If you value my work and agree with my agenda of applying sovereignty to all land to the Jordan River and compensating Arabs to emmigrate, please make a donation
Aside from putting out the blog daily with the best articles I can find on dozens of sites, I am working on two major projects.
The Jordan Option
This option entails replacing King Abdullah of Jordan with the Jordan Opposition Coalition headed by Mudar Zahran.
You will recall that I organized a full day conference on this topic in October of last year at the Begin Center in Jerusalem. It was a great success as many people were intrigued by the possibilities it presented. If we can get Mudar Zahran as head of Jordan, he will open the door to all Palestinians living west of the Jordan River and will reaffirm their Jordanian citizenship. He will take full responsibility to provide health care and education for all. Thus, there will be no need for UNRWA and it can be done away with. Similarly, there will be no need for the PA.
As for the prospects of making this happen soon, they look great.
The creation of a movie studio in Israel
It would produce Hollywood Blockbusters which will reestablish the Jewish narrative and obliterate the Palestinian narrative. These blockbusters will more than substitute for the lack of fully funded public diplomacy. This idea has every chance of succeeding but will take a lot of effort to make it a reality.
The cause is worthy, the effort needed is great and the probability of succeeding significant.
So please do what you can. Show your support of my site and my projects.
I have rethought my position on this issue overnight and now agree with you, Edgar.
@ adamdalgliesh:
That’s throwing a very heavy ball at Ted, although he seems capable of absorbing any amount. 99% of the discussion you mentioned is already on this page and winding down. Chit Chat was not available until now. We stretch the guidelines a bit now and then, which Ted allows, because, after all, we are grown up people, not children to be guided and admonished., Just need to be more self-regulating.
Maybe we have a genuine Trotsky expert with us; and much of the exchange had to do with the extent of his attitude and relationship to Judaism and Zionism. .
I personally, learned much I did not know, and didn’t like, but always interesting,
I wish that Ted would install some algorithm that would immediately filter out any post from appearing on this site that contains the names “Lenin,” Karl Marx,” or “Trotsky,” or any reference to “communism,” as soon as it arrives. The only exceptions should be articles or comments that have been mailed directly to Ted before being posted on the site, and that Ted has has read in advance and determined that they are opposed to all of the above. Praise of communism and communists should of course be permitted elsewhere on the web where the webmaster are supporters of communism. I am all for freedom of speech. But that freedom includes the right to decline to publish stuff that is inconsistent with the purpose of a website, and/or its political/ethical orientation.
This is just my personal opinion. Any decision about this matter is and rightfully isTed’s and Ted’s alone.
Topic for discussion was:
No mention of Trotsky.
Do continue to dig your hole even deeper.
The paragraph, one of very many above, is not relevant…
“In broad terms Trotsky, Lenin and the main Bolshevik leaders (Stalin was not counted among those) thought that Antisemitism was not eternal and could be removed from human society under socialism. (Marx and Engels had defended Jewish political rights in Prussia so hardly Antisemites)”
That is not relevant? Really?
Or nobody here can comment on this by Weitzman “Thus the mass of Russian-Jewish students in
Switzerland had been bullied into an artificial denial of their
own personality; and they did not recover a sense of balance
until the authority of the ‘old men’ was boldly challenged and
in part overthrown by the dissidents — that is, by us”
Explain to me how the concept above, that Antisemitism is not eternal, is not relevant to Jewish people today?
If you are stupidly ignorant and NOT ABLE to discuss it that is a different matter. But do not try to deceive.
@ Edgar G.:
I agree. This discussion should be under Chit Chat. It is now open for business.
@ Bear Klein:
Yes it does, but didn’t Sebastien say a month or two back that he’d tried Chit Chat and that it was CLOSED….? I thought it a bit odd, couldn’t see a reason for it, but kept waiting for someone to ask Ted why this was so…..?
I suggest discussion of Trotsky belongs in Chit Chat in the future. It is actually not a current topic of Israel or things that impact it.
In broad terms Trotsky, Lenin and the main Bolshevik leaders (Stalin was not counted among those) thought that Antisemitism was not eternal and could be removed from human society under socialism. (Marx and Engels had defended Jewish political rights in Prussia so hardly Antisemites)
Here is the key concept though. Never for a moment did they the Bolsheviks think that socialism could be created in one country. They always saw capitalism as a world system (as did Marx so a reading of the Communist Manifeso is in order)
Of course Antisemitism is not an eternal phenomenon. It had a beginning. It can have an end. But within a capitalist system in decline and crisis that is not possible. Our ruling classes use Antisemitism.
