Dear Mr. President

 

Nobel Prize-winning author and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel recently took out a full-page ad in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times and Washington Post (among other media outlets), in the form an open letter to President Obama, with whom Wiesel visited the Buchenwald death camp last year.

The text of the letter is below:

FOR JERUSALEM

It was inevitable: Jerusalem once again is at the center of political debates and international storms. New and old tensions surface at a disturbing pace. Seventeen times destroyed and seventeen times rebuilt, it is still in the middle of diplomatic confrontations that could lead to armed conflict. Neither Athens nor Rome has aroused that many passions.

For me, the Jew that I am, Jerusalem is above politics. It is mentioned more than six hundred times in Scripture-and not a single time in the Koran. Its presence in Jewish history is overwhelming. There is no more moving prayer in Jewish history than the one expressing our yearning to return to Jerusalem. To many theologians, it IS Jewish history, to many poets, a source of inspiration. It belongs to the Jewish people and is much more than a city, it is what binds one Jew to another in a way that remains hard to explain. When a Jew visits Jerusalem for the first time, it is not the first time; it is a homecoming. The first song I heard was my mother’s lullaby about and for Jerusalem. Its sadness and its joy are part of our collective memory.

Since King David took Jerusalem as his capital, Jews have dwelled inside its walls with only two interruptions; when Roman invaders forbade them access to the city and again, when under Jordanian occupation. Jews, regardless of nationality, were refused entry into the old Jewish quarter to meditate and pray at the Wall, the last vestige of Solomon’s temple. It is important to remember: had Jordan not joined Egypt and Syria in the 1967 war against Israel, the old city of Jerusalem would still be Arab. Clearly, while Jews were ready to die for Jerusalem they would not kill for Jerusalem.

Today, for the first time in history, Jews, Christians and Muslims all may freely worship at their shrines. And, contrary to certain media reports, Jews, Christians and Muslims ARE allowed to build their homes anywhere in the city. The anguish over Jerusalem is not about real estate but about memory.

What is the solution? Pressure will not produce a solution. Is there a solution? There must be, there will be. Why tackle the most complex and sensitive problem prematurely? Why not first take steps which will allow the Israeli and Palestinian communities to find ways to live together in an atmosphere of security. Why not leave the most difficult, the most sensitive issue, for such a time?

Jerusalem must remain the world’s Jewish spiritual capital, not a symbol of anguish and bitterness, but a symbol of trust and hope. As the Hasidic master Rebbe Nahman of Bratslav said, “Everything in this world has a heart; the heart itself has its own heart.”

Jerusalem is the heart of our heart, the soul of our soul.

Elie Wiesel

 

Yohanon

Yohanon.Glenn at gmail dot com

 

Refugees as pawns

 

The Jewish Press recently dug out a talk by Abba Eban (a"h), Israel's Foreign Minister following Independence. Eban died November 17, 2002.

In the speech to the UN General Assembly's Special Political Committee on November 17, 1958 Eban points out that:

(a) the Arab refugees from the war against Israel are refugees mainly of their own choosing; they were told to get out of the way of the glorious invading Arab armies;

(b) Arab states, save for Jordan, have refused to absorb the refugees, preferring to keep them in camps the condition of which that might be called "cruel and inhuman" in some countries;

(c) other refugees from other political changes have been absorbed successfully by other nations, including hundreds of thousands of Jews from Islamic states accepted and integrated into Israel (albeit not without some prejudice by the Europeans already in the land).

With "Palestinian" Arabs clamoring for repatriation, it seems a good time to review Eban's reasoning against it.

"Repatriation would mean that hundreds of thousands of people would be introduced into a state whose existence they oppose, whose flag they despise and whose destruction they are resolved to seek. The refugees are all Arabs and the countries in which they find themselves are Arab countries. Yet the advocates of repatriation contend that these Arab refugees should be settled in a non-Arab country, in the only social and cultural environment alien to their background and tradition.

"The Arab refugees are to be uprooted from the soil of nations to which they are akin and loyal and placed in a state to which they are alien and hostile. Israel, whose sovereignty and safety are already assailed by the states surrounding her, is invited to add to her perils by the influx from hostile territories of masses of people steeped in the hatred of her existence. All this is to happen in a region where the Arab nations possess unlimited opportunities for resettling their kinsmen, and in which Israel has already contributed to a solution of the refugee problems of Asia and Africa by receiving 450,000 refugees from Arab lands among its immigrants.

"There are three other considerations which must be placed on the scale against repatriation.

"First, the word itself is not accurately used in this context. Transplanting an Arab refugee from an Arab land to a non-Arab land is not really "repatriation." "Patria" is not a mere geographical concept. Resettlement of a refugee in Israel would be not repatriation, but alienation from Arab society; a true repatriation of an Arab refugee would be a process which brought him into union with people who share his conditions of language and heritage, his impulses of national loyalty and cultural identity.

"Secondly, the validity of the "repatriation" concept is further undermined when we examine the structure of the refugee population. More than 50 percent of the Arab refugees are under 15 years of age. This means that at the time of Israel's establishment many of those, if born at all at that time, were under 5 years of age. We thus reach the striking fact that a majority of the refugee population can have no conscious memory of Israel at all.

