Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on May 29, 2015

File - In this March 30, 2015 file photo, a Palestinian girl walks next to destroyed houses, in the Shijaiyah neighborhood of Gaza City. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra, File)

Amnesty International accused Hamas militants Wednesday of abducting, torturing, and carrying out summary executions of Palestinians during last year's conflict in the Gaza Strip.

The report, the last of four released by the human rights group detailing events during the fighting, said that at least 23 Palestinians were shot and killed by Hamas, which rules Gaza, while dozens more were arrested and tortured. Amnesty said those targeted were either political rivals of Hamas, including members of the Fatah party of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, or people the militant group had accused of cooperating with Israel.

The report detailed one particularly brutal spate of violence, which took place this past Aug. 22.

"In one of the most shocking incidents, six men were publicly executed by Hamas forces outside al-Omari mosque ... in front of hundreds of spectators, including children," the report said. Hamas had announced the men were suspected "collaborators" who had been sentenced to death in "revolutionary courts," the rights group added.

"The hooded men were dragged along the floor to kneel by a wall facing the crowd, then each man was shot in the head individually before being sprayed with bullets fired from an AK-47," the report said of the August incident.

In one section of the report, testimony from the brother of Atta Najjar, an ex-Palestinian Authority policeman imprisoned since 2009 and killed by Hamas last August, described the violence done to him in captivity.

"His arms and legs were broken ... his body was as if youd put it in a bag and smashed it ... His body was riddled with about 30 bullets," the brother was quoted as saying. "He had slaughter marks around his neck, marks of knives ... And from behind the head - there was no brain. Empty ... It was difficult for us to carry him ... He was heavy, like when you put meat in a bag; no bones. His bones were smashed. They broke him in the prison."

The report also revealed that Hamas used abandoned areas of a hospital in Gaza City to detain, question, and torture captives, even as other parts of the facility "continued to function as a medical centre [sic]".

Hamas used the war to "ruthlessly settle scores, carrying out a series of unlawful killings and other grave abuses," Philip Luther, Amnesty International's Middle East and North Africa director, charged. "These spine-chilling actions, some of which amount to war crimes, were designed to exact revenge and spread fear across the Gaza Strip."

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Posted By simmons on May 27, 2015

Holocaust denial and distortion Holocaust desecration, denial, and abuse, have all been components of Palestinian Authority ideology. Palestinians from both Fatah and Hamas have accused Israel of burning Palestinians in ovens, and alternatively have accused Zionists of committing the Holocaust against Jews for political, financial or social gain. A PA TV childrens broadcast taught that Israel burned Palestinians in ovens, and at an exhibit in Gaza children put dolls, representing Palestinian children, in a model oven adorned with a Star of David and a swastika. A PA daily wrote: "The exhibit includes a large oven and inside it small [Palestinian] children are being burned; the picture speaks for itself, as if the exhibit was documenting something true. [Al-Ayyam, March 20, 2008] The event was sponsored by the Palestinian National Committee for Defense of Children from the Holocaust.

A senior Palestinian academic taught adults on PA TV: There was no Dachau, no Auschwitz; these were disinfecting sites. A Hamas TV documentary explained that it was Jewish leaders who planned the Holocaust, in order to eliminate Jews who were "disabled and handicapped.

A crossword puzzle clue in the official PA daily identified Yad Vashem (Israels Holocaust memorial) as a Center for the Holocaust and Lies. The same PA daily has published many articles denying the Holocaust, including one that termed the Holocaust a hen laying golden eggs.

Schoolbooks produced by the Palestinian Ministry of Education teach the history of World War II in great detail except for the history of the Holocaust, which is totally ignored. One history book goes so far as to teach that Nazism was a racist ideology and that there were trials of Nazi war criminals, but it leaves out that Jews were the target of the racism, and the crimes for which the Nazis were on trial.

Palestinian education erases the actual Holocaust from history and usurps the word Holocaust or its own wide range of malicious libels.

"They [Israel] are the ones who did the Holocaust, their knife cuts to the length and the width of our flesh... They opened ovens for us, to bake human beings. They destroyed the villages and burnt the cities. And when an oven stops burning, they light a hundred [more] ovens. Their hands are covered with the blood of our children."

[PA TV (Fatah), March 25, 2004]

Since 2012, there have been a number of statements by the PA or PLO officials acknowledging the Holocaust. This has not yet been incorporated into PA formal education.

