The Coming Storm
By Solly Ganor
One doesn’t have to be a great strategist to see the storm approaching our shores, and I am not referring to the weather. While President Bush in his speech today left enough space for us to breath in, Tony Blair held a press conference that was only dedicated to the Palestinian Israeli conflict. “Wait and see, the Palestinian State is under way, and no one is going to stop us from establishing it, and Israel better get used to the idea.” That is my summary of what he said. In other words, the usual Jewish scapegoat comes in handy once more, to pacify the Arabs. It is interesting that Tony Blair is the prime ministeer of the same government, that after World War One sold two-thirds of Palestine to prince Abdulla for five thousand pounds sterling, while at the same time declaring in their famous Balfour declaration, Palestine as the home for the Jewish poeple.
On the way from Los Angeles to Israel I picked up from the rack a British magazine, 'The Economist'. I think it was a September issue. I found there a two-page article about Palestine and Israel. The writer describes nonchalantly how the British, after capturing the area from the Turks, decided to carve up the land. Given the authority by the Versailles treaty, they simple took two thirds of Eastern Palestine, and gave it to the deserving Sharif of Meca's family. It was Churchill himself who gave it its name. "Let's call it Jordan", he declared. Just like that! G-d was an Englishman and divided the land of Israel as per his whim. Except, he didn’t quite give it away, he sold the land for 5,000 pounds sterling to prince Abdulla!
Tom Segev, in his book, 'One Palestine Complete', writes on page 158, as a footnote: "The Versailles peace conference had decided to carve a state, Transjordan, out of the Ottoman territory-and include a large area of Eastern Palestine-to give to the Sharif of Mecca's family in an effort to satisfy its territorial claims. Prince Abdullah, brother of Faisal and son of the Sharif, had agreed to the arrangement in exchange for five thousand pounds. Thus the Arabs received independence, the French received Syria, and the Jews received Palestine. But no one in Palestine was happy; the Arabs felt that the country was torn away from Syria. The Zionist were bitter because Transjordan had been torn away from Palestine."
You don't have to be an extremist to realise what an enormous 'hutzpa' they had to do so. None of the Arab nations had any objections, including the Arabs living here. The world thinks it is all right for the British to give away two-thirds of Palestine to one ruling family from Mecca! Imagine, one family was given two-thirds of Palestine, a family that had nothing to do with this part of the world. Speaking of justice and what belongs to whom in this region!!
If Jordan is part of Eastern Palestine, and 70% of its population are Palestinians, then it should be declared as the Palestinian state. Like the British who relinquished the mandate in 1948, so the Hashemites should relinquish their rule.
The British should give back the five thousand pounds sterling they received from prince Abdulla plus interest, and this should be the future Palestinian state. There is lots of uninhabited land in Jordan and if the international community wishes to solve the Middle East conflict, they should help in reshaping and resettling the refugees who are one of the main obstacles for a peace settlement. The kingdom of Jordan is not a holy cow that can not be touched. It should be obvious that Israel will never accept the millions of self-described 'refugees' dreaming to come back here.
Anyone who listened to the recent speech by Arafat, echoed by Mobarak, probably noted that they both said something which we should pay close attention to. They both said that Israel should leave Arab land. They didn’t say Palestinian, they said Arab! One wonders why they said that. What actually is Arab land? Surely Arab land is the major part of the Middle East.. They effectively are telling us, that actually it isn’t Palestine they want us to get out of, but from Arab land. Curiously, the student that I met at Sidni Ally, expressed the same political ideas. He too spoke of 300 million Arab facing us. The truth of the matter, is that they are all Arabs. When it suits them, they are Arabs, part of the greater Arab nations, when it suits them otherwise, they become Palestinians.
The only possible solution to the problem is making the Kingdom of Jordan part of the solution. We accepted a million Jewish refugees from the Arab countries, who had to flee for their lives, leaving everything behind. There is no earthly reason why the Arabs can’t reciprocate in order to solve the problem.
SOLLY GANOR
HERZELIA PITUACH, ISRAEL
March 13, 2003
If you wish confirmation on the above subject, it comes from the grandson of Sir Winston Churchill himself.
The Wall Street Journal
COMMENTARY
'My Grandfather Invented Iraq'
By WINSTON S. CHURCHILL
HOUSTON -- As thunderclouds gather over the Middle East, America and Britain stand once again shoulder to shoulder preparing to draw the sword in defense of freedom, democracy and human rights. A line has been drawn in the sands of the Arabian desert. By this week, we will have deployed some 200,000 American troops, together with more than 40,000 British, who will shortly be committed to battle.
Meanwhile, I have a confession to make: It was my grandfather, Winston Churchill, who invented Iraq and laid the foundation for much of the modern Middle East. In 1921, as British colonial secretary, Churchill was responsible for creating Jordan and Iraq and for placing the Hashemite rulers, Abdullah and Feisal, on their respective thrones in Amman and Baghdad. Furthermore, he delineated for the first time the political boundaries of Biblical Palestine. Eighty years later, it falls to us to liberate Iraq from the scourge of one of the most ruthless dictators in history. As we stand poised on the brink of war, my grandfather's experience has lessons for us.
Saturday, March 15, 2003
PURIM IN DACHAU
By Solly Ganor
They arrived from Auschwitz in several groups. Each group counted about twenty people. Of course, they didn’t look like people. They looked more like walking skeletons. They had triangular faces with pointed chins, and sunken cheeks. Even the lips had shrunken to thin blue lines. The only prominent feature were their eyes; they were unusually large and with a strange sheen, almost luminous. They were known in concentration camp slang, as ‘Muselman’. That was usually the last stage before death. They spoke Yiddish with an accent, which to us Lithuanian Jews, sounded strange.
They told us that they came from the ghetto of Lodz through Auschwitz, before they were sent to our camp. Our camp was known as the ‘Outer camp of Dachau, number 10’ and it was situated near the picturesque town of Utting, by lake Amersee. Our camp was sitting in the middle of a small forest with surrounding green meadows and beautiful landscapes. I remember the day when we were brought there, I thought to myself, ‘How can anything bad happen to us among all this beauty?’
I soon found out that the beauty was in the landscape only. the Germans in charge of us were sadists and murderers. The Lodz people fell into the same deceptive trap. They thought that after Auschwitz, our camp looked like paradise. Most of them died soon after their arrival, from hard labour, beatings and starvation, still they preferred to die here than in the gas chambers of Auschwitz. It was from them that we heard the incredible stories of gas chambers, and crematoriums, where thousands of our people were murdered every day. Some of them told us that they were standing naked before the gas chambers when they were suddenly ordered to get dressed and were sent to us .
Around March 1945, there were only a few of them left alive. One of them was known as the ‘Chaim the Rabbi’. We never found out whether he was actually a rabbi, but he always washed his hands and made a bracha before eating. He knew the dates of the Jewish calendar, and also knew all the prayers by heart. From time to time when the Germans were not looking, he would invite us to participate in the evening prayers,. Our Jewish camp commander, Burgin, heard about him and tried to get him easier jobs. Most people died when they had to carry a hundred pounds of cement sacks on their backs, or other chores of heavy labour. He wouldn’t have lasted a day on a job like this. He once told me that if he would survive he would get married and have at least a dozen children.
Around the middle of March, we were given a day off. It was a Sunday. The camp was covered with snow, but here and there the first signs of spring was in the air. We heard vague rumours of the American break through into Germany and a glimmer of hope was kindled in our hearts. After breakfast, consisting of a slice of mouldy bread, a tiny piece of margarine, and brown water, known as ‘Ersatz Coffee’, we returned to our barrack to get some extra sleep.
Suddenly we noticed ‘Chaim the Rabbi’ standing in the snow and shouting “ Haman to the gallows! Haman to the gallows!” On his head he had a paper crown made of a cement sack, and he was draped in a blanket which had cut out stars from the same paper attached to it. We stood like petrified before this strange apparition, barely able to trust our eyes, while he performed a dance in the snow, singing: “I am Achashwerosch, Achashwerosh, the king of the Persians.” Then he stood still straightened himself out, chin pointed to the sky, his right arm extended in an imperial gesture and shouted: “Haman to the gallows! Haman to the gallows! And when I say Haman to the gallows, we all know which Hamman we are talking about!”
We were sure that he has lost his wits, as so many did in these impossible times. By now there was about fifty of us standing gaping at the “Rabbi”, when he said: “Yiddn wos iz mit ajch! Haint is Purim, lomir shpilen a purim shpil!” “Fellow Jews, what is the matter with you?! today is Purim, let us play a Purim Shpil!” Then it dawned on us that back home, a million years ago, this was the time of the year when we children were dressing up for Purim, playing draidlach, and eating ‘Hommen Taschen’.
It took the ‘Rabbi’ to remember the exact date by the Jewish calendar when Purim was. We hardly knew what day it was. He then divided the roles of Ester Hamalka, Mordechai, Vashti and Hamman among the onlookers.. I was honoured to receive the role of Mordechai, and we all ended up dancing in the snow. And so we had our Purim Shpil in Dachau.
But that was not the end of the story. The “Rabbi” promised us that we will get today our ‘Shalach Manot’, and we thought that it was hardly likely to happen. But, miracle of miracles, the same afternoon, a delegation of the International Red Cross, came to the camp. It was the first time that they bothered about us. Still, we welcomed them with open arms, because they brought us the “Shalach Manot” the ‘Rabbi’ promised. Each one of us received a parcel, containing, a tin of sweet condensed milk, a small bar of chocolate, a box of sugar cubes, and a pack of cigarettes. It is impossible to describe our joy! Here we were starving to death as suddenly on Purim, we received these heavenly gifts.
Since then we never doubted the ‘Rabbi’ anymore. His prediction also came true. Two months later ‘Haman-Hitler’ went to the gallows, and shot himself in Berlin, while we, those of us who were still alive, were rescued by the American army, on May 2, 1945.
I lost track of the ‘Rabbi’ on our ‘Death March’, from Dachau to Tyrol, but I hope that he survived and had many children as he always wanted. I always remember him when Purim comes around, for the unforgettable ‘Purim Shpil’ in Dachau.
Solly Ganor
Herzelia Pituach, Israel
Purim
Yud Daled, HadarMarch 16, 2003
They arrived from Auschwitz in several groups. Each group counted about twenty people. Of course, they didn’t look like people. They looked more like walking skeletons. They had triangular faces with pointed chins, and sunken cheeks. Even the lips had shrunken to thin blue lines. The only prominent feature were their eyes; they were unusually large and with a strange sheen, almost luminous. They were known in concentration camp slang, as ‘Muselman’. That was usually the last stage before death. They spoke Yiddish with an accent, which to us Lithuanian Jews, sounded strange.
They told us that they came from the ghetto of Lodz through Auschwitz, before they were sent to our camp. Our camp was known as the ‘Outer camp of Dachau, number 10’ and it was situated near the picturesque town of Utting, by lake Amersee. Our camp was sitting in the middle of a small forest with surrounding green meadows and beautiful landscapes. I remember the day when we were brought there, I thought to myself, ‘How can anything bad happen to us among all this beauty?’
I soon found out that the beauty was in the landscape only. the Germans in charge of us were sadists and murderers. The Lodz people fell into the same deceptive trap. They thought that after Auschwitz, our camp looked like paradise. Most of them died soon after their arrival, from hard labour, beatings and starvation, still they preferred to die here than in the gas chambers of Auschwitz. It was from them that we heard the incredible stories of gas chambers, and crematoriums, where thousands of our people were murdered every day. Some of them told us that they were standing naked before the gas chambers when they were suddenly ordered to get dressed and were sent to us .
Around March 1945, there were only a few of them left alive. One of them was known as the ‘Chaim the Rabbi’. We never found out whether he was actually a rabbi, but he always washed his hands and made a bracha before eating. He knew the dates of the Jewish calendar, and also knew all the prayers by heart. From time to time when the Germans were not looking, he would invite us to participate in the evening prayers,. Our Jewish camp commander, Burgin, heard about him and tried to get him easier jobs. Most people died when they had to carry a hundred pounds of cement sacks on their backs, or other chores of heavy labour. He wouldn’t have lasted a day on a job like this. He once told me that if he would survive he would get married and have at least a dozen children.
Around the middle of March, we were given a day off. It was a Sunday. The camp was covered with snow, but here and there the first signs of spring was in the air. We heard vague rumours of the American break through into Germany and a glimmer of hope was kindled in our hearts. After breakfast, consisting of a slice of mouldy bread, a tiny piece of margarine, and brown water, known as ‘Ersatz Coffee’, we returned to our barrack to get some extra sleep.
Suddenly we noticed ‘Chaim the Rabbi’ standing in the snow and shouting “ Haman to the gallows! Haman to the gallows!” On his head he had a paper crown made of a cement sack, and he was draped in a blanket which had cut out stars from the same paper attached to it. We stood like petrified before this strange apparition, barely able to trust our eyes, while he performed a dance in the snow, singing: “I am Achashwerosch, Achashwerosh, the king of the Persians.” Then he stood still straightened himself out, chin pointed to the sky, his right arm extended in an imperial gesture and shouted: “Haman to the gallows! Haman to the gallows! And when I say Haman to the gallows, we all know which Hamman we are talking about!”
We were sure that he has lost his wits, as so many did in these impossible times. By now there was about fifty of us standing gaping at the “Rabbi”, when he said: “Yiddn wos iz mit ajch! Haint is Purim, lomir shpilen a purim shpil!” “Fellow Jews, what is the matter with you?! today is Purim, let us play a Purim Shpil!” Then it dawned on us that back home, a million years ago, this was the time of the year when we children were dressing up for Purim, playing draidlach, and eating ‘Hommen Taschen’.
It took the ‘Rabbi’ to remember the exact date by the Jewish calendar when Purim was. We hardly knew what day it was. He then divided the roles of Ester Hamalka, Mordechai, Vashti and Hamman among the onlookers.. I was honoured to receive the role of Mordechai, and we all ended up dancing in the snow. And so we had our Purim Shpil in Dachau.
But that was not the end of the story. The “Rabbi” promised us that we will get today our ‘Shalach Manot’, and we thought that it was hardly likely to happen. But, miracle of miracles, the same afternoon, a delegation of the International Red Cross, came to the camp. It was the first time that they bothered about us. Still, we welcomed them with open arms, because they brought us the “Shalach Manot” the ‘Rabbi’ promised. Each one of us received a parcel, containing, a tin of sweet condensed milk, a small bar of chocolate, a box of sugar cubes, and a pack of cigarettes. It is impossible to describe our joy! Here we were starving to death as suddenly on Purim, we received these heavenly gifts.
Since then we never doubted the ‘Rabbi’ anymore. His prediction also came true. Two months later ‘Haman-Hitler’ went to the gallows, and shot himself in Berlin, while we, those of us who were still alive, were rescued by the American army, on May 2, 1945.
I lost track of the ‘Rabbi’ on our ‘Death March’, from Dachau to Tyrol, but I hope that he survived and had many children as he always wanted. I always remember him when Purim comes around, for the unforgettable ‘Purim Shpil’ in Dachau.
Solly Ganor
Herzelia Pituach, Israel
Purim
Yud Daled, HadarMarch 16, 2003
Monday, March 10, 2003
Death of my teacher
By Elisheva Harrow
"Elisheva, come see what I did...it took me hours, but I finally organized all the hundreds of pictures we've taken over the last couple of years and put together an album...there's some pictures of your graduation, and a great one of you hugging Ha'Mora (the teacher) Dina...”
Regular, every day conversation. Life goes on. Small sentences like a roulette wheel...
Fast forward to the next morning.
On my way into synagogue, I see my brother outside with a friend of his. Serious faces mean bad news. "A pigua (terrorist attack) last night, in Kiryat Arba... an older couple was murdered in their home-apartment 35."
That's all they know. Kiryat Arba is where I went to high school...Quick search through memory...older couples, older couples. No one comes to mind. No point in getting all worried now anyway, there's no way to find out until after Shabbat.
After synagogue. Back at home, playing a game before lunch. Relaxing, fun, laughter… my Mom comes in. "...Do you know a Horowitz, from Kiryat Arba…?" The name sparks in my brain. Cards lowered, I already understand, want to ignore, ignore… "Yes, Dina Horowitz- my teacher." "Dina? Is her husband a Rabbi? " "Yes..." We look at each other, already knowing, denying..."but there are a bunch of Horowitzes there...maybe..." I say the final words:
"They said apartment 35..." My mom goes for the phonebook. flipping through pages...in a second we'll know. Cards forgotten...my heart pounding, brain screaming...already knowing, already KNOWING. Feelings familiar, so familiar, too familiar. We already recognize this darkest of shadows; horror and evil left in its wake, greatest destroyer of light and love.
And she looks at me. Her face says it all.
I can't move, can't speak. Words so trite, tears so common. How to grieve in first moments of shock. Why, why them, why like this. Futile questions searing through every heartbeat. It seems that being amazing condemns you to an early grave...