"Thirdly, those who speak of repatriation to Israel might not always be aware of the measure of existing integration of refugees into countries of their present residence. In the Kingdom of Jordan, refugees have full citizenship and participate fully in the government of the country. They are entitled to vote and be elected to the Jordanian parliament. Indeed, many of them hold high rank in the government of the kingdom.

"Thousands of refugees are enrolled in the Jordanian army and its National Guard. It is, to say the least, eccentric to suggest that people who are citizens of another land and are actually or potentially enrolled in the armed forces of a country at war with Israel are simultaneously endowed with an optional right of Israel citizenship.

"Every condition which has ever contributed to a solution of refugee problems by integration is present in this case. With its expanse of territory, its great rivers, its resources of mineral wealth, and its accessibility to international aid, the Arab world is easily capable of absorbing an additional population, not only without danger to itself, but with actual reinforcement of its security and welfare."

The entire article appears at http://www.jewishpress.com/pageroute.do/43324.

Yohanon
Yohanon.Glenn at gmail dot com

 

Jerusalem: Jewish and Islamic takes

 

I was at a neighbors celebrating Yom HaAtzmaute (Israeli Independence Day) and watching an Israeli broadcast of the ceremonies at Herzl's tomb.

During the ceremony one of the speakers read Psalm 137 that is set "on the rivers of Babylon". In the song the psalmist writes

If I forget you, O Jerusalem,
    may my right hand forget its skill.

May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth
    if I do not remember you,
    if I do not consider Jerusalem my highest joy.

We were driven to Babylon in 597 BCE* (much as the Cherokees were driven from the eastern US to Oklahoma centuries later) and the psalm was sung shortly thereafter.

Mohammed was born on 12th day of Rabi-ul-Awwal in the Islamic year of 571 (according to http://www.amaana.org/prophet/milad.htm); that translates into a Julian calendar date of 30 September 1175 (per http://www.sizes.com/time/cal_islam.htm).

That would "strongly suggest" that the link Jews and Judaism have with Jerusalem is far older than Islam.

Jerusalem, while not Judaism's only "holy city" (Hebron, Tiberias, Tzfat/Sefad are others), is Israel's capitol and is "the" most holy. "From Tzion (Israel) comes the Torah, and G-d's word from Jerusalem."

The main holy places for Muslims are respectively: Mecca, Al-Madina or Yathrib ( both of them are in Saudi Arabia ), Jerusalem or Al-Quds as it's called in Arabic. (http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_are_the_holy_cities_of_Islam)

Even when Bavil (Babylon) dominated Jewish learning, rabbis received s'mekah (ordination) only in Israel.

Jews have been in Jerusalem since before David selected it as his capitol; the city never has been without Jews, even when the Temple was razed by the Babylonians and Romans and when it was captured by the newly created-by-the-British kingdom of Jordan (a true "Palestinian" state).

To be fair, Moslems have shared Jerusalem for centuries; but they never occupied it exclusively, and their connection to the city is less by several thousand - thousand - years compared to Judaism's history with the city.

The Moslem's attachment to Jerusalem is a mosque they had the chutzpah to build on top of the remains of the Temple, showing total disregard for the "other" people of the Book. Modern Moslems are no different. When Jews left Aza (Gaza), they left homes, hot houses, and synagogues - that the Moslems promised to respect. Today, the homes are hovels, the hot houses are destroyed, and the synagogues desecrated.

Jerusalem is Israel's capitol; it is not a city to be divided ever again, not by POTUS, not by force of arms.

* BCE = Before Current Era

Yohanon

 

Missile Shield to Completely Cover Europe by 2018, U.S. Says

 

Friday, April 16, 2010

AS YOU READ THIS CONSIDER

WHY should U.S. pay to protect Europe?
    Can't Europeans pay for their own protection? Don't we have enough debt (or, put another way, can we afford to pay to protect Europeans)?

IF the U.S. is to protect Europe, a not-likely target for Iranian missiles, why not (also) protect ISRAEL which IS a prime target for the Iranian crazies?

A high-level U.S. Defense Department official said yesterday that the Obama administration intended within eight years to provide full missile shield coverage of Europe against possible ballistic missile threats from Iran, Reuters reported (see GSN, April 12).

(Apr. 16) - The USS Hopper launches a Standard Missile 3 interceptor during an exercise last year. The United States plans by 2018 to establish a missile shield protecting all of Europe, according to a senior Pentagon official (U.S. Missile Defense Agency photo). Bradley Roberts, deputy assistant defense secretary for nuclear and missile defense policy, told members of a House Armed Services subcommittee that the planned missile defense system would cover "100 percent" of Europe.

Obama officials seek to deploy "proven" land- and sea-based missile interceptors around the continent as soon as it is feasible, Roberts said.

President Barack Obama scrapped a Bush-era plan for European missile defense last fall and replaced it with a version that seeks to defend against potential Iranian short- and medium-range missiles that might carry biological, chemical or nuclear bombs.

Russia has continued to object to U.S. missile shield plans, saying they could undermine its own nuclear deterrent. Washington argues that Iran, not Russia, is the target of its missile shield activities on the continent.