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Posted By simmons on May 27, 2015

The Israeli Air Force launched airstrikes on the Gaza Strip early Wednesday morning, hours after a projectile fired from the coastal enclave fell in southern Israel, causing no damage.

There were no immediate reports of casualties in the bombardments across the Palestinian coastal enclave.

The IDF said in a statement that it targeted four sites of terror infrastructure in the southern Gaza Strip in response to the rocket fire at southern Israel on Tuesday evening.

The military said it confirmed direct hits.

The reality that Hamass territory is used as a staging ground to attack Israel is unacceptable and intolerable and will bear consequences, military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Peter Lerner said in a statement.

The planes targeted training camps belonging to the Islamic Jihad in Rafah, Khan Yunis and Gaza City, the witnesses said.

A video posted on Facebook claimed to show footage of one of the Israeli airstrikes on the northern Gaza Strip.

A Hamas official said the group was working to calm the situation with rival Palestinian groups in the Gaza Strip, Israel Radio reported.

Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon said Wednesday morning that Israel wouldnt tolerate a return to regular rocket fire from the Gaza Strip, adding that if calm doesnt return to the south the residents of Gaza would pay a heavy price. He said Israel holds Hamas responsible for all hostilities toward Israel from the Gaza Strip.

Although Hamas did not take credit for the rocket fire, and sources in the Gaza Strip said the rocket was likely fired by members of the Islamic Jihad, Israel had maintained that it holds the governing terror group responsible for all attacks emanating from the Gaza Strip.

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Posted By simmons on May 27, 2015

History of Tluste/Tovste from a Jewish Perspective Quick Navigation - select section The Polish Era Under Austrian Rule The Interwar Years Tluste and the Holocaust The Beginning of the End The End Notes

Introduction

The following pages give an overview of the history of Tluste/Tovste and of the region in which it is situated from the perspective of the Jewish population, one of three principal ethnic groups that co-existed there. Polish and Ukrainian perspectives each receive their own treatment elsewhere in dedicated overviews; while the section Tluste - Life and Times attempts to give an overall impression of what the town was like between 1880 and 1930.

While their histories are necessarily intertwined, a case can be made for presenting these ethnic perspectives separately. For, although they lived side-by-side for many centuries, persistent tensions among these communities ensured that they maintained distinct identities and separate affiliations throughout their long co-existence.

Each of these overviews is a work in progress. They will be supplemented by additional information as it comes to light. Indeed, there are many rich sources of historical information already at hand, waiting to be translated into English from the original Hebrew, Polish or Ukrainian texts. While no claim is made that the information presented here is comprehensive, it should nonetheless give a fairly good sense of the social interactions, over time, among these three communities.

The Polish Era

From the 14th to 18th centuries, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth expanded to cover a huge territory in northern Europe. During this period, Tluste was part of the fertile province of Podilia (also written as Podole in Polish, Podillia in Ukrainian). Ruthenian (Ukrainian) peasantry made up the vast majority of the populous, while Jews settled in newly created towns and were heavily involved in the administration of large tracts of land granted to noblemen. These formed the basis for the latifundia, vast estates characterised by primitive agriculture and indentured labour.(1).

The existence of a Jewish population in Tluste can be documented at least as far back as the early part of the eighteenth century, and probably much earlier. Though few, if any, Jews live in Tovste today, this belies the fact that from at least the middle of the nineteenth century until well into the first few decades of the twentieth century, Tluste was predominantly a Jewish town.

According to Rosman (2) , the mid-seventeenth century Jewish community of the Commonwealth enjoyed a large measure of freedom in economic, religious and internal communal affairs owing to a tradition of Polish tolerance as well as compelling utilitarian reasons. However, sporadic anti-Jewish violence fostered an undercurrent of insecurity. This was manifested most dramatically in the peasant uprising of 1648, led by the Cossack Bohdan Khmelnytsky, which had profound effects for Podolia and its Jewish population. Although initiated as a protest by Cossacks against their treatment by Polish landlords, it was transformed into a widespread campaign of violence against anyone identified with the establishment, particularly Jews who lived in urban areas (3). Some estimates put the number of Jewish victims in the whole of Ukrainian territory at up to fifty percent of the total population of 40,000 (4).

