American Black Hassid Rapper and the History of Other American Blacks in Israel

 Nadene Goldfoot                              

   Nissim Black, born in Seattle, Washington, age 36--a rapper in Israel who became a Hassid

JBS's Teisha Bader on their segment of "In the News" interviewed someone who is very special today;  Nissim Black.  Nissim happens to mean miracle, and he does seems to be a miracle in our Israeli population.  He's a Black American Hassidic rapper who converted to Judaism.  He's even written a song for Chanukah, "Shine The Light."

He's not the first Black American who has gone to Israel to live, however.  There've been quite a few, but none converted to Judaism like Nissim did, though the earlier Hebrew Blacks were asked to convert.  Judaism is his 3rd religion that he is experiencing now, being brought up in Islam, converting to Christianity, and now Judaism.   

African Americans in Israel number at least 25,000, comprise several separate groups, including the groups of African American Jews who have immigrated from the United States to Israel making aliyah, non-Jewish African Americans who have immigrated to Israel for personal or business reasons, pro-athletes who formerly played in the major leagues in the United States before playing in Israel on local basketball and other sports teams, as well as foreign students studying in Israeli universities, businessmen, merchants, and guest workers, along with Israeli citizens of African American ancestry. African Americans have served in the Israel Defence Force, and have largely been accepted and into Israeli society, and have represented Israel in numerous international forums such as the Olympic Games, and the Eurovision Song Contest. African American-Israelis have had a major cultural impact in Israel, particular in the arts and culture, music and sports. 

      A group of African Hebrew Israelites in Dimona, Israel.

In addition, there is a large community of Black Hebrew Israelites numbering at least 5,000 people, who originally immigrated to Israel from Chicago in the 1960s, and live mostly in the southern Israeli town of Dimona.  African Hebrew Israelites in Israel, officially known as The African Hebrew Israelite Nation of Jerusalem (also known as the Hebrew Israelites of Jerusalem, the Hebrew Israelites, the Black Hebrew Israelites, or simply the Black Hebrews or the Black Israelites) is a spiritual community which is now mainly based in Dimona, Israel, whose members believe that they are descended from the Twelve Tribes of Israel. The community now numbers around 5,000. They came from a group of African Americans, many from Chicago, Illinois, who migrated to Israel in the late 1960s.

             The Black community in Dimona, Israel, in 2013

They believe that they are Jewish but when they began to emigrate to Israel, the religious officials and the state did not consider them Jewish and as a result, they were asked to convert. In 2003, the remainder of the existing community (those who had not received residency permits earlier) were granted official Israeli permanent residency and later were entitled to acquire Israeli citizenship by naturalization, which does not imply any Jewish status. Since 2004, some members of the community (both men and women) have enlisted to the Israel Defense Forces.

Nissim Black has been critical of the Black Lives Matter movement, accusing them of promoting division and denouncing their characterization of police officers as racists, their calls for abolishing the police,  and what he called their "support [of] Palestinians over the Jews". Despite this, he has said he prefers not to be involved in political or religious disputes and has encouraged unity in the Jewish community.

His childhood was hard.  Black was born Damian Jamohl Black in Seattle on December 9, 1986, the son of rappers Mia Black and James "Captain Crunch" Croone, members of the pioneering Seattle hip hop groups the Emerald Street Boys and Emerald Street Girls. His grandparents had also been musicians, playing alongside Ray Charles and Quincy Jones. He grew up in Seattle's Seward Park neighborhood and was raised in his grandfather's Sunni Islam faith, but was non-practicing and converted to Christianity at age 14 after attending an evangelical summer camp. Prior to this conversion, he had been a member of the Gangster Disciples gang, which he would later reference on the song "Mothaland Bounce". His parents divorced when he was two years old, and his mother took him with her and remarried shortly thereafter. Both his biological parents and stepfather used and sold drugs from home, prompting the FBI to raid the house in 1995 when he was 9 years old, leading to his mother's arrest; she later died from an overdose at the age of 37.

Black and his wife Adina, with whom he has seven children, were initially married in 2008;   Black, now a husband and father, began questioning his Christian beliefs, turning to Messianic Judaism and convincing his wife to follow suit. 

In 2009, Black released his second album, Ali'yah. “I had a ton of questions and no answers,” Black recalls. There were questions about “religion, about God, about Christianity, about why aren’t Christians Jewish if Jesus was Jewish.”

