IDF FUNERALS IN PHOTOS

The son of IDF Major Amotz Greenberg (res.), 45, seen on the grave of her father during his funeral at the military cemetery in Hod HaSharon on Sunday, July 20, 2014. Greenberg was killed after Gazan militants who had breached into Israeli territory opened fire on a army vehicle in the Israeli Gaza border. (Credit: Flash90)

 

 

Friends and relatives of Major Amotz Greenberg (res.), 45 mourn during his funeral at the military cemetery in Hod HaSharon on Sunday, July 20, 2014. Greenberg was killed after Gazan militants who had breached into Israeli territory opened fire on a army vehicle in the Israeli Gaza border. (Credit: Flash90)

 



 family member seen crying over the fresh grave of the late Sergeant Benaya Rubel, at the Holon Military Cemetery on July 20, 2014. The 20 year old paratrooper was killed yesterday during clashes with Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip, on the second day of the IDF ground invasion and the 12th day of Operation Protective Edge. (Credit: Flash90)

 

 



Fellow IDF soldiers seen mourning during the funeral ceremony of the late Sergeant Benaya Rubel, at the Holon Military Cemetery on July 20, 2014. The 20 year old paratrooper was killed yesterday during clashes with Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip, on the second day of the IDF ground invasion and the 12th day of Operation Protective Edge. (Credit: Flash90)

 



Uri Greenberg (C), the son of killed Israeli soldier Amotz Greenberg, is embraced by his grandfather during the military funeral ceremony in the cemetery of Hod Hasharon, Israel, 20 July 2014. Israel announced it has lost 13 soldiers, including officers, in the past 48 hours of the incursion into the Gaza Strip to locate and clear Hamas tunnels. (Credit: EPA)

 



Uri Greenberg (C), the son of killed Israeli soldier Amotz Greenberg, is embraced by his grandfather during the military funeral ceremony in the cemetery of Hod Hasharon, Israel, 20 July 2014. Israel announced it has lost 13 soldiers, including officers, in the past 48 hours of the incursion into the Gaza Strip to locate and clear Hamas tunnels. (Credit: EPA)

 



The family of Major Amotz Greenberg (res.), 45 mourn during his funeral at the military cemetery in Hod HaSharon on Sunday, July 20, 2014. Greenberg was killed after Gazan militants who had breached into Israeli territory opened fire on a army vehicle in the Israeli Gaza border. (Credit: Flash90)

IDF Confirms: 13 Golani Soldiers Killed R”L in Gaza Fighting Since Last Night -

Military announces that 13 Israeli soldiers from Golani Brigade were killed since Saturday night in fighting with Hamas terrorists in Gaza; IDF completing identification process of fallen troops

The IDF announced on Sunday evening that 13 Israeli soldiers from the Golani Brigade were killed since Saturday night in fighting with Hamas terrorists in the Gaza Strip, bringing the total number of military fatalities so far in the campaign against Hamas in Gaza to 18.

The fallen soldiers took part in exchanges of fire against terrorists in Gaza. Seven soldiers were killed when Gaza terrorists attacked their APC on Saturday.

The military was still completing the process of identifying the fallen soldiers. The families had been notified of the soldiers' deaths.

Additionally, Col. Rasan Alian, commander of the Golani Brigade, was moderately injured in an exchange of fire in Gaza. He has been hospitalized at the Soroka Medical Center in Beersheva Dozens of wounded IDF soldiers were brought from the fighting in Gaza to a number of hospitals across Israel on Sunday morning.

In total, 53 wounded Israeli soldiers have been hospitalized from the fighting in Gaza.
Fifteen soldiers were brought to the Rabin Medical Center-Beilinson Campus in Petah Tikva. Four were in serious condition and eleven were in light to moderate condition.
Two lightly injured soldiers were brought to Hadassah University Medical Center in Jerusalem's Ein Kerem.
Three soldiers were brought in moderate condition to Soroka Medical Center in Beersheba. Two others were brought to Soroka with light wounds.

Since the ground operation in Gaza began, eleven wounded soldiers have been evacuated to Soroka.
Four wounded soldiers were brought to Sheba Medical Center, Tel Hashomer. Two of the evacuees were in serious condition, one was in serious to moderate condition and another was in moderate condition.
Since the beginning of the ground operation twelve soldiers were evacuated to Sheba.

Large numbers of Ground Forces entered the Gaza Strip overnight between Saturday and Sunday as Israel expanded its operation against Hamas. The increased presence in Gaza is aimed at destroying Hamas infrastructure, the IDF said.

