tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30338507649343329132023-04-07T21:08:35.324-05:00HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF JEWS FROM EGYPTThis organization shall be known as HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF JEWS FROM EGYPT, and not of Egypt or of Egyptian Jews, but FROM EGYPT for the purpose will be to include all our co-religionists whose lineage have sojourned in the Jewish Communities of Egypt.
The aims of this society are to preserve, maintain, coordinate the implementation, and to convey our rich heritage to our children and grand children's, using all educational means at our disposal to bring into being the necessary foundations.HSJEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10939904377424666189noreply@blogger.comBlogger16125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3033850764934332913.post-11039159819386513592018-01-25T01:46:00.002-05:002018-08-29T20:48:25.113-05:00<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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The Jews <i>Were</i> Expelled from Egypt</h1>
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This article is a rebuttal of Mr. Eyal Sagui Bizawe’s recently published article in Haaretz, <a href="http://www.hsje.org/SecondExodus/From_the_Press/Were-Egypts-Jews-Really-Expelled.html" style="color: #005689; outline: none;">“Were Egypt’s Jews Really Expelled?”</a></h4>
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An edited and abridged version of this article was published in Haaretz newspaper, on October 8, 2017:<br />
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Our Passports Were Stamped "Exit With No Return":<br />The Real Story of How Egypt Expelled Its Jews</h3>
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<li><a href="http://www.hsje.org/mystory/IsraelBonan/our_passports_were_stamped_exit.html" style="color: #608ba4; font-weight: bold; list-style-image: url("../images/a2.jpg"); outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none;">Our Passports Were Stamped 'Exit, With No Return':<br />The Real Story of How Egypt Expelled Its Jews</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.816120" style="color: #608ba4; font-weight: bold; list-style-image: url("../images/a2.jpg"); outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none;">https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.816120" www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.816120</a></li>
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<b>By Israel Bonan </b><br />
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-k1-P5v5RIFM/W4dMfdtiuaI/AAAAAAAE3do/q0ZEa-svtmEOFrTFcf_QQlL0fNYBqPi_gCLcBGAs/s1600/israel%2Bbonan.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="604" data-original-width="483" height="200" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-k1-P5v5RIFM/W4dMfdtiuaI/AAAAAAAE3do/q0ZEa-svtmEOFrTFcf_QQlL0fNYBqPi_gCLcBGAs/s200/israel%2Bbonan.jpg" width="159" /></a>submitted September 2017<br />
<img alt="" class="imageleft" id="catalogimage" src="https://www.hsje.org/mystory/IsraelBonan/israel_bonan/IsraelBonan.jpg" style="border: none; float: left; margin: 5px 10px 0px 0px; max-width: 60%; min-width: 30%;" /><br />
My name is Israel Bonan, and I currently reside in the United States. I was born in Egypt, and so were both my parents. In 1967, while the Six-Day War was raging between Israel and Egypt, I was jailed for being a Jew, and deported—that is, expelled with a passport stamped “Exit with No Return.”<br />
In response to Mr. Bizawe’s request to hear firsthand accounts, I’d like to offer the narrative of my experience, “A Personal Exodus Story,” a copy of which is archived with the Department for the Rights of Jews from Arab Countries, along with many narratives from Mizrahi Jews (Jews from Arab lands) who chose to recount their personal traumatic experiences.<br />
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<li><a href="http://www.hsje.org/mystory/IsraelBonan/A_Perosnal_Exodus_Story.html" style="color: #608ba4; font-weight: bold; list-style-image: url("../images/a2.jpg"); outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none;">A Personal Exodus Story</a></li>
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<a href="http://www.hsje.org/mystory/IsraelBonan/A_Perosnal_Exodus_Story.html" style="color: #005689; outline: none;">http://www.hsje.org/mystory/IsraelBonan/A_Perosnal_Exodus_Story.html</a>If Mr. Bizawe had troubled himself to search the internet, he would have stumbled on these accounts unaided and discovered a few more on the website of the Historical Society of Jews from Egypt (HSJE.org).<br />
