As Israel celebrates its 75th birthday, it is appalling to watch Palestinian Arabs and their supporters turn the remarkable and historic reestablishment of the Jewish state into some sort of offense against Arabs. The inversion of facts turning the Arabs into the victims is a modern day blood libel, attempting to whitewash the historic crimes committed by Palestinians.
Consider the leading anti-Israel voices in the U.S. Congress, Ms. Tlaib (D-MI), Ms. Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Ms. Omar (D-MN), Ms. McCollum (D-MN), Ms. Newman (D-IL), Mr. Bowman (D-NY), and Ms. Bush (D-MO) who put forward a resolution in congress to commemorate the “Nakba”, which called for 7 million descendants of refugees to be pushed into Israel, ending the two state solution. The anti-Zionist Congresspeople noted that “on November 29, 1947, [the United Nations voted] to partition Palestine into two states against the wishes of Palestine’s majority indigenous inhabitants,” but they simultaneously ignored that the majority of Israelis today are against allowing 7 million Arabs who never lived in Israel a so-called “right of return.” These same Congresspeople claim that the Nakba continues today, with the “ongoing process of Israel’s expropriation of Palestinian land.”
The Palestinian Arabs committed massacres against the Jews in Palestine in the 1930s, and effectively got the British to stop Jewish immigration just as the European Holocaust was starting. The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem met with leading Nazi Heinrich Himmler to encourage his genocide of the Jews. Himmler sent a telegram to the mufti on the anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, noting that both the Nazis and Palestinian Arabs were partners in a fight to eradicate the Jews.
After the slaughter of 6 million Jews, the Arabs in Palestine did not let up on the local Jews nor Holocaust survivors who had lost everything. The Arabs continued to reject a Jewish presence in the Jewish historic homeland. They voted against partitioning the land and giving a slice of the Jewish holy land for a new Jewish state. They opted to wage a war to annihilate the persecuted Jews. Thousands of Arabs left the field of battle as they encouraged five Arab armies to converge on the nascent Jewish state to annihilate the Jews completely.
This is the vile truth of the Arab war against Jews before, during, and in the shadow of the Holocaust. No amount of NakbaWashing will remove the indelible stain of Palestinian Jew hatred. The current pathetic attempts at Nakbawashing are a latest form of antisemitism, disgustingly turning the Jews into aggressors and Palestinian Arabs as peace-loving victims.
On April 25, 2023, Portugal’s President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa said that his country needed to apologize for its role in the slave trade from the 15th to the 19th century. It is estimated that 6 million Africans were kidnapped and sold as slaves, transported by Portuguese ships. Portugal has said little about its role in enslaving Black people until now.
Portugal’s President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa
Rebelo de Sousa made his comments after Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva addressed the Portuguese parliament. Brazil – along with Angola, Mozambique, Cape Verde, East Timor and Goa (India) – were Portuguese colonies. The president said the colonization of Brazil also had positive factors, such as the spread of Portuguese language and culture, but “on the bad side, the exploitation of Indigenous people…slavery, the sacrifice of the interests of Brazil and Brazilians.”
Two years prior, in March 2021, Europe’s top human rights group said that Portugal needed to do more to confront its colonial past and role in the transatlantic slave trade in order to help fight racism and discrimination in the country today. The Council of Europe said that “further efforts are necessary for Portugal to come to terms with past human rights violations to tackle racist biases against people of African descent inherited from a colonial past and historical slave trade.”
At that same time, United Nations Secretary General Antonio Gutteres, a native of Portugal, marked the “International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade” saying that “while the transatlantic slave trade ended over two centuries ago, the ideas that propelled it remain alive today. In Europe, the United States and elsewhere, White supremacists are organizing and recruiting across borders. We must counter all lies of racial supremacy. By tackling inequities and inequalities, by building inclusive communities and economies, and by educating about history, we truly honour the memory of the victims of slavery.”
Global organizations have correctly pointed out the evils of slavery and colonization, crimes against Blacks and indigenous people in the Americas which went on for centuries. The abuse of both groups has only become a focus in recent times.
But not for the crimes against Jews. There has been no discussion of the Inquisition which decimated the Jewish population in Portugal, Spain and their colonies, as well as much of Europe. No discussion about the ingrained hatred that continues to make Jews the most persecuted minority in the world.
