 | Spiritual MalNutrition |
| Spiritual MalNutrition posted by "Ruth" to "JewishViews" What if you were forced to sustain yourself on a low-calorie, minimal-intake diet for the rest of your life? Or worse, what if you were told that you could never eat again? No more chocolate! No more homemade soup! How would you feel? If you did not eat to sustain your physical body, you would eventually grow weak and weary. As you used up the reserved resources of nutrients and vitamins, your vital organs would stop functioning. Your body would begin to shrivel up and waste away. A person can only diet or fast for so long before the body demands to be fed. The same is true of the Spirit. Some people are suffering from Spiritual Malnutrition. Some people have deprived themselves of spiritual nutrition for so long, they no longer have the strength to handle the weight of their lives. Their vision is shot! Their sense of Self has been diminished to the point that it is a chore for them to do the simplest task in their lives. Spiritually malnourished people are fretful and frightened, worried and worrisome. They are drained and draining. They have their eye on someone else's plate, someone else's life, and they will stretch their shriveled and shaking hand out for whatever crumbs can be spared. There is only one cure for spiritual malnutrition. It is a steady diet of spiritual food. Prayer builds the spiritual structure. Faith puts meat on the spiritual bones. Gratitude builds spiritual bones. If you are feeling worn out, run down or weary, check your spiritual diet. You may need to increase your intake of spiritual nutrients. Until today, you may have been suffering from spiritual nutrition. Just for today, increase your intake of spiritual food. Engage in a few spiritual experiences. Test your spiritual muscles. Make the necessary adjustments to your spiritual diet. |
Tuesday, December 20, 2005
Jew_Concious: Spiritual MalNutrition
Jew_Concious: Boycott "Munich"
| Boycott "Munich" |
Boycott "Munich" posted to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/OhaveiEretzYisrael/by "Sasha F." Friends I am bothered by what I have read about Spielberg's take on "Munich" which, by all accounts, morally equates Israeli self-defense with the criminal terrorism of the PLO. That is inexcusable. I have read enough to make the decision not to pay to see the movie. I hope you have come to the same decision. If you would also be willing to write to Spielberg's Dreamworks to protest, please address letters to Dreamworks CEO Roger Enrico renrico@dreamworks.com, director David Geffen dgeffen@dreamworks.com, and Field Marketing Director Mike Vollman mvollman@dreamworks.com, the official Dreamworks contact person. I believe letters to them will be made known to Spielberg. Or you can use the following contact info: DreamWorks Studio 100 Universal City Plaza Bldg. 477 Universal City, CA 91608 Phone: (818) 733-7000 C/O Mr. Mike Vollman (Field Marketing Director) Phone: (818) 733-6892 Fax #: (818) 733-6995 Note that the address sspielberg@dreamworks.com will not work but you may want to include it anyway to show the others your intent is to contact Spielberg. Below is the letter I sent to Mr. Spielberg. Please feel free to copy it and append your own name, or better still, write your own. Thank you and best wishes. David. Date: Wed, 14 Dec 2005 21:09:35 -0800 (PST) From: teach <teachntrain@yahoo.com> Subject: The "Munich" Boycott To: sspielberg@dreamworks.com, renrico@dreamworks.com, dgeffen@dreamworks.com, mvollman@dreamworks.com To Mr.Spielberg and Dreamworks: I have admired your work as a director until now. However, what I have read about "Munich" has disappointed me. It is my understanding that instead of focusing on the brutality, evil, and criminality of the Palestinian massacre of Israeli athletes, "Munich" instead focuses on Israeli retaliation and equates it morally with the violence it punished. Terrorism is a crime against humanity. The retaliation was justified self-defense. As one who has spent a good deal of the last ten years chronicling the evil perpetrated against the Jewish people by the Nazis, I would have thought that you would have the moral clarity to make the distinction between crime and punishment. By parallel, are we to understand that you consider the fight against Nazi Germany to be the moral equivalent of what the Nazis did to the Jewish people? I am open to watching your "Munich" Mr. Spielberg. But I will not reward you by buying a ticket. Sincerely, |
Jew_Concious: Islam's Most Reliable Ally
| Islam's Most Reliable Ally |
Islam's Most Reliable Ally By Hal Lindsey© 2005 WorldNetDaily.com posted to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EUROPEANS_WHO_SUPPORT_ISRAEL/ In a speech in Chechnya this week, Russian President Vladimir Putin reminded the Islamic world; "Russia has always been the most faithful, reliable and consistent defender of the interests of the Islamic world," Putin said. "Russia has always been the best and most reliable partner and ally." "Always" might be a stretch. Russia's series of wars with the Muslim Ottoman Empire - spanning 241 years from the 17th to 19th centuries - inspired countless inspirational songs and poems. Historians credit the Russo-Turkish wars as a main cause of the decline of the Ottoman Empire. It was the fall of the Ottoman Empire that created the modern Middle East - including Israel - so Islam's "most reliable ally" is also indirectly responsible for Islam's current state of affairs. Be that as it may, Putin's statement about being "Islam's most reliable defender" is true if one goes back no further than the Cold War. As America's attention was focused on Western Europe, particularly during the late '40s and early '50s, the Soviet Union was quietly creating Soviet satellite states across the Middle East. In each of its five wars against the Arab world, Israel faced the best Soviet weaponry Islam could buy. When Putin spoke of Russia as Islam's most "faithful, reliable and consistent defender of the interests of the Islamic world," it implied Russian support for the primary Islamic goal - annihilating Israel. Even after the Cold War ended the spy vs. spy game of alliance- building, Russia, as Putin noted, remained "consistent" in its defense of the interests of the Islamic world - with Islam's chief interest remaining the annihilation of Israel. Russia's alliance with Islam was an accidental consequence of the Cold War - as noted, prior to the Soviet Union, Russia was the Ottoman Empire's Islamic caliphate's bitterest enemy. The Russians were drawn into the Middle East out of necessity by the demands of the Cold War, but they remained after the Cold War out of a need to maintain existing alliances. In a sense, Russia had no other choice but to sleep in the bed the Soviets made for her. Russia committed all of her chips to Islam's side with the decision to make Iran a nuclear power. Israel's intelligence services told Israeli lawmakers that by late March, Iran would have reached the "point of no return" in its quest for nuclear weapons. The IAEA's Mohammed el Baradei gave the United Nations a similarly dismal assessment. Taken together with Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's recent public comments advocating "wiping Israel off the map," the London Sunday Times recent assessment that Israel is readying a military strike against Iranian nuclear sites is probably more accurate than the Israelis would like it to be. Iran's entire nuclear program has been engineered and overseen by Russia. It is worth billions of dollars to Russia's cash-strapped economy. Iran's nuclear facilities are crawling with Russian technicians, scientists, advisers, security and military personnel - and, in many cases, their families. A strike against these facilities would undoubtedly kill many of them, including some of the cream of Russia's nuclear scientists. In such a case, the Russians would not just shrug their shoulders, bury their dead, and head back to Moscow to explain to their investors that Israel