“I don’t speak because I have the power to speak; I speak because I don’t have the power to remain silent.” Rav Kook z"l
Tuesday, May 7, 2024
Watch as children in St. Louis are made to protest and chant, "Hey hey, ho ho! Zionism has got to go!
St. Louis.
— Caroline Glick (@CarolineGlick) May 6, 2024
American Jews, fight like your lives depend on it, because they do. Or come to Israel. https://t.co/2QZqbfC8B4
Monday, May 6, 2024
Artifacts from the First Temple in the city of David accurately dated for a more precise timeline
In their paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the group describes how they used radio-carbon dating, tree ring analysis and other techniques to accurately date artifacts collected from a dig site in one of the oldest parts of Jerusalem.
The ancient history of Israel, and most particularly the city of Jerusalem, has taken on increased significance over the past several decades as religious and political entities have used it to make claims about current rights to certain parts of the city. One such site is believed to be what has been described in ancient texts as the City of David.
Prior research efforts have involved digging down into dirt that covers much of the site to find artifacts that could be used to prove correlations between modern findings and claims made in ancient scripts.
To date, such efforts have not led to results accurate enough to make such associations. In this new effort, the team sought to date more recently found artifacts with much more accuracy.
Confirmed: Hamas Protestors Funded by Biden’s Own Political Donors
The pro-Hamas, antisemitic protests on university campuses across the nation are funded by President Joe Biden’s own political donors — which could explain why he hesitates to condemn them and won’t investigate them.
Biden equivocated last month when asked to react to the protests, saying that he condemned the antisemitism but also condemned those “who don’t understand what’s going on with the Palestinians,” which puzzled observers.
Research by NGO Monitor and others into the donors behind the protests has turned up familiar names from the Democratic Party bankroll — including George Soros’ Open Society Foundations and other liberal philanthropies.
Biden’s Department of Justice has notably refused to investigate the civil rights abuses being committed by the “encampments” — against Jews, journalists, and others — and has also refused to consider RICO conspiracy charges.
The reason may be that he does not want to subject his own political donors to investigation or embarrasment.
Politico reported Sunday (original links):
Two of the main organizers behind protests at Columbia University and on other campuses are Jewish Voice for Peace and IfNotNow. Both are supported by the Tides Foundation, which is seeded by Democratic megadonor George Soros as well as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and it in turn supports numerous small nonprofits that work for social change. (Gates did not return a request for comment, and Soros declined to comment.)
Another notable Democratic donor whose philanthropy has helped fund the protest movement is David Rockefeller Jr., who sits on the board of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. In 2022, the fund gave $300,000 to the Tides Foundation; according to nonprofit tax forms, Tides has given nearly $500,000 over the past five years to Jewish Voice for Peace, which explicitly describes itself as anti-Zionist.
Several other groups involved in pro-Palestinian protests are backed by a foundation funded by Susan and Nick Pritzker, heir to the Hyatt Hotel empire — and supporters of Biden and numerous Democratic campaigns, including $6,600 to the Biden Victory Fund a few months ago and more than $300,000 during the 2020 campaign.
The fact that Democratic Party mega-donors are behind the antisemitic protests may also spur Jewish voters — roughly 70% of whom vote Democratic — to consider changing their votes in 2024.
As Caroline Glick notes at the Jewish News Syndicate, Biden has been obsessing over losing Arab- and Muslim-American votes in Michigan — but there may be more Jewish votes to lose in key swing states like Pennsylvania, Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, and others.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book, “The Zionist Conspiracy (and how to join it),” now available on Audible. He is also the author of the e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
Cruel Biden halts arms transfers to Israel on Yom Ha'Shoah
The Biden administration has frozen a planned arms shipment to Israel, according to a report , raising concerns among Israeli leaders of a major shift in American policy vis-a-vis the Jewish state.
Two Israeli officials told Axios and Walla that the Biden White House last week froze a weapons shipment to Israel, which includes ammunition and other American-made arms.
If confirmed, this marks the first time the U.S. has suspended arms shipments to Israel since Hamas’ October 7th invasion of the Jewish state.
According to the report, the White House, Pentagon, and State Department all declined to comment, as did the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office.
The report comes as Israel reiterates its plans to enter Rafah, the last Hamas stronghold in the Gaza Strip, despite staunch opposition from the Biden White House, which claims Israel does not yet have an actionable plan to protect Gaza civilians.
Over one million Gazans now reside in and around Rafah, more than four times the city’s pre-war population.
Last week, Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Israel and met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President Isaac Herzog, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi.
During his visit, Blinken conveyed to Israeli leaders the White House’s continued opposition to the planned Rafah operation as it is currently drafted, including a conversation with Netanyahu which two sources described as “tough.”
Blinken warned Netanyahu that a “major military operation” in Rafah would jeopardize Israel’s relations with the U.S.
On Sunday, Netanyahu issued a statement marking Holocaust Remembrance Day in which he vowed Israel would “stand-alone” if necessary.
“In the terrible Holocaust, there were great world leaders who stood by idly; therefore, the first lesson of the Holocaust is: If we do not defend ourselves, nobody will defend us. And if we need to stand alone, we will stand alone,” he said.
Sunday, May 5, 2024
On this YOM HaShoah We Remember that No Country Wanted the Jews !
In a year when a mini-Holocaust took place in Israel, and countless people around the world are calling for the genocide of Israel and even of the Jewish people as a whole, Yom HaShoah takes on particular significance. The relationship between the Holocaust and Israel is profound. But it’s not necessarily what people think.
The Holocaust certainly helped the formation of Israel receive international support. After the horrors of the destruction of European Jewry, many people realized that perhaps it was important for the Jews to have a homeland. Had Israel been created just a few years earlier, millions of lives could have been saved.
