Supporter Of Israel Like Elizabeth Taylor

 Nadene Goldfoot                                             
                       

Dame Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor was 2 years older than myself (February 27, 1932 – March 23, 2011) died at 79,  was a British and American actress. She began her career as a child actress in the early 1940s and was one of the most popular stars of classical Hollywood cinema in the 1950s.

Where are supporters of Israel like Elizabeth Taylor was?  Taylor was raised as a Christian Scientist and converted to Judaism (Reform Branch) in 1959. Although two of her husbands – Mike Todd and Eddie Fisher – were Jewish, Taylor stated that she did not convert because of them, and had wanted to do so "for a long time", and that there was "comfort and dignity and hope for me in this ancient religion that [has] survived for four thousand years.  I feel as if I have been a Jew all my life." Walker believed that Taylor was influenced in her decision by her godfather, Victor Cazalet, and her mother, who were active supporters of Zionism during her childhood.

Following her conversion, Taylor became an active supporter of Jewish and Zionist causes. In 1959, she purchased $100,000 worth of Israeli bonds, which led to her films being banned by Arab countries throughout the Middle East and Africa. She was also barred from entering Egypt to film Cleopatra in 1962, but the ban was lifted two years later after the Egyptian officials deemed that the film brought positive publicity for the country. In addition to purchasing bonds, Taylor helped to raise money for organizations such as the Jewish National Fund, and sat on the board of trustees of the Simon Wiesenthal Center.

Taylor also advocated for the right of Soviet Jews to emigrate to Israel, cancelled a visit to the USSR because of its condemnation of Israel due to the Six-Day War, and signed a letter protesting the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 3379 of 1975. In 1976, she offered herself as a replacement hostage after more than 100 Israeli civilians were taken hostage in the Entebbe skyjacking. She had a small role in the television film made about the incident, Victory at Entebbe (1976), and narrated Genocide (1981), an Academy Award-winning documentary about the Holocaust.

Taylor's health increasingly declined during the last two decades of her life and she rarely attended public events after 1996. Taylor had serious bouts of pneumonia in 1990 and 2000, two hip replacement surgeries in the mid-1990s, a surgery for a benign brain tumor in 1997, and successful treatment for skin cancer in 2002. She used a wheelchair due to her back problems and was diagnosed with congestive heart failure in 2004. She died of the illness aged 79 on March 23, 2011, at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, six weeks after being hospitalized. Her funeral took place the following day at the Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California. The service was a private Jewish ceremony presided by Rabbi Jerome Cutler. At Taylor's request, the ceremony began 15 minutes behind schedule, as, according to her representative, "She even wanted to be late for her own funeral." She was entombed in the cemetery's Great Mausoleum.

Richard Burton as Mark Antony with Taylor as Cleopatra in Cleopatra (1963)  During her prime in the 1950s and 1960s, Elizabeth Taylor was widely regarded as the most beautiful woman in the world, often cited as a "miracle of construction" due to her rare violet eyes, thick lashes, and high-contrast features. She was frequently voted the most beautiful woman in lists and polls.

Resource:

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

Timeline of Jews From 4,000 Years Ago

 Nadene Goldfoot

                                          Judaean Desert

I've discovered that there are many people who have never known of our Jewish history.  They may even think of it as starting in Rome, around 70 AD (anno domini).  

 Horrified, I've made a copy of my own timeline I have done in my blog 'Israel."  Notice, we started back 4,000 years ago in known histories.  Here we go, and I ended at 100 CE-Common Era/AD.  

