Featured Post
Free The Hostages! Bring Them Home!
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Feb 13, 2025
why Qatar, why?
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Feb 11, 2025
What does Smotritch want?
More than Netanyahu's ambiguity, which may be a good thing for the threat, Minister Smotritch is a bit perplexing.
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stop the aid
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Interesting Psak: Dried Fruit on Tu Bshvat
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Quote of the Day
We have full backing from President Trump to apply sovereignty over 5% of Gaza territory for every hostage harmed
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Trump on Hamas and the hostages (video)
๐ฅ MUST WATCH ๐ฅ
— George Free๐️ (@RealGeorgeFree) February 11, 2025
๐บ๐ธ๐ฎ๐ฑ Trump Press Conference Today FULL Segment on Hostages. pic.twitter.com/1sG2fg53hT
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๐ Whispers of Spring in Jerusalem – Wadi Halilim Nature Reserve. Part 2 (video)
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KAVANA - Flowers feat. Nissim Black [OFFICIAL MUSIC VIDEO]
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Feb 10, 2025
is a game afoot?
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Quote of the Day
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#171: Behind the Bima - Rabbi Chaim Wolfson, Rosh Yeshiva of Yerucham (video)
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Netanyahu: Trump’s plan could ‘change everything’ in Gaza (video)
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Red Cross: Humanitarian bystander of the year (video)
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Jerusalem's Bustle! A Walk Through the Crowded Streets. (video)
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Aron Nasser - Ata Imady | Prod By Shriki’s [Official Music Video]
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Feb 9, 2025
the Trump Plan for Gaza
Now that things have calmed down a bit and the initial euphoria has somewhat abated, I think I am ready to write a little about the Trump Plan for Gaza. Mostly I have questions, and I would love to hear your thoughts or explanations.
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was it a Holocaust or not?
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Gaza and Israel Reborn: The Day After
Gaza and Israel Reborn: The Day After
By Dr. Harold Goldmeier
Harold Goldmeier teaches international university students at
Touro College Jerusalem. He is an award-winning entrepreneur who received the
Governor’s Award (Illinois) for family investment programs in the workplace
from the Commission on the Status of Women. He was a Research and Teaching
Fellow at Harvard, worked for four governors, and recently sold his business in
Chicago. He is a managing partner of an investment firm, a business management
consultant, and a public speaker on business, social, and public policy issues.
We recommend reading Asher Ostrin's new biography, SOVIET JEWRY
REBORN, A Personal Journey (Gefen Publishing, 2024). The book is a pathway to
answering the question dominating the international political landscape: What
happens in Gaza The Day After?
“The Day After” has evolved from a question to a meme. It refers
to the end of the October War when Hamas will be eradicated from Gaza. No, they
won’t disappear. The Palestinian Liberation Movement across the Middle East,
wherever Palestinians and their descendants live, will seek self-determination
and a nation-state of their own. The Viet Cong proved the power of nationalism
in our lifetime, against all odds, ultimately defeating the Chinese, French,
and U.S. military powerhouses. Ostrin tells the story of Soviet Jews
oppressed over generations who kept alive their Jewish identity at the risk of
torture, expulsion, relocation, and death.
His story “is about a large number of Jews who were thought to
have been lost for eternity to the Jewish people but who, when a confluence of
events made it possible for them to assert their identity, did so in a way that
proved generations of experts wrong.” Ostrin was among the boots on the ground
traipsing through Eastern Europe’s and Russia’s villages and cities for decades
on behalf of the American Joint Distribution Committee.
These outsiders raised the physical and social standards of
living among Jews. Knowing Jews survived and thrived outside the pale of
settlement kept Jewish identity and resistance alive. “Soviet efforts to wipe
out Jewish life and erase any vestige of Jewish identity had not been
successful as was widely believed… JDC serviced Jews in eleven of the
twenty-six secret cities in Russia.” When President Regan convinced Mikhail
Gorbachev to “tear down that wall,” Regan freed more Jews than Moses. The
Jewish memory keepers were given the sobriquet of “refusniks.” Ostrin tells
their stories over 271 pages.