It came after the government decided to move into the next stage of the operation, and after the units sent into Gaza completed intensive training and preparations.
Earlier on Saturday, two soldiers were killed in the Gaza Strip, the IDF announced.
Staff Sergeant Bania Roval, a 20-year-old soldier from Holon, serving in the Paratroopers 101st Battalion, was shot dead by a terrorist in Gaza who emerged from a tunnel shaft and opened fire at soldiers. The terrorist was shot dead in return fire.
"Controlling tunnel shafts doesn't give us full control of the entire tunnel," a senior military source said.

The second soldier, 2nd-Lt. Bar Rahav, 21, from Ramat Yishai, from the Engineering Corps, was killed in an attack in Gaza.
Also on Saturday, two soldiers were killed by a rocket-propelled grenade while thwarting the attempt to murder Israeli civilians. Their names were Sgt. Adar Barsano, 20, of Nahariya, and Maj. Amotz Greenberg, 45, of Hod Hasharon, the army said.
On Friday, in the IDF's first casualty, twenty-year-old Sergeant Eitan Barak from Herzliya was killed in Gaza under still unclear circumstances.

Military sources said Hamas gunmen have increased their attacks on soldiers who are searching and finding tunnel entrances in Palestinian homes near the border with Israel. Simultaneously, Hamas has ordered its members to use remaining tunnels for immediate cross-border attacks against Israeli civilians and military targets. Thirteen cross-border tunnels have been destroyed since Thursday night. The air force had struck some 500 targets since the start of the ground operation.

The IDF feels it has gained "significant control" of cross-border attack tunnels, and that this development is "upsetting Hamas," the source added. Hamas is doing its best to hamper the army's efforts, and attempts to send a donkey with explosives and a suicide bomber on a motorcycle on Friday are part of those attempts. Hamas is also trying to kidnap soldiers.

Additionally, two terrorists attempted to attack a D-9 armored bulldozer used in uncovering tunnels by the Engineering Corps. In the attack, two terrorists emerged from a tunnel entrance. One, a suicide bomber, detonated his explosives, and the second fired an anti-tank missile. Both were killed in the incident.

Satmar Yiddish newspaper Dee Zeitung says the biggest threat facing Judaism is ....... כוחי ועוצם ידי

The Satmar Rebbes are terrified that the Jewish World is looking at the IDF with admiration and respect, and are worried that their irrelevant "Shita" is now being looked upon by their own Chassidim with ridicule.

This week's edition of the Dee Zeitung, a Satmar Yiddish newspaper, writes that Rabbonim are "worried about the Hashkafa part of the situation now in Israel"

They are not worried that many people, may G-D Forbid, be killed by the thousands of rockets from  Hamas, Nooooooooooooooo, they are worried that after the war, thinking Jews will attribute the success of the campaign on the greatness of the Jewish Army proclaiming         כוחי ועוצם ידי    ,  and forget that there is a G-D up there doing all the work.

I would like to ask my fellow Satmars, don't all the biographies of the Satmar Rebbe , proclaim the same   כוחי ועוצם ידי
 Don't they attribute hundreds and thousands of miracles to the Rebbi?

Don't they say that this lady, and that lady, couldn't have children, and the Rebbi promised them children? Isn't that כוחי ועוצם ידי

Don't they say that the Rebbi gave them parnassah? Isn't that כוחי ועוצם ידי
What about their attribution to the founding of the town of Monroe to the Rebbe, isn't that כוחי ועוצם ידי?

Why is it ok for the Rebbi to have כוחי ועוצם ידי
and not the Zionists?

State of Israel a "Medina of Hell" writes Satmar News Der Blatt

We are now in midst of the "Three Weeks" and I was debating whether to post this.

People who know that I write this blog asked that I refrain from writing negative stories during these weeks. So I skipped reading the editorial in this week's Yiddish Satmar Newspaper Der Blatt, run by the Aronie faction of the Satmars, and decided to read an article in  an insert in Der Blatt, which featured a story  about the  historical city of Gaza.

I was totally blown away! Here, I thought I would read a parve story about the Jewish settlements in the ancient city of Gaza, and what I got, was the most disgusting Satmar anti-Zionist propaganda embedded in the article.
You would think that they would give the readers a bit of fresh air, but nooooooooooo, they insert Zionism even in an historical piece about the old Jewish settlement in Gaza.

I will loosely translate the introduction to this article.

