NEVER AGAIN

Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Day this year began on Wednesday evening. The official ceremony was held in Warsaw Ghetto Square, Yad Vashem, on the Mount of Remembrance, Jerusalem.

Attempts to compare the Holocaust to other genocides have been vigorously opposed by both Jewish and non-Jewish academic institutions worldwide.

Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Centre provided the following definitive description;

“The Holocaust was unprecedented genocide, total and systematic, perpetrated by Nazi Germany and its collaborators, with the aim of annihilating the Jewish people. The primary motivation was the Nazis' anti-Semitic racist ideology. Between 1933 and 1941 Nazi Germany pursued a policy that dispossessed the Jews of their rights and their property, followed by the branding and the internment of the Jewish population. This policy gained broad support in Germany and much of occupied Europe.

In 1941, following the invasion of the Soviet Union, the Nazis and their collaborators launched the systematic mass murder of the Jews. By 1945 nearly six million Jews had been murdered. 

 was no escape. The Nazi There murderers were not content with destroying the communities; they also went after every Jew hunting them down ruthlessly. The crime of being a Jew was so great, that every single one had to be put to death – the men, the women, the children; the dedicated, the disinterested, the apostates; the healthy and creative, the sick and the indolent – all were meant to suffer and die, with no reprieve, no hope, no possible amnesty, nor chance for alleviation.

Most of the Jews of Europe were dead by 1945. A civilization that had flourished for almost 2,000 years was no more. The survivors dazed, emaciated, bereaved beyond measure, gathered the remnants of their vitality and the remaining sparks of their humanity, and rebuilt. They never meted out justice to their tormentors – for what justice could ever be achieved after such a crime? Rather, they turned to rebuilding: new families forever under the shadow of those absent; new life stories, forever warped by the wounds; new communities, forever haunted by the loss.”

For various reasons the United Nations chose to hold its Holocaust commemoration in January. It emphasised that, “Holocaust commemoration and education is a global imperative in the third decade of the 21st century. The writing of history and the act of remembering brings dignity and justice to those whom the perpetrators of the Holocaust intended to obliterate. Safeguarding the historical record, remembering the victims, challenging the distortion of history often expressed in contemporary antisemitism, are critical aspects of claiming justice after atrocity crimes.”

The Washington Post noted that there are 161,400 Holocaust survivors in Israel, a dwindling population that is widely honoured but struggling with poverty.

About a third of Israel's Holocaust survivors live below the poverty line, with many sustained by government stipends and donations, according to a group that represents survivors.

An Associated Press report claims that the coronavirus pandemic and Israel’s overwhelming force during the Gaza war helped fuel a worldwide spike in antisemitism last year.

Israeli researchers claim that the prominence of political extremism and the reach of social media also may have intensified the ancient phenomenon of scapegoating Jews in recent years.

“Antisemitic events notably increased in 2021 in many countries with major Jewish populations, including the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany and Australia.

French authorities, for instance, reported a 36% jump in antisemitic incidents involving physical violence, from 44 to 60. The United Kingdom saw a 78% jump in incidents of assault, from 97 to 173. The number of antisemitic incidents in Canada rose 54%, from 173 to 266.

Extremist and violent ideas have always been out there, but “you really had to make an effort decades ago to be exposed to them,” said Uriya Shavit, head of the Centre for the Study of Contemporary European Jewry at Tel Aviv University, which issued the report. “Today, it’s so easy to access them.”

 Despite the phrase "never again" long linked to Holocaust commemoration, almost half (47%) of the Israeli public are concerned that another Holocaust will strike the Jewish people, according to a new survey. 

The poll was conducted just days ahead of Holocaust Remembrance Day by the Pnima movement and first published in the Israeli newspaper Israel Hayom. 

The survey found that women expressed more anxiety about another Holocaust compared to men (55% versus 42%) and that younger Israelis are especially fearful – 24% of Israelis under the age of 24 said that they were very worried about a second Holocaust, in contrast to just 12% of Israelis over the age of 45.