The author instead found it more convenient to confess to not being a historian while deciding to posit and theorize with a minimum amount of research, accept his own postulations as true, and reach unsupported conclusions. And I asked myself why. It did not take long to figure it out. Mr. Bizawe has a couple of bones to pick: first with his own kith and kin, whom he wishes to chastise for exaggerations and slanting the Mizrahi narrative with borrowed terminology, just to gain acceptance to the collective narrative of Jewish persecution; second with the newly initiated Mizrahi history curriculum as it stands, which he asserts is full of unsubstantiated claims and possible propaganda!<br />
A pretty cynical perspective, and one I wish to counter.<br />
I will answer his probing mind with factual and firsthand information on most of the issues he raised that I find myself in disagreement with.<br />
To summarize Mr. Bizawe’s salient arguments:<br />
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<li> Jews in Egypt were not expelled because they were Jews.</li>
<li> In 1948, they were expelled for being Zionists or Communists.</li>
<li> In 1956, they were expelled for being French or British citizens.</li>
<li> There were still Jews in Egypt in the 1960s, and Jews who wished to leave left at their own convenience.</li>
<li> There is no reason to suggest there was an expulsion of “Egyptian Jewry,” in historical terms, when members of other communities were expelled as well.</li>
</ul>
<i>“[I]t’s indisputable that most of Egypt’s Jews were not expelled...they were also not the only ones expelled.”</i><br />
So, according to Mr. Bizawe, the “expulsion of Egyptian Jewry” is simply a manifestation of Egyptian Jews’ desire to be included in the collective narrative of Jewish persecution.<br />
<i>“[A]ll they wanted was recognition of the trauma of expulsion. Like me, they've sought their personal story in the collective narrative...”</i><br />
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Rebuttal</h3>
The author takes issue with the fact that the persecution aspects of the Mizrahi Jews are suddenly peppered with descriptive terms that are reminiscent of the Holocaust and the Palestinian narratives (e.g., pogroms, concentration camps, Nakba).<br />
What have we, as Jews, learned from the Holocaust trauma? I am sure we’ve heard the “never again” slogan. What does it really mean, beside the obvious, that Jews will not let such an experience repeat again?<br />
The slogan’s call to action, for me, means one thing of crucial import: we, as Jews, do not need to wait for another six million to die before we call out injustice and evil.<br />
The campaign the Mizrahi Jews undertook—the Justice for Jews from Arab Countries (JJAC) International Rights and Redress Campaign (justiceforjews.com)—was intended to call out what happened to us as injustice and evil, and to bring attention to it. It needed to be accounted for in the historical narrative of the period.<br />
I have also, since the start of the Mizrahi JJAC campaign, taken to public speaking, expressing my own experience embodied in the overall Mizrahi narrative, to a variety audiences (more than three dozen lectures, so far).<br />
I remember myself, at one point, having to labor over how I should refer to organized riots targeted against the Jewish community. Lo and behold, that is the definition of <i>pogrom</i>. So, I compromised and added both designations, with the term <i>pogrom</i> being much more readily understood by the audience in this context.<br />
But the author does not only mock the use of the word pogrom, he goes a step further—he questions whether these pogroms were directed at Jews at all, and he cites the 1952 Cairo riots.<br />
<i>“[T]he 1952 Cairo riots known as the Cairo fire, it’s difficult to state that it was a clearly anti-Jewish event.”</i><br />
My dear sir, the 1952 Cairo riots had nothing to do with the Jews of Egypt, though the rioters still didn’t miss a beat and burned and looted many Jewish department stores that day (to wit, the Cicurel department store, pictured burned in your article). You needed to look elsewhere—e.g., the Cairo and Alexandria riots from 1945 (on the anniversary of the Balfour Declaration) to 1948 (the creation of the State of Israel). Was it too inconvenient for you to further research the topic? Was it easier, instead, to reach conclusions based on faulty information?<br />
During the period from 1945 to 1948, in Cairo and Alexandria, riots and targeted bombings of the Jewish community and Jewish businesses resulted in 108 unprosecuted deaths, injuries in the hundreds, and the looting and razing of over 200 Jewish businesses.<br />
