Grandma's army

  FIGHTING FOR LIFE If there are doubts in anybody’s mind about the justice of the present war that Israel is fighting, one doesn’t have to go very far back: The 1970’s were a particularly violent decade for Israelis, who faced constant armed attacks  and tragedy. Although terrorism has been an ongoing factor since before Israel existed, the 70’s was a nightmare. Palestinian terrorists were sowing terror against Israelis, both on Israeli soil and around the world. The most glaring example was the terrorist attack on the Israeli team at the Olympic Games in Munich in 1972, in which eleven members of the team were murdered. In the same year, Ben Gurion Airport became a slaughterhouse, when three Japanese men - who had been recruited by the  “Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine”,   and trained in Beirut - stepped off an Air France flight from Rome. Within seconds of entering the airport’s waiting area, the three opened fire, murdering 26 people ...

From the burning of the fields in 2018 in kibbutz Be’eri,  to burning families in kibbutz Be’eri on October 7 th , 2023 .                                                                                                   In 1978, when Simcha my oldest daughter got married, she and her husband went to live in the second moshav (agricultural settlement), Gannai Tal, to be established   in Gush Katif in the Gaza Strip . Since the houses had not yet been built, the other married members lived together as bachelors in one building, in order to work on their farms. On weekends they went to their respective homes. Simcha and her husband, Gideon, were newly-weds so they started their married ...

The Jewish connection with Israel did not begin with Zionism, a word coined in the 1890’s. It goes back four thousand years. Judaism – twice as old as Chrisianity, three times as old as Islam – was the call to Abraham’s descendants to create a society of freedom, justice and compassion. A society involves a land, a home, somewhere where the “children of Israel” form the majority and can create a culture, an economy, and a political system in accordance with their values. That land was, and is, Israel. Jews never left Israel voluntarily. They never relinquished their rights. They returned whenever they could: in the days of Moses, then again after the Babylonian exile, then again in generation after generation. There was a large community there in the sixteenth century. There are places, especially in the Galilee, where they never left at all. The Balfour Declaration in 1917, ratified in 1922 by the League of Nations, endorsed the Jews right to their land -  hopefully ending the...

  As proud as most Jews are of being Jewish – some find it hard to understand how someone “normal” would be foolish enough to convert to Judaism. Jews are not exactly popular – in spite of their outstanding contributions to mankind. One particular example of a convert   is Dr. Micah Goodman. His mother came from a wealthy Catholic family from Oklahoma, and converted to Judaism in an Orthodox ceremony. She married a secular Jew and immigrated to Israel with her husband, in 1969. Dr. Goodman is a successful researcher and lecturer on Jewish philosophy, and has written several books on the subject - apart from heading an Academy of Jewish Thought. His latest book, “Moses’ Final Speech”, made its way to the top of the bestseller list very quickly. He writes that the last of the five books of the Pentateuch (Torah) Deuteronomy , is the first book in the Torah that does not profess to be of divine creation, but is a repository of the insights and thoughts of Moses. In his sp...