It is a gross lie to say that Lenin and Trotsky and the leadership of the Bolshevik (again it must be stressed that until 1922 Stalin was not in the front ranks of Bolshevik thought) Party were Antisemitic. Lenin thought Jews were the smartest people in Russia and wanted them in his party. Trotsky the same.
The issue between Lenin and the Bund was over democratic centralism, a different issue entirely. Lenin proved that to be correct in the heat of battle in 1917.
He won!
The separate issue was over nationalism, which included but was not exclusive to Jewish Nationalism. Jewish Nationalism IS Zionism.
There there was a real difference and I take the remarks of Weismann very seriously. The quoting of those remarks I find very useful in this debate about the significance of Trotsky.
I am a Trotskysit 100 per cent and I stand by the tradition and continuity of Trotskyism.
The trouble is that the ignorant buffoons who write on Israpundit ignore history.
This discussion is truncated. I think savagely truncated. There are people spouting off who have not studied it as I have.
Worst of all they enter the discussion not on the basis of empirical knowledge gained from taking the trouble to study it. But worst of all they are using “evidence” to argue an already arrived at position (definition of prejudice)
And in this period of great conflict, where lies are excused, (Ted Belman on the Trump 180 degree turn in Syria), then that simply will not do.
So Israpundit is more and more being composed of hacks who have lost all credibility and who start from positions of prejudice. As I said Belman is the clearest example where he accepts a lie is being repeated but says that it is of no importance (Trump speech 27 lies in seven minutes).
Jews not standing for the truth…now that is a new one on me!
So perhaps the Jews seeking salvation in Trotskyism inthe future will be the new truth. After all why follow people like Belman (Sherman too?) who are sceptical towards the concept of truth. Who would have thought!
Here are some additional trenchant comments on Trotsky by Chaim Weitzman, the first President of Israel and for many years the leader of the Zionist movement. Weizmann and Trotsky knew each other when they, along with Lenin and Social Democratic Party founder Plekhonov, were all living as exiles in Genava:
My resent-
ment of Lenin and Plekhanov and the arrogant Trotsky was
provoked by the contempt with which they treated any Jew
who was moved by the fate of his people and animated by a
love of its history and its tradition. They could not understand
why a Russian Jew should want to be anything but a Russian.
They stamped as unworthy, as intellectually backward, as
chauvinistic and immoral, the desire of any Jew to occupy
himself with the sufferings and destiny of Jewry. Switzerland — and this meant chiefly Berne and
Geneva — was, at the turn of the century, the crossroads of
Europe’s revolutionary forces. Lenin and Plekhanov made it
their centre. Trotsky, who was some years younger than I,
was often there. The Jewish students were swayed — it might be
better to say overawed — by the intellectual and moral authority
of the older revolutionaries, with whose names was already
associated the glamour of Siberian records. Against them the
tiny handful of Zionist students could make no headway,
having no authority of comparable standing to oppose them.
Actually the fight was not of our choosing; it was thrust upon
us. Our sympathies were with the revolutionaries; they, how-
ever, would not tolerate in the Jewish youth any expression of
separate attachment to the Jewish people, or even special
awareness of the Jewish problem. Yet the Jewish youth was not
essentially assimilationist; its bonds with its people were
genuine and strong; it was only by doing violence to their
inclinations and upbringing that these young men and women
had turned their backs, at the bidding of the revolutionary
leaders, on the peculiar bitterness of the Jewish lot. My resent-
ment of Lenin and Plekhanov and the arrogant Trotsky was
provoked by the contempt with which they treated any Jew
who was moved by the fate of his people and animated by a
love of its history and its tradition. They could not understand
why a Russian Jew should want to be anything but a Russian.
They stamped as unworthy, as intellectually backward, as
chauvinistic and immoral, the desire of any Jew to occupy
himself with the sufferings and destiny of Jewry. A man like
Chaim Zhitlovsky, who was both a revolutionary and a Jewish
nationalist, was looked upon with extreme suspicion. And when
the Bund was created — the Jewish branch of the revolutionary
movement, national as well as revolutionary in character —
Plekhanov sneered that a Bundist was a Zionist who was afraid
of sea-sickness. Thus the mass of Russian-Jewish students in
Switzerland had been bullied into an artificial denial of their
own personality; and they did not recover a sense of balance
until the authority of the ‘old men’ was boldly challenged and
in part overthrown by the dissidents — that is, by us.