The Inquisition
Textbooks and encyclopedias have the Inquisition running from 1478 to 1834 but the church’s persecution of “heretics” ran much longer, going back to the 12th century. In 1391 in Seville, Spain, a preacher by the name of Don Fernando Martinez lectured his congregants that Jews were evil and were infiltrating Spanish society. While the riots that broke out that March were put down, the mob gathered strength and plundered the Jewish Quarter of the city in June. Roughly 4,000 people were killed. The synagogues in the city were either destroyed or converted to churches and the Jewish community was decimated.
The Spanish forced their Jews to either leave the country or die in 1492. Many fled to Portugal, Morocco, the Ottoman Empire, the Netherlands or took ships to the New World. In 1497, Portugal followed suit in persecuting the Jews but also gave Jews the choice of converting. Those converts became known as New Christians or conversos. Not believing that the conversos really believed in their new religion, and looking for an alibi for a drought, the Christians of Lisbon, Portugal butchered over 2,000 conversos on April 19, 1506.
Marker in front of church of Sao Domingos de Lisboa
The Spanish and Portuguese took the Inquisition to the New World shortly thereafter, including to Brazil in 1536 and to what is now Mexico in 1571. Not satisfied with driving the Jews out of the Iberian Peninsula, they persecuted the New Christians in Central and South America. One example was the whipping and burning at the stake of the de Carvajal family – a mother with four of her children – in the middle of Mexico City on December 8, 1596.
António José da Silva (1705-1739), was a famous Brazilian-born playwright, nicknamed “the Jew.” As a young child, he was forced with his family to flee to Portugal because of the Inquisition. It did not provide him sanctuary. As an adult, he was accused of being a Jew and was garroted and burned at the stake in front of his wife.
By some estimates, as much as 10-20% of people living in Portugal today are actually descendants of Jews who were forced to convert to Christianity. The percentage is estimated to be much higher in Brazil and around Latin America as Jews fled from persecution but were still reluctant to publicize their Judaism.
The Portuguese president called out the terrible history of his country in its participation of the slave trade and colonization. The Portuguese head of the United Nations echoed the sentiment and drew a line from that history to the persecution of Blacks and indigenous people today. But no one even mumbles about the horrors inflicted on their own resident Jews during that same period as part of the Inquisition, and the antisemitism still prevalent today.
Quite the opposite. Even as he denounced Portugal’s history, President Rebelo de Sousa said that the “colonization of Brazil also had positive factors, such as the spread of Portuguese language and culture,” meaning a purely Christian society devoid of Jews.
The Jews remain outside the perimeter of Victims of Preference around the world then and today.
As the reestablished Jewish State celebrates its 75th birthday, it is worth pausing to consider its amazing accomplishments, in the middle of the illiberal Middle East.
Happiness. According to the World Happiness Report, Israel ranked as the 12th happiest country in the world, well ahead of its neighbors. According to Gallup Poll, Israel ranked as the 4th happiest country in 2023. It was the only country in the Middle East North Africa (MENA) region to score in the top 20.
Wealth. Israel’s GDP per Capita of $44,178 is over 4.75 times the average of the eight surrounding countries. Only two other countries – Cyprus and Saudi Arabia – have GDP per capita in excess of $20,000.
Leading companies. Israel has 24 private companies with over $1 billion in valuation, ranking 6th globally. Turkey was the only other country in the region with a company with such valuation according to Hurun.
Nobel prizes. Not surprisingly, based on educational achievement and GDP, Israel leads the region in Nobel Prizes. It has won more than the entire region COMBINED.
Life Expectancy. Israel only trails Cyprus in life expectancy among neighboring countries.
Maternal Mortality. Israel’s health system is very strong, as can be seen by the very low number of women who die during child birth. While Cyprus has a slightly higher life expectancy than Israel, Israel leads the region in prenatal care.
Population growth. Despite the better healthcare system and higher life expectancy, Israel’s population growth over the past decade was lower than most in the region. This is typical of countries with higher GDP and education rates for women. Only Turkey had a lower growth rate.
Gender inequality. In general, Israel looks much more like western countries than those in the Arab and Muslim Middle East. It can be seen most clearly by looking at overall gender inequality (maternal mortality, adolescent birth rate, percentage participation in parliament, percent with secondary degrees, percent labor participation).
In its short history, Israel has proven itself to be a remarkable liberal democracy, thriving by almost every measure. To do so while neighboring countries are in a state of war and refuse to recognize the Jewish State’s existence makes it a modern miracle. Wishing it many years of success and peace ahead!