Black began researching religion, reading about the Torah and begging his wife, Jamie, to study with him.

“We almost got a divorce,” she says. “We didn’t see eye to eye.”

But the more she read, the more she, too, found herself attracted to Judaism, ultimately taking the Hebrew name Adina.

Six months after the album's release, Black renounced his belief in Jesus and Christianity. No longer supporting the album's message but unable to quit his contract, he agreed to promote it, but refused to accept money outside of touring expenses or perform on Shabbat. He officially retired in 2011 after releasing The Blackest Brown EP with friend and fellow rapper Bradley "B." Brown. He subsequently moved to Seward Park's Jewish community and began studying for conversion with Rabbi Simon Benzaquen at the Sephardic Bikur Holim Congregation.

They participated in an Orthodox Jewish marriage ceremony in 2013 at the Sephardic Bikur Holim Congregation after both had converted. The marriage was a double ceremony shared with his childhood friend Yosef Brown and Yosef's wife Chana, both fellow converts. Black and his family continued to live in Seward Park, the Seattle neighborhood where he grew up, until making aliyah to Israel in 2016 and settling in Jerusalem. He self-identifies as a follower of Breslov Hasidism and makes pilgrimage to Uman every Rosh Hashanah.  Many Hasiddic Jews do this. The Ukrainian city has been a site for Hasidic pilgrimage for more than 200 years since the death of Rebbe Nachman of Breslov. I would think that the war in Ukraine has put a stop to this visit.   After a year break in 2018 from releasing new songs, Nissim has comeback with ... of the World” was produced by Nissim's brother in law Yosef Brown, of who it is known to have produced/Co-wrote “Fly Away” and “Million Years”, Black’s biggest solo songs to date. Nissim has been working hard to complete his next full length project titled “Gibor”. Release date is yet to be announced....

By 2018, his own children were suffering from discrimination by Jewish children.  In an August 2018 interview with Menachem Toker of Radio Kol Chai, Black revealed that his children had been subjected to racial discrimination when they were denied admission to several local Haredi yeshivas explicitly because they were black.

Nissim Black’s Children Rejected By Schools; Rav Chaim Kanievsky Tells Him ‘Dark Skin is a Positive.’  

 He also said that he had sought advice on the matter from Rav Chaim Kanievsky during a meeting and was told, "Being black is your mayla (advantage) and not a chesaron (disadvantage)." Due to discrimination they experienced in the Meah Shearim neighborhood of Jerusalem, Black and his family relocated to the nearby city of Beit Shemesh. (Beit Shemesh (Hebrew: בֵּית שֶׁמֶשׁ [bet ʃemeʃ]) is a city located approximately 30 kilometres (19 mi) west of Jerusalem in Israel's Jerusalem District, with a population of 124,957 in 2019.)When the city was built in the 1950s, it was initially settled by new immigrants from Iran, Iraq, Romania, Bulgaria, Morocco and Iraqi Kurdistan. In the 1990s, the city saw a large influx of new immigrants from the former Soviet Union, Ethiopia and English-speaking countries, turning it into a major center for Anglo immigrants. Considerable numbers have come from North America, the United Kingdom, South Africa and Australia. This population tends to be Orthodox, educated and from middle income groups. At the same time, Orthodox Jews from within Israel also began moving to the city, seeking roomier, low-cost housing.  

It's amazing to know that at a time when many of our Ashkenazi Jews and Sepharic Jews are so Hellenized by our American heritage that someone with no genetic ties to Judaism has fallen in love with the spirituality of Judaism and even converted, and not just converted but chose the most orthodox route and is living in Israel !!  He's an icon for us all.  

                                              

Black contracted COVID-19 in July 2020 and was hospitalized at Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem; he and his family remained in quarantine until Tisha B'Av. After recovering from the disease, he reduced his coffee intake and adopted a ketogenic diet. Speaking to The Jerusalem Post in 2021, he expressed concern with the Israeli government's COVID-19 pandemic response: "I understand the government wanted to make things safe but I think they went a little overboard. I think people were almost ready for a rebellion." 

