently unrelated statements from different Talmudic discourses and pointed out the fine distinctions between seemingly interdependent statements. This dialectic style was soon adopted in all European academies. Even the writings of Ravad (Abraham ben David), Zerahiah ha-Levi, and Yeshaya deTrani, three of the most original Talmudists (12th century), reflect the impact of Tosafist dialectic.

The works of Meir Abulafia and Menaem Meiri, although of the North African genre, include a strong dialectic element. In Spain such dialectic works were known as iddushim or novellae (since they sought new insights), the most famous being those written by four generations (13th14th centuries) of teacher and pupil: Ramban (Namanides, or Moses ben Naman), Rashba (Solomon ben Adret), Ritba (Yomtov ben Abraham), and Ran (Nissim ben Reuben Gerondi).

A major role in establishing Talmudic authority was also played by the responsa literature, replies (responsa) to legal and religious questions. Beginning in the 7th century, when the Babylonian geonim responded in writing to questions concerning the Talmud, it developed into a branch of Talmudic literature that continued to the present. Then, as now, Talmudic authorities were approached for explanations and decisions. Among the geonim the best known were Sherira (10th century) and his son Hai. In the Middle Ages the most important were Alfasi, Ibn Migash (Joseph ibn Migash), Maimonides, Ravad (Abraham ben David of Posquires), Ramban, Rashba, Rosh (Asher ben Jehiel), Ran, and Ribash (Isaac ben Sheshet Perfet).

Study in the academies was always oral; hence the question of when the Mishna and Talmud were first committed to writing has been the subject of much discussion. According to some scholars, the process of writing began with Judah ha-Nasi. Others attribute it to the savoraim.

The Palestinian Talmud was first printed in Venice (152324). All later editions followed this one. Printing of the Babylonian Talmud was begun in Spain about 1482, and there have been more than 100 different editions since. The oldest extant full edition appeared in Venice (152023). This became the prototype for later printings, setting the type of page and pagination (a total of close to 5,500 folios). The standard edition was printed in Vilna beginning in 1886. It carries many commentaries and commentaries upon commentaries. In the sample page reproduced here, the Mishna and the Gemara are placed in the centre column of the page and are printed in the heavy type. The commentary of Rashi is always located in the inner column of the page and the tosafot in the outer column. Other commentaries and references to legal codes and to scriptural verses surround the major commentaries, in smaller type. Talmudic citations are made by tractate name, folio number, and side of the folio (a or b).

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Talmud and Midrash | Judaism | Britannica.com

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Posted By admin on December 24, 2017

Speaker Filter Box: All Speakers in TalmudAustern, Rabbi Elkanah Baddiel, Rabbi Shmuel Eliezer Balter, Rabbi Chaim Basser, Rabbi Yitzchok Berger, Rabbi Yosef Berman, Rabbi Yehoshua Bertman, Rabbi Gershon Biron, Rabbi Moshe Chaim Buckler, Rabbi Reuven Eichorn, Rabbi Eliezer Elyashiv, Rabbi Yosef Shalom Feinstein, Rabbi Moshe Frank, Rabbi Michoel Garfinkel, Rabbi Aaron Gelbfish, Rabbi Levi Greenberg, Rabbi Naftali Grossman, Rabbi Dovid Grossman, Rabbi Yitzhak Heber, Rabbi Yosi Hilewitz, Rabbi Chaim Kahn, Rabbi Yudah Kaplan, Rabbi Nissan Karmel, Rabbi Yaakov Katz, Rabbi Yaakov Moshe Kestenbaum, Rabbi Moshe Don Kilstein, Rabbi Avraham Krancer, Rabbi Dan Krohn, Rabbi Avrohom Langer, Rabbi Levi Levine, Rabbi Menachem Lieberman, Rabbi Yankel Lopiansky, Rabbi Ahron Mernick, Rabbi Moe Metz, Rabbi Yacov Perlstein, Rabbi Shlomo Pfeiffer, Rabbi Hillel Yosef Pransky, Rabbi Doniel Reich, Rabbi Eli Reingold, Rabbi Eliyahu Reis, Rabbi Baruch Rhine, Rabbi Mordechai Schechter, Rabbi Yitzchok Schorr, Rabbi Avraham Schorr, Rabbi Avroham Schorr, Rabbi Avroham Schorr, Rabbi Nachman Sherwinter, Rabbi Eliezer Shurkin, Rabbi Yaakov Moishe Sonnenschein, Rabbi Yosef Sorscher, Rabbi Aharon Sorscher, Rabbi Aharon Spira, Rabbi Yechiel Tanenbaum, Rabbi Ephraim Turin, Rabbi Mayer Turin, Rabbi Meir Baruch Walden, Rabbi Ari Winter, Rabbi Menachem

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On Talmud - TorahDownloads

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Posted By admin on December 23, 2017

Seder Nezikin (Damages)

Seder Zeraim (Seeds)

Berachot

Pe'ah

Demai

Kilayim

Shevi'it

Terumot

Ma'asrote

Ma'aser Sheni

Hallah

Orlah

Bikkurim

Seder Nashim (Women)

Yevamot

Ketubot

Nedarim

Kiddushin

Seder Kodashim (Holies)

Zevahim

Menachot

Hullin

Bechorot

Arachin

Temurah

Keritot

Me'ilah

Tamid

Middot

Kinnim

Seder Tehorot (Purities)

Keilim

Oholot

Nega'im

Parah

Tehorot

Mikva'ot

Niddah

Machshirin

Zavim

Tevul Yom

Yadayim

Uktzim

1.Tenanof the original--We have learned in a Mishna;Tania--We have, learned in a Boraitha;Itemar--It was taught.2. Questions are indicated by the interrogation point, and are immediately followed by the answers, without being so marked.3. If there occurs two statements separated by the phrase,Lishna achrenaorWabayith AemaorIkha d'amri(literally, "otherwise interpreted"), we translate only the second.4. As the pages of the original are indicated in our new Hebrew edition, it is not deemed necessary to mark them in the English edition, this being only a translation from the latter.5. Words or passages enclosed in round parentheses () denote the explanation rendered by Rashi to the foregoing sentence or word. Square parentheses [] contained commentaries by authorities of the last period of construction of the Gemara.

Sources: Sacred Texts

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Babylonian Talmud [Full Text]

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Posted By simmons on December 20, 2017

The Mizrachi (Hebrew: , Tnuat HaMizrahi, an acronym for Merkaz Ruhani lit. Religious centre) is the name of the religious Zionist organization founded in 1902 in Vilnius at a world conference of religious Zionists called by Rabbi Yitzchak Yaacov Reines. Bnei Akiva, which was founded in 1929, is the youth movement associated with Mizrachi. Both Mizrachi and the Bnei Akiva youth movement are still international movements.

Mizrachi believes that the Torah should be at the centre of Zionism and also sees Jewish nationalism as a means of achieving religious objectives. The Mizrachi Party was the first official religious Zionist party and founded the Ministry of Religious Affairs in Israel and pushed for laws enforcing kashrut and the observance of the sabbath in the workplace. It also played a role prior to the creation of the state of Israel, building a network of religious schools that exist to this day, and took part in the 1951 elections.

During the interwar period, the Mizrachi party was represented in the kehilla councils as well as in the municipal councils and in the Polish Sejm and Senate, e.g. by the Vilnius Chief Rabbi Yitzkak Rubinstein (1888-1945), Mizrachi senator (1922-1930, 1938-1939) and deputy (1930-1935), and by Rabbi Simon Federbusch, Sejm member from 1922 till 1927.

Major figures in the Religious Zionist Movement include Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook who became the Ashkenazi Jews Chief Rabbi of the British Mandate of Palestine in 1924 and tried to reconcile Zionism with Orthodox Judaism.

Mizrachi had a separate trade union wing, founded in 1921, Hapoel HaMizrachi, which represented religious Jews in the Histadrut and tried to attract religious Labor Zionists. The trade union also operated as a political party by the same name in the early days of Israel's existence, becoming the fourth largest party in the 1951 elections.

In 1956, the Mizrachi party and Hapoel HaMizrachi merged to form the National Religious Party to advance the rights of religious Jews in Israel, having fought the 1955 election together as the National Religious Front. The party was an ever-present government coalition member until 1992. In 2008, the party merged into The Jewish Home, essentially a successor party.

In the United States the ideals of and work of the Mizrachi movement have been carried out through the official Religious Zionists of America (RZA) movement that has been an important source of the ideology and guidance for Modern Orthodox Judaism and its rabbis and followers. It is affiliated with the Bnei Akiva youth movement which has a great influence on the Modern Orthodox Jewish day schools and synagogues. The American movement has served as a fund-rasing and lobbying arm for its Israeli counterparts.

Many of the high echelon Jewish leaders and rabbis of Yeshiva University actively identify with and support Mizrachi in all its forms.

