Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on March 18, 2022

This Sunday, a delegation of eight prominent members of the Bergen County Jewish community, centered on the countys East Hill, will leave for Poland.

The group, organized by Rabbi David-Seth Kirshner of Temple Emanu-El in Closter, will bring 50 duffel bags of supplies with them; theyll give those bags to refugees from Ukraine, whether or not theyre Jewish, depending simply on whether the refugees need them.

The supplies, which were collected in a matter of days, are just a portion of what people have brought to Emanu-El, to Congregation Ahavath Torah in Englewood, Temple Sinai in Tenafly, the Kaplen JCC on the Palisades in Tenafly, and other collection points. Rabbi Kirshner hopes that other trips, soon to be planned and soon to leave, will bring the rest of the supplies, which he hopes will keep coming.

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It is important both to send money and to bring material goods to help the refugees, he said. Its easier and more efficient to send money to buy the things that are available in the countries to which the refugees are fleeing, and in Ukraine itself, but there are many shortages. Imagine what it would be like to have an extra 100,000 or 200,000 people in Bergen County, he said. Youd run out of things.

Rabbi Kirshner, Ahavath Torahs Rabbi Chaim Poupko, and most likely Sinais Rabbi Jordan Millstein will be on the trip; theyll be joined by the JCCs new CEO, Steve Rogers, JCC board chair Jodi Scherl, and JCC board members Arthur Sinensky and Josh Weingast.

Two leaders of the Jewish Federation of Northern New Jersey its CEO, Jason Shames, and its immediate past president, Roberta Abrams, also are going to Poland next week; they will be part of the group organized by the Jewish Federations of North America.

Rabbi Kirshner organized the four-day trip. There are four distinct reasons for making it, he said.

First, sometimes, in Judaism, you just know that you need to be somewhere else. Indeed, this is one of those times. I know that I need not to be at home, comfortable, in Closter.

The second item is practical. Its faster to bring supplies than to ship them. It would be a matter of two or three weeks if we sent this stuff. I can bring it myself, right now.

Thirdly, chizuk encouragement, lending strength through presence matters. We learn that when there are crises, people crave it. We are telling the people of Ukraine that we stand with them, and we will continue to be with them. This is mission-critical, and we cant do it from Closter.

And fourthly, these Jewish communities the JCCs in Krakow and Warsaw, the Chachmei Lublin Yeshiva in Lublin, which all are working with refugees are doing the opposite of what happened during the Shoah. They are places that are taking in Jews and other refugees from a country that they are being forced out of. I want to go to the JCCs in Krakow and Warsaw, to the yeshiva in Lublin, and tell the good people who are working tirelessly there that they have backup. They have support. And we love them.

Can you imagine going to Poland and not going to Auschwitz or Birkenau? Were going to Poland to help, not to remember.

And then theres a last thing, he said. In all humility, were community leaders. We have a responsibility to lead. To observe, and to bring back what we see.

All parts of the community are working together, Rabbi Kirshner added. This trip, small as it is, will include representatives from Orthodox, Conservative, and (if the logistics work from Rabbi Millstein) Reform synagogues, as well as the community-based JCC. This is not a time for denominationalism, Rabbi Kirshner said.

And the help that the bring will go to anyone who needs it. We are helping refugees, Rabbi Kirshner said. There is no litmus test. In fact, there are no questions asked. If you are hungry, if you need a place to stay, if you are in need, we will help.

We are all one community.

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Local delegation to go to Poland to help refugees - The Jewish Standard

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Posted By admin on March 18, 2022

For more than two weeks now, a devastating crisis in Ukraine has forced many Jews eligible under the Law of Return to leave their homes and plan to immigrate to Israel. Israeli officials say they are preparing for an increase of 100,000 people from both Ukraine and Russia due to the economic and political situation in both countries. The State of Israel must prepare for this sudden wave, and our government must understand that starting today, the longstanding issue of non-Jewish citizens becomes even more critical with each passing day.

The upcoming Knesset deliberations on the government-approved bill to reform the state-sponsored process for converting to Judaism are among the most critical for the future of Israeli society, and no less so for Israels strategic resilience in the coming decade. A legal memorandum from Matan Kahana, Minister of Religious Services, states: There are currently about half a million citizens living in the State of Israel who had a Jewish father or grandfather, but according to Halacha, are not Jews. Theyre part of us. Torah scholars from all denominations have ruled that great efforts should be made to bring them home. Closing ones eyes and ignoring this situation harms the Jewish identity of the State of Israel.

These immigrants came to Israel under the Law of Return, which has been amended several times to legitimize the right of second and third generations to come to Israel. Israeli prime ministers from David Ben-Gurion onward led large-scale and risky covert activities to maintain ties with Jews behind the Iron Curtain that isolated them from the rest of the world. Since the 1970s, the campaign has been open and international, with heads of state and non-Jewish international organizations participating. The goal: to open the gates of the Eastern Bloc, with Russia the foremost target.

The late 1980s were a pivotal time for Israel, with an American-Israeli effort that took advantage of President Gorbachevs rise to power. The new Soviet leader allowed Jews to leave the Soviet Union, and then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir granted permission for them to emigrate to Israel on the condition that all those leaving met the criteria of Jews. They were allowed to enter under Israels Law of Return and were required to come to Israel, and Israel only.

US President George H. W. Bush meets with Israel Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir at the White House. Dec. 11, 1990 (George Bush Presidential Library)

Shamir was forced to contend with, among other things, powerful elements in the United States, Jews and non-Jews, who demanded that Russian immigrants be allowed to choose their destination. He prevailed in his campaign and, because of his determination, by the year 2000, Israel had received a million immigrants from the FSU.

In one of my conversations with Shamir after he retired from public life, he expanded on this chapter. In his view, the impact of the aliyah from the Soviet Union on such a large scale went beyond the addition of human capital to the population their contributions to Israeli academia, science, technology, the arts, and many other areas, as well as their service (then and now) in the IDF. In Shamirs view, the influx of immigrants to Israel provided no less than a critical population mass that would finally ensure the continued existence and prosperity of Israel.

Those who make Judaism unattainable for half a million immigrants and their descendants create a situation in which the Jewish majority from the Jordan to the sea will become a minority. The responsibility to prevent the emergence of this situation rests with the Knesset when it holds these crucial discussions in the coming weeks. Knesset legislation binds Israeli citizens in all areas: Judaism in all its forms; the public, rabbis and spiritual leaders, and certainly the Chief Rabbinate, which draws its legitimacy and powers from the legislature.

Rabbi Yitzhak HaLevi Herzog (1888-1959) (Central Zionist Archives)

As they discuss these issues, it would be well for Knesset members to consider changes that were implemented under the leadership of the Chief Rabbinate over the years. For example, Rabbi Isaac Herzog, an Ashkenazi former Chief Rabbi of Ireland, came to Israel during the British Mandate and became Israels Chief Rabbi with the establishment of the State in 1948. He was open-minded, held PhDs in mathematics and literature, and served alongside Israels first Sephardic Chief Rabbi, Rabbi Ben-Zion Meir Hai Uziel, a great Torah scholar and highly principled individual. These two spiritual leaders handled the arrival of this wave of immigrants, who mostly came without identifying documents. Together, they welcomed the waves of immigrants to Israel immediately after World War II, survivors of the largest disaster in the history of the Jewish people for generations.

Rabbi Ben-Zion Meir Hai Uziel (Wikimedia Commons)

Like their predecessors, Chief Rabbi Unterman came from Britain, where he served as Chief Rabbi of Liverpool and as a leader of the religious Zionist movement in the UK, and Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Nissim, who immigrated to Israel from Iraq and was considered too liberal in the eyes of some of the Ultra-Orthodox leadership. The challenges of the hour were solved quietly and pleasantly. It is worth mentioning Rabbi Untermans words which appear in the Minister of Religious Affairs memorandum:

Great pains must be taken to ensure that those requiring conversion are treated with care and understanding, with an awareness of the spiritual distress these brothers of ours have endured. God forbid we should miss this opportunity.

Those who followed this path include Rabbi Shlomo Goren, first Chief Rabbi of the IDF and then Chief Rabbi of Israel; and Rabbi Ovadia Yosef. The first will be remembered as someone who did much to shape the Chief Military Rabbinate at the outset and established strong historic rulings. With him was the Rishon LeZion, Sephardic Chief Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, who in 1973 proclaimed the Jewishness of Ethiopian Jews, basing his decision on the ruling of the Radvaz, Rabbi David Ibn Avi Zimra, who lived in Spain more than five centuries earlier.

The radicalization of kashrut and conversion issues expressed by the chief rabbis who served later stemmed from the increasing involvement of Ultra-Orthodox scholars in determining the candidates for high office. Unfortunately, Russian Jewry has become a victim of that process.