For thousands of years, people have sought to improve themselves. As human beings, we often make mistakes and thereafter attempt to rectify the wrong. Beyond avoiding the error, organized religion offers a path to redemption which includes confession.
In Religion and Secular Society
In Judaism, the pathway from sin is called tshuva. Rambam/ Maimonides (1138-1204) lays out the pathway to Repentance in several steps he described in the Mishneh Torah, the first of which is confession. The sin – whether with man or God – is first confessed to God: “I implore You, God, I sinned, I transgressed, I committed iniquity before You by doing the following. Behold, I regret and am embarrassed for my deeds. I promise never to repeat this act again.” The confession is critical to obtaining absolution, as Rambam further writes that even “those obligated to be executed or lashed by the court do not attain atonement through their death or lashing unless they repent and confess. Similarly, someone who injures a colleague or damages his property, does not attain atonement, even though he pays him what he owes until he confesses and makes a commitment never to do such a thing again.”
Christianity uses members of the church as a pathway to confession, rather than directly to God. Many Catholic churches have confessional booths, in which a priests sits on one side of the booth and listens to people confess their sins through a darkened partition to enable the person to open up more freely through the shroud of anonymity.
Catholic confessional booth
Secular society has its own views on sin and demands of confession.
When famous people do something perceived as bad, their public relations people send out composed apologies. Sometimes the star also appears on talk shows to help clear their name. The absolution comes from society that allows them to keep their job and income. If the evil act was perceived as too great to clear with an apology road tour or the apology was insufficient, the person becomes “canceled”, either permanently (like Matt Lauer and Anthony Weiner) or temporarily (like Louis C.K. and Whoopi Goldberg).
The average person can also get “canceled” via exclusion from his desired community. The confession may be viewed as insufficient to be afforded absolution. Perhaps God will accept the plea but people have a lower tolerance for perceived wrongdoings.
Secular Society’s Religion and Inquisition
There are parts of society that are attempting to create new socially accepted norms, crafting their Bible in real time. They have launched an inquisition to out and oust the new sinners.
While transgenderism has existed, it has recently become “mainstreamed”, in which schools which never had any such students suddenly have twenty. Laws are being drafted for and against these students using locker rooms and competing in sports based on their gender rather than their biology. People (and states) who take positions opposed to the new doctrines become ostracized.
Another tenet with drying ink is the gaslighting campaign against the Jewish State of Israel. It started at the 2001 Durban Conference, pushing the “Zionism is racism” credo into the mainstream, after it was ousted from the United Nations in 1991. The effort gathered significant momentum in 2014-5 after the Gaza War and killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, MO, when intersectionality bound Muslim anti-Zionism with the Black Lives Matter movement. Israel was falsely labeled as a “police state” of “colonial imperialists” committing “ethnic cleansing” and “apartheid” against “indigenous Arabs.” American Jews were no longer correctly viewed as the most persecuted people but were tarnished as an even more sinister part of the problem of “White supremacy” which included “Jewish supremacy.”
Woke Jews were at risk of losing membership in their community of leftists. Rather than fight the tide of falsehoods and slander, they publicly confessed that they hated Israel and agreed with the ridiculous portrayal of an illegal and racist state. Some were granted absolution and welcomed to pray once again at secular altars, while others were deemed to not go far enough, by not embracing the boycott, divestment and sanction (BDS) movement or the calls to “globalize the intifada” to cancel, harass and attack Jewish Zionists everywhere.
Fratricide in Religion and Secular Society
While the first sin in the Bible was Eve and Adam eating from the Tree of Knowledge, the first sin committed with the knowledge of good and evil was Cain’s killing of his brother Abel. When God approached Cain to find out what happened, Cain failed to confess his crime to God and was marked forever as a sinner.
Today, Jewish anti-Zionists are loudly vilifying their brothers and sisters in Israel as the worst sort of people, to be punished and left unprotected from the wolves that seek to destroy the “Zionist entity”. Their confession is not to God but left-wing extremists. In sharp contrast to Cain, their cries are not ignoring the murder of their brother but that they are different from their brothers, as proven by working to have the sinners annihilated.
New York City, home to the greatest number of Jews outside of Israel, has a rapidly growing antisemitic and anti-Zionist group gaining political power. The Democratic Socialists of New York City now stands at over 85,000 people, which demands that politicians not visit Israel, and supports Palestinian “resistance” (violence) against Israel’s “ethnic cleansing, and apartheid.” Left-wing extremist Jews vocally support this group and its candidates.
