Shalom!
I am so grateful that you have visited my
site,
and I would love to hear
from you after your visit.
Please click here to
Contact Rav Fischer
Please return -- often -- because I frequently
contribute new writings and commentaries as issues arise and thoughts
provoke. See, for example, my post on the
foolish notion of a "Two-State Solution" in the Middle East.
And, as of June 2010, please look for
expanded commentary on American affairs
and the Obama Administration, as well as for
expanded commentary on a wide range of
social and religious issues concerning the Jewish community. Please
click here
for my latest posts* and please check out some especially popular and
continually pertinent archive commentaries by
their broad subject headings on the left column. I am
available to speak to Jewish groups, church groups, and secular
organizations --
also to debate responsible thinkers presenting conflicting
viewpoints.
-- Rav Dov Fischer
"We
Con the World"
is
here
* Latest posts and published articles include:
-
Problem-Solvers and Butt-Kickers:
Americans Elected Unknowns Without Executive Skills to Lead the Free
World
[published in
The American Thinker
06-14-10]
-
Who Chose Hamas to Lead Them? :
Gazans Seek Sympathy After Voting in Terrorists Who Vow to Exterminate
Jews [published in Frontpagemag.com
06-10-10]
- The Hymn of
the Hamas Flotilla:
We
Con the World (song) [Click
Here for Places You Can Find "We
Con the World"]
- Talking Turkey:
Where Is the Apology to Israel or, for That Matter, to the Armenians?
[published in Frontpagemag.com
06-07-10]
- Paying
Palestinians Not to Work with Jews:
Why Be in Contact with Apes and Pigs When You Can Live in a Refugee Camp
at Home? [published in Frontpagemag.com
06-04-10]
-
Israel After the Flotilla Debacle:
Maybe the Wake-Up Call Israel Needs Before Acquiescing to a "Two-State
Solution" [published in The
American Thinker 06-03-10]
-
Never Letting a Serious Crisis Go to Waste:
Will Obama Exploit the BP Oil Fiasco to Further His Environmentalist
Agenda? [published in
Frontpagemag.com 06-03-10]
-
The Flotilla of the Damned:
A Flotilla-for-Fun to Attila the Hun? [published in
Orange County Jewish Life 07-10]
-
Judaism's View on Same-Sex Marriage:
An Orthodox Perspective [published in
Jewishvaluesonline.org]
- Parshat D'varim:
Back to School (first
published Aug. 2008) [re-published in the
Jewish Journal of Los Angeles 07-16-10]
- Parshat
Korach:
Give Your Rabbi
a Break
[published in the
Jewish Journal of Los Angeles 06-08-10]
- Not This Month:
On the Emanuel School Crisis in Israel
[published in Cross-Currents 06-28-10]
-
A few
thoughts on the UCI Muslim Student Union's annual Hate Israel Week
-
An Open
Letter to Jumanah Imad Albahri, the
UCSD
student who, with two words -- "For It" -- overnight became the poster
child for anti-Jewish hate and bigotry in America
Visit the Song Six Times:
This morning’s news carries the story that
Israel, under pressure from butchers
and hypocrites around the world, has apologized for sending the media a
link to the viral YouTube hit “We
Con the World.” Since Israel's ardent goal is to disassociate from
the YouTube hit, perhaps the best step we can take to do our part, to
help extend the impact of Israel's
apology and to reflect our own shame as Jews
that Israel could have done such a terrible thing to offend the feelings
and sensitivities of Hamas and the Government that committed Genocide
murdering 1.5 million Armenians between 1915-1918, is
to revisit the video
at YouTube, six times per
person – one for each IDF soldier who
was severely wounded by the peaceful travelers whose reality will never
come to your TV -- and perhaps
to urge everyone we know to also register our shame that Israel
distributed the film by making six visits to the website
today to see
the truth that will never come to your TV.
KOCE-TV DEBATE:
Rabbi Dov Fischer debates Hussam Ayloush, West Coast Regional Director
of CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations), on issues ranging from
Israel, the Middle East, and the anti-Israel student disruptions at UCI
-- 13 fascinating minutes!
Click here.
THE L.A. YESHIVA TEEN WHO REMINDS ME OF THE 1989
HERO IN FRONT OF THE TANK IN TIANANMEN SQUARE:
If you have not yet seen what this lone
Yeshiva High School teen
did Wednesday in Los Angeles,
click here , sit down for goose-bumps.
Then enroll your kid in a
yeshiva.
Featured Articles
of the Month - The Top Dozen or So: Please click
here.
This Home Page
also contains five major articles
-- (i) on the "Two State Solution" proposed for the Middle East, (ii) on
Jerusalem, (iii) on
telling the world that
we do not care anymore what
they think,
(iv) on the primacy of
devoting a lifetime to aspire towards self-improvement and personal
growth, in order to foster living by Judaism's ethical standards in business and personal conduct, and (v) on the
evils of slander and
loshon horo
-- appear in full text on this Home Page immediately below the ten
bullet-pointed "Featured Articles of the Month." They are
considered by many to be five of my most important and timeless articles
for all seasons in all years. These articles also appear elsewhere on this site.
This website highlights the writings and commentaries
of Rabbi Dov Fischer, Modern Orthodox rabbi in Irvine and rabbi of Young
Israel of Orange County. Rav Fischer comments here on Jewish law,
values, concepts, practices, ethics, culture, and politics. Rabbi
Dov Fischer, Modern Orthodox rabbi in Irvine and rabbi of Young Israel
of Orange County, is author of two books, more than a hundred published
articles appearing in major journals, and Rabbi Dov Fischer, Modern
Orthodox rabbi in Irvine and rabbi of Young Israel of Orange County, is
nationally prominent in a wide range of Jewish organizations. This
website highlights the writings and commentaries of Rabbi Dov Fischer,
Modern Orthodox rabbi in Irvine and rabbi of Young Israel of Orange
County. Rav Fischer comments here on Jewish law, values, concepts,
practices, ethics, culture, and politics. Rabbi Dov Fischer,
Modern Orthodox rabbi in Irvine and rabbi of Young Israel of Orange
County, is author of two books, more than a hundred published articles
appearing in major journals, and Rabbi Dov Fischer, Modern Orthodox
rabbi in Irvine and rabbi of Young Israel of Orange County, is
nationally prominent in a wide range of Jewish organizations.
Rabbi Fischer comments in these pages on national and local Jewish
issues, including his ground-breaking commentary on TVT (Tarbut
v'Torah), the Irvine-based Jewish community school of County, which
Rabbi Fischer sadly observes has failed Jewish students and Jewish
parents by failing to offer the standard quality of Jewish
education available everywhere else in America. Tarbut v' Torah --
TVT of Irvine in Orange County -- does not offer even a mediocre
exposure to Chumash-Rashi, Mishnah, Talmud, Jewish prayer and davening.
The failure of TVT -- Tarbut v'Torah -- to offer a suitable jewish
education for parents paying nearly $20,000 per child is tragic.
For information
on Rav Dov Fischer's groundbreaking part-time
"Open Yeshiva" for O.C. Teens
please click here.
Featured
Articles
Featured
Articles
of the Month
-
Obama Killing
Israel Softly with His Song? The "Two-State Solution" as
The Final Solution:
Read
here Rav Fischer's
commentary on the
Obama Administration's turn away from Israel
and the inevitable failure to which his "Two-State Solution" is
doomed. [Printable
version]
-
The Flotilla of the
Damned:
Read
here Rav Fischer's
commentary on the Flotilla Scandal [Printable
version]
-
Israel After the
Flotilla Debacle:
Maybe the Wake-Up Call Israel Needs
Before Acquiescing to a Two-State Solution:
Read
here Rav Fischer's
commentary observing that good may yet come of the fiasco if
Israeli awakens to the perils of a counterfeit "Two State Solution"
-
Never Letting a
Serious Crisis Go to Waste:
Will Obama
Exploit the BP Oil Fiasco to Further His Environmentalist Agenda?:
Read
here Rav
Fischer's
commentary observing that Obama's and Rahm Emanuel's
M.O. is to wait patiently for a crisis to absorb the electorate's
attention while they quietly push through legislation that Americans
abhor
-
Paying
Palestinians Not to Work with Jews:
Why Be in Contact with Apes and Pigs When You Can Live in a Refugee Camp
at Home? Read
here Rav
Fischer's
commentary on the announcement by Mahmoud Abbas, President of the
Palestine Authority, that he will pay Arabs under his authority $50
million to return to their refugee camps and stop working in
good-paying jobs alongside Jews in Judea and Samaria (the "West
Bank")
-
"Tarbut v'Torah
(TVT)":
Irvine's Grave
Failure in Jewish Education:
Read
here Rav Fischer's groundbreaking
commentary
explaining grave community concerns about the
"Tarbut
v'Torah (TVT)" "Jewish Community School" in Irvine.