blew up all their investments. The Hebrew prophet Ezekiel, writing from captivity in Babylon over 2,500 years ago, foretold the rise of a great military alliance "in the latter times" that would mount an invasion force against Israel. The alliance will be led by Gog [modern Russia] together with Persia [modern Iran] which includes most Muslim nations of the Middle East and North Africa. In light of that, it is fascinating to watch as Russia is being inexorably drawn into the Middle Eastern conflict, almost against its better judgment. As "Islam's greatest defender," Russia is being driven by strategic and economic interests that virtually give it no other choice. This perfectly fulfills the role Ezekiel predicted for Russia. Ezekiel predicted concerning a people from the extreme north of Israel known as Gog: I will turn you around, put hooks into your jaws, and lead you out ... In the latter years you will come into the land of those brought back from the sword and gathered from many people on the mountains of Israel, which had long been desolate; they were brought out of the nations, and now all of them dwell safely. - Ezekiel 38:4a, 8b There is only one nation to the extreme north of Israel, Russia. (See Ezekiel 3:6, 15; 39:2) And Meshech and Tubal (39:1), predicted as the ancient pro-genitors of this northern people, are the source of the ancient Scythians, who are the source of the modern ethnic Russians. Ezekiel penned his prophecy in the 6th century B.C., 1,000 years before Muhammad, 2,000 years before Columbus, and 2,500 years before Israel's restoration. His prophecy and the forecasts of modern-day secular futurists examining current geopolitical trends differ with Ezekiel's vision only in one point: Israel survives and wins the war. For the first time in history, the conditions necessary for the Ezekiel Scenario to move forward are all in place at the same time. What does this tell us? First, it means that the Bible proves its Divine inspiration by the test God gave to the first writing Prophet, Moses, in Deuteronomy 18:21-22. God threw His gauntlet into the arena and said that the proof of His Word would be 100 percent accuracy in prophecies given to His prophets. Those who kneel before G-d can stand before anyone! Please daven for the safety of Bnei Yisrael and Eretz Yisrael and for G-d's Shalom for Yerushalayim ! Am Yisrael Chai! Support the Healing Teddies Project--- <http://www.healingteddies.org> To donate and/or shop online for beautiful Judaica, click on <http://www.goood.co.il> Help Israel and show the world you care! SWI Israel Store: http://www.cafepress.com/isenburg . These items can be used anytime and anywhere to let your community know that wherever you stand, you stand with Israel! Please support the victims of the expulsion and those whose communities are still in danger. Eretz Yisrael le'am Yisrael! Wherever we stand we stand with Israel! Forever! |
Monday, December 19, 2005
Jew_Concious: Holocaust USA
| Holocaust USA |
http://lazerbrody.typepad.com/lazer_beams/2005/12/holocaust_usa.htmlDecember 19, 2005Holocaust USAMy ongoing war against Jewish assimilation around the globe is no secret. Yet, I did not realize the mega-catastrophic magnitude of the ongoing "benevolent" Holocaust in the USA, until I received the following email several days ago from Arthur Englard, may Hashem bless him always: Dear Rav Brody: I recently discovered your web site and I find many of the things you say to be fascinating. In one of your past postings you talk about how the American Jewish population in the United States has gone from 6.1 million in 1970 to 5.2 million in 2000 which is a tragic loss of about 300,000 souls a decade. The reality is, that the ongoing holocaust in the United States is much worse than that. The National Jewish Population Survey of 1990 claimed that there were 5.5 million Jews in the the USA while in 2000 the NJPS found 5.2 million Jews or a loss of 300,000 souls. However, during the decade of the 90's, 200,000 Jews from the former Soviet Union came to the USA and that would mean that we actually lost 500,000 souls during that decade - 50,000 a year - 1000 a week . In addition, when they counted Jews in 1970, they counted only Halachic Jews but the NJPS survey of 2000 also count people who only have a Jewish father as full Jews. The reality is that when you count Halachic Jews in the USA the number approaches 4 million. Which means that in 30 years we lost 2 million precious souls. Sincerely, Arthur Englard When I checked up on Arthur's figures, I found them accurate. Out of the 5.2 million people who called themselves Jews in the NJPS census of 2000, only 4.3 million are Jewish according to Halacha, or Jewish law, as opposed to 6.1 million in 1971. As Arthur noted, when we add the 200,000 Russian Jews who came to America, that means that 2 million Jewish souls have vanished from the face of the earth in the last 3 decades of the American Holocaust. Future generations will demand to know why most of the Jewish world did and said nothing to prevent this. Rebbe Nachman of Breslev cried and screamed against secular education. He warned us that it would bring calamity on our people. Non-Jewish ideas lead to non-Jewish wives, and non-Jewish wives bear non-Jewish children. Hitler killed bodies, but assimilation and intermarriage kill Jewish souls; the latter is a much greater tragedy. The soul of a martyr can return in a different body, but the souls lost to assimilation die an eternal death; nothing could be more tragic. Let's put things in their proper proportion: In three decades, we've lost 2 million Jews. Israel - with all the wars and the terror combined, considering both civilian and military deaths - has lost a total of 21,908 Jewish martyrs since 1948. In other words, 3 decades of the American Jewish holocaust has claimed 100 times more victims than five-and-a-half decades of Israel's ongoing struggle with the Arabs. Historically, Jewish cultural assimilation has always invoked physical annihilation. When we don't stop the assimilation holocaust by returning to Hashem with all our hearts, then a tyrant rises to do the job for us, G-d forbid. Each of us must be an ambassador of Outreach to do what he or she can to stop the catastrophe of assimilation. We must strengthen the home, for the slightest deviation in a minor Jewish custom today can lead to intermarriage tomorrow. As in navigation, a minor error of a mere two degrees becomes an error of 2 miles in the course of a mere 60 miles of flight. For a pilot, that could mean dumping his bombs on the wrong target. For that reason, the Torah warns us not to deviate the slightest - neither to the right or to the left - from what our sages tell us to do. You can't send your child to public school or university and then complain about his or her desire to marry the nice guy or girl in the adjacent seat. You can't fill your child's head with non-Jewish ideals while pumping his or her tender mind with TV, DVD's, and Internet, and then expect them to be a Chatzkel Levinstein or a Sara Schnirrer. The best way to stop assimilation, to save Jewish souls, and to raise upright, strong, and G-d-fearing Jews is to give your children a Torah education and to remove all Amalekite influence from your home. In America alone, we are losing some 100 Jewish souls every day! The Yetzer in the United States of Amalek is outperforming the torture chambers of the Spanish Inquisition without firing a shot. Now, would you like to know why I believe that the redemption of our people is so imminent? At the rate we're going, pretty soon there won't be anyone left to redeem, G-d forbid. Hashem, òã îúé, until when? Hashem, you must send Moshiach - now! |
Jew_Concious: AntiSemitic and Insane Jews
| AntiSemitic and Insane Jews |
