Everybody wants spirituality. To be a good person means to walk in G-d's ways. How does that translate to reality? The only guidebook to spirituality that has stood the test of time is the Hebrew Bible. The Bible says that the Jews will be a light onto the nations. But if you are not a born Jew, you have to convert, which is not so easy!! If you do convert, it is a lot of work to be a Jew (three times a day prayer, keeping kosher, observing the Sabbath).
This blog will show you how to be Jewish without the work!!
Wednesday, December 15, 2021
Yom HaGirush: The Inside Story of ‘Expulsion Day’ By Edwin Black and Temple Emanu-El silences a pro-Israel and amplifies an anti-Israel voice and If Israel swallows Arab propaganda on Judea and Samaria why shouldn't EU and UN? and Jaffa Gate, Jerusalem (1897) in COLOR (AI Deoldify) by Alexandre Promio
Yehuda Lave is an author, journalist, psychologist, rabbi, spiritual teacher, and coach, with degrees in business, psychology and Jewish Law. He works with people from all walks of life and helps them in their search for greater happiness, meaning, business advice on saving money, and spiritual engagement.
Jaffa Gate, Jerusalem (1897) in COLOR (AI Deoldify) by Alexandre Promio
Rare colorized footage depicting Jerusalem in 1897 has resurfaced, with the captivating film compared to a "time machine."
The 124-year-old clip was shot at the infamous Jaffa Gate in the city in Israel, showing a bustling street in front of the eastern façade.
According to Archive.org, it was filmed by Alexandre Promio in April 1897, working for the Lumière film company, with the finished product entitled "Porte de Jaffa: côté Est."
The 43-second long clip was originally silent and captured in black-and-white, but advancements in modern technology have breathed new life into this incredible snapshot of the past.
The updated version was shared to YouTube account Film Rescue, which explained: "This was a Black and White film colorized using Artificial Intelligence so you can see how was the old times but in much higher quality. Weird artifacts can be seen, the colors are not natural but pretty close."
Explaining how they optimized it, they claimed they added frames for smoothness, upscaled to 4K, added sharpness and removed grain. While they included sound "for ambiance."
The account has shared numerous vintage films, with the Jerusalem clip uploaded last year, but it's resurfaced after being posted to Reddit on Sunday.
Redditor Zachdit uploaded it to the forum's Damn That's Interesting thread, where it's already amassed more than 106,000 upvotes.
"Jerusalem, 1897, colorized. The closest thing to a time machine that we have," they said.
The incredible scene was met with delight online, as Coolguycam commented: "My personal fave is the guy that walks by with like his whole living room strapped to his back."
Vulgrin commented: "What's funny is that I've seen few of these types of videos and it seems like in almost every one there are a couple kids being kids at the camera. Makes me smile every time."
BoppedEEMinDAsmoof thought: "They have no idea that people from the year 2021 will be watching them on futuristic devices, like looking through a window in time.
Purplepenguin4163 said: "Something so mundane as people walking down a street will have people watching it with fascination."
"Makes me wonder who'll be watching me doing what 150 years from now...," Ddbogey reckoned.
According to the Jerusalem Foundation, the Jaffa Gate was originally a gatehouse built between 1530-40.
It was also known as Gate of the Friend, Hebron Gate and the Gate of David's Prayer Shrine, and marks the end of the road which led from the port of Jaffa.
The site claimed it's been "an entry point into the Old City for western pilgrims for centuries."
Just one year after the footage was taken, the gate was opened and the road paved to allow the carriage of Kaiser Wilhelm to enter.
The Lumière film company was comprised of brothers Auguste Marie Louis Nicolas Lumière and Louis Jean Lumière, who were pioneers in their field.
The pair came up with the Cinématographe in 1895, which recorded and, crucially, projected film.
The siblings recorded workers leaving their factory at the end of the day and screened the film, which they called "La Sortie des ouvriers de l'usine Lumière," at a public viewing that same year. It is considered the first motion picture.
According to the website History.com, by 1896 they opened Cinématographe theaters in London, Brussels, Belgium and New York.
The site noted: "They began sending other cameramen-projectionists out into the world to record scenes of life and showcase their invention."
