The Sanctity of the Day

By  Irwin Blank

On the evening of May 1st, Israelis will begin to mark Yom Ha Shoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day.

It is a day when we remember the destruction of an entire civilization. The world of European Jewry came to an end in gas chambers, crematorium and countless ditches and rivers. We remember people like us slaughtered without mercy or cause, simply because they were Jews, It didn’t matter if they were orthodox or atheist, Zionist or communist, healthy or disabled, rich or poor, old or young, man or woman, even babes in their mothers’ arms were pitted on bayonets.

An estimated one third of the Jews of the world were brutally exterminated. Two thirds of the Jews of Europe, 90% of Poland’s Jews, were all to meet in mass graves or have their ashes dumped in rivers, lakes or plowed under with bulldozers.

First, they lost their civil right and then they were robbed of all their property and possessions, forced into ghettos and traumatized with disease, starvation and slave labour-before they were transported to the death factories.

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Who is guilty?

Is it the German Nazis and their henchmen who perpetrated these atrocities? Absolutely. The Nazis who along with all those who benefited from the slaughtered? Of course. But there is more. The world is guilty.

The British who closed off the gates to what was then mandate Palestine, the ancestral homeland, to those fleeing from the killers.

The Americans who denied visas to those who desperately sought asylum in the land of immigrants. Even their fellow Jews who in their comfortable safety in many nations, were fearful to demonstrate in their millions to cry out for their trapped brethren. Silence was not golden; it was a death sentence. Whatever happened to the biblical exhortation “Thy shall not stand idly by thy brother’s blood?”

There will be many fine speeches and many calls of “Never Again,” but I want to make this more personal.

My mother’s parents were lucky enough to have left Europe many years before the Holocaust. My maternal grandmother and her brothers and sister left the Polish city of Przemsyl, after the area was ravaged during WW I. Their family had been successful for middle class Jews in Poland, owning a flour mill and fruit orchards. My grandmother often told me of how, as a child, she and her siblings would catch fish in the stream that powered their father’s mill where the local peasants would bring their grain to be ground into flour. Had there not been the destruction wrought by the war, they would have remained in Poland and I would never have been born, and they would have ended up, like the other Jews of Przemsyl, in the death camp at Birkenau.

My mother’s father, my Zaide, was born in Vienna. The son of a family of furriers, well off by most standards and fiercely proud of being part of the Germanic world. My grandfather served in the Kaiser’s army during the Great War as a cavalryman and fought against the Allied armies of America, England and France. Why did his family leave a prosperous existence? They were by no means religious Jews, but, as they would say, “Germans of the Mosaic persuasion.” But the raging anti-Semitism after the war, when the new nations that emerged after the dismemberment of the old Austro-Hungarian Empire were feeling their birth pangs, the new nativist parties descended on their minorities with a vengeance and the Jews of Austria caught the enmity of their neighbors in their faces. Regardless of my grandfather’s service in the military, he was beaten and broken by the hatred and his family also left for the shores of America and arrived at the gates of New York.

My father’s family left Kaminetz-Podolsk in the Ukraine, after the Bolshevik revolution. My paternal grandfather was a bootmaker and had a small shop where he made all types of leather goods from boots and shoes to harnesses for horses. The Soviets took his shop and called him a lousy “Zhid,” Russian for “dirty Jew”. When I first heard this story, as a small boy, I couldn’t understand why they hated this man, with his shining blue eyes, quick smile and warm embrace. But, now I know, that they did him a favour because it motivated him along with my grandmother and my father, his two brothers and baby sister, to make the trek that ended up in an apartment building in the Bronx, weirdly, not that far from where my mother was living as her family also lived not far away.

So, for me, because my family took an often hazardous and dangerous sea voyage across the Atlantic, I eventually came to be. I used to tell my students when I was teaching children in my temple, that for want of a sea voyage, many of them would never have been born-including their esteemed teacher.

That is not to say that I didn’t lose hundreds of cousins who weren’t fortunate enough to have left Europe, and even though I never knew them, I grieve for them.

Only G-d knows how many souls were destroyed, how many artists, musicians, doctors, teachers, went up as greasy smoke in the crematoriums of the death camps, or were machine gunned and fell into muddy pits all over the European continent. Was the cure for cancer murdered at Majdenek, or burned at the stake at Kluga, or drowned in the Danube? Was anyone of them my kith and kin?

But as a people we have survived and thrived. We have rebuilt our sovereignty in our own homeland, and I am doubly blessed to be alive and living in the land of our ancestors. I wake up and see the flag flying from the pole in front of the elementary school across the street; I see and hear beautiful Israeli children schlepping their book bags to classes, laughing and talking in Hebrew. I watch as young men and women in the uniform of the IDF standing at the bus stop on their way back to their bases and, most importantly, I know that every day the sun rises over a free, proud and independent Jewish state and blesses her people with a bright, shining “boker tov” that another Holocaust shall never happen to this people again. We continue – not in mourning for what was lost, but in celebrating of being alive, free and forever Israeli.