| (http://up-yours.us/) AntiSemitic and Insane Jews >From the Pen of Hank Roth "I despise above all two kinds of people: Jews and journalists. Unfortunately, I am both." - Ferdinand Lassalle Someone wrote to me and said, "Isn't it pushing the envelope to call other Jews antiSemites?" And I asked him why can't a Jew also be self-destructive and insane just like anybody else? Yes, "insane" - because it is insane to question the existence of the State of Israel if you are a Jew --- although it is perfectly acceptable to be critical of Israeli policy -- and therein lies a problem because those I debate often times do not distinguish between Israeli policy and Israel's existence. They are just as critical of Israel being there and that is AntiSemitic just as much if a Jew says it, as it is if a non-Jew says it. Paul Reitter in Jewish Social Studies; 9/22/2003, writes: "Has anyone been accused of Jewish self-hatred more often and more emphatically than Karl Kraus? Otto Weininger, Kraus's fellow fin-de-siecle Viennese, appears to be the only real competition. In fact, studies of German-Jewish culture frequently make Kraus and Weininger stand by themselves, under headings like "Self-Rejection and Self-Hatred" and "Prophets of Doom." Kraus receives such treatment because he laced his satirical newspaper, The Torch (Die Fackel), which he founded in 1899 and wrote and edited by himself from 1911 until his death in 1936, with countless antisemitic imprecations. He condemned the "world-destroying power" of "Jewish capitalism." He bragged that the "aversion" most antisemites felt against "Jewish things" was "child's play" next to his. He castigated the "Jew boys" at the "Jewish press." And he demanded that Jews give up Judaism completely and seek "redemption through total assimilation," to cite a final example." * Paul Reitter teaches in the German Department at Ohio State University. He is completing a book manuscript entitled The Soul of Form: Journalism, Karl Kraus and the Dialectics of German-Jewish Identity, which will be published by the University of Wisconsin Press. * Karl Kraus published The Torch. The Torch appeared three times per month, at least in its early years. Over 37 years, Kraus published 922 "numbers," whose topics range from sex trials to preposition usage. The Torch had a circulation of about 34,000 copies. Many of Kraus's readers were cultural luminaries--for example, Arnold Schonberg, Sigmund Freud, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Thomas Mann, Alban Berg, and Bertolt Brecht. For a survey of The Torch's cultural impact, see Martina Bilke, Zeitgenossen Der Fackel (Munich, 1981). Hereafter, all references to The Torch will be abbreviated TT, and citations will be given parenthetically. There is that constant refrain from Israel's critics that Israelis are colonizers and they are on "stolen land." It is ironic that they can distinguish between Israel being on so-called stolen land and their parents or the parents of their parents coming to America and being on stolen, confiscated property because everyone at one time or another was on someone elses land and it was common in the history of this country - for land to be acquired by force of conquest. Every piece of sand on the American continent was acquired by force or it was purchased from a foreign power that acquired it by force. Title as Valid as It Gets An abstract of title in Florida shows a line of ownership all the way back to the Queen of Spain when it was given to someone as a grant for services performed for the crown. And how did the Queen of Spain acquire the land? By force of course. The deed to that land is just as valid as any other deed of conveyance. Whether you like it or not, it is as valid as it gets. And so is Israel's title to the land of Israel. And Jews are among the worse self-criticizers and most guilt ridden people I know. I don't believe we have anything to feel sorry or guilty about. The land of Israel belonged to Jews once and belongs to Jews again. Some have tried to take it away and some have been successful but a return to the land and possession of the land is in itself a valid title to the land. But that is just one of the many points of contention. Those arguments against the right of Jews to have a claim to Israel are built on myths. The right extends to the government of Israel to do everything within its power to insure the security of the people who live in Israel. One insane, self-destructive Jew is Israel Shamir. I don't find anything written by Israel Shamir that isn't seething with self-hatred and it isn't credible. Israel Shamir is a self-loathing insane Jew. So when I came across something he wrote attacking Jared Israel as a "mole" on the left, or at best confused I was not at all surprised. Jared and I have had our differences too but I consider them minor and they are merely degrees of difference about the same issues which we find ourselves on as progressive, Israel supporting Jews. Peace and Support for Israel Are Not Mutually Exclusive Jared is a left-wing activist from the 60s and so am I - and both of us are still very critical of the right wing governments of Britain and the U.S. and Israel - and both of us advocate for peace and also support Israel's right to exist. Like many others on the Israeli left we are both Zionists. Israel Shamir, who is an anti-Zionist, writes hate filled articles about Israel calling for it's destruction. It is insane for a Jew to question the existence of Israel. Israel is the last refuge and the only real refuge from AntiSemitism. Not America, not England, not anywhere, but Israel is the last hope and security for Jews. It is a haven from AntiSemitism where Muslims and Christians are the majority and security against pogroms and another Holocaust. Israel Shamir is insane just like Lenni Brenner is also insane and just as Norman Finklestein is insane. Ran HaCohen is also insane because all of them are self-destructive and that is insane. Uri Avneri writes valid criticism, which I do not always agree with, but Uri is a Zionist. He would be the first to tell you so and has mentioned it in his writing. So is Benny Morris. So are most Israeli leftists. There have been other self-hating Jews who betrayed themselves and their community. The Marx family were Jewish. Karl Marx was a Jew. His mother was a Jew. But Karl Marx rejected Judaism because his father converted the entire family because Christian identity was a necessary prerequisite for anyone to have a professional life. And Karl Marx was also an AntiSemite. Often a former Jew is the most extreme kind of AntiSemite. It is also becoming acceptable again to compare Israelis with Nazis on the InterNUT. While some do not also say these things in public where it may not yet be acceptable that is changing too and there has been an increase in AntiSemitism - even in Europe where AntiSemitism was once institutionalized public policy. AntiSemitism is appealing and it makes the most complex of things seem simple. Anthony Julius writes: "Certainly, Jews perplex beyond mere animosity; an ancient people in the vanguard of progress, they are perceived to be the wealthiest of plutocrats and the most menacing of radicals, dogmatically attached to their faith and the most subversive skeptics. It is anti-Semitism's versatility, and what gives it such resilience, that it can embrace such contradictory imaginings. It appeals to Left and Right; it offers solutions to every social ill; it knows the secret of human misery. When the world becomes too variously complex to grasp, simplifications are felt to be necessary. Anti-Semitism is the great simplifier. As the French ideologue Charles Maurras--much admired by Eliot--put it: "Everything seems impossible, or frightfully difficult, without the providential arrival of anti-Semitism, through which all things fall into place and are simplified" (qtd. in Bredin 28)." * Anthony Julius is a partner in the London law firm Mishcon de Reya and a part-time teacher at University College London. - 9/22/1998) "Such is anti-Semitism's power that it has beguiled not just demagogues and those other, ordinarily vicious enemies of the Jews, but also creative artists of the highest quality. The educated public, however, is liable to forget this, and so, every few years, it needs to be reminded