The severe crisis in teen
Jewish education at the
Tarbut
v'Torah (TVT)
Jewish Community School in Irvine
underscores the tragedy behind the Irvine region's
need for a
new approach to Jewish Day School education in Orange County. [Printable
version]
-
-
Michael Jackson,
Farrah Fawcett, Ed McMahon, Billy Mays:
Numbering the Stars and
Counting the Days: Read
here Rav Fischer's
commentary on the
media frenzy and the sobering lessons that really can be learned. [Printable
version]
-
Betting the House
[of G-d] -- The Disgrace When an Orthodox Synagogue Sponsors a
"Casino Evening" or Poker Game: Read
here Rav Fischer's
commentary on the shameful impropriety of Orthodox Jewish
religious institutions that would sponsor "casino evenings" or poker games
to raise funds in the Age of Madoff. [Printable
version]
-
Separating the Holy from the Despicable:
Read
here Rav Fischer's
commentary on the paramount ethical Jewish challenge posed by
these difficult times. (Also published in the
Los Angeles Jewish Journal)
-
Irvine Community Mikveh:
Read
here
the fascinating inside story behind building the
Irvine
Community Mikvah.
-
Irvine Community Eruv:
Read
here about the
Irvine Community Eruv,
the only Eruv in all Orange County, CA.
-
Jonathan Pollard:
Read
here
Rav Fischer's
commentary
on the urgency to act for a Presidential Pardon.
Tarbut v'Torah -- TVT --
of Irvine in Orange County is a severely and tragically flawed Jewish
community day school because Tarbut v'Torah -- TVT -- of Irvine in
Orange County fails its Jewish students. Tarbut v'Torah (TVT) of Irvine
in Orange County does not teach important Jewish texts, concepts, and
practices that Jewish schools elsewhere teach. The Jewish students
deserve better from Tarbut v'Torah -- TVT -- of Irvine in Orange County,
and the Jewish parents deserve better for the nearly $20,000 they pay
each year to Tarbut v'Torah -- TVT -- of Irvine in Orange County. Tarbut
v'Torah -- TVT -- of Irvine in Orange County is a severely and
tragically flawed Jewish community day school because Tarbut v'Torah --
TVT -- of Irvine in Orange County fails its Jewish students. Tarbut
v'Torah (TVT) of Irvine in Orange County does not teach important Jewish
texts, concepts, and practices that Jewish schools elsewhere teach. The
Jewish students deserve better from Tarbut v'Torah -- TVT -- of Irvine
in Orange County, and the Jewish parents deserve better for the nearly
$20,000 they pay each year to Tarbut v'Torah -- TVT -- of Irvine in
Orange County. Tarbut v'Torah -- TVT -- of Irvine in Orange County
is a severely and tragically flawed Jewish community day school because
Tarbut v'Torah -- TVT -- of Irvine in Orange County fails its Jewish
students. Tarbut v'Torah (TVT) of Irvine in Orange County does not teach
important Jewish texts, concepts, and practices that Jewish schools
elsewhere teach. The Jewish students deserve better from Tarbut v'Torah
-- TVT -- of Irvine in Orange County, and the Jewish parents deserve
better for the nearly $20,000 they pay each year to Tarbut v'Torah --
TVT -- of Irvine in Orange County.Tarbut v'Torah -- TVT -- of Irvine in
Orange County is a severely and tragically flawed Jewish community day
school because Tarbut v'Torah -- TVT -- of Irvine in Orange County fails
its Jewish students. Tarbut v'Torah (TVT) of Irvine in Orange County
does not teach important Jewish texts, concepts, and practices that
Jewish schools elsewhere teach. The Jewish students deserve better from
Tarbut v'Torah -- TVT -- of Irvine in Orange County, and the Jewish
parents deserve better for the nearly $20,000 they pay each year to
Tarbut v'Torah -- TVT -- of Irvine in Orange County. Tarbut v'Torah --
TVT -- of Irvine in Orange County is a severely and tragically flawed
Jewish community day school because Tarbut v'Torah -- TVT -- of Irvine
in Orange County fails its Jewish students. Tarbut v'Torah (TVT) of
Irvine in Orange County does not teach important Jewish texts, concepts,
and practices that Jewish schools elsewhere teach. The Jewish students
deserve better from Tarbut v'Torah -- TVT -- of Irvine in Orange County,
and the Jewish parents deserve better for the nearly $20,000 they pay
each year to Tarbut v'Torah -- TVT -- of Irvine in Orange County.
Tarbut v'Torah -- TVT -- of Irvine in Orange County is a severely and
tragically flawed Jewish community day school because Tarbut v'Torah --
TVT -- of Irvine in Orange County fails its Jewish students. Tarbut
v'Torah (TVT) of Irvine in Orange County does not teach important Jewish
texts, concepts, and practices that Jewish schools elsewhere teach. The
Jewish students deserve better from Tarbut v'Torah -- TVT -- of Irvine
in Orange County, and the Jewish parents deserve better for the nearly
$20,000 they pay each year to Tarbut v'Torah -- TVT -- of Irvine in
Orange County.Tarbut v'Torah -- TVT -- of Irvine in Orange County is a
severely and tragically flawed Jewish community day school because
Tarbut v'Torah -- TVT -- of Irvine in Orange County fails its Jewish
students. Tarbut v'Torah (TVT) of Irvine in Orange County does not teach
important Jewish texts, concepts, and practices that Jewish schools
elsewhere teach. The Jewish students deserve better from Tarbut v'Torah
-- TVT -- of Irvine in Orange County, and the Jewish parents deserve
better for the nearly $20,000 they pay each year to Tarbut v'Torah --
TVT -- of Irvine in Orange County. Tarbut v'Torah -- TVT -- of Irvine in
Orange County is a severely and tragically flawed Jewish community day
school because Tarbut v'Torah -- TVT -- of Irvine in Orange County fails
its Jewish students. Tarbut v'Torah (TVT) of Irvine in Orange County
does not teach important Jewish texts, concepts, and practices that
Jewish schools elsewhere teach. The Jewish students deserve better from
Tarbut v'Torah -- TVT -- of Irvine in Orange County, and the Jewish
parents deserve better for the nearly $20,000 they pay each year to
Tarbut v'Torah -- TVT -- of Irvine in Orange County. Tarbut
v'Torah -- TVT -- of Irvine in Orange County is a severely and
tragically flawed Jewish community day school because Tarbut v'Torah --
TVT -- of Irvine in Orange County fails its Jewish students. Tarbut
v'Torah (TVT) of Irvine in Orange County does not teach important Jewish
texts, concepts, and practices that Jewish schools elsewhere teach. The
Jewish students deserve better from Tarbut v'Torah -- TVT -- of Irvine
in Orange County, and the Jewish parents deserve better for the nearly
$20,000 they pay each year to Tarbut v'Torah -- TVT -- of Irvine in
Orange County.
Tarbut v'Torah -- TVT -- of Irvine in
Orange County is a severely and tragically flawed Jewish community
day school because Tarbut v'Torah -- TVT -- of Irvine in Orange
County fails its Jewish students. Tarbut v'Torah (TVT) of Irvine in
Orange County does not teach important Jewish texts, concepts, and
practices that Jewish schools elsewhere teach. The Jewish students
deserve better from Tarbut v'Torah -- TVT -- of Irvine in Orange
County, and the Jewish parents deserve better for the nearly $20,000
they pay each year to Tarbut v'Torah -- TVT -- of Irvine in Orange
County. Tarbut v'Torah -- TVT -- of Irvine in Orange County is a
severely and tragically flawed Jewish community day school because
Tarbut v'Torah -- TVT -- of Irvine in Orange County fails its Jewish
students. Tarbut v'Torah (TVT) of Irvine in Orange County does not
teach important Jewish texts, concepts, and practices that Jewish
schools elsewhere teach. The Jewish students deserve better from
Tarbut v'Torah -- TVT -- of Irvine in Orange County, and the Jewish
parents deserve better for the nearly $20,000 they pay each year to
Tarbut v'Torah -- TVT -- of Irvine in Orange County. Tarbut
v'Torah -- TVT -- of Irvine in Orange County is a severely and
tragically flawed Jewish community day school because Tarbut v'Torah
-- TVT -- of Irvine in Orange County fails its Jewish students.