The Three Musketeers at the Kotel
Temple Emanu-El silences a pro-Israel and amplifies an anti-Israel voice
The temple preferred to hear from journalist Peter Beinart, who advocates the end of Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people and who supports boycotts against Israelis, than on biblical trials that intrigue and educate adults and kids.
I have been called "Israel's best defender." Yet New York's Temple Emanu-El, the most important Reform synagogue, has silenced my voice while amplifying the voice of one of Israel's most toxic detractors. Here are the facts:
For several years, I was the "defense lawyer" for biblical characters who were put "on trial" at Temple Emanu-El. The trials—of Abraham, Moses, David, Noah and others—were the most popular and well-attended events at the temple. Upwards of 1,500 people would attend, listen to the evidence and then vote "guilty" or "not guilty." I was the "defense attorney," and different "prosecutors" were selected to present the case against the "defendant. They included former Connecticut Sen. Joseph Lieberman, cable-news TV commentator Chris Cuomo, former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer and others. King David was found guilty; all the others were found innocent. The audiences loved these trials, and the expectation was that they would continue for many years, culminating with "the Trial of God" Himself.
In the fall of 2019, the Trial of Joseph's brothers for selling Joseph to the Egyptians was scheduled and announced. A prosecutor was selected, and I was preparing my case. Then the temple decided to be "cute" and make the trial relevant to current headlines. So they advertised it (without consulting with me) as the Trial of Joseph's brothers for "trafficking" Joseph. After some objections were raised to a trial of trafficking in light of the Jeffrey Epstein case at the time, I suggested putting a different biblical character on trial. Instead, synagogue leadership decided to "postpone" the event. Rabbi Joshua Davidson assured me that the trials would soon resume.
The coronavirus hit the following year, and no in-person events took place. When events resumed this fall, I called asked the rabbi to schedule another trial; he said there would be no more. I asked why. He told me that the president and the board had decided against any more trials involving me. I then offered to speak on other issues—I had recently written books on Israel, freedom of speech and the vaccine mandates. He said he would get back to me.
My cancellation by a prominent Jewish institution gives cover to non-Jewish institutions, such as universities, to cancel me as well, without being accused of anti-Zionism or anti-Semitism. A few days later, he informed me that I could not speak there on anysubject, pursuant to a decision made by the president of the board, Harris Diamond, a retired executive for a company that advertised petroleum, surgery soft drinks, alcoholic beverages and big pharma. He assured me that no one—certainly not he—believed I had done anything wrong. He said there were media reports that I had been accused of having sex with a woman connected to Jeffrey Epstein, and that the synagogue didn't want to be identified with or tainted by any accusation, even if false.
I assured him that there was no truth to the accusations—that I had never met or heard of the accuser, reminding the rabbi that this is exactly how McCarthyism worked back in the 1950s. The institutions that banned people accused of being Communists did not necessarily believe the accusations or think that they justified the ban, but they feared being tainted even by false accusations. So, they went along with the ban, just to be safe.
The rabbi told me: "Rabbis don't make these decisions; the board and president do." He implied that if it were up to him, I would be invited. I responded that rabbis have an obligation not to accept unjust decisions by the lay president, and I offered to present my case to the board. He said that would not be possible. The board had made up its mind. Had I been permitted to present my case, the board would have heard the following:
When I was first falsely accused of having relations with Virginia Roberts Giuffre in Epstein's New Mexico ranch, his island and other specified locations, I stated categorically that I have documentary records that conclusively prove I could not have been in those locations during the relevant time periods. I produced cell-phone records, American Express charges, travel documents, recorded TV appearances, teaching schedules, calendars, court appearances and other documents that persuaded Giuffre's own lawyers that it was "not possible" for her account to be true, and that—in her lawyer's own words—she was "wrong … simply wrong" in accusing me.
We subpoenaed any emails that referred to me, but she denied under oath that there were any. We later found several "smoking gun" emails that proved she never met me or even heard of me. She had to be told by a journalist friend that I was a famous lawyer and that my name "was a good name for your [book] pitch," even though there was "no proof" I had done anything wrong. Giuffre then followed the journalist's advice and included my name in her book manuscript, but as a person she had seen, but never met, and certainly never had any relations with.
