Our Six End of Times Already

 Nadene Goldfoot                                          

                            Judas Maccabee, fighting to preserve our right to our beliefs;  our religion

Chanukah is a holiday we celebrate that brought on the End of Times gently with the Hellenization by the Greeks, turning Jews into a new avenue of thought and belief.  They even managed to place their idol of Zeus, head Greek God into our Temple where it stayed until Mattathias, father of Judas Maccabeus (Judah Maccabee), realized what was happening.  That was the first End Of Times;  it almost brought the total end of Judaism.    Hellenization has remained with us ever since.                                           

    Took Jerusalem by 605;  Burned down our Temple in 586 BCE by Nebuchadnezzar and exiled 8,000 of the local aristocracy to Babylon.  That was the second End of Times;  certainly for them.  

  The Romans had taken over the Greeks and then managed to occupy Eretz Yisrael, and in doing so burned down our Temple in 70 CE  along with Jerusalem.  This was done by a terrible long seizure of the land which brought starvation to the Jerusalemites that was so bad some turned to cannibalism, I've read in Josephus.  It certainly was for thousands of Jews, as any that lived through the starvation were taken as captives as slaves and many of these slaves were marched back to Rome carrying the loot that the Romans stole from the Temple that had value to them.  Rome turned to Christianity through Emperor Constantine I and his mother, Helena who held world-wide meetings on how to accept Jesus, and came to the conclusion that Jews had to go.  They saw Judaism as their competitor and created all kinds of laws against them.  This was the third End Of Times. 

The Holocaust was the worst world-wide attack on Jews that has ever been, seeping into every country in the world, but starting in Germany with the Nazis.  6 million Jews were slaughtered, gang-style, government planned, taken in huge groups to a pit, to a slaughter house, and murdered, but first stripping them of their clothing, the gold in their teeth, even their own skin in some cases to make lamps.  You could smell the burning of flesh everywhere, but the civilians must have all had stuffed noses, because they didn't smell it.  A government plotting and planning since 1932, with a Second World War called for by 1939 with the Germans invading Poland, home of the largest population of Jews in the world. This certainly was the fourth End Of Times.  No other could be imagined to be this bad, no matter what the prophets have written.

          Shelling by Hamas, the offshoot of Fatah, constantly to Sderot, Ashkelon, the Israeli hospital in the area that has had to move to the basement area in order to save people. This has been their environment for all these years, being shot at almost every day.    

David Berger, our American-Israeli athlete : David Mark Berger (May 24, 1944 – September 6, 1972) was an American and Israeli Olympic weightlifter, and one of the 11 Israeli Olympians taken hostage and killed by the Palestinian group Black September during the Munich massacre at the 1972 Summer Olympics. Born and raised in the United States, Berger was a lawyer by education and had emigrated to Israel after taking part in the 1969 Maccabiah Games, where he won a gold medal.
                                                

The David Berger National Memorial. NPS Photo. The David Berger National Memorial is a sculpture that honors the memory of David Berger, an American/Israeli citizen who was one of the 11 Israeli athletes murdered at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, Germany.  By 1972, Israeli  athletes wanted to perform for their country so attended the Olympic Games held in Munich, Germany that year.  They were all killed; slaughtered by terrorists, Black September.  West German neo-Nazis gave the group logistical assistance. Olympic Games creation was inspired by the ancient Olympic Games, held in Olympia, Greece from the 8th century BC to the 4th century AD. Baron Pierre de Coubertin founded the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in 1894, leading to the first modern Games in Athens in 1896. The IOC is the governing body of the Olympic Movement (which encompasses all entities and individuals involved in the Olympic Games) with the Olympic Charter defining its structure and authority. Every country in the world was invited to participate.  The Olympic Games are considered the world's foremost sports competition with more than 200 teams, representing sovereign states and territories participating; by default the Games generally substitute for any World Championships the year in which they take place (however, each class usually maintains their own records). The Olympic Games are normally held every four years, and since 1994, have alternated between the Summer and Winter Olympics every two years during the four-year period. To have been murdered for an Olympic game in Germany after the Holocaust?  What did this say about accepting Jews of Israel into their midst, or protection for them?  It was horrible and a slap in the face.  We lost our best athletes of the day.  This was the fifth End of Days for us.  

Now we've seen the next on October 7, 2023, on the last day of Succot, Jews attacked during their own Music Festival  in Israel itself by people they have been trying to make peace with ever since the 1920s, and then even after 1967, when these Fatah terrorists came to the pact of NEVER MAKING PEACE WITH THE JEWS in Khartoum,  Africa, and they sure kept their word.  Israel even GAVE THEM GAZA, a section of the teeny land they finally received back after World War I due to the fact that the Ottoman Empire, which had held it for the past 400 years,  lost it in this War of all Wars, like the end of all Wars for the world at that time.  We have seen an enemy bend and turn into such primitive disgusting ways of killing, that one can lose his mind just thinking about how his friends were slaughtered.  The only thing that didn't happen was cannibalism.  They enjoyed seeing our people suffer and in pain, and especially our women.  They have suffered the most in this slaughter, being gang-raped, in pain, bleeding, and then shot in the head.  Their children have seen their parents abused and slaughtered before their eyes.  All this on a surprise entrance to their homes where they were ripped from their beds and tables and torn to pieces.  They came like a swarm of locusts for the attack.  The horrors of this affair took the lives of our 1,400 innocent people, on the last day of Succot when all were happy and remembering and honoring "LIFE!."  Their last days were spent in unimaginable pain. We have still about 122 hostages left in their hands who no doubt are suffering every minute that haven't been reached so far by our searching IDF.  This is the sixth End of Times for us;  in that we had people from all over the world attending the Life musical program ending Sukkot.  

Someone's Sukkah in Jerusalem, decorated;  in Safed people used rugs for the sides, and the top is covered with branches from trees so the light can come in.  People sleep in them at night; have tea and cakes and friends over during the day in them.  

Ironically, Sukkot celebrates for 7 days, and 8th day is called Shemini Atzeret, both to be followed with another holiday, Simhat Torah which celebrates the end of reading the Torah for the past year and the beginning of another round for the next year. This was an original harvest festival, and people had been sleeping outside in booths (Sukkahs). They had brought in the 2023 idea from Europe of making it into a music festival so music was playing and people were prancing and dancing like ballerinas and ballroom dancers when attacked outside under blue skies and fresh air amid the warming sunlight. Mostly young people, happy to be alive.  They could not know that their life was to be taken away from them in moments. This was the worst.      

Resource:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munich_massacre

https://jewishbubba.blogspot.com/2023/10/kfar-azar-of-central-israel-victims.html 

https://jewishbubba.blogspot.com/2023/10/the-music-festival-where-young-israelis.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Berger_(weightlifter)