The Children of Israel and the Multitude of Others- Slaves in Egypt and Their DNA:

We Were Slaves In Egypt

1751-1351 BCE 

1570-1200 BCE Late Bronze Age 

Nadene Goldfoot
In 1751 BCE Jacob, later called “Israel,” and his family of 70 went into Egypt from Canaan where they had been living because a drought had hit their land.  They were able to be reunited with Jacob’s son, Joseph, who had been lost to them many years before.  After some time of living in Egypt, the new  Pharoah took them as slaves. He thought the children of Israel  were too numerous and strong.  The Pharoah  thought that if a war came about they would join their enemy in battle against the Egyptians.  So they took them as slaves while they could.   The Children of Israel were put to task building storage cities for the Pharaoh, Pithom and Raamses.

These Israelites were too dangerous to keep but too important to lose. They were given harder work- building with brick and mortar, field labor;  anything that involved  hard physical labor.

 The Pharoah decided to cut their ranks by killing all newborn babies.  The Hebrew midwives involved would not follow orders and the boys lived.  The ultimate decision was made by the Pharoah.  All baby boys born from that time were to be thrown into the river.  Moses was then born to Jochebed and Amram, great grandson of Levi.  He was put in a basket and placed in the river where the daughter of the Pharoah found him.  She knew he was one of the Hebrew boy babies instantly but maternal instincts took over and she felt pity for him.  Mirium, Moses’s sister was nearby and saw this happening.  She offered to find a wetnurse for him; Jochabed, her mother, but she didn’t let the Pharoah’s daughter know the connection.

They were freed by Moses in 1351.  Their time of existence in Egypt was 400 years.

Moses left with 600,000 men slaves, children, women,  the elderly men and also with them came a mixed multitude of people of various nationalities, all  headed for Canaan.  In all there could have been about 3 million people.  They all followed Moses into the wilderness.  It took him 40 years to get to Canaan.  G-d’s  plan was to enter with people without a slave mentality, but as warriors.  The whole older generation died out on this exodus.  Moses himself was 120 years old by the time they reached Canaan and did not enter the land.  He had given the leadership of the people to Joshua..  People today have lived till age 120.  Usually have been either former black slaves, or just people that have been hard workers in their youth.

 They had lived in Egypt for 4 generations that are listed:
Jacob’s son, Levi begat Kohath.  Kohath begat Amram.  Amram begat Moses.  Moses  was the great grandson of Jacob, and also Abraham’s 3rd great grandson.

 The Torah writes that Abraham's father, Terah, died in the year 2083 according to the Hebrew Calendar starting with the date of creation of the world.  His son, Isaac,  was 35 years old at the time.  Ishmael would have been a little older, perhaps by 8 years or so.  The Torah's common practice is to record a person's death date when he ceases to be involved in the narrative.  This year of 2013 of the modern calendar is also 5773 on the Hebrew calendar, so Terah died 3,690 years ago, or in the year 1,677 BCE.

Who were the people in this multitude during this Bronze age?   Egypt took captives in war and used them as slaves.  They captured lands and the people were taken as slaves.  Others might have been violators of Egyptian law.  Many came from neighboring states.  Slave treaties have been found between these nations.  Mesopotamia needed a lot of agriculture field laborers.

This Bronze Age was in the 13th century BCE during the 19th Egyptian dynasty that included the reign of Ramses II. Ramses was the 3rd Pharoah of the 19th Dynasty of Egypt.   He ruled for 66 years, and his wife was the most beautiful Queen Nefertiti.  It is thought that he was the Pharoah in Moses's history.    It was a period where Egypt wasn’t new to Canaan.  Canaan was in effect, an Egyptian province during the 14th century BCE.

The Pharoah Ramses fought against the Libyans and Hittites.  Ramses fought the famous chariot Battle at Kadesh against the Hittites, who were from today's Syria.  Ramses retreated in this battle but saved his army. Many colossal statues of Ramses are found throughout Egypt.  He had the Ramesseum built at Thebes as his funerary temple as well as other temples, including 6 in Nubia.  Building temples was considered a luxury that could be done only when Egypt was prosperous, so the large number attests to the success of his reign.  He built Pi-Ramesse, a home for his family in the Nile delta.  It is said that he had more than 100 children with a suitably large number of wives.  Evidently the death of his eldest hadn't been the end to his offsprings.

Bronze Age Jerusalem wasn’t situated on the Canaanite trade routes, but it controlled the north to south traffic between Hebron and Shechem as well as the east to west traffic from the via Maris to the King’s Highway.  The Egyptians had established a garrison at Manahat, just 2 miles SW of Bronze Age Jerusalem.

REVEALING J1 Y Haplogroup's Jewish-Muslim Connection 

                                                               

DNA evidence shows the J1 or Cohen gene carried by about half of the Jewish men today, is presumed to be from Aaron, Moses's brother.  Many Arabs also carry this gene, which has mutated slightly to show it belongs to the Arab family tree.  15-23% of Ashkenazi Jews are J2 and the same percent is also found in Sephardic Jews.  The ones tested were Cohens in the synagogue as well.

Other haplogroups are found among the Jewish men.  My brother's Ydna haplogroup is Q1b1a.  We all have 23 chomosomes, and matching some segments to mine are men with haplogroup E1b1b1;   R1b1,     J1e, J2b2;   G2c, G2a;  I1 and I2a26.   I would say that we may have belonged to the multitude of slaves who left with the Children of Israel on the Exodus with Moses from Egypt headed for Canaan.  Some of the R1b's could also come from Khazaria, a state that lasted for about 300 years or so  in southern Russia where the Royal family had converted to Judaism out of choice.  It became  a safe haven for other Jews until the Russians overcame them. 7% of Ashkenazi Jews have G.  5% of Ashkenazi Jews have Q1b1 or Q-L245.  It has been found to originate in and around the ancient city of Ur, now located in Iraq.  It has been found in the Assyrian Empire, Mesopotamia, and the Akkadian Kingdom.  Abraham came from Ur.

Albert Einstein, an Ashkenazi from Germany, was E1b1b1.  Pharoah Ramses III was, also, according to the latest dna findings. That's hard for me to believe being that ancient Ydna is extremely hard to find.  Mt dna is much easier, but they have been working on both with mummies in Egypt.  Even I, a rare haplogroup, has been thought to come from the Middle East.

Eastern Europeans, of which my paternal grandparents belong to being they came from Poland and Lithuania, are found to have significant Eastern Mediterranean elements which show we have a close relationship with the Kurds, Armenians, Palestinian Arabs, Lebanese, Syrian and Anatolian Turkish people.  The Y-DNA haplogroups (male line) of J and E are typical ones from the Middle East and are common among the eastern European Jews.

There are also traces, and that means a few cM's worth of segments on one or more of the 23 chromosomes of European Khazar ancestry among European Jews including northern Italian and western Slavic or eastern Slavic.  "Many Greek and Roman women married Jewish men before conversion to Judaism was outlawed by the Roman Empire."  Jews with southern European lines in Ashkenazim families came from these marriages.  Ethiopian Jews now living in Israel could be related to Yemenite Jews as well as coming from converts to Judaism.  Yemenite Jews descend from Arabs and Israelites.  All "Jewish Y-DNA  tends to come from the Middle East"  Wives can be related to non-Jewish populations that were living in neighboring countries.

All existing studies cannot compare modern Jewish populations' DNA to ancient Judean DNA or medieval Khazarian DNA because of the absence of ancient DNA for comparison studies.  YDNA mutates quickly compared to mtDNA.  What scientists are doing is making comparisons with the people of today that have been tested to trace geographic roots.  Considering how much Jewish people moved around in their ancient past history and how much a transfer of population was practiced, it is rather hard to tell.  First it was the Assyrians who attacked the Jews and transported people away.  Later on it was the Babylonians who did the same thing.  Foreigners were brought in to take their place on the land.  We've been all jumbled up.  

One thing tells the story.  A male  friend of mine is a Cohen in the synagogue.  This title is inherited through the father.  It requires him to perform certain obligations in the synagogue, like read from the Torah first before the others.  He had his Ydna tested.  It turned out to be J1, the Cohen gene, thought to be the line from Aaron, first Cohen as instructed by Moses, his brother.  We are pleased to see that for over 3,000 years, his family has kept up the ritual of performing as a Cohen is required.  DNA testing  is the proof.  His family was Ashkenazi and wound up in Poland. He matches 12 to 12 with Sephardi from Greece, Italy, Spain (Anusim) and Turkey. With 11 of the 12 alleles he matches with an Algerian, a Lebanese Cohen, Spain, and even a Syrian Arab from Aleppo.   His DNA test of 12 alleles shows that it is almost a match to a Muslim Iraqi.  They also match  with 11 of the 12 alelles or a distance of 1.  My Jewish friend's test is labeled as a J-M267 and J-L147 which is J1c3d.  This is identical to the Muslim.  It shows that somewhere down the line, we were indeed, cousins.  The Muslim line does veer off to show a distinct Arab connection.