"During these days, when the entire Jewish World is busy with the war that the evil Zionists, may they be obliterated, again forced upon the Jews, a war that happens again and again every couple of years, and even though there is a ceasefire, on and off , every Jew residing in Eretz Yisroel knows that this will not endure too long, since the Zionists will again start to tease and antagonize the Arab murderers and the war will continue.

Today, the city is an exclusive Arab city, a city that has absolutely no Jews. It is interesting to note, that just 80 years ago, there was a beautiful Jewish Community and that the reason there are no Jews there now, is because of the terrible "Hisgarous B'Umois" what the evil Zionists did 80 years ago way before the existence and founding of this Medina of Hell in Eretz Yisroel."

So they are blaming the Zionists for "teasing the Arabs" and blaming  the Judenrein Gaza on the Zionists , even though they themselves admit that there was no State of Israel then.

So, I ask you guys, should I let something so evil go, and ignore it, or did I do the right thing to let my readers know that we have the devil incarnate living amongst us, and  tell you why Moshiach isn't coming!

During this tragic time, when the Jewish people are under attack throughout the entire world; to have these ingrates take an innocent historical story and twist it into evil propaganda is beyond the pale of decency!

A Gutta Voch, Mama

Last Video of passengers on Flight MH-17 prior to take off in Amsterdam

IDF starts Gaza ground invasion

Netanyahu's office says purpose of mission is to destroy terror tunnels and seriously harm the infrastructure of Hamas and other terrorist organizations in Gaza.

IDF ground forces began to move into the Gaza Strip on Thursday evening, the prime minister's office confirmed.

The purpose of the operation was  to destroy the Gazan terror tunnels leading to Israel, according to a statement released by the prime minister's office.  

"Israel is committed to act to protect its citizens. The operation will continue until its goals are reached: To bring quiet to the citizens of Israel for a long period of time, and to seriously harm Hamas and other terrorist organizations' infrastructure in the Gaza Strip," the statement read.

Prior to the commencement of the ground invasion, the IDF launched a massive wave of combined air and artillery strikes on Thursday night.

The ground invasion comes hours after a Hamas assault squad of thirteen highly armed terrorists attempted to carry out a massacre of civilians at Kibbutz Sufa, near the border, before being blocked by the IDF.

Infantry, Armored Corps, Engineering Corps, artillery, and intelligence units are taking over various areas in Gaza, and are all working with one another and the air force. They are operating in central, and southern Gaza, where Hamas has dug an extensive terrorist tunnel network.

The IDF's Southern Command is overseeing the ground offensive.
The units involved have undergone intensive training recently ahead of their missions, Brig.-Gen. Moti Almoz, IDF spokesman, said on Thursday night.
"The operation has reached its ground phase," Almoz said. "Large numbers of forces began a focused effort to destroy tunnels in Gaza.

We are in a new stage," he stated. At the same time, the air force is contintuing with air strikes against Hamas and Islamic Jihad around Gaza.

The Ground Forces are currently engaging terrorist infrastructure, and the operation "will be expanded as needed," Almoz said. "They're moving now in various areas of Gaza. We will continue to attack in every location we think needs to be struck," he warned.

The IDF is currently calling up more reserves, Almoz added.

Palestinian sources said strikes occurred up and down the Strip, adding that one strike targeted a motorcycle apparently carrying members of a rocket launching cell on their way to an attack on Israel.

At around 10:00 p.m. rocket sirens sounded in the Tel Aviv area, and in the Shfela. Iron Dome made a number of interceptions in the Tel Aviv area.

Hamas bombarded Israel on Thursday with rockets after the end of the humanitarian truce, firing over 100 projectiles after 3 p.m. Eighty one rockets landed in open areas, two fell inside villages, damaging two homes, and 20 were intercepted by the Iron Dome air defense system.

Also on Thursday, a drone from Gaza was detected in Israeli airspace, over the Ashkelon area. The IAF fired a patriot surface-to-air missile at the aircraft, shooting it down. It was the second Hamas drone to be shot down in recent days.

The IDF on Thursday warned citizens of Gaza to evacuate their homes and make their way from less populated areas to the Strip's major cities.

Close to 100,000 leaflets containing the message were dropped over the territory and hundreds of thousands of citizens from all over Gaza received recorded phone messages warning them to vacate villages.

Air raid sirens sounded throughout southern and central areas during the day. Ashkelon and Ashdod were targeted by Hamas repeatedly in the evening, and were successfully defended by Iron Dome.

