In times past the Forward newspaper celebrated the fast of Yom Kippur with a feast and in keeping with that tradition it celebrated Israel’s Independence Day by rewriting its anthem to remove the word “Jew” from it. The linguistic purge from the notoriously anti-Israel paper was meant as a way to help Muslims feel better about singing the Israeli national anthem.
The yearning of the Jewish soul becomes the yearning of the Israeli soul and the eyes turned east no longer long for Zion, but the generic “our country”. The proposal made by a self-proclaimed linguist seems rather devoid of understanding when it comes to the origin and meaning of words. Purging Jewish souls from the anthem and replacing them with Israeli souls doesn’t actually solve anything.
Jews are Judeans, dating back to the Kingdom of Judah, contrasted with the breakaway Kingdom of Israel and its tribes. The Jews are also Israelites, being sons of the patriarch Israel, a category that still does not encompass Muslims. Rewriting Jewish soul as Israeli soul still leaves one with Jews, and as the Forward has discovered, Jews are rather hard to get rid of. Shoot them, gas them and write them out of their own anthem and they still pop back up.
It will take more than a few switched words to write Jews out of Hatikvah. Even if we were to no longer call them Israelis, but perhaps Homo Sapiens or oxygen breathing mammals, so as to leave no one out at all, there is the eastern problem. Why were these carbon breathing lifeforms looking east, when most of the region’s Muslims look westward to Israel? And why were they longing for a country for 2000 years when the only Arabs around then were Roman mercenaries carving up Jewish refugees and searching for gold in their stomachs?
A proper post-Jewish anthem must also be post-Israeli. It must be generic, humanistic and tolerant. It must not be associated with anyone’s national striving, only the striving for social justice, complete equality and brotherhood. Fortunately such an anthem already exists and it’s called The Internationale and it happens to be quite popular among the sort of people who think Hatikvah is too Jewish.
There’s even a few Israeli versions, like “Nivne Artzenu Eretz Moledet”. The latter, with lyrics like, “We shall build our country despite our destroyers” has gone out of style and sounds too much like those right-wingers who insist on building houses and farms, instead of protesting over the cost of condos in Tel Aviv. Try strumming up lyrics like, “It is the command of our blood” or “The end to malignant slavery” in the wrong place at the wrong time and you might just be hauled in for incitement. These days the only ones building the country or “marching toward the liberation of our people” are the ones being kicked out of Migron and Hevron by the destroyers of the left.
Move over Abraham Levinson for Doron Levinson and “Lay Down Your Arms” with inspirational lyrics like, “Somewhere deep inside the soldier, There’s a dreamer dreaming of a world of peace, Lay down your arms, Let Time heal every wound, And Love will someday set us free!” It could easily do for the anthem, but sadly it doesn’t represent Muslims any better than Hatikvah does. The only people still dreaming of peace in the Middle East are the ones being ethnically cleansed from their anthem.
Love has yet to heal every wound, but someday it might. All we have to do is lay down our arms, purge ourselves of any selfish nationalistic traits and wait for the other side to return our love. It’s bound to work and if it doesn’t, at least we will know that we tried and died trying.
For those who find songs with more than one lyric too demanding too remember amid the clouds of pot smoke, there’s always the ubiquitous “Od Yavo Shalom Aleinu” better known as “Shalom, Salaam”. The proper way to sing it is with an impassioned wail. Like “Lay down your arms”, it promises that peace is coming, but doesn’t specify a date, just hopeful optimism best expressed by national surrender and out of tune singing.
Peace songs are a cottage industry in Israel. Hardly any peacenik twenty-something wannabe with a pick, a dream and rich parents, or jaundiced professional musician still living down his disco days and his coke habit hasn’t produced his or her own peace song. Often more than one. If peace songs were oil, then Tel Aviv would outdraw Saudi Arabia in the energy market.
You don’t need to know much about music to write a peace song, just as you don’t need to know much about the history of the Jewish people to write them out of their own anthem. All you need is a cheerful message, vague hope and nothing else. Having hope makes you better than those awful people who seem to want war to go on forever, instead of laying down their arms and finding the beautiful dreamer floating in their bidet of hope.
Sadly despite the obligatory Salaams, the Muslims don’t particularly feel represented by all the peace song. The occasional Arab singer will join in a duet with an Israeli to the delight of the peace dorks against a backdrop of flying doves and clasping hands, but seem more energized by Fidai, the anthem of the Palestinian Authority, which like everything else about it shows its commitment to peace.
“Palestine is my fire, Palestine is my revenge,” Fidai shrieks angrily, “my fire and the volcano of my vendetta.” There is no talk of peace, of laying down arms or letting love solve things. Instead there is the eternal war. “I will live as a revolutionary, I will go on as revolutionary, I will expire as revolutionary.”
