Sharansky's story counters the lie our foes – and some fellow Jews – peddle about Judaism, Israel and Zionism today. Those who claim that Judaism is "just" a religion have to acknowledge the power of peoplehood, of national pride, that courses through that story, just as those secular types who say the religion is meaningless, should admit the tale's spiritual, theological magic.
In fact, the entire holiday refutes all these false choices. Try telling the Hanukkah story without any religious dimension, or while pretending the Jews are not a people with a national consciousness, or while claiming we have no ties to the land. The fight was about our freedom of religion. The Maccabees were nationalist warriors. And the Temple that had to be purified was in Jerusalem in Eretz Israel, the land yearning to be liberated.
Similarly, try telling the Hanukkah story as an either-or fanatic, choosing only freedom or only identity, only liberalism or only nationalism. Hanukkah reminds us that we need freedom just as we need the air we breathe; it represents the world of possibilities and open doors. But we also need our own particular identity, just as we need the substantive food that sustains us, just as we need guardrails and milestones, maps and a sense of mission, in the journey of life once the doors swing open.
And through it all, we feel blessed by that sense of Jewish national consciousness, that Zionist sense of peoplehood, that reminds us that wherever we are, whatever challenges we face, when we are part of this amazing network called the Jewish people we are never alone.
NATAN TOLD his story as we filmed an episode of "Drinking with Adam" (Bellos) for Wine on the Vine. I noted how remarkable it is that despite my never having suffered, spending the 1980s studying history at Harvard, and Natan's having spent much of the '80s suffering in the gulag, we remain ideologically on the same page.
Natan wondered: "Who really suffered most?" He quipped: "In the gulag, I had moral clarity; at Harvard, there was moral confusion."
How sad that our universities so often fail to stand for moral clarity – or for open, critical inquiry. And how unnerving that the problems transcend partisanship, as cancel culture on the far Left oddly parallels the bullying totalitarianism of the far Right.
But how lucky we Jews are to have this holiday of freedom, along with freedom fighters in our own lives who stand up for personal liberty, for national identity, for the constructive, creative confusion of both – and against the false choices so many wish to impose on us. Happy Hanukkah.
On December 9, 1917, British forces accepted the Turkish surrender of Jerusalem. Two days later, British forces officially entered the walls of the city.
As the world was engulfed in brutal armed conflict of an unprecedented scope, fighting raged in the Holy Land between Allied troops and the Ottoman-Turks (allied with the Central Powers) who had ruled the land for most of the past 400 years. On October 30, the strategic city of Be'er Sheva fell to the allies who then drove towards Jerusalem.
A London dispatch, on November 24, reported that the mosque containing the tomb of the prophet Samuel was bombarded. The ancient site of Mitzpeh, 5,000 yards west of the Jerusalem-Nablus road, was stormed by the British. The major battle for Jerusalem was in full swing. British cavalry ferociously fought their way into Jerusalem.
On December 11, the second day of Hanukkah, British troops marched into Jerusalem. British commander General Edmund Allenby respectfully entered its walls by foot through the Jaffa Gate.
Excited crowds lined Jerusalem's streets to welcome the city's liberators. Their very presence signified an end to the terrible suffering the people of Jerusalem had endured during the war.
One British officer described his entry into Jerusalem and the reception by its residents this way: "Swarms of children, Arab, Jew, and Christian, ran with us as we marched along, and the populace clamored to any point of vantage, waving and clapping their hands, cheering and singing. Jews clad in European dress came running up, singled out any one of us, wrung him by the hand, and — talking excitedly in broken English — said that they, the people of Jerusalem, had been waiting for … two and a half years."
The German government has officially apologised after its consulate in Melbourne refused 82 years ago to accept a letter of protest from the Australian Aborigines' League about the Nazi persecution of the Jews.
On Sunday Felix Klein – the Commissioner for Jewish Life in Germany and the Fight against Anti-Semitism – issued the historic apology via video link on behalf of Chancellor Angela Merkel's government.
The apology was screened at an event marking the anniversary of the 1938 delegation of the Australian Aborigines' League – led by Aboriginal spokesman William Cooper [Yad Vashem] – to the German consulate in Melbourne.
According to The Argus newspaper, the delegation wanted to convey a resolution voicing "on behalf of Aborigines of Australia, a strong protest at the cruel persecution of the Jewish people by the Nazi government of Germany, and ask that this persecution is brought to an end".
The Australian Aborigines' League, which used Mr Cooper's home in Footscray as its meeting place, drew a parallel between the treatment of Aboriginal people and a pogrom against Jews carried out by the paramilitary wing of the Nazis on November 9-10, 1938, that became known as Kristallnacht.
The league felt moved to protest at the violence from the other side of the world, and a delegation walked from Footscray to the German consulate in Melbourne on December 6, 1938.
But the consulate refused to admit the delegation.
"Officially, on behalf of the government of Chancellor Angela Merkel, we are sorry that the 1938 Consul General in Melbourne would not accept the letter of the Australian Aborigines' League, nor forward it onto the political leadership here in Berlin as would have been the right and morally correct thing for a consulate official to do," Dr Klein said on Sunday.