Tarbut v'Torah (TVT) of Irvine in Orange County does not teach
important Jewish texts, concepts, and practices that Jewish schools
elsewhere teach. The Jewish students deserve better from Tarbut
v'Torah -- TVT -- of Irvine in Orange County, and the Jewish parents
deserve better for the nearly $20,000 they pay each year to Tarbut
v'Torah -- TVT -- of Irvine in Orange County.
i D Fisc
The five articles below may be copied and
distributed as long as:
(i) attribution is given to this website [www.ravfischer.com]
as its source,
and (ii) no editing or other modification is
done to the article in any way.
Grand Pyramid Scheme:
The Two-State Solution
As Final Solution
(Click
here for a printable version
of this study.)

FATAH LOGO
HAMAS
LOGO
[note background:
[note top center:
map of
entire
map of
entire
pre-1967 Israel
pre-1967 Israel
plus "West Bank,"
plus "West Bank,"
Gaza, and Golan] Gaza, and Golan]

Logo of
P.L.O.
Logo
of P.L.O.
(English)
(Arabic)
[note
lower center: [note
lower center:
map of
entire map of
entire
pre-1967 Israel
pre-1967 Israel
plus "West Bank," plus "West Bank,"
Gaza, and Golan] Gaza, and Golan]
The
Two-State Solution is indeed the most immoral suggestion of them all. It
is a lie built on a foundation of mendacity. And, with it now having been sanctified in
the President's Cairo Speech in Egypt, it can be termed The Grand Pyramid Scheme.
Back in President Barack Obama’s America, the laws on the books clearly prohibit
people from telling African Americans that, "sorry, you can’t live in
this neighborhood." Does anyone doubt that Justice
Sotomayor
would uphold those laws?
The Bigotry of
Banning Jews from Living in a Region
Imagine how many American communities over the years could have resolved their racial issues
simply by agreeing that Blacks need to be removed completely from "White neighborhoods," and Whites removed from
"Black neighborhoods."
Maybe James von Brunn would not have gone on a shooting rampage at the
U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum if there were a compromise agreement that
Jews may not establish residential communities in or near Washington,
D.C. Separate but equal. Quite a concept!
Only, that's a racist concept.
Part of
America's greatness is that we evolved as a society over two
centuries to reject that concept.
See, e.g., Brown v. Board of Educ. of Topeka, 347 U.S.
483, 74 S. Ct. 686 (1954), overruling Plessy v. Ferguson,
163 U.S. 537; 16 S. Ct. 1138
(1896). Similarly, we are appalled by the bigotry in the Middle Ages and into the 1940s
marked by governments segregating Jews from communities in Germany, Poland, Austria,
or Hungary -- say, to relocate them into their own ghettoes. And it is
equally bigoted today to advocate a public policy that forcibly would
segregate Jews from communities in Judea and Samaria (the "West Bank")
or anywhere else in Israel. But that bigotry-- what else can it be
called? -- ironically defines the Obama
Administration's Mideast program, now being pushed hard by Secretary
of State Hillary Clinton and
being sold to American Jews
in private meetings with the President's Jewish chief of staff, Rahm
Emanuel. It is a policy
aimed at ethnically cleansing Jews out of a region in the world,
rendering it Judenrein. And it is a policy whose moral failing further
is eroded by the colossal transformation of historical fact into
hysterical fiction unfolding before our very eyes.
"Palestine" Is Another Name for Israel,
and That Entirety Is the Land that "Palestinian
Arabs" Want for Their "Palestine" Country --
Not a "West Bank" Without a Name
The "West Bank" is not the west bank of
anything. There is no waterway, ocean, sea, or river in Hebron or Tekoah or Karnei Shomron or Ariel. Nor in Shiloh, Maaleh Adumim, Beitar,
Shechem, Gush Etzyon, or Beit Lechem (Bethlehem). The nomenclature is
fallacious, itself reflecting history's great cover-up: There is no such
thing as an "Arab Palestinian Homeland." That land always has been
Jewish, except when it was up for grabs like a basketball "jump ball."
The Arabs never came down with that ball to put it into play.
There is no "Palestinian people," and the only “Palestine” that ever
existed was synonymous with the Jewish homeland that later was renamed
"Israel." Rent a copy of the movie "Exodus.” Listen
dispassionately to the dialogue. Don't take sides. Just listen for
definitions. The
British, fairly or unfairly, are depicted as the bad guys in the movie, trying to keep the Jews out of
"Palestine." Paul Newman is trying to get the Jews into "Palestine."
Everyone watching the movie perceives that "Palestine" is a name that refers
synonymously with "Israel." Thus, what we seem to have here is a failure to
communicate. It could not be simpler: For the past two thousand years,
since the Romans renamed the land as they expelled and exiled its Jews,
"Israel" always was "Palestine," and
"Palestine" always was "Israel."
There never ever was an Arab Palestine entity. Who, after
all, ever was its
leader? Try to name any leader who ever in history
led the sovereign "Palestinian Arab" people of "Arab Palestine." What
year was it founded? What was the name of its capital city -- any
capital city? Where is the drawing or photograph of its seat of
government, or the place where its governmental leader lived? What was
the name of its currency? Whose face, what slogan was on that currency?
When did it fall? In which Olympic Games did it compete? Which issue of
Encyclopedia Britannica had an entry for its government? Can anyone
answer any one of these questions? Anyone? Anyone?
Consider this way:
The American city of
Palestine, Texas was founded in 1846. It was so named in honor of
an early settler there, Daniel Parker, who hailed from Palestine,
Illinois. That Palestine was
charted in 1811.
It drew its name in 1678 from the French explorer, Jean LaMotte, who
looked at the land and named it "Palestine" because it reminded him of
the Biblical Promised Land of the Jews, flowing with milk and honey.
No one associated "Palestine" with the Arab community, not even in the
1600s. Rather, the name was associated with the Jews and their
Biblical Promised Land. The same with Palestine, Arkansas and East
Palestine, Ohio.
"Palestinian Refugee Camps" and Logo
Images Now Worn by Their Terror Groups Remind That the Goal Remains Now
As When the "P.L.O. -- Palestine Liberation Organization" was
founded in 1964: to "Liberate Palestine" by Conquering and Destroying
Israel
The "West Bank" and Gaza were theirs for the taking in 1964. But they
did not want it. The
PLO's
founder, Ahmed
Shukairy, and Yasser Arafat his successor wanted
pre-1967
Israel. To this day, the logo on their stationery and
on their respective terrorist uniforms is that of
pre-1967
Israel. "Palestine" in the "West Bank" only? Two
states? It is such a fabrication, such a lie. Just look at the facts on
their ground: Understand that they have built “Palestinian Refugee Camps” in
Jenin, in the
"West Bank."
How can a real people ("Palestinians") in their own
real land ("Palestine") living under their own government (the
"Palestine Authority") be dwelling in "refugee camps" in their own land?
Similarly, how can they have Palestine "refugee camps" in Gaza, now that
the land is under sovereign Hamas control? These actual open facts
on the ground evidence the mendacity, the lies, stuff, and nonsense.
Webster says that a "refugee" is "one
who, in times of persecution or political commotion, flees to a foreign
power or country for safety; as, the French refugees who left France
after the revocation of the edict of Nantes." Merriam-Webster, in
pertinent part, says that a "refugee" is "an
individual who has left his or her native country and is unwilling or
unable to return to it . . . ." So: are these Arabs residing
in Jenin and Gaza "refugee camps" indeed refugees -- these "Palestinians" living in the "West Bank"
and Gaza under the "Palestinian Authority"? If so, from where do those
"Palestinian" refugees originally hail? If the "West Bank" and Gaza are
not the "homeland" to which they yearn so that they someday may be
"liberated" from their "refugee" status -- well, where is
their "homeland"? The answer could not be more clear and
manifest: In the "West
Bank" and Gaza they are "refugees." The "West Bank" is not their home, they know it,
and they evidence it. They want Tel Aviv, Haifa, and Jerusalem. That is the
home they ultimately seek, in their effort inexorably to destroy Israel. And that
is the reason that
no "Palestinian" leader can utter the words: "Yes, in
any final peace agreement, we will recognize the land set aside for
Israel as a Jewish nation-state."
And no amount of
Jew-to-Jew
lobbying by Rahm Emanuel can change the facts.
Rather, the integrity of the Jewish American community is compromised by
the insult and patronizing attitude that presupposes a community can be
influenced to act against its own interest merely by sending it an
emissary who presents himself as "one of our own." In Black
America, there is a sad history of Caucasian carpetbaggers working
through the quintessential "Uncle Tom." We do not need an "Uncle
Rahm."