Summary
Christianity believes that Jesus died for the sins of mankind and the church is the gateway for absolution. Catholics enter church to privately and anonymously confess their sins to be granted that forgiveness.
Meanwhile, secular Jews find the Bride of Absolution in far left extremist groups. The anti-Zionist Jews take to public platforms to denounce their brethren as heathens, crucifying them in the fervent wish that their deaths will afford the enlightened the grace to live amongst the woke.
While Judaism tasks people with confessing their own sins, today’s anti-Zionist Jews declare the sins of their brothers. It is fratricide, the original sin of knowledge gone astray.
There are millions of religious Christians who look at the founding of the State of Israel as a matter of divine will. One of the points of evidence they use is that the year of the founding of the state was 1948 in the Gregorian Calendar, commonly referred to as the Common Era. It was in that year in the Jewish Calendar – 1948 – that Abraham was born according to the Old Testament. Remarkably, after two thousand years of persecution and wandering, that the Jews would reestablish their homeland in that common year is considered too much of a coincidence. It is a sign from G-d.
It is therefore important to note this moment in time, 2023CE. As Israel celebrates its 75th anniversary milestone, it was in that year of the Jewish calendar, that Abraham entered the land of Canaan and G-d promised him and his descendants blessings and the land.
“יהוה said to Abram, “Go forth from your native land and from your father’s house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, And I will bless you; I will make your name great, And you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, And curse the one who curses you; And all the families of the earth; Shall bless themselves by you. Abram went forth as יהוה had commanded him, and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he left Haran.”
Seventy-five years since the rebirth of the Jewish State, the country thrives while it continues to have challenges. It has remained stable and economically sound despite the mayhem in the surrounding countries. It has defeated its foes in battles repeatedly, and has forged peace treaties with several former enemies. It has managed to ingather millions of Jewish exiles from around the world, as it rekindled Hebrew into a common spoken language. It granted citizenship to non-Jews living in the land, in a unique forum of coexistence in the Middle East.
Abram was 48 years old at the time of the Great Dispersion from the Tower of Babel. He witnessed firsthand the ill effects of unanimity, and was part of G-d’s global directive towards particularism – in both language and place. At 75 years old, he was told to relocate, to a place already inhabited by others, to become the source of blessing for the entire world.
In 2023 of the Jewish calendar, the father of monotheism was not directed to conquer or convert the slightly more “indigenous” people (by 27 years) in the holy land, even as the land was soon to be promised to him, his son Isaac and the generations after him. Abram was to be an inspiration and a talisman for everyone. In that generation which broke the embraced orthodoxy of universalism, he embodied G-d’s will of particularism.
Today, in 2023 of the Common Era we live in a very tense world. People are divided, in part, because of technology that has enabled microtargeting of people with customized news and advertisements, couple with social media algorithms which keep people hyper-engaged. While fifty years ago everyone was basically fed the same media and news, now billions of people can consume and transmit whatever they want. While more satisfied with being fed unique content whenever they want, the hyper-particularism has left many isolated, angry and distrustful.
In considering the year 2023 both in the Jewish calendar and the Gregorian one, it is time to reset our thoughts on universalism and tribalism.
We don’t all need to think, dress or worship the same way. We must break with the notion of unanimity of position, and embrace a society of tolerance. That mean stop canceling, firing and unfriending people if they don’t share your opinions on critical race theory and transgenderism, or dislike the people you follow on Instagram. Allow space for unique attitudes, as long as they are not harmful.
The Bible tells us that Abraham left his “native land” to a land where he would become a focus of not just the local inhabitants but “all the families of the earth.” In today’s world of billions of isolated people, Jews and the Jewish State continue to demand global attention. It is an opportunity for a universalistic approach towards the particular: for the world to bless the Jews and receive G-d’s blessing in return.
A pretty simple formula for a better and happier world.
The United Nations’ obsession for Israel does not include the Jewish State’s suffering from Palestinian Arab terrorism.
On March 22, 2023, Tor Wennesland, the UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process (he is no such thing but the mouthpiece for Palestinian grievances), addressed the United Nations Security Council. His report gave a summary of actions between the parties from December 8, 2022 until March 13, 2023, and then offered his personal observations.
