Happy Holiday

Sometimes I feel bad for Yom Ha'atzma'ut.  Nobody gets upset about Pesach or Shavous and everyone looks forward to Purim but Yom Ha'atma'ut?  People either really love it or not.  There seems to be no in-between.
To me that seems proof of the importance of the establishing of the State.  After all, folks tend not to care too much about unimportant things.  When something holds a deep emotional meaning to folks they do tend to express their care and interest, sometimes extremely strongly.
For example, whenever a gentile politician announces something like "I support Israel's right to exist" or "I support Israel's right to defend itself" people don't bat an eye but does it ever occur to them how stupid either statement sounds?  I mean, when was the last time you heard, "I support Nigeria's right to exist" or "I support Pakistan's right to defend itself"?  It seems only when Israel is the subject that such things need to be stated because otherwise they might be in doubt.
Within the Jewish People we find the same problem.  Support is there for Israel but on condition or begrudgingly.  On the left we have Reformatives who support the State of Israel as long as it's a multicultural, religiously tolerant, semi-socialist, non-religious entity.  On the right we have the folks who refuse to admit any liking for the State or its institutions but who betray their happiness with its existence by accepting all the tax funds it shovels their way (but without them having to say "thank you", chas v'shalom).
So as usual it's left up to the centre, in this case the Religious Zionist community to get it right here's what that community has to say:
1) The State of Israel is not perfect but it is the start of the Final Redemption, a gift from God to give us an opportunity to move history forward to its eschatological conclusion.  (Did I use the word right?)
2) The Land of Israel belongs to the Jewish people.  We have no allies, partners, folks we can share with, and so on.
3) Therefore, when anyone challenges the legitimacy of the State and of Jewish society in Israel we have to respond simply, without convolutions or appeals to their understanding.  God gave us this land.  Through His generosity, it's ours.  Don't like it?  Find another place to live, please.
Let us hope that this Yom Ha'atzma'ut is the last in which we have to accept an imperfect state and government and that in the coming year history will once more move forward so that we will see all of Yerushalayim, including the entire Has haBayis in our possession under the rule of God's chosen Moshiach.  Until then let us realize that Israel is our connection to God, our proof of His intervention in history and not accept the opinions of anyone who thinks less.

One Wedding

Recently everyone seemed to be enthralled with the story of a wedding in Israel in which celebrants shouted "Death to the Arabs" while brandishing weapons.  Much anguish was aired across the press, both print and electronic, about this occurence.  As is common in the right wing National Religious community, there was much chest thumping and declarations of guilt. How could this have happened?  Isn't it terrible?  Isn't the National Religious community terrible by association?  The outrage was so strong that Rav Avi Shafran wrote a hack piece assuring us that, in fact, the Chareidi community had no connection to any terrorism or violence within the Jewish religous world.  (Pause for laughter)
While I certainly do not condone the actions of the celebrants or share their desire for open hatred of the Arabs in Israel, I would like to note something amidst all the wailing.
Yosef Trumpeldor was killed when he was 40 years old by Arabs back in 1920.  Ninetyfive years ago Arabs decided to kill a Jew not because he was occupying their supposed homeland because at that time Israel was occuped and ruled by the British and before them the Turks.  He was killed because he was a Jew that wished to live in the land of Israel and for the Arab community that was unacceptable.  No Israel, no occupation, just a small number of Jews trying to build a community and that was enough to invite death.  Ninetyfive years ago.
Since then it is impossible to count the number of attacks against Jews committed by Arabs in Israel.  How many people killed while riding the bus or walking on the street?  How many infants and children?  How many elderly?  How many gunned down while observing Jewish rituals?
And each time, if Israel, or its pre-State equivalent, dared to respond to remind the Arabs that Jewish blood isn't cheap, how many calls of condemnation or accusations of disproportionate response and war crimes?
Today in the so-called Palestinian Authority along with its sidekick Hamastan in 'Aza we are treated to daily calls by various political and religious officials to kill the Jews and wipe out Israel.  A major national or religious gathering isn't complete without the requisite Itbach al Yahud!.  (Kind of makes Lubavitcher meshichistim seem so benign, yes?)  But one wedding where Jews do the same and suddenly we are facing demands for a cheshbon hanefesh!  Our community is out of control!
One wedding against thousands (if not more) of similar acts on the other side.  We consign such views to the extremist fringe while they make them mainstream and extol their virtue.  Is there any comparison between us and them?
We have a further enemy within, happy to make unbalanced biased films in which a small group of settlers with a violent agenda are portrayed as the influential guides of the entire Jewish community of Shomron and Yehudah with the Arabs as innocent victims.  In the finest style of German World War 2 propaganda we are shown the ugly Jew and his insatiable appetite for causing the suffering of others.
We are accused of occupying Yehudah and Shomron as if there was no Jewish presence there until 1948 when the invading Arab Legion of Transjordan ethnically cleansed the area.  We are accused of wanting to regain possession of our holiest site of worship from squatters who act as if we have no connection to it.  These are the crimes we are accused of.
So let me say that yes: we are guilty of those charge.  I don't call for violence against the Arabs of Israel.  I don't want people going out and shooting innocents, adults or children.  Don't burn their olive tree groves or vandalize their mosques.  Such acts are not those of civilized people and if we truly embrace God's Torah then we must be civilized people.  Is it frustrating?  Yes.  Is it fair?  No.  But until Moshiach Tzidkeinu arrives and properly reapportions the land, removing the foreign element, it is a suffering that we must endure as galus ends.
We do not need to be suckers or helpless victims but the Torah demands of us that we remember our holiness and not let our zeal degrade our piety into fanatic barbarism.