Back in 2004, Hamas held a contest to select an anthem, but it’s not clear if the contest yielded any results. It does however have plenty of songs, which you can recreate mentally by tossing words like “Death”, “Martyrdom”, “Jihad”, “Blood” and “Victory” into a pile and rearranging them in any order accompanied by various geographical locations and a disco beat. Take any pop album from ten years ago, throw something in about Allah and killing the Jews, and you’re all set.
While the Israelis Salaam, the Muslim Jihad, and while both sets of songs sound like bad Europop, they reveal the character of their respective peoples. Salaaming, in the pre-politically correct jargon, used to mean performing acts of obeisance. It is a pity that this definition has grown dusty as it would save us all a lot of time, trouble and bad music.
Aslim Taslam, Mohammed told his enemies, accept Islam and we will have peace. Singing Salaam to a Muslim without laying down arms and reciting the Shahada is a waste of everyone’s time. For the Israeli National Anthem to properly represent Muslims, it would have to lose the Jewish and Israeli stuff, throw in something about Allah, conspiracies of outside foes, a struggle for liberation and the wise leadership of our benevolent tyrant.
Take the Egyptian National Anthem whose singer proclaims that his purpose is to repel the enemy while relying on Allah, or the Syrian National Anthem which namechecks Arabism and mentions that its flag is written in martyr’s blood or the Libyan National Anthem, which fulminates about enemy conspiracies and boasts of marching with the Koran in one hand a gun in the other.
None of these anthems are concerned with inclusiveness or how non-Muslims feel while singing it and compared to them, Hatikvah is as pacifist as any peace song. Why it doesn’t even mention war, enemies or guns. And if anyone doubts that this attitude is representative of the region, they need only look to the Muslim Brotherhood goosestepping to power in Egypt.
Dejudaizing the Israel National Anthem fools no one, it only makes fools of those who do it. The best way for Israel to maintain the loyalty of those Muslims who have chosen to throw in their lot with the Jewish State is by being strong, not by being weak. In a region where alliances are based on strength, the worst possible message to send is the one that says you aren’t in it for the long haul.
Jews may give their allegiance to a Jewish State too weak to defend itself and too lacking in pride to assert itself, but Israeli Muslims will not. The most right-wing member of the Israeli cabinet is not Avigdor Lieberman, as Anti-Israeli pundits think, but Ayoub Kara, a Druze Muslim. Kara isn’t just right-wing, he makes every Likud Prime Minister look like a bleeding heart liberal. Those Israeli Muslims who do support Israel want it to be strong. Those who do not, will not be bought off by selling out the Jewish soul and the longing that built the state.
Some time ago, a series of radio ads for Baron Herzog wine dubbed it, “The wine that just happens to be Kosher”. There are some who would like to reimagine Israel as a state that just happens to be Jewish. Behind words like that lurks a shame at Jewish labels, the “ASHamed Jews” of Howard Jacobson’s Finkler Question, who are proud to be ashamed of being Jewish, proud to rewrite the anthem of the striving of their people until their striving, their hope and their soul are stricken from the page.
Israel is not an accident, it exists because of those who fought and strived for it, who built and labored for a Jewish State, who sang the Hatikvah because it represented their mission. A mission that is at odds with the “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Israel” agenda of the left to hollow out the country, destroy its sense of purpose, its heritage and its identity, and leave it with a flag, an anthem and a state that no longer stands for anything at all.
@ bernard ross:
to begin with, ‘removing the JEWS from the Xtn narrative’ wasn’t part of yamit’s postulate.
All he said was that the Xtn scriptures rely on the Jewish ones [viz., the Jewish scriptures], but not vice versa. Said nothing about removing the ‘Jews’ from anything.
Moreover, it’s not ‘grasping at straws,’ etc, to note that not all of Tanakh was compiled as of Christ’s day. As I observed, above, most of Kh’tuvim was YET to be compiled. It was written by then, but not compiled till a couple centuries later. How’s that constitute ‘missing the forest for the trees’?
Who knows what was floating around in manuscript at the time, and how it made its way into final form?
NOR is it ‘grasping at straws’ to note that the Temple was destroyed during the very same period when the elemental parts of the NT were being written — and long before they were compiled
— and that the Temple had served as, among other things, the storage receptacle for important records & many vital documents; maybe the templates for Torah & Nevi’im.
How do we know that the Tanakh we have today is identical in every particular to that which existed before the Temple burned to the ground?
Think about it, Bernard: It’s not a far-fetched question — there’s no ‘hair-splitting’ there.
Have you any idea how hot that burn had to have been?
We’re not just talking here about a few things getting a trifle scorched.
The gold trim in the mortar between the stone blocks. . . . melted. . . .
The building was razed to the ground after being thoroughly looted for everything of value
(that’s actually how the Flavian emperors acquired the wealth to finance the building of the Colosseum beginning the following year).
I repeat what I said above:
“I’m not sure we can ASSUME that everything on which the NT asserted its basis would necessarily have survived the traumata & upheaval of the ‘First Jewish War’ intact.”