Iron Dome intercepted two rockets over central Israel and the Sharon district in the evening, and one over the city of Ashdod. Several rockets landed in open areas.

The Gaza-border region of Eshkol came under continuous rocket barrages. Some ten rockets in open areas, and one damaged a home.
Between 3 p.m. and 5:30 p.m., Hamas fired 40 rockets at Israel, and Iron Dome shot three down Two rockets were fired at Beersheba, with one falling in an open area and a second intercepted over the Negev city.

Within a minute of the ceasefire ending, rockets were fired from Gaza at the Ashkelon industrial area and Hof Ashkelon region. Most fell in open areas.

The humanitarian ceasefire was violated when Hamas fired 3 projectiles at the Eshkol region. The rockets exploded in open areas.

On Thursday morning, one rocket was intercepted over the greater Tel Aviv and Sharon district, and one rocket fell in an open area. In Beersheba, Iron Dome intercepted an incoming Gazan rocket.

Satmar Rebbe's Huge Mistake in WW2, Part 2

This is the second of a two-part investigation into the life of the Satmar Rebbe.

Here Read Part 1

 

***

During his stay in the Cluj ghetto, Rabbi Yoel Teitelbaum hid rather than position himself as a leader. On the rescue train, he avoided the other passengers, failed to encourage or to comfort them, and did not share the precious commodities provided by his followers with them. In Bergen-Belsen, too, despite the preferential treatment accorded him in the camp, he refrained from assuming a leadership role, even among the observant inmates.

After his release, Rabbi Yoel elected to run a rescue campaign from the safety of Switzerland. His efforts to rescue Jewish children raised by gentiles were restricted to fundraising, and even in that task he failed abysmally.

Once again, his conduct stands in stark contrast to that of other rabbis, who returned to their hometowns to lead their surviving flocks or worked relentlessly in the DP camps. All the sources describing the rescue activities of the Haredi community during the Holocaust, including archival sources, indicate that compared to other rabbis who survived the Holocaust, Rabbi Yoel’s contribution was negligible in both scope and significance.

After the Holocaust, Rabbi Yoel also turned his back on all those who had helped to rescue him. After settling in Palestine in 1946, he refrained from expressing any gratitude to the people and institutions that had been instrumental in his rescue and had endeavored to obtain certificates for him, among them Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Herzog, Agudath Israel leaders Rabbi Yitzhak Meir Levin and Rabbi Moshe Porush, and Ha-Mizrahi’s Rabbi Joseph Yitzhak Rotenberg.

 He scathingly attacked the institutions they headed and, unlike other Hasidic rebbes they helped rescue, refused to make even the slightest symbolic gesture of gratitude. Moreover, it seems he repudiated his benefactors on a personal level, too. As far as we know, Rabbi Yoel never sent any letters of gratitude or appreciation to any of the people or institutions involved in his rescue.

Once settled in the United States, he spurned most of those who sought to assist him there, as well. He criticized Agudath Israel and the Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the United States and Canada, whose leaders had headed the Rescue Committee that endeavored to rescue the Hungarian Jews, including him.

He treated Rabbi Elimelekh (Mike) Tress (1909–1967), leader of Tseirei Agudath Israel (the youth division of the Agudath Israel), and Rabbi Abraham Kalmanovich (1891–1964) somewhat more kindly, but then he ignored them when he no longer needed their assistance.

When asked to testify on Kasztner’s behalf during his trial, Rabbi Yoel, whose inclusion on the Kasztner train was raised during the proceedings, refused. Thus, Rabbi Yoel repaid with ingratitude even the man whose name became most closely associated with his rescue from the extermination camps.

Criticism concerning his flawed conduct hounded Rabbi Yoel during the Holocaust and persisted thereafter. Therefore, Rabbi Yoel found himself compelled to explain, to himself possibly as well as to others, his objection to emigration to the United States and Palestine, his flight from the town of Satmar, and his participation in the Zionist Kasztner transport.

His views on the Holocaust were never consolidated into a single contemplative text but rather were recorded in many of his works. The following are some examples:

• The Holocaust is God’s punishment of the Jewish people for its sins, and primarily for the sin of Zionism. The Zionist concept implied a denial of God’s ability to deliver his people and disrupted the natural place of the people of Israel, destined to remain exiled until the true deliverance.

• Zionism’s ultimate, undeclared goal was the spiritual annihilation of the people of Israel. Therefore, collaboration with those trying to cause the people of Israel to sin, that is, Zionist institutions, is strictly forbidden, even under threat of death.

