Love of the Land: Ouch! It's my Jewish Identity

Ouch! It's my Jewish Identity!

Moshe Feiglin
Jewish Leadership Movement
28 Adar, 5770 (3 March)

Translated from the NRG website

"Israel's problem is its public relations," people reason as they attempt to explain how it is that Israel is always at the receiving end of the world's criticism and hatred. "Israel simply doesn't know how to highlight all of its positive points."

But the problem is not simply lack of budget for public relations, as the Foreign Ministry would like us to believe. There is also no dearth of eloquent Israelis and fluent English speakers who could take Israel's case to the world. The problem is that instead of explaining its own position, Israel explains the position of its enemies.

When is the last time that you heard an official Israeli representative simply state that this is our Land – without ifs, ands and buts? Simply, "The Land of Israel belongs to the Jewish Nation, period." Has the prime minister made such a statement? Any minister? Perhaps an ambassador?

All the torrents of claims against Israel can be distilled to this one simple question: Whose land is this, anyway? But here's the caveat: It is impossible to say that this is our Land without falling back on our Jewish foundations. To avoid that unthinkable eventuality, Israel trades it ultimate playing card for paltry claims that its soldiers are the most humane in the world – and endangers their lives to prove it - and that it is the most democratic regime in the region.

The world, though, doesn't really care if Israel's armed forces are humane. What determines if you are right or wrong is if the ground under their feet belongs to you or not. The most courteous intruder is still an intruder who belongs in jail.

The refusal to admit that this is our Land - or in broader terms, to re-connect as a state to our Jewish identity - has brought Israel to its diplomatic knees. Netanyahu's senior ministers have arrest warrants waiting for them in Israel's capitals and the assassins of arch-terrorist Mabhouh are wanted all over the world while mass-murderer Ahmadinijad is invited to lecture at Columbia University. The modern-day Amalek does not tell the world that he is humane. He explains that he is right. The world accepts this as fact because Israel's leadership plays straight into his hands.

Just like the first Amalek, who attacked Israel when the entire world was afraid to initiate a fight with the nation that had just defeated the Egyptian empire, so Ahmadinijad publicly declares his intention to destroy Israel and proceeds with his technical preparations basically unhindered.

(Read full article)

Love of the Land: Ouch! It's my Jewish Identity!

Surviving Adversity

Surviving Adversity

Many of Israel's enemies, including some home-grown ones, seem to feel that if enough pressure is brought to bear on the Jews, they'll give up on their national project and move "back" to where-ever, so long as it's far away. This is an odd preposition, with no evidence to back it up, but it seems to keep the Palestinians and many other Arabs hoping, and they undoubtedly garner satisfaction from Westerners and Jews who tell them eventually it'll work.

In week or two the Daf Yomi folks will pass this story, about obstinate perseverance in the face of the military might of the most powerful empire of the day, Rome. Many Jews grew up on the story, but in these days of limited Jewish education, perhaps many others haven't. I'm reasonably certain many of Israel's enemies don't know the story or the tradition it fits into, which is regrettable since they clearly underestimate how obstinate we can be. The story took place in the decade of 135-145 CE, most likely.

The Gemarah is discussing how judges are appointed, and they're examining the rule that only judges who have been accredited by three previously accredited judges may set fines.

-Really? So how to explain the story told by Rav Yehuda in the name of Rav? [Here's the story]
Blessed is the memory of Rabbi Yehuda ben Bava, for if not him, the laws of fines would have been forgotten.
- How forgotten? They could have been re-learned?
- Rather, the authority to apply them would have been abolished. Once the Roman rulers decreed that anyone who accredited judges [the word is smicha] would be killed, and anyone who received smicha would be killed, and any town where smicha was done would be destroyed, and any county were smicha happened would be razed. What did Rabbi Yehuda ben Bava do? He went to an empty spot between two mountains, between two towns between two counties in the area between Usha and Shfar'am, and there he did smicha for five scholars: Rabbi Meir and Rabbi Yehuda and Rabbi Shimon and Rabbi Yossi and Rabbi ELiezer ben Shamua. Rav Avaya adds Rabbi Nechemia to the list. When they realized they'd been seen by the enemy, he said to them, Run, my sons! What will happen to you, they cried. He told them, I'm here like an unturned stone [perhaps this means I won't run, and they'll kill me but I won't feel it, as a stone feels no pain]. The Roman soldiers didn't let up until they had stabbed him with 300 spears.

The Gemarah isn't convinced: there were two additional judges there, but the story doesn't mention them because they were less important than Rabbi Yehuda ben Bava [so the story doesn't prove that a single judge can give smicha]

Another problem with the story:
Was Rabbi Meir accredited by Rabbi Yehuda ben Bava? Didn't Raba bar bar Hana teach us in the name of Rabbi Yochanan: Anyone who says Rabbi Meir wasn't given smicha by Rabbi Akiva, has it all wrong!
The Gemarah explains: Rabbi Akiva did give Rabbi Meir smicha, but he was too young at the time and it wasn't recognized, so he had to be given smicha again, this time by Rabbi Yehuda ben Bava.