If you DO believe we can make that assumption, then tell me why. I’m listening.
If it were possible to assure that today’s Tanakh is identical to that which was available to those who narrated the NT, then I’d have no problem with Yamit’s postulate. But I don’t see how one can assure that. Too many variables.
dweller Said:
My take on the argument is that the elements in which you are “uncertain” is irrelevant to Yamits argument
dweller Said:
On the contrary, you appear to be grasping at straws to refute a simple self evident statement.
dweller Said:
I think it is you who desires to be “uncertain”
dweller Said:
dramatic!
dweller Said:
Boasting is unatractive
Still, thank you for the interesting arguments.
dweller Said:
dweller Said:
Yamits argument, if you do not alter its meaning, is simple and straight forward. If you remove the Jewish Scriptures in their entirety from the Christian scriptures would there be a Christian Scriptures? If you removed the Jews from the Christian narrative would there be a Christian narrative? The phrases ” grasping at straws” “splitting of hairs” and “forest from trees” come to mind.
CuriousAmerican Said:
ths is an obfuscaton and a disingenuous red herring. In your mind you have created an equality which allows you to dismiss responsibility. Perhaps I missed something as I am still looking for those repetitive, continuous, clockwork, slaughters, pogroms,exiles, etc etc etc that the Jews did to the Cristians over a 2000 year periond.
CuriousAmerican Said:
I do not condone this action but I understand its cause. There are much more serious things going on than insulting spitting.
@ yamit82:
You’ve repeated (or quoted) this assertion many, many times on this board.
But never once have I seen from you any examples of that “massive evidence.”
Identify that “internal evidence.”
If they were Jews, then the narratives might not necessarily have been written down at all at that early juncture.
They might have been retained orally, and passed on from one to another until much later. Could well have been part of an oral tradition.
“All the evidence points to their having been
composedCOMPILED, in Greek, around 325 CE, and by non-Hebrews.”@ yamit82:
“postulate ‘THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES CAN BE TRUE AND THE CHRISTIAN SCRIPTURES FALSE BUT THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES CANNOT BE FALSE AND THE CHRISTIAN SCRIPTURES TRUE’.”
But your postulate makes no allusion to what they ‘believe.’
It references only what “can” or “cannot” be “false” or “true.”
Yes, sometimes they do.
But how do you know that some of those positions don’t in some part reflect a basis in something in Tanakh that was lost or destroyed after part or all of NT was written (or even compiled) — and on which NT oral (and later, written) relied?
Quite the contrary, your mental gymnastics merely represent your need to give yourself a sense of absolute certainty in an area which you are intellectually unwilling to acknowledge is NOT in fact certain.
But you don’t get it:
I’m not interested in ‘refuting’ some argument here. I merely acknowledge that I don’t know what I don’t know.
The uncertainty drives you nuts, Yamit.
I’m not afraid to endure uncertainty.
But then, there’s a special discipline in consciously resolving to maintain an open mind.
That’s just your spin, my man.
Examples? Instances?
@ dweller:
I don’t have to prove it. It’s what Christians believe. If there is original Jewish source material that is relevant to their belief but lost, then it can’t be used as a part of their belief conditions which not only make such a claim as far as I know. Every contention they make is Based on Jewish scriptures being true and where they can’t directly link they change our bible to fit their theological positions.
Your argument seeks to attempt to justify the very argument you can’t refute by direct evidence. So you invent conjectures that are specious and sophistic to misdirect from the point I presented. When I produce Jewish scriptural support where it conflicts with Christian scripture you interject that which you have no evidence to support you. It’s a red herring argument, something you employ consistently when you can’t defend your arguments based on facts. You call it “thinking out of the box” I call it an inventive mind no different than many science fiction writers.
The facts are: You can check any written Torah in the world, Orthodox, Reform or conservative- Sephardi, ashkanazi or Yemmini and you will find no differences.
“The christian churches have always claimed that the “gospels” are eyewitness accounts of actual events, written by men who were there at the time and saw it all happen – and that three of the four (Matthew, Mark, and John) were themselves Hebrews. This is never questioned by christians, but it simply isn’t true. It cannot be. There is massive evidence within the writings themselves that not one of them could possibly have been written by a Hebrew. Equally false is the claim that these documents were originally written in Aramaic (the common vernacular throughout the Middle East in the 1st century CE) and only later translated into Greek, the original Aramaic source-texts then somehow being “lost”. This last assertion is preposterous: quite apart from the internal evidence that the writers didn’t even speak Aramaic, if the earliest christians were at the same time practising Hebrews, as is claimed, would they really first have translated the source-documents of their new “faith” into the hated pagan Greek language, and then allowed the original texts in their own language to be “lost”? This was never done with any of the Books of the Hebrew Scriptures – why then should it have been done with the “new testament” documents? We Hebrews are (and have always been) fanatical about preserving our Holy Books: this claim simply does not hold water. Furthermore, no trace has ever been found of any copies of the “gospels” in Aramaic, and the earliest copies in Greek that have ever been unearthed date from no earlier than Constantine’s time. All the evidence points to their having been composed, in Greek, around 325 CE, and by non-Hebrews.”