In recounting the violence, he noted that there was a “growing number of attacks by Israeli settlers” which harmed Palestinian Arab-owned property and individuals, including four people who were killed. He added that “13 Israeli civilians, including one woman and three children, and one foreign national were killed… by Palestinians in shooting and ramming attacks, clashes, and other incidents.” That means that Palestinian Arabs killed 3.5 times more civilians than Israeli “settlers” over this period according to Wennesland’s own count.
Yet in his summary remarks, Wennesland said “I remain deeply concerned by the increase in levels of settler-related violence in the occupied West Bank sometimes in proximity of Israeli security forces.” Why isn’t Wennesland outraged and calling out the more prevalent and deadly Arab terrorism?
Palestinian Arabs conducted more attacks than “settlers” in every month of 2022, and the number of murders is also rising after this report, including of the Dee family, a mother and two daughters, who were gunned down while driving in their car on holiday. According to Palestinian polls, the majority of Arabs favor killing Jewish civilians inside of Israel, so it should not be surprising that in the Israeli territory of Area C in the West Bank, Palestinians are regularly targeting Jews.
On April 8, Wennesland tweeted his objection to the killing of the Dee family, “I condemn yesterday’s terrorist attacks in the occupied West Bank and Tel Aviv. Heartfelt condolences to the victims’ families. There is no justification for acts of terrorism and they must be clearly condemned and rejected by all.” But once again, he did not specifically call out “Palestinians” in his tweets and UN reports. He solely calls out “settlers”.
Palestinians pay no price on the global stage for their terrorism, as the UN continues to ask for money for the Palestinian Authority and UNRWA, and to only condemn Israelis.
United States President Joe Biden’s approach to religious freedom was laid out clearly in back-to-back pronouncements this week.
On April 16, 2023, US Ambassador for International Religious Freedom Rashad Hussain and US Special Representative for Palestinian Affairs Hady Amr “reiterate[d] the U.S. commitment to the historical status quo in Jerusalem” which bans Jews from the basic human right of praying at their holiest site on The Jewish Temple Mount. The desire among Jews to pray at the site is almost exclusively held by the Orthodox.
The next day, Hussain tweeted “I reiterated US support for implementation of the 2016 Western Wall agreement to expand the egalitarian space at the Wall,” a move that would BREAK from the historical status quo which has limited prayer at the Kotel plaza to only be in the Orthodox style of separate sections for men and women.
There is no consistency in Biden’s approach for the status quo in Jerusalem, in one case embracing it and in another breaking from historic custom. The only commonality is his ignoring the sensitivities and wishes of Orthodox Jews and promoting those of Muslims and non-Orthodox Jews. Biden is seemingly limiting his concerns about religious freedom to those who stuff Democratic ballot boxes, as poll numbers show that 75% of Orthodox Jews vote Republican, while 80% of Reform Jews vote for Democrats.
Domestically, the Biden Administration took aim at rescinding protections for religious groups on American college campuses in February. The proposed rule read: “The U.S. Department of Education proposes to rescind regulations related to religious student organizations at certain public institutions of higher education that prescribe a novel role for the Department in enforcing grant conditions related to religious student organizations.”
Sam Brownback, a former U.S. senator and governor of Kansas and current co-chair of the bipartisan International Religious Freedom Summit, warned that the Biden administration’s proposal ignores the First Amendment rights of religious clubs, saying that the administration is not supportive of religious freedom. In response to the Biden proposal, many attorneys general sent letters to the president stating their opposition to rescinding protections for religious groups.
Biden’s domestic and international policies related to religion are dictated by his loyal base of historically Black Protestants, non-Orthodox Jews, Buddhists and Muslims who overwhelming vote for Democrats, according to Pew Research. In contrast, Mormons, Evangelicals and Orthodox Jews who vote Republican are feeling Biden’s animosity after he emerged unscathed in mid-term elections. Those groups may have much to fear if he wins a second term.
I was excited to head out to the Passover program with my family this year. I had done extensive research on six WhatsApp and Facebook groups devoted to the subject with thousands of nit-picky Jews from around the world just like me over the prior five months. My choice was carefully balanced between nice hotel and physical facilities, good food, and whether I cared more about talented speakers, mixed swimming or a relatively cheap price.
Programs can generally be lumped into three groups: those under 250 people; 250 to 600 people; and a bazillion people. The tinier programs tend to get small families and Europeans, while the enormous programs get the nouveau riche who bring twenty-seven kinsman and a nanny. We opted for the middle one, assuming a Goldilocks outcome.
