Tisha B’Av 5781 – 2021

Posted on 18 July 2021 by anneinpt
https://www.93fm.co.il/radio/554670/

Tisha B’Av

Today it is Tisha B’Av, the 9th day of Av, the saddest day in the Jewish calendar. Today we remember the destruction of our two Holy Temples, both destroyed on this day, along with a host of other calamities.

As I wrote in a previous Tisha Be’Av post:

The fast commemorates the destruction of both the First and Second Temples in Jerusalem as well as a whole slew of tragic events that befell the Jewish people on that day:

These include the capture of Bethar, which marked the final defeat of Bar Kokhba‘s rebellion against the Romans, and the razing of Jerusalem by the Romans. The edict of King Edward I compelling the Jews of England to leave the country was signed on the ninth of Av in 1290, the Jews were expelled from Spain on that day in 1492, and World War I broke out in 1914. The sadness and mourning that Jews feel on this day are reflected in the various practices of Tisha B’Av, including abstaining from joyous activities like study of Torah, from eating and drinking, from sexual activity, and from wearing leather.

You can read a chronology of the major events leading up to the Churban (the destruction of the Temples and Jerusalem) at the link.

Since we are so far removed from the destruction of our Temples, it is extremely hard for a modern Jew to truly mourn the loss, even though that loss led to so many more tragedies and innumerable massacres and persecutions of the Jewish people throughout the centuries of the Diaspora. Especially today, living in the thriving independent State of Israel, mourning the loss of our sovereignty seems so hard when we are living in it today.

However, here is a story to bring this all into perspective, and to show us how we should really be mourning on Tisha B’Av:

We can also mourn the lack of our sovereignty in many parts of Eretz Yisrael, but particularly on Har Habayit, the Temple Mount, where our Temples once stood in all their glory but is now the site of the Al Aqsa Mosque. The Waqf, the Muslim trust that rules the site, would like to ban all Jewish worship from the site, but at last the Israeli government, first under Netanyahu and now under Naftali Bennet, is insisting that Jewish worshippers be allowed to ascend and maintain their freedom of worship.

However, it doesn’t usually work out quite as smoothly. Today over 1,000 Jewish worshippers were permitted to ascent to the Har Habayit, but not without clashes with the Muslims who were incited that “settlers are storming the Al Aqsa mosque” and other outrageous lies.

Dozens of Muslim worshipers barricaded themselves on the Temple Mount in the early hours of Sunday, ahead of the arrival of the Jewish visitors. Some of them briefly chanted: “With spirit, with blood, we’ll redeem Al-Aqsa.”

Israeli police entered the site and used sponge-tipped bullets and “crowd dispersal methods” to clear the area. Israel Police said that some Palestinians threw stones.

…

In Ramallah, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas condemned what he deemed “the dangerous and ongoing Israeli escalation.”

“The Palestinian Presidency…considers this a grave threat to security and stability, and a provocation to the feelings of Palestinians, and holds the Israeli government responsible for this escalation,” Abbas’s office said in a statement.

The European Union’s mission to the Palestinians said it was “concerned over [the] ongoing tensions.”

“Israeli authorities, religious, and community leaders from all sides should act urgently to calm down this explosive situation,” the organization wrote in a tweet. [And they should butt out of our domestic affairs – Ed.]

Hamas, the Palestinian terror group that rules Gaza, mocked the “straying herds of settlers” ascending the Temple Mount.

“That the occupation is giving free rein to these straying herds of settlers does not reflect control or sovereignty, but rather is an attempt to cover up for impotence and deficiency,” Mohammad Hamadah, a Hamas spokesperson, said in a statement.

The Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror group called the clashes “terrorism and aggression that affects all Muslims in the world.”

Senior Palestinian Authority official Hussein al-Sheikh — one of PA President Mahmoud Abbas’s closest advisers — condemned Israeli police actions at the site.

“The storming of  the Al-Aqsa Mosque is an Israeli political decision to establish facts on the ground, in defiance of the international community’s will, and bodes poorly for the orientation of the new government in Israel,” al-Sheikh tweeted.

“Storming settlers” aka Jewish worshippers on the Temple Mount on Tisha B’Av

Muslim clergy in East Jerusalem called on followers to come to the site, as this week marks the start of Eid al-Adha, one of the holiest festivals in the Islamic calendar. The holiday often sees mass congregational prayer on the Temple Mount. [ It should be noted that Hamas launched the last war with the pretext of Jews storming Al Aqsa].

Jewish men pray at the Western Wall in Jerusalem, during the annual Tisha B’Av fast day on July 18, 2021. (AHMAD GHARABLI / AFP)

And here we have the true reason for the Muslims’ hysteria about Jewish prayers on the Temple Mount – they fear they are losing control (about time too):

Sunday’s clashes came a day after a report said Israel has quietly started allowing Jewish prayers on the Temple Mount in recent months, in what would appear to be a major change to the status quo that has existed at the holy site since the Jewish state captured the Old City of Jerusalem from Jordan during 1967’s Six Day War.

Anxious to reduce friction with the Muslim world, and given that Orthodox sages generally counsel against ascending the Temple Mount for fear of treading on the sacred ground where the Temple’s Holy of Holies stood, Israel since 1967 has allowed the Jordanian Waqf to maintain religious authority atop the mount.

Jews have been allowed to visit under numerous restrictions, but not to pray.

A Channel 12 reporter, however, in recent days filmed prayers taking place at the site, as policemen — who in the past would eject any person suspected of prayer, and sometimes kicked people out for merely citing a biblical verse while speaking — passively looked on.

The report said that in addition to prayers, lengthy Torah lessons have been held on the Mount, again with the tacit approval of the police.

This is a definite improvement over past procedure but there is still a long way to go to ensure Jewish religious rites on our own holiest site.

But let’s move on to better news. Since we are now past midday, it is permissible to talk and think about more heartening and encouraging subjects. And recently there has been a slew of wonderful discoveries in Jerusalem and elsewhere in Israel:

A 3,000 year old inscription with the name of one of the Biblical judges was found near Kiryat Gat in southern Israel:

An inscription dating back some 3,100 years ago bearing the name of a biblical judge Jerubbaal was uncovered in the excavations at Khirbat er-Ra‘i, near Kiryat Gat in the Southern District of Israel, the Antiquities Authority (IAA) announced on Monday.

…

The writing, inked on a jug, marks the first time that the name Jerubbaal has been found outside the biblical text. It is believed that the owner penned his name on the jug.

The Jerubbaal inscription, written in ink on a pottery vessel. (photo credit: DAFNA GAZIT/ISRAEL ANTIQUITIES AUTHORITY)

“The name Jerubbaal is familiar from biblical  tradition in the Book of Judges as an alternative name for the judge Gideon ben Yoash,” according to Prof. Yosef Garfinkel and archeologist Sa‘ar Ganor from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Garfinkel and Ganor co-direct the excavations at the site with Dr. Kyle Keimer and Dr. Gil Davies from Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia – a partner in the dig together with the IAA.

“Gideon is first mentioned as combating idolatry by breaking the altar to Baal and cutting down the Asherah pole,” they explained. “In biblical tradition, he is then remembered as triumphing over the Midianites, who used to cross over the Jordan to plunder agricultural crops. According to the Bible, Gideon organized a small army of 300 soldiers and attacked the Midianites by night near Ma‘ayan Harod.”

At around the same time we learned of the discovery of 2,000 year old “Freedom to Zion” coins from the time of the Bar Kochba revolt – the revolt which ended in the fall of Betar on Tisha B’Av and which is commemorated today:

Two coins dating back some 2,000 years were found in the Binyamin region of the West Bank during an archaeological survey conducted by Bar-Ilan University, the university and the Binyamin Regional Council announced Tuesday.

he 2,000-year-old coins that date back to the period of the Jewish revolts against the Romans, July 13, 2021. (Credit: TAL ROGOVSKY)

The coins date back to the period of the Jewish revolts against the Romans.

The area is located in the northern part of the Judean Desert.

One coin was discovered near Wadi Rashash, and another in a location known as Hirbet J’bait.