Though the situation in Podolia eventually stablised, the last three decades of the century saw further economic and social decay, as the territory was ceded to the Ottoman Empire through the 1672 Treaty of Buczacz. It was not until the end of the seventeenth century, when Poland recovered Podolia once again, that prosperity began to return. Magnate latifundia owners solicited Jews and other townspeople to re-establish life in towns; and a modified Jewish-dominated leasing system was revived (5).

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Tluste/Tovste, Ukraine - Jewish History

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Posted By admin on May 27, 2015

The Qassam Brigades confirmed that they had fired five experimental rockets into the sea [Getty Images]

The Israeli air force has carried out four strikes on targets in the besieged Gaza Strip hours after a cross-border rocket landed in the city of Ashdod.

The planes targeted training camps belonging to the Islamic Jihad in Rafah, Khan Yunis and Gaza City, witnesses said. There were no immediate reports of casualties.

Earlier on Tuesday, the Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the Palestinian group Hamas, confirmed that they had fired five experimental rockets into the sea, but one of them had landed by mistake in the southern Israeli city.

The Israeli army said it struck "four terror infrastructures in the southern Gaza Strip" in response to the firing of the rocket.

"The reality that Hamas' territory is used as a staging ground to attack Israel is unacceptable and intolerable and will bear consequences," military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Peter Lerner said in a statement.

Tuesday's rocket was the third fired from Gaza since the ceasefire ending Israel's50-day war on Gaza in the summer of 2014. About 2,200 Palestinians, most of them civilians, and 73 on the Israeli side, most of them soldiers, were killed in the war.

Two mortar bombs were also fired at Israel since September, according to the Shin Bet internal security agency,

Wednesday's air strikes were the third since the end of the 2014 conflict.

Source:Al Jazeera and agencies

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Posted By admin on May 27, 2015

It is difficult to describe the emotional spectrum of a visit to the Anne Frank House. It's as though you are transported back through time to experience just a minute fraction of what the family must have endured in that actual house. The visit, for us, was a bitter sweet journey which underlined the futility and waste of war and man's inhumanity towards his fellow man. Do we never learn.....? A visit here will send your mind into overdrive. Anyone who has a heart will be stirred into an emotional roller coaster irrespective of age, gender, ethnicity, religious beliefs - or lack of them - or nationality.

Contrary to what many reviews say, you will find it more than difficult to get hold of 'direct entry, no queueing tickets' unless you are prepared to book at least a couple of months in advance. We went to Amsterdam virtually on the spur of the moment and although we attempted to get the 'jump the queue' advance purchase tickets through the internet, we just couldn't find any. However, a visit late afternoon meant we only queued for about 45 minutes. It was well worth it.

This review is the subjective opinion of a TripAdvisor member and not of TripAdvisor LLC.

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Posted By admin on May 27, 2015

The Golan Heights

Geologically, the Golan Heights are a plateau and part of a volcanic field that extends northeast almost to Damascus. The entire area is scattered with inactive volcanic cones. Mount Hermon is in the most northern point of Golan Heights but is geologically separate from the volcanic field.

History In biblical times, the Golan Heights was referred to as "Bashan;" the word "Golan" apparently derives from the biblical city of "Golan in Bashan" (Deuteronomy 4:43, Joshua 21:27). The area was assigned to the tribe of Manasheh, although the tribe of Dan is also associated with the Golan.

In the First Temple Period (953-586 BCE), the area was contested between the northern Jewish Kingdom of Israel and the Aramean Kingdom, based in Damascus. In the late 6th - 5th centuries BCE the region was settled by returning Jewish exiles from Babylonia.

The Golan Heights, along with the rest of the region, came under the control of Alexander the Great in 332 BCE and his successors, the Greeks. In the mid 2nd century BCE, Judah Maccabee and his brothers came to the aid of the local Jewish communities when these areas came under attack by their non-Jewish neighbors. Judah's grandnephew, the Hasmonean King Alexander Jannai, later added the Heights to his kingdom. In those days, the Golans chief city was Gamla. The Jews of Gamla joined their brothers in the Great Revolt against Rome in the 1st century CE, but the revolt failed and the city fell into Roman hands in 67 CE.

The Jewish presence on the Golan Heights was renewed in 1886-1887, when Jews from Tzfat purchased lands in the Golan, and in 1891, when Baron Rothschild purchased approximately 18,000 acres of land there. New Jewish immigrants to Israel established five small communities on these lands, but in 1898 the Turks forced them to leave. Almost 50 years later, in 1947, the lands were seized by the Syrian army.

