The Unkindest Cut -Part II My peeve with an LA Times editor

 

The Unkindest Cut -Part II

My peeve with an LA Times editor

I want to share with you an example of the fight we have in the trenches all the time.

The editor of the Letters section of the LA Times sends a regular summary of key topics in the news. His last newsletter was a way of apologizing for the media admittedly believing Hamas’ story about Israel intentionally targeting a hospital and killing 500. But even in explaining that it was a rush to judgement, he had one snide remark, a back-handed compliment of the worst kind.

This was part of his opening:

The subject line on an email from the New York Times on Tuesday morning wasshocking: “Breaking news: Israeli strike on hospital kills hundreds, Palestinianofficials say.”

Horrified as I was at the thought of 500 Palestinians killed while seeking care andrefuge inside a Gaza Strip hospital, I was also skeptical. The source of the Israeliair strike claim was Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip. . .. 

I’ll reserve judgment as to whether news organizations messed up on this.Reporters and editors covering this war operate under immense pressure, andthis week should remind us to be more circumspect about passing off any government’s statements as fact. 

So far so good. 

This is his text that ticked me off:

Yes, Israel has despicably lied about past atrocities, but that’s no reason to dismiss credible evidence that it might not have murdered hundreds of civilians this time, especially when something so incendiary can lead to antisemitic violence elsewhere.

The words" despicably lied" were underlined in his email. That underlining is intended to open to his source for the phrase, Al Jezeera! Link to Al Jazeera article being referenced

 Here is my reply to him. I am still awaiting a response:

Dear Mr. Thornton,

 I appreciate that you are calling on media to reserve judgement until facts are in. I found the blood libel of the claim of Israel’s targeting of the hospital in Gaza such a classic example, of a kind with the blood libel about the massacre in Jenin some 20 years ago, widely reported as truth, even though no massacre took place.

 However, I resent what is a snide explanation about the rush to judgment being a consequence of “despicable lies” by Israel. That statement is marked by a link to the source, an opinion piece from nothing less than Al Jazeera, a wholly owned subsidiary of Qatar, headquarters to Hamas and associated with the Muslim Brotherhood. The editorial leads with the phrase “despicable lies” but refers directly only to the tragic death of Al Jazeera reporter, Abu Akleh. Here, Israel did eventually accept responsibility for an accidental, not intentional, killing, an admission, the likes of which was never done by the other side.

 If you wish the Times, like the other major media, to retain a smidgeon of journalistic integrity , you must avoid snide insinuations. Your colleagues must also acknowledge that the rush to judgement is has resulted in additional violence,  around the world, to the Jewish community and salt on the wound for both sides. 

******

The Unkindest Cut of All- Part 1

 The Unkindest Cut of All --On Jews and other enablers of Hamas with a lookback 75 years

Part I

The video of my discussion

https://youtu.be/RKaumCALthw?si=baaIqpay1YtNRUtn

(This is my discussion on the Torah, in which I draw a parallel between the cruelty of the Sodomites and today's Hamas. I also go into a digression on the origin and  purpose of the term Palestine, from Eretz Pilishtim-Land of the Invaders. 

https://youtu.be/TSkmj2KZvDI?si=GBYUw_zfOhVp9Ejs )

 

It is bizarre to be a Jew in a world which denies you the right to defend yourself, which says “tsk, tsk” and rushes to judgement for every wrong doing, even if it turn out to be right. Thus, we have the Secretary General of the UN explaining away the actions of Hamas because :

”The Palestinian people have been subjected to 56 years of suffocating occupation.”

Note the 56 years ( since the Six Day War). This  been used repeatedly in propaganda that has come out to cover up for Hamas “dirty deeds.”

Why not 75 years? From 1948:

“During the 20 years the Gaza Strip was under Egyptian control (1948–67), it remained little more than a reservation. Egyptian rule was generally repressive( https://www.britannica.com/place/Palestine/Palestine-and-the-Palestinians-1948-67) .  

Nevertheless, they found the energy to launch fedayeen attacks from Gaza in those years of “ no occupation”.

 

Why not 100 years, since the British took over, and the Arabs massacred Jews and erased entire communities in Gaza and Hebron with no Israeli occupation.

Why not the several centuries before, when the territory that would become the British mandate of Palestine was under the Ottoman Turks, was mis-administered and neglected, was fought over many times in the Napoleonic wars and later, between Egypt and the Turks, and yet again, between the many mini-states and warlords in the region that warred on each other then.

We could also turn the clock around, going forward.

The economic growth rate from 1967 to 1982 averaged roughly 9.7 percent per annum, due in good part to expanded income from work opportunities inside Israel. In other words, the beginning of that 56 year period of “ suffocating occupation” was the first time the Palestinians could support themselves by themselves!

 

Then, in 1994, with the Oslo accords, Gaza was handed over to its own people, the Palestinian Liberation Organization; there was no longer an occupation, but their terror attacks did not stop. Then, in 2005, Israel withdrew fully, Hamas was voted in 2 years later, and the terror attacks continued, without any occupation.

If anyone has been forcibly evacuated in that period, it was Israelis, who were uprooted from a beautiful town they had built in the Sinai, Yamit, whose inhabitants were removed by force by Israel in order to make possible the peace agreement with Egypt, and then Gush Katif, 17 settlements whose inhabitants were removed by force by the Israeli army, with the illusion that it would lead the Gazans to make their peace with Israel.

Yes, this is described often as a “ concentration camp”, but on with a relatively high life expectancy for the Arab world:

US 80 ; Lebanon 77;  United Arab Emirates 77; Morocco 77 ; Libya 76 ; West Bank 76 ; Tunisia 76; Oman 75 ; Saudi Arabia 75; Gaza Strip 75;  Jordan 74 ; Egypt 73 ;Turkey 73; Iraq 71;  Iran 71; Russia 70.

