Jewish Conciousness

OrTorah: Vote No to Slander - by Rabbi S. Weiss

2006-03-27T17:06:00.000+02:00

Vote No to Slander - by Rabbi S. Weiss

by EduPlanet Rectorate (daniEl I. Ginerman) - Monday, 27 March 2006, 04:12 PM

Vote No to Slander by Rabbi S. Weiss Mar 26, '06 / 26 Adar 5766 From all things we must learn, say the sages, and often the world around us can teach us a thing or two about Jewish values. And so, I call your attention to a little-known town in Colombia, a place called Icononzo, 40 miles southwest of the capital, Bogota. Fed up with local residents being targeted by false rumors and turning up dead or wrongfully arrested, the mayor of Iconozo has made gossip a crime, punishable by up to four years in prison and a six-figure fine. On more than one occasion, malicious gossip in the city has had disastrous consequences. In one instance, a man was killed because somebody claimed, erroneously, that he belonged to a leftist insurgent group. On another occasion, a rumor later proved to be unfounded - that an armed gang was on its way to terrorize the town kept residents locked inside their homes for 48 hours, too afraid to go to work or send their kids to school. Finally, the town council decided to take drastic action. "Human beings must be aware and recognize that having a tongue and using it to do bad is the same as having dynamite in their mouths," said Mayor Jesus Ignacio Jimenez. Knowing that drug-ridden Colombia is no stranger to violence, and that deadly weapons are readily available, local officials decided to clamp down on gossipmongers. "It's definitely had an impact since it went into effect," said one citizen, "now people think twice about what they say before they say it." Of course, Judaism is no stranger to the evils of lashon hara. The Torah prohibits gossip, slander and tale-bearing, and the rabbis characterize the tongue as a snake with a vicious bite that must be kept behind two gates the teeth and the lips to prevent it from striking too easily and spreading its venom. One who uses the power of speech to embarrass another is considered to have shed blood, the evidence of his crime indicated by the red blush of his victim. In Jewish thought, the principal problem with malicious gossip even when it is true and accurate is that it tends to focus on only a tiny portion of the whole person. It takes a snapshot of a particular fault or feature, and blows it up into a pervasive, larger-than-life photograph of the victim. It is a sinister sound bite that can devour whole another's reputation or name, based upon a fraction of that person's behavior. That is why the Torah's punishment for slander is tzara'at, a disease of the skin that comes from too much gossip. A small lesion that ultimately renders the whole body impure, tzara'at repays, measure for measure, the gossiper, who would use one unflattering incident to paint his victim with a wide brush. Once diagnosed as afflicted, the slanderer must be quarantined, kept outside the mainstream, just as he attempted to isolate and ostracize his neighbor. All this seems most topical on the eve of Israeli elections. Watching the various parties' ads, it is clear that the main focus is not what is right about their programs or platforms, but what is wrong with their competition. Kadima's spot shows picture after picture of Binyamin Netanyahu in unflattering poses, questioning his honesty and integrity. Likud warns that Ehud Olmert is "dangerous for the nation." Meretz and Shinui blast the Hareidim for ruining their lives, with Shinui's slogan being, "We're not Shas!" And virtually all the parties let us know what an inexperienced, untested non-cosmopolitan boor Amir Peretz is. Missing from this cavalcade of lashon hara is the clear statement of what each party stands for and what it will do to secure our future. What solid ideas does it offer for improving the economy, stopping road deaths, ending violence in schools and homes, kicking corrupt officials out of government, increasing immigration and bringing the nation together? Does it have a plan, a vision, of where Israel can and should be in five years, ten years, fifty years from now? Is t here a positive reason that you, Mr. or Mrs. Candidate, should be elected, or should I vote for you just because - so you tell me - the other guy is worse? Imagine what a Colombian-like ban on gossip in this election campaign would do to transform the shape of our politicking. It would force the candidates to actually focus on their own qualifications, to impress us with their own unique wisdom, creativity and personal charisma. It would turn the spotlight directly on them, highlighting both their past performance and their future potential. It would make them tell us why they believe that they are the person best equipped to direct this nation. And maybe, just maybe, it would help to create the kind of leader we so desperately need, but cannot seem to find.

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Jew_Concious: An Open Letter to the Israel Prison Service - brought by Naomi Ragen

2006-01-26T17:04:00.000+02:00

Friends,

Guess who running for election in the Palestinian Authority?
A letter from Arnold Roth, whose
beautiful daughter Malki was murdered in the Sbarro Pizza
bombing. Marwan Barghouti, who has
been sentenced in Israeli courts to 5 life terms, and who
hide the murderers of Malki Roth, is a
candidate. Below, a letter from Malki's father on the
outrageous way Israel is allowing Barghouti to run.

Naomi

An open letter from Arnold Roth, Jerusalem.

Chief Superintendent Ian Domnitz
International Relations Branch
Israel Prison Service
Jerusalem

Dear Mr Domnitz,

I would be grateful for your help in getting to the root of
a troubling matter.

Marwan Barghouti, the leader of Arafat's Fatah movement in
the West Bank and closely identified with what the BBC
<http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/middle_east/2001/israel
_and_the_palestinians/profiles/1473585.stm> calls "one of
its militant offshoots", the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade, was
arrested by the Israeli authorities in April 2002 and
charged with the killing of 26 people and belonging to a
terrorist organisation. On May 20, 2004, the Tel Aviv
District Court convicted Barghouti of three terror attacks
in which five Israelis were murdered. He was convicted of
attempted murder, convicted of membership in a terror
organization and convicted of conspiracy to commit a crime.

On June 6, 2004, Barghouti was sentenced to five consecutive
life terms and 40 years. He is therefore a convicted
terrorist and a convicted murderer. It is worth adding that
at the trial of Barghouti's nephew and aide Ahmed Barghouti,
r
<http://www.chronwatch.com/content/contentDisplay.asp?aid=11
614> evelations
<http://www.chronwatch.com/content/contentDisplay.asp?aid=11
614> were made that Uncle Marwan hid the terror gang
members who carried out the Sbarro restaurant massacre in
Jerusalem in August 2001. Fifteen innocent civilians died
there that day. Fair disclosure: one of those murdered was
my 15 year-old daughter Malki <http://www.kerenmalki.org/> .
(I make no pretence to being dispassionate about this
particular thug.)

In light of these matters, why, in your capacity as Israel
Prison Service spokesperson, did you - an accomplished and
fluent speaker of the English language - refer again and
again in a BBC World Service radio interview yesterday
(January 24, 2006) to Marwan Barghouti as "security
prisoner"? My recollection is you used that expression half
a dozen times or more in a single interview, speaking
deliberately and fluently. No slip of the tongue seems to
have been involved.

It's clear enough that, for their part, Barghouti and gang
want his multiple convictions for murder and terrorism to be
expunged from the record, the faster the better. Claiming
him as a security prisoner or a political prisoner plainly
serves Barghouti's interests. The question for Israelis is
whether this is (a) justified and (b) in the interests of
Israelis.

These are highly charged times. In the run-up to today's
elections to the Palestinian Legislative Council, left-wing
extremists like Joseph Beilin have called for Barghouti to
be released from his Israeli jail-cell. Beilin has said
<http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3174972,00.html>
the murderer should be go free because he "heads one of the
Palestinian camps that do want peace and so this is the
moment to end his sentence". In the give-and-take of
Israel's robust democracy, Beilin's position may be deeply
offensive to many Israelis and thin on both logic and
jurisprudence. But Beilin speaks as a political activist,
which means he is perfectly at liberty to be as offensive as
he chooses.

But it's an entirely different matter for the official
spokesperson of the Israeli Prison Service to express
himself in what seems to be a partisan manner.

Which brings me to my questions. Does the Prison Service
agree with you that Marwan Barghouti is a 'security
prisoner'? If yes, does this entitle him to privileges to
which a mere murderer would have no right? If no, will you
immediately issue a public statement clarifying that the
final determination of Israel's criminal justice system,
convicting Barghouti of the most serious crimes, will not be
undermined any further by those responsible for running its
jails?

If the global war on terror means anything, it is essential
for us to be clear about this. Barghouti is no security
prisoner. He is no more than a loathsome felon.

I await your response.

Sincerely,
Arnold Roth
www.kerenmalki.org <http://www.kerenmalki.org/>
Father of Malka Chana Roth Z"L

-------------
The Malki <http://www.kerenmalki.org/> Foundation PO Box
23637 Jerusalem 91236 Israel
To stay in touch with the work of the Malki Foundation,
please join the Friends of Keren
<http://groups.google.com/group/Friends-of-Keren-Malki>
Malki Email List

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

For more articles,please visit my Web page at: http://www.NaomiRagen.com

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Jew_Concious: ON THE "PALESTINIAN ELECTIONS" INVADING EAST JERUSALEM: LETTER SENT TO REPRESENTATIVE, SENATORS AND WHITE HOUSE

2006-01-12T16:05:00.000+02:00

ON THE "PALESTINIAN ELECTIONS" INVADING EAST JERUSALEM: LETTER SENT TO REPRESENTATIVE, SENATORS AND WHITE HOUSE

by EduPlanet Rectorate (daniEl I. Ginerman) - Thursday, 12 January 2006, 02:51 PM

ON THE "PALESTINIAN ELECTIONS" INVADING EAST JERUSALEM:
LETTER SENT TO REPRESENTATIVE, SENATORS AND WHITE HOUSE

posted by pvpreacherman@webtv.net to the group STANDING_WITH_ISRAEL at YahooGroups Please write as well. This does not bode well for Yisrael or for Jerusalem! Dear (sir): As your constituent, I feel compelled to write about the latest news from Israel. It appears that Israel is going to allow the Arab residents of East Jerusalem to vote in the proposed January 25 elections. This is going to happen, it seems, in spite of Israeli misgivings, because of pressure being applied by Ms. Rice and her State Department. This could easily be seen as a step toward the division of Jerusalem, the eternal and indivisible capitol of Israel. Sir, our State Department has a long record of pro-Arab and anti-semitic bias, and this concerns me. Israel is our only real ally in the entire Middle East, and the only legitimate democracy there. If for no other reasons, it stands to more than reason that we accede more to her concerns, and less to the Arabs. For all of their so-called "desire for democracy", the only real aim of the so-called "Palestinians" (a true misnomer, by the way) is the destruction of the Jewish state and people. As both your constituent and a "man of the Book", I call upon you to do the right thing, to truly support our ally, Israel, and to do all possible to "rein in" our rogue State Department and Secretary of State. I, and others, will be watching your actions to that end, sir. Thank you very much, and may G-d guide and bless you. Sincerely, Robert L. Hand 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!

