Looking Back At My Aliyah To Israel and Now

The culture of Lebanon  reflects their warlike behavior.
This is a sculpture in Bint Jbeil, Lebanon of missiles aimed at Israel.
Syria has the real missiles aimed at Israel.  I remember
Major Hadad of the Christian Lebanon Militia  who helped guard Israel's border from terrorists.
Look at what has happened to it today.  Hezbollah terrorists have taken over Lebanon. Palestinian Gazans are acting out dangerously in every manner.  

Nadene Goldfoot                                                   

Syrian scud missiles aimed at Israel 

Syria had missiles lined up facing Israel since the 80's, probably bought from
Russia.
Israel and Russia have had several chats about this of  late.  

                                                                         

The Golan Heights are so close to Safed, where I had lived.
Missiles from Syria are only 3 miles away from Golan Heights.
It's only 31.3 miles from Safed to Golan Heights. 
North Korea's ICBM missile range is anywhere from 4,000 to 8,100 miles.

It was 38 years ago in 1980 that I made aliyah to Israel.  That same year, my friend, Jack, was born in Damascus, Syria.  The distance between us was only 222.7 miles via highway M5.  Coming from Portland, Oregon, that's like comparing Portland's  driving distance  to  Mt. Vernon, Washington, which is 234.51 miles or 203.78 in nautical miles.

I tried very hard to get him into Israel when he became a refugee from the Syrian Civil War in 2012 which caused him to seek sanctuary in Egypt. That's when I met him on facebook, of all places.

 His desire to live in Israel was  because he was led to believe that his birth mother was a Jewish woman who was a friend of his Muslim father.  She had lived in the segregated Jewish Quarter on "Jew Street.'  Since he had been little, he had insisted on attending
his local Christian school, which he did until time to transfer to high school. He wanted to live a Jewish life, and not the life Damascus had to offer.

  When that seemed impossible to get him into Israel, I tried very hard to get him into the USA as a refugee, which he was.  This turned out to be impossible.  It was at a time that Obama was in office.  I did everything I could think of, contacting immigration lawyers, going to the local immigration center, speaking with those that decided who was eligible, contacting my local senator, and contacting the Jewish community.  Nothing helped.  He was a single young man.

The map above shows the distance from Portland, Oregon to Mt. Vernon, Washington which is 234.51 miles. 
Right now Turkey, Iran and Russia are situated in Syria  taking it over.
Their plan of course is to be able to attack Israel next.  It was bad enough with just
Assad in power with thousands of missiles pointed towards Israel.  Russia has been there for many years because Jack learned a little Russian from them being there.

Syrian refugees living in Egypt have been exiled and had  to seek other places to live.  Egypt's 

population was overly crowded for their own resources anyway.  There was no future

for refugees in Egypt.  Even Jack  as an educated man had problems.  Syrians going to Egypt had no problems with the language as the United States is confronted with.  They all spoke Arabic, just had different accents.  

                                                                           

Listening to Madeline Albright on CNN this morning, I hear even her not understanding

how taking in refugees at this time in history is quite different from taking in refugees at 

other periods, which, by the way, was always almost impossible for Jews because of the 

inhumane anti-Semitism that has existed since Roman days.  I don't remember anyone ever raising the riot-act because Jews were being mistreated when they couldn't enter any country when refugees from the Holocaust.  She herself lost many of her family members in the Holocaust and can't see the differences between them and today's refugees who could have been the axis  powers, terrorists themselves instead of those whose lives were being taken.  There wasn't that problem in the 2nd World War.  

                                                                     

        

This time, most single male refugees in particular could be members of terrorist groups or 

drug pushers;anoather of our problems where  people have entered who would bring harm to Americans.  Never before in history have 

refugees needed to be screened for their honesty in just wanting to have a chance to live.  

There's no way that my friend Jack can prove his honesty since all his records have been 

destroyed in the destruction happening in Syria.  He needs his college transcripts, diploma,

job qualifications, birth certificate, things we all would need.  How can he prove his innocence

in not being involved with terrorism?  How can the USA vet such people from this country?  I only hope that one day he'll get the chance to try.  