 Orthodox rapper Nissim Black confirmed Tuesday night that he has been hospitalized with the coronavirus, but denied reports that he was in critical condition.   "Thanks for all the tefillos [prayers -ed.] everybody. I am currently getting oxygen and meds in the Hospital and I AM NOT in critical condition. Still need tefillos for a speedy recovery. Thank you all," Black wrote on Twitter in response to reports about his condition.

In JBS's interview, Black remarked that HBO is making a 

special documentary of his life.  He's been Jewish for almost 

10 years.

  

Resource:

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

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

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

https://www.thejewishinsights.com/wp/nissim-black-king-world/

https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/283572?fbclid=IwAR3vd

SUVYxWLGhGLHCGs8VCUX9CJ2mIvQYUSGE7YFVPg0WH6r

qa5g7bqy-c

https://jewinthecity.com/2020/07/an-outpouring-of-support-for-covid-

battling-nissim-black-other-orthodox-jews-in-the-news/

https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/why-do-some-jews-visit

-uman-for-rosh-hashanah/

https://www.jta.org/2013/06/20/lifestyle/double-wedding-in-seattle-

caps-rappers-transformation

THE Famous Mosler's Bagels of Portland, Oregon-A REAL Bagel !

 Nadene Goldfoot                                      

As I was eating my whole wheat bagel with cream cheese this morning, my thoughts went back to the time when my two aunts, Elsie and Ann Goldfoot worked for Mosler in making his famous, better than New York's bagels. 

 Elsie Eichman nee Goldfoot married the head baker at Mosler's in 1934,                                                                 Ann married in 1939                                                                             to  Werner Oster

   Elsie in 1934, Portland, Oregon, holding me

Elsie brought a bag home to my mother and I in the morning, right after they came out of the oven, and we enjoyed the aroma and the taste of these crunchy bagles.  You had to eat them fresh as they hardened quickly, being made without any preservative.  Mosler's bakery was in SW Portland, where they lived.  

The difference between Mosler's bagel and my store-bought bagel of today  is gigantic!  Today's bagels are not bagels at all but visual imitations.  They are round with a hole in the middle, but usually are nothing but a bread recipe shaped like a bagel and baked.  A real bagel must be boiled first and then baked in an oven.

Three Jewish bakeries competed for the local trade during first half of the 20th century. There was the Star, Gordon’s and Mosler’s. After World War II, only Mosler’s remained. 

Harry Mosler was a tough guy and his bagels, it is said, were the best anyone ever tasted. There were many other Jewish-owned food businesses in those days: Mrs. Levine’s Fish Market (Mr. Levine was a shochet, the man who slaughtered cows and chickens in the kosher way); Korsun’s grocery and Mink’s grocery; Calistro and Halperin’s delicatessen, one among many Jewish-Italian alliances; and the competing meat markets run, respectively, by Simon Director, Isaac Friedman and Joseph Nudelman. Mrs. Neushin, smoldering cigarette a fixture between her lips, made pickles in her basement; Louis Albert was the soda pop king.

"Harry Mosler was a tiny man which might explain his big personality. In the photograph of him I have tacked up at work, he wore a plain, white t-shirt and a once-white apron. Below his bald dome, there was a smudge of a mustache, half-moon ears and bags under his eyes so prominent they announced, “I am a sleep-deprived bread baker.” 

Two stories about Harry Mosler begin to illustrate the man. One is that he never had change for a dollar–you could only get an extra bagel. At the same time, if you were a child, there was always a free bagel for you. The other story, bittersweet and true, is that as he aged, his grandson Darrell–who had worked for Mosler and even attended a fancy baking school in Chicago–begged him for his recipe to assure at least another generation of great bagels. Mr. Mosler refused. He told Darrell what his weary face expressed, “The work is too hard. Do something else.” Mosler died without ever sharing his recipe.  Even my aunts didn't know it though they worked there making bagels."

The original Mosler’s Bakery on Southwest 1st near Caruthers was overrun in the late 1950’s. The second location, at Southwest Fourth and College, lasted only a few years more. Mr. Mosler’s last days as a professional baker were spent–emblematically–in suburban Hillsdale. Harry Mosler died in 1969 right around the High Holidays. He took his bagel recipe to the grave. No one should have to work so hard.

