Clifford's Tower.

 

In 1966, shortly after our marriage, Roni and I went on a trip to Europe. Travelling on a shoestring budget we managed to see almost all the places we had planned to visit. We got around mainly by hitchhiking from place to place, and sometimes travelling by affordable public transport. Where possible we stayed with family and friends, but mostly at ubiquitous youth-hostels.

I recall visiting York on our way to Scotland. In particular I remember stopping by Clifford’s Tower.

In 1190, one of the worst pogroms in mediaeval England was perpetrated at Clifford’s Tower.

The Normans brought the first Jewish communities to England, where some served a special economic role as moneylenders, an essential but otherwise banned activity. English Jews were subject to considerable religious prejudice and primarily worked from towns and cities where there were royal castles that could provide them with protection whenever they were threatened. Royal protection was invariably granted by the ruling monarch who had a vested interest in protecting his Jewish subjects. A standing royal decree established that Jewish property and debts owed to Jews ultimately belonged to the crown, reverting to the king when a Jew died.

When Richard I left England to join the Crusades, his journey evoked anti-Jewish sentiment in York and other towns which led to savage attacks against Jews.

The York Pogrom was, like the other instances of anti-Jewish violence before it, caused by the religious fervour of the Crusades. However, local noblemen saw the pogrom as an opportunity to erase their debts to Jewish moneylenders. The pogrom began when a mob burned the house of Benedict of York, a Jewish moneylender who died during the London pogrom. The rioting mob killed his widow and children. Fearing for their lives, York’s remaining Jews sought refuge in Clifford’s Tower, which at that time was a wooden keep. The villainous mob, local militiamen and noblemen besieged the keep. The siege lasted for several weeks. At that stage, life became untenable for the Jews trapped inside the wooden tower. Their rabbi proposed that they should commit suicide to avoid being killed by the mob waiting for them outside. Most of the congregants accepted the rabbi’s proposal and killed their wives and children before taking their own lives, Simultaneously the keep was set on fire to prevent their bodies being mutilated by the mob outside. Several Jews perished in the flames but the majority took their own lives rather than surrender to their persecutors. However, a few did surrender, promising to convert to Christianity, but they were murdered as soon as they left the burning keep. In all, about 150 Jews died in in the massacre. 

Research conducted recently reveals that around 20 years later ‘there was once more a thriving Jewish community in the town.'

In 1290, Jews were expelled from England entirely. They were not permitted to return to England until 1656.

Until the 1970s, the pogrom of 1190 was often underplayed by official histories of Clifford’s Tower. Local tour guides omitted to mention it at all. When Roni and I were in York we couldn’t find any information whatsoever about the pogrom. Finally, in 1978 the first memorial plaque to the victims was laid at the base of Clifford's Tower.

At that time, Jews living in Christian and Muslim lands were despised discriminated against and often exiled. Cowering, insecure, knowing that tragedy could befall them at any time.                                                              A situation described by Lord Byron centuries later in his poem “Oh, weep for those.” The fourth stanza aptly sums up their unenviable destiny.

“Tribes of the wandering foot and weary breast! How shall ye flee away and be at rest! The wild-dove hath her nest–the fox his cave– Mankind their Country–Israel but the grave.”

Two hundred years after Byron’s death the wandering Jew is a nation to be reckoned with. The IDF is an innovative and feared/respected military force.  

In 1978 the legendry Bob Dylan wrote a song called ‘The Neighbourhood Bully.’

Novelist Ruchama King Feuerman  reviewing the song said, “No, it’s nowhere near his best song. Wikipedia omitted to mention it in a list of Dylan’s songs. Nevertheless, I’m including it because I like our new image.

 Well, the neighbourhood bully, he’s just one man.                                         His enemies say he’s on their land

They got him outnumbered about a million to one.
He got no place to escape to, no place to run.
He’s the neighbourhood bully.

The neighbourhood bully he just lives to survive.
He’s criticised and condemned for being alive.
He’s not supposed to fight back, he’s supposed to have thick skin.
He’s supposed to lay down and die when his door is kicked in.
He’s the neighbourhood bully.

The neighbourhood bully been driven out of every land.
He’s wandered the earth an exiled man.
Seen his family scattered, his people hounded and torn.
He’s always on trial for just being born.
He’s the neighbourhood bully.

Well, he knocked out a lynch mob, he was criticised.
Old women condemned him, said he should apologise
Then he destroyed a bomb factory, nobody was glad
The bombs were meant for him. He was supposed to feel bad,
He’s the neighbourhood bully.

