Development of the Jewish Mind and Personality

 Nadene Goldfoot                         

                   Our minds being formed by teaching from Moses

Ever since our ancestors stepped out of the Egyptian slave quarters in 1311 BCE, our lives changed from other people on earth. We were taught about one G-d when all the other people believed in  polytheistic religions.  Only one Egyptian ever broke that belief and tried to get his people believing in one G-d, but that god to worship was the sun, and Moses, our teacher and leader on the Exodus, taught us that G-d was an invisible entity; and no-wasn't the sun though it's important.  

We were not to even try to draw a picture of G-d or even use his name in vain, meaning, using it too often.  It was a very special name, even wasn't pronounceable- more like air escaping from our mouths. (YHWH),)  We do not say "Yahwah".  We say adonai.  Jews also call God Adonai, Hebrew for "Lord" (Hebrew: אֲדֹנָי). Formally, this is plural ("my Lords"), but the plural is usually construed as a respectful, and not a syntactic plural. (The singular form is Adoni: "my lord". or Ha Shem (the name).  Most use hashem today.  

We were taught that we could argue with G-d if we presented a strong-enough case; and he would relent.  It was Abraham, our father who spoke with G-d first, who was able to do this.  

Moses had been raised as a Prince of Egypt, so could read and write and compute.  He kept a journal of the 40 year trip which was called the Torah that amounted to 5 books, and people have read from this, especially the Jews.  They were among the first people that were literate and into this history.  Many became rabbis, congregating together in Germany meeting, discussing the events, history, truth, religion.  Cities like Mainz and Worms held lots of Jewish debaters. 

                             Israeli Yeshiva students
                                               

Later, such as in schools in New York City,  Yeshivas sprang up, places that continued with the learning that occurred in Mainz and Worms, debating, arguing, challenging memories of students, always discussing the history of the Jewish people and what was right or wrong to do.  Judaism is dealing with how people were to live and treat others, and what to do that was righteous.  Whatever happened when we died was in the hands of G-d, and Jews trusted G-d's decisions.  By doing good things, Jews had the insurance that whatever went on would be good for the Jews.  

Thus came about the big question, BUT IS IT GOOD FOR THE JEWS?    The people and the land were always the prime consideration of the actions of the country and the people. Here's where some of us differ.  There are some orthodox that have not been supporting the state of Israel.  They may be fearful that their position will dissolve being they speak Yiddish, not Hebrew and that Israel already has a valid educational system.  They are refusing to look at the whole historical picture, nor have prepared for it.  Israel should put those great minds to work to make  good use of them other than the army, of course.  That too, and perhaps that's why they desist in making aliyah.                    

Debating has been indoctrinated in us, probably the reason why we produce so many lawyers.  We've had doctors in our midst.  Abraham ben Moses ben Maimonides   Born in 1186, died in 1237, he was a court physician, son of Moses Maimonides-the famous Rambam /also a doctor to the Sultan Alkamil, and wrote much in Arabic including an encyclopedic work on Judaism and commentaries on the Pentateuch, the Talmud and his own father's books.  He even issued ordinances to strengthen the community.  His contributions in religion, philosophy, and medicine have influenced Jewish and non-Jewish scholars alike.  

Moses Maimonides wrote the 13 Principles of Judaism:

Thirteen Principles of Judaism ( recited daily by some) 

1. Belief in the existence of the Creator, who is perfect in every manner of existence and is the Primary Cause of all that exists.

2. The belief in G‑d's absolute and unparalleled unity.

3. The belief in G‑d's non-corporeality, nor that He will be affected by any physical occurrences, such as movement, or rest, or dwelling.