1391-1271 BCE  from 70 sons, grandsons of Jacob to 611,30 Jews with Moses       

  1010 BCE-970 BCE  King David  of Israel , census of David: c 5,000,000 population
961 BCE to 920 BCE  King Solomon 

721 BCE: Assyrian attack on 10 northern Tribes of Israel, stolen away
597-586 BCE Babylonian Invasion 
          Babylonian exiles returning: 42,360  
167 BCE Revolt of Maccabees against Antiochus the Greek
165 BCE Rededication of Temple by Judas Maccabee (Hanukkah)  From 163 B.C.E. there is evidence of Jews in Rome.  They were probably slaves, Traders?  
139 BCE Jewish community in Rome, expulsed.  Jewish slaves later lived here.  
73 BCE-4 BCE Herod I, the Great, king of Judea appointed by Rome.  When he died, there were uprisings by the people so Roman General Publius Quinctilius Varus crucified 2,000 Jews to quell the uprisings.   

69 BCE:  Cleopatra:  Cleopatra was of Macedonian descent and not a native Egyptian. She was the second daughter of King Ptolemy XII and the last sovereign of her dynasty, which had been founded by Alexander’s general, Ptolemy, in 326 BC. She came to power in 51 BC, at the age of seventeen, and was married to her eldest brother, Ptolemy XIII. 
30 BCE  Herod the Great by Julius Caesar, crucifixions; 25,000 Jews till 70 CE.  
 5 BCE, in Bethlehem, Judea, Roman soldiers stationed in Jerusalem from Greece, Gaul and Syria were following Roman appointed King  Herod's orders to kill all male children under age 2.                                

 1 CE 1st century Abba Sikra zealot in Jerusalem during the revolt against the Romans, alias Ben Batiah.  nephew of R Johanan ben Zakkai, helped to escape from Jerusalem.    In the year 6 CE. there were Jews at Vienne, France and Gallia Celtica which would be today's " Switzerland, France, Luxembourg and the west bank of the Rhine in Germany.".   "The first settlements of Jews in Europe are obscure;  in the year 39 at Lugdunum (i.e. Lyon) which is Lyon, France started in the year 43.  
19 CE Jews again expulsed from Rome. 
29 CE Jesus was crucified during Pontius Pilate's rule; starting the narration of Christianity., About 25,000 Jews crucified by Herod till 70 CE.     
49-50 CE Jews again expulsed from Rome. 
60 CE-Nero ruling: 700,000 Jews in Judea, 1,500,000 Jews scattered in other places.  4,200,00 Jews in the world, most likely less.  
61-63 CE  Jeshua Ben Damna, high priest, appointed by Herod Agrippa II, displaced by Gamla and ensued a struggle, toward end of the siege of Jerusalem of 70 CE fled to the Romans with other members of the priestly families.
c.65 CE  In town of Pekiin, Rabbi Simeon ben Yohai and son Eleazar hid from Romans in a cave for 13 years.

70 CE Jerusalem burned down, Temple destroyed, Jews starved to death before, taken prisoners.   1st Academy (university to educate rabbis) founded set up by Johanan ben Zakkai at Jabneh in Judah, south of Jaffa, reestablished the Great Sanhedrin in Jabneh until 132 of Bar Kokhba's Revolt.  
70 CE families of 24 Cohenim moved to outside of Jerusalem, each family to a different town, where their descendants lived until 1948. One place was near Kiryat Ata, now Shfar Am, an Arab town.  It has an ancient synagogue.  Survivor interviewed by Sandi Zigelman.
                                                                       

  Arch of General Titus, soon to become emperor,  Menorah Relief; Romans taking away Menorah, other things from Jerusalem Temple, taking 97,000 slaves from Judaea in 70 CE

66-73 CE Judaea which was a Roman Province had the first Jewish-Roman War.  The Sadducees and Pharisees fought against the Roman Empire.  The Jewish commanders and leaders were Ananus ben Ananus, Eliezar ben Hanania, Josef ben Matityahu, and Simon Bar Giora.  In the early stage the Roman guard had 3,000 against 10,000 under Ananus and 15,000 under Bar Giora.  The Romans Syrian Legion had 30,000 in Beth Horon while there were only 500 Adiabene warriors fighting for Judaea.  Eleazar had 20,000 Idumeans fighting.  6,000 were under John and 2,400 were under Eleazar, who were the radical factions.  Then the Romans brought out 5 Legions of 60,000 to 80,000 men at the Jerusalem siege.  Judaea had about 200 Sicarii fighting.  20,000 Roman soldiers were killed while 25,000 to 30,000 Judean rebels were killed and 10,000 radical factions.  In the end, 1.1 million Jewish militant and civilians were killed and 97,000 were enslaved and most likely taken to Rome. 

