Israel at a Point of No Return — In the Right Direction

 American Jews, who have been running away from Judaism for the past three generations, are upset that Israel has embraced the normative Judaism they worked so hard to suppress…

By David P. Goldman, PJ MEDIA (Spengler)

I should like to advance a conjecture which I lack the qualifications to adequately develop: The global Left, and the Israeli Left most of all, perceives that the clock is running out, and has worked itself up into a froth of hysteria against Israel. The world of John Lennon’s “Imagine,” where there are no countries and no religions, is about to dissipate like last night’s marijuana fumes. The demographic time bomb that worries the Left is not the relative increase of Arab vs. Jewish populations between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River, speciously cited by John Kerry and a host of other errant utopians: it is the growth of the Jewish population itself, and Israel’s transformation into the world’s most religious country.

Israel now has a religious majority, as Times of Israel blogger Yoseif Bloch observes:

According to our Central Bureau of Statistics, 43% of Israeli Jews are secular, 9% are haredi, and the remaining 48% are somewhere between masorti (traditional) and dati (religious): 23% the former, 10% the latter, and 15% smack in the middle. These five groups do not parallel the five groups identified by Pew, e.g. Orthodox is a denomination, while dati is a declaration.

57% of Israelis, that is, practice a form of Judaism that for the most part Americans would call “Orthodox,” in that it recognizes normative Judaism in the rabbinic tradition (the presence of the “progressive” Reform and Conservative movements is almost imperceptible and largely limited to transplanted Americans). Many Israelis who are dati are far from completely observant, but there is a great gulf fixed between a semi-observant Jew who knows what observance is, and a “progressive” who asserts the right to reinvent tradition according to personal taste.

This majority seems to be expanding fast. I spent the second half of December in Jerusalem promoting the Hebrew translation of my book How Civilizations Die and was struck by the increase in commitment to religious observance, including among people who were steadfastly secular. Almost half of Israel’s army officers are “national religious” and trained in pre-Army academies that teach Judaism, Jewish history, as well as physical training and military subjects. The ultra-Orthodox are going to work rather than studying full time, little by little, but the little adds up to a lot. Naftali Bennett’s national-religious party “Jewish Home” has created a new political focus for the national-religious. Outreach organizations like Beit Hillel are bringing once-secular Israelis back to observance. Beit Hillel’s spiritual leader Rabbi Ronen Neuwirth was in New York recently lecturing about Israel’s religious revival.

Anecdotally, I see this in my own small circle of Israeli acquaintances. A musician friend told me that he attends a Talmud class every Shabbat — he can’t stand praying, but he is hungry for Torah. A journalist friend dresses her young boys in the tallit katan, the fringed undergarment of the very observant. It is becoming normal in Jerusalem restaurants to wash hands before bread and to recite the Grace after Meals.

This is a crucial, counterintuitive story: Israel is swimming against the secular current, becoming more observant as the rest of the world becomes more secular. Perhaps the explanation lies in the observation of the Catholic sociologist Mary Eberstadt, who argued in a brilliant 2007 essay that it is our children who bring us to faith. Last year Mary expanded the essay into a book which I had the honor to discuss in Claremont Review of Books. It is a commonplace of demographers’ correlation that people of faith have more children: Mary argues that the causality goes both ways, that having children reinforces our faith. Israeli is a standpoint in the modern world with a fertility rate of 3.0 children per woman (the closest second is the US with just 1.9). Excluding the ultra-Orthodox the number is 2.6 children per woman, still outside the range of the rest of the industrial world. Secular Israelis are having three children. Not only does that defuse the much-touted “demographic time bomb.” It ultimately changes the character of the country. It validates the hundred-year-old argument of Rabbi Isaac Kook, one of the founders of religious Zionism, that identification with the Jewish people eventually will lead Jews back to Judaism.

This national religious revival is not occurring at the expense of Israeli or West Bank Arabs. On the contrary, the Arab population between the River and the Sea is flourishing as no modern Arab population ever did. A fifth of Israel’s medical students are Arab, as are a third of the students at the University of Haifa. Ariel University across the “Green Line” in Samaria, the “settler’s university,” is educating a whole generation of West Bank Arabs. The campus is full of young Arab women in headscarves, and the local Jewish leadership reaches out to Arab villages to recruit talented students. Israel’s expanding economy has a bottomless demand for young people of ability and ambition. The Left calls Israel an “apartheid state” the way it used to call America a “fascist state” back in the 1960s.