My cheap (prefers “frugal”) spouse insisted on taking two flights to get to our destination, to save a total of $400 for a family of five, on a program that cost in excess of $80,000. While he said the extra four hours of travel time were about principle, I’m sure he figured it would keep my mother from joining us, who could never manage the transfer in a large airport, thus avoiding both needing to pay for her and having her company for ten days.
Fortunately, only one suitcase went missing on our arrival, with all of one son’s yom tov clothing. He managed to get by with loaners from a friend on the program, who was only two sizes larger than my 20-year-old. He’s “in the freezer” and not dating yet anyway, so looking shlumpy wasn’t a big deal.
We arrived at the hotel to have a young snotty woman wearing a Vasser shirt tell my other son that she was triggered by his “NYPD” T-shirt, and demanded that he change it immediately. He laughed at her and told her to “go to a woke non-Orthodox program next time.”
Not a great start.
Our rooms were pretty nice with ocean views, but our three adult children with nine large pieces of luggage could barely fit into their shared room. We had opted to not splurge for a third room, in a ridiculous approach of pretending we weren’t spoiling our kids rotten.
By the time everyone unpacked and showered, there was very little time to call family members at other programs around the world. I opted to just post a quick family pic on the broader family’s WhatsApp. Everyone else did the same, including my brother who was unhappily at home with his in-laws, who posted a GIF of a young boy crying.
The boys ran off to minyan while the women followed a comfortable 30 minutes later to not appear too frum. The boys used the opposite approach, tucking four sefarim under each arm to “frum signal” to other bochrim on the program. Personally, I thought the white shirt, dark suit and 4-foot long tzisit dragging behind them was sufficient but I’m old school.
The Ashkenazi and Sefardi minyanim both started at the same time, with about the same number of people, however the Ashkenazis got the ballroom while the Mizrahis only got to pray in the hallway. Quite a strike in a program hosted in an Arab country, native to many of the yet-again-abused Jews.
The men looked for someone to talk to about the minyan situation, only to discover that there was no one from the program operator on premise for the first days of yom tov, presumably attempting to avoid yenching Jews. In any event, it sorted itself out, as both groups were ultimately placed in small windowless rooms, and the Sefardi minyan shrank in size as many people abandoned the long atonal davening of their Mizrahi brothers and joined the Ashki crowd. Little did they know that the Ashkenazi minyan had been taken over by a group of Five Towns’ guys who only gave aliyahs to friends and family. Worse still, the American and French families who had made aliyah let their small kids run around like lunatics, seemingly preparing them for a future of hooliganism.
The food on the program was great. If only the people treated the seder and meals with a modicum of respect.
We entered the dining room to see a woman throwing a fit, tossing platters of food to the ground when she found out that the program wasn’t gebrochts. Men stalked the buffet with full plates of lamb and steak in each hand, and then asked the Muslim waiters – who had fasted all day for Ramadan – to bring them burgers and fries without a second thought. Concurrently, two American mothers stormed the kitchen demanding that their kids are the most special, and needed white meat chicken without salt, and dessert that contained no chocolate, nuts or gluten. ASAP.
We made the mistake of taking our food before finding our table. Carrying full plates, we had to walk back to the entrance to look up our table number, an astonishing #86. The high number wasn’t the issue; we were trying to figure out the logic as the prior highest number was 44, a bizarre gap. Worse, the table numbers in the dining room were completely random with absolutely no order or logic. Even more curious, table #86 didn’t exist. We ended up grabbing an empty table next to the kitchen entrance to enjoy the incessant flow of dozens of waiters shuttling back-and-forth with plates and food, overwhelmed by the hungry Jews who remarkably ate every two hours.
Things slowed down to a normal pace after the first day, with relatively few outbursts. The “Vasser woman” switched to a PETA shirt for the remainder of the chag, alternately yelling about the 200-pound tuna flopped near the barbeque which was carved up each meal, and the seventy foot-long buffet of charred animal meat. One girl complained to management that she saw a swastika design in one of the carpets, while a few boys got into a mild fight about whether Shraga is a real yeshiva. Yet no one complained about the small children who kept playing in the lobby fountain, kicking the spotlights to squeals of delight, waiting to get electrocuted.
