Sunday, March 31, 2013

AJDS For The High Jump

geoffff

American and other readers outside Australia who think they have problems with Beinart-ites and "progressive Zionists" and worse may be interested in this sideshow melodrama currently unfolding in Australia. 


Small Hurricane Hits Melbourne -- No One Hurt. Not Many Homeless.


The cover art of the now defunct and formerly venerable Bulletin magazine  in the 1986 issue that somewhat gleefully announced the imminent expulsion of Bill Hartley from the ALP had the headline "Hartley For The High Jump".  Hartley was an odious old antisemite enabler and channeller of the worst kind from the old hardline Stalinist school and thorough dead beat as this glowing eulogy from GreenLeft verifies. Hartley was the man who corrupted the federal ALP from within by arranging for a secret party donation from the Iraqi regime that was then stolen by a very clever thief. I have never understood why this appalling incident has not got the prominence it deserves and has not destroyed the reputations of those it should have. 

I once heard Hartley, once an ALP Senate candidate for Victoria, complain on national radio that there were too many Jews in the ALP Victorian branches. He thought this inappropriate, even suspicious, given  "their  middle class backgrounds" and "this is the Labor party" which was supposed to be the party of the worker and the disadvantaged.

Sure. That must be it.

Hartley himself was always coy about his background. Given that he was a Young Liberal at university at a time when only people with money could even think about going to university there has to be a suspicion Hartley knew what he was talking about. The "Jews" may or may not have had a "middle class" background. But Hartley sure did.

I mention Hartley because it shows how easy it is for an extremist group to get itself assimilated into trade union politics and into a mainstream political party and from that platform preach their religion to the wider community. Make no mistake Hartley and his colleagues were extremists. They advocated the overthrow of Western values such as liberalism, individual freedom and the trade economic system and their understanding of "democracy" was something very different to what you might have in mind. Not that leftist extremists had that game to themselves. Right wing extremists have also been a problem. At one time during this era the League of Rights nearly took over the (then) Country Party in Queensland at grass roots by deploying very similar tactics. 

Nor were the leftist cults in the ALP shy about the need to crack a few eggs to make an omelette when they were behind closed doors and they most certainly approved of those who did smash eggs and heads. Indeed they had an obsession with foreign policy. It was probably their main interest. They were violently anti-American of course which was fashionable in those Vietnam War days. Then as now. That never goes out of fashion with this lot come to think of it.  They were also violently anti-Israel naturally. Always a favourite evergreen. They were "anti-Zionists", you see and you could tell by just looking at them they had never heard of the word a year before. "Zionism" is "Racism". The Bible tells them so. This is a religion do not forget.

This and supporting every armed revolutionary leftist  group from the Sandinistas and the Provisional IRA to the PFLP was pretty well the extent of their foreign policy interest really but they spent a lot of time on it.

They were specialists you see. 

Nor am I the first to notice the close resemblance between the old Hartley style extremists of the pre intervention Victorian ALP branch, who were never properly cleansed from the party nationally, and the modern Greens and especially the dominate faction in its NSW branch. It's uncanny really. Sometimes they are even the same people.  

It is a sad fact of modern politics that a threshold entrance qualification to the ideological left all over the West is hostility to Israel and the Zionist enterprise. National liberation and self determination for the Jews is anathema to the hard left. To be pro-Israel is an intolerable heresy for this religion. It is perhaps the one thing that is never tolerated in these circles.   

Which brings us to the AJDS now vigorously campaigning for the boycott of "settlement produce" beyond the Green Line. Why? Surely this campaign begs some questions. 

The starting point is their own BDS-lite campaign web site.  Here are their ten reasons for boycotting Jews who are living and earning a living where they say Jews should not.

The first is that it is illegal for Jews to live over a line that no one recognises as an international border, least of all the "Palestinians" but is a no-Jew zone notwithstanding. Even in Jerusalem it seems there is a line beyond which Jews should not be, They must be confined to a certain part of town. That is the law according to the AJDS. "International law" no less.  It is a law that applies only to Jews. It does not apply to Arab Muslims no matter what they do even if they have the temporary misfortune of being Israeli citizens. Does this law have a familiar ring?