I personally became aware of the situation of Russian Jewry when I visited Moscow during the summer of 1956. I served as General Secretary of the Israel Student Union and was invited to an introductory conference for an international youth festival that was to take place the following year in the Russian capital. I arrived alone on Saturday to the citys largest synagogue wearing a crocheted kippah. I saw a small group of worshippers as I entered and I could tell that my very presence caused them extreme anxiety. Despite the fact that I was a guest, no one approached me and, of course, I was not invited to go up to the Torah as is customary.

The next evening, I visited a distant relative who lived alone in extremely difficult conditions. She told me stories of the execution of Soviet Jewrys finest: the best scientists, actors and cultural figures. This Jewry was not privileged to preserve its communal archives. In this one aspect the loss of Jewish documentation the situation of the Soviet Jews resembled that of Holocaust survivors emerging from Nazi death camps: a lack of documentation from Jewish community sources to confirm their Judaism and personal situations. And for most Russian Jews, the observance of brit milah, ritual circumcision, was impossible for many years.

During the 70 years or so of communist regimes in Eastern Europe and especially in Russia, Jewish communal institutions began dwindling under the policies of the authorities. The archives documenting Jewish life deteriorated, and many were destroyed or disappeared altogether. With the mass exodus of Jews from Russia, those who were emigrating did not have documents to affirm their past.

This was one of the main reasons Knesset members gave ahead of approving amendments to the Law of Return that made second and third generations eligible for aliyah to Israel. The registration of Jews into the population registry should also reflect this Knesset legislation. Beyond the humane need that necessitates consideration of the Knessets approach and its votes, it is worth asking whether the Chief Rabbinate can legally invalidate Knesset legislation and decide to compel the Minister of the Interior to act in accordance with the Chief Rabbinates decision in violation of the sovereign legislation of the Knesset of Israel. The Knesset is the supreme and only state legislature in the State of Israel, and everything is subject to it and its legislation.

The deliberations set to take place in the Knesset around bills proposed by the Minister of Religious Affairs, and the decisions that follow, will be critical on multidimensional and strategic levels. They will decide whether the Jewish majority in Israel remains intact or whether, God forbid, this majority becomes a minority due to the denial of the Jewish status of half a million immigrants and their descendants labeled by the Interior Ministry with the derogatory title Other. They are todays Delta between ensuring a Jewish majority and becoming a Jewish minority. Such a disaster would also have implications for Israels relations with Jewish communities around the world and would slam the door on non-Haredi Zionist immigration. The Jewish Agency and the World Zionist Movement would cease to exist.

It is up to the Chief Rabbinate to choose whether it withdraws from its current policy and returns to follow in the path of the greats of a generation who led the states religious life for the first forty years of Israels existence. A journalist who interviewed Chief Rabbi Lau in his office noticed a picture of one of Israels past chief rabbis on the wall behind his desk. It was Chief Rabbi Herzog, grandfather of our current Israeli president. It is imperative that the current Chief Rabbi follow in the footsteps of this extraordinary figure, both in the conversion of immigrants and in the style of his public remarks.

This will prevent a disaster and preserve the Jewish majority in Israel.

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Ukraine crisis sharpens Israel's existential need for conversion reform - The Times of Israel

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Posted By admin on March 16, 2022

A recently published report into anti-Semitic incidents in Britain in 2021 made for alarming reading. A total of 2,255 incidents were recorded by the Community Security Trust (CST): the highest ever number reported to the organisation in a single year.

Eight percent of the incidents involved violence, and a small number of these involved extreme violence. One hundred and eighty two of the incidents were at schools and affected Jewish students or teachers. There were 82 desecrations of graveyards or synagogues, and these demonstrate why, dismayingly, Jewish schools and community organisations in Britain require significant security measures.

The most common type of incident documented in the CST report involved people using the conflict in Israel and Palestine in May 2021 as an opportunity or excuse to harass Jewish people. These made up 826 of the incidents 37 percent of the total examples of this included cars draped in Palestinian flags being driven around Jewish communities while abuse was shouted at residents. A new source of anti-Semitism in recent years has also been the COVID-19 pandemic. Online, anti-Semitic ideas about COVID, vaccines and other topics proliferate rapidly.

As anti-Semitic murders in recent years in France and an attempt to attack a synagogue during a service in Halle in Germany in 2019 have shown, Britain is not a more dangerous place for Jews than other Western European countries, but the CST report shows that anti-Semitism in Britain is a challenge and a threat, and that Jews are being targeted in their neighbourhoods in anti-Semitic incidents.

In contrast to previous eras, Western European states themselves are now unlikely to engage in anti-Semitic actions, but anti-Semitism persists in society and in politics, as can be seen in the attitudes of French presidential candidate ric Zemmour, and in the anti-Semitism directed against some female Jewish Labour MPs who challenged the partys leadership on their handling of anti-Semitism during Jeremy Corbyns time as leader. CSTs report and other recent incidents, such as the taking of hostages in a synagogue in Texas by a British citizen in January this year, show that anti-Semitism can still pose a grave danger to Jews.

The need to consistently challenge anti-Semitism clearly remains, and the Wiener Holocaust Library in Londons forthcoming exhibition, Fighting anti-Semitism from Dreyfus to Today, is a timely examination of the wide range of ways in which Jewish groups and others have fought against anti-Semitism in the more than a century since the Dreyfus Affair galvanised anti-Semites and their opponents in France.

The passions ignited by the Dreyfus case which saw the arrest, trial and imprisonment of Jewish French army officer Alfred Dreyfus on false charges of espionage disproved the idea that in the late 19th century, anti-Semitism was a thing of the past. The same can be said about the situation in Western Europe today, and our exhibition draws upon the Wiener Holocaust Librarys archival collections, originally gathered to challenge anti-Semitism in interwar Germany, to document the fightback in Britain, France and Germany over the past 120 years.

Fighting anti-Semitism traces the separate but intertwined national histories of anti-Semitism and the struggle against it in Britain, France and Germany. The Wiener Library itself has transnational roots, as it was founded by a German Jew whose goal was to warn the world about the threat posed by the Nazis. Anti-Semitism in the form of post-war Holocaust denial, which was so prominently and successfully refuted at the Irving-Lipstadt libel trial in London in 2001, emerged from transnational anti-Semitic networks based in both Britain and France. Our exhibition shows that this work across borders, practised by both anti-Semites and anti-anti-Semites, already existed at the time of the Dreyfus Affair, and continues to this day.

The exhibition also explores the various methods that have been used to challenge anti-Semitism over the decades, including the use of public debate in the press, work to monitor and document the activities of anti-Semites, as well as demonstrations, sabotage and street fighting. Today, those fighting anti-Semitism sometimes use modern methods of intelligence and dissemination, but the underlying principles of the work of fighting anti-Semitism remain.

The Dreyfus Affair can be seen as marking the early stages of a century of anti-Semitism in Europe, in which the mass murder of Europes Jews during the Holocaust was the central event. The librarys exhibition explores and connects some key moments of this history, focusing upon the actions and strategies of those who fought anti-Semitism.

In France, the engagement of prominent individuals in Dreyfuss defence, such as Emile Zola in his famous essay Jaccuse, led to an unprecedented mobilisation of both committed anti-Semites and committed anti-anti-Semites. In Germany and Holland in the 1930s, the librarys founder Dr Alfred Wiener and others produced fact sheets and other materials to help people engaged in the struggle against anti-Semitism. They also monitored, documented and disseminated information about the activities of the Nazis. During the Holocaust, Jewish resisters fought the genocidal anti-Semitism of the Nazis and their collaborators in partisan groups, armed uprisings, underground rescue missions, and in efforts to preserve records of Jewish life and culture.

In Britain in the 1930s and 1940s, anti-fascist Jewish groups such as the 43 Group fought back against fascists on the streets, such as Oswald Mosleys British Union of Fascists and the union movement in places like Dalston in East London and through undercover work to infiltrate the fascists.

Our knowledge of the activities of anti-Semites has often been gained through the work of those who fight against it, as can be seen in the photographs on display from the collections of the librarys predecessor organisation, then based in Amsterdam, which record the proliferation of anti-Semitic street signs in Germany in the mid-1930s.

Also on show in the exhibition are documents from the CST archives and the Board of Deputies of British Jews archives, part of which is held at the Wiener Holocaust Library, including photographs showing fascist meetings and desecrated graves and extensive documentation collected by the Board of Deputies about British neo-Nazi Colin Jordan.

