| R' Soloveitchik on Yom HaAtzmaut, 1968noreply@blogger.com (Unknown), 26 Apr 04:45 AM Here is audio of Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik, one of the most pro | | Here is audio of Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik, one of the most prominent rabbinical figures of the twentieth century, discussing the theological significance of Israel, in a 1968 lecture. Text is below. ________________________ I always enjoy when I read in the general press - I don't
know why I enjoy it, perhaps its vanity on my part, but I believe it is more than vanity - when I
read in the general press that no
statements were issued by the Israeli government in Yerushalayim because it is the Sabbath today and all
offices are closed. I enjoyed very
much when I read in the (Boston) Globe yesterday that actually the proclamation of the State
of Israel was on the 14th of May but
since the State of Israel observes the Hebrew calendar, it was the fifth of
Iyar, and since the fifth of Iyar
coincided this year with Friday they
were afraid that the Shabbos not be desecrated by the celebrations, [so] they
advanced it to Thursday. Particularly
when the Christian Science Monitor [wrote it]. This means
kiddush Hashem. Alright, I am not
completely in agreement at all times with the government of Israel, there are many policies which are wrong and
fallacious. However, we have to have a
look. Those are small details, peripheral matters. The main idea is correct and there is no doubt that hashgacha
(Providence) is planning something it is
far from geulah (redemption) yet, but hashgacha is planning something something in hashgacha holds something in
store for us I don't know. We are still...Read More |
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Every year for the past 22 years, even before I started this blog, I've written an essay for Yom HaAtzmaut entitled "Proud to Be a Zionist." Here is the latest edition for 5783.____________________
There are two Israels.
No, I'm not talking about the religious vs. secular, or the right vs. left, or those who hate Bibi and those who love him.
I am talking about the real Israel and the fictional one that the world sees.
The world sees an Israel filtered through the eyes of the media, so-called "human rights" NGOs, Palestinian and other Arab antisemites, and "progressive" anti-Israel organizations on college campuses.
The real Israel has no resemblance to that other Israel.
The real Israel is messy and beautiful. It has diametrically opposed viewpoints and surprising amounts of consensus. It has passion and cynicism, the heights of joy and the depths of sadness, incredibly serious decisions that affect people's lives and black humor.
I am a proud Zionist and I embrace all of these.
I have infinite respect for those Zionists who live in Israel - secular and haredi, Jew and Arab, Christian and Druze, college professor and bus driver, every shade of skin color, speaking every language under the sun. Their opinions on the important issues of the day are much more important than mine, because they are directly affected by those decisions.
While Israel must never discriminate against its non-Jewish minorities, it is and must remain a Jewish state. That is what makes it special...Read More |
From Ian: Daniel Greenfield: Israel is Fighting the World's War The Muslim world convinced the international community to pressure Israel by promising that the Jihad would stop there. "Give us Israel and it will end," they urged. Despite all those promises, the Islamic war against civilization has spread across the world. Most of the world's major nations and some of the minor ones have their own Islamic insurgency that plays by the same rules: alternating political demands with brutal massacres in the name of Islamic rule. Generations of Israelis have gone to an endless war, sacrificed sons and daughters, to hold back the tide. They did it in defiance of the ignorance, hostility and pressures of the world. They did it because they believed, they did it because they refused to die and they did it because surrendering to an enemy that gleefully butchers children was unthinkable. Despite everything that has happened in the last generation, the world has learned little. But the Israelis have learned that peace is an illusion and that all they can do is hold the line. When the torches are lit and loved ones weep, when the 'blood of the maccabees' blooms, a nation reckons again with the price that it pays for survival. Whatever myths pacifists may harbor and anti-war activists preach, there is no escape for any nation from paying that price. Some nations have it paid by others, as the United States...Read More |
The Jerusalem Post reports: The controversy surrounding the Bab al-Rahma (Gate of Mercy or Golden Gate) prayer hall, located east of al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount, resurfaced on Saturday after the Wakf claimed that Israel Police officers halted renovation work at the site. The site was closed by court order in 2003 after the police discovered that members of the Islamic Movement in the Israel-Northern Branch were using it for political activities. Despite the closure, Palestinian activists have made repeated attempts to reopen it. In 2019, activists reopened the entrance to the prayer hall, allowing hundreds of Muslim worshipers to pray. When the police tried to close the area again, they were met with protests by Muslim worshipers, the Jordanian-controlled Wakf Islamic religious trust and the Palestinian Authority. In the aftermath of the 2019 protests, Israel reportedly reached an agreement with the Wakf to keep the site closed, while allowing Muslim worshipers to pray near it. There are no photos or video of the Israeli police doing anything at the prayer hall on Saturday, so this may be an excuse to start something up again. There have been condemnations across the Arab world for this event that may have never happened. (As is too often the case, I don't see any official statements from the Israeli authorities.) Predictably, the rumors are starting...Read More |
Something happened this week that completely contradicts everything you've been reading about the current Israeli government - and the High Court.