The artifact found in Hirbet J’bait was minted around 67 CE. It features a vine leaf and the Hebrew inscription Herut Zion (Freedom for Zion) on one side, and a goblet and the inscription “Year Two” on the other. Just three years later, in 70 CE, the Romans would destroy the Temple in Jerusalem. Several other remains from that period, including a ritual bath, have been uncovered in the area.
…

The second coin dates back to the time of the Bar Kochba Revolt some 70 years later. It bears a palm branch surrounded by a wreath and the inscription LeHerut Yerushalayim (Freedom to Jerusalem) on one side and a musical instrument and the name “Shimon” on the other – the first name of the rebellion’s leader Bar Kochba.

The revolt – also known as the Third Jewish Revolt – broke out over the religious restrictions imposed by the Romans, as well as their decision to build a Roman city over the ruins of Jewish Jerusalem, including a pagan sanctuary where the Temple had stood.

Most exciting of all though is the incredibly exciting discovery of First Temple era walls of Jerusalem, still unbreached!

In a potential contradiction to the biblical account of the 586 BCE destruction of Jerusalem, continuing excavations in Jerusalem’s City of David National Park have revealed a previously unseen section of the First Temple-period fortification wall that was breached — but apparently not entirely razed — by the Babylonians.

The exposed section of the First Temple-era protective wall on Jerusalem’s eastern perimeter. (Koby Harati/ City of David)

According to 2 Kings 25:10, “The entire Chaldean [Babylonian] force that was with the chief of the guard tore down the walls of Jerusalem on every side” (The Jewish Publication Society Tanakh). But this newly found extant section of the eastern city wall, connected to two previously excavated and documented sections, means that potentially the entire length of the eastern border was not in fact torn down by the conquering Babylonians.

With this discovery, archaeologists are now able to reconstruct the run of the wall that encircled the ancient Kingdom of Judah capital on the eve of its destruction, which is commemorated by the Jewish holiday of Tisha B’Av on Sunday.

The new eastern section connects with two other previously discovered adjacent wall sections found in the 1960s by British archaeologist Kathleen Kenyon and in the 1970s by archaeologist Yigal Shiloh. By connecting the dots on the map, there is now an almost continuous 200-meter (656-foot) fortified wall on the eastern slope of the City of David facing the Kidron Valley. This new section was uncovered during excavations in 2020.

…

The new find puts to rest an ongoing debate among archaeologists over whether the previously known wall sections were indeed used for fortification or instead as support walls for construction on the steep 30-degree slope on the eastern side of the city. Part of the reason archaeologists traditionally argued that these existing sections could not have been used for fortification is the fact that the biblical narrative relates that the fortification walls had been shattered by conquering soldiers. Presumably, then, the argument went, sections of wall found to be still standing must have served a different purpose.

But now, “with the current exposure of the section that almost physically connects between the two [previously known sections], it is clear that there’s a wall that’s running for hundreds of meters,” said Uziel. This lengthy wall section on the eastern slope, put together with previously known sections of Jerusalem fortification in other parts of the city such as the Jewish Quarter’s Broad Wall (45 meters/148 feet long, 23 meters/75 feet thick) means that it “only makes sense” that it was a fortification surrounding the city, said Uziel.

As always, these discoveries put paid to the lie that the Jews are an alien race in the Land of Israel. Every one of these treasures proves our millennia-old connection to Israel.

May this be the last Tisha B’Av that we have to fast. May we celebrate next year in rebuilt Jerusalem with the reconstruction of the Third Temple.

כל המתאבל על ירושלים זוכה ורואה בשמחתה

Those who mourn Jerusalem will merit to see her in her joy

 

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In memory of my mother Judy Prager z”l

Posted on 5 July 2021 by anneinpt

My mother, Judy Prager z”l

Baruch Dayan Emet. A month ago exactly my dear mother Judy Prager passed away after nearly two years of illness, and the last month in a very serious condition in hospital.

Mum died on 4th June 2021, 25th Sivan 5781 on Friday night. The funeral was held on Sunday, 6th June, in Segula Cemetery in Petach Tikva.

My intention was to tell you all about my Mum and her life here but it is a daunting task. I will give you a short summary, and you can read the hespedim (eulogies) from her funeral, and from the Shloshim (30 day memorial service) and thus gain a deeper understanding of who Mum was.

Mum was born in Michelstadt, in the Odenwald in Germany on 7th May 1935. At the age of 3 the family moved to Frankfurt. After Kristallnacht and the arrest of my grandfather, who was incarcerated in Buchenwald, my grandmother sent Mum’s 3 older brothers to Holland on a kindertransport for safety. After my grandfather secured his release by paying a ransom to the Nazis, the family left for England. The 3 boys remained in Holland and were rounded up and murdered by the Nazis in Sobibor in 1943. You can read the story in my Family History pages.

Mum grew up in a very busy household in London with 4 younger sisters, 2 cousins rescued by my grandfather from Europe after the war, and assorted lodgers and visitors. After finishing school Mum learned to be a very skilled and talented dressmaker.

She met my father through the Jewish youth groups and got married when she was all of 19.

Mum was a very active member, and eventually honorary life member of her Emunah group both in England and then in Israel after my parents made aliya in 1992.

Besides her voluntary work in Emunah, Mum volunteered for 22 years, together with her sister Ruth, in the gift shop of Schneider hospital. Sometimes I think she kept the shop afloat by buying gifts for her multitudes of grandchildren and great-grandchildren. 🙂

Mum was a devoted wife and mother, running the house like clockwork and looking after our father (may he live to 120), all while instilling in us four children the values of her Jewish upbringing, a fierce love of Israel, and an outstanding sense of justice and fairness which stayed with her till her dying day.

She was also a very hands-on devoted grandmother and great-grandmother. Before my parents made Aliya, mum would keep a suitcase permanently half-packed, ready to fly at a moment’s notice whenever the travel agent would call her and ask her if she wanted to fly that afternoon since there had been a cancellation. Grandma’s arrival “from the sky” (where my children thought she lived!) was a highlight of my children’s childhood.

Mum took huge delight in her great-grandchildren too, and thought nothing of travelling cross-country with me to visit my own grandchildren living in their far-flung yishuvim.

Mum was a huge inspiration to me, especially in her love for Israel and her fervent defence of the country in the media and online. Her letters to the Jerusalem Post are legion and legendary.  She, along with my father, gave me her blessing to leave home and make aliya alone to Israel, and I was so excited when 15 years later my parents joined me.

Mum was a huge supporter of my work on this blog and you can read her many comments here (as “JudyinPT”) particularly on my earlier posts.

I could go on and on but I will stop here, and post recordings and the transcripts of the hespedim from the levaya, followed by the Shloshim and the stone-setting which took place earlier today.

May Mum’s memory be blessed, may she be a melitzat yosher in Heaven for all of Am Yisrael.

יהודית בת יהודה ודיה, תהיה נשמתך צרורה בצרור החיים

The Levaya (Funeral)

You can watch a recording (apologies for the sound and video quality) of the levaya at this clickable link here.

Here are the Hespedim, in order of presentation:

My younger brother Mark
Rabbi Moshe Lifshitz (Rabbi of Mekor Chaim shul in Petach Tikva)
My niece Talya Brown
My older brother David.

I don’t have a transcript for Rabbi Lifshitz’s hesped. Here are the others:

Mark’s Hesped for Mum

Talya’s hesped for Mum

David’s Hesped for Mum

Here is a recording of Henry singing El Maleh Rachamim at the Levaya:

 

Erev Limud for the Shloshim

We held an Erev Limud (an evening of learning and memories) on the shloshim, the 30th day after Mum passed away, the evening of 4th July 2021, 25th Tamuz 5781. It was a very moving event, attended by about 50 people, all family. My mum’s sister Eva and her husband Leo flew out from London (first time in a year and a half at least because of corona), and other cousins and relations drove in from all around the country.

It was a very sociable if poignant event, and I feel (hope) we did Mum proud.

We held the event in our shul hall, and several people spoke.

