All This Land Was Our Land Originally

 Nadene Goldfoot                                         

 A National Jewish Homeland was promised to the Jews by Arthur Balfour (the British Foreign Secretary) of Great Britain through the Balfour Declaration issued on November 2, 1917. This public statement conveyed British support for a "national home for the Jewish people" in Palestine.

• Ottoman Rule (1517–1917): The region was managed by the Ottoman Empire, which maintained a predominantly Arab population.  Post-WWI Mandate: After the Ottomans, the British Mandate for Palestine (1920s–1947) continued to have a majority Arab population, although tensions increased over Jewish immigration. Following the 1947 UN Partition Plan and the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, control of the region was split, with Israel occupying 78% of the territory and neighboring Arab nations managing the remainder.

Transjordan (later Jordan) officially annexed Judea and Samaria—thereafter known as the West Bank—on April 24, 1950, after seizing the territory during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. This followed a, April 3, 1949 armistice, and the land was formally incorporated despite international opposition, recognized only by the UK, Iraq, and Pakistan.

Since 1967 and the bit war of 6 days when Israel won after being attacked by all their neighbors and more and Israel won the battle in Six days !!! By themselves !!!!Expect for a higher place !!!!

Still, land Israel has is the red sector on the map.  In fact, it really indents more allowing to show Judea and Samaria now called "WEST  BANK" and of course, Gaza, the land Israel gave to the Palestinians hoping for good will and peace, in 2005.

Israel completed its unilateral disengagement from the Gaza Strip in August and September 2005. During this period, Israel dismantled all 21 Jewish settlements, evacuated roughly 9,000 settlers, and withdrew all security forces, ending 38 years of direct military presence. While Israel withdrew, it maintained control over borders, airspace, and maritime access. That was for security reasons.  

Judea is the lower or southern section of the land, was called Eretz Yisrael.  Jews come from there.  It was our homeland.  

Here is the map of the original 12 tribes of Jacob, father of the tribes.  They lost the Northern Tribes in 721 BCE. 

       Jacob and his wife and his other wives and their children who became the 12 tribal fathers

 The northern tribes of Israel were taken into exile by the Neo-Assyrian Empire between 722 and 721 B.C., following the fall of their capital, Samaria, ending the Kingdom of Israel. Assyrian records indicate that 27,290 people were deported to Upper Mesopotamia and the Medes. Remnants of these tribal members are now appearing since Israel is once again a state.  

Yes, it's a reach, but we Jews go back farther than the Arabs do of being occupants on this land.  This history lives in our bloodline, showing up in our DNA.  How we react to it depends on how deeply our families were involved, and how others reacted to Jews.                   

As of April 2026, the population of Israel is approximately 10.244 million people. This includes 7.790 million Jews and others (76%), 2.157 million Arabs (21.1%), and 296,000 foreign citizens (2.9%), reflecting a growth of 146,000 people since April 2025.   

Yosef Haddad: Fantastic Israeli I Admire

 Nadene Goldfoot                                                   

                                Born in Haifa in 1985, on September 3rd, is Yoseph Haddad, Israeli Arab and IDF veteran.  Since my birthday is on the 5th of September and I have lived in Haifa, I feel very happy to have discovered this young man, which makes my day today !!!                                  

My find for today is Yoseph Haddad (Arabic: يوسف حدّاد; Hebrew: יוסף חדאד; born 3 September 1985) is an Arab-Israeli journalist and strong advocacy activist for Israel, a social activist in Arab-Israeli society, social media influencer, and CEO of the 'Together – Vouch for Each Other' association that works to connect the Arab-Israeli society to the broader Israeli society. 

The Jewish National Fund and Israeli media outlets have hailed Haddad as a staunch "defender of Israel" since "his time defending Israel as a member of the Israel Defense Forces." He suffered severe injuries during his army service in the 2006 Lebanon War.

His mother was a teacher and his father was a Christian and a priest, businessman and civil aviator. Later the family moved to Nazareth, Israel, where he attended the Don Bosco Technological High School named after Giovanni Bosco.   Yoseph gets so worked up in his defense of Israel and Israelis, that it makes me realize that we share this energy and expression in our Jewish veins as well.  

