Naomi Klein: A Jewish Soul Yearns

In Hatikva, the anthem of the State of Israel, it is written:

A Jewish soul yearns
נפש יהודי הומיה

These words, describing the Jew in this 2000+ exile, aptly describe most, if not all Jews living outside (and inside) Israel before 1948, and perhaps even currently. Such is the case with Naomi Klein. Her talents are swirling around every en vogue subject matter on planet earth-the economy, globalization, the underprivileged-under powered, the State of Israel, ect. She appears on talk show after talk show debate and presenting her ideas-and selling her books. However, perhaps the phenomena we are actually seeing here is simply a Jew in the exile who is clinging to every ideology except her own-Judaism.
Klein's book, The Shock Doctrine, as she describes it discusses the behavior of the public (and its leadership) during a crises. However, during the recent war with Gaza, where Israeli citizens "inside the Green Line" were systematically attacked by neighboring Gazans-even after the withdraw of Israelis from the Strip (the ethnic cleansing of Gaza). Is this yet another case of a secular Jew who simply doesn't understand the dynamics of the problems in Israel? Another Zohan?

She stated in a recent conference in Ramallah:

There is a debate among Jews-I'm a Jew by the way,

By the way-you spend all of your time and resources pandering to the gentile elite-do you know anything about Torah Judaism? Is that even a phrase you recognize? Are we who have chosen to slug in out in Israel doomed to be judged by an increasingly ignorant Diaspora intelligentsia? Ms. Klein showed up to this meeting of what Haaretz called "Ramallah's intellectual elite." Run that by me again? Is there even an intelligent person in Ramallah? Haaretz isn't fooling this blogger! Is that elite carpetbagging European Jews who have come to express solidarity with the other side, while remaining absolutely ignorant of their own religion and heritage? Klein manages to brush off her brazen, pompous show-of-ignorance by proclaiming the excuse every other Jewish Tikun-Olamer has used: "I am Jew." Daniel Pearl was forced to face this realization, as do the Israelis living near Gaza. However, we should hope that Naomi Klein's proclamation will be followed by a return to her nation and not by an endorsement of some petty boycott aimed at punishing Jews for defending themselves in their own land. After all, Israel is the only country in the world that will accept a Jew, like Klein, with no preconditions-other than her being a Jew. "Palestine" certainly won't.
_________________________________________________________
update September 2009:
The Dungeon Master Richard Silverstein has penned a recent article about the Klein and her boycott efforts.  My response can seen under the name "eathummus."

Felicia Langer-Old Fashion German Schadenfreude?

Anyone who has spent time studying languages knows that it is really the language of a nation that defines its character. There is a "wonderful" German word called schadenfreude. Roughly translating it means "malicious joy" or "gloating." As you can see right away-this word is uniquely German. Germany has recently taken schadenfreude to a higher level. Felicia Langer, a Polish born (1930) Israeli lawyer who left Israel for Germany in 1990 has been awarded the Federal Cross of Merit.

Ms. Langer, who apparently never Hebraized her name, has found a home in the most famous kosher slaughter-house in the world-Germany. Perhaps a Hebrew name is not fitting for a woman who just accepted an award which has an enormous cross on it. So how does schadenfreude play a part in this? For one thing, looking at her web site:

In 1947 she met her future husband Mieciu Langer, a survivor of five Nazi con-centration camps. In 1949 the young couple married, and in 1950 they emigrated to Israel to join Felicia’s mother.

The proper spelling of concentration camp is not con-centration camp! A con is something phony, a put on, a fake! So here, purposely or intentionally, Langer is calling the Nazi concentration camps a fake! Perhaps that's why she apparently praised Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's attitude towards Israel. According to her site, she herself thinks the concentration camps were a fake-that is her own wording. So is it her schadenfreude in receiving this award or Horst Köhler's in "awarding" it to her?
____________________________________________________
Update: Apparently, several Jewish recipients of this award are threatening to return it in light of Langer's having been given it.

Lieberman's Legal Problems

I am no supporter of Jewish secularism, but I have reveled in the attention that Avigdor Lieberman has attracted. His taking on the ravenous, elitist Israeli European intelligentsia is something I drooling in envy of. However, is Lieberman really a sheep in wolf's clothing? According to Haaretz, the official paper of the Ashkenazi anti-Jewish elite here, Lieberman has stated that he is willing to abandon his own house in the event of a "final peace deal." Hello? Is this where secular right-wing "fascist" falls on his face and prostrates before his secular European post-Semitic handlers? Here is the emptiness of the secular Jewish identity. How easily he is turned over-even if he was jesting! It is forbidden for a Jewish to relinquish his possessions or the Land of Israel to a non-Jew-even his own house. What kind of idiot would say that publicly. Silverstein and his bunch probably think of Lieberman as a true "right-winger!" Right-wing is the Torah-the right side.