My nephew Chanan made a siyum.
My brother-in-law Eli spoke
My son Zvi spoke
My sister Reeva spoke
I spoke.
Henry sang El Maleh Rachamim again.

We broadcast the entire proceedings on Zoom for the benefit of our family members living abroad. Click on this link to watch it all.

Here is the transcript of Zvi’s beautiful speech:

Zvi’s Dvar Torah 30 Grandma

Here are the transcripts of Reeva’s speech and my own:

Reeva Shloshim azkara talk for Mummy zl

Anne Shloshim memories of Mum z”l.

Gilui Matzeva – the Stone-setting

At 5.30 pm. Israel time today, 5th July, 25th Tamuz, we held the ceremony of the גילוי מצבה – the “stone-setting”, dedicating the Matzeva (the gravestone) to Mum.

Mum’s Matzeva

The flat stone of Mum’s Matzeva, with the names of her 3 brothers David, Elchanan and Uri Michael Strauss who were murdered by the Nazis in Sobibor in 1943

We began with the traditional Tehillim (psalms) said at the graveside, followed by Kaddish.

Then David read out the words on the Matzeva and explained their meaning.

Henry sang El Maleh Rachamim once again, and then David added a few words:

This was followed by the very large crowd of family and friends laying a stone on her grave as a sign of respect and memory. This brought to a close the month long period of mourning. For us children the mourning period will continue for a year.

May Mum z”l be a melitzat yosher for us and for all of Am Yisrael. May her memory be for a blessing.

תהי נשמתה צרורה בצרור החיים

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Chag Atzma’ut Same’ach! Happy 73rd Independence Day Israel!

Posted on 15 April 2021 by anneinpt

Independence Day celebrations in Tel Aviv

It’s Yom Ha’atzmaut, Israel’s Independence Day, and, as remarked upon by both local and foreign observers, the country swings in a schizophrenic kind of way from the mourning, sorrow and remembrance of Yom Hazikaron to the flag-waving patriotism and general merry-making of Yom Ha’atzmaut.

Prayers marking the transition from the mourning of Yom Hazikaron to the celebrations of Yom Haatzmaut were held in synagogues throughout the country.

Last night we attended the prayers in Petach Tikva’s historic Central Synagogue. It has been closed for a couple of years for renovations, which continued throughout last year’s lockdown, and the result is outstanding! The historic charm and authenticity have been preserved while improving safety, acoustics and comfort.

The ladies’ gallery in Petach Tikva’s historic 130-year old Central Synagogue

The prayers themselves were as uplifting and inspiring as ever, with the chazan accompanied by guitar, darbouka and trumpets.

The central Yom Ha’atzmaut ceremony took place at Har Herzl in Jerusalem with torch-lighting, parades, music and more. Besides the fantastic flag-bearers forming clever formations, the highlight was the 12 torchbearers:

Torch-lighters at the main event included doctors and nurses representing medical teams who have been at the frontlines of battling the coronavirus pandemic; Rabbi Eitan Schnerb, whose daughter Rina was murdered in a 2019 terror attack in the West Bank and who founded a non-profit aiding the needy in the city of Lod; Shira Isakov, who survived a murder attempt by her husband and has become a vocal advocate against violence toward women, alongside the neighbor who helped save her life; Abie Moses, head of an organization that helps victims of terror attacks; Major Maor Cohen, who volunteers with children with cancer; Zipi Harpenes, a school principal in Beersheba; Gabriela Sztrigler Lew, who volunteers in the Shalom Corps doing community work around the world;

Not mentioned here are the 102-year old Yemenite teacher who spoke and lit the torch like a man 50 years younger! And the very moving story of two Arab-Israeli nurses whose actions touched the nation during the corona pandemic:

Muslim male nurse Maher Ibrahim heads the nursing staff of Emek Medical Center’s Covid-19 ward where severely ill and ventilated patients fight for their lives.

Maher Ibrahim, head nurse on Emek Medical Center’s Covid ward. Photo courtesy of Emek Medical Center

Ibrahim was on duty recently when a religious elderly Jewish patient was nearing his end.

Emek spokesman Larry Rich describes the poignant scene to illustrate how coexistence pervades daily life in Israel even if it doesn’t always make headlines.

“The patient’s family would not make it in time for the inevitable farewell. Maher, trained in Jewish studies, applied his knowledge and deeply empathic spirit at that critical moment,” Rich tells ISRAEL21c.

“In a phone call with the man’s family, Maher the Muslim nurse recited aloud in Hebrew the Shema Yisrael prayer –‘Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One.’

“His act of loving empathy, kindness and understanding went far beyond the norms of nursing and in that brilliant timeless moment, he personified the spirit of Emek and Israel,” Rich says.

Yaish Giat, the Yemenite mori (teacher) and spice shop owner is an extraordinary man:

Giat, who was born in Yemen, is a “mori” (a religious teacher and spiritual mentor) and Torah scholar, as well as the owner of a spice shop in Ashkelon where he dispenses natural medicines.

Yaish Giat

Giat’s medicinal expertise is acquired from ancient methods, passed along through the generations. He bases his remedies off the practices of Maimonides, the influential medieval Sephardic Jewish philosopher and physician.

The 102-year-old serves as a guide to those who turn to him for advice, expertise and blessings. He continued to work during the pandemic, inviting people into his home, where he provided spiritual assistance to many in accordance with the unique tradition of Yemenite Jews.

Giat also volunteers as a Torah scribe and many of his Torah scrolls have been donated to synagogues across the country.

Giat explained his “secret” to living a long life. “First of all, it comes from the blessed Holy One,” he told Ynet.

He added: “You should relax and divide the day into three parts: eight hours for sleep, eight hours for work and eight hours to eat and drink. You don’t need to worry about anything. I am always free.”

…

“Giat, a representative of the older generation, a native of Yemen, symbolizes the pioneering, influential and overflowing aliyah of all Yemenite Jewry to Israel,” they said.

“He is a representative of the generation of grandparents, who symbolizes the eternal light of the generation of founders who immigrated to Israel, built and were built within it,” the announcement added.

“His material and human spices, the materials from which true love is made, along with his volunteer work as Jewish scribe, express the Israeli spirit, in all its virtues,” they said.

You can watch the entire show here:

In an incredible turn of history, Israel – which is used to being vilified and shunned by the rest of the world – was honoured by several world landmarks being lit up in blue and white in honour of Yom Ha’atzmaut:

Buildings and landmarks across the US and the globe lit up in blue and white Tuesday evening in celebration of Israel’s 73rd Independence Day.

Denver’s city call lights up in blue and white in honor of Israel’s Independence Day on April 14, 2021. (Israeli-American Council)

The initiative, which in the US was spearheaded by the Israeli-American Council, saw New York’s Cuomo Bridge along with city halls in Austin, Beverly Hills, Boston, Denver, Hollywood, Houston, Las Vegas, Los Angeles and San Francisco light up in the colors of Israel’s flag.

The San Francisco City Hall is seen lit up in blue and white. (photo credit: SHANIE ROTH)

…

Outside the US, Ukraine joined in on the festivities, lighting up its city hall in Kyiv in blue and white. In Zagreb, Croatia, an Israeli flag was being projected on a fountain in the city center. In Uzbekistan, the Israeli flag was being projected on a hotel overlooking the central Amira Temura Square in the country’s capital of Tashkent. Similar gestures were seen in Vancouver, Winnipeg, Ottawa, San Paulo and Vilnius.

My favourite Israeli commentator Sivan Rahav Meir had beautiful inspiring words as she wrote about the 12 torchlighters:

שום מחלוקת פוליטית לא יכולה לקלקל את התמהיל המיוחד הזה. מי שמחפש לו הסבר יצטרך ללכת יממה אחורה, לנאום הרמטכ”ל, שפתח את דבריו ברחל אימנו, הזכיר לנו שאנחנו חלק מתוכנית גדולה ונצחית, וציטט את מה שנאמר לרחל: “וְשָׁבוּ בָנִים לִגְבוּלָם”. ככה זה נראה כשהם מתחילים לשוב.