In 2003, he volunteered for the IDF and served in the Golani Brigade. He completed the squad commanders course with honors and served as a platoon commander and sergeant. In a 2023 interview with the Indigenous Coalition for Israel, Haddad reflected on his service stating he was very well respected as an Arab and as a volunteer.  You should see his anger when he attacks the idea that Israel is a state like Africa being Apartheid.  He gives examples of why not.  I saw it on i24

Towards the end of his service, in July 2006, the Second Lebanon War broke out. Towards the end of the war on August 10, a 9M133 Kornet missile fired by Hezbollah forces hit a wall near Haddad. As a result of the blast, Haddad was seriously wounded by shrapnel in his right foot and it needed to be amputated. He was also injured in several other places. Haddad was evacuated under fire and underwent treatment and rehabilitation for about a year. During surgery, his foot was reattached and he was defined as an IDF disabled veteran. Haddad admits he struggles with post-traumatic stress.

Israeli Arab activist Yoseph Haddad shortly after being physically assaulted by a pro-Palestinian demonstrator at a protest near the Columbia University.

(photo credit: REUTERS/CAITLIN OCHS)

Haddad lectures around the world, and in the past also lectured at an official TED event. In early 2021 he joined the i24NEWS channel where he broadcasts in Arabic and English. He also writes columns on other sites such as Israel Hayom and TheMarker.

This is the sort of Arab that would be perfect to aid Israel with Gaza. I hope we hearmore about him.     Haddad began his undergraduate studies in political science at Bar-Ilan University but turned to advocacy and did not complete his studies. He is a graduate of the LEAD20 program for young leaders from around the world at MIT and served as project manager and operations manager at a market research company. 

"As of October 7, 2023, with the beginning of the Iron Swords War, Haddad began an extensive information campaign on social networks, in Hebrew, English, Arabic and other languages, on the YouTube website, in favor of Israel and against the actions of Hamas and Islamic Jihad.for his work the council Zionism in Israel the awarded him as "Heroes of the Home Front".^"Haddad is engaged to Emily Schrader, an Israeli American journalist in i24.  

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hj_DmTmp2M

The Cohens As Designated by Moses From His Brother, Aaron and Their DNA Origins (J)

 Nadene Goldfoot                                              

Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and did what GOD commanded. Aaron threw his staff down in front of Pharaoh and his servants, and it turned into a snake. Pharaoh's sorcerers did the same and had many snakes on the ground.   Then Moses's staff swallowed up all of the Egyptian snakes.   

Moses organized his people by designating his brother, Aaron, to take on the priestly duties of the Israelites while on the Exodus.  It was to be an inherited position, passed on to Aaron's sons.  The brothers had been separated since the birth of Moses .  He was not to know his birth mother or siblings, Aaron and Miriam.  They would meet when Moses returned to Egypt to free the Israelite slaves from bondage to the Pharaoh, who was unnamed.

Moses, placed in a basket set on the Nile in the hope of saving his life this way, watched over by big sister, Miriam. 

  Moses was born to the tribe (house) of Levi (the 3rd son of Jacob and Leah)  at a time that the pharaoh had ordered the death of all baby boys  out of fear of an assumed assassination on himself in the future.  According to the Book of Exodus, the Egyptians were concerned because the Israelite slaves had begun to outnumber them and might join with an enemy to defeat Egypt (Exodus 1:9–10). When all else failed, the pharaoh ordered all Israelite sons (not just the first-born) to be drowned at birth, thereby lowering the Israelite population.

Abraham, son of Terah and father of Isaac,  was the forefather of Moses and Aaron.  Isaac's sons were the twins, Esau and Jacob (so important in our history) and Jacob was the father of Levi, who was the father of the girl, Jochebed, who married Amram, the son of Kohath who was the grandson of Levi,  and then had the sons, Moses, Amram and  Miriam, a daughter.  Therefore, Moses' Y haplogroup (male line) was still the same as Abraham's Y haplogroup even though the line was broken by Jochebed.  She married into her father's line.  

Abraham had come from the city on or very near the Eurphrates River in the East, called Ur (of the Chaldees) or possibly even Ur of the Cassites, which was an ancient Babylonian city.  Modern excavations of this city show that it was a highly civilized society  in Abraham's time, though devoid as the Bible tells of modern-day morality.  They believed in human sacrifice, etc.  but technically were evolved.  This is one good reason why Abraham took his father, an idol maker, and family and left for the Wild West.  