The spot where this took place is still empty; you cross it when you take Route 6 north of the Barkai junction. Shfaram is an Arab-Druze town by the same name; Usha is a Jewish village.

[The daf Yomi thread starts and is explained here]

Originally posted by Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations

Water

Water

Blogging may be light for a bit, as I've got some deadlines to meet. On the other hand, it's a bad habit that's hard to buck, so who knows...

Last October Amnesty International published a report about how Israel is drinking all the Palestinian water. (Here's the summary, and here's the 112-page report). Only this morning, while looking for something else, did I see that Israel's Water Authority posted a reply back in November, which in turn relies on a report posted back in March 2009, here. I skimmed over the summary of the Amnesty report, and read the 9-page November response; the two longer documents I'll need more time for - whenever. Especially as the little reading I've done convinces me that it's a complex topic. You have to know lots of stuff in order to be able to make sense of the different positions. Merely bandying numbers around won't fly. Not if you're serious. There are hydrology issues, there are legal issues, there are diplomatic issues (who signed what and what does it mean), there are economic issues, there are political issues - and without a reasonable grasp of the essentials, the so-called human rights issues can't be seriously addressed.

I'm posting merely as a public service. If anyone wishes to read the documents and tell us what's in them, great. I'll even go further: if anyone wishes to write a serious article about what's going on, I'll gladly host them here (tho there are vastly more popular venues elsewhere).

Originally posted by Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations

Miflas HaKinneret

Miflas HaKinneret

Among the many important things about Israel you'll never learn by following the media is the matter of the surface level of the Sea of Galilee. About a third of Israel's water is stored in the lake, but since the rest is in underwater aquifers they can't be seen; the Sea of Galilee (the Kinneret) is right out there where we all see it. And boy do we watch: Nachum Barnea, the country's top journalist, once remarked that being an Israeli means getting up each morning and checking how high (or low) the surface level of the Kinneret is. So much so, that the Hebrew word miflas (surface level) has been loaned to other existential worries: miflas ha-harada, for example, means the level of national dread - a term which doesn't even exist in any other language I'm aware of. (That miflas is actually rather low these days: defeating the 2nd Intifada, building the barrier, hitting Hamas in Gaza so hard that it stopped rocketing; all these things for which much of the world detests us have made life much less stressful, at least for the time being).

The surface of the Kinneret reaches its highpoint each year in May, then sinks until the rains of the following winter begin re-filling it, usually sometime in December. This summer it went lower than ever, which was very bad; the winter rains in the Galilee, however, have been plentiful this year.... But we couldn't know how much this was raising the sea surface, because the Water Authority staff was on strike since early December.

This week they resolved it, and we can now follow our Kinneret again. Here, even if you don't read Hebrew, I think you'll be able to figure it out. (Keep in mind that the Sea of Galilee is beneath Sea Level - 213.38 meters, as of this morning). Check it each day, to give yourself the feeling.

Originally posted by Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations

Tony Strikes Again!

Tony Strikes Again!

A while ago we debated the existence or spoofness of one Rabbi Tony Jutner, a fellow who posts outlandish comments on articles of The Forward. One of the editors later told me he's convinced the fellow doesn't exist, and he deletes his comments when he sees them.

Well, he's back, is Tony, and this time he's clearly here for the fun. David Hazony has written a column about the need to preserve archeological findings in what will probably one day become Palestinian territory. His article is reasonable, though some of the subsequent comments add complexity to the issue. Then there's Tony:

I say give them the scrolls. It would be a goodwill gesture where it is badly needed. The scrolls dont inform my daily existence. However, if the Palestinians insisted on Portnoys Complaint, I woould resist this with all my soul

And I say, Forward People, please don't delete this one. It's an interesting attempt at deflating the seriousness of some of our discussions, and spoofs can also be part of the debate, why not?

Originally posted by Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations

The Mother of All Floods

The Mother of All Floods

Yossie Fatael, managing Director, Israel Travel Agents Associations, back from the Negev with pictures and films from last week's floods.

Originally posted by Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations

Legalites and Niceties

Legalites and Niceties

Earlier this week I fortified myself with a large stiff drink, gritted my teeth, and set out to defend the right of our wrongs to have their say.

Well, that opened a floodgate of discussion. Much of it focused on legality, the universal application of the law and nearby important topics. This is not a field I'm that well versed in, but let's see if we can't disentangle some of the threads.