No political argument can ruin this special mix. Anyone looking for an explanation will have to go back one day, to the speech given by the Chief of Staff, who opened his words with our Matriarch Rachel, reminding us that we are part of a large and eternal plan, and quoted what was said to Rachel: “And the children shall return to their borders”. This is what it looks like when they start returning.

To celebrate this year’s Independence Day, a beautiful song, “Listen to me my brother” was performed by veteran Israeli singer Yehoram Gaon and Yishai Levi:

The words are so fitting as the theme of this year’s Yom Ha’atzmaut is brotherhood. May we merit to see many more years of love and brotherhood in this crazy, wonderful little country of ours, till 120 and beyond!

זה היום עשה ה’ נגילה ונשמחה בו

This is the day that Hashem made, we will rejoice and celebrate on it.

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Yom Hazikaron 5781 – Israel’s Memorial Day 2021

Posted on 14 April 2021 by anneinpt

Yom Hazikaron – Israel’s Memorial Day 2021

Yom Hazikaron, Israel’s Memorial Day for fallen soldiers and victims of terror, began last night at sundown, as Israelis commemorated their fallen with a one minute siren at 8 pm and a ceremony at the Kotel.

Israelis paid tribute to the country’s 23,928 fallen soldiers and terror victims starting on Tuesday evening, bowing their heads for a minute of silence as sirens sounded around the country to mark the start of Memorial Day.

The one-minute siren at 8 p.m. was immediately followed by the state ceremony at the Western Wall in Jerusalem. On Tuesday night, additional public memorials will be held, including at Tel Aviv’s Hayarkon Park and in the Knesset in Jerusalem.

…

Speaking at the ceremony, Netanyahu said Israel will make “every effort” to return its captives, which include two civilians and the bodies of two IDF soldiers believed to be held by the Hamas terror group in Gaza.

“This is a sacred mission that we’re not letting go of,” he said.

Speaking at the official state ceremony held at the Western Wall, President Reuven Rivlin said the message of the day was that citizens of the Jewish state must not take it for granted.

“From here, I want to speak to you, the commanders, the soldiers, those soon to enlist, the young generation. I grew up as a child at a time when we did not have a state. For me, for those of my generation, the State of Israel is not something to be taken for granted. This strong and powerful country you see was established by the heroism and dedication of young people of your age,” Rivlin said.

“Today, the task of protecting the State of Israel, is on your shoulders. Remember, without love of the homeland, dedication to mission, aiming for victory, comradeship, purpose, personal example and the purity of weapons, a free people will not be established here. The Israel Defense Force and the State of Israel, we, need you young, strong, united, united, united, determined to lend a hand, determined to continue to prevail, ready when necessary, to pay a price,” he entreated.

An aerial view of female Israeli soldiers saluting at the graves in the Kiryat Shaul military cemetery in Tel Aviv, Yom HaZikaron (Israel’s Memorial Day) (JACK GUEZ / AFP)

The IDF Chief of Staff, Gen. Aviv Kochavi made a remarkable speech which has earned the title “the Three Mothers Speech“. He connects the Jewish Biblical matriarch Rachel with two other mothers:

In his speech, Kochavi recalled three mothers who suffered so that the people of Israel could live and establish themselves in their land.

“The journey of the people of Israel back to their land is an unprecedented event in the history of nations. It is a kind of miracle, even if the current generation sees the country as a natural event. The achievements recorded here from the day the first person stepped on the shores of this blessed land and joined the old Yishuv are extraordinary. It is a journey of faith, determination and creativity, during the entire length of which generations of defenders stood and paid a heavy price price, a price in blood,” Kochavi said.

The Chief of Staff recalled the beginning of the Jewish people’s history. “This journey was not just the Exodus from Egypt but the Exodus from the East and the Exodus from the West. It was an entire people who woke up and started walking, old and young, fathers and mothers, three of whom I want to talk about. The first was our mother Rachel, who did not get to live in her own country, and knew alienation and a lack of belonging. She managed to reach Israel but did not manage to live in it and when her children were forced to depart from Israel they passed by her grave. Most of the life of the Jewish people passed beyond the limits of its land, when the people was insecure, unprepared and repeatedly persecuted and slaughtered. Zionism changed this situation fundamentally. Determined leadership in the face of many difficulties has done an incredible act, swept away and inspired many who have developed into a great people and the State of Israel. We are the generation of children who returned to our borders. We returned to the world in this time, but the return journey was and still is unbearably difficult.”

“The other mother, Nehama, also took action. She left her home in Ukraine and together with her husband Joseph, who fled Nazi Austria, immigrated to the land of Israel to establish a family and a state, changed their last name to Yisraeli and established their home in Kibbutz Dovrat. It was a house saturated with Zionism and values. “A resurrected people need children,” said Nehama – and gave birth to five, two of them sons: Effi and Dedi, were friends in heart and soul. Effie became an officer and instructor in an armored officers course and Dedi followed his brother and became a trainee in that course, the course that did not end. The Yom Kippur War interrupted him and the two brothers were sent to Sinai.

“On the second day of the war, Dedi’s tank was hit, and although he was badly burned all over, he returned to rescue a crew member and only then was he taken to the hospital. His brother Effie remained on the battlefield, and although his tank was hit he moved to another tank and continued to fight. On the 12th, when the IDF was already fighting on the west bank of the Suez Canal, he was hit once more and killed. A familiar knock on the door of an Israeli family’s house, the knock which bodes evil tidings, became the heartbreak which is part of the Israeli story, part of the Israeli pulse.

“Many, too many families, have heard the knock followed by a great outcry, a heartbreak and pain that could not be contained. Dear families, you have lost that which is the most precious of all. All around everything continues to develop and change, and only your sorrow is fortified in its place, deepening its roots and burdens. We try to understand the intensity of the pain and insist on remembering and reminding ourselves to learn from the events and to teach and see them as part of the defenders of the state. For our part, out of a commitment to the current generation of soldiers and their families, we will do everything to send them solely on worthy missions, we will improve the IDF’s capabilities to carry out the missions successfully but no less to guard and protect the soldiers. Tens of thousands of soldiers and commanders now perform an infinite number of missions and return home safely as a result of the professionalism and concern of their commanders. This concern also includes caring for the injured, and a supreme effort to return the captives and missing persons to their families and country.

“The fallen defended the country, and we continue in their shoes. Standing guard. At times, the security that the State of Israel enjoys may seem obvious, but behind every protected and safe day stands an entire army that collects intelligence, prevents intrusion or shooting, raids, attacks, stops threats and prevents weapons and attacks. Even those who are immersed in defense and operational activity do not always see the magnitude of their act, whether it is the soldier who is currently marching on the northern border, as well as the officer who revealed many enemy targets this week, as well as the pilot who returned a few days ago from an attack.

“The security enjoyed by the citizens of the country consists of the achievements of all security organizations and all IDF soldiers, but the first to bear the burden are the combat soldiers and combat units who hold state security on their shoulders. Their actions should serve as an example of good citizenship, an ideal for education, and a role model in every family, school, community and locality. Exemplary organization is also the additional role of the IDF – an army that unites and unites all parts of the people, expresses the common good and is a model to emulate and identify with. IDF soldiers train together, fight together, win together, and when a friend is killed – bury them together.

“I do not know the name of the third mother, but she represents many mothers who fill the land. They have started a family, and their children are fulfilling themselves and continuing to build the State of Israel. They are secular and religious mothers, from the village and the city, Jewish, Druze, Christian, and Muslim – and they have grandchildren and great-grandchildren and they all live in their own country protected and safe. Nehama Yisraeli, the Palmach fighter who lost her two sons who served in the IDF, and whose many descendants served in combat units, is a symbol of values ​​and strength, and is an outstanding example for all of us. I salute her and her family and salute the many families for whom the bitter news has knocked on their door twice. On behalf of all the soldiers of the Israel Defense Forces, I salute all the bereaved families: mothers and fathers alike, widows and widowers, brothers and children. You all deserve deep appreciation. I salute you, hugging and strengthening you as much as possible,” Kochavi concluded.