Being Ur was a Babylonian city, Abraham then was a Babylonian.  Babylonia was known as Shinar or (of the Kasdim) (Chaldees).  

Shinar was formerly thought to be Sumer, but modern scholars identify it as a land called Shanhar mentioned in cuniform documents.  This was situated either in Northern Mesopotamia or in the plain of Babylon.  Rulers of Shinar included Nimrod (Gen. 10:10) and Amraphel (Gen 14:1-9).  Exiles from Judah were banished there after the destruction of the First Temple (Is 11:11).  

Ur was regarded in the Bible as the Cradle of Humanity and as the scene of man's 1st revolt against G-d, as in the Tower of Babel.  The flood is found in the Torah/Bible and in Babylonian literature found today.  

Abraham migrated to Canaan where he later fought Amraphel, king of Shinar (Gen 14). one of the 5 kings who united to attack the rulers of Sodom and were defeated by Abraham.   Babylon was known by the prophets to be a symbol of insolent pagan tyranny, and the symbolism was later adopted by writers of the New Testament Christians.

The Babylonian Nebuchadnezzar II (604-656 BCE)  inherited the Assyrian Empire.  He took Judah in a conquest in 597 and 586 BCE and then exiled many Jews to Babylon.  There now was a large Jewish population made by these and the previous conquest of the Assyrians.  

I can't say where the Assyrians and Babylonians came from since they are from the cradle of civilization, but we now understand that mankind came originally out of Africa and spread out over the lands.  Aaron was the patriarch of the priestly line, the Cohens who are now claimed to be J1s by science, either J1 or/and J2. Haplogroup J

YOUR HAPLOGROUP

The major branch—J1a1a1-  P58—evolved during the early Holocene ~ 9500 years ago somewhere in the Arabian Peninsula, the Levant, and southern Mesopotamia.

Haplogroup J-M267 is found at its highest frequencies in the southern Middle East, west of the Zagros Mountains in Iran, to the Mediterranean Sea, and encompassing the entire Arabian Peninsula. The J-M267 marker has been carried by Middle Eastern traders into Europe, central Asia, India, and Pakistan. As with other populations with Mediterranean ancestry, this lineage is found at substantial frequencies within Jewish populations. The Cohen modal haplotype lineage, as well as the presumed lineage of the Prophet Mohammed, are found in Haplogroup J-M267. J1 is also one of the main Haplogroups found among Arab populations.

 Haplogroup J2 is thought to have appeared somewhere in the Middle East towards the end of the last glaciation, between 15,000 and 22,000 years ago. The oldest known J2a samples at present were identified in remains from the Hotu Cave in northern Iran, dating from 9100-8600 BCE (Lazaridis et al.                                                    

         Rabbi Chaim David Hochfeld, a true Cohen, died 1904 in Portland, Oregon

Tombstone of "Chaim David ben Simcha Rivka Hochfeld, Rabbi, born in 1829 in Belaya Tzerkaw, Ukraine, Bessarabia, Russia.  He died on April 5, 1904 in Portland, Oregon, when they made really big headstones.  (They had faith that people would still be able to read Hebrew !!)  Look at the great condition of this headstone.  They don't make them this great these days.  It's full of information, which is its intended use;  something to keep for our memory of this person.  I love it!!

 Notice the two hands at the top. That is a Cohen sign of giving a blessing to a person, congregation, etc.   Cohens should do this on their  tombstone.  It is the sign of a Cohen.  It turned out that Herb Hochfeld, knowing he was a Cohen and was a first reader from the Torah because of being a Cohen, , was from a line of rabbis.  His relative, Helen Hochfeld,  was the mother of my 1st cousin, Nathan Goldfoot.  Herb and I became good friends, both of us born in Portland, Oregon.  Now Cohens were from the tribe of Levi, being direct descendants of Aaron.  The 2nd readers of the Torah as the other Levites who were not direct descendants.  Lastly are the Israelites (all the other Jews in the synagogue) who want to read aloud to the congregation.  All boys learn Hebrew through their Bar Mitzvah.  If for some reason they did not get bar-mitzvahed at age 13, it's never too late to learn Hebrew and have the experience.  