Save Your Tears

One of the accompanying features of Zionism every since Theodore Herzl, a"h, got the idea in his head, has been pessimism.  At every step along the way from the First Zionist Conference to modern day events people have held negative attitudes towards the success of the Jewish rebirth in Israel.
For some it was religious.  For some it was political.  For some it was practical cynicism but there has never been a dearth of people willing to either say that Israel would never be established, never survive its first few years and never endure into the future.
Despite that Israel has flourished in ways its most optimistic founders could not have imagined.  From the humble beginnings of the First Aliyah the country has become a minor world power, a centre of agriculture and technology and, most importantly, the reborn centre of the Torah world with countless yeshivos and other Torah institutions.
Once upon a time we were told that Israel would flounder demographically because of the high Arab birthrate.  Somehow that hasn't happened with the population proportions not budging significantly in the last 30 years.  We were told that Israel would drink the Kinneret dry.  Instead the country is the world leader in desalination and the Kinneret, although not as full as it should be, still maintains its presence.
That doesn't stop naysayers from continues to write eulogies for Israel, chas v'shalom.  The latest eloquent attempt can be found on TabletMag and, while well written, is just an updated version of the dirges we've been reading for years.  It lists all the well-known threats to Israel's continuity, both internal and external and seems to conclude that it's only a matter of time before one, or a combination of those factors will cause the State to collapse, chalilah.
This is, of course, bunk.  Israel isn't going anywhere.  And why am I so sure?
Because along with pessimism, another accompanying feature of Zionism since its founding has been incompetence.  Consider all the mistakes various Zionist leaders made over the last century or so and you'd be amazed the State ever came into existence or endured.  The visionary founder of the movement was fine with the Jewish national homeland being put in Uganda and having German as the national language.  The religious element of the Jewish community in Europe created a reaction in the secular group that led to anti-Torah hostility and a plan to build a Jewish state free of Judaism.  This sounds incredible today but that was the guiding ethos of secular Zionism.  Look at political events, the early division of the new Yishuv into mutually antagonistic groups even as the British and Arabs stood at the gates waiting to end the whole Jewish National Homeland project.  Even heard of the Altalena?
Even now when one considers the corruption endemic in Israel's elite and how the government is dominated by parties with no interest beyond narrow parochial ones, it is to wonder how the country functions at all.
What is the secret then?  In one word: God.
Despite the insistence of the finest Hungarian rebbes of the last century and a half, it seems God is interested in Jewish rebirth in Israel.  History was arranged to ensure that the Three Oaths (even though they're aggada, not halacha) would be upkept, empires rose and fell based on their ability to push the objective forward and despite the various attempts of all our enemies as well as our own to push the project into the crapper, Israel survives and thrives.  Just read The Secret War Against the Jews and you'll see that the Purim story has nothing on what went on behind the scenes from the earliest days of Zionism until now. 
By no reasonable standard should David Ben Gurion, a"h, have been able to stand up on 5 Iyyar and proclaim the State's independence.  By no reasonable standard should a fledgling army and accompanying militias been able to drive back and actually take territory from larger, better armed forces.  By no reasonable standard should a country with minimal natural resources and almost no industrial base have developed into the source of everyone's computing and cell phone experience.  Yet it happened. Why?  We must say that it's because of the Master of the Universe.
If this is so then the author of this latest article should hold his tears back.  Is Iran threatening us?  So did Nasser, y"sh, and he was in a much better position to harm us than the mullahs of Tehran.  Are there growing tensions between the religious and secular populations?  That is hardly news. 
Israel will endure not because we want it to, not because it's a good idea, not because world Jewry needs a lifeboat and not because of its leaders and elite but because God wants a Jewish rebirth in Israel and He will not be gainsaid.  Our task is to recognize His hand is history and reach up to grab it through emunah and shemiras mitzvos in the building and maintaining of the land He demands that we have.

