Trials and Tribulations of Israel Getting Here Today

 Nadene Goldfoot                                               

When I was 13 years old,   there is one country in the world that was created for Jewish people.   Early Zionist leaders like Theodor Herzl believed a Jewish state was essential for Jewish safety and self-determination. 

Centuries of Persecution and then the Holocaust: Jews had faced centuries of antisemitism and violence in Europe, culminating in the horrific Holocaust of World War II, where six million Jews were systematically murdered. This genocide underscored, for many, the urgent need for a safe homeland where Jews could live securely and independently.  This had started in Germany with Hitler in the 1930s and finally ended in 1945.  

British Mandate for Palestine: After the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in World War I, Britain was granted a League of Nations mandate to administer Palestine. The Balfour Declaration of 1917, incorporated into the mandate, expressed British support for establishing a Jewish national home in Palestine. This created a complex situation with competing promises made to both Jewish and Arab populations in the region.                                       

Roosevelt also sought to convince the public that an international organization was the best means to prevent future wars. The Senate approved the UN Charter on July 28, 1945, by a vote of 89 to 2. The United Nations came into existence on October 24, 1945, after 29 nations had ratified the Charter.

  Golda Meir:  Golda Meyerson (1898-1978) Born in Russia, immigrated to US when a child, settled in Palestine (name change from Judah in 135 CE) in 1921.  Was Labor Zionist, in Histadrut and Jewish Agency.  1st Israel minister to the USSR.  In Knesset since 1949, 1969 became Prime Minister-position during YOM KIPPUR WAR.   Reelected at the end of 1973 but retired in 1974;  wrote MY LIFE.  

It was because of this that Israel was created on May  14, 1948.   Four months later I was 14.  I had high hopes for the world.  

On May 14, 1948, the Jewish population of the newly declared State of Israel was approximately 630,000. This constituted about a third of the total population at the time. The total population of the area that became Israel is estimated to have been around 1,764,520. This included Muslims, Christians, and others, in addition to the Jewish population.

Moses took a census at the beginning of 40 year Exodus and had 603,550to start, but only 601,730 at the end of the 40 years.  Jewish historical tradition places the Exodus from Egypt at 1446 BCE. This date is derived from the biblical account in 1 Kings 6:1, which states that the Exodus occurred 480 years before the start of the construction of the Temple in Jerusalem. Since the Temple's construction began in 967 BCE, this calculation points to 1446 BCE as the year of the Exodus. Some scholars also use the book of Jubilees and Judges 11:26, which independently support the 1446 BC date and the 1406 BCE date for the beginning of the conquest of Canaan.   

So the Exodus with Moses in Egypt started in 1446 BCE and ended 40 years later in 1406 BCE.  It's taken us from 1406 BCE to 1948 ; 3,354 years  to have the same population that Moses had and better it by 38,270 population. 

Today, the population is  estimated to be around 10.1 million people, with approximately 77.6% being Jewish (including those in the "other" category) and 21% being Arab. The remaining 2% are categorized as "other," which includes non-Arab Christians, Baha'i, Samaritans, and others who identify as Jewish but don't meet the Orthodox definition used for civil procedures. 

Our Jewish country was started by our Israelite ancestors with King Saul, King David and his son following who was King Solomon.  When he died,his Kingdom of Israel split into Israel and Judah with Judah keeping Jerusalem.  The House of David continued until King Zedekiah of Judah (597-586 BCE).

Everyone has wanted to "OWN" ISRAEL.  

Assyrians, Babylonians, Persian, Greek, and then Roman Empires.

After the Roman Empire, the territory of Judah (part of the Byzantine Empire at the time) was successively invaded and held by the following powers:

• Sasanian Empire (614-628 CE): The Sasanian Persians, allied with Jewish rebels, conquered Jerusalem during the Byzantine-Sasanian War. Jerusalem was recaptured by the Byzantines in 629 CE.
• Rashidun Caliphate (637-638 CE): The Muslim forces of the Rashidun Caliphate under the command of Caliph Umar conquered Jerusalem from the Byzantines.
• Umayyad Dynasty (660-750 CE): Jerusalem flourished under the Umayyad dynasty, who made it a Muslim religious center and built the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount.
• Abbasid Dynasty (750-969 CE): The Abbasids, based in Baghdad, took over from the Umayyads, according to Fanack.
• Fatimid Dynasty (969-1073 CE): The Fatimids, a Shi'a Caliphate from North Africa, conquered Egypt and subsequently Palestine.
• Seljuk Turks (1073-1098 CE): The Seljuk Turks took control of Jerusalem from the Fatimids.
• Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem (1099-1187 CE): Following the First Crusade, Christian rulers established the Kingdom of Jerusalem, which controlled Jerusalem and much of Palestine for nearly a century.
• Ayyubid Sultanate (1187-1229 CE and 1244 CE): Saladin's forces defeated the Crusaders at the Battle of Hattin, ending the first Kingdom of Jerusalem and placing most of Palestine under Ayyubid control. Jerusalem was briefly retaken by the Second Kingdom of Jerusalem (ruled from Acre) through diplomacy in 1229 but fell back to the Ayyubids in 1244.
• Mamluk Sultanate (1250-1517 CE): The Mamluks, a military caste that overthrew the Ayyubids in Egypt, expanded their rule to include Palestine and held it until the Ottoman conquest.
• Ottoman Empire (1516-1917 CE): The Ottomans conquered Palestine from the Mamluks, initiating a period of rule that lasted for four centuries. This era ended during World War I with the defeat of the Ottoman Empire. 
  
