there is a lot here, too much to respond in detail, which is beyond my
capacities and knowledge. i know something about israel, not as much as
real experts. but i have had a stake in this knowledge, whatever that
counts for.
i do not believe the survival of jews depends on the existence of
israel, as i did believe when i was younger. i certainly do not believe
whatever israeli politicians decide is good is necessarily good.
dear cornelius, i don't know quite how to make this soft, but the
conditions of the occupation in gaza are unacceptable. you can find
rightwing israeli or american jews who deny that; that doesn't change
anything.
are some palestinains fighting back, and saying hateful things about
jews? of course. does that mean hamas and fatah won't make peace, or
even that they are the same? i do not believe so.
this is the bottom line for me, and it is a line that separates me from
pius, partly, in viewing the question of jewish rights to a presence in
israel. much of this slight historical knowledge comes from tom segev's
One Palestine Complete.
the jews and arabs came to occupy two more or less divided camps during
the period of zionist development and immigration in the first half of
the 20th c. there were many on both sides willing to live together
peacefully. there were also, on both sides, hardlines wishing to drive
the other out.
by the end of this period, around the time of world war 2, there were
about an equal number of jews and arabs, about half a million each,
whereas at the turn of the century there were about 10% jews.
the jews who immigrated were seeking a decent life outside a europe that
was antisemitic.
who on this list would oppose that? is there ever a reason to oppose
people migrating to other lands? to conquer, that is not the same.
jewish zionist migration, look into it, it was people who were being
persecuted in places like russia where my uncle's mother had her head
cut off by kazacks during pograms. should his family not have migrated
to israel, or later to the u.s.? pius cites indigenous peoples; but what
of the bantu migrations? or any other? conquest is not justified; but
migration is, and i must state i oppose limits to migrations anywhere.
the brits didn't want the balance between arabs and jews unsettled, so
tried to slow down jewish immigration. jews had no where to go during
world war two, were turned back by america and most of the rest of the
world. to me, opposing immigration is fascist. now it is called
neofascist, national front, or sarah palin, michelle bachman; same thing.
then the war came: israel survived, but the palestinians lost the west
bank to jordan, and egypt took the sinai. that was reversed in 67.
since they\n, occupation, oppression, hatred.
i spoke this last year to a young israeli friend, and this is what he
told me. take it for what it is worth. as he grew up, there was conflict
between palestinians and israelis; but not racism. now there are no more
palestinian arabs working in israel, and the racism of israelis has
taken hold against arabs. the possibility of a peace movement or a
political party on the left having a voice is gone as people are
convinced that security has to trump all other concerns, and that
security comes from military power.
it is the very worst time in israeli politics, with peace yielding to
domination, and hatred supplanting notions of living together. like the
right wing in the globalnorth.
i don't know what people living in the misery of gaza are supposed to
feel towards israelis under these conditions.
i do not understand, cornelius, you who seek ways to avoid war if
possible, and believe that people can establish dialogue and resolve
differences, can accept the demonization of palestinians as the israeli
right has established. when i speak to my palestinian student whose home
is threatened in east jerusalem, i can only lament at the
unreasonableness of the israeli political right, the jewish american
right, that seems totally indifferent to palestinians.
cornelius, we don't really do that to others, do we, believe they are
all fanatical maniacs? when muslims are treated thus by westerners, you
are the most eloquent defender of islam. what happened here? being
jewish is not a monolithic position that requires fidelity to a state at
all costs. i do not understand you. if you speak of the aggressive
rhetoric of hamas, fatah, and hizbollah, why do you not speak of the
aggressive rhetoric of kahane or likud, its "facts on the ground," with
now half a million settlers taking over palestinians meager lands. why
don't you care about that? why do you draw a line at palestinians for
your understanding?
hashem has more than one face. miriam's song is only one side.
ken
On 7/22/11 5:50 PM, Cornelius Hamelberg wrote:
> Shalom,
>
> I should like to point out that I especially like the 12th Blessing of
> the Amidah:
>
> " And for the slanderers, let there be no hope;
> and may all wickedness perish in an instant;
> and may all Your enemies be cut down speedily.