4. The belief in G‑d's eternity.

5. The imperative to worship G‑d exclusively and no foreign false gods.

6. The belief that G‑d communicates with man through prophecy.

7. The belief in the primacy of the prophecy of Moses our teacher.

8. The belief in the divine origin of the Torah.

9. The belief in the immutability of the Torah.

10. The belief in G‑d's omniscience and providence.

11. The belief in divine reward and retribution.

12. The belief in the arrival of the Messiah and the messianic era.

13. The belief in the resurrection of the dead.

It is the custom of many congregations to recite the Thirteen Articles, in a slightly more poetic form, beginning with the words Ani Maamin--"I believe"--every day after the morning prayers in the synagogue.

                                Sephardim Jews

                               Ashkenazim Jews

Our Sephardic/Mizrachim ancestors, and then our Ashkenazi ancestors have been believing  the 13 articles ever since Moses ben Maimon, also called Rambam, Arabic name Abū ʿImran Mūsā ibn Maymūn ibn ʿUbayd Allāh, (born March 30, 1135, Córdoba [Spain]—died December 13, 1204, Egypt) wrote them, let's say at age 30 as he died at 51, Jewish philosopher, jurist, and physician, who was the foremost intellectual figure of medieval Judaism. His first major work, begun at age 23 and completed 10 years later, was a commentary on the Mishna, the collected Jewish oral laws. A monumental code of Jewish law followed in Hebrew, The Guide for the Perplexed in Arabic, and numerous other works, many of major importance. His contributions in religion, philosophy, and medicine have influenced Jewish and non-Jewish scholars alike.  So, since 1165, we've been a people with this stated belief.  

It's been impossible to go along with any other ideas of religion for us.  Jews have been burned at the stake, tortured during the Spanish Inquisition on torture machines; have enduring all sorts of impossible ways of life in order to stick to our beliefs; so that shows how strongly our ancestors felt about it.  The Holocaust killed off 6 million of us, and still we survive with the creation of Israel in 1948 and now a Jewish population there of almost 7 million.  

Maintaining strong Jewish values on a Friday night

All this time, Jews have rubbed up against anti-Semitism which has kept our populations apart with only an occasional intermarriage.  Today, is is far more common, and lo and behold, is acting on breaking down our barriers to keeping a strong hold on Judaism as it has been.  

Israel is trying to maintain our Jewish values as they watch the change happening in other countries where Jews still reside.  To show how far the change has developed, these Jews in other countries are acting shocked at the Jews maintaining their religion in Israel !   

 Each thinks the other is out of step.  Considering the belief of the rest of the world and what it has led up to, I think Judaism at full value  (with 13 Principles) is just fine.    Let those Reformed, Conservative and Orthodox Jews do a good job at their own level.  There's a reason for each.  

          Lawyer Alan Dershowitz, has all these traits

Our mind and personality?  We're argumentative, think outside the box (thank G-d), individualistic, strong family members, love to learn,  have high IQs at least 10 points above average population;  want to be the best, strive for leadership... That's my opinion.  Oh yes, we're very opinionated.  Our minds are well-formed, made up of 3,188 years of a DNA Jewish Haplogroup  which amounts to 3,188 years X 4 generations each 100 years=138  generations of Jewish DNA.  We could say of someone that they are our 138th cousin (3188 divided by  100=32 almost and 32 X 4=138)--more interesting than saying they are our distant cousin.  We're an endogamous people which most people aren't.  That's an  adjective. of or relating to the practice of allowing marriage only within a specific tribe, caste, ethnic or religious group, or other social unit:  (Anti-Semitism restricted social relations between different ethnic groups, intensifying endogamous practices in some villages).  In this case it actually helped to keep the Jewish line pure, something they themselves were not trying to do, most likely, as with all men, usually sex rules. The Torah is full of examples, reads like a soap opera many times.  David and Bathsheba;   Samson and Delilah.  

One step into our future and we are always faced with new problems.  We can do it.  We've lasted this long with our beliefs intact already.  

Resource:

https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/332555/jewish/Maimonides-13-Principles-of-Faith.htm

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Moses-Maimonides

What is a Race's Importance When We Now Have DNA Haplogroups?

Nadene Goldfoot                                                 

Races started with those that survived the 40 days on the Ark with Noah during the Flood.

