Gush Katif ... Remember, Return, Rebuild!!!

This month of August marks the Sixth Anniversary of the Giving of Gush Katif to our Arab enemy in the vain hope of some mythical  'Peace'.  Six years on that Aspiration lies trampled,  the pain of those torn from Gush Katif remains real. I meant to feature this Anniversary earlier in the month ~ right after Tisha B'Av ~ but I got distracted in a way I didn't expect by the Beck business.  I want to recall this Anniversary on this last day of August!

The Mishna (Taanit 4:6) lists Five calamities that struck Jews on Tisha B'Av. Some 500 years ago, also on this day, Jews were banished from Spain.

Then came, on this day, yet another banishment, in ways much more painful.   In 2005 (it was scheduled on Tisha B'Av, but actually took place the next day), Jews were brutally evicted from their residences, businesses and properties of Gush Katif. Many were third generation citizens.   You would think a Jewish government would know something about significant Jewish dates. Yet they chose Tisha B'Av to do their dirty work. Jews of Gush Katif were told Tisha B'Av was the final day, by which time they were required to abandon their birthrights. 

The Five calamities the Mishna lists that befell on Tisha B'Av are .....  
The decree to forbid entry to the Holy land for the generation of the desert; 
The First and Second Temples were destroyed ~ Our Beit Ha'Mikdash
The city of Beitar was captured; 
And, Jerusalem was smashed to rubble after the destruction. 

For generations other unfortunate events occurred on Tisha B'Av, the harshest of them being the expulsion from Spain. On August 2, 1492, King Ferdinand of Spain proclaimed that no Jewish foot may remain on Spanish soil.

Then came the expulsion from Gush Katif. It's one thing when Goyim oppress Jews.  Jewish law tells us "Esav hates Yaakov", so we can somewhat understand the cruelty committed.  But how can we begin to fathom cruelty when a Jew commits such atrocity to another Jew? Can we compare an eviction of Jews perpetrated by Goyim in a Goy nation to one where a Jewish government in a Jewish country does the same to its own people? 

Gush Katif (גוש קטיף‎, lit. Harvest Bloc) was a bloc  of 17 "Israeli Settlements" in the southern Gaza strip.  In August 2005,  the Israeli army was ordered to expel 8,600+ residents of Gush Katif.   They were evicted from the area and their homes demolished as part of Israel's unilateral disengagement plan.   This is how Wikipedia describes the Disengagement.  I'm going to describe it differently ......

Gush Katif is a strip of land bordering Gaza where 21 Jewish communities had turned the desert to bloom .... it boasted some of the highest developed Green House farming projects in Israel, and indeed, in the world.  A 'Breadbasket' of Israel,  today, it is part of the Gaza centre of a palestinian terrorist hell-hole.  And it is 'Judenrein' !!!  

0 Israelis, dead or alive, remain in Gaza. 

The Orchards & thriving farmland has been Razed.  Nothing Remained! 

Israel's government, leaned over backwards to appease the anti-Semite nations of the world who wanted, according to the Road Map Peace Plan, a palestinian State to share Eretz Yisrael , the ONLY Jewish State on the planet,  with Jews  by creating " two viable, secure states living in peace side by side "   This has been shown to be falsity & a farce.  The Arab plan of gaining Eretz Yisrael in "Pieces" remains intact!! 

In retrospect, the recklessness of that move has become all too apparent, as Gaza has been transformed into a launching pad for rocket attacks against the Jewish state,  leaving southern towns and cities across the Negev,  such as Sderot, in the crosshairs of palestinian terrorists.  The fiasco of Israel’s retreat has led many of those who supported the move to publicly admit the error of their ways.   In November 2007,  former Defence Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer of the Labour Party told an Israeli radio station, “I admit and I confess that I was among those who strongly supported Ariel Sharon (and the withdrawal). Today I say, with my head held high, ‘We erred, we made a very big mistake.’”   Amein to that!! 

Other senior Israeli military officers, pundits, journalists, and politicians have likewise acknowledged that the Gaza pull-out has proven to be ill-advised. And neither, I might add, can I understand it either.  Indeed, it is still hard to accept that the forcible removal of Gaza’s Jews took place, or to believe that we could have possibly reached such a low point in the history of our nation.  After so many years of struggle and sacrifice,  those once celebrated as pioneers by successive Israeli governments were demonized as obstacles to peace and treated with contempt by much of the Israeli media.  The Israel Defence Forces were deployed against the citizens of their own state,  with the express purpose not of defending the Jewish people but of exiling them from parts of their ancestral birthright. And withdrawal under fire, once derided as capitulation to terror, suddenly became official government policy.