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Posted By simmons on December 18, 2017

Vizhnitz is the name of a Hasidic dynasty founded by Rabbi Menachem Mendel Hager. Vizhnitz is the Yiddish name of Vyzhnytsia, a town in present-day Ukraine (then, a village in Austrian Bukovina).

Followers of the rebbes of Vizhnitz are called Vizhnitzer Hasidim.

Menachem Mendel Hager was born on May 17, 1830 in Kosiv. He was the son of Rabbi Chaim Hager of Kosiv and the son-in-law of Rabbi Israel Friedman of Ruzhyn. He was appointed Rebbe at the age of 24, and soon after he moved to Vyzhnytsia, a small town close to Kosiv. As his reputation grew, so did his followers. He became known and admired for his charitable acts, sincerity in prayer and love for Eretz Yisrael. In his older years he endeavored to emigrate there. He had two sons, Reb Boruch and another, Reb Yaakov Dovid, who died during his lifetime. His son-in-law was the son of Rabbi Yehoshua Rokeach of Belz, Reb Shmuel of Sokal. His Torah thoughts were published under the title Tzemach Tzaddik. He died on October 18, 1884 and was buried in Vyzhnytsia. His son Reb Boruch took his place becoming the second Rebbe of Vizhnitz.

Boruch Hager was born in 1845 and was named after Rabbi Boruch of Medzhybizh at the behest of his grandfather, Yisroel Friedman of Ruzhyn. In 1885, aged 40 he inherited the mantle of leadership from his father, Menachem Mendel Hager, and became rebbe to thousands of Hasidim. He led them for only eight years until his death in 1892. His Torah thoughts were collected in Imrei Boruch by his son-in-law. Eight of his sons became rebbes in different locals: His eldest, Reb Yisroel, succeeded him in Vyzhnytsia; Reb Chaim became rebbe in Ottynia; Reb Moshe in Suceava; Reb Shmuel Avrohom Abba in Horodenka; Reb Yaakov Yitzchok Dovid in Storozhynets; Reb Pinchos in Borsha; Reb Feivish in Zelishtshik; Reb Yechiel Michel succeeded his brother in Horodenka. Another son, Reb Sholom, died in his youth. His sons-in-law were Reb Shmuel Dov Chodorov of Petriva; Reb Mordechai Chodorov of Kolomea, who published Imrey Boruch; Reb Sholom Yosef Friedman of Sadigur-Chernovitz.

Yisroel Hager was born on August 20, 1860. He was the first-born son of Rabbi Boruch Hager. He married the daughter of Rabbi Meir Horowitz of Dzhikov. In 1875, he moved to his father-in-law's house and studied at great length with his brother-in-law Rabbi Yehoshua of Dzikov. Three years later he returned to Vyzhnytsia and became very close to his grandfather, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Hager. In 1893 he was appointed as rebbe in Vyzhnytsia. The young rebbe invigorated the dynasty and attracted many more followers from the surrounding provinces. He established many Talmud Torahs, and also a yeshiva, to which he appointed his son Rabbi Menachem Mendel as rosh yeshiva. When World War I broke out he was forced to move to Grosswardein (Oradea). He lived there until his death on 2 June 1936.[1] In 1949, his remains were transferred to Israel and re-interred in Zichron Meir, Bnei Brak.

His sons were Reb Menachem Mendel of Visheve, Reb Chaim Meir (Chayim Meir'l), who inherited his father's position in Grosswardein; Reb Eliezer of Vyzhnytsia; Reb Boruch of Siret; and Reb Shmuel Abba who died young. He also had six daughters.

After the Holocaust, Reb Chaim Meir settled in Bnei Brak, Israel, to build a community there. Disciples from pre-war Europe gathered around him and formed a comprehensive net of educational and communal institutions. He became a spiritual mentor of the Agudas Yisrael party in the Israeli Knesset. Agudas Yisrael won substantial government aid for Bnei Brak and affiliated communities in return for its support in coalition governments.[2]

Reb Chaim Meir had two sons, the older Moshe (Reb Moshelle) and the younger Mordechai (Reb Mottele).[2]

Reb Chaim Meir's sons-in-law include Rabbis Yidele Horowitz, Yitzchok Yaakov Weiss (both were married to Reb Chaim Meir's daughter, Miriam),[3] and Yisrael Friedman (married to Reb Chaim Meir's daughter, Tziporah. Their son is Hoshea Friedman).[4]

Rabbi Moshe Yehoshua Hager, was the Vizhnitser Rebbe in Bnei Brak. He died on March 13, 2012, aged 95.[5] He had two sons and four daughters. His elder son is Rabbi Yisroel, named after his great grandfather, the "Ahavas Yisroel"; his other son is Rabbi Menachem Mendel, named after the founding Vizhnitzer Rebbe, author of Tzemach Tzaddik. Rabbi Moshe Yehoshua's sons-in-law are famous rabbis. The eldest daughter married Rabbi David Twersky, the Skverer Rebbe of New Square, NY. One daughter married Rabbi Yissachar Dov Rokeach, the Belzer Rebbe from Jerusalem. One daughter married Rabbi Aaron Teitelbaum, the Satmar Rebbe from Kiryas Joel, NY. The youngest daughter married Rabbi Menachem Ernster, the rosh yeshiva of the Vizhnitz Yeshiva in Bnei Brak.[6]

Rabbi Mordechai Hager, born in 1922, is the current Vizhnitzer Rebbe. He is the oldest hassidic rabbi in the entire world.[7][8] He is known for his devotion to learning Torah: he studies 18 hours a day and asks his Chasidim to study at least two hours every day. He has about 50.000 followers internationally.[citation needed] He has 14 children, 8 sons and 6 daughters. His sons serve as leaders of his followers' synagogues, in the United States and internationally. The eldest son, Rabbi Pinches Shulem ztl served the synagogue in Borough Park, Brooklyn, New York; Rabbi Yisroel serves the synagogue in Monsey, New York; Rabbi Mendel serves the synagogue in Kiamesha Lake, New York; Rabbi Yitzchok Yochonon serves the synagogue in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The other sons serve internationally: Rabbi Eliezer in Jerusalem, Israel Rabbi Aron in Montreal, Canada; Rabbi Duvid in London, UK; and his youngest son, Rabbi Buroch Shamshon, in Beit Shemesh.

Rabbi Eliezer Hager was the Seret-Vizhnitzer Rebbe in Haifa, Israel. He was a first cousin of the rebbes of Bnei Brak and Monsey. He was the older of two sons of Rebbe Boruch Hager, author of Mekor Baruch, who was a son of the Ahavas Yisroel. Rabbi Menachem Dovid Hager is the Shotz-Vizhnitzer Rebbe in Haifa, Israel; he is a nephew of the Seret-Vizhnitzer Rebbe.

Upon Grand Rabbi Eliezer Hager's passing on July 7, 2015, he was succeeded by his son Grand Rabbi Yaakov Hager, who is the current Seret Viznitz Rebbe. Rabbi Eliezer Hager's son-in-law, Rabbi Naphtali Reuven Kornreich, formerly Chief Rabbi of Tel Zion, also was crowned as a Rebbe upon the Rebbe's passing, and is now known as the Kosov-Viznitz Rebbe, and leads a Hasidic Court in Beit Shemesh.

Rebbe Shmuel Yaakov Kohn, the Toldos Avrohom Yitzchok Rebbe of Jerusalem, was a student of the late Rebbe Chaim Meir of Vizhnitz, and of Rebbe Moshe Yehoshua of Vizhnitz, and has adopted many of the customs of Vizhnitz.

Vizhnitzer Hasidim are uniquely dressed in that they are the only group besides the Stropkover Hassidim who wear their hat bow on the right side, not left, which makes it seem backwards compared to similar hats.

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Posted By admin on December 18, 2017

Since its inception in 1980, the Shehebar Sephardic Center has grown into a world renowned institution with an outstanding reputation for high quality programs, as well as a resource for Sephardic communities worldwide to identify rabbis, dayans, teachers, mohels, shochets and spiritual leadership.

The SSC has a thriving kollel, rabbinical training program and dayanut program in the Old City of Jerusalem. The SSC also operates synagogues in the Far East, helps struggling Jewish communities and operates schools in Uzbekistan and Russia. Each project is designed to help Sephardic communities combat assimilation and intermarriage with spiritual leadership.

The SSC has trained more than 300 rabbis. These spiritual leaders now serve Sephardic Jews in 80 cities, 33 countries, and six continents around the world.

Seen as the global source for Sephardic training, the SSC receives calls daily from Diaspora Jewish communities looking for rabbinic leadership to build a kahal, lead holiday services, to teach in a school, or to oversee the kashrut of a restaurant.No matter what the need, the SSC fills the void by sending its graduates to the remotest towns or the most highly populated cities, to serve and inspire the people there.