Cohens might be spelled as Cahan, Cohan, Kagan, Kahn, Kogen, Kohn, Kohen, Cohn, etc, or use other names such as Hochfeld.  A Cohen or Kohen Tzedek is a priest of rightousness, a righteoous priest, from gaonic times, used as a name, and was abbreviated to K.Tz, which as Katz became a surname in the modern period.

   I know of an Arab who is J1c3d, which is also found with Jewish Cohens.  His mother was a Pashtun., but he was born in Syria.  

Resource:

https://jewishbubba.blogspot.com/2021/03/special-facts-about-cohens-or-high.html

Torah/Tanach, The Stone Edition

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Exodus%202&version=VOICE

https://www.familytreedna.com/my/y-dna-migration-map/

https://www.eupedia.com/europe/Haplogroup_J2_Y-DNA.shtml#:~:text=Famous%20J2%20individuals-,Origins,8600%20BCE%20(Lazaridis%20et%20al.

 **** https://www.eupedia.com/europe/european_y-dna_haplogroups.shtml

Debunking Lies The Public Swallows About Israel Part I

 Nadene Goldfoot                                          

Jews were born from Isaac, Abram and Sarah's first baby, a long awaited baby.  Jews have managed to remain in Eretz Yisrael ever since.  Abram was born in the 2nd millennium, about 1948 BCE.  This is documented in the Bible.  

Lie:  1. Israel was 1st created in 1948 after the Holocaust.

Truth:  The Jewish people have maintained ties to their historical homeland for more than 3,000 years, since the time of Abraham when the family went into Canaan. Jews speak a national language of Hebrew; comprise a distinct civilization. Return and resettlement in Israel has gone on for centuries, and 67 years of nation-building, beginning in 1881, produced a Jewish state that the UN officially recognized in 1948. 

                                             

 

Lie:2. Before 1948, Arabs owned 95% of Israel.

Truth:  Jews owned 8.6% of the land of Israel.  Arab who remained in Israel owned 3.3%;  16.5% was owned by Arabs who fled. Many who fled had sold their land to Jews who paid ridiculous high prices because of the religious value to Jews.   The remainder was state land that legally passed from the British Mandatory government to the successor, the government of Israel; okayed by law of League of Nations and United Nations. 

                                         

 Lie:3.  The British aided a Jewish takeover of Palestine.  

Truth:  This accusation is the very opposite of the truth.  The British government progressively limited Jewish immigration into the Mandate in 1921, 1929, and finally in 1939.  Britain severely restricted Jews from buying land on a large scale, even at exorbitant prices.  Yet, at the same time, Arabs from Egypt and Syria freely entered the Mandate to take advantage of the higher wages and living standards generated by Jewish settlement. (They were biting the hand that was feeding them.)  According to British census figures, Arab population increased 75% between 1922 and 1931. British had the job of helping the Jews to create a Jewish Homeland, but they were destroying it by their prejudice against Jews.  Britain fought the drive for Jewish statehood in Palestine as they saw that as a threat to their Empire and its relations with the Arabs. But they sure grabbed that mandate from the League of Nations promising to uphold it, no doubt.                                

Lie:4.  Israel usurped (take (a position of power or importance) illegally or by force.) all of Palestine in 1948. 

Truth: Almost 80% of historical land of Palestine was given to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan by the British in 1922.  By 1948, the UN partitioned the REMAININGr land into 2 states:  Arab Palestine and Jewish Israel.   

Israel's Declaration of Independence, like the USA's 4th of July, extended the hand of friendship to her neighbors.  ON THE SAME DAY, 5 Arab armies, with planes and tanks, invaded  the Jewish piece of land.  The Egyptian and Jordanian armies swept into Israel and occupied the land that was to have been the new Arab state of Palestine.  Jordan later annexed the West bank and Egypt and controlled the Gaza Strip.  Thus, it was EGYPT and JORDAN who usurped Palestine, not Israel.  Israel in 1948 claimed only those areas allotted to her by the partition plan and the adjustments caused by the 1948 War of Independence.  That is all Israel held for almost 20 years.  

Lie:5.  The basic issue in the Middle East is Israel's creation of the Palestinian refugees and its responsibility for them.