This is a 2014 statistic, but it is telling, that after 56 years of “ Oppression”, “occupation”, “genocide”, that the Gazans did better than Jordan, Egypt, Turkey ( an economic powerhouse in many ways) or nuclear and space power, Russia!

I would like to know what life expectancy was in Buchenwald?!

The TV is filled, yes, with images of destroyed buildings in northern Gaza, and babies being pulled out of the rubble. Yes, it is horrible, but unlike the surprise attack against Israel by Hamas, Israel gave the people of northern Gaza plenty of time to move south, and many did, just as Israel has evacuated hundreds of thousands of its own citizens away from the battle lines. International organizations have seen fit to condemn Israel for urging people to leave the battle field, even though that is the rule of inernational law in military conflict!

 

 If there are civilians there, they have been kept there by Hamas, but it’s Israel’s fault,  and, as we could see, if Hamas or Jihadi rockets are fired towards Israel, but land, at a rate of some 20 to 50% of the time, on civilians, that is immediately blamed on Israel, especially if it lands on a hospital.

Yes, we will see harsh images, such as this:

Gaza? No!

The Syrian city of Aleppo, destroyed under Assad, 230,000 civilians dead at the hands of their own brothers.

Or this?

Gaza? No!

The Syrian City of Raqqah, after the war against Isis. 1600 civilians killed there 10,000 civilians in Mosul alone, by US and allied forces to free the Middle East from ISIS. Again, by their brothers.

Or this?

Gaza?No!

Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, after Russian missile attack.

120,000 dead, between military and civilian. This is what Russia did to Ukraine, their “little brother”!

Where were the massive marches of protest? Did people take to the streets ? Did anyone take over the Capitoll Rotunda or Grand Central Station for them?

Just a month ago, an entire independent state of Ngorno-Karrabach was eliminated, and its entire population exiled to Armenia. Did any one, other than Armenians, shed a tear? Or is it that Christians expelled by Muslims is a non- issue, or that they were not attacked by a Jewish state makes it a non-issue?

The so-called peace organization Code Pink obstructed a Senate hearing for support for Israel. Never once did Code Pink protest against any tyranny or horror., unless it was blamed on the US or Israel. Typically, such organizations as Code Pink support the dictatorship in Venezuela, will never protest China's actions, but do protest US aid for Ukraine.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_Pink#Political_positions_and_activism

At the end, you will see who I am addressing.

****************

Shabbat of Solidarity with Israel October 14 2023

 

For a link to the ceremony and my comments:

https://www.youtube.com/live/PbBe0AfTXZk?si=HQDAGJfhhqBsEz5E 

We opened with this song, a duet by two Israelis, one a Jew, Boaz Sharabi, andone an Arab, Valerie Hamaty:

https://youtu.be/o1zvFPThV5Q?si=O_pQfdhJV8ljyGOl

Halevai--If only

يا ريت من السماء يمطر علينا الخير הלוואי מהשמיים יירד עלינו הטוב يا ريت يغيب الحرب ويجمعنا الحب سوى הלוואי שתיפסק המלחמה והאהבה תאחד אותנו يا ريت من شرق وغرب يضوي نجم اليل הלוואי שכוכב הליל יאיר על כולנו ממזרח עד מערב

If only-from the heavens will descend upon us the good

If only- would the wars cease and love unite us

If only- the star of the night would shine upon us all from east to west

  Opening:

Star Spangled Banner p 824 

 Thank you to President Biden for deeply moving words of support and for giving Israel military supplies and international backing.

 Hatikvah p 827 joined by Holocaust survivor and veteran of Israel Defense Forces, Barbara Drotow

 ************

  Opening Psalm--

Ps 83

שִׁ֖יר מִזְמ֣וֹר לְאָסָֽף׃

אֱלֹהִ֥ים אַל־דֳּמִי־לָ֑ךְ אַל־תֶּחֱרַ֖שׁ וְאַל־תִּשְׁקֹ֣ט אֵֽל׃

כִּֽי־הִנֵּ֣ה א֭וֹיְבֶיךָ יֶהֱמָי֑וּן וּ֝מְשַׂנְאֶ֗יךָ נָ֣שְׂאוּ רֹֽאשׁ׃

עַֽל־עַ֭מְּךָ יַעֲרִ֣ימוּ ס֑וֹד וְ֝יִתְיָעֲצ֗וּ עַל־צְפוּנֶֽיךָ׃

אָמְר֗וּ לְ֭כוּ וְנַכְחִידֵ֣ם מִגּ֑וֹי וְלֹֽא־יִזָּכֵ֖ר שֵֽׁם־יִשְׂרָאֵ֣ל עֽוֹד׃

 Read together

A song, a psalm of Asaph.

O God, do not be silent; do not hold aloof;
do not be quiet, O God!  For Your enemies rage,
Your foes assert themselves. They plot craftily against Your people,
take counsel against Your treasured ones.

They say, “Let us wipe them out as a nation; Israel’s name will be mentioned no more.”...

May they be frustrated and terrified, disgraced and doomed forever.

May they know that Your name, Yours alone, is the LORD,
supreme over all the earth.

 

Reading:

Chaim Nachman Bialik

Ir HaHaregah-The City of Slaughter( after the Kishinev pogrom, 1904) H.N. Bialik, "The City of Slaughter" in Complete Poetic Works of Hayyim Nahman Bialik, Israel Efros, ed. (New York, 1948): 129-43 (Vol. I)

The pogrom of Kishinev , Easter Day, 1903 -  49 Jews were killed, 92 were gravely injured, a number of Jewish women were raped. That number stunned and shocked the world. It spurred Bialik to write this elegy and spurred on the drive to establish a Jewish state.