Notably, religiously observant Israelis are more worried about an ensuing Holocaust. Israelis who define themselves as Haredim responded that they were very concerned about the likelihood, as opposed to just 11% of Israelis who identify themselves as secular.

The ongoing threat from the Iranian regime, which has repeatedly declared its intent to annihilate Israel, no doubt contributes to Israelis' distress over another Holocaust. 

 Motorists stop to observe Holocaust Day

Among Holocaust survivors living in Israel, 63 percent were born in Europe. Among European survivors, 37% are from countries of the former Soviet Union, 12% from Romania, and 5% from Poland. An additional 2.7% are from Bulgaria, 1.4% from Hungary, 1.4% from Germany, and 1% from Czechoslovakia or France.

An additional 18.5% of survivors are from Morocco and Algeria, where they suffered discrimination and harassment under the Nazi-allied Vichy government. A further 11% are from Iraq, survivors of the Farhud pogrom of June 1941. Seven percent are from Libya and Tunisia, countries that during the Holocaust passed racist laws against Jews and imprisoned their communities in labour camps. Some of the Jewish community were also sent to Italy’s Giado concentration camp in Libya.

There’s a tendency to overlook the fact that Jews in North Africa also suffered discrimination internment and death.

In early 1941, Erwin Rommel was appointed by Hitler to establish the Afrika Korps and effectively supplant the militarily incompetent Italians in the Middle East.

Earlier, in September 1940 Italian air force bombers returning from a failed attack on a British target dropped their bombs on Tel Aviv, killing 137 civilians.

Mussolini had entered the war in the Middle East in the hope of creating a new Roman Empire. Italian radio boasted that “the sword of Titus” once more threatened the Jews of Palestine — recalling the Roman conquest of Judaea almost two millennia before. The Arch of Titus in Rome, the broadcast stated, would commemorate a twentieth century victory of the Italians over the Jews. Despite such delusions of grandeur, the British easily defeated Italian attempts to take Egypt and Palestine.

In the Yishuv, (the Jewish settlement in Palestine,) the Chief Rabbinate ruled that daily prayers should be recited for a British victory after Rommel’s initial successes in 1941. More air-raid shelters and hospitals were being constructed. National institutions such as the Jewish Agency, the JNF and the Hebrew University urged their employees and members to volunteer for the Allies’ war effort. A battalion of Australian troops paraded down the main streets of Tel Aviv in the hope of promoting enlistment.

Fortunately, the little-known “Carmel Plan” never eventuated.  Rusty iron rails driven into the ground in the Dania quarter of Haifa are the only reminders left of what was known as the "Carmel Plan."

These rails were supposed to have served as barriers against the tanks of Rommel's Afrika Korps quickly approaching Palestine in 1942. The plan was to turn Mount Carmel into a Masada-like mountain fortress from which the Jews of Palestine would fight to the death if the German forces broke through the last line of British resistance at El-Alamein.

Although the Jewish community in Palestine forgot its differences with the British over the White Paper and joined the allied war effort the British refused to supply their Jewish allies with arms to defend themselves because they feared they might not be returned.

Gershom Gorenberg an American-born Israeli journalist, and blogger, specialising in Middle Eastern politics and the interaction of religion and politics relates to the battle for North Africa during the Second World War in a book published recently- “War of Shadows: Codebreakers, spies, and the secret struggle to drive the Nazis from the Middle East,”.

Gorenberg claims that the reason the Jews living in Palestine under the British Mandate escaped an extension of the Holocaust was because the British drew a line in the sand at El-Alamein.

“What saved the Jews of the land of Israel/Palestine from the Nazis was an army made up of people from Britain, South Africa, New Zealand, Australia, India and a half a dozen other countries. They weren’t defending Palestine, they weren’t defending the Jews, they were defending the British empire.”