Within the borders of what was once Mandatory Palestine there are a number of legal systems. In Israel proper there's Israeli law, which applies equally to all Israelis and usually to most other people within the jurisdiction, too. In what's called Area A territories, that's areas under full Palestinian control, the law is what the Palestinians have legislated. Jews aren't allowed into those areas, so there's no question of applying Palestinian law to Jews. There are Area B territories, where Palestinian law applies but the IDF is allowed to be active and has certain remnants of legal authority. There's Gaza, which is 100% Palestinian; I have no idea how Hamas deals with the PA legal system, nor am I particularly interested. There are Area C territories, mostly rural areas on the West Bank, which were not yet transferred to the PA when the Palestinians decided to destroy the Oslo process in late 2000. These areas have a mixture of legal systems, partly PA, partly Jordanian, partly Israeli military law - and, to make the picture even murkier, in the settlements there's a big dose of Israeli law, but in a limited way. Mostly this means Israeli law is applied to the Israeli citizens in the West Bank, but not to the territory, and not fully. No Israeli government ever applied Israeli law to the West Bank.

Except in one way: Israel has what I'm told is a unique institution called Bagatz, the High Court of Justice. The justices are the members of the Supreme Court, and the chambers are the same chambers, but unlike the Supreme Court which is the instance of final adjudication for cases coming up from lower courts, Bagatz is a place where an individual can go directly for immediate protection from the authorities. In summer 1967 the Israeli government granted access to the people of the newly controlled territories. This momentous decision was made so that the Arabs might defend themselves from the Israelis. Yes. Over the years Bagatz has dismantled an entire Jewish settlement built on Arab property (Elon Moreh, 1978) and forbidden the construction of others; it forced Rabin's government to take back 400 Hamas leaders deported in 1994 (after a year); it forced Sharon's government to redraw the line of the Barrier in 2004-6, and various other such events.

Before continuing let's note that a very large number of Palestinians - probably 85-90% of them - live under Palestinian law, in Gaza and areas A and B. Israeli law doesn't effect them at all. In Gaza, since there's no occupation at all anymore, even Bagatz is no longer relevant: as good a sign as any that the Palestinians of Gaza recognize they're no longer being occupied being the fact that they don't turn to Bagatz anymore, and how could they? They're not under Israeli jurisdiction in any way.

Then there's Jerusalem. In June 1967 Israel applied its law to an area - mostly empty hilltops - around Jerusalem; thus was born "East Jerusalem", an entity that had never previously existed in that form. It had something like 70,000 Arabs, many of whom didn't think they lived in Jerusalem at all but rather in villages near the city.

If you wish, it's legitimate to add the many Arab and Eastern European states where Jews once lived but left without their property, and they can't get it back because since they're not citizens anymore they've lost their legal standing. But I'm not getting into that: those issues are all clearly political, not legal.

Prior to 1948 there was Jewish property in what became the West Bank, and there was Palestinian property in what became Israel. No Jews became Jordanian citizens. Some Palestinians became Israeli citizens, and by and large they retained their property, though not always. Some Israeli Palestinians lost title to their property in various cases, as did some Jews, too, and there are even a few ugly cases such as Ikrit and Bir'am where it's hard to justify how the Arab property was taken over. In the large picture, however, these were minor lapses.

(There was Jewish property in Kfar Darom, in Gaza, but after a long and convoluted story, it doesn't belong to Jews anymore.)

After 1967 some efforts were made by Jews to re-acquire their property in what had been Jordanian controlled areas. I'm not acquainted with each case, but 42 years later we're talking about a small part of the Gush Etzion settlements, five buildings in Hebron - and that's it. As a general statement, Israeli's who have acquired land or property on the West Bank needed either to get it from the government if it didn't previously belong to any individual (most of the settlements), or they had to buy it.

Non-Israeli Palestinians can't get their pre-1948 property back, just like the Jewish Iraqis or Poles can't.

Jerusalem is the trickiest part of the story. The Palestinians of East Jerusalem are either citizens or permanent residents, so the applicable law is Israeli law, which makes no distinction between Jews or Arabs. I don't know the percentages, but I'd guess that about 99.9% of what is now Jewish property in East Jerusalem was acquired through government action. Some of it was confiscated from Jews, more was confiscated from Arabs, and most wasn't confiscated because it didn't belong to individuals. The story of Sheikh Jarrah, where individual Jews are trying to re-acquire pre-1948 property is very rare, and it's mostly not working. In places like Siluan-Shiloach (the City of David area), the Muslim quarter of the Old City, the Mount of Olives, and even Sheikh Jarrah, most of the Jews moving in have bought the properties they're moving into. The most recent case, in Sheihk Jarrah, is unusual because a few families refused to pay rent and were eventually evicted. Their neighbors who did pay rent are still there and will probably remain.

Arabs living in homes they owned were not evicted even when fields around them were being confiscated, which is why there are Palestinians living in their homes inside Jews neighborhoods such as Gilo, East Talpiot, Pisgat Zeev and French Hill.