@ yamit82:
Yes, quite possibly so akin, in practice.
But I ask it anyway.
Of course; that goes without saying, under any circumstances.
Define, please. And illustrate.
@ yamit82:
“Since when”? — Since rational arguments are unresolvable until both parties agree on the basis for the argument; since then.
Oh, bilgewater, Yamit. Without a mutually stipulated basis, you are both doing nothing more than talking past each other — and USING each other’s energies, in the talking, to fuel your own individual narratives even as you speak/write. It’s not a discussion, there can’t even be an exchange — it’s mutual masturbation — and there’s no way it can go anywhere (as he quite rightly observed).
You were trying to pick a fight after he had turned his back on the argument; THAT’s what I fully comprehended.
That is the sheerest self-serving pap. The truth is, yahnkele, that you don’t fight merely when there is something to fight over.
You ALSO look for opportunities to fight; I think you get off on it.
If I were a betting man (I’m not a betting man but if I WERE), I’d put money on the proposition that without something to fight over
— you wouldn’t have the juice, the interior emotional energy, to lift a fork.
You’ve laid that one out before, and I responded to it at the time. My reply turned out to be the final post on that thread. (Apparently Ted felt that he’d had a bellyful of this stuff by then.) Here was my original answer from a couple weeks ago [“NEVER AGAIN,” Post #40] strong>:
@ dweller:
Since when do arguments and debates require the debaters to be on the same page? That would defeat the rational for any debate.
I wasn’t baiting him I was responding to his assertion and yes i used as you fully comprehended a response to which he couldn’t respond too without destroying his own stated premise.
You are attempting to rationalize a rationalization.
“WHILE THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES MAY BE TRUE AND THE CHRISTIAN FALSE, THE JEWISH SCRIPTURE CANNOT BE FALSE AND THE CHRISTIAN SCRIPTURES TRUE”
@ dweller:
Interesting hypothetical akin to IF PIGS COULD FLY?
But I will answer. They can stay but with no national political rights, with full civil rights. They cannot hold any public office or sit in our Knesset, they can have no political say in our national discourse. We will respect their property and their personal welfare, we will not persecute them and afford them all the normal benefits of citizenship including healthcare and social welfare benefits. We will not murder them, kill them, steal from them and in all matters treat them justly. NO AFFIRMATIVE ACTION as exists today either.
If their numbers become too large, a mechanism will be put in place to restrict or remove the excess numbers. In other-words they will be as permanent residents or resident aliens as long as they behave themselves.
@ Shy Guy:
How so?
Are you saying that the observation that the conversation can’t go anywhere is not true? — that there IS somewhere for that exchange to go?
They — Yamit & Curious — are operating from different premises, they’re not on the same page.
So of course, there’s no way the conversation could go anywhere.
Not a cop-out; common sense, under the circumstances.
@ CuriousAmerican:
“BAZAAR,” is, I think, Farsi —Persian. The Arab equivalent of the bazaar is the Shukh; that’s why I used it, above.
My point, however, was that Arabs bring the emotions of the market to politics
— not the values of the market.
Only the WEST brings the values of the market to politics.
It’s vital to understand the distinction between the two.
Here in the West, we are accustomed to bargaining over everything.
We both want the same loaf of bread; so we each agree to take half-a-loaf, in return for both of us dropping our claims henceforward.
Not in the Arab world. No “half-a-loaf” for them.
They leave the VALUES of the shoukh in the shoukh; they don’t bargain over politics.
YOU bargain with them over politics (as we do in the West) — explore compromise, etc — and they will scent weakness
— and act accordingly.
They bring the EMOTIONS of the shoukh into politics; not its values, but its emotions.
In the shoukh, in the market, every position they take is high drama — right up until the moment that they change their position. Then that new position is high drama. The drama says their (current) position are always right & yours is always wrong.
And they believe that. . . . at that moment. Because they’ve taken that position beforehand.
They take a position — and THEN they believe in it
— not the other way around.
What I’ve just described for you is the reason why your proposition has no hope of success.
The Jews of the pre-State yishuv — especially those of the left (i.e., the Zionist Labor movement) tried what you propose.
Jabotinsky tried to tell them they were reading the Arabs wrong; that it wouldn’t work.
One day, some Arab acquaintances of Jabotinsky told him, “We may not like what you’re about, but we respect you. At least you treat us like what we are — Arab patriots. The others treat us like prostitutes.” I’m only approximating the language; I’ll find the precise quote sometime & pass it along.
I seriously doubt that buying them out is going to make it.
One man’s opinion, of course.
dweller Said:
The usual christian cop-outery.