They cite the Geneva conventions as the source of this law in what would have to be the most cynical and spit in your face dishonest misconstruction  of an international treaty of the last century. Other than what is illegal under Israeli law the "settlements"  are not illegal, even if Bob Carr, the ALP and the British foreign office  declare them so. That the Israel bashers have the audacity to claim application of article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention says everything you need to know about the Israel bashers and the state of international law. This again is a law that applies only to Jews except in the event that the AJDS and its international allies are successful in the campaign to remove the Jewish population of Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria.  The ethnic cleansing of Jews, and only Jews,  as proposed by the AJDS and its allies is not a breach of article 49. That is not illegal. 

None of this is to contend that a two state solution based on ceding large tracts of Judea and Samaria and combined with a contiguous Gaza is off the table. On the contrary it is the "Palestinians" and their urgers in the Middle East and the West who are shoving this solution where it can't be seen.  

And then we have reasons 2-10. Nothing here is original. Nothing here is the truth. It is a mistake to engage on the detail of this because the moment you have they have won. This is war propaganda the AJDS is retailing designed  for a Jewish market. They themselves do not believe in a Jewish national home and State and as individuals they say so.  They are not antizionists of course even if most of the sites they link are and some violently so. They are "post-Zionists" you understand.  Post-modernists more likely where perception and deception rule reality and truth is another planet. They sure look like antizionists to me.

Like all anti-Israel activists they mine Israel's vigorous liberal democracy and traditions of free expression for ammunition to attack the foundations of the state. Far leftists do that and they are completely unconscious of the iron paradox of this. Like all free people Israelis as individuals say all sorts of things in all sorts of contexts. This is because they are allowed.     

They arch at any suggestion that their policies utilise antisemitic tropes, (don't they all?), despite the antizionism and the narratives sourced fresh from the "Palestinian" and radical leftist  propaganda mills. Here is a couple of limbs about what antisemitism means that some within the AJDS for a start must have difficulty with despite the outraged denials. 
  • Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavour.
  • Applying double standards by requiring of it a behaviour not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.

The AJDS job is to deceive the idealistic and naive, longing for peace, that if Israel was to abandon the "settlements" presumably by force and unilaterally withdraw to what Abba Eban called the Auschwitz borders that would be a step to peace. They don't even believe that themselves. That's why the Arab Muslim right of return is always part of the recipe. An extraordinary and glib notion that they must know Israel and any other self respecting sovereign state would never accept. They are "Zionist" or "pro-Israel" only on condition that  the Jewish state commits national suicide. 

That is not going to happen without a fight to the death. That is what free people do. Wouldn't you, rather than acquiesce in what much of the Arab and Muslim world make very clear they have in mind for the Jews?  That is why AJDS and its global allies are pro-war. There are no two ways about it. 

This is a free society, unlike what AJDS and its allies would fit up Israel with, and the AJDS is entitled to say what it likes just as Bill Hartley was. Communal bodies and political parties are also well within their rights to ensure they do so without affiliation with them when their views and campaigns are repugnant. That is how a liberal democracy works.  

cross posted Israel Thrives


Friday, March 29, 2013

Letter From Israel



                                      elinor        אלינור   

                                                                                                                        



You'll never find work if you don’t speak Hebrew (1)
[Yes, I speak French]

In the late ‘80s, those who made aliyah under the auspices of the Jewish Agency were assigned a madricha, someone who interviewed (and ostensibly followed the early path of) the oleh hadash or in my case, ola hadasha, the new immigrant. In the only interview I ever had with her, my case manager fretted over my future and coined the title of this piece for me. She was kindness personified, just out of school and wearing one colour from her hair ribbon to her socks. Somehow I felt I would survive without her.

Two things became obvious as I stumbled through ulpan, the internationally acknowledged total-immersion system which Israel created for teaching Hebrew: (1) I was not learning up to my own expectations and (2) I wanted to work only in English, since I had become something of a mumkhit(specialist) over the years.