So, on 18th,  August 2005,  Israel carried out its "disengagement initiative",  handing over all of Gaza and part of the West Bank  to the Arab enemy  ~ poor palestinians ~   making the tiny Jewish State  the first country in modern history to give up land acquired in a defensive war.    The forced evacuation of Jewish citizens from Gush Katif   by their own government rival the discriminating and brutal treatment of Jews by Jew-hating German authorities under Hitler ~ but this time in their own Land.  Ha'Shems Land .... Not ours to Give away at all!

The Anti - Semitic world was gleeful,  trumpeting the evacuation of Gaza as signaling the end of the dream of  “Greater Israel.”   But I believe they could not have been more mistaken.  For the dream of return rightly lives on.  It might take years or even decades to achieve,  but of one thing we can all be sure .... the Jewish people will eventually bounce back,  just as we have throughout our history.  And soon enough, the sand dunes of Gaza will once again most assuredly be  Eretz Yisrael!    B'Zereth Ha'Shem!!

The Beck Business !!

This is not going to be one of those well worked out blogs in which I present an analysis or the telling of a tale that I post as often as possible ... instead it is going to reflect my turbulent life last week which was a series of bruising battles,  reflecting controversial conversation throughout Eretz Yisrael caused by the "Call to Courage Crusade" of this man, Glenn Beck.  Not an Israeli ..... and not a Jew!!

I have been frustrated to the point not only of tears  because of my position of opposition to Beck, (both on & off Facebook!) & defriended, accused of sarcasm & sadism,  belittled horribly by those whom I credited with integrity.  I'm battle weary,  most especially because it is fellow JEWS that I have battled most vociferously. I almost can't believe it!!

We face many enemies here in Eretz Yisrael this week, this day. Hamas is an Enemy .... the constant Rain of Rockets across the South is more than enough evidence of that. Obama is an enemy for sure with his pro-'palestinian' agenda. Beck is also an enemy .... an exceedingly stealthy one. And his enemy presence has been very keenly felt this whole week in Eretz Yisrael, especially in Yerushalayim, which I left this week in a bid to escape his entourage.  In Israel,  Beck has proven himself the enemy if we didn't know it before! .....  And I did!!!!

As an aside, I am now less than 5 miles from the Syrian border here in the Southern Golan & FB wanted to record my new location as Syria, not Israel.  It IS Israel.  So every day brings it's own battle for a Jewish Girl. Beck was a battle this week in a battleground I underestimated muchly ...... My Jewish friends!!

Beck has divided Jews ... quite viciously and unpreceedently. Not in America and with American eyes or an American perspective,  but in Ha'Shems Holy land itself.  Eretz Yisrael.  The JEWISH land of Yisrael. Which Beck and his entourage persist in calling the 'Holy Land'. Their "holy land" because of their mangd, the jc Idol, which they have nauseatingly repeated ad nauseum this week,  recalling 'miracles' and other fraudlent events.  Christianity is a HUGE enemy .... requiring the spiritual extermination of Judaism,  as Islam desires our physical extermination as Jews.  And we have felt the forces of both keenly this week here in EY.   Christiantiy is as much or more of an enemy force than Obama, and what concerns me is division and rancour among Jews, not Unity,  to bring about the defeat and expulsion of christianity from the land of Yisrael.  American Jews need to understand the effect of this Idolator outside of America!  Especially they need to understand what it means to accept his Idolatry in Eretz Yisrael !!!!!

Christians, including Beck et al,  believe that we Jews are just blinded and that every knee ~ including Jewish knees ~ will bow to the jesus Idol in Ha'Shems holiest city,  Jerusalem.  Even this morning my blog was still receiving messages to this effect,  (Love Hurts .... when christians HURT !!! )  The Oxford English Dictionary defines "to bow" as to respect or accept.  How many Jews have done that to this Idolator this week???

The Torah Parshah this week ~  Parshah Re'eh ~ Re'eh means to Behold, or See.  That so many Jews don't see is very worrisome to me. To feed Jews (or indeed any people) religious poison and lead them astray from Ha'Shem is a crime against humanity!

Parsha Re'eh ~ tells us what to do with Idolators & their idolatries, whether they be physical artifacts or poisonous ideas which divide Jews as Beck spread .... "These are the statutes and the ordinances, which ye shall observe to do in the land which Ha'Shem, the G*d of thy fathers, hath given thee to possess it, all the days that ye live upon the earth. Ye shall surely destroy all the places, wherein the nations that ye are to dispossess served their gds, upon the high mountains, and upon the hills, and under every leafy tree. And ye shall break down their altars, and dash in pieces their pillars, and burn their Asherim with fire; and ye shall hew down the graven images of their gds; and ye shall destroy their name out of that place"   ~ Devarim 12.1-3 ~

What could possibly be unclear with Ha'Shems view ... He Hates Idolatry!!!  And there will be a price for trusting christianity or Beck above Ha'Shem, here in Yisrael.  Look at this open display of christian Idolatry at Ha'Shems Home. The Kotel.  Zionist Idolatry!!!!