You can see some of the speech here:

This past year saw the smallest number of soldiers and victims of Palestinian terrorism, and yet each loss is almost too much to bear, especially for their families:

Three Israelis — a soldier and two civilians — were killed in violent, nationalistic attacks over the course of the past year, by far the lowest number in the country’s history.

This bittersweet distinction comes as Israel on Wednesday commemorated Memorial Day, remembering the 23,928 people recognized as having fallen on behalf of the state since 1873.

Over the past year, 112 names have been added to that list — 43 of them active servicemembers and 69 who were recognized as having died of wounds sustained in wars or terror attacks. Those 112 people includes those killed in accidents or died of illness over the past year, as well as people who died years ago but have only now been officially recognized as having died of injuries related to their military service or an attack.

Of those, only three were killed in violent attacks in the past year: Esther Horgen, Rabbi Shay Ohayon and Staff Sgt. Amit Ben-Ygal.

Esther Horgen, 52, was found dead near Tal Menashe after a terror attack on December 20, 2020. (Courtesy)

Horgen was killed on December 20 in a brutal terror attack outside her settlement of Tal Menashe in the northern West Bank. According to the indictment against her suspected murderer, Muhammad Mruh Kabha, Horgen went out for a walk when she was attacked by Kabha, who had been hiding out in the woods outside Tal Menashe, waiting for a victim.

According to the indictment, Kabha ran after her and knocked her to the ground. Horgen, a mother of six, tried to fight him off but he pinned her down and then repeatedly hit her over the head with large rocks, causing her to bleed and breaking bones in her arms and chest, until she stopped moving. Her body was found in the early hours of the next morning after her husband, Benjamin, reported her missing.

Ohayon, a father of four, was stabbed to death in the central Israeli town of Petah Tikva on August 26 by a Palestinian man, Khalil Abd al-Khaliq Dweikat, 46, who had a permit allowing him to work in Israel.

Rabbi Shai Ohayon, who was stabbed to death in an apparent terror attack at Segula Junction on August 26, 2020 (Courtesy)

Ben-Ygal, who served in the Golani Brigade’s Reconnaissance Battalion, was killed during an arrest raid in the Palestinian village of Yabed on May 12. As his unit was moving through the village, a Palestinian man, Nizmi Abu Bakar, allegedly threw a brick at Ben-Ygal, striking him in the face and fatally wounding him. Ben-Ygal was taken to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead of his injuries a short while later.

Amit Ben Yigal Hy’D

To conclude this post, Haviv Rettig Gur has written an incredibly moving, elegiac article about Yom Hazikaron: When the whole world weeps:

On Israel’s Memorial Day, we borrow one of the oldest and strangest insights of our religion: that the world is infused and saturated with our emotions. When we grieve, the land grieves, the heavens grieve. The divine itself weeps with us for our fallen children.

×

In some of the oldest sections of talmudic literature, the two opposing forces of holiness and impurity so central to Jewish ritual are depicted as real forces in the world, able to move in and out of closed spaces, able to spread, and susceptible to being beaten back by human action. It’s not about cleanliness. A mud-stained child is pure; a sanitized hospital is impure. Impurity is driven by death; a corpse is its original, primal source. Priests, kohanim, may not walk into cemeteries. The meat of death may not be cooked in the milk of life. Two fundamental forces of the human experience are locked in perpetual battle, susceptible at every turn to human intent and action. We can drive back impurity — the symbol and agent and acknowledgement of death — but never defeat it. And we can sanctify our lives, and thus all life, and thus discover that life is the sanctification of the world itself.

That insight is in some ways the beating heart of three millennia of Jewish law and thought.

…

The world is full of holiness and of contamination, heart-breaking purity and endless despair. We feel it, we react to it, we wade through it as we go about our daily lives and emotions.

In an important sense — forgive me, rabbis, for such a sweeping statement — Judaism is the art of navigating through that world, not the measurable one outside us, but the chaotic one within, the world in which we all actually live our lives.

…

From our modernized lives, whose measured boundaries are set by stern scientists and anthropologists with their methods and explanations, we are drawn for a day back into the old ways. The world weeps, the air is weighed down with its heavy burden of tears and memory. Our communal world becomes, for a day, what we feel within us.

There’s someone I happen to remember today, the memory unbidden, even unwanted. He has a story, he has a name, but I’m not the sharing sort. I know he is gone, but I know, too, that he hears me remembering. How could he not? The whole world weeps for him at my side.

Read it all.

Let their deaths not be in vain. “In their death, they bequeathed us life”.

במותם ציוו לנו חיים

Posted in History, Israel news, Terrorism | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

Yom Hashoah 5781- 2021

Posted on 8 April 2021 by anneinpt

Yom HaShoah
Israel’s Holocaust Memorial Day

Yom Hashoah began at sundown yesterday evening with the annual ceremony at Yad Vashem with torches lit in memory of the 6 million Jewish victims of the Shoah.

You can watch the entire ceremony here:

Six Holocaust survivors lit torches in memory of the six million Jewish men, women and children murdered by the Nazis and their collaborators. Roza Bloch spoke on behalf of the survivors.

You can read the biographies and chilling life-stories of these six survivors at these links:

Manya Bigunov, Yossi Chen, Sara Fishman, Halina Friedman, Zehava Gealel and Shmuel Naar.

You can also watch and hear their stories in the video above.

President Reuven Rivlin and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu addressed the audience at the ceremony last night. Netanyahu sent a warning to the US that “Israel will not be bound by any Iran deal that threatens Israel”, since the Biden administration is back to the Obama ways of making needless overtures to Iran.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Wednesday that Israel will not be bound by a revitalized nuclear deal between world powers and Iran, declaring that the Jewish state is obligated only to defending itself against those who seek to destroy it.

In a speech at the Yad Vashem memorial museum during Israel’s official Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremony, Netanyahu referred to negotiations in Vienna aimed at bringing the US back into the 2015 nuclear pact while getting Iran to abide by its commitments to the unraveling deal.

“A deal with Iran that threatens us with annihilation will not obligate us,” Netanyahu declared.

…

In his speech, the prime minister also railed against the International Criminal Court’s “outrageous” decision to investigate Israel for potential war crimes against Palestinians.

“The Jewish people were defenseless in the face of the Nazis but are no longer so, and have every right to defend themselves from their enemies,” he said.

The ICC, he noted, was formed in the image of the courts of the Nuremberg trials that brought Nazis to justice. But “from Nurenberg to The Hague things were turned upside down. A body formed to defend human rights has become a body that in actuality defends those who trample on human rights.”

President Reuven Rivlin, speaking before the prime minister, dedicated his address to the 900 Holocaust survivors who died over the past year in the coronavirus outbreak.

Having survived the Nazi atrocities and the perilous journey to Israel in the years between the end of World War Two and the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, “the last battle of their lives they fought alone, behind masks and gloves, distanced from their loved ones, thirsty for contact.”

“Tonight our hearts are with them and with their families who are here with us,” Rivlin said.

“The burden of remembrance that we carry in our hearts is a sacred duty,” Rivlin said. “Whether we want it or not, the memory of the Holocaust shapes us as a nation. The Holocaust presents us and our country, the State of Israel, with the endless mission of remembrance.”

Because of the coronavirus pandemic still raging across the world – with the very notable exception of Israel which has more or less emerged from the pandemic due to its amazing vaccination program, and a couple of other countries – the annual March of the Living in Poland was cancelled. Instead other programs are being held in Israel:

In his speech, Rivlin spoke of the 900 Holocaust survivors who died over the past year due to COVID-19.

“They survived the ghettoes and the death camps, the immigrant ships and the internment camps,” he said. “But the final battle of their lives was fought with them bewildered and isolated, behind masks and gloves, yearning for contact but parted from their loved ones.”

On Holocaust Remembrance Day, many survivors typically attend remembrance ceremonies, share stories with teenagers and participate in memorial marches at former concentration camps in Europe.

