HOLY FIRE

This week I’ve moved the judicial reform, the protests against it, and even security and defence topics to a back burner.

Instead, I have decided to write something about a seemingly innocuous event.

Admittedly, in this hyperactive country almost every topic is controversial, especially regarding Israel and the Church, in particular the Holy Fire ceremony.

By all accounts the ritual of the "Holy Fire" is an unforgettable experience, even curious lookers-on and sceptics are enthused by the spectacle.

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem is where the ritual of the "Holy Fire" takes place place every year on Great Saturday, the day before Orthodox Easter.

The Greek Orthodox Patriarch enters the packed church at the head of a representative procession of clerics from six Christian denominations.

Then he alone descends to the small chamber, considered by the Catholic and Eastern Churches as the site of Jesus' tomb. There he prays according to a time-tested tradition and emerges later carrying a cluster of candles lit by "Holy Fire" said to be miraculously sent from heaven. The details of the flame's source are a closely guarded secret. Believers say the fire is the source of the Resurrection and also the fire of the Burning Bush of Mount Sinai.

However, the authenticity of the miracle has long been disputed.

It has faced criticism and opposition throughout history, with some accusing it of being a fraud. Various Greek Orthodox clergy members have admitted to igniting the Holy Fire using non-miraculous means, while others claim that the tradition was invented by Catholic crusaders and continued by the Greek Orthodox Church. Despite the controversy, the Holy Fire continues to be an important religious event for many Orthodox Christians.

In 2012 an Associated Press reporter described the scene as follows- “Flanking the chanting crowds were dozens of black-clad security police, khaki-uniformed riot-prevention forces and border security guards keeping order. Photographers teetered over the crowds trying to snap photos. Palestinian women ululated as the fire emerged. Young men banged on drums and a few impatient pilgrims jostled and pushed, but were ‘quietened’ by the Israeli security forces.

Amid them all were clerics in colourful robes designating their particular church, trying to get as close as possible to the ornate chamber in the cavernous Holy Sepulchre where many Christian traditions believe that Jesus was briefly entombed after he was crucified nearby. "

If you are unfamiliar with the ceremony, you might wonder what Israeli security forces were doing in the church. In the past internecine scuffles, riots and on at least two occasions bloody clashes have marred the event.

 In 1834 the British parliamentarian Robert Curzon reported that more than four hundred worshippers died during the ceremony. Most of them were trampled to death in the overcrowded church, but some were killed when the governor Ibrahim Pasha of Egypt, a guest at the ceremony, was extricated by his guards. They were forced to cut an escape route through the panicking crowd.”

The holy fire ritual has been practised for at least 1,200 years, and this year, as in the past, the risk of fire breaking out in the church packed with candle carrying worshippers was a real hazard. In particular the risk is high because the main entrance to the cavernous, spiral-shaped church is also the exit. Six Christian denominations zealously claim different sections of the church. So far, the fear of jeopardising their foothold in the Holy Sepulchre has prevented them from agreeing to build an emergency exit or a fire escape.

In effect, Israel forced to adjudicate ends up in a no-win situation.

This year The Times of Israel and Associated Press reported that despite the fact that the Church’s architect asked the police to reduce the crowd size for safety reasons, Church authorities criticised what it called ‘heavy-handed’ restrictions.

Contradicting allegations by church leaders last week that Israel Police was unnecessarily infringing on Christians’ freedom of worship, a letter reviewed by The Times of Israel indicates that restrictions on the Holy Fire ceremony were imposed at the request of a Greek Orthodox official.

The April 3 letter, sent to the police station outside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre by church architect Teo Metropoulos, stresses that the maximum number of visitors for the ceremony should be 1,800 inside the building and 200 more in the courtyard.

The letter also emphasizes that “the only entrance to the church has an opening of 3 meters without any other dangerous [sic] exit,” and asks police to keep all internal corridors open.

The Greek Orthodox Patriarchate did not respond to repeated requests for comment. The office of the church’s Architect of the Common Technical Office similarly did not respond to attempts to verify the authenticity of the document.

Instead, the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem told reporters – “After many attempts made in good will, we are not able to coordinate with the Israeli authorities as they are enforcing unreasonable restrictions on access to the Holy Sepulchre. The restrictions will limit access to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and to the Holy Light ceremony.