Originally posted by Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations

Even Wetter Desert

Even Wetter Desert

Dr. Benny Shalmon, an ecologist in Eilat, explains: This is the first large storm in the southern third of the Negev since the late 1990s. Some years there's no rain at all, often there's a drizzle here or there. It takes a good storm, that fills the gullies and the waterholes and thoroughly wets everything, to give the desert ecosystem a push to last for another few years.

Those with any choice in the matter might want to schedule a hike to the southern Negev this spring. It will be washed and green, as much as a desert can be.

(It's also an area where no Palestinians lived, ever, and there's no bi-national conflict to be seen. Just desert, with all the harsh beauty that entails.)

Originally posted by Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations

A Wet Desert

A Wet Desert

For those of you who lived in dryness-challenged environments, here's how it works with deserts. There's very little rain, so there's very little vegetation. Very little of those means there's very little good topsoil. Very little good topsoil and vegetation means that when it does rain, there's very little capture or absorption of the water. Ergo, when it rains, it floods. When it rains hard, like it has been since yesterday evening, the floods are powerful. How powerful? Well, they can tear away a paved road in minutes, and can flip over a heavy vehicle and send it downstream in seconds.

That's more or less the whole theory. Not complicated, if you think about it for a moment. The thing is, rain storms such as this one don't happen very often (it's a desert), maybe once or twice a decade, depending on size. This one may yet turn out to be even rarer than that: sometimes there are storms of a once-or-twice-in-a-century magnitude. Statistically, by the time a large one rolls in, some folks will have acquired their new SUV in the interval, or they'll be driving a truck they didn't have last time around. Inevitably, some fool will puff up his chest and drive across the roaring water. After all, it's only, what, a few hundred feet? You can see the other side, and it doesn't even look deep. What do you want me to do, sit here and wait 24 hours? I'm a busy man.

Every time there's a storm in the desert, some fool needs the air force to get out of the trouble a six-year-old could have told him not to get into in the first place. If he gets out. In this case, one fellow did, one is dead, and the third is missing. (The video gives only a vague hint of the power, but it's still impressive).

Originally posted by Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations

Interactions With Arabs

Interactions With Arabs

Heard the one about how the Zionists were European colonialists determined to screw the poor Palestinians? And how by now, they're the only colonialists still standing, but even they will sooner or later succumb to the inexorable logic of history? I have no doubt you have.

Of course, there were always a few scratches on the neatness of the story. The Jewish language, for example, is not only Semitic, it's Western-Semitic, meaning it originated at the east edge of the Mediterranean. There's the single most widespread best-seller in the annals of Man, the Bible, which rather clearly puts the Jews in the land no-one was then calling Palestine. There are the many archeological finds, some of them very old even by the standards of archeology, in the Jewish language, confirming the Jewish story. There's the fact that most Zionists didn't come from European colonial states, there was no home state they could rely on and be colonials from... in short, Zionism looks exactly like an elephant except it doesn't have four legs, no trunk, no floppy ears, no thick gray skin, isn't the right size, isn't an animal at all, and doesn't have tusks. Other than that the resemblance is striking.

Every now and then there's another little gem. If the Jews were here so long ago, you might ask, didn't they ever interact with Arabs? Not, obviously, 3,000 years ago when there were no Arabs here to interact with. But later, perhaps?

I refer you to Bava Batra. The discussion is about farmers who neglect to clear their vineyards from other crops, thus transgressing on the prohibition of mixing crops. Rabbi Eliezer takes this so far as to forbid the use of a vineyard where thistles haven't been removed. The Gemarah asks in what way can thistles be construed as a second crop, alongside the vines? Rabbi Hannina explains that Rabbi Eliezer saw how Arabs ("arvaya" in the Aramaic) collected thistles to feed their camels.

Bava Batra156b.

This thread started and is explained here.

Originally posted by Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations

The Oldest Hebrew Text

The Oldest Hebrew Text

Archeologists don't all agree on everything, obviously. Still, there's a rough consensus whereby the parts of the Biblical story that happened prior to the 7th century BCE are shakier than the later parts. To the best of my knowledge, no archeological evidence has even been uncovered for the story of the Patriarchs (who were nomads living in tents). In recent years, however, there have been a number of discoveries from the period of King David, that's the 10th century BCE. A pottery shard was discovered bearing his name. His palace was unearthed. (I wrote from the site, here).

Now, there's this:

Prof. Galil's deciphering of the ancient writing testifies to its being Hebrew, based on the use of verbs particular to the Hebrew language, and content specific to Hebrew culture and not adopted by any other cultures in the region. "This text is a social statement, relating to slaves, widows and orphans. It uses verbs that were characteristic of Hebrew, such as asah ("did") and avad ("worked"), which were rarely used in other regional languages. Particular words that appear in the text, such as almanah ("widow") are specific to Hebrew and are written differently in other local languages. The content itself was also unfamiliar to all the cultures in the region besides the Hebrew society: The present inscription provides social elements similar to those found in the biblical prophecies and very different from prophecies written by other cultures postulating glorification of the gods and taking care of their physical needs," Prof. Galil explains.