I don't know how many of you have been taught by an amazing person before. How many had the privilege of knowing a real, passionate, gentle, loving teacher. In Hebrew, the word "Morah" means teacher and guide- someone who shows you the way, who gives you love and encouragement, helping you make your own way in this complicated world. A Morah is someone who gives you the tools to deal with whatever should happen along your path. Such a person was Dina. She was my Morah. She loved all her students so very much, always believed in us and in our abilities. She never gave up on us, always tried to listen and to do her best to help...
The Shabbat queen takes her leave. The phone calls start. So many people to tell…our class once again united in grief… and the need- "we have to do something"… A "melaveh malka" (post-Sabbath get together) is quickly organized at someone's house…"bring a guitar"... Girls come, we sit around the table and sing the songs that she loved, the soft melodies put to verses, to psalms. And we talk, comforting each other, expressing how much we all loved her back, each in our own way. Stories...we smile at the small things, cry at the big ones.
She loved the Torah (Bible) with such passion, really reliving, breathing it each time she gave a class on the subject. It was so real and vibrant to her...but her passion was mostly wasted in class; we wanted to just learn the material needed for the next test, not get into torah philosophy. My friend and I kept telling her that she should go teach in a midrasha (yeshiva for girls), because there there are no tests, girls learn for the sake of learning. At the end of 12th grade she announced to my class that that's precisely what she was planning on doing the following year. She thanked my friend and me for all of our support and 'nagging' on the matter... At the Melave Malka tonight a friend told me she had just spoken to Dina a few weeks ago, and Dina had said that she was so happy, so happy to be teaching in a midrasha. She mentioned me and my friend, expressing her gratitude at our insistence once again. So strange. One of my greatest teachers thanking me for helping her along her way..
A friend and I recalled a D'var Torah (sermon) we heard Dina say once, about the greatness of women. It was at the beginning of this whole intifada, people were being killed every day, we were feeling so helpless, we didn't want to be sitting in class, studying as usual, we were scared, confused, hurting.. Dina listened, smiled in that gentle way she had and told us the following: It says in the book of Shmot (Exodus) that after the miracle of the splitting of the sea Miriam (Moshe’s sister) led the women of Israel in song and dance, in God's honor. I quote: "And Miriam...took the timbrel in her hand and all the women went out after her with timbrels and with dances..." Shmot, 15,20. But where did they get the musical instruments from? Rashi (a known commentator) answers: "The righteous women in that generation were confident that God would perform miracles for them and they accordingly had brought timbrels with them from Egypt." Here you see the immense strength of these women- they could see past all the horror and slavery to a better time, a time of peace, when our enemies would be vanquished and we could walk as a free people without fear. A vision they had no recollection of, but were so sure in their faith that they knew the ending would be great. (Note: until today the tambourine is called a "tof miriam" in Hebrew- literally meaning "Miriam's timbrel").
Today, again, we are facing hardships. We, our families, friends, neighbours, relatives, are being targeted and killed. Young and old, armed or unarmed, it makes no difference to our enemy. We're scared, we're angry, we're frustrated. We try, but many times it's very hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Yet we have to learn from those amazing women, from our ancestors whose blood flows in our veins and whose stubbornness and tenacity has kept us going for almost 4,000 years... This was so very much Dina's way of comforting- getting us to focus on the bigger picture, identify with our predecessors, strengthen our faith in the master plan. And so we were comforted, so much so that today, a day after her death- "al Kiddush Hashem" (in sanctifying Gods' name), these powerful words of hers are what we call upon to comfort us once again. Dina died for what she so strongly believed in, for Israel and the whole Jewish people. I could go on and on about the Zionism that lived in the core of her very being, about her personal sacrifices for the whole including making aliyah from the US and taking an active part in the horrible "Yamit" evacuation in the early 80s. (Yamit was a beautiful Jewish town in the Sinai desert that was dismantled by force when we gave the entire Sinai over to Egypt).
But how do you really explain a person? How do you capture an essence, an entire being on a blank screen? Her kindness, her gentleness, her dedication...She will live forever in the minds and hearts of those who knew and loved her.
Dina, The light you were, you still are...but now you've just moved to the end of the tunnel, accumulating with the millions of lights already there. You're now burning ever more brightly for us- the ones still down here, the ones trying to catch a glimpse.
I'll start working on my "tof Miriam", Dina. With the memory of your words, cited from the book you so loved and lived by I'll see past all this horror, envision the better time that you taught me to look for, a time of true peace.
In closing, I want to share with all of you a beautiful vision from the book of Isaiah. The prophet writes about the future, of days yet to come: "…And Death will be abolished forever, and the Lord God will wipe every tear from every face, and the humiliation of his people will be eliminated from this earth, for God has spoken." (Isaiah, 25,8)
And in the meantime, life goes on.
I love you, my Morah Dina. Shalom.
Elisheva
Elisheva Harrow, age 21, is a resident of Efrat. She wrote the following after hearing of the murder of Rabbi Eli and Dina Horowitz at their Shabbat table Friday night in Kiryat Arba. After graduating the Ulpana High School in Kiryat Arba 2 years ago, Elisheva studied for a year in Midreshet Nov, and is now completing the first of 2 years of her National Service with Livnot Ve'Lehibanot, based in Tzfat and Jerusalem.
This article was originally posted by The Israel Resource Center.
=======================================
Naomi Ragen
Please visit my Web page at: http://www.NaomiRagen.com and subscribe to my mailing list by sending an empty email to: naomiragen-on@mail-list.com
My email:Naomi@NaomiRagen.com
"Elisheva, come see what I did...it took me hours, but I finally organized all the hundreds of pictures we've taken over the last couple of years and put together an album...there's some pictures of your graduation, and a great one of you hugging Ha'Mora (the teacher) Dina...”
Regular, every day conversation. Life goes on. Small sentences like a roulette wheel...
Fast forward to the next morning.
On my way into synagogue, I see my brother outside with a friend of his. Serious faces mean bad news. "A pigua (terrorist attack) last night, in Kiryat Arba... an older couple was murdered in their home-apartment 35."
That's all they know. Kiryat Arba is where I went to high school...Quick search through memory...older couples, older couples. No one comes to mind. No point in getting all worried now anyway, there's no way to find out until after Shabbat.
After synagogue. Back at home, playing a game before lunch. Relaxing, fun, laughter… my Mom comes in. "...Do you know a Horowitz, from Kiryat Arba…?" The name sparks in my brain. Cards lowered, I already understand, want to ignore, ignore… "Yes, Dina Horowitz- my teacher." "Dina? Is her husband a Rabbi? " "Yes..." We look at each other, already knowing, denying..."but there are a bunch of Horowitzes there...maybe..." I say the final words:
"They said apartment 35..." My mom goes for the phonebook. flipping through pages...in a second we'll know. Cards forgotten...my heart pounding, brain screaming...already knowing, already KNOWING. Feelings familiar, so familiar, too familiar. We already recognize this darkest of shadows; horror and evil left in its wake, greatest destroyer of light and love.
And she looks at me. Her face says it all.
I can't move, can't speak. Words so trite, tears so common. How to grieve in first moments of shock. Why, why them, why like this. Futile questions searing through every heartbeat. It seems that being amazing condemns you to an early grave...
I don't know how many of you have been taught by an amazing person before. How many had the privilege of knowing a real, passionate, gentle, loving teacher. In Hebrew, the word "Morah" means teacher and guide- someone who shows you the way, who gives you love and encouragement, helping you make your own way in this complicated world. A Morah is someone who gives you the tools to deal with whatever should happen along your path. Such a person was Dina. She was my Morah. She loved all her students so very much, always believed in us and in our abilities. She never gave up on us, always tried to listen and to do her best to help...
The Shabbat queen takes her leave. The phone calls start. So many people to tell…our class once again united in grief… and the need- "we have to do something"… A "melaveh malka" (post-Sabbath get together) is quickly organized at someone's house…"bring a guitar"... Girls come, we sit around the table and sing the songs that she loved, the soft melodies put to verses, to psalms. And we talk, comforting each other, expressing how much we all loved her back, each in our own way. Stories...we smile at the small things, cry at the big ones.
She loved the Torah (Bible) with such passion, really reliving, breathing it each time she gave a class on the subject. It was so real and vibrant to her...but her passion was mostly wasted in class; we wanted to just learn the material needed for the next test, not get into torah philosophy. My friend and I kept telling her that she should go teach in a midrasha (yeshiva for girls), because there there are no tests, girls learn for the sake of learning. At the end of 12th grade she announced to my class that that's precisely what she was planning on doing the following year. She thanked my friend and me for all of our support and 'nagging' on the matter... At the Melave Malka tonight a friend told me she had just spoken to Dina a few weeks ago, and Dina had said that she was so happy, so happy to be teaching in a midrasha. She mentioned me and my friend, expressing her gratitude at our insistence once again. So strange. One of my greatest teachers thanking me for helping her along her way..
A friend and I recalled a D'var Torah (sermon) we heard Dina say once, about the greatness of women. It was at the beginning of this whole intifada, people were being killed every day, we were feeling so helpless, we didn't want to be sitting in class, studying as usual, we were scared, confused, hurting.. Dina listened, smiled in that gentle way she had and told us the following: It says in the book of Shmot (Exodus) that after the miracle of the splitting of the sea Miriam (Moshe’s sister) led the women of Israel in song and dance, in God's honor. I quote: "And Miriam...took the timbrel in her hand and all the women went out after her with timbrels and with dances..." Shmot, 15,20. But where did they get the musical instruments from? Rashi (a known commentator) answers: "The righteous women in that generation were confident that God would perform miracles for them and they accordingly had brought timbrels with them from Egypt." Here you see the immense strength of these women- they could see past all the horror and slavery to a better time, a time of peace, when our enemies would be vanquished and we could walk as a free people without fear. A vision they had no recollection of, but were so sure in their faith that they knew the ending would be great. (Note: until today the tambourine is called a "tof miriam" in Hebrew- literally meaning "Miriam's timbrel").
Today, again, we are facing hardships. We, our families, friends, neighbours, relatives, are being targeted and killed. Young and old, armed or unarmed, it makes no difference to our enemy. We're scared, we're angry, we're frustrated. We try, but many times it's very hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Yet we have to learn from those amazing women, from our ancestors whose blood flows in our veins and whose stubbornness and tenacity has kept us going for almost 4,000 years... This was so very much Dina's way of comforting- getting us to focus on the bigger picture, identify with our predecessors, strengthen our faith in the master plan. And so we were comforted, so much so that today, a day after her death- "al Kiddush Hashem" (in sanctifying Gods' name), these powerful words of hers are what we call upon to comfort us once again. Dina died for what she so strongly believed in, for Israel and the whole Jewish people. I could go on and on about the Zionism that lived in the core of her very being, about her personal sacrifices for the whole including making aliyah from the US and taking an active part in the horrible "Yamit" evacuation in the early 80s. (Yamit was a beautiful Jewish town in the Sinai desert that was dismantled by force when we gave the entire Sinai over to Egypt).
But how do you really explain a person? How do you capture an essence, an entire being on a blank screen? Her kindness, her gentleness, her dedication...She will live forever in the minds and hearts of those who knew and loved her.
Dina, The light you were, you still are...but now you've just moved to the end of the tunnel, accumulating with the millions of lights already there. You're now burning ever more brightly for us- the ones still down here, the ones trying to catch a glimpse.
I'll start working on my "tof Miriam", Dina. With the memory of your words, cited from the book you so loved and lived by I'll see past all this horror, envision the better time that you taught me to look for, a time of true peace.
In closing, I want to share with all of you a beautiful vision from the book of Isaiah. The prophet writes about the future, of days yet to come: "…And Death will be abolished forever, and the Lord God will wipe every tear from every face, and the humiliation of his people will be eliminated from this earth, for God has spoken." (Isaiah, 25,8)
And in the meantime, life goes on.
I love you, my Morah Dina. Shalom.
Elisheva
Elisheva Harrow, age 21, is a resident of Efrat. She wrote the following after hearing of the murder of Rabbi Eli and Dina Horowitz at their Shabbat table Friday night in Kiryat Arba. After graduating the Ulpana High School in Kiryat Arba 2 years ago, Elisheva studied for a year in Midreshet Nov, and is now completing the first of 2 years of her National Service with Livnot Ve'Lehibanot, based in Tzfat and Jerusalem.
This article was originally posted by The Israel Resource Center.
=======================================
Naomi Ragen
Please visit my Web page at: http://www.NaomiRagen.com and subscribe to my mailing list by sending an empty email to: naomiragen-on@mail-list.com
My email:Naomi@NaomiRagen.com
Thursday, February 27, 2003
The history of the Gulf wars
This outstanding site is beautifully designed and has excellent and authoritative articles on the history of Israel, "Palestinian" demands, and the Gulf wars.
Tuesday, February 25, 2003
Joseph Farah: An Unconventional Arab Viewpoint
This came from Women in Green, who add: The following is adapted from remarks made by Joseph Farah at a Christian Coalition symposium on Islam, Feb. 15 in Washington, D.C This is an abbreviation of that speech.
I've been really bugged, especially since Sept. 11, 2001, by all the self-proclaimed Arab-American and Muslim-American spokesmen I see on the talking-head shows. What bugs me is the way they show no appreciation for just how tolerant and open-minded and non-judgmental the American people really are toward them and the Arab and Muslim world. Americans are so good, so fair and so understanding. They are anything but quick to generalize and stereotype even when doing so would clearly be in their best interest.
Over a two-day period this week, I had to take nine different airline flights and go through nine different airport security checkpoints. Not once during that two-day period did I ever get a second glance from any security person. Not once was I subject to any extra checks.
Now, I am an Arab-American. I have an Arab face and an Arab name. But I didn't get a second look. Meanwhile, I saw young mothers with little babies struggling to make it through extra security. I saw little old grandmothers facing the indignities of extra checks. And all the while, the Muslim-American lobbies and the Arab-American anti-discrimination groups are denouncing this country for being racist and for profiling.
It's just not true. Worse yet, there is every common-sense reason for it to be so. The threat of terrorism in the United States does come largely, if not exclusively, from Arabs and from Muslims. We ignore that fact at our own peril. When I fly to the Middle East, I often fly El Al. In fact, it is my preferred carrier. Why? Because it has great security. I know, because of my name and my Arabic ancestry, I'm going to have my bags searched more scrupulously than the average American. Do I mind? Absolutely not. In fact, I am grateful. Because I know these security people are not only protecting the other passengers, they are protecting me. It only makes sense to do this kind of profiling especially when we are in a war where our very way of life is at stake.
For those of you who have not read my writings on the Middle East and the Islamic-West conflicts, I don't think these battles are over misunderstandings. I don't believe they are the result of a failure to communicate. I don't believe they are caused by an inability to compromise. I believe they are caused by evil people doing evil things, pure and simple. I come at this issue of the Middle East a little bit differently than just about anyone else. I'm an Arab-American Christian journalist. I've arrived at my conclusions largely through first-hand experience covering the Mideast on the ground.
Throughout my 25-year career as a daily newspaperman, I've had two principal beats Hollywood and the Middle East. You might wonder what these two beats have in common. The common denominator is that they both deal in the realm of unreality. They both rely on myths. In fact, the imagination of the Arabs in crafting fables, reinventing history and fictionalizing facts would make Oliver Stone blush. And it is those myths of the Middle East that I want to address today in the short time we have.
What is this debate all about? What are the real roots of this conflict? If you believe what you read in most news sources, Palestinians want a homeland and Muslims want control over sites they consider holy. Simple, right? Wrong. In fact, these two demands are nothing more than strategic deceptions propaganda ploys. They are nothing more than phony excuses and rationalizations for the terrorism and the murdering of Jews. The real goal of those making these demands is the destruction of the state of Israel.
The proof of the pudding is that prior to the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, there was no serious movement for a Palestinian homeland. Why? In 1967, during the Six-Day War, the Israelis captured Judea, Samaria and East Jerusalem. But they didn't capture these territories from Yasser Arafat. They captured them from Jordan's King Hussein. Why did the so-called Palestinians suddenly discover their national identity after Israel won the war. Why wasn't there a demand for a Palestinian homeland before?
The truth is that Palestine is no more real than Never-Never Land. The first time the name was used was in 70 A.D. when the Romans committed genocide against the Jews, smashed the Temple and declared the land of Israel would be no more. From then on, the Romans promised, it would be known as Palestine. The name was derived, we think, from the Philistines, a people conquered by the Jews centuries earlier.
Contrary to what Yasser Arafat will tell you, the Philistines were extinct by that time. Arafat likes to pretend his people are the descendants of the Philistines. Actually, the name was simply a way for the Romans to add insult to injury to the Jews not only were they annihilated, but their land was renamed after people they had conquered.
Palestine has never existed before or since as a nation state. It was ruled alternately by Rome, by Islamic and Christian crusaders, by the Ottoman Empire and, briefly, by the British after World War I. The British agreed to restore at least part of the land to the Jewish people as their homeland. Who rejected that idea? The Arabs. The Jews could have no place in the Mideast. None. Zero. Zip. Nada. Now, at least to Western audiences, Arafat and some other so-called "moderate" Arab leaders will tell you that it's OK for the Jews to have their homeland, too side-by-side with the Arabs. Why wasn't it OK in 1948?