 

 

image001 (11).pngIrwin Blank was born in NYC in 1952 and has a BA in Political Science from Colombia University NY. He was part of the Speakers’ Bureau American Zionist Youth Foundation and editor of the Zionost Organization of America. He made Aliyah in July 2008 and lives in Maaleh Adumim.

 

 

 

 

Why Is There Anti-Semitism?

Has Jan Smuts’ Great-Grandchild, Philip Weyers, hit the nail on the head?

By Peter Bailey

As we commemorate Yom HaShoah, in memory of  the six million Jews who perished in the Holocaust it is appropriate to readdress the question frequently asked:

 “Why it is that Jews have been singled out for a particular kind of hatred by diverse groups of people over two millennia?”

There are, and have been many prominent individuals, such as Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad and British Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, who appear to hate Jews for no good reason, other than their Jewishness. However, the establishment of the State of Israel 70 years ago has proved a game changer. No longer do we only witness acts of anti-Semitism against Jewish individuals and property, but the Jewish State of Israel has become a prime target. The world can almost be divided into those countries that are vehemently opposed to Israel, denying its right to exist, and those that tolerate its existence for political expediency. The reality is that Jews in general, and Israel in particular, have few genuine friends in the international community, which brings me back to my opening question as to why that should be.

During my research, I come across long forgotten articles or facts dating back many decades, elements of which are as relevant today, as they were when published. One such article, was published on 8 February 1920, by no less a person than British master statesman, Sir Winston Churchill, titled ‘Zionism versus Bolshevism’ – A Struggle for the Soul of the Jewish People. The date of the article is important, as it follows a few years after the publication of the Balfour Declaration by the British Government and mere weeks after the Treaty of Versailles, the terms for the end of WWI, came into effect.

Included in the Treaty of Versailles was the Balfour Declaration, giving the establishment of a Jewish Homeland the international stamp of approval.

Palestine had a population of about 800,000 when Churchill wrote his article, while the global Jewish population stood at around 14 million, from which we can infer that Churchill saw Palestine, at best, as a symbolic home for the Jewish people. Certainly not the independent State of Israel, often referred to as the Innovation Nation – a world leader in science and technology. Despite his brilliance and acknowledged foresight, he would be amazed to find that Israel is now a fully-fledged state where more than half the global Jewish population of about 15 million reside.

The Palestine that Churchill referred to was the whole of what became Mandate Palestine, which currently comprises Jordan, Israel and the disputed territory, which was illegally annexed by Jordan on 24 April 1950, and renamed the West Bank, while modern Israel comprises only 17% of the original area that was intended to become Mandate Palestine.

Churchill would be truly amazed that such a small area today sustains such a large percentage of world Jewry.  

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Anyway, I forwarded the article to my good friend in South Africa, Philip Weyers – a great-grandson of General Jan Christiaan Smuts, former Prime Minister of South Africa and a great friend of Winston Churchill the two having first met during the Anglo Boer War of 1899, albeit on opposing sides, and then as fellow members of the British Imperial War cabinet during both WWI and WWII. Together with British Prime Minister Lloyd George and Foreign Minister Arthur Balfour, they shared a common belief in the importance and necessity of the establishment of a Jewish Homeland in Palestine. Smuts played an important role in the wording of the Balfour Declaration and its acceptance by the Imperial War Cabinet.

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Lovers Of Zion. Philip Weyers next to a statue of his great- grandfather, General Jan Christiaan Smuts.

The tone of Churchill’s article is set by the opening statement which reads:

 “Some people like Jews and some do not; but no thoughtful man can doubt the fact that they are beyond all question the most formidable and the most remarkable race which has ever appeared in the world.”

The reply from Philip Weyers after he had read the article, really got me thinking that he might well have hit the nail on the head. Philip had this to say:

“Interesting that Churchill did not think Palestine would be big enough to accommodate ‘more than a fraction’ of the world’s Jews. I reckon he did not know about the resourcefulness of Jews to transform desert into very habitable areas. The world will continue to underestimate Jews as they have done for millennia, and when the Jews rise above expectations the response is often pure anti-Semitism.”

Could this be it –  when Jews “rise above expectations” – that it is all about jealously’?

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From Jan To Yitzchak. Kibbutz Ramat Yohanan founded in 1932 is named after Jan Smuts – a strong supporter of Zionism. In 1941, Yitzhak Rabin joined the Palmach section of the Haganah during his stay at kibbutz Ramat Yohanan.

It is certainly no accident that twelve Israelis have won Nobel Prizes, three for peace efforts, while the rest for literature, science, medicine and economics. The development of many of the scientific and medical innovations that currently prolong or improve the quality of millions of lives daily – an ongoing process since modern Israel came into being 70 years ago.

During the same period, the surrounding Arab states – with about 430 million inhabitants – have managed to produce six Nobel Laureates, four of them for the peace that perpetually eludes the Middle East.

Let me end off by saying that by replacing the hatred and vitriol with an acceptance of Israel as a fixture in the region, rather than the never ending threats to annihilate the country and its people, would allow Israel to offer so much that could enhance the lives of the millions citizens throughout the Middle East and beyond.