The Israeli Left, with its soggy vision of univeralist utopianism, may be at a point of no return. It is becoming marginalized and irrelevant. The Europeans, whose experience of nationalism has been uniformly horrific, are equally aghast. Liberal Christians who abhor the Election of Israel because they abhor Christian orthodoxy cannot suppress their rage. And “progressive” American Jews, who have been running away from Judaism for the past three generations, are upset that Israel has embraced the normative Judaism they worked so hard to suppress. American “progressive” and unaffiliated Jews, one should remember, have the lowest fertility rate of any identifiable minority in the United States. Even if most of them did not intermarry (and the intermarriage rate in the past ten years approaches 70% according to the October 2013 Pew study) their infertility would finish them off in a few generations. Meanwhile 74% of all Jewish children in the New York area live in Orthodox families. The center of gravity of Judaism will shift decisively to Israel in the next generation, and the segment of American Jewry that most identifies with Israel–the Orthodox–will set the tone for American Judaism and eventually become the majority in a much smaller American Jewish population.

It is up to the Israelis, to be sure, to draw out the implications of these trends. But I am encouraged by the perceptions of religious leaders like Rabbi Ronen Neuwirth, who perceive this revival in their daily work.

This is good news for Christians as well as Jews. The secularization thesis is refuted: a country with the world’s greatest record of high-tech innovation is also becoming the industrial world’s most religious country. It is devastating news for Lennonists as well as Leninists. The “Imagine” world turns out to be imaginary. Israel, as Franz Rosenzweig said of the Jewish people, is there to be “the paragon and exemplar of a nation.” For all its flaws, the State of Israel stands as a beacon to people of faith around the world. It is honored by its list of self-appointed enemies. Will Israel prevail against the unholy coalition against it? As we say, b’ezrat Hashem. (With G-d’s help)

 

February 12, 2014 | 42 Comments »

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42 Comments / 42 Comments

  1. @ yamit82:

    “Incidentally, I wouldn’t assume that the Rosenblit take on the Dina/Schechem story is the only one out there. There’s plenty more to be said about it.”

    “Try quoting a real rabbi in the future. On the internet as you are well aware of anyone can claim anything even call themselves rabbi.”

    I didn’t ‘quote’ him. I merely linked to his article.

    — And I provided the link NOT because he’s a rabbi (“real” or otherwise); the fact that he’s a rabbi was frankly the furthest thing from my mind at the time. A man’s vocation makes no impression on me, one way or the other. I’d have linked to the article if he were a street cleaner, a CPA, or an illegal drug dealer.

    I linked to his ARTICLE because it presented engaging ideas & opinion that I hadn’t encountered before (and which you , rather obviously, hadn’t either).

    Unlike PresentCompany (and his fawning coterie of hangers-on), I keep an open mind.

    I consider a matter on its own MERITS , irrespective of its pedigree, high OR low.

    — Any OTHER approach constitutes nothing short of intellectual bigotry.

    “Absent is any reference to his smicha… On the internet as you are well aware of anyone can claim anything even call themselves rabbi.”

    Is this honestly the best you can do?

    — Not everybody pulls out his C-V and waves it at the drop of a hat; some folks find it unseemly & immodest. As a purely practical matter, I doubt that places w/ prestigious names like Yale & Columbia would’ve hired somebody as a rabbi who couldn’t establish that he’d been ordained. (Not that anybody oughta give a huskyphuque.)

    Bury your dead, Yamit; the stink of decaying bodies is heavy on the air.

    “Never quotes or references the Talmud or any other Jewish sources other than the Tanach and what some other rabbinic commentators said but without reference sources.”

    And your point would be. . . .???

    “He loves yeshu…”

    Any SANE person would.

    Incidentally, I used to be called a “nigger-lover,” in some circles.

    — But that revealed LESS about YoursTruly (OR about “niggers”) than it did about those who made such remarks.

    “… which is probably why you use [R. Reiss].”

    I don’t “use” him. I’m not a user.

    I merely showed you a fresh view by linking to an article of his — whose SUBSTANCE, I note, you have studiously ignored

    — even as you continue to assiduously avoid responding to the substance of my remarks above (and in the original posts).

    @ yamit82:

    “Here are some [takes] from some real rabbis scholars and sages: “The Killing of the Shchem Residents,” “Rage and the Rape of the Innocent”

    Nothing new here. Seen it all before; stale. (And as I’ve noted, lotsa Xtn commentators make the same weak arguments.)

    Apparently it takes access to a little something more than somebody’s idea of “real rabbis, scholars and sages” for a man to appreciate original thought

    — and to see far enough past the clutter of his own mind to glimpse Reality for what it is.

    @ yamit82:

    “If you want an answer, do not seek an easy one.”

    Sound advice.

    It’ll be a fine day when you get ’round to taking it.

  4. @ yamit82:

    If you want an answer, do not seek an easy one.

    http://youtu.be/PWSx0bBiNIs

    Ok, ‘Jack’… 😉 I think I get the point….
    Basically, it would be a ‘modern version’ of lech l’chah…

    A shepherd was tending flock in the hills of Judah. He became thirsty and went to his favorite brook in the hills to take a drink. As he was drawing the crystal clear water in his palm and putting it to his mouth, something caught his eye. He saw drops of water falling on a huge stone – drip, drop – and directly where the drops were falling there was a deep hole in the stone. The shepherd was fascinated. He gazed at the drops and at the stone.