Click to Enlarge ....

Glenn Beck is Dangerous ... He is initating another Crusade, with the aim this time to Crush Judaism spiritually. He proposes to solve the "Jewish problem" by simply having all christians proclaim themselves to be Jews. (A spin on the more usual "replacement" ethics of christianity .... the real meaning of his support  is "I am replacing you"  as a "priest" of Jerusalem).  Either way, it is the "end" of  Am Yisrael & of the Jewish Nation of Israel.  In his way, we will all be "equal" and all "paths" will be legitimate,  including the dissolution of Eretz Yisrael  as the "Jewish" State & the acceptance of a "palestinian" state its stead. Remember, September 20th is earmarked for precisely this purpose by the Useless Nothings at the misnamed United Nations !!!!!

Jews have exclusivity over Jerusalem. Political Soverignity and Spiritual Soverignity.  The Capital of the Jewish State of Yisrael,  and the home of Ha'Shem,  Master of the Universe, the G*d of Avraham, Yitzhak and Ya'akov.  Esav and Yishmael have their own "holy places" and these are NOT in Eretz Yisrael.  Beck's agenda is actually replacement theology.   A theology that aims to bring waves of christian Aliyah here (deceptively) and to use the Jewish renaissance in Israel as a springboard to a christian renaissance.  A Christian Crusade for Jerusalem.  Not for the First time in history.  The Third Time for Rome!!   Y'hudah HaMakabi, the son of Matityahu HaKohen, was the first to make an alliance with the Roman senate to strengthen alliances against the Yavanim who had previously occupied Eretz Yisra'el. Within a century Rome replaced Y'hudi rule with Edomi-Herodian rule, decades later Rome directly ruled it themselves, and under a century later they destroyed the Temple and Y'rushalayim entirely. We have just emerged from remembering this at Tisha B'Av.  How can we lend Beck the legitimacy of Manhigut Yehudit???

Christians have ulterior motives, and my fellow Jews are cluelessly clinging onto their Western culture and sensibilities, allowing themselves to be seduced by the Christians' greatest weapon, the guise of "friendship".  The smile and the flowery tongue of Esav are just as dangerous as the sword of Yishma'el.  The Kiss Of Esav (הנשיקה של עשו) is just as dangerous as the bite of Yishma'el.    Christianity & Islam are EQUAL ENEMIES.   My Grandfather made the wrong choice because he trusted in German Culture & Civilization and Goy benevolence in the 1930's.  Berlin was the Civilized & Cultural Capital of Europe.  It almost wiped my family from the Earth.  Are we so myopic that we will watch it happen again???

Parshat Re'eh also states .... " If there should stand up in your midst a prophet or a dreamer of a dream, and he will produce to you a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder comes about, of which he spoke to you, saying, "Let us follow gds of others that you did not know and we shall worship them!" ~ do not hearken to the words of that prophet or to that dreamer of a dream, for Ha'Shem, your G*d is testing you to know whether you love Ha'Shem, your G*d, with all your heart and with all your soul. "

Happy Birthday, Gilad !!!

 

Happy 25th Birthday,  Sgt. Gilad Shalit ........ 1,888 Days in Hamas Captivity.  Detained in a Dungeon,  May this be your last Birthday in Captivity,  Be'Zereth Ha'Shem !!!!

There are 1.5 million people living in Gaza & only one of them really needs humanitarian aid. Only one of them is locked in a tiny room & never sees the light of day, only one of them is not allowed visits, even from the Red Cross & is in uncertain health.  His name is Gilad Shalit, & over 5 YEARS have passed since he was kidnapped. 

Five years ago, a Jewish son was taken from his parents. The Hamas terror organization kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit during an incursion from Gaza into Israel. His captors have denied access to him by the Red Cross in complete violation of the Geneva Convention. For five years a merciless enemy has held captive a young man, a soldier. While Gilad Shalit has become a symbol, there has been no Rescue attempt and only a series of stalled negotiations.