The Unending Insecurity

On one hand, history has given us Jews enough reason to feel insecure in our identities.  We have enough expulsions, massacres, rapes and devastations to keep up from seeing the world through rose-coloured glasses.  Even now in the early 21st century in a place like North America, the insecurity continues.  Like the battered child who is rescued from years of abuse but can't get past jittery anxiety in a safe foster home because of the depth of the trauma, diaspora Jews as a population seem to believe that the good times we currently live in are a facade that will eventually disappear.
The problem is that coping mechanisms that have developed to handle this belief are both dysfunctional.  On the religious side we have many Torah-observant Jews who miss the old ghettos of Europe and have voluntarily rebuilt them her in Canada and America.  You know the type.  They dress like their grandparents did in the alte heim, they insist that Yiddish should be our first language and they continue to insist that the Gentiles around us are the same nasssssssty goyim as they were in Europe.  Can't beat 'em so avoid 'em.
The other group are the secular part of our brethren.  Like their predecesors in Western Europe they see assimilation and eventually abandonment of our heritage as the solution to the hatred hiding below the surface.  Can't beat 'em so join 'em.
However, both these approaches ignore the single most important positive Jewish event in Jewish history of the last two millenia - the rebirth of Jewish sovereignty in Israel.  This has created a third group of Jews, one which is aware of its insecure position in the world but sees its Jewishness like the British see their Britishness and the Chinese their Chineseness.  They are Jews, they have no jealousy of other groups and see no reason to either hate or suck up to them.  This third group is quite unsettling because neither the first nor second quite know how to handle it.
For the ultraOrthodox the idea of Jews confidenly living in this world with their Jewishness simply being part of it is difficult to comprehend.  Their philosophy is that Judaism is at odds with life in this world.  For the secular population which is happier being Jewish American or Canadian as opposed to being Canadian or American Jews the idea of a Jew without a hyphen on either side of the world is also bewildering.
This explains perhaps why Israeli jews are getting increasingly frustrated with their North American brothers.  Israel, despite all its successes, lives under the black cloud of hatred that covers the skies of the MiddleEast.  It knows that it is one whackjob with a bomb away from a mortal crisis.  It desperately wants to live in peace but isn't prepared to commit national suicide to achieve that peace.  But when it reaches its hand across the ocean for help or support what does it get in response?
From the ultraOrthodox it gets no hand back.  Like their cousins in Israel the Agudah community and those to the right of it are parochial.  They have little interest in the greater good of the Jewish nation.  Only those pan-communal causes that might affect its well-being draw its attention. 
From the secular community there is a hand back but its swatting the Israeli one away.  American Jews, or rather: Jewish Americans, long ago lost that family feeling that should bind all Jews one to another.  For them tikun olam is about recycling, not about bringing the Divine into this world.  Alternative marriages, abortion on demand, Obamacare and ecofasicm are their priorities, not their brothers in Israel who are on the wrong side of the politically correct debate since they're oppressing those supposedly poor so-called Palestinians.
It's a mindset I've always been curious about.  At one point in North American history Jews dealt with open hatred and exclusion from the majority population by building up their own communities and showing they could be as diverse and successful as their Gentile rivals.  Jewish hospitals, schools and universities are the legacy of that fierce desire to succeed with or without the approval of the Gentiles.
Something changed in the middle 20th century, it seems.  With the increasing acceptance of Jews into Gentile institutions like universities and country clubs the pride that demand that our fathers and mothers build their own society disappeared.  Suddenly the greatest Jewish goal was to be accepted as a member of the local WASP club or get into the local university.  Jewish success was measured by how assimilated you could be while still calling yourself a member of the tribe.
To this day that lack of Jewish self-respect haunts and harms us.  What is J Street other than a Judenrat desperate to seek the approval of the politically correct Jew-hating crowd?  Why does the ADL oppose Sheldon Adelson's latest initiatives to ensure Jewish continuity other than because it makes Jews stand out instead of making them seem like just another member of the American mosaic?
Israel is the future of our people.  Israel is the centre of our national life.  It is time we took a cue from the confident Israelis and recognized that we need no approval from society around us, that we don't need to tailor our views to their approval and that our destiny is decided by the Divine will, not that of the Western world.  We don't need their country clubs.  We need our Land, our Torah and our self-respect.