Yorta Yorta activist and educator Lois Peeler said she was happy to accept the apology on behalf of her people.
"It's a long time coming but we accept the apology," she said.
The famous Holocaust scholar Elie Wiesel once stated, "The universe of concentration camps by its design lies out if not beyond history. Its vocabulary belongs to it alone." Like most young Jewish people, I grew up in the shadow of the Holocaust, always hearing about the brutal suffering that the Nazis imposed upon the Jewish people from the older people that surrounded me. My father was born in 1939 and remembered what happened then very well, as if it was yesterday, as relatives of ours fled Nazi Germany and told us what happened upon their arrival in America.
For this reason, I believe the Holocaust is a unique historical event and always get incredibly angry when people try to trivialize the brutality of the Holocaust by turning other historical events into a "holocaust." No, I am sorry. There is only one Holocaust and it was perpetrated against the Jewish people, and no one else. The level of the Nazi brutality was so horrific that it has no parallel in human history.
While Jews during the Spanish Inquisition could escape death through conversion, under Nazi rule, that option was closed to them. In fact, even having one Jewish grandparent was enough under Nazi rule to designate one to be slaughtered.
Throughout the history of humanity, there was no other genocide that was cruel to this level. Yes, the Rwanda Genocide was also very cruel and barbaric, as was what the American colonists did to the Native Americans and what ISIS did to the Yezidis and Christians. I have much sympathy for the victims of these horrific genocides. However, it was still no holocaust. It should be stressed that it is absolutely forbidden to call any other historical event "a holocaust." No self-respecting individual should do that. Yet unfortunately, in recent times, there are those who defile the sanctity of the memory of the Holocaust and turn other historical events into a holocaust.
In recent times, an article was published in The National Interest that argued the following related to Israel's support for Azerbaijan during the Second Karabakh War: "Many Armenians – and ordinary outside observers – focus on the moral argument: The victims of one Holocaust not only turning a blind eye toward but also selling weapons to the potential perpetrators of another."
Such arguments are a blatant insult to the Jewish people. Some could even call it anti-Semitic. What happened during the Second Karabakh War was not a "potential holocaust" in the slightest. After all, Armenians were not packed like sardines into trains, nor was their hair shaved off nor were numbers engraved into their bodies. Nobody turned Armenian body parts into soap. In fact, killing Armenian civilians was not even the strategic objective of the Azerbaijani government. Rather, they merely sought to reclaim lands.
Nov. 30 is the day Israel designates for commemorating the 850,000 Jews who fled from Arab countries and Iran following World War II. This year, like every year, the governments now ruling those lands did not mark the occasion. For what it's worth, I'm going to do so here.
About 80% of Israelis are Jews. A significant minority of Israelis, close to 20%, are Arabs (or Palestinians — they may identify as they like). Most Israeli Jews are not from families that migrated from the Middle East to Europe centuries ago. Most are Mizrahim, Jews who have lived for thousands of years among Arabs, Persians and other Middle Eastern and North African peoples.
The late Charles Krauthammer observed that Israel "is the only nation on earth that inhabits the same land, bears the same name, speaks the same language, and worships the same God that it did 3,000 years ago."
But imperialist invasions and occupations against which the Jews fought led to the dispersal of Jews to lands across the region where they were ruled by a long list of conquerors until, in the 20th century, most became subjects of the nation-states created following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.
The Mizrahim suffered persecution but, at some times and in some places, there was toleration, which allowed them to prosper, and make contributions to the societies in which they lived — in commerce, academia, the arts and even as government advisers. From Morocco to what became Pakistan, Jewish communities survived.
Then in 1940, Nazi Germany defeated France. The French colonial possessions of Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia came under the rule of Vichy, a collaborationist government that introduced "race laws" discriminating against Jews, excluding Jews from certain professions and confiscating Jewish property.
In 1941, a Fascist regime took power in Iraq. A few months later, there was the Farhud, the "violent dispossession" of the Jews of Baghdad, who then constituted as much as a third of the city's population.
She called for a global coalition to combat extremism and terrorism in which "the United States cannot be the sole operators out there," continually monitoring for decades to come.
Cammack also blamed the United Nations for its "efforts to undermine Israel's role and place on the global stage, and continuing to vote against issues that are of most importance to Israel." She said she plans to be outspoken about this in Congress.
She said that education is critical in combating the BDS movement against the Jewish state. Organizations must educate members of Congress on both sides of the aisle about how and why Israel is crucial to the United States and the rest of the world, she stressed.
Cammack cited that, coming from an agricultural state, she has worked to educate "the agricultural community about the contributions of Israel to agriculture."
"I tell people all the time, they made the desert bloom," she said. "It's really important that we start every conversation from an educational standpoint, though it comes back to being willing to stand up and call out folks that are really coming from a place of ignorance."
She expressed hope that, as a member of Congress, she'll be able to take agricultural producers in the United States to Israel for educational tours, and "do some sharing of techniques and technology so that we can become better stewards of the resources that we have" and "really utilizing that cutting edge that Israel is famous for."