Here are some additional trenchant comments on Trotsky by Chaim Weitzman, the first President of Israel and for many years the leader of the Zionist movement. Weizmann and Trotsky knew each other when they, along with Lenin and Social Democratic Party founder Plekhonov, were all living as exiles in Genava:
My resent-
ment of Lenin and Plekhanov and the arrogant Trotsky was
provoked by the contempt with which they treated any Jew
who was moved by the fate of his people and animated by a
love of its history and its tradition. They could not understand
why a Russian Jew should want to be anything but a Russian.
They stamped as unworthy, as intellectually backward, as
chauvinistic and immoral, the desire of any Jew to occupy
himself with the sufferings and destiny of Jewry.
I am fed up with hearing praise of this ________ Trotsky on this pro-Israel , Zionist site. The following review by the great historian of Russia Daniel Pipes, published in 2011 in Tablet magazine, should be considered the most definitive and authoritative summary of Trotsky’s “contributions” both to the Jewish people and humanity.
@ Hugo Schmidt-Fischer:
This tells me you are against revolution well bully for you!
Meanwhile do enjoy your just brewing thermo nuclear war, the great cause of capitalism, in support of Jihad (again)
@ Hugo Schmidt-Fischer:
Stone cold to Zionism you could make a case for that…but to Jews no that is not at all true, so untrue it is a lie.
And Trotsky was changing his position to Zionism too. Is that of no interest to you? Of no relevance? Can people not change political positions?
@ Sebastien Zorn:
Well I was thinking that Israelis would start fighting on principle. It is a position of principle with great historical importance. Why let them off the hook for what they did?
@ Ted Belman: Ted, I appreciate your thoughtful response. I, too, have thought long and hard about this matter, and I respectfully disagree with your conclusions. While there were many poor Jews in Eastern Europe, and even for the first generation or so in the United States, there was also a large Jewish middle class, and a smaller but still significant upper class, among the Jews of Eastern Europe. However, middle class Jews were attracted to the “left” in far greater than middle class Russians, Ukrainians, Bylorussians and Poles. And they were nearly as likely to join the leftist movements as Jewish workers. In the United States, first and second generation Jews were no poorer than other immigrant groups in their first and second generations, but were far more likely to join the Communist and other leftist political parties than members the other immigrant groups. Jews, according to all accounts, were heavily overrepresented in the the Communist, socialist and and anarchist and other radical groups in the United States. And many the American Jews who were leftist activists were from middle class backgrounds. My own parents were from middle class families. My mother’s family might even be considered to have been upper middle class, since my maternal grandfather owned a small garment factory–although he preferred to call it a tailor shop, and to define himself as a tailor, not a businessman. Yet they were both leftist activists from their early college years to their mid thirties, which was shortly before I was born. After my birth, they ceased to be active in leftist groups and political activities, but in private they still retained a Marxist ideological perspective on world events.
Antisemitism was certainly a motive for many Jews to join the “left.” Where antisemitism was supported by the government, as in Russia and the Russian-occupied territories prior to 1917, it was natural for Jews to be attracted to any movement that advocated the overthrow of an antisemitic regime and did not engage in any overt antisemitic propaganda. However, the response of Jewish leftists to antisemitism doesn’t entirely fit this picture. For the most part, they ignored it, The socialist ‘left” never devoted much effort to combating antisemitism, whether in Russia or any other country. O Some Jewish leftists, most notably Karl Marx, were outspoken antisemites themselves. Many Jewish leftists went out of their way to say that they supported only Jewish workers, not the Jewish bourgeoisie–even though that could put their own parents and other relatives in the crosshairs.
The traditional Jewish concern for social justice played some role in the attraction of many Jewish people to the left. However, Jewish tradition also respected private property rights, and regarded people who had come by their wealth honestly with respect, too. Indeed, they were often the leaders of Jewish communities. Jews had traditionally been supportive of any government that respected the human rights of Jewish people, such as the Polish monarchy prior to the partition of Poland from 1770 to 1793. However, the Jewish leftists tended to be hostile even to conservative governments that respected the civil and human rights of Jews, such as Germany during the “Kaiserreich” period, and France under Louis Napoleon. Many were even hostile to the “bourgeois” U.S. government, despite its exceptionally good record in upholding the human rights and legal equality of Jews. In these respects, the Jewish leftists departed from traditional Jewish values and attitudes.