In conclusion, once upon a time Jews  were a people living in Eretz Yisrael, followers of the Laws of Moses.  They got separated from each other.  They have come back together again.  There have even been marriages between Ashkenazi and Sephardi outside of Israel as well as in Israel.    The DNA of Jews show that they are connected to each other, and even to some of the Middle East people that are their enemies today who we have always referred to as "our cousins."  Indeed, they are back home in their old neighborhood.  DNA has shown us where we came from.  .

Resource:Bible:  Tanach, the Stone Edition,  Art Scroll Series, by Mesorah Publications, Ltd, Exodus
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
 http://www.bu.edu/anep/LB.html
http://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/biblical-sites-places/jerusalem/when-egyptian-pharaohs-ruled-bronze-age-jerusalem/
http://ancienthistory.about.com/od/egypt/ig/Ancient-Egypt/Ramses-II.htm
http://www.khazaria.com/genetics/abstracts.html
http://jewishfactsfromportland.blogspot.com/2010/01/jewish-genes-what-haplogroup-could-they.html

What are Ashkenazi Jews and Where Do They Come From?

Nadene Goldfoot                                                                  

              German-born Albert Einstein, Ashkenazi    Isaac Mizrahi, Sephardi, family from Syria
                                               
Ashkenazi Jews are from the same group of Jews who are Sephardi or their subgroup, Mizrachim.  They all came from the Jews held as slaves for 400 years in Egypt and had left with Moses in the Exodus 1:1-2:4 of the Torah.   Our Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, was born to Ashkenazi parents from Warsaw, Poland.  Benjamin himself was born in Tel Aviv in 1949. Einstein was from Germany.   I am Ashkenazi being my paternal grandfather and grandmother came from Lithuania and Poland.  We have a German surname that had been Goldfus.  My grandmother was so tiny, under 5 feet tall,  and listed on the 1910 census as being dark complected.  She had black hair and brown eyes, but when I knew her, her skin tone wasn't any different than mine.  Her husband had brownish hair and possibly a red beard.  He was 6 feet or more.

Abraham's family, who lived at the beginning of the 2nd millennium BCE,  had resettled in Canaan as they felt they had to leave Ur (today in Iraq),  a city of idol worshipping and child sacrifice, and Abraham had had a revelation that there was only one real G-d and wanted his descendants to believe this as well.  The environment of Ur was detrimental to their upbringing and belief system.

  Abraham  was our known  ancient ancestor and his younger son Isaac and grandson, Jacob who are our ancestors are our Patriarchs   Jacob had 12 sons and a daughter, Dinah.  Those 12 sons had sons and daughters who became the family of 70 that went into Egypt seeking refuge from starvation and stayed.   Son Joseph had already been taken to Egypt and awaited the surprise of meeting up with his estranged family.  He was now a mighty man working right under the Pharoah. The family and their descendants became  slaves and lived in Egypt for a total of  400 years.  

It was Moses, from the tribe of Levi, who came back for them and led them out in the Exodus.  The family and their friends had grown to be 600,000 who left with him.  All 600,000 were with Moses as he received the 10 commandments, and so all people followed Moses in respect to these commandments and are later called "Jews."

 Moses had written in the Torah that Abraham, who would have been Moses's 3rd great grandfather, was with the group called the Israelites who had settled in Ur where he was born.  Jacob later was called Israel after wrestling with an angel and overcame him, thus was conferred upon him this more auspicious family name of Israel.

Jews were at odds with each other politically and over taxes and the south revolted from the north when King Solomon of Israel had died in 933 BCE (before the common era-also called BC-before Christ by some).  The south broke off and called itself Judah, after one of the 12 sons who was ancestor of the tribe of Judah. Judah was Jacob's 4th son by Leah, his first wife.  It was the largest of the 12 tribes.  So we had two kingdoms then, the kingdom of Israel and the kingdom of Judah.  Judah chose for their first king, Rehoboam (933-917 BCE).  Israel chose for their king, Jeroboam (933-912).   Rehoboam  was Solomon's son and successor, serving Judah.  Sometimes Israel at this period is referred to as Samaria because the city of Samaria  became the capital of of the kingdom of Israel.    Jerusalem was still the capital of Judah as it had been in Israel.

   The tribes of Ephraim, the leader, and Manasseh, Issachar, Zebulun, Naphtali, Asher, Dan, and living  in Transjordan's area were the tribes of Reuben, Gad and part of Manasseh who all remained in the kingdom of  Israel.  It was a wealthier kingdom.  It had greater political importance.  It lasted for 210 years and had 19 kings with 9 dynasties.  It's very first king was King Saul in the 11th century BCE, son of Kish of the tribe of Benjamin.  King David, the next king, was from the tribe of Judah.

The kingdom of Judah was the smaller of the two. It was made up of the tribes of Judah and most of Benjamin and had also absorbed the tribe of Simeon which was isolated in the extreme southern part of Eretz Israel.  They had no normal access to the sea which was the trade route most took.  It occupied no more than 1/3 of the area that  Israel occupied.  It was poor and unimportant to the world.  For this reason it never was involved with international rivalries like Israel was.  Life in Judah was more tranquil.  Because Jerusalem and the Temple was in their kingdom, they preserved the Mosaic monotheism in a purer form.  The monarchy went peacefully from father to son in this House of David, which started with King David (1010 -970 BCE).  Judah had 20 kings with the last being Zedekiah in 597-586 BCE, all descendants of King David.  The kingdom of Judah lasted from 933 to 586;  347 years.  May I remind readers that the United States of America will only be 237 years old on July 4th, 2013.

By 40 BCE the Parthians captured Jerusalem.  It fell to Herod in 37 BCE who ruled it as a Roman vassal until his death in 4 BCE.  The Romans crucified Jesus in 29 CE and the Romans rule was unbearable for the Jews.  The people revolted in 66 CE.  They had 3 years of independence only to be retaken in 70 CE with the Romans burning Jerusalem down.  Bar Kochba in 132 CE was the last to fight against the Roman power and lost.

Many Jews of course were killed in the struggle.  Jews fled to all parts of the world   Those that were familiar with the outside world in trading or having been slaves knew about Rome, so because there were already Jews from their families living there, they  headed for Rome.  From there they moved slowly into France, then Germany and finally, eastern Europe.  These were to be called the "Ashkenazis" a term from the Hebrew language meaning "Germany."  They must have lived in Germany for several generations before being forced to move out.  Ashkenazi Jews speak Yiddish, a mixture of Hebrew and German and a little extra from lands they traveled through.

The Jews in the USA are mostly Ashkenazim though we do have Sephardim as well.  They both came to America starting in the 1850's onto the 1920's by boat. Actually, there were Sephardim who came to America very early, just after 1620.   The first synagogue in America was built by the Sephardim.  They were the first to arrive. Germans came over and were more economically established.  The poor eastern Europeans, my grandparents among them,  were the last to arrive escaping pogroms and a very hard isolated life in the Pale of Settlement controlled by Russia.

The Jews who remained in the Middle East moved in the other direction and settled in Spain,  Portugal and North Africa.  They are the Sephardim, which is another Hebrew word meaning "Spain."  They speak Ladino, a mixture of Hebrew and Spanish, which show where they have lived. They had gone through the Spanish Inquisition of 1492, leaving their beloved Spain for Portugal, which turned against them as well in the fever of oppressing Jews.  The name also refers to those Jews  who were merchants in Holland and those that settled in Morocco, Italy, Palestine, Syria and Balkans and central areas of the Turkish empire, like Salonica and Constantinople.

 A sub-group of the Sephardim are the Mizrachim, people who settled in North Africa and the Middle Eastern countries.  It comes from the Hebrew word  of Mitzrayim meaning "Eastern." and is also the word in Hebrew for Egypt.  I taught English in the junior high in Safed (Tzfat) in the Galilee and one of the other English teachers was a very young lady from Egypt, a Mizrachi.  She said that there weren't any Jews except a few old ones left in Egypt.  This was in 1981.

55-60 % of the Jews in Israel are Mizrachim.  There was a big discrepancy in the education between Ashkenazis and Sephardis in Israel.  The Mizraichim -Sephardis were not given the opportunities that the Ashkenazis managed to get for their secular education, especially those Ashkenazi from  France and Germany.  the places of enlightenment.   Mizrachim were 2nd class citizens or dhimmis in the Arab world.  Life must have been hard there as well.  Israel is a good place to make all equal.  There, they are just Jewish.   The army is another place that  irons out any differences.  Here, they are all getting the same education.  Isaac Mizrachi, pictured above,  is a Brooklyn-born Sephardi who is a famous American fashion designer.  Brooklyn has been the bastion of Ashkenazis.   His family was from Syria.

However, what's nice is that any Jew can walk into any synagogue service and it will be understood as all are schooled in Hebrew and the service will have some % of it in Hebrew, from all to a little.  They follow the same format, as decided long ago.