of what many of its favorite authors were capable. We tend to sentimentalize our great writers and often think more of them than they deserve. Expecting our poets and novelists to be moral, we are blind to the amorality of their imaginations." (ibid) Anthony Julius began writing "Reflections on T.S. Eliot, Anti-Semitism, and Literary Form" as a kind of exercise to prove Bernard Lewis wrong in "Semites and Anti-Semites where Lewis calls T.S. Eliot a "typical anti-Semite" but his conclusion after doing research on Eliot was that Bernard Lewis was wrong, but not about Eliot's antiSemitism. He was wrong not to consider T.S. Eliot an "extraordinary anti-Semite". Another words the only error Bernard Lewis made was to consider Eliot simply typical. Anthony Julius also wrote: "Eliot wrote some remarkable anti-Semitic poetry and some banal anti-Semitic prose. The evidence that he regretted this poetry and prose is weak, and the evidence of amends, weaker still." "Anti-Semitism was a muse for Eliot. It was on occasion his inspiration......It yielded remarkable, disturbing results: chiefly, the poetry collected in the volume entitled Ara Vos Prec (1920), the principal work of what I describe in my book as his anti-Semitic period. While this is hardly something to celebrate, it demands a certain guarded, qualified regard." "Anti-Semitic discourse comprises a stockroom of cliches about Jews, discovered and adopted anew by each generation of anti-Semites. Unlike most anti-Semites, however, Eliot didn't merely take over these fatigued commonplaces, he exploited them to fresh and disturbing effect. Critics who miss this underestimate him." "What kind of anti-Semite, then, was T. S. Eliot? Some anti-Semites break Jewish bones; others wound Jewish sensibilities. Eliot falls into the second category. He was civil to Jews he knew, offensive to those who knew him through his work. He wounded his Jewish readers, if not the Jews of his acquaintance. He had the imagination of an anti-Semite in the highest degree. He was alive to anti-Semitism's resources while being indifferent to Jewish pain." And many today who do not consider themselves AntiSemitic use Antisemitic stereotyping and cliches to effect, including some who are Jewish; and non-Jews feed on those words and use them to sting and attack Israel and Jews. Arabs have had time to study and immitate the AntiSemitic ways of the West and they have picked up on all the stereotyping and the myths and now have adopted them as their own - repeating them at every opportunity and with relish - as they point to Christians who also say these things and attack Jews - and they quote self-destructive Jews to back up their disdain and encourage it, which leads to more violence against the Jewish State and ironically everything that happens to them, a complaint often also heard in the West, is considered the fault of Jews. Bernard Lewis is a great historian and orientalist. He knows the Arabs better than many Arabs know themselves. He points out how the Arab attitude toward Israel is not simply a quarrel against the Israeli state or Zionism; it is about the Jews and their religion. He says they have a "seething hatred" which is "commonly expressed in Arabic books, newspapers, magazines and even school textbooks in many parts of the Arab world." Quoting an Arab Spokesman: "The Jews and Zionism are like an evil tree. Its root is in New York, its branches all over the world, its leaves the Jews--all of them, old and young, male and female, without exception, are its thorny leaves and poisoned thorns, and the poison is swift and deadly." (Abd al-Rahman) This is grist for ignorance but many antiSemites have not been ignorant people. T.S. Eliot, Shakespeare, Wagner, Nietzsche, et al, were not ignorant. Those who engineered out the "Final Solution" were not ignorant. Hitler was not the ignoramus some have labeled him. "In any event, anti-Semitism is not, and never has been, an unavoidable, universal pathology. No one says you have to be an anti-Semite. And indeed, hostility to Jews has often been countered by vigorous, sometimes heroic interventions by others on their behalf. One cannot assert of any period in history that it was unqualifiedly anti-Semitic. When Jews have been attacked, there have been others willing to defend them; when they have been defamed, others have challenged their slanderers. Anti-Semitism has rarely enjoyed an entirely free run: Jews have fought back, numerous non-Jews by their side. And they have often won." (Julius) But nevertheless AntiSemitism did win when it became the ideology of the Third Reich. The result of which, we have seen, was the Holocaust. "Kershaw and Hamann dispose of many myths regarding the young Hitler- -the claim that he was partly of Jewish origin, and the claim that in Vienna he endured extreme poverty. The latter myth was created by Hitler himself in Mein Kampf, a book written in 1924 and replete with other fictions regarding his origins and his youth. Kershaw and Hamann also dispose of Hitler's later claim that he had become an anti-Semite in Vienna. There is no evidence, from friend or foe, that in those days Hitler disliked the Jews. In his endless political monologues he rarely referred to the Jews; and when he did, it was in a favorable vein. Young Hitler had several close Jewish acquaintances, one might even say friends. As Hamann shows, Hitler spent most of his time in the men's shelter with educated Jews, and he dismissed the then-popular blood libel charge against the Jew Leopold Hilsner, calling it "absolute nonsense, a groundless slander." Those who commissioned his watercolors, and thereby provided him with a livelihood, were Jews; he also owed his escape from a brief stint in the depths of lice-ridden misery and homelessness to Jewish benefactors." (Deak) "Hitler especially admired Dr. Eduard Bloch, a Jewish physician from Linz, who had treated his mother for breast cancer. Treatment at that time consisted of the use of iodine, which must have added to her sufferings. Some historians argue that Hitler's hatred of Jews and his desire to gas them or to poison them stem from this incident. Yet both Kershaw and Hamann make clear that Hitler, who adored his mother (he hated his father, a lower civil servant who was a ruthless martinet), was grateful to the Jewish doctor, despite his mother's agonizing death in 1907. He readily paid the doctor's fees, and wrote letters to Bloch expressing his gratitude; and in 1938, following the Anschluss in Austria, he made sure that the doctor and his family were able to emigrate under the most favorable conditions. In return, the doctor commented positively on the young Hitler in memoirs written in the United States." (ibid) "When did Hitler become an anti-Semite? Apparently not during the war, when this Austrian draft dodger served bravely in the Bavarian army. No fellow-soldier remembered his having made anti-Semitic statements, and he received the Iron Cross First Class, his most cherished possession for the rest of his life, at the recommendation of a Jewish lieutenant. Many historians believe Hitler when he writes in Mein Kampf that it was the collapse of Germany in the fall of 1918 that taught him to truly hate the Jews. Temporarily blinded by gas, Hitler experienced, as he claimed later, the most profound disappointment of his life at the news of the German collapse; and he, like other desperate Germans, concluded that the Jews had stabbed Germany in the back. But even this assertion is hard to prove." (ibid) * Ian Kershaw in "Hitler 1889-1936: Hubris" and Brigitte Hamann in "Hitler's Vienna: A Dictator's Apprenticeship" (Norton) shatter some myths about Hitler, both of which were reviewed by Istvan Deak in an article called, "The Making of a Monster" (4/12/99) in The New Republic. Hitler, also was not a typical anti-Semite. He certainly was extraordinary. The more we know about this man, the more enigmatic he becomes and the more we know about people who appear insane the more enigmatic that condition appears also. Perhaps we should not try to define it or explain it? Perhaps we should just treat it?? But, it should not be a surprise when it happens. It should not be surprising to us when we hear Arabs repeating old canards and libels because how do you erase thousands of years of myths and libels against Jews and it should not come as a great surprise that Jews can be concentration camp guards to obtain favors or become self-hating Jews when they can find some relief by joining the enemy. We are not the problem, they are. We can only treat the symptoms of their disease. Hank Roth, LL.B Recommended * Bernard Lewis, "Semites and Anti-Semites", Norton, 1999 Quotes are Fair Use for educational purposes per Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, of the Copyright Law. PERMALINK: This page on the WEB: http://pnews.org/ArT/AiS/SeL.shtml More at http://pnews.org/archives/ |