There is no language known as Palestinian. There is no distinct Palestinian culture. There has never been a land known as Palestine governed by Palestinians. Palestinians are Arabs, indistinguishable from Jordanians, Syrians, Lebanese, Iraqis, etc. Keep in mind that the Arabs control 99.9 percent of the Middle East lands. Israel represents one-tenth of 1 percent of the landmass.
But that's too much for the Arabs. They want it all. And that is ultimately what the fighting in Israel is about today. No matter how many land concessions the Israelis make, it will never be enough. Arafat himself explained the ploy of negotiations with Israel in a 1994 speech in South Africa in English. He's explained it in Arabic dozens of times. First we create our own state, then we use that state to liberate all of Palestine. That's the goal. It's always been the goal. Arafat and his supporters will tell you the reason a Palestinian Arab state is needed is because Arabs were forcibly removed from their property in the 1948 war. But listen to what the Arabs were saying about the refugee issue after that war.
* "The fact that there are these refugees is the direct consequence of the act of the Arab states in opposing partition and the Jewish state. The Arab states agree upon this policy unanimously and they must share in the solution of the problem." Emile Ghoury, secretary of the Palestinian Arab Higher Committee, in an interview with the Beirut Telegraph Sept. 6, 1948.
* "The Arab state which had encouraged the Palestine Arabs to leave their homes temporarily in order to be out of the way of the Arab invasion armies, have failed to keep their promise to help these refugees." The Jordanian daily newspaper Falastin, Feb. 19, 1949.
* "Who brought the Palestinians to Lebanon as refugees, suffering now from the malign attitude of newspapers and communal leaders, who have neither honor nor conscience? Who brought them over in dire straits and penniless, after they lost their honor? The Arab states, and Lebanon amongst them, did it." The Beirut Muslim weekly Kul-Shay, Aug. 19, 1951.
* "The 15th May, 1948, arrived ... On that day the mufti of Jerusalem appealed to the Arabs of Palestine to leave the country, because the Arab armies were about to enter and fight in their stead." The Cairo daily Akhbar el Yom, Oct. 12, 1963.
* "For the flight and fall of the other villages it is our leaders who are responsible because of their dissemination of rumors exaggerating Jewish crimes and describing them as atrocities in order to inflame the Arabs ... By spreading rumors of Jewish atrocities, killings of women and children etc., they instilled fear and terror in the hearts of the Arabs in Palestine, until they fled leaving their homes and properties to the enemy." The Jordanian daily newspaper Al Urdun, April 9, 1953.
I could go on and on with this forgotten or deliberately obscured history. But you get the point. There was no Jewish conspiracy to chase Arabs out of their homes in 1948. It never happened. There are, instead, plenty of historical records showing the Jews pleading with their Arab neighbors to stay and live in peace and harmony. Yet, despite the clear, unambiguous words of the Arab observers at the time, history has been successfully rewritten to turn the Jews into the bad guys.
The Arab states that initiated the hostilities have never accepted responsibility despite their enormous wealth and their ability to assimilate tens of millions of refugees in their largely under-populated nations. And other states have failed to hold them accountable. Today, of course, this cruel charade continues. The suffering of millions of Arabs is perpetuated only for political purposes by the Arab states. They are merely pawns in the war to destroy Israel.
There were some 100 million refugees around the world following World War II. The Palestinian Arab group is the only one in the world not absorbed or integrated into their own people's lands. Since then, millions of Jewish refugees from around the world have been absorbed in the tiny nation of Israel. It makes no sense to expect that same tiny Jewish state to solve a refugee crisis it did not create. Do you think the Arabs really care about the plight of their refugees? I would submit to you that Israel, of all the Middle East states, has treated the Arab refugees with more fairness and more compassion. Let me give you an example of what I'm talking about:
The Jordan Times reports that "Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, who have long been denied many civil rights including the right to work, now face a new obstacle in their precarious lives." Under a bill introduced by parliament last year, Palestinian Arabs will be deprived of their right to own property. Those who already own property will not be able to pass it on to their children. Now just imagine if Israel passed such a law? Can you imagine the international outcry? What would the United Nations have to say about this? How would the media establishment in the West view such a Draconian ploy? Yet, this is happening in an Arab country virtually without comment except here. And take a look at the transparent rationale for this action in Lebanon, as described in the Jordan Times: "The Lebanese parliament passed the law on the grounds that it wants to protect the right of the Palestinian refugees to return eventually to their homes which they fled after the creation of the state of Israel on Palestinian lands in 1948."
Don't you love that? "We are protecting your rights by denying your rights." While Israel has bent over backwards to accommodate the Palestinian Arabs especially those victimized by the 1948 war the Arab nations have only sought to exploit their misery. That exploitation continues today. It is overt. It is a matter of law. Yet the world sees it not. Ever since I wrote a column in October 2000 called "Myths of the Middle East," readers from around the world have asked me what is meant by the term "Palestinian." The simple answer is that it means what Yasser Arafat wants it to mean.
Arafat himself was born in Egypt. He later moved to Jerusalem. Indeed, most of the Arabs living within the borders of Israel today have come from some other Arab country at some time in their life. Arabs continue to flock into Israel today. They continue to move into the Palestinian Authority. They immigrated there even before it left Israeli control. The Arabs have built 261 settlements in the West Bank since 1967. We don't hear much about those settlements. We hear instead about the number of Jewish settlements that have been created. We hear how destabilizing they are how provocative they are. Yet, by comparison, only 144 Jewish settlements have been built since 1967 including those surrounding Jerusalem, in the West Bank and in Gaza.
Is this a new phenomenon? Absolutely not. This has always been the case. Arabs have been flocking to Israel and its environs ever since it was created and even before, coinciding with the wave of Jewish immigration into Palestine prior to 1948. Winston Churchill said in 1939: "So far from being persecuted, the Arabs have crowded into the country and multiplied till their population has increased more than even all world Jewry could lift up the Jewish population."
And that raises a question I never hear anyone ask: If Israel's policies make life so intolerable for Arabs, why do they continue to flock to the Jewish state? This is an important question as we see the Palestinian debate now shift to the issue of "the right of return." According to the most liberal claims by Arab sources, some 600,000 to 700,000 Arabs left Israel in and around 1948 when the Jewish state was created. Most were not forced out by Jews, but rather left at the urging of Arab leaders who had declared war on Israel. Yet, there are far more Arabs living in these territories now than ever before. And many of those who left in 1948 and thereafter actually had roots in other Arab nations. This is why it is so difficult to define the term "Palestinian." It always has been. What does it mean? Who is a "Palestinian"? Is it someone who came to work in Palestine because of a bustling economy and job opportunities? Is it someone who lived in the region for two years? Five years? Ten years? Is it someone who once visited the area? Is it any Arab who wants to live in the area?
Though Arabs outnumber Jews in the Middle East by a factor of about 100 to one, the Arab population of Palestine was historically extremely low prior to the Jews' renewed interest in the area beginning in the early 1900s. For instance, a travel guide to Palestine and Syria, published in 1906 by Karl Baedeker, illustrates the fact that, even when the Islamic Ottoman Empire ruled the region, the Muslim population in Jerusalem was minimal. The book estimates the total population of the city at 60,000, of whom 7,000 were Muslims, 13,000 were Christians and 40,000 were Jews.
"The number of Jews has greatly risen in the last few decades, in spite of the fact that they are forbidden to immigrate or to possess landed property," the book states. Even though the Jews were persecuted, still they came to Jerusalem and represented the overwhelming majority of the population as early as 1906. Why was the Muslim population so low? After all, we're told that Jerusalem is the third holiest city in Islam. Surely, if this were a widely held belief in 1906, more of the devout would have settled there. The truth is that the Jewish presence in Jerusalem and throughout the Holy Land persisted throughout its bloody history, as is documented in Joan Peters' milestone history on the origins of the Arab-Jewish conflict in the region, "From Time Immemorial." It is also true that the Arab population increased following Jewish immigration into the region. The Arabs came because of economic activity. And, believe it or not, they came because there was more freedom and more opportunity in Israel than in their own homelands.
It's time to inject the component of freedom into the discussion. In recent years Freedom House, the human-rights organization that monitors the way the nations of the world treat their own citizens, has found a there's a big trend worldwide away from totalitarianism and authoritarianism and toward freedom except in the Arab world. There are 22 Arab states all varying degrees of police states. If the U.S. continues pushing for a Palestinian state under the leadership of Yasser Arafat, there will be 23.
Let's hope and pray that this administration is beginning to get it. There are some strong indications that is the case. The impending Iraq campaign could represent a watershed event in the history of the Middle East. Imagine a free Iraq. Imagine a free Afghanistan. Imagine a free Iran. Imagine a free Lebanon. It could happen. If we set out goals high and we act responsibly and we are courageous and steadfast in waging this war on terrorism this war we did not start it could happen.
Joseph Farah is founder and CEO of World Net Daily.
I've been really bugged, especially since Sept. 11, 2001, by all the self-proclaimed Arab-American and Muslim-American spokesmen I see on the talking-head shows. What bugs me is the way they show no appreciation for just how tolerant and open-minded and non-judgmental the American people really are toward them and the Arab and Muslim world. Americans are so good, so fair and so understanding. They are anything but quick to generalize and stereotype even when doing so would clearly be in their best interest.
Over a two-day period this week, I had to take nine different airline flights and go through nine different airport security checkpoints. Not once during that two-day period did I ever get a second glance from any security person. Not once was I subject to any extra checks.
Now, I am an Arab-American. I have an Arab face and an Arab name. But I didn't get a second look. Meanwhile, I saw young mothers with little babies struggling to make it through extra security. I saw little old grandmothers facing the indignities of extra checks. And all the while, the Muslim-American lobbies and the Arab-American anti-discrimination groups are denouncing this country for being racist and for profiling.
It's just not true. Worse yet, there is every common-sense reason for it to be so. The threat of terrorism in the United States does come largely, if not exclusively, from Arabs and from Muslims. We ignore that fact at our own peril. When I fly to the Middle East, I often fly El Al. In fact, it is my preferred carrier. Why? Because it has great security. I know, because of my name and my Arabic ancestry, I'm going to have my bags searched more scrupulously than the average American. Do I mind? Absolutely not. In fact, I am grateful. Because I know these security people are not only protecting the other passengers, they are protecting me. It only makes sense to do this kind of profiling especially when we are in a war where our very way of life is at stake.
For those of you who have not read my writings on the Middle East and the Islamic-West conflicts, I don't think these battles are over misunderstandings. I don't believe they are the result of a failure to communicate. I don't believe they are caused by an inability to compromise. I believe they are caused by evil people doing evil things, pure and simple. I come at this issue of the Middle East a little bit differently than just about anyone else. I'm an Arab-American Christian journalist. I've arrived at my conclusions largely through first-hand experience covering the Mideast on the ground.
Throughout my 25-year career as a daily newspaperman, I've had two principal beats Hollywood and the Middle East. You might wonder what these two beats have in common. The common denominator is that they both deal in the realm of unreality. They both rely on myths. In fact, the imagination of the Arabs in crafting fables, reinventing history and fictionalizing facts would make Oliver Stone blush. And it is those myths of the Middle East that I want to address today in the short time we have.
What is this debate all about? What are the real roots of this conflict? If you believe what you read in most news sources, Palestinians want a homeland and Muslims want control over sites they consider holy. Simple, right? Wrong. In fact, these two demands are nothing more than strategic deceptions propaganda ploys. They are nothing more than phony excuses and rationalizations for the terrorism and the murdering of Jews. The real goal of those making these demands is the destruction of the state of Israel.
The proof of the pudding is that prior to the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, there was no serious movement for a Palestinian homeland. Why? In 1967, during the Six-Day War, the Israelis captured Judea, Samaria and East Jerusalem. But they didn't capture these territories from Yasser Arafat. They captured them from Jordan's King Hussein. Why did the so-called Palestinians suddenly discover their national identity after Israel won the war. Why wasn't there a demand for a Palestinian homeland before?
The truth is that Palestine is no more real than Never-Never Land. The first time the name was used was in 70 A.D. when the Romans committed genocide against the Jews, smashed the Temple and declared the land of Israel would be no more. From then on, the Romans promised, it would be known as Palestine. The name was derived, we think, from the Philistines, a people conquered by the Jews centuries earlier.
Contrary to what Yasser Arafat will tell you, the Philistines were extinct by that time. Arafat likes to pretend his people are the descendants of the Philistines. Actually, the name was simply a way for the Romans to add insult to injury to the Jews not only were they annihilated, but their land was renamed after people they had conquered.
Palestine has never existed before or since as a nation state. It was ruled alternately by Rome, by Islamic and Christian crusaders, by the Ottoman Empire and, briefly, by the British after World War I. The British agreed to restore at least part of the land to the Jewish people as their homeland. Who rejected that idea? The Arabs. The Jews could have no place in the Mideast. None. Zero. Zip. Nada. Now, at least to Western audiences, Arafat and some other so-called "moderate" Arab leaders will tell you that it's OK for the Jews to have their homeland, too side-by-side with the Arabs. Why wasn't it OK in 1948?
There is no language known as Palestinian. There is no distinct Palestinian culture. There has never been a land known as Palestine governed by Palestinians. Palestinians are Arabs, indistinguishable from Jordanians, Syrians, Lebanese, Iraqis, etc. Keep in mind that the Arabs control 99.9 percent of the Middle East lands. Israel represents one-tenth of 1 percent of the landmass.
But that's too much for the Arabs. They want it all. And that is ultimately what the fighting in Israel is about today. No matter how many land concessions the Israelis make, it will never be enough. Arafat himself explained the ploy of negotiations with Israel in a 1994 speech in South Africa in English. He's explained it in Arabic dozens of times. First we create our own state, then we use that state to liberate all of Palestine. That's the goal. It's always been the goal. Arafat and his supporters will tell you the reason a Palestinian Arab state is needed is because Arabs were forcibly removed from their property in the 1948 war. But listen to what the Arabs were saying about the refugee issue after that war.
* "The fact that there are these refugees is the direct consequence of the act of the Arab states in opposing partition and the Jewish state. The Arab states agree upon this policy unanimously and they must share in the solution of the problem." Emile Ghoury, secretary of the Palestinian Arab Higher Committee, in an interview with the Beirut Telegraph Sept. 6, 1948.
* "The Arab state which had encouraged the Palestine Arabs to leave their homes temporarily in order to be out of the way of the Arab invasion armies, have failed to keep their promise to help these refugees." The Jordanian daily newspaper Falastin, Feb. 19, 1949.
* "Who brought the Palestinians to Lebanon as refugees, suffering now from the malign attitude of newspapers and communal leaders, who have neither honor nor conscience? Who brought them over in dire straits and penniless, after they lost their honor? The Arab states, and Lebanon amongst them, did it." The Beirut Muslim weekly Kul-Shay, Aug. 19, 1951.
* "The 15th May, 1948, arrived ... On that day the mufti of Jerusalem appealed to the Arabs of Palestine to leave the country, because the Arab armies were about to enter and fight in their stead." The Cairo daily Akhbar el Yom, Oct. 12, 1963.
* "For the flight and fall of the other villages it is our leaders who are responsible because of their dissemination of rumors exaggerating Jewish crimes and describing them as atrocities in order to inflame the Arabs ... By spreading rumors of Jewish atrocities, killings of women and children etc., they instilled fear and terror in the hearts of the Arabs in Palestine, until they fled leaving their homes and properties to the enemy." The Jordanian daily newspaper Al Urdun, April 9, 1953.
I could go on and on with this forgotten or deliberately obscured history. But you get the point. There was no Jewish conspiracy to chase Arabs out of their homes in 1948. It never happened. There are, instead, plenty of historical records showing the Jews pleading with their Arab neighbors to stay and live in peace and harmony. Yet, despite the clear, unambiguous words of the Arab observers at the time, history has been successfully rewritten to turn the Jews into the bad guys.
The Arab states that initiated the hostilities have never accepted responsibility despite their enormous wealth and their ability to assimilate tens of millions of refugees in their largely under-populated nations. And other states have failed to hold them accountable. Today, of course, this cruel charade continues. The suffering of millions of Arabs is perpetuated only for political purposes by the Arab states. They are merely pawns in the war to destroy Israel.
There were some 100 million refugees around the world following World War II. The Palestinian Arab group is the only one in the world not absorbed or integrated into their own people's lands. Since then, millions of Jewish refugees from around the world have been absorbed in the tiny nation of Israel. It makes no sense to expect that same tiny Jewish state to solve a refugee crisis it did not create. Do you think the Arabs really care about the plight of their refugees? I would submit to you that Israel, of all the Middle East states, has treated the Arab refugees with more fairness and more compassion. Let me give you an example of what I'm talking about:
The Jordan Times reports that "Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, who have long been denied many civil rights including the right to work, now face a new obstacle in their precarious lives." Under a bill introduced by parliament last year, Palestinian Arabs will be deprived of their right to own property. Those who already own property will not be able to pass it on to their children. Now just imagine if Israel passed such a law? Can you imagine the international outcry? What would the United Nations have to say about this? How would the media establishment in the West view such a Draconian ploy? Yet, this is happening in an Arab country virtually without comment except here. And take a look at the transparent rationale for this action in Lebanon, as described in the Jordan Times: "The Lebanese parliament passed the law on the grounds that it wants to protect the right of the Palestinian refugees to return eventually to their homes which they fled after the creation of the state of Israel on Palestinian lands in 1948."