    “Look what the little drops of water did to the rock,” Akiba exclaimed. “Do you think there is hope for me? “

    Is it a coincidence that I have just stumbled upon a book by Laura Ben David called “moving up. an Aliyah journal”

  6. dweller Said:

    Incidentally, I wouldn’t assume that the Rosenblit take on the Dina/Schechem story is the only one out there.

    There’s plenty more to be said about it.

    Try quoting a real rabbi in the future. On the internet as you are well aware of anyone can claim anything even call themselves rabbi.

    From his commentary page:

    Moshe Reiss, a former resident of New Haven, Connecticut., is a rabbi and has a B.A. from Brooklyn College and a Ph.D. in economics from Oxford University. He was a lecturer at Columbia University, and assistant to the rabbi of Yale University. He is now a resident of Israel, where he writes and lectures. He has written a book
    Messengers of God, which appears on his website: http://www.moshereiss.org. He was recently a visiting professor at the Catholic University of Leuven

    Absent is any reference to his smicha (rabbinic ordination)!!!! Never quotes or references the Talmud or any other Jewish sources other than the Tanach and what some other rabbinic commentators said but without reference sources.

    He loves yeshu which is probably why you use him.

  7. @ yamit82:

    Concluding installment of the earlier Dina/Sh’khem exchange:

    [Yam/Rosen]: “Generations later, the tribe of Shimon proudly displayed a picture of the City of Shechem on its tribal flag… “

    “Of itself, this establishes nothing, because not everything about the Sh’khem story was outrageous or unjust (as the massacre was).

    The RESCUE of Dina, for example, was entirely proper, even noble.

    The problem is that Shimon & Levi were a couple of emotionally undisciplined hotheads. How come RUVEN & YEHUDAH weren’t in on the massacre? — THEY also were Dina’s full brothers, all children of Leah.

    — But they were older; their sense of judgment was better developed.

    Remember, it was Shimon & Levi specifically whose blood-in-the-eye envy & unbridled jealousy prompted them initially to broach the idea of killing Yoseph (who was, admittedly, spoiled rotten by their father’s special indulgence of him — and BTW, did that parental favoritism ALSO constitute Jacob’s ‘understanding of God’s moral authority’?).

    Even ROSENBLIT, whose article you cite, acknowledges that, later on in the piece:
    “Unfortunately, the very same anger that had led Shimon and Levi to attack Shechem… had later led them to plan the murder of Joseph — a Chillul Hashem (desecration of God’s Name).”

    On his deathbed, Ya’acov counsels the other sons ‘not to take the counsel of Shimon & Levi’ — whom he (twice) characterises as ‘cruel.’

    It is SAID that eventually Levi repented (though I’ve yet to see the evidence). In any event, at the end of his own life, Moshe blesses all the tribes by name — except Shimon.

    – An oversight?”

    Incidentally, I wouldn’t assume that the Rosenblit take on the Dina/Schechem story is the only one out there.

    There’s plenty more to be said about it.

  8. @ yamit82:

    More from the earlier exchange in re Dina/Schechem:

    [Yam/Rosenblit]: “He [Jacob] does not question the morality of his sons’ actions, but only its practical consequences.”

    [dw]: “You make it sound like Jacob is to be viewed as the moral authority in the Sh’khem massacre.”

    [Yam]: “No it’s G-d’s moral authority as understood by Jacob… The real proof comes later when: ‘They [Jacob and his family] set out, and there fell a Godly terror on the surrounding cities, so that they [the inhabitants of the surrounding cities] did not pursue Jacob’s sons.’ (Gen. 35:5)… the brothers’ attack on the Shechemites was thereby justified and sanctified.

    [dw]: “That’s what Rosenblit means by ‘proof’? — Get real.
    It could just as easily be evidence that He regarded Jacob & the clan as not yet ready to hold their own in the Land — there does seem to have been some question earlier of whether Jacob had unwisely bought the parcel of land too close to the locals anyway – and that they would thus need the extra protection afforded by that ‘Godly terror’ that fell upon the surrounding cities — so Jacob’s clan could continue to develop according to [Hashem’s] intentions, and apart from the culturally degenerate practices that were beginning to become apparent in those surrounding cities.

    The ‘Godly terror’ that fell upon the surrounding cities absolutely does NOT ‘prove’ that the the brothers’ attack on the Shechemites ‘was thereby justified and sanctified’

    — any more than the insecurity, anguish, and terror in which the Jews lived for centuries after the Hadrianic & Ishmaelite dispossessions constituted ‘proof’ that the dispossessors were ‘thereby justified and sanctified.’

    [Yam/Rosen]: “[I]n God’s Eyes, Prince Shechem’s crime was not primarily directed against Dina or even against the Patriarch Jacob, as individuals, but rather against the embryonic Jewish nation and, by extension, against the God of Israel, as Protector of the Jewish nation…”

    [dw]: “If that were the case, Yamit, He would have issued a direct command to wipe out Sh’khem, as He did with Midian and Amalek, etc. Matters of such overwhelming seriousness always call for explicit orders.”