Monday, December 05, 2005
OrTorah: Jerusalem Talmud Quotes About Shabbat
| Jerusalem Talmud Quotes About Shabbat |
Jerusalem Talmud Quotes About Shabbat compiled by derechemet@yahoo.com=========================================== {1} Jerusalem Talmud, tractate Berachot Chapter 1, Law 5: Shabbat is equal to all of the other commandments of the Torah COMBINED. {2} Jerusalem Talmud, Tractate Shabbat, Page 15: Shabbat was given to us in order to study Torah. {2A} Rabbeinu Bachya on Shemot 20:8: On SHABBAT, King David would spend the entire day studying Torah. {2B} Sefer Ben Ish Chai, Hilchot Shanah Sheniah, Parshat Shemot: One hour of Torah-study on Shabbat is equal to a thousand hours of Torah study during the week. {3} Jerusalem Talmud, Tractate Taanit, Page 3B: If all Jews would observe one Shabbat properly, the messiah would come immediately. {3A} This quote is repeated in: Midrash Tehillim for Psalm 95. |
Wednesday, November 30, 2005
Kolot_JewVoice: Our World: The Jewish refugees
| Our World: The Jewish refugees |
The Jerusalem Post Internet Edition Our World: The Jewish refugees _____ Caroline Glick, THE JERUSALEM POST Nov. 22, 2005 _____ The Quartet's envoy and former World Bank president James Wolfensohn is reputed to be quite a deal maker. One of the deals he made as the Quartet's envoy to the region was the purchase by wealthy American Jews of greenhouses owned by the Jews who were expelled from Gaza this past summer and their transfer as a gift to the Palestinians. Unfortunately, while the greenhouses were indeed abandoned by the Jews as the IDF threw them off their land, and they were transferred to the Palestinians, the Jews have yet to receive all their money. According to the farmers, the World Bank has deducted the value of the property looted from the greenhouses after they left Gaza from their payments. This story is one of many that were never reported in the aftermath of the expulsions. Those expulsions, and the withdrawal of IDF forces that followed have enabled Gaza to be transformed into a new base of operations for global jihad. But aside from the foreseen strategic consequences of the withdrawal of IDF forces from Gaza, the expulsions have caused a humanitarian disaster for Israeli society. Hundreds of families have been living in hotel rooms in Jerusalem for the past three months. The largest group of refugees - some 350 families with another 150 on their way - lives in the temporary city of Nitzan. When one enters Nitzan, at first glance it looks like a success story. The roads are largely paved. Each family lives in a red-roofed mobile home with grassy lawns all around. But dig just slightly beneath the surface and you see you are in a refugee camp. The fiberglass walls of the homes can be torn apart by a stray soccer ball. Children play in dirt plots next to moving bulldozers. Sewage runs openly between the homes. And those homes - 60 square meters for families of five and under, and 90 square meters for families with more than three children - are cramped and tiny. Most of the families in Nitzan had lived in homes that averaged 200 square meters in Gaza. When they arrived at Nitzan many of the refugees realized that their furniture was unsuitable and so they were forced to buy new furnishings. Although each family's belongings were packed in containers, you will see no containers in Nitzan. The Defense Ministry, which runs the camp, only allows people to have their containers for 10 days. Anyone who does not remove their container after 10 days is fined. And anyway, the summer heat combined with less than professional packing by Defense Ministry contractors left the contents of some 20 percent of the containers ruined. THE COMMUNITIES in Gaza were self-sustaining. Most of the residents worked where they lived. Eighty percent of the residents of Nitzan, who farmed, taught in schools, owned shops and worked in the local councils, are unemployed today. The massive unemployment, together with the trauma of having been forced out of their communities, has taken its toll on the residents. Divorce rates are skyrocketing. Parents, who spend much of their days watching television and climbing the walls, have lost control of their children. The child refugees of Gaza are perhaps the worst hit by the expulsions. Violence among the youths is high and rising. Drug abuse, which was negligible in their communities in Gaza, is on the rise. Two empty mobile homes were locked after they were found to contain drug paraphernalia. So the party moved elsewhere. Nitzan is prime territory for drug dealers looking for easy prey. Children and youths have an almost psychotic fear of policemen and soldiers. "When they see soldiers or policemen these kids start shaking uncontrollably and become hysterical," explains Eliya Tzur, the head of the One Heart volunteer organization that has been helping the residents get reestablished. "The Education Corps of the IDF wanted to send officers to come to the schools to talk with them. I warned them not to," Tzur, a 24-year-old college student from Jerusalem explains. "They said they weren't afraid of hostility. I explained that it wasn't hostility that I was worried about, but violence. These kids look at soldiers and see tyrants. I don't know what or how long it will take to change this." THE IRRATIONALITY of the youths' reaction to the army and police is matched by the financial irrationality of many of their parents. They received NIS 50,000 from their overall reparations immediately after they were thrown out of their homes. Rather than save it, many bought cars they didn't need. The government deducts monthly rent for the mobile homes from the rest of the restitution package, which averages NIS 600,000 per family. The residents, without jobs, are eating away the possibility of ever having the money to build new homes for themselves. The government has met all these problems with indifference. The Labor Ministry has yet to set up an employment office in Nitzan. There is only one social worker assigned to the Potemkin town. Much of the property of the regional council in Gaza was disbursed to other communities. Four thousand books from Gush Katif's library are stacked up in one of the mobile homes, locked away. There is still no mikve. There is no grocery store. Buses come through twice a day and a taxi ride to the grocery store costs over NIS 100. Absurdly, when the residents moved in there was an IDF watchtower set up in the middle of the development for no reason. There are guard towers at its four corners, but they are unmanned. Theft is rampant. One Heart organized workshops on everything from job searches to resume writing to teaching parents how to assert their authority over their children. Its volunteers scour the surrounding cities of Ashkelon and Ashdod to try to encourage businesses to employ the residents. The volunteers, who sleep on bare mattresses in an afterschool homework center they organized for elementary school children, also organized a community center and clubhouses for teenagers. When they tried to bring in a mobile home for a pizzeria, the Defense Ministry refused to allow it. Only Ministry contractors can bring in mobile homes - even though each mobile home, for no apparent reason, costs the taxpayers NIS 400,000 and the mobile home One Heart planned to bring in cost only NIS 120,000. As the residents sink into impoverishment, someone is apparently getting rich at Nitzan. It would be interesting to know how the contracts were awarded. INCOMPETENCE alone doesn't explain the Sharon-Peres government's treatment of the refugee population that it senselessly created. Today the refugees still want, most of all, to build new communities that will allow them to stay together with the people they have lived with all their lives. But while Sharon and Peres and Ehud Olmert grandly discuss plans to develop the Negev and Galilee, these people, who want to develop both, are shunted aside and left to disintegrate. In its systematic demonization and criminalization of the Israelis of Gaza that preceded their expulsions, the government seemed to be begging for these people - who heroically withstood some 6,000 mortar and rocket attacks, thousands of shootings and hundreds infiltration attempts on their communities over the past five years - to do something that would prove their deprecators right. When these patriots left peacefully, deciding not to disengage from their country, Sharon and his spinmeisters were left with their tongues hanging out. The brutal indifference with which the refugees are treated today seems tinged with more than a slight hint of vindictiveness. "Perhaps the most terrible thing about Nitzan," Tzur says, "is that we at One Heart have so much work to do here. We're just a bunch of students. Why are we necessary?" But there's the rub. For the past 12 years the governments of Israel have been playing poker with our lives and well-being by granting land, guns and legitimacy to terrorists. The only thing that has kept this country going is the fact that the Israeli people have refused to collapse. Once again, the vacuum created by government negligence, incompetence and vindictiveness is being filled by private citizens. One day, perhaps we will have a government that is worthy of us. In the meantime, we have no choice but to work around those who are elected and paid to serve us. This article can also be read at http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1132475597543 <http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1132475597543&pa gename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull> &pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull [ Back <http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1132475597543&pa gename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull> to the Article ] _____ Copyright 1995-2005 The Jerusalem Post - http://www.jpost.com/ |
Wednesday, November 23, 2005
OrTorah: "My big fat Amaraic Wedding"
| "My big fat Amaraic Wedding" |
"My big fat Amaraic Wedding" by Jay BushinskyInternational Jerusalem Post April 29 - May 5, 2005 http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HaTsafon There is no better proof of modern Aramaic's vitality than the spectacular weddings held by the Jewish "Nash Didan" community, which hails from the remote foothills of the Caucasus Mountains. "Nash Didan" means "Our People" and its distinctive music and dance have been immortalized by Nissan Aviv, a brilliant composer and orchestrator who arrived in Israel 55 years ago during the peak of the "Nash Didan" immigration, and has devoted his life to preserving and continuing this culture ever since. Soon after the late Naomi Shemer's Yerushalayim Shel Zahav ("Jerusalem of Gold") became a hit on the eve of the Six Day War, Aviv obtained her permission to render it in Aramaic. Translated as Yerushalayim Ai Dheba, it is a beloved staple at "Nash Didan" weddings. Aviv was born in Urmia, an ancient city in Iranian Azerbaijan. "We spoke Aramaic at home, Turkish on the street and learned Persian at school," he said. "I knew a fair amount of Hebrew when we came to Israel because it was taught in our Jewish schools. And partly thanks to my Aramaic, I was able to speak like a sabra in no time." Aviv's lyrics are written in modern Aramaic and his songs not only draw audiences from the various Aramaic-speaking communities in Israel - located in Holon, Givatayim and Jerusalem -- but also are played on the Aramaic (or Syriac) radio and TV stations in Australia, Canada and Sweden. "Jerusalem of Gold is as popular abroad is it is here," he said. Aviv's music is based on three instruments: a drum known as a dair'a, a five-stringed instrument plucked like a balalaika or mandolin known as a kar kavkazi and a Central Asian version of the cello known as a kamanncha. Aviv has won the unstinting acclaim of one of Israel's leading experts in cognate Semitic languages, Hezy Mutzafi, who speaks half a dozen of the Aramaic and Syriac dialects fluently. Noting that the "Nash Didan" community consists of "only a few thousand" Israelis (its members constitute a relatively small percentage of an influx of nearly 200,000 immigrants from Iran, Turkey and the Caucasus), Mutzafi points out that it is also one of the least known Jewish ethnic groups. "Its focus is on culture, folklore and spoken Aramaic," explained Mutzafi, referring to the latter as lishan noshan or "our language." Mutzafi singled out Aviv as one of the outstanding activits in the "Nash Didan" community, a man who has contributed mightily to its spiritual and cultural life. Privately, Aviv is rather pessimistic about what the future holds for the language and lifestyle he loves and has tried to preserve. "Our Aramaic is being forgotten," he said. "The younger generation can understand it, but cannot speak and in time, this too will be lost." One project that gives Aviv hope is the Tel Aviv University's development of an Aramaic dictionary. "The trouble is that the project is enormous and the funding available for it is miniscule," he said. |
OrTorah: "Other" Jewish Languages
| "Other" Jewish Languages |
| www.myjewishlearning.com/xcommon/Hot_Topics/primers_index.htm For most of their history, Jews have been multilingual. Hebrew is the language of the Bible, the principal language of Jewish liturgy, and the language spoken in modern Israel--but it has been the primary language of only a small percentage of Jews who have ever lived. The geographical diversity of the Jewish people accounts for its multilingualism. Jews have adopted the various languages of their homelands and also spoken numerous Jewish hybrid languages. By the beginning of the Common Era, Aramaic had replaced Hebrew as the spoken language of Palestinian Jews. The causes of Hebrew's decline are not wholly understood, but it was certainly hastened by the Babylonian exile in 587 B.C.E. and the continued foreign rule of Palestine during the Second Temple period. Aramaic, like Hebrew, is a Semitic language, and there are many similarities between the two. Because of Aramaic's prominence during the rabbinic era, it is arguably the second most important Jewish language--though it was spoken by non-Jews as well. The Talmud is written in Aramaic, as is the Zohar, the great medieval mystical text. One of the most well known Jewish prayers, the kaddish, also is written in Aramaic. During the talmudic era, Hebrew illiteracy was so high that the Shabbat Torah reading was recited along with a verse-by-verse translation into Aramaic. Jewish hybrid languages have existed for more than two millennia. Linguists have long puzzled with little resolution over whether these tongues should be considered dialects, unique languages, or Creole languages (languages that began as pidgins--simplified forms of speech, often mixtures of two languages--and are later adopted as primary languages). During the Second Temple Period Judeo-Greek, also known as Yevanic, was spoken by Jews in the Hellenistic world. Over the years many other such hybrid languages emerged. These languages tended to adopt structural and lexical elements of the local languages, mixing them with Hebrew and Aramaic words. They were usually written in Hebrew script. The