Don't you love that? "We are protecting your rights by denying your rights." While Israel has bent over backwards to accommodate the Palestinian Arabs especially those victimized by the 1948 war the Arab nations have only sought to exploit their misery. That exploitation continues today. It is overt. It is a matter of law. Yet the world sees it not. Ever since I wrote a column in October 2000 called "Myths of the Middle East," readers from around the world have asked me what is meant by the term "Palestinian." The simple answer is that it means what Yasser Arafat wants it to mean.
Arafat himself was born in Egypt. He later moved to Jerusalem. Indeed, most of the Arabs living within the borders of Israel today have come from some other Arab country at some time in their life. Arabs continue to flock into Israel today. They continue to move into the Palestinian Authority. They immigrated there even before it left Israeli control. The Arabs have built 261 settlements in the West Bank since 1967. We don't hear much about those settlements. We hear instead about the number of Jewish settlements that have been created. We hear how destabilizing they are how provocative they are. Yet, by comparison, only 144 Jewish settlements have been built since 1967 including those surrounding Jerusalem, in the West Bank and in Gaza.
Is this a new phenomenon? Absolutely not. This has always been the case. Arabs have been flocking to Israel and its environs ever since it was created and even before, coinciding with the wave of Jewish immigration into Palestine prior to 1948. Winston Churchill said in 1939: "So far from being persecuted, the Arabs have crowded into the country and multiplied till their population has increased more than even all world Jewry could lift up the Jewish population."
And that raises a question I never hear anyone ask: If Israel's policies make life so intolerable for Arabs, why do they continue to flock to the Jewish state? This is an important question as we see the Palestinian debate now shift to the issue of "the right of return." According to the most liberal claims by Arab sources, some 600,000 to 700,000 Arabs left Israel in and around 1948 when the Jewish state was created. Most were not forced out by Jews, but rather left at the urging of Arab leaders who had declared war on Israel. Yet, there are far more Arabs living in these territories now than ever before. And many of those who left in 1948 and thereafter actually had roots in other Arab nations. This is why it is so difficult to define the term "Palestinian." It always has been. What does it mean? Who is a "Palestinian"? Is it someone who came to work in Palestine because of a bustling economy and job opportunities? Is it someone who lived in the region for two years? Five years? Ten years? Is it someone who once visited the area? Is it any Arab who wants to live in the area?
Though Arabs outnumber Jews in the Middle East by a factor of about 100 to one, the Arab population of Palestine was historically extremely low prior to the Jews' renewed interest in the area beginning in the early 1900s. For instance, a travel guide to Palestine and Syria, published in 1906 by Karl Baedeker, illustrates the fact that, even when the Islamic Ottoman Empire ruled the region, the Muslim population in Jerusalem was minimal. The book estimates the total population of the city at 60,000, of whom 7,000 were Muslims, 13,000 were Christians and 40,000 were Jews.
"The number of Jews has greatly risen in the last few decades, in spite of the fact that they are forbidden to immigrate or to possess landed property," the book states. Even though the Jews were persecuted, still they came to Jerusalem and represented the overwhelming majority of the population as early as 1906. Why was the Muslim population so low? After all, we're told that Jerusalem is the third holiest city in Islam. Surely, if this were a widely held belief in 1906, more of the devout would have settled there. The truth is that the Jewish presence in Jerusalem and throughout the Holy Land persisted throughout its bloody history, as is documented in Joan Peters' milestone history on the origins of the Arab-Jewish conflict in the region, "From Time Immemorial." It is also true that the Arab population increased following Jewish immigration into the region. The Arabs came because of economic activity. And, believe it or not, they came because there was more freedom and more opportunity in Israel than in their own homelands.
It's time to inject the component of freedom into the discussion. In recent years Freedom House, the human-rights organization that monitors the way the nations of the world treat their own citizens, has found a there's a big trend worldwide away from totalitarianism and authoritarianism and toward freedom except in the Arab world. There are 22 Arab states all varying degrees of police states. If the U.S. continues pushing for a Palestinian state under the leadership of Yasser Arafat, there will be 23.
Let's hope and pray that this administration is beginning to get it. There are some strong indications that is the case. The impending Iraq campaign could represent a watershed event in the history of the Middle East. Imagine a free Iraq. Imagine a free Afghanistan. Imagine a free Iran. Imagine a free Lebanon. It could happen. If we set out goals high and we act responsibly and we are courageous and steadfast in waging this war on terrorism this war we did not start it could happen.
Joseph Farah is founder and CEO of World Net Daily.
Sunday, February 23, 2003
Thursday, February 20, 2003
Thomas Sowell: Undeclared Wars
This excellent piece by Sowell reminds me of a quote I recently heard, attributed to Ross Perot: "Going to war without France is like going deer-hunting without an accordian."
Monday, February 17, 2003
Friday, February 14, 2003
A Japanese View of the Palestinians
by Yashiko Sagamori (from Women in Green)
If you are so sure that "Palestine, the country, goes back through most of recorded history", I expect you to be able to answer a few basic questions about that country of Palestine:
When was it founded and by whom?
What were its borders?
What was its capital?
What were its major cities?
What constituted the basis of its economy?
What was its form of government?
Can you name at least one Palestinian leader before Arafat?
Was Palestine ever recognized by a country whose existence, at that time or now, leaves no room for interpretation?
What was the language of the country of Palestine?
What was the prevalent religion of the country of Palestine?
What was the name of its currency? Choose any date in history and tell what was the approximate exchange rate of the Palestinian monetary unit against the US dollar, German mark, GB pound, Japanese yen, or Chinese yuan on that date.
And, finally, since there is no such country today, what caused its demise and when did it occur?
You are lamenting the "low sinking" of a "once proud" nation. Please tell me, when exactly was that "nation" proud and what was it so proud of?
And here is the least sarcastic question of all: If the people you mistakenly call "Palestinians" are anything but generic Arabs collected from all over -- or thrown out of -- the Arab world, if they really have a genuine ethnic identity that gives them right for self-determination, why did they never try to become independent until Arabs suffered their devastating defeat in the Six Day War?
I hope you avoid the temptation to trace the modern day "Palestinians" to the Biblical Philistines: substituting etymology for history won't work here.
The truth should be obvious to everyone who wants to know it. Arab countries have never abandoned the dream of destroying Israel; they still cherish it today. Having time and again failed to achieve their evil goal with military means, they decided to fight Israel by proxy. For that purpose, they created a terrorist organization, cynically called it "the Palestinian people" and installed it in Gaza, Judea, and Samaria. How else can you explain the refusal by Jordan and Egypt to unconditionally accept back the "West Bank" and Gaza, respectively?
The fact is, Arabs populating Gaza, Judea, and Samaria have much less claim to nationhood than that Indian tribe that successfully emerged in Connecticut with the purpose of starting a tax-exempt casino: at least that tribe had a constructive goal that motivated them. The so called "Palestinians" have only one motivation: the destruction of Israel, and in my book that is not sufficient to consider them a nation" -- or anything else except what they really are: a terrorist organization that will one day be dismantled.
In fact, there is only one way to achieve peace in the Middle East. Arab countries must acknowledge and accept their defeat in their war against Israel and, as the losing side should, pay Israel reparations for the more than 50 years of devastation they have visited on it. The most appropriate form of such reparations would be the removal of their terrorist organization from the land of Israel and accepting Israel's ancient sovereignty over Gaza, Judea, and Samaria.
That will mark the end of the Palestinian people. What are you saying again was its beginning?
You are absolutely correct in your understanding of the "Palestinians" murderous motives. I am afraid however that you, along with 99% of the population of this planet have missed the beginning of WWIII (the enemy call it Jihad) quite a few years ago. The siege of the US embassy in Tehran in 1979, an event to which the latest Nobel Peace Prize winner had so miserably failed to respond, can be very well used as the day WWIII stepped out of the pages of the Koran and into the current events.
I pray the United States and Israel lead the world to victory in this war. Come to think of it, there is no choice, be you a Christian, or even, believe it or not, a Muslim.
If you are so sure that "Palestine, the country, goes back through most of recorded history", I expect you to be able to answer a few basic questions about that country of Palestine:
When was it founded and by whom?
What were its borders?
What was its capital?
What were its major cities?
What constituted the basis of its economy?
What was its form of government?
Can you name at least one Palestinian leader before Arafat?
Was Palestine ever recognized by a country whose existence, at that time or now, leaves no room for interpretation?
What was the language of the country of Palestine?
What was the prevalent religion of the country of Palestine?
What was the name of its currency? Choose any date in history and tell what was the approximate exchange rate of the Palestinian monetary unit against the US dollar, German mark, GB pound, Japanese yen, or Chinese yuan on that date.
And, finally, since there is no such country today, what caused its demise and when did it occur?
You are lamenting the "low sinking" of a "once proud" nation. Please tell me, when exactly was that "nation" proud and what was it so proud of?
And here is the least sarcastic question of all: If the people you mistakenly call "Palestinians" are anything but generic Arabs collected from all over -- or thrown out of -- the Arab world, if they really have a genuine ethnic identity that gives them right for self-determination, why did they never try to become independent until Arabs suffered their devastating defeat in the Six Day War?
I hope you avoid the temptation to trace the modern day "Palestinians" to the Biblical Philistines: substituting etymology for history won't work here.
The truth should be obvious to everyone who wants to know it. Arab countries have never abandoned the dream of destroying Israel; they still cherish it today. Having time and again failed to achieve their evil goal with military means, they decided to fight Israel by proxy. For that purpose, they created a terrorist organization, cynically called it "the Palestinian people" and installed it in Gaza, Judea, and Samaria. How else can you explain the refusal by Jordan and Egypt to unconditionally accept back the "West Bank" and Gaza, respectively?
The fact is, Arabs populating Gaza, Judea, and Samaria have much less claim to nationhood than that Indian tribe that successfully emerged in Connecticut with the purpose of starting a tax-exempt casino: at least that tribe had a constructive goal that motivated them. The so called "Palestinians" have only one motivation: the destruction of Israel, and in my book that is not sufficient to consider them a nation" -- or anything else except what they really are: a terrorist organization that will one day be dismantled.
In fact, there is only one way to achieve peace in the Middle East. Arab countries must acknowledge and accept their defeat in their war against Israel and, as the losing side should, pay Israel reparations for the more than 50 years of devastation they have visited on it. The most appropriate form of such reparations would be the removal of their terrorist organization from the land of Israel and accepting Israel's ancient sovereignty over Gaza, Judea, and Samaria.
That will mark the end of the Palestinian people. What are you saying again was its beginning?
You are absolutely correct in your understanding of the "Palestinians" murderous motives. I am afraid however that you, along with 99% of the population of this planet have missed the beginning of WWIII (the enemy call it Jihad) quite a few years ago. The siege of the US embassy in Tehran in 1979, an event to which the latest Nobel Peace Prize winner had so miserably failed to respond, can be very well used as the day WWIII stepped out of the pages of the Koran and into the current events.
I pray the United States and Israel lead the world to victory in this war. Come to think of it, there is no choice, be you a Christian, or even, believe it or not, a Muslim.
Wednesday, February 12, 2003
Tuesday, February 11, 2003
MEDIA BLUNDER OF THE WEEK: Associated Press published the headline (Feb. 6): "Arab Man Killed in Stabbing in Northern Israel."
You have to read the article to find out it was the Arab who did the stabbing, and was only killed in order to save the life of the Israeli policeman that he was stabbing!
Read it here: http://honestreporting.com/a/r/347.asp
Comments to: feedback@ap.org
Read it here: http://honestreporting.com/a/r/347.asp
Comments to: feedback@ap.org
Saturday, February 08, 2003
Israel's War Against Palestinian Terror
Israel's War Against Palestinian Terror - http://www.oslo-war.com is well-designed, with good information.
Sunday, February 02, 2003
"ILAN RAMON - IN MEMORIAM"
HonestReporting Communique 02 February 2003
* * *
HonestReporting joins the people of Israel in mourning the tragic loss of Col. Ilan Ramon and his Columbia Shuttle crewmates.
We wish to share the following inspirational tribute, "Shattered Dreams," by Dina Coopersmith of http://aish.com/.
HonestReporting.com
====== ILAN RAMON: SHATTERED DREAMS ======
The mind reels in disbelief as reports come in about the explosion of the Columbia space shuttle.
We in Israel have become accustomed to announcements of terror attacks. We have even attuned ourselves to hearing the nuances of seriousness in the voice of the radio announcer as he or she introduces the hourly news so that we can steel ourselves against receiving the inevitable tragic information. Particularly on Saturday night, after spending an entire Shabbat disconnected from the outside world, the first moment of the post-Shabbat news is fraught with a special kind of tension.
But nothing prepared us for this.
It was just not possible.
After 16 days of almost constant news coverage about Ilan Ramon, Israel's first astronaut, we all felt we knew him. He was family. He represented us all -- our country, our people, our past and our future. He was our hero at a time when we sorely needed one.
The son of Holocaust survivors, he expressed all that was characteristic of the proud Israeli Jew. As a pilot in the Israeli air force, he was a war hero who bombed the Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981, as well as fighting in the Yom Kippur and Lebanon Wars. Although not religious, Ilan felt compelled to keep some significant religious observances in space to fulfill his dream of uniting the Jewish people and representing our nation. He took a book of Psalms and a picture drawn by a 14-year-old Jewish boy who was killed in Auschwitz; he ate only kosher food and made Kiddush Friday night and recited Shema Yisrael as the shuttle flew over Jerusalem.
He said he wanted to "emphasize the unity of the people of Israel and the Jewish communities abroad."
Among my friends, we spoke about him creating a Kiddush Hashem -- sanctification of God's name.
How could he be gone?
How could all our hopes and dreams disintegrate into the thin layer of atmosphere that protects the earth?
We anxiously awaited his landing, to celebrate the triumph of our new national hero. The possibility of mishap was very far from our minds.
"It's much more dangerous to drive in a car in this country that to travel in space," Ilan's brother, Gadi, said of his attitude. "Not in our wildest dreams did we imagine that there would be any problem."
Ilan's father said early Saturday morning, as he eagerly anticipated the imminent arrival of his son, "The only problem might be in the weather, and that might only delay the landing by a day or two."
The tragedy brought home to us once again the fragility of human endeavor. We are shocked when the frontiers of science and technology, in which we place our unflagging trust, reveal themselves to be so shaky and limited.
Colonel Ramon took great delight in taking a "surprise" with him to space -- a Torah scroll that survived the hell of the Holocaust. The scroll symbolized for him his dream of a unified people under God, with an indomitable spirit.
That Torah scroll exploded along with Ramon and his fellow astronauts at an altitude of 200,000 feet over a Texas town called Palestine (did I hear that correctly?).
The Midrash tells us that "the Jewish nation will not be redeemed until they are one unit." Ilan Ramon was a devoted husband, father, pilot, and scientist. But his greatest legacy is that he brought healing to a wounded nation.
Our hearts and prayers are with Ilan Ramon's parents and his wife, Rona, and their four children. Our nation mourns with you. Unfortunately, it is in grief that we have fulfilled Ilan's dream of unity.
Ilan commented this past Thursday on what the world looked like to him in space. "The world looks marvelous from up here, so peaceful, so wonderful and so fragile."
Now we can turn that comment eerily around and say to Ilan, "You looked so marvelous from down here, so peaceful, so wonderful... and so fragile."
========== ABOUT HONESTREPORTING ============
HonestReporting welcomes you to submit media critiques for possible inclusion in future communiques. Be sure to include a URL of the article you are critiquing, and send to: action@honestreporting.com
Encourage your friends to join HonestReporting. Send a friendly info message from: http://honestreporting.com/a/Tell_a_Friend.asp
HONESTREPORTING INFO SHEET to print out, post on bulletin boards, photocopy and distribute. Get the word out to schools, places of worship, community centers. Go to: http://www.honestreporting.com/a/HRPrintout.pdf
Privacy Guarantee: HonestReporting will never share your e-mail address or personal details with anyone. Our web servers feature the latest hack-proof technology.
======================================
HonestReporting involves considerable research and manpower costs. Your donations are greatly appreciated and will help Israel win the media battle. "Middle East Media Watch" (DBA HonestReporting) is a section 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization, contributions to which are deductible for U.S. income tax purposes. Please send contributions to:
HonestReporting 156 West 56th Street, Suite 1201 New York, NY 10019 USA
Or you can donate online with your credit card, using our secure server: http://honestreporting.com/a/Donate.asp
======================================
HonestReporting has 55,000 members worldwide, and is growing daily.