He adds that once this deciphering is received, the inscription will become the earliest Hebrew inscription to be found, testifying to Hebrew writing abilities as early as the 10th century BCE. This stands opposed to the dating of the composition of the Bible in current research, which would not have recognized the possibility that the Bible or parts of it could have been written during this ancient period.

David Hazony gives context:

Every once in a while, archaeologists in Israel hit pay dirt, undoing years of speculative claims that the key stories in the Bible never happened. For decades, it was claimed that King David never existed — putting into question the pivotal stories of the books of Kings and Chronicles on which a great deal of the biblical narrative turns. But then, in 1992 at Tel Dan, archaeologists uncovered the first clear nonbiblical evidence of David’s reign, an explicit reference to the king himself.

Now it has happened again. For years, biblical “minimalists,” as they are called, have been telling us that most of the Bible had to have been written many centuries after its stories took place. Basing their view mostly on the lack of Hebrew texts being found that date back to the time of David and Solomon, scholars like Israel Finkelstein of Tel Aviv University have insisted that the ancient Israelites back then didn’t have the textual skills needed to record the stories of the Bible and that, at best, the texts we now have were written in the 7th or 6th centuries B.C.E., three or four centuries later....

For more than a century and a half, new “scientific” proofs of the falsehood of the Bible have been the surest way to establish yourself in the inner circles of academic fashion. Yet in most cases, these proofs unravel with the continued work of archaeologists, whether at Tel Dan in 1992, or in the discovery of King David’s Palace in the City of David in the early 2000s (full disclosure: I was at the time the editor of a journal published by the Shalem Center, which also sponsored that dig), or in the Elah Valley this week.

None of this proves that one has to accept the Bible’s authority as a source of faith or morals. But it does suggest that efforts to use science as a bludgeon against religion are not really working.

The whole thing is a bit like peering through some super-snazzy telescope at the edge of the universe. The ability to find every-day artifacts that have conveniently been waiting to be found for 3000 years is similarly at the edge of what can be done. To imagine how far back 3000 years ago is, pretend you're alive in the Athens of Pericles, with Spartans at the gates and Socrates asking aggravating questions: King David is still about as ancient for those Athenians as Christopher Columbus is for us. As Athens rose and fell, Rome rose and fell, the Middle Ages came and went, the Europeans "discovered" the world, dominated it, left and sank towards irrelevance... all that while this piece of pottery with a Hebrew text on it lay in the mud and waited to be discovered... by a fellow who knew how to read it because it's in his mother tongue (though spelled with different letters). What are the odds?

Originally posted by Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations

The Geography of Mandatory Palestine

The Geography of Mandatory Palestine

Last time I talked to him, Seth Frantzman was completing his doctoral dissertation in geography. He had been digging up old maps and traveling around the country, trying to figure out the stories of the many Palestinian villages which were gone after the 1947-48 war. As you'd expect, careful examination of factual evidence was giving a different story than the boilerplate accusations regularly aimed at Israel. I told him I hoped he'd soon finish, and I'd love to read the whole dissertation.

If the Jerusalem Post is to be believed, either he still isn't finished or perhaps a committee of professors hasn't yet finished their reading. Still, in today's column he gives a little taste of the sort of things he was coming up with. I recommend.

Originally posted by Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations

Stories from Hebron

Stories from Hebron

Three weeks ago I visited Hebron with B'tselem. I first posted about the tour here, though that story was peripheral to the tour itself.

I've now completed two larger stories. The main one, which I've put here because of its size, tells what we were shown, and what I learned. Unsurprisingly, my conclusions are almost diametrically opposed to what B'tselem wished me to learn, but that's a risk they take when they encourage the general public to tour with them.

My thesis: Hebron has been an experiment in dividing a city between Israel and Palestine; it has been a horrible failure. Anyone who dreams of dividing Jerusalem must understand Hebron.

Finally, one of my fellow travelers, American graduate student Jo Ehrlich, posted her impressions at Mondoweiss. We have severe differences of opinion, Jo and I, and I've posted my reading of her piece here. I have no doubt she doesn't read this blog, but I'll try e-mailing her via the Mondoweiss people. She'll never change her mind, but maybe she'll appreciate that different people can understand the same reality in opposite ways - and also, that knowing facts is useful.

Originally posted by Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations

Good Neighbors

Good Neighbors

I have no words of defense, exoneration or even merely words of explanation which then segue in a back-handed sort of way into justification, for the recent attack on a mosque in Yasuf. Islamists routinely attack mosques and massacre worshipers. Palestinian terrorists regularly use houses of worship, be it the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem or mosques in Gaza, as places to hole up in or store weapons. Civilized people don't see houses of worship as military targets unless they really are, and they never desecrate them with the intent to insult. If they do, it's proof they've ceased to be civilized.