She told her best friend that she didn't want to accuse me but "felt pressure" from her lawyers to do so. She also told her best friend's husband that she never had relations with me. I have recordings confirming this.
She also told her best friend that she was going after the owner of Victoria's Secret for "at least half his money." He is Leslie Wexner, worth close to $10 billion. We learned that at the same time Giuffre publicly accused me, her lawyers privately accused Wexner of nearly identical sexual misconduct and demanded a meeting to resolve her "claims" against him. Both Wexner's wife and lawyer told me it was a "shakedown" (the word is recorded on a tape). It seems obvious that I was being used as a stalking horse to send the unmistakable message to Wexner that if he didn't want to happen to him what happened to me—namely, a very public accusation—there are ways of resolving the matter.
After the lawyers for Giuffre and Wexner secretly met, and presumably resolved the matter, Giuffre's lawyer appeared on TV and stated categorically that Wexner did not have sex with Giuffre, despite Giuffre's sworn testimony that she did on multiple occasions in multiple locations.
She also lied about how old she was when she met Epstein. At first, she said she was 15—well below the age of consent in any American state. She provided a vivid and detailed description of spending her "Sweet Sixteen" birthday with Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, and receiving gifts from them. When employment records proved she was 17, which is above the age of consent in New York and other states, she admitted she had been "mistaken." She also admitted that she was "mistaken" when she said she had dinner with Al and Tipper Gore on Epstein's Island.
Giuffre has obtained millions of dollars from accusing numerous men and women. Among those she has accused are former Sen. George Mitchell, former Ambassador Bill Richardson, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, Jacque Cousteau's niece, a president of a foreign country and several other prominent billionaires. She has also said she was paid $15,000 by Epstein to sleep with Britain's Prince Andrew when she was above the age of consent. But her own lawyer has said on TV that based on his 11-year investigation, he does not believe that "any high-profile people" had sexual relations with Giuffre. All of these high-profile people have categorically denied her accusations.
If her own lawyers don't believe her sworn accusation—and they have said they do not—how can others credit them? That is probably why the U.S. Attorney's office that indicted Epstein and Maxwell deliberately omitted Giuffre as a witness. She had provided deposition testimony and media statements that were extremely incriminating of Epstein and Maxwell. She would have been the key witness against both of them, if she were credible. But it is unethical for prosecutors to call a witness who they know or believe is not credible. So, they crafted the indictments carefully to charge misconduct unrelated to her. Nobody who has seen the evidence believes Giuffre, yet Temple Emanu-El nonetheless canceled me.
The immediate result of the cancellation is that more than 1,500 people were denied the opportunity to see trials they loved and learned from. They were also denied the opportunity to hear my constitutional analysis of vaccine mandates. Most disturbingly, they were prevented from hearing—and having their children hear—my arguments in defense of Israel at a time of increasing anti-Zionism and anti-Jewish attitudes in universities and among the hard left.
I offered to speak on how to combat these dangers, but the synagogue preferred to hear from Peter Beinart, who advocates the end of Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people and who supports boycotts against Israelis. At the same time that I was canceled, Beinart received a substantial speaker's fee from the synagogue to make his case against Israel.
Moreover, my cancellation by a prominent Jewish institution gives cover to non-Jewish institutions, such as universities, to cancel me as well, without being accused of anti-Zionism or anti-Semitism. Temple Emanu-El has thus contributed to the silencing of my pro-Israel voice where it is most needed today.
Silence is not the option in the face of unjustified McCarthyite censorship by a synagogue that claims to be a house of study, open-mindedness and Jewish values of dialogue and dissent. So, I will not quietly accept Temple Emanu-El's hypocrisy and cowardice. Nor should you.
Alan M. Dershowitz is the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law Emeritus at Harvard Law School and author of "Guilt by Accusation: The Challenge of Proving Innocence in the Age of #MeToo."