This timely exhibition focuses on the fight against anti-Semitism and in doing so also provides many examples of manifestations of anti-Semitism since the time of Dreyfus. We hope to challenge widespread ignorance about what anti-Semitism is. Too often, people do not recognise familiar myths and stereotypes as anti-Semitic, despite the many valiant efforts of Jews and non-Jewish allies to expose falsehoods and debunk slanders. Also too often, Jews are blamed for the anti-Semitism inflicted on them, a pattern that also affects other minority groups.

If there is one thing that we hope people will take away from this exhibition, it is that visitors will be inspired by the many examples of anti-anti-Semitic activity on display and realise that the best way to fight anti-Semitism is to focus on fighting anti-Semites, and never to be tempted to blame their victims.

Fighting Antisemitism from Dreyfus to Today is a major new exhibition at The Wiener Holocaust Library in London, opening on March 30, 2022.

The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial stance.

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Learning from the past to effectively fight anti-Semitism today - Al Jazeera English

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Posted By admin on March 16, 2022

As another war engulfs Europe, it was left to a squash player to remind the world of a few awkward truths.

After winning a tournament in England late last week, Egyptian squash champion, Ali Farag, noted that since Putins invasion of Ukraine, all sorts of usually demure types including athletes trained by their agents to shut up for fear of censure or losing money have, remarkably, emerged from comfortable silence to condemn the oppression of Ukrainians by a larger and ruthless occupying power.

Indeed, these suddenly uninhibited voices have been amplified by a lot of Western media that, as a general editorial rule, believe that athletes should keep quiet and play their silly games and let better-equipped journalists continue to lecture the rest of us on serious matters like war and peace.

Given this newfound licence to speak out without inviting the blanket wrath of an agitated swarm of condescending Western scribes, Farag said that just as the killing of innocents in Ukraine was unacceptable, the 74-year-long oppression of Palestinian innocents was unforgivable too.

Telling that truth, he added, did not fit the Wests narrative of what kind of oppressed people are worthy of praise, sympathy and attention and what other kinds of people who have also suffered the inhumane whims of a large, ruthless occupying power are not.

Please keep that in mind, Farag urged.

Well said, sir.

Beyond this blatant hypocrisy, the coverage of Putins war in Ukraine by Western media has not only revealed a sickening score of hypocrisies but marquee-sized blind spots about prickly subjects that, like clockwork, provoke hysterical outbursts of outrage by a swaggering tribe of easily triggered journalists and politicians.

Exhibit A:

Western columnists and editorial writers have been busy lately trying to outduel each other in resurrecting the sullied ghost of Winston Churchill to demand that Putin, his insanely rich pals and not-so-well-off Russians, pay a debilitating price for invading Ukraine.

These days, the economic weapons of choice championed by the revenge-hungry keyboard cavalry involve boycotting, divesting from and imposing sanctions on anything or anyone emblazoned with a made-in-Russia label.

Perhaps, like me, you remember when the keyboard cavalry smeared anyone, anywhere who, at any time, has suggested using the same economic weapons to resist made-in-Israel apartheid as anti-Semites intent on the destruction of the little-country-that-could.

Irish author Sally Rooney tasted the clichd rod of these rank hypocrites late last year after she committed the anti-Semitic sin of opting not to have an Israeli publisher translate her new novel into Hebrew as a small gesture of concord with occupied Palestinians.

Back then, BDS was a useless, anti-Semitic affront. Today, it is all the rage among journalists and politicians who once denounced it like crazed hyenas.

Exhibit B:

It is laudable and somewhat dizzying to see Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau swing open Canadas door to welcome without hesitation or bureaucratic obstacles the legion of Ukrainians harmed by Putins bullets and bombs.

In Trudeaus cynical calculus, this necessary humanitarian gesture may inspire a political dividend as well.

Canada is home to a sizeable Ukrainian diaspora. The last census revealed that more than 1.3 million Canadians of Ukrainian descent call Canada chez nous.

In crass political terms, that big number translates into big influence.

Alas, the same census shows that a little more than 44,000 Canadians claim Palestinian ancestry.

In crass political terms, that small number translates into small influence.

The latter figure goes, I think, some way towards explaining Trudeaus shameful reneging of his support while opposition leader to help get only 100 of the thousands of Palestinian children injured by Israeli bullets and bombs to Canada for medical help.

As prime minister, Trudeau has not responded to repeated entreaties made publicly and privately by Nobel Peace Prize nominee and Palestinian-Canadian doctor, Dr Izzeldin Abuelaish, to keep his pledge finally.

Decency and humanity demand providing safe haven to Palestinian children and their families in desperate need.

Clearly, for Trudeau, damaged Palestinian children are not worth sheltering, but damaged Ukrainian children are.

Exhibit C:

I suspect that the ugly undercurrent driving Trudeaus refusal to help 100 Palestinian kids is that he does not want to be accused by the establishment press of offering succour to Palestinian terrorists who use those disfigured kids as human shields.

Most Western media and pedestrian politicians like Trudeau abide by this stubborn, simplistic equation: Palestinians + Hamas = terrorists.

De facto: All Palestinians are anti-Semites bent on the violent erasure of Israel.

This is, of course, a gross, but self-serving distortion.

It is akin, I am afraid, to describing all Ukrainians as democracy-loving pluralists, as amnesiac journalists and politicians have been prone to do recently.

Anyone making this uncharitable point is bound, on cue, to be tarred as a Putin apologist or stooge.

Still, it should be possible, even during these horrible times filled, as they are, with misery and death, to challenge the prevailing view that Ukraine is a lovely democratic oasis that requires the countrys more sinister history to be airbrushed out of view or consideration by journalists and politicians turned revisionists.

In the rush to show unwavering solidarity with besieged Ukrainians, columns like these published in 2018 by Reuters and in 2019 by The Nation detailing the countrys cobweb network of avowedly fascist groups and personalities that penetrated Ukraines military, police, government and bureaucracy and campaignedto transform Ukraine into a hub for transnationalsupremacy have, for the most part, disappeared.

So have stories about Ukraines hideous pogroms of Jews throughout World War II and the much more recent and disturbing expressions of anti-Semitism featuring tiki-torch marches and chants of Jews out, Nazi-salutes and illiterate Holocaust denials.

In 2014, when Putins seizure of Crimea exposed the decrepit state of Ukraines military, virulent far-right militias like the Azov regiment stepped into the breach, fending off the Russian-backed separatists while Ukraines regular military regrouped. Once these groups succeeded in pushing back Russian-backed separatists from strategic cities like Mariupol, they not only achieved widespread legitimacy, but also won effusive praise from Ukraines government.

These are our best warriors, then-President Petro Poroshenko reportedly said at an awards ceremony, Our best volunteers.

A number of these militias were eventually absorbed into Ukraines army. Meanwhile, other ultranationalist groups preferred to operate independently, attracting like-minded fascists through youth summer camps who went on to attack city council meetings, Roma, LGBT events, anti-racist and environmental activists and feminists with impunity.

Several commentators have claimed that, over time, Ukraines neo-Nazi militias have been reduced to a fringe.

Others disagree, arguing that too many Ukrainians continue to regard the militias with gratitude and admiration and share their intolerant and illiberal ideology.

In 2012, the far-right Svoboda party translated its previous electoral breakthrough in regional elections into 38 seats in Ukraines federal parliament after securing two million votes, or slightly more than 10 percent of the popular vote.

It is true, that, in the years since, the partys appeal has waned. But one observer wrote: this argument is a bit of red herring. Its not extremists electoral prospects that should concern Ukraines friends, but rather the states unwillingness or inability to confront violent groups and end their impunity.

In 2014, in the urgent face of Russian aggression, the Ukrainian state embraced openly everyone willing to fight, including neo-Nazis. Today, it is once again all hands on deck in Ukraine as it were to stave off Putins imperial designs. And some of those Ukrainian hands are as repulsive as it gets.

The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial stance.

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Russia-Ukraine: Ugly truths in the time of war - Al Jazeera English

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Posted By admin on March 16, 2022

WARSAW, Poland

On her first Shabbat away from the fighting in Ukraine, Rabbi Julia Gris twice led services to welcome the Jewish holy day.

A week earlier, Ukraine's only woman rabbi had been fleeing the war that scattered her Odesa congregation from Moldova to Romania and Israel. Some stayed behind, braving the Russian shelling.

She first led an online service for those congregants scattered abroad. Then, she officiated one in person for a small group in Poland, taken in by a Christian couple near Warsaw.

Gris lit Sabbath candles that she had carried from Ukraine, while her 19-year-old daughter Izolda played the guitar and sang, just as she had during services back home in her Reform community, Shirat ha-Yam.

"There were so many stories, so much crying and so much pain," Gris said. "For those who are here, and even more so for those still in Ukraine."