Representative Guy Reschenthaler (R-Penn.) issued a statement on December 4 calling for Representative Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) to be removed from all congressional committee assignments over her "disturbing pattern of anti-Semitism."
The statement, which was provided to the conservative news site Breitbart News, cited Tlaib's participation in the Americans for Muslims in Palestine (AMP) virtual conference on November 27-29. Reschenthaler called AMP "one of the nation's most anti-Israel advocacy groups" and alleged that the conference "featured other participants with reported connections to Hamas, terrorism financiers, and the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement." Reschenthaler also pointed to Tlaib's since-deleted November 29 retweet of a tweet stating, "From the river to the sea Palestine will be free" as "the latest examples of a deeply disturbing pattern of anti-Semitism that has been on display since she was elected. Yet Speaker [Nancy] Pelosi and House Democrats refuse to condemn her heinous behavior."
He added that the 2018 shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh is what happens when anti-Semitism is allowed to fester.
"The day after this cowardly act of violence, I stood in solidarity with Americans of all religions, races, and ethnicities at a vigil honoring the victims of this heinous crime, and the first time I ever spoke on the House floor was to denounce hatred and bigotry in all forms," Reschenthaler said.
The Pennsylvania congressman noted that House Republicans immediately stripped then-Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) from his committee assignments in 2019 after making "inexcusable racist remarks," referencing when King asked The New York Times when the term white supremacist "became offensive."
"By failing to act and hold Rep. Tlaib accountable, Pelosi is emboldening her and others to continue spreading and escalating this dangerous, hateful bigotry," Reschenthaler said. "It is past time we show the American people that there is no place in Congress, or anywhere, for this shameful intolerance. I call on my colleagues across the aisle to join me in calling for Rep. Tlaib to immediately lose her committee assignments."
Democratic Senate candidate Raphael Warnock of Georgia said Tuesday that he has an "increasing recognition" of the danger Hamas poses to Israel since his harsh 2018 criticism of the Israel Defense Forces' response to Gaza border protests, which his opponent has used to claim Warnock opposes the Jewish state.
Warnock, a reverend, made the statement during a candidates webinar organized by the Jewish Democratic Council of America ahead of the two Georgia Senate run-off elections that will be held on January 5.
Warnock is challenging Republican Kelly Loeffler and Democrat Jon Ossoff, who was also on the call, is seeking to unseat Republican Senator David Purdue.
Victories in both races would allow the Democrats to gain a majority in the Senate, with Vice President-elect Kamala Harris able to cast a tie-breaking vote in the event of a deadlock. Polls show both races to be neck-and-neck.
Loeffler throughout the campaign has highlighted Warnock's sermon about Gaza, which he delivered days after Israeli troops fired on Palestinians during violent protests at the Gaza border against the US decision to move its embassy to Jerusalem.
"We saw the government of Israel shoot down unarmed Palestinian sisters and brothers like birds of prey," Warnock said in the speech.
A Hamas official later said that 50 of 62 Gazans killed in the days of riots and clashes were its members; another three were members of Islamic Jihad.
He was not fired for speaking out in favor of Palestinian human rights, @marclamonthill was fired from CNN because he called for the destruction of the Jewish state.
Universities are leaders in their local communities. At some universities, 50 per cent of the student body comes from the local area. They are large employers and contribute through civic engagement, with over 50 institutions having signed the Civic University Agreement. Academically, socially and morally, years spent at university help shape students' values and outlooks.
In taking steps to reject antisemitism and antisemitic views in society, universities have a clear role to play. The Union of Jewish Students reported earlier this year that just a fifth of UK universities had adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism. Seventeen planned to discuss adoption at a formal meeting – and some have since adopted the definition – but a further 80 reported no plans to take action. This needs to change.
Universities gave several reasons for not adopting the definition, the most frequently discussed being protection of academic free speech. I understand the importance of freedom of speech and thought in our universities. However, freedom of expression does not mean freedom to abuse. Any university with concerns should look to their peers, world-leading institutions which have adopted the definition, recognising it is not a barrier to free speech but a framework in which to recognise and react promptly to antisemitism, in any form, whenever it may occur.
I am pleased to say that this is a cross-party issue. The Office for Students – the regulatory body for UK universities – has announced that it will explore what practical steps can be taken to ensure wider adoption of the IHRA definition across universities. This includes the possibility of placing further conditions on funding. I sincerely hope such unwelcome action is not needed, and that universities recognise that failing to adopt the definition is letting down their students, staff and the wider communities that they serve.
Adopting the IHRA definition and all of its examples is a first step, but universities should also review practices to ensure that all students are able to participate fully. Teaching or lecturing on Saturdays and hosting of university events on Friday nights creates unnecessary barriers to participation for Jewish students.
The European Democrat Students (EDS) has passed a motion to tackle antisemitism through the adoption of the International Definition of Antisemitism.
The pan-European official student organisation of the European People's Party (EPP) announced the decision at the EDS Council meeting on 22nd November. The EDS represents over 1 million students and young people from 40 member organisations across 35 countries, and is currently one of the largest youth organisations operating in Europe.