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Shehebar Sephardic Center - sscusa.org

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Posted By admin on December 16, 2017

JEWISH AUTHORS CONFIRM CUTTING EDGE ANALYSIS OF THE BLACK MAGICK MASONIC CONTROL OF ZIONISM, ISRAEL, AND CURRENT MIDDLE EAST EVENTS

Title: JEWISH AUTHORS CONFIRM CUTTING EDGE ANALYSIS OF THE BLACK MAGICK MASONIC CONTROL OF ZIONISM, ISRAEL, AND CURRENT MIDDLE EAST EVENTS!

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THE CUTTING EDGE

For past years, Cutting Edge has presented a truth that has been offensive to some: that the Satanic Illuminist, Rothschild, began the Zionist Movement in 1896, funded the agitation through 1948 to get Israel re-established back in the land, and has owned the leadership of Israel up to the current day. To see the reality of this fact, you only need to examine Israel's flag, the most Satanic of all symbols, the hexagram. We have posted several articles on this subject, which, if you have not read them before, you need to stop and read them as background for the information contained in this article. These are the previous Cutting Edge articles:

* NEWS1643 - Fervent Masonic Desire Is To Rebuild Solomon's Temple On The Temple Mount - Is Also Driving Force Behind All Middle East Events

* NEWS2128 - American Jewish Citizen Outraged That Bush Posed In Front of Illuminist Symbol of the "Learned Elders of Zion" - The Hexagram on the Israeli Flag!

The information reported by Barry Chamish and Jerry Golden completely confirms the original teaching from Cutting Edge. These two Jewish authors can see the events leading up to the very conclusion as Cutting Edge stated in these articles of two years ago. Golden also gives some very excellent pictures to depict the Masonic architecture of the Israeli Supreme Court building, conceived and funded by the Rothschilds. We shall tie the information together, and add some revealing information of our own.

Before we get started, we wish to reiterate that this information does not "prove" that the conspiracy to produce the Kingdom of Antichrist -- New World Order -- is a uniquely Jewish conspiracy, nor does it show that all Israel is evil, or that all Jews are to be despised, as some Christian ministries are reporting these days. In the world today, there are two types of Jews, according to God's Word. They are:

* The two-thirds -- "... in all the land, saith the LORD, two parts therein shall be cut off and die" [Zech 13:8]

* The one-third -- "... but the third shall be left therein. And I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried: they shall call on my name, and I will hear them: I will say, It is my people: and they shall say, The LORD is my God." [Zech 13:8-9]

Thus, when we say that the Illuminati through the Rothschilds planned and funded Zionism and forced the issue of Israel coming back to her land in 1948, we are saying that these Satanists comprise the leadership of the "Two-Thirds", whom God will allow Antichrist to slay! We see this slaughter occurring in two prophetic parts of Scripture:

* Matthew 24:15-22 -- We see Antichrist in the Temple committing the Abomination of Desolation and then we see people fleeing in all directions. Jesus warned the people in Israel to flee quickly for the "window of opportunity" to flee would be mightily short.

* Revelation 12:13-16 -- We see the Dragon (Satan) having just been cast out of heaven, and the first thing he does is to try to annihilate the woman (Israel). This scene describes what Jesus is speaking of in Matthew 24.

As soon as Antichrist walks out of the Temple after he has desecrated the Holy of Holies as prophesied, his men shall be poised to strike against all Jews in the country, to slaughter every single one of them. At this point, the "two-thirds" (66%) of the Jews living in the land will be killed; when God protects His remnant as He foretold He would in Zechariah 13:8-9, and in Revelation 12:13-16, He is protecting the "one-third" (33%) of the population.

The supreme irony is that the "two-thirds" of the population slated for death at the hands of Antichrist will undoubtedly be the ones who were the most enthusiastic about supporting him as the Messiah, while God's Holy Spirit undoubtedly will reveal the identity of who Antichrist really is to the "one-third remnant" prior to the time of the Abomination of Desolation.

But, here is the supreme irony. Contemplate this carefully, for this understanding should go a long way toward answering your deepest questions about the current state of Israel and where it is heading. Jesus lamented the reality that the great majority of the Jewish people and their priests were in the process of rejecting Him completely as Messiah. Listen to His lament:

"I have come in My Father's name and with His power, and you do not receive Me [your hearts are not open to Me, you give Me no welcome]; but if another comes in his own name and his own power and with no other authority but himself, you will receive him and give him your approval." [John 5:43; Parallel Bible, KJV/Amplified Bible Commentary]

Bible scholars uniformly agree that Jesus is speaking here of Antichrist. He is saying that Antichrist will come in his own name, power and authority, but the Jews shall accept him as their Messiah, even though they rejected Jesus after our Lord had fulfilled all Old Testament Messianic prophecies. In our audio cassette 3-Tape series, "Secret Societies Killed Jesus Christ", we prove from the Gospel account that the Pharisees and Sadduccees were members of a secret society whose belief system later became known as the Kabala [Kabbala, Qabala].

Since the Illuminati of our day cherish the Kabala as the cornerstone of their belief system, it can be truthfully stated that the Pharisees and Sadduccees were Illuminist! Jesus was originally rejected by the Illuminati! That is a fact you can take to the bank! The Pharisaical Illuminati knew Jesus was the prophesied Messiah but He was not carrying out the secret plan they had expected Him to carry out! Therefore, they plotted and schemed to have Him killed, so that they could stage one of their own in His place!

Satan now is ready to bring his Messiah to the world scene, so he can deceive the Jews into thinking he was their long-awaited Messiah. Is it not logical that Satan would use the Illuminati to bring Israel back to the world as a nation, and that he would ensure that the leadership of this fledgling Israel would be Illuminist to the core? If the leadership of Israel is Illuminist at the time Antichrist arises, they can throw the full weight of the Israeli government behind the deception. When Antichrist deceptively goes forth to "fulfill" all Old Testament prophecies concerning Israel, as Peter Lemesurier says in his New World Order book, "The Armageddon Script", he will have the full backing and support of the Israeli government! All propaganda organs within Israel will be told what to say and when to say it, in order to deceive the Jewish people the more easily.

When Antichrist goes forth to "fulfill" prophecy, he will not have to worry about resistance from authority, nor will he have to worry about permits, and that kind of thing. The entire deception would be the more easily achieved if the official government is behind the entire effort. Thus, God allowed Satan to use his Illuminati to begin the process of the Jew coming back to his land (Zionism), and to ensure that every prime minister was Illuminist. Satan must conform his plans to God's prophecy, and the time will come soon for Antichrist to begin slaughtering Jews, just as the Bible foretells.

With this concept in mind, let us now begin to discuss the developments that Barry Chamish and Jerry Golden have reported. Remember, Chamish is an unbeliever but Golden is a Messianic Jew who loves Jesus greatly. Listen to their discussion as to how Freemasonry has been, and still is, in full control of official Israel.

BARRY CHAMISH - ALBERT PIKE AND THE "GENEVA ACCORDS"

Cutting Edge Note: In mid-October, the insidious "Geneva Accords" were unveiled to the Israeli people and the world at large. We were initially puzzled by this new accord, since the Oslo Peace Accord has been pushed since September, 1993, at the highest levels of the governments of Israel, the United States, and the Palestinian Authority. We asked our military source within Israel to explain the significance of the Geneva Accord to us; this is the response:

"If implemented, the Swiss Accord can be compared to icing on a cake. Oslo and The Road Map have crippled the tiny State of Israel, while the Swiss Accord would incapacitate Israel, making them unable to defend Israel. If they stretch out the Gaza Strip as planned, this will enable Egypt to cut off the lower half of Israel, causing troops in the south to fight one battle, while Jerusalem fights another separate battle and the north again another battle. Take a map and lay it side-by-side to the Swiss Accord and draw lines where they say the Palestinians get total control, plus new territory. You will see how the different areas become literally cut off from each other. And with no Jewish entity directly in front of the Gaza Strip, Ashkelon will become an easy target ... I know this area well, since I did my IDF training in a military base outside Ashkelon. At night, we could hear the gunfire. Without the buffer zone, this military installation could be in grave danger, since it is a surface base, without any jets for air cover."

"The squeeze is now on, big time, to reduce Israel to a helpless state, in the last stage before its elimination. Oslo has now become Geneva and this time around, those leading Israel to its final disaster have learned from their failures ... I have long known that Labor Zionism was created by British Freemasonry and its long-term goal was always the destruction of the Jews. Now I'm going to prove it. Albert Pike was an American masonic grandmaster of the 19th century. Unlike others of his cult, he was less than secretive and recorded the master plan in his writings. [NOTE: At this point, Chamish relates the Three World War vision given him by his demonic Guiding Spirit, a plan you can read at NEWS1056]

Now, back to Chamish: After relating the fact that the first two world wars occurred just as Pike's spirit had foretold, Chamish then turns to the final war, the Third World War that was to be fought between Israel and her Arab neighbors.