No "but"s.

That doesn't mean the responses to such a despicable attack can't be educative.

A delegation of Jewish religious leaders and activists, including some from West Bank settlements, tried to reach the village to express their abhorrence of the attack. But the Israeli Army prevented the group from entering Yasuf for security reasons as enraged villagers proclaimed that the visitors would not be welcome. “The people will not allow it,” said Wasfi Hassan, a local farmer. “It is like killing a man, then going to his funeral.”

No, actually it isn't like that at all. First, because no-one was killed or even injured. Second, because it wasn't the perpetrators who wished to come to Yasuf with new copies of the Koran, it was other Jews, some settlers, some not. The determination to see all Israeli Jews as if they were criminal thugs may be satisfying, but it's neither factually true nor remotely helpful to moving forward.

Mr. Abbushi rejected the notion that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict could turn into a religious struggle. “It is a national conflict. We want an independent state, without settlers,” he said. But Palestinian schoolchildren brought to demonstrate in Yasuf on Sunday shouted, “Khaibar, Khaibar ya Yahud,” evoking a legendary battle between the Prophet Muhammad and the Jews of the Khaibar oasis, who were forced to surrender.

So who's got it right? The PA governor speaking to the foreign press and telling them what they wish to hear, or the locals, perhaps teachers, priming the school children on what to chant? Even if it's the governor, why does an independent state have to be free of Jews?

In Yasuf, villagers recounted years of problems with settlers in the area, blaming them for a range of ills, including what they said was the poisoning of a spring and the theft of sheep.

Really? The settlers poisoned the spring? How did they manage to do that, pray tell? Given the geological structure of the West Bank, which determines how local springs work, I'll go out on a branch and say such an action cannot be done. Or rather, it probably could, but it would require a large-scale, sustained, industrial-scope effort. This never happened, not at Yasuf and not anywhere else in the area. Sounds to me more like the result of a sustained and society-wide policy by the Palestinians to poison their own minds and those of their children, many of whom have in the meantime grown to become parents, educators, and retired frail and elderly great-grandparents.

Also on Sunday, the Israeli cabinet approved a plan to change Israel’s map of national priority areas to include several isolated West Bank settlements, along with large areas populated by Jews and Arabs in the country’s north and south. The plan has been sharply criticized by the Israeli left because of the inclusion of the settlements, which will now be entitled to additional government financing. Many Israelis saw the adjusted map as an attempt by the government to appease the settlers, who are furious about the building halt.

Looks to me more like standard if unseemly politics. The government is about to disburse large sums of money to lots of people, including many Arab Israelis, and they're throwing a sop also to a troublesome constituent. Not nice, but no different from any other democratically elected politicians.

Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, said in a statement that the new map “serves as a blueprint for future settlement expansion.”He continued: “It reveals the extent to which Israel’s ‘settlement moratorium’ is a sham.”

Really, Mr. Erekat? Try us. Go on, call our bluff. Make us a serious offer and see what we do. Or better, simply agree to return to the negotiating table you fled from on September 16th 2008, when yet another Israeli offer to disband most of the settlements was on the table, and see what you can achieve. Come on, face us with a challenge, instead of moaning about how horrific we are. That's what running a country is all about: dealing with reality, not with wishful dreams.

Update: Chief Rabbi Yonah Metsger came to the village to express his solidarity. He was accompanied by the PA governor and dozens of PA body-guards, but the villagers wouldn't let him into the desecrated mosque. Interestingly, he told the villagers that the Jewish memory of the Holocaust "begins with the desecration of synagogues", one reason why such a desecration is such an outrage to Jews. This is an interesting anecdote for those of Israel's many enemies who insist the Holocaust is routinely instrumentalized to justify anti-Palestinian actions.

Originally posted by Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations

Forever. Forever?

Forever. Forever?

Hillary Clinton is (or was) in Cairo. While there she clarified that

Washington does not accept the legitimacy of the West Bank enclaves and wants to see their construction halted "forever."

Forever can be a long time. Americans can remember a history of a few centuries. There have been people of European stock in America for a bit more than half a millennium. Latin was the main language in Europe for, what, a thousand years? Islam has been around for almost 1,500 years, and Christianity for 2,000. The European Union got into stride a few decades ago; there is reason to hope that the United Nations in its present form won't last even one century - though it probably will. But I wouldn't bank on 500 years.

There have been Jews in Eretz Yisrael, if you believe the archeological evidence, since at least 3,000 years ago. Seen in that context, settling or not settling "forever" is probably a bit of a stretch.