• Zionists are the descendants of the Erev Rav (mixed multitude) and the Amalekites, so it is no wonder that they have caused the people of Israel such trouble.

• Any collaborators with Zionism, even the religious members of Ha-Mizrahi and Agudath Israel are also guilty of its sins. Therefore, the Zionist and the Haredi rabbis also bear part of the blame for the Holocaust.

• The Zionists bear the blame for the Holocaust not only because of their ideological concept, but also because of their actions, which included:

provoking Hitler and causing him to take revenge upon the people of Israel, obstructing emigration to other countries so as to force Jews to settle in Palestine, and the closure of their borders to immigrants following the demand to establish a Jewish state. Particular blame falls on the Zionists for deliberately preventing the Haredim from immigrating and thus saving themselves.

• The sin of Zionism was so grave that even its bitter opponents, Rabbi Yoel’s anti-Zionist followers were punished for it.

• The Holocaust was part of the redemption process. The Messiah’s advent, destined to occur during its course, was impeded by the Zionists’ actions and the intervention of Satan.

The author of the single, brief biography of Rabbi Yoel written during his lifetime completely ignored the Holocaust period. Several posthumous biographies, authored mostly by his Hasidim, were required to explain the rabbi’s conduct during the Holocaust. The subject was not dealt with in a coherent or deliberate way, and the various authors found different solutions to a number of issues. Over time, the coping modes changed, and in recent years, apologetic attempts to conceal or ignore difficulties have been replaced by a “counter-offensive,” designed to undermine what the authors perceived as “Zionist claims.”

The following are some of the modes and claims used in addressing Rabbi Yoel’s decisions and actions during the Holocaust:

• Rabbi Yoel merely opposed organized immigration to Palestine, not the immigration of individuals wishing to lead a Haredi lifestyle. Jewish settlement in Palestine prior to the Holocaust would not have prevented the danger, as the German army was already on its way and only by a miracle never reached it.

• The Zionists took advantage of the dire straits in which the Haredi Jews found themselves, forcing them to join their ranks and thus to corrupt their souls.

• Rabbi Yoel had never sought to flee and abandon his congregation, yet his capture by the Germans would have been disastrous for his followers. He encouraged many to flee the ghettos, and the purpose of his escape was to continue his rescue efforts outside of Hungary.

• Rabbi Yoel was among the initiators of the negotiations with the Germans, and his inclusion on the Kasztner train was the result of a demand made by Haredi leaders, rather than a generous offer by the Zionists.

• The Zionists collaborated with the Germans by failing to publicize the danger threatening the Jews in Hungary. Moreover, they impeded the implementation of rescue plans and discriminated against the Haredi population in the allocation of certificates by making the signed acceptance of Zionism a prerequisite for the granting of certificates.

• The Zionists covered up Haredi rescue initiatives and in particular their role in the rescue of Rabbi Yoel. They accused Rabbi Yoel of opposing settlement in Palestine, although they themselves permitted only selective immigration and blamed the Haredi leadership of endeavoring to save the rabbis alone.

Rabbi Yoel founded his congregation in Williamsburg, New York, shortly before the establishment of the State of Israel. His anti-Zionist attacks and delegitimization of Israel by blaming Zionism for the Holocaust served to consolidate the congregation’s unique identity.

Within a few years, it attracted hundreds of Hasidim and became known for its reclusive lifestyle and radical religious views. Unlike other Haredi communities in the United States, Rabbi Yoel supported the Edah Ha-Haredit of Jerusalem, whose institutions were on the verge of bankruptcy after donations from Eastern Europe dried up during the Holocaust. In gratitude, it appointed him its first president and subsequently ga’avad (chief rabbi of its Rabbinical Court).

In 1954 he founded the Central Rabbinical Congress of the United States and Canada (Hit’ahdut Ha-Rabanim), uniting rabbis whose religious views were anti-Zionist. In the provocative demonstrations it held in New York and Washington, the organization vilified the State of Israel for “trampling religion” and accused its government of “Nazi” treatment of the Haredi community. Following the publication of Rabbi Yoel’s anti-Zionist polemic books, he emerged as Zionism’s bitterest ideological opponent.

The demonstrations triggered a public discussion of Rabbi Yoel’s conduct during the Holocaust. One of the criticisms leveled against him, both within the Haredi community and in the Israeli press and academic literature, focused on his rescue aboard the “Zionist” Kasztner train. This main argument was that at a time of crisis, with his own life at stake, Rabbi Yoel availed himself of the Zionists’ help to save himself.

