Showing posts with label Jew. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jew. Show all posts

Thursday, March 13, 2014

Colourful Semitism

Antisemitism is on the rise. Whether it is from the rocks and firebombs thrown in the Caucuses, the salutes of French comedians and soccer players or the ink from newspapers, it is all against the Jews.


Image of New Statesman Cover from wikipedia co...
Image of New Statesman Cover from wikipedia commons (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
No-one is surprised. There are no cries of 'leave the Jews alone'. I've written about it before here and here. That's fine. That's why Israel exists, you know like all other religions have their own country because they've been the recipients of hatred so much, like the Christians who have....sorry. The Muslims have...

Anyhoo, I was reading a few articles about the rise of antisemitism from such august bodies as The Guardian, The BBC, The New Statesman, The Jerusalem Post and of course, The Times of Israel and realized that if only the Jews had followed the more colorful of their ancestors, maybe the hatred wouldn't be so fanatical?

Over at Buzzfeed they have some great photographs of Russia in the early 20th Century from the Library of Congress, and I found this amazing image that would have made antisemitism nothing if not more colourful!




kthanxbai!

Jumblerant
Enhanced by Zemanta

Tuesday, May 7, 2013

A Letter to the World from Jerusalem

I read this letter over the weekend and was amazed at how accurate it was.

Having lived in Jerusalem between 2001 and 2010 I can completely understand where the author is coming from:


A Letter to the World from Jerusalem
by Eliezer Ben Yisrael
I am not a creature from another planet, as you seem to believe. I am a Jerusalemite like yourselves, a man of flesh and blood. I am a citizen of my city, an integral part of my people.

December 1917. Jewish Legion soldiers at the W...
December 1917. Jewish Legion soldiers at the Western Wall after the British take-over of Jerusalem 
I have a few things to get off my chest. Because I am not a diplomat, I do not have to mince words. I do not have to please you, or even persuade you. I owe you nothing. You did not build this city; you did not live in it; you did not defend it when they came to destroy it. And we will be damned if we will let you take it away.

There was a Jerusalem before there was a New York. When Berlin, Moscow, London, and Paris were miasmal forest and swamp, there was a thriving Jewish community here. It gave something to the world which you nations have rejected ever since you established yourselves - a humane moral code.

Here the prophets walked, their words flashing like forked lightning. Here a people who wanted nothing more than to be left alone, fought off waves of heathen would be conquerors, bled and died on the battlements, hurled themselves into the flames of their 
burning Temple rather than surrender, and when finally overwhelmed by sheer numbers and led away into captivity, swore that before they forgot Jerusalem, they would see their tongues cleave to their palates, their right arms wither.
Jews Place of Wailing, Jerusalem
Jews Place of Wailing, Jerusalem 
For two painfilled millennia, while we were your unwelcome guests, we prayed daily to return to this city. Three times a day we petitioned the Almighty: “Gather us from the four corners of the world, bring us upright to our land; return in mercy to Jerusalem, Thy city, and dwell in it as Thou promised.” On every Yom Kippur and Passover, we fervently voice the hope that next year would find us in Jerusalem.

Your inquisitions, pogroms, expulsions, the ghettos into which you jammed us, your forced baptisms, your quota systems, your genteel anti-Semitism, and the final unspeakable horror, the holocaust (and worse, your terrifying disinterest in it) - all these have not broken us. They may have sapped what little moral strength you still possessed, but they forged us into steel. 

Do you think that you can break us now after all we have been through? Do you really believe that after Dachau and Auschwitz we are frightened by your threats of blockades and sanctions? 

We have been to Hell and back a Hell of your making. What more could you possibly have in your arsenal that could scare us?
I have watched this city bombarded twice by nations calling themselves civilized. In 1948, while you looked on apathetically, I saw women and children blown to smithereens, after we agreed to your request to internationalize the city. It was a deadly combination that did the job. British officers, Arab gunners, and American made cannons. And then the savage sacking of the Old City; the wilful slaughter, the wanton destruction of every synagogue and religious school; the desecration of Jewish cemeteries; the sale by a ghoulish government of tombstones for building materials, for poultry runs, army camps - even latrines.

And you never said a word.