But with March of the Living’s annual Holocaust commemoration in Poland canceled for a second year running due to the virus, the organization will instead hold an online symposium featuring Holocaust survivors, medical professionals and researchers discussing “medical resistance during the Holocaust, the legacy of Nazi medicine and what the Holocaust can teach us about the ethics of care.”

Highlighting the threat to survivors from the coronavirus pandemic, this year’s event is paying “special tribute to the medical resistance and heroes of the Holocaust,” and will include Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla, the son of Holocaust survivors, and US President Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci.

Messages of support poured in from around the world:

The European Union mission to Israel tweeted that as part of its “Memory in the Living Room” project, EU Ambassador to Israel Emanuele Giaufret will host Holocaust survivor Bat-Sheva Dagan in an event to be broadcast live at Friday 1 p.m. on the commission’s Facebook page.

In a statement, the EU mission said: “We pay tribute to those who survived the unthinkable horrors of the Holocaust and rebuilt their lives in Israel, Europe and across the world. It is our collective duty to make sure that the horrors of the Holocaust are never forgotten.”

“We pledge to do everything in our power to fight attempts to deny, trivialize or distort the Holocaust,” it said, noting that the EU has tripled the budget for for Holocaust remembrance, education and research beginning 2022.

The Auschwitz Memorial museum, which is in charge of preserving the former concentration camp, tweeted: “Memory comes in many forms. Here on Twitter it is in your hands. On #YomHaShoah we kindly ask you to amplify our voice.”

Earlier in the week, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken tweeted, “Each year, the US observes Days of Remembrance to reflect upon the Holocaust. We remember that evil on a grand scale can and does happen, and we have a responsibility to do everything we can to stop it. We honor the lost by remembering and by learning.#NeverAgain #YomHashoah”

It would be nice if the Europeans had as much respect for living Jews in their renewed homeland and not only for those who are dead, murdered in that very same Europe. It would be much better if the EU would stop interfering with Israel’s sovereignty in places like Area C.

However despite all the goodwill displayed on special occasions like today, it is almost unbelievable to see that Holocaust denial is rife in certain circles. Watch this short but shocking, very sickening video to understand the lies, conspiracy theories, ignorance and plain old Jew-hatred: (via Lee Kern on Twitter):

Not only do Jews suffer from Holocaust denial, but in this past year of the pandemic Jews have been the targets of conspiracy theorists of the worst kind, either accusing the Jews of inventing and spreading the virus, or of using the vaccine to somehow poison non-Jews. The brain-twisting distortions needed to believe these mad theories are… well… mind-boggling. I’m sorry I keep using that word.

The significant rise in extremism and the widespread increase in antisemitic conspiracy over the last year could have profound effects on Jewish communities in a post-Pandemic world, Dr. Moshe Kantor, President of the European Jewish Congress, said at the release of the Annual Report on Antisemitism Worldwide 2020, by the Kantor Center at Tel Aviv University.

“2020 has been a year like no other in recent memory. Our worlds and daily lives were changed and altered, leading to a global social crisis in many countries and for many around the world,” Dr. Kantor said.

“As a result, there has been a deep global polarization, with the extremist margins increasing due to conspiracy theories and the search for answers in a challenging world. This led to a change in the type and distribution of antisemitism.”

Fewer physical attacks took place, because of lockdowns and severe restrictions. Far more hate against Jews was spread online where accusing Jews and Israel for the Coronavirus was easily spread, resulting in the expansion of extremist groups.

…

“Anti-Jewish hatred online never stays online. We have to be prepared that antisemitic conspiracy theories could lead to physical attacks on Jews when lockdowns end,” he added.

According to the report, in most countries a decrease was observed in violent incidents, attacks on both people and property, threats and arson, but the number of attacks against Jewish sites and communal property increased.

  • The number of violent antisemitic incidents decreased by 19%, from 456 incidents in 2019 to 371 in 2020, due to lockdowns.
  • In addition, the number of physical injuries decreased by 37%, from 170 in 2019 to 107 in 2020, and damage to private property was also reduced by 35%, from 130 to 84 incidents, simply because people mostly stayed at home.
  • However, a rise of 25% was observed in desecrations of Jewish cemeteries and vandalizing of Holocaust memorials and other Jewish monuments – from 77 to 96 incidents in 2020, because these sites are open and unprotected.
  • The number of vandalized synagogues also increased, by 19%., from 53 to 63 incidents in 2020. Most recently, the synagogue of Norrköping, Sweden, was desecrated by Neo-Nazis, on the first night of Passover.

A rise was registered in Ukraine, and a decline in Australia, the UK and especially in France and Canada.

Worrying trends continued in Germany and the USA. In Germany, a rise was recorded in the total number of incidents, with the opposition to vaccines generating comparisons to the Holocaust, and continued desecration of Jewish memorials and cemeteries.

In the US, antisemitic activities on the internet intensified, conspiracy theories have become more rampant and boosted the activities of white supremacists and QAnon.

The pandemic, and measures taken to stem its spread, live restrictions and the vaccines, have led to inappropriate comparisons with Jewish suffering during the Holocaust.

“The use of Holocaust imagery surrounding the Coronavirus has become rampant,” Dr. Kantor said. “Whether comparing the restrictions to ghettos or Nazi laws against Jews and the vaccine as akin to Mengele’s experiments, these terms have minimized the murder and suffering of the Six Million Jews.”

But it’s not only Holocaust denial that is a problem. In fact one could quite legitimately think that this is the province of cranks and eccentrics. More worrying at the moment is a relatively new phenomenon – I would call it “antisemitism denial”. Antisemites know that antisemitism is unfashionable and un-woke. But they still want to have their cake and eat it. They want to be able to be antisemitic without being called out as such. Therefore the latest move by these woke Jew-haters is to attempt to debunk or annul the IHRA (International Holocaust Remebrance Alliance) working definition of antisemitism, which has become the accepted yardstick in most academic and political institutions worldwide for determining what constitutes antisemitism.

The method these Jew-haters have chosen to combat the IHRA definition – which would most certainly classify them as antisemites – is to create a definition of their own – the Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism, which of course declares them to be as pure as the driven snow and Heaven forbid, not antisemitic at all.

Emily Schrader in the Jerusalem Post writes that the Jerusalem Declaration is unneeded:

 In recent weeks, a new definition of antisemitism has popped up, titled the “Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism,” aimed at undermining the widely accepted International Holocaust Remembrance Association definition. But at a time of rising antisemitic incidents around the world, in particular those in the name of “anti-Zionism not antisemitism,” we don’t need another definition of antisemitism, and certainly not by some of the same groups who are making antisemitism a political issue like the fringe groups IfNotNow and Jewish Voice for Peace.

The new definition, signed onto by 200 academics, criticizes the IHRA definition by claiming it is overly broad not in the definition itself, but “in its use.” The IHRA definition is used as a tool for the US government, the EU and 30 other nations to help them define and recognize antisemitic incidents. It is also widely accepted by numerous academic institutions, sports teams and even private companies. It is unique in that it outlines specific examples of what antisemitism looks like today – from classical antisemitic tropes, to comparing the Jewish state to Nazis, to demanding Jews abroad answer for the policies of Israel, to using “Zionism” as a replacement word for Jews. Naturally, this concerns not only classical antisemites, but also modern ones who have made it a priority to demonize and defame Zionists.

The controversy over the IHRA definition has arisen as a result of several fringe Jewish groups launching a campaign against IHRA, falsely claiming it “censors” free speech and that it “silences” Palestinian advocacy. This is not only untrue, but tremendously offensive to pro-Palestinian activists in claiming they cannot advocate for Palestinians without being antisemitic.

Among those advocating for this antisemitism-revisionism are at least two discredited persons: Peter Beinart and Richard Falk:

It should also be noted that among the signatories of the JDA are Peter Beinart, who routinely uses his platform to demonize both Israel and Zionists; Naomi Chazan, the former president of the left-wing New Israel Fund and Richard Falk, who served as the UN special rapporteur on “the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories.” Falk, a conspiracy theorist who believes 9/11 was an inside job, has been widely criticized for his comments on both Israel and Jews, including but not limited to: claiming that Israel was planning a Holocaust of the Palestinians,…

Dave Rich, Director of Policy of the CST in Britain, writing in the Algemeiner notes:

You might expect any definition of antisemitism to prioritize the views of Jewish communities over the interests of those who want to campaign against something Jewish, but that is not the case here. It would be bizarre, for example, if a definition of antisemitism went out of its way to protect the right to campaign for shechita or brit milah to be banned, yet the Jerusalem Declaration’s authors felt the need to explicitly say it is not antisemitic to call for the world’s only Jewish state to disappear.