• World War I from 1914 to 1917 saw the Ottoman Empire side with the Axis -mainly Germany, a wrong decision, and they lost almost all their land but was able to keep Turkey. 
  
  
  
• Now Israelis have shared Gaza, a former section of Israel that the Philistines had once occupied, with our surrounding Arab neighbors who poured in like syrup seeking French Toast, and think they should own the whole section of land.  Again, Israelis, descendants of the ancient Israelites, are fighting to keep what they have created, this time out of the wasted deserted land that no one kept up, land waiting for its Jews to return;  land that become either swampland full of mosquitoes or desert land.  This time Jews (from Judah) are not leaving;  Romans are not here anymore;  and Jews have turned into warriors as well as scholars.  Israel will not make this mistake again of sharing land with people who have refused to change from never accepting Israel and live in peace  with them.  
• Resource:
• https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/muslim-population-by-country 
• https://biblearchaeology.org/research/exodus-from-egypt/2954-the-biblical-date-for-the-exodus-is-1446-bc-a-response-to-james-hoffmeier#:~:text=Home%20%C2%BB%20Research%20%C2%BB%20Latest%20Research%20Articles,el%2DMaqatir)%20and%20Hazor.
• https://brainly.com/question/43513626
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sasanian_conquest_of_Jerusalem#:~:text=The%20Sasanian%20conquest%20of%20Jerusalem,Disputed
• https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/postwar-refugee-crisis-and-the-establishment-of-the-state-of-srael#:~:text=In%20the%20aftermath%20of%20this,longer%20be%20a%20vulnerable%20minority.
• https://www.google.com/search?q=United+Nations+was+created+when%3F&sca_esv=1b48caf93e236e97&sxsrf=AE3TifMuZe1NN_6KQ0OrDaTjiKiJI-D5Sw%3A1755298170903&source=hp&ei=ermfaOCJNd-F0PEPt731kAI&iflsig=AOw8s4IAAAAAaJ_Hig5wXX

Continue of Core of Jewish People Part IV

 Nadene Goldfoot                                               

                                                                            

                                                 Before World War I:

  The assassination of Tsar Alexander II on March 13, 1881, in St. Petersburg, by a member of the revolutionary group "People's Will," triggered significant political and social changes in Russia. The event led to a shift towards more autocratic rule under his successor, Alexander III, and a period of increased repression. The assassination of Tsar Alexander II in 1881 sparked a period of intense persecution of Jews in Russia, including violent attacks known as pogroms. Alexander II was seen as tolerant towards Jews. During his reign, special taxes on Jews were eliminated and those who graduated from secondary school were permitted to live outside the Pale of Settlement, and became eligible for state employment. Large numbers of educated Jews moved as soon as possible to Moscow, Saint Petersburg, and other major cities.^] Alexander III, who succeeded his father after his assassination, reversed this trend.The importance of Hesya Helfman's role in the assassination was secondary, providing a flat for the conspirators. After the assassination, the role of Jews in the act was often emphasized or exaggerated. Another conspirator, Ignacy Hryniewiecki, was also rumoured to be Jewish. Narodnaya Volya had many Jewish members, with about a third of all its female members being Jewish.In the aftermath of the assassination, the May Laws were passed. The assassination also inspired retaliatory attacks on Jewish communities. During these pogroms, thousands of Jewish homes were destroyed; many families were reduced to poverty and large numbers of men, women and children were injured or killed in 166 towns in the south-western provinces of the Empire.

                                                     

1890: Gustav Ermann, a Jewish soldier in the German Kaiser's army, born in  in Saarbrücken

  From Marxism to McDonald's 120 years of Russian photography

The cantonists were Jewish boys in the Russian Empire who were forcibly taken to camps (“cantons”) where they were trained to become soldiers in the Tsar's army between 1827 and the end of the 1850s.  Families tried their hardest to evade these places that can kill their sons on the FRONT LINES.       

                                   WORLD WAR I                         

British and German wounded, Bernafay Wood, 19 July 1916. Photo by Ernest Brooks.