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OrTorah: Harry Potter is Jewish!

2006-01-05T06:05:00.000+02:00

Harry Potter is Jewish!
(A Useful Metaphor)

by Rabbi Jack Abramowitz
www.ou.org/ncsy/projects/5764/oct31-64/harry_potter_is_jewish.htm

No, sorry to say, the character of Harry Potter is not Jewish. I
think the books are quite clear on that, what with Christmas being
a major plot point what seems like every six weeks. But I think the
theme of the Harry Potter series is quite Jewish.

Some religious people of different faiths, including Judaism and
Christianity, have opposed the Harry Potter series. (I wouldn't be
surprised to find that Moslems, Hindus and others have objected, as
well.) After all, it does appear to glorify a lifestyle quite at odds with
the one they espouse. But I think they're missing the point. Harry
Potter doesn't advocate witchcraft as a lifestyle choice any more
than the Terminator movies advocate the killer android from the
future lifestyle. Harry Potter is about a boy who just happens to be
a wizard.

Personally, I think the Harry Potter story may be a perfect metaphor
for what many Jewish teens encounter in their quest for religious
growth. You see, Hogwarts isn't a school of wizardry. It's a yeshiva.
It's Yarchei Kallah. It's a Shabbaton. It's wherever you want to go to
grow in Torah observance and get closer to G-d. We'll talk more
about Hogwarts specifically soon enough.

All about Harry

Harry is Jewish. His parents died so that he might survive and
carry on their legacy. Voldemort isn't an evil wizard, but he does
represent the forces of evil. He is Egyptian slavery. He is the
Syrian-Greeks. He is Haman. He is the Roman persecution. He is
the Spanish Inquisition. He is pogroms and Crusades and the
Holocaust and the Intifada. He thought he had destroyed the
Potter family, but you know what? They survived in Harry, much the
same way the Jewish people lives on in you.

Harry didn't know the gifts he had. He knew that talking to snakes
at the zoo was a little strange, but he didn't understand the power
he had inside. Maybe you've sometimes felt different from your
peers. Maybe you've felt that spark inside you, but not known what
it was. That's your Jewish soul, baby! It's looking to get out and
express itself!

So, like you, Harry got his wake-up call. His came by owl post. Yours
probably didn't. But if you're reading this, somehow or some way
G-d sent you an invitation. It didn't say "Hogwarts" on it, but it said
"Torah." G-d invited you to come claim your heritage.

Dealing with the Dursleys

Harry had the Dursleys, his aunt and uncle, who tried to stand in his
way. They were scared of witchcraft. They said it was because it
wasn't "normal," but that wasn't the real reason. It was because Mrs.
Dursley was jealous of her sister, Harry's mother, who was a witch.
Lily Potter had something special that Petunia Dursley lacked and
she hated her for it. Historically, a lot of people have hated the Jews
for exactly the same reason: G-d gave us something special that they
don't have.

You probably have Dursleys in your life, too. In America in the 21st
Century, your Dursleys probably aren't overt anti-Semitism (thank G-d),
but there are plenty of others. People who belittle your interest in Torah
can be Dursleys. But Dursleys can also come from within. The yetzer
hara can be a big Dursley. ("Yetzer hara" is usually translated "the evil
inclination. If you were a cartoon, the yetzer hara would be a little guy
in a red suit who sits on your shoulder and tells you to keep a wallet
instead of turning it in.) Laziness, fear of change, peer pressure -
Dursleys all. Harry overcame his Dursleys. You can beat yours, too.

(But you have to be careful! Harry goes home every summer and has
to outwit the Dursleys again and again. Your Dursleys will never stop
trying to deter you from growing in your "magic," so you must be
ever-vigilant!)

Harry and his Friends at Hogwarts

Harry finally made it to Hogwarts. While he was there, he met other
witches and wizards from all different types of backgrounds. Ron
Weasley's family is all-wizard. He doesn't know any other lifestyle. He
takes for granted so much of what is new and magical to Harry.
Hermione Granger's family is all-muggle (non-wizard), but unlike the
Dursleys, Hermione's family appreciates what being a witch has done
for their daughter and they encourage her growth. Harry is a little
jealous of this positive relationship. After all, Hermione can bring her
muggle relatives to Diagon Alley (sort of like inviting them to your
Shabbos table), something Harry can never do with his family.

At Hogwarts, Harry studies magic. His course of studies includes such
varied courses as the History of Magic, Potions and Care of Magical
Creatures. This is like our study of Torah. (This gets a huge lehavdil,
which is what we say when we compare two things that really aren't
alike.) The Torah is not just a book of laws. It's the history of our
people.
It's self-improvement. It's how to treat other people. Harry's course of
study is diverse and so is ours.

Casting Spells

Harry and his friends cast spells, but the charms they cast don't always
turn out as intended. Hermione didn't mean to turn herself into a cat
with the polyjuice potion. Ron didn't want slugs pouring out of his mouth.
Gilderoy Lockhart didn't intend to remove all the bones in Harry's
broken arm. To a degree this can be compared to davening. (No, really.)
I'll explain.

We "cast our spells" (a big lehavdil, again) and ask Hashem to do
certain things for us. Sometimes He does as we ask. But, like a spell
gone awry, sometimes G-d says no. Not because He's capricious, but
because He knows what's best for us. (It's like when you refuse to stuff a
three-year-old with candy until they get sick. They think you're "mean,"
but you know that you're doing them a big favor.)

It's not a perfect parallel. Spells will probably succeed or fail based on
the wizard's proficiency, which is not the case with our prayers. But, as
with the spells, when our prayers don't get the results we asked for, that
doesn't mean they dissipate in the atmosphere. They still have an effect.
No, they won't make slugs come out of your mouth. The effect of prayer
is invariably positive, even when G-d says no.

Voldemort Returns

But all is not perfect in Harry's world. Voldemort returns and he's out
for blood. Yet, even with his meager abilities, Harry manages to defeat
him. A little magic can go a long way, but after each year at Hogwarts,
Harry becomes much more proficient! Similarly, whatever Torah we
have is what we need to defeat the forces of evil. Even a little is powerful

stuff, but every step brings us much more "power."

Harry would not have been safer back on Privet Drive, never knowing
he was a wizard. Voldemort still would have come after him, because he
considered Harry's very existence a threat. Without Hogwart's, however,
Harry never would have had the tools to survive.

It's the same with you and Torah. Those who would oppose you because
you are a Jew don't care whether you are learned or ignorant, observant
or assimilated. They consider you a threat simply because you're a Jew.
Without Torah, you lack the basic tools to defend yourself and banish the
darkness. Refusing to take up your arms, i.e. the Torah, is what they want
you to do.

I could go on, but I won't. You can draw your own parallels. A metaphor is
just a metaphor. (Or, as I like to put it, "A metaphor is like a simile.")
Harry Potter is just a book. It may be well-written and critically-acclaimed, but at the end of the day it's the product of human hands and imagination. Like all humans, J.K. Rowling is just dust and ashes. She may have her five
Harry Potter books, but we have the five Books that G-d gave to Moses on
Mount Sinai. (And we saw special effects far greater than anything ever
shown on the silver screen!) Those are the books that count. As much as
we can learn from Harry, Ron and Hermione, there is so much more we
can learn from the examples of Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov (our
forefathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob). May we merit to spend as much
effort analyzing the Torah, the true source of our real Jewish "magic."

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Jew_Concious: Spiritual MalNutrition

2005-12-20T23:05:00.002+02:00

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.

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Jew_Concious: Boycott "Munich"

2005-12-20T23:05:00.001+02:00

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,

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Jew_Concious: Islam's Most Reliable Ally

2005-12-20T23:05:00.000+02:00

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!

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Jew_Concious: Holocaust USA

2005-12-19T19:05:00.001+02:00

http://lazerbrody.typepad.com/lazer_beams/2005/12/holocaust_usa.html

December 19, 2005

Holocaust USA

My 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!

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Jew_Concious: AntiSemitic and Insane Jews

2005-12-19T19:05:00.000+02:00

(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/

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OrTorah: Jerusalem Talmud Quotes About Shabbat

2005-12-05T02:05:00.000+02:00

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.

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Kolot_JewVoice: Our World: The Jewish refugees

2005-11-30T01:05:00.000+02:00

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/

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OrTorah: "My big fat Amaraic Wedding"

2005-11-23T01:05:00.001+02:00

"My big fat Amaraic Wedding"

by Jay Bushinsky
International 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.

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OrTorah: "Other" Jewish Languages

2005-11-23T01:05:00.000+02:00

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).

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Kolot_JewVoice: A Netzarim (an other Gush Katif abandonned community) Update - Please forward

2005-11-23T00:05:00.000+02:00

Udi <udizinar@bigfoot.com> wrote:

Dear Friends,

I am back in Israel.

It was a long trip, but it was a very good one. Great thanks for all of our friends and supporters who made that trip so fruitful.