Considering that Moses wrote about races almost 4,000 years ago as told about in the Tanakh (Old Testament), of the Five Books of Moses, the section of Genesis,   is amazing.  It may be explained to us in  a vague and imprecise fashion, but the story of Noah and the Ark is indeed beautiful that even satisfies children's curiosity as to how mankind was divided into different races.  As the rabbis explain in the story of the Creation and of the common origin of all men, there is the essential unity of all races in this explanation.  

A race is a categorization of humans based on shared physical or social qualities into groups generally viewed as distinct within a given society. ... Modern science regards race as a social construct, an identity which is assigned based on rules made by society. 

                           Taking slaves from Africa

When we talk about the concept of race in the 21st century, we are discussing a socially constructed idea. For the most part, we are talking about skin color when we use the term today. But, at the dawn of the 17th century, race typically identified a group of people with a common ancestor. That group, just as we see in families today, could be quite diverse. It wasn’t until the latter half of the 17th century that we see the development of the concept of race as it is currently viewed.

We Jews have lived all over the earth, in Egypt, the Ottoman Empire, and back in Israel are but a few of the places.  

The conception of race began to take on a new aspect in the 19th century.  The realization of the existence of the Aryan and Semitic families of languages led to the theory of the existence of Aryan and Semitic races.   Later, this led to the classification of the subsections, the Teutons,  exemplifying the  Aryan race  and the Jews the Semitic race.  When you read of anti-Semites, it refers to Jews only, as no one has held hatred against anyone like they do the Jews, who wouldn't accept other's religion.  The Greeks tried and failed, and the the Romans tried and failed.                     

           Here are people from many lands of origin.  

The Aryan and Semitic language theory was based on the belief, since then rejected by science, that (a) Jews were physically homogeneous.  Actually, we are an endogamous people, something proved by DNA.  Endogamy is the practice of marrying within a specific social group, religious denomination, caste, or ethnic group, rejecting those from others as unsuitable for marriage or other close personal relationships. Endogamy is common in many cultures and ethnic groups. From the beginning Abraham's descendants practiced this, though men did marry out of the group. There were times they were forced to do this as when they were in forced ghettos as they were in Italy. Social circumstances dictated when this was practiced the most. (b) They believed that there was a correlation between physical type and mental cultural characteristics.  In Germany, Jews were regarded as being racially "inferior," by their political views. The fact that Jews, who are only 0.02% of the world's population, have won many of the Nobel prizes, tells us that Jews are not racially "inferior." They are known to have, for a people, a high I.Q, usually 10 points higher than the general population.                                 

Who is a Jew in the USA ? USA's Jewish population is 2%.  Here are Jews showing many Ashkenazi Orthodox. Judaism (35% Reform, 18% Conservative, 10% Orthodox, 6% others, 30% Non-denomination), Irreligious/Atheists, etc. Even though we are endogamous and were a tribe, 12 tribes, a clan, an empire, we are made up of several haplogroups, not just one.  J, E, G, I, R, Q, T,and that's just the men.  

Evidently whoever these theorists were never read the bible where it explains about how races came to be;   that Jews started with the story of Abraham (Father of the Jews)  and Sarah who came from the city of Ur of the Chaldees which was situated on the Tigris River, the Tigris and Euphrates that are so well known in today's Iraq.  Their son was Isaac whose son was Jacob who had 12 sons, the beginning of the 12 tribes of Jacob who were ruled eventually by King Saul, followed by Kings David and then his son, Solomon, etc. They were known as Israelites, but acquired the name of Jews from the remaining tribal land of Judah, thus the name Jews.  Abraham had had a son, Ishmael, by Sarah's Egyptian handmaid, Hagar as well, who was to become the Father of the Arabs. This led up to the fact that Ishmael and Isaac were half-brothers, and their descendants were destined to become distant cousins.                                        