"The Third World War must be fomented by taking advantage of the differences caused by the 'agentur' of the 'Illuminati' between the political Zionists and the leaders of Islamic World. The war must be conducted in such a way that Islam (the Moslem Arabic World) and political Zionism (the State of Israel) mutually destroy each other."

For those of us who have been following this insane struggle between Israel and the Palestinians since the early 1980's, this concept that both sides will be encouraged to "mutually destroy each other" has a bit of truth ringing in it. The two sides have seemed to be in a death embrace these past 22 years. However, the Palestinians do not possess the military wherewithal to annihilate Israel, so Syria and Egypt must come into play in this equation. For the past decade, Egypt has been buying huge quantities of American armaments, to the point now where both sides have weapons systems like the F-16 fighter-bombers. In the past week, we have seen reports that Russia has equipped Syria with advanced shoulder-fired antiaircraft missiles and even her supersonic "Sunburn" missiles that fly at 1,700 miles per hour and can be fitted with unconventional warheads. Now, more than ever, Israel and her Arab neighbors seem poised for a death battle.

Let us now continue listening to Chamish:

"Israel is in enormous trouble and is about to be a fatality of a plot for world domination recorded in 1871. The means to its end will be the Jews made influential by forces salivating at the opportunity to see Israel finally finished off in the flames of a ritualistic Hell ... Since the terrorist attacks of Sept 11, 2001, world events in the Middle East show a growing unrest and instability between Jews and Arabs. This is completely in line with the call for a Third World War to be fought between the two, and their allies on both sides. This Third World War is still to come, and recent events show us that it is not far off."

We have reported on a number of occasions that, on April 27, 2002, a Sharon aide was heard remarking: "World War III is coming whether you like it or not; the 9/11 attacks were just the beginning."

Thus, you can see that Chamish has just verified what Cutting Edge has been reporting all along, i.e., that the Masonic plan to produce Antichrist is proceeding just as planned. While Chamish reports on the plan conceived in 1871 and printed in secret Masonic literature on January 22, 1872, the original parts of the demonic plan began in 1594 as Sir Francis Bacon and Queen Elizabeth were listening to their Guiding Spirits; it then proceeds to 1776 as the "New Atlantis" nation -- the United States of America -- was established just 66 days after the Beltaine holiday (April 30 - May 1) witnessed the birth of the Masters of the Illuminati.

ISRAELI SUPREME COURT - SHOCKING SYMBOLISM

Now, let us go forward to listen to the revelations of Jerry Golden. Whereas Chamish was reporting that current events are the outworking of a much older plan, Golden is reporting that the new Israeli Supreme Court building was conceived and built with Rothschild money, but more importantly, was built with incredibly bold and visible Satanic symbols. Let us now listen to Jerry Golden:

NEWS BRIEF: "The Roots of Evil in Jerusalem", The Golden Report, Published 11/16/2003.

"In this report I will use many pictures showing the establishment of the Illuminati and establish proof that there has been a diabolical plot by those we refer to as the New World Order. Showing the architectural design of the New Israeli Supreme Court Building designed and paid for by the Rothschilds reflex the presence of Free Masonry and the Illuminati. I took all but one of the pictures you are about to see so I can assure that what you are seeing is real and in place. The same families who own and control the Federal Reserve and other major financial institutions have their eyes set on the Temple Mount, and the Holy City of Jerusalem. Just as Scriptures say, the man who will be revealed as the Anti-Christ will sit in that place, before the appearance of the Jewish Messiah Yeshua HaMashiach, and many will receive him as their messiah."

In NEWS1643, written two years ago, we revealed, from ancient Masonic writings, that the fervent -- even white-hot -- Masonic desire to rebuild Solomon's Temple on the Temple Mount is the driving force of events in the Middle East. Masons want to seize control of the Temple Mount so they can build the Temple their Masonic Christ (Antichrist) will use as he is posing as Messiah. Jerry Golden has just verified this information.

Now, Golden focusses on the Israeli Supreme Court building:

"As this entire report will be built around the construction of this building ordered by the Rothchilds I should show you a picture of the building .... The Supreme Court building sits on a plot of land opposite the Knesset and next to the Foreign Ministry and the Central bank of Israel. It is important to keep in mind that it sits in line with the Knesset, for we will be talking about Ley-Lines that cross under this pyramid running to the Knesset, with other ley-lines that cross in perfect order to the center of Jerusalem and on to the Rockefeller Museum. Everything about this building has been thought out to the very finest detail, and it is diabolical. The Devils plan has been put into place before we ever had an idea of his plan. He knows his final battle will be here in Jerusalem."

Cutting Edge spoke of the importance of ley-lines in our Newsletter of July 12, 2003, as we discussed the reality that the Illuminati builds their important buildings on occult ley-lines. Since we correctly identify ley-lines in this newsletter, we encourage you to read it, in the section under South Africa. Golden speaks of ley-lines being important in the construction of key Israeli buildings without really explaining what they are.

Golden returns to the Israeli Supreme Court building:

"The Engineers who were chosen for this job by the Rothschilds were the grandson and granddaughter of Ben-Zion Guine from Turkey who worked for Baron Rothschild ..."

Whenever the Rothschild's have their filthy lucre involved, you may expect they are using that money to advance their favorite cause of Antichrist arising to take control of the world in perfect fulfillment of the Masonic plan. This Israeli Supreme Court building is no exception. You will be shocked to see how Masonic the design of this building is, both inside and outside.

"The first thing you will notice is the pyramid with the all Seeing Eye just like the one you will see on the American dollar bill, it sits in a circle to the left." [Golden, op. cit]

Look to the extreme left on top of the building, and you will see the pyramid inside a hollowed out circle. If you look closely, you will see a faint black dot. This dot is the All-Seeing Eye! Rather than hovering the Eye over the top of an unfinished pyramid as our One Dollar Bill depicts, this All Seeing Eye is toward the top of the pyramid, in the middle. The meaning is within the same context; however, our One Dollar Bill has an unfinished top, with the Eye of Horus (Lucifer) hovering over it; this pyramid is finished, with the Eye of Lucifer contained within.

The difference in symbolism is huge! The pyramid on Our One Dollar Bill is unfinished because the New World Order -- Kingdom of Antichrist -- is an unfinished work. America is the New Atlantis who has been gradually moving the nations of the world into making the changes necessary to set the global stage for Antichrist to arise. The Eye of Lucifer hovering over the unfinished pyramid represents the "benevolent" guiding eye of Lucifer as his human agents continue their important work to stage Antichrist.

However, this pyramid atop the Israeli Supreme Court is fully finished, meaning that the Great Work, i.e., producing Antichrist, is now finished. The fact that the All-Seeing Eye is now within the finished pyramid means that Lucifer is free to live within! Since Bible prophecy tells us that Antichrist will deceive the Jews into thinking he is their long-awaited Messiah, we know Antichrist will be most interested in Jerusalem and in the Temple Mount. This very important building within Jerusalem now contains the message that the work is essentially finished! Once the work is finished, and Antichrist is on the world scene, Lucifer will come down to live within his finished work; thus, the dot representing the All-Seeing Eye has come down within the pyramid. The pyramid itself, comprised of three (3) sides, represents the pagan trinity, Satan/Antichrist/False Prophet.

We have shown a close-up of this finished pyramid, to the right. This picture was taken from within the Supreme Court Building.

"The larger circle you see at the bottom of the picture is an inverted-cross designed to walk on. It is the only religious emblem designed to be trampled on under foot. At the top of the picture is a Moslem Gravesite, and just out of view to the right is an Egyptian Obelisk." [Golden, Ibid.]

We have shown closeups of these three most important occult symbols. The Inverted Cross represents a most evil symbol of Satan. In pure disgust, Satan has always desecrated the cross. The inverted cross is one of the most consistent types of desecration, as it represents Satan reversing or inverting the wonderful blood sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the Cross of Calvary. The "peacenik" inverted cross contained within a circle comes straight from the Roman Emperor Nero, who conceived this symbol to represent his crushing of Christianity. He broke the arms of the cross, bringing them downward, and then he circled the cross, symbolizing that he had conquered. Most of the time you see a circle around a symbol, it represents Satan's conquering force.

The Obelisksits just out of this larger picture of the Supreme Court Building. The obelisk is one of the more disgusting symbols of Satanism as it represents the erect male shaft of Baal! Freemasons dearly love this symbol, as they are true pagans who worship the creature (sex) more than the Creator [Romans 1:25]. When an obelisk is shown within a circle -- as we see here -- the combination of the male phallus (obelisk) and the female organ (circle) represents the Great Sex Act.