 

 

image006 (4).pngPeter Bailey, who grew up in the South African gold mining town of Brakpan, first appeared in print at the age of 10 with two poems appearing  in the SA Outspan and Farmer’s Weekly. He speaks extensively on the Jewish contribution to South African military history and is the author of ‘Smuts, the Anonymous Figure Behind the Balfour Declaration’ and ‘Street Names In Israel’.

 

 

* Feature picture – AP Photo/Gil Michel

Antisemitism – Metastasizing Hatred

By  Rolene Marks

Everyday. Everyday we are reminded that it is everywhere. The cancerous hatred that is antisemitism is rapidly metastasizing around the world.

It has manifested in the images of swastikas on schools, the defilement of monuments to the Holocaust, the thin disguise as anti-Zionism – as if telling us that we have no right to self-determination as a nation makes it better!

The new phenomenon of politicised antisemitism that lurks the halls of the UK Labour Party, as well as the ill-disguised venom of the Ilhan Omar’s, Linda Sarsours et al that are pervading American discourse. The soccer thugs chanting “Jews to the gas” and the repugnant images of the hook-nosed, money hungry Jews, the vile BDS campaigns against our state Israel, the institutionalised obsessive hatred in the UN and in NGOs who have forgotten about the oppressed of the world with their disproportionate focus on Israel.

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Two Faced. Two new faces on a contrived crusade against Israel – Ilhan Omar and Linda Sarsour.

As I write this, it a matter of hours since news broke of yet another shooting in a synagogue in the USA. This time at the Poway Chabad in San Diego, killing one and wounding others. The attack occurred six months to the day of the deadly Pittsburgh synagogue shooting that claimed the lives of eleven. Communities around the world are reeling because an attack on one is an attack on us all.

Antisemitism is visible in WASP, exclusionary snobbery and the trolls on social media who hide behind avatars and cowardice. Social media is fast becoming the playground of the hater evident in the number of posts and comments as the medium is abused by these perpetrators to state their intentions or publish their manifestoes.

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Breaking News, Breaking Hearts. Jew-hating gunman fires upon congregants in Poway Chabad, San Diego during the Jewish festival of Passover.

Every day. Everyday more news breaks about antisemitic incidents on university campuses. It is not just restricted to students but also faculty members and universities who seek to divest from co-operation with Israeli universities. While volumes can be written about this, two recent examples include:

– South Africa’s top university, the University of Cape Town (UCT) mulling an academic and cultural boycott of Israel. A resolution to this effect will be further addresed by UCT’s Senate on the 10th May.

– a chemistry professor from Vermont’s Middlebury University who posed the following question to his class:

Calculate the lethal dose of poisonous gas that was used in the Nazi gas chambers during the Holocaust.” He has been suspended but antisemitism is becoming mainstream and it is our duty to fight it.

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The Madding Crowd. Protestors call for the severing of diplomatic ties with Israel during a march in Cape Town, South Africa. (photo credit: MIKE HUTCHINGS / REUTERS)

Every day. Every day we see how more and more complicit the media is becoming in disseminating anti-Jewish rhetoric. It is alarming that many media outlets cannot seem to make the correlation between some of their content and rising antisemitism. The most  recent example of this is a cartoon published in the international edition of the New York  Times that shows a blind Donald Trump, yarmulke on his head, being led by Netanyahu who is portrayed as a dog. This could quite easily have come from Der Sturmer circa 1939 and again traffics in a dangerous trope that was espoused by the Nazi’s and many hatemongers today who compare Jews as either controlling global leaders or as inhuman and like animals.

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The New York Times international edition published this offensive cartoon that has led to widespread condemnation for trafficking in antisemitism.

The New York Times offered a weak apology that excluded “we are sorry”.

Every day. It is happening every day and the silence of the world that has not learnt from the history of the Holocaust is deafening. Today, space has been created for Holocaust revisionism and blatant denial. This is the greatest insult to the Jewish people and compounds an already spreading hatred that must be fought. This week as we approach Yom HaShoah -Holocaust Martyrs and heroes Day in Israel – we are reminded again of what happens when hatred goes unchecked. It spreads like the malignant, rapidly metastasizing cancer that it is.

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Caricatures in Aalst, Belgium are reminiscent of medieval antisemitism

Every day we need a reminder.  We need to be reminded that the Holocaust started with words – not gas chambers. We need to be reminded that hatred and intolerance is not just a Jewish issue, it belongs to us all.

The time is now. Do we choose to stay silent and complicit or raise our voices and take a stand? After the Holocaust we declared NEVER AGAIN. Never again has become every day. Whether it is the far left or the alt-right, political figures or campus activists, the media or non-governmental organisations and once-revered global institutions, this hatred needs to be checked.

NEVER AGAIN – well, it is happening again. Everyday. ENOUGH is ENOUGH

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Down To The Wire. ‘Never Again’ should mean ‘never again’.

 

My Name Is Rella Krok

By Martine Alperstein

My Name is Rella Krok. I was born in the small town of Rakashik, Lithuanian in 1918. My father Yankel Krok was a leather merchant. He was a wealthy man and upstanding member of the community. My mother, Dvora Gruniye (nee Assness) took care of us all. We were six kids – Ettie, Ollie, Yaakov, Zalman, Sonya, Sima and me. I was the baby.