קוּם לֵךְ לְךָ אֶל עִיר הַהֲרֵגָה וּבָאתָ אֶל-הַחֲצֵרוֹת,

וּבְעֵינֶיךָ תִרְאֶה וּבְיָדְךָ תְמַשֵּׁשׁ עַל-הַגְּדֵרוֹת

וְעַל הָעֵצִים וְעַל הָאֲבָנִים וְעַל-גַּבֵּי טִיחַ הַכְּתָלִים

אֶת-הַדָּם הַקָּרוּשׁ וְאֶת-הַמֹּחַ הַנִּקְשֶׁה שֶׁל-הַחֲלָלִים.

ARISE and go now to the city of slaughter;
Into its courtyard wind thy way;
There with thine own hand touch, and with the eyes of
 thine head,
Behold on tree, on stone, on fence, on mural clay,
The spattered blood and dried brains of the dead.

מַעֲשֶׂה בְּבֶטֶן רֻטָּשָה שֶׁמִּלּאוּהָ נוֹצוֹת,

מַעֲשֶׂה בִּנְחִירַיִם וּמַסְמֵרוֹת, בְּגֻלְגָּלוֹת וּפַטִּישִׁים,

מַעֲשֶׂה בִּבְנֵי אָדָם שְׁחוּטִים שֶׁנִּתְלוּ בְּמָרִישִׁים,

וּמַעֲשֶׂה בְּתִינוֹק שֶׁנִּמְצָא בְּצַד אִמּוֹ הַמְדֻקָּרָה

כְּשֶׁהוּא יָשֵׁן וּבְפִיו פִּטְמַת שָׁדָהּ הַקָּרָה;

וּמַעֲשֶׂה בְּיֶלֶד שֶׁנִּקְרַע וְיָצְאָה נִשְׁמָתוֹ בְּ“אִמִּי!” –

וְהִנֵּה גַם עֵינָיו פֹּה שׁוֹאֲלוֹת חֶשְׁבּוֹן מֵעִמִּי.

A tale of cloven belly, feather-filled;
Of nostrils nailed, of skull-bones bashed and spilled;
Of murdered men who from the beams were hung,
And of a babe beside its mother flung,
Its mother speared, the poor chick finding rest
Upon its mother's cold and milkless breast;
Of how a dagger halved an infant's word,
Its “ma” was heard, its “mama” never heard.
O, even now its eyes from me demand accounting.

 

What would Bialik write now, with a Jewish State, and with 1200 murdered in their homes, over a hundred kidnapped. He bemoaned that in his day, the descendants of the heroic Maccabees cowered in fear—today, we have our Maccabees- yet they fell before rag-tag amateurs, in a pogrom far, far worse.

 **

These have been harrowing days for us, even as we sit here, hoping we are safe in this country. But even so, many of us have real skin in the game, through family and friends in Israel.

Our grandson, Eitan, is now in Israel; he was starting on a college program, and was full of excitement. Now, his dreams are in abeyance, and the family is struggling to find him a flight back home before the real war starts.

Our nephew, with his daughter, and friends, was at the Rave festival just the evening before, and, by chance, they had to go back home. They returned the next day, only to here the sound of shooting , and turned back before it was too late.

We have family and friends, and I am sure many of you do who live within shooting distance of Gaza. We have children of our nephews and nieces now on the front lines, in combat fatigues, awaiting orders to move forward. It is very scary.

While we are encouraged by the strong support from our President and from the leaders of the European nations, we are, frankly scared by the announcement that a Hamas leader declared this Friday “a day of Global Jihad” and another spokesman stated” the entire planet will be under our law: there will be no more Jews or Christians”.

We are dismayed, that in addition to the usual white- supremacists, skin-heads, and Nazis cheering Hamas now, professors, academic departments, and numerous student organizations, have been cheering Hamas, without a single tear being shed ! Your Starbucks Barrista will now serve you Hamas flavored coffee, by instructions of the union!

This Shabbat, we began our reading of the Torah cycle from the Beginning- from Bereshit—it is striking how primordial themes still echo with us today.  

Rashi asks an unusual question, and gives us an unusual answer:

Since the Hebrew word for “ In the Beginning”, Bereshit”  does not mean in”In the Beginning”, why does the Torah start with a grammatically awkward for, “ B-Reshit”- “In  the Beginning of”--of  what? of Something? Of Nothing? Of Everything?

Rashi , a thousand years ago, looking at an unusual phrase, now looks at what is happening in the world—Christians fighting Muslims for the control of the Land of Israel , and quotes a R. Yitzhak ( possibly his own father):

For should the peoples of the world say to Israel, “You are robbers, because you took by force the lands of the seven nations of Canaan”, Israel may reply to them, “All the earth belongs to the Holy One, blessed be He; He created it and gave it to whom He pleased. When He willed He gave it to them, and when He willed He took it from them and gave it to us” .

The accusation of Jews as stealing the land of Israel is as ancient as the hills!

We barely get out of the Garden of Eden, when one son of Adam and Eve, that is Cain, murders the other son, Abel. Brother against brother. (Bereshit Rabbah 22:7)

About what were they quarreling?

They said: ‘Let us divide the world between us.”…

Here is one part of our quarrel: who gets the land of Israel.

This one said: ‘The Temple shall be built in my domain,’ and that one said: ‘The Temple shall be built in my domain,’

Here is the second part of our quarrel: who gets the Temple Mount in Jerusalem

They were quarreling over [who would wed] the first Eve.

In other words, sex was the motive.

What did Hamas do? As their did  their counterparts , ISIS, in Syria, and Boko Haram in Nigeria, they too, raped their captives.

So much for brotherly love.

Our portion ends : the earth was filled with violence- the Hebrew word for violence is “Hamas”.

It is the cognate for the Arabic word for “zeal.” I can’t help but make the connection,  because Islamic Resistance Movemen ,Ḥarakah al-Muqāwamah al-ʾIslāmiyyah ,which creates the initials: Hamas, which the movement chose precisely because it indicated their “zeal”.