The differences we have had between each other started in the 16th century CE. in the synagogue rite and tradition.  The Sephardim went back to the time of Babylonian Jewry and Ashkenazim went back to Palestine after 132 CE when Eretz Yisrael was named Palestine or Palestaena by the Romans.  Their differences also showed up in how they pronounced some Hebrew words, reflected by the language they had learned to speak as a 2nd language.  During Passover the Sepharis allow rice to be eaten while Ashkenazis don't allow it during our 8 days.  We maintain family traditions in this custom.

I was told a story by a fellow teacher in Safed in that if you go to a Sephardi's home for Shabbat, he will leave the wine bottle on the table, but if you go to an Ashkenazi's home for Shabbat, the wine bottle is taken away after the first glass.  That's a little snippy, but Sepharis are known for their generosity.  They are most gracious hosts.  You see, I, as an Ashkenazi, received a better education this way by being with both groups of Jews.

The surprise is that an Ashkenazi group, the Hasidim, adopted the Sephardic ritual though not its pronunciation.  In the world, Ashkenazis make up 4/5 of the Jewish population of 0.02% of world population except in Israel, which has 6 million Jews.  There, the non-Ashkenazi communities are the majority.  One of the strongest groups of Ashkenazi immigrant aids is ACI-Americans and Canadians in Israel.  Perhaps we'll see more Jews move to Israel from these countries.  I was one of them, but am now a Yored, a returnee, due to family circumstance.

What tickles me is that the Arab nations have had to deal with Jews who are made up of Mizrachis and Sephardis, Jews who know the ways of the Arabs in business and in politics as they lived among them are hep to dealing with Arabs.    You can't pull any wool over their eyes, like you might with  the American Ashkenazis.  Jews in Arab lands were treated as 2nd class citizens and suffered through several pogroms, themselves.  When it happened that Israel was pronounced a state among the world's nations on May 14, 1948, the Arab world fell apart!  Jews had to move out, most going to Israel or face persecution.  This is why Abbas can't face dealing with Netanyahu, who is a native Sabra.   A Sabra is a person born and raised in Israel.  The word refers to a cactus called the "prickly pear" which is native to Israel.  The word refers metaphorically to both the person and the cactus of having a prickly exterior with a tender interior.  An Israeli may come on strong, but has a heart of gold, thanks to our Torah teaching.

Today we see Ashkenazim and Sephardim marrying each other.  Speaking for myself, those Sephardim and Mizrachim are beautiful people.  Ofra Haza was a Yemenite, a beautiful woman.  My Turkish Jewish relatives who married my Ashkenazi cousins are to die for, they are so good looking.  Somehow my paternal Ashkenazi aunt was blessed with her black curly hair and dark brown eyes and milky white skin so that it's hard to tell her from any Sepharic Jewish lady.  The Jewish Iranian doctor who married my Ashkenazi cousin looks like any other Ashkenazic Jew.  It's too hard to tell us apart by looks.

DNA testing shows that there is a Cohen gene identified as J1 haplogroup in the Ydna found in testing men.  It is presumed that it goes back to Aaron, who was the first Cohen of our religious rites in Judaism.  Moses, his brother selected him for this responsibility.   J, J2 and J1 rose up 10,000 to 15,000 years ago in the Fertile Crescent and includes Jews and Arabs, Armenians and Kurds.  Most are from Iran and Iraq where it is thought to have originated and then carried by traders into Europe, central Asia, India and Pakistan.  While the majority of J is not of Jewish people, the majority of Jewish men fall into J.

We have a family friend who knew he was Cohen and performed in the synagogue as a Cohen. This is a fact handed down from father to sons.  He had his dna tested.  Yes, he was a J1 or J-M267, a Cohen.   His family surname was not Cohen.  Surnames have had to be bought from the country one lived in.  They finally demanded that we have surnames for tax and army purposes.  A name with Gold in it was more expensive than some other names.

There are a few other haplogroups found in Jews.  Not all of us were direct descendants of Jacob who came out of Egypt in the Exodus.  We even have had a few converts along the way, such as Sammy Davis, the singer and dancer.  We did have in about the 7th century CE the Khazarian Empire whose king or Kagan converted to Judaism.  His royal house followed suit.  The rest of his constituents were free to chose as they saw fit any religion they had a fancy to, such as Christianity or Islam.

We have Jews who test having E.  This originated out of Africa 50,000 years ago.  Groups in Africa and the Middle East have been found to have this one.  Even some people near the Mediterranean, showing an ancient genetic influence from the Middle East to Europe have this.  E3a is a common lineage among African Americans.  E3b evolved in the Middle East before going into the Mediterranean and is found in Arab populations, east and north Africa,  among Berbers and in SE Europe.

There are Jews with G, a haplogroup originating along the eastern edge of the Middle East or India or Pakistan 30,000 years ago.  Moses only lived about 3,500 years ago, so this is going WAY back.  The G2 branch with a P15 mutation is found in the Caucasus, Balkans, Italy and Middle East.

My own paternal family haplogroup is Q1b1a and Q's are found in northern and central Asian population s as well as in Native Americans., who also are tribal, by the way.  It is thought to have originated in central Asia 15,000 to 20,000 years ago and migrated through northern Eurasia into the Americas.  Native Americans are Q3's.  

R,R1, R2 came from NW Asia between 30,000 and 35,000 years ago.  R2 is found in India, Iran and central Asian population while R1 is very common in Europe.  There is an R branch that is Jewish.
R1b are the common European which expanded throughout Europe after the last ice age 10,000 to 12,000 years ago.  It contains the Atlantic Modal Haplotype.

We have only 14 million Jews in the world of 7 billion people.  We Jews all came from the same source unless we came through some conversion.  Conversion was not common.  It happened only occasionally as we did not proselytize.  That's what makes us so interesting for population dna scientists to study.  Our lives have been held in isolation by other countries.  Their population did not allow marriage to Jews.  We say that if the mother is Jewish, so is the child.  In Italy we were kept in isolation, locked in at night in ghettos.  In Russia we were kept in the Pale of Settlement, isolated from other people, living in Jewish shtetls.  Some Jewish men in their trading travels  did marry foreign  women who would convert.  Their children were Jewish.

Update 11/13/14 Here is the history of my Goldfoot family, which had been Goldfus coming from Germany originally. Having had information now from familyfinder on Family Tree DNA in Houston, Texas, and connecting to 2 great researchers of segments of chromosomes, I find that the Jonah (Iones) Goldfus I found in Telsiai, Lithuania born in 1730 there came from Jews in Germany. Goldfus (anglicized to Goldfoot in England) came from a branch of Wertheimers around Worms, Germany (Rhineland) from Rabbi Samson or his brother, Moses Wertheimer born 1658-1724. From him I share chromosome segments from Rabbi Solomon Yitzhake, known famously as RASHI, and from him is the oral history of being descended from King David of Jerusalem. 1010 BCE to 970 BCE. At the fall of Jerusalem in 70 CE, my line shows segments from the Kalonymos family which is very well known originally from Lucca, Italy who also had family members in Mainz and Speyer, Germany. Kalonymos-a Greek name from the Hebrew "Good name", a translation of Shem Tov, showing that Jews were taken to Rome first, staying as slaves in that part of the world, then moving on to Germany. This is the usual trail taken by Jews later called Ashkenazi Jews. RASHI was born in 1040 and died in 1105 in Troyes, France, but had studied in Worms, Germany which was a big important center for Jewish studies. So the history was that at the fall of Jerusalem in 70 CE, we went to Rome, then later on to France and Worms, Germany.  Later, my Goldfus line migrated up to Lithuania and finally in around 1880-1890 was able to go to England, then Ireland and finally the USA.  

When a Jew converts we say that his soul must have stood with us at Mt Sinai when we received the Torah in the first form as the 10 Commandments from Moses.  There is to be no distinction between him and the other Jews.  He is a member of Israel.
                                                                            
                                                                                         Roman Empire 117 CE 
Update 2/25/16  The Romans  and their army went into SW Germany in 15 BCE  and occupied it. Probably Jews from Judah had been there either in trading or taken by the Roman soldiers to do manual labor for them in Germany.  They knew the route and when the Temple in Jerusalem was burned down and Jerusalem as well, people fled and were not allowed to return.  Those that took the route to Germany were a little later called Ashkenazim.  Those that fled to Spain were the Sephardim.

Resource:  The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
Abraham's Children; race, identity, and the DNA of the chosen people by Jon Entine
added 10/16/13 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNPDefkOfi8  about Jon Entine's findings
The Jews of Khazaria 2nd edition by Kevin Alan Brook
Reference:  http://www.jewfaq.org/ashkseph.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benzion_Netanyahu
Finding Our Fathers:  A guidebook to Jewish Genealogy by Dan Rottenberg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Mizrahi
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein
http://www.villa-rustica.de/intro/index02e.html  updated 2/25/16  

Turkey: The Good, The Bad and the Ugly and Acceptance Into SCO or NATO

Nadene Goldfoot                                                                   

Turkey is a secular democratic country.  This is the scary part.  It is not a  democratic country like the USA and Israel but is proof of what can happen to even a democratic government. They have a separation of power, but what has happened to it?  Erdogan has a lot of this power. Their checks and balances in their type of parliamentary democracy either isn't working or everyone agrees that nothing is wrong.  Is he just a reflection of his people?  "The party of Prime Minister Erdogan, the Justice and Development Party, while known to be Islamic, sought to convey that it would be secular so as to avoid the army's preventing it from taking power."