The community is in the Negev at a trailer site at Yevul (a 50 family village in the south-western Negev). We are still missing our community facilities and there are no land-line phones as yet. There is hardly any bus service in the area thus our community members who held jobs in other towns have no means of getting to work. We are currently in the process of setting up a shuttle-bus service from the community to a major road intersection where bus service is available. For that purpose we will have to buy a bus ($100,000 - $150,000). It is currently the most important project since it will grant many of our community members the opportunity to make a living.

During my last trip I have met with so many people who are not aware of the situation or do not want to believe what they hear about the situation.

Since we are LIVING the situation and since it IS a national issue (pushing 1800 families of hard working model citizens into poverty has a major impact on them, their friends and family, their past employees etc.) We at the Netzarim Development Fund have decided to take upon ourselves (it was not my idea, though...) to lead an investigation mission that will come to investigate the facts.

The idea is to set up a mission of community key people (Directors, Presidents, Rabbis etc.) who will come to Israel for a short period of time in order to investigate the situation.

Currently, I am in the process of setting up the mission. The dates I have in mind are Dec 11th (leaving NYC) to Dec 16th(back in NYC). I know it is the holiday season but those are the only dates available between Thanksgiving and Xmass.

My commitments to all of you is:

1. It will not be a political mission nor will it serve any political cause.

2. The mission will not serve just one community. The mission will explore the situation amongst ALL of Gush Katif evacuees.

3. The mission will meet with representatives of the evacuees and with the evacuees at their current location (hotels, trailers, tents etc) and with representatives of SELA and the government.

4. This mission is not aimed towards supporting any specific vision - religious or secular. We believe that the outcome of the disengagement plan is a national issue. The people of Gush Katif were hard working model citizens. Many of them provided jobs to many people. Pushing them into poverty is bad for the economy of the state of Israel.

5. The goal of this mission is to raise awareness that will lead to involvement. Many former Gush Katif residents are going to relocate to the Negev. Inhabitating the Negev is a national mission. We believe the involvement of Jewish communities from all over the world will expedite the process.

I believe it is very important to bring the facts to as many communities as possible. This mission is aimed towards doing so.

I believe all Jews should get involved as this is a national issue: observant and non observant, Orthodox, Reform and Conservative - we should all get on board.

I believe the issue of Gush Katif made us all re-think. If this re-thinking process leads to action - all Jews will benefit.

I believe this mission is important because it will create the involvement that will make the state of Israel stronger.

The mission is not sponsored. I am currently working on the program. The program and the cost will be ready by the end of the week.

Those who are willing to participate, please email your name, day and night tel #, city and state. I will personally contact each and everyone of you.

Best regards,

Udi.

Ehud Zinar, Netzarim

Assistant to Chairman

USA:                            Israel

Tel: (1) 212 933-9537           Cell: (972) 54 6366-256

Fax: (1) 603 507-2444           Fax: (972) 3 684-4379

Email: netzarim_fund@bezeqint.net, udizinar@bigfoot.com

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Kolot_JewVoice: The case for Mitzpe Shalhevet

2005-11-17T17:05:00.000+02:00

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.

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OrTorah: Sanhedrin Moves to Establish Council For Noahides

2005-11-17T15:05:00.000+02:00

Sanhedrin Moves to Establish Council For Noahides

01:39 Sep 29, '05 / 25 Elul 5765
By Ezra HaLevi
taken from http://www.israelnationalnews.com/news.php3?id=90646

A council of non-Jewish observers of the Seven Laws of Noah has been selected and will be ordained by the reestablished Sanhedrin in Jerusalem this January.

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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OrTorah: Finding Said to Boost Proof of Goliath

2005-11-13T04:05:00.001+02:00

Finding Said to Boost Proof of Goliath

Associated Press
Thu Nov 10, 7:36 PM
www.comcast.net/news/science/index.jsp?cat=SCIENCE&fn=/2005/11/10/261812.html

JERUSALEM - Archaeologists digging at the purported
biblical home of Goliath have unearthed a shard of
pottery bearing an inscription of the Philistine's
name, a find they claimed lends historical credence to
the Bible's tale of David's battle with the giant.

While the discovery is not definitive evidence of
Goliath's existence, it does support the Bible's
depiction of life at the time the battle was supposed
to have occurred, said Dr. Aren Maeir, a professor at
Bar-Ilan University and director of the excavation.

"What this means is that at the time there were people
there named Goliath," he said. "It shows us that David
and Goliath's story reflects the cultural reality of
the time." In the story, David slew Goliath with a
slingshot.

Some scholars assert the story of David slaying the
giant Goliath is a myth written down hundreds of years
later. Maeir said finding the scraps lends historical
credence to the biblical story.

The shard dates back to around 950 B.C., within 70
years of when biblical chronology asserts David
squared off against Goliath, making it the oldest
Philistine inscription ever found, the archaeologists
said.

Scientists made the discovery at Tel es-Safi, a dig
site in southern Israel thought to be to be the
location of the Philistine city of Gath.

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OrTorah: Kabbalah, Science and Creation -part I,

2005-11-13T04:05:00.000+02:00

Kabbalah, Science and Creation -part I

By Nathan Aviezer
Jewish Action
Fall 5765/2004
posted to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HaTsafon/

In recent years, many religious scientists, I among
them, have written at length about the emerging
harmony between the discoveries of modern science and
the Torah account of Creation (1). In particular, big
bang theory of cosmology provides a scientific
explanation (2,3) for every word and phrase that
appears in the first five verses of Bereishit - the
First Day of Creation. In view of these remarkable
correlations between Torah and science, it is tempting
to explore the other traditional source that discusses
the creation of the universe, namely, kabbalah.

Kabbalah presents a description of Creation that is
very different from the description that appears in
the first chapter of Bereishit. This does not imply
any contradiction between these two accounts of the
same event. Rather, the two versions emphasize
different features. The Torah description deals with
the actual sequence of events (First Day, Second Day,
et cetera), whereas kabbalah stresses the role of God
in the process of Creation and His interactions with
the universe.

Is it possible that the account of creation given by
kabbalah can be correlated with the findings of modern
science? One might object to this question on the
grounds that kabbalah deals with the spiritual realm,
whereas science is restricted to the physical realm.
Nevertheless, one of the principles of kabbalah is
that the spiritual realm of the world above descends,
suitably garbed, to create a physical counterpart in
the world below. Therefore, it is indeed in place to
ask: Can one find features of the physical world that
appear related to kabbalah? As we shall see, the
answer to this question is "yes."

In the past few decades, the physical universe has
been revealed to be a far richer, stranger and more
wonderful place than anyone could have imagined. It
is precisely this subtlety and intricacy of the
physical world that provide the framework for the
various correlations with the spiritual world of
kabbalah.

Kabbalah

There are learned scholars who have spent their entire
lives studying the mysteries of kabbalah. It is
therefore obvious that this essay will not contain a
comprehensive account of the subject. For our
purposes, it is sufficient to concentrate on a few
basic principles.

It should be noted that there are different traditions
in kabbalah. Our presentation will follow the ideas
of the Ari (Rav Isaac Luria, sixteenth century), whose
approach to kabbalah was foreshadowed in the writings
of earlier mukubalim (kabbalists). The views of the
Ari were written down by his most important disciple,
Rav Chaim Vital (4).

One of the basic concepts in kabbalah is the sefirot.
The origin of the term has been understood in various
ways: it is either sefirot, that is, "spheres," or
sapirim, relating to God's "radiating and sparkling,"
or mesaprim, alluding to the Divine cosmos "relating"
the glory of God. The essence of God cannot be known;
we know of God only through His manifestations.
Central to His manifestations are the ten sefirot,
which represent Divine emanations or dimensions. The
idea of exploring the ten sefirot is discussed in
Sefer Yetzirah 1:4:

Ten sefirot from nothingness. Ten and not nine; ten
and not eleven.
Understand with wisdom; be wise with understanding.
Probe with them and explore with them. Establish a
thing in its essence.
And return the Creator to His rightful place.

The Kabbalistic Account of Creation

Kabbalah characterizes God as the Ein-Sof ("without
end"), a limitless and unknowlable infinite realm.
The ten sefirot are configurations of Divine powers
within the Godhead, containing the principles whereby
God manifests Himself to us, and constituting the
vehicle through which God interacts with the universe.

In the beginning, the universe did not exist. The
existence of an entity in addition to the Ein-Sof
would have been impossible, because this would
constitute a limitation on His infinity. To enable
the universe to exist required an act of tzimtzum on
the part of God. The literal meaning of tzimtzum is
"contraction," which the Ari understood as
"withdrawal." Although the Midrash also speaks of the
presence of God undergoing tzimtzum, the idea there is
that His presence contracts and concentrates into a
point. The Ari understood tzimtzum to mean a
contraction and withdrawing away from a point. This
Divine withdrawal made possible the creative processes
leading to an entity - the universe - that could exist
in parallel with the Ein-Sof (5).

God's withdrawal provided a space into which flowed a
ray (kav) of Divine light. The nature and development
of this light is dealt with in kabbalah literature.
What is relevant to our discussion is the effect of
the light on the sefirot or, more accurately, on the
vessels (kelim) associated with each of the ten
sefirot.

The vessels of the first three sefirot managed to
contain the ray of light that flowed into them.
However, as the light struct the following seven
sefirot, it was too powerful to be held by their
vessels, which cracked and shattered, one after
another. This kabbalistic concept is known as "the
breaking of the vessels" (shevirat haKelim).

In the future, through human fulfillment of Torah and
mitzvot, the seven broken sefirot may regain their
perfection, a process known as tikkun. However, until
the era of tikkun, the universe will consist of three
intact and seven broken sefirot.