I was the lucky one.

Ettie married Mendel Maron – and Ollie married David Yaakov. The young couples made the long sea journey to Cape Town, South Africa, where their children were born. The pain of separation was excruciating.

The rest of us stayed.

I finished school and went on to study nursing. I was living in the ghetto of Kovna and working in the hospital nearby.  The atmosphere was tense. Everyone was afraid. I was engaged to be married to a fine young man. He wanted to escape. He decided to run. He was going to cross the border of Lithuania and keep going until he was safe.

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Kovno Ghetto

He begged me to run with him. I refused. I could not leave my home, my family.

He was shot dead near the border.

One of my colleagues, a Gentile doctor in the hospital, approached me quietly. He told me that if I was ever in trouble to come to him.

People were starving. There was no food. I made a decision. That night I was going to look for bread. I removed my yellow star and snuck out after dark. I found someone willing to sell me some bread. I hid it under my thick winter coat. I was almost back in the ghetto when I was caught by soldiers. I was terrified. What now? They took me to a room somewhere and locked the door. They told me to strip naked. I did. I was shaking from fear. Are they going to rape me? Are they going to murder me? They forced me to lean over and they whipped me. It was agony. The humiliation more than the pain. They told me to get dressed again. They had had their fun. They dumped me back in the ghetto, without the precious bread. Everyone was still hungry.

What now? What next?

I approached the Gentile doctor. I told him I need a place to hide. He did not hesitate.

I spent the next two years in a tiny crevice dug below the basement floorboards. I never saw daylight. The Gentile doctor’s wife was angry that he had brought me into their home and endangered their lives. She was terrified. I was hidden from their children. They lived in fear that the neighbours would hear a noise. I was alone all day and most of the night in this tiny little hole. Once a day, late after dark, they let me out to relieve myself and eat. I was embarrassed and ashamed to use a pot. A pot that the doctor’s wife had used to empty and clean. A meal was raw potato skins and hard bread. But a meal it was.

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Fate Sealed. In August 1941, German authorities sealed off the Kovno ghetto, with approximately 30,000 Jewish inhabitants.

I owe them my life. I survived.

After the liberation, I returned to Rakashik to my family home, hoping and praying that I would find my family alive. It was not my family I found. The Lithuanian neighbours had claimed our family home. It was now theirs. I begged them for knowledge of my family – of their whereabouts. They would not let me in.  They slammed the door in my face, so I knocked again. My mother’s Lithuanian neighbor and friend opened the door and threw some of my mother’s belongings at me. My mother’s winter coat. My mother’s starched white linen. I sobbed. She threw my mother’s things at me and told me to go.

My old school friends crossed the street to avoid me.

My brother’s twin infant boys were cared for by a Nanny. She adored those boys. A streak of hope…. Maybe she took them to be her own. Maybe my nephews were alive. Maybe they were safe and sound. I started to run. I ran all the way to her house and knocked on the door.  But I was wrong.

They were all dead. My family had not survived.

My sisters Ettie and Ollie sent me a ticket to Cape Town. I travelled by boat. I was with them for nearly a year. They begged me to stay, to settle in South Africa, to be close to them. I refused. I would not. I could not.

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My Bobba Ethel on the left with glasses & Aunty Rele on the right….

I made Aliyah and settled in Petach Tikva. I found a job at HaSharon Hospital as a surgical nurse. There was no other place for me. Israel was now my home. Israel was now MY home. Here I was safe. I would always be safe.  I was safe for 60 plus years.

I died August 2004. I was 86 years old. I died of old age.

I am buried in the Yarkon Cemetery. I have a grave.

 

 

facebook_1556193840564.jpgMartine Maron Alperstein made aliyah from Cape Town 21yrs ago. She currently resides in Modiin with her husband, kids and kitty cats.

 

 

The Israel Brief – 22-24 April 2019

 

The Israel Brief – 22 April 2019 – Sri Lanka terror attacks. Ukraine has a Jewish President and Netanyahu coalition negotiation.

 

 

 

The Israel Brief – 23 April 2019 – Seder in Warsaw. Catholic Church condemns antiSemitism. UK Labour Party MP tweet. US offers 10$Million for info on Hizbollah

 

 

 

The Israel Brief – 24 April 2019 – Chabad Rabbi robbed in Kenya. Kushner talks peace plan. Families of Israelis lost on Air Ethiopia crash still waiting for remains of loved ones.

 

 

 

Massacres in Sri Lanka

Four Hotels Full of Foreigners; Three Churches Full of Christians – a setup for mass murder

 

By David E. Kaplan

From fallen masonry in Paris to fallen lives in Sri Lanka it has been a devastating week.

While an electric fault may explain the Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris blaze, few were quick to speculate who exactly was behind the mass murder in Sri Lanka that so far has taken 260 lives and inflicted 500 seriously injured.

While predictably some of the initial ‘Security Sherlocks’ were expressing “these attacks cannot be predicted”, “the facts don’t reveal why it happened” or “by whom,’ there was a palpable reluctance – notably from world leaders – to publicly identity the category of the victims!