Since Mosler died, what have passed for bagels in Portland are almost uniformly flavorless, oversized, bread rings. Circular Wonder Bread. Several manufacturers appear to have latched on to the theory that if the quantity is greater, no one will notice that the quality is lacking. The dominant alternate theory–I call it the “abomination postulate” (which, I might add, would be a great name for a John Grisham novel)–is that if you add enough weird ingredients to a characterless dough, you can distract the populace and sell fancy new kinds of so-called bagels. Thus dawned the scourge of blueberry, cinnamon-raisin, pizza and other horrifying rounds. Mosler turned in his grave. 

1.  HARRY² MOSLER  (LAZER¹) was born July 22, 1881 in Zachluchen, Austria, and died August 24, 1969 in Portland, Multnomah, Oregon.  He married ANNE COHEN March 22, 1908 in Seattle, King Washington, daughter of YISRAEL COHEN and FANNY PETERMAN.  She was born April 1883 in Leeds, Yorkshire, England, and died January 01, 1962 in Portland, Multnomah, Oregon. 

More About HARRY MOSLER:

Census 1: April 23, 1910, 28, Seattle, King, Washington

Census 2: January 08, 1920, 36, Seattle, King, Washington

Census 3: April 04, 1930, 45, Portland, Multnomah, Oregon

Immigration: 1899, Austria to Seattle

Occupation: Bagel baker, Mosler's Bagels, Seattle and Portland

Residence: April 1930, 821 Skidmore  St and E 25th?? 

More About ANNE COHEN:

Census 1: April 23, 1910, 26, Seattle, King, Washington

Census 2: January 08, 1920, 33, Seattle, King, Washington

Census 3: April 04, 1930, 42, Portland, Multnomah, Oregon, living on Skidmore St. 

Immigration: 1906, England/Russia to Seattle 

More About HARRY MOSLER and ANNE COHEN:

Marriage: March 22, 1908, Seattle, King Washington

                                                                            Bagels like Mosler’s

                                           1. Start with high gluten flour. You can get five-pound bags of it right at the Portland Farmers Market. The brand is Shepard’s Grain and it is from some friendly farmers who grow the wheat right nearby in eastern Washington. If you can find some King Arthur flour around town, they offer a high gluten product too. And if all else fails, find some Bob’s Red Mill “Vital Wheat Gluten” and spike your Gold Medal all-purpose stuff with it. A half ounce to every five ounces of flour will do nicely·                                                  .

·                                                  2. Ferment some of that flour. In other words, make a sourdough starter. Starter (or poolish or culture) recipes abound in baking texts. Better yet, mooch a cup of starter from someone who has kept one for a few years. It need not have come over on the Mayflower. The only requirement is that it should be healthy and vigorous and hungry for some of your new flour and an equal amount of water. Fermentation means flavor. In your bagel recipe, for every 2½ ounces of flour, you want to use about one ounce of starter. (And for every ounce of starter, subtract a half-ounce of flour and a half-ounce of water from the quantities shown in the recipe you use.)·                                                   

·                                                  3. Have barley malt syrup at the ready. There is no substitute for the flavor this thick and sticky sweetener brings to your bagel dough. Use to taste, but a little goes a long way. You will also need to use some in your boiling water. But that is jumping ahead. If someone tells you that powdered barley malt can be used instead of syrup, thank them enthusiastically for the advice and ignore it.·                                                   

·                                                  4. Use plenty of water in your dough. In baker’s percentage terms (where the weight of each ingredient is expressed as a percentage of the total weight of the flour in your recipe), a 60% dough (6 ounces of water for every 10 ounces of flour) is fine. I know a lot of recipes mandate a “stiff” dough which usually weighs out to about 50% hydration. Do not fall for it. High gluten flour absorbs water like crazy. At 50%, rolling out the dough, if you can do it at all, is like trying to re-shape rubber bands. Give yourself a break. It won’t make any difference in end. I promise.·                                                   

·                                                  5. After you have made the dough, do not let it rise, not even for a minute. You are going for dense, and rising works against density. Fresh from the mixer, cut and weigh out pieces of dough; 3½ ounces are best, up to four ounces tops. After you have weighed out all the dough, roll out each piece into a rope long enough to circle around the back of your hand with the two ends overlapping by about an inch-and-a-half in the middle of your palm. To form the bagel shape, you must firmly roll the overlapping ends back and forth under your palm on your work surface. This isn’t that hard, especially with practice, and some baking books actually have pictures of the process (Pssst. . .page 140, Maggie Glezer’s, A Blessing of Bread). If you don’t do such a great job, no sweat; the next step will help bail you out.·                                                   