Gorenberg’s book also brings to light the oft-overlooked plight of North African Jews during World War II, the hundreds who were killed and thousands more who were sent to concentration camps and labour camps, as well as the legitimate threat of a much wider extermination campaign by Nazi Germany during that period. Only in recent years has the plight of North African Jews during the Holocaust been widely discussed, with recognition by the Yad Vashem Holocaust Remembrance Centre and inclusion in the Israeli Education Ministry’s Holocaust curriculum, though some historians maintain that this area remains insufficiently acknowledged.

 To sum up, never again means we can only rely on ourselves. The IDF is the strongest military force in the Middle East. The various international ‘rights watchers’ are uncomfortable with the idea of a strong Israel. They spend disproportionate efforts and money in maligning us.

I like our clout! When Hamas, Hezbollah or any other terrorist organisation fires a shot the IDF responds disproportionately. The rights watchers invariably condemn our “swatting a fly with a sledge hammer” response, but in the Middle East that’s the only language our enemies understand.  

 

Have a good weekend.

 

 

Beni,                                                                           28^th of April, 2022.

 THE HAGGADAH

I have often mentioned Ein Harod’s Pesach Seder, however lately due to lockdowns during the pandemic our kibbutz Seder was postponed to an indefinite date. Finally. this year the team that organises the Seder decided that while Covid restrictions were being eased we could hold the Seder after all. Not surprisingly the dining room was filled to maximum capacity.

In the past, the Seder was held in the multi-purpose hall I mentioned earlier in a post about our “white elephants.” The hall with a foyer-like extension could accommodate 1,100 people (members their families and various guests). The stage had room enough for choral groups, a musical ensemble and dancers. However, there were logistical disadvantages that caused the organisers to relocate back to the kibbutz dining room

If you are unfamiliar with the kibbutz Seder, I should point out that its format differs from the traditional Seder.

For the purpose of illustrating some of the differences I have added here a link to a few short video clips recorded at our Seder:

https://www.facebook.com/1050101024/videos/pcb.1146918002814709/2820088551628007?__cft__[0]=AZWCFWioUOsjSH_nQlHQwOxDt0NPM0nnQvi1MvCz5SkE-XMDlWp97YQ07D3eC9lEiq0_G0ahbsOghXGiXv4sIV5uWBdt1mm9SPwnHNzYos1lVPhQW2TlDxOPVvAnEYy8pxG3kfYGqo2tP-FgyfWgf5TG&__tn__=*bH-R

I should add that the text of the the traditional Haggadah was never fixed in one final form. Mainly because there was no authoritative rabbinic body that could determine whether changes needed to be made in the text. Instead, each local community developed its own text. A variety of traditional texts took on a standardised form by the end of the mediaeval era in Ashkenazi (Eastern European) and Sephardi (Spanish, North African, and Middle Eastern) communities.

T
he Karaites and the Samaritans developed their own Haggadot which they use to the present day.

I have collated comments from various sources in order to clarify the changes that took place in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, “During the era of the Enlightenment and later on when the European Jewish community evolved forming groups that reacted in different ways to modifications to the Haggadah.

Orthodox Judaism accepted certain fixed texts as authoritative and normative, and prohibited any changes to the text.

Modern Orthodox Judaism and Conservative Judaism allowed for minor additions and deletions to the text, in accord with the same historical-halakhic parameters as occurred in previous generations. Rabbis within the Conservative Judaism, studying the liturgical history of the Haggadah and Siddur, conclude that there is a traditional dynamic of innovation, within a framework conserving the tradition. While innovations became less common in the last few centuries due to the introduction of the printing press and various social factors, Conservative Jews take pride in their community's resumption of the traditional trend toward liturgical creativity within a halakhic framework.

Reform Judaism holds that there are no normative texts, and allowed individuals to create their own Haggadot. Reform Jews take pride in their community's resumption of liturgical creativity outside a halakhic framework, although the significant differences they introduced make their texts unacceptable to Jews who want to experience  a Seder according to Jewish tradition”.