Tragically, we are in a violent neighborhood.

The anti Zionists are defending Hamas, saying that the Palestinians  have been occupied for 75 years, and have acted up out of desperation. But the violence against Jews did not start with any occupation.

My great-great-grand-father and mother were murdered in their home in Zfat in1896, long before the Zionist invasion.

The ancient Jewish community of Hebron, dating back many centuries, was attacked in 1929, nearly 70 killed, and the community expelled. The excuse was that Jews were planning to take over the Temple Mount- the exact same excuse made by Hamas to justify its attack.

Gaza City had an ancient Jewish community, with many notable figures. Yet in 1929, they were forced to leave the area due to violent riots against them by the Arabs. Following these riots, and the death of nearly 135 Jews in all, the British prohibited Jews from living in Gaza to quell tension and appease the Arabs. Again, this was long before the “occupation and Oppression” by the Zionist settler colonialist.

From 1948 till 1967, Gaza, The “All Palestine Protectorate” was under their brothers, the Egyptians. Their terrorists then, Fedayeen, killed some 400 over the years 1950 to 1955 and prompted the Suez War.

In 1993, we had the Oslo accords, and the establishment of a quasi-independent territory under the Palestine Liberation Organization. That did not stop the terror attacks. In 2005, Israel pulled out unconditionally from Gaza strip, but that did not stop the attacks. They merely become more intense and more sophisticated.

These are not the acts of a desperate people, but of a people with an ideological conviction , that even as they grind their own people into suffering and misery, they are carrying out Allah’s will and bringing on the final conquest by Islam. This was declared in their original  Hamas Covenant of 1988:

“Our struggle against the Jews is very great and very serious.”

“The Prophet, Allah bless him and grant him salvation, has said:"The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, (evidently a certain kind of tree) would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews."

In 2017, they “ sanitized” their covenant for western consumption: Where it said Jews, it now says “ Zionists” and it claims that persecution of Jews was solely a European problem.

Now, Zionists are used were the old “ Elders of Zion” used Jews:

“ The Zionist project does not target the Palestinian people alone; it is the enemy of the Arab and Islamic Ummah posing a grave threat to its security and interests. It is also hostile to the Ummah’s aspirations for unity, renaissance and liberation and has been the major source of its troubles. The Zionist project also poses a danger to international security and peace and to mankind and its interests and stability.”

The new covenant is simply larded with all the catch phrases that liberationists and the anti-colonialists of the west love:   colonialism, occupation, discrimination, oppression and aggression in the world. All of those lovely words were proven false in the actions of the ruthless terrorists who killed and slaughtered, maimed, raped and kidnapped men , women, and children, the elderly and the newborn.

 All of those lovely words were proven false in the actions of the ruthless terrorists who killed and slaughtered, maimed, raped and kidnapped men , women, and children, the elderly and the newborn.

( For a background on the connection between Nazi ideology and the Islamist Supremacist teachings of the Muslim  Brotherhood and Al-Qaeda ( and by historic connection, Hamas, ISIS , and the Khoeminist regome of Iran,  follow this link: https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/history/articles/the-nazi-roots-of-islamist-hate. The slaughter of innocents, even of one's own people, is a key tactic of radical movements of left and right.)

Yes, this is the brave new world of Hamas.

I am personally comforted  by the display of national unity that Israelis have been showing. I have received videos from family showing Israelis , secular, religious, and yes, the Charedi, ultra Orthodox, delivering food  and supplies to the vulnerable communities on the battle front. There is now a government of national unity, and former political enemies, who had said, “ Never”, now  talk with each other. 

Oh, God, please don’t make us get together when there is a disaster. Make us get together when there is peace.

 

 ******************

 Please take one electric tea candle and place it on the table in front, in memory of the 1300 innocent men, women, and children, Israelis, both Jews and Arabs, murdered in cold blood.:

*******************

Please join us in this prayer, shared with us by our Southern California Board of Rabbis:

Prayer in Time of War in Israel Composed and offered by the Steering Committee for the Board of Rabbis of Southern California Eloheinu V’Elohei Avoteinu V’Imoteinu, Our God and God of our ancestors. You know that the Jewish people are one nation with one heart, and today that heart is broken. With the grim news of so many of our sisters and brothers in Israel killed, wounded, and kidnapped, we turn to You. Harofeh Lishvuray Lev, the healer of broken hearts, be with our brothers and sisters who have been taken captive and with the families of the victims. Watch over the hostages, break their bonds, redeem the captives and bring them out from darkness to light. Comfort the families of all those murdered and bring them under the shelter of Your wings. Bring complete healing, healing of body and healing of spirit, to all of those who are wounded, those wounded in body and those wounded in spirit. To the entire Jewish people who were terrorized, bind up our wounds and may Your divine presence bring us healing. Tzur Yisrael, Rock and Redeemer of the people of Israel, Bless the State of Israel during this time of war and tragedy. Guide its leaders and advisors with Your light and Your truth, and help them with Your good counsel. Shield it with Your love and spread over it the shelter of Your peace.  Shomer Yisrael, Guardian of Israel, strengthen and bless the soldiers of the Israel Defense Forces and the security forces, who stand guard over our land: on the land, in the air, and on the sea. Deliver them and crown their efforts with triumph. May God cause the enemies who rise up against them to be struck down before them. May the Holy Blessed One, preserve and rescue our soldiers from every trouble and distress and send blessing and success in their every endeavor.  In the face of war, God, protect and preserve us, and restore peace and wholeness to our hearts. Oseh Shalom Bimromav Hu Ya’aseh Shalom, Aleinu Ve’Al Kol Yisrael. And let us say: Amen.