The Scientific Account of Creation

The branch of science that deals with the origin of
the universe is known as cosmology. In every age and
in every culture, people would look up at the sky and
wonder: What was the origin of the heavenly bodies -
the sun, the moon and the stars? The concept of
Creation was considered an impossibility, because
science asserted that something cannot come from
nothing. Therefore, scientists viewed the universe as
eternal, thus neatly avoiding its origins. The
Bereishit statement that the universe was created
became an arena of conflict between science and Torah.
That is how matters stood for many years.

But this situation has now changed. The twentieth
century has witnessed an unprecedented explosion of
scientific knowledge that was nowhere more dramatic
than in cosmology. Astronomers had been studying the
heavenly bodies for thousands of years, but their
studies dealt almost exclusively with charting the
paths of the stars, planets and comets, and
determining their composition, spectrum and other
properties. The origin of the heavenly bodies
remained a complete mystery. Important advances in
cosmology during the past few decades have, for the
first time, permitted scientists to construct a
coherent history of the origin of the universe.
Today, an overwhelming body of scientific evidence
supports the big bang theory of cosmology (6).

The current scientif status of the big bang theory was
summarized as follows: "The big bang theory works
better than ever." (7) Similar views were expressed
in 1999 by cosmology Brian Greene of Columbia
University:

"The modern theory of cosmic origins [asserts] that
the universe erupted from an enormously energetic
event . the big bang theory of creation is referred to
as the standard model of cosmology." (8)

The most important assertion of the big bang theory is
that the universe was literally created. It is
instructive to quote some of the world's foremost
authorities.

Nobel laureate Paul Dirac, a major architect of
twentieth-century physics, writes: "It seems certain
that there was a definite time of creation." (9)
Leading cosmologist Stephen Hawking writes: "The
creation lies outside the scope of the presently known
laws of physics." (10)

When cosmologists use the term "creation," to what are
they referring? Precisely what object was created?
Scientists have discovered that the universe began
with the sudden appearance of an enormous ball of
light, called the "primeval light-ball." This
"explosion of light" was dubbed the "big bang" by the
British astrophysicist, Fred Hoyle. (11) The remnant
of this primeval light-ball was first detected in 1965
by two American physicists, Arno Penzias and Robert
Wilson, who were awarded the Nobel prize for physics
for their discovery.

Comparing Kabbalah with Science

Let us summarize the three features of the kabbalah
account of Creation:
1. The universe began through an act of creation;
2. Divine light played a central role in the creation
and
3. There exist three intact sefirot and seven broken
sefirot. Our task is to relate these features of the
kabbalah account of Creation to the scientific theory
of the creation of the universe.

The first feature of the kabbalah account deals with
an event - the Creation. Correspondingly, the big
bang theory of cosmology asserts that the universe was
indeed created. Today, it is hardly possible to carry
on a meaningful discussion of cosmology without the
creation of the universe assuming a central role.

The second and third features of the kabbalah account
deal with entities - the Divine light and the ten
sefirot. According to kabbalah, as stated previously,
every entity of the spiritual world above descends,
suitably garbed, into the physical realm of the world
below. Therefore, the physical counterparts to the
Divine light and the ten sefirot are to be sought in
the world below.

The physical counterpart of the Divine light of
kabbalah is the primeval light of the big bang. The
standard theory of cosmology asserts that the entity
that was created at the beginning of time was an
enormous ball of light, popularly known as the big
bang and hence, the name of the theory. With
appropriate instrumentation, one can still observe the
remnant of this primeval light that dates back to the
very origins of time.

The difficulty resides in the third feature of the
kabbalah account of Creation. What might be the
physical counterpart of the ten sefirot? Since the
sefirot are often described as the "dimensions of
God," we propose that the physical counterpart of the
sefirot in the world below are the spatial dimensions
of the universe. According to this proposal, the
three intact sefirot correspond to the three familiar
dimensions of space: east-west, north-south, up-down.

This brings us to the crux of the problem: The total
number of sefirot is ten. Is there any sense in which
one can speak of a ten-dimensional universe? And what
is meant by the broken sefirot? Is there such a thing
as a broken dimension?

These questions are answered by string theory, (12)
the modern scientific description of the universe.
String theory asserts that the universe consists of
ten spatial dimensions. This discovery has generated a
great deal of excitement. On the cover of a recent
scientific journal, the following words appeared:
"String Theory and Space-Time with Eleven Dimensions."
(13, 14) The eleven dimensions of space-time posited
by string theory consist of one time dimension and ten
spatial dimensions.

Of the ten spatial dimensions, three are the usual
dimensions previously mentioned (up-down, east-west,
north-south), while the other seven dimensions have
become "compacted" (in the language of string theory)
and, as a result, are not directly accessible to our
senses. This is why it was previously thought that we
inhabit a universe of only three dimensions.

The importance of these amazing scientific statements
lies in the fact that they imply a correspondence
between science (string theory) and kabbalah. One may
identify the physical counterpart of the seven broken
sefirot of kabbalah with the seven compacted
dimensions asserted by string theory.

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Kolot_JewVoice: Were Being Robbed! - by Batya Medad

2005-11-09T14:50:00.000+02:00

Were Being Robbed! by Batya Medad
Wednesday, November 9, 2005
posted to http://www.theraphi.com/medad/wbr.html

Just as we were trying to figure out which communities in Judea and Samaria are, G-d forbid, next in line for extinction and destruction, we were shocked to discover that Mount Zion, including Davids Tomb is being offered to the descendents of the Crusaders, the same guys who brought us the Inquisition more than half a millennium ago.

If you havent yet heard, and Israels President Katzav claims to be in the dark about this scandal, even though the government is planning on using him to sign the contract. Yes, Im calling it a contract, rather than an agreement, since its a business deal involving millions, tens of millions of Euros, which are worth more than dollars. Honestly, it is possible that Katzav knows nothing about it. In Israel, the president is a figurehead to be wheeled out to smile and shake hands at formal occasions.

Katzav, a traditional Jew, keeps a kippah handy in his pocket for religious needs, and besides a ready smile, he seems pretty robotic to me. He succeeded Ezer Weitzman, his polar opposite in personality and life-style. Thats one of the reasons, probably the main reason he was elected.

Its strange that even though Katzavs office professes ignorance and the mainstream newspapers are at best playing it down and even worse most are ignoring it, a group of Anglos have had little trouble discovering the details. Sharon Katzs Voices Magazine will be running an article on the subject.

Investigations have shown that the scheme was hatched by Avraham Poraz, of the anti-religious Shinui Party, when he was the Minister of the Interior. He promised to facilitate the deal during a visit to Rome over a year ago. The Shinui Party is no longer a member of the coalition. Previous Israeli officials, such as Rabbi Benny Elon of the National Union and former Minister of Tourism did everything to veto it.

The deal to give away Mount Zion to the Catholic Church has been totally ignored by the Hebrew press. Not even the religious Jewish papers have written about it. Every time I mention it to neighbors they are in shock and cant figure out why they have been kept in the dark.

Not a peep has been heard from the politicians. It seems like all the activity is from some bloggers and emailers in English. From the amount of letters coming in to our computer, youd think it was the biggest issue in the country, but unfortunately its not true. Nobody else seems to know anything.

I cant believe that nobody cares.

Even if the area in question hadnt been the location of a yeshiva, The Diaspora Yeshiva, for over thirty five years, its still of great religious and historical importance for the Jewish People. It shouldnt be given, sold or leased to any other religion. Its a travesty of justice. Why are the civil rights of Jews always ignored?

On Friday I was the demonstration outside of the Presidents Residence against his signing the agreement. We were a very small group, and only one politician showed, Jerusalem City Councilwoman, Mina Fenton. She seems to be the only person in the municipality showing any interest, and she had more information, and it was bad news.

Its like living in the Theatre of the Absurd. Giving the Catholic Church such a holy Jewish Landmark endangers our existence.

Our disengaged government is out to destroy the country, G-d forbid. Lets get to work. We have a country to save.

*****
Batya Medad, special to TheRaphi.com, and her husband made aliyah from New York in 1970 two months after their wedding. They have five children and two granddaughters and have lived in Shiloh since 1981. Batya hitchhikes to and from Beit El, where she teaches English in the Yeshiva High School B´nai Binyamin. Author's Website

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OrTorah: The Convergence of Torah and Science

2005-11-09T14:49:00.000+02:00

The Convergence of Torah and Science*
by Prof. Paul Eidelberg
Wednesday, November 9, 2005
taken from http://www.theraphi.com/ppe/tcotas.html

Israels survival ultimately depends on national unity. Nothing is more conducive to unity than revealing the convergence of Torah and science. Hence the importance of Gerald L. Schroeders book, The Science of God: The Convergence of Scientific and Biblical Wisdom. This essay is very much indebted to his work.

Dr. Schroeder, a physicist, writes: Of all the ancient accounts of creation, only that of Genesis has warranted a second reading by the scientific community. It alone records a sequence of events that approaches the scientific account of our cosmic origin.[1] Dr. Schroeder has especially in mind the Big Bang theory. Based on Einsteins general theory of relativity, the abundance of evidence confirming the Big Bang has made creatio ex nihilo the reigning cosmological principle in the community of scientists. The dogma of the eternity of the universe, which held sway for millennia in philosophy and science as well as among eastern religions, has thus been discarded. In fact, more and more astronomers, astrophysicists, physicists, and mathematicianshitherto atheists or agnosticsnow admit that the universe, having had a Beginning, must have had a Beginner.

Genesis 1:1, In the beginning God created (bara) the heavens and the earth contains a unique and seldom used word in the Torah, namely, bara. This word, translated as created, has as its primary definition bringing into existence something that did not exist before. In Genesis 1:1, bara means creation from nothing. Here nothing signifies the absence of matter and energy as well as the dimensions of space and timehence nothing which any human being can detect and measure. The Big Bang theory therefore accords with the Genesis account of Creation. How did scientists arrive at the big bang?