The author also takes issue with the use of the term <i>concentration camps</i> to refer to <i>detention camps</i>, which is his preferred “non-European” terminology. Such a genteel and civilized, and a truly Mizrahi, terminology. “Detention camps”: three meals a day, a private bathroom and shower accommodations, a fluffy bed and a nice pillow, with conjugal visits...<br />
Mr. Bizawe, these were jails, and some of these jails were hard-labor jails, where some four dozen Jewish inmates to a cell slept and spent their days (for their first six months of incarceration), sleeping head to toe.<br />
Hard-labor jails, where “exercising” was mandatory: running in circles while being whipped and chanting anti-Israel slogans. Jails, where in front of the collective group of Jewish inmates, a brother was ordered to undress and sodomize his own brother, in front of their father, who almost died of a heart attack on the spot. Jails where fathers, brothers, and sons denied each other, so they would not suffer similar consequences.<br />
(<a href="http://hsje.org/mystory/marc_kheder/mylife.html" style="color: #005689; outline: none;">http://hsje.org/mystory/marc_kheder/mylife.html</a>).<br />
Call them what you will (concentration camps, detention camps...), and complain if you must; after all, what’s in a name?<br />
Next, the author takes issue when Mizrahi Jews from Egypt refer to their ordeal as <i>Nakba</i>, an Arabic word denoting a calamity.<br />
While I can understand that the use of the term is more for the benefit of the Arab world, and the Palestinians in particular, to convey that we too, as Mizrahi Jews, were visited with a calamity, I personally cringe whenever I hear the term in conjunction with the Mizrahi experience.<br />
A calamity is only a calamity when your response to it is to accept victimhood; we, the Mizrahi Jews, did not accept passive victimhood. We survived the trauma and prospered, with the help of many; and YES, with the help of Israel too, no propaganda forthcoming, I am afraid—just the facts. Our expulsion, which I’ll get to shortly, was an emancipating moment for us.<br />
Does it come as a surprise to you, sir, that Mizrahi Jews can have different opinions about any topic? You ought to consider that a strength, not a weakness.<br />
Finally, we address the conclusion reached in Mr. Bizawe’s article: that in the case of the Jewish community of Egypt, it is not “...<i>a full-fledged expulsion</i>...”<br />
Sure, the author opines, some were expelled, some suffered, but was it expulsion in the same vein as the “expulsion of Spanish Jewry,” the author asks. Then he proceeded, with a vulgar lack of empathy, to ridicule the issue and show a venom unworthy even of himself; and here I’d like to insert his paragraph, in its entirety:<br />
<i>“We can imagine rows of hooded soldiers gathering Egyptian Jews in Cairo’s Tahrir Square and giving them two options: convert to Islam or be expelled. Or even not giving them the choice but expelling them all. But such an event simply never occurred.”</i><br />
What is the definition of the word <i>expulsion</i>? According to Google’s Dictionary, it is this: “The process of forcing someone to leave a place, especially a country.”<br />
A process usually entails more than one step to accomplish a purpose. So, let me start with the “expulsion of Spanish Jewry.”<br />
King Ferdinand II and Queen Isabella issued the Alhambra Decree. The edict gave the Jewish community in Spain four months to choose between three basic choices:<br />
<ol>
<li>Convert to Christianity to keep all your assets and remain in Spain.</li>
<li>Leave Spain with your possessions, less any precious metals.</li>
<li>Remain and be executed.</li>
</ol>
So the Jews of Spain were offered a choice to convert, leave, or die. Mr. Bizawe would have us think, according to his logic, that the Jews of Spain chose to leave of their own volition, simply because they could have chosen to convert (which some did) or die!<br />
Don’t we also know that after the Muslims lost their last stronghold in Spain, they were also given three choices a few years later? The first two choices were identical to the ones already covered, with third choice being enslavement in lieu of death.<br />
So, there we have it, more than just Jews were dispossessed and expelled from Spain around the same time frame!<br />
Mr. Bizawe would have us believe that for an event to be considered a genuine Jewish persecution experience, it could not be experienced by anyone else.<br />