Scroll images of hostages

Misheberach for IDF

https://youtu.be/Lq7H-xVx_s0?si=wV2VtXkPdQkqHxpc

Scroll names of fallen Israelis

El maleh for the victims ( from Yom  Hazikaron)

https://youtu.be/U2xOPDmrISE?si=i8hCAsdqXaS3DKB0

Agnon’ s introduction top of p  524.The Mourner’s Kaddish lead by Holocaust survivor, 101 year old Joe Alexnder.

 Conclude Am Yisrael Chai

 

50 Years after the Yom Kippur War Yom Kippur 2023

 

50 Years after the Yom Kippur War   Yom Kippur 2023

 

 

 

          I thank Helen Mirren for bringing the character of Golda Meir, the Prime Minster of Israel, to life, especially for younger audiences who cannot comprehend the trauma that faced Israel 50 years ago, on this date in the Jewish calendar. I am sure that many of you here are old enough to recall that terrible moment when, on the day of judgment, the fate of Israel weighed in judgment. Some of you were actually in Israel at that time facing the enemy guns and bombs.

 

I well recall that I had only come back from my year in Israel as a rabbinical student just a short while before and was serving a congregation in New Jersey. I recall someone running in with the news that Israel had been attacked and then the rest of the day and the next several weeks were a time of agonizing anxiety. During that time, my brother-in-law, who was here just a few weeks ago, was hunkered down in his tank, barely surviving, while his wife, back in the rear, had no word of his fate.

 

I mention this to remind us all that what is going on in Israel today may seem like an apocalyptic disaster, yet I want to keep in proportion the reality that Israel has gone through more such disasters. Somehow the Israelis managed to pull themselves up back on their feet.

 

It was just 30 years ago, in contrast, that Israelis were caught up in euphoria because the Oslo accords had been signed and peace was finally at the doorsteps for the people of Israel and for the Palestinians. I recall having brought here a spokesman for the American Muslim community, Salam Al- Maryati, to speak about how wonderful it would be. Yet as you well know, true peace was still far, far over the horizon and still is, the Palestinians carried out terror attacks, and Israelis suffered the most shocking terror attack, the assassination of Prime Minister Rabin, by one of their own. It would then be followed by a wave of Palestinian terror bombings of public buses, just when our daughter was in Israel as a student.

 

           Just before I came to Hollywood Temple Beth El, in 1990, I had spent four years in Israel, where I worked as director for the Central Institute for Jewish Studies of the Histadrut-Labor Federation, at Bet Berl, that is the Labor party's college.

 

          We don't realize it, but Israel is, after all, smaller in population than  Los Angeles metropolitan area, in a way, a very large village, in which everyone knows and is related to everyone else.

 

In the course of my work, I had met so many public figures, on both left and right. Prime Minister Rabin, then Minster of Defense, and President Peres, then Minister of the Treasury. Yigal Amir, the assassin, lived in my wife’s aunt’s neighborhood, and the assassin’s ex-girlfriend was the grad-daughter of a great Israeli, Rabbi Pinhas Peli, who had given me guidance in setting up my program. A speaker that I had brought as a presenter of Judaism and science, a notable head of Yeshivah and trained academic philosopher, a liberal Orthodox Rabbi, was accused of having encouraged the murderer.

 

          What is my point ?

 

          There is no simple " Us" and " Them"  in Israel.

 

          There is a saying in the Talmud: Kol Yisrael Arevim Zeh Bazeh."  "All Israel are legally liable for each other."  The word " Arev" comes from the word  for mixture, or interweave.

 

          The historic Jewish people, as well as the people of the State of Israel, is so closely interwoven and bound up each with the other, that it impossible to distinguish " Us" from " Them". A fight, quarrel or disputation is a fight within the midst of family, whether functional or dysfunctional.

 

          When I was a student at the Hebrew University, one of my professors explained that the great miracle of Israel is not that it had withstood constant onslaughts by more powerful armies, but that it achieved it even though Israelis could not speak peaceably one to another.

          I could only reflect on that years later, when I sat in the office of the Minister of the Treasury, then Labor coalition partner with the right-wing Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir. He complained bitterly about the threats to democracy that his partner posed, and then went on to serve in different positions with his erst-while “ enemy of democracy” opponents.

 

          Perhaps that is inevitable for us Jews when we have kept the dogs of Jew-hatred away from us. We then play it safe, “ sha-shtil”, don’t rock the boat.

 

                    But when we disagree with each other, and there is no one outside threatening us, we pull out all the stops.

 

          Perhaps precisely because we feel safe with each other. When we deal with gentiles, we are insecure, we are cautious, so we watch our language, lest there be a riot, lest there be a pogrom.

 

          With fellow Jews, we let out all the stops. Jews, after all, don't riot against Jews. Jews  ,after all, don't kill Jews. Jews, after all, don't take Jews to lawsuits. Until it is too late.

 

          If anyone has watched the Israeli Knesset in session, one can see how easily the language turns vicious. It is not new. No one is free of blame.

 

          There is the left-right clash.

          Opposition Jews call Jews "Fascist" . Coalition members call the leaders of the IDF and the security services “traitors.”

 

          A century ago, there was a controversial Zionist leader, Vladimir Jabotinsky, who broke ranks with the World Zionist Organization, and with the leadership of the Labor Zionists. He was a dramatic orator and thinker, whose ideas did influence the Zionist leadership. Nevertheless, his enemies blasted him as a  " Fascist", a " Mussolini".

 

Just to confuse you, as I mentioned Prime Minister Shamir, the head of the right-wing Likud, he was a member of the very militant group, Lehi—which was po-Stalinist, pro-Bolshevik. It’s just to tell you that it is hard to tell left from right.

 

          The left-right split is complicated by the religious-secular split.        