We have many Turkish Jews that came to this country  along with all the other Jews from Russia and eastern Europe looking for a better life.   Turkish Jews settled in Portland, Oregon and Seattle, Washington. Some are my relatives.  A few families came here as early as the 1880's.  They came from Marmora and Constantinople.  They were in the fish market businesses.  It was said that they spoke Spanish.     What was it that drove them here?  Most likely "freedom."  What had Turkey been like?

For starters, Turkey was the hub of the Ottoman Empire that lasted for 400 years and ended with WWI.  That's because they took the side of the Axis with Germany and lost.  For that, they lost their empire in 1917 and Britain got the mandate of deciding what to do with Palestine, which was part of the empire.

In 1900, there were 350,000 Jews living in Turkey, who had the 3rd largest Jewish population at that time.  By 1990 20,000 Jews remained of which 18,000 lived in Istanbul.  37,000 of Turkey's Jews moved to Israel after 1948.  Turkey is the 7th largest country with a majority Muslim population of 73,722,988.  They have a mixture of Sunnis and Shiites who follow the Hanafi and Alevi fighs. We have almost 8 million people in Israel of which 6 million are Jewish. About 1.7 million are Arabs.

Turkey was the first country to recognize Israel in 1948.  "Military, strategic, and diplomatic cooperation between Turkey and Israel were accorded high priority by both countries, which shared concerns with respect to the regional instabilities in the Middle East."

Their friendship started to die during 2008's Gaza war.  This Muslim country was siding with all the other Muslim countries who support the Palestinian terrorists.  Relations had been fair  with Israel up until the Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's  recent move towards embracing the Muslim Brotherhood. since that's his political party.  It's believed that Turkey wants to be the leader of the Muslim world.  Thus they are taking a tough stand and are showing their muscles.

  When their ship Marmara entered the waters to break the Gazan blockade in 2010 and Israel had to search their ship,  the attack was on.  Some Turks on board attacked the Israeli seamen and they in turn protected their own lives. 9 Turks were killed as a result.   Now Turkey wants retribution which is turning into a lot of money.  Netanyahu has apologized for the action when most of us feel it was Turkey that should have apologized, but that's politics.  The smaller country had to apologize to the larger one.

  Back in 1983 a friend of mine, Gene Hirshhorn LePere,  traveled to Turkey with a tour group.  She dawdled at a table of fine embroidery and her group  left her.  Along came a street peddler with a little statue insisting she buy it, which she finally relented and did, just to get him off her back.  When she departed from Turkey she was arrested and put in a woman's prison for stealing a precious antique.  She tells what prison was like in her book,  "Never Pass This Way Again," which was turned into an NBC TV special.  She almost didn't get out of prison and was in there for a shocking amount of time.  None of this happened because she was Jewish.  They didn't know.  Because of her horrible experience, Turkey fixed their laws about antiques now having tags on them. Her book is a warning to vacationers in foreign lands to beware.  Like Dorothy said, "We're not in Kansas, Toto!"  This is simply an example of an overzealous court system that works unfairly.

Erdogan is getting restless.  On January 25th of this year he said he was thinking of joining up with the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).  This club, like a fraternity, is made up of Russia, China and the Soviet Central Asian republics.  Their goal is to be an authoritarian counterweight to the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization of NATO.  Why?  His bid to join the EU has been stalled and so he has become interested in their opposition.  He said that if President Vladimir Putin of Russia chooses Turkey for the SCO, Turkey will forget about joining the EU.  Notice that this choice has nothing to do with philosophy or ethics.  It's more like the mentality of a pledge getting into a fraternity.  It's his way of putting pressure on NATO for a decision.

Two years ago Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran's president, told the SCO that the USA had caused the 9/11/2001 attacks in New York and are using it as an excuse for invading Afghanistan and Iraq and for killing and wounding over a million people.  That's the same excuse that Dzhokar Tsarnaev told authorities from his hospital bed that he and his brother, Tamerlan decided to blow up the Boston Marathon.  Now reports have come from him telling that their next project was to blow up a section of New York City afterwards.  They believed this sort of rot.  This is the group Erdogan is ready to join.

Today we have a fellow who has had an epiphany of 180 degrees who is a TV host in Turkey.  He now likes Jews. I pray that his feelings include Israel as well.   He's broadcasting about it and Sinem Tezyapar, another TV host who is a glamorous and very intelligent young lady,  is following suit.  This goes against the grain of their Prime Minister's philosophy, so I wish them well.  Their government has not been kind to people who disagree with this government.

The Tower tells of the Turkish government abusing the practice of detention without trial.  Over 75% of the country's jailed journalists were detained while awaiting trial or verdict.  There is an ongoing investigation into a large conspiracy of media personalities, politicians and generals to overthrow the government by a military coup.  150 people have been jailed on charges of being a party to this plot.  Just last year the government arrested the former chief of the military staff, Ilker Basbug, saying he was involved in the scheme even though he had retired 2 years ago.  Eric Edelman, former American Ambassador to Turkey told the Economist that this idea of Basbug being a terrorist and heading the group strained credulity.

So this man at the helm with so much power has been responsible for arrests, tax investigations, and condemnations which has chilled his constituents.  In 2008 he told a magazine that "either you close your journal down or you will not write lies".  They had reported about air pollution.  It must be that he doesn't want true facts confusing his people.

Turkey has a monopoly on words.  You can't use Kurdish as stated in a 1991 law.  Turkey has been persecuting Kurds insidiously.  On the books is the law that stating that you cannot insult the Turkish nation."  They have the power of giving the government wide authority to prosecute whomever it wants.  Orhan Pamuk, a Nobel Prize-winning author committed the crime of acknowledging the reality of the Armenian genocide.  This was in a 2006 interview with a Swiss magazine.  The charges were finally dropped only because of  massive international pressure.

Resource: http://www.thetower.org/article/has-turkey-betrayed-the-west/
http://www.amazon.com/Never-Pass-This-Way-Again/dp/0917561384/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1367004839&sr=1-1-fkmr0&keywords=Gene+Hirshhorn+LePere
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel%E2%80%93Turkey_relations
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ed-koch/turkey-is-seeking-leaders_b_2078869.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Good,_the_Bad_and_the_Ugly, movie about 3 gunslingers

Time to Celebrate Again on Lag B'Omer: April 28, 2013

Nadene Goldfoot                                                                        

We have so many holidays in Judaism.  It took me to move to Israel to really get into all of them as when I grew up, Chabad was not around to instruct us or to get the ball rolling in Portland.  Lag B'Omer is a great festive holiday and a wonderful time to teach our history through fun and games.  We celebrate this year on April 28th, a Sunday with great festivities.  .

The background of this history starts between Passover and Shavuot, the Exodus from Egypt of the 600,000 with Moses (1391-1271 BCE)  and the time he gave us the Torah on Mt. Sinai.  During this period we count with pieces of barley in Sefirah  counters  or mark the days off on the calendar till we reach Shavuot. There are 49 days (7 full weeks-7X7=49). What a great way to teach children their times tables.   This begins on the 2nd night of Passover and ends with Shavuot.   Receiving the Torah is another joyous holiday, of course.  Mysticism comes in during the counting with  saying one of the psalms that is made up of 49 words, each standing for one day.  Also, one of the lines in the psalm has 49 letters, again each representing one day.

The time of counting the Omer is a time of semi-mourning.  Weddings are not to take place in this period, nor a time to get your haircut.  The reason is that we are to think about our ancestors and us approaching Mount Sinai and receiving the revelation of G-d as Moses did. We think of the thunder and lightning, the shofar blast and the pillar of cloud, and an awestruck nation that we belong to receiving the Ten commandments.  We visualize Moses ascending to heaven as its intermediary receiving these words.  We might also think of King David, the sweet singer of Israel whose quill wrote the longing and achievements and heartbreak and inspiration with his psalms for millions of people from shepherd tents in the desert to penthouse towers in  teeming cities.  It evokes the goal of bringing about the human manifestation of "Let there be light !"  

 It's also a time to remember the horrible plague which killed many of Rabbi Akiva's students.
Rabbi Ben Joseph Akiva lived from 50 to 135 CE.  An uneducated man, he was helped by his wife Rachel, daughter of Kalba Sabbua, a rich man,  and started learning at age 40.  He became very interested in mystical matters.  He has been regarded as the greatest scholar of his time.  The plague hit his students, killing many of them  and finally ended on the 33rd day of the Omer period which was on Iyyar 18.  So it's called the Scholar's Feast.  Lag B'Omer falls on the 33rd day of the period of counting of the Omer.

This meant that this holiday was a day off from school.  The custom was that boys would play mock battles with bows and arrows like the people back in those days.  In Israel, the custom is to light bonfires at night.  Midnight is often the time to do this

People make a pilgrimage to the tomb at Mt. Meron of Rabbi Simeon ben Yochai who supposedly died on this day transmitting his mystical lore.  Rabbi Simeon studied in the academy that was founded by Rabbi Zakhai, and his teacher was none other than Rabbi Akiva.

