Grandma's army

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...

An essential ingredient for survival is a sense of humour – in particular the ability to laugh at oneself. I doubt if this was an issue which was discussed with the Tibetan Buddhists at their historic meeting with the Jewish delegation, although the Dalai Lama apparently had a ready wit. Jewish humor is unique, not only because it pokes fun at our short­comings and weaknesses, but because it reflects upon the history of our people. The following is an example illustrating the Jewish instinct of survival: “A Jew in Russia falls into a lake, and, not knowing how to swim, he frantically screams, “Help, save me!” But his calls are totally ignored by all present, including a number of soldiers standing nearby. In des­peration, the Jew yells out, “Down with the czar!” At that moment, the soldiers immediately jump in, yank the Jew out of the water, and haul him off to prison.”   To stay alive, in spite of all forms of oppression, has been one of the major concerns of the Je...

The dawn is just breaking on the 71 st Israeli Independence Day. A short time ago – while stilI dark outside - I was lying in bed contemplating the modern-day miracle of Israel. It is a miracle because it does not reflect reality in any way. For over 2,000 years prophecies written in the Bible of the ingathering of a scattered and oppressed people were read and believed. Today, we don’t have to “believe” the prophecies any longer – they are coming true right before our eyes. The flourishing of the land? Impossible. The greatest conquerers tried to build in this land and failed miserably - because it remained desolate. Today, we just have to look out of the window, or go for a walk, and see the beautiful trees and blooming flowers. We have even succeeded in making the desert bloom. Israeli agricultural innovations are not only benefitting Israel but many countries throughout the world. In what can be considered a single lifetime, the Jews emerged from the Holocaust weak, ex...

King Herod built the Western Wall in 20 BCE during an expansion of the Second Temple. When the Romans destroyed the temple in 70 CE, the support wall survived, which made it the holiest site for the Jewish People ever since. The reason it has been dubbed as the “Wailing Wall” is that, for hundreds of years, people prayed and wept in the small area of the wall that could be seen.   After the 1948 War of Independence, the Eastern portion of Jerusalem was occupied by Jordan. Under Jordanian control Jews were completely expelled from the Old City for 19 years, effectively banning Jewish prayer at the site of the Western Wall. In 1967, following the Six-Day War, Israelis regained control of the whole of Jerusalem. Digging below the ground of the wall, they exposed two more levels. They also cleared the area around the wall, to create the Western Wall Plaza that visitors see today, and which is open to all people. Since Jews have been   mourning their Temple and exile f...

The Koran mentions Mecca and Medina countless times. It never mentions Jerusalem, which is not surprising, since there is no historical evidence to suggest Mohammad ever visited Jerusalem. Muslims today cite a passage in the Koran from which they claim that the two temples vaguely mentioned there are in Mecca and Jerusalem. Never mind the facts, such as that when Jordan controlled East Jerusalem, until 1967 no Arab ever thought to make it significant or endow it with any special importance, or move an Arab capital there. All they did was systematically destroy every synagogue and memorial there, using tombstones for latrines and to pave roads. The Arab Muslims contend there never was a Jewish Temple, only the al-Aqsa mosque. Or that the land of Israel was ever the Jewish homeland. Yet, when illegally excavating an area for another mosque on the site they disposed of tons of earth containing artefacts proving, beyond doubt,   the existence of the Temple.   Archaeo...

The destruction of the First Temple in 586 B.C.E., was the most traumatic and transformative event for the Jewish people to have ever taken place.   According to rabbinic tradition, the Second Temple in 70 C.E. was destroyed by the Romans on the very same day, and this time the Jewish people were exiled from their homeland of Israel. From then on, the Romans promised, it would be known as Palestine . The name was derived from the Philistines, a people conquered by the Jews centuries earlier. It was a way for the Romans to add insult to injury. Another long list of traumatic events suffered by the Jews are believed to have occurred around the same day, quite a few of which have been   historically proved. Since then, from that day to the present time, Jews all over the world have fasted in order to commemorate specific events related to the Destruction. Today, we are almost at the end of the three weeks of mourning preceding the fast known as Tisha b’Av (ninth of the mo...

ZIONISM - SPIRITUAL Jews often trace their nationhood back to the biblical kingdoms of David and Solomon, 950 BCE. The word  Zion  is used in a theological or spiritual sense in Scripture. In the Old Testament  Zion   refers figuratively to Israel as the people of God ( Isaiah 60:14 ) . –ism is a suffix added to the end of a word to indicate that the word represents a specific practice, system, or philosophy - accepted as an authority by a group or school of thought.  Often these practices, systems, or philosophies are political ideologies or artistic movements.  After the destruction of the Temple and their defeat by the Romans, the Jews passed beyond the realm of politics, becoming a nation of the spirit. They managed to construct a political strategy so creative that they could linger on as a nation after losing the three building blocks of nationhood: land , central authority , and the means of self-defense . In every place they settled, they ...

Books are made of paper which, of course, comes from trees . Today, a very special festival, celebrated by all sectors of the Israeli public, is the New Year of trees (Tu Bishvat). David Gefen writes in this weekend’s Jerusalem Post: “Tu Bishvat has a beauty of its own – a time when we continue to ensure that our land will grow and develop through afforestation.” To commemorate the 70 th  year of the State of Israel the Jewish National Fund published a call to all Israeli citizens: “Whether we are from the right or the left, religious or secular, new immigrants or veteran citizens, let’s all give back to Mother Earth. This year we celebrate Tu B’Shvat as a symbol of unity.” As I write these words - from  kindergartens to Senior Residence Homes, trees and other green plants are being planted all over Israel. There are also Tu B’Shvat events being celebrated in every part of the country.  It is written in the Bible “When you come into the land you shall plant….” ...

Too often I found myself saying something like,  “ If only I hadn’t done this or that” and them went on to contemplate how very different things would have been, if I had taken note of the word if , stopped to think about what I was doing and changed direction. The most popular poet of his day, Rudyard Kipling, even wrote a poem called if . I can still remember some of the lines by heart and they sum up, for me, the eternal Jewish story: “ If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, but make allowance for their doubting too: If you can wait and not be tired of waiting, Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies, Or being hated, don’t give way to hating And yet don’t look too good nor talk too wise….. The unreasoning hatred in this world to the Jewish people is one of the great mysteries of the human story. It is the oldest social disease and, unfortunately, it is still ...

Israel is a country in the Middle East, a piece of real estate so small that one needs a magnifying glass when searching for it on a map. Its main inhabitants, the Jews, together with their brothers and sisters throughout the world , amount to a pathetic less than 0.02 percent   of the world population. As Sir Isaiah Berlin once famously quipped, “The Jews have enjoyed rather too much history and too little geography.” The anti-Semite has a hard time with Jews. They boycott us in academia, journalism, European governments, the marketplace, etc. The trouble with us is that we are constantly breaking the rules. For thousands of years, we have survived powerful empires that did everything to destroy us – the Egyptians, the Romans, the Greeks, the Germans - and there were plenty to give them a willing hand. In the 20 th century, it looked as if they had finally succeeded. Six million were murdered in the Holocaust. But, instead of disappearing, we decided that after 2,000 yea...