Other youth parties and organisations across Europe are being called upon to follow the example of the EDS to reflect a zero tolerance for antisemitism.
Actually, 1st Intifada was a brutal and violent Palestinian uprising. But trust @jvplive to stand up and glorify the terrorists. https://t.co/rsemzCfxhr
Any student of journalism knows that there are certain values to consider when judging whether a story is newsworthy. Is it significant? Is it of interest? Is it timely? And is it relevant to the audience?
These are all questions with which decent journalists grapple regularly. But at The New York Times, it seems that these concepts often don't apply to reporting on Israel's alleged misdeeds.
A recent article by David Halbfinger and Adam Rasgon serves to underline the extent of the ongoing bias against Israel at the "newspaper of record."
Entitled, "An Autistic Man Is Killed, Exposing Israel's Festering Police Brutality Problem," the authors depict Israeli authorities as having "failed to rein in the use of excessive force, which has a long history."
Throughout, the over 2000 words long piece fails to acknowledge that Jerusalem is a city that has been plagued by terrorism and remains at the heart of a territorial conflict. Israeli police and military, as well as civilians, have over the years been victims of shooting, stabbing and car ramming attacks.
Only in the twelfth paragraph do the writers make reference to this reality and even then in a roundabout way, describing Jerusalem's Old City as one of the "most volatile hot spots" where "deadly errors" can arise. And only a few paragraphs later do they mention that this is all taking place against the backdrop of "the front lines of a national conflict."
Prior to contextualizing matters, though, Halbfinger and Rasgon claim that, "lethal force, while rare, is wielded almost exclusively against Arabs and other minorities." Accordingly, many readers are unlikely to grasp that Arabs killed by Israeli police are beforehand perceived as clear threats. They do not mention decades of rampant Palestinian terrorism, which has placed the Jewish state on perpetual high alert.
Moreover, police brutality is a problem in nearly every country, nowhere more so than in illiberal "democracies" and authoritarian states such Russia, Iran, Lebanon, Egypt and Venezuela. Yet for some reason, despite this particular story not being highly relevant to American readers, and despite the episode ending months ago, the NYT is now reviving it.
The Financial Times has failed to recognise an antisemitic blood libel that it printed and has refused to apologise or provide any clarification in the article.
In an article published on 19th November about a visit by the U.S. Secretary of State to a winery in Psagot, the reporter wrote: "The fate of the Palestinian project has often been prey to the vicissitudes of US domestic politics. Barack Obama, during a 2013 visit to the Holy Land, visited the other side of the fence from the Psagot winery, meeting Palestinian leaders at a youth centre in the Arab community of al-Bireh. 'We want to tell our fellow Americans, that when you drink [Psagot's] wine, you are drinking the blood of the Palestinian people,' said Abdel Jawad Saleh, an American citizen who has served as Mayor of al-Bireh."
The quotation from the Mayor is highly inflammatory and invokes the centuries-old antisemitic blood libel which falsely accuses Jews of killing non-Jews for nefarious or ritualistic purposes and drinking their blood, in particular associating the victims with the blood of Jesus, whom the Jews were for millennia also accused of having killed. The blood libel has been the basis for the persecution and murder of Jews for centuries and, in new iterations, remains popular in certain parts of the world and even in some pockets of British society.
It also contravenes the International Definition of Antisemitism which states that "Using the symbols and images associated with classic antisemitism (e.g. claims of Jews killing Jesus or blood libel) to characterise Israel or Israelis" is antisemitic.
It is regrettable that the Mayor chose to express his political views in racist terms, but it is disgraceful that the Financial Times to have printed the statement without clarification that it is antisemitic.
Gruesome antisemitic statues and carvings on churches in the German state of Bavaria dating from the medieval period should not be removed, but "visibly and easily" explained by accompanying information, a panel of Jewish representatives, church officials and members of the government examining the problem concluded this week.
The panel's findings regarding what it deemed to be "particularly disgusting phenomena" were presented on Tuesday by Ludwig Spaenle, the Bavarian state's commissioner tasked with combating antisemitism.
At the center of the debate is the ongoing presence of the so-called "Judensau" — a medieval anti-Jewish trope that mocked the Jewish prohibition on pork by showing Jews on their knees while suckling a pig.
A dozen examples of "Judensau" sculptures are still visible on the outer edifices of churches in Bavaria, including one emblazoned on the south side of the famous cathedral in the city of Regensburg.
An information board at the cathedral was criticized by the panel for not emphasizing the anti-Jewish nature of the sculpture. The text currently on display describes the "Judensau" as a "mockery in stone" from a "bygone" era, commenting only that the sculpture's "anti-Jewish content is strange to today's observer."
The panel recommended against the physical removal of the statues, arguing instead for clearly-marked, visually-strong explanations of the display to be written by experts on antisemitism. They emphasized that such explanations would also serve as a valuable tool for combating modern-day antisemitism.
In the Netherlands, proving that the Nazis stole artwork from your family isn't always enough to claim it back.