The Roman Emperor, Hadrian, shut down the Talmudic academies and it was against the law to study Torah.  That didn't stop Rabbi Akiva.  He kept on teaching publicly and Simeon was his best pupil, staying right with him.  Finally Rabbi Akiva was arrested and put in prison.  Simeon was determined to keep on studying so visited him in prison, getting his instructions anyway until Rabbi Akiva was condemned and was killed by the system.  Rabbi means "teacher" and this man died a martyr.   What happened to Hadrian was that he died in great pain and his decrees stopped being enforced so strongly.

Rabbi Simeon and his son had to hide out in a cave, though, for studying the Torah was still against the law and the story is that they lived on carobs and water.

In modern Israeli culture, the holiday has been reinterpreted as a commemoration of the Bar Kokhba Revolt against the Roman Empire, the final one in 133 CE when Jews suffered 580,000 Jewish casualties besides those that died of hunger and disease.  That must have matched the 600,000 that entered Israel with Moses.

This rite of Springtime is a happy joyous time.  It is a day of outings, and the prohibitions relating to mourning are lifted.  I notice the prominence and accent on education with this holiday.  That's what our holidays are all about.  It's a time to remember our past history and how we got to this point in time.  How else have we lasted for about  3,213 years and have students continue to study our Torah (The 5 books of Moses--Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy) ?

Resource: The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia: Lag B'Omer
The Jewish Catalog by Richard Siegel, Michael Strassfeld, Ssharon Strassfeld
Tanach, the Stone Edition, ArtScroll Series
http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/679300/jewish/What-Is-Lag-BaOmer.htm
http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/2205697/jewish/Rabbi-Shimon-Bar-Yochai.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lag_BaOmer
http://judaism.about.com/od/holidays/a/lagbaomer.htm

This Contentious Jihad Movement

Nadene Goldfoot
Jihad is understood to be an obligation in a military sense, meaning military combat.  Middle East historian, Bernard Lewis says that "the overwhelming majority of classical theologians, jurists, and traditionalists (specialists in the hadith) understand it to be so.

We saw it happening with the Boston marathon terrorists acting with aid from a terrorist cell or alone.  Their way of solving things happening in the the world that they disapprove of was to commit Jihad, or  terrorism.

 Benjamin R. Barber points out that resistant movements come from fundamentalist ethnic groups who want to protect their traditions, heritage and identity.  I go along with wanting protection for these things so dear to our hearts.  Otherwise, the world would be like a rose garden full of only red roses.  Boring!  Life is spiced up with diversity, but Jihad is not the way we solve problems  in the civilized countries today.

 I see that Jihad, or terrorism happening against Israel is from people who can't tolerate the legally sanctioned state of Israel existing.  They can't tolerate seeing  Israel  become something beautiful and productive out of swamp, desert and mosquitoes, and that it was created by and for a different but similar religion; Judaism.  Jews haven't required the Arabs who are citizens to do anything other than to be peaceful and get along with the Jewish population.  There are mosques all over the place.  All religions are respected to the utmost.  Moshe Dayan handed over the reigns of the Temple, now the Mosque of Omar, to the Muslims  way back in 1967, much to the consternation of many Israelis today who have come up against  Muslims not allowing any Jew to pray even near the place.  Is anyone  more tolerant than Jews, who have suffered intolerance for 2,000 years?  I doubt it very much.

  Yet, Israel has  terrorism coming  from Gaza and the threat of it from the neighboring states.  There are only 2 countries that signed a peace pact; Jordan and Egypt, and Egypt has gone with Muslim Brotherhood now.  What is the terrorist definition?  People  are terrorists because they attack and kill civilians, even schools full of children.  A real war is something that involves soldiers against soldiers.  Egyptians, Gazans and other Muslims listening to al Jazeera TV are advised by the religious leader Qaradawi to perform Jihad;  attack and kill Jews.

The Tsarnaev brothers, Tamerlan 26 and Dzhokar 19,  who caused the Boston Marathon's terrorism said through the younger, Dzhoker, that they did it because of Afghanistan's interference from the USA. So they in turn felt it right to attack the USA,  the country their father fled to after having his life threatened in Dagestan, probably from the Russians.  What had he been up to there to have had to escape for his life and seek asylum in the states?  This is not how Americans are bred and taught in handling our government's foreign affairs.  We have a democracy, which they also were exposed to in their education here, having immigrated in 2002.  However, family traits and words are far more powerful, evidently than their Boston public school  education, at least for Dzhoker, who is 19 and for the past 7 months a naturalized USA citizen.  Tamerlan was already 15 and most likely already indoctrinated to Jihad as a problem solving road to follow.

One out of eight US residents are foreign-born,  according to the Census Bureau.  In some rural communities, such as eastern Oregon, most are from Mexico.  Urban communities are receiving people from all over the world.  2.75 million Muslims live in the USA of which  63% are foreign born like the Tsarnaev family of 6.   1.5 billion Muslims make up 21% of the world's population which in 2011 was 6,973,738,433.  Today it is 7.081 billion.  Chechnya and Dagestan, where the family came from,  has been a hotbed of terrorist activity against their oppressor, Russia.

Tamerlan got into trouble twice  in his own Mosque for shouting down the Iman for speaking about peaceful living in the states such as celebrating Thanksgiving and the Fourth of July.  The first time was in November.  The 2nd time was in January. Both times happened after his 6 month stay in Dagestan from January 2012 to July.  This was found out on Monday from the  "The Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center. 

 It's too bad that they didn't alert the family about his behavior, even though he was 26 years old.  It could have prevented the whole attack and his own death.  If they had, it might have been met with defiance, anyway from their mother.  In this case, alerting  authorities would have been better.  It's been found that Tamerlan, at least was deep into Jihad type websites feeding his growing hatred.  

The only connection these 2 terrorists have with Afghanistan is through religion.  Both Chechnya and Dagestan, where they are from, and Afghanistan are Muslim states.  Their way of rebelling is Jihad.

Our war with Afghanistan started on October 7, 2001 after 9/11 in Operation Enduring Freedom. Osama bin Laden was the culprit.  The Saudi Arabians that rammed into the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001 really started it all.  Why did they do that?  What was their beef?  We lost over 2,000 people in that Jihad attack.  After that our goal was to dismantle Al Qaeda, a terrorist organization that caused such terror to innocent people. This terrorist group had been using Afghanistan as a base.  We were not alone.  The UK, Australia, France, Canada and the Afghan United Front were with us.

Sadly, the jihadists are just growing and multiplying.  Perhaps one of these days they'll get tired of a routine of plotting and killing and find out that there's more to life than just that.  People do have the capabilities of living together in peace yet maintaining their individuality.  It only takes the right outlook on life:  to respect it.

Update 4/24/13 6:12pm:  Tamerlan attended the Cambridge, Massachusetts Islamic Society of Boston Mosque and met an Armenian, Misha there,  who had influence over him in becoming a jihadist.  Tamerlan read "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, " anti-Semitic literature of the Nazis.  This came from his former brother-in-law, Elmerza Khozhugor.  http://www.algemeiner.com/2013/04/24/family-says-boston-marathon-explosions-suspect-was-interested-in-%E2%80%98protocols-of-the-elders-of-zion%E2%80%99/

Resource:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jihad
Oregonian newspaper 4/24/13, page B9, A Rush to Demonize:  The terror of not knowing
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jihad
http://www.politico.com/story/2013/04/tamerlan-tsarnaev-mosque-outbursts-described-90474.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Afghanistan_(2001%E2%80%93present)
http://www.google.com/search?q=world+population&sourceid=ie7&rls=com.microsoft:en-US&ie=utf8&oe=utf8
4/25/13 added information: http://frontpagemag.com/2013/robert-spencer/excusing-jihad-in-boston/?utm_source=FrontPage+Magazine&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=3c82deed29-Mailchimp_FrontPageMag

Dzhokar Tsarnaev's Citizenship Oath on 9/11 To Be A Good Citizen Ignored

Nadene Goldfoot
Dzhokar Tsarnaev, a Chechen, the 19 year old Muslim  terrorist born in Chechnya, Kyrgyzstan who immigrated to the USA became a USA citizen last year.  He swore,  "I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state or sovereignty, of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen; that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform noncombatant service in the armed forces of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law; and that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; so help me God."

I wonder if citizenship can be taken away by default for breaking this contract before the year is up?  There should be a clause in such a case as this.  Obviously the 5 years that should have acted as a time of vetting a person didn't tell much being he was so young.  He must have had to wait till age 18, it looks like,  which might be the law since the father didn't naturalize.  

Dzhokar obviously lied by working with his brother to bomb the Boston marathon which resulted not only in 3 deaths but several others elsewhere as well as putting about 180 people in the hospital, some  with horrendous injuries like missing both legs.