But while the Holocaust helped the creation of Israel get international political support, realpolitik had even more to do with it. And the original move to create Israel was not done with the Holocaust itself in mind. Nobody imagined that there could be destruction on such a scale.
What many Jews did know, for several decades before the Holocaust, is that Jews in Europe were never going to be reliably safe, that things were getting very bad, and that they were very likely going to get even worse.
Even more significantly, what some Jews realized is that the key problem was homelessness. There were so many Jews who wanted to flee, or who would eventually need a place to flee to, but simply had nowhere to go, especially after the US started drastically restricting immigration.
As Adam Rovner documents in his fascinating book In The Shadow of Zion, there were numerous options that were investigated as a potential refuge for the Jews of Europe. The so-called Uganda Plan (which was actually Kenya) is the most famous, but Surinam, Angola, Madagascar, Tasmania and other places were also explored.
This may come as a surprise, but the majority of religious Zionists, including Rav Yitzchak Yaakov Reines, as well as none other than Zev Jabotinsky, were in favor of exploring the Uganda Plan. And this is completely understandable. There was a pressing need to provide a safe haven for the Jews of Europe. For a certain period, East Africa seemed to be a much more viable prospect, both politically and economically, than Palestine.
Alas, none of these ideas ended up working out, for a variety of reasons. Even if they had temporarily worked, one can only imagine what situation they would be in after de-colonization started to happen and spread globally.
And meanwhile, things kept getting even worse for the Jews of Europe. They started to flee, but it was difficult to find somewhere to go. Some Jews escaped from Germany to Palestine, not because they were Zionists, but rather simply because it was a place where they could get in.
In 1938, the US convened the Évian Conference, attended by representatives of 32 countries, to attempt to find a refuge for the millions of Jews seeking to flee Hitler. It was a failure. The Dominican Republic offered to take 100,000 Jews (which ended up being 1000), and Costa Rica offered to take some, but that was it. Nobody wanted to help take in millions of Jews. And thus six million Jews were killed.
Incredible, even after the world learned about the horrors of the Holocaust, there was still nowhere for the surviving Jews to go! Some of them went back to their home towns in Poland and were killed in a pogrom. Others languished in Displaced Persons camps for years, some of which were actually former concentration camps.
When Israel came into existence, one of the first acts of the provisional government was to cancel Britain’s immigration restrictions. Within weeks, Jews arrived in enormous numbers.
I’ve seen someone (I forget who) describe the current war, both in its Gaza physical manifestation and in its international political manifestation, as a war on the very concept of a Jewish home. (Unfortunately the word “homelessness” does not have a satisfactory antonym.)
Much of the world doesn’t want the Jews to have a homeland in tiny Palestine, but they also don’t consider that Jews should have a home anywhere else. If you ask them what the Jews in Europe should have done to escape persecution in massacred, they will either ignore the question, shrug their shoulders, or even outright say that they should have just let themselves be killed rather than try to “colonize” any land.
The slogan “Never Again” can have many meanings. Some take it to mean that never again will there be a genocide against the Jews (which is a problematic assertion - how can we be sure that we can stop such a thing?). Some interpret it to mean that never again will Jews have no way to defend themselves, which is something that the existence of the IDF addresses. Some understand it to mean that never again will Jews passively allow themselves to be massacred (which the creation of Israel has changed, but which is a bit unfair to the Jews of Europe). But I think that at its most basic level, it ought to mean that never again should there be a situation in which a Holocaust can happen simply because the Jews being persecuted have nowhere to go.
Home is a place that you can always enter.
While the Jewish state serves many purposes, one of its earliest and most basic goals is that there should be a country which will let Jews in and can be always be relied upon to do that.
The Holocaust is a stark reminder of what can happen if Jews don’t have a homeland.
The Hamas massacre is a price that we pay for having a Jewish State, but the Holocaust was a price that we paid for not having one. This is just one of the many reasons that we should be very, very grateful that we have Israel.
Beit Shemesh Unites to Commemorate Yom Hashoah
Even While Jewish Blood is Being Spilled Satmar Liars Continue to Denigrate and Distort Lag Be'Omer Meron Closing
Der Goy, not wanting to be confused by the facts, says that this is all a lie, and it is not dangerous at all but just a ploy by the "Zionists to take control of the site"
Police Recover Weapons and Terrorism Materials from Anti-Israel Protest at Columbia University
The New York Police Department has released photos of items recovered from a Columbia University building occupied by anti-Israel protesters. The items include gas masks, helmets, goggles, hammers, knives, ropes, and a book on terrorism.
NYPD Deputy Commissioner Kaz Daughtry shared the photos on social media, writing, “These are not the tools of students protesting, these are the tools of agitators, of people who were working on something nefarious.”
Rav Yechiel Perr zt”l – Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshiva Derech Eisan
This past Shabbos, Klal Yisroel lost a Rosh Yeshiva, a Gadol, and a Mussar giant in Rav Yechiel Yitzchok Perr zatzal’s passing. Rabbi Perr was a close Talmid of Rav Aharon Kotler and took physical care of him during Rav Aharon’s last illness. It was a week in which three Talmidim of Rav Aharon passed away: Reb Dov Wolowitz, Rav Avrohom Stefansky, and Rav Perr. Aleihem hashalom.
Rav Yechiel Yitzchak Perr had grown up in South Ozone Park, Queens, where his father, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Perr served as a Rav for over 50 years. He spent summers in Camp Bnos and davened in Camp Agudah. As the Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshiva Derech Eisan, he educated thousands of Talmidim who took their place as the backbone of numerous Torah institutions.
In his Camp Agudah days he davened in the Masmidim minyan and would often argue in learning with Rav Belsky zt”l after the Dvar Halacha given by Rav Michoel Levi shlita of Beis Yaakov D’Rav Meir.