Zionism Humanely Avoided the Moral
Failings of America -- Itself the Greatest Beacon of Freedom Ever
Created -- by Seeking to Build Fraternally Alongside Landed Neighbors
Rather than to Force-and-Death-March Them into "Reservations" of
Internal Exile
In America, we do have a variation on "internal refugee camps." They are
called "Indian
reservations" or "reservations for Native Americans," and they
reflect not only adversely but deeply shamefully on those who put them
there: American governments like that of the Andrew Jackson
Administration, whose Government adopted and implemented
terrible, horrible crimes of conscience against the Native Americans.
This country's highest elected leaders,
in full and open view, at some point 150-200 years ago made a
chilling determination that has been swept from the American national
conscience and
institutional memory: For the United States, founded inexorably as a
White European settler polity, to survive and flourish, with its borders
open to new immigrants from around the world, there would need to be a
complete and forcible uprooting and expulsion of the native American
population -- "Indian
Removal."
For example, "it will relieve the whole state of Mississippi, and
the western part of Alabama, of Indian occupancy, and enable those
States to advance rapidly in population, wealth, and power. It will
separate the Indians from immediate contact with settlements of Whites .
. . enable them to pursue happiness in their own way, and under their
own rude institutions . . . and perhaps cause them gradually, under the
protection of the Government, and through the influence of good
counsels, to cast off their savage habits, and become an interesting,
civilized, and Christian community."
Consequently, Native Americans were uprooted from Florida, from North
Carolina, from Georgia, from states that many Americans today cannot
imagine housed Native Americans. Their land was forcibly seized.
Treaties and
land contracts with them were breached notoriously and brazenly,
torn up unilaterally, and they were forced on
Hitler-like mass death marches to places "reserved" for them. This
really happened in America. America did this, implemented in the open by
our highest echelons and without mercy, to displace and uproot the
Native American population.
It is deeply painful to visit the "Trail
of Tears." Or to learn certain details of the Second Seminole War.
There are
monuments all
along the
miles and
miles where the
Native Americans walked their
death marches. And they were resettled into reservations with such
sops as permission to run
casino gambling
free from
government interference.
That is what America did after our Government determined that, to create
the kind of country envisioned by the Founding Fathers -- a country that
truly has emerged in history as the greatest and most kind, benevolent,
and charitable country that people ever have created, with the greatest
respect and love for freedom and decency that any society ever has
registered -- "those people had to go." In all, by the
time the U.S. federal government had ended "allotment" in 1934, that
policy had cost Native Americans at least 90 million acres of their
land, two-thirds of the land they had owned half a century earlier.
Kenneth H. Bobroff, "Retelling Allotment: Indian Property Rights and the
Myth of Common Ownership," 54 Vanderbilt L. Rev. 1559, 1561 & n.5 (2001)
(citing
OFFICE OF INDIAN AFFAIRS, DEP’T OF THE INTERIOR,
INDIAN LAND TENURE, ECONOMIC STATUS AND
POPULATION TRENDS 6 (1935)).
Today we
compound the shame by designating our Native Americans as mascots for
our sports teams:
Atlanta Braves,
Cleveland Indians,
Washington
Redskins,
Florida State Seminoles, Kansas City Chiefs,
Chicago Black Hawks.
But Israel never did that. As Jews lived in a land that was and has been
our patrimony for 3,000 years, we engaged Arabs as neighbors. We engaged
the Arab community with respect. We desired to build with them. So we
encouraged their participation in our society, in our government, in our
Parliament. Yes, Israel would be a Jewish nation-state, in a world that
already recognizes
more than twenty Arab states. There are so many Arab
countries, even with names like United Arab Emirates, that they even
have an Arab
League. And for us, as Jews, there is one country to which we trace
our heritage and legacy. Until 1948 it was called "Palestine," and
"Palestine" was renamed "Israel" when the country became independent.
Only One Jewish Homeland: Passionately
Loved Without Interruption and Yearned-for Through 2,000 Years of Exile
This land
of "Palestine" or "Israel" always has been the Jewish homeland. For
2,000 years -- from the time that the
ancient Roman Empire conquered
Jerusalem, expelled Jews from the Land, and re-named the land "Palestina"
to eradicate its Jewish character in the popular memory -- to this day
we have continued praying three times daily for a return to
Palestine/Israel. We fasted several times every year in tearful memory
of events that led to Jews being exiled from the land 2,600 years ago by
the Babylonians and again 2,000 years ago by the ancient Romans. We
adopted customs, at the core of our Jewish identity, to remember
Palestine/Israel. So, in all our prayers these past 2,000 years, we have
faced Palestine/Israel during our prayers. We literally coordinate our
synagogue architecture to assure that we pray facing Palestine/Israel.
In America, we pray facing East, and in Russia we pray facing West. In
Africa, we pray facing North.
At all our
weddings for these past 2,000 years, the groom breaks a glass under the
wedding canopy in memory of the destruction of the Holy Temple in East
Jerusalem and the exile from Palestine/Israel. When we visit someone
whose relative has died, we console the mourner with our hopeful prayer:
"May [G-d], the One Who is in Every Place, console you among the rest
[of us], who mourn for [the fall 2,000 years ago] of Zion and
Jerusalem." As we dance with the bride and groom, we sing -- as we have
sung for 2,000 years-- "There yet again will be heard in cities
throughout Judea and in the streets of Jerusalem the sounds of rejoicing
and sounds of happiness, the sound of the groom and the sound of the
bride." For 2,000 years we have taken a day out of our lives each summer
to mourn for the fall of Jerusalem: devoting the night and day to
reciting tearful lamentations, fasting, crying, dimming our lights for
much of the day, refusing to sit comfortably on chairs but instead
sitting on the floor or overturned chairs. For 2,000 years we have left
partially unpainted a section of every home in which we have lived,
partially incomplete to remind us that East Jerusalem, with her Temple
destroyed, is partially incomplete. Even after our every meal, we have
recited a prayer for 2,000 years asking that G-d restore and rebuild
Jerusalem.
Do Americans -- the deepest, most patriotic of my countrymen -- know the
precise day on which
the British burned down the White House during the
Madison Administration in the course of the War of 1812? The Temple in
Jerusalem was burned on the Ninth Day of Av. How do we Americans
commemorate that incineration of the White House? Jews have never
forgotten the eternal connection with the Land of Israel. And Jews
continued living in that land.
In 1929, Arab marauders still were
perpetrating massacres, trying to remove Jews, for once and for all,
from the City of Hebron, the City where our Biblical ancestors --
Abraham,
Sarah,
Isaac, Rebecca,
Jacob,
Leah -- lie interred at the Cave
of Makhpelah. New waves of Arab massacres from 1936-1939 sought to drive
Jews out of Shechem/Nablus. Within half a century, Jews were back.
Again.
In an Era of Mass Population Exchanges,
the Arab World Hatefully Drove out 700,000 Jews and Confiscated All
Their Property and Assets, Even as Israelis Pleaded with Their Arab
Neighbors to Remain and Build a New Western Democracy Together
And yet, as a Jewish State was coming into being, we sought to live in
peace with Arabs living there. Jews in Israel still seek to live in
peace with them. Even as they forcibly expelled
as many as 700,000 Jews
from the various and respective Arab lands, lands like Yemen and
Morocco, Syria and Iraq -- driving them out, confiscating their land and
portable property, confiscating their liquid assets,
driving them into
exile between the late 1930s and early 1950s -- Israel was
pleading with
landed Arabs to remain within her borders, to remain and live
side-by-side in peace.
Maybe many of those Arab residents would have remained behind
if leaders
of the invading Arab armies did not impel them to leave, to abandon
their homes, essentially to get the heck out of the darned way during
the planned extermination of the nascent Jewish State, as the Arab
legions marched on Palestine/pre-Israel to drive the "Jews into the
sea."
Many Arabs did indeed flee, as a result. They opted to get out of the
way. Not as many Arabs left Israel as the number of Jews who forcibly
were driven out of the Arab lands at the time. But many left. Perhaps
400,000. Perhaps more. And the vast majority of those who chose to leave
departed not from Gaza nor from the "West Bank" but from the core of
Israel itself. That is why they do not perceive a "Palestine homeland"
in the "West Bank" or Gaza as their home, as a resolution of
anything. It would be like telling someone who fled France, for one
reason or another, that he will be "restored" to a "home" in neighboring
Germany. Imagine your own situation:
you have been forced out of your home, perhaps by a force majeure,
in Teaneck, New Jersey or Brooklyn, New York -- and your insurance
company offers you a replacement home in Boise, Idaho or Butte, Montana.
Is that "good enough" a replacement, given that it all is in the same
country? So, how does a "home" in Berlin restore exile from Paris? And how
does a "home" in Bethlehem restore a perceived exile from Tel Aviv or
Haifa?