From Haaretz
:The Supreme Court should reject a petition demanding the eviction of residents of the Palestinian village of Khan al-Ahmar, because the eviction involves "diplomatic and security considerations" that should be made by the Israeli government, according to a brief filed on Monday by Israel. The government explained that it does eventually plan to carry out the demolition orders issued against the village, but wants to decide for itself when and how to do so. Hold on. Isn't this the "most right wing government in Israeli history"? Isn't the Supreme Court the last liberal holdout against total right-wing dictatorship? As far as I can tell, over the years the Supreme Court has upheld the legality and importance of evacuating the illegal squatters on Area C land that was part of a military firing zone. And the governments of Israel have been trying to avoid that evacuation. In other words, the exact opposite of what the narrative is. Not once since this whole thing went to court over the past ten years has the Supreme Court ruled that the residents have the legal right to remain there or that the State of Israel does not have...Read More |
From Ian: Melanie Phillips: The price Israel pays for its existence Today is Israel's Remembrance Day. This is when the nation commemorates all those who have fallen in battle defending it against its attackers, and remembers also all those Israeli civilians who have been murdered by Arab terrorism. Since the State of Israel was established in 1948, 24,213 men and women have been killed in military service and 4,255 men, women and children have been murdered in terror attacks. To put these losses in proportion, in 1948 Israel had 806,000 people; today, its population is approaching 10 million. In America, the population during that period has risen from around 130 million to 336 million, and in the UK from 50 million to 67 million. Today is an emotional day for Israel. This morning, when the siren sounded at 1100, traffic in the streets came to a halt and people stood and bowed their heads. Thousands of Israelis have visited the cemeteries to remember slain family members, recite prayers and join in the nation's collective mourning and respect. This annual demonstration of solidarity in grief over the dreadful price paid by Israel's never-ending struggle to survive always generates high emotion. Today, this has been heightened still further by the terrible divisions laid bare during the last four months of uproar over the government's judicial reform programme — which today also produced...Read More |
Last week I noted that Palestinian militants seem to have a mass histrionic personality disorder, where they revel in getting attention and feeling relevant at any expense.
Palestinian media exaggerates the effects of relatively minor incidents to feel more important and relevant. And we see it again today.
The Jerusalem Post reports: An Israeli man in his 20s was moderately injured in a shooting attack near Wadi al-Haramiya, between Shilo and Ofra, in the West Bank, on Tuesday morning as Israel marked Remembrance Day. The man is conscious and was injured on his hand. He was part of a group of runners running in memory of fallen soldiers and was shot by a terrorist firing from a passing car. Hamas reports this drive-by shooting as a major operation and the injury and Israeli response as a major military victory: Operation "Eyes of the Thieves" is a natural outgrowth of anger over the crime of the Bab al-Rahma chapel
Hamas spokesman for the...Read More |
Mehdi Hasan of MSNBC tweeted: I bet most Americans don't have a clue that Iran spends a third of what Israel spends on the military and less than a \*tenth\* of what Saudi Arabia spends. And yet the Iranians are continually presented as an scary military threat to both their neighbors and to us - to justify even more military spending. ♂️He then links to a list of military spending for various countries based on SIPRI's database: Middle East largest Military Spenders:
1- Saudi Arabia, $75 billion (5th globally)
2- Israel, $23.4 billion
3- Qatar, $15.4 billion
4- Turkey, $10.6 billion
5- Algeria, $9.1 billion
6- Kuwait, $8.2 billion
7- Iran, $6.8 billion
8- Oman, $5.8 billion First of all, there is a seeming contradiction between the SIPRI figures listed here and on their website with how the World Bank interprets the SIPRI numbers. I cannot explain it, but according to the World Bank, Iran spends slightly more than Israel on the military this year: Clearly, there is a lot of information missing here. The World Bank is not making up numbers out of thin air. But that is a minor issue. SIPRI necessarily uses different methods to estimate its figures, and it says explicitly on its website: In practice it is not possible to apply this definition for all countries, and in many cases SIPRI is confined to using the national data provided. Priority is then given to the choice of a uniform definition over time...Read More |
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