    Final segment of this earlier exchange coming up.

  9. @ yamit82:

    “THE RAPE OF DINA…

    We’ve been over this before , Yamit. You cited Rosenblit that time too:

    [Yamit/Rosenblit]: “Jacob’s silence in the face of his sons’ harsh response indicated his acknowledgment that their moral position was, indeed, correct.”

    [dw]: “Oh, please. His silence could indicate any number of things, Yamit, including (and more likely than anything else) extreme & prolonged shock. What’s more, what you [& Rosenblit] call the brothers’ ‘moral position’ was less reflective of their concern for their sister’s victimization than of their own sense of possession befouled, notwithstanding the Prince’s apparently genuine wish to be married to her and to do right by her.

    You’ll find nobody in this world, boychik, who is less patient with the feminist line than YoursTruly, but everything about the She’khem affair — from the ‘date rape’ of the initial incident, to the use of circumcision as a ploy & a weakening device, to the murder of the city’s entire male population, to the self-serving remarks of Shimon & Levi — has all the earmarks of male ego stamped all over it.

    I once raised a litter of dogs, mostly male, which behaved in pretty much the same way with other dogs who strayed onto their territory & tried to ‘make time’ with the bitches [sorry, Twinkie, I was being quite literal here] that were part of their turf.

    (Oh, yeah: And they went after the interlopers’ genitals too. . . .)”

    [Yam]: “You have a habit of injecting your Christian beliefs into and onto Jewish scripture… Christianity is the exact opposite of Judaism.”

    [dw]: “No, Yamit; but YOU have a habit of defining as ‘Christian’ anything that contradicts what your personally projected pathology conveniently defines as ‘Judaism’ — especially if the said contradiction comes from the likes of your friendly correspondent here.

    But common decency needn’t wear a cross around its neck.

    Far from being the exclusive ideological domain or possession of any one religion or culture, common decency is just that: the common heritage of the human species.

    In fact, the truth is that most of the conventional ‘Christian’ commentaries (at least the ones I’ve encountered) happen to take the same view as you do in the Sh’khem story. And as far as I’m concerned, that makes THEM just as fullovit as you are, Yahnkele.”

    More to follow.

  10. the phoenix Said:

    this brings me to my last point, which i have posted on many other threads, and it was presented much better BY rabbi sacks in the link that you provided: “division amongst jews”.

    unfortunately, we are our own worst and most formidable enemy. it seems to me that it is all these petty divisions that erode our foundations.
    allowing a revision of history in our midst, letting new generations absorb this false narrative that robs us of our past, leaving little hope for the future, THAT, is a criminal offence. yet no one seemed too inconvenienced by that…

    december 1989, saw the overthrow of the dictatorship of ceausecu by a population FED UP with his leading the country to an abyss, all while making long bullshit speeches…
    i think there is a lot to learn from that (as shmuel halevi’s signature posts say… ‘get rid of the whole combina’)

    On Jews and Judaism

    I am a Zionist
    DIVREI TORAH
    If you want an answer, do not seek an easy one.

  11. the phoenix Said:

    yet, here you have just posted some links to chief rabbi SIR jonathan sacks commentaries…
    And this very illustrious rabbi, with a loooong list of titles and accomplishments yadayadayada… lives in the uk…
    HE did NOT pick up and followed ‘lech l’cha’…
    I am Not saying this in an accusatory manner, but factual.

    the point that i am trying to make here yamit, is that it is IMPOSSIBLE to be ‘perfect’ (whatever that means) and why would someone complain/adress diaspora jews in derogatory terms when THE CHIEF RABBI does not make alyiah…..

    I think you would need to ask Rabbi Sacks why he is still in UK? I’m sure he will give you a perfectly rational excuse. I am equally sure he cannot base his excuse on Jewish authoritative sources or any that carry more weight than those I have submitted. “The Religious Jew”

    Nobody expect perfection not even the creator. In Judaism it’s the path that matters not some promise rewards. Since Sinai we are a collective addressed as a collective and punished as a collective. We are responsible for the action of each other whether we like it or not. “JUDAISM’S ATTITUDE TOWARDS ANGER, REVENGE AND COLLECTIVE PUNISHMENT”

    THE RAPE OF DINA!