For the past few years, we have been using DNA to discover the the branches of the tree of life that we have all come from which is so exciting.  Men find that they come from certain branches of the tree, and can be told just what the scientists call each branch.  The line that Moses and his brother, Aaron came from are called J1 by scientists and this part of DNA is called the Y haplogroup--the line that men come from.  This is much better than thinking in terms of race

   If you read Bryan Sykes's book, THE SEVEN DAUGHTERS OF EVE, you will find a beautiful story of where women came from, starting with an Eve. Personally, my father's Jewish line that goes from father to son, etc.  comes from the Q line, deeply tested to receive the title of QBZ67, and my mother's line which is also mine and my daughter, is of the H for Helena branch.                                                                          

Haplogroups are like tags on new clothing in the store that we all are born with that tell scientists what branch we are. The tag is handed down from father to son;  and from mother to daughter, etc.  There are slight mutations, showing distance from each other, like time traveling.  It's so remarkable, with such planning to it, that it actually blows my mind.  It erases a lot of problems in genealogy.  It's used in court cases of whether a man is the father of a child or not.  It's how we found out that Thomas Jefferson or his brother/brothers fathered children of their black slaves or not.                                       

At the end of the 19th century, the Aryan-Semite Races became a basic conception of the revived anti-Jewish movement in Germany which, in the new era of tolerance, could no longer base itself exclusively on religion and, moreover was confronted with large numbers of Jews in whose lives Judaism placed no part. In other words, they were becoming integrated into their society and looked and dressed like the general population and not like the orthodox Jews.  Thus, what had before been an innocuous, if unsound theory, became in the hands of E. DUHRING, WILHELM MARR, H.LS. CHAMBERLAIN, A. ROSENBERG, etc, a deadly  weapon. Theadore Herzl acknowledged this over and over in his diaries and correspondence: "I will fight anti-Semitism in the place it originated—in Germany and in Austria," he said in one letter. He identified the genealogy of modern, racist antisemitism in the writings of the German social scientist Dr. Eugen Duehring in the 1890s.                   

A fundamental principle of the Nazi movement from the outset as told about in readings about National Socialism, was officially and precisely formulated by the NUREMBERG LAWS in 1935, intermarriage between Jews and "Aryans" being sternly forbidden and the new Jewish disabilities being extended to all persons with 2 or more Jewish grandparents.

This concept was applied somewhat less rigorously in Fascist Italy in 1938, and in various Nazi-occupied countries of Europe from 1939 to 1945, the length of WWII.  On it was based the extermination policy carried out by the Germans in this period, extending therefore in many instances to persons with only the vaguest Jewish associations and even to Christian clergymen and priests.  

The alleged "scientific" evidences of racialism, based on craniometry, etc, are wholly untenable. 

Since 1790, the USA has taken a federal census every 10 years on its population which is where we geneticists get so much of our information.  Knowing if the person was White or Black was marked on the census. Indians, Chinese, Japanese, Hebrew, Black, Mulatto, Negro, African, White, Free White,  Slaves, Free Colored, Some Other Race, were all words listed to describe a person's race and position.   

Are Jews a race?  It just happens that there are Black Jews, White Jews, Oriental Jews, Middle Eastern Jews, etc.  We come in many colors from many parts of the world. For several years, Jews have been returning to Israel to live.  This was expected and welcomed to happen.  It was foretold in the Bible.  There are, however, a few basic haplogroups that are predominantly Jewish, except for people who converted or married into and converted to Judaism.   

Resource:

The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia

https://jewishfactsfromportland.blogspot.com/2010/01/what-haplogroup-we-be.html

https://www.census.gov/data-tools/demo/race/MREAD_1790_2010.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Jews#:~:text=Judaism%20(35%25%20Reform%2C%2018,%2C%20Irreligious%2FAtheists%2C%20etc.&text=Who%20is%20a%20Jew%3F

  

What Israeli Jews Are Made Up Of; Comparing People to USA

Nadene Goldfoot                                                  

Jews who survived the attack  in 70 CE taken as slaves, forced to carry the spoils of war from the Temple in Jerusalem to Rome.  This is on the arch of Titus in Rome today.    Arch of Titus, Rome, after 81 C.E., marble, 7 feet,10 inches high.      The start of living in the Diaspora.  