> The wanton sinners – May You speedily uproot, smash, cast down and
> humble -
> speedily in our days.
> Blessed are You Hashem, Who breaks enemies and humbles wanton
> sinners."
>
> I realise that we are dealing with human nature, not with the nature
> of angels and that there are hackers, hack writers and journalists,
> even human refuse, being bankrolled by moneyed jihadists, to make
> vicious propaganda against the Jewish State. We know that some of
> them are prepared to even sell their own grandmothers for money.
>
> And there are those who reel off a series of insults, such as "Israel
> is in fact founded on racism at its core", other such blasphemies,
> distortions, false charges, all of which we are expected to accept as
> their own sacred contribution to objective truth and beyond dispute -
> and - on top of all that, when they say that they don't want to
> "debate" such controversial issues, that's a very tall order indeed.
>
> I am often torn between these two poles, the tension that exists
> between
> on the one hand, after the Amidah the prayer which begins
>
> "My God,
> keep my tongue from evil and my lips from speaking guile.
> May my soul be silent to them that curse me
> and may my soul be as the dust to everyone....."
>
> and the feeling that for me to be a doormat or as quiet as St.
> Nicholas of Cusa at such a time
> would be a crime.
>
> Yes indeed, Kenneth Harrow loves justice, but I don't think that he is
> being fair, the way he represents the dilemmas, without even as much
> as mentioning the terrorists who belong to the Paradise Cult of the
> Suicide Bombers and all the death and destruction they have visited
> upon innocent Israelis and their properties :
> http://www.google.com/search?q=Palestinian+Terrorists&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&lr=lang_en
>
> Rabbi Meir Kahane states in his excellent " Our Challenge" published
> in 1974 (page 128):
>
> "The right of the state of Israel to exist is dependent upon the right
> of the Jew to a land of Israel
> The state can do nothing in denigration of the imperatives of the
> land. And if the decree of the land of Israel through the Jewish
> heritage is that every Jew has a right to enter and live there, then
> no Knesset and no state can do anything to contradict that edict.
>
> Here we have one more example of the corruption of the true meaning of
> the State of Israel vis-a-vis the Jewish people. Instead of an
> affirmation of the Jewish people as an indivisible nation with each
> and every Jew entitled to the same rights from the Jewish state , we
> find that there are indeed "Jews" and " Israelis". The criminal born
> in Tel Aviv is not deported from Israel, but the one who tries to
> enter the land from Chicago is. A 72-year old "foreign" criminal
> becomes a "danger to the state", but a native born communist whose
> allegiance is to Moscow is not. A "foreign"Jew who is deemed "
> undesirable" cannot live in the land of Israel but hundreds of
> thousands of Arabs can."
>
> http://www.google.com/search?q=Meir+Kahane+%3A+Our+Challenge%2C&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&client=firefox-a&rlz=1R1GGLL_sv___SE398
>
> I really like most of what Rabbi Kahane has said:
>
> http://www.google.com/search?q=+++Rabbi+Meir+Kahane+%3A+Writings&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&lr=lang_en
>
> For many of us, honesty is the best policy: therefore I would like to
> have more clarity about these doubtful matters:
>
> You say that you "once considered israel necessary to the survival of
> the jewish people".The fact of the matter is that the enemies of
> Israel not least of all Iran, continue to threaten Israel, and this
> means that the survival of the Jewish people of Israel is at stake.
> Israel need only lose one war, and then most of the anti-Semites, the
> anti-Zionists and the self-hating Jews who are currently yapping about
> "occupied territories"would be yapping about occupied territories no
> more and be happy that they had nothing more to yappy about.