Here is an example of the secular leftist intelligentsia trying to thwart the will of the Israeli public. Lieberman won a landslide victory, yet the powers-that-be cannot stand to have an ardent right-winger represent the country. They have to have a stool-pigeon for Obama to play with.

The legal system in this county is a farce! Here you have a Frankenstein-patchwork of every Jew you can imagine-each with his own religious ideology, along with Arab bystanders who together form a morass of confusion and instability! This whole Lieberman issue only serves to provide sad proof of this chaos.

Introducing Amram-Secular Leftist Zionist

I have a very close friend who was born in 1953. His parents are Lithuanian Holocaust survivors and I have had many discussions with him about Israel and Judaism. Here is a recent discussion:

Amram
look up what amnesty international has to say about israel and hamas. israel and hamas are the opposit sides of the same coin. both don't give shit about civilians. and don't give me the crap that the arabs have started the problem. because it's zionism which is the cause. after 2000 years and the promise we will return after the f-g messiah comes and than we change the rules of the game and expect the other side to comply is simply arrogance. and that the arabs didn't agree to a decision of the UN in 47, so what? how do the israelis say about the UN - UM Shmum. if america wouldn't veto all decisions against israel peace would be here to stay. but no, jews believe to be the better people, after all we are the chosen ones, we are closer to god than anybody else. we don't have to think how to get along with other people. the other have to think how to get along with us! no wonder people hate us all over the world. if there is anti semitism it is also because the behaviour of jews. you f-g arrogant shit.

Taming Korach
And Muslim and Christians don't think they are right? Only Jews have to justify their religion? Namely, only Orthodox Jews? Naaah! If Zionism is so wrong, then why did secular Europeans like yourself instigate it? All of sudden you backtrack and say it's wrong? You have the explaining to do..

Phony "Rabbis" Stage Fast For Arabs In Gaza

According to The Jerusalem Post, a group of American impostor “Rabbis” are staging a Jewish fast for Gaza. The article states:

led by rabbis Brian Walt, former executive director of Rabbis for Human Rights-North America and Brant Rosen of the Jewish Reconstructionist Congregation in Evanston, Illinois, is taken from the Jewish tradition of holding a communal fast in times of crisis.

Well, it looks like Rabbi Brenda is at it again! Jews against Judaism. In actuality when we fast here in Israel, it is for the sins of people like this-these vile people who attempt to use their false teaching as a weapon against the Torah community and Israel as a whole.

Their website states:

The Talmud teaches,
On three things the world stands: on justice, on truth, and on peace (Mishnah Avot 1:18).

Wowee! The Talmud? There is no section “Avot,” or fathers, in the Talmud-in either the Bavli or the Yerushalmi! Perhaps they meant to say “Mishna Avot.” The Amoraim who compiled the Talmud never chose to comment on פרקי אבות (Chapters of Our Fathers). However this brings up a related topic-the obsession of the heretical movements in “Judaism” with Pirkei Avot. They have created a new religion, actually, called “Pirkei Avot!” The unfortunate irony is that the forefathers of the Jewish people עה”ש would be fasting and crying (maybe they are) knowing that Jews are using religious rituals as a method of helping the enemies of Israel. Perhaps this is even a kind of idolatry!

Another mistake that these “Rabbis” made was a mistranslation of a quote from Pirkei Avot:

On three things the world stands: on justice, on truth, and on peace (Mishnah Avot 1:18).

Here, the word din דין, from the verb “la-dun”-to judge, is actually translated judgment. In fact justice, tsedek צדק, is a totally different word with a different root in Hebrew! These are “Rabbis!” Check out the Pinas Kehati English translation of the Misha to verify this. The original Hebrew is below.

משנה מסכת אבות פרק א

על שלשה דברים העולם עומד, על הדין ועל האמת ועל השלום, שנאמר (זכריה ח) אמת ומשפט שלום שפטו בשעריכם

Are these people aware that Sderot and others areas in the south of Israel were under siege for years? Where were they? I don’t see one Sephardic name on that list. However, the south of Israel-Ashkelon, Sderot, Ashdod are filled will Mizrachi Jews-poorer Jews put, by the government of Israel (by their own admission) into far away places with desolate economies. And now a group of snotty, ignorant, self-righteous “Jewish leaders” from North America are going to stage a fast for those who have been tormenting them for years-even after the withdraw from and illegal destruction of Jewish houses in Gaza (the ethnic cleansing of Gaza).