You never breathed the slightest protest when the Jordanians shut off the holiest of our places, the Western Wall, in violation of the pledges they had made after the war - a war they waged, incidentally, against the decision of the UN. Not a murmur came from you whenever the legionnaires in their spiked helmets casually opened fire upon our citizens from behind the walls.

Your hearts bled when Berlin came under siege. You rushed your airlift "to save the gallant Berliners". But you did not send one ounce of food when Jews starved in besieged Jerusalem. You thundered against the wall which the East Germans ran through the middle of the German capital - but not one peep out of you about that other wall, the one that tore through the heart of Jerusalem.

And when that same thing happened 20 years later, and the Arabs unleashed a savage, unprovoked bombardment of the Holy City again, did any of you do anything?
The only time you came to life was when the city was at last reunited. Then you wrung your hands and spoke loftily of "justice" and need for the "Christian" quality of turning the other cheek.

The truth is - and you know it deep inside your gut - you would prefer the city to be destroyed rather than have it governed by Jews. No matter how diplomatically you phrase it, the age old prejudices seep out of every word.

If our return to the city has tied your theology in knots, perhaps you had better re-examine your catechisms. After what we have been through, we are not passively going to accommodate ourselves to the twisted idea that we are to suffer eternal 
homelessness until we accept your saviour.

For the first time since the year 70 there is now complete religious freedom for all in Jerusalem. For the first time since the Romans put a torch to the Temple, everyone has equal rights. (You prefer to have some more equal than others.) We loathe the sword - but it was you who forced us to take it up. We crave peace - but we are not going back to the peace of 1948 as you would like us to.

We are home. It has a lovely sound for a nation you have willed to wander over the face of the globe. We are not leaving. We are redeeming the pledge made by our forefathers: Jerusalem is being rebuilt. "Next year" and the year after, and after, and after, until the end of time - "in Jerusalem!"

----------------------------
This "letter" (written by Eliezer Whartman) first appeared as an editorial in the summer of '69 in the Times of Israel (long defunct). Some of the sentences do not fit today's situation perfectly, but the point of the letter, and its passion is as on the mark as it was over 40 years ago.

Who should read this letter? People - nonJews or Jews - who think that Jerusalem does not belong to the Jewish People, and only to the Jewish People. And what about Jews who love Jerusalem and want to see it and all of Israel in Jewish hands? This letter 
is wonderful at strengthening our resolve. Enjoy it.

kthanxbai! 

http://jumblerant.blogspot.com
Enhanced by Zemanta

Sunday, April 7, 2013

A Few Forgotten Facts

Sadly the group known as 'Anonymous' tried to bring down the internet in Israel today. I'm not sure why, but  it has something to do with the Palestinians and their desire to kill all the Jews.

Well, they might have made a minor misjudgement in this case as the Israeli hackers instead broke into the main Anonymous website and put this up to educate them. And if ever you thought that Israel needed defending, here's your list of reasons why:

A Few Forgotten Facts

1. Israel became a nation in 1312 BCE, two thousand years before the rise of Islam.

2. Arab refugees in Israel began identifying themselves as part of a Palestinian people in 1967, two decades after the establishment of the modern State of Israel.

3. Since the Jewish conquest in 1272 BCE, the Jews have had dominion over the land for one thousand years with a continuous presence in the land for the past 3,300 years.

4. The only Arab dominion since the conquest in 635 CE lasted no more than 22 years.

5. For over 3,300 years, Jerusalem has been the Jewish capital Jerusalem has never been the capital of any Arab or Muslim entity. Even when the Jordanians occupied Jerusalem, they never sought to make it their capital, and Arab leaders did not come to visit.

6. Jerusalem is mentioned over 700 times in Tanach, the Jewish Holy Scriptures. Jerusalem is not mentioned once in the Koran.

7. King David founded the city of Jerusalem. Mohammed never came to Jerusalem.

8. Jews pray facing Jerusalem. Muslims pray with their backs toward Jerusalem.

9. In 1948 the Arab refugees were encouraged to leave Israel by Arab leaders promising to purge the land of Jews. Sixty-eight percent left without ever seeing an Israeli soldier.