Both Tamerlan born 1987 and Dzhoka, born 1994  came here in 2002 under an asylum petition by their father, Anzor,  who had said that he feared for his life because of his activities in Chechnya.  To get here he came on a tourist visa.  Now,  activities such as this most likely were terrorist activities against the Russian government. Was this ever checked out?   That didn't stop his two boys, ages 15 and 8,  from being able to wait the appropriate 5 years  and apply for American citizenship. Tamerlan was interviewed in 2011 by the FBI and then his citizenship papers were halted afterwards.

Evidently the family had moved from Chechnya to Daghestan in 2001 and lived in the city of Tokmok.  From there they immigrated to the USA.

Why didn't eyebrows go up when Anzor returned to Makhachkala, Dagestan, Russia where he had sought asylum from? Dagestan is right next to Chechnya.  They both were part of Khazaria long ago.  Evidently he never sought out citizenship in the USA.   Why didn't our government question when Tamerlan returned there in January?  Tamerlan was in Dagestan for 6 months from January 2012 to June and turned in his citizenship application 6 days after his younger brother, Dzhokar had his application approved.  That was a strange thing to do when you want to apply for citizenship.  You're supposed to live here for 5 years.  Dzhoker has only been a citizen since September 2012 for 7 months.  "September 11th, in fact — Dzhoker Tzarnaev took the oath  during a large ceremony held at TD Bank Garden.

Tamerlan's papers had been held up for questionable activities.  Hitting his girlfriend doesn't count as it never went to court.  Russia had contacted the USA about Tamerlan being a terrorist but this was not acted on by us.  Evidently they couldn't find any evidence then.  He had posted something on You Tube about Dagistani jihadists and a religious Chechen singer singing "Life is devoted to jihad.".

There has been found a Chechen Wahhabi cell that is funded by al Qaeda.  By 2013 there were 124 people who died and 74 injured after years of violent Islamist violence there.  Could Anzor have been a member of that cell?

"An applicant for citizenship must be of "good moral character," meaning that he or she cannot have committed any serious crimes, or, in some cases, even any minor ones. They have to demonstrate the ability to speak and write in English. They must pass a civics test. At that point, the applicant qualifies for citizenship"

The Tsarnaev family are Chechens.  Chechens could have been displaced people transported to Chechnya in the 40's by Russia.  "The term "Chechen" first occurs in Arabic sources from the 8th century. According to popular tradition, the Russian term "Chechen" comes from the name of the village of Chechen-Aul, where the Chechens defeated Russian soldiers in 1732. The word "Chechen", however, occurs in Russian sources as early as 1692 and the Russians probably derived it from the Kabardian "Shashan"  The 1.7 million Chechens originated in the north Caucasus region of eastern Europe.  

With such a fluid background that was undoubtedly violent for the father, these boys were able to live in the USA under the most favorable of conditions as far as the city of Boston goes.  What the family life was like is another story.  There is no excuse for anyone who seeks asylum to be saved and allowed to live in this great country to act violently and perform terrorist acts.    Who has been influencing them to seek out such websites as they have been doing in this country?

There are about 2,500 Jews living in Kyrgyzstan today.  20,000 Jews escaping war in WWII from Russia, Ukraine and Poland fled to Kyrgyz cities and villages.  The population has since dwindled.  In 1989 there were 5,800 Jews.  I say this because the area is predominantly Muslim today though about 1200 years ago as Khazaria it was a haven for Jews since the Royal family had converted to Judaism.

I hope our legal system takes a look at something they most likely have never been asked to swear; the oath for immigrants to become naturalized citizens.  My paternal grandfather and grandmother had to take it.  My maternal grandmother did, too.  If you come here and want to be a citizen, you must take this oath seriously. We don't need people who intend to be terrorists.

Update: 4/23/13 Oregonian newspaper page A5:  The divorced parents are now in Russia.  Suleimanova is the aunt and lives in Makhachkala, the capital of Dagestan.  Their extended families live in Dagestan and Chechnya.  Dzhokar's mother, Zubeidat, was arrested in the US in June on charges of shoplifting.  Her native village was in a mountainous region of Dagestan, a hotbed of an ultraconservative strain of Islam called Wahabbism, introduced to the Caucasus in the 1990's by preachers and teachers from Saudi Arabia.  Her relatives now all live in Makhachkala and Kaspiisk.  Anzor, the father, said he was a lawyer.  Tamerlan had returned to the USA on July 17, 2012.  He had needed to get a new Russian passport but he did not pick up his new passport after applying for it in July in Dagestan when it was ready.  Supposedly that's why he had returned there.

Resource: http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/uscis/menuitem.5af9bb95919f35e66f614176543f6d1a/?vgnextoid=facd6db8d7e37210VgnVCM100000082ca60aRCRD&vgnextchannel=dd7ffe9dd4aa3210VgnVCM100000b92ca60aRCRD
http://fox2now.com/2013/04/19/suspects-described-as-brothers-from-russian-caucasus/
http://www.debka.com/article/22911/
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/21/us/tamerlan-tsarnaevs-citizenship-held-up-by-homeland-security.html?_r=0
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/04/19/boston-bombing-suspects-what-the-kyrgyzstan-connection-means/
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/vjw/Kyrgyzstan.html
http://abcnews.go.com/US/boston-bomb-suspects-dad-tells-son-surrender-hell/story?id=18995936
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/apr/22/tamerlan-tsarnaev-youtube-jihadist-radicalisation

Attack of Orthodox Jewish Man on New York City Subway By Muslim Teen

Nadene Goldfoot
Friday on a New York City subway must be a hectic day with everyone rushing home to Brooklyn.  On this past Friday,  a Jewish man wearing a kippa  was on board, probably anxious to get home and get prepared for Shabbat, and was approached by a gang of 9 older teenagers with a greeting from one of Assalamu Alaikum, the Muslim greeting of " peace.be with you."  In Hebrew it's Shalom Aleikhem (peace unto you). In Israel and New York  most Jews  just say Shalom, which can mean peace, hello and goodbye.  

After being uptight all week with the Boston terrorist marathon massacre,  the Jewish  man didn't answer.  He knew that something was up with so many around him and felt alarmed.  He tried to ignore them.  The Boston terrorists were on the run and the older one was already killed and the 19 year old was being hunted, not to be caught until that Friday evening.

 Stephan Stowe, age 17 was the group ring leader evidently for he had started the conversation.  Stowe "became combative"  when the Jewish man didn't respond.   The conversation  turned accusatory from Stowe with the Jewish man in denial with his retort and told Stowe to leave him alone.

That's when Stowe threatened him with "I'm going to kill you right now!  He then swore at the man, and in an apparent reference to the Holocaust added,  "They should have killed all of you.!"

The man got the attention of the conductor of the train  and the police were waiting for Stowe at the next stop.  He did not go quietly. The Jewish man took his picture with his phone and Stowe grabbed it and deleted the picture.   A chaotic screaming and yelling ensued that is on the video below.  One of the gang, a 22 year old woman, Sheniqua Joseph,  hit the policeman and then yelled about him, interfering with the arrest, and instead got arrested herself.  The whole fracas was filmed by a bystander with his phone and uploaded it on  You Tube.   It had turned into some type of brutality against the policeman, something you don't want to do.  But today with all the gadgets, you just can't get away with it, as the Boston terrorists have found out.

Agitating people on a subway is a crime that will be punished heavily.  Stowe was arraigned on 8 charges; grand larceny (which was charged as a hate crime), resisting arrest and harassment.  We don't want this to become a practice like it has become in Malmo, Sweden and France.  Jews are facing threats and attacks there like what went on in Germany before WWII.

Resource:  http://www.algemeiner.com/2013/04/19/disorder-on-new-york-city-subway-after-teen-tells-jewish-man-they-should-have-killed-all-of-you-video/#
http://www.algemeiner.com/2013/04/19/disorder-on-new-york-city-subway-after-teen-tells-jewish-man-they-should-have-killed-all-of-you-video/#

Boston Terrorists from Chechnya and Dagestan, Russia: Originally KHAZARIA

Nadene Goldfoot                                                                 

                                                                               

In pursuing my Jewish genealogy, there was thought that perhaps our rare Ydna; haplogroup Q1b1a ,  originated with Khazaria, but that thought has been dismissed.  It is thought that  another haplogroup, like an R1b  could have come from this 8th century state in what today is Russia.  Khazaria  was ruled by a king or kagan of which Kagan Bulan had converted to Judaism.

With the terrorist attack in Boston Monday, I now find the two Muslim brothers who are accused are from Chechnya, Russia.  This turns out to be the land from the Middle Ages of Khazaria!  The  Chechen Republic and Dagestan made up Khazaria.   Evidently after Khazaria was defeated, the Jewish Khazars and their leader may have had to renounce Judaism and accept Islam  or escape around 640 CE..  On a flat part of the Chechen Republic and Ingushetia, sites of  an ancient settlement  in which Khazaria cities were found.  The form and technology of the medieval Chechen ceramics is similar to ceramics of the Khazars that have been found.