All in all, the attraction of the “left” to a disproportionate number of Jews, relative to people of other backgrounds in Europe and the European-settled nations still baffles me. More sociological research needs to be done to explain this strange, self-destructive phenomenon.
@ Felix Quigley:
And you and he will accomplish this how exactly?
Arnold Harris echoes my position which I have held for about 30 years…Jordan is Jewish according to International promises…
“Much if not all that Transjordanian land is the vital heritage of the Jewish nation. Because our Jewish nation on the soil of Eretz-Yisrael shall be increasing at a rate of some 2 percent per year, which means that the Jewish population there in place shall double every 36 years. That, in my judgement, is the manifest destiny of the Jewish nation. As for our enemies, whom you would plant in power along Israel’s eastern border, “leg ihm dreld”, along short-sighted Jews who imagine any kind of permanent peace ever such as them.”
I agree but I would leave out the population growth issue. That is not needed. The argument stands on its own which is that Jews were robbed by Churchill and learn that history is the central plank not just for Jews but for all in the world, especially if you are not Jewish. Ted throws away the central issue of our time and all his theory does is abandon that central thing in its modern existence. Do not let the British or anybody off the hook. THEY have a responsibility for history.
@ Ted Belman:
He wants Jordan, too. “It’s good to want things.’
@ Ted Belman:
Quite so. What I am implying is that Jordan will provide the services to refugees that UNRWA currently provides. So this option underscores that there is no need for UNRWA.
All Palestinian “refugees” who require the services that UNRWA provides, both medical and educational, must move to Jordan where they will be given citizenship and said services.
email rec’d:
@ ArnoldHarris:
Israel and Jordan have a Peace Agreement in place. The Jordan Option in no way undermines it. It fact, it solidifies it.
So what’s your problem?
Ted, this comment isn’t about Leon Trotsky vs Iosif Stalin, and it isn’t about donations, one of which I will send to you shortly after I shall have completed my US and Wisconsin income taxes.
What this is about is to tell you that in my opinion, the Jordan is Palestine stuff you have been backing is a crappy idea which I sincerely hope shall fall deservedly on its ass. More than 100 years have passed since the British Empire had declared its intention that all of Erertz Yisrael on BOTH sides of the Jordan River should be reserved for the main purpose of creating a 20th century revival of the ancient Jewish state.
Not long after that profound pronunciamento — one of the most significant in Jewish national history — the Jew state to be was robbed even before its birth of the 25,000 or so square miles of ancient Jewish national controlled land had been put under controlled of an Arab princeling who wanted an emirate all but identical to the one created by the British for their Arab flunky in Baghdad.
Much if not all that Transjordanian land is the vital heritage of the Jewish nation. Because our Jewish nation on the soil of Eretz-Yisrael shall be increasing at a rate of some 2 percent per year, which means that the Jewish population there in place shall double every 36 years. That, in my judgement, is the manifest destiny of the Jewish nation. As for our enemies, whom you would plant in power along Israel’s eastern border, “leg ihm dreld”, along short-sighted Jews who imagine any kind of permanent peace ever such as them.
Arnold Harris, Outspeaker
@ Ted Belman:
As long as Trotsky was in power, his position was the Jews would assimilate, or rather they should.
There are accounts of his refusing to act on behalf of Jewish suffering, deferring instead to the great socialist utopia which will take care of all those problems anyhow, and making a point of refusing to intervene. Heartless.
The motives for Trotsky’s demotion are unimportant. Stalin had millions killed and deposed for any flimsy reason.
Trotsky was more than a great enabler of the communist catastrophe. He can take dubious credit for the success of the revolution. A criminal. This is all that matters. Statements of his after his removal from power are of little consequence.
Moreover, Beba Idelson’s accounts of a sole three hour meeting are probably colored by what she wanted to hear, and giving more importance than he would probably care for.