72 CE 12,000 Jews taken as slaves from Judah to Rome to build the Colosseum under Vespasian.  

Masada in 73 CE Herod's Palace, where 960 Jewish Sicarii (Jewish zealots armed with small daggers) had been living in refuge, committed suicide after 3 months of being sieged by Roman Legion led by Lucius Flavius Silva with 15,000 troops.  1 woman, 5 children escaped.  Story told by Josephus.

From 37  to 100 CE, the land of Judah had been occupied by the Romans as told by Flavius Josephus, a Jewish Historian who was captured by the Romans.  He was hired to write the history of their occupation in the Jewish land.  Individual Jews lived in France before 70 CE.   "The Romans destroyed the Jews' 2nd Temple in Jerusalem and took over the city in 70 CE.  They burned Jerusalem down and took away Jews as slaves for Rome while many others fled. Many  people of Judah had scattered to the 4 winds but  a number were able to remain in Judah.  Organized Jewish communities existed in France in the period of the Roman Empire.  Their position deteriorated with the growth of Christianity and its powers.

"As the siege of the capital, Jerusalem,  in the year 70 began on the day of the Passover sacrifice (V, 13, 7, VI, 9, 3), to which naturally many thousands of pilgrims had arrived from all parts of the country, the number of the besieged was very great. Among them were many from beyond the Euphrates and other foreign lands (Dio Cassius, 66. 4). 1,100,000 men perished during the siege, 97,000 were taken captive (VI, 9, 3); of these only 40,000 were preserved (8, 2), all citizens of Jerusalem (8, 2), the rest were sold for slaves, some sent into the mines in Egypt (9, 2), others distributed among the provinces for the circuses."and where did the 40,000 settle after having been allowed to go where they liked ?

Josephus mentions one of the four sons of the high priest Matthias , the high priests Joseph and Jesus, and three sons of the high priest Ishmael, four sons of a Matthias, and many other nobles who succeeded in escaping from the besieged capital to the Romans (VI, 2, 2). 

Many of the eminent citizens ran away to Titus (V, 13, 7) and told him the number of the poor who had died. Titus allowed these to retire to Gofna; there, he said, they should stay till his hands would be free from the war, when he would restore to them their property. Among the numerous deserters was the priest Jesus, son of Thebuthi , who surrendered many costly vessels of the Temple, as well as the curtains and the robe of the high priest. The treasurer of the Temple also fell into the hands of the Romans and was exceptionally pardoned in exchange for valuable stuff, priestly garments, and costly spices.

 Already, after Cestius's defeat in the year 66, many of the nobles had left Jerusalem as if it were a sinking ship; for instance, the two brothers Costobarus and Saul, along with Phillip, son of Jakimos, who had been a general of Agrippa's troops (II, 20, 1). 

After the entry of the Romans into Jerusalem,  Titus liberated all those Jews who had been thrown into prison by zealots (VI, 9.1); they also most probably belonged to the wealthy section of the population.   It may be assumed as almost certain that the members of both groups, of the priestly and of the lay nobility of Jerusalem, at the conclusion of the war received their landed property, and assisted the poor country of Judaea in recovering from its terrible downfall. 