 World War I:  The war on the eastern front between Russia and the Central Powers (Germany and Austria) was conducted on territories that were home to almost four million Jews. In the autumn of 1914 and the winter of 1915, Russian forces occupied Austrian Galicia, and in the spring and summer of 1915, Germany and Austria conquered Congress Poland (the duchy annexed by Russia according to the treaties of 1815), Volhynia, Lithua­nia, and western Belorussia.

Jewish boys were put on the front lines and most certainly would be first to be shot.  Mothers tried to cut off fingers to make their sons uncapable of serving.               

Germany entered World War I on August 1, 1914 when the country declared war on Russia. 11 million German soldiers were mobilized, 100,000 of whom were Jewish. A number of these Jewish soldiers were honored for their service with the Iron Cross. In addition, many German Jews supported the war effort at home along with their neighbors. This service and dedication were soon disregarded, but World War I efforts are an essential part of the German Jewish story.

• Exposure to Anti-Semitism: Jews encountered discrimination within the armies, as evidenced by a "Jewish census" conducted in the German army in 1916, ostensibly to counteract rumors of draft dodging, according to the Leo Baeck Institute.
• Impact of War on Jewish Communities: The war had a devastating impact on Jewish communities, especially in Eastern Europe.
• Questioning Loyalty and Assimilation: Anti-Semitism and the war experience led some German Jews to question their identification with Germany as their "fatherland" and whether assimilation was a desirable goal. 

Under Russian rule, the Jews were suspected of collaboration with the enemy, and 600,000 of them were banished from the front by the czarist army, a traumatic experience and an economic catastrophe that was still felt long after the war. To aid their displaced and impoverished brethren, Jews around the world established welfare organizations on a scale previously unknown.    The war ended in November 1918.    

• Eastern Europe: An estimated quarter million Jews died in battle in Eastern Europe during World War I. Over a million became refugees due to accusations of collaborating with the Germans, which forced them to relocate inland in Russia.
• German Jewry: Over 12,000 Jews died fighting for the German forces.
• Russian Army: Approximately 100,000 Jews who served in the Russian army were killed on the front lines. 
  

These figures likely represent only a partial picture of the Jewish suffering during the war. This suffering included deaths from battle, disease, displacement, and the breakdown of Jewish communities in Eastern Europe. 

Plenty of anti-Semitism went on at this time in the USA.  In the 1920s, Jewish immigration to the United States was significantly impacted by restrictive legislation like the Johnson-Reed Act of 1924, which drastically reduced overall immigration numbers and established national origin quotas. This act, along with earlier legislation, aimed to limit the influx of immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe, including many Jewish people fleeing persecution in Eastern Europe. Despite the restrictions, significant numbers of Jewish immigrants had already arrived in the preceding decades, establishing large  communities, particularly in New York City.    

                                          Germans in their Army Uniforms

               1917 and End of World War I

At the end of World War I, the Allied Powers convened the Paris Peace Conference in January 1919 to establish peace terms with the defeated Central Powers. 

• Eastern Europe: An estimated quarter million Jews died in battle in Eastern Europe during World War I. Over a million became refugees due to accusations of collaborating with the Germans, which forced them to relocate inland in Russia.
• German Jewry: Over 12,000 Jews died fighting for the German forces.
• Russian Army: Approximately 100,000 Jews who served in the Russian army were killed on the front lines. 

These figures likely represent only a partial picture of the Jewish suffering during the war. This suffering included deaths from battle, disease, displacement, and the breakdown of Jewish communities in Eastern Europe.                                                          

  Weizmann (left) in tie, white shirt;  with Prince Faisal, later Faisal I of Iraq in Syria, 1918.  They also followed up in Paris 1920, Faisal who became King of Iraq and also Syria, and Weizmann, Jewish scientist who invented an additive to make English bombs stronger...helped to win WWI with this...

Collapse of the Ottoman Empire and British Occupation

• The Ottoman Empire sided with the Central Powers during World War I and was defeated.
• Britain occupied Palestine by late 1917.
• The Ottoman Empire's collapse created a power vacuum in the Middle East, divided among the victorious European powers, particularly Britain and France. 

Conflicting Promises and the Balfour Declaration

• Britain made conflicting promises about the region's future during the war.
• The Hussein-McMahon Correspondence (1915-1916): Britain suggested supporting an independent Arab state, including Palestine, in exchange for Arab support.
• The Sykes-Picot Agreement (1916): Britain and France secretly planned to divide Ottoman territories into spheres of influence, with most of Palestine intended to be internationalized or under partial British control.
• The Balfour Declaration (1917): Britain publicly supported "the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people," while also stating that "nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities". 