Historical perspective suggests that Rabbi Yoel warrants even harsher criticism, beyond the issue of his escape on the Kasztner train. Toward the end of his stay in the Cluj ghetto, he probably assumed that he had already lost the majority of his Hasidim. He was not familiar to most of the ghetto’s inmates and had no moral obligation to them. Thus, the issue of his obligation to his congregation was no longer relevant, and the question of whether to save himself by any means possible was irrelevant, both morally and by halakhic ruling. In such circumstances, the halakhic principle of piku‘ah nefesh, the obligation to save a life in jeopardy, as well as his human instinct, left him with no other choice.

Yet the true moral issue regarding Rabbi Yoel’s conduct during the Holocaust pertained to his earlier escape attempts. When he first tried to obtain certificates, he was already aware that the lives of Hungarian Jews were in danger. At that point in time, the question of whether it was permissible, both from a halakhic and an ethical perspective, for a spiritual leader of a large congregation to abandon his flock in its hour of need to save his own life could have been considered sensibly and in a level-headed manner. With the passing of time, and as the danger became ever more palpable, it became easier to make excuses for Rabbi Yoel’s flight.

Another moral issue is presented by the fact that Rabbi Yoel, who forbade emigration to Palestine and all the more so through Zionist organizations, did not apply the same strict prohibition to himself even though his economic and public status enabled him to emigrate to other destinations.

Additionally, one cannot help but wonder why Rabbi Yoel did not alert the public about the dangers to which he became privy during the early 1940s. Moreover, he opposed all initiatives to prepare for the imminent danger and failed to set either a practical or moral example to his numerous followers.

Another moral issue concerns the fact that despite his fierce opposition to Agudath Israel, even during the Holocaust, he availed himself of the help of the Agudah’s members and supporters. After the Holocaust, ignoring his moral indebtedness, Rabbi Yoel turned his back on his benefactors of all camps.

The answers to these moral issues cannot be found in the explanations and excuses provided by Rabbi Yoel himself and his Hasidic biographers. Yet during other periods in his life, one can trace clues that may explain his behavior.

On previous occasions, such as World War I and during the Goga regime, Rabbi Yoel had abandoned his congregation and moved to a safer area, where he stayed until the danger passed. This conduct corresponds with other accounts that describe him as a fear-ridden, anxious individual. This fearfulness of his manifested itself during the war years, when he refused to cooperate with other rabbis’ and the Central Bureau’s attempts to set fast or prayer days. He likewise refrained from making any clear pronouncements on halakhic matters when he thought doing so could endanger him. Therefore, it appears that his conduct stems, at least in part, from his fearful nature, rather than from any pertinent or halakhic considerations, introduced post-factum to justify this conduct.

Rabbi Yoel’s personality may also serve to explain his treatment of his congregation, closest associates, and saviors. From an early age, his relations with his family were strained. He was angry with his brother for not allotting him a share in the inheritance left by their father, which consisted of the town’s rabbinate, management of the yeshiva, and leadership of the Hasidic court.

After his brother’s death, he considered his relatives traitors for not appointing him in his place and choosing his 14-year-old nephew instead. His life circumstances further hardened his character: His parents, brother, first wife, and two of his daughters died before the Holocaust. His wives failed to bear sons and his daughters, grandsons. His rigid, uncompromising character was well reflected in the bitter, relentless campaigns he waged against political opponents, against whom he schemed and whom he slandered both openly and surreptitiously.

Rabbi Yoel’s interpretation of the Holocaust and the accounts of that period of his life in posthumous Hasidic biographies have surrounded his character with numerous excuses and explanations, all of which seek to refute criticisms of him.

Upon examination, these arguments, many of which are based on the demonization of both Zionism and Zionists, show that the principal questions remain unanswered:

Why did Rabbi Yoel fail to warn his followers before the Holocaust?

Why did he try to immigrate to Israel after forbidding his followers to do so?

Why did he thwart attempts at cooperation, which could have saved so many lives?

Why did he not set a personal example for his Hasidim?

Why did he abandon his congregation, incarcerated in ghettos, and flee in the middle of the night?

How did he come to abandon his closest friends in the Cluj ghetto?

Why did he board the Kasztner train, which was organized by the abhorred Zionists?

Having survived, why did he never return to rebuild his congregation in Satmar?

Why did he refrain from assisting in the spiritual and religious rehabilitation of the Holocaust survivors in the DP camps?