Of Glass Houses and Stones

Rav Yaakov Mencken of Cross Currents is, as we all know, not the most sophisticated writer on the block.  He seems quite easy to outrage and is always read with a biased screed against his perceived enemies.  His latest piece, once again attacking the Women of the Wall and giving them attention they don't deserve, raises an interesting point on his thinking.
In short, he notes the emerging awareness that Women of the Wall is connected to leftists groups, some of whom are anti-Israel.  I certainly agree with him that these kinds of things should be noted.  If the WoW's are taking aid and succour from groups that would like to see the Wall on the Arab side of the barbed wire fence then people should be made aware of this.  After all, I doubt most people who are sympathetic to the WoW's would agree with losign the Wall to Judaism entirely.
But take a step back and wonder.  Rav Mencken is, no doubt, an upstanding UltraOrthodox Jew.  He wears the outfit, speaks the Yeshivish and likely sways beautifully when davening.  I'm also willing to bet that he loves hanging out with UltraOrthodox Jews of all types, including Chasidim. Including Satmar Chasidim.
Now let's remind ourself of the official position of the Satmar Chasidim when it comes to Israel.  They are, to put it gently, rapidly anti-Israel.  They have no problem with so-called Palestinian maps that show a 23rd Arab state run by unrepentant Jew-killing terrorits instead of Israel.  They have no problem calling for the end of Israel and reminding people that "real Orthodox Jews" (i.e. them) are anti-Zionists.  Does Rav Mencken have the same problem with them as he does with the anti-Israel groups that the WoW's hang around with?
In short, with whom would he rather associate?  Zionist Riverdale or Israel-hating Williamsburg?  And if it's the latter, who is he to criticize the WoW's?

The Real Holy Spot

While speaking with a prominent and wise Rav the other day, the topic of the Kosel came up and he shared an interesting insight with me.  He pointed out that the Kosel, as important as we all perceive to be, is not a real holy site.  Rather it's the elevated piece of ground beyond that is the actual prime spiritual real estate, the Temple Mount.
Now let's leave aside the argument over the permissibility of going up the Har HaBayis.  As this Rav noted, and I agree, we seem to have forgotten that the Kosel isn't the centre of Jewish world but a poor substitute because of the current occupants beyond.  We shouldn't see praying at the Kosel as an end unto itself but as an expression of the desire to one day prostate ourselves before the Shechinah in a rebuilt Temple (may it occur speedily in our day).
Yet habit and time seem to have robbed us of this awareness.  Consciously or not, we don't see Har HaBayis as the place prayers need to be offered from.  That belongs to "them" while we have the Kosel.  That's good enough.  Or is it?
This is what makes all the kerfuffle caused by the Women of the Wall so absurd.  They show up at the Kosel plaza dressed to instigate.  They succeed in getting the attention they want and then they shout that the Kosel isn't a Chareidi synagogue, that they too have the right to worship as they see fit, and so on.  And no one points out that while the Kosel isn't a Chareidi synagogue it's also not a synagogue in any sense of the word.  It's the one remnant of the outer wall of the Second Temple.  When that Temple was standing no one stood at its base tearfully offering prayers.
What's even more ironic is that, were the Temple to be rebuilt tomorrow, it would reinstitute worship that would be extremely class and gender segregated.  Women would be restricted to a small part of the Har HaBayis.  Non-Kohanim would also be limited in their movements and imagine the guards checking for one's tumah status.  For all their screaming about an inclusive Judaism that respects everyone, we would finally know that Torah worship is, in fact, very formal and rigid on what it allows.
Why is all this important to mention now?  As the Israeli election campaign careens to a close the story has broken that a candidate for Bayit Yehudi has been caught on video saying that he thinks it would be great if the Dome of the Rock were to be blown up.
The Tzipi Livni Party announced Saturday that it planned to request from the Central Elections Committee that a Bayit Yehudi candidate, who spoke of the Dome of the Rock being “blown up” in a video clip, be disqualified from running in Tuesday’s election.

The clip, which was first revealed by Channel 2, shows the 14th candidate on the Bayit Yehudi list, Atlantanative Jeremy Gimpel, addressing a group of Christian Zionists in Florida in November 2011. Gimpel states in the clip, “Imagine today if the golden dome, I’m being recorded so I can’t say blown up, but let’s say it was blown up, right, and we laid the cornerstone of the Temple in Jerusalem. Can you imagine what would be? None of you would be here. You would be going to Israel. It would be incredible.”