(C) 2003 HonestReporting - Permission granted to post and redistribute. E-mail: action@honestreporting.com
======================================
To subscribe to HonestReporting, double-click and send a blank e-mail to: join-honestreporting@titan.sparklist.com
* * *
HonestReporting joins the people of Israel in mourning the tragic loss of Col. Ilan Ramon and his Columbia Shuttle crewmates.
We wish to share the following inspirational tribute, "Shattered Dreams," by Dina Coopersmith of http://aish.com/.
HonestReporting.com
====== ILAN RAMON: SHATTERED DREAMS ======
The mind reels in disbelief as reports come in about the explosion of the Columbia space shuttle.
We in Israel have become accustomed to announcements of terror attacks. We have even attuned ourselves to hearing the nuances of seriousness in the voice of the radio announcer as he or she introduces the hourly news so that we can steel ourselves against receiving the inevitable tragic information. Particularly on Saturday night, after spending an entire Shabbat disconnected from the outside world, the first moment of the post-Shabbat news is fraught with a special kind of tension.
But nothing prepared us for this.
It was just not possible.
After 16 days of almost constant news coverage about Ilan Ramon, Israel's first astronaut, we all felt we knew him. He was family. He represented us all -- our country, our people, our past and our future. He was our hero at a time when we sorely needed one.
The son of Holocaust survivors, he expressed all that was characteristic of the proud Israeli Jew. As a pilot in the Israeli air force, he was a war hero who bombed the Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981, as well as fighting in the Yom Kippur and Lebanon Wars. Although not religious, Ilan felt compelled to keep some significant religious observances in space to fulfill his dream of uniting the Jewish people and representing our nation. He took a book of Psalms and a picture drawn by a 14-year-old Jewish boy who was killed in Auschwitz; he ate only kosher food and made Kiddush Friday night and recited Shema Yisrael as the shuttle flew over Jerusalem.
He said he wanted to "emphasize the unity of the people of Israel and the Jewish communities abroad."
Among my friends, we spoke about him creating a Kiddush Hashem -- sanctification of God's name.
How could he be gone?
How could all our hopes and dreams disintegrate into the thin layer of atmosphere that protects the earth?
We anxiously awaited his landing, to celebrate the triumph of our new national hero. The possibility of mishap was very far from our minds.
"It's much more dangerous to drive in a car in this country that to travel in space," Ilan's brother, Gadi, said of his attitude. "Not in our wildest dreams did we imagine that there would be any problem."
Ilan's father said early Saturday morning, as he eagerly anticipated the imminent arrival of his son, "The only problem might be in the weather, and that might only delay the landing by a day or two."
The tragedy brought home to us once again the fragility of human endeavor. We are shocked when the frontiers of science and technology, in which we place our unflagging trust, reveal themselves to be so shaky and limited.
Colonel Ramon took great delight in taking a "surprise" with him to space -- a Torah scroll that survived the hell of the Holocaust. The scroll symbolized for him his dream of a unified people under God, with an indomitable spirit.
That Torah scroll exploded along with Ramon and his fellow astronauts at an altitude of 200,000 feet over a Texas town called Palestine (did I hear that correctly?).
The Midrash tells us that "the Jewish nation will not be redeemed until they are one unit." Ilan Ramon was a devoted husband, father, pilot, and scientist. But his greatest legacy is that he brought healing to a wounded nation.
Our hearts and prayers are with Ilan Ramon's parents and his wife, Rona, and their four children. Our nation mourns with you. Unfortunately, it is in grief that we have fulfilled Ilan's dream of unity.
Ilan commented this past Thursday on what the world looked like to him in space. "The world looks marvelous from up here, so peaceful, so wonderful and so fragile."
Now we can turn that comment eerily around and say to Ilan, "You looked so marvelous from down here, so peaceful, so wonderful... and so fragile."
========== ABOUT HONESTREPORTING ============
HonestReporting welcomes you to submit media critiques for possible inclusion in future communiques. Be sure to include a URL of the article you are critiquing, and send to: action@honestreporting.com
Encourage your friends to join HonestReporting. Send a friendly info message from: http://honestreporting.com/a/Tell_a_Friend.asp
HONESTREPORTING INFO SHEET to print out, post on bulletin boards, photocopy and distribute. Get the word out to schools, places of worship, community centers. Go to: http://www.honestreporting.com/a/HRPrintout.pdf
Privacy Guarantee: HonestReporting will never share your e-mail address or personal details with anyone. Our web servers feature the latest hack-proof technology.
======================================
HonestReporting involves considerable research and manpower costs. Your donations are greatly appreciated and will help Israel win the media battle. "Middle East Media Watch" (DBA HonestReporting) is a section 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization, contributions to which are deductible for U.S. income tax purposes. Please send contributions to:
HonestReporting 156 West 56th Street, Suite 1201 New York, NY 10019 USA
Or you can donate online with your credit card, using our secure server: http://honestreporting.com/a/Donate.asp
======================================
HonestReporting has 55,000 members worldwide, and is growing daily.
(C) 2003 HonestReporting - Permission granted to post and redistribute. E-mail: action@honestreporting.com
======================================
To subscribe to HonestReporting, double-click and send a blank e-mail to: join-honestreporting@titan.sparklist.com
Sunday, January 19, 2003
MY TRUE HERO
By Solly Ganor
solganor@netvision.net.il
I don’t think there was a person in Israel who didn't watch the Shuttle Columbia blasting off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, yesterday.
We watched with trepidation and anxiety, but above all pride as the graceful white shuttle lifted off into the blue Florida sky, trailing a white plume behind it. For us Israelis, it was a special flight, because our own astronaut, colonel Ilan Ramon was among the crew, the first Israeli to enter space.
For a short while we allowed ourselves to forget our problems, our differences, even the coming elections, and were united in hailing colonel Illan Ramon as our hero.
But for me, there was another hero: someone that was hardly mentioned in the Israeli media. If it weren’t for an American TV station, which briefly stated that colonel Illan Ramon’s mother was an Auschwitz survivor, I too would have been ignorant of the fact.
To most us the fact that his mother was a Holocaust survivor from Auschwitz, would be baffling why I would call her a hero.
I will tell you why.
After the collapse of Hitler’s Reich and our liberation in the beginning of May, 1945, I served in the US army as an interpreter. I was fortunate enough to have learned English during the war, a language that very few survivors spoke.
I served in a unit that was attached to the CIC, (Army Intelligence). We were eleven men, all of them, beside myself, American service men, who knew a second language besides their native English. Our Job was to find Nazis hiding among the displaced persons in the DP camps.
However, we also visited camps were only Jews lived, such as Feldafing, Fherenwald and more. For a while I was the interpreter for a colonel Woodhouse, who for some reason was attached to our unit. Colonel Woodhouse was an English psychiatrist who was sent to evaluate the mental state of the Jewish concentration camp survivors.
I will never forget his official evaluation. He didn’t keep it a secret and I was able to read it. “I came to the conclusion that the trauma caused to Jewish inmates of concentration camps was unprecedented in its severity and that they would never be able to live normal lives, get married and have children. “ I have known patients who were subjected to trauma that weren’t even a fraction of the trauma the Jews were subjected to and they were psychologically disabled for life. Therefore, I see no hope for them.”
Well, colonel Woodhouse, allow me to introduce you to Mrs. Ramon, a Auschwitz survivor, who not only got married and brought children to this world, but brought up a son that anyone in the world would be proud of to call as his own, despite your prognosis.
Perhaps, from the medical point of few he was right, but he didn’t count on the spirit of the survivors. When we were liberated we were almost naked, bereft of all possessions, clad in a prisoner’s striped uniform and wooden clogs. We owned nothing, not even underwear, socks or a handkerchief. We were like walking skeletons, all skin and bones. My schooling was interrupted when I was twelve, and I was subjected to brutalities that mankind has never known. I was liberated from the Nazis, but what next? So I stood before a world, I considered hostile, age seventeen, and I had to make my way through it. And yet I did it and I did it well.
I don’t know Mrs. Ramon, but today when I watched her son taking off into space, I am sure that she did more than well. Therefore, Mrs. Ramon, I salute you. You too are my hero.
Solly Ganor,
Herzelia Pituach, Israel
solganor@netvision.net.il
I don’t think there was a person in Israel who didn't watch the Shuttle Columbia blasting off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, yesterday.
We watched with trepidation and anxiety, but above all pride as the graceful white shuttle lifted off into the blue Florida sky, trailing a white plume behind it. For us Israelis, it was a special flight, because our own astronaut, colonel Ilan Ramon was among the crew, the first Israeli to enter space.
For a short while we allowed ourselves to forget our problems, our differences, even the coming elections, and were united in hailing colonel Illan Ramon as our hero.
But for me, there was another hero: someone that was hardly mentioned in the Israeli media. If it weren’t for an American TV station, which briefly stated that colonel Illan Ramon’s mother was an Auschwitz survivor, I too would have been ignorant of the fact.
To most us the fact that his mother was a Holocaust survivor from Auschwitz, would be baffling why I would call her a hero.
I will tell you why.
After the collapse of Hitler’s Reich and our liberation in the beginning of May, 1945, I served in the US army as an interpreter. I was fortunate enough to have learned English during the war, a language that very few survivors spoke.
I served in a unit that was attached to the CIC, (Army Intelligence). We were eleven men, all of them, beside myself, American service men, who knew a second language besides their native English. Our Job was to find Nazis hiding among the displaced persons in the DP camps.
However, we also visited camps were only Jews lived, such as Feldafing, Fherenwald and more. For a while I was the interpreter for a colonel Woodhouse, who for some reason was attached to our unit. Colonel Woodhouse was an English psychiatrist who was sent to evaluate the mental state of the Jewish concentration camp survivors.
I will never forget his official evaluation. He didn’t keep it a secret and I was able to read it. “I came to the conclusion that the trauma caused to Jewish inmates of concentration camps was unprecedented in its severity and that they would never be able to live normal lives, get married and have children. “ I have known patients who were subjected to trauma that weren’t even a fraction of the trauma the Jews were subjected to and they were psychologically disabled for life. Therefore, I see no hope for them.”
Well, colonel Woodhouse, allow me to introduce you to Mrs. Ramon, a Auschwitz survivor, who not only got married and brought children to this world, but brought up a son that anyone in the world would be proud of to call as his own, despite your prognosis.
Perhaps, from the medical point of few he was right, but he didn’t count on the spirit of the survivors. When we were liberated we were almost naked, bereft of all possessions, clad in a prisoner’s striped uniform and wooden clogs. We owned nothing, not even underwear, socks or a handkerchief. We were like walking skeletons, all skin and bones. My schooling was interrupted when I was twelve, and I was subjected to brutalities that mankind has never known. I was liberated from the Nazis, but what next? So I stood before a world, I considered hostile, age seventeen, and I had to make my way through it. And yet I did it and I did it well.
I don’t know Mrs. Ramon, but today when I watched her son taking off into space, I am sure that she did more than well. Therefore, Mrs. Ramon, I salute you. You too are my hero.
Solly Ganor,
Herzelia Pituach, Israel
Thursday, January 16, 2003
THIS PURIM -- SHOW YOU CARE
Just for a moment, picture a young Israel soldier in an isolated outpost far from family and home. It's Purim, and he's serving under extremely trying conditions. Then, out of the blue, he's handed a traditional Purim basket -- mishloach manot-- filled with goodies. Follow this link to send a Purim basket to an IDF soldier.
Saturday, January 11, 2003
A story of cold-blooded murder
By Joseph Farah
© 2003 WorldNetDaily.com
Last week, Massoud Mahlouf Elon, a 72-year-old Israeli from the town of Menahemya, did something he had done for years.
He drove into the Jordan Valley, a desolate Arab area where he often brought clothes to donate to poor Bedouin tribes people.
"I begged him not to travel there," said his son Ya'acov.
But Elon enjoyed friendly relations with the local people. They knew him. He knew them. Despite rising tensions between Jews and Arabs, Elon believed his own personal relationships built up over many years would overshadow the dangers just any Israeli might face in the area.
Elon was wrong.
After a 12-hour search of the Jordan Valley using jeeps, helicopters and dogs, Israeli security forces discovered first his charred automobile and later his mutilated and incinerated remains last Thursday. He is believed to have been stoned to death. His face had been bashed beyond recognition.
The Al-Aksa Martyrs Brigades, an Arab terrorist group under the command of Yasser Arafat, immediately began circulating leaflets taking responsibility for the murder.
I have written tens of thousands of words over the years about the Arab-Israeli conflict. I have tried to find new ways of looking at old facts. I have tried to shed light on the mysteries of this ancient blood feud. I have tried to explain the geo-political context of this explosive struggle. I have delved into the spiritual issues. I have reported facts I felt certain would change people's perceptions. I have attempted to shatter myths and misconceptions.
Sometimes, however, the simplest, most direct and most effective way to reach people with the truth is through the personal story.
Massoud Mahlouf Elon's story.
I didn't know Elon. But I feel like I did after reading about him. I've met many men like him in the Middle East, nice men who got along with their neighbors, nice men who would give you the shirt off their back, nice men who didn't care about politics and power.
This man was no threat to anyone. He took no sides in any conflict. He was a Jew who simply loved and cared for his neighbors, his Arab neighbors. And he paid for that love with his life in the cruelest imaginable way.
In the past, I have made the case that Yasser Arafat should be tried, convicted and executed for the murders of high-profile U.S. diplomats. I have made the case that Arafat should pay with his own life for the murders of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Jews. I have made the case that he should be held accountable for the murder of dozens of America citizens.
But today, I suggest we put all that aside for the moment and simply arrest Yasser Arafat for the murder of Massoud Mahlouf Elon, the 72-year-old Jew with failing eyesight who wanted only to help his Arab neighbors.
I don't care how such an action might inflame his cohorts. I don't care how such an action might impact the "peace process." I don't care how Washington might react to such a move. I don't care.
It's time for justice. It's time to do the right thing.
What good will it do for Israel to lash out and attack some mid-level terrorist in Arafat's chain of command? What good will it do to steamroll over some terrorists' houses? What good will it do to blame anyone else but the mastermind of this cold-blooded murder as well as 40 years of similar atrocities?
Arafat did this. He claims responsibility for the Al-Aksa Martyrs Brigades. This group is an offshoot of his own Fatah Party. Now let him be responsible for their actions.
Arafat needs to pay for Massoud Mahlouf Elon.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Joseph Farah's nationally syndicated column originates at WorldNetDaily, where he serves as editor and chief executive officer. If you would like to see the column in your local newspaper, contact your local editor. Tell your paper the column is available through Creators Syndicate.
© 2003 WorldNetDaily.com
Last week, Massoud Mahlouf Elon, a 72-year-old Israeli from the town of Menahemya, did something he had done for years.
He drove into the Jordan Valley, a desolate Arab area where he often brought clothes to donate to poor Bedouin tribes people.
"I begged him not to travel there," said his son Ya'acov.
But Elon enjoyed friendly relations with the local people. They knew him. He knew them. Despite rising tensions between Jews and Arabs, Elon believed his own personal relationships built up over many years would overshadow the dangers just any Israeli might face in the area.
Elon was wrong.
After a 12-hour search of the Jordan Valley using jeeps, helicopters and dogs, Israeli security forces discovered first his charred automobile and later his mutilated and incinerated remains last Thursday. He is believed to have been stoned to death. His face had been bashed beyond recognition.
The Al-Aksa Martyrs Brigades, an Arab terrorist group under the command of Yasser Arafat, immediately began circulating leaflets taking responsibility for the murder.
I have written tens of thousands of words over the years about the Arab-Israeli conflict. I have tried to find new ways of looking at old facts. I have tried to shed light on the mysteries of this ancient blood feud. I have tried to explain the geo-political context of this explosive struggle. I have delved into the spiritual issues. I have reported facts I felt certain would change people's perceptions. I have attempted to shatter myths and misconceptions.
Sometimes, however, the simplest, most direct and most effective way to reach people with the truth is through the personal story.
Massoud Mahlouf Elon's story.
I didn't know Elon. But I feel like I did after reading about him. I've met many men like him in the Middle East, nice men who got along with their neighbors, nice men who would give you the shirt off their back, nice men who didn't care about politics and power.
This man was no threat to anyone. He took no sides in any conflict. He was a Jew who simply loved and cared for his neighbors, his Arab neighbors. And he paid for that love with his life in the cruelest imaginable way.
In the past, I have made the case that Yasser Arafat should be tried, convicted and executed for the murders of high-profile U.S. diplomats. I have made the case that Arafat should pay with his own life for the murders of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Jews. I have made the case that he should be held accountable for the murder of dozens of America citizens.
But today, I suggest we put all that aside for the moment and simply arrest Yasser Arafat for the murder of Massoud Mahlouf Elon, the 72-year-old Jew with failing eyesight who wanted only to help his Arab neighbors.
I don't care how such an action might inflame his cohorts. I don't care how such an action might impact the "peace process." I don't care how Washington might react to such a move. I don't care.
It's time for justice. It's time to do the right thing.
What good will it do for Israel to lash out and attack some mid-level terrorist in Arafat's chain of command? What good will it do to steamroll over some terrorists' houses? What good will it do to blame anyone else but the mastermind of this cold-blooded murder as well as 40 years of similar atrocities?
