HaYom Week Three Day Five - Hod of Tiferet - Humility in Compassion

B'H

It is the practice for us,Orthodox Jews, to count sefira at this time of the year between Pesach to Shavuot. Many communities also study Pirkai Avot - Ethics of the Fathers. It is a time of intense and deepening reflection as well sadness.
A couple of thousand years ago there was a plague among Rabbi Akiva's students and it was not until the 33rd day of the Omer that it stopped or that the students stopped dying. At this moment in time, Israel has been beset by a plague. It is time to put a stop to it.
I have reprinted a letter by Ted Belman below.

An OPEN LETTER TO AMERICAN JEWS




By Ted Belman

I tried to alert you two years ago to Obama’s Muslim Connection and to Obama’s Marxist Connection and together with other bloggers made some headway. In fact Jewish support for Obama dropped as low as 56%. As a result, Obama called on some key Jewish supporters to vouch for him. Alan Dershowitz, Robert Wexler (D-Fl), Martin Peretz and Ed Koch, among others, stepped up to the plate.

Not to be outdone, Rabbis for Obama was formed and it managed to get 400 Rabbis, mostly Reform, to sign a letter in support of Obama and decrying the “lies and smears”.



Jewish support for Obama rebounded. Alarmed, I warned, that Jews can’t vote for Obama and be pro-Israel at the same time. In great detail, I explained why. To no avail. 78% of you voted for Obama. Either you felt there was no conflict between the two or your support for party and abortion rights trumped your support for Israel. After all, how bad could it be?

Now we know. Real bad.

That is unless you ascribe to the views of J-Street and Israel Policy Forum who fully support Obama’s attack on Israel as being “pro-Israel” or unless you support Obama’s outreach to Muslims which distorts history and reality and seeks to replace Israel with Muslim countries in a special relationship with the US or unless you are fully in support of replacing “Global War on Terror” with “Overseas Contingency Operation”, removing “Islamic extremism” from National Security Strategy Document and treating terrorists as criminals, rather than enemy combatants.

A year ago I charged that Obama was upgrading the US relationship with the Muslim world thereby necessitating downgrading her relationship with Israel and set out a strong bill of indictment.

In order to understand what took place thereafter in terms of Obama’s moves against Israel you must understand the conflict from Israel’s perspective.

Pursuant to the San Remo Resolution of 1920 and the Palestine Mandate, both of which have legal efficacy today, Jews were given the right to settle in Judea and Samaria and to reconstitute their national home there. For one hundred years preceding the founding of Israel in 1948, Jews constituted a majority in Jerusalem and Jerusalem was a united city. In the 10 years preceding the declaration, the Arabs massacred many Jews in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria and elsewhere and drove them out of Jerusalem and elsewhere.

Ed Koch recently wrote ,

“Ultimately (after Israel was attacked by six Arab countries on the heels of its declaration), a cease fire was arranged by the U.N. and for the next 19 years until 1967, Jordan occupied East Jerusalem, including the old city, which historically had been the capital of King David’s ancient kingdom. During the 19 years that Jordan occupied East Jerusalem, it expelled all of the Jews living in what was historically the Jewish Quarter, and literally destroyed every synagogue and the homes of the Jews. When Israel reunited all of Jerusalem (in 1967), Jews were, of course, allowed to live in any part of the city, and today, more than a quarter of a million Jews live in East Jerusalem. Numerous Arabs live there as well.”

Obama says otherwise. For him, history starts with the Jordanian illegal occupation and annexation . He supports the continuation of that occupation by Jordan’s successors the Arab Palestinians. Why should this be so? Why should the Arabs’ temporary possession of part of the city determine ownership. Why should their policy of making the land judenrein (empty of Jews) be allowed to stand. Worse still, why should the Obama endorse such a policy?

According to Daniel Pipes, Jerusalem or Zion is mentioned over 823 times in the Jewish Bible and in the Koran, not once..

“It is not the place to which they (Muslims) pray, is not once mentioned by name in prayers, and it is connected to no mundane events in Muhammad’s life. The city never served as capital of a sovereign Muslim state, and it never became a cultural or scholarly center. Little of political import by Muslims was initiated there.”

Even when Jordan annexed Jerusalem and occupied it for 19 years she didn’t make Jerusalem the capital of Jordan. Jerusalem has been the undivided capital of Israel for 43 years following its reunification and annexation in 1967.

Yet Obama wants to turn the clock back and force Israel to share Jerusalem. On what basis in law or history or equity can this be supported? It can’t.