Although the Jewish printing community was quick to adopt the printing press as a means of producing texts, the general adoption rate of printed Haggadot was slow. By the end of the sixteenth century, only twenty-five editions had been printed. This number increased to thirty-seven during the seventeenth century, and 234 during the eighteenth century. 

A page from the Birds Head Haggadah circa 1300

It was not until the nineteenth century, when 1,269 separate editions were produced, that a significant shift toward printed Haggadot as opposed to manuscripts occurred. From 1900 to 1960 alone, over 1,100 Haggadot were printed. It is not uncommon, particularly in America, for Haggadot to be produced by corporate entities, such as coffee maker Maxwell House. The English-Hebrew Passover Haggadah introduced by the Maxwell House company as a marketing promotion in 1932 and printed continuously since that time is the best known and most popular commercial Haggadah among American Jews,

Currently considered a cultural icon it is used at Passover Seders in homes, schools, senior centres, prisons, and the United States Army.  It was the edition used by President Obama and his guests at the White House Passover Seder conducted yearly from 2009 to 2016. In 2011 a new English translation replaced archaic phrases in the original and also incorporated gender-neutral language.

Other commercial enterprises were quick to offer their services from complete catering at home, or the option of  going with your family to a hotel that provides everything, Glatt Kosher. All you do is pay the bill.

Alana Newhouse author of “The Passover Haggadah: An Ancient Story for Modern Times. Promotes her publications both the  paperback and kindle version in the  following convincing words: “Each generation is called to perform a Passover Seder, a ritual designed to help us imagine personally experiencing the exodus from Egypt. But how can we do this together, when today our tables include people of different backgrounds, knowledge, and beliefs? Let this Passover Haggadah be your guide.
Both proudly traditional and blazingly modern, it is a perfect blueprint for remembering the past, living in our present, and imagining the future. Here you’ll find the entirety of the Seder text for those who don’t want to miss a thing—including Hebrew, English, and a newly developed transliteration that makes the Hebrew surprisingly accessible. And, alongside, contemporary questions, illustrations, and meditations on freedom, community, destiny, and other topics that will engage the whole group in a lively and memorable discussion, especially once you’ve started in on those obligatory four cups of wine.”

For the people who prefer brevity “The 30minute-Seder... Passover Redefined” is one of several brief and to the point options available.

“Whether you purchase it as a book or an instant PDF download, 30minute-Seder® puts an end to the jumbled, chaos that occurs when skipping around a traditional Haggadah. No more, “What page are we on?” or “When do we eat already?”

Refreshingly brief and fun, yet reverent.

Rabbinically approved.
Written in modern gender-neutral English.
Hebrew prayers provided with transliteration.
Keeps the entire family engaged.

So, wake up that sleepy Seder and put the 30minute-Seder® Haggadah on your table this Passover.

You are probably wondering how my kibbutz chose to adopt a made-to-measure

Seder with its unique Haggadah.

We trace the origins of our Haggadah to Yehuda Sharrett, brother of Israel’s second prime minister Moshe Sharrett who composed the music and collated the texts of the earliest version of the Yagur Haggadah. In 1922 he joined Kibbutz Ein Harod and was active in many musical projects.

In 1926 he left the kibbutz with his wife and joined kibbutz Yagur.Three years later he went to Germany to study with the noted music educator Fritz Joede. When he returned to Yagur he began composing for the specific needs of the kibbutz, from simple children's songs to his crowning achievement – the Yagur Passover Seder finalised in 1951. Its basic text is the "Spring" and "Exodus" passages from the Song of Songs and the Book of Exodus, together with a considerable part of the traditional Haggadah.

Today many kibbutz Haggadot are based on the Yagur Haggadah.

 

 

Chag Sameach

 

Beni                                                                            21^st of April, 2022

 MENDING WALL

Last week I concluded my post wishing everyone Chag Pesach Sameach.