Those questions' answers are the reasons that
the logo of the uniform is what it is, why
the "refugee camps" are where they are, and why the "Two-State Solution"
fails by ignoring the reality that "Palestinian Arabs" cannot accept Tel
Aviv, Haifa, and West Jerusalem as "Jewish."
Those Arabs who left Israel could have stayed. The Jews asked them to
stay. Unlike the 700,000 Jews who were driven into exile from homes in
Arab lands, those Arabs were not driven out. Unlike Native Americans,
they were not driven off their lands. And unlike other exiles, they were
put into concentration environments -- Arab "refugee camps" -- by
their own people.
While the nascent State of Israel gamely was constructing a home and
frantically was working to absorb the huge influx of landless, destitute
Jewish exiles and refugees from Arab lands, the Arab world was building
concentration camps and reservations for their own people, fellow Arabs,
where those emigres would languish. Half a century later, while the
Jewish refugees from Arab lands have seen
their children become
doctors
and computer programmers, world leaders, attorneys,
business
moguls,
plumbers, contractors, entertainment executives,
and
anything
else out
there, the children of those Arab emigres have become the victims of the
world's most heinous example of cynical self-hatred. They remain in
"refugee camps" that are historical anomalies and today are thoroughly
anachronistic. They remain on international welfare, under the rubric of
a cynically anti-Jewish United Nations agency, the "United
Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East"
(UNRWA), which runs the camps and their schools, and has a vested
interest -- namely, preserving their own existence, preserving their own continued employment
and pay checks,
presefving their jobs -- in perpetuating the historical crime of refusing to let the
residents be absorbed into their local environments.
During the last century, the world has seen so many tragically painful
"population exchanges" play themselves out on the world stage. Greek
ethnics were forced out of Bulgaria and into Greece, while Bulgarian
ethnics were forced from Greece into Bulgaria. In 1922, under the League
of Nations, 1.25 million Greek Orthodox ethnics were transferred from
Turkey, and half a million Moslems were transferred reciprocally to
Turkey from Greece. Fridtjof Nansen, the guy who oversaw the population exchange, was
awarded the
1922 Nobel Peace Prize for his effort. In 1940, under the Treaty of
Craiova, there was a massive population exchange: 80,000 Romanian
ethnics were forced into Bulgaria, and 65,000 Bulgarian ethnics forced
out of Romania. After World War II, between 14-16 million ethnic Germans
were transferred out of Central and Eastern Europe, and into Germany.
Poland and the Soviet Union exchanged populations: between 1944 and
1946, some 2 million people, Polish ethnics sent to Poland from the
Ukraine and Ukrainians sent out of Poland, were transferred. More than 5
million Hindus and Sikhs were forced to India from the regions that
became Pakistan, and more than 6 million Moslems were pushed out of
India and into Pakistan.
The Cynicism of the Fabricated
"Palestinian Refugee Problem" . . .
Where are the languishing Bulgarian refugee camps? Greek refugee camps?
Romanian refugee camps? Polish refugee camps? German refugee camps?
Ukrainian refugee camps? Hindu/Sikh refugee camps? Where are the Bosnian
Moslem refugee camps? Why is there no massive international
welfare apparatus in the rubric of a United Nations Relief and Works
Agency for the [Bulgarian/Greek/
Romanian/Polish/German/Ukrainian/Hindu/Sikh/Bosnian/Vietnamese/
Cambodian/Rwandan/Darfur] refugees?
How is it that no one even thinks to ask?
And is it
comprehensible that, at a time of national economic challenge within
America, the
United States funds more than one fourth the cost of this
nonsense to the tune of nearly $100 million annually? By contrast, Saudi
Arabia funds less than one percent ($2.5 million), and Kuwait less than
that. Can there be anything that evidences more forcefully how cynical
this entire mendacity is? The OPEC oil cartel raises our oil costs
to the point of disrupting our national economy, and we responsively
fund a massive, multi-national welfare infrastructure for those of their
people whom they, unique among all countries into which emigrants have
sought haven, have confined to concentration centers for more than
half a century.
What people holds and concentrates its own brothers and sisters in "refugee camps" for
half a century and more? And, to make matters more bizarre, these people
in the UNRWA "Palestinian refugee camps" are the descendants of those
who departed their homes voluntarily, gambling that their departure
would facilitate the Arab Legions' rapid success in obliterating the
Jewish presence from the face of the earth, driving the Jews into the
Mediterranean Sea. Indeed, it was
their leading spiritual leader of the time --
Haj
Amin el-Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem -- who overtly and
demonstratively
allied the pan-Arab cause with
Adolph Hitler
and the Nazis. Yet, people who have
persecuted
the Berber minority of Algeria, the
Coptic Christian minority of Egypt, the
Bahai minority of Iran,
Christians in Saudi Arabia -- even enslaving
Black Christians in the Sudan -- would have the temerity to equate
Zionism with racism and to compare Zionists to Nazis. There are
nations and peoples who, over the centuries, have ventured into Africa
and forcibly expatriated tens of thousands of Black Africans to become
slaves in theirs and others' countries on other continents. But in
all the world, in all of human history, Israel is the only country that
ever expended national human and financial resources,
risking
her citizens' lives in daring midnight sorties and dangerous
trans-continental rescue missions, aimed at
liberating tens
of thousands of Black Africans from persecution and
bringing them out
of Africa , out from slavery and into
freedom.
. . . And the Cynicism of Imposing on
Israel a "Two State Solution" in the Face of America's Long-Term Commitments
and Repeated Promises to a Time-Tested
Friend and Ally
So what
"Two-State Solution" are President Barack Obama, Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton, and Rahm Emanuel talking about?
The irony is that this pressure from President Obama and Secretary
Clinton comes at a
time when not a single prominent political leader on the Israeli
political scene even advocates building new Jewish communities ("settlements") in Judea and Samaria. There
rarely before has been a more pliable
Israeli government. All Bibi Netanyahu advocates, minimalistic and
inadequate though it be, is the right for Jews to expand within a legal
community for natural increase.
And even that now is to be proscribed, despite
understandings with the
prior American President and his Administration that America would
respect that Israeli right if Israel would agree to abandon Gaza and
pursue other parts of the ill-conceived "Road Map" structured by former
President George W. Bush and his foreign affairs expert, Secretary of
State Condoleezza Rice.
So Israel ceded Gaza, and the Road Map played out by extending all of
democracy's virtues to the now-liberated
Gazans.
Freed to vote their hearts' content, they
elected into office the worst
terrorist goons freely elected to a democracy's high office since the
National Socialists got out the vote in 1933 Germany.
Hamas
refuses to recognize Israel, refuses to live in peace with Israel, and
refuses to recognize prior signed treaties with Israel.
Now, President Obama, Secretary Clinton, and Mr. Emanuel emulate
Hamas
in one of the three critical immoralities:
they unilaterally
abandon America's prior policy and refuse to abide by
America’s
understanding of the
past that, if Israel compromises by ceding Gaza, she nevertheless may expand already
established communities in Judea-Samaria to allow for natural increase.
For a team with the demonstrated ability to
pull isolated passages from
the
Quran,
it would be instructive to refresh
consciences by recalling a few passages of the agreements that President Bush and Prime Minister Sharon reached, with
the exchanges amplified between their respective advisors Condoleezza
Rice and Dov Weisglas. America
expressly contracted in writing to
recognize new post-1949 and post-1967 realities: namely, that Israel now has
major population centers in areas in Judea and Samaria, and therefore
there will be no returning to the 1967 borders.
Nor does anyone else in the Judea-Samaria ("West Bank") region have a better, more legitimate claim to
the land than does Israel. Mexico has a better claim to California and
Texas than the terrorists of Fatah and Hamas have to Judea and Samaria.
At least Mexico can tell you the years they were sovereign there, the
Mexican governmental leaders who oversaw the land, the currency they
circulated there, and the years that Mexico lost sovereignty over their
land in California and Texas.
Pressuring Israel to Abandon Her
Security While Turning a Blind Eye, Deaf Ear, and Silent Tongue Towards
a Concerted Vitriolic Hate Campaign Against Jews That Has Poisoned
Children's Minds and Adults' Hearts Through the Next Generation, Even as
the Hate Campaign Materially Has Breached and Thus Has Rendered Void and
Nugatory Every Israel-Arab Treaty
There is more, so much more. America
expressly contracted -- in writing -- that, if Israel were to
cede Gaza, America would require that
Abbas and his "Palestinian
Authority" stop
the hate-filled anti-Jewish and
anti-Israel incitement among the population he leads: the
hate-filled
TV
telecasts, the hate-filled radio
broadcasts, the hate-filled
summer camps, the newspapers of hate
and their crossword
puzzles of hate, the
school textbooks of hate.