In June of last year, under great pressure from Obama, PM Netanyahu made an historic speech at Bar Ilan University in which he accepted the concept of a two state solution for the first time but insisted that Palestine be demilitarized and that the Palestinians publically recognized Israel as the national homeland of the Jewish People. This they refused to do. What was preventing peace was not the occupation, not the settlements but the Arab rejection of the existence of Israel.

Obama ignored these basic conditions and instead, made settlement construction and the settlements themselves, the issue and accused Israel of being the intransigent one. He didn’t limit himself to referencing settlements only in Judea and Samaria but included all building in Jerusalem east of the armistice lines established in 1949.

By doing so he was flying in the face of an April 1990 Congressional resolution, with the Senate concurring, in which they expresses a strong belief that Jerusalem should remain an undivided city and capital of Israel.

Obama, under Jewish pressure sought gestures from the Arabs but when he didn’t succeed, gave up trying. He pressured Netanyahu with all manner of dire threats to Israel’s existence in order to get Netanyahu to announce a settlement freeze. Netanyahu agreed to a temporary freeze not to include Jerusalem, and Sec’y Clinton hailed it as “unprecedented”. Still the Arabs refused to negotiate. Obama in desperation is now threatening to impose a Plan which requires the sharing of Jerusalem and the uprooting of hundreds of thousands of Israelis.

He went so far as to blame Israel’s intransigence for costing American lives. He also treated the Prime Minister of Israel shabbily by all accounts.

Obama’s stance ignores Jewish legal and historical rights and refuses any justice to the Jews. He only mouths his support for Israel’s security. But surely she is entitled to more than just security.

Do not think for a moment that if Israel knuckled under and accepted such a plan that peace would be upon her. The Arabs will not accept Israel’s permanent existence in the Middle East. Little would have been accomplished save for the weakening of Israel. America would still be faced with a loosing war in Afghanistan, a nuclear and militant Iran and an unstable Iraq. And Israel would be faced with Iran trying to destroy her with its proxies Hezbollah and Hamas and with the support of Turkey and Syria.

On April 12th, Huffington Post published an article by Ed Koch in which he wrote

“I weep as I witness outrageous verbal attacks on Israel. What makes these verbal assaults and distortions all the more painful is that they are being orchestrated by President Obama.

“I weep today because my president, Barack Obama, in a few weeks has changed the relationship between the U.S. and Israel from that of closest of allies to one in which there is an absence of trust on both sides.”

“On the other hand, our closest ally — the one with the special relationship with the U.S. — has been demeaned and slandered, held responsible by the administration for our problems in Afghanistan and Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East.

“The plan I suspect is to so weaken the resolve of the Jewish state and its leaders so that it will be much easier to impose on Israel an American plan to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, leaving Israel’s needs for security and defensible borders in the lurch.”

Good for him.

Fortunately on April 13th Obama surprisingly expressed pessimism on the “diplomatic process” and said he cannot force an agreement on the Palestinian Authority and Israel. By Obama’s announcement, he appears to be giving up on imposing a solution for now. That’s great news but what about you, the American Jews?

According to a February poll, “support for Israel vs. the Palestinians has climbed to a stratospheric 85 percent among Republicans, the comparable figure for Democrats is an anemic 48 percent.”. Although a whopping 333 US House Members signed a letter critical of Obama’s treatment of Israel, 91 Democrats — more than a third of the entire Democratic caucus (which included a number of Jewish representatives) declined to sign. Yet this is the party you are affiliated with.

The 2010 Annual Survey of American Jewish Opinion, commissioned by the American Jewish Committee, found the following,

“On a main point of contention between the two governments – the future of Israeli settlements – 8% of American Jews surveyed said “all” and 56% said “some” settlements should be dismantled as part of an agreement with the Palestinians. Thirty-four percent said none should be removed.

“The survey clearly depicted a strong bond with Israel felt by American Jews. Thirty percent of respondents said they feel “very close,” while 44% said they feel “fairly close.”

“Orthodox Jews expressed stronger levels of identification, with 77% saying they were “very close” to Israel. Younger Jews also eclipsed older counterparts in this regard: 40% of Jews under 40 feel “very close” to Israel, compared to 24% of Jews between 40 and 59.”

“When it came to the peace process, the survey found the vast majority of American Jews, 94%, want the Palestinians to recognize Israel as a Jewish state in any agreement; 61% support an undivided Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.”