Two hundred pound tuna to be carved up for barbeque
The Israelis celebrated a single day of yom tov even though they left the holy land at precisely the time they are supposed to be there. One Israeli woman with fake breasts that looked like goiters if her gigantic botoxed lips had not lowered them into correct orbit, brought her kids horseback riding, not pondering the strange small gold hamsa hand dangling between her legs from a chain around her waist. I wasn’t sure if she was proclaiming abstinence or complaining about the effects of the ride.
The prayers were short and unmelodious. While the large programs hire talented chazanim, the smaller ones get men who claim they have yorzeit for their mothers-in-law and torture the prayers in their memory. Shir HaShirim was completed in 300 seconds to a round of high fives. Even at breakneck speed, davening always seemed to end five minutes after breakfast closed down. For the evening services, the self-anointed gabbaim, who showed up to every minyan twenty minutes late, shouted with the authority of geonim about the right time to recite the omer, seemingly based on nothing more than it was a few minutes later than the last screamer.
While the Facebook groups had daily photos of program dinners from around the world, my spouse kvetched about breakfast which no Jews seemed to care about. One complaint was regarding the lack of the ultimate yin yang Pesach food, something which is both the opposite and complementary at the same time: chocolate covered matzah, which reenacts the battle scenes of the movie “300” in Jewish intestines. The hotel must have been familiar with the dietary ramifications of the holiday, as every room attendant had a toilet plunger in a holster.
One group of guys took no chances on the program’s kiddush and shlepped their own to the resort: tequila and foie gras from Europe. As they sliced the gelatinous mound onto Pesadic crackers, I didn’t have the heart to tell them that the expiration date on the goose liver was 18 months earlier. Perhaps I secretly wanted the Vasser girl to claim a small victory.
A friend on the program let me in on an observation both too early and too late: the busboys were only rubbing the dirt off the cutlery and not washing it. I found myself drinking soup straight out of the bowls and eating fruit by hand during the second days.
During chol hamoed, some people went on group tours while others hired their own guides – to do the exact same tours as the rest of the group at five times the price. Still others stayed on premises and attempted to poach workers to bring back to the United States for new help.
In all, we had a great trip that cost roughly five percent of the country’s GDP. My family around the world also enjoyed their programs seemingly more than people’s posts on WhatsApp and Facebook groups would suggest. My sibling who stayed home with in laws was glad it was over and that no one fell down (or needed medical attention!)
While the tradition of saying “Next year in Jerusalem” concludes each seder, I wonder whether people ended the holidays saying “next year I’ll find a program where I can do something to get a Passover trip for free.”
Benjamin Ferencz, the last surviving prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials, died this week at 103 years old. He brought many individuals who committed crimes against humanity to justice, and had words of advice for future generations
You cannot kill an entrenched ideology with a gun. You have to teach compassion and tolerance at a young age.
Benjamin Ferencz
While Ferencz prosecuted individuals, he understood that an “entrenched ideology” feeds violence. Unfortunately, vanquishing criminals brings a temporary respite. To bring about an enduring peace requires teaching “compassion and tolerance at a young age.” Such actions can yield long term benefits for a community of coexistence.
Benjamin Ferencz
In the 1930s and 1940s, Nazis and their collaborators had an entrenched ideology that Jews were evil creatures who were harming the purity of Aryan land. They sought to ethnically cleanse the land of their supposed filth through twisted laws and via violence. Alas, they mostly succeeded in their vile aim. It was only upon their defeat, admission of wrong-doing, and re-education towards tolerance, that Germany was welcomed back into the community of nations, including having a good relationship with the Jewish State.
Today, the terrible entrenched ideology exists among Palestinian Arabs about their Jewish neighbors. The Arabs refuse to acknowledge the basic fact of the long history of Jews in the region. They deny Jews the basic human right to pray at their holiest location on the Jewish Temple Mount. They ethnically cleansed Jews from the eastern portion of Israel including eastern Jerusalem in the 1948-9 war, and now demand a return to such Jew-free situation. They are attempting to use laws and violence to purge the Jews of what they see as purely Arab land.
While several Palestinian terrorist groups wage war against the existence of Israel and presence of Jews, the future must be waged with Palestinian youth. The lesson plans for compassion and tolerance should include:
The 3,300 year history of Jews in the holy land
That Judaism is a unique religion, with ties to a specific land, that is Israel
Judaism’s particularity poses no threat to Islam: there is no desire to convert people nor to turn al Aqsa or any mosque into a synagogue.