@ yamit82:
He’s saying that he knows he won’t be able to argue the matter with you
— as you know perfectly well.
Why the hell are you baiting him?
Arab culture is also notorious for its cutthroat marketing. It gave the world the word BAZAAR.
To that end … buy them out with good money and passports.
@ yamit82:
You’re right that Curious doesn’t understand Arabs.
You’re also correct that they ‘believe’ that we ‘stole’ their land.
However, Arab culture is legendary — notorious, actually — for carrying the “market emotions” of the shukh into politics; for beginning with PR, and eventually coming to believe its PR.
Volumes have been written about the phenomenon.
They believe we ‘stole’ their land — because they’ve CHOSEN to believe it.
THIS part, however, is an assumption on your part. (It may — additionally — be true, or not; but it’s an assumption.)
Maybe a bit of wishful thinking too, perhaps?
I mean, what if — just suppose, for the sake of discussion — that Arabs COULD ‘stand in respect & silence without hatred.’ Suppose they COULD ‘be loyal respectful citizens of a JEWISH STATE.’
What then? — Would you be okay with their presence under those circumstances?
@ CuriousAmerican:
The Talmud is a grab bag.
Search long enough, and you’re bound to find most anything in there.
It IS applied — by the govt.
Article 13 of the Mandate Charter provides for it — and it continues to be upheld
— well, except for the Jews
who aren’t permitted to pray on the site of Solomon’s Temple
— itself the site of Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac.
But for everybody else in the Jewish state, freedom of religion is INDEED applied.
@ CuriousAmerican:
No.
Again, No.
If Christianity existed, then surely it would be the “completion of Judaism.”
I’m always reminded, in moments like this, of Gandhi’s response — also couched in the subjunctive — to an inquiry as to his opinion of Western civilization:
— “It would be a good thing.”
@ CuriousAmerican:
So you are calling the G-d of Israel a liar and a prakster?
@ CuriousAmerican:
Not at all, Curio. But YOU are being judgmental here.
It is true that dismissing an argument does not refute it.
It is also true that dismissing an argument is not (usually) an intellectually valid response to it. (There IS an intellectually valid time & place for flat-out dismissal; sometimes even accompanied by scorn.)
However, what I said was NOT by way of ‘dismissal.’
My question was an earnest & sincere inquiry. It had occurred to me that Khalil might know something that I did not. So I asked.
The question was quite literal, Curio; not in any way rhetorical. You overreacted.
Of course it would matter.
You must remember, however, that the Ottoman Land System, which was inherited — first, by the Mandate Authority, and then, by the Jewish State — had a few different categories of land, and land use. What some have assumed to have constituted ‘deeds’ to clear title were in fact — as issued by the Ottoman govt — leases for the use of Miri: State land [< mir — “prince”].
The latter were essentially tenancies, for which the possessor often paid a hefty tax to the authorities. e.g., The Ottomans often extracted as much as 65 percent of a farmer’s yield; the indebtedness to which it led often resulted in fellahin giving up the settled life altogether and joining the Bedu. But I’m digressing; the point was that written property records do count. They may not count in the way the holder assumes, but they are an important point of departure for proper adjudication of claims.
It’s true that the Lebanese Jewish community did not face grave peril during the 1948 Arab-Israel War & was reasonably protected by govt authorities. Also true that Lebanon was the only Arab country that saw an early post-1948 increase in its Jewish population (mostly from the influx of Jewish refugees from Syria & Iraq)
However, negative attitudes toward Jews increased after 1948, and by 1967, most Lebanese Jews had been forced out, emigrating to Israel, US, Canada, France.
@ CuriousAmerican:
You have proved only that you are an ignorant Christian missionary with an agenda.
Must? Or what? You seem to have a need to tell us what we MUST do.
The Text
Talmud Gittin 56b-57a
[
Here we see a story of the famous convert Onkelos who, prior to converting, used black magic to bring up famous villains of history and ask them whether their wickedness saved them in the world to come. In both cases (there is a third case of Onkelos calling up Titus as well) the sinner is being terribly punished in the afterlife while Israel is being rewarded. Presumably, this helped convince Onkelos to convert to Judaism.
As we have explained elsewhere, Yeshu is not Jesus of the New Testament. He is most likely a prominent sectarian of the early first century BCE who deviated from rabbinic tradition and created his own religion combining Hellenistic paganism with Judaism. While Yeshu may be the proto-Jesus some scholars point to as inspiring the early Christians, he is definitely not the man who was crucified in Jerusalem in the year 33 CE.
Interestingly, if someone were to claim that Yeshu in the passage above is Jesus, then Balaam cannot also refer to Jesus because both Balaam and Yeshu are in the passage together. In other words, it is self-contradicting to claim that the passages above about Balaam’s mother being a harlot or dying young refer to Jesus and to claim that the passage above about Yeshu being punished also refers to Jesus. You can’t have it both ways.