Reuters accorded the event the following brief account- “Thousands of Palestinian Christians and pilgrims from around the world filled Jerusalem's Old City on Saturday to celebrate the Orthodox Holy Light ceremony, under a heavy Israeli police presence that has drawn anger from churches.”

Haaretz described the event as follows: -

“Angry pilgrims and clergy jostled to get through while Israeli police struggled to hold them back, allowing only a trickle of ticketed visitors and local residents inside

Tens of thousands of Christians took part in the Holy Fire ceremony on Saturday, an annual Orthodox Christian ceremony held in Jerusalem's Church of the Holy Sepulchre, amid tension between police and Christian worshipers over Israel's decision to place limits on the number of participants for the third year in a row. Thousands of clergy, police, diplomats and pilgrims huddled inside the church, while thousands more crowded together in the surrounding alleys, where police clashed with people trying to get to the church.  

For the third consecutive year, Israel’s strict limits on event capacity resulted in tense confrontations between worshipers and police, sometimes erupting in violent arrests of worshipers trying to make their way through the barriers.

With only two exits in the entire church, Israeli police initially capped the event this year at 1,800 participants, leading the Greek Orthodox Church to accuse the police of infringing on the freedom of worshippers with "heavy-handed” restrictions. The police then agreed to increase the number of participants to 2,200, in addition to 1,000 worshipers who were allowed to stand in the churchyard and on its roof. Church sources said that the police ultimately allowed a greater number of participants to make their way to the church than initially planned.

As early as 8 A.M., Israeli police were turning back most of the tens of thousands of worshipers who had arrived from the gates of the Old City – including tourists who flew from Europe and Palestinian Christians who travelled from across the West Bank – directing them to an overflow area with a livestream viewing screen.

Angry pilgrims and clergy jostled to get through while police struggled to hold them back, allowing only a trickle of ticketed visitors and local residents inside. Over 2,000 police officers swarmed the stone ramparts.

In some cases, the pushing and shoving escalated into violence” …..

“In a statement, the Israel Police said that in order to keep the public peace and safety, we had to perform crowd control in the area of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and the nearby areas in the Old City." This was done, they said, "in accordance with the size of the crowd and in accordance with the maximum capacity of the church, as determined by an external engineer working on the church's behalf."

Further to that, the police spokesman said "Regrettably, in several instances before the Holy Fire ceremony began, people who did not have permits issued by the church, tried to push police and break through the barriers intended to let in people with permits only.”

The age-old ceremony traditionally hosts as many as 10,000 worshipers, but police began to crack down on the event at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic three years ago, only doubling down on restrictions in the wake of the Mount Meron crowd crush the following year, which saw 45 worshipers die in a stampede.

During the ceremony, Police Commissioner Kobi Shabtai watched over the ceremony on what is called "the Sovereign's balcony," a raised stoop overlooking the church. The balcony has been used for hundreds of years to supervise the event by the sovereign power in Jerusalem.

Private planes were commissioned to fly the holy flame across the world, including Sofia, Warsaw, Yerevan, Istanbul, and despite sanctions on Russia, Moscow. The fire will also be transferred to Kyiv, but in the shadow of Russia's invasion, will likely be transferred overland from Poland.”

 

I’ll conclude with a happy family event. My daughter Daphna and her husband Mark arrived here on a visit recently from Auckland, New Zealand. Our daughter Michal and her life partner Tanya are due to arrive on Sunday from Edmonton, Canada. The rest of us, my wife Roni, our son Moran and his wife Ayelet, our daughters Irit and Anat are also looking after the visitors.

The combined visits have a value-added benefit. Other relatives are “popping in” and will be meeting our family visitors.

 

Have a good weekend.

Beni,                          20^th of April, 2023.

 

 

THE HUNDRED DAYS WAR

The initial period in office of a newly elected government has become the criterion for measuring good governance, or the lack of it.

This gauge of governance began after Franklin Delano Roosevelt entered office amid the tumult of the Great Depression. With banks caving in and jobs vanishing, FDR set to work passing laws and establishing new government bureaus to curb the economic suffering.