Departing from norms across Europe, the kingdom's policy is to weigh the interest of established heirs of looted art against those of the museums that hold them. In some cases the government has ruled in favor of museums, concluding that Jews should not get back the purloined art. The Dutch policy has faced legal fights and international pressure. Now a government commission charged with evaluating the country's record on the restitution of stolen art is adding to the criticism.
The commission, led by a former lawmaker named Jacob Kohnstamm, released its final report on Monday, a week before a ruling is expected in an Amsterdam court over a Dutch museum's bid to keep a stolen Wassily Kandinsky valued at $22 million.
The 86-page report, titled "Striving toward Justice," concludes that the Netherlands was an early leader in addressing the issue of stolen art, but "its reputation in recent years has been damaged by a limited number of refusals."
Part of a Jewish cemetery in Ukraine was desecrated by farmers who added it to their adjacent fields, a local television station reported.
The desecration happened three years ago in Hulyaipole, a town situated about 300 miles southeast of Kyiv, according to the TCN report Tuesday. About half an acre from the Jewish cemetery of Hulyaipole, where today no Jews live, was desecrated.
Although desecrating a burial site is a criminal offense in Ukraine, authorities ignored complaints about the farmers and refrained from intervening for three years, according to the report.
The earthwork brought to the surface multiple bone fragments, which some locals saved out of respect for the dead for a future reburial, the report said.
Antisemitism and Holocaust denial has become a regular feature of anti-lockdown protests in the Canadian West Coast city of Vancouver.
An anti-mask Twitter feed recently posted a video of prominent local anti-lockdown activist Marco Pietro denying the use of gas chambers in the Holocaust and claiming that the number of Jews murdered had been inflated, while a speaker at a recent rally referred to the Jews as "Satanic, Talmudic" people. Mr Pietro also organised a previous rally in Vancouver in May.
An earlier video shows Mr Pietro alleging that "a bunch of Zionist Jews" were responsible for "setting up" the Nazi leader and claiming that Mein Kampf did not contain "one racist dictate or anything of the sort"
"Oh, I'm a Holocaust disbeliever," Mr Pietro boasted on the video. "You're f**kin' right I am."
He then stated that he had done "the research" before claiming that the Holocaust never happened and that there were no gas chambers and accusing Holocaust survivors of having made "millions of dollars" by lying about their ordeal.
A neo-Nazi activist has been sentenced to five years in prison by a court in Maryland for plotting violent actions against the US government.
20-year-old William Garfield Bilbrough IV was convicted of conspiracy to transport and harbor Patrik Mathews, a white supremacist and former soldier in the Canadian military who illegally entered the US in 2019.
Both Mathews and another extremist — Brian Mark Lemley Jr., a US Army veteran — are on trial in Delaware, where they shared a house, for allegedly planning a gun massacre of civilians.
The case against Bilbrough formed part of a larger investigation of "The Base," a violent neo-Nazi organization that first emerged on the US scene in 2018. In January, authorities in Georgia and Wisconsin arrested four other men linked to the group.
According to research by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), members of "The Base" portray themselves as "vigilante soldiers defending the 'European race' against a broken 'system' that has been infected by Jewish values."
The group's founder is American-born Rinaldo Nazzaro, who now lives in Russia.
Sentencing Bilbrough on Tuesday, US District Judge Theodore Chuang said that his punishment was for his actions, not his extremist ideology.
Australian police arrested on Wednesday an 18-year man who had allegedly expressed interest in committing a mass causality attack, motivated by right-wing ideology.
Police said they expect to lay charges on Wednesday against the unidentified man from Albury, a small town 553 kilometers (344 miles) southwest of Sydney.
"The male we've arrested has an extremely right-wing ideology and is focused on neo-Nazi, white supremacist and anti-Semitic material," Australian Federal Police Assistant Commission Scott Lee told reporters in Sydney.
"A couple of days ago what we observed was an escalation in the tone which went to a support of a mass casualty event, and potentially his involvement in that event."
Australia has been on heightened alert against the threat of home-grown radicals after several "lone-wolf" attacks in recent years.
Three players from Argentina's national rugby team were suspended after anti-Semitic and other hateful messages from a decade ago were discovered on Twitter and spread on social media.
Two days later, however, following pressure from members of the national team and other Argentine rugby clubs, the Argentina Rugby Union reinstated the players, who were allowed to play in the squad's next match on Saturday.
The messages, also against Black people and immigrants from neighboring countries, were made in 2011-12 by Pablo Matera, the team's captain, as well as Guido Petti and Santiago Socino, and discovered last week.
"What a mess Villa Crespo could be in if Hitler were alive," Socino wrote, referring to the Jewish-backed soccer team Atlanta from the Jewish neighborhood of Villa Crespo. A hashtag used a slang expression that refers to the idea of killing Jews to make soap.
In another tweet, Socino mocked circumcision and made reference to the stereotype of Jews being cheap.
Matera spoke of "running over blacks" with his car and disparaged Bolivians and Paraguayans.
Israel announced plans on Wednesday to send a second spacecraft — Beresheet 2 — to the moon, following the crash landing of the original Beresheet probe last year.