The Jesus Narrative In The Talmud
I have given you proof, but this is another conversation that will go nowhere.
The point is: Religious freedom must be exercised.
Christianity is the completionm of Judaism.
But this is a conversation which will go nowhere.
2
@ CuriousAmerican:
A-I don’t care what you affirm or deny. B- The Talmud does not even mention your deity. The references to Yeshu refer to different yeshu’s different time periods, different circumstances, different narratives. Matter of fact you won’t find any reference in Jewish sources about your deity until many centuries later than the hypothetical event. That in itself is a good indication that the jesus character is mythical.
Israel is a Jewish state and that means more than just a place where Jews hang out. America has a constitution which guarantees certain rights, Israel has laws which grant freedom of expression including religion. If true spitting on Armenian Clerics was not a nice thing to do. Christians can worship as they choose but displaying Christian symbols on their person is not exactly worship.
We detest Wagner’s music not on its merits (and it is very bad), but because Hitler loved it, Out of respect for those feelings Wagner is never played in Israel. That’s pretty much how some Jews react when they see Christian symbols displayed in Public especially in Jerusalem.
You ignore the fact that more Jews were murdered in the name of Jesus than on the orders of Hitler—who was approved by Christian clerics. Christian tourists with crosses on their necks come here specifically to deny our religion? We detest anti-Zionists like Jimmy Carter coming to Israel, but those tourists reject the foundation of Zionism: Jewish faith. They go to Golgotha where their deity was executed—and all of them believe he was executed by us, and that we Jews shouted, “Let his blood be on us and our children.”
You are ignoring our history with you and suggesting reciprocity of tolerance. I don’t like the spitting it’s not nice, but I do understand why.
Christianity is the negation of Judaism
Don’t think so
1
There were persecutions of Christians by Jews. Yamit has pointed out the massacres of Christian by Jews at Mamilla, as noted in Graetz’s History of the Jews.
Even Saint Paul started out as a Sanhedrin authorized persecutor of early Christianity, until he converted.
I could give others … The Yemeni Jewish persecutions. And I could got into more modern examples.
THERE IS BLOOD ON EVERYONE’S HAND
The fact is: Jews in the West and around the world rightfully demand freedom of religion AND must therefore grant it to others in their midst or be branded as hypocrites.
I wish the State Department would press the matter. Here Oil Money has bought out principle and it is disgusting.
For a beginner, the USA should insist on appointing Jewish Ambassadors to Saudi Arabia.
Still, Freedom of religion is the hallmark of a civilized society. If Israel wants to be called civilized then it must act accordingly.
How dare you criticize me for insisting on the same freedom of religion than you demand for yourself.
The Hasidic spitters are OUT OF ORDER!
CuriousAmerican Said:
Why, because it is appplied in the US? First get it applied in Saudi and other muslim countries.
CuriousAmerican Said:
I find it incredibly arrogant or incredibly ignorant of history that you have not noticed that jews have been slaughtered for 2000 years in the name of the cross. If you were truly respectful you would understand that these Hasidics are aware of the details of this history and to see the same crosses in the holy land, following them from the lands of the Jew killers, is probably a bit much for them. Things are not equal or evenhanded.
CuriousAmerican Said:
It is not paranoid to be distrustful of an organization that has slaughtered you for 2000 years. Perhaps there are changes in Christianity but only time will tell. It would be irrational to conclude that 30 years after the pope recognized that the Jews did not kill Christ everything of the last 2000 years has become its opposite. You live in the US which currently appears to respect others. The world was not born today and history is a strong force in the present and we can readily see with the europeans slowly coming out of the closet in pursuit of their culturally congenital bloodthirsty habits. European academics are creating the rational constructs, as we speak, for another masturbatory descent into slaughtering Jews, with rational justification as always.
CuriousAmerican Said:
I deport my enemy and I fine my brother. I am able to tell the difference between the two. Unlike many Jews I am not interested in the red herrings and mental gymnastics. The main thing is it is not for non-Israelis to lecture Israel into an American system. Israel lives in the neigborhood of Saudi Arabia and other hostiles. It is best to remove the hostiles from Israel but in any case to suffer the disingenuous and bloodthirsty no longer.
CuriousAmerican Said:
Being evenhanded puts you in the role of judge, but as a judge you forget the greater context. It is not 65 years, it is 2000 years and you belong to a religion that has slaughtered Jews for 2000 years in the name of another Jew. I think you just dont get it with your american perspective of judging all in you cultural norm.
I do not deny American Jews the right to a Talmud even though it has ugly things to say about Christ.
Freedom of religion must be applied.
I live in the USA near a town full of Hasidic Jews with schtreimels.
So, if I can respect them – I have given them lifts in my car – then you should respect Christians with crosses. It is unconscionable that some Hasidim spit on Christian clerics.
THAT IS NOT WHY CHRISTIANS GO TO ISRAEL!
YOU ARE PARANOID!