                                                       

These people above could have some Jewish genes.  We've scattered throughout the world, just now finding Pashtuns of Pakistan, Afghanistan and India who have the oral history pointing to being the Lost Ten Tribes.  We've been in China but I don't know about Japan.  We've been in South Africa and Northern Africa, but the center?  Yes, we have found some from there, too.  

                                                  

The big question has always been, what is a Jew?  Is it a religion, race or a nationality.  It is both.  It started being told by G-d through Moses to live in Canaan, which was what Eretz Yisrael was first called.  They probably came there from Egypt in 1151 BCE as Moses died in 1271 BCE at age 120.  They had arrived in Egypt from Canaan some 400 years earlier as the  family of Jacob, son of Isaac, son of Abraham. 

                                                   

 According to DNA's autosomal DNA testing today, we are finding out that we are an endogamous society, having done a lot of intermarrying among our family members throughout time due to societal circumstances. Our marrying has mainly been happening with cousins, not siblings like Egypt had practiced.   

                                                  

 Israel is 73 years old,  born May 14, 1948.    In 2019, those from 0 to age 14 made up 27.89% of the population,  Those from 15 to 64 made up 59.91% and from age 65 up made up 12.21% of the population.   

The demographics also show us that the population as of July of last year, 2020, was 9,227,2000 with 74.2% being Jews.  That amounts to 6,829,000 of Israel are Jews, which is why Israel came into being in the first place.  In 1948, there were 101,828 immigrants in Israel of which 758,702 were Jews and 126,000 were non-Jews with a total of 872,000.  That's coming into Israel made up of about 8,000 sq miles.  By 1971, immigration was 42,000 of which 2,636, 600 were Jews and 458,500 were Jews  with a total of 3,095,100.  Jewish immigrants continue to enter.  Israel must keep the 80%-20% Jewish identity of the country.  After 3,000 some years of history, we find that the past 2,000 without a home has been destructive.  If we are to continue, so must our country. That's why I'm a nationalist.  Our society has value.

                                             

Albert Einstein was a German Ashkenazi Jew from Germany with an IQ of 180. 

Albert Einstein and all other Ashkenazi Jews can trace their roots to a group of about 330 people who lived during the Middle Ages, a new study finds.

(Associated Press)

                                                   

 Sephardi Jews (Hebrew: סְפָרַדִּי, Modern Sfaraddi Tiberian Səp̄āraddî) is a general term referring to the descendants of Jewish settlers who trace their origins to the Israelite tribes of the Middle East, who lived in the Iberian Peninsula until the Spanish Inquisition. It can also refer to those who use a Sephardic style of liturgy, or would otherwise define themselves in terms of Jewish customs and traditions from the Iberian Peninsula.

As of 2010, there were about 14 million Jews around the world, representing 0.2% of the global population. In 2050, the Jewish population is expected to number about 16 million. The share of the world’s population that is Jewish – 0.2% – is expected to remain about the same in 2050 as it was in 2010.

By continents, from 1919 Jews making aliyah were mainly from from the Americas, Europe and Oceanica in the amount of 385,066, and from Asia and Africa were 44,809 with a total of 452,158.  From 1965 to 1969, immigration from the Americas, Europe and Oceania was 48,609; and from Asia and Africa were 56,035 with a total of 104,955,  

                                                        

You'd have to study the "Old Testament" carefully to understand our history of being one of the Jewish people.  Those are our ancestors.  We'll look at what has happened to Jews of today. We're a people, a family, and  a religion differing from all others in the world.  

   Both are Jews in Israel.  Both could be Orthodox. Jews make up only 0.02% of the world population. One could be Ashkenazi, the other Sephardi.  They could find that they share segments of their DNA.   