Originally posted by Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations

Things You Can Find in Your Backyard

Things You Can Find in Your Backyard

Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi was a disciple of Rebbi. Rebbi was the editor of the Msihna and of the last generation of the Tanaim, the scholars of the mishnaic era, and Yehoshua was of the first generation of Amoraim, the scholars of the Gemara; this means he lived in the third century. He is kown to have taught at the academy of Lod; late in life he moved north and taught at Tiberias.

Among his teachings is the poignant observation - given the horrible destruction of the previous two centuries - that empires come and go but the Jews are always here.

A few months ago Mitch Pilcer found him in his backyard.

If you're familiar with the bed&breakfast scene in Israel, you've probably come across Mitch and his Zippori Village cottages. If you're not, it's never too late to start. I warmly recommend. He's something of a character, is Mitch, all the more reason to drop by for a visit. He's been building his guest cottages for years, piece by piece, and while digging the foundations for an addition he stumbled across the burial cave of one Yehushua ben Levy.

Maariv has the story, which is as complex as you'd expect. The Haredi say it can't be since Yehoshua was one of ten righteous Jews who have over the centuries been transported straight to heaven and have no graves (the most famous was Elijah). The professors claim they've already identified the grave of Yehoshua his wife and his daughter, about 10 miles to the west of Zippori, so this fellow must have been merely a namesake. The archeology establishment says Mitch had no right to go digging on his own in such an unauthorized way, and how dare he; they've hauled him before the courts. Mitch himself says now he's going to have to pave a parking lot for all the awe-struck visitors, and this is going to be bad for business since he caters to people seeking nature and serenity.

Pretty awesome, if you stop to think about it.

Originally posted by Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations

Modi'in Illit

Modi'in Illit

I had a meeting up north today, and on the way back it occured to me to drop by Modi'in Illit
and do a spot of reporting.

The town was founded in 1990, just over the Green Line, to offer unexpensive housing to large Haredi families from Jerusalem and Bnei Brak. It was originally called Kiryat Sefer. At the end of 2008 it had a population of more than 41,000, making it the largest settlement on the West Bank. The weekly birthrate is 45, or 2,500 babies annually, which makes for a lot of children. A lot of bycicles, too.The annual growth rate is 9.5%, which means that in the six months since Obama demanded that Israel stop building on the West Bank, the population of Modi'in Illit as grown by about 2,000 people. This requires additional housing. The town is wedged between the Green Line to its west, and the security fence on its east; in the long run the growth will have to be westward since there will be no construction beyond the fence. In essence, Modi'in Illit is a border town. Israel may swap its equivalent for land elsewhere, but I don't see any scenario in which the town will be evacuated. Pretending otherwise will not help peace negotiations,which will by definition be based upon false assumptions.

taken from Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations

Olive Trees

Olive Trees

Metula, earlier this week: view of the main street taken from the center of the village. The white structure at the bottom of the block is a packing house; the fence behind it is the Lebanese border. The fields beyond it and the mountains beyond them are Hezbullah territory. Yet it wasn't always so. Here's my report.
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Olive Trees

One compelling justification for democratic nationalism is that it requires the nation to organize its affairs according to its values and priorities. Witness the American discussion about healthcare this summer; a national conversation about society, responsibility, life and death and how best to balance them. Each nation has its own set of laws that reflect its own discussion; were there a single, right way of organizing human affairs, it might long since have been adopted everywhere. (Or not. People aren't always sensible).

It was ever thus. Take the 3rd century as an example. Still reeling from the double calamities of defeat and destruction at the hand of Roman legions in the two previous centuries, there was yet a vibrant Jewish presence in the Galilee doing its best to hang on, and its laws reflected its conditions. Here's a small example. A second-century Mishna moots the ownership of olive trees swept downstream by a flood from one man's grove to another's field, where they took root. Third-century Rabbi Yochanan ruled that they were not to be repatriated, forbidding the uprooting of olive trees "mishum yishuv Eretz Yisrael", because of the need to settle the land of Israel. Rabbi Yirmiya added that this ruling was so compelling it overrode all other considerations. (Baba Metzia 100b and 101a).

Their efforts were only mildly successful. A few pages on the discussion is of standards of fertility to be expected from a field of wheat. Rabbi Yochanan says four se'ah of grain is needed to reap one kor; Rabbi Ammi says it takes eight se'ah. An old man explained to the scholars that in Rabbi Yochanan's day the land was still fertile, but by Rabbi Ammi's, conditions were worsening and good harvests were rare. (Bab Metzia 105b). Over the next few centuries the land degraded and the Jewish population dwindled.

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Sometime in the early 19th century a Jew from Russia named Bronstein arrived in Safed, largest of four significant Jewish communities (the others were Tiberius, Jerusalem and Hebron). I can't tell much about Bronstein, since no-one remembers, but we can safely say he didn't see any political significance to his move. He lived in a large multinational empire dominated by Russians, and was moving to another large multinational empire, dominated by Muslims. He was a Jew who saw an opportunity to move to Erez Yisroel and that was enough.