·                                                  6. All your nice (and not so nice) dough rings should be placed on baking sheets well-dusted with semolina. Cover each batch with a towel that won’t shed, and then refrigerate 12 to 24 hours. During that time, your pre-bagels will puff out a bit and minor blemishes will disappear. The longer the rest, the better. You could even go 48 hours if you get busy. This stage (called “retarding”) is critical. It does two main things. First, the long cold rest allows for leisurely fermentation. This means–I’ll say it again–flavor. Second, the ‘fridge time allows for a thick skin to form on the surface of the bagel. This will assure a crunchy exterior on the finished product.·                                                   

·                                                  7. After the big chill, you must boil your bagels in a large stock pot of barley malt syrup-infused water. If you skip this step, you will end up with something, but it won’t be bagels. And Mosler’s ghost might come down to smite you, with ample justification. Most commercial bakers skip this step, among others, which is why their bagels lack texture and they must regularly pray for forgiveness. Don’t you skip the boil. Along with retarding, a quick boil (no more than 10 seconds per side is necessary or desirable) ensures a crispy crust.

After a quick, high heat bake (425NF for about 15 minutes), you are done. Your bagels will be great–deep golden outside, with a dense and chewy interior. Relatives, friends and neighbors will kiss up to you and tell you to open a bakery. At least that is what has happened with me. Just ask my dad:"

       

Resource:

https://portlandfoodanddrink.com/bagel-daze/---includes a real bagel's recipe, great article

ancestry.com

Cousin Donald Eichman, Elsie Goldfoot's son

Helfman Tree on ancestry.com 

Past and Present Anarchist Places Like East Jerusalem

Nadene Goldfoot                                                     

What is anarchy?  One definition is the absence of government.  It is a state of disorder  due to absence or nonrecognition of authority.  Yes, Portland, Oregon fits several times over to this category.  We never want anarchy, and we never want a one man leader like an Emperor or Tzar  with all the power.  We want strong leadership with everyone doing their duty to run a smooth ship so we can have smooth sailing, a captain with a skilled crew.                    

The Mayflower Compact - as it is known today - was signed by those 41 “true” Pilgrims on 11 November, 1620, and became the first governing document of Plymouth Colony. There were 102 passengers on the Mayflower including 37 members of the separatist Leiden congregation who would go on to be known as the Pilgrims, together with the non-separatist passengers. There were 74 men and 28 women - 18 were listed as servants, 13 of which were attached to separatist families.

It declared that the colonists were loyal to the King of England, that they were Christians who served God, that they would make fair and just laws, and that they would work together for the good of the Colony. (It had been many years since any of them had lived in England.  They were English-speakers living in Holland, one reason why they were leaving.  They couldn't speak Dutch and that's what their children were speaking.  That and the opportunity to live in a new land and make their own laws was compulsive.  In a way, they felt they were the new Israelites going to their Promised Land.                 

The men also chose John Carver, Deacon,  credited with writing the Mayflower Compact and was its first signer,  as Plymouth Colony’s first governor. The women and “strangers” were not allowed to vote.  Many on the Mayflower living in Holland were under the leadership of Pastor John Robinson who stayed in Holland with his flock, but his son, Isaac, boarded the ship, ANN, or Lion    10 years later of a fleet of ships, and came over.  They were Puritans.  The Puritans were members of a religious reform movement known as Puritanism that arose within the Church of England in the late 16th century. They believed the Church of England was too similar to the Roman Catholic Church and should eliminate ceremonies and practices not rooted in the Bible.  John Robinson, (born c. 1575, Sturton-le-Steeple, Nottinghamshire, Eng. —died March 1, 1625, Leiden, Neth.), English Puritan minister called the pastor of the Pilgrim Fathers for his guidance of their religious life before their journey to North America aboard the “Mayflower” in 1620.

Speaking of that, how many realize that the Mayflower of 1620's passengers were pretty special people who drew up their own rules of conduct before disembarking from the ship? It was called the Mayflower Compact.  They were on an old-fashioned space ship on unchartered water instead of the outer space above us, and they weren't sure what would happen when they landed.  So they left with rules.  They didn't want to become anarchists.                          

