The Importance of a Jewish Education For Russian Jews and Others

  Nadene Goldfoot                                            

Russian-Jewish rapper sparks diplomatic spat between Israel  and Ukraine

Ukraine’s embassy in Israel filed a formal protest after Russian rapper GeeGun was invited as part of an Israeli Tourism Ministry campaign, saying the Odessa-born artist supports Russia’s war and appears on Kyiv’s sanctions list.  (each country lies and makes out they they are the best, especially Trump!) 

Ukraine’s embassy in Israel filed a formal protest with the Foreign

Ministry after Russian-Jewish rapper GeeGun was invited to Israel as

part of an Israeli Tourism Ministry campaign, calling the move

“immoral and unacceptable.”

He was born in Russia, all right; in Odessa which the Jewish community

founded in 1798. Up to WWI, it controlled 90% of its grain trade and

50% of its shop-keepinag and banking. In the 19th century, Odessa was

a center of Russian-Jewish assimilation with the 1st school for Russian

Jews in 1824; Russian synagogue with choir, 1st Russian Jewish news

paper 1860, people like Bialik, and 1880 was center of haskalah.

After WWI and after 1941's WWII of Nazi occupation, the 180,000 Jews

fled or were slaughtered. 26,000 were massacred on October 23-25,

1941 alone. Jewish population for Odessa province in 1988 was up to

120,000.

Kyiv, also Kiev, is the capital and most populous city of Ukraine. Located in the north-central part of the country, it straddles both banks of the Dnieper River. Jews moved there in waves from 

Khazaria, the Caliphate, and Byzantium between the 9th to 12th

Centuries; then from the 14th-15th cents, and from Poland in the 

16th  to 18th centuries.  Severe massacres happened there 

during the Chmielnicki and Haidamak uprisings in 17th-18th cent.

This was close enough to bring about Zionism.  Pogroms took

place in 19th century-from Galicia and White Russia and in 1905

and 1918-1920.  

Russians encouraged Jew to be educated in agricultural settle-

ment in southern Ukraine from 1804-1859.  By 1897 there were

21 Jewish colonies in Kherson province and 16 in Yekaterinoslaav with 26,326 people.  The Soviet government in 1920s promoted

Jewish settlement in Ukraine using money from American Joint Dis-

tribution Committee in regions of Kalinindorf, Zlatopol, and Stalindorf, a and by 1930 there were 90,000 Jewish farmers there.  In Jan-

uary 1918, a regime of national autonomy was established in the

Ukraine.                                        

Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin (born 7 October 1952) is a

 Russian politician and former intelligence officer who has 

served as President of Russia since 2012, having previously 

served from 2000 to 2008. Putin also served as Prime Minister

 of Russia from 1999 to 2000^[i] and again from 2008 to 2012

 He has been described as the de facto leader of Russia since 1999.

Born in Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg), Putin worked as a 

KGB foreign intelligence officer for 16 years, rising to the rank

 of lieutenant colonel. He resigned in 1991 to begin a political 

career in Saint Petersburg. In 1996,

Jewish economy and culture suffered under Soviet Rule.   Half of

Soviet Russia's 3 million Jews lived there before WWII.  Under

Nazi rule  were wiped out by the Germans and Ukrainians from

19411942.  The Jewish population was officially part of 777,126

in 1970 and at 484,129 in 1989.  It grew because people were

born, were familiar with it and could speak the language and no

other.                                             

Now these young people, all of them, need to understand that

Russia has been the aggressive one and Ukraine is defending  

 themselves in this war.  

Preventing Western Integration: Russian President Vladimir 

Putin sought to stop Ukraine's pivot toward the West. He viewed Ukraine's growing alignment with the European Union and

 NATO as a threat to Russia's historical sphere of influence and

 a challenge to his regime. 

Imperial Ambitions: Putin has repeatedly questioned Ukrainian statehood, asserting that Russians and Ukrainians are "one single people". Moscow aims to reclaim territorial control and restore a large Russian sphere of influence.

He's thinking of the days of USSR (The Soviet Union, officially

 the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from

1922 until its dissolution in 1991.  We reading teachers said it

stood for undisturbed silent sustained Reading.  Ha ha!  