Unveiling the project with President Reuven Rivlin at his residence in Jerusalem, the Israeli nonprofit SpaceIL, in cooperation with Israel Aerospace Industries and the Israeli Space Agency at the Ministry of Science and Technology, said that it aims to launch the probe in 2024.
Having said soon after last year's attempt that a repeat moon landing effort was "not challenging enough," SpaceIL said Tuesday that the new probe will be a significant advancement on the first and will actually comprise three spacecraft – one orbiter and two landers. Specific plans for the scientific research set to be carried out were not revealed.
Beresheet 1, the world's first privately funded moon lander, collided with the lunar surface in April 2019 during an attempted landing, due to technical failure.
"Just a year and a half ago, we were here together, when Israel held its breath and looked to the stars. We anxiously watched the Beresheet spacecraft on its historic journey to the moon. We watched its long journey, were in wonder at the researchers and were filled with pride at the Israeli daring and ability that flourished right here and at the groundbreaking work of Space IL.
"We were disappointed, and realized that we had to start once again from the beginning," Rivlin said at the announcement.
A Jewish group based in London has launched Europe's first Jewish streaming service, with the goal of "connecting all sorts of Jews to their culture and history."
JEWZY.tv, which is currently available only in the United States — or to a computer connecting via a US-based server — on Friday announced its launch as "chicken soup for the eyes," The Jewish Chronicle reported.
The new service follows the launch of two other Jewish streaming services: ChaiFlicks and Izzy. Its editorial focus is on "hidden gems," Jeremy Wootliff, Jewzy's founder, told the Chronicle. "We go out and find the wonderful movies and TV programs that have been forgotten over time," or may not have enjoyed the exposure they deserved when made, he said.
An annual subscription costs $59.99 and offers 100 titles a month, including "Dark Horse" starring Mia Farrow; "The Double" with Jesse Eisenberg and "Defiant Requiem," a feature documentary about the Theresienstadt concentration camps. Many of the titles are about Israel or made there.
Jewzy's agenda goes beyond providing entertainment to subscribers. Its goals also include promoting positive images of Jews and Israel and countering anti-Semitism and bigotry. But its lineup is nonpartisan, Wootliff told the Chronicle.
"We want to bring Israel and the diaspora all together and under one roof," he said.
Iranian-Israeli singer and actress Liraz Charhi, who stars in the thriller series "Tehran," talked about relating to her on-screen character, her dual heritage and why she chose to sing in Farsi at a virtual event on Sunday night.
Charhi performed at the Iranian American Jewish Federation (IAJF) 2020 Virtual Gala from a venue in Jaffa. She sang one of her favorite Iranian songs, titled "Mahtab," and said she once sang the same song on the set of "Tehran" with her Iranian co-stars, who were exiled from Iran.
Charhi's parents were born in Iran and emigrated to Israel in 1970, when the two countries had strong relations before the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Charhi, who recently released an album that she made in secret with Iranian musicians, said, "Iran is neither mine nor my parents' anymore" and called the country "the home that I have never seen." She also explained that she sings in Farsi as "a symbol of struggle against the suppression" women face in the Islamic Republic.
"I sing because of my muted grandmothers; because of muted women in Iran. With them and for them," she said. "I will never lose hope and patience about Iran, and will always sing my heritage to the Iranian woman who should be free to sing, dance and rejoice."
Charhi plays Iranian-Israeli Mossad agent Yael Kadosh in "Tehran," which Apple TV+ is currently streaming. Talking about her "very complex character," who must tap into both her Iranian and Israeli roots at various moments in the show, Charhi said, "We both grew up confused, being raised in two cultures with one big question I was always obsessed with: 'Who am I? Am I Iranian or am I Israeli?" She added that the role "brought me even closer to my Iranian roots."
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The Jewish Agency for Israel is actively partnering with evangelical Christians who seek to bring Israeli Jews to Jesus. That's because 1) These missionaries are saving the Jewish Agency money by setting up and running absorption centers for new immigrants, lone soldiers, and young pre-army students and 2) The missionaries swear up and down until they're blue in the face that they're not missionaries—they swear they're not here to bring Israeli Jews to Jesus.
That promise of innocence is of course, ridiculous. They are missionaries. Full stop. If the Jewish Agency believes them, I've got a bridge I can sell them for cheap.
As mentioned in an earlier column: Shannon Nuszen is working to expose the mission of evangelical Christians in Israel—Jews are trying to shut her down, regular Jewish Israelis, not unlike the Jewish Agency, are happy to save money. And just like the Jewish Agency, these Jews swear up and down that the missionaries aren't missionaries. The evangelicals, meanwhile, harvest grapes in the Jewish orchards of Samaria for free—a dream come true for any farmer. (But at what ultimate cost?)
With all that free labor, is it any wonder that some Israeli Jews fight the notion that in actual fact, these Christians are here to bring Israeli Jews to Jesus? But Jews looking the other way on the presence of missionaries in Israel has, perhaps, another subtext: some Israeli Jews retain a pathological need to seek constant approval from outsiders. These remaining vestiges of the ghetto mentality of these Israelis living free and easy in Israel is almost understandable: What happened to past generations in the diaspora has no doubt scarred the less emotionally hardy of our people.
