Honouring Hebron!!

The First Documented Massacre of Jews in the Holy Land!

This past month marked the 82nd Anniversary of the 1929 massacre of 67 Jews ~ men, women and children ~ by "palestinian" Arabs in the town of Hebron.  I'm late in remembering & Honouring Hebron this month because of the 'Beck Business', which actually turned into pretty much of a damp squib, Baruch Ha'Shem!!

Actually, August 24th was the Yahrzeit (Yiddish for "a year's time" or the anniversary of the death of  loved ones) of the day the murderous Pogrom began.  When the three days of murder, mutilation, torture, rape and pillaging ended, the British "protectors" evacuated some 700 survivors, thereby ending the existence of one the most ancient Jewish communities in Eretz Yisrael.  Jews had lived in Hebron for 3,000 years, and the community that Arabs attacked in 1929 had continuously resided peacefully in Hebron since the end of the 15th century C.E.  

The attack was incited by  the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, who claimed that Jews were endangering Muslim holy sites on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. (This exact tactic was successfully repeated in September 2000 by the Grand Mufti's nephew and "spiritual" heir, Yassir Arafat, Y'mach Shemo, to launch the "Second Intifada", thereby diverting attention from Arafat's refusal to make peace with Israel at Camp David.)  No Jew was able to live in Hebron from 1929 until 1967, when Israel conquered Hebron during the Six-Day War.  We didn't whinge & whine about forced exile, or compensation or "refugee rights" following this horrific pogrom, perhaps that is why it is rarely remembered by the world??  At a time when Israel is regularly accused of ethnic cleansing and apartheid, even by a former President of the United States,  it is useful to remember who are the real perpetrators of ethnic cleansing in the Holy Land.  And it isn't Jews !!!!!

In 1967,  Jewish pioneers ~ the people the world roundly condemns as "settlers" ~ moved back to Hebron to re-establish our ancient community ......  three millenia earlier,  Avraham purchased the cave of Machpelah to bury Sara, his wife. It was the first parcel of land owned by the Jewish people in Eretz Yisrael, our still promised land.  Ever since, we revere Hebron as the burial site of our matriarchs and patriarchs. Conquered, massacred and expelled over the centuries, we have always returned to this sacred & special place in our land. 

After 1267, under Muslim rule, no Jews were permitted to pray inside the magnificent enclosure, built by King Herod in the 1st century, that still surrounds the burial caves. But following the expulsion of All Jews from Spain at the end of the 15th century, a small group of our Orthodox rebuilt a community of study and prayer in Hebron.  In August 1929, that community was suddenly and brutally attacked. Incited by the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem ~ who claimed that Jews were endangering Muslim holy sites on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem ~ sound familiar today????   Arab rioters swept through Eretz Yisrael.  The violence began in Jerusalem and soon spread to Hebron, Motza, and Safed, all old Jewish communities that supposedly lived in harmony with their Arab neighbours, rather than Zionist settlements.   In Hebron, the carnage was horrendous. 

On Friday, August 23rd, 1929,  as Shabbat approached,  Hell erupted!  Arab youths started throwing rocks at the Yeshiva students. That afternoon, one student, Shmuel Rosenholtz, went to the Slobodka Yeshiva,  Knesset Yisrael-Slobodka, alone.  Arab rioters later broke in and killed him, and that was only the beginning. Friday night, Rabbi Ya’acov Slonim’s son invited any fearful Jews to stay in his house. The Rabbi was highly regarded in the community, and he had a gun. Many Jews took him up on this offer, and many Jews were eventually murdered there.  As early as 8:00 a.m. on Saturday, Arabs began to gather en masse. They came in mobs, armed with clubs, knives and axes. While the women and children threw stones, the men ransacked Jewish houses and destroyed Jewish property. With only a single police officer in Hebron,  Arabs entered Jewish courtyards with no opposition.  There are many indications that the Arabs, as well as the British had advance warning of the disturbances, yet the British did nothing to try to head them off. There was one British policeman in Hebron, Raymond Cafferata. He commanded a force of 18 mounted police and 15 on foot. Of these, all but one were Arabs.