“Respondents were split regarding a Palestinian state – 48% favor one and 45 oppose this – but 80% said Israel cannot make peace with a Hamas-led government. The survey showed deep suspicion of Arab intentions, with 75% saying the goal of Arabs is the destruction of Israel.”

So I was surprised to read that 47 percent of you approve of Obama’s strategy.

CONTINUE







Ted Belman

Jerusalem

054 441 3252

YouTube - Uncivilized Tactics at UC Irvine (High Quality)

B'H
This needs to be viewed and note the behaviour of a group of students who did not allow the embassador to speak and their refusal to ask intelligent and measured questions.

YouTube - Uncivilized Tactics at UC Irvine (High Quality)

Land Rights For Jewish Israelis In Israel

B'H

On the issue of land rights and rights to land, there is a big problem in Israel today with a building freeze happening in the Shomron region which is traditionally called Judia and Sumeria. This is biblically Jewish land and the rights to the land go back 1,000's of years.
The Shomron region is a thriving Jewish area and there are many Israelis who have made their homes in the region, building up the land after many centuries of neglect. The Shomron region is called by the UN terms like the 'Occupied Territories' or the 'West Bank'. Very interesting terminology in use here.
Yes,  the region is being occupied by its rightful owners once again. And should that be a problem? Well unfortunately it is for the UN which appears to have a strong Arab Nationalist lobby and now freeze has been placed on building in the area. Absurd really and let me tell you why.
Just imagine you have a house that you have squatters living there. You own the house, but were not able to claim it for many years. And when you finally returned, you realised that you could not just turf these people out. It would be inhumane,  even cruel. So you 'repurchase' the house room by room (even though it is your house) and you give these people time to move out into other houses, but also you need a place to live with your families which are growing, so you decide to build onto the house to accommodate them. Anyway the squatters now want to stake a claim to your house by saying that they have lived there ex number of years and it is 'technically their house'. Even though they don't really look after the parts of the house that they are living in and do little to develop it.
Some of the squatters have gotten downright offensive and destructive. They don't want to live side by side with the original owners of the house, even though the original owners have bent over backwards to accommodate them. These squatters now want to claim the whole house and destroy the original owners and therefore they have gone to an outside body to try and to delegitimise the original owners'claim to the house.
This body then puts pressure on the original owners to stop them building, but does not stop the squatters from building.
When any of the original owners try to protest they are not heard or they are put in prison on trumped up charges because some of the squatters have friends in high places.
The whole irony about the building freeze is that the Israeli Government is working against its own people and state. Where is this going to stop? What is a building freeze going to achieve? Something is not right here or rather something is very very wrong.
Here on one hand,  is a vibrant national movement and they are building homes, towns, farms and communities. They create places where family and learning and peace are paramount. On the other hand,  we have a people who throw temper tantrums and persist in destruction, send suicide bombers into peaceful communities to kill innocents, follow a cult of ugly violence and firing of rifles into the air and they are listened to and because of that, the former communities have to stop their building.
Where is the justice in that?? What is happening here in the world???

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Why does this make me sad?

For one thing, the father has limited intelligence and questionable morals, if he thinks that this is the way to initiate his son into the intricacies of male - female relationships. It is poetic justice that it was a police officer that he picked out for his son.
How is this kid going to get a proper handle on the relationship perspective with such a father? What the son is learning is that all a woman is good for is a poke and you pay her for it. Sex becomes a commercial transaction, not an act of love between two adults in a legally binding and mutually respectful relationship.
SAD, sad world, ain't it?

LONDON (Reuters) - A man who tried to hire a prostitute to take his 14-year-old son's virginity as a present was spared jail by a court on Friday.

The Polish national took the boy out in his car and allowed him to pick out the prostitute, who was standing at the side of the road in the red-light district of Nottingham.

But the 42-year-old father was arrested because the teenager had chosen an undercover police officer, Nottingham Crown Court heard.

The man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was handed a 10-month prison sentence, suspended for a year, after he admitted a charge of trying to solicit a woman to have sex with a child, the Press Association reported.

The court heard that the father, who came to Britain eight years ago, was arrested last July during an undercover operation by the city's vice squad.

Prosecutor Adrian Harris said the man and his son had approached the undercover officer whose code name was Sarah and beckoned her over .

He asked "Sarah" how much it would cost for her to have sex with his son and they agreed on a 20 pound fee. However, when the car pulled over, the man was arrested by plainclothes police officers.

"The boy said that they had driven past the girl and his dad pointed to her and said 'will she do?'" Harris said.

"He said 'yes' and they had turned round. He said his dad did this because he was still a virgin and he was taking care of that for him."