Gris and her daughter found safety after a 30-kilometer (20-mile) walk lugging suitcases and their two cats, reaching the border with Poland where they negotiated a 40-hour wait without food, water or toilets.

The mother and daughter are part of the exodus from Ukraine that has become the fastest-growing humanitarian crisis in Europe since World War II.

With some 200,000 Jews in Ukraine, one of the world's largest Jewish communities, it is inevitable that many Jewish people are also among those fleeing.

International Jewish organizations have mobilized to help, working with local Jewish communities in Poland, Romania, Moldova and elsewhere to organize food, shelter, medical care and other assistance.

The reality that so many Jews have joined the mass civilian exit from Ukraine exposes the deceitfulness of Russian claims that it's there to "denazify" Ukraine. In truth, Ukraine has steadily grown into a pluralistic society, led by a Jewish president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

"Why is a Russian regime that claims to be "denazifying" Ukraine brutalizing a country led by a democratically elected and proud Jew?" said David Harris, the CEO of the American Jewish Committee (AJC), who visited Poland this week to assess the needs of refugees. "Why is Moscow adopting Nazi-like tactics of the 1930s fake history, phony grievances, blitzkrieg, attacks on civilians and civilian institutions, and murder of children?"

Gris said she always felt very much at home in Ukraine, a Russian-born Jew who had never felt discrimination.

Now Russia's invasion has plunged the country into an acute humanitarian crisis affecting Jews and non-Jews alike. Jewish organizations say they are there to help all refugees irrespective of faith. But for some Jews, the organizations' involvement is essential to helping them emigrate to Israel or stay true to their faith's observances, for instance by getting kosher food.

Aside from the AJC there are others helping. The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC), a New York-based Jewish humanitarian organization, has so far evacuated thousands of Jews to Moldova and helped several thousand more after they reached Poland and other countries.

Poland's chief rabbi, Michael Schudrich, said some of the Jewish refugees plan to go to Israel while others intend to join family in countries like Germany or Britain. Others, he said, "have to figure out what to do with their lives do they want to settle in Poland or elsewhere?"

The dark historical irony isn't lost on Schudrich. Eight decades ago, Jews desperately tried to flee German-occupied Poland and other eastern European countries under Nazi German rule. Six million of them were exterminated.

"The struggles that people had, the splitting up of families, saying goodbye and never knowing if you would see each other again, and most times you didn't," Schudrich said. "And to think now that Jews and others are not fleeing out of Poland but into Poland, and we, the small Jewish community of Poland, can now welcome them."

Gris is awaiting a sponsorship letter in hopes of going to the U.K. She was ordained a rabbi at the Leo Baeck College in London and has friends and colleagues there who are supporting her.

Wearing a sequined kippa and a ribbon pinned to her chest in the blue and yellow of Ukraine's flag, Gris said that she never experienced anti-Semitism in her 22 years of living in Ukraine.

It was the fact that she was Russian that made her nervous after Russian troops attacked Ukraine on Feb. 24. Friends advised her that she would be better off leaving. Ukrainian authorities froze her bank account a step taken against Russian and Belarusian citizens. At the border, she said Ukrainian guards asked, "How do we know you're not a spy?"

Gris said she could understand that reaction from a nation under attack, but it still hurt because "my heart and soul is with Ukraine."

Gris, 45, was born in Bryansk, Russia, before the breakup of the Soviet Union. She embarked on her spiritual journey as a teenager at a time of a broader revival of Jewish life in eastern Europe. Judaism, like other religions, had been suppressed by the officially atheistic ideology of the communist era.

In her youth she was told by a rabbi that she was so wise that she could even aspire to being a rabbi's wife. But she said to herself: "No, I will be a rabbi myself."

Gris doesn't know where the war will lead but fears that Jewish life will never be the same there.

On Saturday, her second Shabbat in safety, she was joined in Warsaw by a member of her Odesa congregation two-thirds of whom have fled now a reunion that was comforting to them both.

She denounced Russian propaganda, and recounted how her own mother, who is still in Russia, didn't believe that Russia attacked Ukraine. "I had to tell her yes, I can hear the sirens and the bombs myself!"

Now she feels her life in Odesa may be lost forever. "I don't know when I can go back," Gris said fighting back tears. "Or if I will go back."

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Ukraine's Only Woman Rabbi Among the Many Jews Fleeing War - Voice of America - VOA News

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Posted By admin on March 16, 2022

Its the MAGA battle cry heading into the primaries.

Hes a grandstanding RINO.-Donald Trump about retiring Ohio Republican congressman Anthony Gonzalez who voted to impeach him for Jan 6.

Mike DeWine is the biggest RINO in America today.-Jim Renacci, Ohio Republican gubernatorial candidate about the Republican incumbent.

Ohio is not going to tolerate RINOs anymore.-Marjorie Taylor Green in endorsing Ohio Republican J.D. Vance for the U.S. Senate.

This guy [DeWine] is the epitome of a RINO; hes everything that is wrong with the Republican Party.-Josh Mandel, Ohio Republican candidate for U.S. Senate.

Theyve got it all wrong. Those screaming the pejorative acronym RINO (Republican in Name Only) at Republicans they jeer as squishy conservatives, have it backwards. They, the norm-breaking, law-flouting, truth-denying, science-deriding extremists, are the real RINOs. Theyre the posers, as far from what used to pass for traditional conservatives as neofascists can get. Definitely not your fathers GOP.

One historian mused that the intellectual predecessors of todays Republicans wouldnt even recognize them as members of the same party. Gotta say, not even close to the Ohio Republicans Ive known, respected and even voted for in bygone years. Thats because the real RINOs dont give a damn about actual conservative values. They dismiss expertise, obstruct accountability, thwart progress, support regression. The real RINOs champion no policies. They offer no problem-solving, no persuasive arguments. Just clickbait attacking Democrats as the antichrists on social media.

They peddle fear and loathing for likes. The media is fake and hateful. Godless liberals are ruining everything pure and wholesome and white in America. The more apocalyptic the outrage, the better. Its a power trip. Light a match on Twitter and watch it all burn. So what if you shred the fabric of the nation in the process? Self-styled conservatives dont want to conserve the foundations of the American experiment. They want to dismantle them outright. They voted to overturn a free and fair democratic election after a terrorizing assault on the U.S. Capitol, for Petes sake.

The real RINOs are also zero-sum game combatants out to defeat Republicans who arent. These Party of Lincoln pretenders sidle up to white supremacists, lend legitimacy to bigots and lean into justifiable insurrection to become far-right celebs. They foment racial division, fuel anti-Semitism and lie through their teeth 24/7 about a stolen election that wasnt. They cheer the patriots who viciously beat police, trashed the Capitol and hunted down lawmakers in a violent siege to stop the peaceful transfer of power.

The real RINOs are shameless opportunists looking for nationwide fame and fundraising fortune. To that end, they are willing to fatally wound the last best hope for democracy in the world by pledging total allegiance to a traitorous ex-president who nearly destroyed it.

While the vindictive snake plots his comeback to the White House as a Putinesque thug, the Republicans in name only grovel for his endorsement as an Orwellian badge of honor. Up is down. Black is white. The sore loser of the 2020 presidential election is the legitimate winner. And radical rightists, lining up to return a man to power who nearly ended the republic, are Republicans with firm beliefs in conserving the Republic.

In that alternate universe, the characters masquerading as true conservatives are traipsing around the country getting rich on the gullible as ultra-right provocateurs. They are essentially grifters exploiting white grievance and preaching the false gospel of MAGA on a lucrative circuit selling extreme. They rake in mega bucks in donations. With the fervor of an old-fashioned tent revival, they spread hate and stoke anger, feed intolerance and cultivate mistrust, plant conspiracy and taunt militancy.

They rally to Take America Back. Back to where? To a place where the superiority of white men was unquestioned? To a place where liberty and justice are denied to all but a chosen few the authentic Americans that meet select litmus tests? Is unwavering loyalty to a corrupt authoritarian who incited an assault on Congress essential for Republicans who want to win primaries?

Will those who dare speak truth to voters about the legitimacy of Joe Bidens victory and reject the false, self-serving narrative constantly repeated by the vanquished be the target of RINO slurs by Trumpian agitators?

Yes, to all of the above. But as history professor Robert McElvaine wrote for NBC News, we need to stop providing the cover of Republican legitimacy to those who have, by their cravenness, given up any claim to the legacy of Lincolns party. We need to call them what they truly are, to make it easier for the public to see what theyre doing.

He has suggestions.

One accurate name for those who shroud their anti-republican actions in the false label Republican would be the Anti-Republican Party; other truthful designations could include the Authoritarian Party; the Autocracy Party, the Radical Rightwing Party or the Anti-American Party.