Jews of the Middle East and North Africa spoke Judeo-Arabic. As early as the eighth century, Jews of present day Iran and Afghanistan spoke Judeo-Persian. Many Jews in Italy spoke Judeo-Italian, a language featuring early South Italian elements and Hebrew characters. Most of these languages, and many other Jewish hybrid languages, are extinct or almost extinct. The two most well known Jewish hybrid languages are Judeo-Spanish -- better known as Ladino -- and Yiddish. Judeo-Spanish was spoken by the Jews of medieval Spain, as well as their descendants. It received most of its linguistic characteristics from early-medieval Spanish, but it was written in Hebrew characters. Though Ladino is its earliest documented name, the language is also known as Judezmo (which is a linguistic equivalent of Yiddish) and Spanyol. Today there are still some speakers of Judeo-Spanish in the Balkans, North Africa, and Israel. The Holocaust hastened the decline of the language; the Nazis decimated many Judeo-Spanish speaking communities--particularly in Greece and the Balkans. In many ways, Yiddish is the German equivalent of Judeo-Spanish. Yiddish is almost wholly German in its linguistic structure and vocabulary, but it is written in Hebrew characters. Yiddish originated in the Rhineland cities of Germany in the early Middle Ages, though the first recognizable Yiddish texts date from the 14th century. Over the next few centuries, Yiddish spread all over Europe, from Eastern France to the Baltics. More Jews have spoken Yiddish than any other language. Prior to the Holocaust, Yiddish-speakers accounted for 75 percent of world Jewry, but during the Holocaust, about 75 percent of the world's Yiddish speakers were killed. Today, Yiddish is spoken by fewer and fewer people, though it is still the primary spoken language of many ultra-Orthodox Jews, and there are still probably tens of thousands of Yiddish speakers in the former Soviet states. In addition, the study of Yiddish language and literature is enjoying something of a renaissance on some college campuses. And parts of the language live on in the many Yiddish words that have become part of English vernacular in America, such as nosh (which means to snack) and mentsh (a gentleman). ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> AIDS in India: A "lurking bomb." Click and help stop AIDS now. http://us.click.yahoo.com/VpTY2A/lzNLAA/yQLSAA/eZWolB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> SENDE EIT INNLEGG? -- Post a message: - Send e-post til -- Send an e-mail to: HaTsafon@yahoogroups.com LESA TIDLEGARE INNLEGG? -- Read previous messages: - Gå til denne nettsida: -- Go to this web site: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HaTsafon SEIE OPP MEDLEMSSKAPET? -- Unsubscribe: - Send ein e-post til: -- Send an e-mail to: HaTsafon-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HaTsafon/ |
Kolot_JewVoice: A Netzarim (an other Gush Katif abandonned community) Update - Please forward
| A Netzarim (an other Gush Katif abandonned community) Update - Please forward |
Udi <udizinar@bigfoot.com> wrote:
|
Thursday, November 17, 2005
Kolot_JewVoice: The case for Mitzpe Shalhevet
| The case for Mitzpe Shalhevet |
| Nov. 16, 2005 21:19 | Updated Nov. 17, 2005 0:48 The case for Mitzpe Shalhevet By DAVID WILDER posted by Michelle_Nevada <Michelle_Nevada@comcast.net> to the group ChozrimExiles @YahooGroups During the past several weeks, over 100 members of the Likud Central Committee have come to Hebron to see, feel and experience the first Jewish city in the Land of Israel. They've come mostly to view Jewish property that is inaccessible to Hebron's Jewish community. The story properly begins in 1807 when Haim Bajaio purchased, on behalf of the Hebron Jewish community, a five-dunam plot of land adjacent to the centuries-old Jewish Quarter, for 1,200 grushim. The deal was witnessed and signed by no fewer than 22 Hebron Arab notables. This property served Hebron's Jews and later accommodated the home and synagogue of its chief rabbi, Eliahu Manni. Following the Jordanian occupation of Hebron in 1948, the entire Jewish Quarter - founded by Spanish-Jewish exiles in 1540 - was razed to the ground. Among the structures destroyed was the ancient Avraham Avinu Synagogue. In the early 1960s, an Arab fruit and vegetable market was constructed on the property bought by the Hebron community in 1807. Following the liberation of Hebron during the 1967 Six Day War, these structures continued to function, having been rented to the Hebron Arab municipality by the Israeli government. The property contracts for these buildings expired in the 1990s, and the site was gradually closed over a period of several years, due to security concerns. The market was finally shut down following an attempted terrorist attack: Arabs placed a booby-trapped teddy bear in a plastic bag in the market near the entrance to the Jewish neighborhood, hoping a Jewish child, finding it, would play with it and be killed in the ensuing explosion. Despite numerous requests by our community to rent the structures, the site has been left vacant. On March 26, 2001, at the beginning of the Oslo War an Arab sniper shot and killed 10-month-old Shalhevet Pass. Following the murder, Hebron children began utilizing the abandoned Arab shuk as a place to play and take cover during shooting attacks from the overlooking Abu Sneneh Hills. Over a period of time, the Hebron community invested tens of thousands of dollars to convert the former fruit and vegetable stalls into livable apartments. Presently, the former market, renamed the Mitzpe Shalhevet neighborhood, houses Hebron families and a Torah study hall opened in Shalhevet's memory. Mitzpe Shalhevet is presently on the brink of obliteration, not by Arabs, but by the government. FOUR YEARS ago, in response to an Arab demand to reopen the market, the Attorney-General's office notified the Supreme Court that: (1) the Arabs no longer had any legal rights to the market and (2) that Israeli "trespassers" would be evicted from the site. The Supreme Court, however, never ruled that the former market's Jewish population should be expelled from their homes. The reason behind the attorney-general's decision is summed up in his own words: "The criminal must not be rewarded." The criminal, in this case, is not defined as the Arabs who murdered 67 Jews, destroyed the Jewish Quarter, shot at Hebron Jews from the surrounding hills and killed Shalhevet Pass. Rather, the criminal is defined as Hebron's Jews, who had "usurped" the vacant buildings belonging to the State of Israel. Following issuance of an eviction order, Hebron's Jewish community appealed to the courts, claiming private Jewish ownership of the property. An appeals committee of three judges ruled 2-1 that the land did legally belong to a private Jewish organization, but that the buildings legally fell within the jurisdiction of the Israeli government. Concurrently, two of the three judges ruled that the optimal solution to the problem was to lease the structures to Hebron's Jewish community. The defense minister delayed executing the eviction order for over two years, due to security issues and other concerns. However, recently, following the successful expulsion of 10,000 Jews from Gush Katif and northern Samaria, the Attorney-General's Office has exerted tremendous pressure on Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz to execute the eviction orders and remove Hebron's families from the Mitzpe Shalhevet neighborhood. Mofaz may be under the mistaken impression that the Supreme Court ruled that the structures must be evacuated. This is, as previously noted, not true. To the contrary, the easiest and most just solution, as recommended by the judges, is to lease the buildings to Hebron's Jewish community. On the Shabbat of November 26, thousands of Jews are expected to arrive in Hebron to celebrate the annual Torah reading of Hayei Sarah commemorating Abraham's purchase of Ma'arat Hamachpela, the Cave of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs, some 4,000 years ago. There could be no better way to affirm a permanent, eternal Jewish presence in Hebron than to officially proclaim the reclamation and rededication of Mitzpe Shalhevet. No doubt Abraham and Sarah would smile down upon us from the heavens above. The writer is the spokesman of the Jewish Community of Hebron. |