Well you know what?  I also think it would be great.  I have no plans to make it happen.  I would oppose anyone who said they intended to make it come about.  I am sure we as a people are not ready for it and the needless bloodshed that would follow such an event would be incredibly tragic.  Having said that, yes I don't think the Dome belongs there.  I don't like that it's a non-Jewish place of worship.  I would much rather have a Temple there run by the right people acting as a central source of identity and unity to our nation.  I don't think that's anything to be ashamed about.  It's certainly not racist because the identity of the occupants of Har HaBayis is irrelevant.  It is our property, our spiritual centre and we belong there.   Frankly, what frum Jew wouldn't think that?
We need to remember the bigger picture, we need to remember the goal of history and we need to be as possessive of our property as other people pretend to be of it.

Slowly Coming Around

One of Rav Yitzchok Adlerstein's tactics when writing at Cross Currents is to pretend to approach matters from the perspective of right-wing Modern Orthodox instead of a Chareidi one.  The style is ingenious in that, while he himself is Chareidi, he can present what he believes is the "correct" position to folks who would not listen to someone UltraOrthodox but might if they thought the views were coming from "one of their own".  His infamous piece condemning Rabbi Avi Shafran and the YCT crowd while demanding that the YU elite form a beis din to kick them out of Orthodoxy was a great example of this.  Were he to have openly identified as a Chareidi writer his screed would have been ignored.  Posing as "one of us" got him far more attention and discussion.
Yet sometimes things happen in the Chareidi world that make the more intelligent amongst them squeamish.  Sometimes an article is written or a position is articulated that only Rav Avi Shafran could justify while competent writers like Adlerstein and Rav Yonasan Rosenblum are forced to dissociate themselves for fear of being seeing as laughinstocks.  Such an article recently appeared in the Chareidi magazine "Ami". (Hat tip: Rafi G)
The article is, in many ways, similar to a piece on Matzav by Pinny Lipschutz from a couple of years ago.  Both emphasize that while they recognize that the State of Israel sprang into being and continues to exist, "Orthodox" Jews should not attribute anything special to it, see any religious significance to it or feel any gratitude to God for it.  It's just there, okay?
It brings to mind the words of the Eim HaBanim Semeicha.  In his important work showing that returning to Israel was not a violation of God's will and was actually a fulfillment of it he noted that strong criticism from some parts of the Orthodox world revolving around the secular nature of the new Yishuv.  How hypocritical, he noted, for them to condemn the Zionists for trying to created a Judaism-free state.  When the call had gone out for Jews to return home they instructed their followers to stay put.  Only secular Jews answered the call and returned home to build Israel and now they were shocked, shocked! that the Yishuv was secular?
The Chareidi refusal to acknowledge the special nature of the State and its importance to Jews and Jewish history reminds me of a Chabad shaliach I knew many years ago who, on Kislev 19, told me I didn't have to say Tachanun because it was the new year for Chasidus (read: Chabad philosophy) and the day the Alter Rebbe got out of jail.  When I told him that I was not a Chabadnik he corrected me pointing out that the event had significance for all Jews.  So I asked him if he said Tachanun on Iyyar 5.  He didn't realize what date I was referring to but when I told him it was Yom Ha'atzmaut he told me he generally davened at home so as to avoid people seeing him saying tachanun.  I pointed out to him that if the release of one Chasidic Rebbe from jail was important enough to have the Jewish people not say tachanun, certainly an event that directly benefited and continues to benefit the entire Jewish people should rate that much, even if he didn't want to say Hallel.
But Rav Adlerstein's point in the essay is also a must-read:

The piece has generated vigorous discussion. Is it true that most Orthodox Jews ignore Yom Ha-Atzmaut? Do not a majority of Jews who accept the Thirteen Principles of Faith, i.e. the Rambam’s definition of who is an “insider,” in fact celebrate the day? (We should probably accept the author’s protestation that by “Orthodox” he meant “charedi,” and was guilty of poor word choice, but not malice.) Is it true that “subsequent…military action stirred additional rabbinic opposition to Zionism, and was seen as proof that the Zionist idea was, from a perspective of Jewish tradition, illicit from the start?” Wasn’t this just the reaction of Satmar and Brisk, and in fact rejected in all other Torah circles? Can the position of Rav Yosef Dov Soloveitchik be reduced to nothing more than seeing the State as “a buffer against assimilation,” while dismissing “the idea that its creation was in any way associated with the concept of redemption?” Does Rav Kook merit any attention at all? Did the author ever see the newsreels of Novemeber, 1947 (the reaction to the UN partition vote), with circles of charedim and secular Jews dancing together in unbridled joy? They don’t really support the conclusion of a wholesale charedi rejection of the State. Nor does the signature of R Itche Meir Levin on Israel’s Declaration of Independence, nor all of those who did mark the first few anniversaries of the Declaration with joy and thanks to Hashem.