Where they settled is nowhere indicated by Josephus; he lived in Rome and seemed to evince no interest in the state of his native country after the destruction. It is possible that, though owning land in Judaea, some of the nobles settled outside Judaea, as Josephus, who, in exchange for his fields near Jerusalem, received from Titus others in the plain, and was rewarded by Vespasian by additional property in Judaea 

Movie Industry's Chosen Ones For Cleopatra, Elizabeth Taylor and Gal Gadot

 Nadene Goldfoot                                           

I thought no one could top the beauty of Elizabeth Taylor in Cleopatra.  Dame Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor DBE (February 27, 1932 – March 23, 2011) was a 5'2" British-American actress.                            

Art dealer father, Francis;  with parents  1947; Elizabeth  at 15,  Francis was born in Springfield, Illinois, the son of Elizabeth Mary (née Rosemond) and Francis Marion Taylor. The family later moved to Arkansas City, Kansas.  Francis began dealing in art in New York City for a wealthy uncle by marriage, Stephen Howard Young, later, a friend of Dwight Eisenhower after World War II.  Taylor married stage 

actress Sara Sothern (whose real name was Sara Viola Warmbrodt and who was also from Arkansas City) in 1926 in New York.  Sara's father was from Switzerland.  They were the parents of Howard Taylor and of Elizabeth Taylor.

 Born in London to socially prominent American parents,  Francis Lenn Taylor and Sara Sothern, who were Americans living in England. Her parents were originally from Arkansas City, Kansas. Taylor moved with her family to Los Angeles in 1939 who first became a child actress, as famous as Shirley Temple.    It had happened that in early 1939, the Taylors decided to return to the United States due to fear of impending war in Europe.  United States ambassador Joseph P. Kennedy contacted her father, urging him to return to the US with his family.                     

Richard Burton as Mark Antony with Taylor as Cleopatra in Cleopatra (1963)

After completing her MGM contract, Taylor starred in 20th Century-Fox's Cleopatra (1963). According to film historian Alexander Doty, this historical epic made her more famous than ever before.

Taylor was several months pregnant when she married her third husband, theatre and film producer Mike Todd, in Acapulco, Guerrero, Mexico, on February 2, 1957.  They had one daughter, Elizabeth "Liza" Frances (b. August 6, 1957).Todd was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, to Chaim Goldbogen (an Orthodox rabbi), and Sophia Hellerman, both of whom were Polish Jewish immigrants. He was one of nine children in a poor family, the youngest son, and his siblings nicknamed him "Tod" (pronounced "Toat" in German) to mimic his difficulty pronouncing the word "coat." It was from this that his name was derived.  Taylor converted to Judaism.  

 His death in a plane crash on March 22, 1958, left Taylor devastated. She was comforted by Todd's and her friend, singer Eddie Fisher, with whom she soon began an affair. As Fisher was still married to actress Debbie Reynolds, the affair resulted in a public scandal, with Taylor being branded a "homewrecker." Taylor and Fisher were married at the Temple Beth Sholom in Las Vegas on May 12, 1959; she later stated that she married him only due to her grief.

Gal Gadot is the 2nd Cleopatra.

Gal Gadot-Varsano (née Gadot; Hebrew: גל גדות Hebrew pronunciation:  born 30 April 1985) is an Israeli actress and model. She was crowned Miss Israel 2004 and represented her country at the Miss Universe 2004 pageant. She then served in the Israel Defense Forces for two years as a combat fitness instructor, whereafter she began studying at IDC Herzliya while building her modeling and acting careers.  

Prior to her birth, her parents had Hebraized their surname from "Greenstein" to "Gadot". Her father is Michael Gadot, an engineer, and her mother is Irit (née Weiss), a physical education teacher.

 Gadot's father is a sixth-generation Sabra. Her maternal grandparents were born in 20th-century Europe; her grandfather survived the Holocaust following his imprisonment at the Auschwitz concentration camp during Nazi Germany's occupation of Czechoslovakia, while her grandmother managed to escape the continent before the outbreak of World War II.  Gadot has stated that she was brought up in a "very Jewish, Israeli family environment".