 

          Religious Jews speak of the secular Jews with disdain. The word in Hebrew for secular is " Hiloni, " but many pronounce it "Holani",sick.

 

          In 1990, the leader of the Ultra-Orthodox, Lithuanian party, Rabbi Schach, was to have supported Labor in favor of negotiations with the Palestinians and was to have declared his support for the Labor Party. Instead of talking about the need for compromise, which he supported, he suddenly began to lambast the Kibbutz movement, Labor's vanguard . When he said " mechaleley Shabbes, boalei nidos, ochlei nevelos",(Violate the Sabbath, have sex with menstruants, and eat carrion)  , broadcast live over Israeli television, any thought of coalition politics vanished.

          The language of militant secularists is hardly better.

          An Israeli journalist, a staunch secularist, in a respectable " Mekoman", a local paper, which is often more exciting than the major national papers, wrote  of a horrible "Big Brother State" , dominated by the religious parties. He used description of sexual molestation and body snatching by haredim, the ultra-Orthodox, in language that would have well fit any anti-Semitic tract.

 

          The French have a great phrase: “Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose”-The more it changes, the more it stays the same. Or, to take from our own source, Koheleth, “Mah she Hayah-hu sheyihyeh” That which as been, is that which shall be.

 

          But we sit here, in the US. We are comfortable, at ease ( sort of).

 Older Americans, non-Jews and Jews alike,  have followed the news in  general, and know that Jews in Israel have been the target of historic aggression by outside armies and internal attacks by terrorists.

 

However, I look at surveys of young Americans. And I am concerned. Younger Americans can barely find Israel on a map of the middle east, if they can find the middle east in the first place. That, I recognize, is part of a historic pattern of Americans being, in general, indifferent to the outside world, as two large oceans separate us physically, and even after Pearl Harbor, the Cold War, and 9/11 reminded us we can’t turn a blind eye, still, we do tend to be distant from other nations’ turmoil. Thus, three Presidents in a row have been trying to pull us out of the Middle East ( with no luck).

 

But I am concerned about our younger Jews, who like Esther, are reluctant to run to the King on behalf of  her people. Our younger Jews know somewhat more about Israel, but they, like so many young, want to be seen as progressive, as on the side of justice and the underdog, and like their non-Jewish counterparts, have been sold on the idea that Israel’s very existence is an act settler colonialism and white supremacy.

 

I just give you one example, of a review of Golda by a Noah Berlatsky, criticizing Golda on CNN:

 

In “Golda,” casting Mirren — a White, internationally renowned, British actress — is a metaphor for the way the film blurs Israeli identity with a generalized White, Western identity. By doing so, it attaches Israel’s moment of crisis to a tradition of triumphalist American military films that validates the virtue of the US, of Israel and of whiteness.”

 

…. “Golda” turns that into a straightforward story of righteous White Western victimization and ultimate triumph. It’s able to do that, in part, because it makes sense, to Western audiences, for a famous White actor like Mirren to play a Jewish leader like Meir who also broadly fits in the cultural category of “White” for most Western audiences.”

 

(https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/26/opinions/golda-meir-movie-helen-mirren-history-berlatsky/index.html)

True, Anwar Sadat was on the dark side, but his wife, Jehan, was half-Brit and fairly white.

 

The Syrians, who attacked from the north in the same Yom Kippur War, were white-bread as well. Certainly, the Syrians I have met, are lighter than me, and lighter than half of Israelis. In, fact, except for the cast of the movie “Exodus”, can you find me some actual “ white “ Jews?

I mean, in Europe, we were Asians, and killed for that, but in western Asia ( yes, Israel is Asian) we are attacked for being Europeans.

 

Playing this white card, by a Jew, can be a very dangerous game.

 

For those of you who escaped the former Soviet Union, you recall the Yevsetkzia, the Jewish apparatchiks in the system who betrayed their fellow Jews, until  they in turn were betrayed and liquidated. Or those of you who fled from the Khomeinist regime, you know of so many young Jews who rallied behind Khomeini and against the Shah, believing in a better and open society.

 

So, I am very concerned for our young Jews, who have no personal experience of the Israel’s precarious existence, and whose professors at Princeton force required textbooks that state that Israel uses Palestinians for body parts.

 

Yes, it is very easy to turn away from Israel at the sight of turmoil and accusations of “ dictatorship” of the courts, versus “ dictatorship” of the masses.

 

So it becomes our job, the old guard, to remind or teach our young Jews what Israel has achieved, despite the flaws and despite the divisions.

 

I say it as “ we”, because, even as Jews of the diaspora, in our support and backing, have had a hand in this.

 

We, a defeated and devastated people, despised by Christians and Muslims alike, for nearly  2000 years, a people who had one third of our body chopped off in the space of a few years, came back to life to create an independent state, one that held its own against overwhelming military odds, multiple times.

 

We breathed new life into a land that had been neglected and laid to waste by centuries of misadministration by outside conquerors, especially the Ottomans, not the Europeans.

 

We gave new life to a language , Hebrew, that had been relegated to pious prayers and religious texts, one of the oldest languages in continuous use on earth, and is now the spoken tongue of millions of Jews and Arabs as well.

 

A people that had been scattered over the entire planet, a  people disconnected from each other in many ways over the centuries, a people of many tongues and customs, a people some of whom were creating the Avant Garde of modern civilization and some of whom were still living in antiquity, have been brought back together to shape one nation, despite such unbridgeable differences.

 

A people who, at the start of independence, 75 years ago, had to ration the very basics of food, has become Start Up Nation, a nation whose largest city, Tel Aviv, ranks now as the world’s most expensive.

 

A nation that brought into its borders many times over its population over the space of a few years, people often malnourished, ill, physically devastated, Today, the Israelis occupy spot number 10 in in world in life expectancy, and 4th happiest place in the world, according to a UN report. Israelis are happy-despite facing existential dangers—it is almost Disneyland by that measure.