 Why did he alienate himself from Agudath Israel and the Zionist organizations that had helped to extricate him from the Nazi horrors?

And why did he adopt such radical stances, such as blaming the Holocaust on the Zionists, to justify his actions and decisions during the Holocaust?

Apparently, these questions are fated to remain forever unanswered. Regardless, no postfactum claims and explanations can cover up Rabbi Yoel’s incompetence in leading his community during the early stages of the war, his escape efforts during the Holocaust, and his subsequent failure to assist those who survived it.
***
This article, the second of a two-part series, is adapted from an essay that appears in Dapim 28:2 (2014), available here, and in Menachem Keren-Kratz’s forthcoming biography, The Satmar Rebbe, Rabbi Yoel Teitelbaum.

Menachem Keren-Kratz, a researcher of Hungarian Orthodoxy and of contemporary Haredi society in the State of Israel, is the author of Maramaros-Sziget: Extreme Orthodoxy and Secular Jewish Culture at the Foothills of the Carpathian Mountains.

 

Hillary Clinton tells off Jon Stewart on Israel, Video

The Daily Show
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,The Daily Show on Facebook,Daily Show Video Archive

Ayelet Shaked answers and exposes the self hating leftist Jews

Ayelet Sheked

by Ayelet Sheked in Jerusalem Post
Israel is under attack. Since last week, Hamas terrorists have fired more than 1000 rockets at our civilian centers, launching those rockets from residential enclaves, kindergartens and hospitals, exposing their own children to harm as they try to kill our children.

There's no ambiguity among our allies as to Israel’s right to defend her citizens. In fact, many Arab voices, in Egypt and elsewhere, have condemned Hamas, blaming it for the tragedy it is bringing on the heads of its own people.

Sadly, the militant, leftist propaganda machine has not changed its tune, looking for every opportunity to make Israel the culprit in a war she did not desire and which she entered reluctantly, after days of increasing provocation. I refer specifically to "Daily Beast" writer Gideon Resnick, who so misrepresented the facts in one of my recent Facebook posts, one has to wonder if his hatred for my country hasn't rendered him outright useless to his website and his readers.

In a story headlined "Israeli Politician Declares War on the Palestinian People," Resnick actually suggested I compared Palestinian children to “little snakes,” and accused me of fomenting Palestinian genocide. This vilification was later picked up by several bloggers and reporters, all of whom were convinced of this frightening notion, without even a scrap of fact or truth.

Let's start with my July 1 Facebook post. It was written some 12 years ago, but never published, by a dear man, the recently departed journalist Uri Elitzur. The gist of his article was that once one side in a war attacks the other side's civilians, they can no longer morally claim a special status for their own civilians. 

Go ahead, ask a Hebrew speaking friend to translate it for you, they'll confirm this is what my Facebook post was about. But you'll find not a trace of that in Resnick's account. Perhaps it's his own ignorance of the Hebrew language. After all, he got the text from Electronic Intifada, a website dedicated to daily and hourly vilification of my country.

All Resnick had to do to make Elitzur's sober, legally minded discussion sound like a speech made by Hitler himself, was to cherry pick words out of context. A call for the indiscriminate killing of children is a terrible thing. But what if the statement was that any time you kill our children, you're exposing your own children to the same fate? Still unsettling, but rational when you consider that they purposely use their kids as human shields. It's not a call for indiscriminate murder.

And then Resnick turned to character assassination. He cited an attack on me by Haaretz. They said I was “representative of an ideology unembarrassed by its racism.”

Haaretz, unfortunately, may look like The New York Times, but it is far from being a liberal, curious newspaper in the Anglo Saxon tradition. Expecting Haaretz to write about a political opponent like myself in an honest, informative—if critical—manner, is a little like expecting Gideon Resnick to offer an unbiased, honest citation from a pro-Zionist post.

And so, when Haaretz, read by a mere 30,000 Israelis, give or take, says I'm racist – I'd look for a more reliable source.

Then, in a second article, Resnick also sneaks in the dumb female bit: "the 38-year-old Shaked is also frequently the target of subtle sexism, at best referred to as 'a young and pretty secular woman.'” And the citation is from – you guessed it, Haaretz. In fact, Electronic Intifada and Haaretzare Resnick's only sources, other than his brutalization of the Elitzur piece.

Resnick's distortions aside, the fact is that international pressure on Israel has not yielded peace because Israel is not starting the wars.