Recently, I went to a lecture in Ramat Shlomo of Rabbi Moshe Shapira שליט”א in which he said that the greatest evidence of truth is when lies bow and prostrate themselves before truth and admit to their falsehood. Here in Israel, we are waiting for that day to come!

Justin White
Jerusalem, Israel
July 2009

With Torah Tipp-Ex: Correcting The Internal Occupation

In a newly “penned” article, With an Iron Pen: 20 Years of Hebrew Protest Poetry, Richard Silverstein has given a glowing review of a collection of misguided “poetry” composed by secular European Israelis. Their purpose-to give their thoughts on the Israeli presence in the territories, which they deem “occupied.” As we will see, the occupation is in fact within them.

First, the phrase “iron pen” comes from Jeremiah 17:1:
1. The sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron, and with the point of a diamond; it is engraved on the tablet of their heart, and upon the horns of your altars;

ספר ירמיה פרק יז

א) חטאת יהודה כתובה בעט ברזל בצפרן שמיר חרושה על לוח לבם ולקרנות מזבחותיכם

This is a reference (which the authors want to point to) to the sins of of Jews at that time. However, in verse 4, it goes on to say:

4. And you, yourself, shall discontinue from your heritage that I gave you; and I will cause you to serve your enemies in the land which you know not; for you have kindled a fire in my anger, which shall burn for ever.

ספר ירמיה פרק יז
ושמטתה ובך מנחלתך אשר נתתי לך והעבדתיך את איביך בארץ אשר לא ידעת כי אש קדחתם באפי עד עולם תוקד

Apparently the answer to misquoting of this verse by the authors is in the subsequent verse! Here is says that the Land of Israel is the inheritance of the Jews. The punishment for sinning is to be placed outside of the Land. How can Jews be occupying a Land that G-d has given to them (even if they aren’t deserving at any given time to be there physically)? Clearly the occupation is within them! The fact that they cannot recognize that the Land of Israel is the eternal inheritance, from G-d is the quintessential occupation.

Perhaps, even more interesting is the fact that Silverstein and the authors have overlooked the fact that the prophet Jeremiah was actual descended from the prostitute Rehav רחב as it says in the Talmud:
Megila 14b
R. ‘Ena Saba cited the following in objection to R. Nahman: ‘Eight prophets who were also priests were descended from Rahab the harlot, namely, Neriah, Baruch, Serayah, Mahseyah, Jeremiah, Hilkiah, Hanamel and Shallum.’ R. Judah says: Hulda the prophetess was also one of the descendants of Rahab the harlot. [We know this] because it is written here ‘the son of Tikvah’ and it is written elsewhere [in connection with Rahab]. ‘the line [tikvath] of scarlet thread’!28 — He replied: ‘’Ena Saba’29 — or, according to another report. ‘Black bowl’,30 — the truth can be found by combining my statement and yours’.31 We must suppose that she became a proselyte and Joshua married her.
(28) Josh. II, 18.
(29) Lit., ‘old eye’.
(30) Alluding perhaps to his ugliness (Maharsha).

תלמוד בבלי מסכת מגילה דף יד/ב
רב עינא סבא לרב נחמן שמונה נביאים והם כהנים יצאו מרחב הזונה ואלו הן נריה ברוך ושריה מחסיה ירמיה חלקיה חנמאל ושלום רבי יהודה אומר אף חולדה הנביאה מבני בניה של רחב הזונה היתה כתיב הכא בן תקוה וכתיב התם את תקות חוט השני אמר ליה עינא סבא ואמרי לה פתיא אוכמא מיני ומינך תסתיים שמעתא דאיגיירא ונסבה יהושע ו

It points out, in addition, that Rehav was a convert:

Zevachim 116b
Because, as a master said, There was no prince or ruler who had not possessed Rahab the harlot. It was said: She was ten years old when the Israelites departed from Egypt, and she played the harlot the whole of the forty years spent by the Israelites in the wilderness. At the age of fifty she became a proselyte. Said she: May I be forgiven as a reward for the cord, window, and flax.1
(1) For hiding them in flax, and then letting them down by a cord through a window (ibid. 6, 15).

