The Jews Are Celebrating

Basically, the moral of the story is that we Jews don't like dying and any attempt to get rid of us is doomed to fail.

Thank you for posting this KFC.

G-d bless you.

Some pictures of Israel, of Akko and Zikhron Ya'akov:

http://web.mac.com/ajbrehm/Resources/AccoRothschild.html

(Zikhron Ya'akov was one of the first Jewish settlements founded by the Rothschields. Akko was one of the Canaanite cities of old.)

 

Yes, this is true.  But the reason behind all this is because it is of God.  Otherwise the Jews would have failed a long time ago.  We need to remember to give credit where credit is due. 

Thanks Leauki.  On occasion I do pray for the peace of Jerusalem not only because we have been instructed to do but because I know what that really means in the whole scope of things. 

the only disagreement I would have here is the first sentence.  I do think this is all part of the beginning of the end.  It's a process. 

 

Anyone who thinks that the existence Hebrew-speaking Jewish state with a capital Jerusalem nearly 2000 years after its destruction is not a miracle needs to have their head examined.

 

 

I think it's both. G-d gave us the strength to become a lot more than we would have been alone. The potential was within us. I think the message is that any people could do it, if they only trust that it can be done.

 

The end might be near, but it is not the end the media prepare us for.

 

who listens to the media? 

 

Just to get your facts straight - Germany: 82 million residents, France: 60 million residents, England: 58 million residents

 

must have been written before all those Muslims invaded Europe! 

Apparently rejecting the divinity of Jesus is the path to happiness.  Who knew?

nobody, because if you think that, then you've been deceived! 

oddly the letter to me seems very old testament-ish.  we, we ,we ,we.  if i remember right, God eventually let them do it on their own occasionally to remind them how weak they were without Him.  Israel gets wasted and disappears into something else for a time, before God re-establishes them.

Yepp. Happens occasionally.

 

Well, another reason for the jews' "success" is that they have the USA backing them up 100%.  I mean, turkey or iran could take them out easily...

and they are both going to try...according to biblical prophecy (Ezek 39) but it's not going to be as easily as you think. 

 

Yeah.

And the Arabs thought they could take them out easily.

 

In other news nationalism is stupid.  Is anyone surprised?

The hilariously ignorant attitude to the Roman Empire (is anyone speaking latin today, lol) is only matched by the irrelevant nonsense (we have commerce, trade and diplomacy!  ISRAEL RULEZ SOMEHOW).  It even ends on a massive distortion; that they're 'still here', as if there was no diaspora and Israel wasn't invented by the UN after WW2 and backed constantly by the richest and most powerful country in the world.  But hey, they still speak the same language... or... something.

If they're going to make outrageous statements with regard to the Roman Empire (ps let's play 'what is a major influence on law in Europe') let's play 'how many times was the Jewish state destroyed or conquered'.  It only happened to the Romans once. lol

The idea that a nationalist screed claims that they don't fear anything is the best part for me, even after the irrelevances and misrepresentations of history.  If you're not afraid, that probably explains why you harp on military success so much, right?  Australians aren't 'afraid' either, so somehow ... profit?  

What I really want to know is what about non-Israeli Jews?  Don't whole sectors of the Jewish community oppose the whole idea of Israel (I believe due to the idea that man can't create the kingdom or something)?  Is it still great to be a Jew in Australia?  Or is it better, because there's no big scary Arabs around to be 'not afraid' of? lol

Pnakotus,

I don't get why you "laugh out loud" after every few sentences, but I think it is appropriate.

Perhaps you have missed a few thousands years of history but the fact that the Jews survived as a people really is extraordinary. Living through 2000 years of persecution they survived several genocides and kept their culture and religion. And since 1948 Israel has survived four wars intended to destroy the country.

It only happened to the Romans once. Yes. That's the point. It happened to Israel countless time, yet we are still here.

 

I am a non-Israeli Jew. And I spent the last two weeks searching bags, sweeping the area around the synagogue for bombs, and keeping in contact with local police. I can tell you that Israel has its advantages over the diaspora. We are more difficult targets when we are united and able to shoot back.

There are two major groups of Jews, the Ashkenazim (German or European Jews) which you find in Europe, Russia, and the US, and the Sephardim and Mizrachim (Spanish and middle-eastern Jews) which are about 5% or so of the Jewish population of the US (at most) and mostly fled to Israel from Arab countries. Most Jews in Israel are Sephardim and Mizrachim.

There are non-Zionist Jews, but they are a somewhat tiny minority, mostly religious fanatics (every religion has them), and the vast majority of them are Ashkenazim who live in countries currently safe for Jews (so they don't need Israel). In German the Reform movement was anti-Zionist, until Hitler came. Now they are dead except for those who fled to Israel before the Germans caught them.

