Nadene Goldfoot
Jews were directed to enter Canaan through the Man who freed them from 400 years of Slavery in Egypt and they followed his directions, which came to him through G-d, a god different from all the others in the world because Moses said there was but one, and this was his direction; and they obeyed. They created an empire that lasted starting in about 1271 BCE until 70 CE, about 1,341 years of being an empire ruled by heads of families, clans, then Kings Saul, David and Solomon, and after that their descendants until an empire called Israel was reduced to their southern tribal state of Judah, when Romans overcame them and drove them out. in 70 CE.
They didn't drive all out, though; but did a good job of it with their capital, Jerusalem. Some remained and multiplied throughout the ages. Roman soldiers actually kept Jews out of Jerusalem. General Bar Kochba, descendant of Jewish leadership, took Jerusalem in 132 with his soldiers in a vain effort to win his country back and held it for 3 years, a feat shocking to the Romans, the best army in the world at that time. They killed him in battle, and many of his army. 135 was the year that the land was called Palestine after the Philistines, named by the Romans who picked the most dangerous enemy of the Judeans.
Judeans, later called Jews, kept their faith that they learned from Moses, through all the years of living in lands ruled by polytheists, people who believed in many gods, and also while in Europe, among countries that had been introduced and had accepted Christianity. Later, around 630, some that hadn't left the Middle Eastern world, lived with Muslims without leaving their own religion.
Jews left these places when life was bearing down on the fact that they were Jewish and it was unacceptable to the land they were in and were forced out or had to convert. Russia is a good example of this. Jews left for an unknown but said to be a golden land, America, land of the free, home of the brave.
They came and ran into another wall of anti-Semitism, but at least no pogroms. Throughout the 1920's they were treated as a people different and unacceptable with others. Then the 30's came and things developed in Europe into years of the Holocaust when 6 million were burned alive, groups unarmed shot to death and their bodies covered with acid, or gassed, men, women, children, in the act of destroying the whole family of Jewish people that were the only ancient people to make it to this generation. For there were no more Amorites, Jebusites, Girgashites, Hivites, Arkites, etc., the biblical people that survived.
They did live among people who were also like them in the fact that they also had felt downtrodden and sought to make a new life for themselves, and cared less than the Europeans possibly about the Jews, and the Jews were actually able to work, mainly for themselves better than in Europe and develop their businesses. Many did well and could provide for their families. Incorporated into their Sabbath prayers was the promise of never forgetting, and returning to their land that God had wanted them to live in, as Moses had told them. For what events and emotions these people had gone through with Moses was most likely imbedded into their systems, their DNA, and they were a stubborn people who did not forget or denounce their learned beliefs to anyone or anything. That's what made them so special; their stubborness and faith so strong that it has remained for about the past 3,291 years. They would have rebuilt Jerusalem and the land had the remnant been able to, but they were kept from doing so. They were called the Wandering Jews.
This affected them. They almost forgot their families and their lives in Europe, and that means they started to forget their religion as there was no stress in keeping it anymore. Something that had started in Germany was Reform Judaism when so much of the practice was skipped over, and so much was done in English, that it got to the point that their Judaism was down to the bare skeletal remains of the religion and the people were melding into regular Americans like all the other immigrants were doing. A few kept to their Orthodox ways and some found it favorable to combine the two ideas into Conservative Judaism, sort of Orthodox and sort of reforming parts of it.
During the period from 1933 to 1945, the worst time of all for Jews when Germany became so anti-Semitic and Nazis were created by Hitler, Jews in the USA felt that Franklin Delano Roosevelt was their idol as he was president after doors had closed on the continued entrance of the Jewish people who sought to became Americans. Jews around 1924 found the door locked to them. They thought Roosevelt was their savior, and he was a Democrat. A large percentage of Jews, including my father, became Democrats. Facts are pointing now that he really didn't like Jews at all.
This period of immigration came to an end with the passage of restrictive laws in 1921 and 1924. Jewish emigration from Eastern Europe to the United States never again reached the levels that it did before 1920. "Proponents of the act sought to establish a distinct American identity by preserving its ethnic homogeneity. Reed told the Senate that earlier legislation "disregards entirely those of us who are interested in keeping American stock up to the highest standard—that is, the people who were born here." He believed that immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe, most of whom were Catholics or Jews, arrived sick and starving, were less capable of contributing to the American economy, and were unable to adapt to American culture.
Eugenics was used as justification for the act's restriction of certain races or ethnicities of people to prevent the spread of perceived feeblemindedness in American society. Samuel Gompers, himself a Jewish immigrant from Britain and the founder of the American Federation of Labor (AFL), supported the act because he opposed the cheap labor that immigration represented even though the act would sharply reduce Jewish immigration. Both the AFL and the Ku Klux Klan supported the act.
One can also deduce that the real reason was that they were afraid of
Jews taking over jobs of the average American. This showed up in
Germany with Jews retaining their businesses in time of economic
strife. I love reading that Jews have received more Nobel prizes
than their numbers would expect. To think that they were kept out of
country for not being smart enough. It only shows the average
intelligence produced by governments. Einstein was lucky
to be able to enter.
Restrictions were put on Jews in the USA. Jews could not get into medical school after a certain% were accepted, even though they passed the entrance tests with flying colors. Jews could not get into fraternities, sororities gyms, etc, because of their religion.