 

So, when I look at the demonstrations on the street, in Israel, now going on for close to a year, yes it is demoralizing, and yes Israel does not now seem like the happiest place on earth. However for us all, both Jews here in the United states and for Israelis, both Jews and Arabs (who want to be part of this state of Israel not part of a Palestinian state), it is essential to look back at what has been accomplished despite all the obstacles and despite all the impossibilities.

 

Theodore Herzl , the visionary founder of the concept of the state of Israel, stated

“ When one will it, it is no legend.”

 

The State of Israel is no legend. Yes, it is still going through its growing pains, after ¾ of a century, but it is no legend. The people have made it past 1948 and past Yom Kippur of 1973. They will make it past the struggles of democracy and the courts of 2023 and we here are part and parcel of that story.  Am Yisrael Chai. The people of Israel live.

 

 

 

Chayei Sarah=The Cave of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs in Hebron and the rights of acquisition by purchase, c 1800 BCE and c 1900 CE

 

Link to discussion Nov 19 https://youtu.be/ZCqvpwt5qS8

Chayei Sarah=The Cave of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs in Hebron and the rights of acquisition by purchase, c 1800 BCE and c 1900 CE

 

An interesting aside on the oldest Canaanite (pre-cursor to Hebrew) inscription in the oldest Canaanite( again, pre-cursor to Hebrew) alphabet- on, of all things, a comb to brush out lice,  reported just recently.  Estimated about the time of the Patriarchs.

https://media.zenfs.com/en/syfy_655/3455057b6a30499ab4c2dfb025eb97a9

 

A background on the Cave of Machpelah, Cave of the Patriarchs/Matriarchs.

https://www.israelhayom.com/2021/11/02/the-secrets-of-the-cave-of-the-patriarchs/

 

Why did Abraham pay cold cash?

 

 

While preparing for a meeting with West Hollywood Planning Commission I noted this introduction:

Land Acknowledgment: "The West Hollywood Planning Commission acknowledges that the land on which we gather and that is currently known as the City of West Hollywood is the occupied, unceded, seized territory of the Gabrieleño Tongva and Gabrieleño Kizh peoples."

This has become increasingly popular in North American settings. It also smacks of false virtue, and there are voices from indigenous Americans saying so:

Land acknowledgments are a classic culture-war issue, Nick Estes, an American-studies professor at the University of New Mexico, told me via email. They can be “a pantomime of caring or outrage mostly by professional class elites and educational institutions.” Meanwhile, he asked, what of “the real issues facing Indigenous peoples—housing, employment, child removal, generational poverty, lack of adequate healthcare, police violence, racism, and erasure; in other words, real colonialism”? https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/11/against-land-acknowledgements-native-american/620820/

That allows the political and corporate entities to then go about their business, which is making business, while feeling good about it.

 

 If anyone should know about erasure of history, it is we, Jews, who were erased from the land of Israel and our name for the land taken away from us.

How does this tie into Abraham and the burial of Sarah.?

Here is the story in short: Gen 23

Then Abraham rose from beside his dead, and spoke to the Hittites, saying,

[Who are the Hittites? One of the seven peoples under the rubric of “ Canaan”: Canaanites the Amorites, the Girgashites, the Hittites, the Hivites, the Jebusites and the Perizzites.

Hittites- presumably southern most elements of the ancient Hittite Empire, based in Anatalia ( Turkey) that was at its peak. An Indo-European language, rather than Semitic. Other Indo-Europeans- the Philistines, from which Palestine-the Greek islands). Indicates that there was not one people “Cannanites” but multiple groups of people]

 

“I am a resident alien among you; sell me a burial site among you, that I may remove my dead for burial.”

And the Hittites replied to Abraham, saying to him,

“Hear us, my lord: you are the elect of God among us. Bury your dead in the choicest of our burial places; none of us will withhold his burial place from you for burying your dead.”

[It would seem to be a free gift]

Thereupon Abraham bowed low to the landowning citizens[Am HaAretz]. the Hittites,

and he said to them, “If it is your wish that I remove my dead for burial, you must agree to intercede for me with Ephron son of Zohar.

Let him sell me the cave of Machpelah that he owns, which is at the edge of his land. Let him sell it to me, at the full price, for a burial site in your midst.”

Ephron was present among the Hittites; so Ephron the Hittite answered Abraham in the hearing of the Hittites, the assembly in his town’s gate saying,

“No, my lord, hear me: I give you the field and I give you the cave that is in it; I give it to you in the presence of my people. Bury your dead.” [ Give- does he really mean it? Or is it a vacant gesture, like the token acknowledgement I mentioned above].

Then Abraham bowed low before the landowning citizens,

and spoke to Ephron in the hearing of the landowning citizens, saying, “If only you would hear me out! Let me pay the price of the land; accept it from me, that I may bury my dead there.” [He recognizes that “ free” is a mere formality= there is no free lunch.

And Ephron replied to Abraham, saying to him,

“My lord, do hear me! A piece of land worth four hundred shekels of silver—what is that between you and me? Go and bury your dead.” [Apparantly well over the asking price]

Abraham accepted Ephron’s terms. Abraham paid out to Ephron the money that he had named in the hearing of the Hittites—four hundred shekels of silver at the going merchants’ rate.

So Ephron’s land in Machpelah, near Mamre—the field with its cave and all the trees anywhere within the confines of that field—passed

to Abraham as his possession, in the presence of the Hittites, of the assembly in his town’s gate.

 

Why negotiate?

It’s his. Why did he not insist on it as his right?

 Afterall. God had only a few years before promised him the land:

Gen 15

On that day יהוה made a covenant with Abram: “To your offspring I assign this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates— the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites, and the Jebusites.”) more than 7 nations)

Gen 17

I assign the land you sojourn in to you and your offspring to come, all the land of Canaan, as an everlasting holding. I will be their God.”