When Einstein proposed his theory of general relativity in 1916, the cosmological doctrine of an eternal universe held in a static state throughout infinite time reigned supreme. Although his field equations predicted an expanding universe, Einstein was trying to construct a static model universe that would not collapse as a result of its own self-gravitation. But since Hubbles discovery in 1929 of the recession of the galaxies, the theory of an expanding universe has dominated cosmology.[2] Knowing the rate at which the universe is expanding, one can extrapolate backwards to determine the size of the universe in the beginning, that is, at the moment when expansion began. At that moment, about 15 billion (Earth) years ago, the entire universeall the galaxies, with their millions of stars, the dust and gas, the intergalactic matter, all the energy and even the four dimensions of space and timewas squeezed into an atomic nucleus or singularity of infinite or near infinite density, temperature, and pressure. That singularity, at which all known physics come to an end, was itself created (bara) from nothing. From that singularity, whose volume is very much smaller than the period at the end of this sentence, the universe burst forth and expanded, and it continues to expand. What an incredible and unintended confirmation, by scienceindeed, by a Jew who was not even a believerof the infinite power and majesty of God! Strange indeed are Gods ways. Strange too that estimates of the age of the universe from Jewish sources antedating the fifteenth century range from 2.5 to 17.5 billion years.[3]

Ponder, therefore, the words of the great Torah scholar and Kabalist Nahmanides (1194-1270). Commenting on Genesis 1:1 some seven hundred and fifty years ago, Nahmanides writes:
The Holy One, blessed be He, created all things from absolute non-existence. Now we have no expression in the sacred language for bringing [into existence] something from nothing other than the word bara (created). Everything that exists under the sun or above was not made from non-existence at the outset. Instead He brought forth from total and absolute nothing a very thin substance devoid of corporeality but having a power of potency, fit to assume form and to proceed from potentiality into reality. This was the primary matter created by God.[4]

This primary matter is nothing other than energy, which can be converted into matter (and vice versa) according to Einsteins celebrated formula E=mc2. Commenting further on the first verse of Genesis, Nahmanides says, with this creation, which was like a very small point having no substance, everything in the heavens and on the earth was created. That point, of course is the previously mentioned singularity from which the Big Bang originated. Nahmanides derived this knowledge from the Talmud (ca. 500 CE). Physics has thus confirmed the first verse of Genesis, whose meaning was known 1,500 years ago by Rabbis who had received this secret knowledge via the oral tradition going back to the time of Moses. However, more fundamental than energy is wisdom: With wisdom God created the heavens and the earth. (See Proverbs 3:19.)

Since the reliability of the evidence confirming the Big Bang depends primarily on the accuracy of general relativitys predictions about the dynamics of the universe, consider the following. General relativity predicts that, over time, two neutron stars orbiting about one another will radiate so much gravitational energy that they will spiral inward toward one another causing their orbital periods to speed up. With measurements extending over twenty years (1974-1994), general relativity was confirmed over all to an accuracy of no more than one part in a hundred trillion. This prompted physicist Roger Penrose to say, This makes Einsteins general relativity, in this particular sense, the most accurately tested theory known to science.[5] In fact, no other theory of physics has ever been tested in so many different contexts and so rigorously; general relativity has withstood all these tests, which solidifies the Big Bang theory.

Given the infinite or near infinite temperature of the singularity which exploded in the Big Bang, one of the predicted consequences of this explosion is cosmic background radiation. The most compelling evidence of such radiationwhich evidence showed how the galaxies were formed out of the Big Bangwas provided in the 1992 findings of the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) satellite. Theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking (a reputed atheist) said, It is the discovery of the century, if not of all time. Astronomer George Smoot declared, What we have found is evidence of the birth of the universe. Its like looking at God.[6]

Many other kinds of evidence confirming the Big Bang theory have been accumulated. Consider the Anthropic Principle, which has been elaborated during the last three decades, and which postulates a linkage between the structure of the universe and the prerequisites of human existence. The Anthropic Principle suggests a Creator-God concerned about man. Michael A. Corey writes:

The gravitational constant (G), for instance, appears to be exceedingly fine-tuned for the existence of life. If it were slightly larger, stars would have burned too hot and much too quickly to support the fragile needs of life; but if it were slightly smaller, the intrastellar process of nuclear fusion would have never initiated, and life would have been incapable of arising here.
This same rationale can also be applied to the expansion rate of the nascent universe If the expansion rate happened to be slightly greater than the presently observed value, life-supporting galaxies would have been unable to form; but if it were slightly smaller, the early universe would have collapsed back in on itself shortly after the Big Bang. Either way and no life forms would have been possible.
This is significant, because the various parameters that comprise the cosmic expansion rate [mass density of the universe, the explosive vigor of the Big Bang, and the strength of the gravitational constant] also had to be fine-tuned to better than one part in 1060 in order to generate a flat universe, so that normal Euclidian geometry (in which the sum of a triangles three angles add up to 180 degrees) could then become applicable. A similar degree of fine-tuning can be found throughout the remainder of natures fundamental parameters.
The challenge is to find a plausible explanation for this fine-tuning. According to the British mathematical physicist Roger Penrose, the odds that our biocentric universe could have accidentally evolved into its present fine-tuned configuration are an astounding one in 10 to the 10123, which is a number so vast that it couldnt be written on a piece of paper the size of the entire visible universe. This is why many theorists have posited the existence of a super-calculating intellect to account for this fine-tuning.[7]

The fine-tuning of the universe includes dozens of parameters whose values must fall within narrowly defined ranges for physical life of any sort to exist. Mention may also be made of the ratio of the number of protons to electrons, the carbon to oxygen energy level ratio, the speed of light (299,792,458 kilometers per second), and the fine structure constant necessary for DNA to function.

Although the validity of the Anthropic Principle has been challenged by various scientists, its general formulation is consistent with the Torah, according to which the universe was created for man. Scientist and former skeptic Fred Hoyle concludes that a superintellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology. Paul Davies has moved from promoting atheism to conceding, It seems as though somebody has fine-tuned natures numbers to make the Universe. The impression of design is overwhelming. No less than Stephen Hawking concedes: It would be very difficult to explain why the universe should have begun in just this way, except as the act of a God who intended to create beings like us.[8] But let us return to the big bang.

Since the Big Bang theory entails a finite universe, the question arises: What is there beyond? Outside the universe there is no space. The notion of emptiness, as opposed to fullness, applies only inside the universe. It bears repeating that space was created at the moment of the big bang. Hence there are no dimensions outside the universe (and of course the human mind reasons and calculates in terms of spatial dimensions). The same applies to time. The question of what went on before the big bang is meaningless, since time itself was created with that awesome event.

Leaving aside the two religions derived from Judaism, only the Torah unambiguously states that time is finite, that time has a beginning, and that God created time, as should now ring true from the Genesis account of Creation. Indeed, Dr. Schroeder, using Einsteins equation for gravitational time dilation, shows that the duration and events of the billions of years which followed the big bang, and the events of the first six days of Genesis, are in fact one and the same!

Here are some relevant passages from his The Science of God. Schroeder suggests that we read the opening chapter of Genesis a few times, paying particular attention to the description of the events and the flow of time related to those events. Then read any other chapter in the entire Bible, again concentrating on the flow of events and the related flow of time. Note how the context changes. The description of time in the Bible is divided into two categories: the first six days and all the time thereafter.

During those six days, blocks of time are described and then we are told that a day passed. This is repeated in a totally objective fashion six times. There is no intimate relation between the events and the passage of time. Rather, we are told that the land and waters separated, plant life appeared, And there was evening and there was morning a third day (Gen. 1:9-13). No hint is given for the time each of these major events took.
With the appearance of humankind the accounting changes dramatically. The events now become the cause of the flow of time. Adam and Eve live 130 years and are the parents of Seth (Genesis 4:25; 5:3). Seth lived 105 years and is father to Enoch (Gen. 5:6). The passage of time is totally tied to the earthly events being described. These are indeed years of an earthly calendar.
Now heres a puzzle. If, as th[e] ancient commentators claimed, the six days of Genesis are twenty-four-hour days, then why not include them in the calendar? Why not have the calendar start six days earlier? And why must these commentators tell me the days are twenty-four hours each? The Bible says day. I know a day takes twenty-four hours to pass. Why did they think I would think otherwise?
[Actually] our questions were anticipated thousands of years ago. The six days are not included in the calendar because within those (six twenty-four-hour) days are all the secrets and ages of the universe. The confusion mounts. How can six days contain the ages of the universe? And if they are truly ages, then why refer to them as days?
The ancient realization that somehow the days of Genesis contained the generations of the cosmos is based on two biblical verses: These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created in the day that the Eternal God made the earth and the heavens (Gen. 2:4); and This is the book of the generations of Adam in the day that God created Adam (Gen. 5:1). In both verses, generations are juxtaposed to days [that is, to one day] of Genesis.
If the six twenty-four-hour days of Genesis were adequate to include all the days of the universe, the cosmic flow from the creation at the big bang to the creation of humankind, we clearly require an understanding of time that is not obvious to our unaided senses. Albert Einstein provided that understanding.
The law of relativity tells us that the flow of time at a location with high gravity or high velocity is actually slower than at a location with lower gravity or lower velocity. This means that the duration between ticks of a clock in the high-G (or high-V) environment is actually longer than the duration between ticks on a clock in the low-G (or low-V) environment. These differences in times passage are known as time dilation.[9]

After explaining the equality between the six days of Genesis and fifteen billion Earth years during which the entire universe was created, Dr. Schroeder refers to Nahmanides above quoted commentary on Genesis 1:1, and points out that the great Kabalist learned from his teachers that the first word of the Bible, beresheet In the beginning ofmeans in the beginning of time. Biblical time thus begins with the appearance of matteran extraordinary insight. Of course, it remained for the mathematics of general relativity to show how the six days of Creation recorded in Genesis is equal to fifteen billion (Earth) years.