    Upon learning of the massacre, Jacob stridently rebuked Shimon and Levi. As the Torah relates: “Jacob said to Shimon and Levi, ‘You have gotten me into trouble and caused me to be repulsive to the Canaanites and Perrizites who live in the Land. I am few in number, and should they band together and attack me, I will be annihilated — I and my household.'” (Gen. 34:30). Please note carefully Jacob’s exact words; he does not question the morality of his sons’ actions, but only its practical consequences, namely, the fact that it might cause the surrounding nations to retaliate against him and his family. The censure of his sons was due to his mistaken belief that the doctrine of Pikuach Nefesh (avoidance of danger to life) excused the nation of Israel from exacting immediate revenge in response to the Chillul Hashem committed by Prince Shechem. But his sons’ next words silenced him, and these are the last human words recorded by the Torah on this subject: “And they [his sons] said, ‘Should anyone be permitted to treat our sister like a prostitute? ‘” (Gen. 34:31). Jacob’s silence in the face of his sons’ harsh response indicated his acknowledgment that their moral position was, indeed, correct.

    “A MESSAGE FOR JEWS IN THE LANDS OF THE DIASPORA WHO WISH TO REMAIN IN THE EXILE BECAUSE THERE IS WAR IN THE LAND OF ISRAEL, AND FOR “ULTRA-ORTHODOX” AND OTHER JEWS IN THE LAND OF ISRAEL WHO REFUSE TO PARTICIPATE IN SUCH WAR:”

    “Moses said to the Children of Gad and the Children of Reuben, ‘Shall your brothers go to war while you stay here? Why do you dissuade the heart of the Children of Israel from crossing to the Land that HaShem has given to them?'” (Numbers 32:6-7)

    “‘… You shall not stand aside while your fellow’s (Jews) blood is shed — I am HaShem. … You shall love your fellow (Jew)as yourself — I am HaShem.'” (Leviticus 19:16-18)

  12. the phoenix Said:

    That has always been my belief.
    A jew might be brought up in a home where the family was warm and kind and filled with HUMAN values. He may not know shmoneh-esreh from shmini ‘atzeret, but he is a jew that nonetheless LOVES his jewish roots and is PROUD of them.

    but that does not define a Jew.

    On several posts you have addressed the fact that ‘judaism is not a chinese menu where you can pick and choose’ but more of an ‘all or none’.
    ok.

    I never said or intended All or None!! Reread my quote and the context it might have been made and to whom.

    Also, on many other posts, you presented the notion that (and i paraphrase)+/- ‘the essence of judaism is to LIVE in the LAND OF ISRAEL…i.e. no teffilin, no talit, no kashrut and no ba’ttihh…just like God told Abraham ‘Lech l’cha…

    No you missed the point. The concept relates to the concept of Chosenness: A Chosen People and a Chosen land. The land is essential for the purpose G-d has for humanity. Choseness means that G-d’s Plan for Humanity will be made manifest and will be implemented through the Jewish people

    Possessing the land is the first principle in Judaism and in G-d’s redemption plan for the Jews and through and by the Jews, all of humanity. No Jew can observe the 613 commandments without the land, the temple and a functioning priesthood. All of the ritual commandments you listed and more belong to personal obligations of a Jews but none of the National commandments. The holiness of the Land of Israel is not the actual soil but the use it is put to…The establishment of a just Jewish society based on the principles of Mishpat veh Tzedek. That’s what it means to be a light unto the nations. Jews must become an example to the nations and that can only be effected within a sovereign Jewish nation in the Land of Israel. There is no true Judaism with out the Land of Israel period.

    “Jews are G-d’s Chosen People in their collective relationship with G-d. Accordingly, G-d has said of and to the Jewish people: “… So said HaShem: My first-born Son is Israel.” (Ex. 4:22); and: “… My Legions — My People — the Children of Israel …” (Ex. 7:4); and: “For you are a holy people to HaShem, your God; HaShem, your God, has chosen you to be for Him a treasured people above all peoples that are on the face of the Earth. Not because you are more numerous than all the peoples did HaShem desire you and choose you, for you are the fewest of all the peoples. Rather, because of HaShem’s love for you and because He observes the oath that He swore to your forefathers did He take you out with a strong hand and redeem you from the house of slavery — from the hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt.” (Deut. 7:6-8); and: “For you are a holy people to HaShem, your God, and HaShem has chosen you for Himself to be a treasured people from among all the peoples on the face of the Earth.” (Deut. 14:2); and: “And HaShem has distinguished you today to be for Him a treasured people, as He spoke to you, and to observe all His Commandments, and to make you supreme over all the nations that He made, for praise, for renown, and for splendor, and so that you will be a holy people to HaShem, your God, as He spoke.”” (Deut. 26:18-19).

  13. @ yamit82:
    yamit82 Said:

    people should rely on their actions, not prayer or rituals.)

    That has always been my belief.
    A jew might be brought up in a home where the family was warm and kind and filled with HUMAN values. He may not know shmoneh-esreh from shmini ‘atzeret, but he is a jew that nonetheless LOVES his jewish roots and is PROUD of them.