>
> And even more seriously, the fact of the matter is that the Jewish
> Faith with all 613 Mitzvoth can only be fully practised in the Land of
> Israel in which we all pray that the Beit Hamikdash will be built in
> the Holy City of Jerusalem, soon, in our days.
>
> So, cheer up everybody, all will be well in the end:
>
> http://www.chabad.org/library/bible_cdo/aid/15933/jewish/Chapter-2.htm
>
> You say that, "many would agree that israel lost its credibility when
> it turned, since
> 67, into an occupier who abused palestinians."
>
> Here's the nitty-gritty about Judea and Samaria which in more recent
> history, some call The West Bank" - all of which you know better than
> anyone, but not everyone knows:
>
> http://www.factsandlogic.org/ad_101.html
>
> http://www.factsandlogic.org/ad_102.html
>
> http://www.factsandlogic.org/ad_06.html
>
> and from my trustworthy source:
>
> http://www.google.com/search?rawq=occupation%3F&q=site%3Awww.israpundit.com+occupation%3F&submit=Search
>
> "cornelius wants to claim that jews have a right to the eretz-israel.
> we
> have no right to anything if it means oppressing others. we forfeited
> that right, gaza stands as a reproach to any religious claims for
> legitimacy. "
>
> Professor Harrow!!!!! Have a heart. Please!
> It's the Almighty, and not Cornelius who gave Israel to the Jewish
> people as an everlasting heritage!
> And as for Gaza – it has a surplus of everything, apart from weapons :
> they have food, medicines, shopping malls etc. Ariel Sharon uprooted
> 15, 000 "Settlers" and made it judenrein – as a result of which Hamas
> and co-jihadists are still terrorising the Israeli inhabitants of
> Sderot and environs with their rockets... and hope to be rewarded
> with no less than 72 virgins each (in paradise) for murder....and
> mass murder, for a Holocaust.....
>
> For the religious-minded and the curious, Chapter 4's " Israel and the
> Nations" on pages 133- 146 of Moshe Chaim Luzzato's "The Way of God" ,
> is convincing:
>
> http://books.google.co.il/books?id=Zx4PTan5OO0C&pg=PA11&dq=Moshe+Chaim+Luzzatto+:+The+Way+of+God&hl=en&ei=hJgpTt_BBNCVswbU_bXjCw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CCwQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=Moshe%20Chaim%20Luzzatto%20%3A%20The%20Way%20of%20God&f=false
>
> Wishing everyone a pleasant weekend,
>
> Cornelius
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On 20 Juli, 21:58, kenneth harrow<har...@msu.edu> wrote:
>> dear all,
>> for me judaism is a complicated thing, israel is a complicated thing.
>> with all due respect for cornelius's superior knowledge of the religion,
>> i am writing as a practicing, though secular jew. a jew who had once
>> considered israel necessary to the survival of the jewish people, but no
>> longer does. and as a jew who does not recognize the authorities
>> cornelius correctly delineates.
>> for me, a jew born 5 years before the creation of the state of israel, i
>> was taught to believe that it was our protection after the holocaust. i
>> did not come from a particularly practicing family, and although i was
>> bar mitzvahed, that had little to do with actual religious faith.
>> i don't want to make this any more personal than that. i believe that
>> the claims i will now make are commonly held by many jews in america or
>> europe.
>> we do not have to believe in god or attend synagogue to consider
>> ourselves jewish. i never took the rabbinal dictates as applying to me
>> or anyone i knew. i consider their rules worse than outdated; they are
>> at times reprehensible or outrageous, especially when it comes to
>> defining who is a jew. i know the standard rule is that one must be born
>> of a jewish mother, or convert. my own belief is that we are all free to
>> declare ourselves believers in any belief community. between the
>> institutional understanding, and the individual there is a partial gulf.
>> there are many branches of judaism, including not only orthodox,
>> conservative, and reform. though raised reform, i belong to a
>> reconstructionist congregation, and we believe that the rules of the
>> past "have a vote," but not a veto over what the congregation decides.