Arafat did this. He claims responsibility for the Al-Aksa Martyrs Brigades. This group is an offshoot of his own Fatah Party. Now let him be responsible for their actions.
Arafat needs to pay for Massoud Mahlouf Elon.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Joseph Farah's nationally syndicated column originates at WorldNetDaily, where he serves as editor and chief executive officer. If you would like to see the column in your local newspaper, contact your local editor. Tell your paper the column is available through Creators Syndicate.
Sunday, January 05, 2003
KADDISH FOR ZELIG
Dear Friends,
When I sent out Holocaust survivor and author Solly Ganor's "Conversation on the Beach," had no idea who the author was--man, woman, background, age--nothing. Only now, having read Mr. Ganor's "Kaddish for Zelig," do I understand the full, incredible impact of that conversation between Mr. Ganor and the arrogant Muslim student on an Israeli beach. Read the following article, and then re-read "Conversation on the Beach." Do this, and I promise you that you will finally understand the whole truth about the people of Israel, and the Jewish State. It will put into perspective the media lies, Muslim propaganda, and the Jewish Left's sickeningly wrong perspective. It's long, but you will never have to read another word on this subject again.
I promise you. I promise you.
With every blessing,
Naomi Ragen
http://www.naomiragen.com
KADDISH FOR ZELIG
by Solly Ganor
solganor@netvision.net.il
Holocaust survivor
Israel, June 12, 2002
If I needed a reminder why we live in Israel and cling to it with heart and soul, despite the endless wars and the suicide bombings, this recent journey supplied us with the answer. The flight from Tel Aviv to Munich lasts less than four hours, but my memory takes me back fifty seven years, when I was a teenage slave laborer for the Nazis in one of the outer camps of Dachau. Towards the end of the war, they were so desperately in need of labor that the Nazis reluctantly gave up the idea of gassing all Jews, irrespective of their gender or age.
They continued to gas women with children and old people, but those whom they considered still capable of work, were temporarily spared. They even coined a phrase for those of us: "Vernichtung durch Arbeit"--"Annihilation through Work" In fact, they starved us and made us work twelve hours a day at hard labor, condemning us to a slow agonizing death.
There were in all eleven outer camps of Dachau, where in nine months fifteen thousand Jewish slaves out of a total of thirty thousand, died of starvation, hard labor and beatings by the German supervisors and the SS guards. I was in an outer camp of Dachau, known as Lager X, by Utting, a picturesque little town by the Amersee. Before the war writers and artists used to live there. I was told that the famous Kurt Weil lived there before Hitler came to power.
In July 1944, with the Soviet troops approaching Kaunas ghetto where I was incarcerated for three years, the Nazis transported us half across Europe to Bavaria. There, near the medieval town of Landsberg and surroundings, Hitler decided in the last phases of the war to build gigantic underground factories where the jet fighter Messerschmit M62 was to be built. This was Hitler's promised secret weapon that would sweep the American and British planes out of the German skies.
We, the half starved Jews of Lithuania, Poland, and Hungary were to build these gigantic factories, and perish while building it.
The construction sight was called Moll, named after the owner of the building company, Leonard Moll. I will never forget the day when I first laid eyes on it. We were driving from Utting in a truck, to deliver a load of potatoes . In our camp it was known that the Germans were building some kind of underground factory, and we heard terrible stories about it. We traveled for what seemed like an hour along a tree-lined dirt road. Darkness had fallen, and in the distance we could hear the low grinding roar of heavy machinery. The din increased just before we emerged into a huge clearing lit by the glare of floodlights. The road dropped into a vast excavation, and from it rose an enormous concrete vault, bristling with vertical reinforcing rods so that it looked like some monstrous hedgehog. Narrow railroad tracks curved towards the opening.
The installation was a half-cylinder of concrete, 1,300 feet long and spanning more than 275 feet at the base. It rose some 95 feet into the air at the top of the arch. Under the glaring lights, cranes and bulldozers moved into and around its mouth. Scores of tractors, trucks, and other heavy equipment created an ear-shattering roar. Along the sides, scores of prisoners stood on platforms handling huge flexible hoses that spewed wet cement into the spiked grid work, while others moved about with shovels and buckets. Everywhere we looked we saw what looked like thousands of men in striped uniforms moving about the compound, carrying lumber, iron rods and sacks of cement.
It was like an enormous, evil hive. Even as we watched we heard inhuman screams coming from above. The men who were maneuvering the huge hose had lost their grip, and the pipe began writhing about, spewing concrete in all directions. The men desperately tried to seize it, but it whipped and flailed and knocked several men off their feet. One after another they fell screaming onto the spikes, while the hose poured hundreds of pounds of concrete on top of them. The scene I described took place towards the end of 1944.
The men I saw fall into the concrete are still entombed in its massive construction to this day. Among the men who slaved on this project was my childhood friends Uri Chanoch and Chaim Konwitz, Avraham Fein, Monchik Levin, and many others. Fifty-eight years later we had returned to "Moll" to say Kadish for these men.
One of the man entombed I knew personally. His name was Zelig. I never found out his last name, but I knew he was from a small town in Lithuania. He was one of the "human horses" who were engaged in pulling a food cart from the village of Utting to a German worker's kitchen. I too was a horse, and in all we were four teenagers who were given that job.
The German kitchen was near the site where we were slaving at hard labor, a place known as Dyckerhof and Wydman. (Dyckerhof and Wydman, by the way, is one of the largest construction companies in Germany today.) At that stage of the war, gasoline became a very precious commodity, and we the Jewish slaves, were used as 'horses'. Make no mistake, being a "horse" was a coveted job in the camp, the alternative was to carry hundred pounds of cement on your back, or iron rails to build tracks for the trolleys. There was another advantage in being a "horse" the cart we were pulling was filled with food for the kitchen, and we always managed to scrounge a crust of bread or a bowl of soup in Utting.
Zelig was an ardent Zionist and always talked about how he would work the land of Israel if he ever survived the war. "If I will ever survive this hell and get to the land of Israel, I will kiss every grain of sand, and work twenty four hour a day to build it up," he would say, and he would say it with so much longing in his voice that it had an effect on all of us.
But his wish never came true. He fell into the roof of "Moll" and became entombed with the others, by sheer mistake, and I was there to see him fall. I will never forget his screams as he fell to his horrible death. Fifty-eight years later we stood quietly reciting kadish for the dead and I spoke to Zelig of the land of Israel that he loved so much, and like Moses, never got to see it.
Yes, Zelig, I want to tell you of the true miracle of Israel, that puts to shame the miracles of the Bible. Yes, Zelig, I survived and saw your beloved land. I still remember the mountains of Carmel rising from the morning mist, as our ship approached Haifa.
We were a ship full of penniless Holocaust survivors, and we all sang (what was later to become our National Anthem) the Hatikvah (the Hope) with tears in our eyes. No sooner had we landed on its shore, as we were called to defend the newly proclaimed land of Israel. Five Arab armies descended on us trying to strangle us at our birth.
I will never forget the moment when I was given a rifle and was told by my commanding officer: "This is your land now, defend it with all you have got, for you will never have another chance to have your own country."
And defend it we did, Zelig. Many of us died, some of them the last sons of once glorious Jewish families of Europe, but they died for the only cause worth while fighting for. I was only sorry, Zelig, that you couldn't be there by my side fighting for the land you loved so much. With the onslaught of the combined Arab armies, the world gave us a week to survive and what is more, no one lifted a finger to help us. The Arabs were to finish what Hitler had started.
So what else is new? But the world didn't reckon with one small thing, Zelig.. We were not the defenseless Jews anymore. We were now back in our homeland fighting for the resurrected State of Israel. Against all odds we won the war, and set out to prepare the ground for another million penniless refugees. Jews, who escaped with their lives from the Arabic countries, where they were robbed of their properties, possessions and money.
And soon another million arrived from all over the world, and another million, from Poland and the Baltics. From six hundred thousands in 1948, we grew into a population of two and half million within a few years of the creation of the State. Ironically, when the Jewish Agency asked for sevent-five thousands certificates to save some Jews from Hitler's gas chambers, the British claimed that the country couldn't absorb such a vast number of Jews. That was the infamous White Paper.
The fledgling state soon ran out of money to buy the basic needs for the swelling population. We lived in tents and ate what the small agricultural settlements could provide us with. It wasn't enough, but we weren't starving.
Very soon we began to build a healthy democratic society, creating wealth by our brains and hard work, as the country had no natural resources. Soon Jews from over fifty countries full of enthusiasm came to help build the State of Israel. Our population grew even more, and despite the predictions of international experts, that no country can absorb so many millions without an economical collapse, Israel continued to develop in every field. The Jews, who hadn't tilled the land for two thousands years became experts in agriculture, achieving internationally unprecedented results.
Ironically, the stereotyped Jew, the merchant, the money lender, the usurer, went all over the world to teach agriculture and know-how in many fields, and what is even more ironic, we became experts in warfare. "The people of the book," as we were known for two thousand years, soft and cowardly, as proclaimed by the anti-Semites, soon learned to become experts in that field as well. The fact is, that in 1967, we stunned the world by defeating the combined Arab armies in six days.
The Arab countries, unwilling to accept their defeat in the battlefield, and unwilling to accept us in their midst, launched war after war, trying to eliminate the State of Israel. Every time they suffered crushing defeats, despite their superior numbers and new-technology weapons the Soviets supplied them with.
Today we are a modern society of six million people. The country that once was a mosquito-infested swamp land, or dry desert land, blossomed into a modern society of six million people. From nothing we created a land that not only boasts of the highest standards in every field of achievement, but also developed one of the highest high-tech industries in the world. We export per capita in dollars more than any other country in the world. And we did it all with hard work, brains, and guts.
Yes, Zelig, I always admired you for you love of that distant land called Eretz Israel. I never believed that I could have such emotions for any land. Today, after having fought for it in four bloody wars, and after spending a life time in helping rebuild it, I can finally say that I do share your feelings for the land of Israel. Yes, Zelig, you can be proud of us. We, the survivors of the Holocaust, have risen from the ashes of Europe and helped create the miracle of Israel. Never again will they line us up defenseless before the gas chambers of Europe!
Rest in peace, my friend Zelig, rest in peace.
Herzelia, Israel
June 12, 2002
A Letter from Solly Ganor
Dear Harry,
I thought that I would interest you in an article I wrote after I was invited to Germany by the German government. My book, 'Light One Candle,' was translated into German and was recently introduced to the German High Schools as a study book for the subject on the Holocaust. Therefore I am frequently invited to Germany to give lectures on the Holocaust in German High, universities and even the army and air force.
You can imagine that it is not an easy matter for me to do that, especially the lectures in the German army. Standing before 450 German officers and lecturing them on what their grand parents did to us, is almost a surrealistic scene for me. The uniforms are pretty much the same as they were under the Nazis, and the faces haven't changed much, yet they are different from their grand parents.
One general told me that one of my lectures are worth more than a 1000 hours of learning history. I guess this is what keeps me coming back to Germany.
And the ironic fact that the Germany is almost the only country in Europe that is supporting Israel within the European Union. We desperately need allies there, even if they are Germans. Recently I visited the site by Landsberg, where we were used as forced labor. A friend of mine by the name of Zelig is entombed in the twelve-foot-thick roof that we built during the war. The bunker was meant to be a factory for the German jet fighter Me-62, the first jet to be employed during the war.
Visiting the place brought back bitter memories, one of them, the entombing of Zelig. I call the article 'Kadish for Zelig,' and so far only sent it to some friends. If you think that it would be of interest to put it on your Web site, please do. I think all Jews should read such personal accounts of what happened to us during the Holocaust.
Thanks and Shalom,
Solly
When I sent out Holocaust survivor and author Solly Ganor's "Conversation on the Beach," had no idea who the author was--man, woman, background, age--nothing. Only now, having read Mr. Ganor's "Kaddish for Zelig," do I understand the full, incredible impact of that conversation between Mr. Ganor and the arrogant Muslim student on an Israeli beach. Read the following article, and then re-read "Conversation on the Beach." Do this, and I promise you that you will finally understand the whole truth about the people of Israel, and the Jewish State. It will put into perspective the media lies, Muslim propaganda, and the Jewish Left's sickeningly wrong perspective. It's long, but you will never have to read another word on this subject again.
I promise you. I promise you.
With every blessing,
Naomi Ragen
http://www.naomiragen.com
KADDISH FOR ZELIG
by Solly Ganor
solganor@netvision.net.il
Holocaust survivor
Israel, June 12, 2002
If I needed a reminder why we live in Israel and cling to it with heart and soul, despite the endless wars and the suicide bombings, this recent journey supplied us with the answer. The flight from Tel Aviv to Munich lasts less than four hours, but my memory takes me back fifty seven years, when I was a teenage slave laborer for the Nazis in one of the outer camps of Dachau. Towards the end of the war, they were so desperately in need of labor that the Nazis reluctantly gave up the idea of gassing all Jews, irrespective of their gender or age.
They continued to gas women with children and old people, but those whom they considered still capable of work, were temporarily spared. They even coined a phrase for those of us: "Vernichtung durch Arbeit"--"Annihilation through Work" In fact, they starved us and made us work twelve hours a day at hard labor, condemning us to a slow agonizing death.
There were in all eleven outer camps of Dachau, where in nine months fifteen thousand Jewish slaves out of a total of thirty thousand, died of starvation, hard labor and beatings by the German supervisors and the SS guards. I was in an outer camp of Dachau, known as Lager X, by Utting, a picturesque little town by the Amersee. Before the war writers and artists used to live there. I was told that the famous Kurt Weil lived there before Hitler came to power.
In July 1944, with the Soviet troops approaching Kaunas ghetto where I was incarcerated for three years, the Nazis transported us half across Europe to Bavaria. There, near the medieval town of Landsberg and surroundings, Hitler decided in the last phases of the war to build gigantic underground factories where the jet fighter Messerschmit M62 was to be built. This was Hitler's promised secret weapon that would sweep the American and British planes out of the German skies.
We, the half starved Jews of Lithuania, Poland, and Hungary were to build these gigantic factories, and perish while building it.
The construction sight was called Moll, named after the owner of the building company, Leonard Moll. I will never forget the day when I first laid eyes on it. We were driving from Utting in a truck, to deliver a load of potatoes . In our camp it was known that the Germans were building some kind of underground factory, and we heard terrible stories about it. We traveled for what seemed like an hour along a tree-lined dirt road. Darkness had fallen, and in the distance we could hear the low grinding roar of heavy machinery. The din increased just before we emerged into a huge clearing lit by the glare of floodlights. The road dropped into a vast excavation, and from it rose an enormous concrete vault, bristling with vertical reinforcing rods so that it looked like some monstrous hedgehog. Narrow railroad tracks curved towards the opening.
The installation was a half-cylinder of concrete, 1,300 feet long and spanning more than 275 feet at the base. It rose some 95 feet into the air at the top of the arch. Under the glaring lights, cranes and bulldozers moved into and around its mouth. Scores of tractors, trucks, and other heavy equipment created an ear-shattering roar. Along the sides, scores of prisoners stood on platforms handling huge flexible hoses that spewed wet cement into the spiked grid work, while others moved about with shovels and buckets. Everywhere we looked we saw what looked like thousands of men in striped uniforms moving about the compound, carrying lumber, iron rods and sacks of cement.
It was like an enormous, evil hive. Even as we watched we heard inhuman screams coming from above. The men who were maneuvering the huge hose had lost their grip, and the pipe began writhing about, spewing concrete in all directions. The men desperately tried to seize it, but it whipped and flailed and knocked several men off their feet. One after another they fell screaming onto the spikes, while the hose poured hundreds of pounds of concrete on top of them. The scene I described took place towards the end of 1944.
The men I saw fall into the concrete are still entombed in its massive construction to this day. Among the men who slaved on this project was my childhood friends Uri Chanoch and Chaim Konwitz, Avraham Fein, Monchik Levin, and many others. Fifty-eight years later we had returned to "Moll" to say Kadish for these men.
One of the man entombed I knew personally. His name was Zelig. I never found out his last name, but I knew he was from a small town in Lithuania. He was one of the "human horses" who were engaged in pulling a food cart from the village of Utting to a German worker's kitchen. I too was a horse, and in all we were four teenagers who were given that job.
The German kitchen was near the site where we were slaving at hard labor, a place known as Dyckerhof and Wydman. (Dyckerhof and Wydman, by the way, is one of the largest construction companies in Germany today.) At that stage of the war, gasoline became a very precious commodity, and we the Jewish slaves, were used as 'horses'. Make no mistake, being a "horse" was a coveted job in the camp, the alternative was to carry hundred pounds of cement on your back, or iron rails to build tracks for the trolleys. There was another advantage in being a "horse" the cart we were pulling was filled with food for the kitchen, and we always managed to scrounge a crust of bread or a bowl of soup in Utting.