Why not seize the land?

It’s not yet his by right-therefore, he gets rights only by buying it, or by developing it ( rights to the well at Beer Sheva from the Philistines, and a binding treaty.)

Back to gen 15

And [God] said to Abram, “Know well that your offspring shall be strangers in a land not theirs, and they shall be enslaved and oppressed four hundred years;

but I will execute judgment on the nation they shall serve, and in the end they shall go free with great wealth.

As for you,
You shall go to your ancestors in peace;
You shall be buried at a ripe old age.

And they shall return here in the fourth generation, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.”[Amorite- a collective term for western, north west semitic peoples.]

What is their great sin? We are not told.

What is the underlying premise:

Go back to Flood story- all nations one, theypton break up, and can no longer understand each other- in the study of pre-history and antiquity, use the term “ Ursprache”.For example- the Indo-European languages- from English to Persian to Hindi- stem from a common ancestral language. Similarly, Semitic—Arabic, Aramaic,ancient Babylonian & Akkadian—as well as the related “ Hamitic languages-Egyptian, North and central African languages. Similar grammar features, similar core words.

Reflects idea of a common origin of humanity that has moved out and settled in different places. No one nation is inherently indigenous. All nations in constant flux- langauge, speech, culture shifts.

Reflected in words of Prophet,

Amos=Ch 9

To Me, O Israelites, you are
Just like the Cushites [indicating-far and very different in appearance-it makes no difference]
—declares the LORD.
True, I brought Israel up
From the land of Egypt,
But also the Philistines from Caphtor[ the eastern Mediteranean]
And the Arameans from Kir [location in Mesopotamia-form which they moved west to Syria]

all the nations pawns on God’s chess table.The idea of conditionality- right to be on the land- permeates the Torah and esp Deuteronomy.

Go back to purchase by Abraham

Idea that we had to acquire rights rather than take by force- we were aware that we were aliens in our own land. The Greeks,as we know them, were aliens in Greece[ replaced the original Mycenaen civilization]

The Hindu Indo-Aryans- were late comers to India- replaced the much older Indus valley civilizations.

What’s the difference- I believe ancient Israelites were very conscious of this, and constantly asked,” Why are we here?”By what right.?

It was asked by other. Rashi, commentary on Gen 1:

For should the peoples of the world say to Israel, “You are robbers, because you took by force the lands of the seven nations of Canaan”, Israel may reply to them, “All the earth belongs to the Holy One, blessed be He; He created it and gave it to whom He pleased. When He willed He gave it to them, and when He willed He took it from them and gave it to us” (Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 187).

An ancient argument-why does rashi bring this source here? Here is sitting in Central Europe, the Christians and the Muslim are fighting over the Holy Land, and he is reminding his children and grandchildren- It is ours from the scratch.

Going back to the land- the constant argument- Listim atem- You are thieves- the rejection of any right. But go back to a century ago, before there was a state of Israel, before there was an Israeli armed forces that could beat back six invading armies and push back the native Palestinian Arab uprising. Back to when the land was under colonial control of the Ottoman Empire (later British). The land is bought, dunam po, dunam sham. A 1,000 square meters( still in use, an Ottoman term) .ownership= land registry-tabu= also Turkish.

What did we buy up?

An example from the period of the 1930’s

https://israeled.org/resources/documents/jewish-national-fund/

 

Eliahu Epstein summed up the problems and prospects for Jewish land purchase in the wake of Arab violence in the mid-1930s, and the recently published British policy statement, the July 1937 Peel Report, suggested the division of Palestine into separate Arab and Jewish states.

 Epstein’s summary of the special JNF-sponsored meeting reveals that more Arab offers to sell land existed than there were Jewish funds available to make those purchases. This discrepancy allowed the Zionists to make critical choices regarding which land areas would be best to acquire. Jewish land ownership itself was important, but not as vital as acquiring land to satisfy a particular strategic requirement, and to have it settled by recent or future immigrants. The discussion revealed agreements on both priorities, which included buying land along the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv corridor in order to connect Jewish presence in Jerusalem to Jewish areas in the coastal plain, in the north of Palestine near the strategic port of Haifa and lands that were in close proximity to the headwaters of the Jordan River. Buying land outside the boundaries of the proposed Jewish state was considered another priority so that ‘facts on the ground’ could be established and hopefully enlarge the imminent Jewish state. The evolving strategic land purchase policy reinforced a commitment to broaden contiguous blocks of Jewish-owned land, and not to acquire land in a helter-skelter fashion based on religious or philosophical motivations to settle in all the Land of Israel. The Zionist leaders who participated in this meeting reasoned that once land was securely in Jewish hands, the British might amend projected borders to include said land within the Jewish state. Creating facts on the ground was a land purchase priority.

 

 

Epstein summarized this critical discussion. His letter was then dispatched to Zionist decision-makers in Palestine and a few key Zionists abroad, informing them of “land politics.” Knowing that Arabs wanted to sell their lands had three important consequences: first, it reinforced the Zionist leadership’s commitment to find ways to acquire land; second, it allowed important decisions to be made about what lands would best suit the strategic needs of the growing Jewish National Home; and finally, it strengthened overall Zionist political resolve by highlighting the contradiction between public Arab demands to halt the Jewish national home and private Arab behavior. Within two years of this meeting, the British imposed immigration and land transfer restrictions on the development of the Jewish state. Evidence provided from the Jewish National Fund’s directorate minutes from the 1940s indicates that Arab offers to sell did not appreciably abate, allowing Zionists to choose land needs based on strategic priorities.                                                                                                      

–Ken Stein, April 2010 

 

There is here, drawn a clear line from Abraham’s purchase of a field and a cave, and the rebirth of the Land and State of Israel.