A great grandchild of his, we'll call him Levy, was an enterprising artisan. Yet Safed in the 1890s didn't offer much, so when he heard that the Baron Edmond de Rothschild was recruiting settlers for a new agricultural settlement, he signed up. No-one intended to launch a new chapter in Jewish history. The program was meant merely to create economic viability for Jewish existence. That it would be part of something greater became obvious only later.
In 1896 Levy, his wife and children, and a few dozen other families settled on a plot of land purchased by the Baron northeast of Safed on a low hill above a broad valley; to the east a gurgling creek ran through a canyon and tumbled over a high waterfall before flowing south into the swamps of the Hula valley. They called their settlement Metula.

Though they had no experience and very little guidance, the settlers of Metula planted apple and olive trees on the rocky plots behind their huts, and grain on the broad fields in the valley to the north. They worked hard; some gave up while others persisted. Levy's sons brought brides from Safed and set up their own families. The agricultural environment hadn't improved since the days of Rabbi Ammi. If anything, it was worse. Yet the trajectory had changed and these peasants were clawing back, not slipping.

They continued not to see themselves as national harbingers. When one daughter had a tumor her mother took her to the hospital in the big city: Beirut. When the doctors couldn't save her she was buried there. If there's still a Jewish cemetery in Beirut, she lies in it. Another time there were skirmishes between warring local factions, and one of Levy's sons sent his wife and newborn twin sons across the mountains to shelter in the Jewish community of Tyre. One of them died on the road, and is buried in the Jewish cemetery of Tyre – which almost certainly no longer exists.

After World War I the French and British carved up the defeated Turkish Empire. The area around Metula was so remote it took two extra years to finalize the border, which was drawn so that the village was the northernmost tip of the British Mandate. So northernmost that the border ran a literal stone's throw from the last house; the fields in the valley were all in the French Mandate. It took another few years to agree that the Jewish farmers in Mandatory Palestine would be permitted to work their fields in Mandatory Lebanon; an international checkpoint was set at the bottom of the hill between the homes and fields, and the farmers crossed it every day. This arrangement was respected until the State of Israel replaced Mandatory Palestine and the Lebanese blocked access to the fields. Even then, the eldest of Levy's grandsons, a towering giant of a man, used to break through the border each spring, drive his tractor to the family's fields, and plow one furrow. These fields, he was saying, had been his grandfather's, his father's, and he wasn't relinquishing title merely because of some international border that someone had drawn.

A grandson of Levy's was killed in Israel's War of Independence. A great grandson was killed as a paratrooper in the early 1960s, and another in the Yom Kippur War. Yet they're a hardy stock, are Levy's descendents. Almost 200 years since the first Bronstein left Russia for Safed, and 115 years since he and his wife set off for a barren hill above the Hula, some descendants are still there. They've long since accepted the loss of the fields in Lebanon, but they still farm the orchards and press olive oil. Levy's surviving grandsons are in their eighties and nineties, and you can still find them in Metula, living on the original short street. Where once a checkpoint was today stands a fruit packing factory, and the fence behind it is a sealed border. The great grandchildren and their children are spread far and wide: there is at least one great great great grandchild in New York, but most are Israelis. They span the political spectrum from settlers to far-left activists; there are lawyers and doctors and metal workers and hoteliers and dreamers; one is a property magnate with global reach, another works on a dairy farm on the West Bank. When I visited last week one descendant was drawing up plans for a new commercial initiative better adapted to the 21st century – but still in Metula.

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Jews used words and ideas to preserve their bond to their land. The essential bond itself, however, not the idea, is expressed in deeds. Harvesting olives is a reality and a metaphor. Seventeen centuries ago the harvesting couldn't stave off the general deterioration. A hundred years ago it was essential in launching the revival.

The other day one of the men told me of a chore he had, and asked if I'd join him: the extra two hands would make it easier. It was late afternoon, when the fierce sunlight of an August midday eases into gentle golden rays. Together we mended a fence, pulling, tugging, reinforcing, as the men have been doing for more than a century. Half a mile from the Lebanese border; it was comforting and peaceful.

taken from Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations

Israel Matzav: It's time to talk about Jewish historical rights to the land of Israel

It's time to talk about Jewish historical rights to the land of Israel

In Friday's Haaretz, Nadav Shragai nailed it:

One might expect more national pride and a clearer, more lucid statement from a government that believes Judea and Samaria are inseparable parts of the historic homeland, and at the very least sees the "settlement blocs" as an inseparable part of the State of Israel in any final status accord. Perhaps a statement in the spirit of Simon Maccabaeus, who said: "We have neither taken other men's land, neither do we hold that which is other men's: but the inheritance of our fathers, which was for some time unjustly possessed by our enemies."

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Israel Matzav: It's time to talk about Jewish historical rights to the land of Israel