In general anti-Zionism was a bad deal for Jews.

A famous saying in the 1940s was "we [Ashkenazim] had to learn to become Zionists, you [Sephardim] already were". It refers to the fact that while many Ashkenazim lived in safe countries (except those who lived in Europe), the middle-eastern Jews (broadly referred to as Sephardim) did not.

But then I am constantly surprised by the talks about "non-Israeli Jews" and the state of Israel as if not having the state would be an alternative. Where should middle-eastern Jews live? Would Europe and America take them? Would it be acceptable to the world to deport millions of Semitic-speaking middle-easteners to the western world? (I am sure it wouldn't be a problem. But move an Arab a mile from his birth place and the world screams genocide.)

They cannot go back to their "home" countries. They faced then and would face now death and slavery. (The only places I would trust to guarantee their safety would be Morocco and Kurdistan, the latter being a non-Arab region.) And if Israel hadn't existed, the Jews of the middle-east would simply have been another forgotten minority, enslaved like the Dinka, murdered like the Massalith, gassed like the Kurds, or, in the best case scenario (which rarely applies to Jewish minorities), ignored and disadvantaged as second-class citizens, like Assyrians, Aramaeans and Imazighen.

One of the biggest feeder countries to Israel was Iraq. During the 1940s, when Iraq was allied with Nazi Germany, and the 1950s hundreds of thousands of Jews fled to Israel. (The reason Sderoth is called a town and not a "refugee camp" is because Jews are not "refugees" as per the UN definition.)

But even in Israel they were not safe. When the Arab countries attacked in 1948, guess what the local Arabs did. Did they help defend the Jews? Did they run away? Did they join the attackers?

I'll tell you what happened: All three happened.

One third of the local Arabs helped defend the new country. They were mostly Bedouins (themselves an oppressed minority) and Druze. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amos_Yarkoni.

One third ran away, following a call of their Arab brethren to do so.

One third, under the leadership of Hitler's Mufti (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitler's_Mufti) fought against the Jews. His nephew Yasser "Arafat" continued the "struggle" after his death. Many fought under Egyptian command against the people, Jews and Arabs, of the country they called "Palestine": http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/personal-view/3623011/We-were-brought-up-to-hate---and-we-do.html.

Either way, Jews have learned that they cannot trust non-Jews to help them if the "death to the Jews" crowd comes to get them.

Well, we can trust the Bedouins and the Druze. G-d bless them.

 

We are not afraid because we believed we could have such military success. And nobody else believed it at the time. In the middle east Jews were second-class subjects (if not slaves) and were thought to be cowards and no good at fighting. Israel's victory over several Arab countries, armed and trained by the British, was a huge surprise and totally changed the power dynamics in the region.

Nobody in the middle-east thought that those lowly creatures, second only to black slaves in low social standing, would not only fight but also win. It was totally unexpected. The Arabs couldn't believe it and for the next few decades started every war in the belief that they would (finally) easily destroy Israel and kill the rebelling Jews. (Remember that all other non-Arab nations in the middle-east were totally dominated by the Arabs. The Jews were the only ones who stood up to them.)

And nobody in the middle east believed that a "primitive" Bedouin could lead a high tech army into victory.

 

I wonder, had the GP posted something similar but with respect to the aryan/nordic races, how would the rest of forum-goers have taken it? my guess is "not well".

Racial pride: just as stupid today as it's ever been.

Me, reading this topic made me *ashamed* of having jewish blood, rather than proud of it. Why would I care about some guys halfway across the globe? just because they have similar racial backgrounds as I do? stupid.

What do you mean "races"? The Jews are a people, not a "race".

Have you never seen any other nation celebrate itself and its achievements? You must lead a dull life.




Nothing in the text is about "racial pride". The author is proud of what the Jews have achieved, not of what they are.




Your Jewish blood doesn't count for anything. It's the common culture and language that counts. I can tell you why I care about some guys halfway accross the globe. We are family. They don't have a "similar racial background" as I do (they might be white or black or ethnic Chinese), but we are family.

We speak the same language (some of us attempt it), pray to the same god, perform the same rituals at the same time, have the same values, have the same enemies, and come from the same country.

And you know what? While you are "ashamed" to be of Jewish blood, I aspire to be as good as they are. I feel ashamed to when I read what other Jews have achieved, because it tells me that I have not yet contributed as much as some others and perhaps never will.

I tell you what else, and I rarely mention this, but I am also proud of the German people, my other background. What Germany has achieved since World War 2 is most impressive and also something to aspire too. Does that make you ashamed of your German blood (if you have any, which is likely if you have an Ashkenazi Jewish background)?