Palestinian Arabs have fought Jews since the 1920's along with the development of German anti-Semitism. There were a few Arabs, mostly Bedouins, roaming in and out of the land as other conquerors had taken over the land, but it was never taken and developed into a country. A few owned land with the Ottoman Empire but couldn't keep up with their high taxes and gladly sold out to crazy Jews who thought the barren ugly land full of weeds and marshes and mosquitoes was Holy, and these Arabs were most grateful to find suckers who paid their high prices. That allowed them to leave for real life in Cairo, Damascus, Paris, etc. when they could not get the land to pay .
Jaffa in biblical times had marked the boundary of the Philistines, but was in the tribal area of Judah. When Solomon was king, and again after the return from Babylonian captivity, it was an independent city. Then it later belonged to the Phoenicans. Then it became a Jewish port. In 1946 the population was 101,000 of which 30% were Jews. The Arab sections of Jaffa capitulated on May 14, 1948 and almost all Arabs left the city. it was joined with Tel Aviv into one city.
What happened? The land was waiting for the Jews to return, and has developed into a world of something to be proud of. As Jews built, mostly from their return-starting from Russia in the 1880's in the first Aliyot, Arabs came after them looking for jobs. They came from all the surrounding Arab lands where men were out of work. Their descendants remained, now demanding their own state to be made out of the Jews' ancient Judah and Samaria. They do not understand the Jewish history and their own has been warped by legends and dreams of their own forefathers and the ignorance of the Europeans whose knowledge is smothered by their own religious teachings. Golda reminds us, "“Above all, this country is our own. Nobody has to get up in the morning and worry what his neighbors think of him. Being a Jew is no problem here.”
What will happen with a 2 State Solution when the Arabs have demanded that Israel does not exist and that they will destroy them and make the land theirs? How is it that the world has bought into such nonsense? Some had lived on the land but not as a country, more like as squatters. They could have had everything they dream of today had they not made war instead of peace but they made the choice, not the Jews. They made the refusal when the Jews had accepted their disappointing fate. Since then, Jews have seen what has developed; 72 years of war; constant attacks, a people born to hatred and fighting against them.
Like Golda Meier explained, “We Jews have a secret weapon in our struggle with the Arabs - We have no place to go.” We all realize that there are 48 other Muslim majority countries that Palestinians could enter, like their home they left-most likely for the majority being Syria. Jordan already is home to many.
Even Israel and AIPAC strongly continue to support a negotiated 2-state solution, a Jewish state of Israel living in peace and security side by side with a demilitarized Palestinians state, but it will never remain without weapons, just as Gaza has never come to making peace with Israel. It is a dream of sane people trying to think that insane minds will see the logic. They remain in denial of the facts of life. If the world were sane, this would have been decided by 1948 when Israel declared their statehood. When you take your head out of the sand, you see it's not happening; not yet. We have not been closer to this point anymore than we were in 1948.
Palestinian children wearing Hamas headbands take part in a rally against U.S. President Donald Trump's decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, in the Gaza StripThe Palestinians continue to teach hatred for Jews in their schools, and martyrdom for their small children who sing songs about it. Do they even know what they are singing: about their own death in order to win against Israel? They don't even know of reasons to hate. It is criminal to teach children such things. “We can forgive the Arabs for killing our children. We cannot forgive them for forcing us to kill their children. We will only have peace with the Arabs when they love their children more than they hate us.” Politicians should listen to Golda Meir' wisdom, for she was endowed with it like a prophet.
For Israel cannot afford to become insane and go for something already proven that hasn't worked. Isn't insanity something you keep on doing knowing it won't work? Something has to change first before a reward can be given, and Israel has been the one to give all the time; from giving in from the promised Jewish Homeland to losing 80% of it to become Jordan and now-now to give away Judah and Samaria after fighting the 1967 Six Day War and winning-a battle they won against ALL odds-fought against by all the Arab nations? The world asks them to give up land they won -and won accidently through defensive fighting that was theirs to begin with? This is sick, sick, and sicker.
My hope in all these past 72 years, is that the remarkable peace initiative of Abraham will bring sanity to the Palestinians and that the young and intelligent youth will recognize that they are making peace and it will enter their minds that they could also and life as well as any Israeli and even better as neither would have to look forward to a life of war and death at any moment. This peace that is growing may be the Messianic Age that we all have been waiting for, a time of peace.
The Palestinians will not listen to any Israeli and European, but they might listen to another, convincing Arab. Trump and Jared worked hard with their peace deal, but really haven't convinced the Palestinians, so I'm told. It's not in their hearts to want peace, meaning they're going to be a pain in the neck if forced into a 2 state solution and Israelis will be more nervous than they already are. I'm waiting for the miracle of Arab leadership to show the way to peace without fighting and bloodshed where we can truly feel like a mishpukah (family member-distant cousin) has moved in next door.
Israel is our history, our only land of acceptance. It is our destiny. It is holy to us. It is the land we promised to tend, to care for, to rear our children. This is why it is wanted by the Jewish people. Who but the Jews have gone through such terrors to return and deserve to live on this land? Who has prayed for 3 thousand years daily to return but the Jews? Who understands our undertaking? Our vow? It is made of our blood and our ancestors. It calls to us. We have returned and have reclaimed our promised land. Join us in our rejoicing, but not as an enemy, for now we join hands only with friends.
Resource:
https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/haventohome/haven-century.html
https://www.jpost.com/arab-israeli-conflict/comprehensive-report-reveals-endemic-hate-education-in-palestinian-schools-632057
https://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/09/books/book-tries-for-balanced-view-on-roosevelt-and-jews.html
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