Although most of the Golan Heights were included within Mandatory Palestine when the Mandate was formally granted in 1922, Britain relinquished the area to France in the Franco-British Agreement in 1923. The Heights became part of Syria upon the termination of the French Mandate in 1944.

After the 1948-1949 War of Independence, the Syrians built extensive fortifications on the Heights, from where they shelled civilian targets in Israel and launched terrorist attacks. Over 140 Israelis were killed and many more were injured in these attacks between 1949 and 1967; heavy property damage was also inflicted.

During the 1967 Six Day War, in response to Syrian attacks, the IDF captured the Golan Heights in just over 24 hours of intense fighting. Nearly all of the Golan's Arab inhabitants fled as a result of the war; four Druze villages remain, three on the slopes of Mt. Hermon and one in the northern Golan.

Almost immediately after the war, Israel renewed the Jewish presence on the Golan. Kibbutz Merom Golan was founded in July 1967, at the initiative of kibbutzim in the nearby Upper Galilee and Hula Valley. By 1970, there were 12 Jewish communities on the Golan.

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Posted By admin on May 27, 2015

The Golan Heights Winery (Hebrew: ) is an Israeli winery located in Katzrin, built on the site of an agricultural village from the Mishnaic period in the Golan Heights. It is Israel's third largest winery.[2] In 2012, Golan Heights Winery was named New World Winery of the Year by Wine Enthusiast Magazine.[3]

The Golan Heights Winery is jointly owned by eight Israeli settlementsmoshavim and kibbutzim, which also supply the grapes. Its first vintage was released in 1984. Production in 2008 reached 6 million bottles a year, 30% of which was exported.[4]

The Golan Heights winery markets brands under the Golan, Yarden and Gamla labels and is the parent company of Galilee's Galil Mountain Winery. Golan sources its grapes from sixteen vineyards in the Golan Heights and one vineyard in the Upper Galilee. The chief winemaker is Napa native Victor Schoenfeld.[5]

The winery employs 110 people and incorporates sophisticated technology using pneumatic membrane presses, must chiller and computer-controlled cooling of stainless steel tanks. The winery also has an elaborate "experimental winery" for research and quality control of new wines and improvement of existing lines.[6]

Traditional vinification techniques include barrel-fermented Chardonnay, Methode traditionelle sparkling wines, carbonic maceration for light reds and maturation in French and American oak barrels for premium red and white wines.[6]

The Golan Heights Winery is credited with starting the "quality revolution" in Israeli wine, creating a brand identity for the country's vintages, spurring the creation of new wineries and motivating existing wineries to improve the quality of their wines. Michal Neeman, director of the Israel Export & International Cooperation Institute's food and beverage division, describes the role of the winery as crucial: "Everyone agrees that they were the first winery to produce excellent wine. Then came the boutique wineries, then the medium-sized, and then the large ones. There were a lot of other factors as well, but when you pinpoint the revolution, it started at Golan Heights."[1]

In partnership with Entav of France, the winery is developing disease-resistant clones and the worlds first insect-free mother block and nursery.[7]

A number of Golan Heights wines were marketed by Systembolaget, Sweden's state-owned monopoly alcohol retailer, as "Made in Israel" on shelves and in the sales catalogue. Following customer complaints and consultation with Sweden's foreign ministry, Systembolaget changed the shelf labelling to read, "Made in Israeli-occupied Syrian territories."[8] However this prompted complaints from Annelie Enochson and officials in Israel.[8][9] Systembolaget's solution was to remove all reference to the product's country of origin on shelves and in catalogues, classifying the wine as of "other origins."[10]

The winery has won worldwide acclaim and awards at the most prestigious festivals, including wine shows in France.[11] Golan Heights Winery was named Best Foreign Winery at the Prague Trophy 2008 international wine competition. At a ceremony on January 16, 2009, the winery received the award after winning seven medals at the competition.[12] In 2011, Golan Heights Winery won the Gran Vinitaly Special Award as the best wine producer at the 19th International Vinitaly Wine Competition in Italy. The winery earned two Grand Gold Medals for its 2009 Yarden Chardonnay Odem Organic Vineyard and its 2008 Yarden HeightsWine.[13] Its 2004 Yarden Cabernet Sauvignon was the first wine from Israel to be listed on the Wine Spectator Top 100.