Ideology and Propaganda: At the onset of the 2022 invasion,

 Putin justified the military action through the false claim that 

the Ukrainian government was a neo-Nazi regime committing genocide against Russian speakers in the Donbas region.

Escalation of the 2014 Conflict: The 2022 full-scale invasion 

was an escalation of a conflict that began in 2014. After mass protests in Ukraine ousted pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych, Russia illegally annexed Crimea and backed armed separatists

 in the eastern Ukrainian regions of Donetsk and Luhansk.

Israel and Its Desert lands, Sinai and Negev: Part I

 Nadene Goldfoot                                           

The total area of the State of Israel is 22,145 sq.km (8,630 sq. miles), of which 21,671 sq. km is land area.  Beersheba is in the Negev Desert which comes up between Gaza City   on the coast.  Israel's land looks to me like a side view of a head, a long neck, and a large tummy of a man coming out of the genie bottle.  The largest section of land is all desert.  

                   Ein Avdat in the Zin Valley in the Negev

The Negev contains the oldest discovered surface on Earth, with an approximate age of 1.8 million years. It covers more than half of Israel, over some 13,000 km² (4,700 sq mi) or at least 55% of the country's land area. It forms an inverted triangle shape whose western side is contiguous with the desert of the Sinai Peninsula, and whose eastern border is the Arabah valley. The Negev has a number of interesting cultural and geological features. Among the latter are three enormous, craterlike makhteshim (box canyons), which are unique to the region: Makhtesh Ramon, HaMakhtesh HaGadol, and HaMakhtesh HaKatan.

The Negev covers 5,138 sq miles of dry land, which is 55% to 60% of Israel. Thee annual rainfall is less than 200 mm per year.    

This shows how the brown Sinai Desert is touching the Negev Desert.

             

   Usually regarded as being geographically part of Asia, the Sinai Peninsula is the northeastern extremity of Egypt and adjoins Israel and the Gaza Strip on the east. The Sinai is administratively divided into two muḥāfaẓahs (governorates): Shamāl Sīnāʾ in the north and Janūb Sīnāʾ in the south.                  

The basic parts of Israel are: Negev Desert, Eilat-a  resort, Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Dead Sea, Haifa, Galilee and Golan Heights areas. 

                                               

Beersheba is the main city in the Negev.  It's history includes or 3 patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.  Jews settled here after their return from Babylon in 538 BCE.  When the 2nd Temple of Solomon was destroyed in 70 CE, it became a fortified frontier post against the Nabateans, and a Roman garrison was stationed there.  Then it was pretty much deserted area.

The Turks rebuilt Beersheba in 1900 when they saw Jews living here until 1929, the time of attack against Jews.

                                        Bedouin woman

By 1948, the birth of Israel, the population was Arab numbering 5,700 and they abandoned the city.  It became the chief Jewish city of the Negev.  It's on the national railway route of 1956 and the Mediterranean -Elath-oil pipeline and is the site of Ben-Gurion University.  

Average temperatures in Negev Desert vary greatly. Considering humidity, temperatures feel nice most of the year, excluding some hot weeks in the summer, with a very low chance of precipitation throughout the year. The area is somewhat temperate — in the 58th percentile for pleasant weather — compared to tourist destinations worldwide. If you’re looking for the very warmest time to visit Negev Desert, the hottest months are August, July, and then September.  The warmest time of year is generally early August where highs are regularly around 96.7°F (35.9°C) with temperatures rarely dropping below 73.7°F (23.2°C) at night.

                                         

      Bedouin protest against tree planting in Negev Desert

Over 2,000 Bedouin staged a violent protest near Beersheba against tree planting in the Negev by the Jewish National Fund. Protesters threw rocks at police, who managed to push them back off of the highway that they were blocking. Protesters claimed that the police infringed on their right to protest. Bedouins evidently don't want any trees marring up the desert.  The traditional nomadic Bedouin is almost an endangered species as contemporary commerce and accepted caring for the land is rolling into the  expanding desert.  

Resource:

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