Zelig was an ardent Zionist and always talked about how he would work the land of Israel if he ever survived the war. "If I will ever survive this hell and get to the land of Israel, I will kiss every grain of sand, and work twenty four hour a day to build it up," he would say, and he would say it with so much longing in his voice that it had an effect on all of us.
But his wish never came true. He fell into the roof of "Moll" and became entombed with the others, by sheer mistake, and I was there to see him fall. I will never forget his screams as he fell to his horrible death. Fifty-eight years later we stood quietly reciting kadish for the dead and I spoke to Zelig of the land of Israel that he loved so much, and like Moses, never got to see it.
Yes, Zelig, I want to tell you of the true miracle of Israel, that puts to shame the miracles of the Bible. Yes, Zelig, I survived and saw your beloved land. I still remember the mountains of Carmel rising from the morning mist, as our ship approached Haifa.
We were a ship full of penniless Holocaust survivors, and we all sang (what was later to become our National Anthem) the Hatikvah (the Hope) with tears in our eyes. No sooner had we landed on its shore, as we were called to defend the newly proclaimed land of Israel. Five Arab armies descended on us trying to strangle us at our birth.
I will never forget the moment when I was given a rifle and was told by my commanding officer: "This is your land now, defend it with all you have got, for you will never have another chance to have your own country."
And defend it we did, Zelig. Many of us died, some of them the last sons of once glorious Jewish families of Europe, but they died for the only cause worth while fighting for. I was only sorry, Zelig, that you couldn't be there by my side fighting for the land you loved so much. With the onslaught of the combined Arab armies, the world gave us a week to survive and what is more, no one lifted a finger to help us. The Arabs were to finish what Hitler had started.
So what else is new? But the world didn't reckon with one small thing, Zelig.. We were not the defenseless Jews anymore. We were now back in our homeland fighting for the resurrected State of Israel. Against all odds we won the war, and set out to prepare the ground for another million penniless refugees. Jews, who escaped with their lives from the Arabic countries, where they were robbed of their properties, possessions and money.
And soon another million arrived from all over the world, and another million, from Poland and the Baltics. From six hundred thousands in 1948, we grew into a population of two and half million within a few years of the creation of the State. Ironically, when the Jewish Agency asked for sevent-five thousands certificates to save some Jews from Hitler's gas chambers, the British claimed that the country couldn't absorb such a vast number of Jews. That was the infamous White Paper.
The fledgling state soon ran out of money to buy the basic needs for the swelling population. We lived in tents and ate what the small agricultural settlements could provide us with. It wasn't enough, but we weren't starving.
Very soon we began to build a healthy democratic society, creating wealth by our brains and hard work, as the country had no natural resources. Soon Jews from over fifty countries full of enthusiasm came to help build the State of Israel. Our population grew even more, and despite the predictions of international experts, that no country can absorb so many millions without an economical collapse, Israel continued to develop in every field. The Jews, who hadn't tilled the land for two thousands years became experts in agriculture, achieving internationally unprecedented results.
Ironically, the stereotyped Jew, the merchant, the money lender, the usurer, went all over the world to teach agriculture and know-how in many fields, and what is even more ironic, we became experts in warfare. "The people of the book," as we were known for two thousand years, soft and cowardly, as proclaimed by the anti-Semites, soon learned to become experts in that field as well. The fact is, that in 1967, we stunned the world by defeating the combined Arab armies in six days.
The Arab countries, unwilling to accept their defeat in the battlefield, and unwilling to accept us in their midst, launched war after war, trying to eliminate the State of Israel. Every time they suffered crushing defeats, despite their superior numbers and new-technology weapons the Soviets supplied them with.
Today we are a modern society of six million people. The country that once was a mosquito-infested swamp land, or dry desert land, blossomed into a modern society of six million people. From nothing we created a land that not only boasts of the highest standards in every field of achievement, but also developed one of the highest high-tech industries in the world. We export per capita in dollars more than any other country in the world. And we did it all with hard work, brains, and guts.
Yes, Zelig, I always admired you for you love of that distant land called Eretz Israel. I never believed that I could have such emotions for any land. Today, after having fought for it in four bloody wars, and after spending a life time in helping rebuild it, I can finally say that I do share your feelings for the land of Israel. Yes, Zelig, you can be proud of us. We, the survivors of the Holocaust, have risen from the ashes of Europe and helped create the miracle of Israel. Never again will they line us up defenseless before the gas chambers of Europe!
Rest in peace, my friend Zelig, rest in peace.
Herzelia, Israel
June 12, 2002
A Letter from Solly Ganor
Dear Harry,
I thought that I would interest you in an article I wrote after I was invited to Germany by the German government. My book, 'Light One Candle,' was translated into German and was recently introduced to the German High Schools as a study book for the subject on the Holocaust. Therefore I am frequently invited to Germany to give lectures on the Holocaust in German High, universities and even the army and air force.
You can imagine that it is not an easy matter for me to do that, especially the lectures in the German army. Standing before 450 German officers and lecturing them on what their grand parents did to us, is almost a surrealistic scene for me. The uniforms are pretty much the same as they were under the Nazis, and the faces haven't changed much, yet they are different from their grand parents.
One general told me that one of my lectures are worth more than a 1000 hours of learning history. I guess this is what keeps me coming back to Germany.
And the ironic fact that the Germany is almost the only country in Europe that is supporting Israel within the European Union. We desperately need allies there, even if they are Germans. Recently I visited the site by Landsberg, where we were used as forced labor. A friend of mine by the name of Zelig is entombed in the twelve-foot-thick roof that we built during the war. The bunker was meant to be a factory for the German jet fighter Me-62, the first jet to be employed during the war.
Visiting the place brought back bitter memories, one of them, the entombing of Zelig. I call the article 'Kadish for Zelig,' and so far only sent it to some friends. If you think that it would be of interest to put it on your Web site, please do. I think all Jews should read such personal accounts of what happened to us during the Holocaust.
Thanks and Shalom,
Solly
Wednesday, January 01, 2003
THE ROAD TO PERDITION - Is Israel being sold out?
Ruth Matar, Women in Green Radio Program
Arutz Sheva, January 1, 2003
In the Hagadda, the story which Jews read on Passover, it is written:
"For not one only has risen up against us, but in every generation some have risen to annihilate us, but the Most Holy, blessed be He, has delivered us out of their hands."
In the last century, the Nazis thought they were going to succeed in what they planned as the Final Solution of the Jewish Problem, the complete extermination of the Jewish People. In this new century, our enemies, the Russian Federation, the United Nations, the European Union, and the US State Department have conceived of a plan, which will finally put an end to the dangerous ideas of those pesky Jews, to return once again to the land which they keep insisting some deity promised them long ago. Not only that, but these Jews actually have the audacity to build their homes in Judea, Samaria and Gaza where, they claim, remnants of synagogues thousands of years old are proof positive that this is their land.
Okay, the nations of the world say, that was then, now is now. Therefore, these nations of the world have come up with a "Road Map to Permanent Two-State Solution to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict".
* Natan Sharanski calls this plan "a Road Map that leads straight back to Oslo".
* The Jerusalem Post, in an editorial of October 24, 2002, calls it a "Road Map to misery".
* Caroline Glick, Jerusalem Post columnist, calls it a "Roadway to perdition".
I, personally, think that Israel is being sold out! The Russians, the United Nations, the European Union and the US State Department are effectively ganging up against Israel. All the signs are there. Last year, a French Ambassador to England described Israel as feces. A Saudi newspaper—controlled, of course, by the Saudi government--wrote that Jews make holiday pastry with human blood. Tony Blair, supposedly America's main partner in the war against terror, invites the mass murderer Assad of Syria to 10 Downing Street for a cozy chat about Israel, the only obstacle to peace in the Middle East. The British Queen invites this murderer Assad for tea and crumpets in her palace. And the head of the US State Department, Secretary of State Colin Powell, makes a remark which reveals his admiration of Yasser Arafat: "One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter."
Yes, the signs are all there. As A. M. Rosenthal, formerly one of the editors of the New York Times, said in an article in the New York Daily News on April 5, 2002, entitled "Ignore Hate Today, Die Tomorrow", that Jews and Christians have been deceiving themselves that the most violent and virulent anti-Semitism campaign since Hitler has involved only Muslim states. "The noise and stench of hatred are soiling us again, not just from Muslim countries, but from lands we consider our friends."
Rosenthal further says: "Jews, listen and you will hear the sound of breaking glass."
Lately, I have been hearing the sound of breaking glass again. I was a small child at the time of Krystall Nacht in Austria in November of 1938, 64 years ago. No, the Nazis didn't break the glass of the windows of our home. They knew that would be pointless, since our home was to be given in good condition to one of the party faithful. They did, however, break all the windows of our synagogue, where they had herded all the town's Jews. I remember two things very clearly, being terribly cold and so, so hungry. The cold November winds blowing through the broken windows chilled us to the bones as we huddled together on the stone floor. In addition, we were very hungry. They did serve us food. A meat stew that smelled heavenly! But of course, as Jews, we could not eat a stew made with pork. With their fiendish sense of humor, they had put in large chunks of pork to teach us to eat what "normal" people eat.
This is just a small example of the Nazis' hatred and cruelty toward Jews. My brother and sister and I were fortunate to escape on a Kindertransport to Sweden. My parents were also miraculously saved by illegally crossing the Italian border, though they endured great hardship during the war years. Most of the people, however, who were herded into that synagogue together with us on Krystall Nacht, perished in the Holocaust.
I think this is the reason why I stopped doing what I really love to do, which is designing beautiful jewelry and Judaica. Instead, my Belgian-born daughter-in-law, Nadia, and I founded the organization Women for Israel's Tomorrow (Women in Green). Sadly, most of Nadia's family in Belgium was also killed in the Holocaust.
Both Nadia and I were intent from the very beginning to fight those cursed Oslo Accords with all our strength. Nadia, of course, was not born at the time of Krystall Nacht. But, she can well imagine the sound of breaking glass which her family heard before they were transported to the Nazi death camps.
In my opinion, this Road Map will surely lead us down the road to another Holocaust, unless we are able to stop the evil designs of our enemies.
THE ROAD TO PERDITION, Is Israel being sold out?
David Weinberg, Director of Public Affairs, Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar Ilan University, and Elyakim Haetzni, attorney and former Member of Knesset are going to give us their insights about this important subject.
(A recording of this entire program, including the interviews, is available on http://www.israelnationalnews.com Click on "On Demand Audio" on the blue bar.)
We cannot afford to sit around and say: "Well, what can we do about it?"
German Jews asked themselves the same question while the Nazis were coming to power, and then they couldn't even ask the question, because they were being shot, gassed and strangled.
Dissemination of Jew-hate is a prelude to suicide terror just as certainly as making the bomb is the prelude to detonating it.
After meeting with the members of the Quartet to discuss the so-called Road Map a week ago, US President George W. Bush said, "I view the Road Map as a part of the vision that I described, it is a way forward."
A way forward? President Bush should realize that the "Quartet" plan is a stacked deck against Israel and the United States. A prescription for disaster that will have the effect of undermining both countries' security interests. Can President Bush be unaware that his policy is being fundamentally undermined — not least by a member of his own cabinet?
In Israel today, in America tomorrow.
The following quotation by the Philosopher Martin Niemoller is written at the entrance of Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem, and is very relevant today:
"In Germany, they first came for the communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Catholic. Then they came for me, and by that time there was nobody left to speak up."
=============================================
Women For Israel's Tomorrow (Women in Green)
POB 7352, Jerusalem 91072, Israel
Tel: 972-2-624-9887 Fax: 972-2-624-5380
http://www.womeningreen.org
Arutz Sheva, January 1, 2003
In the Hagadda, the story which Jews read on Passover, it is written:
"For not one only has risen up against us, but in every generation some have risen to annihilate us, but the Most Holy, blessed be He, has delivered us out of their hands."
In the last century, the Nazis thought they were going to succeed in what they planned as the Final Solution of the Jewish Problem, the complete extermination of the Jewish People. In this new century, our enemies, the Russian Federation, the United Nations, the European Union, and the US State Department have conceived of a plan, which will finally put an end to the dangerous ideas of those pesky Jews, to return once again to the land which they keep insisting some deity promised them long ago. Not only that, but these Jews actually have the audacity to build their homes in Judea, Samaria and Gaza where, they claim, remnants of synagogues thousands of years old are proof positive that this is their land.
Okay, the nations of the world say, that was then, now is now. Therefore, these nations of the world have come up with a "Road Map to Permanent Two-State Solution to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict".
* Natan Sharanski calls this plan "a Road Map that leads straight back to Oslo".
* The Jerusalem Post, in an editorial of October 24, 2002, calls it a "Road Map to misery".
* Caroline Glick, Jerusalem Post columnist, calls it a "Roadway to perdition".
I, personally, think that Israel is being sold out! The Russians, the United Nations, the European Union and the US State Department are effectively ganging up against Israel. All the signs are there. Last year, a French Ambassador to England described Israel as feces. A Saudi newspaper—controlled, of course, by the Saudi government--wrote that Jews make holiday pastry with human blood. Tony Blair, supposedly America's main partner in the war against terror, invites the mass murderer Assad of Syria to 10 Downing Street for a cozy chat about Israel, the only obstacle to peace in the Middle East. The British Queen invites this murderer Assad for tea and crumpets in her palace. And the head of the US State Department, Secretary of State Colin Powell, makes a remark which reveals his admiration of Yasser Arafat: "One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter."
Yes, the signs are all there. As A. M. Rosenthal, formerly one of the editors of the New York Times, said in an article in the New York Daily News on April 5, 2002, entitled "Ignore Hate Today, Die Tomorrow", that Jews and Christians have been deceiving themselves that the most violent and virulent anti-Semitism campaign since Hitler has involved only Muslim states. "The noise and stench of hatred are soiling us again, not just from Muslim countries, but from lands we consider our friends."
Rosenthal further says: "Jews, listen and you will hear the sound of breaking glass."
Lately, I have been hearing the sound of breaking glass again. I was a small child at the time of Krystall Nacht in Austria in November of 1938, 64 years ago. No, the Nazis didn't break the glass of the windows of our home. They knew that would be pointless, since our home was to be given in good condition to one of the party faithful. They did, however, break all the windows of our synagogue, where they had herded all the town's Jews. I remember two things very clearly, being terribly cold and so, so hungry. The cold November winds blowing through the broken windows chilled us to the bones as we huddled together on the stone floor. In addition, we were very hungry. They did serve us food. A meat stew that smelled heavenly! But of course, as Jews, we could not eat a stew made with pork. With their fiendish sense of humor, they had put in large chunks of pork to teach us to eat what "normal" people eat.
This is just a small example of the Nazis' hatred and cruelty toward Jews. My brother and sister and I were fortunate to escape on a Kindertransport to Sweden. My parents were also miraculously saved by illegally crossing the Italian border, though they endured great hardship during the war years. Most of the people, however, who were herded into that synagogue together with us on Krystall Nacht, perished in the Holocaust.
I think this is the reason why I stopped doing what I really love to do, which is designing beautiful jewelry and Judaica. Instead, my Belgian-born daughter-in-law, Nadia, and I founded the organization Women for Israel's Tomorrow (Women in Green). Sadly, most of Nadia's family in Belgium was also killed in the Holocaust.
Both Nadia and I were intent from the very beginning to fight those cursed Oslo Accords with all our strength. Nadia, of course, was not born at the time of Krystall Nacht. But, she can well imagine the sound of breaking glass which her family heard before they were transported to the Nazi death camps.
In my opinion, this Road Map will surely lead us down the road to another Holocaust, unless we are able to stop the evil designs of our enemies.
THE ROAD TO PERDITION, Is Israel being sold out?
David Weinberg, Director of Public Affairs, Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar Ilan University, and Elyakim Haetzni, attorney and former Member of Knesset are going to give us their insights about this important subject.
(A recording of this entire program, including the interviews, is available on http://www.israelnationalnews.com Click on "On Demand Audio" on the blue bar.)
We cannot afford to sit around and say: "Well, what can we do about it?"
German Jews asked themselves the same question while the Nazis were coming to power, and then they couldn't even ask the question, because they were being shot, gassed and strangled.
Dissemination of Jew-hate is a prelude to suicide terror just as certainly as making the bomb is the prelude to detonating it.
After meeting with the members of the Quartet to discuss the so-called Road Map a week ago, US President George W. Bush said, "I view the Road Map as a part of the vision that I described, it is a way forward."
A way forward? President Bush should realize that the "Quartet" plan is a stacked deck against Israel and the United States. A prescription for disaster that will have the effect of undermining both countries' security interests. Can President Bush be unaware that his policy is being fundamentally undermined — not least by a member of his own cabinet?
In Israel today, in America tomorrow.
The following quotation by the Philosopher Martin Niemoller is written at the entrance of Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem, and is very relevant today:
"In Germany, they first came for the communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Catholic. Then they came for me, and by that time there was nobody left to speak up."