You probably wondered why I was ‘jumping the gun.’  Well, the truth is I didn’t think I would have time to write this week. Now, it transpires that I can manage to squeeze in another post, so here it is:

 

I have often quoted freely from Robert Frost’s “Mending Wall,” mostly to introduce something topical. The poem was included in his second collection of poetry, published in 1914. Since then, it has become one of the most anthologised and analysed poems in modern literature.

It tells a story drawn from rural New England. The narrator, a New England farmer, contacts his neighbour in the spring to rebuild the stone wall between their two farms. As the men work, the narrator questions the purpose of a wall:

“Before I built a wall I'd ask to know

What I was walling in or walling out,

And to whom I was like to give offense.

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,

That wants it down.” 

He notes twice in the poem that "something there is that doesn’t love a wall", but his neighbour replies twice quoting a well-known adage, "Good fences make good neighbours"

The earliest known us of the adage appears in a letter written by an E. Rogers

in 1640: “A good fence helpeth to keepe peace between neighbours; but let us take heed that we make not a high stone wall, to keepe us from meeting.’

By now you have probably guessed where I am heading.

Israel’s border fences and walls “give offense”. Admittedly our border demarcations with Egypt and Lebanon have evoked few objections among international watchkeepers.

However, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank have definitely given offence.

Four years ago, the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) quoted a 2012 UN report that predicted the Palestinian enclave would be “unliveable” by 2020 if nothing was done to ease the blockade. The NRC referred also to a June 2017 UN report on living conditions in Gaza stating that all the indicators are going in the wrong direction and that deadline is actually approaching even faster than earlier predicted.

Three years ago, Jalal Abukhater, a Palestinian who resides in Jerusalem wrote an opinion piece for Al Jazeera describing Palestine’s other open-air prison,

“Under a debilitating siege for more than a decade, Gaza has been rightfully declared the biggest open-air prison in the world. But there is another, similar, prison in Palestine that is less obvious because it suffers from a different kind of siege, undeclared and indirect: the West Bank. Every Palestinian who resides there and holds official Palestinian identification papers is a prisoner in their own home.

Freedom of movement is non-existent for the vast majority of the population because of a myriad of Israeli policies aimed at restricting it to the bare minimum. The situation is certainly shocking yet seems to be largely ignored by the world, especially by our Israeli neighbours.”

The well-intentioned members of NRC and like groups largely ignore why Israel is “walling in” Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.

If our Palestinian neighbours were more like Norwegians or other Scandinavians there would be no need for security barriers. Yes, Israel walls them in because Palestinian terror groups are bent on killing Israelis.

Just two weeks ago, Diaa Hamarsheh a 26-year-old Palestinian from Ya'bad, near Jenin killed five people in a series of drive-by shootings in Bnei Brak.

He crossed into Israel from the West Bank through one of several gaps in the security barrier. For years now, Israeli security personnel have seemingly turned a blind eye to gaps in the barrier that are used daily by thousands of Palestinian workers to enter Israel illegally.

Palestinians working in Israel, even illegally, earn far more money than they would in the West Bank. Furthermore, they are a critical element in maintaining the often-flailing Palestinian economy.

A few days ago, Tovah Lazaroff reported in the Jerusalem Post about the renewal of work on a 40-kilometre stretch of the West Bank security barrier.

“Work was started on the 525-kilometre barrier in 2002 but was never completed. To date, some 470 kilometres have been built with open sections in Gush Etzion and the Hebron Hills area….”

“The new barrier will be comprised of concrete, protective equipment, and additional technological components. It will be up to 9 metres high and will replace the fence that was built about 20 years ago. ….”

“The bulk of the 525-kilometer barrier, designed to prevent terror attacks, has fallen into disrepair and has gaps along its route.

According to the Knesset Research and Information Centre the barrier is estimated to have cost approximately $2.8 billion.

For most of its route, the barrier consists of a chain-link fence equipped with surveillance cameras and other sensors, buffered by barbed wire and a 60-metre-wide exclusion area. In more urban areas — including around Jerusalem and Bethlehem — the barrier is not a fence but an eight- to nine-metre-high concrete wall.