               The Diggers is a painting by Vincent van Gogh 

The English who had left England for Holland found that had been a bad idea as well, and many were dare-devilish enough to board the Mayflower.  The Diggers were a group of religious and political dissidents in England, associated with agrarian socialism. Gerrard Winstanley's followers were known as True Levellers in 1649, in reference to their split from the Levellers, and later became known as Diggers because of their attempts to farm on common land, which was not owned by individual people but by the group.  

Their original name came from their belief in economic equality based upon a specific passage in the Acts of the Apostles. The Diggers tried (by "levelling" land) to reform the existing social order with an agrarian lifestyle based on their ideas for the creation of small, egalitarian rural communities. They were one of a number of nonconformist dissenting groups that emerged around this time.

Flag	Society	From	Until	Duration	Location	Ideology	Ref.
	Paris Commune	18 March 1871	28 May 1871	71 days	Paris, France	Revolutionary socialism	[23]

The Paris Commune (French: Commune de Paris, was a revolutionary government that seized power in Paris, the capital of France, from 18 March to 28 May 1871.

During the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 to 1871, the French National Guard had defended Paris, and working-class radicalism grew among its soldiers. Following the establishment of the Third Republic in September 1870 (under French chief executive Adolphe Thiers from February 1871) and the complete defeat of the French Army by the Germans by March 1871, soldiers of the National Guard seized control of the city on March 18. They killed two French army generals and refused to accept the authority of the Third Republic, instead attempting to establish an independent government.

                                                                              

Dignity Village

2000 (December)

21 years, 70 days

Portland, United States

Anarchism

[16][17][18

A different example of  people ruling themselves within a city:  Dignity Village is a membership-based community in NE Portland, Oregon,  providing shelter off the streets for 60 people a night since 2000. It’s democratically self-governed with a mission to provide transitional housing that fosters community and self-empowerment– a radical experiment to end homelessness.  The encampment is located on a land near Portland International Airport, and has elected community officials and constructed crude but functional cooking, social, electric, and sanitary facilities.

 People are going homeless for many different reasons all over the USA.  They are covering our freeways with their tents.  Mental conditions not being cared for in institutions who were forced to allow such freedom for lack of funds; drugs and alcohol conditions are another reason and just plain lack of skills for better jobs to cover the high cost of housing is another.  With prices going up again, probably more will be forced to join the masses that are homeless.  Our government hasn't been able to cope.
                                                                          

Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone

8 June 2020

1 July 2020

23 days

Seattle, United States

Occupy protest

 The Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ), was an occupation protest and self-declared autonomous zone in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Seattle, Washington. The zone, originally covering six city blocks and Cal Anderson Park, was established on June 8, 2020, by George Floyd protesters after the Seattle Police Department (SPD) left its East Precinct building. The zone was cleared of occupants by police on July 1. Its formation was preceded by a week of tense interactions between protesters and police in riot gear which began on June 1 and escalated on June 7 after a man drove his vehicle into the crowd and shot a protester near 11th Avenue and Pine Street. Tear gas, flashbangs and pepper spray were used by police in the densely populated residential neighborhood,  

The zone was a self-organized space, without official leadership. Protesters united behind three main demands:

1. Cut Seattle's $409-million police budget by 50 percent.
2. Shift funding to community programs and services in historically black communities.
3. Ensure that protesters would not be charged with crimes.

Participants created a block-long "Black Lives Matter" mural, provided free film screenings in the street, and performed live music. A "No Cop Co-op" was formed, with food, hand sanitizer and other supplies. Areas were set up for free speech and to facilitate discourse, and a community vegetable garden was constructed.

                                                       

Then there is Molenbeek: An Immigrant Community that Tries to Shake Its Jihadi Reputation.  This is a community in Belgium taken over by the Muslim immigrants so dangerous now that the police have refused to enter.  This is  the small western district of Brussels known as Molenbeek.  Even before the Paris attacks, Molenbeek had been called a decrepit slum, a police no-go zone run by Sharia law, and a breeding ground for terrorism. But residents argue many of its labels are largely outdated and are contributing to the systemic marginalization that’s plagued the district for decades.  Though it suffers from a high unemployment rate –- the youth jobless rate is nearly 50 percent -- and has been targeted by organized crime in the past, the area hardly fits the description of decrepit slum. Along with some half-finished buildings, Molenbeek is also home to stylish coffee shops, art galleries, dance studios, youth centers, a vibrant weekly market, halal butchers and dazzling architecture.