>> i would consider anyone who adheres to judaism entitled to consider
>> themselves jewish. probably many would argue with me; but many would agree.
>> many would agree that israel lost its credibility when it turned, since
>> 67, into an occupier who abused palestinians. some would say we are in a
>> post-zionist stage where the original raison-d'etre for the state has
>> been vitiated by its oppression of the palestians. i can't speak for
>> others, but i know i am not alone in stating this.
>> as for the right of return, and other issues of debate over rights for
>> palestinians, they are all legitimate, but practically speaking subject
>> to negotiation. palestinian leaders have negotiated on that as well as
>> any other issues.
>> cornelius wants to claim that jews have a right to the eretz-israel. we
>> have no right to anything if it means oppressing others. we forfeited
>> that right, gaza stands as a reproach to any religious claims for
>> legitimacy.
>> if the argument is that god established the covenant which gives the
>> land to the descendants of abraham, then the jewish leadership have
>> abrogated that covenant by oppressing the palestinians.
>> not all jews believe that. most probably don't. but many do. they love
>> justice more than god.
>> and maybe that is the best thing i can tell you all about judaism: we
>> recognize that statement not as anti-jewish, but profoundly jewish.
>> ken
>>
>> On 7/20/11 1:26 PM, Cornelius Hamelberg wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>> Dear Pius and Ayo Obe,
>>> It must no doubt be equally surprising to you that Muslims now usually
>>> seek asylum not in Saudi Arabia the birthplace and Qibla of al-Islam
>>> - or in other Islamic headquarters such as Iraq, Syria or the
>>> Revolutionary Islamic Republic of I-ran, but in the non-Muslim kuffar
>>> countries of Dar al-Harb and that we now find Muslims plentifully
>>> seeking asylum in little Israel of all places, the country that Iran
>>> calls the little Satan ( the US being Iran's The Great Satan
>>> and this is especially surprising because,
>>> 1.The Quran in Surah 82 of al- Ma'idah says that, "Certainly you will
>>> find the most hostile of people to those who believe are the Jews and
>>> pagans...
>>> 2.One of Israel's major problems, a problem from which no other Muslim
>>> country suffers is this: the space. Allocated by The Owner, the King
>>> of Kings of Kings - a land and nation which Muslims falsely claim
>>> and want to steal from God's Chosen People.
>>> Muslim refugees are normally fleeing persecution from their co-
>>> religionists, fleeing oppression, poverty or lack of opportunity in
>>> their own countries, and they hope to find freedom, tolerance, Human
>>> Rights, Democracy and possibilities / opportunity to live this life
>>> in freedom and dignity, in the much criticized Kuffar West - in the
>>> US, the UK, Europe, Canada, and Australia, in their hundreds of
>>> thousands, annually.....no surprise then that on the future map,
>>> Great Britain is renamed North Pakistan.
>>> There are of course historic/ legendary examples/ precedents : the
>>> trinity of Joseph, baby Jesus and Mary seeking refuge in Egypt for a
>>> while. There's also the example of the followers of the prophet of
>>> Islam fleeing persecution in Mecca and finding temporary refugee which
>>> was granted them by the Negus of Ethiopia...
>>> The case of Avi Bari serves to dispel a few myths about the Jewish
>>> people and Judaism as does this book , The color of Jews . In reply
>>> to the question, Who is a Jew? , the halachic answer is of course
>>> that a Jew is one who is born of a Jewish mother or one who converts
>>> to Judaism and thus becomes a member the Jewish people and their
>>> Faith.
>>> http://www.google.com/search?q=The+Color+of+Jews&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq...
>>> with an interesting chapter in which Ricardo Lewis Gordon speaks
>>> http://www.google.com/search?q=Ricardo+Lewis+Gordon&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8...