Maybe we ought to simply refer to the Jewish blogger Elder of Ziyon who has come up with his own simplified definition of antisemitism:

Antisemitism is
hostility toward, 
denigration of or 
discrimination against
Jews 
as individual Jews, 
as a people, 
as a religion, 
as an ethnic group or 
as a nation (i.e., Israel.)

Some Jews identify as being part of the Jewish religion, some are atheists but identify with the Jewish people, some as an ethnic group, some as Zionist – part of the Jewish nation. All of these are legitimate aspects of Jewishness, and attacking any one of them is antisemitic, no matter how individual Jews identify.

 

As I have done in the past, I draw your attention to my Family History pages where I have recorded the history of my family during the Shoah, especially the murder of my mother’s three brothers, David, Elchanan and Uri Strauss HY’D, in Sobibor. Below is an updated photo that my cousin’s son Noam Corb found and inserted into his book on our family history. Noam says:

The pictures were taken by the Dutch authorities at the border, just after they arrived to the Netherlands. Every child in this kindertransport from Frankfurt to Naarden got a number.

Never forgive. Never forget. May the memory of the 6 million be for a blessing.

ה’ יקום דמם. יהי זכרם ברוך

 

Posted in Antisemitism, History, Judaism, Lawfare and Delegitimization, support Israel | Tagged , , , , , | 6 Comments

Guest Post: The state of antisemitism in Britain today

Posted on 7 April 2021 by anneinpt

This is another guest post by Brian Goldfarb. This article is very timely, coming on the eve of Yom Hashoah. One would think that 76 years after the end of the war, antisemitism would have become a thing of the past. However as we all sadly know, the opposite is true. Here Brian has a look at the latest scandals plaguing British academia.

There will be another post (from me) [posted on Yom Hashoah] where I will discuss more political antisemitism in the form of the outrageous “Jerusalem declaration”.

Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get you!”

Yes, I know, I wrote about antisemitism a few weeks ago,  but, sadly, antisemitism has become the gift that keeps giving. I added a comment concerning the antics of Prof David Miller of Bristol University to that article to demonstrate the method I use to determine whether something is or is not antisemitic.

It would have been nice to have been able to leave it there for a while, but the world fails to move on and, in the space of only two or three days, 4 articles popped up in different places online that showed that antisemitism is far too alive and flourishing for comfort.

There is a 5th article in hard copy which I failed to keep which kick-started this article. Daniel Finkelstein (Associate Editor of The Times of London and grandson of Alfred Wiener, founder of the eponymous Library), wrote, in his weekly column on 23rd February, a strong article on David Miller: “Bristol University should sack conspiracist professor“. The article is behind a paywall but you can get the gist of it from the title itself.

Conspiracy theories

David Miller and his conspiracy theories in the chart behind him

Given that I have used his name in the opening paragraph, I need to present David Miller in more detail. By now, many people will know that he is the Professor of Political Sociology at the University of Bristol and that he has characterised Jewish students at Bristol as, essentially, agents of Israel. This is rich, coming from someone whose Wikipedia page notes that he has asserted that one of the Assad regime’s chemical attacks on its own people was, rather, a “false flag” attack by the White Helmets. The latter, of course, are the unarmed and voluntary first responders to all such attacks by the regime and its opponents in Syria. Also within that Wikipedia entry is a reference to 315 academics signing a petition in support of Miller, including such notable fellow-travellers of the anti-Israel brigade as Noam Chomsky,  Norman Finkelstein (no relation to Daniel), Judith Butler, Ilan Pappé and John Pilger.

As the proverb has it “by their friends shall you know them”.

So why, in Daniel Finkelstein’s words, should Bristol University expel David Miller? Among much else (and we will get to that shortly), Miller has said the following: “Jewish students [are] pawns of a racist regime engaged in ethnic cleansing”. He means Israel, of course. I shouldn’t need to say it, but this is arrant nonsense. 20% of Israel’s population and full citizens, with all the usual rights of citizenship, are Arabs. In case Miller hadn’t noticed, they too were able to  vote in the Israeli election, which took place on 23 March, and for whoever they wish. Further, 20% of the students at The Technion in Haifa are of Arab origin. If that’s ethnic cleansing, then it’s remarkably inefficient, especially given Israel’s incredible track record in technical and technological innovation. While much more could be said on this particular issue, I’m more than happy to discuss this in any comments thread below the article.

He also caused uproar after he accused Jewish students of running a “campaign of censorship” on behalf of the Israeli government, branding Jewish communal institutions as working for the ‘Israel lobby’, and being “pawns of a racist regime engaged in ethnic cleansing”.” (from the same article linked above). While I remember, as a student in the early 1960s, the Jewish Society and the Labour Club (and I was a member of both) combining their efforts to successfully block an invitation to one of the sons of Sir Oswald Mosley, we had evidence of continuing fascist activity by this son (Sir Oswald’s other son – the one who inherited the knighthood – had long before repudiated his father’s politics). Miller produces only slogans: so far, none of the sources I have found have produced any evidence of Bristol University Jewish students doing anything of the sort. That is, no-one has produced any evidence that Miller’s Jewish students – or anyone else’s – were doing what he claimed they were doing, making his statements even more disgraceful: falsely accusing students (who have far less power than he does) of doing things they haven’t done. Very McCarthyite.

Further into the article, it is argued that “[t]his comes after the government was urged to look into the matter after it was raised in Parliament, while hundreds of MPs joined Jewish leaders in writing to the vice chancellor.”

I don’t think UK readers will find their MP in the list if they have an official Government or Shadow position: I would have expected to see my MP’s name there, but she holds a Shadow Cabinet post. However, Lord John Mann, the Government’s official antisemitism Czar (despite being a Labour Peer) and Lord Eric Pickles, a former Minorities advisor for Theresa May’s Government, are there.

Also to be found in this article is what appears to be a copy of the full statement made by the University in announcing the setting up of the inquiry.

However, note the following comment from the (national) UJS and the local Jewish Society:

“In a joint statement, the Union of Jewish Students and Bristol Jewish society welcomed the announcement, but said it is taking place “far too late, after Jewish students have endured weeks of harassment and abuse, during which time the University has failed to protect Jewish students, who have been singled out and targeted.”

…

The open letter responds to Miller’s comments by saying that “Prof. Miller’s depiction of Jewish students as Israeli-directed agents of a campaign of censorship is false, outrageous, and breaks all academic norms regarding the acceptable treatment of students.”

It has to be stressed that the comments by Miller were made, not on a personal website or a personal Twitter or other social media account (where they would be covered, to some extent, by the rules of freedom of speech),  but in open class. These comments (and others to be found in the article) were aimed directly at students whose course work and examination papers he would be marking. Further, he is teaching a subject (Political Sociology) in which these matters might legitimately be part of such material and student answers. Were I a student in such a situation, I suspect that I would be, to say the least, apprehensive and, at a deeper level, intimidated. And I can claim special knowledge here: during my academic career, Political Sociology was one of my areas of special interest.

A shorter article, also containing the details of the University inquiry, can be found here at the Campaign Against Antisemitism website.

I have also discovered that “the matter of David Miller is a live issue under discussion within the BSA. David is a member of the association.” The British Sociological Association was, when I was teaching, my professional association (but it is not a trade union: they could only expel him, which need have no consequences for his career, present or future).

The whole issue took on a wider dimension when The Algemeiner published an article on “the evolving strain of antisemitism on the Left”. In it, The Reut Group (a think tank in Israel) published a report which argued, among much else, that:

“Erasive anti-Semitism is a de-facto undermining of Jewish narrative self-determination: the very right to define Jewish identity, experience, and vulnerability according to concepts and language that reflect the unique nature of Jewish vulnerability, including that it tracks differently from other dominant experiences of oppression”.