Truth:  Since 1948, there have been 2 refugee problems:  (1)the Arabs who left Israel while Jews begged them to stay, and (2)the Jews who were forced out of Arab countries.  British pre-1947 population figures and post 1948 assessments place the number of Arabs who left at between 530,000 and 590,000:  on October 18, 1948, Ralph Bunche, then acting UN mediator in the Palestine dispute, fixed the number at 472,000.  Some 140,000 Arabs stayed in what became Israel.  The 850,000 Jews in Arab countries suffered harsh persecutions.  Of those, 794,000 emigrated and 600,000 of them settled in Israel.  

In 1948, Arab attacks upon Jews were the rule.  By contrast, Jewish defense groups hit military targets only.  Recently released documents from the US archives contain many 1948 dispatches from American Consul Aubrey Lippencott, repeatedly insisting that the Jews were urging Arabs to remain.

The Arab exodus occurred in 3 stages. (1) December 1947-February 1948 upper-middle class Arabs left to sit out the unpleasantness, creating a Palestinian leadership vacuum. (2) March-June 1948 panicking Arabs in central Palestine moved to the West bank and Gaza-Arab Palestine-as fighting increased; (3) last half of 1948, at urging of the Arab leaders, Arabs in the north and Galilee fled the intense battles.   

According to the UN, 74% of Arab refugees moved to Gaza, the West bank, or Transjordan--all parts of historic Palestine.  There was a population exchange, in which Israel absorbed a greater number of Jews from Arab lands and did so without the land or resources of the Arab states.   

Resource:

NEAR EAST REPORT: a Washington letter of American policy in the Near East, , from Jewish Digest of December 1975

Personality Traits and Why They Differ in Muslims and Jews:

Nadene Goldfoot                                                                           

                                                  Abraham as pictured back in the 2nd millennium BCE

As I was fixing an egg for a late breakfast after writing an article for my other blog, I had an epiphany about why Muslims and Jews are so different from each other even though they only believe in one G-d.  It stemmed from a discussion on facebook with others, including a dear Muslim friend, as to why we Jews do discuss facts about Mohammad yet won't become Muslims.  I explained back that  we do think differently even though we both believe in just one G-d and that Moses, who Muslims accept as a prophet, told us not to accept prophets easily.  We've had lots of false prophets in our history already.  We couldn't accept Jesus and then we couldn't accept Mohammad.  We revere Moses.

Then it dawned on me that Abraham's sons, Ishmael by Hagar the Egyptian and Isaac by his own relative, Sarah, were so entirely different in personality, most likely due to their genetic makeup.  Sarah was Abraham's niece and was his legitimate wife. You see, by this she had coh-ach, or strength and power.    Her father was Haran who was Abraham's brother.   Abraham had come from Ur which is in today's Iraq.  He had moved to land made up up Canaanites and Philistines.   Ishmael was actually sent away by Abraham who was persuaded to do so by Sarah who saw that their living arrangement wasn't working out.  Abraham had 2 women in his tent; his wife and his paramour, both with sons.   Hagar was being hurtful to Sarah since she was the younger one but not a legitimate wife with the due respect coming with that title.   There was a lot of friction going on between the children and the women.
                                                                           

                                                      Canaanites
                                                                               

  Ishmaelites buying young Joseph, son of Jacob and Rachel,  from his brothers who were jealous of him

Obviously Hagar and Ishmael went back towards Egypt to join up with the culture she had left.  According to Islamic tradition, she was an Egyptian princess and is dearly loved by the Muslims.    Ishmael did not get the continued lessons from Abraham on behavior and goals in life because he had to leave the fold. Had he received enough to be on his own and act wisely?  Wouldn't  he now be living in Paran where the Canaanites were idolaters?  Paran was the desert, the wilderness in the Negev desert.  Israelites traveled through it after they had left Mt. Sinai where they received the 10 Commandments.  It is in the NE of the traditional Mt. Sinai, south of Kadesh and goes from the shores of the Gulf of Elath and the Arabah.   As it is, Ishmaelites also had 12 tribes from Ishmael and they had settled in Northern Arabia between Egypt and the Assyrian border.  They traded with Egypt.  Modern Arabs claim this descent.  Abraham had left his family in Charan who also worshipped idols as well.  More likely, Abraham was worried about the morality of the Canaanites.  They did not have the same morality, ethics and modesty that affects one's entire nature.  That's why he didn't want his own sons to marry such women.    He wanted them to marry a woman of kindness and sensitivity.
                                                                         