Any will do. They all aptly describe those trumpeting the RINO battle cry.

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The law-flouting, truth-denying, science-deriding Trumpian Republican extremists are the real RINOs - Ohio Capital Journal

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Posted By admin on March 16, 2022

The Land of Israel (Hebrew: , Modern:Ere Ysrael, Tiberian:Ere Ysrl) is the traditional Jewish name for an area of indefinite geographical extension in the Southern Levant. Related biblical, religious and historical English terms include the Land of Canaan, the Promised Land, the Holy Land, and Palestine (see also Israel (disambiguation)). The definitions of the limits of this territory vary between passages in the Hebrew Bible, with specific mentions in Genesis 15, Exodus 23, Numbers 34 and Ezekiel 47. Nine times elsewhere in the Bible, the settled land is referred as "from Dan to Beersheba", and three times it is referred as "from the entrance of Hamath unto the brook of Egypt" (1 Kings 8:65, 1 Chronicles 13:5 and 2 Chronicles 7:8).

These biblical limits for the land differ from the borders of established historical Israelite and later Jewish kingdoms, including the United Kingdom of Israel, the two kingdoms of Israel (Samaria) and Judah, the Hasmonean Kingdom, and the Herodian kingdom. At their heights, these realms ruled lands with similar but not identical boundaries.

Jewish religious belief defines the land as where Jewish religious law prevailed and excludes territory where it was not applied.[1] It holds that the area is a God-given inheritance of the Jewish people based on the Torah, particularly the books of Genesis and Exodus, as well as on the later Prophets.[2] According to the Book of Genesis, the land was first promised by God to Abram's descendants; the text is explicit that this is a covenant between God and Abram for his descendants.[3] Abram's name was later changed to Abraham, with the promise refined to pass through his son Isaac and to the Israelites, descendants of Jacob, Abraham's grandson. This belief is not shared by most adherents of replacement theology (or supersessionism), who hold the view that the Old Testament prophecies were superseded by the coming of Jesus,[4] a view often repudiated by Christian Zionists as a theological error.[5] Evangelical Zionists variously claim that Israel has title to the land by divine right,[6] or by a theological, historical and moral grounding of attachment to the land unique to Jews (James Parkes).[7] The idea that ancient religious texts can be warrant or divine right for a modern claim has often been challenged,[8][9] and Israeli courts have rejected land claims based on religious motivations.[10]

During the League of Nations mandatory period (19201948) the term "Eretz Yisrael" or the "Land of Israel" was part of the official Hebrew name of Mandatory Palestine. Official Hebrew documents used the Hebrew transliteration of the word "Palestine" (Palestina) followed always by the two initial letters of "Eretz Yisrael", Aleph-Yod.[11][12]

The Land of Israel concept has been evoked by the founders of the State of Israel. It often surfaces in political debates on the status of the West Bank, referred to in official Israeli discourse as the Judea and Samaria Area, from the names of the two historical Jewish kingdoms.[13]

The term "Land of Israel" is a direct translation of the Hebrew phrase (Eretz Yisrael), which occasionally occurs in the Bible, and is first mentioned in the Tanakh in 1 Samuel 13:19, following the Exodus, when the Israelite tribes were already in the Land of Canaan.[15] The words are used sparsely in the Bible: King David is ordered to gather 'strangers to the land of Israel' (hag-grm 'er, bere yirl) for building purposes (1 Chronicles 22:2), and the same phrasing is used in reference to King Solomon's census of all of the 'strangers in the Land of Israel' (2 Chronicles 2:17). Ezekiel, though generally preferring the phrase 'soil of Israel' ('admat yirl), employs eretz Israel twice, respectively at Ezekiel 40:2 and Ezekiel 47:18.[16]

According to Martin Noth, the term is not an "authentic and original name for this land", but instead serves as "a somewhat flexible description of the area which the Israelite tribes had their settlements".[17] According to Anita Shapira, the term "Eretz Yisrael" was a holy term, vague as far as the exact boundaries of the territories are concerned but clearly defining ownership.[18] The sanctity of the land (kedushat ha-aretz) developed rich associations in rabbinical thought,[19] where it assumes a highly symbolic and mythological status infused with promise, though always connected to a geographical location.[20] Nur Masalha argues that the biblical boundaries are "entirely fictitious", and bore simply religious connotations in Diaspora Judaism, with the term only coming into ascendency with the rise of Zionism.

The Hebrew Bible provides three specific sets of borders for the "Promised Land", each with a different purpose. Neither of the terms "Promised Land" (Ha'Aretz HaMuvtahat) or "Land of Israel" are used in these passages: Genesis 15:1321, Genesis 17:8[21] and Ezekiel 47:1320 use the term "the land" (ha'aretz), as does Deuteronomy 1:8 in which it is promised explicitly to "Abraham, Isaac and Jacob... and to their descendants after them," whilst Numbers 34:115 describes the "Land of Canaan" (Eretz Kna'an) which is allocated to nine and half of the twelve Israelite tribes after the Exodus. The expression "Land of Israel" is first used in a later book, 1 Samuel 13:19. It is defined in detail in the exilic Book of Ezekiel as a land where both the twelve tribes and the "strangers in (their) midst", can claim inheritance.[22] The name "Israel" first appears in the Hebrew Bible as the name given by God to the patriarch Jacob (Genesis 32:28). Deriving from the name "Israel", other designations that came to be associated with the Jewish people have included the "Children of Israel" or "Israelite".

The term 'Land of Israel' ( ) occurs in one episode in the New Testament (Matthew 2:2021), where, according to Shlomo Sand, it bears the unusual sense of 'the area surrounding Jerusalem'.[21] The section in which it appears was written as a parallel to the earlier Book of Exodus.

Genesis 15 (describing "this land")

Genesis 15:1821 describes what are known as "Borders of the Land" (Gevulot Ha-aretz),[24] which in Jewish tradition defines the extent of the land promised to the descendants of Abraham, through his son Isaac and grandson Jacob.[25] The passage describes the area as the land of the ten named ancient peoples then living there.

More precise geographical borders are given Exodus 23:31 which describes borders as marked by the Red Sea (see debate below), the "Sea of the Philistines" i.e., the Mediterranean, and the "River", the Euphrates), the traditional furthest extent of the Kingdom of David.[26][27]

Genesis gives the border with Egypt as Nahar Mitzrayim nahar in Hebrew denotes a river or stream, as opposed to a wadi.

A slightly more detailed definition is given in Exodus 23:31, which describes the borders as "from the sea of reeds (Red Sea) to the Sea of the Philistines (Mediterranean sea) and from the desert to the Euphrates River", though the Hebrew text of the Bible uses the name, "the River", to refer to the Euphrates.

Only the "Red Sea" (Exodus 23:31) and the Euphrates are mentioned to define the southern and eastern borders of the full land promised to the Israelites. The "Red Sea" corresponding to Hebrew Yam Suf was understood in ancient times to be the Erythraean Sea, as reflected in the Septuagint translation. Although the English name "Red Sea" is derived from this name ("Erythraean" derives from the Greek for red), the term denoted all the waters surrounding Arabiaincluding the Indian Ocean and the Persian Gulf, not merely the sea lying to the west of Arabia bearing this name in modern English. Thus, the entire Arabian peninsula lies within the borders described. Modern maps depicting the region take a reticent view and often leave the southern and eastern borders vaguely defined. The borders of the land to be conquered given in Numbers have a precisely defined eastern border which included the Arabah and Jordan.

Numbers 34:115 describes the land allocated to the Israelite tribes after the Exodus. The tribes of Reuben, Gad and half of Manasseh received land east of the Jordan as explained in Numbers 34:1415. Numbers 34:113 provides a detailed description of the borders of the land to be conquered west of the Jordan for the remaining tribes. The region is called "the Land of Canaan" (Eretz Kna'an) in Numbers 34:2 and the borders are known in Jewish tradition as the "borders for those coming out of Egypt". These borders are again mentioned in Deuteronomy 1:68, 11:24 and Joshua 1:4.

According to the Hebrew Bible, Canaan was the son of Ham who with his descendants had seized the land from the descendants of Shem according to the Book of Jubilees. Jewish tradition thus refers to the region as Canaan during the period between the Flood and the Israelite settlement. Eliezer Schweid sees Canaan as a geographical name, and Israel the spiritual name of the land. He writes: The uniqueness of the Land of Israel is thus "geo-theological" and not merely climatic. This is the land which faces the entrance of the spiritual world, that sphere of existence that lies beyond the physical world known to us through our senses. This is the key to the land's unique status with regard to prophecy and prayer, and also with regard to the commandments.[28] Thus, the renaming of this landmarks a change in religious status, the origin of the Holy Land concept. Numbers 34:113 uses the term Canaan strictly for the land west of the Jordan, but Land of Israel is used in Jewish tradition to denote the entire land of the Israelites. The English expression "Promised Land" can denote either the land promised to Abraham in Genesis or the land of Canaan, although the latter meaning is more common.