Signs at a pro-BDS protest in New York following the US decision to move its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. Photo: Reuters / Carlo Allegri.

If we unpick that relatively opaque sentence for those of us not up to the current use of semantics, this is saying that Jews aren’t able to define or explain, let alone understand, their own history and collective experience. In short, this is another form of antisemitism, denying Jews agency in their own collective lives. However, this “strain” of antisemitism isn’t evolving: it’s already evolved. Anne posted an article of mine in July 2019, over a year and a half ago on Alexandria Ocasio Cortez  in which I argued that the controversy about AOC deepened “when the Jerusalem Post dived into the argument in its article from June of [that] year, with its headline calling the controversy ‘the latest attack on Jewish history’: that is, we Jews aren’t even allowed to tell our own story any more, others are claiming to know better than us what our history is. We’ve been here before, many times, and I’ve, again many times, here and elsewhere, argued that when certain UK trade unions refused to accept an earlier version of the IHRA definition of antisemitism, they were saying that they knew better than the victims when an antisemitic “event” had taken place: something they wouldn’t dream of doing, nay, dare do, if the victim were a member of an ethnic minority or a woman. But Jews? What do they know about antisemitism?”

In The Algemeiner article, the author notes that “it is often not an intentional assault, but a byproduct of the current progressive discourse.” This bears a remarkable resemblance to many of the attitudes found on the Left of the Corbyn Labour Party, and we know how that panned out!

The matter of David Miller doesn’t stop there.  Returning to the net to check on the Wikipedia entries on Miller, I came across this article in Varsity, an independent paper for Cambridge University.

At least thirteen Cambridge academics have signed an open letter condemning Professor David Miller of the University of Bristol for “accus[ing]Jewish students of being ‘directed by the State of Israel’ to pursue a ‘campaign of censorship’ that endangers Muslim and Arab students.”

The open letter, which at the time of publication was signed by over 650 academics, describes Miller’s statement as “morally reprehensible”, risking “the personal security and wellbeing of Jewish students and, more widely, Jews in the UK.”

Others will know whether this is aimed at Faculty, students or both, but whatever the audience, this article is a well-balanced discussion of the issues in this matter, noting what is, in some people’s minds, the competition between (absolute) free speech and the role of law in creating a fair society. I attempted to illustrate this issue in the article here recently on antisemitism.

[Anne adds]: After Brian sent me his initial article, he sent me a PS which is quite mind-boggling. The item suggests that Miller is associated (at the very least) with another academic who could possibly be guilty of sedition. I insert it here below:

“When the student paper The Tab tried to contact Miller, a spokesman for the Support David Miller campaign said

“Far-right Zionists hate groups around the country are known to use spurious police complaints to intimidate pro-Palestine activists.”

The phrase that uses the words “hole” and “stop digging” comes to mind.

The second article is a whole page, including a photo of Professor Paul McKeigue of Edinburgh University, alongside one of Syrian White Helmets at the scene of an Assad regime attack. The headline states, in its entirety

“Professor gave names to fake Russia spy”. He is a member of The Working Group on Syria, Propaganda & Media “a collection of fringe intellectuals”, as The Times notes. One of the other members is, surprise, surprise, David Miller.

Knowing that this group was planning to attack it, an organisation called the Commission for International Justice and Accountability (Cija), “which collects documentary evidence from Syria so that war criminals and torturers can be held …responsible for atrocities”, set up a sting operation. Cija set up a fake email account and contacted Prof. McKeigue, pretending to be a Russian agent. Suffice it to say that McKeigue gave the fake spy a long list of names of people he believed to be working for UK and other Western intelligence agencies. At least one of those named, who is a retired army officer and is now working in the public arena, has called on the police to investigate, accusing “the academic of being willing put his life in danger”.

If McKeigue has named anybody who actually is or has worked for Western intelligence, he could be charged with treason and/or sedition. I bet you can guess who else is a member of this unlovely bunch…got it in one: Professor David Miller of Bristol University, and currently (and conveniently) on sick leave: I wonder who’s going to mark his Jewish students course work now?

When he was “[a]sked whether he had tried to get private email addresses hacked, McKeigue said any information was welcome. He said that he had embellished his claims to ‘Ivan’ [the alleged Russian spy] to keep dialogue going with a source. ’The views I expressed are not necessarily my real views. I kept an open mind about who or what I was communicating with.’” I wonder this is, in fact a criminal offence, especially if McKeigue succeeded in hacking these email accounts.

I also wonder why my eyebrows keep trying to climb to the top of my forehead?

Finally, on McKeigue, a London-based barrister specialising in international affairs, is quoted as saying that, given what McKeigue believed he was doing, “This is a matter that UK law enforcement and prosecuting authorities will now need to look at”.

There is a block on the page which identifies other members of the Group. On Miller, it notes that, before leaving the Labour Party, he “claimed that Sir Keir Starmer took ‘Zionist’ money”. The entry also confirms that many of Miller’s antisemitic remarks were “allegedly made during his lectures…”

********

Moving on, I almost missed the detail contained in the following article, also from The Algemeiner on the suspension of a Capitol Hill cop after he was spotted with a copy of the notorious forgery The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

A police officer on Capitol Hill has been suspended after he was spotted by congressional aide with a copy of ‘The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” — the notorious antisemitic fabrication alleging a Jewish conspiracy to dominate the world that was issued by the Russian Tsar’s secret police in 1903.

Photographs provided to The Washington Post on Monday showed a printed copy of the “Protocols” on a table inside an entrance to the Longworth House Office Building. On Monday evening, acting Capitol Hill police chief Yogananda Pittman confirmed that an officer had been suspended  pending an investigation “after antisemitic reading material was discovered near his work area on Sunday.”

I had already noticed, in passing, when watching a download from CNN  that an annotated copy of “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” had been spotted in a police security booth in the US Capitol Building. If you are unaware of the background to this fabrication , then please start with the last two major paragraphs of my report on Jewish Book Week of 2012  with its report on Umberto Eco’s book “The Prague Cemetery”.

By the way, if you care to click on to this article again in The Campaign against Antisemitism, you will see behind Miller one of those crazy diagrams that links everyone David Miller thinks is linked to each other in this sneaky Zionist plot which seeks to entrap and destroy him.

Antisemitic conspiracy theory

You know the sort of thing: X once read about Y in a newspaper article written by Z, who once spoke to A, who went to Primary School with B, who is now the Chief Exec of Corporation W, which is out to get people like David Miller, despite the fact that none of these people have spoken, let alone written, to each other in any way for the last 30 years. Further, in the way of these things, many of these links make no sense, other, of course, than to a devotee of conspiracy theories – which have the advantage of cutting out the need to think and find real, hard, evidence to bolster one’s views.

Even more interestingly, if one looks more closely, we find that of the 12 people Miller is convinced are out to get him and his ilk (and not even bothering with the numerous organisations linked to), at least 4 of the people named (Greville Janner, Eric Moonman [a former Lib.Dem. MP], Brian Kerner and Jo Wagerman) are deceased. Two of them 5 and 6 years ago respectively. Difficult to see how they can still be influencing policy in the UK and against Brian Miller and his fellow conspiracy theorists. You would think that he would at least try to keep his conspiracy up-to-date.

But when have the facts or reality ever got in the way of a good conspiracy theory?

Anne adds:

Brian, thank you very much for this rather depressing and even alarming update on the state of antisemitism in British academia, or at least in one particular university. Also as you have noted is the apparent immortality of the vicious antisemitic propaganda publication the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Despite its having been thoroughly debunked for decades already, it still finds a steady stream of believers.

Even though we can find encouragement from the number of academic and other public institutions who have adopted the IHRA definitions of antisemitism, there is still a long way to go if we are defeat the monster of conspiracy theories and simple old fashioned Jew-hatred.

Posted in Academia, Antisemitism | Tagged , , , , , , | 7 Comments