OrTorah: Sanhedrin Moves to Establish Council For Noahides
| Sanhedrin Moves to Establish Council For Noahides | |||
Sanhedrin Moves to Establish Council For Noahides 01:39 Sep 29, '05 / 25 Elul 5765By Ezra HaLevi taken from http://www.israelnationalnews.com/news.php3?id=90646
B'nai Noach, literally "Children of Noah," known as Noahides, are non-Jews who take upon themselves the Torah's obligations for non-Jews - consisting of seven laws passed on from Noah following the flood, as documented in Genesis (see below). Until now, Noahide communities and organization had been scattered around the globe, with a particular concentration centered around the southern United States. The communities themselves are a relatively recent phenomenon bolstered by the fact that the Internet has allowed individuals sharing Noahide beliefs to get in touch with one another. The court of 71 rabbis, known as the Sanhedrin, which was reestablished last October in Tiberius following the reinstitution of rabbinic semikha, decided, after numerous requests from the Noahide community, to assist the movement in forming a leadership council. Rabbi Michael Bar-Ron, with the Sanhedrin's blessing, travelled to the United States to meet with representatives of the Noahide movement and select members for the High Council. Bar-Ron, an ordained student, talmid samukh, who currently sits on the Sanhedrin, is also one of the Sanhedrin's spokesmen. Bar-Ron organized a small conference in California where six of the council's future members were selected and also addressed the annual convention of the Vendyl Jones Research Institute - one of the Noahide organizations represented on the council. At the VJRI convention, Bar-Ron met five more of the Noahide leaders who will be joining the council. The purpose of the council, which was the brainchild of Rabbi Avraham Toledano, is to assist the B'nei Noach in their struggle to observe the word of G-d. "The goal is to unify, serve and organize all kosher B'nei Noach communities of the world under a single body that can operate under the direct authority and supervision of the Sanhedrin," the decision to establish the body reads. "To form a vessel through which the Torah, from Zion (via the Sanhedrin) can effectively serve non-Jewish communities around the world." A third goal of the creation of the High Council and the Sanhedrin's efforts in regard to the Noahide community, is to "transform the Noahide movement from a religious phenomenon - a curiosity many have not heard of - into a powerful international movement that can successfully compete with, and with G-d's help bring about the fall of, any religious movement but the pure authentic faith that was given to humanity through Noach, the father of us all," said emissary Bar-Ron. To that end, one of the primary functions of the council will be the creation and development of effective outreach materials for the world. Although Judaism does not require or encourage non-Jews to become Jewish, the observance of the Seven Laws of Noah is incumbent upon humanity and widespread observance is to be worked toward, even through active proselytization, something that is anathema to Judaism. The council is also seeking to identify and contact communities around the world who observe the Seven Laws of Noah in order to invite them to learn more about the movement. B'nei Noach in India and Brazil are already in touch with Noahide leaders. Asked why the Sanhedrin would reach out to B'nei Noach before concentrating on outreach within the Jewish community, Rabbi Bar-Ron answered: "There was no conscious choice to ignore the issue of outreach toward other Jews, but there is a Torah principle that a mitzva, positive precept, that comes to your hand should be fulfilled first and should not be put off. It happens to be that the group that showed the most outward display of support and genuine concern for the success of the Sanhedrin - contacting us from the very outset - were the B'nei Noach. One of the great responsibilities of the Jewish people is to spread the laws of Noach." Bar-Ron said he had mixed feelings as he departed for the meetings with the B'nei Noach leaders, as he left the day the forced expulsion of Jews from Gaza began. "I was in such a horrible heart-wrenching pain about leaving - I almost felt like a traitor to our people. But I realized then that although the government was detaching itself from the Land of Israel - a partial annulment of our covenant with G-d, similar to the sin of the ten spies - there is another aspect of the covenant that has not been pursued. That aspect is our obligation to be a nation of priests unto the nations. This is the core of the covenant with Abraham and it is something the Jewish people as a nation has not involved itself in since Second Temple times. So as the government disengaged from the covenant, I was participating in the reengagement with an aspect of the covenant that has been dormant." Bar-Ron was very impressed with the B'nei Noach leaders he met. "Each of them had a different unique talent. One was an extremely talented media coordinator, two were great scholars of Noahide law, one was secretary of a large successful Noahide community and research institute and one was a law enforcement officer for a number of years. Each had the wisdom and experience that will help them lead the movement. All of the prospective members of the High Council are obligated to appear in Jerusalem this coming January, at which time they will be ordained by the Sanhedrin as members of the High Council. "One of the things I thought would be more difficult was implementing the fact that the Sanhedrin's steering committee unanimously voted that the High Council members must appear personally before the Sanhedrin to be ordained as such," Bar-Ron said. "But the level of commitment of these people is so high that it is not posing a problem at all. Each member was screened very carefully and accepted not only on the basis of their high reputation, wisdom and experience - there were many dedicated and talented B'nei Noach who we would have loved to have accepted into the council - but for their role as representatives of entire B'nei Noach communities or as experts in a particularly field. The acting head of the Sanhedrin, Rabbi Yoel Schwartz, has set up a Beit Din for B'nei Noach to serve the needs of B'nei Noach worldwide. At this point, the council will not serve as a adjudicating body. "It is our sincere hope that in years to come, the knowledge of the halakha, Torah law, of the Seven Laws of Noach will grow to such a degree that there will be true Noahide judges," Bar-Ron said. "One of the goals is to delineate clearly the seven laws and their applications according to the Mishneh Torah of the Rambam." "Never before in recorded history have B'nei Noach come together to be ordained by the Sanhedrin for the purpose of spreading Noahide observance of laws," Bar-Ron said. "This is the first critical step of bringing about the ultimate flowering of the brotherhood of mankind envisioned by Noach, the father of mankind." The Seven Laws of Noah are: Shefichat damim - Do not murder. Gezel - Do not steal or kidnap. Avodah zarah - Do not worship false gods/idols. Gilui arayot - Do not be sexually immoral (engage in incest, sodomy, bestiality, castration and adultery) Birkat Hashem - Do not utter G-d's name in vain, curse G-d or pursue the occult. Dinim - Set up righteous and honest courts and apply fair justice in judging offenders and uphold the principles of the last five. Ever Min HaChai - Do not eat a part of a live animal. For more information email the Sanhedrin's secretary at: dbtc@actco.com |
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