Yes, they would say “foreigners” – a safe and nebulous depiction and unlikely to solicit a rebuke – but hesitant to go beyond a whisper that they were mostly Christians.

There was no such verbal hesitancy from Israel’s state President, Reuven Rivlin, who got it spot-on expressing on Twitter:

 “We are all children of God; an attack on one religion is an attack on us all.”

In other words, whether the victims are Jews in Pittsburg or Muslims in Christchurch, Rivlin was identifying and publicly proclaiming that the victims in Sri Lanka were Christians.

The targeting of crowded churches on Easter Sunday hardly necessitated the detective talents of a Hercule Poirot to draw the necessary conclusions.

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Sunday Bloody Sunday. An icon of Jesus looks down upon the remains of the seating in St. Sebastian’s Church in Negombo, north of Colombo, where earlier sat parishioners celebrating Easter Sunday.

Christians In The Crosshairs

Given that three of the blasts occurred at churches and were timed for Easter services, at least a major part of the attack was aimed at the country’s 1.5 million Christians. The almost simultaneous blasts left no time to warn other churchgoers.

Reuters cited the National Christian Evangelical Alliance of Sri Lanka – representing more than 200 churches – as having recorded 86 incidents of discrimination, threats, and violence against Christians last year.

The signs were evident – and were either ignored or hardly taken seriously.

Staying in the Far East, nearly 1000 churches in Indonesia, have been closed since 2006 when the nation passed a “Religious Harmony” law which requires churches to obtain several signatures from Muslims before they can obtain a permit. Nearly 85 percent of Indonesia’s 255 million population are Muslims. Only seven percent are Christians. Not surprising, many churches failed to garner the requisite signatures and were promptly shut down. Even the few that obtained the necessary endorsement have since been torched by radical Islamist groups.

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Blood, Sweat and Tears. People run for safety near St Anthony’s Church. (Reuters)

Does anyone even remember or was even aware when these Christian churches were deliberately set ablaze?

And why?

Because to talk of Christians being persecuted, logically leads one to address who is persecuting them – and we are staring at the three proverbial monkeys: “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil”.

Reticence is not a remedy!

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Under Attack. Christians are increasingly persecuted in Indonesia as seen here by these burnt motorcycles on Sunday, May 13, 2018 following a number of attacks on churches in Surabaya, East Java, Indonesia. AP

Facing The Facts

The Middle East is even more threatening to Christians, which led the head of the Church of England, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, to write last year in The Sunday Telegraph that millions of Middle East Christians are on the verge of “imminent extinction.”

He lamented that “In the birthplace of our faith, the community faces extinction,” calling it, “the worst situation since the Mongol invasions of the 13th century.”

In the early 20th century, Christians made up to 20% of the population in the Middle East; that figure has now dwindled to around 5%. It’s easy to understand why and see that Israel – despite lies to the contrary – has nothing to do with this exodus.

Before the ‘Arab Spring’, Christians in Syria were businessmen, engineers, lawyers and pharmacists, now there are leaving the country in their droves. In Iraq, 300,000 Christians have fled persecution since the downfall of Saddam Hussein and in Egypt, Christians face harassment leading them to emigrate in record numbers.

Egypt’s Christians or  Copts as they are known, are facing “unprecedented levels of persecution and suppression,” according to The Open Doors 2018 World Watch List Report.

In 2017, more than 200 Copts were driven out of their homes and 128 were killed because of their faith.

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Nasty Along The Nile. 2018 was a bad year for Egyptian Copts, many of whom were driven out of their homes and killed because of their faith.

Should we be surprised if what happened in Sri Lanka this week, will happen next week in Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia or even Turkey, where President Tayyip Erdogan is stirring up Christian fear of Muslims by announcing his plan to change the status of  Istanbul’s Hagia Sophia -a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and once the foremost cathedral in Christendom for 900 years –  from a museum to a mosque!

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Facing Extinction. Iraq’s Christians are suffering ‘systematic violence’ intended to uproot and eradicate them leading the international Catholic news weekly, “The Tablet”, to headline on the 18th October, 2018, “Christianity in Iraq is ‘one wave of persecution’ from extinction.”

Exploiting Murder

Looking at this tragedy from Israel, one could not escape the hypocrisy of the Palestinian leadership with President Mahmoud Abbas condemning from Ramallah the terror in Sri Lanka while rewarding monthly Palestinian terror against Jews.

Calling the tragedy in Sri Lanka “criminal and gruesome”, Abbas falsely called on the world to combat terror together:

“Terrorism is spreading as an epidemic across the world. I call on the countries of the world to cooperate to eradicate terrorism and not to tolerate with racist groups that incite violence and hatred.”

[WAFA, official PA news agency (English edition), April 21, 2019]

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Appeals Ignored. There is huge disappointment of the near ZERO support of Western Christians for their coreligionists in Pakistan.

Abbas’ call to combat terror abroad, stands in stark contrast to his repeated vows at home to continue his financial support for imprisoned terrorists and the families of dead terrorists.