10. The Jewish refugees were forced to flee from Arab lands due to Arab brutality, persecution, and slaughter.

11. The number of Arab refugees who left Israel in 1948 is estimated to be around 630,000. The number of Jewish refugees from Arab lands is estimated to be the same.

12. Arab refugees were intentionally not absorbed or integrated into the Arab lands to which they fled, despite the vast Arab territory. Out of the 100,000,000 refugees since World War II, theirs is the only refugee group in the world that has never been absorbed or integrated into their own people's lands. Jewish refugees were completely absorbed into Israel, a country no larger than the state of New Jersey.

13. The Arabs are represented by eight separate nations, not including the Palestinians. There is only one Jewish nation. The Arab nations initiated all five wars and lost. Israel defended itself each time and won.

14. The PLO's Charter still calls for the destruction of the State of Israel. Israel has given the Palestinians most of the West Bank land, autonomy under the Palestinian Authority, and has supplied them.

15. Under Jordanian rule, Jewish holy sites were desecrated and the Jews were denied access to places of worship. Under Israeli rule, all Muslim and Christian sites have been preserved and made accessible to people of all faiths.

16. The UN Record on Israel and the Arabs: of the 175 Security Council resolutions passed before 1990, 97 were directed against Israel.

17. Of the 690 General Assembly resolutions voted on before 1990, 429 were directed against Israel.

18. The UN was silent while 58 Jerusalem Synagogues were destroyed by the Jordanians.

19. The UN was silent while the Jordanians systematically desecrated the ancient Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives.

20. The UN was silent while the Jordanians enforced an apartheid-like a policy of preventing Jews from visiting the Temple Mount and the Western Wall.


 kthanxbai!

 http://jumblerant.blogspot.com
Enhanced by Zemanta

Friday, December 18, 2009

Chappy Chanukah

I just realised that I haven't wished you all a very Happy Hanukah.

Tiny Menorah, lit upImage by oskay via Flickr



May the oil from your Hanukiah never run out, nor the flame from your candle go dim*.

Happy 8th night tonight.



Hat tip 'The Muqata' for this lovely shopping delight

* an old Yiddish saying which I just made up

kthanxbai!

Monday, December 14, 2009

God Save The Queen

I love the Queen (I loved the Queen Mum even more). She brings a certain something to an otherwise bland and boring island off the tip of Europe.

The Queen Mother reads a telegram from her dau...Image via Wikipedia



Prince Phillip, her husband, is renowned for being xenophobic and generally racist. Which is odd for a Greek Prince living mainly in London.

Doubly odd as his mother is buried in Jerusalem, on the Mount of Olives, and is honored by the government of Israel as a righteous gentile as she sheltered a Jewish family in her house during the Second World War.

With mother-in-law buried in the capital and Prince P himself owning properties in Central Jerusalem why has the Queen never visited Israel?

A very interesting article in today's Jerusalem Post explains why. My question to you is this - is it basically anti-semitism or very strong pro-Arabian feelings that created this problem?

The article can be found here.


kthanxbai!

Monday, October 5, 2009

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is Jewish

Yes its true. I read it in the Daily telegraph. And its nowhere near April 1st!

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's vitriolic attacks on the Jewish world hide an astonishing secret, evidence uncovered by The Daily Telegraph shows.

And the stunning article continues:

A photograph of the Iranian president holding up his identity card during elections in March 2008 clearly shows his family has Jewish roots.


A close-up of the document reveals he was previously known as Sabourjian – a Jewish name meaning cloth weaver.

So Mr A is a closet Jew? Interesting.

Experts last night suggested Mr Ahmadinejad's track record for hate-filled attacks on Jews could be an overcompensation to hide his past.

Now aren't they clever? So a big hearty Mazel Tov to Mr. Ahmadinejad on finding out his roots. He must be kvelling.

kthanxbai!

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Jerusalem Terrorist Attack First Hand

Doubletapper is a blog I read regularly. Normally lighthearted and always interesting today he blew me out of the water with his blog;

It was seven years ago. On 9 of the Fourth Month (Tammuz)/June 19, at around 7:00 pm, a Yishma'eli (Arab) blew himself up at the trempiada (Bus Stop). Seven Jews were murdered as a result. Many Jews were injured. I was one of them.

Read the rest here

kthanxbai!
Reblog this post [with Zemanta]