Yet the hate continues unabated.
Even teaching hate to the
youngest of children. There is no comment or condemnation by
President Obama or Secretary Clinton, and Rahm Emanuel continues
unabated as point man for selling the "Two-State Solution" to American
Jewish groups.
No Israeli relinquishing of land to Mahmoud Abbas or
Hamas
will bring anything but more Jewish suffering and more Jewish
vulnerability, as the
weapons
Hamas
placed in Gaza
to ruin life in Israel's South (Sderot,
Ashdod,
Ashkelon)
and the
weapons Hezbollah placed in South Lebanon to reach into Israel's
northern coastal plain (Haifa,
Hadera)
next aim to bring the cities of Tel
Aviv
under rocket fire exposure from Samaria and Jerusalem from Judea.
This is the
reality on the ground -- so different from the effort painted by propagandists
to score points. Just as so much is confused
about the everyday physical interface between Israelis and Arabs living in Judea
and Samaria (the "West Bank"). Understandably, when a foreign visitor sees long lines of
"West Bank" Arabs waiting to be permitted through Israeli security check points
to enter pre-1967 Israel, the delay seems curious. "Why does Israel
subject them to such intense inspection?" the visitor wonders. "How
terrible the life under 'occupation!'"
Well, a closer look reveals that terrorists
-- with a
proven record of bringing mass murder --
cross through those borders, too. Some are armed with body explosives.
Others carry minuscule portions of explosives that, when combined with other
minuscule items smuggled by other terror couriers in their cell, have caused
horrific tragedy in the past. And that is the
reason for the security
fence and the long, long, slow, slow lines at that fence.
The fence was
built to reduce the carnage. Indeed, upon reflection, is the experience
of body inspections at that border all that different from the way that America
treats aliens coming across our southern border? Or through our airports?
To get into a domestic flight, even American citizens are expected to remove all
their metal items -- even keys, pens, nickels, even a dime. And even
octogenarian travelers -- every single one of them -- have to remove their shoes
for inspection. And elderly people with heart pacemakers have to subject
themselves to individualized security checking, full-body wanding. As do
people who have had metal splints or rods inserted into their limbs during
surgery.
Meanwhile, in Israel, every Jewish Israeli must subject himself to
inspection regularly throughout each day. Israelis must open their bags
and purses for inspection, and submit to metal-detector body searches
every time they enter a bank or post office, pick up a bottle of milk at
the supermarket, enter a mall or train station, or visit a hospital or
medical clinic. Young Israeli men and women are frisked closely and
methodically before they enter nightclubs. These daily "humiliations"
extend to body searches at weddings, bar mitzvahs, and even when
attending regular synagogue services. Similarly, Jewish
schoolchildren in Israel are surrounded by perimeter fences, with armed
guards at schoolyard gates. By contrast, Arab schools and villages do
not require such fences. Guards are not required at Arab shops, cafes,
restaurants, movie theaters, wedding halls or schools. Arabs in the
"West Bank" do not need armed guards to accompany their every school
trip or youth movement hike -- because they are not targets of
terrorism. Thus, the claim that Israel treats Arabs unfairly when slowly
securing the safety as people enter pre-1967 Israel from the "West Bank"
is mendacious. Israel is fair and reasonable to them -- why else
would they be lining up, seeking entry? (One does not see Jews lining up
to enter Libya or Syria.)
The Facts on the Ground: Every Israeli
Retreat Has Invited Anti-West Arab Terrorists to Arm and Militarize,
Rain Unprecedented Destruction, and Launch New Deadly Battle Fronts of
Rocket Fire at Israeli Cities That Previously Had Been Secure
In Israel, there are Orthodox
religionists
who debate with Jewish secularists whether Jews ever, under any
circumstances, may depart from land that G-d promised in the Torah to
the Jewish Patriarchs. That is a debate that fascinates and engages
religionists (in
whose number I am counted). "Realists," by
contrast, simply need to look at the facts on the ground: Israel ceded
land in Southern Lebanon in return for promises of peace. Instead,
Hezbollah seized the region and has turned it into a rocket-firing
gallery aimed at Israel. Israel ceded land in Gaza in return for
promises of peace. Instead,
Hamas
seized the region and has turned it into a rocket-firing gallery aimed
at Israel. Every single fact on the ground evidences that any Israeli
cession to Abbas in Judea or Samaria will create a new front of
incessant rocket barrage, and will add yet another rabidly
anti-American, anti-West polity in the Middle East, which will arm
itself and be armed by Iran and her cohorts.
If Israel retreats from any land in Judea or Samaria, it first will fall
into the hands of
Mahmoud Abbas, who lived a life as Arafat's Number Two
(ancient history?),
denies there was a Holocaust as described by Western
historians (recent history?), and who explicitly rejects the notion that
Israel can be called a "Jewish State" (this week's history).
And he and his Fatah terrorists are the least of
the problem because they already are
out-polled among their residents by
Hamas,
who won the last election -- freedom, democracy, as promised under the
Road Map's
vision -- and who transparently are bent on destroying Israel (as well
as Abbas himself).
The Grand
"Two-State"
Pyramid Scheme should remain in Cairo and at the Pyramids. The "Two-State Solution" is nothing but
another term for a "Final Solution."
We Jews do not do so well with Final Solutions.
.
JERSUALEM
Los Angeles Jewish Journal
November 2, 2007
http://www.jewishjournal.com/home/searchview.php?id=18431

We Have the Right
to an
Indivisible Jerusalem
Rabbi Yosef Kanefsky
invites a forthright open dialogue, a conversation about Jerusalem.
Contemplating Israeli talks with those governing the autonomous Arab
enclaves of Judea and Samaria -- Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestine
Authority -- Rabbi Kanefsky writes that it is time for us to be honest
about the story of Jerusalem. Employing the pages of The Jewish Journal,
he particularly challenges those in the Orthodox Zionist community to
converse, to
be
honest about Jerusalem.
I accept his invitation in these pages for this dialogue, for this
discussion, for this honest telling of our claim to an eternally
undivided capital city of Jerusalem.
Ever since I learned to pray, I learned about Jerusalem. In time as a
boy, I learned to pray three times every day in my "Sh'moneh Esrai"
prayer for the return to and the rebuilding of united Jerusalem. Since
childhood, every time I have eaten a meal with bread, I have recited
prayers of thanks for the food -- and for the rebuilding of united
Jerusalem. If I eat a cookie, I follow with a prayer of thanks -- and
for the rebuilding of Jerusalem.
I am not unique. For 2,000 years and more, my people have cried for
Jerusalem and laughed for her. As much as I have come to love America in
my lifetime -- because this country has been so good to me and my people
-- I have no clue what day on the calendar the British burned the White
House during the War of 1812. But I know that it was on the ninth of Av
that the Babylonians burned the Holy Temple in Jerusalem. And it was the
same day that Rome burned the rebuilt Temple.
This is where honesty begins in my dialogue with Rabbi Kanefsky. It may
sound militaristic to him or strangely uncompromising. But my claim to
Jerusalem is eternal and unyielding to a Jerusalem indivisible and
united, because no one in my family line, going back to the beginning of
the exile, ever yielded our claim to Jerusalem.
We were driven out by Babylonians, and we outlasted them and returned.
We were exiled by Romans, and we outlasted them and returned. They built
an Arch of Titus in Italy to glorify in taking down our Jerusalem, and
we have outlived them and their empire, and we have returned.
We got married, and we broke a glass under the chuppah to remember a
Jerusalem that had fallen, even as we recited the blessing moments
earlier under that same canopy that the day will come when, once again,
the sounds of joy and gladness, the celebrations of the groom and bride,
will be heard in Jerusalem and her outskirts.
No one compromises on capital cities. America moved her capital around
-- from Philadelphia to New York to Washington, D.C. -- but she never
offered to split it with the British or Jefferson Davis. No one offers
to split Damascus or Beirut or Cairo or Baghdad for peace. No one offers
to split Paris or London or Madrid or Prague.
Even the experience with Berlin is instructive. The world forced onto
the Germans -- veritably shoved it right down their throats -- the
division of Berlin. It barely lasted half a century before the wall came
down and the city was reunited.
We owe no apologies, no explanations. From 1948 to 1967, King Hussein of
Jordan wrongfully was regnant over East Jerusalem. He made no effort to
treat it as New Amman. Nor did any Arab ruler in all of history before
him ever act to make Jerusalem a capital.
Jerusalem simply was not and never has been all that central to Arabia
or Islam. Muslim prayers are directed toward Mecca and Medina. By
contrast, praying from my locus in Southern California, I face east
toward Jerusalem.