Tehran could enrich enough weapon-grade uranium to build a nuclear bomb within a year, though it would likely require three to five years to develop a capability to deploy such a weapon, two senior U.S. generals told Congress this week (see GSN, April 14).

The Bush administration program involved building a large radar base in the Czech Republic and deploying 10 long-range missile interceptors in Poland would have covered only three quarters of Europe.

"We heard immediately from vulnerable allies in the ... 75 percent equation, those left out, that they were looking for protection," Roberts said.

"We wanted to meet their demands for protection and scale the capability as the threat evolves and as our capability improves," he added.

Pentagon spokesman Bob Mehal said that Washington would pursue "appropriate cost and/or burden sharing" in constructing phased European missile defenses.

The Obama administration is considering where to locate in southern Europe by the end of 2011 a radar installation as part of the first phase of work, Roberts said. In that same time frame the United States seeks to deploy sea-based Aegis missile defense systems and Standard Missile 3 interceptors.

Around 2015, more-advanced interceptors and missile detectors would be fielded in addition to a first land-based SM-3 facility in southern Europe. The final two stages of the shield would see the land and sea fielding of even-more sophisticated versions of SM-3 interceptors that would be able to fly faster and farther to protect Europe and the United States.

U.S. Missile Defense Agency Director Lt. Gen. Patrick O'Reilly told lawmakers that the long-range interceptors that would have been based in Poland would have been priced at $70 million each compared to the $10 million to $15 million that a single SM-3 interceptor would cost (Jim Wolf, Reuters, April 15).

O'Reilly dismissed recent assertions from Republican lawmakers that a new nuclear arms control treaty with Russia would jeopardize plans for missile defenses in Europe, Agence France-Presse reported (see GSN, April 8).

"The new START treaty actually reduces constraints on the development of the missile defense program," he said during the House hearing.

The accord, signed last week by Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, would permit missile defense tests that had been proscribed under the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, he said.

"Our targets will no longer be subject to START constraints, which limited our use of air-to-surface and waterborne launches of targets which are essential for a cost-effective testing of missile defense interceptor against medium-range and intermediate-range ballistic missiles in the Pacific region," O'Reilly said (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, April 15)

English or Hebrew only

 

The ONLY comments to this blog that will be considered for publication will be in English (preferred) or Hebrew.

y

Hebrew Only

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The "Before Minhah Shiur" yesterday (Shabat Shemini) had the rabbi talking about - among other things, birkat ha_cohanin, "dukining" to our Ashkenazi kin or "getting up on the bema and blessing the people."

He noted that birkat ha_cohanim must be recited in Hebrew and only Hebrew.

We can recite the birkat ha_mazon (after meal thanksgiving) in any language, even English (as he pointed to me, one of the few members of the congregation with English as a first language).

Most communications with HaShem can be in any language, but birkat ha_cohanim is limited to Hebrew.

When you think about it, the Hebrew-only rule makes sense.

Jews have all the languages of the world as their "native tongue."

But Jews around the world SHOULD have at least a smattering of Hebrew; it is, after all, a common bond no matter if our first language is English (as is mine) or the Moroccan variation of Arabic (as in my Mother-In-Law's case) or South American Spanish, as in the case of many of the folks who don tzit-tzit with me every morning.

We all, without exception, have at least a working knowledge of the "sidur Hebrew."

Cohanim are obligated (by the Torah) to bless the people and in Sefardi and Mizrahi congregations they do this every morning and twice on Shabat.

Years ago, when I first met the rabbi he assumed, despite my "wrap" that I was an Ashkenazi visitor with no knowledge of Sefardi/Mizrahi traditions. He launched into a spiel that "if an Ashkenazi cohen comes in for sharit he would be obliged to come up and bless the congregation." While my "elementary education" was in a U.S. Conservative congregation, my "finishing school" was in Moroccan and Moroccan/Egyptian/Syrian congregations in Bet Shean and Holon (Israel) under my Father-In-Law's (a"h) mentoring. The names found most often in my personal library are Messas (Shalom and Yosef) and Abihatzara (Makluf).

I have been told - and, unfortunately immediately forgot - why some Ashkenazim only do birkat ha_cohanim on the holidays and some only on Yom Kippur. Enlightenment in the form of a Comment* to this will be appreciated.

I know one cohen who stumbles through the kidush - never mind the birkat ha_mazon - but repeats the (3-5-7) 15 words of birkat ha_cohanim with confidence; that may be the only Hebrew he knows/understands - BUT, no matter where he goes, if he wanders into a Sefardi/Mizrahi congregation, he can join other cohanim on the platform to bless the people. (Do cohanim worry about holes in their socks?)

Imagine if a cohen with Italian as his native language went to Holland where the cohanim all spoke only Dutch ; if the birkat ha_cohanim was recited in each cohen's native language what confusion and pain to the ears. It makes since - to this Israel at least - that this blessing is spoken only in Hebrew, the common language of an uncommon people.

* English or Hebrew comments only; all others will be rejected.

Yohanon Glenn
Yohanon.Glenn at gmail dot com