Gradually I recognized that learning Hebrew was influencing my English, which was not a good thing. So I stopped trying to perfect my Hebrew and started looking for work, which was forbidden to state-sponsored ulpan students. We were granted a small monthly stipend on the assumption that we’d study all day and be fluent, if starving, Hebrew speakers at the end of the course. Didn’t work that way at all; at least half the class had surreptitious employment. They were the ones who bolted immediately after hours saying 'I have an appointment' and not hanging around to smoke, drink diet drinks and bitch about Israeli bureaucracy.

It’s funny how law-abiding citizens will adjust to atypical circumstances. I hove up to the offices of Manpower and asked if they had work for an English/French-speaker who could—Yes. They did.

Bituach Leumi, the National Insurance Institute, was looking for someone who could type in French and yes, I was available in the afternoons, since my mornings were occupied with my becoming another North American with a bad accent.

The offices of the NII were a bus ride away from ulpan but that was the only easy bit. The building, just at the entrance to Jerusalem, was a nightmare for someone on a moderate learning curve. And like many institutional buildings in this country, it had signs and rumours of signs. And arrows. Lots of arrows.

My job was to answer requests—sometimes demands— for possible pension rights from Holocaust survivors who had lived in Israel at some point but who had subsequently moved to other (presumably French-speaking) countries. Not just type the answers, mind you, but create them in French, a language I hadn't used for decades. I was reminded of the Hollywood saying: If they ask if you can tap-dance, say Yes and go out and learn.

The requests that were accepted had been shifted to another department. The ones I had to deal with bore an enthusiastic No scrawled at the top of the page and many of those heart-breaking notes were fast becoming antiques.

I sorted through the letters to find the eldest request that was considered illegitimate by NII. A quick calculation showed that the writer was probably deceased by now, so here goes nothing: Cher monsieur… Regret flowed from my keyboard. A tear struck the back of my hand. Imagine having to reject financial assistance to a Holocaust survivor.

Proudly showing my first draft to my boss, I was hit with rejection as stunning as that which I was writing: Don’t write a damned manuscript, woman—just say No! When I had emptied the basket of sadness he said, Good work, get lost, we'll call you if we need you.

As is thought in so many situations here, Never again. 


cross posted Israel Thrives


Wednesday, March 27, 2013

A World Without Hate

geoffff




hat tip Israellycool /ADL

3-year-old critically injured by stones near Ariel

Mike L.

{Cross-posted at Israel Thrives and Pro-Israel Bay Bloggers.}



Vehicle carrying woman, her three daughters, crashes into truck that veered off course due to stones hurled by Palestinians in West Bank road; 3-year-old critically injured; three others moderately wounded 
A woman and her three daughters were injured on Thursday in a car accident caused by stones hurled by Palestinians on Route 5 connecting Tel Aviv and Ariel.

One of the girls, three-year-old Adele, was critically wounded, while the mother, Adva Biton, 40, and her two other daughters, Avigail and Naama - ages four and five - sustained moderate injuries.
Progressives tend to think that the reason that Arabs seek to murder Jews, including Jewish children, is because the tiny Jewish minority in the Middle East is persecuting the vast Arab-Muslim majority, particularly those who now go under the moniker "Palestinians."

This is a lie.

The is the Big Lie.

Arab-Muslims have been throwing rocks at Jews for fourteen centuries.  It is only in very recent years that people started discussing the Arab inclination to stone Jews as a matter of "civil rights" and "social justice."  It was only shortly after the Holocaust that the Soviets decided that Arab attempts to murder Jews should be placed into the context of human rights and national liberation.

But the fact of the matter is that Arab-Muslim justification for the murder of Jews is embedded in Islam.

The only difference now is that we have millions upon millions of westerners, including G-d knows how many western Jews, who think that Arab efforts to kill Jews are morally justified.  They have even convinced themselves that the tiny bit of land that has been known for four thousand years as Judea is being illegally "Occupied" (with the Big O) by Jews.

The violence toward this family and toward this little girl is not a merely because of Arab-Muslim genocidal racism, but because that genocidal racism is justified by "liberals" throughout the western world who fund the very hatred that gets us killed.  The west funds Hamas which calls for the murder of Jews in its very charter.  The United States funds the Palestinian Authority which incites hatred toward Jews among Arab-Muslim children in Judea and Samaria, thus ensuring that the long Arab war against the Jews in the Middle East will continue for generations to come.