So if just regular Israeli Jewish Joes support the evangelicals in their mission, it only stands to reason that the Jewish Agency believes it can get away with underwriting projects like the Aliyah Return Center for Lone Soldiers, run by, yes, missionaries.
Now it wouldn't happen in America. This is made clear in this most recent clip from Beynenu, narrated by Rabbi Tovia Singer.
From the film:
"What's going on here in Israel would not go on in the United States. Both the Reform and Conservative movements have bylaws that they will not work with messianics, who are evangelical fundamentalist Christians who use Jewish terminology, symbols, and icons in order to bring Jewish people to know Jesus in a Jewish way.
"Here in Israel there seems to be no separation.
"The Reform Movement [in America] is the most liberal, and even they would not allow anybody of the messianic movement to be involved in any aspect of their education, much less run their programs.
"Jewish Community Centers around the world deal with the problem of messianics working to infiltrate their centers and social networks all the time, and they work very hard to address it.
"Yet here in Israel we have messianics partnering with the Jewish Agency running absorption centers for new olim, lone soldiers, and young pre-army students. Nowhere else in the world would Jews think to cross this line!
"The Jewish Agency is partnering with the Aliyah Return Center, a Christian organization headed in this country by a Messianic Jew. It's astounding!"
This latest—some would say shocking—clip from Beynenu is, in part, a response to the Jewish Agency, which has accused the organization of doctoring footage to back the narrative that the evangelical Christians are missionaries. Here is the official press release from the Jewish Agency for Israel on the subject:
"The Jewish Agency runs an educational facility near the Sea of Galilee called Bikat Kinarot. The site, fully managed by The Jewish Agency, includes facilities for lone soldiers, new immigrants, preparation for service in the IDF and serves as a regional center for those involved with civic projects.
"We have a formal agreement with the Canadian Christian Zionist organization Return Ministries to provide volunteers and to assist with construction, maintenance and landscaping work on the campus. This is done within a very clear contractual framework, stipulating that any kind of missionary activity is strictly prohibited.
"We are familiar with Beynenu and while the videos are heavily edited, using old and irrelevant footage and containing many false statements, they do raise grave questions and concerns for us regarding our relationship with Return Ministries.
"Let us emphasize that Return Ministries has no involvement whatsoever with any Jewish Agency programming. Any involvement of Return Ministries or the Aliyah Return Center beyond the very clearly demarcated roles mentioned above is in clear violation of their agreement with The Jewish Agency. The Jewish Agency will make no compromise on allowing any missionary activity. We are examining the allegations and intend to take firm action if they are found to be correct. We reject any effort to apply pressure on our internal process by any outside body, who is trying to tarnish our good name. If necessary, we will take steps to prevent this besmirching of The Jewish Agency's reputation and unwavering dedication to keeping the Jewish people connected to each other and to Israel."
That's the official statement to the press. An internal email from the Jewish Agency, however, tells a different story:
"From this examination we have issued a very strong formal letter of complaint sent to Return Ministries. As we have searched for the facts, numerous violations of our contractual agreement have been discovered which have been included in our letter."
As a result, Beynenu, went ahead and sent the following letter to the Jewish Agency:
As for claims by the Jewish Agency that Beynenu is using doctored, old, and irrelevant clips to prove a specific and unfounded point, Shannon Nuszen has this to say:
"We wish we could say that this is Hollywood, but these videos are real and it's happening in Israel. We understand that leaders are upset about this, and I think we all understand that mistakes happen. However, it would be a bigger mistake to be defensive rather than taking this seriously and addressing the problem.
"Whether they are baptizing olim, or just doing the gardening, we should not be partnering with Messianics. Legitimizing Messianics undermines Jewish communities, and as the Jewish Agency emphasizes, these communities are the building blocks of Jewish life.
"This would not happen anywhere else in the world, but for some reason this grave mistake has happened here in Israel.
"I assure you we are on the same side, and we would be happy to help the Jewish Agency address this serious matter."
So what exactly is Beynenu, and why are they going after these evangelical Christians like a dog with a bone that just won't let go? Nuszen says that Beyneynu is a team of former missionaries, counter missionary experts, and "concerned persons of influence." Here is Beynenu's official mission statement:
Beyneynu is a non-profit organization that monitors missionary activity in Israel and works with government and community leaders to create awareness of the challenges facing the public and to facilitate the establishment of proper boundaries in their partnerships with faith-based organizations.
Establishing "proper boundaries" would seem to be something sorely lacking here between the Jewish Agency and organizations like Return Ministries, Hayovel, and the Aliyah Return Center. As a Jewish Israeli, I am happy that organizations like Beynenu exist. Because the last thing I want Jewish Israelis (such as my children) to encounter, is a missionary hiding the fact that what he really wants is for you to come to Jesus.