The British Mandate for Palestine

• The League of Nations entrusted Britain with a mandate to govern Palestine (initially including Transjordan) after the war.
• The mandate explicitly called for implementing the Balfour Declaration.
• The San Remo Resolution and the Mandate's Legal Basis
  • The San Remo Conference in 1920 formalized the allocation of mandates for former Ottoman territories.
  • The San Remo Resolution gave international legal and political legitimacy to the mandates, including the British Mandate for Palestine.
  • It incorporated the Balfour Declaration into the Mandate's terms, recognizing the aim of establishing a Jewish national home in Palestine while including provisions for protecting the rights of non-Jewish communities. 
  Failure to Establish an Independent Arab Palestine
  • The Mandate was intended to be a transitional phase until Palestine achieved full independence.
  • However, the complex promises and the rise of competing nationalisms (Arab and Jewish) made establishing an independent Arab Palestine impossible under the British mandate.
  • Arab leaders largely opposed the Mandate and the Balfour Declaration, leading to increased conflict and a failure to reach a peaceful resolution during the British administration. 
  The end of World War I and the subsequent decisions by the Allied powers, particularly Britain's conflicting promises and the Mandate system, set the stage for the conflicts that continue to define the Israeli-Palestinian issue. 
• 
       Hitler with Arab Husseini, leader, who wanted Jews wiped out...
  
        Husseini and the Nazi Gang  plotting against the Jews
•                              WORLD WAR II
• World War II started with Germans marching into Poland, a country with the largest Jewish population, and taking it over on September 1, 1939.  
• Six (6) Million Jews were slaughtered in WWII.  
• During this period (1922-1948), the British oversaw increased Jewish immigration, fueled by persecution in Europe and the Holocaust in World War II.
• This led to escalating tensions and violence between Arab and Jewish populations, culminating in the 1947-1949 Palestine War. 
  
  Golda Meier on May 14,  1948, Declaration of the state of Israel at the United Nations, and 5 minutes later being attacked by the Arab Nations.  
• Edited 8/11/2025 9:20am 
• 
  

                           

Memorial Day In USA and In Israel and What It Means

 Nadene Goldfoot                                                   

            Soldier from World War II The United States officially entered World War II on December 7, 1941, following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The formal surrender of Japan on September 2, 1945, marked the end of the war for the US, though the formal end of World War II came on September 2, 1945. Germany surrendered to the Allies on May 8, 1945. 

Today (5/26/25) a Monday  is Memorial Day.  That is the American holiday remembering, honoring and mourning the US military personnel who died while serving in the US Armed Forces.   Memorial Day is a federal holiday in the United States.   It is observed on the last Monday of May. Memorial Day is also considered the unofficial beginning of summer in the United States.  

Memorial Day was first recognized in 1868, with the first national observance on May 30th. It was initially called "Decoration Day" and was established to honor the Union soldiers who died during the Civil War. In 1971, it was formally recognized as a federal holiday.                        

The American Civil War, a conflict fought between 1861 and 1865, resulted in a Union victory that preserved the United States as a single nation and abolished slavery. The war's origins lie in deep-seated sectional tensions, primarily stemming from disagreements over slavery's expansion into new territories. The conflict also involved significant political and military considerations, ultimately leading to a devastating loss of life and a reshaping of American society. 

Union soldiers, who fought for the North in the Civil War, wore a variety of uniforms, primarily blue. The ideal uniform was a dark blue coat with lighter pants, and a black hat, but variations in supply and cost often led to different looks. Many Union soldiers are pictured in their uniforms, particularly in portraits taken during the war. 

The war fought by the United States before the Civil War was the American Revolutionary War (1775-1783). This war resulted in the independence of the Thirteen Colonies from Great Britain.

People who have ancestors who contributed to the American Revolution can belong to the National Society Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR). The DAR is a lineage society that focuses on preserving the memory of those who aided in American independence, and women must prove their lineal descent from a Revolutionary War patriot to become members.    It's quite the privilege to belong.  People working on their Genealogy family treemight find someone who fought in the Revolutionary War.

                               

In Israel, Yom HaZikaron (Remembrance Day) is the holiday that is most similar to American Memorial Day. It is a solemn day of remembrance dedicated to the soldiers and victims of terrorism who have lost their lives defending Israel.  It fell on the evening of Tuesday, April 29, 2025, and ended on the evening of Wednesday, April 30, 2025. It was remembered by cities in the USA as well at their Jewish community centers.                           

                                  An Israeli soldier on duty, not my husband

My husband, Danny Eskow of Brooklyn and Miami, Florida, served 4 years in the USA AirForce, and had a rare heart problem afterwards.  Yet he went through the physicalin Israel at age 42, ready to serve.  We both wound up with our German shepherddoing Civil Guard duty.  We saw units of soldiers with white hair and some with whitebeards marching up our street guarding us.   This holiday had a siren blow thatalerted all people to stand quietly for so many minutes.  My memory goes back to 1981, our first Remembrance Day in Israel.