And even so. If Trotsky in 1937, once privately said Jews should be allowed to emigrate after Hitler’s ascent, and Arabs ought make room and emigrate away from Israel to their own regional centers. So what? During his days of power, Trotsky had been stone cold to the Jewish cause. Now in Mexico, these were the babbles of an old man rejected. Too little too late.
It makes no sense to me. The whole world knows that Trotsky was a major historical figure. Also that the whole of the Stalinist outlook was based on hatred of Trotsky, at a personal level for sure because Stalin was a vindictive human being, but at a political level. The Jewish people interconnected into this at many levels.
Suppose, just suppose, that the Holocaust came out of Fascism, that Fascism arose as a result of a severe crisis within German capitalism. That there are laws within this capitalist system that can be understood and that makes the rise of Fascism from 1929 onwards in Germany understandable.
Then it all becomes very serious.
So it is hard for me to understand why people write Trotsky out.
The people I mentioned above know a great deal. This means that they write Trotsky out of history deliberately, willfully, they know what they are doing. But why?
Are they afraid? Does this knowledge threaten them in some way?
Anyway if I am spared I will write a book or something on this, if I can, and you can write on that.
@ Felix Quigley:
The truth of the matter is that I know virtually nothing about Trotsky. I do not see my role as one where I defend him or extend efforts to inform my readers about who he is.
When people on Israpundit say something about him good or bad or ill informed, It is not my job to correct them. Nor is it within my knowledge base to do so. So I remain silent.
You cannot say that Ruth Wisse is not very familiar with Leon Trotsky and being the sister of David Roskies doubly so. So you esteemed masterminds on Israpundit answer me a wee question…In her amazingly detailed article on The Tablet (http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/247253/american-jews-idealize-soviet-communism) how come that Ruth talks us through the history of communism in the critical period, and never 1. mentions the word Stalinism and 2. mentions the word Trotskyism and the name of Leon Trotsky?
But she does mention the name of Mark Zborowski who she calls a Communist. And that is the “Communist” who was an agent of Stalin, an agent provocateur, responsible for many murders of Trotskyists, including the key and trusted son of Trotsky called Leon Sedov, in Paris (because these are international events) and who was in on the final plot of infiltration which led to the murder of Trotsky in Mexico in August 1940.
Yes Ruth Wisse THAT “Communist” your word not mine Ruth Wisse.
Ruth Wisse a historian? I think not!
Ted
It is all hostile. The whole thing on Israpundit and I regret this very much is hostile to Trotsky. He is not given his dues in the slightest. The great work of Joseph Nedava in his book “Trotsky and the Jews” has been negatived continuously since he wrote it so long ago. And he was only half sympathetic to Trotsky always measuring him only as a Jew and not a Jewish man with his own viewpoint. That shows the depth of the attack on Trotsky.
Yet that line is the only one to get us all forward because 1. the capitalist system offers only war and destruction especially of species and 2. the Arabs and Islam is the problem and that is being hidden by the “Palestinian” myth.
Where is Gil White? Nowhere at all.
I am not using you or anybody as a straw man. But Dalgliesh is a hater of communism.
Now the issue is Trotsky and Jabotinsky. They were merged in the 1930s and every person I have met except a few including Nedava have hidden that huge thing.
FUNNY THAT HAS BEEN HIDDEN!!!
I am not attacking you personally. However history has its laws and I see where the method is leading to great problems. There is no way around this. This movement of ideas from Marx on has got to be really studied.
It was not a matter of Zionism. It was a matter of nation. Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky were very mistaken.
But it was a continuity. Trotsky never stopped and emerged in the late Thirties with a totally new approach.
It has been a massive hit job done on Trotsky. I have listened to the attacks of Yamit over the years and he knows zero about these things.
Israpundit is a public forum. It is a hit job today on the Jews. It is a hit job on Trotsky. I do not withdraw.
One way or another I will get this message out.
I could go through what you wrote and really tear it to pieces but that would be out of balance to this short comment but take this phrase…”maintaining Communist Russia and then the USSR” but at any level your words are so meaningless. Stalin was doing none of that, totally documented by Trotsky, Stalin was the executioner of communism and communists in the Moscow Trials and as if that was not evil enough he went on to form his pact with the Nazis. Trotsky did not for a moment stop fighting Stalinism even joining with John Dewey in the Dewey Commission. The truth about the “Palestinians” will not emerge on its own, and neither will the truth about Leon Trotsky emerge on its own either. Every single thing has to be fought for against huge forces.