And yet they blame us for the ongoing violence toward us, but this also is nothing new.

If you were to talk to your average "progressive" he or she would say that the historical persecution of the Jewish people was a terrible injustice.  They would claim to be opposed to Nazism and the Holocaust, and yet they would still tell you that the Palestinian-Arab cause is moral and should be supported.  In other words, while all efforts in the past to kill Jews were wrong, the current effort is justified.

Every generation they justify it.

This one is no different.

Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Shirlee versus AJDS

geoffff

Shirlee has emailed me this flier from the Australian Jewish Democratic Society which I have reproduced below.. For the benefit of readers who are unfamiliar with the minutiae of  Australian Jewish communal politics, the AJDS is a group on the far left when it comes to the subject of Israel. Israel now as much as ever is the single biggest issue for Australian Jews as a community (although right now abuse of children in some Orthodox schools is getting at least as much attention).

 Further still to the left is a handful of activists on the extreme fringe who actively campaign for Israel's destruction and adopt the Hamas/PLO narrative with an enthusiasm that exceeds even most of them. They are aggressively and belligerently antizionist and therefore antisemitic.  Almost every antisemitic trope, especially those relating to conspiracy and Jewish control of politics, Western foreign policy and media, are part of their repertoire. For the most part they are Jews only for the purpose of vilifying Israel. They are of course not regarded by Australian Jews as part of their community.

Do not think for a moment that the concept of the antisemitic Jew is anything new. They have been with us since Marx and Trotsky and beyond and always very active for their numbers. They are after all very useful to those who hate or despise Israel or the Jews. Usually they are on the extreme pro-war violent revolutionary left but there has been at least one case of a neo-nazi leader who felt obliged to hang himself after being exposed as having been raised as a Jew.  

These are the people who get most of the interviews on ABC TV and radio and whose articles are published on ABC blogs and in the Fairfax press. It's usually the same two or three plus the occasional passing foreigner to break the monotony  but when they are not around or getting a little tired with the audience the next port of call is the AJDS. Again,a small group but who is to know that if they are not Jewish and certainly the ABC doesn't care about that.





Apart from emailing me Shirlee has also emailed the communal leadership and much of the rest of the community it seems. Here is her cover message:


The 'morsel' below was received today from the AJDS and I am sending it to some 100 or so people, who are bcc-ed into it. I am requesting these people to forward it to everyone on their mailing lists as a prime example of what is occurring within our Community, by a group accepted by our formal Community organisations. 

Enough is enough. They showed their true colours on 'Green Sunday'. Words cannot describe the disgust felt by so many at this despicable act. If any of you have bothered reading comments on issues such as this on J-Wire, you may well be surprised at learning what the average person in the Community feels.

The fact that this vile group is accepted as an affiliate of the JCCV is a disgrace in itself, but to add further to this disgrace is the fact that the JCCV is then accepted as an affiliate of the ECAJ. I am far from alone in this thought. I believe you are well aware of this fact.

I hear questions frequently by Community organisations as to why more people don't get involved in the formal Community. This is a prime example, as was the response to Geert Wilders' visit here, plus the comment 'Let's wait and see" in the Statement released in regards to the 'Islamic Peace conference' an oxymoron if I ever heard one.! The general feeling that this Statement was not published on line as was that the previous in regards to Wilders, was because of the slamming that one received.

Shirlee

Here is the news of the AJDS latest campaign which for Shirlee and many others is the last straw.


Dear AJDS members and supporters,
We're very pleased to announce a new AJDS campaign- 'Don't' Buy Settlement Products'


At this time of Pesach—the festival of freedom—we remember that we were slaves in Egypt.
What does it mean to remember this?