There is a corruption in the dialogue when I am challenged to speak
"honestly" in defense of my right to see Jerusalem remain the eternally
indivisible capital of Israel and the Jewish People. The Jews came back
to Jerusalem with no less right than did America march to Washington,
D.C.
If there is something wrong with entering a city by liberating it in
battle, then it was equally wrong for any Arab conqueror before Israel
to have entered the same city. But if a military victory places Arab
negotiators at the table and drives out the British, who drove out the
Ottomans, then a Jewish army's successful victory in a war of
self-defense trumps all other secular-based claims to "right over
might."
Because, despite any revisionist attempt to rewrite what happened in
1967, the fact remains that Israel was not looking to expand her borders
but to live. And in 1948, she compromised so much more than any other
nation has compromised, just to gain the ratification of a U.N. body
that never has been in Israel's pocket.
Rabbi Kanefsky's call for honest conversation, for honesty from Orthodox
Zionists, is an invitation to recall how the dialogue even came to
begin. It began because Jews and our institutions and landmarks were
driven out by marauders. And the Arab world, primarily the Jordanians,
aimed to eradicate what was left.
There were synagogues in Jerusalem -- the Ramban Synagogue, the Rabbi
Yochanan Ben Zakkai, shuls all over East Jerusalem -- that Jordan razed
to the ground. They converted one venerable shul to a cheese factory,
another to a stall for goats. They uprooted tombstones from the Jewish
cemetery on the Mount of Olives and used them for pavement, for
construction, even for latrines. They banned us from the Western Wall.
Jerusalem belonged to my ancestors. It belonged to my grandparents in
Poland and Russia. It belongs to me. That's the honest story.
Whole World Wrong
The Jewish Forward
April 19, 2002
We're Right,
the Whole World's Wrong
By DOV FISCHER
"The whole world is
demanding that Israel withdraw. I don't think the whole world, including
the friends of the Israeli people and government, can be wrong."
— Kofi Annan, United
Nations Secretary General,
speaking in Madrid, Spain
At this moment in time, many Jews who love and
support Israel hear the soft voice within, asking the question to which
Kofi Annan recently alluded in Madrid: Can we alone be right, while the
whole world around is wrong?
The evidence that we are standing on the other side
of the "whole world" is manifest. The Arab League is united in
condemnation, and Egyptian students march for an end to their country's
diplomatic relations with Israel that were engraved at Camp David. The
United Nations Security Council roundly condemns Israel several times in
mere weeks, and its human rights commission again takes up the
Durban chant against Zionism that was silenced by September 11. The
European Union is rife with talk of boycotting the Jewish state.
Synagogue attacks in France give vent to the feeling expressed with
gentility by the French diplomat who termed Israel "that sh—-y little
state." All three major political parties in Germany vie to lead their
nation in condemning Israel. England accuses Israel of using
British-made tanks illegally. Mobs attack Jews from Ukraine to Belgium
to the Netherlands. The pope condemns Israel for its military presence
outside the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, while armed Arab
terrorists repose inside, holding monks and nuns as icons for terror.
We Jews are bemused. Are we the only ones who see
the unrelenting suicide bombings of women and children at pizza stores,
of teenagers at a discotheque, of families at a Seder celebration? After
19 months of slaughter at open-air fruit markets and bus stations and
bat mitzvah parties, deadly shootings of motorists, stabbings of school
children in caves, has no one seen this but us? Do we alone notice that
the attacks target Jewish and Arab civilians alike throughout pre-June
1967 Israel, from Haifa to Hadera, West Jerusalem to Beersheba?
The whole world demands Israel take risks for peace
with Yasser Arafat — again. Are we the only ones who perceive that,
after he was conferred a Nobel peace prize and given authority to create
a new polity and a new atmosphere for coexistence, he desecrated the
next eight years by wielding television to inculcate grotesque images of
murder, radio to disseminate a culture of hate, schools and summer camps
to train young people to murder the Jews they were being taught to hate?
Can no one but us decipher the receipts he signed, authorizing funds to
purchase weapons of terror?
The whole world endorses President Bush's call for
war against terrorists and those who harbor them. The United States
invades Afghanistan to uproot the infrastructure of terror and hunkers
down there for seven months, preparing to extend the incursion into
Pakistan. Aerial bombs strafe cities. Thousands of civilian
non-combatants are believed dead. The Taliban government crumbles, but
the incursion continues. We must find Osama bin Laden. We must find
Mullah Omar. We must reach Daniel Pearl's killers. And we yet shall
begin the mother of all incursions into Iraq.
We Jews see this. We also see the same "whole
world" roundly condemn Israel for its incursion into a jungle of terror.
Israel will not drop incendiary payloads from the air on civilians, so
Israeli reservists, husbands and fathers, die in house-to-house fighting
in Jenin, where the terrorists booby-trap buildings, station snipers and
outfit children as human bombs. Israel asks that Arafat turn over the
assassins of an Israeli cabinet minister and the mastermind of the
Karine-A affair that tried
to smuggle 50 tons of explosives to his minions. But the whole world
wants Israel instead to pull back while the bombers of Hamas, Islamic
Jihad, the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade and the Tanzim play for time.
Doesn't the whole world see what we see? Can we alone be right?
Well, yes. If we Jews are anything, we are a people
of history. From our first patriarch to Israel's precision-targeted
destruction of the Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981, which laid the
foundation for a successful Operation Desert Storm and the rescue of
Kuwait, our history provides the strength to know that we can be
right and the whole world wrong.
We have confronted the question many times. The
whole world was polytheistic, and we alone preached belief in one God.
We preached a Day of Rest, and the whole ancient world mocked us as lazy
people. We were right, and the whole world was wrong. They said we
crucified a Jew — as if the Romans would have allowed any of its
subjects to do such a thing, as if Jews ever had such a punishment in
our code — and we insisted such a thing was beyond impossible. We were
right, and the whole world was wrong. In the Middle Ages, the whole
world said that we use children's blood to make matzo; we denied it.
They said that we poisoned the wells of Europe, and we denied it. We
were right, and the whole world was wrong. The Crusades. The blood
libels and Talmud burnings in England and France, leading those nations
to expel Jews for centuries. The Spanish and Portuguese Inquisition. The
ghettoes and the Mortara case in Italy. Dreyfus in France. Beilis in
Russia and a century's persecution of Soviet Jewry. The Holocaust. Kurt
Waldheim in Austria. Each time, Europe stood by silently — or actively
participated in murdering us — and we alone were right, and the whole
world was wrong.
Today, once again, we alone are right and the whole
world is wrong. The Arabs, the Russians, the Africans, the Vatican
proffer their aggregated insights into and accumulated knowledge of the
ethics of massacre. And the Europeans. Although we appreciate a
half-century of West European democracy more than we appreciated the
prior millennia of European brutality, we recognize who they are, what
they have done — and what's what. We know, if they don't, that they need
Arab oil more than they need Jewish philosophy and creativity. We
remember that the food they eat is grown from soil fertilized by 2,000
years of Jewish blood they have sprinkled onto it. Atavistic Jew-hatred
lingers in the air into which the ashes rose from the crematoria.
Finally, the best of
Europe truly are wracked by the burdened conscience of what they,
their parents and their bubbes
and zeides
did, or failed to do, in the 1940s. So, instead of confronting a
shameful past that belies their self-vaunted Romantic civilization, they
seek now to assuage their consciences with the mendacity that Israel
2002 is no different from Europe 1942.
Yes, once again, we are right and the whole world
is wrong. It doesn't change a thing, but after 25 centuries it's nice to
know.
Self
Improvement
Los Angeles Jewish Journal
April 29, 2009
http://www.jewishjournal.com/torah_portion/article/dont_do_well_do_good_20090429/
Separating the
Holy
from the
Despicable
“Tell the entire
assemblage of Israel: you shall be holy
because I the L-rd your G-d am holy.” (Vayikra 19:2)
This week’s Torah portion lays out a
comprehensive array of Divinely ordained commandments that
define the range of Judaism’s unique values. Legislated to an
assemblage of just-liberated slaves, these are the concepts and
aspirations taught orally to Moshe at Sinai and thereafter
transmitted in an appendix – the Written Torah. Through them, we
were sculpted into an entity greater than mere physical
emancipation could have offered. We were made holy.
In Judaism, “holiness” is epitomized by separation --
"separateness." “Behold [they comprise] a Nation that shall
dwell alone.” (Bamidbar 23:9). We are holy because we are
separate.
These laws separated us from the surrounding world. Don’t just
fear your Dad but also your Mom; don’t just cuddle up to Mom
with honor but also honor your Dad. And, yet, remember that both
your parents, no less than you, answer to the Creator; their
authority extends only within Torah’s parameters.