Perhaps you have to change your thinking from your focus on "blood" to a focus on "culture". I think it's people like you, i.e. people who use words like "blood" and "race" as if they meant something, who are the problem.

Here's a picture for you that might cure you from your "race" fixation. Behold a selection of the Jewish people. The woman in front with the back to the camera is the mother of my Hebrew teacher.

http://web.mac.com/ajbrehm/Resources/AccoRothschild.html#9

We only met that day in the Rothshild park. But we spoke the same language and belong to the same people. We were family.

Nope. Still don't get it.

 

KFC, what do you think about this?

 

ISLAM AND NORMALIZATION OF RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN ISLAMIC STATES AND THE JEWISH STATE

PLO documents can in no way be regarded as Islamic. The PLO leaders are a gang of criminals and thieves, and Arabs will be the main victims of any supposed "Palestinian State" under their leadership.

I do not believe that Islam is the factor preventing normalization between Arabs and the State of Israel. The real problem is that members of the ruling classes in Arab countries believe their authority and power would be threatned by democracy, modernization, and education in the Arab world. They use a distorted interpretation of Islam as a political tool, and unfortunately the majority of uneducated Arabs believe their poisonous propaganda.

I believe that we must return to the time when Islam was in the vanguard of scientific progress and interfaith dialogue. Instead of false "leaders" such as Qadhafi, Saddam Hussein, Arafat or Yasin, we Muslims again need true leaders such as al-Ghazali, Ibn Rushd and Ibn Khaldum.

King Faysal of Iraq said: "The Arabs, and particularly the educated ones among them, must look at the Zionist movement with the deepest sympathy."

Tragically, true leaders such as Faysal were silenced, and fanatics such as Haj Amin al-Husseini prevailed.

The evil consequences of the victory of fanaticism are clear for all to see: Jews expelled from Arab countries where the lived in peace for over one thousand years, "Palestinian" refugees, terrorism, etc. To avoid future mistakes, we must learn from our past ones.

Unfortunately, there are Arabs who believe that they must fight against Israel until they completely destroy it (a tragedy which I do not believe the God of Israel will ever permit to happen - Never again!).

Unfortunately, there are also naive and foolish Israelis who believe, incredibly to me, that they will achieve "peace" with their Arab neighbours by giving the murderer "Arafat" a State, an army, etc. This is insane. You Jews are supposedly famous for your intelligence. How can some of your "leaders" be so stupid?

http://www.templemount.org/quranland.html

 

 

Define "people".

The difference being...?

So the post wasn't about the jewish race, but about the jewish religion? then my apologies to any non-jewish (religion) jew (race) I may have offended. And no, under most sane definitions of the word you're not "family", please strive for accuracy over poetic flavor.

The first four I understand, as result of a common religion, but the same "enemies"? and same "country"? Israel has only existed for ~60 years so it can't have had anything to do with the Spanish Inquisition et al and, therefore, isn't the country in question. Which one is it, then?

I do, and no I'm not ashamed. Because I've yet to see a German posting about what the "German people" have achieved, they may talk about how well their government has done their job but don't associate it to anything inherent in them as a race/country/religion-followers/whatever. Kinda like how the rest of the world talks, y'know?

No, perhaps you should invent a new term for either the jewish race or the jewish religion, so people don't get them mixed up.

So, the religion. Sweet. So the Jewish faith has officially joined the ranks of Christianity, Catholicism, Protestanism, Islam, Hinduism and a thousand other religions who managed to survive 'til the year 2009. Still can't see why it'd make you proud to believe in the same God as a survivor from the Inquisition did, lest of all why you'd all insist on using the word "we" to describe such events when clearly you didn't personally participate in them.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/people

See definition 3.

Or look up "nation" in an encyclopedia.




I'm afraid explaining difference between what people are and what people do is quite a difficult task and perhaps justifies a blog post in itself, if not a book of several volumes.

I'll gladly refer you to Martin Luther King, who perhaps put it best when he spoke of his dream that one day people will be judged not by the colour of their skin (who they are) but by the contents of their character (what they do).




1. There is no "Jewish race". It was an invention by the Nazis and I find it extremely upsetting that people still think in those terms.

2. The letter spoke of the Jewish _people_, not the Jewish religion. Not all Jews are religious.

Poetic flavour is what makes a culture. Jews do indeed see each other as "family" whether you like it or not. Your own way of referring to Jews as a "race" and your ignorance of the concept of a "people" is in itself a problem with accuracy that you might have to look at.




We have had the common language since before we have had the religion. Hebrew is a Canaanite language spoken by the people who lived south of Lebanon 4000 years ago. It is closely related to Phoenician and less closely to Aramaic and Arabic.