                                                  

 Israel was created as a haven in 1948 for the scattered Jews of the world of which most were  under threat of extinction by their host countries, for very few of them had allowed Jews citizenship by 1920, the time after World War I. Zionists, that is, people believing that Jews needed to return to their ancestral original home that was now Palestine but had been Israel. In the past it was called Judah, the southern part of Israel, and even that went through name changes as Rome overcame Judah and renamed it Judah or Judaea in 70 CE.  From then on, Jews have been scattered,  with a large group having being led to Rome, while others headed for Spain which gives us the Ashkenazi and the Sephardi groups of Jews.                          

Mazkeret Batya's Great Synagogue on 1 Eliyahu Boulevard, designed by architect Pinhas Nit, is one of the most beautiful temples in Israel. It was built almost 100 years ago and is located in a dramatic place – the entrance to the central Israeli town.  The building has a beautiful entrance with a large arch welcoming its visitors. It is an interesting building with beauty marking the end of the 19th century. It has an atmosphere of the past and a lot of simplicity. The place is reminiscent of synagogues in Europe, with towers on the sides – almost as if it was brought in from Poland, but with a local flavor. Its compactness resembles the spirit of the rural houses of the baron's colony.  A Temple usually signifies being a Reform Synagogue.  Mazkeret Batya is a local council in central Israel located southeast of Rehovot and 25 kilometres from Tel-Aviv. Mazkeret Batya spans an area of 7,440 dunams. In 2019 it had a population of 14,837. The mayor of Mazkeret Batya is Gaby Gaon.

                                                                              

This is the Great Synagogue in Jerusalem.  I was in it and was wowed!  As early as 1923 the Chief Rabbis of Israel, Abraham Kook and Jacob Meir, mooted plans for a large central synagogue in Jerusalem. It was over 30 years later in 1958 when Heichal Shlomo, seat of the Israeli Rabbinate, was founded, that a small synagogue was established within the building. As time passed and the need for more space grew, services were moved and held in the foyer of Heichal Shlomo. Soon afterwards, when the premises could not hold the number of worshippers attending, it was decided that a new, much larger synagogue be built. Here it is.  

it is not important today in Israel whether you are Ashkenazi or Sephardi, Conservative or Orthodox.  Today, being religious or secular seems to be the dividing measuring stick of more use in matters.  It's something important to Prime Ministers as to how to budget for a coming year.      

In Israel, very few Jews identify with Conservative (2%) or Reform (3%) Judaism, while half (50%) identify with Orthodoxy – including many Jews who are not highly religiously observant but may still be most familiar with Orthodox Judaism.   Therefore, at least half of the Jewish population may have identified 

themselves with thereligious.                                         

  Our apartment building across the street from my junior high in Safed; with my German Shepherd that we flew there with us, and our new Fiat shipped from Italy.  We bought it out of a catalogue at the dealer's store.  I loved it.  After going a year without a car, this spoiled American was so grateful to finally have it.  As I said, Israel is very conscious of whether you were religious or not, and my head-scarf shows that I am religious-a learning one, as in the USA we were conservative.  We moved to Israel after a scare of real anti-Semitism that had hit in my husband's high school in Adrian, Oregon and to help help Israel being English-speaking teachers.  Danny was very helpful as in high school, English is a priority to get into many colleges or universities.  Israeli pilots have to have such a degree.  Though he was an outstanding teacher in Oregon, teaching was too difficult for Danny. He had only been an Oregon teacher for a few years in Oregon, and didn't have enough skills needed in handling such situations where he was limited verbally.  I think the change was hardest on men.  At least it was in our small group of immigrants of 40  attending classes in Hebrew.  

All men and women have to serve in the IDF, the Israel Defense Force. They do this from age 18 to possibly age 55. Danny had been in the Air Force in Florida and guarded planes but didn't pass the physical in Israel with his lung condition.                                            

    Our apartment in Safed with bars on the windows-ground floor apartment.  I had the use of the building's merapeset, the outside patio.  Here I am in 1981 waiting for my lift to be delivered with our furniture from Oregon.  I'm sitting on an Israeli cot-bed that I have thrown a throw over, using it as the living-room sofa temporarily.  