    On several posts you have addressed the fact that ‘judaism is not a chinese menu where you can pick and choose’ but more of an ‘all or none’.
    ok.
    Also, on many other posts, you presented the notion that (and i paraphrase)+/- ‘the essence of judaism is to LIVE in the LAND OF ISRAEL…i.e. no teffilin, no talit, no kashrut and no ba’ttihh…just like God told Abraham ‘Lech l’cha…’
    yet, here you have just posted some links to chief rabbi SIR jonathan sacks commentaries…
    And this very illustrious rabbi, with a loooong list of titles and accomplishments yadayadayada… lives in the uk…
    HE did NOT pick up and followed ‘lech l’cha’…
    I am Not saying this in an accusatory manner, but factual.

    the point that i am trying to make here yamit, is that it is IMPOSSIBLE to be ‘perfect’ (whatever that means) and why would someone complain/adress diaspora jews in derogatory terms when THE CHIEF RABBI does not make alyiah…..
    why would someone feel so estranged from a secular (read non ritualist) jew who knows and loves the LAND … and (some of 🙂 )its people…

    this brings me to my last point, which i have posted on many other threads, and it was presented much better BY rabbi sacks in the link that you provided: “division amongst jews”.

    unfortunately, we are our own worst and most formidable enemy. it seems to me that it is all these petty divisions that erode our foundations.
    allowing a revision of history in our midst, letting new generations absorb this false narrative that robs us of our past, leaving little hope for the future, THAT, is a criminal offence. yet no one seemed too inconvenienced by that…

    december 1989, saw the overthrow of the dictatorship of ceausecu by a population FED UP with his leading the country to an abyss, all while making long bullshit speeches…
    i think there is a lot to learn from that (as shmuel halevi’s signature posts say… ‘get rid of the whole combina’)

  14. @ the phoenix:’

    There is a website ‘Grandchildren of Holocaust survivors’. On the website it states ‘GoHS focuses on education and outreach regarding the Holocaust to Jews and non-Jews around the world. Historical revisionists, anti-Semites, and anti-Israel activists will be banned from this page

    I wish other Jewish websites had the same criteria.

  19. @ the phoenix:

    “Yes I have anger, and yes I have hate…. Nonetheless I assure you it is very specifically directed)”

    Of course.

    But that doesn’t mean it came FROM the place it is “very specifically directed” TO.

  21. @ the phoenix:

    As a side remark, and as a full disclosure, before our resident psychoanalyst starts to dissect

    Don’t even read anything anymore that the nimrod dissects! You nor I need that kind of negativity in our life!

  22. @ the phoenix:

    I WISH there would be more of ‘your kind’ of videos than ‘mine

    agreed!!

    I know and understand where you are coming from. We share each others pain and joy. Unfortunately there seems to be too much of the pain part. Hopefully there will be a better balance in the near future.

  23. @ dove:

    Our ways are not G-DS ways.

    Dear dove,

    I agree with you, and I am painfully aware of the fact, that my agreement with this statement is merely an attempt to rationalize the countless horrors that our Jewish brethren have suffered at the hands of musloid cowards, whose claim to fame would be mass murder of civilians, or stabbing and running, or murdering a family and their children during the night….
    Rubbing salt to the wounds, is seeing these BASTARDS, walk with impunity and worse yet, add insult to the wounds by being portrayed as ‘freedom fighters’ and with no remorse talk dispassionately how they would do it again….

    Yes. I understand, our ways are not god’s ways….but then again, I never pretended to fully understand.
    What I do and CAN understand is the PAIN of the bereaved families.
    I can almost hear the blood of the fallen screaming for vengeance…
    (As a side remark, and as a full disclosure, before our resident psychoanalyst starts to dissect… Yes I have anger, and yes I have hate…. Nonetheless I assure you it is very specifically directed)
    All I could say is that I WISH there would be more of ‘your kind’ of videos than ‘mine’…

  24. @ the phoenix:

    Your video proves my point! The Israeli doctor believed he had saved this womans life. She in turn because of personal disappointment wants to die and become a suicide bomber. Is it just a conincidence that she wasn’t able to pull it off? Or…was it Hashem at the helm helping to protect the innocent and expose the deceiver?

    In the video I posted the arab believed he was dead and that the Jewish Israeli brought him back to life!! He believed that the Jewish Israeli BROUGHT HIM BACK TO LIFE….not saved his life but actual brought him back!! This isn’t about peace at all. If Hashem wants someone to act that is willing it will be done. Our ways are not G-DS ways. So…is it so wrong for me to hope that we as a people will be given special gifts to be used (just like Moses and others did)?

    The arab in the video I posted recognized that NO ONE from the arabs stopped to help him – but it was a Jew who did!! Sure, tomorrow he could be the next suidcide bomber – but would he succeed in that mission? It will be interesting to keep a watch as these types of events unfold.

    Shabbat Shalom! 🙂

  25. @ yamit82:

    “….Anecdotally, I see this in my own small circle of Israeli acquaintances. A musician friend told me that he attends a Talmud class every Shabbat — he can’t stand praying, but he is hungry for Torah….”

    I would GREATLY appreciate, your thoughts regarding this “musician friend”.