Hamas are being strengthened by the International media & their campaigns, because the media blame Israel, and not Hamas Arab terrorists who continue his incarceration and are the guilty ones. Gilad Shalit is not a negotiating tool to be bargained off in a numbers game with Hamas, which they have tried to turn on & off for the last five years ~ NOT ONE Hamas murderer should be released in a trade off for the freeing of Gilad Shalit.   In fact it is thought that last week's slayings near Eilat were a botched kidnap attempt to add another 'kidnapee' to Gilad's number.  

Having said that I am TOTALLY for Gilad being freed NOW. Not one day more in Captivity, five years is too long. One day more is too much. But, I dont believe in a negotiated exchange.

Different tactics now need to be tried. Like turning off the electric supply to Gaza.  Like turning off the water supply. It is supplied by Israel. Like enforcing a total embargo by land and by sea. Nothing goes in, nothing goes out. By shutting down the Temple Mount to Arabs. By putting the PA hierarchy in Ramallah under seige. By assassinating the Hamas leadership, one after the next after the next. Same with convicted Arab prisoners held in Israeli jails. By returning Israeli's to their surrendered homes in Gush Katif and other sites in Gaza. By using the combined forces of the IDF & IDA to go get Gilad. Oh! Yes. There's lots of ways to get Gilad back without releasing 1000 terrorists.

Why are 'palestinian' supplies allowed in to Gaza? Why are "ambulances" allowed out?  How many more Birthdays must Gilad spend in Captvity??

Gilad .... WE HAVE NOT FORGOTTEN YOU ..... Yom Huledet Same'ach !!!!!!

Terezin the Terrible!!

Cremation Oven ~ Terezin

To the Dead ....

"A grave among graves, who can tell it apart,
time has long swept away the dead faces.
Testimonies, so evil and terrible to the heart,
we took with us to these dark rotting places.

Only the night and the howl of the wind
will sit on the graves' corners,
only a patch of grass, a bitter weed
before May bears some flowers..."

Jaroslav Seifert ~ Written in Terezin!!

This camp, although indeed Terrible,  was not a 'Death Camp' like Auschwicz or Treblinka. During World War II the Gestapo used Terezin, better known by the German name Theresienstadt, as a Concentration Camp. To incarcerate a concentration of Prisoners ~ Jews!  Especially Jewish Children!

The majority of the Jews sent there were scholars, professionals, artists and musicians. Inmates were encouraged to lead 'Creative'  lives, and Concerts were even held. Within the camp, parks, grassy areas and flower beds, concert venues and statues were installed to hide the truth ~ The Truth that  most of the inmates were going to be Murdered. This was all part of a Nazi plot to deceive International Red Cross inspectors into believing that Jews were being treated humanely. And Terezin was photographed as a 'Model Camp' & declared 'humane' by the Red Cross in 1944!!

This façade masked the fact that of the 144,000 Jews sent there, about 33,000 died, mostly because of the appalling conditions (hunger, stress, punishment, disease, and an epidemic of typhus at the very end of the war). About 88,000 were deported onwards to Auschwitz and other extermination camps. Terezin was liberated on May 9th, 1945 by the Soviet Army. At the time of it's liberation there were 17,247 survivors....

Of  the 15,000 children sent to Terezin,  just 132 survived.  My Mom (Of Blessed Memory) was one of those who survived Terezin the Terrible!!

"When a new child comes
Everything seems strange to him.
What, on the ground I have to lie?
Eat black potatoes? No! Not I!
I've got to stay? It's dirty here!
The floor ~ why, look, it's dirt, I fear!
And I'm supposed to sleep on it?
I'll get all dirty!
Here the sound of shouting, cries,
And oh, so many flies.
Everyone knows flies carry disease.
Oooh, something bit me!
Wasn't that a bedbug?
Here in Terezin, life is hell
And when I'll go home again, I can't yet tell."

 
(Written by a Terezin Child,  we don't know who)

I do have an album of pictures of Terezin, located North of Prague in the Czech Republic.  I will do a Pictorial Memorial some day this week!!

The Golden Calf!!

 

 A Guest Blogger today .... My Friend,  Heshy Rosenwasser.    An Accomplished writer, who has served in the IDF, performed in numerous Jersey Shore and New York area bands,  has written and edited for newspapers, publishers,  and currently for the Jewish Voice.  He blogs at http://about.me/TheHeshInc. 
 
(And I endorse his Analysis Ten Trillion percent !!!!)

However, as much as we recognize the need to show hakarat hatov (proper appreciation) for Glenn Beck’s work in generating support for Israel, the unquestioning zeal exhibited by many of his Jewish supporters raises a red flag that needs to be addressed ......

The people and state of Israel, and the Jewish community around the world, are mesmerized by the appearance of television commentator Glenn Beck in Jerusalem, both for his address to the Knesset and for his ‘Restoring Courage’ rally near the Temple Mount. Love him or hate him ~ it is impossible to avoid him!