The border with Egypt is given as the Nachal Mitzrayim (Brook of Egypt) in Numbers, as well as in Deuteronomy and Ezekiel. Jewish tradition (as expressed in the commentaries of Rashi and Yehuda Halevi, as well as the Aramaic Targums) understand this as referring to the Nile; more precisely the Pelusian branch of the Nile Delta according to Halevia view supported by Egyptian and Assyrian texts. Saadia Gaon identified it as the "Wadi of El-Arish", referring to the biblical Sukkot near Faiyum. Kaftor Vaferech placed it in the same region, which approximates the location of the former Pelusian branch of the Nile. 19th century Bible commentaries understood the identification as a reference to the Wadi of the coastal locality called El-Arish. Easton's, however, notes a local tradition that the course of the river had changed and there was once a branch of the Nile where today there is a wadi. Biblical minimalists have suggested that the Besor is intended.

Deuteronomy 19:8 indicates a certain fluidity of the borders of the promised land when it refers to the possibility that God would "enlarge your borders." This expansion of territory means that Israel would receive "all the land he promised to give to your fathers", which implies that the settlement actually fell short of what was promised. According to Jacob Milgrom, Deuteronomy refers to a more utopian map of the promised land, whose eastern border is the wilderness rather than the Jordan.[29]

Paul R. Williamson notes that a "close examination of the relevant promissory texts" supports a "wider interpretation of the promised land" in which it is not "restricted absolutely to one geographical locale". He argues that "the map of the promised land was never seen permanently fixed, but was subject to at least some degree of expansion and redefinition."[30]

On David's instructions, Joab undertakes a census of Israel and Judah, travelling in an anti-clockwise direction from Gad to Gilead to Dan, then west to Sidon and Tyre, south to the cities of the Hivites and the Canaanites, to southern Judah and then returning to Jerusalem.[31] Biblical commentator Alexander Kirkpatrick notes that the cities of Tyre and Sidon were "never occupied by the Israelites, and we must suppose either that the region traversed by the enumerators is defined as reaching up to though not including [them], or that these cities were actually visited in order to take a census of Israelites resident in them."[32]

Ezekiel 47:1320 provides a definition of borders of land in which the twelve tribes of Israel will live during the final redemption, at the end of days. The borders of the land described by the text in Ezekiel include the northern border of modern Lebanon, eastwards (the way of Hethlon) to Zedad and Hazar-enan in modern Syria; south by southwest to the area of Busra on the Syrian border (area of Hauran in Ezekiel); follows the Jordan River between the West Bank and the land of Gilead to Tamar (Ein Gedi) on the western shore of the Dead Sea; From Tamar to Meribah Kadesh (Kadesh Barnea), then along the Brook of Egypt (see debate below) to the Mediterranean Sea. The territory defined by these borders is divided into twelve strips, one for each of the twelve tribes.

Hence, Numbers 34 and Ezekiel 47 define different but similar borders which include the whole of contemporary Lebanon, both the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and Israel, except for the South Negev and Eilat. Small parts of Syria are also included.

The common biblical phrase used to refer to the territories actually settled by the Israelites (as opposed to military conquests) is "from Dan to Beersheba" (or its variant "from Beersheba to Dan"), which occurs many times in the Bible.[33]

The 12 tribes of Israel are divided in 1 Kings 11. In the chapter, King Solomon's sins lead to Israelites forfeiting 10 of the 12 tribes:

30 and Ahijah took hold of the new cloak he was wearing and tore it into twelve pieces. 31 Then he said to Jeroboam, "Take ten pieces for yourself, for this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: 'See, I am going to tear the kingdom out of Solomons hand and give you ten tribes. 32 But for the sake of my servant David and the city of Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, he will have one tribe. 33 I will do this because they have forsaken me and worshiped Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, Chemosh the god of the Moabites, and Molek the god of the Ammonites, and have not walked in obedience to me, nor done what is right in my eyes, nor kept my decrees and laws as David, Solomons father, did.34 'But I will not take the whole kingdom out of Solomons hand; I have made him ruler all the days of his life for the sake of David my servant, whom I chose and who obeyed my commands and decrees. 35 I will take the kingdom from his sons hands and give you ten tribes. 36 I will give one tribe to his son so that David my servant may always have a lamp before me in Jerusalem, the city where I chose to put my Name.

According to Menachem Lorberbaum,

In Rabbinic tradition, the land of Israel consecrated by the returning exiles was significantly different in it(s?) boundaries from both the prescribed biblical borders and the actual borders of the pre-Exilic kingdoms. It ranged roughly from Acre in the north to Ashkelon in the south along the Mediterranean, and included Galilee and the Golan. Yet there was no settlement in Samaria.[35]

According to Jewish religious law (halakha), some laws only apply to Jews living in the Land of Israel and some areas in Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria (which are thought to be part of biblical Israel). These include agricultural laws such as the Shmita (Sabbatical year); tithing laws such as the Maaser Rishon (Levite Tithe), Maaser sheni, and Maaser ani (poor tithe); charitable practices during farming, such as pe'ah; and laws regarding taxation. One popular source lists 26 of the 613 mitzvot as contingent upon the Land of Israel.[36]

Many of the religious laws which applied in ancient times are applied in the modern State of Israel; others have not been revived, since the State of Israel does not adhere to traditional Jewish law. However, certain parts of the current territory of the State of Israel, such as the Arabah, are considered by some religious authorities to be outside the Land of Israel for purposes of Jewish law. According to these authorities, the religious laws do not apply there.[37]

According to some Jewish religious authorities, every Jew has an obligation to dwell in the Land of Israel and may not leave except for specifically permitted reasons (e.g., to get married).[38]

There are also many laws dealing with how to treat the land. The laws apply to all Jews, and the giving of the land itself in the covenant, applies to all Jews, including converts.[39]

Traditional religious Jewish interpretation, and that of most Christian commentators, define Abraham's descendants only as Abraham's seed through his son Isaac and his grandson Jacob.[25][40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49] Johann Friedrich Karl Keil is less clear, as he states that the covenant is through Isaac, but also notes that Ishmael's descendants, generally the Arabs, have held much of that land through time.[50]

The Land of Israel concept has been evoked by the founders of the State of Israel. It often surfaces in political debates on the status of the West Bank, which is referred to in official Israeli discourse as Judea and Samaria, from the names of the two historical Israelite and Judean kingdoms.[13] These debates frequently invoke religious principles, despite the little weight these principles typically carry in Israeli secular politics.

Ideas about the need for Jewish control of the land of Israel have been propounded by figures such as Yitzhak Ginsburg, who has written about the historical entitlement that Jews have to the whole Land of Israel.[51] Ginsburgh's ideas about the need for Jewish control over the land has some popularity within contemporary West Bank settlements.[52] However, there are also strong backlashes from the Jewish community regarding these ideas.[52]

The Satmar Hasidic community in particular denounces any geographic or political establishment of Israel, deeming this establishment has directly interfering with God's plan for Jewish redemption. Joel Teitelbaum was a foremost figure in this denouncement, calling the Land and State of Israel a vehicle for idol worship, as well as a smokescreen for Satan's workings.[53]

During the early 5th century, Saint Augustine of Hippo argued in his City of God that the earthly or "carnal" kingdom of Israel achieved its peak during the reigns of David and his son Solomon.[54] He goes on to say however, that this possession was conditional: "...the Hebrew nation should remain in the same land by the succession of posterity in an unshaken state even to the end of this mortal age, if it obeyed the laws of the Lord its God."

He goes on to say that the failure of the Hebrew nation to adhere to this condition resulted in its revocation[citation needed] and the making of a second covenant and cites Jeremiah 31:3132: "Behold, the days come, says the Lord, that I will make for the house of Israel, and for the house of Judah, a new testament: not according to the testament that I settled for their fathers in the day when I laid hold of their hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; because they continued not in my testament, and I regarded them not, says the Lord."

Augustine concludes that this other promise, revealed in the New Testament, was about to be fulfilled through the incarnation of Christ: "I will give my laws in their mind, and will write them upon their hearts, and I will see to them; and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people". Notwithstanding this doctrine stated by Augustine and also by the Apostle Paul in his Epistle to the Romans (Ch. 11), the phenomenon of Christian Zionism is widely noted today, especially among evangelical Protestants. Other Protestant groups and churches reject Christian Zionism on various grounds.