Then we have the twins that Isaac fathered by Rebeccah;  Esau and Jacob,  who later had his name change to Israel.   Rebecca's mother was  Bethuel, sister of Laban.  Bethuel and Laban were Arameans from Paddan-aram.  They were Semites who invaded the Fertile Crescent in the 2nd half of the 2nd millennium BCE and roamed between the Persian Gulf and the Amanus Mountains.  Israelite patriarchs were of Aramaic origin and had ties of marriage with the tribes of Aram.   So Abraham was her great granduncle.   The two boys were as different as day and night.  Here I cannot blame the mother for the differing genes, so I figure that Abraham already had a bundle of different types in his genetic makeup to pass on.  No wonder Ishmael turned out differently from Isaac!

Esau was born first.  He surprised his family by having red hair and a ruddy complexion and was pretty hairy all over.  So he was the elder brother with special rights as the very first born, even though the difference in the 2 boys couldn't have been more than a few minutes, maybe 30 at the most.  He was to receive a birthright and a blessing, and in those days blessings were like words from the will, amounting to gifts received that Jacob would be denied.  Jacob tricked Esau into selling him his birthright, so I think he was the wittier one.  Esau fell for it because it wasn't something of value to him in the first place, not being a material thing, and because the sale brought him food and he was starving to death after doing a lot of hunting.

They had different personalities and interests, unlike the usual twins born today.  Esau was a hunter and furnished his family with meat.  Jacob was more introverted and hung around the tents thinking and cooking that we are told about.  Jacob is described as being more wholesome.

Esau and Jacob became enemies which ended up with Esau trying to even kill Jacob, his own twin!  We know today of twins who mourn and suffer and cannot even function when a twin dies, yet Esau had this hatred, this animosity toward Jacob for some pretty darn good reasons.  Jacob had tricked Esau out of his inheritance through knowing of Esau's attitude towards his father's philosophy about a G-d and not being impressed about it and not being able to wait but needed the instant reward of food.  Being Esau's twin, he knew his twin's mindset.

The birth of the twins was foretold to Rebecca by G-d.  "Two nations are in your womb.  Two regimes from your insides shall be separated.  The might shall pass from one regime to the other and the elder shall serve the younger."   So she understood they would have problems before they were even born.  It turned out that she did favor the younger, Jacob,  even though Isaac favored the older, Esau.  Being Rebecca was around them more in taking care of them, she was the one who watched how they behaved.

The story is a symbol written in Genesis of the two nations of Israel and the Arabs, specifically with Edom which Esau represents. Edom, (Idumea) was a country in the SE section around Mount Seir and was a mountainous area with fertile land.  It is south of the Dead Sea and bordered on the Red SEa at Elat and Ezion Geber.  They were hunters.   So already back when Moses wrote this, he was told, as it came to him through G-d, that there would be animosity between these 2 people and this is the explanation for it.   It's a true example of prophecy come true.

Jacob wound up out of fear of his twin's deadly hatred,  having to leave his homestead and go to his uncle Laban in Haran where he married his cousins  Leah. and then Rachel, his true love.    Later he had sons by their handmaids, Bilhah and Zilpah;  just like Abraham had done with Hagar.

I see that our 12 Tribes of Jacob were made up of 12 sons originally who had an assortment of genes, both from their father and from their assorted mothers.

We have found that both many of the Arabs and the Jews have the haplogroup J1c3d in their genetic makeup.  Scientists can see which is the branch of Arabs and which is of the Jews.  As in the past, we are still having a terrible time seeing eye to eye on situations other than there is but one G-d.  We're still as different as Esau and Jacob in our outlooks.  The world will turn on its heels when we finally really unite as one .

Resource: Tanakh, Genesis
New Jewish Encyclopedia
http://jewishbubba.blogspot.com/2013/05/discord-in-abrahams-tent-over-control.html
http://jewishbubba.blogspot.com/2013/10/inheritance-of-jacobs-birthright-to-whom.html