Yes, be really careful to observe all the detailed rituals
governing animal sacrifice, and carefully observe all kinds of
esoteric laws: Refrain from donning garments made from a
combination of both linen and wool. Don’t shave with a razor
blade or obliterate your sideburns or get caught up in a
societal tattooing craze. Tatt too will pass. Don’t go to
fortune-tellers, and don’t erect statues.
But also remember that, as part of being holy – of being
different – your Creator will hold you accountable for cursing
deaf people and for tripping up the blind, even if they are
oblivious to your deeds. He will demand you account for
conducting business dealings deceitfully, for failing to leave a
corner of your field’s produce as open-pickings for the poor.
Don’t you dare steal or deal falsely. If you invoke His name in
a false oath, if you perjure yourself in a court filing, you
will have to account. Don’t you dare cheat your neighbor, and
don’t you rob, and don’t you withhold your employee’s wages past
payday. Don’t you dare.
Maybe the late-night TV talk show hosts make fun of elderly
people, but not you. When you see someone with white hair, you
get up from your cozy chair and you stand out of respect, and
you honor that time-worn face. She has endured it all, and she
has earned your reverence.
So it’s not just about meticulously observing 39 rules that
define Jewish Sabbath observance – although that, too, is
central to the very concept of a Jewish People. Nor is it only
about eating kosher and avoiding forbidden mixtures. Rather, it
also is about being honest, ethical, trustworthy, and thus
noble. Your scales must be honest when you weigh a pound of meat
or a hill of beans. Your every transaction must be honest; even
your resumés must be truthful: where you went to school, the
degrees you truly earned. A holy nation is not led by crooks,
nor does it honor them.
That is what makes a great people. Such separateness makes
“holy.”
Greatness is not measured by the size of your bat mitzvah
smorgasbord or the layout of your backyard pool, but by how you
acquired them. Your fancy car and your home landscaping and the
jewelry in your safe do not define you. Your deeds define you.
As Rabbi Emanuel Rackman taught: It is not enough to do well;
you must do good.
Whom do we honor? At our every organizational banquet, our every
special event, do we make room on the dais to honor at least one
person of modest means whose presence is grounded exclusively in
her kindness, her goodness, her nobility of character?
Money is great. And many profoundly wealthy people also justly
populate the platform of the noble, those blessed with dignity
and grace of character. But is wealth the standard we employ in
selecting our nobles, our honorees? Can a Holy Nation count
among its leaders those whose wealth is bound with mendacity?
Those who became rich by ruining others or those who climbed
ladders by destroying the reputations of others?
Not a holy nation. Not a nation separated and
set apart by the command of their Creator to deal honestly, to
judge honestly, and never to do unto others what they would not
want done to them.
That is the striking message of this week’s
Torah portion. It should be mandatory reading for every banquet
committee and every nominating committee in organized American
Jewish life. Its message is that extraordinary. And we all
should study it, too.
Courage
Facing Loshon Horo
COURAGE UNDER
FIRE:
SO HOW DOES A JEW RESPOND
WHEN CAUGHT
UNEXPECTEDLY IN A LOSHON
HORO ENVIRONMENT, AMID GOSSIPERS AND SLANDERERS?
One of the most difficult aspects of Jewish life is dealing with
the grave sin of loshon horo.
The Chofetz Chaim, author of the
Mishneh B’rurah
compendium on the
Shulkhan Arukh that serves as the defining
halakhic work for
Ashkenazic Jewry in the modern era, nevertheless attached his
name to his other great life’s work – on the laws of
loshon horo.
He felt that tackling the complexity of
loshon horo law was
the greater contribution he made in his lifetime. So he
took his great sobriquet from a verse couplet in
Tehillim (Psalms
34:13-14): “Who is the man who desires life, (mi
ha-ish he-chofetz chaim) who loves days to see good?
Restrain your tongue from evil and your lips from manipulation.”
And HaRav Yisroel Meir Kagan HaKohen, zt”l, took for himself the
name “Chofetz Chaim” as the name by which he would be
remembered.
The laws of loshon horo
are numerous. For example, with Ehud Barak recently having
announced that he is seeking to return to political leadership
in
Israel, it is not
at all loshon horo
to remind people of how Israel fared the last time he led the
Jewish State. It is not
loshon horo to speak
of Neturei Karta
– the clowns in Hasidic garb who attend Fatah events and
Holocaust Denial conferences to ally with our enemies – with the
utmost contempt. It is not
loshon horo to refer
to Jimmy Karta,
the 39th American President and a bigot against the
State of Israel, with the utmost contempt. When someone
inquires whether a fellow or lady is suitable as a pending
wedding match or as a business partner, the
halakhah permits and requires candor. There are
many more examples of these principles.
On the other hand, in a different context, even a “roll of the
eyes” can be a grave sin. Or a smirk. Or a snicker.
When the intention is to reduce a person a notch by conveying a
negative meaning that is forbidden under
halakhah, the
conveyor of the loshon horo
can lose his place in the World to Come for all eternity.
And, for good measure, Rav Avigdor Miller zt”l teaches that the
conveyor and transmitter of the
loshon horo is
saddled with all the sins and punishment of the person he
intends to degrade.
The challenge that is most difficult for most of us is how to
respond when, unexpectedly, we find ourselves caught in a
loshon horo
environment. One time, Ellen and I were invited to a
Shabbat dinner at someone’s home. (It was
not in Orange
County.) Other guests were invited, too. As often
happens at a Shabbat table, conversation ensued, shifting from
one Jewish subject to another. Suddenly, the discussion
moved into laws of kashrut
– and, from there, into one person’s ridiculing a Rav
who grants kashrut certifications. The discussion reached
beyond nuanced philosophical differences of rabbinical schools
of thought – for example, some
halakhic authorities
are stricter about Cholov Yisroel than are others – and
transcended into loshon horo
and, worse, hotza’at shem ra’.
Loshon horo
is an infection, very contagious, so much so that it needs to be
quarantined. It sneaks into a conversation, often
introduced cleverly and surreptitiously by someone whose agenda
– whose personal axe-to-grind – manipulates the discussion into
that direction. And, as happened that night at that
Shabbat table, Ellen and I suddenly and unexpectedly found
ourselves embedded in a loshon horo environment. This prominent Rav was
being derided and smeared by a person who absolutely did not
know what he was talking about. We were caught off-guard.
But what to do? What
indeed to do? To make a scene? To break
the ambiance? To ruin dessert? What to do?
Because, alas, silence is often tantamount to agreement.
In the 'Harry Potter" series of
children's books, author J.K. Rowling puts a profound thought
into the mouth of one of her characters: "It takes courage
to stand up to your enemies. It takes even greater courage
to stand up to your friends." And that is indeed the only
prescriptive that exists in the face of finding oneself in that
bind.
To speak up -- because silence is not an
option. To risk losing a friend -- to risk becoming
unwelcome at the weekly poker game -- because losing Paradise is
not an option. To realize that someone willing to
jeopardize your place in the World to Come may just not be the
best friend in your rolodex.
In the movie "Gentleman's Agreement," a
1950s-era Oscar winner as Best Picture for its depiction of a
non-Jewish journalist who poses as a Jew in snooty Connecticut
and Manhattan to learn from an insider's perspective that
Jew-hatred exists even among the upper crust, there is a
memorable scene. A non-Jewish woman, late in the movie, recounts
that she was enjoying supper as an invited guest at a dinner
table, breaking bread with such upper crust, when someone
started telling anti-Jewish jokes. She angrily recounts
the incident later, among a group of people who oppose
anti-Semitism, telling them approximately these words: "I was so
mad. You have no idea. I was furious."
In approximately these words, one of the listeners then asks
her: “So what did you do
? Did you speak out? Did you
object to that
humor? Did you convey your sentiments in
any way?” And
she responds, her face looking down into her napkin, “No.
I sat there silently. I allowed it to continue. I
did not have the courage to speak out.”
Loshon horo is
the ultimate anti-Semitism, a violation of the essence of Torah
values, emanating from within the Jewish community, derogating
one or more Jewish souls, assassinating an innocent Jew’s
character, causing pain and suffering to its victims and
targets, to family and friends. Even as it threatens the
eternal souls of those drawn within its ambit, often innocent
bystanders caught unexpectedly in the oral terrorist’s
cross-fire.
The only way to respond, when unexpectedly finding oneself
caught in a loshon horo
environment, is to speak out with courage. To say “My
spouse and I did not come here to listen to this. Nor do
we want our children exposed to this poisonous environment.
We reject what is being said. And if it happens again, we
will leave this environment and not return.”
That is courage
under fire, Jewish-style.