It means that we remember what it means to be imprisoned, to not be able to determine our fate.
It means that we remember what it means to be an oppressed and dominated people.
It means that remember that as we were slaves in Egypt, so too others are enslaved and oppressed in many countries around the world, and that we must fight alongside them for their freedom.
We remember that escape was possible, that slavery came to an end.
On this Pesach we ask you to join a long history of Jews who have fought for freedom, for both Jews and for others. To stand alongside others, Jews and non-Jews, who have made ethical choices about how to live their lives in order to make themselves better people, and to make the world a better place.
And so in this tradition of Pesach, as well as in the relatively new tradition of making decisions about what products we purchase based on a set of ethics (as we have done in the past with Nescafe, Shell, and products which are harmful to the environment), this year we commit to not buying products that are produced in settlements the West Bank.

Kind Regards,



Max Kaiser
Community Organiser, Australian Jewish Democratic Society

I avoid community politics for a number of reasons not the least of which is that as I am not a member of any group or body affiliated with the councils and other roof bodies I do not feel qualified. This is one of those occasions where I will comment. I agree with Shirlee.
This campaign is offensive, dangerous, morally suspect and pretty cowardly. There are a number of reasons why boycotting Jews who happen to be in a place where many say they are not allowed and it is illegal for them to be born there is vile. Apart from the racism, perhaps the worst of it is that it internalises the "Palestinian" narrative that it is the "Occupation" and the "Settlements" that stand in the way of peace without the slightest awareness that what is meant by that is that the whole of Israel is "occupied", by Arab Muslim standards, and that Jews as free people anywhere in the Middle East are in the wrong place.
If Israel was to just unilaterally pull back more or less to the Green Line then there will be peace is the view, despite all the evidence. This is worse than just wishful thinking. They are not just inviting Israel to take a
dangerous indeed suicidal risk with the lives of her people but demanding it. They join in the boycotts of the Israel haters and antisemites and they encourage them. They do this without the slightest qualm about "Palestinian" intransigence and genocidal antisemitism, without any acknowledgement of Israel's courageous initiatives and offers, all rejected, and with no regard to how unilateral withdrawals have been received by Israel's enemies in the past and without any apparent concern for the state's security.
They do this from the safety of the other side of the world. They are demanding that Israel and the Jews take on the guilt for the predicament of the "Palestinian" people and by necessary extension they are excusing those who are really responsible. It is an inversion of truth and morality.
The AJDS is entitled to do this. Whether they should be allowed to remain affiliated with communal bodies is another thing. They help to endanger Israel and weaken her position at a time of growing triumphant fury from those who would destroy her and the Jews and who see gestures such as that by AJDS as proof they are winning. The Jews are falling apart. The strategy is working they are encouraged to believe. Now is the time to really put on the pressure.
The AJDS have no excuse for not knowing this. That is why you have to wonder just how much of this campaign is founded in self-delusion they want to make compulsory for all of us and how much is recklessness with the truth washed downwith half a gallon of naked bad faith. It is time to have this out with the "liberal" and "progressive" Zionists. They are not helping. They are making things worse.
Meanwhile at J-Wire the Jewish Community Council of Victoria has congratulated itself for helping to stop hate speeches in public at the Muslim "Peace Conference" in Melbourne. Check out the comments including from Shirlee and this blog. Not good enough. It's unanimous.



Sunday, March 24, 2013

Ten Lies About Why There Is No Peace, And The Truth

geoffff

Helping  to counter ten of the biggest lies about the Israeli/"Palestinian" dispute is this video produced by the Jerusalem Institute of Justice. The truth, quick and clean and put so simply that even a Green Party politician could understand  if they wanted to.







Do take the time to take it in. It is an excellent use of five minutes.

hat tip   Daphne Anson

Living in Israel --- Susan's Cat --- Eleanor


                                                                                                              elinor        אלינור         






The story so far

...

Friday morning, early, the landlord arrived with his giant wife, three children and a baby. He installed a new fuse box—the envy of all the neighbours. Collecting his children he apologized for the American toilet roll strewn over the flat—they had never seen such a remarkable item. I thanked him profusely, or should I say pro-fuse-ly… 


The story continues ...