1. Hamas and the Palestinian Authority are engaged in terrorism, one overtly, the other in a supportive role. Money is being transferred from the PA to the families of suicide bombers and convicted murderers in Israeli jails. The pay is actually based on the number and severity of the murders committed. The more gruesome the murder, the larger the number of Israeli victims, the higher the monthly reward.

Can anyone deny it?

2. Palestinian education today is based on violence and incitement against Israelis and Jews. Palestinian textbooks and Palestinian media ceaselessly promote Jew hatred. They praise Jew murderers. Their heroes and celebrities are Jew killers. They name streets and traffic circles after killers of Jewish children.

Can anyone deny it?

At the same time, the murder of Jerusalem teenager Mohammed Abu Khdeir was immediately condemned by all of Israel's society.

As a Knesset Member, I can assure you his murderers, once convicted for their terrible crime, will remain in prison for the rest of their lives.

We will certainly not name streets after them.

3. In Israel we protect our citizens from incoming Hamas missiles.

Hamas, on the other hand, positions its missile launchers in the midst of civilian enclaves, using women and children as human shields against Israeli raids.

Just the other day, the world watched a Hamas spokesman admitting they instructed civilians not to leave their Gaza homes during air strikes, in order to protect those arsenals of weapons.

Each Palestinian rocket coming out of Gaza represents two separate war crimes: one for purposely targeting a civilian population in Israel, the other for launching from within their own civilian population.

Not many journalists bother to share this information with their readers. It confuses the narrative, messes with the David and Goliath scenario.

Our residents in southern Israel have endured these missiles for more than 14 years. Many children and teens have known only life in a war zone. This past week, all our urban centers were targeted. How would you expect our government to react? How would you want your own government to deal with a similar onslaught on your neighborhood? What do you want us to do? Lie down and die?

The late Uri Elitzur wrote so eloquently in the article I cited on Facebook:

“The laws of war acknowledge that it is impossible to avoid hitting enemy civilians. Those laws did not condemn the British air force for firebombing and completely destroying the German city of Dresden, or US planes for wrecking the cities of Poland and half of Hungary's Budapest, whose residents had never done anything against America. Those sites had to be destroyed in order to win the war against evil.”

Israel's fight against Hamas terrorism is similar to NATO's war on Al-Qaeda terrorism. Moreover, Israel is the only state who is notifying civilians to leave their homes before an attack by texting them.

Israel has no agenda against Arab civilians in Gaza, just as the US has none against Arabs in any of the countries where it's conducting its now 13-year war to preserve civilization from violent barbarism.

We want a good life, with peace and prosperity for all the eight million plus people living between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. Indeed, if the Arab society enjoys prosperity, so will Jewish society, and vice versa. let me be very clear I condemn any kind of assault against innocent civilians, whether they are Jews or Arabs.

But in order to get there, they must stop firing rockets at us.

The madness of Hamas continued yesterday, after Israel embraced an Egyptian call for a ceasefire. Hamas rejected the offer, and as of now has been shooting at all over Israel with renewed vigor.

Israelis are so used to the scene where we offer our hand in peace and the other side reacts by trying to cut it off, that we're not even surprised. What does surprise us, time and again, are the voices in the West, like Resnick's, which pin the blame for this madness on us. As in that famous quip: "It all started when Israel retaliated."

As an aside, I’ll point out that a week later The Daily Beast finally removed one blatant lie from Resnick’s original article, where he accused me of being the author of statements I never made.

But this correction is too little, too late, the damage has already been done. And so, you must ask yourselves, do you really want to continue getting your news reports about my country from writers who view the truth as little more than a needless inconvenience?
 
The author is a Member of Knesset for the Bayit Yehudi.

Moshe Yisroel Cohen killed by car in front of Monsey Satmar Shul

Moshe Yisroel Cohen of Edwin Lane, Monsey was killed last night after being struck by a car in front of Kahal V’Yoel Moshe D’Satmar.

Mr. Cohen was struck by a marroon Honda CR-V while he was crossing Monsey Boulevard just south of Maple Avenue at approximately 9:20 PM.

 Witnesses said that Cohen was bleeding profusely.

One eyewitness said that after the initial impact, Cohen flew up on the car’s hood and struck the windshield before he was thrown approximately 50 feet.

Monsey Boulevard the site of the accident has streetlights which were operational at the time of the accident.

Onlookers gathered at the Satmar shul as Ramapo police continued investigating the accident scene, which was roped off by yellow police tape. Cohen was   estimated to be in his early to mid seventies.

Ramapo police refused to comment on the ongoing investigation, saying that details would be officially released sometime early this morning.