 During times of stress, though they may have already served their time, can be called in to serve for that period of stress.  This happened when I lived in Safed (Tzfat) when all available teachers were called back in.  I as an American newbie, ran to my junior high and replaced those called in without even being told to do so.  The children were showing signs of great stress, curling up in corners of the classroom and crying, telling me to keep talking, while we could hear the helicopters overhead landing on the roof of the hospital across the street of David Eleazar, delivering their fathers, uncles, brothers and even the injured enemy to be made whole again.  

Part of my duty as a new immigrant was to give blood soon after arrival, an insurance to receive if ever I needed some.  My older students in the  (Zion, Khet Tet)  group acted as linguists, translators from Arabic to Hebrew for the doctors.  They returned to me, telling me all about their experience as best as they could.  I got the idea that they saw some shocking cases. 9th graders in the USA would have had such an experience.  That group of 9th (Tet) graders was the lowest in English but the highest in behavior.  They were so patient and quiet, made up mostly of Circassian Arabs.    

This is the time of Return of Jews to Israel from all over the world.  It was prophecized to happen at just about this time, surprisingly to most of us, amazed that prophecy was correct.  The USA has always stood as the MELTING POT OF THE WORLD.  Now, it appears, that Israel has also become the JEWISH MELTING POT, and the pot is ever so much tinier!  

So now we have a multiplicity of languages being spoken which are highlighted by speaking basically  either Yiddish or Ladino who are all using Hebrew as their day to day language of their newly revitalized Israel.  My paternal grandparents who made it from Lithuania/Poland to the USA could only speak Yiddish and that was that.  Neither could read nor write.  Such was their life.  They were among the poor who made it to the USA on or before 1905.  

 Arriving at Ben Gurion Airport in September 1980 from Portland, OR

I made Aliyah in 1980.  So who else returned besides us?  Right across the street in another building, a couple from Portland had moved in, and his father had known my father, but we had never met.    They were in the same business!  Of course we had the Sam Singers over for dinner and he was already in the Israeli IDF.  Later on, in another apartment building across the street moved in people that were Black Ethiopians.  We shared the same supermarket.  This was such an exciting period.  I even wrote a book about it all.  

Update: 6/7/2021  I found my 3rd cousin in Jerusalem, Stanley Goldfoot, who had been in Israel since before 1948.  In fact, he was the chief of Intelligence for the Stern group.  We met in the King David Hotel.  He had written, A Letter To The World.  He gave me inspiration.  

Golda Meir announcing the birth of their nation, Israel.  

So we have strong Zionists who made it to Palestine starting in the 1880's who arrived through 5 Aliyah groupings.  They were mostly Ashkenazis.  Palestine still had Jews living there that stayed on after 70 CE and kept things going through many attacks from different groups, with the Ottoman Empire taking the land and holding it for 400 years, a time that ended with World War I after they lost with their axis Germany by 1918.  These people would be the Mizrachi group who knew how to read and write Arabic as well as Hebrew and had come from the surrounding area in and beyond Palestine in the Middle East.

                                               

 Out of a POW camp and into Israel, fighting another war

Israel would never have appeared on the scene again after 2,000 years of hoping, waiting and praying 3 times a day without a drastic reason to leave host countries, and the impossible happened with the Holocaust.  It's like an island set aside for an endangered species, the Jews.  The difference between an animal's life and the Jews' lives in Israel is that they forgot to take out the people who wanted to destroy them, the Palestinians, who were used as the main ammunition to use against them.  Now , the ones who stayed and didn't leave when their leaders ordered them to have left their descendants who are learning to live together in peace.  That still allows our refuge to be about 80% Jewish and 20% Arab Israelis.   