After 1949, about one million Jews were driven by force out of their centuries-old homes across the Middle East and North Africa (to a lesser extent from Morocco). Unlike the Palestinians, they have never been compensated for this loss. Pictured: An Israeli maabara refugee camp for Jews who were expelled from Arab countries of the Middle East and North Africa, circa 1950
Today, we speak of a largely forgotten ethnic cleansing largely unparalleled in the history of humanitarian abuses. Recall the coordinated international expulsion of some 850,000 Jews from Arab and Muslim lands, where they had lived peaceably for as long as 27 centuries. As some know, in 2014, the Israeli government set aside Nov. 30 as a commemoration of this mass atrocity.
It has had no real identity or name like "Kristallnacht." But today, from this day forward, the day will be known as Yom HaGirush: "Expulsion Day."
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It has been a years-long road to identify and solidify this identity. It began the moment that Hitler came to power in 1933.
The international Pan-Arab community, coordinated out of Palestine and spanning four continents, formed a vibrant political and later military alliance with the Nazis. This partnership functioned in the rarefied corridors of governments, the riot-torn streets of many cities on all sides of the oceans and eventually the gun-powdered trenches and frontlines of war-strangled Europe.
The overseer of this alliance was Hajj Amin al-Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, but he led an eager coalition of Arab leaders organized into the Arab Higher Committee, along with popular supporters from the Arab street. They had fused with Nazi ideology and goals, which included the destruction of the Jews and the defeat of British influence.
After the Mufti fled criminal prosecution in Jewish Palestine in Oct. 1937, he relocated to Baghdad. Iraq became the new center of gravity for the Arab-Nazi collaboration. By the outbreak of World War II in 1939, Iraqi Arabs under the guidance of the Mufti had imported all sorts of Nazi ideology and confederation into Iraq. On June 1-2, 1941, as Germany was poised to attack Russia and needed Arab oil, Nazi Arabs in Iraq launched a bloody two-day pogrom against its Jewish community, which had dwelled there for 2,700 years—a 1,000 years before Muhammad.
The grand mufti of Jerusalem Haj Amin al-Husseini (L) with Adolf Hitler.
The hyphenation of "Arab-Nazi" applies, not merely because these Arabs were fascist in mind and deed, but because they actually identified with Germany's Nazi Party. Some rioters wore swastikas; many had actually marched in the Nuremberg torchlight parades. The Syrian Social Nationalist Party adopted a flag that spun off from Nazi Germany's.
In that nightmare June 1-2 riot, Jews were hunted in the streets. When found, Jewish girls were raped in front of their parents; fathers were beheaded in front of their children; mothers were brutalized in public; babies were sliced in half and thrown into the Tigris River. The Baghdad mobs burned dozens of Jewish shops, invaded Jewish homes and looted them.
We will never know how many hundreds were murdered or mutilated because in the investigation that followed, many were afraid to come forward. But that bloody event became known as the Farhud, meaning violent dispossession. The Farhud spelled the beginning of the end of Iraqi Jewry—more than 140,000 souls.
Just before the State of Israel declared its independence in 1948, the Arab League promised the world that it would execute a mass expulsion of all of it Jews. The Arab League actually coordinated forms and procedures among more than a dozen countries.
For example, in Iraq, Law 51 on criminality was modified to include "Zionist"—which could be defined as any Jew found with a Hebrew marking even from a prayer book. Law 1 on denaturalization was modified to deprive Jews of their long-held citizenship, and then Law 5 permitted confiscation of Jewish assets.
Similar disenfranchisements were repeated across the Arab and Muslim world. Guiding and assisting in these processes were some 2,000 Nazis—ex-concentration camp guards, Gestapo, SS officers and Wehrmacht commanders who had escaped Nuremberg trials to continue Hitler's war against the Jews—but now in the Middle East.
At the same time, the Arab League promised to invade the new State of Israel. "This will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre, which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres," promised Azzam Pasha, secretary-general of the Arab League.
For four months, the World Jewish Congress pleaded with the United Nations, then convening in Lake Success, New York, to stop the ethnic cleansing. Was this a secret? Hardly. The New York Times was then the newspaper of record in the United States. Its bold-type headline alarum declared "Jews in Grave Danger in All Moslem Lands."
The article prominently listed the expelling countries and how many thousands of Jews would be ethnically cleansed. French Morocco: 190,000; Iraq: 130,000; Algeria: 120,000; and on, until the total touched the dark edge of 900,000.