Like it or not, Israelis have to stop declaring there are no
Palestinian people. A century-old
body of literature conveys the persistence of the Palestinian memory despite
rule by Ottomans, British, and Israelis. Ostrin employs creative non-fiction telling individual and
family stories. Soviet Jewry was reborn by attaching to Jewish traditions and
community building; they were freed through political action. Palestinians have
tried for 100 years to build a state with guns; they are called terrorists
instead of refusniks. Watching videos of Hamas’s shows of machismo during the
release of October 7 Israeli hostages it appears the Palestinians have not
learned any lessons.
The Day After is the title of a 1983 movie. People go about
their daily lives when nuclear bombs drop on a small town in Kansas. Residents
must cope the day after to survive a nuclear winter. Parts of Gaza resemble
images of a war-ravaged wasteland with thousands killed and injured. The day
after, Gazans and Israelis have to make choices to ensure their identity and be
reborn. The JDC learned in rebuilding communities that food deliveries were not
the end but “a means for creating community.”
Israel began changing the day after October 7. The Holocaust
never ended for Jews. October 7, 2023, was the latest burst of violent
Jew-hatred and savagery by creatures out to erase the Jewish People. One long
war against the Jews rages with hardly an intermission. It rages on from the
open gates of concentration camps to an unending War of Independence. Tactics
changed to terror attacks and missiles aimed at city centers. The barbaric
violence on October 7 shattered the relative peace and good life on quiet
kibbutzim and at a fun-filled music festival. Israel changed that day. Israel
has to decide what the new Israel will look like.
Post October 7, Israel’s public is
- Less
trusting of IDF leadership, the cornerstone of the social contract;
- Many doubt
politicians are working in the public’s best interests or their sectarian
own;
- Doubts rage
if Israel is any longer or can be a lasting democracy;
- Dissatisfaction
abounds for the politicians who self-describe as Mr. Security when for
years rockets and bombs sent Israelis into shelters;
- Dismay at
best characterizes the Israeli's mindset that leaders take no
accountability, and have no shame ought to trigger resignations;
- Faith in
religious leaders dives as they bicker over how much money they can
squeeze from the treasury, hide from military service, and blackmail
colleagues for power positions in the government;
- The public’s
anger was energized and evidenced by mass street demonstrations which have
continued daily for 16 months;
- IAF pilots
threatening to ground their aircraft;
- Reservists
refused to serve after repeated call-ups;
- Family and
friends of Hamas kidnapped hostages are invading and excoriating Knesset
members in cabinet committee meetings and outside private homes;
- Domestic
media and an angry public are furious with politicians and military
leaders for allegedly betraying the hallmark of transparency, denying each
other’s facts, impugning motives, fraying patriotism, and undermining a
free press.
Israelis will have to dig deep to maintain their dynamic
character. Their social norms are progressive, the economy robust, and Israeli
culture peppy. This conglomeration of Jewish nationalities, races, and
ethnicities makes Israel the poster child for diversity, equality, and
inclusion. But it must resolve its conflicts with Palestinians and its
conflicting policies inimical to Israel's status as a Jewish state and a
democracy. The country is straining under the weight of it all. The nation
feels rudderless.
Asher Ostrin’s memoir offers guidance to nation-builders. He
warns to not rely on governments or old generation leaders. It is
self-deluding. Soviet Russia “had a large army, nuclear weapons, near-total
control of the lives of its citizens….” Yet, the Soviet Union disintegrated. Do
not be complacent. “The arc of Soviet history and its aftermath” bent in the
direction of repression and sacrifice of its youth. Shape your history,
identity, and culture. Ostrin concludes from his life-long community development
experiences, “And that is the true miracle of (Jewry’s) rebirth.”
Gaza's civilian survivors must choose between acting as
barbarians or Samaritans. They might have an opportunity to build a
peace-loving community with the help of the world’s richest nations. Europe and
Asia-Pacific were reborn.
Mark Twain said, “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often
Rhymes.” Egypt and Israel made peace. Syria and Israel had no more war after
1973. Jordan and Israel learned to co-exist. There was Oslo and now there is
the Abraham Accords. Not every Jewish community in Eastern Europe and Russia
kept memories alive and observed traditions. The elderly yearn for what was,
not what could be. Gazans and Israelis are among the youngest populations in
the world’s census. The hope is the day after young men and women will become
plow sharers, not soldiers.
Soviet
Jewry reborn, A Personal Journey Asher Ostrin Gefen Publishing,
2024 228 pages; $30
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