I will leave to others to develop those objections, and turn to one that I believe may be the most serious flaw in the editorial. Even if the facts would have been as the author has them (and I do not believe that this is the case), they would have little relevance to us today.

Yom Ha-Atzmaut is not a celebration of secular Zionism, or any kind of Zionism. It is the celebration of the coming into existence of an independent Jewish community – no, nation – in the land that is ours. Israel is the largest Jewish community in the world. Its continued existence, its thriving against all odds, is a gift from Heaven. It can, should, must be appreciated as an enormous chesed from HKBH, Who allows us to live in our holy Land and work again to slowly build up a Jewish nation. How can we fail to acknowledge the incredible saga, past and present of rov minyan and rov binyan of the Jewish people? What do we do to ourselves when we stand to the side as literally millions of Jews celebrate in their own way (even if not the way we would have designed such celebration), and we do not feel their simple joy of being Jewish? What damage to we foist on future generations of our people, as we propagate division and dissension by not smiling at them and saying “Chag Sameach,” even if it is not mentioned in Parshas Emor?

Like the Arabs who still talk about returning to their orange groves in Jaffa, too many in the UltraOrthodox world still refuse to acknowledge that the battle over whether or not Zionism will succeed is over.  Too many hang on to the twisted Satmar philosophy that says that whenever something bad happens it's God punishing us but when something good happens, well that's just the Satan teasing us.
Rav Adlerstein goes on to note:

This is not dependent on the ideology that is called Zionism. Many years ago, I heard a young rosh yeshiva argue that all of us were like the Japanese soldiers who remained holed up on Pacific islands many years after the end of World War Two, still keeping guard at their posts. They were living a war that had already ended. There was a war for the heart and soul of the Jewish people between secular Zionists and those faithful to Torah. Secular Zionism lost that battle! We in the Torah community should have declared victory and moved on! We now have a country of our own, and we should take our places in its development, without fear of supporting an ideology that died a long time ago. Yom Ha-Atzmaut is not about ideology today – it is about the privilege of having a place where we need bow to nothing but Hashem. Recall the words of the Rambam (Chanuka 3:1) writing about why Chanuka was important: “Jewish governance returned to for more than two hundred years, till the churban.” Those two centuries were presided over by rulers a good deal more evil than the people sitting in Knesset.

There is a great spiritual thirst in Israel today.  Presented properly and moderately, Torah Judaism could accomplish so much to quench that thirst.  It could easily introduce proper Jewish values into the life of the State and its culture.  People are looking for direction, a future, a great meaning to the sacrifices they make every today and Torah Judaism has the answers to all those but those on the UltraOrthodox side of the spectrum who currently insist on turning away as many Jews as possible would have to radically accept that they have a new mission in life, that of turning Judaism back from a religion of exile to a nationality of Torah based in Israel.
Until they make that change then we will fight all the same old battles and, come Tisha B'av every year, wonder why God hasn't redeemed us yet.

Of Spanish Hatred

In 1986, Dry Bones published a cartoon acknowledging Spain's belated recognition of Israel (decades after the rest of Europe had). He congratulated them for their simultaneous Don Qixote ("I shall right a wrong and recognized their little state") and Sancho Panza ("but I'll still support the PLO") stance. For many Jews, it was a big event. After all, Spain is still well-remembered as the country that expelled its entire Jewish community in 1492 and which, alone amongst the so-called enlightened European powers, refused to allow it to return for centuries. The recent government of Jose Zapatero (a man that bears an uncanny resemblance to Mr. Bean) has done its best to antagonize Israel and show its anti-Semitic love for our State's enemies as much as possible. You want hostile Jew hatred covered under a thin veneer of Eurointellectualism? Go to Spain!

This recent tidbit should therefore come as no suprise:

The Spanish judge's decision to launch legal proceedings against, more or less, the entire top brass of Israel's security establishment at the time of Salah Shehade's assassination in July 2002 has left the official Israel wide-mouthed and helpless. As it turns out, the Dreyfus Affair is in fact ongoing history that repeats itself at various locations, times, and contexts, yet the ant-Semitic undertones are always present...

According to a legal source in Madrid, Justice Fernando Andeo decided to grant the petition filed by the Palestinian Center for Human Rights "in the name of universal justice," which Spain recognizes in all matters pertaining to crimes against humanity and genocide. ..