In many countries, it was made clear to the Jews that if they resisted, they would be subjected to more Farhuds and then deported to Nazi-style concentration camps. After all, Arab regimes during WWII, led by the Mufti, made efforts to send Jews to Auschwitz.
The Mufti had been given guided tours of several camps, including the SS's camp-system headquarters. During the war, local officials throughout the Arab-influenced world set up concentration camps as centers of slave labor and torture. Of the dozens of camps in Arab lands, names such as Im Fout in Morocco, Djelfa in Algeria and Giado in Libya have been lost to faded footnotes.
By the late 1940s, Farhud-invoking songs were popular, and numerous mini-Farhud pogroms had already burned through Jewish communities. So, community by community, the Jews were carted to remote locations where clandestine airlifts—often organized by the company that became Alaska Airlines—flew the Jews, packed in like human sardines, out to Israel.
The Arabs thought that they were creating a demographic bomb for the new State of Israel. But Israel's refugee camps were quite temporary, and most of the hundreds of thousands were fully absorbed into the Jewish state.
This crime against humanity swelled Israel's population almost by half, demographically converting the largely European population of newly independent Israel to one that was half Sephardic or Mizrahi—essentially derived from Arab states. This Arab-engineered expulsion gives the great lie to the smear that Israelis are a bunch of well-off Jews from London, Los Angeles and Lvov. And it re-focuses and balances the issue of Arab refugees from 1948.
In 1948, the newly formed and fabricated state of Jordan invaded and created the West Bank. In three official conferences in Ramallah, Jericho and Hebron, the Arabs voted to create no separate national identity, but rather become subjects of Jordan.
In 1964, as Israel proved that it could not be driven into the Sea, the Soviet KGB helped engineer the creation of the Palestine Liberation Organization. The Arabs then expropriated the name "Palestinians" from Zionists—basically committing identity theft.
No one can show me any identification of Arabs as Palestinians before 1964. On "The Edwin Black Show," I have publicly asked for just one example. Yet the "Palestinian" cause has been championed—based on false history, fake facts, Jewish ignorance and the forgotten realities of 850,000 expelled Jews.
There have been many expulsions and forced migrations in history. The Spanish Inquisition broadly covers a single sphere of expulsion. The Trail of Tears covers one category of forced migrations, that of Native Americans. But never since the Roman Empire has the world seen some 15 countries openly coordinate the deprivation and expulsion of their citizens based solely on their religion.
Even though this grave act was always a flame burning in the families of the dispossessed, it was forgotten by the world. The "sha-sha" virus can infect an entire people proving there is both collective memory and collective amnesia.
But I stumbled upon the Farhud in researching my 2003 bookBanking on Baghdad. This rekindled the torch of awareness.
"The Farhud Recognition Project," energized by Sephardim in the United States, only asked for the mass murder to be remembered. I dove further into the topic, resulting in my 2010 book, The Farhud—Roots of the Arab-Nazi Alliance in the Holocaust, which tracked the Arab-Nazi alliance, the awful pogroms and the post-war expulsion.
In June 2015, I and a group of committed communal leaders were able to do what many memory-seared families called the impossible: proclaim International Farhud Day at the United Nations in a historic event globally livestreamed by the U.N. itself.
But I always wanted to do more and give identity and homage to the mass expulsion. This month, with the support of my colleagues in many countries, on a special edition of "The Edwin Black Show," I proclaimed Nov. 30 forever more to be a day of remembrance named "Yom HaGirush."
That name, Yom HaGirush, marks when Jewish communities across many countries were once again dispossessed, but became repossessed in the free nation of Israel. The Jewish state now possesses these people and their descendants—and they in turn now possess their Jewish state. Possession is nine-tenths of survival. Israel has become the final stop for the Jews.
From Morocco to India, and from Yemen to Afghanistan, the lives and centuries of legacies were incinerated. It was done in broad daylight with barely a murmur from the world.
It happened not even five years after the world learned that six million Jews had been exterminated and millions more made refugees. Mark it down on a piece of paper: Yom HaGirush. YomHaGirush.com is now in embryonic form, but soon will be a vibrant worldwide resource and a warning to the world that when we say, "Never again," we mean it.