For centuries Jewish refugees escaping persecution went to Khazaria, an open minded empire. The Kagan had decided to listen to 3 speakers; a Jew, a Christian and a Muslim to decide which religion he should follow. He and his people were shamanists and worshipped spirits and the sky, called Tengri shamanism.   The Jew won out and the royal house converted.  He was unique as he didn't make his subjects follow suit.  It was their choice to make.  So it came to pass that  about  between 786-809 CE, King Bulan of Khazaria and 4,000 of his nobles accepted Judaism.  Prince Obadiah was the organizer in their conversion. Khazaria had been made up of eastern Turks, commented the 9th century Greek historian, Theophanes.

Because Khazaria was situated as a link between Europe, Asia and the Middle East, it was important.  They were on the periphery of the Byzantine and Persian empires.  Sometimes they got along with the Byzantines, Alans and Oghuz, while other times  they were their fiercest enemies.  They could be an aggressive people.  Sometimes they got along with the Arabs, but warred against each other in the 7th and 8th centuries in the Arab-Khazar Wars.

Khazarians  were called the White Ugrians by the Russians.  This was in contrast to the Hungarians who were the Black Ugrians.    The Royal House or Western Turks (Blue)  ruled the Khazars for over 60 years as a Turk Kaganate, which was founded in 552 CE by Ishtemi, the Yabghu Kagan who was the brother of the supreme Turk kagan, Bumin.    Ishtemi and Bumin were part of the Turkic Asena (Ashina) dynastic clan.  Their headquarters were near Lake Balkash.  In 567, hordes of Western Turks had arrived in the Volga River region.  They were written about in 555, mentioned in a Syriac translation, listed among the nomadic tribes living in tents north of the Caucasus Mountains.  They would become Muslim sometime after Mohammad's death of 632 CE.

Some of the Turkic people believed that they descended from Noah through Togarmah, one of the 70 people listed in Genesis 10.  The country has been identified with Tagarmah on the Central Euphrates mentioned in Hittite inscriptions.  It was also listed in the Talmud as Germanike.  The Armenians and Georgians were traditionally descended from these people.  Later, the name was applied to Turkey.  One of the most important Khazar kings, Joseph (note the Jewish name), said he was descended from Kozar, the 7th of Togarmah's 10 sons.  Medieval Hebrew essays substantiated this claim.  There had to be one or more Jews, such as a Rabbi, to do the converting, and he may not have travelled alone, so besides the people who were converted, there had to be a few native Jews in the population.  

The steppes of present-day Chechnya were part of the Khazar Kaganate.  One would think that Jews share ancestors with modern Chechens, since Chechnya was on the Southern edge of Khazaria, the largest Jewish state ever to have existed after the fall of Jerusalem in 70 CE.  In the Chechen Republic there are place names such as, "Army of Jews," "Barrow where Jews were Lost," and legends about the Jewish princes, Jews and wars  conducted by Jews.  That must have been about entering Canaan back in about 1390 BCE.  The name of the Chechen tribe "Akkij" is from "Okachan" ("Akacirs"/Khazars)  Also, most of the Chechens are called shatojes, shabutayns.  According to linguists, it means, "celebrating Saturday."  Saturday in Hebrew is "Shabbat."  Many names in the Chechen Republic are connected with Khazars.  They feel they have a pretty strong relationship.

The dna of Chechens has been checked with Jews on the dermatoglifiki index which shows Ashkenazi Jews and the Tuaregs (people in North Africa that are Muslims are almost identical in dna.  The Chechens genes coincide with Jews  showing allele # as 14-13-30-23-10-11-12-13-16.  It also is similar with Armenians. Therefore, genes have revealed a relationship and coincidence of the genes of Chechens, Ingushs, Armenians and Jews.  The dna of the Ingushs have the closest match of those with the Jews.  It is thought that the Ingushs, according to legends, are descendants of Jews from Iran.

My question would be, which Jews?  We come in many different haplogroups.  Our Q1b1a happens to be only found in 5% of the Jewish population.  So I would love to know what the haplogroup is of the alleles the commentator speaks of in my resource*.

A study done in 2000 by Drs.  Harry Ostrer and Michael Hammer shows that dna of Ashkenazi Jews (European) match up most with Italian Jews.  Jews have not intermarried very often with non-Judeans, including converts to Judaism.  Our dna matches up with people from the Middle East also, such as Jews of North Africa, Iraq, Iran, Kurds and Yemenite Jews which are also found among Arabs, particularly the Palestinian, Lebanese and Syrian Arabs.  Even our Q1b1a has matched remotely with a few Saudis that tested.  The most common haplogroup among Jews is the Cohen gene, J1, of which a branch is also found in Iraqi Arabs.

Some of the Chechen names are characteristically Jewish.  Khava,  is much the same as Chava, a common Jewish name.  Does anyone know any Muslim women named Chava?

Khazaria, actually in southern Russia and Ukraine, was a major center of commercial activity, especially in the 8th and 9th centuries.  Khazaria was described as a land of plenty with great riches. They even taxed goods according to their value.    The Radhanites, Russian Arabs, Chinese, Oghuz Turks and others traded with the Khazars.  They were on the Silk Road.

Kiev, the capital of the Ukraine which is in the Pale of Settlement;  the only area that  Jews were allowed to inhabit,  was founded in the 8th century by the Khazars, most likely.  Jewish merchants had visited the town in the 9th and 10th centuries.

Khazaria was politically independent until about 1016.  The last Khazar kagan was Geogius Tzul who wound up in a Russian prison.  The Russians took the land.   That's because Khazaria lacked natural frontiers for defense, for one. The Golden Horde Mongols controlled a large part of the former Khazar Empire around the Caspian Sea during the late Middle Ages.   The end of this empire also was the beginning of an unfortunate era for Jews, who left at the breakup.    The Jews of eastern Europe no longer had a nation to call a Jewish nation so had no refuge.

In 1096 the German Crusade massacred Jews in European towns.  In 1099 the Jewish community in Jerusalem was massacred by the Crusaders.  So began many expulsions and no place to go.  Even the Jews of  Vilna, Grodno and Kovno, Lithuania, 10,000 of them,  were expelled in 1495, after the 1492 Spanish Inquisition.  They were allowed to enter again in 1529.   I figure that my Goldfus family entered Lithuania then from Germany.   The distance to travel from Khazaria to Lithuania is about 541 miles if they went directly there. However, most people think that most Jews went from Rome to Germany and on up to Eastern Europe.   Those from Khazaria could have found refuge in Germany where Jews had been living since 321 CE.  In the 8th and 9th centuries Jews were settling there but were massacred in 1096, 1298,  1336, 1348/49 and were banished in the 16th century.  Life was precarious in Germany  It's a wonder how any Jew survived the upheavals.  No wonder they dashed to eastern Europe.

Today's Chechnyians are known for the terrorism which has been against Russia since 1991 when the USSR collapsed.  They say they want independence for their Muslim state.   So far, Russia has been able to put down their rebellions.  They have been found among the more radical Muslims in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Syria.

* Resource: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100315080836AAyibmV
The Jews of Khazaria,  2nd Edition by Kevin Alan Brook
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324763404578432653304233858.html
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
http://www.mapcrow.info/Distance_between_Kaunas_LH_and_Moscow_RS.html
http://www.khazaria.com/

Is Praying a Reason to Kill Someone?

Nadene Goldfoot
To  Palestinians, Jews are not allowed to pray on the Temple Mount, our ancient Temple built originally by King Solomon (961-920 BCE).  That's because they have built their Mosque of Omar on top of it  after 620 CE.    So we can't remember?  It's still there, in part.

"I do not understand why a Jew is not allowed to pray in the most sacred place for him," says the Likud MK, who will visit the volatile spot to see if Jews can gain access for prayer there."  She has immediately been warned by her peers that the act of going there will incite the Muslims.

They need to check out the agreements made by Moshe Dayan, Minister of Defense,  probably back in 1967.  The Mosque of Omar was already built over our Temple and Muslims wanted full rights of decisions over it.  "The Jerusalem Islamic Waqf officially controls the Temple Mount."  I don't think that Moshe Dayan realized what this would lead to when this power was granted to this religious body.

Jews have not been allowed to pray there, even outside of the Temple.   A terror cell was discovered by the police that plotted to kidnap and then shoot Jews  in order to take their guns to shoot Jews praying on the Temple Mount.  They'd shoot the security forces as well.

Caught was Nor Hamdan in February who recruited 4 other East Jerusalem Palestinians.  They were able to receive training, guidance and weaponry from other terrorists in Judea-Samaria and Gaza in February and March.

Actually, "The Chief Rabbinate has ruled that Jews are not allowed to ascend the Temple Mount because it still is holy despite the destruction of the First and Second Temples and that no rituals can be performed because it is impossible to be ritually pure today according to guidelines set out in the Torah."  This ruling certainly backs the Muslims in their zeal to keep us away from this awesome site.  Perhaps the best thing about it has been to protect lives.  Who knew that it was criminal to Muslims for Jews to pray in Jerusalem at their Temple grounds?