God forbade the Israelites from worshipping the spirit of the Egyptian Sun God, Ra, believed to be residing within the obelisk. Listen to the Word of the Lord:

"But you shall destroy their altars, dash in pieces their pillars (obelisks, images), and cut down their Asherim [symbols of the goddess Asherah]." [Exodus 34:13; Parallel Bible, KJV/Amplified Bible Commentary]

"They brought out the pillars or obelisks of the house of Baal and burned them." [2 Kings 10:26; Ibid]

"NOW WHEN all this was finished, all Israel present there went out to the cities of Judah and broke in pieces the pillars or obelisks, cut down the Asherim, and threw down the high places of idolatry and the altars ... until they had utterly destroyed them all." [2 Chronicles 31:1; Ibid.]

God takes the matter of obelisks very seriously, a Biblical truth America should heed, for we are a nation covered over with obelisks, from the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C., to thousands of graveyards where obelisks sit atop Masonic graves.

It is interesting that Hindu altars are adjoining the grounds of the Supreme Court Building. Hinduism is one of the great polytheistic religions on earth. Many Illuminist symbols are copied from Hinduism. The gods and goddesses of Hinduism are worshipped by the Illuminati. One of their favorite goddesses is Kali, the black goddess of war and violence who destroys the Old World Order so that the New World Order may be established [Read NEWS1710 for a full explanation of Kali and her picture].

There is little proof on the building itself of the presence of the Rothschilds but on an outside wall we find this stone directing people to the "Rothschild Grove" with the arrow pointing to the direction of the Egyptian obelisk. All throughout the Bible, we see Satanists worshipping in "groves". Listen to the Word of God!

"But ye shall destroy their altars, break their images, and cut down their groves: For thou shalt worship no other god: for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God." [Ex 34:13-14]

"And ye shall overthrow their altars, and break their pillars, and burn their groves with fire; and ye shall hew down the graven images of their gods, and destroy the names of them out of that place." [Deut 12:3]

"And they took their daughters to be their wives, and gave their daughters to their sons, and served their gods. And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the LORD, and forgat the LORD their God, and served Baalim and the groves." [Judges 3:6-7]

"And I will pluck up thy groves out of the midst of thee: so will I destroy thy cities." [Micah 5:14]

America has her "Bohemian Grove", do we not? President Bush is reported to be a member in good standing.

Finishing up the matter of the Rothschild funding of this building, Golden says:

"Giving recognition to the Rothschilds, you will notice the Rothschilds emblem at the top. It is the symbol for the founder of the Rothschild Dynasty and his five sons, who established central banks throughout Europe. The Rothschilds made several stipulations with the Israeli Government before the building began, among them were. The Rothschilds would pick the plot of land to build the Supreme Court; they would use their own architects, and no one would ever know how much the building cost. It took them four years to build this structure with many secrets built into it."

Now, let us return to Jerry Golden:

"After passing through security the first thing you will notice on the left wall is a large picture. From the left you will see Teddy Kollek, then Lord Rothschild, on the right standing you will see Shimon Peres, and setting at the bottom left Yhzhak Rabin. And others who brought us the Olso death process that we are now faced with."

Not only is Israel faced with the "Oslo death process", but now they are faced with the even more insidious "Geneva Accord", which seemingly makes Israel militarily indefensible. Look carefully at these men, for they are prime "movers and shakers" in Israel, and in the planning for the Kingdom of Antichrist.

Jerry Golden then takes us into a journey inside the Supreme Court Building:

"But this is where our journey begins as we begin to enter into the building, for this entire journey is intended to bring one from darkness into the light, and become an Illuminated one. You first enter into an area with very dim lighting, but as you look up the stairs you see the bright light that comes from a very large window that over looks parts of Jerusalem. Here it is very important to count the steps; there are three sets of 10 steps, making a total of 30. As you ascend these 30 steps you come from the darkness into the light. And from here you can see the world or in this case the city of Jerusalem like you havent seen it before. It is also worth mentioning that on the left side you will see the old Jerusalem Stone, some even believe these same stones were used in the second Temple, but I have no way to prove that. On the other side you will see the smooth modern wall. There are 6 lamp stands going up that speaks to man in his journey to gain knowledge and become illuminated. But once again I feel it necessary to tell you that its very important to the ones who built this building that everything be perfect and in their order of things, even numerically."

"For a moment lets go back to the top of the 30 steps, as we know there are 33 degrees in Free Masonry but the last three are the ones of higher learning and preparations to enter the Illuminati. So as we move from the top of the stairs towards the Pyramid we see a great library with three tiers to those three levels of higher learner. They three final steps in Free Masonry and after that if ones choose to go higher and have been accepted they enter the highest levels of the Illuminati. It is also important in this building to note that the 33rd level ends at the base of the Pyramid. " [Ibid]

Golden then explains this "great library" with exactly three (3) levels, making the total number of steps precisely '33'.

"This is a very large and expensive Library, but there is something else about this one that should be mentioned. The first tier is "only" for Lawyers; the second tier is "only" for setting Judges. The highest and third tier is "only" for retired judges. Which also speaks of the order of things in the Illuminati, as one must be accepted and move to the higher level before the knowledge at that level is available to them. And directly above that third tier is the Pyramid with the all seeing eye of Luther. That begins the journey into the Illuminati."

"Directly under the Pyramid you see 6 squares. Six being the number of man, and each square has 4 sides speaking to the world. In the center directly under the point of the pyramid a crystal so that when one stand over it he of she is in direct line from the point of the pyramid and the crystal below. As we turn to the left and begin to walk towards the Pyramid we notice a metal strip in the marble floor. The Ley-Lines cross directly under the pyramid they run from this place to different places in the city. It is where the Judges and others can stand to receive knowledge and power. Standing directly over a piece of crystal with the all Seeing Eye of Lucifer the light bearer above them." [Ibid.]

Jerry is right: the number, '6' is the number of Perfected Man, that man who has been perfected through Masonic initiation and ritual. The number '4' is the number of the created world -- the number of the four seasons, four directions on the compass, and the occult concept that the world is comprised of 4 elements, i.e., earth, air, fire, water. However, I find it disconcerting to realize that the five judges who make up the Israeli Supreme Court stand directly under "a piece of crystal with the all Seeing Eye of Lucifer the light bearer above them." Certainly, Satan now has a firm grip upon the Israeli government, and will have such a grip until God allows Antichrist to kill the 66% -- "two-thirds" -- as He promises in Zechariah 13:8-9. Believe me, the Israeli Jewish leadership now serving the Illuminati will be the first to be slaughtered!

[

"There are five Courtrooms, each has an entrance in the shape of a Jewish Tomb, with the opening above the door for the spirit to have freedom to enter or leave. The wall with the courtroom entrances has a curve to it, while the outer wall is straight. There are two things said about his, some say it speaks to the straight line of Justice, and the curve line of Mercy, yet others say it speaks of order out of chaos. The motto of the Illuminati. There are three Judges who set in each courtroom, and above the seats of the Judges there are smaller pyramids that shed light onto the Judges as they sit over those who are brought up from the prisons cells below. The Judges chambers are above the courtrooms and they come down to bring light to those who are brought up from below."

I find it highly interesting that each of the five courtrooms has an entrance that is shaped like a Jewish Tomb, with the opening above for the spirit to enter or leave! Freemasons have always had a morbid interest in the dead. In NEWS1399, we report that the entire area in Washington, D.C. known as The Mall -- in which our government offices are located -- is shaped as a Satanic Sephiroth Tree of Life. But, then, we also report that a Masonic Coffin is shaped like a Satanic Sephiroth Tree of Life; therefore, our entire Government Mall is shaped like a Masonic Coffin!

We see in this Israeli Supreme Court Building that there are five (5) courtrooms. Our building shaped in a '5' is the Pentagon, that five-sided structure who is sending out men to fight to establish the Kingdom of Antichrist. In NEWS1040, we broke the story that the street layout connecting the White House with the Capitol was originally laid out by Masonic architect, L'Enfant in 1792, so that the streets formed the evil Goats Head of Mendes Pentagram encompassing the White House -- plus the Masonic Compass, Square, and Rule from the White House to the Capitol. These street layouts continue to this day. The Goats Head of Mendes Pentagram encompassing the White House troubled us the most, since it is a 5-pointed star; occultists believe the number 5 is the number for Death.

The "Death" the Illuminati has in mind is the death of the Old World Order, and its complete destruction, so the New World Order can be erected. Another "death" in the plans of the Illuminati is the forced and rapid reduction of the population of the world from its 6 billion now to only 2 billion, a reduction of 66%.

CONSTRUCTED ACCORDING TO LEY-LINES

"As we turn to the left and begin to walk towards the Pyramid we notice a metal strip in the marble floor. The Ley-Lines cross directly under the pyramid they run from this place to different places in the city. It is where the Judges and others can stand to receive knowledge and power. Standing directly over a piece of crystal with the all Seeing Eye of Lucifer the light bearer above them.