If Israel swallows Arab propaganda on Judea and Samaria why shouldn't EU and UN?
Israel's MFA website has given some of the Arab revisionist rewrite of history unwarranted credibility. Opinion.
United Nations (UN), European Union (EU) and Arab propaganda has perverted the history of the Arab-Jewish conflict. Their heinous conduct enables them to falsely claim that Jews have no legal right to live in Judea and Samaria ('West Bank').
Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) has seemingly swallowed parts of their disingenuous narrative hook line and sinker.
Achieving this triumvirate's sinister agenda has been amazingly simple: Start with the year 1967 – instead of 1920 – when talking about resolving a conflict that has in fact been raging for more than 100 years.
Doing so has seen the UN, EU and Arab propagandists:
-Term the conflict: The "Israel-Arab conflict" or the "Israeli-Palestinian conflict" - instead of what it has always been – the "Jewish-Arab conflict".
-Ignore that Arabs living in Palestine in 1922 were only regarded as part of the "existing non-Jewish communities" – that "Israelis" and "Palestinians" did not then exist.
-Paper over that the San Remo Conference and Treaty of Sevres in 1920 decided that:
Arab self-determination was to occur in 99.99% of the territory captured from the Ottoman Empire in World War 1 - including those territories designated under the Mandate for Syria and Lebanon and the Mandate for Mesopotamia (now Iraq)
Jewish self-determination was to occur in the remaining 0.01% - "Palestine" - under the Mandate for Palestine (Mandate) - unanimously adopted by all 51 member states of the League of Nations in 1922
-Avoid any consideration or discussion that under the Mandate:
The territory of Palestine encompassed what is today called Jordan (78%), Israel (17%), and the 'West Bank' and Gaza (5%)
Jews were prevented from reconstituting the Jewish National Home in Jordan under article 25 of the Mandate – but "close settlement by Jews" in Judea and Samaria was to be encouraged under article 6 and that the right of Jews to do so was expressly reserved under article 80 of the UN Charter notwithstanding the subsequent demise of the League of Nations in 1946.
Self-determination for the Palestinian Arabs was achieved in 78% of Palestine in 1946 when Jordan (then called Transjordan) was granted its independence by Great Britain.
-Not condemn the ethnic cleansing of every Jew living in Judea and Samaria and East Jerusalem between 1948 and 1967.
-Use the 1950 Arab-coined name "West Bank" to replace the 3000 years old UN-recognised name "Judea and Samaria"
-Cover up that the "Palestinians" were not identified or defined until 1964 under article 6 of the PLO Charter and that they made no claim to regional sovereignty under article 24 to "the West Bank of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan" or "on the Gaza Strip".
-Disregard that Transjordan was unified with Judea and Samaria between 1950 and 1967 to form a single Palestinian Arab state - renamed Jordan – that all its residents were Jordanian citizens.
Falsely claiming Jews have no legal right to live in Judea and Samaria reeks of Jew-hatred.
Israel's MFA website has given some of this revisionist rewrite of history unwarranted credibility:
"Israel's territory according to the agreed 1949 Armistice Demarcation Line encompassed about 78% of the Mandate area, while the other parts, namely the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, were occupied by Jordan and Egypt respectively."
Israel's territory only encompassed about 17% - not 78% - of the Mandate Area. The remaining 83% comprised Jordan (78%) and Judea and Samaria ('West Bank') and the Gaza Strip (5%).
Using the stand-alone term "West Bank" expunges recognition of that territory's Jewish identity as "Judea and Samaria" - part of the Jewish People's ancient biblical and historic homeland.
Words count.
Israel's Foreign Ministry needs to correct these monumental gaffes.
Author's note: The cartoon — commissioned exclusively for this article — is by Yaakov Kirschen aka "Dry Bones"- one of Israel's foremost political and social commentators — whose cartoons have graced the columns of Israeli and international media publications for decades.
David Singer is an Australian lawyer who is active in Zionist community organizations in that country. He founded the "Jordan is Palestine" Committee in 1979.
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