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We are the descendants of the Canaanites who lived in the land of Palestine 5,000 years ago, and continuously remained there to this day. Our great people remains rooted in its land. The Palestinian people built their own cities and homeland, and made contributions to humanity and civilization. [emphasis added]
They [the Jews] are thieves who stole the land, and who want to steal the history, but history cannot change and cannot be falsified. The facts bear witness to it. We have been here for the last 5,000 years, and have not left this land. We have not left this land. Our forefathers are the monotheist Canaanites and Jebusites. They are the ones who built Jerusalem, before Abraham was even here. [emphasis added]
What drives the Palestinian Arabs in general -- and Abbas in particular -- to such obvious fabrications?
On the one hand, there is the Palestinian Arab goal to usurp the strong indigenous Jewish connection to Israel.
But there is another element.
There is the attempt to establish a basis for Palestinian nationalism.
In his book The Seed of Abraham, Rafael Patai discusses the development of Arab nationalism in general --and why Palestinian nationalism by definition pales in comparison.
Many of the Arab countries in the Middle East are newly created as a result of British, French and Italian machinations. The straight borders of many of those Arab countries testify to the arbitrariness of both the borders and the states themselves.
Writing in 1986, Patai notes
It is remarkable how rapidly the population of each of the newly created Arab states developed a national consciousness and patriotic feelings of its own. This process was facilitated in the major Arab states by historical memories that the leadership soon learned how to utilize. Sentiments in French mandatory, and later independent, Syria were thus related back to the great days when Syria, with Damascus as its splendid capital, was the center of the great Umayyad caliphate, while the newly reestablished Iraq saw herself as heir to the Abbasid empire whose center was the Iraqi capital of Baghdad. However, no other Arab country had as solid a basis for priding itself of its glorious past as Egypt, which, although its greatest age lay far back in the millennia of the jahiliyya [Arabia before the advent of Islam], nevertheless came to view that early Pharaonic period as part of its national history.
Some Arab countries could create a national consciousness based on their place in Arab history. Other Arab countries, lacking that tie, could instead boast of their ancient history -- even if that history belonged to a land they had conquered and was not actually their own.
Where did that leave the Palestinian Arabs?
Up the creek.
In Palestine, such attempts at establishing a great Arab national past ran into a vexing problem. Since Palestine had never been an independent Arab country, its period of pride had to be sought in the biblical Israelite age. As we have seen in an earlier chapter, the Arabs considered themselves heirs of Abraham the hanif [maintained pure monotheism], and claimed that Abraham, with his son Ishmael, was the founder of the sanctuary at Mecca. One writer even claimed that Abraham himself was an "Arabian." Thus the more general claim could be made, even though it retained tenuous at best, that Palestine was the scene of part of Arab prehistory. [emphasis added]
That is where Jewish history got in the way.
The difficulty arose in connection with the long period between Abraham (whose Arab progeny settled in Arabia) and the end of the Hebrew monarchy, during which there was no Arab presence in Palestine, while the Banu Isra'il ("Children of Israel") were undeniably masters of the land. Hence, in contrast to Egypt, the Arabs could not claim that they had also in Palestine a national history going back to the long millennia of the jahiliyya. (p.309; emphasis added)
But according to Patai, a sense of Palestinian nationalism did develop, and Patai describes it as a slow process that started with Arab differences with the Jews of the Second Aliyah who -- unlike the First Aliyah -- insisted that only Jews be employed as workers to work the land.
That nationalism continued after the reforms of the Young Turks led to the modernization of the Ottoman Empire and Arab representation in the new Turkish Parliament.
And this reaction against the Ottoman Empire led to the possibility of an unlikely (from today's vantage point) alliance:
At the same time Arab nationalist leaders recognized that their cause could benefit from Jewish help. In June 1913 was held in Paris the first conference of Arab nationalists which was an overt anti-Turkish demonstration, and in preparation for which Arab approaches were made to the Jews with a view to setting up an Arab-Jewish alliance. In the course of these contacts it appeared that most Arab leaders in Cairo and Beirut took a positive view of Zionism were basically in favor of Jewish immigration to Syria and Palestine, and expressed their understanding of "the valuable assistance that the capital, the diligence, and the intelligence of the Jews can provide to the accelerated development of the [Arab] areas of Turkey." (p.312; emphasis added)
Patai quotes Ahmad Mukhtar Bayham, an Arab leader from Beirut at that conference who declared, "The entry of Jews--yes! But the entry of Turks--no!"
The president at that conference, Abd al-Hamid Zahrawi made a statement:
Because they [the Jews] are our brothers in race, and we regard them as Syrians who were forced to leave the country at one time but whose hearts always beat together with ours, we are certain that our Jewish brothers the world over will know how to help us so that our common interest may succeed and our common country will develop both materially and morally (p. 313)
It sounded promising, but in the end, no agreement was reached on Zionist issues such as Jewish immigration and land purchases.
But it is in this context of the potential alliance between Arabs and Jews that we can appreciate how it is that Chaim Weizmann and Emir Faisal were able to come to an agreement that recognized Zionist goals in then-Palestine.
Today, the Abraham Accords are not necessarily a bolt out of the blue. Perhaps the potential for Jewish-Arab cooperation existed all along.
At one time, they faced a common enemy: the Ottoman Empire.
Today, that common enemy is Iran.
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