>>> Curiously enough, Avi Bari emphasises that Judaism is a religion
>>> What he does not point out in that article is that Judaism is not only
>>> a religion but is also a people, a people-hood, and that when he
>>> converted, like Ruth of old - the quintessential convert, he did not
>>> only acquire a new faith (religion) he also joined a people and became
>>> a Jew, a member of the Jewish people, like Julius Lester......
>>> Those who are destined to be Jews, will be Jews.
>>> As Ruth said, and that is the essence, Ruth 1.:16 :'Entreat me not to
>>> leave thee, and to return from following after thee; for whither thou
>>> goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge; thy people
>>> shall be my people, and thy G-d my G-d;
>>> http://www.ahavat-israel.com/texts/Ruth-Ruth.php
>>> And that's what happened with Ibrahima, in short, when he became
>>> Avi Bari, he took a ritual bath in the mikveh and acquired a Jewish
>>> soul.
>>> Just as your Chris Oyakhilome would say, if Ibrahima had followed
>>> him and Jesus instead, by baptism, he would have become a New Man:
>>> Which does not mean to say that Avi Bari will necessarily stop liking
>>> Bemebeya Jazz Orchestra or Keletigui, although I suppose that living
>>> in Israel and eating her fruits he will acculturate more rapidly than
>>> those living in the Wild West......
>>> Ayo Obe asks about mass conversion. This is a question for the rabbis.
>>> In the meantime (before I become a rabbi) I know that the Jewish
>>> people must follow the majority of the Jewish scholars.
>>> There is the historical case of the Kazars - a whole nation - which
>>> converted en masse along with their King and in an instant swelled the
>>> ranks ( numerical strength ) of the Jewish people. (Most probably if
>>> the prophet of Islam had not come along, in the view of many
>>> historians of religion it's possible that the rest of the Arabian
>>> peninsular would have converted to Judaism half of Yemen was already
>>> Jewish at the time of the prophet of the Quran.
>>> http://www.google.com/search?q=The+Khazars&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&cli...
>>> At some Orthodox conversion courses Judah Ha- Levi's The Kuzari is
>>> required study - in that book the author puts forward the case for
>>> the Jewish Faith.The Afrikanist might be slightly taken aback by
>>> exactly only one sentence in that book, an apt description of a
>>> rudimentary African, a description of the times...
>>> http://www.google.com/search?q=The+Kuzari&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&clie...
>>> Abraham who was the First Jew, converted a lot of people in Haran.
>>> http://www.google.com/search?q=The+Jews+of+Africa&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&a...
>>> In theory would it be possible for all the so called Palestinians -
>>> Muslims, Christians and atheists to convert to Judaism and so take
>>> over the Holy Land? Well, the Muslim Sharia penalty for a born Muslim
>>> who converts to another faith, is death. In spite of that you would
>>> be surprised about these sort of figures:
>>> http://www.google.com/search?rawq=Muslims+converting+&q=site%3Awww.is...
>>> To place the Palestinians' The Right of Return at the top of their
>>> agenda, is a non-starter. It is both unreasonable and illogical that
>>> all the Palestinian exiles would want to be entitled to return, not to
>>> their own state ( Jordan) but to Israel proper about 3-4 million of
>>> them and then of course they would like to apply universal adult
>>> suffrage and due democratic process - as if the demographic nightmare
>>> is not enough already..... the majority of Israeli voters would then
>>> be Arab and Muslim, they would rule the Holy Land wouldn't they ? As
>>> they rule all the Muslims lands, like Libya.
>>> Well, in short, that is hopefully never going to happen ina Israel.
>>> By the way, Ali G's new movie is The Dictator. and the last thing
>>> that the dictator wants to see in his country, is Human Rights and
>>> democracy these are anathema to him .I suppose it's a humorous
>>> flashback to life before the Arab Spring and I'm sure that the masses
>>> in that area are also looking forward to seeing it, next year.
>> ...
>>
>> läs mer »
--
kenneth w. harrow
professor of english
michigan state university
department of english
east lansing, mi 48824-1036
ph. 517 803 8839
harrow@msu.edu
--
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