Jewish religious tradition does not distinguish clearly between religious, national, racial, or ethnic identities.[55] Nonetheless, during two millennia of exile and with a continuous yet small Jewish presence in the land, a strong sense of bondedness exists throughout this tradition, expressed in terms of people-hood; from the very beginning, this concept was identified with that ancestral biblical land or, to use the traditional religious and modern Hebrew term, Eretz Yisrael. Religiously and culturally the area was seen broadly as a land of destiny, and always with hope for some form of redemption and return. It was later seen as a national home and refuge, intimately related to that traditional sense of people-hood, and meant to show continuity that this land was always seen as central to Jewish life, in theory if not in practice.[56]

Having already used another religious term of great importance, Zion (Jerusalem), to coin the name of their movement, being associated with the return to Zion.[57] The term was considered appropriate for the secular Jewish political movement of Zionism to adopt at the turn of the 20th century; it was used to refer to their proposed national homeland in the area then controlled by the Ottoman Empire. As originally stated, "The aim of Zionism is to create for the Jewish people a home in Palestine secured by law."[58] Different geographic and political definitions for the "Land of Israel" later developed among competing Zionist ideologies during their nationalist struggle. These differences relate to the importance of the idea and its land, as well as the internationally recognized borders of the State of Israel and the Jewish State's secure and democratic existence. Many current governments, politicians and commentators question these differences.

The Biblical concept of Eretz Israel, and its re-establishment as a state in the modern era, was a basic tenet of the original Zionist program. This program however, saw little success until the British commitment to "the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people" in the Balfour Declaration. Chaim Weizmann, as leader of the Zionist delegation, at the 1919 Paris Peace Conference presented a Zionist Statement on 3 February. Among other things, he presented a plan for development together with a map of the proposed homeland. The statement noted the Jewish historical connection with "Palestine".[59] It also declared the Zionists' proposed borders and resources "essential for the necessary economic foundation of the country" including "the control of its rivers and their headwaters". These borders included present day Israel and the occupied territories, western Jordan, southwestern Syria and southern Lebanon "in the vicinity south of Sidon".[60] The subsequent British occupation and British acceptance of the July 1922 League of Nations Mandate for Palestine,[61] advanced the Zionist cause.[citation needed]

Early in the deliberations toward British civilian administration, two fundamental decisions were taken, which bear upon the status of the Jews as a nation; the first was the recognition of Hebrew as an official language, along with English and Arabic, and the second concerned the Hebrew name of the country.

In 1920, the Jewish members of the first High Commissioner's advisory council objected to the Hebrew transliteration of the word "Palestine" (Palestina) on the ground that the traditional name was (Eretz Yisrael), but the Arab members would not agree to this designation, which in their view, had political significance. The High Commissioner Herbert Samuel, himself a Zionist, decided that the Hebrew transliteration should be used, followed always by the two initial letters of "Eretz Yisrael," Aleph-Yod:[62]

He was aware that there was no other name in the Hebrew language for this land except 'Eretz-Israel'. At the same time he thought that if 'Eretz-Israel' only were used, it might not be regarded by the outside world as a correct rendering of the word 'Palestine', and in the case of passports or certificates of nationality, it might perhaps give rise to difficulties, so it was decided to print 'Palestine' in Hebrew letters and to add after it the letters 'Aleph' 'Yod', which constitute a recognised abbreviation of the Hebrew name. His Excellency still thought that this was a good compromise. Dr. Salem wanted to omit 'Aleph' 'Yod' and Mr. Yellin wanted to omit 'Palestine'. The right solution would be to retain both."Minutes of the meeting on November 9, 1920.[63]

The compromise was later noted as among Arab grievances before the League's Permanent Mandate Commission.[64] During the Mandate, the name Eretz Yisrael (abbreviated Aleph-Yod), was part of the official name for the territory, when written in Hebrew. These official names for Palestine were minted on the Mandate coins and early stamps (pictured) in English, Hebrew "( (" (Palestina E"Y) and Arabic (""). Consequently, in 20th-century political usage, the term "Land of Israel" usually denotes only those parts of the land which came under the British mandate.[65]

On 29 November 1947, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution (United Nations General Assembly Resolution 181(II)) recommending "to the United Kingdom, as the mandatory Power for Palestine, and to all other Members of the United Nations the adoption and implementation, with regard to the future government of Palestine, of the Plan of Partition with Economic Union." The Resolution contained a plan to partition Palestine into "Independent Arab and Jewish States and the Special International Regime for the City of Jerusalem."[66]

On 14 May 1948, the day the British Mandate over Palestine expired, the Jewish People's Council gathered at the Tel Aviv Museum, and approved a proclamation, in which it declared "the establishment of a Jewish state in Eretz-Israel, to be known as the State of Israel."[67]

When Israel was founded in 1948, the majority Israeli Labor Party leadership, which governed for three decades after independence, accepted the partition of Mandatory Palestine into independent Jewish and Arab states as a pragmatic solution to the political and demographic issues of the territory, with the description "Land of Israel" applying to the territory of the State of Israel within the Green Line.[citation needed] The then opposition revisionists, who evolved into today's Likud party, however, regarded the rightful Land of Israel as Eretz Yisrael Ha-Shlema (literally, the whole Land of Israel), which came to be referred to as Greater Israel.[68] Joel Greenberg, writing in The New York Times relates subsequent events this way:[68]

The seed was sown in 1977, when Menachem Begin of Likud brought his party to power for the first time in a stunning election victory over Labor. A decade before, in the 1967 war, Israeli troops had in effect undone the partition accepted in 1948 by overrunning the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Ever since, Mr. Begin had preached undying loyalty to what he called Judea and Samaria (the West Bank lands) and promoted Jewish settlement there. But he did not annex the West Bank and Gaza to Israel after he took office, reflecting a recognition that absorbing the Palestinians could turn Israel it into a binational state instead of a Jewish one.

Following the Six-Day War in 1967, the 1977 elections and the Oslo Accords, the term Eretz Israel became increasingly associated with right-wing expansionist groups who sought to conform the borders of the State of Israel with the biblical Eretz Yisrael.[69]

Early government usage of the term, following Israel's establishment, continued the historical link and possible Zionist intentions. In 19512 David Ben-Gurion wrote "Only now, after seventy years of pioneer striving, have we reached the beginning of independence in a part of our small country."[70] Soon afterwards he wrote "It has already been said that when the State was established it held only six percent of the Jewish people remaining alive after the Nazi cataclysm. It must now be said that it has been established in only a portion of the Land of Israel. Even those who are dubious as to the restoration of the historical frontiers, as fixed and crystallised and given from the beginning of time, will hardly deny the anomaly of the boundaries of the new State."[71] The 1955 Israeli government year-book said, "It is called the 'State of Israel' because it is part of the Land of Israel and not merely a Jewish State. The creation of the new State by no means derogates from the scope of historical Eretz Israel".[72]

Herut and Gush Emunim were among the first Israeli political parties basing their land policies on the Biblical narrative discussed above. They attracted attention following the capture of additional territory in the 1967 Six-Day War. They argue that the West Bank should be annexed permanently to Israel for both ideological and religious reasons. This position is in conflict with the basic "land for peace" settlement formula included in UN242. The Likud party, in the platform it maintained until prior to the 2013 elections, had proclaimed its support for maintaining Jewish settlement communities in the West Bank and Gaza, as the territory is considered part of the historical land of Israel.[73] In her 2009 bid for Prime Minister, Kadima leader Tzipi Livni used the expression, noting, "we need to give up parts of the Land of Israel", in exchange for peace with the Palestinians and to maintain Israel as a Jewish state; this drew a clear distinction with the position of her Likud rival and winner, Benjamin Netanyahu.[74] However, soon after winning the 2009 elections, Netanyahu delivered an address[75] at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar-Ilan University that was broadcast live in Israel and across parts of the Arab world, on the topic of the Middle East peace process. He endorsed for the first time the notion of a Palestinian state alongside Israel, while asserting the right to a sovereign state in Israel arises from the land being "the homeland of the Jewish people".[76]

The IsraelJordan Treaty of Peace, signed on 1993, led to the establishment of an agreed border between the two nations, and subsequently the state of Israel has no territorial claims in the parts of the historic Land of Israel lying east of the Jordan river.

Yom HaAliyah (Aliyah Day, Hebrew: ) is an Israeli national holiday celebrated annually on the tenth of the Hebrew month of Nisan to commemorate the Israelites crossing the Jordan River into the Land of Israel while carrying the Ark of the Covenant.

According to Palestinian historian Nur Masalha, Eretz Israel was a religious concept which was turned by Zionists into a political doctrine in order to emphasize an exclusive Jewish right of possession regardless of the Arab presence. Masalha wrote that the Zionist movement has not given up on an expansive definition of the territory, including Jordan and more, even though political pragmatism has engendered a focus on the region west of the Jordan River.