It follows from the preceding discussion that the modern dichotomy between science and religion, or rather, between science and the Torah, has been placed in question by science itself. Indeed, a recent scientific article in one of the foremost international journals of physics bears the title, Creation of the Universe from Nothing:

At the 1990 meeting of the American Astronomical Society, Professor John Mather of Columbia University, an astrophysicist who also served on the staff of NASAs Goddard Center, presented the most dramatic support ever for an open universe [i.e., one which supports a cosmological proof of Gods existence]. According to a journalist present, Mathers keynote address was greeted with thunderous applause, which led the meetings chairman, Dr. Geoffrey Burbidge [an atheist astronomer], to comment: It seems clear that the audience is in favor of the book of Genesisat least the first verse or so, which seems to have been confirmed.[10]

This is only the beginning!

Footnotes:

[1] Gerald L. Schroeder, The Science of God: The Convergence of Scientific and Biblical Wisdom (New York: Broadway Books, 1997), p. 80.

[2] See Hugh Ross, The Creator and the Cosmos (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2001), pp. 24-25.

[3] See Aryeh Carmell & Cyril Domb, Challenge: Torah Views on Science and Its Problems (Jerusalem: Feldheim, 1976), p. 282, n. 10.

[4] Ramban (Nachmanides), Commentary on the Torah (5 vols.; New York: Shilo Publishing House, 1971). I, 23, Chavel trans.

[5] Cited in Ross, p. 104.

[6] Cited in ibid., p. 31.

[7] Extracted from the Internet.

[8] Quotes in this paragraph are cited in Ross, pp. 157, 159.

[9] Schroeder, pp. 45-47.

[10] Cited in Lawrence Kelemen, Permission to Believe: Four Rational Approaches to Gods Existence (Jerusalem: Targum/Feldheim, 1990), p. 40.

*(The Jerusalem Post recently published rather superficial articles regarding the relationship between science and religion. No mention was made of Dr. Gerald L. Schroeders illuminating work on the subject. Hence this essay, which is based on my latest book A Jewish Philosophy of History.)

*****
Prof. Eidelberg, special to TheRaphi.com, is a political scientist, author and lecturer; co-founder and president of The Foundation For Constitutional Democracy and is the President of the Yamin Israel movement.

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Kolot_JewVoice: Mt. Zion Situation - Please Help

2005-11-02T12:18:00.000+02:00

Mt. Zion Situation - Please Help

posted by shelomo@alfassa.com to the forum NetEsnoga@yahoogroups.com

Friends,

In October the Vatican paper 'El Messagero' reported Israel may sign
an agreement handing over part of Kever David HaMelech (the
traditional tomb of King David) on Mt. Zion to the Roman Catholic
Church. For many years the Vatican has wanted the room they describe
as the "Last Supper Room" of which all historians agree, is not the
location where a supposed event of the same name ever took place. In
exchange for handing this location over to the Church, the Jews
(Israel) would receive the Santa Maria La Blanca Church in Toledo,
Spain. Of course we all know there are no Jews left in Toledo after
being chased out in the 14th century with the violent pogroms.

We have come to learn that the President of Israel is not only
working to hand over part of the Mt. Zion Complex to the Church, but
the Church is going to build a Vatican annex or complex there. This
would be their first of more steps. We have assembled a great
international team and ISFSP is leading the charge to put pressure
(in a respectful way) to have President Katsav not sign this deal. He
is going to the Vatican in 2 weeks.

Please visit this website and learn more, see documents, and most of
all, HEAR a shocking interview with Rabbi Herman of Mt. Zion where
talks about what the Church plans to do with that portion of
Jerusalem--its shocking.

http://www.isfsp.org/zion.html

We need letter to the president, we need you to contact the media.

Shelomo

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Kolot_JewVoice: [Tsedakah] Appeal from Tsfat, Israel

2005-11-01T19:49:00.000+02:00

Dear Friends: We are turning to you on behalf of the 70 children in the City of Tsfat, Israel. A hot lunch was provided until recently for 200 children in grades 1-8. The monthly cost to the parents for this program is approx. $ 30 per child. There are seventy children whose parents cannot afford to pay for their childs hot lunch. The parents of these children are unable to provide their children with any lunch at all. We are asking you to help sponsor the hot lunch of one child for one month at a cost of $ 30. For this amount of money you will be providing a Jewish child with a nutritious meal for one year so that he will be able to learn properly. Please help us help these children! Checks should be made out to American Friends of Tsfat and mailed to: American Friends of Tsfat 20 Dawson Ave. West Orange, NJ 07052 For those who wish I can email letters of support from the Mayor of Tsfat and Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu, the Chief Rabbi of Tsfat. All contributions to American Friends of Tsfat are tax deductible. Sincerely: Eliezer Greenspan Israel Office: P.O. Box 6194, Tsfat 13410, Israel U.S. Office: 20 Dawson Ave. West Orange, NJ 07052 Tel: 973-954-2399

Kolot_JewVoice: Project Warm Up-"Warming bodies...touching souls"

2005-11-01T17:38:00.000+02:00

Project Warm Up-"Warming bodies...touching souls"

by EduPlanet Rectorate (daniEl I. Ginerman) - Tuesday, 1 November 2005, 03:12 AM

Project Warm Up-"Warming bodies...touching souls"

posted to rammod@yahoogroups.com A very good friend of mine from Jerusalem, Lori Lurie, has initiated a project to provide a new warm winter jacket for every person from Gush Katif and northern Shomron who was forced to leave their home. Lori has been able to get these jackets from the distributor at cost and has begun distributing them this week. The boys from Shevet Maalot will be coming around on Tuesday afternoon to collect for this worthwhile cause. Your donation of 36 shekels (twice "chai") will purchase a warm jacket. Please give generously. Contributions are tax deductible both here and in the US. If you prefer to bring the money directly to me you are welcome to do so. If anyone wants to pass this on to friends or relatives in chutz la'aretz, the address is Project "Warm-Up" P.O. Box 8431 Jerusalem 91084 projectwarmup@hotmail.com Thank you and tizku lemitzvot, Chevi Schrader Hatirosh 14 If you have any questions you can call me at 9761290 or 054-6467739

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Kolot_JewVoice: An Open Letter to American (Orthodox) Jewry

2005-10-31T22:21:00.000+02:00

An Open Letter to American (Orthodox) Jewry

from Orit in Tel Aviv
http://israelnn.com/article.php3?id=5679

sent by HaDaR-Israel@verizon.net to OhaveiEretzYisrael@yahoogroups.com
First, I'd like to thank you, America, for being a wonderful host to
me after the terrible Disengagement. It was nice to spend time with
my family in sunny Los Angeles, relax with manicures and pedicures,
and zone out to the latest TV shows. I was able to gather new
strength, gain new perspectives, and clarify my mission to go back to
Israel and change a country.

However, it was less fun to go to shul on the High Holidays at my
folks' Modern Orthodox synagogue. Services were terribly boring. But
what really annoyed me was that no one talked about Gush Katif. The
sermons that I heard (or didn't fall asleep to) mentioned Katrina a
lot, but rabbis were eerily silent on the topic of the Disengagement.
I find this a little disturbing, because all throughout the holidays
we pray for the joy and peace of Israel; yet, while thousands of
Israelis are in a state of suffering, uncertainty and confusion, no
one seems to care, even though the liturgy expresses otherwise.

It was also interesting that on the holiest day of the Jewish
calendar, when we're supposed to reflect rigorously on the state of
our soul, no one really talked about the fate-altering Disengagement.
This certainly should have been a hot topic on the Day of Atonement,
but again, it was easily evaded, if it was even on anyone's minds.
And still, we prayed - all day - for righteousness, honesty and peace
of mind - personal and national.

But, in America at least, Judaism is not about the Jewish people
anymore. Judaism is about having a nice life and wearing nice outfits
to shul, where you can network with equally smart, successful and
well-dressed people. It's about saying morning and evening prayers
because it feels holy and idealistic, and, hey, everyone wants to
feel good about themselves.

For many American Jews, Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur seemed all about
how to continue living a nice, suburban life. The Torah might as well
be a Tony Robbins self-help book, because it outlines great
techniques for living, sprinkled with a few historic traditions and
ethical codes.

I realized, during my nice stay with you, that you say you care, but
deep down, I don't think you really do. You say you love Israel and
that you are Zionists, but I don't think you really are. You see,
Judaism is not about nationalism to you. Judaism is not about a
people living free, independent and strong in their homeland; it's
about having a nice house, a good parnasa, and a way of life that's
safe and comfortable.

That's why many of you (and there are exceptions), didn't really like
talking about the Disengagement. That's why some of you were even
happy that it occurred, and that America was appeased, because God
forbid, your generous host - your real nation -- would be mad at you
otherwise. As soon as you have to take a stand or interrupt your
lifestyle, you retreat to your prayer books and everyday say words
like:

"Blessed are You, HaShem, Who redeems Israel, Who gathers the
dispersed of Israel, Who loves righteousness and judgment, Who breaks
His enemies and humbles wanton sinners, Who builds Jerusalem, Who
sprouts the rays of redemption, Who restores His Presence to Zion."

These are supposed to be your values, but are they? Do you mean these
prayers? Do you want these blessings? No, you do not. Because if you
did, you'd be taking a lot more risks for Israel than you are now.
You'd seriously consider - and what a thought! - fulfilling the
mitzvah of living in the country. You'd save some money, pick-up your
family, and take part in realizing your prayers - the ingathering of
the exiles, the building of Jerusalem, the restoration of Zion - no
matter how difficult it will be.