Marble bust believed to be of Cleopatra VII, Altes Museum, Berlin

Cleopatra's history was that she was a descendant of its founder Ptolemy I Soter, a Macedonian Greek general and companion of Alexander the Great, a Greek of Macedonia.                             

     Nefertiti (c. 1370 – c. 1330 BC) was a queen of the 18th Dynasty of Ancient Egypt, the great royal wife of Pharaoh Akhenaten. Nefertiti and her husband were known for their radical overhaul of state religious policy, in which they promoted the earliest known form of monotheism, Atenism, centered on the sun disc and its direct connection to the royal household.  Moses was born about the same time,  1391 BCE and died 1271 BCE.                                    

Let's face it;  it's hard to have equal beauty of Elizabeth Taylor or Gal Gadot except in my view of past's Queen Nefertiti of Egypt.  She was the great beauty of any day in time.  

Resource: 

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

The Famous Cleopatra -Showed Up On Netflicks on Wednesday With Different Theme-Taking Liberties

 Nadene Goldfoot                                        

What I have found out about Cleopatra is quite different from the Netflix version which was one theory.  

    All this area was once called Macedonia/ 

Cleopatra's father was said to be a Macedonian. He was Ptolemy XII born in about 112 BCE and died by 51 BCE.   Ptolemy XII married his relative Cleopatra V, who was likely one of his sisters or cousins; they had at least one child together, Berenice IV, and Cleopatra V was likely also the mother of his second daughter, Cleopatra VII. The king's three youngest children – Arsinoe IV, Ptolemy XIII, and Ptolemy XIV – were born to an unknown mother. 

Ptolemy XII's uncle Ptolemy X had left Egypt to Rome in the event there were no surviving heirs, making Roman annexation of Egypt a possibility. In an effort to prevent this, Ptolemy XII established an alliance with Rome late into his first reign. Rome annexed Cyprus in 58 BCE, causing Ptolemy of Cyprus to commit suicide.

Bust of Ptolemy XII housed at the Department of Greek, Etruscan and Roman Antiquities at the Louvre in Paris;

                                     

Cleopatra was the last active ruler of the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt. The Ptolemaic Kingdom was a Hellenistic kingdom based in Egypt. Centuries after her death, she still manages to keep people fascinated about her life to this day.  One such fascination is the reason behind her heavy makeup which according to studies was not peculiar to Cleopatra alone but women of her time.  The striking thing about hers was her eye makeup. Her eyeshadow was bright blue, which she accentuated with green paste on the lower eyelids. Deep dark kohl was used to make her eyelashes look longer and darken her eyebrows.

 Macedonia was a region of SE Europe which is now divided among the countries of Bulgaria, Greece and Yugoslavia.  Salonica is a Greek port city of historical importance to Jews.  It had been called Thessaloniki.  The Jewish community dates back to classical times and was visited by the apostle Paul in 50 CE.  He visited synagogues in Salonica and Beroea, probably for proselytizing purposes.  Writing about it in the New Testament tells readers that it was a city with Jews who had more than one synagogue there.  

                Jewish family of Salonika in 1917, the greatest haven for Jewish exiles along with Constantinople after 1492.  The mixture of speakers of Greek mixed with Spanish speakers, the in 16th century the Portuguese Marranos arrived.  There was a Greek conquest by 1912 and the city had 80,000 Jews.  Population interchanged between Greece and Turkey after WWI.  By 1940, 5,000 Jews had  immigrated to Palestine, France and USA.  19 convoys of Jews were taken to Poland by Nazis for extermination.  In 1992,  1,100 Jews were living in Salonica.  

The history of the Jews of Thessaloniki (Salonica) reaches back two thousand years.

The former "Romaniot" Jews of Macedonia spoke Greek, but after the expulsion of Jews from Spain in 1492, Sephardi immigrants gradually absorbed the Romaniots by marriages;  the major community was at Salonica;  others, far smaller, were at Cavalla, Castoria, Drama, etc.  Most of the 60,000 Jews in the Greek area of Macedonia were exterminated during WWII.  