Media related to Eretz Israel at Wikimedia Commons

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Posted By admin on March 16, 2022

Occupied East Jerusalem Israel re-enacted a law late last week that deprives tens of thousands of Palestinian couples and families of the basic right of being together as a family.

The Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law, which has been in effect for close to two decades, expired in July 2021 when the Israeli government failed to renew it. Yet, in practice, it remained in force.

Known locally as the family reunification law, the legislation bars Palestinians with Israeli citizenship or residency from extending their legal status to spouses holding Palestinian Authority (PA) passports, and denies them the ability to live together in an area of their choosing.

It also applies to spouses from Israeli-designated enemy states Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and Iran.

Meanwhile, Jewish foreign spouses of Israeli Jews are granted Israeli citizenship automatically, while non-Jewish spouses can obtain citizenship after a maximum of five years. Such couples are free to live in Israel or in Israeli settlements across the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.

On Sunday, the Haifa-based legal centre, Adalah, filed a petition in the Israeli Supreme Court against the laws re-enactment, calling it one of the most racist and discriminatory laws in the world.

There is no country in the world that restricts the right of its citizens or residents to family life with spouses from their own people, Adalah said.

The law was first passed in July 2003 as a temporary order and has been renewed annually. Estimates say it affects 25,000 to 30,000 Palestinian families.

The Jerusalem Legal Aid Center (JLAC), which helps families apply for reunification, described the law as a major pillar in Israels apartheid regime.

The right to live in peace, safety and dignity with ones own family, to choose the person with whom they wish to form a family, is a fundamental right that Israel continues to strip Palestinians of. It has torn Palestinian families apart, subjecting them to perpetual fear, separation, and uncertainty, JLAC said.

Some 1.8 million Palestinians live within the Green Line and hold Israeli citizenship. Another 4.5 million Palestinians live in the 1967-occupied Palestinian territories of the West Bank and the besieged Gaza Strip, and carry PA passports.

While Palestinians in the West Bank are forbidden from entering Israel without a hard-to-obtain military permit, Palestinians with Israeli passports can enter the West Bank freely and have familial, social and other ties there. Many Palestinians in Israel also study in Palestinian universities in the West Bank. However, they are forbidden under Israeli military orders from living in West Bank city centres.

Tayseer Khatib, 48, from the northern coastal city of Akka who holds Israeli citizenship, married his wife Lana from Jenin in the West Bank in 2004.

The couple met while Khatib was conducting academic field research in Jenin, and have led popular efforts for the past 15 years to cancel the law because of the struggle they faced in attempting to build a life together.

The impact of this law is devastating, Khatib told Al Jazeera. Families are separated and fragmented, and even when the couple are together, they have no horizon to develop and there is no guarantee that they will be able to stay together.

You live in a constant state of paranoia, he added.

Lana, 43, has been living with her husband in Akka based on six-month stay permits issued by the Israeli military, which must be consistently renewed with dozens of documents. Over the past few years, the army granted her one- and two-year stay permits.

Palestinians from the West Bank living on stay permits in Israel cannot get health or social benefits, cannot work in many professions, and until recently were not allowed to drive.

Over the past 15 years, my wife could not work even though she has a degree in economics from An-Najah [National] University in Nablus and she used to work, said Khatib, adding this forced his family to rely solely on his income.

She couldnt go about her life normally to drive, go out, work, to have an active role in her community like any other woman.

Lana always says: In Jenin, even under the [Israeli] military tanks, I had more freedom than I do living in this state, which claims democracy, Khatib continued. Its like a prison for her here.

Khatib noted that marriage between Palestinians with Israeli and PA passports is most common in towns straddling the 1967 armistice line. This includes Palestinians in the Naqab with those in Hebron and Gaza, and the Triangle area consisting of Umm al-Fahm, Baqa al-Gharbiyya and Bartaa with nearby Jenin and surrounding villages in the northern West Bank.

He said marriages also take place with Palestinians in the Galilee and in the central cities of Lydd and Ramle, though to a lesser degree.

The law, however, overwhelmingly affects Palestinian residents of Israeli-annexed East Jerusalem, where marriage with West Bank Palestinians is significantly higher because of geographical proximity, among other reasons.

Palestinians from Jerusalem, who number about 350,000, hold Israeli residency and not citizenship. Not only are they forbidden from extending their residency to their West Bank spouse and living with them in the city, Jerusalem residents are also liable under Israeli laws to losing their residency, health insurance and ability to enter the city if they move to the West Bank.

Palestinian Jerusalemites are the most vulnerable segment of the population targeted by this law, Budour Hassan of JLAC told Al Jazeera.

Proponents say the law ensures Israeli security and maintains its Jewish character.

In the most recent version of the law re-enacted last Thursday, Israeli officials for the first time unequivocally clarified that one of the laws goals is to ensure Jewish demographic supremacy by preventing the naturalisation of Jerusalem and West Bank Palestinians which human rights groups, academics and analysts have long pointed out.

The demographic aspect has become very clear now, Nijmeh Hijaziof Adalah told Al Jazeera. They are passing this law on a purely racist basis.

Hassan, of JLAC, agrees but believes this is not the only motivator for Israeli officials. Its definitely beyond demographics, she said.

For Israeli policymakers, even one additional Palestinian is too many. Its part of the architecture of domination over Palestinians that Israel has always tried to construct and fortify, but this will not be the issue that tilts the demographic ratio.

I think it has to do with senseless cruelty of controlling, restricting and putting boundaries on Palestinian intimacy, and perpetuating the fragmentation of Palestinians.

The things that Palestinians women especially have to consider before getting married, such as where their address will be and how they will register their children, are definitely beyond anything that any newlyweds or people in love think about, continued Hassan.

Despite the Israeli restrictions, Khatib said, Palestinians continue to defy the difficult reality imposed on them.

There are many young men and women who call me from both sides of the fictitious Green Line and inquire about the difficulty of the procedures, said Khatib. Palestinians know that these laws exist, yet they still get married and defy all the challenges that come out of it.

We are a stubborn nation and Israel is stuck with us we have not backed down on our rightsfor the past 74 years.

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Devastating: How Israel is pulling Palestinian families apart - Al Jazeera English

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Posted By admin on March 16, 2022

1. Should Israel arm Ukraine? Israeli generals speak out  Haaretz
2. Russia-Ukraine war: Is Israels response the moral choice? - opinion  The Jerusalem Post
3. Israel tries to balance backing for Ukrainians and not offending Russia  The Guardian
4. Ties with Russia Compromise Israels Stance on Ukraine  The New Yorker
5. Russia's invasion of Ukraine puts Israel in a tricky spot  CNN
6. View Full Coverage on Google News

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Posted By admin on March 16, 2022

Two people in Israel who returned from abroad were found to be carrying a previously unidentified COVID variant, the Health Ministry said on Wednesday morning. The virus is a combination of the BA.1 (omicron) and infectious BA.2 variants.

The two patients tested positive after undergoing a PCR test upon landing at Ben-Gurion International airport, and their samples were sequenced in Israel. According to the Health Ministry, the patients had light symptoms, including fever, headaches and muscle aches, and did not require specialized medical care.

Israel's COVID czar, Prof. Salman Zarka, told Army Radio that the patients are a couple in their 30s who contracted the virus from their infant son.

He said that two viruses linking up, particularly when both are contracted, is a common phenomenon. He explained that this occurs when there are two viruses in the same cell, and that "when they multiply, they exchange genetic material, creating a new virus."

Omicron infections have been falling in the past week in favor of rising BA.2 infections, and Health Ministry officials are concerned about the spread. "We are still seeing a continued decrease in the number of infections in all groups and ages, but the infection rate has begun to rise in the past week,"Zarka said on Tuesday.

Democracy or Putin: 'Israel must choose a side in Ukraine'

Prime Minister Naftali Bennett met with Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz and senior health officials on Wednesday in light of a global surge in COVID cases. Bennett ordered to continue Israel's mask policy in closed spaces and reconsider its necessity before the Passover holiday. The prime minister also said Israel should maintain vaccine supplies in the case of a dangerous variant, and encouraged the public to get vaccinated with three doses.

The R number, or the number of people each coronavirus carrier infects, remains below 1, but has been steadily rising. The number, which is calculated from data from the previous 10 days, hit 0.9 on Wednesday, the highest since January. Any R number over 1 means the virus is spreading.

On Tuesday, 6,310 people tested positive for COVID in Israel, and 10.9 percent of tests came back positive. There are currently 335 patients in serious condition, of whom 169 are in critical condition and 151 are on respirators.

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