Rambling ...

I'm an Irish Girl, A Dubliner, with the 'Gift of the Gab' ... I like to talk & to tell you things. In Celtic times news, views and comment were carried from place to place by wandering Seanachaí ~ Storytellers ~ who relied on their host's hospitality and appreciation. I will need that from you too, as I venture to share Politics, Poetry, Laughter, Love, Life & everything in-between ... from Bog to Blog!!


Wednesday, January 2, 2013

New Year's ... Sylvester Same'ach??




If you thought the Sylvester in my title was a cat you would be wrong ..... Sylvester is the Germanic name for the Goyische Holiday of New Year's Eve!!!  Why is it thus called?  Who was Sylvester??


Sylvester is the German name for New Year's Eve  owing to the fourth century roman pope Sylvester I who arranged for the passage of a host of viciously anti-Semitic legislation during the Council of Nicaea (325 CE), and who convinced Constantine to prohibit Jews from living in Jerusalem.   Sylvester was pope from January 31st, 314 CE to December 31st, 335 CE.  He was  made a saint by the catholic church for his anti semitic activities and his "Saint’s Day" is the day he was buried,  December 31st Saint Sylvester Day!   All catholic “Saints” are awarded a day on which chrstians celebrate and pay tribute to that saint’s memory.   And,  the civil new year is ushered in on “Sylvester Nacht”  hence chrstian celebrations on the night of December 31st are dedicated to Sylvester’s memory.   A 'feast' night of drinking,  making merry and killing Jews.   But, why does Israel also term NYE as Sylvester's Night???

A couple of years ago I listened to Rabbi Lawrence Kelemen's research Shuir on this issue.  It is incisive & will blow you away .....  The Real Story of Xmas & New Years!!!!     I'm reproducing a few of his major points below ~ it will blow you away!!!


In 46 B.C.E. the Roman emperor Julius Caesar first established January 1st as New Year’s day. Janus was the Roman gd of doors and gates, and had two faces, one looking forward and one back.  Caesar felt that the month named after this gd (“January”) would be the appropriate “door” to the year.  Caesar celebrated the first January 1st New Year by ordering the violent routing of revolutionary Jewish forces in the Galilee.  Eyewitnesses say blood flowed in the streets.  In later years, Roman pagans observed the New Year by engaging in drunken orgies  ~ a ritual they believed constituted a personal re-enacting of the chaotic world that existed before the cosmos was ordered by the gds.  As xtianity spread, pagan holidays were either incorporated into the xtian calendar or abandoned altogether.  By the early medieval period most of 'Holy' chrstian Europe regarded Annunciation Day (March 25th) as the beginning of the year.  (According to catholic tradition,  Annunciation Day commemorates the Malakh Gavriel’s announcement to 'Mary' that she would be impregnated by G*d ~ a purely pagan notion ~ and conceive a son to be called jsus.)
   

After William the Conqueror (AKA “William the Bastard” and “William of Normandy”) became King of England on December 25th, 1066,  he decreed that the English return to the date established by the Roman pagans, January 1st as the proper New Year date.  This move ensured that the commemoration of jsus’ birthday (December 25th) would align with William’s coronation, and the commemoration of jsus’ circumcision supposedly done on January 1st. It would start the new year - thus rooting the English and xstian calendars and his own Coronation!!!!  William’s innovation was eventually rejected after his death, and England rejoined the rest of the xtian world and returned to celebrating New Years Day on March 25th for a period.


    About five hundred years later, in 1582CE, pope Gregory XIII (AKA “Ugo Boncompagni”, 1502-1585) abandoned the traditional Julian calendar.  By the Julian reckoning, the solar year comprised 365.25 days, and the intercalation of a “leap day” every four years was intended to maintain correspondence between the calendar and the seasons.  Really, however there was a slight inaccuracy in the Julian measurement (the solar year is actually 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes and 46 seconds = 365.2422 days).  This slight inaccuracy caused the Julian calendar to slip behind the seasons about one day per century.  Although this regression had amounted to 14 days by pope Gregory’s time, he based his reform on restoration of the vernal equinox, then falling on March 11th, to the date had 1,257 years earlier when Council of Nicaea was convened (March 21st 325 CE.).  pope Gregory made the correction by advancing the calendar 10 days.  The change was made the day after October 4th, 1582, and that following day was established as October 15, 1582.  The Gregorian calendar differs from the Julian in three ways ~  (1) No century year is a leap year unless it is exactly divisible by 400 (e.g., 1600, 2000, etc.); (2) Years divisible by 4000 are common (not leap) years; and (3) once again the New Year would begin with the date set by the early pagans, the first day of the month of Janus ~ January 1st.