Abbas reiterates endlessly that the PA will support these terrorists even if the PA has only “one penny left”, and has demonstrated his will to do so by cutting salaries of public employees rather than salaries to the terrorists.

It should horrify the civilized world that the killings in Sri Lanka that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas describes as “criminal and gruesome”, when it comes to killing Jews, he rewards.

A world that tolerates this hypocrisy today invites further terror tomorrow.

 

While Easter celebrates the ressurection from the dead, this Easter in Sri Lanka will be remembered for mourning the dead.

SA At Odds With World Powers And BRICS Nations About Israel

By Rowan Polovin

Hating one Middle Eastern country has never garnered the ANC votes or won it any international favour.

There is something foul about SA’s foreign policy. It stands continuously with the anti-Western bloc of dictators, fascists and human rights abusers. It has a horrendous track record of voting at the UN General Assembly and the UN Human Rights Council that is diametrically opposite to post-apartheid’s values of freedom and nondiscrimination.

It votes against measures that sanction human rights abusers and praises the “diversity” of totalitarian dictatorships. It abstains on the appointment of a special rapporteur on violence against the LGBTI community and on resolutions condemning human rights abuses in Syria.

It keeps consistently but deafeningly silent about all the horrors and atrocities committed in Africa, Asia and the Middle East, as well as on the mistreatment of women, minorities and children. It sits Janus-faced on the international stage, facilitating the work of despots offshore, while proclaiming the values of human rights back home.

There is but one country at which South Africa directs all its opprobrium and judgment. It is the most undeserving country of such hostility but is so targeted because the governing party irrationally believes this will win it votes locally and power internationally.

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Speak Of The Devil. While separating from the only democracy in the Middle East, Israel, South Africa embraces one of the world’s worst human rights abusers and prime promoter of instability in the Middle East, Iran, as seen here with SA’s Deputy Minister for International Relations and Cooperation, Reginah Mhaule (right), expressing this past March in Cape Town before Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister, Abbas Araqchi (left), “we remain committed to continue to support the Islamic Republic of Iran.”

The ANC is dangerously wrong on both accounts: hating Israel has never garnered it votes in any election, and targeting Israel internationally only isolates South Africa itself. It carries out an inverted foreign policy that bashes the ‘Jew of nations’ and applauds the scoundrels.

The ANC owes the public an explanation about why it does this.

Last week, South Africa’s Minister of International Relations and Cooperation, Lindiwe Sisulu, recklessly steered into dangerous territory when asked about her country’s relations with Israel. She spoke of removing the South African ambassador to Israel and of kicking out the Israeli ambassador to SA. She even declared that the ANC will dictate university policy on Israel.

She forgot about SA’s esteemed constitution and rule of law, and that the ANC sits below, not above it.

Our constitution was carefully written by wise people who recognised that freedom of religion, speech, association and academia are fundamental values that ensure the longevity of a democratic state. Any unjust attempts to undermine those values, as Sisulu and her faction seem intent on doing, will unravel the very structures of the democratic state her predecessors fought for.

On the issue of cutting ties with Israel and allowing the antisemitic BDS fringe movement to capture foreign policy, Sisulu and the ANC should proceed with extreme caution. South Africa is focused on rebuilding its standing in the international community and hoping to be taken seriously on international affairs.

While still a member of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and SA) bloc, it parts company with every other member on Israel. Every BRICS country besides South Africa is constantly improving ties and friendships with the Jewish state. South Africa stands at odds with these world powers, including many African and Arab countries that work more closely than ever with Israel.

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India Has Other Ideas. While South Africa considers ‘downgrading’ with Israel, its fellow BRICS’ member, India, opts for ‘upgrading” as seen here with India Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi (right) and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during the India-Israel Business Summit in New Delhi. January 15, 2018 (MONEY SHARMA/AFP)

Moreover, South Africa needs Israel’s help to solve local problems such as water scarcity, access to electricity and agricultural solutions that would take millions out of poverty and turn our deserts into fields of plenty. Millions of South Africans would not take kindly to their future being stolen by petty short-term interests. Nor will they appreciate the negative effect this will have on local job creation and our already struggling economy.

Cutting out Israel only cuts out SA’s future.

If South Africa attempts to throw out the Israeli ambassador, it will send a signal that it wishes to disconnect the proudly South African Jewish community from their spiritual, religious and historical homeland. The government should take heed that Jews will never allow their bond with the Jewish state to be broken. Nor will committed Christians, who make up the majority of South Africa’s religious communities.

Antisemites may be pleased that their irrational hatred of Jews has resulted in a downgrade in relations with Israel, but the majority of South Africans will not be pleased with the uncertainty and instability it will bring.

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Red Carpet For Killers. While threatening in 2019 to “kick out” the Israeli ambassador to South Africa, its ANC leaders has no problem embracing Hamas as seen here with terrorist mastermind Khaled Mashaal being honoured in Cape Town in October 2015. (AFP/Rodger Bosch).

It is time for principled business people, government officials, political parties and civil society to stand up to the ANC’s desperate and hypocritical obsession with the Jewish state. Our future depends upon it.