Salah Shehade was a Palestinian arch-terrorist, the head of Hamas' military wing in Gaza, and the founder of the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades. He was a man who ceaselessly engaged in terror and in the murder of Jews – for 20 consecutive years, even when he was jailed in Israel.
Shehade planned and approved a very long series of terror attacks, including the murder of five yeshiva students in Atzmona and the killing of four IDF soldiers in an attack on an army post near Gaza.
Israel attempted to assassinate him for a long time. Eventually, Shehade was killed when his home was bombed, in a strike that also killed his aide and 14 others, including his wife and three of his children, as well as women and children who were his neighbors. Yet it is needless to say that it is the State of Israel's existential right and duty to assassinate people like Shehade.

Is it anti-Semitic? Of course it is. But is offical Israel really wide-mouthed and helpless? Of course it isn't. But the proper steps to respond to this provocation require guts, something the Israeli government is currently short of.

The Israeli government could easily deal with this situation in a few simple steps. The first would be to call in the Spanish ambassador, tell him his country has been a third world basket case ever since the British wiped out the Spanish Armada, and then send him packing. The second is to recall the Israeli ambassador from Spain after he finishing plugging all the toilets in the embassy. The final step would be to make an international announcement to all Jews, Israeli and not, that travelling to Spain is a risk that should not be taken and that if any Israeli or non-Israeli Jewish national (because I doubt this "anti-Israeli" judgement will apply to Israeli Arabs) goes there on vacation and gets in trouble, they're on their own.

Ones of the Achilles' heels of Israeli foreign policy since the Oslo Discord has been an illogical desire to be accepted by the world community as just another nation, the ultimate realization of Teddy Herzel's dream. This slap in the face by the Spaniards should serve as a wake up call to Jewish pride. We are not the helpless people they evicted in 1492 and we will not be treated as such.

The New Enemy

Once upon a time, long ago now it seems, Jews left their comfortable homes in golus and returned to our Holy Land to beging the process of its rebirth. They were the chalutzim, the pioneers who, to this day, are remembers as great Jewish leaders who struggled against every sort of adversity, including a local hostile Arab population, to build up the land of Israel.
Today there are still chalutzim in the land of Israel. People who have left their comfortable homes in golus and pre-1967 Israel to build up the remaining parts of Israel that were stolen from us in 1949 and returned by the help of God after the Six Day War.
However, unlike the original chalutzim, these brave men and women are subjected to a different treatment by today's historians and social programmers. To put it simply, the Israeli left has spent the last 15 years demonizing them as obstacles to peace and a threat to the future of the State because they supposedly illegaly occupy so-called Palestinian land.
Never mind the facts: That what today is Israel and Jordan was promised as a Jewish National Home by the League of Nations and the Great Britian in 1922. Or that Jordan was spliced off by Winston Churchill to reward Arab allies from the First World War despite this solmen agreement. Or that the Arabs never recognized the 1947 United Nations partition plan and, until this day, continue to reject the idea of two states west of the Jordan River. Never mind that this lack of recognition meant the occupation by Jordan and Egypt of Yesha was never recognized by the international community (until, curiously enough, 1967!) and that these territories remained as "unclaimed".
Rmember: Israel's pre-1967 borders are the armistice lines of 1949. Had Israel managed to conquer Yesha before being forced into an unfavourable ceasefire, there would never have been a "West Bank" and today the Arabs would be forced to state to all what they say to each other in Arabic: they consider all of Israel to be occupied Palestine.
Never mind all that: it's convenient to demonize our chalutzim.
It is, however, especially galling when Israelis themselves participate in this stupidity. Time was, the Israelis had a saying: ein bereirah. The majority, even those on the left, recognized that Israel was surrounded by hostile enemies that wanted to wipe it out and that unilateral concessions in pursuit of an illusory peace would be potentially fatal.
Not anymore. Since the madeness of the Oslo Discord infected the intelligentsia of the State, the idea of wanting a strong, united Israel and putting its survival and success first has come to be seen as a form of fascist hatred. Yet, as this article in Haaretz suprisingly points out (since Haaretz prides itself on being front and center when it comes to attack our brave pioneers), the hypocrisy of this intelligentsia knows no bounds:
Much has been written about an Israeli prime minister who was suspected of criminal activity but shielded from criticism so he could advance the "correct policy." And none other than President Shimon Peres recently extolled the virtues of Abie Nathan, founder of the offshore pirate radio station The Voice of Peace, who violated the law and said what a good thing it was to do so. Barely anyone reminded the president of the ideologues running a pirate radio station on the "other" side, who violated the law so their voices could be heard from aboard the Arutz Sheva ship. Unlike Nathan, they did not merit immunity from the law and were punished for breaking it.
One must beware of those who talk about the greatness of the rule of law even as their hearts are full of hatred when it comes to the Other. What does Talia Sasson, the champion of the rule of law when it comes to illegal outpost construction, have to say about the tens of thousands of illegal buildings constructed by Bedouin and Arabs in the Galilee, Negev and East Jerusalem? And when was the last time the left wing or the media criticized the anarchists who attack Israel Defense Forces soldiers near the West Bank separation fence the same way they criticize the settlers? Why is the press interested in how much money Israeli taxpayers have to pay for security at right-wing rallies, while the cost of left-wing rallies is irrelevant? Why is there extensive media coverage when police refrain from raiding an outpost due to fear of clashes with settlers, but not when police refrain from chasing Arabs who steal cars, cattle and agricultural equipment along the seam line between Jewish and Arab neighborhoods and in Judea and Samaria? Take, for instance, the many articles about the body of the Palestinian shepherd whom the Palestinians accused the settlers of murdering - and the silence that greeted the news from the police laboratory that there had been no murder at all, that a dud shell caused the shepherd's death. Are the facts relevant only when they hew to the line? In a few weeks the country will commemorate the 13th anniversary of Yitzhak Rabin's assassination. In the eyes of his supporters, those who object to the legacy attributed to Rabin are just as terrible and out of bounds as the assassination itself. In this matter too, the accusatory finger the left points at the right is generalized and inflammatory, to the point where half the country finds itself alienated from the memorial day. From the perspective of the left and the media, settlers have become the ultimate Other, mainly because of the ideological threat that they, religious Zionists and anyone who identifies with them poses to those who pride themselves on an absence of ideology. The Kadima party, with its blurred identity and limited values, is just one example of this. The settlers - in the path they have chosen, in their faith and even in their appearance - represent the exact opposite. That is their sin, and that is their reward.
Those of us who see the big picture, who know history and can see past the politically correct lies that have been forced upon us, should be prapred to point this out to the appeasers and their friends. Either that, or once again it's time to tell them: Just shut up!