There were Jewish kids recently who rooted for Nazis at a recent retrospective. It was a big thing on Israel National Radio.
Would you deport them?
Fines are in order.
65 years of war has caused a coarsening of all sides.
CuriousAmerican Said:
It is odd that an American should be telling Israelis what their national anthem should be. Furthermore may I suggest that the national anthem of the US be “New York, New York” or “I left my heart in San Francisco”? Your suggested choice was a popular song and had none of the ingredients a national anthem requires.
CuriousAmerican Said:
Just recently the arab students hooted with disrespect for the holocaust day respectful minute of silence. Everyone knows that although there is the arab individual who can respect the Jew it is unusual, and the sooner the idealistic Jews, usually in foreign, stop deluding themselves the better. If it were up to me every time there was a muslim disrespect there would be trucks to the nearest border for them. Every time a rock is thrown a truck would be called. I prefer the silent Eisner approach where ones actions give a clear message. The Jews should not be asked by anyone, anymore, to continue suffering all manner of disrespect and slaughter. It is enough, and justice is necessary!
Of course I say nice things about gentiles. Depends on what gentiles. I have same nasty things to say about my fellow Jews as well. What’s your point?
I respect that. Therefore I think it best they move to country that shares their beliefs history and culture. That move could be as little as a few miles walkable for some.
You don’t understand Arabs. They believe with every fiber of their heart and soul that we stole their land, they will never stand in respect and silence with deep inner hatred. They can never be loyal respectful citizens of a JEWISH STATE! They must go.
If they aren’t here among us then that would not be a problem for them or us.
I grew to hate that song because of the lyrics” and is why I understand how the Arabs feel. The anthem is our symbol of nationhood and while they are here they are not part of our nation and never will be or can be. I find it obscene, Israelis sing “Jerusalem of Gold” praising the Muslim gold domes and Christian bells’ chime.
So when I say to you Christians that you should not only respect our laws but also our sensitivities and even though there is a prohibition of allowing Christians ( strange worship) in our Land when you do come we would really appreciate it if you do not display symbols of your belief and diety when you walk among us. Christians come to our land to venerate their decuman wave of Jew hatred in their scriptures.
This is our country, not an “international enclave.”
When they could, Christians razed our synagogues and yeshivas, and it’s unimaginable that now we allow their churches “to dot our holy land and city”.
I say all this with the greatest respect and I know it will be taken to heart and reciprocated by you good Christians. You don’t have to agree just respect our sensitivities and be respectful and silent and if not stay away.
Oh Moslems, so very many things offend you. Why don’t you do the world a favor and leave it because; frankly, you just being in it offends me.
As long as there are tens of muslim states with no rights of jews or the unaddressed jewish refugees from arab lands I have no compunction to care or discuss the plight of muslims in Israel or how they feel. After all, aside from their surrounding muslim states the whole of trans jordan was created and maintained as Jew Free and occupies the overwhelming bulk of the JEWISH homeland. That should be the concern of Jews. Let those with such concerns first correct the failures of the other. I never see the muslim with any concern about the jewish refugees,rights of Jews in muslim countries, and there is also the fact that every bit of former palestine mandate(Jordan, Gaza, PA territories)controlled by the muslims is JEW FREE, JEW FREE, JEW FREE!!! Get it? Meshugge Jews are the only people who care, or are conned into caring, more about their enemies than about themselves. This is why they engage in absurdities that plague no others! Can you imagine Saudi discussion of such a concern as to whether their Jews are comfy? A little more common sense, less searching for red herrings and washing the shtetl out of our hair would do wonders!
@ yamit82:
I’m in total agreement. I’m so sick of these frightened, pathetic little nebishes like those at the Forward who want Israel to hide its identity and who want to snuff out any expressions of Jewish pride.
Khalil Zarrouk Said:
All abandoned property was confiscated by Israel and legal title was given to the Custodian who was also responsible to compensate for such property at fair value. This figure was to be agreed between the parties or settled by the Court.
So make your claim and you will be given fair compensation. You are not entitled to rent.
You are being picayune here. It is called estimating. This is not refuting his argument. It is rather, dismissing it – which is not the same thing, nor intellectually valid.
Wouldn’t matter. Lots of the “Palestinians” have their deeds and tax records.
So let’s deal with this now, intellectually honestly.
Khalil, you said your ancestor’s house is in Beersheba, which is the Negev. Most Arabs in the Negev are/were nomadic Bedouins, many of whom inflate their land claims. Nomads never really have clear title, except by tradition; and even that is murky. That is true of nomads all over the world.
But let’s assume for argument’s sake, your family’s house was in the city of Beersheba.
Now, at the time of 1948, there were 4,000 Arabs in Beersheba. Ben Gurion ordered aerial bombing.
Now, what you ignore is this:
If your family was one of the expelled … You have to show tht your house was indeed yours, and that it was not expropriated from the Jews who fled earlier in the 30’s.