For those who are not aware of the term Ley-Lines, it is lines in geographical places that Witches, Warlock, and Wizards walk claiming for the Devil. If you will notice in every large city all palm readers and such are usually on the same street that is a ley-line.

In this map of Jerusalem, you can see that the Supreme Court Building and the Knesset are connected with one straight line, and at a 90% angle to that line half way is a Ley-line that runs perpendicular. That line runs straight down the middle of a street known as Ben Yehuda, a place where all the crazies meet, and at any given day you can find at least one who calls himself Elijah or Moses. Israelis call Ben Yehuda the freak show. That line runs on to the Rockefeller Museum; and from the Rockefeller Museum a line runs through the Moslem Quarters to the Temple Mount." [Ibid.]

FERTILITY SYMBOL

"When you leave the center Courtroom or main courtroom directly across the opening you find the stairs going downstairs, at the base of the stairs you will find the fertility symbol always present in any Illuminati structure, often hidden but always there."

As you look at this "fertility" symbol, as Jerry has called it, you can clearly see the phallic upright shaft going down into the oval opening, which represents the female organ. Freemasonry is thoroughly pagan, so we should expect to see that they worship the sex act, and depict such worship in their symbols. We encourage you to read our article, "Freemasonry Proven To Worship Satan, As Its Symbols Venerate The Sex Act".

Jerry Golden makes a vague reference to the number "G" in Freemasonry having something to do with sex. You are right, Jerry! Listen to this brief excerpt from our article on this subject, referenced above.

"Masonry depicts and glorifies the sex act in many of their symbols, just like you would expect any occult group to do. A study of the "deeper meaning" of many symbols proves Freemasonry is Satanic. The letter 'G' figures prominently in Freemasonry. In the lower degrees, the initiate is told that this letter stands for 'God' and for 'Geometry', which the Supreme Architect of the Universe used to design this wonderful Cosmos. However, occultist, and 33rd Degree Mason, Arthur Waite, quotes Eliphas Levi [also 33rd Degree], telling us that the letter 'G' stands for Venus, and that Venus' symbol is a lingam, a stylized phallus. [Masonic author, Arthur Edward Waite, The Mysteries of Magic: A Digest of the Writings of Eliphas Levi , Chicago, , DeLaurence, Scott, and Company, 1909, p. 217]

The greatest Masonic author of all time, Albert Pike, agrees. He states [page 631-32 in Morals and Dogma] that the Monad [#1] is male, and the Duad [#2] is female. Their sexual union produces the Triad [#3], which is "represented by the letter 'G', the generative principle". This term, 'generative principle', is code for the sex act."

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The Black Magick Masonic Control of Zionism ... - Cutting Edge

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Posted By admin on December 13, 2017

Do I have a Sephardic surname?

Sephardic surnames were invented by a well-meaning, if confused, Ashkenazi amateur genealogist in the 1990s. He argued that if a New Christian or Jew had used a specific surname then theSURNAME was Jewish and therefore people using the surname today are of Jewish descent. This is equivalent to claiming that anyone who has ever eaten Chinese food is Chinese.The claim was plastered across the young Internet in 2001. It has set back Sephardic genealogy by a generation. Every time it seems this nonsense is about to die, someone new picks it up.Now, probably hundredsof people around the world mistakenly believe they are of Jewish descent, and some have even made major life changes as a consequence.

So, whats the truth? If your surname isCohen then you are probably descended from a priest in the Holy Temple in Jerusalem. ALevy is probably descendedfrom the tribe of Levi. These are Jewish surnames. Jews were a minority in Spain and Portugal, and adopted the same surnames as everyone else. Sometimes they adopted their Old Christian godparents surname, and sometimes probably a surname was chosen for other reasons. It figures that most people with a specificapellido(surname) today will not be of patrilineal Jewish ancestry. A New Christian or Jew once using your surname does not suggest you have Jewish ancestryunless you can prove your descent from that person.

Depending on jurisdiction, your family surnames may not have been fixed until the late 18th Century. That is to say, the surname you have today may not have been used by your ancestors.

As with any rule, there are exceptions. The surname Israel was reportedly used by some converts to Judaism. I suspectJessurun may be an invented surname.

Most Common Surnames amongst Portuguese Jews

It isreportedthat the most common Sephardic surnames in Portuguese Inquisition documents are:

Rodrigues_________453 people

Nunes____________229 people

Mendes___________224 people

Lopes____________282 people

Miranda__________190 people

Gomes___________184 people

Henriques_________174 people

Costa____________138 people

Fernandes_________132 people

Pereira___________124 people

Dias_____________124 people

These are also common names amongst Portuguese Old Christians. There is no such thing as a Sephardic surname. You need genealogical evidence.

Given/First Names

Various Jewish communities around the world have naming traditions. So, for example some Ashkenazi communities will name a child aftera recently deceased relative, whilst some (not Western)Sephardicand Mizrahi/Magrebi Jewishcommunities name the child for a living one. Some communities have very fixed systems with the first children named after specific grandparents.

Within practising Jewish communities, aboy or man who is very sick may be given the second given name Haim (life, in Hebrew) to confuse the Angel of Death. I am not clear if women were given the name Chaya (female of Haim). The records are much more interested in men, which always strikes me as unjustas it was the women who kept the show on the road.

I am not aware ofevidence that the Western Sephardim who mostly had little knowledge of Judaism during the sixteenth and seventeen centuries knew or followed these tradition. Anyway, most of them had Christian rather than Hebrew names.

On embracing Judaism in Amsterdam it has been arguedthat many first generation male returners took the name Abraham, with their sons being Isaac. I am not clear if it is claimed that first generation women became Sarah. I am not entirely persuaded by all this. Maybe it is what happened for a period in early 17th Century Amsterdam. In my family the male names David and Daniel, Jewish heros, tend to repeat down the generations.

See the article here:

Sephardic Surnames Sephardic Genealogy

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Posted By admin on December 13, 2017

Donald Trumps official recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel is an embarrassment. A salutary embarrassment.

Its a clumsy, all-too-obvious unmasking of decades of bipartisan U.S. policy whose contempt for Palestinians has been cloaked with a smile and a handshake.

As such, its an embarrassment for the Zionist political and media elite that prefers to operate behind smiles and handshakes, and not flaunt their power.

Its an embarrassment to liberal Zionists and peace process promoters everywherein the American political parties and media, in European conservative and social democrat governments, and in Jewish Zionist organizations. For fifty years, they have laser-focused attention on the post-67 occupation, and done all that they can [nothing concrete], in solidarity with the Israeli Jewish peace movement [dwindling to insignificance in an increasingly fascistic political culture], to end the occupation [ minimize its cost to the Jewish state, cause no concessions, no withdrawals, no Palestinian state is already proclaimed Israeli policy].

Its an embarrassment to the Arab monarchs and the Palestinian Authority functionaries, who for decades have collaborated in the task of subduing Palestinian rage as Israel went about its colonizing project, holding out the promise that the good American Daddy and his kinder, gentler Israeli Jewish progeny would one day reward the Palestinians for their good behavior.

Its an embarrassment to those liberals who want to portray Donald Trump as a uniquely evil interloper imposed on American politics by a foreign power, rather than understand him as the product of an American political culture that they helped to create while obtusely refusing to recognize what they were doing.

The only parties who are not embarrassed are the hardthat is, intellectually honest and consistentZionists in Israel and the United States (many liberal Democrats included) and Donald Trump himself, who is immune to embarrassment.

All this embarrassment provides a fine example of the positive repercussions of the Trump-effect that I discussed in a previous essay, which is steadily eroding the thin remaining patina of Americas soft power in the world, an essential support of the Euro-American imperialist alliance.

After all, Israels relentless Judaization of East Jerusalem, consistent with its long-held declaration of sovereignty over the entire city, was proceeding swimmingly, with only the feeblest occasional murmurs of protest, accompanied by massive countervailing deliveries of arms and money, from the peace-process-loving governments of Europe and America. Trumps gratuitous, self-aggrandizing gesture, by unmasking that as the de facto acceptance of annexation that it is, only brings unwanted attention to the whole rotten game, and to the hypocrisy of those governments especially.

Good riddance to the pretense! As Noura Erakat says: Trump has removed the emperors clothes to reveal the farce of the peace process[He] has finally ended the United States double-speak and should have ended any faith that the US will deliver Palestinian independence or that Israel is interested in giving up its territorial holdings captured in war. And Rashid Khalidi: Trump may have inadvertently cleared the air. He may have smashed a rotten status quo of US peace processing that has served only to entrench and legitimize Israels military occupation and colonization of Palestinian land for a quarter-century.