  28. It is not only happening in the US. The unattached to Jewish Heritage sector is also dwindling in Israel into specific Ghetto like enclaves. During the formative years some of the “ishuvnik” old families proclaimed themselves as the “elites” proceeding to assume control of most functions of State. By hook or crook, they set up shop at the top for about 35 years until Mr. Begin send the first notice to them. The said vanishing Jews or former Jews responded with the Oslo Plan and derivatives. Caused very much harm to the Jewish people but could not stem the wave. Their decadence followed about the same lines of the Diaspora equivalents. Their enclaves are well known. North Tel Aviv, substantial areas of Tel Aviv itself, most kibbutzim, certain isolated villages in the North, secluded areas of Haifa, sections of Jerusalem…
    In the interim many younger and still identified families woke up to they being handled by the “families” and proceed to turn the tack away in the 80’s.
    The trend solidified to represent the conditions detailed in the article.
    Peresites are the remaining stock of that self serving group and will be swept aside within a few years.

  29. This is a good article. There is no reason why any Jew living in the diaspora couldn’t make aliyah to Israel if they choose. All Jews have right of return regardless of their religious denomination. Of coarse there are certain restrictions regarding marriage. Jews know how to get around that. Even in the diaspora Reform Jews cannot be buried in a Jewish cemetery so they have to make their own cemetery that is defined with their style of Judaism. At Shul last week we were laughing about it…thinking no wonder the world looks at us as weird and can’t figure us out – we have our own opinions as to who is a Jew and what Jewish rights that Jew may or may not have and that differs also.

  34. @ yamit82:

    Spengler’s comments reinforce a long-standing belief of mine: Israel’s real conflict is not with the Arabs; its been with itself. In the long run, the Arabs respect Jews who have faith and who believe in G-d and their Land and they despise Jews in whom faith is found wanting and whose sole concern is with their material comfort. Man does not live by bread alone and this is certainly true of the Jewish people.

    The HaRav foresaw the restoration of Israel as a state would be a physical restoration. But this was always insufficient to ensure Jewish survival. It now being strengthened by the spiritual restoration of the Jewish nation. Israel’s enemies and friends are doing all they can to ensure the strongest Jews survive in Israel.

    As long as the Jews are on the right path, the Arab problem will take care of itself.

  35. I would point out that in the UK, the Jewish population, which had dropped from 400,000 down to 280,000, is on the rise again, due to the high birthrate of Orthodox and Hasidic Jews now more than compensating for the loss of secular/Liberal Jews due to low birthrate and intermarriage.

    This will start occurring in the USA as well, probably starting about 2030.

  36. yamit82 Said:

    The first major survey of American Jews in more than 10 years finds a significant rise in those who are not religious

    Everyone is the US is going “off track”, not ust with the Jews.

  37. Poll: Religion in Israel an Israeli, Not Jewish Issue
    Decisions on religion in Israel should be made without taking world Jewish opinion into consideration, respondents say.

    The majority of Israelis think that the question of religion in Israel should be treated as an Israeli issue, and that world Jewish opinion should not affect the government’s decisions, according to a new survey.

    The poll conducted by Teleseker for the Israel Democracy Institute, found that 54 percent said the opinions of Jews living outside Israel should not be taken into consideration, or should be have only a slight influence, when it comes to determining Israeli policy regarding Judaism and the State.

    Read More

  38. Poll Shows Major Shift in Identity of U.S. Jews

    The first major survey of American Jews in more than 10 years finds a significant rise in those who are not religious, marry outside the faith and are not raising their children Jewish — resulting in rapid assimilation that is sweeping through every branch of Judaism except the Orthodox.

    The intermarriage rate, a bellwether statistic, has reached a high of 58 percent for all Jews, and 71 percent for non-Orthodox Jews — a huge change from before 1970 when only 17 percent of Jews married outside the faith. Two-thirds of Jews do not belong to a synagogue, one-fourth do not believe in God and one-third had a Christmas tree in their home last year.

    “It’s a very grim portrait of the health of the American Jewish population in terms of their Jewish identification,” said Jack Wertheimer, a professor of American Jewish history at the Jewish Theological Seminary, in New York.

    The survey, by the Pew Research Center’s Religion & Public Life Project, found that despite the declines in religious identity and participation, American Jews say they are proud to be Jewish and have a “strong sense of belonging to the Jewish people.”