Judge Jonathan Teare said he would spare the father jail because of his excellent character and that he believed he did not mean any harm to his son.

"You have a duty of care to your son and that is to look after his moral welfare, not as you might think to break him in to the ways of sex through a prostitute," he said.

The court was told the boy would continue to live with his father.

SAD sad world, isn't it?

I feel really isolated in this blog space

There have been no visitors or comments on my blog which is rather strange and eerie.

Web of Love

Handfuls of rose petals fluttered down to rest on the moist soil at the side of the grave, pink and yellow tokens of affection from the few friends gathered there. Her family were long gone. She had no children. The only other people audience to her last journey were two grave diggers, sleeves rolled up, arms resting on their shovels, waiting for the event to be over so they could recommence their proper employ.

Alan was bent forward over the gaping wound in the earth where the highly polished coffin rested with his dear wife Eva safely ensconced. His lips moved wetly in silent conversation. We watched his gaunt hands shaking as he plucked handfuls of her favourite flower petals and scattered them over the gleaming perfection of the last piece of furniture she would ever own. It seemed a pity that the ornate brass handles would soon be rusting beneath the ground. Alan had spared no expense to ensure her comfort before and after her passing. She was always wont to gracefully acknowledge his efforts. The coffin interior was richly padded with silk and white velvet. Her body eroded by bone cancer had been painfully thin, a skeleton being whose eyes burned intensely fierce with a life now snuffed by her maker. We do not choose the manner of our passing, we endure.

I was her friend for twenty five years. My mother had been her closest friend for the previous twenty years. We grew close after cancer claimed my mother. I was eighteen. My mother’s youngest daughter, I was floundering in grief which pulled us together and bound us in reminisces of times past. My two elder sisters had husbands; one had two children and the other had a flourishing career that took up the time. They tucked her neatly away in a compartment labelled ‘parent passed on, sad, but it happens’ and went on with their lives. I drowned in an inconsolable ocean of grieving, that left me waking in the middle of the night my pillow wet with tears. I paced the floor of my room and the length of my flat in the early hours of the morning for months, nursing a cup of camomile tea sweetened with honey. Sipping to soothe my anxious spirit, I would collapse with dramatic gestures rubbing my forehead, grabbing handfuls of my hair and pulling on it. Tears would trickle down my cheeks and I would give way to an aching sadness that was both self pitying and destructive. I went from a healthy seventy kilos to fifty five kilos in two months. I am 185 centimetres tall.

I cried that my mother would never see me married. Actually nobody did. I am not married to this day. Relationships yes, but they all lacked something that might have made me want to spend the rest of my life with them. They had neither my father’s sturdy reliable nature nor his good looks nor did they have the devotion of Eva’s husband Alan. These were the two men whose desirable character traits I aspired to find in my potential soul mates. I cried that I could never tell her about the wonderful things that my husband would do for me.

I cried that she would never see my children. I cried that she would never play with my babies, bounce them on her knees and coo over them. I cried for the confidences that we would never exchange over tea and scones while the children played outside on toys she would buy especially for them when they came to visit. I still do not have children. Instead of looking for a man to console me and to marry me – I cried alone at the kitchen table, in the shower, sitting in the lounge room staring blankly at the TV. I would go out and cry alone in coffee shops or in cinemas or on park benches. Eva saved me from myself.

She came to my flat one night about 9.30. Rather late considering she was in her fifties and I was a young girl of nearly 19. I nearly did not open the door. It was only her voice calling out.

‘Louise, Louise, it’s me. Eva. Open up please!’ The urgency in her voice persuaded me to open the door. She was as elegant and ethereal as always. Her dark hair swept back and neatly coiffured into French roll. She was precise in her appraisal of my state. Taking a quick look at my emancipated frame and red puffy face she made some rapid decisions for both of us.

‘Get some things together. You are coming to stay with Alan and I.’ Dumfounded I stared at her stupidly.

‘Why?’ I asked her. She looked at me as if I had asked one of the stupidest questions in the history of humankind.

‘I need you. That’s why.’ She replied tartly and brushed past me. ‘You won’t need much. Dressing gown, tooth brush, undies, some cosmetics and a change of clothes. We’ll get the rest of your things tomorrow. Come on now.’ She was impatient to get underway. She later told me she had had a dream about my mother two nights in a row . In the dream my mother who was much younger was handing her a beautiful baby girl. In both dreams she had woken up in a cold sweat after she had received the baby and accidently dropped her. That was why she had come to check up on me.