 

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Rowan Polovin is chair of the SA Zionist Federation’s Cape Council.

ISRAEL TODAY

Reflecting on the challenges of Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow

By Harris Green

Many of Israel’s enemies challenge her right to exist as the Nation State of the Jewish people. They deny the historical rights of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel. They deny the archeological evidence that justifies our claims to this land. They deny the irrefutable links of the Jewish people to Jerusalem. They deny our right to self-determination.

I’m not referring to isolated individuals.

I’m not referring to minor league academics who believe their warped and failed political agendas give them the right to change the historical facts and to recreate a narrative that conveniently ignores the context.

I’m referring to organizations within the international community including the General Assembly of the United Nations, the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) and UNESCO. These organizations are in flagrant violation of the mandates under which they were established and have dedicated themselves to delegitimizing Israel’s right to exist.

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Digging Up The Truth. Despite UNESCO passing recently another resolution denying Jewish ties to Jerusalem, archeological digs reveal that the ‘City of David’ was originally constructed more than 3,000 ago by King David when he created a small village to be his capital city when he ruled over the Israelite tribes. Within a short walking distance, David’s son, King Solomon, built the First Temple, over which the Muslims built Al-Aqsa Mosque in the 7th century AD.

Around 80% of the resolutions adopted by the UN General Assembly condemn Israel!

Does the international community really believe that if Israel ceased to exist, 80% of the world’s most serious conflicts and issues would simply dissipate?

What has permanent agenda item 7 of the UNHRC done to enhance human rights?

Have UNESCO’s outrageous resolutions regarding Jerusalem and its relevance to Jews done anything to change the historical evidence that supports the centrality of Jerusalem to Jewish life? They have however, had some success in creating doubt thereby delegitimizing our right to statehood. These resolutions fuel the wave of antisemitism currently engulfing even the so-called “more affluent countries” of the world.

Israel is the land where our patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, lived and interacted with the same God we worship today. This is where they are buried. This is where the visions of our Prophets were inspired. This is where we built our Temples. This is where our language was born. King David established Jerusalem as the capital of Israel 3,000 years ago. This land, its seasons and even its rainfall have been sourced in our century-old prayers long before the emergence of those who claim this land belongs to them.

William Albright, an archaeologist of international repute wrote “there can be no doubt that archaeology has confirmed the substantial historicity of Old Testament tradition.” To deny Jewish rights to the Land of Israel is contrary to the fundamentals of Judeo-Christian tradition.

We lived in exile for nearly 2,000 years. We were scattered amongst the nations of the world. We weren’t always made to feel welcome. Our heritage was ridiculed. Our loyalties were questioned. We suffered through inquisition. We were the victims of pogroms and blood libels. Only three generations ago we suffered an unparalleled, surgically coordinated genocide that claimed the lives of one third of our people.

For centuries we were the eternal and ultimate scapegoats for the mismanagement and personal greed of despotic rulers. Even today Jewish communities in the diaspora remain soft targets for terror. Their institutions require sophisticated security systems. The number of antisemitic incidents has escalated to an inconceivable level. Who – even just a few years ago – would have believed this sad state of affairs would come about during our lifetimes?

More than 70 years have passed since the establishment of the State of Israel. It seems to me that for too many people, the penny has yet to drop. We’re not going anywhere. We’re here to stay.

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Modern Miracle. Founded on sand dunes in 1909, Tel Aviv today is a thriving entrepreneurial metropolis that National Geographic and Lonely Planet travel guide ranks in the top 10 beach cities in the world, while locals and tourists will attest is really “No. 1”.

At the time of its creation 70 years ago, Israel was home to only 5% of world Jewry. Today 45% of world Jewry resides in the State of Israel. Jews from more than 90 different countries have returned to become useful citizens in a country we can proudly call our own. Our loyalties are no longer questioned. We speak the language of our forefathers – the indigenous language of this land. Our national aspirations could not have become a reality without the belief that this land is our land.

Although Israel has lived under threats of annihilation during her entire existence, we have a strong and resourceful military to protect us. We are now a country that more than pays its way as a sought-after ally and trading partner.

Given the number of failed states that populate our planet, challenging our right to a country of our own is not only an affront to us and our heritage but also to what this country has achieved in the short space of 70 years.

Which country is always the first to provide aid to countries following natural disasters around the world? We don’t only talk about Tikkun Olam. We deliver!

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True Colours. Gloves came off during a meeting of PLO’s Central Council in 2018 with PA President Abbas saying: “Israel is a colonial project that has nothing to do with Jews.” Revealing exactly what he thinks of Jews, Abbas earlier expressed, that “Al-Aksa is ours and so is the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. They (Jews) have no right to desecrate them with their filthy feet. We won’t allow them to do so and we will do whatever we can to defend Jerusalem.”

Israeli technology is at the source of everything that opens and closes. From military innovations to cyber security, from medical technologies to life-saving pharmaceuticals, from communications to driverless vehicles, from wastewater recycling to water desalinisation.

 You name it. Israel has done it.

But we can’t afford to rest on our laurels. The military threats remain. We have a responsibility to narrow the gap between the more and the less fortunate amongst us. We have a responsibility to those Jews still living in the diaspora.