                                   Hamas hitting Israel :  By 22 September 2005, Israel's withdrawal from the entire Gaza Strip to the 1967 Green Line, and the eviction of the four settlements in Samaria, was completed. In June 2007 Hamas took over the Gaza Strip from the Palestinian Authority.

It doesn't consider the Palestinian Gazans  who have been making war on Israel ever since Jews expelled themselves from the area to allow Arabs to live there.  The act gave no peace at all to the Israelis who only wound up giving the enemy a closer place in which to fire their rockets from.  All the while in the background, the other nations call out, create a Palestine, as if that will change their minds after signing onto an agreement to not ever make peace with Jews.  This is what Jews of Israel have to deal with.  Already an enemy, hateful Palestinians on their border who keep on shooting led by Hamas, terrorists.   What kind of Jew in Israel is all for this distorted state of affairs?  Note that there are 20% Arabs who also vote in elections.  

The USA was born through discovery of the continent and then later knowing that all that land was there for the picking.  Any overcrowded and disturbed or unhappy person was free to take their chances and enter as long as they were healthy enough.  The United States became a country in 1776 and had enough of a population by then, starting with 13 colonies.  They have grown to have 50 states.  Israel's size can be compared with their smallest state of Rhode Island.  

The religion of the USA was started by Christians who were dissatisfied with Christianity in England and had moved to Holland with their own branch of Christianity.  Though they don't announce it, the USA is a Christian state just by % of the people.  Following them were all the other branches of Christianity while Islam stayed in the Middle East.  In the early days when New York was called New Amsterdam, a small boat-load of Jews arrived and were denied entrance.  Finally, that was cleared up and Peter Stuyvesant had to allow them entrance, though they were Jews, a people he hadn't much contact with, since Jews had not been allowed to live in England from 1290 until 1655, a total of 365 years, and we all know that the Mayflower sailed to America in 1620 with the Puritans and a few others. 

 I'd say that we Jews have entered a land already conditioned not to accept us, and our ancestors had to win them over.  Jews have faced discrimination in the US ever since in different degrees.

                                                  

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed an IDF officers' course graduation ceremony today at IDF Training Base #1.

Israelis seem to have identified with Netanyahu's brand of seeing what Jews were for the past 12 years, and are now going for a change and are leaning away from the more dominant Orthodox view of themselves.  Netanyahu had coalesced with the more orthodox though he isn't himself.  He had to do a lot of appeasing, in my opinion to last for 12 years straight under dire conditions.   We shall see what the future has in store with a new coalition formed under Bennett and Yapid who are pasting together quite a diversity. They sound a little like the old Labor group to me.  I think anyone against Netanyahu today gives the whole voting scene a superficial scan.  So far the paste has only been the dislike of Netanyahu.  That may turn out to be a very weak paste. We await the results for many things, the respite  in the Gazan War, Netanyahu's chances to stay in government and etc.   

Jews in the USA, South Africa, England, etc, have to think of themselves and ask the question of what's important:  Are they religious or secular and where does Israel fit into their picture of themselves. So are we Zionists or not?  Another question:  What do you think will happen if Israel disappeared or was not a Jewish state anymore?  All this depends on the make-up of today's Israelis.  

The question of being religious or secular comes from our beginnings which were religious history, recorded by Moses himself for the first 5 books.  Judaism is on the line, defended only by our handful of Jews and our friends.   

Jews born and raised in Israel are called "Sabras".  It a tough cactus.  They are on the outside, but they are soft inside.  

Watch the news about Israel on TV:  There's more to us than being just a Democratic Society like England or the USA.  

ILTV Israel News - YouTube

i24NEWS English - YouTube

TV7 Israel News YouTube Channel

- 12 minutes daily

Resource

https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/ancient-art-civilizations/roman/early-empire/v/arch-of-titus-relief

https://www.statista.com/statistics/526596/age-structure-in-israel/

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

http://www.globalreligiousfutures.org/religions/jews

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

Letters From Israel, by Nadene Goldfoot