He swore in his entire Cabinet at once, signed 76 bills into law, and began rolling out the New Deal in his first 100 days in office – a frenzy of activity that, ever since, all presidents have been matched against.

Political correspondent Tal Schneider used the same yardstick in her analysis of Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition government.

In an op-ed she wrote for the Times of Israel Ms. Schneider chose the title,

“The Hundred Days War: Chronicles of a government in chaos and a nation at the brink,” adding “In democracies around the globe, governments are often granted a 100-day period of grace. But this norm doesn’t generally hold true for deeply divided nations, and certainly not this one.

It has taken barely three months for Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition to upend the country.” Tal Schneider continued by describing in detail how the government’s frenetic bid to overhaul the judiciary spiralled into a nightmarish crisis.

Netanyahu, was was seen as someone who didn’t need a 100-day period of grace; he had been in power for most of the past 15 years. He has new ministers, but any period of grace they may have enjoyed evaporated during the formation of the government as Netanyahu struggled to rein in his volatile coalition partners, while trying to convince everyone that he was  in full control of the situation

Immediately after the government entered office the country plunged into a state of upheaval the likes of which have not been seen for decades.

The self-proclaimed “fully fledged” right-wing government claimed it would stand as a pillar of stability, with a unified voice and shared goals; instead, those voices and goals are fracturing the nation.

A few days after the government was sworn in, National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir visited the Temple Mount, despite repeated warnings not to do so. The unannounced early morning visit was just brief enough for a photo-op. No riots took place, though the visit triggered a wave of angry condemnation from across the Arab world. The United Arab Emirates, for example, cancelled its invitation for Netanyahu to visit Abu Dhabi.

More recently clashes inside the al Aksa Mosque have aggravated an already tense situation. It began when Israeli police entered the mosque following reports that Palestinian youths had barricaded themselves inside in response to rumours that an extremist Jewish group planned to sacrifice a goat during Passover. on the Temple Mount.

The Times of Israel reported that, according to a senior Israeli official, police "went too far" in their treatment of the Palestinians, that it lent weight to claims that al-Aqsa is in danger, encouraged Israel’s enemies and damaged Israel's reputation. The official said that the conduct of officers should be reviewed as they had been ordered to act with restraint. Additionally, he stated that the police were compelled to enter the mosque after receiving intelligence that numerous Palestinians had stored weapons there with the intention to attack security personnel and Israeli civilians. In the past similar flareups were dealt with effectively by the Waqf (the organisation responsible for controlling and managing Islamic edifices on the Temple Mount). However, during the current crisis the Waqf made no attempt to intercede.

Surprisingly, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu decided on Tuesday afternoon to close  the Temple Mount to Jewish visitors until the end of the month of Ramadan, which is due to end next week,

The decision was made despite the situation on the Temple Mount remaining relatively calm in recent days and despite the opposition of National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.

According to a statement issued by the Prime Minister's Bureau, the decision was reached based on the unanimous recommendation of Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi, Shin Bet head Ronen Bar and Israel Police Commissioner Kobi Shabtai.

 A poll published this week by TV Channel 13 indicates that if elections were held today, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud would plummet from its current 32 seats in the Knesset to just 20, falling well behind Benny Gantz’s National Unity party, which would jump to 29 seats from its current 12 and Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid, which would fall from its current 24 seats to 21.

This seems to indicate the degree of public dissatisfaction with the Netanyahu government’s performance over the past three-plus months.

Just the same, I want to conclude on a festive note. I can do no better than mention the Mimouna festival. Originally it was celebrated by Moroccan Jews. However, over time it has spread into more mainstream Israeli culture. Falling each year at the end of Passover, Mimouna in Israel is something of a feast following the Passover period when so many foods are prohibited.

 

Take care.

 

Beni,                          12^th of April, 2023.