You ARE responsible. For example you could have laid bare for your readers the critical moment in time when a Zionist woman from Palestine visited Trotsky in Mexico shortly after he arrived there in early 1937, and the words of this woman about that absolutely critical meeting.
An event viciously and studiously hidden by so many forces.
Are you aware that the White leaders who fought Trotsky in the Civil War were antisemites who went on to form the backbone of Hitlers Nazi party (documented well by Michael Kellogg)…so hidden, so well hidden.
Why is the ubiquitous Zorn not fastening onto this stuff…I will tell…it is because he is prejudiced…Que triste!
@ Felix Quigley:
Give me a break. Your attack on me is not supportedor caused by my comment. You have a tendancy to beat me up whether I deserve it or not. I appear to be you straw man that you can abuse.
As for the call for the world to join the revolution, I never said otherwise. Wasn’t that the job of the Commentern. But as things evolved, Russia began to use nationalism and to maintaining Communist Russia and then the USSR. It still encouraged world revolution but didn’t depend on it.
the Commentern was dissolved in 1943.
@ Ted Belman:
Ted Belman says “Along comes a movement”
Dont worry Ted you are on the same plane as Dalgliesh. Forgive me for being sceptical about your answer.
“Along comes a movement” is simply not what happened and unless you open your mind to what really happened there is no progress.
This “Along comes a movement” began with civilization itself, and I trace this back at least to “Lucy” which is a name given to the emergence of our species.
You guys need to start to learn even if the hour is late but above all do not fallfor these films…before you have histporically true films you have got to have historically true history!!!
There was the slogan “workers unite” and many others. But it was a real revolution and many slogans and thoughts.
But if you bothered to study the rise of Stalinism then you would know that A PERSISTENT THEME in that movement was that unless joined by the great movements in other countries then the revolution in Russia would be ended, and they thought rather quickly too.
I have two problems Ted Belman. First that you TRY to answer Dalgliesh. That is the first mistake. Second that you have your own commie hating agenda.
Just like Ben Gurion. He sure had his own commie hating agenda.
Think of this as a way in…Trotsky and Jabotinsky were on the same wavelength in the 1930s in relation to the growing Shoah…My source…Joseph Nedava in a reply to Ian Carmichael on Commentary Magazine I believe
Not that that fact would mean anything to commie hating Dalgliesh…would simply lead him to bury it
@ adamdalgliesh:
Adam Dalgliesh
You are not interested int he truth of history. You are a commie hater like Yamit and historical research is not the issue for you.
Ruth Wisse asks “Why Do American Jews Idealize Soviet Communism?
@ adamdalgliesh:
Consider the context. The Jews in Russia and Poland were greatly discrimninated against for centuries. They lived in abject poverty. They did not enjoy equality even remotely. Along comes a movement that offers them hope of significant change and they embraced it. Like embracing a false messiah. The lead slogan was “Workers of the world unite.” At the same time the elightenment was making its impact felt in the pale of settlement. Many Jews were ready to abandon orthodox Judaism or any Judaism. Look how quickly they assimilated in America.
In Poland and Russia, life sucked for the Jews. Communism offered a world where they would be treated equally.
The situation of Jews was so bad that no Jew would have wanted to conserve it. Thus they were not conservatives. The wanted change and thus were progressive. Communism offered that in spades. This desire for change greatly impacted America. Jews were at the forefront of this change.
As a youth I was very proud of the Jews who ushered in this change.
Another motivator in America was the Great Depression. My parents lived through it. I was born in the middle of it. Capitalism was held in disfavour. Socialism was extolled.
Does this answer your question?
@ Ted Belman: Ted, in my post that went astray, I went on to ask you why do yu think that so many Jews were attracted to the Marxist left, including many contributors to this site, or their parents, grandparents, or other relatives. This includes my own parents in their youth, as well as some relatives (grandparents?) of yours. This baffles me, because I can’t figure out why any Jew would be attracted to this creed. Our religion is humane and emphasizes individual human rights and the rule of law, while Marxism rejects both principles. We have always been a nation of merchants, but Marxism not only rejects commerce but advocates putting merchants to death, or at least denying them citizenship. Marxism rejects Zionism, the national liberation movement of the Jewish people, even though it supports numerous other alleged national liberation movements. How can we explain this strange identification with an alien, hostile ideology on the part of so many of us? Please share your thoughts with us. This is a genuine and sincere question, not a rhetorical one. I am baffled by this Jewish mindset and think that a wide-ranging sharing of opinions might shed some light on it. Thanks.