After my spending some months in the apartment with the brand-new fuse box, the owners decided to move back to Jerusalem and my lease was not to be renewed. I found a new flat in a totally Sephardic neighbourhood where I was known as hashketa, the quiet one, apparently because I didn’t yell. Of course I didn’t yell—I had no one to yell at—which also meant a certain level of loneliness, so when my daughter rang one day to ask if I would take Susan’s cat, I was inclined to say yes. My landlord assured me that pets were acceptable because as he said, There is nothing in the flat to damage except your belongings.



Now Susan was famous amongst my daughter’s friends for having ‘dragged’ her cat from her home in the USA to Israel when she made aliyah. Yes, the cat had to be put into ­­­quarantine for many expensive months—not that Israel hadn’t already accumulated more than a fair share of unattached and even feral felines—but Susan was determined to keep her cat, unaccountably named Squat. Susan adored Squat and provided her with a comfy bed, an elegant litter box, a dandy flea collar and the best cat-food available. She spoiled that cat something fierce and then she met Mr Right—who was allergic to cats—and Squat was on the market. Out. Nice knowing you. So the cat needed a new home and I was it.



Susan brought Squat to my flat, introduced us at breakneck speed, dumped her high-priced stuff just inside my front door and ran. Mr R was waiting in her car and that cat was all mine.



So, I said to Squat, the first order of business—besides determining where you will carry out your various functions—is to change your name. Squeak? Squawk? I couldn’t sustain the ‘squa’ sound unless I were to call her Squash. Unacceptable. After some weeks I looked at that cat’s lovely face and said Don’t worry, sweetheart—we’ll think of something. Goodness gracious me—Sweetheart! And so she remained. We came to terms. She kept me warm; I kept her fed. The perfect relationship.



Then, in the manner of renters everywhere, I shifted flats again and my new landlord was allergic, too. No cat hair allowed. Moral dilemma—is finding the right apartment in Jerusalem worth more than a cat? Sadly I canvassed everyone I knew and finally found one of the bakers at a restaurant I frequented who had a disabled younger sister who’d love the company of my cat. I hesitated, because it took a very long time to bond with that cat, but he assured me that his sister was gentle and patient by nature. All right, then. Off she was carried to an unknown and possibly unidentifiable village where, I was assured by someone less kind, they probably eat cats. I don’t think so.


cross posted Israel Thrives

Saturday, March 23, 2013

"Connecting" With Connexions ... sigh

Che Gorilla
Director of Inter-blog Relations




If This Is What The Atheists Are Saying
Maybe It's Time To Go Back To Shul





All Sides Agree To Stop Worrying Now!
Except Apparently Me

I Guess That's Because I'm a "Centrist"

A  recent post and exchange at Connexions, the blog of Methodist minister Richard Hall 
that I reproduce here in full, uncut and in advance,  that raises the recent remarkable kick-ass speech by Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks. Now that's "self promotion".


Faith “… even despite You”

by KIM on MARCH 13, 2013
[So Yosl Rakover, shortly to be murdered by the Nazis in the Warsaw ghetto, concludes his testament, dated 28 April 1943, discovered "preserved in a little bottle and concealed amongst heaps of charred stone and human bones" ...]
My rabbi used to tell me, again and again, the story of a Jew who escaped the Spanish Inquisition with his wife and child and made his way in a small boat across the stormy sea to a stony island. A flash of lightning exploded and killed his wife. A whirlwind arose and hurled his child into the sea. Alone, wretched, discarded like a stone, naked and barefoot, lashed by the storm, terrified by thunder and lightning, his hair disheveled and his hands raised to God, the Jew made his way up onto the rocky desert island and turned thus to God:
“God of Israel,” he said, “I have fled to this place so that I may serve You in peace, to follow Your commandments and glorify Your name. You, however, are doing everything to make me cease believing in You. But if You think that You will succeed with these trials in deflecting me from the true path, then I cry to You, my God and the God of my parents, that none of it will help You. You may insult me, You may chastise me, You may take from me the dearest and the best that I have in the world, You may torture me to death — I will always believe in You. I will love You always and forever — even despite You.”
Here, then, are my last words to You, my angry God: None of it will avail You in the least! You have done everything to make me lose my faith in You, to make me cease to believe in You. But I die exactly as I have lived, an unshakeable believe in You.
Praised be forever the God of the dead, the God of vengeance, of truth and judgment, who will soon unveil His face to the world again and shake its foundations with His almighty voice.
Sh’ma Yisroel! Hear, Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one. Into Your hands, O Lord, I commend my soul.”
[Zvi Kolitz, Yosl Rakover Talks to God (London: Jonathan Cape, 1999), pp. 3, 23-25]
Comments