Or maybe the flaws are in the prayers and the Diaspora Jews who
penned them long ago, because it's easy to absolve all responsibility
to HaShem and just say, "HaShem restores Zion, HaShem breaks His
enemies, I don't have to do a thing!" But HaShem once said, through
his prophet Isaiah, "Of what are your great many sacrifices to me? I
am full of the burnt-offerings and the fat of fed beasts." Prayers
are considered the modern-day substitute for animal sacrifices, and
HaShem's sick of them. He doesn't want your new moon and Shabbat
invocations - HaShem calls them "iniquity." He says that you can pray
all you want, but he won't answer them.

HaShem wants us to do what's right and to seek justice - thus says
Isaiah.

But Torah is not about doing what's right anymore, is it? It's about
making enough money to send kids to Jewish day schools, so that one
day, they could also have a big house and two cars in the same
neighborhood and send their kids to the same school and shul, and so
on and so forth, forever.

And when Israel is at war with her neighbors, and her people are
dying, they'll continue to send their kids to Jewish day schools, and
say the same prayers in the same shul, and maybe they'll send some
money to Israel, but they'll be glad they are in their beloved
America. When Judaism is too difficult, why put yourself on the line?
Why risk your life or your lifestyle? Why shed blood? After all, it's
only a religion.

And I wouldn't want you to risk your life for a religion. But it's
not a religion we're talking about. It's about a nation - the Jewish
nation and its people - me, you, your spouse, your kids, your
parents. It's about fighting for what is right and pursing justice.
But that doesn't seem to be too important these days.

So, farewell America. I had a good time. You're a good friend, you
can be there for me in difficult times, but I have to catch a plane
and start finding myself some justice.

Be`ahavath Israel from HaDaR
A Torah-wing Jew ("religious fanatic, gun-toting settler")
from Qiryath Arba Hebron
=====================================================
=========
He who is merciful with the cruel, will end-up being cruel to the
merciful - Kohelet Rabba 7:16
=====================================================
=========

When terrorists kill a Jew in Erets Israel , there are two responsible
parties: the terrorists
and the government that allows it. - Rav Meir Kahana

=====================================================
THE TORAH ON WALLS AND FENCES:

"He [your enemy] shall besiege you in all your gates, until the fall
of the tall and fortified walls in which you trust throughout your
land..." -- Deut. 28, 52

Ezekiel Chapter 13:
10 Because-, even because they have led My people astray, saying:
Peace, and
there is no peace; and when it buildeth up a wall, behold, they daub it
with
whited plaster; 11 say unto them that daub it with whited plaster, that
it
shall fall;
=======================================================
"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch.
Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote!"
-Benjamin Franklin (1706 - 1790) US Founding Father-
=======================================================
Every drop of Jewish blood spilled by Arab terror, is on the hands of
ALL those who refuse
to work for the removal of these blood-thirsty beasts from among us.
They cannot say:
"Our hands did not spill that blood." - HaDaR -
=====================================================
"The question is not how can we remove the Arabs, but rather how can we
not"?
Rabbi Meir Kahane, ZTUQ"L, HI"D, "They Must Go", 1981, p.245
=====================================================
Woe unto them that call evil good and good evil.
(Isaiah 5,20)
=====================================================
"At a time of universal deceit - telling the truth is a revolutionary
act." (George Orwell)
=====================================================
"You declare, my friend, that you do not hate the Jews, you are
merely anti-Zionist.
And I say, let the truth ring forth from the highest mountaintops.
Let it echo through the valleys of God's green earth.
When people criticize Zionism, they mean Jews.
Zionism is nothing less than the dream and ideal of the Jewish people
returning to live in their own land." (Martin Luther King)
=====================================================
"Lots of bad editorials are better than a beautiful obituary."
-an old Israeli saying from the times before "Lemmings Disease" and
"Osloporosis" struck most of the country-
=====================================================
"The strength of the prophets of Israel lay in the fact that they
proclaimed the Truth
when everything was against it." - Andre Malraux -
=====================================================
Pacifism is objectively pro-Fascist. This is elementary common sense.
If you hamper the war effort of one side, you automatically help out
that of the other.
(George Orwell, Partisan Review, 1942)
=====================================================

"A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it
cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less
formidable, for he is known and he carries his banners openly. But
the traitor moves among those within the gate freely, his sly
whispers rustling through all the galleys, heard in the very hall of
government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor - he speaks
in the accents familiar to his victims, and wears their face and
their garment, and he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the
hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation - he works secretly
and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of a city - he
infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer
is less to be feared." -Cicero, 42 B.C.E.-
===================================================

"No Jew has the right to yield the rights of the Jewish People in
Israel. No Jew has the authority to do so. No Jewish body has the
authority to do so. Not even the entire Jewish People alive today
has the right to yield any part of Israel.

It is the right of the Jewish People over the generations, a right
that under no conditions can be cancelled. Even if Jews during a
specific period proclaim they are relinquishing this right, they have
neither the power nor the authority to deny it to future generations.
No concession of this type is binding or obligates the Jewish People.

Our right to the land - the entire land - exists as an eternal
right, and we shall not yield this historic right until its full and
complete redemption is realised."
-David Ben Gurion - at the Zionist Congress in Basel, Switzerland, in
1937

"If it is crazy to be Jewish and to prefer Jewish law, then lock us all up in mental institutions"

2005-10-28T06:02:00.000+02:00

After more than two months of media censorship and silence, the shameful story of the Israeli government prosecution and persecution of a 16-year-girl for her political and religious beliefs has broken through the media ban. The story of Tziviya Sariel of Elon Moreh finally hit the papers and her uncle was about to be interviewed on Israeli Channel 2, when an Israeli court issued a gag order against any publicity concerning her case.

Tziviya has been languishing in an Israeli jail for women, without bail for more than 60 days charged with involvment in anti government protests following the expulsion of Jews from Northern Shomron. She has angered the Israeli authorities by refusing to recognize the secular Israeli legal system, demanding to be tried before a Rabbinic court. This new trend of Jews demanding trials according to Torah law has caused absolute hysteria among many Israeli judges. The judge presiding over Tziviya's trial actually ordered Tziviyah to be sent for psychiatric evaluation because of her insistance to be tried in a Torah court.

The fact that Tziviya's case has now broken through government censorship has embarrassed the prosecutor and the courts to bring forward her next trial date to this coming Monday October 31, 05. Tziviya's family is urging the public to attend a protest outside the Kfar Saba courthouse, Monday 8:00 AM. The family will be holding signs that read: "If it is crazy to be Jewish and to prefer Jewish law, then lock us all up in mental institutions."

"The use of psychological repression against political rivals with opposing ideological beliefs is a tactic used by repressive regimes and has no place in the land of Israel. We hope to deliver thousands of signed petitions to the President of Israel against this insanity," said Yekutiel Ben Yaakov of Mishalot Yisrael.

To sign the petition visit http://www.voiceofjudea.com/eng/petition.asp

send contributions for campaign to Mishalot Yisrael - Jaffa Rd 210/14 Jerusalem, Israel

http://www.voiceofjudea.com

Mike - 0544876709

A Star of Israel State-owned TV lobbying for Palestine and Peace Now

2005-10-28T06:01:00.000+02:00

A Star of Israel State-owned TV lobbying for Palestine and Peace Now on a
Jewish Holiday

Monday, 24 October, 2005
Susie Dym, spokesperson - Mattot Arim sddym@bezeqint.net
sent to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/OhaveiEretzYisrael/

Chaim Yavin, state-owned Israel TV's prime-time news show host, will give a
Peace Now-funded virulently anti-settlement presentation for a Palestinian
lobby group, the ATFP, in Washington DC. The event was scheduled&nb;
sp;for Tuesday 25 October - although this date is a Jewish and Israeli national
holiday (Shmini Atzeret abroad - Simchat Torah in Israel).

The ATFP -- American Task Force on Palestine -- is a Palestinian lobby group
endorsed by Abu Mazen and others. Information characterizing this
Palestinian lobby group appears below -- along with a reproduction of the
email sent out by the group to its distribution list regarding Y avin.

The Yavin presentation, which has been shown here in Israel, consists of a
film about the Jews of Yesha. Billed by Yavin as a "documentary", the film is in
fact partisan and one-sided, having been described even by the liberal New
York Times as "angry" and "intensely personal". Israel's Yediot Achronot,
hardly a friend of the settlement movement, described the film as being crafted
to inspire viewers to "get up next S aturday, go to the settlement nearest to his
place of residence, and drag its inhabitants, kicking and screaming, across
the road".

Israel State TV broadcasts news nightly on Channel 1. Yavin has been the
anchor for decades. Yavin's salary comes not from the private sector but from
the budget of the State of Israel - and from a tax levied by the State on all
Israeli television set owners. Therefore, most newsmen working under and
with Yavin are strict ly prohibited from publicly promoting contraversial
positions. How then, could Yavin be entitled to do this? We are informed by
Israel's Media Watch (www.imw.org.il) that technically, Yavin is not an
employee of the Israel Broadcasting Authority. He has circumvented this
status by establishing a "company" which employs one person only - himself.
He has a contract to supply services to the Israel Broadcasting Authori ty in
the form of Yavin. The contract between this company and the Israel
Broadcasting Authority is such as to allow Yavin to work for anyone he wants
to -- whereas all other IBA workers are contractually prohibited for working for
anyone else without IBA's express permission.