We've had bad experiences with refugees of late, and they come from either Mexico or have 

been extremist Muslims.  We're wary of more than one type of refugee.  What we've had a lot of are English speakers.  It seems that everyone voicing an opinion on TV has an accent showing they weren't born in this country.  Immigration has not come to a standstill.   

                                                                           

It was in 70 CE that the Romans, who had taken Jerusalem, burned down the Temple and the city

and took many Jews prisoner, marching them to Rome as slaves along with all the Temple booty. 

Jews were no longer allowed in Judah, which had been the southern end of Israel,  but many managed to hide out there, anyway.  This happened 1948 years ago.  It was in  May 1948 CE that Israel was reborn again, amazingly.

 Celebrating this remarkable date is what's causing the Palestinian rioters in Gaza to demonstrate with their madness.  They don't just demonstrate like teachers in the states wanting raises, they are violent!      The picture below tells of their reason to demonstrate. They still, after 70 years, have not accepted the fact that Israel exists and is there to stay.  Of course they're being fed a different history from the true facts, like the fact that there was never a country of Palestine; or that it's only the name of land named by the Romans and held by the Ottoman Empire who lost it, or that it was the land that Israel and Judah sat on for 3,000 years since Joshua.                     

                                                                     

The Jews with Moses numbered 650,000 at his last census on the Exodus from Egypt to Canaan.

The Jewish population  in May 1948 CE at the time of Israel's creation was 600,000.  For 2,000 years, Jews have had to wait to regain their homeland. For 2,000 years, they have been the scapegoats of every country they've lived in; some more, others less.  Whatever the foreign religion has been or whatever style political power it has been, they've all used the Jews as scapegoats to their problems.

All the while, through all their disasters, they've maintained their own religious beliefs of Judaism.

                                                                   

       

That was the joy I found in living in Israel.  Here is a picture of the Safed's Old City Inn.  Safed is one of the oldest cities in Israel, on top of a mountain at about the same height as Jerusalem.   It was unique to have my neighbors practicing the same religion as our family, or the stores really prepared for Passover.  Restaurants were kosher.  For an American from the West, it was unbelievable.  This city is so picturesque, and even has an artist's quarter with tons of galleries.  

I lived in a government  building where Jews and Muslims lived.  Once I had a horrible problem of a broken pipe in the building causing a river of water to enter my basement apartment and immediately an Israeli woman who spoke only Hebrew and Arabic and an Arab woman came to my aid.  All three of us were fighting the onslaught of water.  They could speak to each other but I couldn't say much at all.  What an experience that was!  We all faced the danger of being surrounded by crazed enemies  and wild situations together. 

                                                                           

In 2012, I met my Syrian friend, Jack on Facebook,  and from that and skyping and chatting a lot and taking notes, I became very interested in the plight he had found himself in.  My book that I finally wrote is full of Syrian facts from those days  that I had dug out from newspapers, books and articles including what they were doing with chemicals found that were used to kill people. It may be amateurishly written, but is loaded with some very interesting details through the eyes of his family reacting to what I had discovered.  

I had left Israel after watching  Israeli TV for 5 years where I saw TV streaming in from Syria and Lebanon.  I saw Syrian soldiers doing a horrible thing where they were biting animals!  I guess they were trying to scare anyone watching as to how ferocious they were, and indeed, they were behaving in such a primitive manner that I about  threw up.   From that experience to meeting Jack, who couldn't kill a fly, who was exemplary of the most humane person I've met, was quite a stretch.  I guess every country contains all kinds, but it's really hard to find people we do admire, like who I had met.  

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References: https://www.timesofisrael.com/iran-backed-forces-could-be-3-miles-from-israel-under-syria-deal-report/

https://www.wired.com/story/north-koreas-missile-test-puts-entire-us-in-range/

 "Israel Destroyed Russian Shipment of Anti-Ship Missiles to Syria (Eschatology Watch)"

Messages From A Syrian Jew Trapped In Egypt by Nadene Goldfoot