I have previously blogged the Hebrew Lunar Calendar here .....  Measured by the Moon!!!!
     The goy world operates the gregorian calendar.

  
On New Years Day 1577 pope Gregory XIII decreed that all Roman Jews, under pain of death, must listen attentively to the compulsory catholic conversion sermon given in Roman synagogues after Friday night services.  On New Years Day 1578  Gregory signed into law a tax forcing Jews to pay for the support of a “House of Conversion” to convert Jews to xtianity.  On New Years 1581 Gregory ordered his troops to confiscate all sacred literature from the Roman Jewish community.  Thousands of Jews were murdered in the campaign as they refused to surrender the precious Sifrei Torah.

 
  Throughout the medieval and post-medieval periods,  January 1st,  supposedly the day on which jsus’ circumcision initiated the reign of chrstianity and the death of Judaism,  was reserved for anti-Jewish activities ..... synagogue and book burnings, public tortures, rape, and murder.   The heretical non testament, the greek book of xtianity instructs this of xtians.  So Sylvester means Slaughter the Jews Day.  Nice xtian history, huh??

"
They answered and said unto him, Abraham is our father. Jesus saith unto them, If ye were Abraham's children, ye would do the works of Abraham.  Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it."  john 8.44

"Bring my enemies, who didn't want me to be their king. Kill them in front of me.'"  luke 19.27

So, we're Sons of Satan to be Slaughtered!!!!!!



And today,   we yet again have reason to fear those pogrom nights by xtian Jew haters, with their calls of "Juden Raus".    This has been augmented by a constant drip of xtian supposed Jew-lovers who for lack of respect for our right to our Torah unmauled by them,  seek ways of eliminating our tenets of Torah in indirect devious ways as they explain clearly on their sites to their believers and hangers on.   It is disgusting!!  


Although this day should be a time of bitter remembrance ~ we have a duty of Zakhor ~ it is not a time of celebration for Jews. 
Any celebration or acknowledgment of this day gives homage to the Goyyim who massacred and mistreated us for millenia.   Neither is it New Years.  Today is 19th of Teves,  5773.  This Is Our Calendar.  Our Only Calendar, G*d's Only Calendar and the one for all Jews.   As Rosh Ha'Shana  is the Jewish New Year and this occurs Every Tishrei.  It is not today.  Today is simply Sylvester's Day!


I Love this ....

Chanukkah Chutzpah!!!




This is my very favourite Chanukkah photograph.  I think it truly shows 'Chutzpah'  and total Defiance in the face of Nazi Aggression.  The photograph features  a Chanukkah Menorah from Kiel, Germany and it belonged to the Posner family.  The Posner family left Germany in 1933 and arrived in Eretz Yisrael in 1934.  The Menorah still belongs to the Posner family and is lit every year at Chanukkah, B"H.   Both the Menorah and the photograph are displayed in Yad Vashem's Holocaust History Museum.

We celebrate Chanukah by kindling the Menorah for eight days, adding a new light each night, bringing increasing Kedoshah into our lives and our communities.   This concept of Ma'alim B'Kodesh  to grow spiritually and to continuously add more mitzvos,  more Torah and holiness to our lives is the essence of our faith symbolized by the manner in which we light our Menorahs.


Man's Soul is the Candle of Ha'Shem .. which searches out the innermost parts
~ Mishlei 20.27 ~



Chanukkah is NOT a holiday that celebrates religious freedom but rather redemption of Jewish identity.  And this is sooooooo epitomised by the above photograph, I think!!!

Also, I haven't posted in about three weeks, since the Chag of Chanukkah.  I wanted a break and a 'bridge' post to link to today.  This special photograph is it!!!!

Credits ~ Posner Family Estate, courtesy of Shulamit Mansbach, Haifa, Israel
Photographer ~ Rachel Posner.