Minister Ehud Olmert is responsible for Israel State TV. Is there anything
specific t hat Minister Olmert can do -- since after all the contract between the
Israel Broadcasting Authority and Yavin is a fait accompli? The answer is
YES:
a. Olmert can take official note of the fact that Yavin's behavior, even if legal, is
unprofessional. He can state that Yavin's contract will not be renewed. He can
embarrass Yavin by publicly asking him to resign.
b. A minimalistic alternative to (a) is that Olmert can clarify to Yavin that if he
chooses to continue appearing on behalf of contraversial, pro-Palestinian
concerns, his contract will, as a result, not be renewed.
c. Olmert can close the Yavin loophole by issuing the following obvious
instruction to the IBA's legal advisor: that all contracts with "companies" like
Yavin's must in future include clauses prohibiting Israel TV stars from taking
unfair advantage of the publicity they receive to promote causes which are
objected to by Yavin's captive audience -- the Israeli taxpayer.

If you would like to encourage Minister Olmert, the Israel Broadcasting
Authority and Israel TV to stop Yavin's unprofessional behavior, please simply
forward this email to the followi ng email addresses (click "forward", then color
all addresses below with your mouse and paste into the "to" field):

lishka@moital@gov.il, sar@moit@gov.il, mabat@iba.org.il, dover@iba.org.il,
ombudsmann@iba.org.il, ombudsman@iba.org.il, webmaster@iba.org.il

sshalom@knesset.gov.il, zhanegbi@knesset.gov.il, yiskatz@knesset.gov.il,
llivnat@knesset.gov.il, dnaveh@knesset.gov.il, sar@mfa.gov.il,
sar@moag.gov.il, sar@education.gov.il, sar@matat.gov.il,

The above address groups&nb; sp;belong to, respectively, Minister Olmert,
the Israel Broadcasting Authority, and several possibly sympathetic Likud
ministers.

Below, please find:
* Facts about the Palestinian lobby group (ATFP) which Yavin has chosen to
work with (Appendix A);
* The email sent out by ATFP regarding Yavin's presentation (Appendix B)

APPENDIX A: Facts about the "American Task Force on Palestine" lobby
group (www.atfp.com)

* Israel blamed for 9-11: The American Ta sk Force on Palestine lobbies
against Israeli "conquests", a euphemism for Israeli presence beyond the
1967 cease-firelines, going so far as to blame this presence for the 9/11 terror
attack at the World Trade Center ("The ill will directed at the United States by
its perceived support for Israeli conquests ... has created serious security risks
for our country, as demonstrated so horrifically on 9-11."

* Israel is not on the map: Israel is not marked on at least one map appearing
in the ATFP website (in contrast, so-called "Palestine", which is not a state, is
marked); instead, Israel's entire land area is shaded brown on the map to
indicate that Israel's land area is considered part of the Arab World (in
contrast, Western Sahara, for example, is not< /U> shaded brown in the same
map).

* Violence OK while Israel remains east of Green Line: The ATFP's
understanding of the Roadmap's "central feature" is "a simple quid pro quo:
an end to Palestinian violence against Israelis in exchange for an end to
Israeli settlement of Palestinian lands."

* Veiled threats r e renewed Arab boycott: "The Arab world: 2.2 Arab
countries, 300 million people, $1.2 trillion. Palestinian statehood will ... open
the door to a trillion dollar market. ", the ATFP website promises. The flip side
of this glowing conditional statement, however, is that failure to set up a
Palestinian state might cause the United States to forfeit that trillion dollar
market - a subtle ATFP threat that the Arab boycott might just return.

* Fatal bus attacks by suicide bombers downgraded (compared to accidental
deaths in combat areas):
One day after a double suicide bombing in Beer-Sheva left 16 dead Israeli
civilians including 10 women and a three year old child, the ATFP had this to
say: "[Y]esterdayís bombings .... along with the deaths of hundreds of
Palestinian civilians over the course of the past several months... stand in the
way of peaceful coexistence between the two peoples".

* Lack of credibility?? The ATFP does not give a source for the above claim t
hat "hundreds of Palestinian civilians" were killed within a few months. We
fact-checked and found that even the extreme left affiliated B'tselem
organization puts the total number of Palestinians killed by the IDF in the
months preceding the ATFP statement, including combatants, at a few
hundred. B'tselem's website makes no claim whatever that this number
includes substantial numbers of civilians (as opposed to combatants), as
implied by the vague ATFP state ment.

**** The ATFP has six "principles". These principles or positions, plainly put,
include:
* Another terror state endangering Israel's population centers: Establishment,
with no pre-conditions, of yet another Arab state, bordering with Israel on the old, dangerous 1967 cease-fire lines, situated just opposite Israel's narrow
waistline where most of Israel's population resides. The ATFP's position
favoring (unconditional) establishment of a Palestinian state is NOT in
accordance with the official positions of the Government of Israel. The Israeli
Government has never agreed to the unconditional establishment of a
Palestinian state. The opposite is the case: The GOI (Gov't of Israel) agreed to accept establishment of an other Palestinian state, only conditional on 14
preconditions, chief among them the full and complete cessation of
Palestinian terrorism. The huge fleet of bulletproof buses serving Israeli
schoolchildren and other citizens daily, is mute evidence to the vast distance
between this precondition and Middle East reality.
* No Jewish minority tolerated in Palestine: Forced deportation (euphemism:
"evacuation") of the hundreds of tho usands of Israelis and Jews resident in
Judea, Samaria and East Jerusalem. At the same time, it goes without saying
that a sizeable Arab minority is entitled to continue residing in Israel.
* Independent of demand for Palestinian statehood -- continued pestering of
Israel re "Palestinian refugee problem": Over and above the demand for a
new Palestinian State in Principle 1, Principle 3 contains a separate demand
regarding the Palestinian refugees, whose situation is to be changed "in
accordance with "international legality and the relevant UN resolutions" --
forums in which Israeli vital interests are automatically discounted.

APPENDIX B: Text of email sent out by ATFP regarding Yavin's presentation

The American Task Force on Palestine invites you to a luncheon
briefing with 'The Land of the Settlers' documentary star and
director Chaim Yavin, to be held at the Palestine Center in
Washington, DC. Mr. Yavin is a founder of Israeli television and
the anchor of Israeli TV 's Channel 1 broadcast since 1968.

'The Land of the Settlers' is an explosive Israeli documentary
series th at deals with Israeli settlements in the West Bank and
their impact on Palestinians and Israelis alike. Mr. Yavin will
begin his briefing with a screening of 30 minutes of excerpts from
the 5-part documentary series. The series is a personal production
in which Mr. Yavin visited the occupied territories over a period
of two years as a private individual. His critics cross the entire
spectrum of Israeli politics, from those who say he abandoned his
objectivity, to others who complain that he kept silent for too
long.

Mr. Yavin's DC appearance is part of a speaking tour
encompassing Washington, New York, and Chicago and is sponsored
by Americans For Peace Now. The tour is made possible through a
generous contribution from the Foundation for Middle East Peace.
The Washington portion of his tour is being co-sponsored by the
American Task Force on Palestine.

When:
Tuesday, October 25, 2005
12:30 - 2:00 p.m.

Where:
The Palestine Cente r
Potomac Plaza Building, 2425 Virginia Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20037

Registration required.

RSVP by 3:00 p.m. Monday, October 24.

Call 202-887-0177 or email rdajani@atfp.net

News Media on 'The Land of the Settlers':

" A documentary about Israel's settlements in the
West Bank that is pessimistic, angry and intensely personal."
New York Times

"The breath becomes short, the heart is choked wi th
angerÖAfter watching 'The Land of the Settlers,' every caring
Israeli, every humane Israeli, should get up next Saturday, go to
the settlement nearest to his place of residence, and drag its
inhabitants, kicking and screaming, across the road to the side of
sanity." Yedioth Ahronoth

"As a journalistic television product, what can one say about
Yavin's personal journey between roadblocks, in front of the
soldiers who are hardhearted because those are the
orders, next to the chilling Daniela Weiss and in the living room
of the denizens of the settlement outposts, who are so friendly
(until reminded that there are, even fairly close to us, such
beings called 'Palestinians.')?" Ma'ariv

--------------------------------------------------------------

The ATFP is a not-for-profit organization that aims to educate the
American people about the national security interests of the United
States in establishing a Palestinian state. Specifically, ATF P seeks to
promote the awareness of the far-reaching benefits that Palestinian
statehood will have for the United States in the following areas: (1)
enhancing national security, (2) proliferation of American values of
freedom and democracy, and (3) expansion of economic opportunities
throughout the Arab and Islamic worlds.

American Task Force on Palestine
815 Connecticut Avenue, Suite 200
Washington, DC 20006
HYPERLINK "http://www.americantaskforce.org"

REMINDER: PLEASE forward this email to the following email addresses
(click "forward", then color all addresses below with your mouse and paste
into the "to" field):
lishka@moital@gov.il; sar@moit@gov.il; mabat@iba.org.il; dover@iba.org.il;
ombudsmann@iba.org.il;ombudsman@iba.org.il;webmaster@
sshalom@knesset.gov.il;
zhanegbi@knesset.gov.il;yiskatz@knesset
.gov.il;llivnat@knesset.gov.il;dnaveh@knesset.gov.il; sar@mfa.gov.il;
sar@moag.gov.il; sar@education.gov.il; sar@matat.gov.il;

NOTE: IF YOU RECEIVED THIS EMAIL FROM A FRIEND, YOU CAN
SUBSCRIBE FOR MATTOT ARIM UPDATES DIRECTLY BY SENDING A
"SUBSCRIBE" MESSAGE TO sddym@bezeqint.net. PLS INDICATE
WHETHER YOU RESIDE IN ISRAEL OR ABROAD.

Thank you for your concern and assistance.

Susie Dym, spokesperson
Mattot Arim
an Israeli grassroots organizat ion
working toward peace-for-peace since 1992

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