תלמוד בבלי מסכת זבחים דף קטז/ב
דאמר מר אין לך כל שר ונגיד שלא בא על רחב הזונה אמרו בת י’ שנים היתה כשיצאו ישראל ממצרים וזנתה [כל] מ’ שנה שהיו ישראל במדבר אחר נ’ שנה נתגיירה אמרה יהא מחול לי בשכר חבל חלון ופשתים

In finality, we understand that Rehav, who people like the authors of With An Iron Pen despise, was the only one (along with her household) was spared the sword when Joshua and company came through Jericho. Why? Because she hid the spies who came through and prepared for the Israeli invasion of the Land of Israel. It’s too bad Richard Silverstein doesn’t check his sources before he quotes his fellow idiots-in-crime. Apparently Jeremiah’s iron pen was only a bi product of Rehav’s iron loyalty:

Joshua (6:17):
And the city shall be accursed, it and all who are in it, to the Lord; only Rahab the harlot shall live, she and all who are with her in the house, because she hid the messengers whom we sent.

ספר יהושע פרק ו
והיתה העיר חרם היא וכל אשר בה ליהוה רק רחב הזונה תחיה היא וכל אשר אתה בבית כי החבאתה את המלאכים אשר שלחנו

Peace Is Not Shalom

There has been an almost endless discussion of peace since the inception of the State Of Israel. It goes without saying that this region has seen a disproportionate amount of bloodshed and tension. In order to deal with this increasing difficult deadlock, both participants and observers in this conflict have dubbed the efforts to come to a "final agreement" the Peace Movement. Its Israeli counterpart is called שלום עכשיו (Shalom Achshav). Is Peace Now really Shalom Achshav?
According to Webster's dictionary, the definition of peace is:

Pronunciation:
\ˈpēs\
Function:
noun
Etymology:
Middle English pees, from Anglo-French pes, pees, from Latin pac-, pax; akin to Latin pacisci to agree — more at pact
Date:
12th century

1: a state of tranquillity or quiet: as a: freedom from civil disturbance b: a state of security or order within a community provided for by law or custom a breach of the peace
2: freedom from disquieting or oppressive thoughts or emotions
3: harmony in personal relations
4: a state or period of mutual concord between governments b: a pact or agreement to end hostilities between those who have been at war or in a state of enmity
5: used interjectionally to ask for silence or calm or as a greeting or farewell
— at peace
: in a state of concord or tranquillity

So, the Western definition of peace is essentially quietness and tranquility, coming from the Latin word pax. The book Why The Jews, by Dennis Prager and Joseph Telushkin points out that in the Roman Empire, pax Romana meant establishing such tranquility by violently crushing opposition to it's rule.

What is Shalom then? Shalom is, first and foremost, one of the names of the Almighty. In fact, according to Jewish law, the word Shalom cannot be spoken in a bathroom, just as prayers cannot. The root of the word Shalom שלום is shalem שלמ or completeness-not tranquility. King Solomon's name is from this root-the Kingdom Of Israel was at its greatest size (complete), hence-Shlomo שלמה. During Shlomo's reign, there were no wars on earth-the only time in human history*! Can the folks at Nobel match that? The mistranslation of Peace Now into Hebrew (or vice verse) shows the difference between the western concept of "peace" and the actual "Biblical" meaning that comes from Judaism. The division of the Land Of Israel and it's occupation by foreign peoples only delays true harmony in the world-שלום.

*This is deduced from what we learn about Shlomo HaMelech in Melachim Aleph chapter 5 verse 6 where we learn that he had 40,000 stables of horses for his chariots and 12,000 horsemen. The Talmud Yerushalmi, Sanhedrin indicates that all of these (the horses and horsemen) were "batlanim"-unemployed or idle, not needed for an army because there were no wars in his days (Penei Moshe). Life in his reign was entirely serene as Melachim Aleph 5:5 tells us.

-from Kings 1, Chapter 5:
5. And Judah and Israel dwelt safely, every man under his vine and under his fig tree, from Dan to Beersheba, all the days of Solomon.
6. And Solomon had forty thousand stalls of horses for his chariots, and twelve thousand horsemen.
מלכים א פרק ה פסוק ה
וַיֵּשֶׁב יְהוּדָה וְיִשְׂרָאֵל לָבֶטַח אִישׁ תַּחַת גַּפְנוֹ וְתַחַת תְּאֵנָתוֹ מִדָּן וְעַד בְּאֵר שָׁבַע כֹּל יְמֵי שְׁלֹמֹה:
מלכים א פרק ה פסוק ו
וַיְהִי לִשְׁלֹמֹה אַרְבָּעִים אֶלֶף אֻרְוֹת סוּסִים לְמֶרְכָּבוֹ וּשְׁנֵים עָשָׂר אֶלֶף פָּרָשִׁים:

תלמוד ירושלמי מסכת סנהדרין פרק ב דף כ טור ג /ה"ו
ויהי לשלמה ארבעים אלף אוריות סוסים למרכב ושנים עשר אלף פרשים בטלנים