=============================================
Women For Israel's Tomorrow (Women in Green)
POB 7352, Jerusalem 91072, Israel
Tel: 972-2-624-9887 Fax: 972-2-624-5380
http://www.womeningreen.org
Wedding in Jerusalem
By Naomi Ragen
Last night I went to the wedding of my dear friends’ Nancy and Benny's daughter. I've known the bride and her family for many years. And Nancy and I discovered we were both born in the same hospital in Brooklyn a few days apart. The bride and her twin brother were tiny babies when I first met them.
And now that baby girl, Shira – meaning song- was getting married.
Her future husband was a Talmud student in a study program that combined full army service with religious studies in a yeshiva situated in the heart of Biblical Israel, Samaria (A place our enemies call “illegal settlements”) . It is a yeshiva very similar to Otniel, which less than a week ago was invaded by terrorists with machine guns and hand grenades who killed four students in cold blood, and injured nine more.
Here I was, surrounded by these boys – soldiers and bible students—over a hundred of them, all invited by the groom to the wedding. In my minds’ eye, I could see the dining room in Otniel filled with these faces, dressed in the white shirts that are Sabbath and wedding day finery according to the mores of these modest, religious people.
Security was very tight. We were not in a settlement, we where in the heart of downtown Jerusalem. And Palestinians, who so far haven’t been persuaded by the Israeli left to kill just Israelis over the mythical green line, consider all of us in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Netanya, Haifa, Kfar Saba, Afula, Beit Shean, etc. etc. fair game for slaughter anytime, anyplace. Bible study, wedding, Bar Mitzvah, Passover Seder, Yom Kippur, sabbath meal. While the Western world has great delicacy when it comes to fighting terror “during the Holy month of Ramadan” Muslims themselves have no such sensitivity in halting their murderous activities during Ramadan, or any other day or occasion holy to other religions.
So here we were at a wedding, surrounded by armed guards. There was a pick up truck from the security company parked at the entrance, with a guard standing up in the open back with a machine gun. And there were metal barriers, and armed guards at all the entrances, with metal detectors, who checked our bags and coats and gifts, and back packs, then smiled and waved us through. And none of us wedding guests thought there was anything unusual about it. In fact, we were grateful.
And as the groom walked towards the seated bride, to perform the traditional “bedecking”, in which he takes the veil and covers her face (a custom which comes from the unfortunate experience of Patriarch Jacob who got Leah when he wanted Rachel, so now Jewish grooms make sure it’s the girl they had in mind before she puts on the veil…) the room filled with the roar of joyous song and the rhythm of hundreds of clapping hands. The music of flutes filled the air. We all then went outside in the cold Jerusalem night, another custom, to hold the wedding canopy under the stars.
There, again, the guards again kept watch from all sides. A guest, a massive fellow in a grey and red mustache, held a cherubic blonde two year old on his shoulders so the child could see. Grandfather and grandson, I thought, missing my own grandchildren. And I realized how much life is made up of such small, meaningful things. Sitting on your grandfather’s shoulders watching a wedding in Jerusalem. Holding a grandchild by his little legs. And when the blessings were made, the wine drunk, and the sound of rejoicing filled the night air, I thought: They can force us to hire armed guards for our weddings. They can force us to attend the funerals of young men and women, our sons and daughters, but they can’t stop can’t stop us from getting married, and starting new families, and singing and dancing, and filling Jerusalem’s night air with blessings.
They cannot.
But I wondered, how it must be for these boys, after burying their friends, after suffering such a clear example of what they all are facing in their own community and yeshiva, to now be celebrating. Were they totally able to free themselves from the terror, the mourning, the sorrow, to let their hearts rejoice for their friend at his wedding? Was such a thing possible, or even desirable?
Later, I got my answer.
It was something I’d never seen before at a wedding. Half the boys suddenly sat down on the floor. The rest, including all the men at the wedding, all the Rabbis, all the grandfathers, made a circle and walked around the room and the seated boys, hands on each other’s shoulders. In the very center sat the groom, who led the singing.
The music, unlike most traditional wedding songs, was slow. The movement around the room, slow. I strained to make out the words, and finally I did. They were the words of the traditional blessing from Grace after Meals, words we Jews say three times or more a day:
“Have compassion, O God, upon Israel Your people, upon Jerusalem, Your City, upon Zion, the Abode of Your glory, upon the kingdom of the House of David. O, our Father”—the men sang , and we women formed our own separate circle, shoulder to shoulder, united physically, and with one voice, we sang:” tend us, feed us, sustain us, nourish us, relieve us, and speedily grant us relief, O God, our God, from all our troubles.”
As I looked at the groom and his friends, as I saw the bride and hers, all singing these words, I understood that our enemies are never going to defeat us. Never. Because a people that can bury its dead, and rejoice in its living, and who can move forward into the future without forgetting either is a people that cannot be defeated by bullets or bombs or hatred or evil. It is a people who lives to give light to the world, and that light, despite the efforts of our enemies and those who support them—shines on.
While the world celebrated the beginning of a New Year with noisy blasts of fireworks and confetti, here in Jerusalem we quietly, meaningfully, celebrated the beginning of a new Jewish family. We did it with love, and faith, and trust in the future, asking God for his compassion and His blessing for His people. May He grant it to the young couple, to us, and to all who understand and rejoice in the difference between Israel and her enemies.
Sent by Naomi Ragen
http://www.naomiragen.com
Last night I went to the wedding of my dear friends’ Nancy and Benny's daughter. I've known the bride and her family for many years. And Nancy and I discovered we were both born in the same hospital in Brooklyn a few days apart. The bride and her twin brother were tiny babies when I first met them.
And now that baby girl, Shira – meaning song- was getting married.
Her future husband was a Talmud student in a study program that combined full army service with religious studies in a yeshiva situated in the heart of Biblical Israel, Samaria (A place our enemies call “illegal settlements”) . It is a yeshiva very similar to Otniel, which less than a week ago was invaded by terrorists with machine guns and hand grenades who killed four students in cold blood, and injured nine more.
Here I was, surrounded by these boys – soldiers and bible students—over a hundred of them, all invited by the groom to the wedding. In my minds’ eye, I could see the dining room in Otniel filled with these faces, dressed in the white shirts that are Sabbath and wedding day finery according to the mores of these modest, religious people.
Security was very tight. We were not in a settlement, we where in the heart of downtown Jerusalem. And Palestinians, who so far haven’t been persuaded by the Israeli left to kill just Israelis over the mythical green line, consider all of us in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Netanya, Haifa, Kfar Saba, Afula, Beit Shean, etc. etc. fair game for slaughter anytime, anyplace. Bible study, wedding, Bar Mitzvah, Passover Seder, Yom Kippur, sabbath meal. While the Western world has great delicacy when it comes to fighting terror “during the Holy month of Ramadan” Muslims themselves have no such sensitivity in halting their murderous activities during Ramadan, or any other day or occasion holy to other religions.
So here we were at a wedding, surrounded by armed guards. There was a pick up truck from the security company parked at the entrance, with a guard standing up in the open back with a machine gun. And there were metal barriers, and armed guards at all the entrances, with metal detectors, who checked our bags and coats and gifts, and back packs, then smiled and waved us through. And none of us wedding guests thought there was anything unusual about it. In fact, we were grateful.
And as the groom walked towards the seated bride, to perform the traditional “bedecking”, in which he takes the veil and covers her face (a custom which comes from the unfortunate experience of Patriarch Jacob who got Leah when he wanted Rachel, so now Jewish grooms make sure it’s the girl they had in mind before she puts on the veil…) the room filled with the roar of joyous song and the rhythm of hundreds of clapping hands. The music of flutes filled the air. We all then went outside in the cold Jerusalem night, another custom, to hold the wedding canopy under the stars.
There, again, the guards again kept watch from all sides. A guest, a massive fellow in a grey and red mustache, held a cherubic blonde two year old on his shoulders so the child could see. Grandfather and grandson, I thought, missing my own grandchildren. And I realized how much life is made up of such small, meaningful things. Sitting on your grandfather’s shoulders watching a wedding in Jerusalem. Holding a grandchild by his little legs. And when the blessings were made, the wine drunk, and the sound of rejoicing filled the night air, I thought: They can force us to hire armed guards for our weddings. They can force us to attend the funerals of young men and women, our sons and daughters, but they can’t stop can’t stop us from getting married, and starting new families, and singing and dancing, and filling Jerusalem’s night air with blessings.
They cannot.
But I wondered, how it must be for these boys, after burying their friends, after suffering such a clear example of what they all are facing in their own community and yeshiva, to now be celebrating. Were they totally able to free themselves from the terror, the mourning, the sorrow, to let their hearts rejoice for their friend at his wedding? Was such a thing possible, or even desirable?
Later, I got my answer.
It was something I’d never seen before at a wedding. Half the boys suddenly sat down on the floor. The rest, including all the men at the wedding, all the Rabbis, all the grandfathers, made a circle and walked around the room and the seated boys, hands on each other’s shoulders. In the very center sat the groom, who led the singing.
The music, unlike most traditional wedding songs, was slow. The movement around the room, slow. I strained to make out the words, and finally I did. They were the words of the traditional blessing from Grace after Meals, words we Jews say three times or more a day:
“Have compassion, O God, upon Israel Your people, upon Jerusalem, Your City, upon Zion, the Abode of Your glory, upon the kingdom of the House of David. O, our Father”—the men sang , and we women formed our own separate circle, shoulder to shoulder, united physically, and with one voice, we sang:” tend us, feed us, sustain us, nourish us, relieve us, and speedily grant us relief, O God, our God, from all our troubles.”
As I looked at the groom and his friends, as I saw the bride and hers, all singing these words, I understood that our enemies are never going to defeat us. Never. Because a people that can bury its dead, and rejoice in its living, and who can move forward into the future without forgetting either is a people that cannot be defeated by bullets or bombs or hatred or evil. It is a people who lives to give light to the world, and that light, despite the efforts of our enemies and those who support them—shines on.
While the world celebrated the beginning of a New Year with noisy blasts of fireworks and confetti, here in Jerusalem we quietly, meaningfully, celebrated the beginning of a new Jewish family. We did it with love, and faith, and trust in the future, asking God for his compassion and His blessing for His people. May He grant it to the young couple, to us, and to all who understand and rejoice in the difference between Israel and her enemies.
Sent by Naomi Ragen
http://www.naomiragen.com
Saturday, December 28, 2002
Arafat Takes On bin Laden
By Joseph Farah
Well, if we're to believe what we heard last week, Yasser Arafat is angry at Osama bin Laden. Arafat says he doesn't want the al-Qaida terrorist hiding behind "the Palestinian cause."
He denounced the Sept. 11 terror attacks on the United States, and explained how his struggle against Israel is different than the one being waged by bin Laden against the West. It was all very persuasive if you didn't know a thing about Arafat's history.
· For years, Arafat has attended meetings with terrorists from all over the world including bin Laden.
· He has used his Palestinian Authority subsidized by taxpayer dollars from the United States, to whip up hatred among his people for not only Israelis, but for all Jews and for all Americans. (Just recall the celebrations in the streets of Ramallah and Gaza as the World Trade Center collapsed.)
· Arafat is a professional liar and con man (aside from being a bloody murderer).
· Arafat has forged unholy alliances with many Islamist terror groups and individuals throughout his career while proclaiming to be at war with those forces.
To understand what I am telling you, you have to have some knowledge of Marxist principles particularly the Hegelian dialectic. An idea or event generates its opposite, leading to a reconciliation of opposites, or a synthesis. That is how progress is achieved through conflict, whether it's real conflict or phony conflict, manufactured by two or more conspirators.
When you see a schism develop between Arafat and some other terrorist group be ot Hamas or Hizbollah or al-Qaida understand what is at work. There is no schism. It's not real. They are play-acting. They are reading off the same page. It's the dialectic at work. The fix is in.
Arafat received training in these principles not only in the old Soviet Union, but from his friends in Vietnam, his friends in China, his friends in the hideously repressive Stalinist regime of Romania under Nicolae Ceausescu and others. He may not be a Marxist, but he has learned the lessons that made the discredited ideology a force in the world.
Arafat is playing a shrewd game - shrewd enough to have fooled top diplomats in the United States and leaders in Israel for the last 10 years or more. Whenever he's on the ropes, whenever he is about to lose power, because he has gone too far on his bloody terrorist campaign, whenever he is about to relegated to the ash heap, he resurrects himself and reinvents himself as a peacemaker and moderate in the Arab world. That is what he is attempting to do, once again, by distancing himself from bin Laden. He sees the handwriting on the wall.
One of his best friends in the Arab world, Saddam Hussein also one of bin Laden's steadiest supporters, is about to become pita toast. He doesn't want to join Hussein in exile,in hiding or in hell. He knows the U.S. is amassing a military force in the Middle East that is capable of overrunning the entire region - if that was a desire of U.S.policy. He knows the map of the region is about to be redrawn. Iraq could be as pacified and as liberated as Afghanistan within 90 days. Where will that leave Arafat?
If Arafat is as supportive of Hussein and Iraq as he was in the first Persian Gulf War, it would leave him irrelevant. He made that mistake once. He won't make it a second time.
Let's remember that it was Arafat who came before bin Laden. There would be no bin Laden without Arafat. Arafat is the godfather of Arab terrorism. He invented it. It was under his orders that the first commercial airliners were hijacked. It was under his orders that U.S. diplomats and other civilians were murdered. It was under his orders that Olympic athletes were killed. It was under his orders that hundreds of innocent Americans and thousands of innocent Israelis have perished.
There is no difference between bin Laden and Arafat. Let me repeat that for emphasis: There is no difference between bin Laden and Arafat.
Arafat led the way, set the example and benefited from his 40-year campaign of terrorism. Bin Laden just took it a step further. He executed it with more precision, more daring, and higher death tolls. But he still learned from Arafat and they both serve the same master.
Well, if we're to believe what we heard last week, Yasser Arafat is angry at Osama bin Laden. Arafat says he doesn't want the al-Qaida terrorist hiding behind "the Palestinian cause."
He denounced the Sept. 11 terror attacks on the United States, and explained how his struggle against Israel is different than the one being waged by bin Laden against the West. It was all very persuasive if you didn't know a thing about Arafat's history.
· For years, Arafat has attended meetings with terrorists from all over the world including bin Laden.
· He has used his Palestinian Authority subsidized by taxpayer dollars from the United States, to whip up hatred among his people for not only Israelis, but for all Jews and for all Americans. (Just recall the celebrations in the streets of Ramallah and Gaza as the World Trade Center collapsed.)
· Arafat is a professional liar and con man (aside from being a bloody murderer).
· Arafat has forged unholy alliances with many Islamist terror groups and individuals throughout his career while proclaiming to be at war with those forces.
To understand what I am telling you, you have to have some knowledge of Marxist principles particularly the Hegelian dialectic. An idea or event generates its opposite, leading to a reconciliation of opposites, or a synthesis. That is how progress is achieved through conflict, whether it's real conflict or phony conflict, manufactured by two or more conspirators.
When you see a schism develop between Arafat and some other terrorist group be ot Hamas or Hizbollah or al-Qaida understand what is at work. There is no schism. It's not real. They are play-acting. They are reading off the same page. It's the dialectic at work. The fix is in.
Arafat received training in these principles not only in the old Soviet Union, but from his friends in Vietnam, his friends in China, his friends in the hideously repressive Stalinist regime of Romania under Nicolae Ceausescu and others. He may not be a Marxist, but he has learned the lessons that made the discredited ideology a force in the world.
Arafat is playing a shrewd game - shrewd enough to have fooled top diplomats in the United States and leaders in Israel for the last 10 years or more. Whenever he's on the ropes, whenever he is about to lose power, because he has gone too far on his bloody terrorist campaign, whenever he is about to relegated to the ash heap, he resurrects himself and reinvents himself as a peacemaker and moderate in the Arab world. That is what he is attempting to do, once again, by distancing himself from bin Laden. He sees the handwriting on the wall.
One of his best friends in the Arab world, Saddam Hussein also one of bin Laden's steadiest supporters, is about to become pita toast. He doesn't want to join Hussein in exile,in hiding or in hell. He knows the U.S. is amassing a military force in the Middle East that is capable of overrunning the entire region - if that was a desire of U.S.policy. He knows the map of the region is about to be redrawn. Iraq could be as pacified and as liberated as Afghanistan within 90 days. Where will that leave Arafat?
If Arafat is as supportive of Hussein and Iraq as he was in the first Persian Gulf War, it would leave him irrelevant. He made that mistake once. He won't make it a second time.
Let's remember that it was Arafat who came before bin Laden. There would be no bin Laden without Arafat. Arafat is the godfather of Arab terrorism. He invented it. It was under his orders that the first commercial airliners were hijacked. It was under his orders that U.S. diplomats and other civilians were murdered. It was under his orders that Olympic athletes were killed. It was under his orders that hundreds of innocent Americans and thousands of innocent Israelis have perished.
There is no difference between bin Laden and Arafat. Let me repeat that for emphasis: There is no difference between bin Laden and Arafat.
Arafat led the way, set the example and benefited from his 40-year campaign of terrorism. Bin Laden just took it a step further. He executed it with more precision, more daring, and higher death tolls. But he still learned from Arafat and they both serve the same master.
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