If you do have clear title … and I doubt it … but if you do, contact a lawyer. The World Jewish Community regularly sues for reparations from WW2, and the return of property. Use that as a precedent; but be aware, the Jews could sue Morocco, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, and Syria for compensation, too, for the Jews expelled out of those countries. NO JEWS WERE EXPELLED FROM THEN CHRISTIAN LEBANON
That may have no bearing on your claim, since you are not responsible for that.
It would be interesting to see.
Israel has Abandoned Property Laws and it would be interesting to see if you could press the case; especially in light of the World Jewish Communities’ insistence of recompense for properties lost during WW2.
But aside: I do not believe your story.
But, if it is true; you have my pity.
You are not going to be getting the land back, whether you have justice on your side or not.
@ Khalil Zarrouk:
Think He was actually holding out on the sly?
“70 years”? — 1942?
What happened in Beersheba in 1942?
Did he have the deed to the property?
I was born and raised in Canada. I had been indelibly branded a Jew by virtue of the fact that my parents had emigrated from Poland and were part of the Jewish immigrant community in Canada. My point of reference was “Jews” and “Jewish” Yet I was secular and very much a part of the world in which I lived. I totally accepted the idea that this was their (Christians) country. It was the order of things. I didn’t need to eradicate all things Christian from Canada. As long as I wasn’t discriminated against, I was OK with living in a Christian country. But this is what the liberal left wishes to to in Canada and the US, i.e. eradicate Christianity from the Public Square. In Israel they want to eradicate Judaism from the public square. Who would think of eradicating Islam from the public square in any Muslim country?
I like these words and I :”Love has yet to heal every wound, but someday it might. All we have to do is lay down our arms, purge ourselves of any selfish nationalistic traits and wait for the other side to return our love. It’s bound to work and if it doesn’t, at least we will know that we tried and died trying.” and I like to remind all that the friends of today may be your enemies of tomorrow and your worst enemies today will be your best friends in the future…The Lord said I will give this land to you… he did not say the water and the gas underneath…you have taken everything and left us nothing… would you accept this on to yourselves…give you an example if you steal a piece of cake and you are hungry would you let anybody even your brother take it and eat it without any fight back….If you say yes you must be a hypocrite….how about taking all your belongings…..real tragedy….A couple of Israelis are living in my fathers house in Beer Sheba for the last 70 years I did not get a one dollar bill as a rent…Is this mentioned in the Bible…. For justice to be justice it has to be the same values for all humans not only for one group….
The notion that that somehow constitutes a ‘fatal flaw’
— is ITSELF fatally flawed:
Israel was explicitly created to be a Jewish State
— that was its raison d’etre from Day One.
It had no other; ever.
Doesn’t mean that nobody else can be welcome in a Jewish State
— but it is what it is.
End of discussion.
Agreed. This is reasonable.
Omeyn, v’omeyn.
Do you have anything nice to say about us Gentiles?! You seem to despise all of us.
In any event, it is folly to ask an Arab to sing about his Jewish ancestors returning to the land, when his ancestors are NOT Jewish and they were not expelled into the disapora.
It is enough that they stand in respectful silence.
You shouldn’t change the words; and they should not have to sing them.
ANYHOW THIS SHOULD BE YOUR NATIONAL ANTHEM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mybSCz_wPn8
It seems to me, that both sides have anthems to their liking. Maybe the Jews could adopt the Palestinan anthem, and celebrate their “vendetta” against the Muslims. Would that meet with “Forward” approval?
I get the feeling that all the anti-Semites in the world, including Jewish anti-Semites, are getting desperate and even going insane. They sense that Israel continues to survive and even to thrive despite all their hatred and deception. It has been said that ‘Those whom the gods would destroy they first make mad.’
@ Shy Guy:
I think the change ““To be a free people in our land,
The land of Zion and Jerusalem.” fits into the political Zionist framework over the original. The change with the wording “a free people in our land” gives voice to the political aspirations and raison d’etre of the Jewish people and the Torah as well, the establishment of a Jewish politi.
Only the Jewish people is a people for whom it is a religious and national obligation to establish an independent polity. This is as important to the physical reclamation of the land as well as the physical return of the Jewish people to the biblically promised lands of our forefathers.
The original verses only speak of the return to Eretz Yisrael.
Frankly, I won’t recite the Hatikvah until they restore Imber’s original lyrics.
Not what we have sang for 60+ years:
“To be a free people in our land,
The land of Zion and Jerusalem.”
Rather:
“To return to the land of our fathers,
The city where David encamped.”
Ask yourself why the secular Zionists couldn’t bear to live with the original lyrics.
And why the rest of us were chumps in accepting these warped revisions.
@ Shy Guy:
They never give up.
If non Jews don’t like our anthem, flag or any other national symbol they don’t have to be here.
The citizens who are not happy with our anthem may return their citizenship at any time.
Ha’Neshama
LachHalcha