                                                              

This sounds like the conditions in East Jerusalem where the population has been mainly  Arab.  Jerusalem had been divided into East Jerusalem and West Jerusalem due to the many people trying to be overseer when Jerusalem should have been Israel's capital from the beginning on May 14, 1948, their 2nd birth, since King Saul had been the 1st king  from 1030 to 1020 BCE, 3,000 years ago. There was the UN partition resolution of November 29, 1947 which provided for the creation of an independent area out of Jerusalem under UN administration.  Jerusalem appears in the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible) 669 times and Zion (which usually means Jerusalem, sometimes the Land of Israel) appears 154 times.  David Ben-Gurion presented his party's assertion that "Jewish Jerusalem is an organic, inseparable part of the State of Israel" in December 1949, and Jordan annexed East Jerusalem the following year. These decisions were confirmed respectively in the Israeli Knesset in January 1950 and the Jordanian Parliament in April 1950.

Arab outbreaks which soon reached the dimensions of regular warfare between the Haganah(Jewish freedom fighters) and the Arabs but an end to the internationalization scheme as the Arabs had multiplied their attacks on the Jews, going from bands that attacked to the Arab Legion of Transjordan.   Jews had been schemed out of the original Jewish National Homeland promised by the League of Nations and then the UN of about 90% of the promised land.  You'd think that Jerusalem, the capital of Israel for over 1,000 years as cited in the Bible, would not have been considered to be Palestinian Arab land of today, but that's how much thought the UN put into it; zilch. It's that or they were still in the punishing mode of Jews, a religious  practice.  

East Jerusalem:  When occupied by Israel after the 1967 Six-Day War, East Jerusalem, with expanded borders, came under direct Israeli rule, an effective de facto annexation.  Until then, Jordan ruled it.  The 67 War was won by Israel, changing that.  Israel actually won land that Abdullah, prince of Saudi Arabia grabbed instead and held, taking it from the original plans, or so the Jews believed.  It was England who allowed this to happen.  The 30 year mandate of the British was just that, British soldiers occupying The Promised Jewish Homeland,  with guns.  They acted just like the Romans.  Why were the Arabs there?  Not many had lived there when Mark Twain visited in 1867. Some had been trying to farm, but were happy to sell to these strange Jews who called the land "holy." Most entered the land following a migration of eastern European Jews who fled there from pogroms happening in eastern Europe like Russia and Poland.  They came for jobs working for these new immigrants.  

In July 1980, the Knesset passed the Jerusalem Law as part of the country's Basic Law, which declared Jerusalem the unified capital of Israel. 

So unlike the other anarchist neighborhoods running themselves aside from the city or country they were a part of, Jerusalem went from a divided city to a unified city once again as it had been in ancient days under the same mayor as all the other complex population in Jerusalem. 

  The whole country remembers when Jerusalem was destroyed, burned, by the Romans in 70 CE when the 2nd Temple of Solomon was also burned and destroyed. Jews have mourned that terrible day ever since the event happened and remember every year with Tishah B’Av: The Day of Remembrance and Mourning.  The destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem deprived the Jewish people of a homeland for two thousand years.  Since the founding of the State of Israel in 1948, many Jews question whether mourning the destruction of the Temple is appropriate.  Others feel, however, that there is value in remembering events in Jewish history that were filled with suffering and oppression so that we will be sensitive to the plight of others.

.   

Resource;

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

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

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_significance_of_Jerusalem#:~:text=Jerusalem%20appears%20in%20the%20Tanakh,of%20Israel)%20appears%20154%20times.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/04/world/europe/molenbeek-attack-brussels-paris.html

https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-Robinson-English-minister

https://www.history.com/topics/colonial-america/puritanism#:~:text=The%20Puritans%20were%20members%20of,not%20rooted%20in%20the%20Bible.

https://www.mayflower400uk.org/education/who-were-the-pilgrims/2019/november/the-mayflower-compact-the-first-governing-document-of-plymouth-colony/#:~:text=The%20Mayflower%20Compact%20-%20as%20it,governing%20document%20