Beck has been given the red-carpet treatment by Knesset member Danny Danon, who showed him around the country and invited him to speak before the Knesset’s Immigration and Absorption Committee. Chief Rabbi Yonah Metzger has gone so far as blessing Beck’s rally.

Have we gone mad?

We have been beaten upside the head by years upon years of negative media punditry, often akin to blood libels ~ not to mention boycotts, divestments, sanctions, solidarity movements, ‘apartheid’ walls, flotillas, flytillas, UN resolutions, nuclear threats, and good-old-fashioned wars and terrorism ~ that we have become slap-happy and punch-drunk. Any voice in the wilderness sounding a note of support to us comes as a breath of fresh air, and we welcome it with such ardour that we are willing to overlook potential faults and pitfalls .... namely, that his seemingly pure and good-hearted motives just barely conceal political agendas and religious ideologies that ought to give Jews much pause.

This has happened before.   After the bloody massacres perpetrated against the Jewish people by the Cossack Chmielnicki,  Messiah came. So many Jews had prayed for the arrival of the promised saviour that they were willing to accept Shabbetai Tzvi, despite his glaring inconsistencies and violations of Jewish tradition. And Martin Luther started his anti-Catholic Church career by publishing a screed that was on its surface friendly and sympathetic to the Jews, in the hopes that the Jews would convert to his new religion, the as-yet-undefined Protestantism. The outcome is well known: We did not convert, and Luther turned his full vehemence on us. The Jews of Germany during the Reformation played on Luther’s name, transliterating into Hebrew ~ Lo-Tahor ~ not clean. After such experiences, we Jews have earned the right to be more than a little suspicious.

First and foremost, Beck is an ENTERTAINER!!!! 

Make no mistake about it ~ as a TV host, an entertainer is ALL he is. He is not an elected official in any government. He is not an ordained clergyman of any faith. He represents nobody but himself, and perhaps the media conglomerates that employ him.

So the question must be posed ..... What in the world is a media figure doing addressing a legislative body? Has Oprah Winfrey ever addressed a joint session of Congress? How about Rush Limbaugh? Dennis Prager? Michael Savage?  Or even, for the liberally inclined, pre-Congressional Al Franken?  Anybody?

It is particularly galling that Beck, a non-Jewish entertainer, is given the Knesset podium as a bully pulpit when REAL Jewish teachers of REAL Torah ~ Rabbi Dov Lior and Rabbi Yaakov Yosef, son of Sephardic elder sage Rabbi Ovadia Yosef ~ are arrested and thrown into jail. Have we resorted to defaming and imprisoning our rabbis, figures who ought to be respected and revered even if we disagree with their teachings, while deciding to take direction from a foreign entertainer just because he happens to make some noises in our favour?

And now that Beck has spoken before the Knesset and is given the green light in the staging of his ‘Courage’ rally, he believes he has earned the right to pontificate about all matters Israeli. Specifically, he has called the current ‘tent city’ protests in Tel Aviv and other locations the doing of ‘communists,’ calling into question the financing of these protests and suggesting a sinister connection between the protesters in Israel and world socialism ..... framing the whole matter in the context of the sort of anarchists who protest G-8 meetings, and squeezing the square peg of what should be an internal Israeli matter into the round hole of his us-and-them, liberal-versus-conservative worldview. Let him go on back to where he came from and stick to things he might actually know a thing or two about, and let Jews and Israelis handle Jewish and Israeli matters!!

The way so many Jews fawn on Glenn Beck is Appalling, regardless of how pro-Israel he positions himself. Equally disgusting is the knee-jerk manner in which Beck supporters (Jewish or otherwise) condemn anyone who dares dissent as a ‘liberal.’

Well, this avowedly nonliberal editor dares to dissent ..... on Jewish grounds!!!!

We are believers, the children of believers, and although we have no one to lean on other than Ha'Shem in Heaven, even believing Jews who ought to know better have found something less than Divine to believe in. We have made for ourselves nothing short of a new golden calf, substituting it for our holy Torah and the voices of those who teach it. There are seventy faces to the Torah, as our sages teach, but we seem to insist on adding a 71st from outside the fold.

And even if Beck were 100% sincere, without any hidden agendas, we would still be very wise to heed the words of King David , in Tehillim 146, 3-4, read by devout Jews every morning .... “Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help. His breath goes forth, he returns to his dust; in that very day his thoughts perish.”

Glenn Beck is a charismatic figure, a consummate actor and a master manipulator.  Please bear this in mind as you watch this video!!!!