    While 69 percent say they feel an emotional attachment to Israel, and 40 percent believe that the land that is now Israel was “given to the Jewish people by God,” only 17 percent think that the continued building of settlements in the West Bank is helpful to Israel’s security. Read more

  39. Pew Research Polling and Analysis
    October 1, 2013
    A Portrait of Jewish Americans
    Chapter 5: Connection With and Attitudes Toward Israel

    Most American Jews feel at least some emotional attachment to Israel, and many have visited the Jewish state. Four-in-ten believe Israel was given to the Jewish people by God, a belief that is held by roughly eight-in-ten Orthodox Jews. Read More

  40. The Jewish pendulum has now swung back to the Jews in Israel. We Israeli Jews are now the center of Jewish gravity in the world. The diaspora is being liquidated either by holocaust, antisemitism or by assimilation. Zechariah prophesied that two thirds will perish, and so one-third of the world’s Jewry died in the Holocaust and another third assimilated in America, while the remnant was refined in Israel as silver and tried as gold. How is silver refined? The mixed elements are melted. How is gold tried? With acid or pressure. And so it was in Israel: she drew the Jews from the Diaspora communities and melted them, and tried them with the acid of leftism and with the pressure of Christian friends and Arab enemies. Here is the critical difference of Zechariah’s twentieth-century catastrophe from the other Past Jewish tragedies: there are no large reservoirs Jews left elsewhere. Israel drained the Diaspora. In the globalized secular world, Jews cannot survive outside of Israel. Jews do not even exist in many countries where their communities flourished for millennia.

    The study, conducted by the Israel Democracy Institute’s Guttman Center for Surveys and the Avi Chai Foundation, is based on interviews with 2,803 Israeli Jews.

    Some 80 percent of Israeli Jews believe that G-d exists – the highest figure found by the Guttman-Avi Chai survey since this review of Israeli-Jewish beliefs began two decades ago. The study also found that 70 percent of respondents believe the Jews are the “Chosen People,” 65 percent believe the Torah and mitzvot (religious commandments ) are G-d-given, and 56 percent believe in life after death. Overall, the survey found an increase in attachment to Jewish religion and tradition from 1999 to 2009, following a decrease from 1991 to 1999, which was the decade of mass immigration from the former Soviet Union. Among other things, it found that less than half of Israeli Jews think that, in a clash between Jewish law and democracy, democratic values should always prevail.

    The study, conducted by the Israel Democracy Institute’s Guttman Center for Surveys and the Avi Chai Foundation, is based on interviews with 2,803 Israeli Jews.

    It found that only 46 percent of Israeli Jews now define themselves as secular, down from 52 percent in 1999, while 22 percent define themselves as either Orthodox or ultra-Orthodox, up from 16 percent in 1999. The remaining 32 percent term themselves traditional, virtually unchanged from 1999. This change in self-identification was also reflected in the proportion of those subscribing to traditional Jewish beliefs. For instance, 55 percent said they believe in the coming of the Messiah, up from 45 percent in 1999 but similar to 53 percent in 1991, while 37 percent said that “a Jew who does not observe the religious precepts endangers the entire Jewish people,” up from 30 percent in 1999 but again similar to the 1991 figure of 35 percent.

    Only 44 percent said that if Jewish law and democratic values clashed, the latter should always be preferred, while 20 percent said Jewish law should always be preferred and 36 percent said “sometimes one and sometimes the other.”

    The study also found an upswing in religious practice. For instance, 85 percent of respondents said that “celebrating the Jewish holidays as prescribed by religious tradition” was “important” or “very important,” up from 63 percent in 1999, while 70 percent said they “always” or “frequently” refrained from eating hametz (leavened bread ) on Passover, up from 67 percent in 1999.

    Fully 61 percent of respondents said the state should “ensure that public life is conducted according to Jewish religious tradition,” up dramatically from 44 percent in 1991. But respondents also insisted on preserving their freedom of choice. For instance, between 58 and 68 percent said that shopping centers, public transportation, sporting events, cafes, restaurants and movie theaters should be allowed to operate on Shabbat (exact figures ranged from 58 percent for shopping centers to 68 percent for cafes, restaurants and movie theaters ).

    Moreover, 51 percent responded “yes,” “absolutely yes” or “perhaps yes” when asked if they favored the introduction of civil marriage in Israel. Those in the first two categories, at 48 percent, were down from 54 percent in 1999 but up from 39 percent in 1991.

  41. It was the British Government’s hope during World War II that the Holocaust would finish off the Jews’ hopes for a Jewish State. I have no doubt that much of Britain’s current policy as well is designed to reduce the size and the influence of the Jews. Their aid, financial, legal, and social support, to the clearly corrupt Palestinians attempts to accomplish the same goal of the post war-time Bevin government of reducing Jewish influence in the world. It may be fairly speculated that Britain’s “public” schools are the source of the government’s antisemitism. As elitist institutions they cannot tolerate the advances and successes of the Jewish State. They are green with envy and black with jealousy. The poor wretches can think only of killing off their competition in whatever way they can devise.

  42. This is news that makes me very happy! Hopefully, it will lead to better days ahead for the Jewish State.

    In the long run, the efforts of Israel’s present leaders to hob-nob with anti-Semites and give away the Land Of Israel to the country’s enemies will be remembered as an instructive lesson on the path to shun!

    I’ve always felt Judaism will ultimately rescue the Jewish State and that is exactly why its enemies loathe the prospect. Am Israel Chai!