Rick O'Donnell 03.15.13 at 10:37 pm
That is powerful stuff.
2
Bill 03.19.13 at 3:51 pm
Yes. Powerful, challenging, and often bewildering.
3
geoffff 03.21.13 at 6:32 pm
Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks
“This will be the defining battle of the 21st Century”
March 2013
4
Richard 03.22.13 at 2:28 pm
You already know I think you’re wrong about this, so that won’t be a surprise. I don’t want to deny you a bit of self-promotion but I’m puzzled about what your post has to do with this one…
5
geoffff 03.22.13 at 5:30 pm
Let’s see now.
Kim posts an extract from the 1946 Zvi Kolitz 1946 short story “Yosl Rakover Talks To God”, a meditation on the relationship between Jews and God in the face of firstly theological and then racial genocidal antisemitism. He does that without comment.
I post also without comment what I think is the last major speech by the Chief Rabbi of Great Britain and spiritual leader of modern orthodoxy after 22 years and which is essentially a meditation on the redemptive force within humankind of Zionism and the relationship between Jews and God in the face of the most recent wave of genocidal antisemitism — namely antizionism.
A truly remarkable speech.
I have no difficulty seeing the connection here, especially in the context of Connexions. Perhaps it might have been better if we had continued to refrain from comment and let these other words speak for themselves to those who wish to listen for themselves. But I too am puzzled about something …
Why would you say this is about self promotion? I’m an activist for sure and I have a message to spread just as you and Kim do. But I don’t think any of us could be said to be into self promotion. This is not about me. It’s about something far far more important than that and I’m certain you and Kim would say exactly the same thing about what you do.
6
Richard 03.22.13 at 10:53 pm
I take it then that you agree with the Chief Rabbi that many of Israel’s actions have been incompatible with Judaism?
As for self-promotion - yes, that’s how I interpret a comment that, to my mind, bears little relevance to the post under which it appears. If it serves any purpose other than the promotion of your blog, I can’t see it. Hence ’self-promotion’.
7
geoffff 03.22.13 at 11:54 pm
I suggest you take the trouble to read and listen to what the Chief Rabbi had to say just a few days ago about Israel’s actions and Judaism rather than take the twisted words of someone years ago and who the Rabbi says he was naive in giving an interview to in the first place and has repudiated. He thought critics of Israel were basically honest in their beliefs and in good faith. He thought you could connect with them.
Now that is naive. I bet he won’t make that mistake again.
And like Latma and their Israeli soldiers
I don’t care at all what you think about me.


Richard 03.23.13 at 8:29 am
That feeling is mutual. We have that much in common. If folk want to understand your reference to Latma they’ll have to visit your blog and find it. I don’t want the direct link here.
9
geoffff 03.23.13 at 8:24 pm

An impassioned warning from Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks at AIPAC March 2013.
A few days ago I put here without any comment at all a link to a post on my blog that apart from the dozen words above were entirely the words of Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks from a speech he made in the US last week. I did that because I thought the speech provided the perfect bridge between the raw spiritual emotion of Kolitz’s short story written in 1946 and the spiritual concepts that underpin modern Zionism even for secular Jews. I did it because I thought it might help people of religion to understand. I did it because I thought you might listen to a fellow Briton even as you ignore me and I was perfectly happy to leave it at that.
This thread is now a record of what happened which naturally I have reproduced elsewhere. I wasn’t trying to trick you Richard or score points. This thing is far too serious for games like that.
I was however trying to spread a message.
Here’s something else that is true. If I was European and most especially British, let alone a Christian, the last thing I would do is get all precious about the Jews being forced into a military and to adopt as one facet of the national character , like Britain, the ethos of the soldier.
cross posted Israel Thrives