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Posted By admin on May 27, 2015

Introduction :: SYRIA

Following World War I, France acquired a mandate over the northern portion of the former Ottoman Empire province of Syria. The French administered the area as Syria until granting it independence in 1946. The new country lacked political stability and experienced a series of military coups. Syria united with Egypt in February 1958 to form the United Arab Republic. In September 1961, the two entities separated, and the Syrian Arab Republic was reestablished. In the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, Syria lost the Golan Heights region to Israel. During the 1990s, Syria and Israel held occasional peace talks over its return. In November 1970, Hafiz al-ASAD, a member of the socialist Ba'th Party and the minority Alawi sect, seized power in a bloodless coup and brought political stability to the country. Following the death of President al-ASAD, his son, Bashar al-ASAD, was approved as president by popular referendum in July 2000. Syrian troops - stationed in Lebanon since 1976 in an ostensible peacekeeping role - were withdrawn in April 2005. During the July-August 2006 conflict between Israel and Hizballah, Syria placed its military forces on alert but did not intervene directly on behalf of its ally Hizballah. In May 2007, Bashar al-ASAD's second term as president was approved by popular referendum. Influenced by major uprisings that began elsewhere in the region, antigovernment protests broke out in the southern province of Dar'a in March 2011 with protesters calling for the repeal of the restrictive Emergency Law allowing arrests without charge, the legalization of political parties, and the removal of corrupt local officials. Since then, demonstrations and violent unrest spread to nearly every city in Syria with the size and intensity of protests fluctuating. The government responded to unrest with a mix of concessions - including the repeal of the Emergency Law, new laws permitting new political parties, and liberalizing local and national elections - and military force. However, the government's response has failed to meet opposition demands for ASAD resignation, and the government's ongoing violence to quell unrest and widespread armed opposition activity has led to extended clashes between government forces and oppositionists. International pressure on the ASAD regime has intensified since late 2011, as the Arab League, European Union, Turkey, and the United States expanded economic sanctions against the regime. In December 2012, the National Coalition of Syrian Revolution and Opposition Forces, commonly referred to as the Syrian National Coalition, was recognized by more than 130 countries as the sole legitimate representative of the Syrian people. Peace talks between the Syrian Opposition Coalition and Syrian regime at the UN sponsored Geneva II conference in 2014 failed to produce progress toward a resolution of the conflict. Unrest continues in Syria, and according to the United Nations, the death toll among Syrian Government forces, opposition forces, and civilians has reached 220,000. As of 2015, the conflict has displaced 11.6 million people, including 7.6 million people internally, making the situation in Syria the largest humanitarian crisis worldwide.

Middle East, bordering the Mediterranean Sea, between Lebanon and Turkey

35 00 N, 38 00 E

Middle East

total: 185,180 sq km

land: 183,630 sq km

water: 1,550 sq km

note: includes 1,295 sq km of Israeli-occupied territory

slightly more than 1.5 times the size of Pennsylvania

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CIA - The World Factbook: Syria

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Posted By admin on May 27, 2015

Welcome to this comprehensive guide about Judaism and Jewish culture and identity!

On this website you will find useful information about the Jewish religion, Jewish customs and practices, and resources on Jewish dating and gifts for Jewish weddings, babies, Bar and Bat Mitzvahs, etc.

The Jewish people is one of the oldest civilizations in the history of humankind, and the first society to introduce monotheism, the idea that there is one God, Creator of the world. One of the defining characteristics of Jewish history has been the development of the idea of one God, and Jews being the chosen people of God, and this is reflected in Jewish culture and Jewish identity. Jewish people have also contributed a lot to the advancement of the natural sciences and technology, as can be seen from the amount of Jewish Nobel-prize winners.

Jewish culture is very rich and diverse, and it prospers both in the Jewish State of Israel and in the Jewish Diaspora around the world, especially in the United States. Jewish people are universally recognized for their contributions to the betterment of humankind.

Much of Jewish history, however, has been marred by persecution by other societies, from ancient Egypt and Babylon to the expulsion of Jewish people from Spain in the 15th century and the Holocaust of World War II. Unfortunately, antisemitism is one of the most vicious forms of prejudice, still alive and well today.

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