Jews and Arabs are both descended from Abraham. Judaism teaches that Abraham loved Ishmael and promised that he would become great nations
Jews are the most persecuted people in the world. Since 1900, they were tortured, routed and slaughtered in Russia, Ukraine, Europe and a dozen Arab countries.
As the Holocaust began in Europe, Palestinian leadership convinced the British to implement the White Paper capping Jewish immigration to Palestine, which led to the death of over 100,000 Jews in Europe
When Jewish survivors made it to Palestine after the European genocide, Palestinians and neighboring Arab armies waged a war to annihilate the paltry and weak remaining Jews
The Jewish State gave all Arabs citizenship when it declared itself a country and offered the Arabs of Jerusalem citizenship when it reunited the city. Over 25% of Israel is not Jewish.
Israel made peace with many Muslim and Arab countries and is willing to do so with local Arabs as well. It made several peace offers to Palestinian leadership which were all rejected
If Arab youth are taught that Jews coexist with non-Jews in Israel who have full rights in a liberal country, and that the Jewish State would welcome peace agreements with all neighboring Arab states, hopefully the evil ideology will be vanquished.
Alas, Arab youth are taught the evil ideology of their parents and reject coexistence and “normalization” as they seek a jihad with false claims:
That Jews are not indigenous but “colonizers”
There were no Jewish temples in Jerusalem
Jews are ethnically cleansing Arabs and committing a genocide (despite all facts and figures showing otherwise)
Israel is not a liberal country but committing “apartheid” against Arabs
The al Aqsa compound is a purely Islamic site and Jews have no history or rights
It is the Palestinian Arabs who are the real victims of a “Nakba” both from 1949 and 1967, lying that did not start either war
Israel has never made any real effort towards peace
The Israeli army likes to shoot Palestinian babies while Palestinians are simply “resorting to violence“
That Zionism is racism
That the United Nations will force Israel to absorb 6 million additional Arabs into Israel
This evil ideology does not accurately reflect the past, present or future. It is a concocted anti-Semitic invective which will stymy the chance for peace.
Benjamin Ferencz led a life of fighting evil and gave us a roadmap for enduring peace by teaching compassion and tolerance to young people. Let’s use that roadmap with Palestinian youth to bring peace to the holy land.
The full statement issued by this deputy spokesperson was as follows:
“The United States strongly condemns today’s terrorist attacks in the West Bank and Tel Aviv. We extend our deepest condolences to the victims’ families and loved ones, and wish a full recovery to the injured. The three horrific attacks today, in which three were killed and at least eight others wounded, affected citizens of Israel, Italy, and the United Kingdom. The targeting of innocent civilians of any nationality is unconscionable. The United States stands with the government and people of Israel. We are in close contact with our Israeli partners and reaffirm our enduring commitment to their security.”
Compare the terse statement about the killing of Israeli civilians to the one that the United Nations Security Council issued about the terrorism in Afghanistan on March 28. That statement “condemned in the strongest terms the continued heinous terrorist attacks targeting civilians.” It importantly made clear that: “The members of the Security Council underlined the need to hold perpetrators, organizers, financiers and sponsors of these reprehensible acts of terrorism accountable and bring them to justice. They urged all States, in accordance with their obligations under international law and relevant Security Council resolutions, to cooperate actively with all relevant authorities in this regard.The members of the Security Council reiterated that any acts of terrorism are criminal and unjustifiable, regardless of their motivation, wherever, whenever and by whomsoever committed. They reaffirmed the need for all States to combat by all means, in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations and other obligations under international law, including international human rights law, international refugee law and international humanitarian law, threats to international peace and security caused by terrorist acts.“
Neither the United States nor the United Nations make the same obvious comments for Israel, that it – together with “all States” – “need to hold perpetrators, organizers, financiers and sponsors” of terrorism accountable and brought to justice. Even when Israel effectively brings perpetrators to justice, the UN and US pressure Israel to let the backers “of these reprehensible acts of terrorism” off the hook.
The latest civilians murdered by Arabs in Israel include Italian and British nationals. Will Italy and the United Kingdom continue to allow the Palestinian Authority to pay the families of the terrorists in its popular “pay-to-slay” scheme?
It is a vile double standard which cheapens the lives of civilians in Israel, and simultaneously blesses and encourages Palestinian Arab terrorism.
First One Through 