Shifting the Blame

By now people who follow the Israeli news scene have read about the Yom Kippur riots in Akko. This isn't the first time that riots have occured in this city. In 2006, during Simchas Torah, Arabs also took advantage of the holiday to take "offense" to the public behaviour of the Jewish students of a local yeshivah - apparently they were dancing in the streets with their Torahs and enjoying themselves - and rioted as well.
Back then, the police arrived and, much to the surprise of the yeshiva students, ignored the violent Arab group and arrested various yeshivah students while also disarming their guard. And just like in 2006, when the dust settled, guess who the police blamed?
The dominant elements behind the riots in Akko seem to be Jewish instigators, Northern District Police Commander, Major-General Shimon Koren, told Ynet on Sunday.
"We have no intention of letting up. We know who's behind the incitement and the arson. It's a very small group of people and they will be dealt with to the full extent of the law," he added.
This, despite the general consensus on how the riots started:
The northern city of Akko has seen four days of stormy riots, as Jews and Arab resident began clashing after an Arab motorist drove into a Jewish neighborhood on Yom Kippur – the holiest day on the Jewish calendar, in which traffic traditionally halts.
So, the Arabs display behaviour which offends the religious sensitivity of the local Jewish population and when hostilities break out, the Jews get blamed. Now, let's look at the polar oppsite: let's say that a Jew had entered an Arab neighbourhood during one of their holidays and displayed what they would have considered offensive behaviour? Would it be ignored?
Are you kidding? Not only would Akko have erupted in city wide riots, most of the Arab centers around the country would have also erupted in "sympathy" with their offended brethren. No doubt EU observers would be called in to "monitor" the situation and condemn Israel for its insensitivites to minorities and non-Jewish religion.
This anti-Jewish attitude is millenia old. It doesn't seem to matter how something starts. We always seem to be to blame. But it's more disconcerting when a Jewish police chief is now the one doing this. Not exactly how the Zionist dream was supposed to turn out.

Something They Can Agree On

I'm always amused at how people notice the idiocy and hatred of the Neturei Karta and extrapolate from there to other observant Jews, as if wearing a kippah makes you something connected to and responsible for the actions of these... well I won't put a fitting word to describe them on this public blog.

My amusement isn't from the comparing, however, but from the general ignoring non-religious Jews do of those groups from their side of the spectrum who are just as moronic. The upcoming 60th anniversary celebrations of the State of Israel have become an opportunity for those secular jews who desire to be "better gentiles than the gentiles themselves" to stand up, beat their chests proudly and announce how ashamed they are of their Jewishness and Israel because it has had the audacity to survive until now.

All this goes to show that the two extremes, left and right, eventually meld into one another. Fools from both sides are best ignored and avoided.