In other words, Trump has suddenly and single-handedly destroyed Americans pose as the honest broker in the Middle east and the Solomonic arbiter of world affairs in general, in a way that forces the European and Palestinian political leaders to make an explicit break from what is now declared American policy. For now, of course, that break is rhetorical, but should it remain soif European and Palestinian leaders do not work a political strategy independent of, and in opposition to, the United Statesthere will be no denying their capitulation and servility.

Indeed, Europe, in the person of the German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel, has already laid down the markers for itself: Germany can no longer simply react to U.S. policy but must establish its own positioneven after Trump leaves the White House, relations with the U.S. will never be the same. Even after Trump leaves the White House. This is a recognition that the American regimenot just Trump, but precisely what he is the culmination ofis not a trustworthy and reliable partner for the management of global capitalist stability. This is what Trump is wreaking. And its a very good thing.

As excessive and gratuitous as Trumps Jerusalem announcement was, there is no question that it is the culmination of American politics. It is the perfect example of how Trump is the symptom not the cause of long-festering political rot, the product not the antithesis of American political culture. His recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel is the fulfillment, exactly as Trump says, of a promise thats been de rigueur for presidential candidates, and of the demand of a law (JerusalemEmbassy Act of 1995) passed twenty-two years ago by overwhelming majorities in both Houses of Congress. Just six months ago, the Senateincluding Chuck Schumer, Dianne Feinstein, Kamala Harris, and Bernie Sandersvoted 90-0 to demand that Trump abide by its provisions. Schumer, who believes hes on a mission from God to be the guardian of Israel, had last week criticized Trump for his indecisiveness about declaring Jerusalem the undivided capital of Israel and moving the embassy.

Who can forget the scene at the 2012 Democratic Convention, when an amendment to the platform declaring Jerusalem the Israeli capital was adopted against the clear opposition of the majority? That was shoved down the partys throat by Obama, who had it shoved down his throat by AIPAC. (It was language Obama had removed from the platform, which AIPAC browbeat him into restoring.) As I discussed in a post at the time, the blithely ignored floor vote was a display of Stalinist party discipline for which Obama was congratulated by an MSNBC roundtable including ODonnell, Maddow, and Sharpton.

It was Obama, too, who (after becoming first American President to give bunker-buster bombs to Israel. He did that secretly, because he didnt want it to be known that his really brave and progressive and highly-publicized peace-process demand that Israel stop settlement construction in exchange for such gifts, which Israel of course ignored, was another empty American bluff. And it was Obama who, in 2013, became the first American President to demand that Palestinians must recognize that Israel will be a Jewish state. That was a new, gratuitous and excessive demand at the time, foisted on everyone by Netanyahu and AIPAC because they knew it would be unacceptable to the Palestinians. Obamas adoption of that requirement, which has become locked into American policy, was no less damaging to the ostensible peace-process, with its infinitely-receding goalpost, than Trumps Jerusalem declaration, and perhaps more contemptuous of the Palestinians. Its the equivalent of demanding that Native Americans must recognize that America is a White Mans state.

Really. Think about it.

So, whatever the problem is with declaring Jerusalem the capital of Israel, its not Trumps. Its Americas. Its a problem the Democrats share responsibility for, and will not get us out of.

Past Prologue

Lets name it clearly: Its Americas problem with Zionism.

After the You must accept the Jewish State insult and the You must accept Jerusalem as capital of the Jewish State insult, can we dispense with the diversions? Can we recognize that the problem isnt how many settlers are in which part of which city, or how long and where exactly the wall should be located, or the Green Line or the Blue Line, or, indeed, the occupation? Lets, without any more fear or hesitation, name and critique the fundamental problem: Zionism.

Zionism is a colonialist project. Israel is a colonial-settler state. The fault lies in colonialismyou know, that thing where a group of people, who want the land somebody else is living on, take it. By subjugating, expelling, and/or exterminating the indigenous population. Thats what has to be named and opposed. Every other problem in the context is a derivative of that.

Zionism has the particular distinction of being the last major initiation of a blatant settler-colonial project. It was possible at the end of WWII (1945-8) because racism and ethno-supremacist colonialism were still integral parts of the Western worldview. The great world powers could still blithely dismiss the lives, land, and humanity of an Arab population as dispensablesecondary both to the aspirations of the largely European Jews who formed the Zionist vanguard and to the guilty consciences of European gentiles. It was compensatory colonialism, with the compensation paid by an expendable third(world) people.

In the post-WWII, post-holocaust context, Zionism had the further peculiar distinction of being able to conjure about itself an aura of virtue that effectively occluded the blatant injustice of the colonialism it is. Thanks to the consistent and intensive Zionist influence on Euro-American political, media, and cultural institutions, that aura has enshrouded Zionism for Westerners eyes for 69 years, long past colonialisms sell-by date. That aura of virtue is what makes breaking up with Zionism so hard to do, for so many, to this day.

Ive discussed more of the history and arguments about this in a previous essay. At this point, there is so much information available from so many channels, including Israeli scholars, that supporters of Israel who are intellectually-honest have a hard time denying that the Zionist conquest of Palestine was colonialist ethnic cleansing, and Israel a colonial state. Liberal Americans know very well that, if such a project were to be proposed today, they would denounce and reject itno ifs, ands or buts. Today, any person of a modern, secular, liberal cast of mind recognizes the abolition and rejection of colonialism as one of historys irrefutably progressive milestones, and would see any attempt at colonial conquest as an unacceptable historical crime.

Yet that is exactly what Israel is doing. Israel is exactly that attempt.

Attempt is an important word here. Zionists want to think all the nasty work of ethnic cleansing is in the ancent (1948) or at worst early-modern (1967 when liberal Zionists grudgingly acknowledge, colonial aggression was certainly past its sell-by date) past. They present Israel, whatever its nasty origins, as a finished historical product: a liberal democracy filled with juice bars and tech startupswhich would be stable and progressive, if only the fanatical Arabs/Muslims would leave it alone.

Indeed, a favorite Zionists argument Ive heard delivered as if its a killing rhetorical blow packed with irrefutable historical realism, is some version of: So what, youre a colonizer, too. American Indians! Gotcha!

It baffles me that anyone thinks thats an effective argument. Accepting the damining admission that the relationship between Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs today is analogous to that between European settlers and Native Americans from the fifteenth to the nineteenth century (and leaving the ethics or that aside), one might start a reply with the following:

Being historically realist and all, we have to recognize that, tragically, over those four centuries, the Native American population was so completely ravaged that it now constitutes less than 1% of the population. If Native Americans were now the majority of the population in North America under white settler control; if they were engaged in a fierce resistance struggle to prevent being expelled or exterminated; if they had the support of hundreds of millions of their neighbors, as well as of populations and governments throughout the world, as well as of an established international ideological and legal framework that forbade and denounced the colonial project the white settlers were still trying to complete (while demanding that everyone recognize America as the White Mans State)then you would have a relevant analogy.

Sorry, but the Zionist project, Israel, is not finished. It is quite unfinished and precarious, and Israeli leaders know it.

Back to the Future

This is so because the Palestinians are not defeated and have not surrendered. Too few of them have been exterminated; they have not been expelled far enough away; they have not been thoroughly enough subjugated. The existence and resistance of Palestinians put the lie to the idea that Israel is a stable, finished state and that the dirty work of Zionist colonialism is in the past. As the rallying cry of many Zionists in Israel today has it, they still have to finish 48.

Israel is profoundly insecure. Not because of any external military threat, but because of the presence of the Palestinians. Their defiant presence is an intrinsic threat to the Zionist project. External threatswhether ideological or economic or military, whether from specific countries or from the international communityderive from the presence of the Palestinians and what that implies about the legitimacy of the Zionist project in an anti-colonial, anti-apartheid world.

Every attack on Gaza, Lebanon, or Syria, all the hair-pulling anxiety over Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran, and where the next war will just have to be, and how many Palestinians can be dispossessed or expelled how quickly before somebody in the worldespecially Americans, and most especially American Jewsstarts to push back, demonstrates that Israel is an unfinished colonial project that hasnt quite figured out how to achieve the final submission of its colonial subjects. It was as true in 1999, when Edward Said said it, as it was in 1948, and as it is now: the contest is as alive as ever.

Indeed, the famous loaded question Does Israel have a right to exist? is posed by Zionists so insistently precisely because it is an unsettled question about the future. Its not only about past eventswhether Zionists back in the day had the right to establish the colonial entity they did, but also about a present, aspirational practicewhether they now have the right to establish the colonial entity they would like to. The question, reallyand those hard-core, finish 48 Zionists know itis: Will Israel exist?

The question is also asking us: Do you agree that it is right for Zionists to be establishing a colonial-settler Jewish State, ethnic cleansing and all? Are you going to sign on for that?

Israel will only be finished and stable if it achieves that. One can argue that its almost there or that its a long way off, but done it aint.