The security barrier was first suggested in the 1990s by the late prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, who saw it as a way to separate Israel from the Palestinians. But the project never materialised due to internal opposition.

It was only during the Second Intifada, as Israel fought waves of suicide bombings and other attacks emanating from the West Bank, that the idea was revived and kicked into high gear.

Many credit the barrier with helping end that uprising, which lasted from 2000 to 2005, though of its planned 708-kilometre route, only 62% has been completed as of 2022.

Israeli forces on Sunday conducted fresh raids in the district of Jenin, home to the terrorists that recently carried out two deadly attacks in Israel

Several Palestinians suspected of being involved in terrorist activities were arrested during the raids.

At this juncture I want add a margin note about Ya'bad where terrorist Diaa Hamarsheh lived.  

Jenin played an important role in the 1936–39 Arab revolt in Palestine, prompted by the death of Izz ad-Din al-Qassam in a fire-fight with British colonial police at the nearby town of Ya'bad months prior to the start of the revolt. On 25 August 1938, the day after the British Assistant District Commissioner was assassinated in his Jenin office, a large British force with explosives entered the town. After ordering the inhabitants to leave, about one quarter of the town was blown up.

Izz ad-Dīn ibn Abd al-Qāder ibn Mustafa ibn Yūsuf ibn Muhammad al-Qassām was a Syrian Muslim preacher, and a leader in the local struggles against British and French Mandatory rule in the Levant, and a militant opponent of Zionism in the 1920s and 1930s.

Al-Qassam studied at Al-Azhar University in Egypt and afterward became an Islamic revivalist preacher in his hometown of Jableh in Syria during the last years of Ottoman rule. Following his return, he became an active supporter of the Libyan resistance to Italian rule, raising funds and fighters to aid the Libyans and penned an anthem for them. Later he led his own group of rebels to fight against French Mandatory forces in northern Syria in 1919–20.

Following the rebels' defeat, he moved to Palestine, where he became a Muslim waqf (religious endowments) official. An incorrigible ‘trouble-maker’ in the 1930s, he formed bands of local fighters and launched attacks against British and Jewish targets prior to his timely death in 1938. The military wing of Hamas, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades is named after him.

Back to the main text. The author of an op-ed in The Times of Israel opined that once tensions calm, some experts believe Israel will revert to its alleged unspoken policy of leaving the security fence — and the gaps in it — largely unguarded, constituting a key valve for releasing economic pressure in the West Bank.

Maybe they are wrong. This week security forces began closing the gaps in the fence.

There are over a hundred gaps in the fence, mostly small, but some large enough to accommodate makeshift parking lots next to them on the Israeli side, where people ferry Palestinian workers to Israeli cities, often majority-Arab ones.

Surveillance technology has advanced considerably since the security barrier was first conceived. The gaps, even the ones in remote sections of the fence can be surveilled remotely.

I think a Reuters report surmised that some of the illegal workers making the crossing probably wondered if Israeli surveillance technology is sophisticated enough to monitor persons of interest from afar, or whether some of the Palestinian vendors, makeshift car park attendants and taxi drivers who serviced the breaches were informants for the Shin Bet internal security service.

 

Among the actions to be taken, is a complete cessation of pedestrian and vehicular passage into and out of Jenin through the two crossings in the Gilboa area including

the door-to-door transfer of goods to Israeli customers.

However, workers from Jenin will be allowed to commute to jobs in Israel, but they will be subject to rigorous inspections at the border crossings.

I vaguely recall the time when we went to the market (Suk) in nearby Jenin.

Later still, when our home was renovated all the floor and wall tiles were bought in Jenin.

Now I doubt if we will ever go back there.

I’ll conclude as I did last week wishing you a -

 

Chag Pesach Sameach

 

Beni,                                                                 14^th of April, 2022