Rabbi Slonim, who had tried to shelter the Jewish population, was approached by the rioters and offered a deal. If all the Ashkenazi yeshiva students were given over to the Arabs, the rioters would spare the lives of the Sephardi community.  Rabbi Slonim refused to turn over the students and was killed on the spot. In the end, 12 Sephardi Jews and 55 Ashkenazi Jews were murdered there. The one policeman offered safety to any who reached the police station at Beit Romano.  The police station turned into a shelter for the Jews on the morning of August 24th. It also became a synagogue as the Orthodox there and said Shacharit. As they finished davening, they began to hear noises outside the building. Thousands of Arabs descended from Har Hebron, shouting "Kill the Jews!" in Arabic. They even tried to break down the doors of the station. The Jews  inside were besieged in Beit Romano for three days. Each night, ten men were allowed to leave to attend a funeral in Hebron’s ancient Jewish cemetery for the murdered Jews of the day.

In the Anglo-Palestine Bank, where 23 corpses were discovered, blood covered the tile floor. That day, three children under the age of five were murdered. Teenage girls, their mothers and grandmothers were raped and killed. Rabbis and their students were castrated before they were slain.  A surviving yeshiva student recounted that he "had seen greater horrors than Dante in hell."     The butchery in Hebron was  "without equal in the history of the country since the destruction of the Temple." Sir Walter Shaw, chairman of the British Royal investigation, concluded that "unspeakable atrocities" had occurred.   Babies were beheaded. Old Rabbis were castrated. There were incidents of rape, torture and mutilation. Hands and fingers were torn off bodies.

"On hearing screams in a room I went up a sort of tunnel passage and saw an Arab in the act of cutting off a child's head with a sword. He had already hit him and was having another cut, but on seeing me he tried to aim the stroke at me, but missed; he was practically on the muzzle of my rifle. I shot him low in the groin. Behind him was a Jewish woman smothered in blood with a man I recognized as a[n Arab] police constable named Issa Sherif from Jaffa in mufti. He was standing over the woman with a dagger in his hand. He saw me and bolted into a room close by and tried to shut me out-shouting in Arabic, "Your Honour, I am a policeman." ... I got into the room and shot him."
(Bernard Wasserstein, The British in Palestine: The Mandatory Government and the Arab-Jewish Conflict 1917-1929, Oxford England, Basil Blackwell, 1991)

When the slaughter finally subsided, 67 Jews had been murdered. Three days later, British soldiers evacuated 484 survivors, including 153 children, to Jerusalem. Forcibly evacuated & "resettled" in Jerusalem!   Some Jewish families tried to move back to Hebron, but were removed by the British authorities in 1936 at the start of the Arab revolt. In 1948, the War of Independence granted Israel statehood, but further cut the Jews off from Hebron, a city that was captured by King Abdullah's Arab Legion and annexed to Jordan.  It wasn't until 1967 that Hebron was returned to Eretz Yisrael.

A small group of  Zionist Pioneers returned to Hebron to rebuild the destroyed community. "What was in the past in Hebron," declared their matriarch Miriam Levinger, "is what will happen in the future. Always!"  The Jewish community of Hebron ~ some 700 people ~ recently celebrated the 44th anniversary of their return. All the other ancient peoples have vanished. But Jews, a community of memory, still live in Hebron. Eretz Yisrael .... our land for 3,300 years.  Hebron Jews are relentlessly vilified as fanatics who illegally occupy someone else's land.  Nothing could be further from the truth. 

"For I will make an end of all the nations where I dispersed you, but of you I will not make an end"  ~ Yirmiyahu 30.11 ~

A Question for America??

This is  'The Treaty of Paris'.   On 3rd September 1783, the Treaty of Paris was signed, ending the American Revolution. The United States of America was acknowledged as a sovereign and independent state. Why then this September, 2011, is the Sovereignity of the Jewish State of Israel and it's Independence still under question in America ?????

Enjoy the Labour Day Long Weekend!!

Proper Blog in preparation for tomorrow .......

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 !!!!!!