 

Joseph Rachman, a freelance journalist who covers events happening in Southeast Asia wrote – “Gaza is a burning topic for Southeast Asia’s domestic politics. A distant war has powerful resonance in a region often divided by faith.

In Indonesia, a presidential candidate and the foreign minister addressed   hundreds of thousands of protestors.

In Malaysia, the prime minister, draped in a Palestinian keffiyeh, led his own rally describing   the situation as “insanity” and “the height of barbarism.”

In Singapore, the government has simply banned   displaying either side’s flag.

Flags aside, over the years, Israel has continued to advise Singapore on an array of military topics, ranging from night operations to aviation psychology.

The defence and intelligence establishments of both countries conduct routine exchanges of information, and a small number of IDF officers serve in staff appointments within the Singapore Ministry of Defence (MINDEF).

In 2012, Singapore expressed interest in purchasing several Iron Dome defence system units. The purchase contract was concluded four years later.

However, Singapore is an exception in a region dominated by large Muslim populations. Of the 4 million + citizens and residents living in Singapore only 15.6 percent are recorded as Muslims.

When attacked, Israel hits back. After the massacre of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympic games all the perpetrators were hunted down and ‘eliminated.’ It’s an endless reckoning with our enemies.  

Deutsche Welle (DW) reporting about Saleh Arouri, a Hamas deputy leader who was assassinated in Beirut earlier this week, said- “Arouri was there "right from the beginning,"…” He became a radical in the 1980s, while studying in Hebron in the West Bank. He went on to co-found Hamas' military wing, the Qassam Brigades in 1988 and formed a strong bond with Yahya Sinwar, who leads Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

Arouri was arrested by Israel multiple times and then released in 2010, then moved to Syria. After leaving Syria in 2012, he went to Turkey, then to Qatar in 2015, and then to Lebanon in 2017.

Saleh Arouri served as the "quasi-Hamas ambassador to Hezbollah and one of the key Hamas liaison officials in Lebanon entrusted with the Iran portfolio".

Deutsche Welle commented, “Although Arouri's death weakens Hamas to a certain extent, it doesn’t significantly affect the ongoing war in Gaza."

The German news outlet opined that Israel most likely killed Arouri.    According to CNN Israel hasn’t confirmed or denied involvement in the assassination, but Hamas and Hezbollah, blamed Israel and have vowed to avenge Arouri's death.

Just before we began ringing in the New Year The Economist published a summing up of the war in Gaza. – “As 2023 draws to a close, Israel’s forces in the Gaza Strip are deployed across the territory to their farthest extent.         An IDF armoured division is operating in the quarter of Gaza city where Israeli intelligence believes the last intact battalion of Hamas’s armed force is holding out. Farther south, seven brigade combat teams have converged on Khan Younis, Gaza’s second city, where Hamas’s leadership and most of nearly 130 Israeli hostages are assumed to be. Other brigades are attacking Hamas strongholds in towns across central and southern Gaza. Israeli commanders acknowledge ‘off the record,’ that these may be the last wide-scale offensives of the war.

In recent weeks the IDF has been taking journalists (including our correspondent) into tunnels dug by Hamas beneath Gaza. The main purpose of these organised trips is to reinforce the message that the Islamist movement that has ruled Gaza for over 16 years has built its military infrastructure under Gaza’s civilian population, including hospitals and schools. The IDF has sought to show that Hamas has wasted precious resources on a subterranean kingdom while the civilian population languishes in poverty.

Not to be outdone, Hamas claimed responsibility for the rocket barrage fired at Israel that occurred just after midnight, as people were ringing in the New Year.

 A piece in the Jerusalem Post describing the incident said, “Hamas rocket fire had lessened last week, making this particular salvo symbolic and significant. The group has already lost northern Gaza, as well as parts of central Gaza and the Khan Yunis command centre.

Despite this, Hamas showed it can still assemble a barrage of rockets. Pro-Iran Al-Mayadeen media claimed that Hamas fired dozens of M-90 rockets, targeting Tel Aviv and central Israel. The attack was launched as the war approaches its 90th day, or third month, and was designed to show Hamas is not yet defeated, and that it will continue this war, regardless of Israel’s offensive.”

At first my daughter Irit (who lives in Jaffa) and her neighbours mistakenly thought that the rockets (intercepted by ‘Iron Dome’ batteries) were part of a municipal fireworks display. Anyway, from the relative safety of the stairwell near her apartment they enjoyed the show.

Take care.

 Beni,

4^th of January, 2024.