Thats why we should take the opportunity that Trumps latest embarrassment of American policy gives us to exit for good the phony two-state peace-process paradigm, to forthrightly name and reject Zionism and the colonialism it is. We need to go back to the future, to a proposal for a single, if bi-national, secular democratic state, a de-colonized polity in the territory of historic Palestine, where Arabs and Jews can live in peace and equality. Something along the lines of the secular, democratic state the PLO called for in 1968 and the full secular democracy that Edward Said championed again in 1999.

Love It Loud

To be sure: I am not sanguine about this. The political way forward is not clear.

On the one hand, the exhaustion of the peace process and the Palestinian Authority is now a done deal, as I hope everyone now recognizes. At least as important, the de-legitimization of Zionism, is already well-advanced. Politically and ideologically, the actions and discourse of Israel and its partisans themselves do as much as anything to discredit Zionism. And, despite its being kept in the cultural shadows, more Americans are aware of the problems with the dominant Zionist narrative. The BDS movement is strong and growing. On American campuses today, Zionism is losing the all-important ideological battle, especially in the crucial constituency of young Jewish-Americans, and the effects of that are radiating throughout the culture. The reality of this effect is demonstrated by the increased anxiety among the guardians of Zionism, with their increasing efforts to censor and suppress criticism of Israel, to define anti-Zionism as anti-Semitism, and to outlaw anti-Zionism and the BDS movement. The arc of history is not bending toward Zionist colonialism.

To wax ironic, Zionisms fatal weakness may be the effect of its greatest strengthits tenacious entwinement in our political culture, which is hard to overstate. We live in a country where powerful politicians and the wealthy donors who control them proclaim their fealty to Israel; where Israeli officials enjoy veto power over candidates for office down to the level of State Assembly. where the Secretary of State gives a devoutly Zionist speech and is still criticized for not being obsequious enough to Israel, where the Vice-President declares I am a Zionist, and where a President who was excoriated for avoiding service in the American army can say I would personally grab a rifle, get in a ditch, and fight and die for Israel, and nobody bats an eyelash.

Really, think about it.

Perhaps most vomit-inducing in the present context, its a country where the Congress has just overwhelmingly passed a bill de-funding the Palestinian Authority (except, at Israeli insistence, the PA security forces) if they give any support to any family member of a Palestinian convicted of what Israel calls terrorism (and others would call anti-colonial resistance), and at the same time that Congress allows the great charitable organization, The Friends of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), to collect $50 million a night, tax-free to itself and tax-deductible to its donors. All that money is needed, over and above the $3.7+ billion the U.S. gives Israel every year, in order to provide extra-comfortable well-being facilities for the beleaguered Israeli coed infantry units who have the tough job of dragging Palestinian families from their homes and blowing them upthose families the PA is now forbidden to support. Friends of the IDF galas are hosted in New York by Republican billionaire Sheldon Adelson, and in Los Angeles by Democratic billionaire Haim Saban, and entertained by celebrities like Seal and Israeli-born KISS-er, Gene Simmons (Chaim Witz). Bi-partisanship rocks.

America has become a Zionist country. And it shows. And its discomfiting. For the most powerful people and institutions in the United States, Zionism has become a core component of American ideology and politics, married, like nothing else is, to capitalism and imperialism as a co-equal existential imperative.

Its a peculiar relationship because capitalism and imperialism do not need Zionism, and may even be weakened by it. Zionism is a surplus oppression. The excessiveness and gratuity of Trumps declaration on Jerusalem, which so many people recognize, is only a reflection of the excessiveness and gratuity of Zionism itself, which too many people have for too long taken for granted.

Dragging people from their homes and blowing them up is excessive, an atrocity too far. A partner whose addicted to such behavior will inevitably create trouble for the capitalist-imperialist family, which has enough problems of its own to deal with. Its the U.S who insists, excessively, on including Zionism in a polyamorous arrangement, and who is, as can be expected in such cases, losing its mind over this misplaced affection, and endangering the core relationship.

This is what the German FM and other members of the European Frist Wives Club see in Trumps Jerusalem declaration. This is what a lot of people see in all the state-destroying, jihadi-chaos-creating aggression from Iraq to Syria and heading toward Iranall of which makes no sense until you understand that the American project throughout has been an overcomplicated mnage--trois: capitalism-imperialism-Zionism.

As Shoshana Bryen says: The United States military, then, is a Zionist institution. Bryen is herself a perfect example of the intimate relations between Israel and the American military, having made the rounds as former Director of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA,, the prime meeting spot where Israelis entice senior American officers to see the world as Israel does), and as a lecturer at the National Defense University and the U.S. Army War College.

The hope is that its all becoming too obvious and too muchan embarrassment of too many riches for Zionism. Its why Hillary Clintons campaign decided not to highlightexcept to donorsher passionate love for Israel: We shouldnt have Israel at public events. Especially dem (Democratic) activists. What about this as a base, and then she can drop in Israel when shes with donors. While the donors and elite still swoon, the arc of the Democratic base is bending away from Zionismand the Zionists know it.

There Is No Time

On the other hand, we have to recognize the persistent weaknesses of the Palestinians, who suffer constant, horrendous, human and material losses every day at the hands of a Zionist colonial machine. Israel, the Jewish State, has already established an apartheid regime, the late stage of colonialism, and has made clear that it is determined to extend that as far and as long as it can, with all necessary force. The illusion that America would do something to stop or reverse this has been finally shattered. Though its stance may be changing, thanks to the likes of Trump, and it is a medium- to long-term weak spot for Israel, the international community still grants Israel effective impunity.

The Arab countries? Ha! Saudi Arabia, the Gulf monarchies, and Egypt will supply the rope and tie the knot. The staunchest Arab supporters of PalestineIraq, Libya, and Syriajust happen to be the countries ravaged by that United States military institution. A weakened Syria and (non-Arab) Iran may give some assistance, but really, nobodys coming to save the Palestinians.

External support in the way of boycott and sanctions will help also, but significant victories can only come from organized resistance by Palestinians themselves. The Palestinian political leadership which, as Noura Erakat says, has abandoned confrontation with Israel as a matter of policy would have to be changed. New leadership would have to emerge that renounces Oslo and forges a militant struggle for equal political and social rights, a multi-level strategy of resistance against colonialism and apartheid. This will be very tough, in a community thats been ground down for decades by the Israeli-PA security apparatus, and the collaborationist mindset and economic interests that support it.

To be thoroughly frank: though militant non-violent civilian resistance must be the core of struggle, it has to be backed by some kind of armed power. The ANCs victorious fight against South African apartheid was not confined to terrorist Nelson Mandelas prison cell; his comrades were busy outside. A movement to defeat colonialism and apartheid must demonstrate the capacity not only to take punishment, but also to inflict it, to hurt the forces and institutions imposing Zionist oppression and to disrupt the normalcy of Zionist daily life. Everywhere, enemies of the IDF. No well-being respite. No justice, no peace. That is the only way victory over colonialism and apartheid ever has, or ever will be, won.

Since the Zionists founding spasm of brutal ethnic cleansingexpelling over 700,000 Palestinian Arabs while killing thousands of othersand since colonialism fell into disgrace, Israel has been constrained to pursue further ethnic cleansing in a fitful series of measures, with levels of brutality adjusted for various international political and ideological exigencies. But it has not ceased to probe those limits. Israel is working very hard to compress political time and make it suddenly possible again to exterminate or expel enough Palestinians (were talking at least tens of thousands) to stabilize Israel for most of a century. Thats one of the things Israels, and its American patrons, support of jihadi chaos in the region, as well as its attempt to foment war with Iran, is all about. The fat lady hasnt sung, but the orchestra is in full swing. The Palestinians dont have forever to stop the music.

So, theres no room for false hope or assumptions of inevitable victory. Theres an opportunity now for a successful fight to defeat Zionism, pitched precisely as struggle against colonialism and apartheid, and it must be seized quickly. It is also not impossible for Zionism to defeat the Palestinians in some effectively irreversible way, as it keeps trying to do.

Its just the casethe practical, utterly realistic political casethat nothing, not a thing, can be gained by trying to revive the zombie two-state peace process that has been killed over and over again by the U.S. and Israel themselves. To seal the deal, Donald Trump just drove a stake through its heart. There is no two-state solution. There is only one state: either the one colonial, apartheid state thats coalescing now, or the one democratic state of equal rights that justice demands.

For American left allies of Palestine, its time, past time, to clearly reject, not just the occupation of Jerusalem or the West Bank, but Zionism tout court.

Back to the future it is. Liberal Zionists like to imagine 48 is finished in some democratically acceptable way. Militant Zionists know they still have to finish 48 as ruthlessly as possible. Principled anti-Zioniststhat is, principled anti-colonialistshave to work very hard to make sure that 48 ends in failure, and that Israel never becomes the finished colonial project it wishes to be.

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Zionism in the Light of Jerusalem - counterpunch.org

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