The international community may have forgotten its responsibilities to us, but we shouldn’t forget our responsibilities to mankind:

  • Given the chance, we can make this world a better place in which to live.
  • Given the chance, we can advance life expectancy in many African countries by up to 30 years.
  • Given the chance, we can easily replicate in other countries what we have so successfully achieved here in Israel.
  • Given the chance, we can alleviate many of the dangers resulting from global warming.
  • Given the chance, we can provide solutions to the diminishing food supplies for growing populations in developing countries around the world.

There are challenges ahead. We have a responsibility to respond.

 

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The Real face Of Israel. Although Israel and Syria are political enemies, Israeli volunteers have been helping Syrians since the start of their bloody civil war in March 2011. Within a month, the Israeli NGO IL4Syrians began sending sanitary items, food, medications and post-trauma care specialists to Syrian refugees. Seen here is IsraAid’s Rachel Lazry Zahavi helping a Syrian refugee in Greece. (Photo by Mickey Noam Alon/IsraAID)

 

About the Author

image001 (9).pngHarris Zvi Green was born in Cape Town, South Africa and immigrated to Israel nearly 50 years ago. An accountant by profession, he served as the Chief Financial Officer of a number of Israel based hi-tech companies. Harris is a founding member of Truth be Told (TbT), an organization engaged in public diplomacy on behalf of Israel.

 

 

 

 

 

3000 years of history are waiting to be discovered by you in 3minutes

The Israel Brief – 15-18 April 2019

 

The Israel Brief – 15 April 2019 – Coalition building! Trump Peace Plan! Eli Cohen’s remains to return? Israel heads back to the moon!!

 

 

The Israel Brief – 16 April 2019 – Solidarity with Notre Dame. Bibi to form coalition. Abbas to meet Bibi?

 

 

The Israel Brief – 17 April 2019 – SpaceIL investigates Beresheet landing. Palestinian PM says US waging financial war. Hamas and Roger Waters aim to ruin Eurovision party.

 

 

 

The Israel Brief – 18 April 2019 – IDF “Readiness and Change”. Israeli official meets Lebanese FM. Netanyahu starts to form coalition.

Little Blue Hood

By Yahya Mahamid

Serving on the border between Israel and Gaza, Yahya Mahamid – an Arab Muslim soldier – writes this eyewitness account of what it is like to stare down the rioters that Hamas have encouraged to break through the border. These riots have been taking place since March 2018.

Sitting with my back to the metal barrier, I take a second to adjust my helmet when all of a sudden, I hear a loud bang against the barrier.

It has started. The weekly Friday riots on the Gaza border.

I adjust my Kevlar vest, take a breath and stand up to take a look at the other side – all while trying to keep as much of my body under cover.

I am shocked to see mothers going hand and hand with their children. Yes, these are children that are not older than 10 -13 years of age, coming to the weekly protest as if it were a normal Friday activity.

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Gastly In Gaza. What parents would encourage their own children to be in harms way?

Our orders are clear.  Respect human life and the purity of our arms. This is nothing new – after all it is the IDF Code of Ethics that we abide by and that’s how we always operate.

I take my sharpshooter scope and start scanning the crowds looking for anything that looks suspicious such as bombs and guns. While looking through my scope, I start smelling the familiar smell of burned tires. I know that tear gas will soon follow so I put on my gas mask and look at the madness that is assembling in front of my eyes.

The adults, who I assume are mothers and fathers, sit on the green grass hill enjoying some cold drinks and snacks, while their kids are running towards the security fence, throwing rocks and anything they can get their hands on at us soldiers.

One rock hit the barrier.

I take cover after another rock hits the barrier again. I could have sworn that these rocks travel almost as fast as my bullet. I adjust my protective glasses and take another peak; we can’t have the security barrier getting damaged. This could have disastrous ramifications.

The violence is escalating.

I stand up again to take a look at the crowd that’s growing like a hate tumor on steroids and suddenly I hear an explosion. I look through my scope again, while looking through the black and grey crowd.

I see him.

He is sitting, dressed in a large blue hoodie, looking straight at me. I take a look at him through my scope to get a closer look and he is just sitting there, looking straight at me like he’s staring into my soul. He’s not older than 10 years old.

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Friday Frenzy. Typical Friday with youngsters pushed by Hamas to approach as close as possible to the border fence.

I will never forget the look on his face, like he has a million questions on his mind, not reacting to the screams, tear gas, burned tires and the electrified atmosphere that is filled with anger.

He just sits there, looking at me like he wants to ask me “when this madness will end?”

I look at him, wave, and give him the OK sign, hoping to make my first Gazan friend.

Maybe something positive can come out of this ugliness.

He gets up and gives me an innocent smile and waves. I smile back. Another bomb follows immediately after – above us this time and we are told to retreat behind cover.

I don’t see him again, but I hope the situation will improve for both of us one day.

I call him Little Blue Hood.

About the author:

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Yahya Mahamid is a former educator for Stand With Us. This self-described “Muslim Arab Zionist” currently serves in the IDF.