 

 

A lamb, unleavened bread, and wine comprise a 15th-century Passover meal in a panel of the “Last Supper Triptych,” circa 1464-1467, by Flemish painter Dieric Bouts in Saint Peter’s Church in Leuven, Belgium

PESACH

 As I write, millions of Jews all over the world are celebrating Pesach/Passover, the oldest festival in the Hebrew calendar. Whenever Pesach is mentioned the topic of “Hametz” arises. The accepted Orthodox definition of hametz is a food product that is made from one of five types of grain, and has been combined with water and left to stand for longer than eighteen minutes. As we know, observant Jews meticulously remove and burn every trace of leavened food products found in their homes. On a household scale this isn’t really a problem, however when it comes to public and national institutions where huge quantities are involved, a waste-not-want-not policy is adopted. The problem of obviating the possession of hametz during the week of Pesach was solved by symbolically selling the nation’s hametz to a non-Jew. For many years now, Jabber Hussein, a Muslim Arab who lives in Abu Gosh voluntarily signs an agreement with Israel’s chief rabbis whereby he buys all the public hametz in the country. He writes a cheque for $27,000, a deposit for the purchase. His money is returned after the holiday.

During April this year Pesach, Ramadan and Easter occur in close proximity.

It’s estimated that 2.2 million Israelis will be heading to destinations overseas, about 18% more travellers than last year. Possibly the convergence of the three festivals this year and the fact that overseas travel was more restricted a year ago explains this Exodus 2023.

At least one place that I know of “beat the gun” in adopting the new “Hametz Law.”

A hospital guard confiscated a packet of wafers from a pregnant woman as she was being admitted to the Laniado Medical Centre in Netanya on Sunday, five days before Pesach. As far as I know, this was the first implementation of the government’s new “Hametz Law” passed by the Knesset last week.

The law bans hametz in hospitals during the week of Passover, during which observant Jews eschew such products, and leaves it to hospital directors to “use their own judgment in how to notify visitors and staff” either by posting their policies on their website or with signs at entrances, but it does not explicitly allow security guards to search patients’ or visitors’ bags to enforce the policy.

This news snippet aroused a certain déjà vu. So, paging down through old posts I came across another Hametz law that didn’t gain much traction.

“For some people Passover/Pesach week is a gastronomic ordeal.

In Israel, unless you are an unabashed sinner and have stocked up on leavened food products to tide you over till the bakers knead again, you will have to grin and bear it. However, the enforcement of the Matzot Law 2008 is very lax and if you are prepared to go the extra mile, you might find a minimart that sells “Hametz.” In our neck of the woods that extra mile stretches to Nazareth, a short drive from Ein Harod. Ironically supermarkets in Nazareth stock matzot all the year round. It appears the Arabs have acquired a taste for the “bread of our affliction.”

Incidentally, our Arab neighbours across the road told me that matzot are still stocked in supermarkets in our region and elsewhere. 

At this juncture it’s pertinent to mention the Passover narrative as told in Deuteronomy and efforts made by archaeologists to align it with “facts on the ground.” Archaeologist Professor Israel Finkelstein’s book "The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts" raised quite a storm when it was published twenty two years ago. Finkelstein and others claim the exodus never occurred. Just the same he sees no contradiction between holding a proper Pesach Seder and telling the story of the exodus from Egypt, and his personal opinion.

In recent years refinements in radio carbon dating along with tree-ring analysis have aided archaeologists in suggesting an alternative to the traditional Exodus narrative.

Leading Israeli radiocarbon expert, Weizmann Institute of Science Prof. Elisabetta Boaretto says the use of allied technologies has resulted in more accurate dating of artefacts and archaeological sites.

“If they are right, the difference of a decade or two could change the answer to the questions of “who built this, who destroyed it, and who was here,” she says.

Last night, together my family and members of my kibbutz and their guests, I celebrated Pesach at our kibbutz Seder

Passover/Pesach was the first festival to be revived in its seasonal context, as it is both the Spring Festival and the Festival of Freedom. The kibbutz Haggadah – the Haggadah compiled at kibbutz Yagur was the prototype. It was based on the theme of the Exodus from Egypt, but included events of a similar nature pertinent to modern Jewish history and kibbutz life, as well as appropriate passages from modern Hebrew literature. The Seder was held in public and became an elaborate function, with music and dancing, for members, children, and guests.

 

Chag Pesach Sameach.

 

Beni,

 

6^th of April, 2023.

liberation from Egyptian slavery, but it continued evolving after the Neo-Babylonians conquered Jerusalem