[I read in another article, that Bernstein also dispatched teams of small ensembles to play chamber music for Jewish soldiers in fox holes and isolated positions. It wouldn’t allow me to add this in edit in the relevant section so I am adding an additional post. I just copied the first one, to be on the safe sid, as it may erase it when I add this. Here’s crossing my fingers. (can I say that?)- SZ]
Super important. I just made another small contribution. $18. Chai. If a thousand of us, and there are more than that who have visited this site, makes one $18 contribution, that’s $18,000!
I have an idea for a film that I think would be awesome if done right. In the spirit of Exodus. It’s important to create films that bring the forgotten Jewish history in Israel, and it’s also important to create films like Exodus that show how important it is to us now, in terms of passion not just need, as well as films that, like Exodus, leave us feeling good when we leave the theater and not just sad, angry, or wanting to escape entirely on every level. This is an amazing story:
“Leonard Bernstein in Beersheba, Israel, November 20, 1948”
by Susan Gould
“Leonard Bernstein made musical history over and over throughout his lifetime, but only once did he also indirectly bring about unanticipated military history, when a concert of his put fear of a country’s army into the armed forces of its enemy….
“…On November 19, the UN ordered Israel to withdraw its troops from the strategically situated Negev-desert town of Beersheba, which had been captured by the army in October as one of many military steps in the new state’s struggle to survive, ongoing since its official establishment in May.’
‘The Beersheba troops defied the UN and stayed put. The very next day, they faced an unexpected invasion: thirty-five members of the Israel Philharmonic, led (across the desert, Moses-like, as well as musically), by Leonard Bernstein, arrived from Jerusalem by armored bus. Bernstein, as “musical adviser” of what had been the Palestine Symphony Orchestra when he conducted it the year before, had been touring the war-ravaged country with the ensemble for two months, performing for long-time citizens, new settlers and soldiers alike, a grueling schedule of forty concerts in sixty days. It was not unusual to experience nearby artillery fire mid-concert, and at one performance at Rehovoth, he was called offstage mid-Beethoven piano concerto and told of a possible air raid. According to the Palestine Post, “he returned to the piano as if nothing had happened.” The outwardly unflappable Bernstein said: “I never played such an Adagio. I thought it was my swan song….” [I read in another article, that Bernstein dispatched teams of small ensembles to play chamber music for Jewish soldiers in fox holes and isolated positions. – SZ]
‘There in the desert, an archeological dig served as the concert venue, its high walls creating a three-sided amphitheater, and a makeshift stage was constructed. As reported by the South African writer Colin Legum: “The well of the amphitheater is alive with chattering soldiers – men and women of the front-line army, Jews from Palestine and the British Commonwealth and U.S., Morocco, Iraq, Afghanistan, China, the Balkans, the Baltic, even one from Lapland.” Local residents arrived, and some wounded soldiers were transported by ambulance from the hospital nearby. At 3:30 PM, the concert began. Bernstein played three concerti in a row, not only a bonanza for his listeners, but also a first for him: Mozart’s K. 450 in B flat, Beethoven’s First Piano Concerto, and Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, a most extraordinary and ambitious encore! A violinist supported Bernstein’s chair when it began slipping along the precarious platform.
Estimates of the audience-size ranged from one to five thousand, but in any case, when Egyptian planes reported sighting troops massing in large numbers in Beersheba, Egypt withdrew its troops from a position menacing Jerusalem in order to re-deploy them for what seemed an imminent Israeli attack in the Negev. Dr. Chaim Weizmann, who would become the President of Israel, explained the Egyptian reaction: “Who would take time in war to listen to a Mozart concerto?”…
‘Leonard Bernstein in Beersheba, Israel, November 20, 1948
by Susan Gould
Leonard Bernstein made musical history over and over throughout his lifetime, but only once did he also indirectly bring about unanticipated military history, when a concert of his put fear of a country’s army into the armed forces of its enemy.