Through out the Middle Ages, the Jews remained in the town under various rulers.  In 1098 they were attacked by the Crusaders.  

"Ptolemy XII Auletes, (Greek: “Flute Player”) in full Ptolemy XII Theos Philopater Philadelphus Neos Dionysos Auletes, (born c. 112 BC—died 51 BC), Macedonian king of Egypt, whose quasi-legitimate royal status compelled him to depend heavily upon Rome for support for his throne. During his reign Egypt became virtually a client kingdom of the Roman Republic. He was the first Ptolemy to include Theos (God) in his formal title. (Auletes was not part of his formal title.)

Following the sudden, violent deaths of the last two fully legitimate members of the Ptolemaic family in Egypt, the people of Alexandria in 80 invited Ptolemy XII to assume the throne. Although he was known as a son of Ptolemy IX Soter II, his mother was a mistress of Soter, not a wife. In 103 he was sent by his grandmother, Cleopatra III, queen of Egypt, in the company of his brother and Ptolemy XI Alexander II, his predecessor, to Cos, an Aegean island near Asia Minor, for safekeeping. Captured in 88 by Mithradates VI Eupator, ruler of Pontus, a kingdom in Asia Minor that was then at war with Rome, young Ptolemy appeared in 80 in Syria, from where, according to Cicero, he arrived in Egypt, while his brother became king of Cyprus.

Shortly after his arrival in Egypt, Ptolemy married Cleopatra V Tryphaeana (“the Opulent”), his sister, and in 76 he was crowned in Alexandria according to Egyptian rites. At Rome, however, anti-Senate politicians in 65 raised the issue of Ptolemy’s legitimacy, producing a questionable will of Ptolemy XI Alexander II purporting to bequeath Egypt to the Roman people. Ptolemy, seeking Roman support, sent troops to assist the consul and general Pompey the Great in Palestine. Cicero, representing Pompey’s interests, persuaded the Senate to oppose Roman annexation. Facing serious opposition from the people of Alexandria and still unsure of his status at Rome, Ptolemy bribed Julius Caesar, one of the Roman consuls for the year 59, with 6,000 talents, in return for which Caesar passed a law acknowledging his kingship. Rome nevertheless divested Egypt of Cyprus the next year, and, when his brother in Egypt failed to support him, the island’s king committed suicide.

                                Queen Berenice was a Judean princess in late 1st century BCCE to 1st century CE.  She was the daughter of Herod's sister, Salome.  

The loss of Cyprus and Ptolemy’s submissive attitude to Rome outraged the people of Alexandria, who drove Ptolemy out of Egypt and accepted his queen, Tryphaeana, and his eldest daughter, Berenice IV, as rulers in 58. Residing at Pompey’s villa at Rome, he employed bribery to obtain the support of the Roman senators. He also arranged the assassination of delegations sent by his opponents from Alexandria, where, following his queen’s death, the people had made Berenice IV sole ruler. While the Senate delayed an answer, Ptolemy, continuing to dispense bribes, fell deeper into debt to Roman moneylenders. Late in 57 the Senate passed a resolution to support Ptolemy, but, when a prophecy forbade the granting of active aid, the Egyptian king departed for Ephesus, a city in Asia Minor.

In 55, after promising Pompey’s lieutenant Aulus Gabinius, proconsul of Syria, 10,000 talents, Ptolemy was returned to Egypt with a Roman army. Once restored, he executed his daughter, who had headed the opposition at Alexandria. Shortly before his death in 51 he proclaimed his eldest surviving daughter, the celebrated Cleopatra VII, and his eldest son coregents. His extensive bribery left Egypt in financial trouble".

Resource:

The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia

Brittanica Encyclopedia

https://face2faceafrica.com/article/cleopatras-heavy-eye-makeup-was-not-just-for-looks-it-also-protected-her-from-infections

This article was most recently revised and updated by Amy Tikkanen.