The country of Israel has existed since 1400 BCE and has been under different rulers since then, again becoming independent in 1948.

Alexander the Great did not invade a non-existing place, he invaded Israel. Cyrus the Great before Alexander did not return the Jews to a place that doesn't exist, he returned them to Israel. And Caliph Umar did not call on the Jews to fall into a black hole, he called on them to return to the land of Israel. The Qur'an, in suras 5 and 17 does not refer to a non-existing place when it claims that the land was given to the people of Israel, it referred to the land of Israel.

There is ample proof that a country named Israel has existed for over a thousand years before the Greeks invaded it and it didn't stop existing while being ruled by others either. I live in Ireland and most people here would be rather surprised if you told them that Ireland didn't exist when it was under English rule. Of course it did. And the Irish are from here.

The Spanish inquisition did indeed affect the Jewish people, although mostly those who converted to Christianity (since the inquisitors only had jurisdiction over baptised subjects of the king, not non-Christian Jews or Muslims).




Perhaps you don't read enough or you are simply to focused on that "race" fixation of yours.

I have seen lots of articles and essays written by many people about the achievements of their nation. Heck, have you ever heard Americans talk about the American people? Nothing wrong with being proud of one's people, if one aspires to becoming part of the achievers.

If you think that Jews are a "race" and are the only ones who talk like that of their own people, you are seriously deluding yourself.




Why should I invent a "new term" for either the "Jewish race" (which doesn't exist) or the "Jewish religion", which the article isn't talking about.

And which people apart from you got them mixed up?

KFC posted the article and she isn't Jewish. I am sure she understands what a "people" (or a "nation") is and what a religion is and I don't think she was confused by those concepts (or felt a need to bring "race" into this).

What exactly is the "Jewish race" anyway? Are we black or are we white? What about ethnic Chinese Jews? What's the point of even worrying about race?

Let me tell you that I totally don't understand why Jews would be a "race" or why "race" is relevant in this context at all. (I understand race is relevant in certain medical cases when certain diseases are related to genetics. For example Sickle Cell Anemia depends on certain genes. But that has nothing to do with achievements of the affected people.)




I don't know if all the people in the picture are religious. Those with the kippas probably are. The others I don't know. They could be secular or atheists. But they were Jews.

Can you perhaps try to leave religion and race out of this? I think you are seriously impeding your chances of understanding what's going on by limiting your thoughts to questions of religion (which is nice but not the point here) and race (which is entirely inappropriate).

When I talk about the achievements of the Germans in the last 60 years (achievements which I applaud), I am not talking about their religion (mostly Christianity) or their race (most are white*), I am talking solely about the people.

Not religion. Not race. People.

(*Except those, apparently, who are also Jewish. They would belong to the "Jewish race", right?)




Again, it's the people, not the religion we are talking about.

But yes, both the people and the religion have survived, despite the fact that both were under constant attacks, they survived several genocides. Also note that Judaism, the religion, is 2000 years older than the other religions you mention there (except Hinduism which started in the iron age, but Judaism is older even than that).

Nobody ever set out to exterminate all Christians, but several have tried exactly that with the Jews. If for you surviving the Holocaust is the same as sitting in a chair for a few years, I'd find it difficult to explain to you why some people are so amazed that Judaism is still with us.

Also I know that KFC's point was really that the Jewish people are still around. She doesn't care about the religion except in as much as it is the predecessor of Christianity and an attribute of the Jewish people. That is all fine and good but it should tell you that the point here was not the Jewish religion.




When I was a student in Haifa Hizbullah fired rockets at my university.

When I went to Iraq, Kurdish miliamen were amazed to meet a Jew and told me not to tell anyone further south.

Over the last two weeks I did security at my synagogue, checked bags for bombs and coordinated with Irish police.

The events you refer to are not history, they still happen. And while I have seen neither the inquisition nor the Holocaust (although I know many people who have seen the latter), I have seen anti-Semitism to a degree you cannot imagine.

And ALL OF IT came from individuals who believe Jews are a "race", usually one bred from dogs and monkies, if I recall correctly.

It is weird that just 65 years after being referred to as a "race", the Jews have suddenly lost the right to be considered a "people".

Maybe you'll find this enlightening:

http://web.mac.com/ajbrehm/Home/Blog/Entries/2009/3/15_More_Moishe_Hundesohn.html

(It's translated from the original German. And yes, I have the right to translate and publish Moishe Hundesohn comics on my homepage.)

 

I'd like the be more specific.

The Romans actually did set out to exterminate all Christians (including Jesus himself). But they did it because at the time the Christians were Jews.

Ever since Christianity and Judaism split up, Christians were not usually targeted for extermination (although currently in the middle they are being persecuted, as are non-Christian minorities).