Among his many enthusiasms, even obsessions, the State of Israel and the Israel Philharmonic were right up there with music, peace, justice, human rights and love for all mankind – as well as being part and parcel of those central, undying passions. From 1947, for almost every year of his life, Bernstein donated his services to the orchestra, both in Israel and on tour, helping to mold it into a truly outstanding ensemble.
Probably no concert by Bernstein and the Israel Philharmonic, or by anyone else, for that matter, had the extraordinary impact of the one on November 20, 1948, in the midst of the tiny new state’s War of Independence, when just about the entire Arab world was attacking.
Back in April, 1947, within two days of his first arrival in what was then still Palestine, Bernstein had already felt a profound sense of having come at a crucial juncture in the history of the Jewish people. He was deeply affected by the Jews of Palestine and their longing – and determination – to have the independent Jewish state promised them by the British thirty years before in the Balfour Declaration. He wrote to Serge Koussevitzky: “There is a strength and devotion in these people that is formidable. They will never let the land be taken from them; they will all die first. And the country is beautiful beyond description.”
In October 1948, a month after he returned, he wrote again to his beloved mentor: “How to begin? Which of all the glorious facts, faces, actions, ideals, beauties of scenery, nobilities of purpose shall I report? I am simply overcome with this land and its people.” In a postscript, he said: “I feel that I shall spend more and more time here each year. It makes running around the cities of America seem so unimportant – as if I am not really needed there, while I am really needed here!” Of the triumphant concerts, and wildly enthusiastic audiences, who all but worshipped him as a musical messiah, both as pianist and conductor, he described “the greatest being special concerts for soldiers. Never could you imagine so intelligent and cultured and music-loving an army!”
On November 19, the UN ordered Israel to withdraw its troops from the strategically situated Negev-desert town of Beersheba, which had been captured by the army in October as one of many military steps in the new state’s struggle to survive, ongoing since its official establishment in May.
The Beersheba troops defied the UN and stayed put. The very next day, they faced an unexpected invasion: thirty-five members of the Israel Philharmonic, led (across the desert, Moses-like, as well as musically), by Leonard Bernstein, arrived from Jerusalem by armored bus. Bernstein, as “musical adviser” of what had been the Palestine Symphony Orchestra when he conducted it the year before, had been touring the war-ravaged country with the ensemble for two months, performing for long-time citizens, new settlers and soldiers alike, a grueling schedule of forty concerts in sixty days. It was not unusual to experience nearby artillery fire mid-concert, and at one performance at Rehovoth, he was called offstage mid-Beethoven piano concerto and told of a possible air raid. According to the Palestine Post, “he returned to the piano as if nothing had happened.” The outwardly unflappable Bernstein said: “I never played such an Adagio. I thought it was my swan song.”
Despite hope and undaunted perseverance, the country was the scene of great suffering, which Bernstein also observed, and in the course of Israel’s fight for independence, some six thousand Jews died and some twenty thousand were wounded. So it was only natural and logical for him to request orchestral volunteers for another concert for the troops – those defiantly dug-in at Beersheba.’
There in the desert, an archeological dig served as the concert venue, its high walls creating a three-sided amphitheater, and a makeshift stage was constructed. As reported by the South African writer Colin Legum: “The well of the amphitheater is alive with chattering soldiers – men and women of the front-line army, Jews from Palestine and the British Commonwealth and U.S., Morocco, Iraq, Afghanistan, China, the Balkans, the Baltic, even one from Lapland.” Local residents arrived, and some wounded soldiers were transported by ambulance from the hospital nearby. At 3:30 PM, the concert began. Bernstein played three concerti in a row, not only a bonanza for his listeners, but also a first for him: Mozart’s K. 450 in B flat, Beethoven’s First Piano Concerto, and Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, a most extraordinary and ambitious encore! A violinist supported Bernstein’s chair when it began slipping along the precarious platform.
Estimates of the audience-size ranged from one to five thousand, but in any case, when Egyptian planes reported sighting troops massing in large numbers in Beersheba, Egypt withdrew its troops from a position menacing Jerusalem in order to re-deploy them for what seemed an imminent Israeli attack in the Negev. Dr. Chaim Weizmann, who would become the President of Israel, explained the Egyptian reaction: “Who would take time in war to listen to a Mozart concerto?”
‘Fast-forward to 1969, not far from the site of that historic concert, when the University of the Negev was founded, inspired by David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first Prime Minister, whose vision it was to promote development of the Negev desert…”