Not all mosques keep out all other faiths who want to pray or visit in other cities.  It seems that just at King Solomon's Temple on Mount Moriah, which was rebuilt by returning Jews from Babylonia after Nebuchadnezzar II's conquests in  597-586 BCE after being first destroyed by the Assyrians in 721 BCE.   It's  the most sacred spot on earth to Jews and has become  a place kept from us.

When Israel won in the 1967 war, the first thing the IDF did was to go to the Wailing or Western Wall in Jerusalem, the Wall that had surrounded the Temple once upon a time, and pray, cry and dance in happiness as they had been kept away from this site since 1948.  It had been in the hands of Jordan, and they had attacked and lost the war.

On Monday, October 8, 1990, a riot occurred on the steps of the Temple Mount with PM Yitzhak Shamir defending his people.  It was at the end of the holiday of Sukkot.  Arabs starting stoning Jews there and at other points in Jerusalem.  "Palestinians began throwing stones only after mosques in the nearby village of Silwan announced through loudspeakers that Jewish extremists had come there. The extremists were Jews from the Temple Mount Faithful, who proposed to rebuild Solomon's Temple where the Al-Aqsa mosque now stands. "   That's what the Arabs may have told their flocks, but being my cousin, Stanley Goldfoot, was a member of the Temple Mount Faithful, had told me they didn't know where they might build.  They were a group planning the 3rd temple, but it was just in the planning and development stage.  There were many things to prepare for the Temple and they had been doing only that.

Then on September 29, 2000, PM  Ariel Sharon had an experience on the steps.  He made a visit and marched up to the Haram al-Sharif (gold domed)  with some of his peers and came down.  His visit made the Palestinians so angry that they threw everything they could, chairs, stones, garbage at the IDF that was there to protect Sharon.

Resource:  http://www.jpost.com/Defense/5-charged-for-plot-to-kill-Jews-praying-at-Temple-Mount-310231?rz=n_18Apr13
http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/mk-miri-regev-to-tour-jerusalem-s-temple-mount-to-examine-resumption-of-jewish-prayer.premium-1.515991
http://www.jewishpress.com/news/breaking-news/mk-to-visit-templemount-to-find-out-why-jews-barred-from-praying/2013/04/17/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1990_Temple_Mount_riots
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1876&dat=19901011&id=TQYqAAAAIBAJ&sjid=l84EAAAAIBAJ&pg=5711,3627430
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2000/sep/29/israel

Israelis in Boston Marathon

Nadene Goldfoot
We all feel deeply for Boston who has just faced terror from a terrorist, something Israel has been facing for over 65 years.  Even in 1929, the year of America's stock crash, terror was great in the  Jewish city, Hebron,  in Palestine. In that attack, 67 Jews were killed of which 23 of them were college students.   So far 3 people, one a grad student at Boston U*,  an 8 year old boy  and a 29 year old lady have died in the Boston Marathon terror with about  140 sent to the hospital for injuries great and small.  There are those that have lost their limbs from this outrage. The  2  bombs  that exploded were finally listed as a terror attack.  These bombs were loaded wit nail-like objects without heads,  metallic fragments and pellets to be able to cause more harm and blood-letting.  They were brought into the area in a black nylon bag or backpack.

There were 16 Israelis running in the 26 mile long Boston Marathon.  23,336 people from every country participated.  It made me want to cry to see all the flags taken down and laid on the street hurriedly knowing how flags are usually treated..   In the words of Tzviki Bronstein, age 57, one of the runners, "It was packed."  75.3% of the runners had already finished when the bombs exploded at the end of the race.  This means that 17,580 people had crossed the finish line.   " It was lucky that more weren't killed." commented Tzviki.     He luckily had finished the race before the 2 bombs went off and was already almost at his hotel when they did explode. There was even an entry for 80 year-olds and older.  3 men and 12 women had entered this one.  8.3% had reached the finish line.  .   It is thought that tthe bombs were set on a timer remotely controlled and that they were possibly in a pressure cooker.  To see the 78 year old runner bowled over and crumble in a heap by the bomb's force made you realize the invisible power bombs have.  

Israel has had nearly 2,500 citizens killed in terror attacks.  Right at the moment we have Rachel Biton's 3 year old baby girl fighting for her life from stone throwing, now also listed as a terror attack.  Stones can hit that delicate spot on the head and cause death, just like a bullet.  Just because it's a primitive act from the Stone Age doesn't make it less lethal.

Israel has been hit with rockets, mortars and missiles since 2001 in southern Israel from the Gazan terrorists, Hamas and other extremists groups.    Hamas is held responsible for them all.  This is an act of war, as there is no peace treaty,  not even a recognition, only threats and charters swearing to wipe Israel out.  It is also an act of terror, hitting on civilian populations.

I moved to Israel in 1980 and soon learned not to pick up anything off the ground in Haifa in order to keep the sidewalk looking neat and clean.    It could be a bomb.  Bombs were placed in loaves of bread, or any item.  At the Tzfat junior high where I taught there were always several inspectors, children who inspected bags, purses, etc.  One has to be very careful in Israel.  It was expected that when I went shopping, my purse would first be checked out.  Once in a shopping area, a robot was called in to check out a bakery box left on the ground that either held cookies or a bomb.  I watched the whole procedure of the robot shooting it with the  result ;  crumbled cookies.

 Now, maybe 33 years later the USA is going to have to take more precautions.   Israelis had been in Boston teaching techniques of dealing with terrorism before this incident in a workshop for hospitals.  We don't even have any idea as to who this latest terrorist happens to be; someone who is an angry American citizen or al Qaeda.   Being it was North Korea's anniversary, it could be one of them.  We've already checked out a lone Saudi Arabian student who was one of the injured. It was said he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.   It was Income Tax Day also, so it could have been someone angry about taxes as well.

8:00pm: * one victim later identified as a Chinese national
Resource:  http://www.jewishpress.com/news/breaking-news/sixteen-israelis-ran-in-bombed-boston-marathon/2013/04/16/?src=ataglance
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/americas/united-states/130416/boston-marathon-runners-explosion-2013-data
http://www.homelandsecurityssi.com/homeland-security-training-israel
NPR on 4/16/13 about Israel training session on terror
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1929_Hebron_massacre

Israel: Senior Citizen of the World: Yom ha-Azma'ut

Nadene Goldfoot                                                                 

Happy Birthday, Israel.  You are now 65 years old.  You've made it to the ripe old age of being classified as a senior citizen.

Sixty-Five years ago according to the Jewish calendar when the British,  who had held the mandate, pulled out of Palestine, you were able to announce to the world:

"It is...the self-evident right of the Jewish people to be a nation, as all other nations, in its own Sovereign State.  Accordingly, we, the members of the National Council, representing the Jewish people in Palestine and the Zionist movement of the world, meet together in solemn assembly today...by virtue of the natural and historic right of the Jewish people and of the Resolution of the General Assembly of the United Nations, "Hereby proclaim the establishment of the Jewish state in Palestine, to be called the State of Israel...."

An audience in attendance to this historic and brave moment rose and applauded.  then, when the proclamation had been adopted by acclamation, Ben-Gurion put his signature to the scroll.  Other council members followed, stepping to the front of the dais to sign while Sharrett held the parchment for each of them.

"Suddenly, the melancholy strains of "Hatikvah," the Jewish national anthem, wafted over the audience" by the Jewish Philharmonic Orchestra which was playing above from an upper story of the building.  "Ben-Gurion declared the meeting ended and Israel REBORN."

The first Israeli Prime Minister made his way through well- wishers and walked over to a British reporter saying, "You see, we did it!"

It was May 14, 1948 and moments later a buzzer on Clark Clifford's desk at the White House got his attention and he went to the President's office.  Truman greeted him with a "broad smile."  Truman was able to tell Clifford that General Marshall called and he's agreed to de facto recognition but wanted to wait for a few days to consult with the British and the French. (They had been the ones holding the mandates.)  Clifford answered, "Mr. President, if we're going to recognize the country it's best to do it immediately."  Truman had received a letter from Chaim Weizmann pleading for immediate recognition.  "All right, Truman answered.  "Get a formal request for recognition immediately."

It was almost 10:00 am.  Only 8 hours until the Jewish State would be born, since Palestine time was 6 hours ahead of Washington time.  He called Eliahu Elath at the Jewish Agency headquarters and asked, "Are you people still determined to proclaim your independence today?
"I haven't the slightest doubt," was Elath's reply.

And it happened.  The British left and Israel was reborn.  May 14, 1948.

                                                           Hatikvah (The Hope)

In the Jewish heart..a Jewish spirit still sings,...and the eyes look East...Toward Zion

Our hope is not lost...Our hope of 2,000 years....To be a free nation in our land

In the land of Zion and Jerusalem.  

Definition of Zion:  Jerusalem, Israel
Resource:  "Genesis 1948 The First Arab-Israeli War" by Dan Kurzman, Chapter "The Civil War" page 250-251
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uPHaioopKM  Hatikvah by Barbara Streisand (in Hebrew) , and Golda Meier short interview
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/hatikva.html    (Excellent information)