Will he then also debunk the expulsion of the Spanish Jewry? Would the Spanish expulsion also be part of the collective Jewish “persecution obsession” that kept the “myth” of the Jewish expulsion alive for 500 years?<br />
Something tells me he wouldn’t. I call that a double standard.<br />
So, what was the process used to expel the Jews and other minorities from Egypt? These steps spanned many years, promoted by successive governments all marching to the tune of an “Egypt is for the Egyptians” dictum.<br />
The process follows the same pattern of Nazi Germany. I suppose all forms of fascisms behave alike—as to who borrowed from whom, it’s irrelevant. The templates are one and the same, give or take: loss of citizenship rights and protection, loss of jobs in the private and public sectors, no prospect for future employment, dispossession of assets, death, and expatriation/expulsion.<br />
In 1929 Egypt enacted a nationality law that stripped the great majority of Egyptian Jews, who’d lived in Egypt for centuries, of their nationality and their citizenship rights and protection. This law forced the Jews of Egypt to outright seek such protection from foreign governments by proving plausible lineage to those countries, or to remain stateless.<br />
In case Mr. Bizawe misses the significance of that law, it implied that the majority of the Jews were not to be considered Egyptians, because of their religion.<br />
In 1947 they enacted the Company Law, which mandated Egyptian citizenship for 90% of employees and 70% of management in any private or public company. The Company Law, in one fell swoop, denied most Jews, as well as Armenians, Greeks, and other ethnic minorities, of their livelihood.<br />
This one-two punch is a true example of economic ethnic cleansing; first you declare they are non-Egyptians, and then you restrict work in the public and private sectors to Egyptians only! After that, a Jew who did not have a job quickly learned that he would never find one. <br />
Once again, in case Mr. Bizawe misses the significance of that law: Greeks and Armenians were targeted for their nationality, but Jews for their religion.<br />
In 1954 Egypt enacted the Nationalization Law, stripping Jews and even well-to-do Egyptians of their businesses, and nationalizing their assets.<br />
With the rise of Arab nationalism and the onset of the UN partition debate over Palestine, the political environment in Egypt grew progressively more hostile toward the Jewish community.<br />
So far, I tried to highlight not only the effects of these laws on the Jewish communities but also the effects on other minorities and even Egyptian nationals.<br />
As to the post-1948 events, Mr. Bizawe seems to put his arms around the issues from 1948 to 1970, after having reviewed a few books written on the subject (very commendable), accepting what he wishes to accept, ignoring facts as his argument dictates.<br />
Since I have begun public speaking about the Mizrahi and my own personal experience, I found the need to address two basic issues:<br />
<ol>
<li>For more than 70 years, the Middle East narrative was one-sided. There was only one Refugee narrative; our Mizrahi experience has never been acknowledged and needed to be asserted fully</li>
<li> Did the Mizrahi Jews leave of their own volition?</li>
</ol>
After our successful JJAC campaign, even the U.S. Congress now acknowledges, through enacted legislation, that there is more than one refugee population in the Middle East since 1948.<br />
As to the second issue, I go the extra mile, in the case of my own experience, by delineating the fact that my sister left Egypt first, to be betrothed; my brother followed a year later, after he finished his engineering studies; and I had one month left before I could earn my own engineering degree and, together with my elderly parents, join my siblings.<br />
After delivering the statement, I ask my audience whether I was affirming that we “left of our own volition.” Then I explain that history is about cause and effect, which is pretty basic stuff. I describe the causes that got us to that point, and I expand on the laws and measures taken that left us with no option but to leave.<br />
It is worth noting that our plans for leaving were interrupted, because I was jailed, together with all Jewish males of roughly 18 to 55 years of age; to a person, we were expelled, after having spent anywhere from a few days to more than three years in jail—from jail to ship or plane.<br />
This is an event that Mr. Bizawe chose to totally ignore, because it did not fit the template for his “expulsion of Egyptian Jewry” denial.<br />
Did the remainder of the Jews of Egypt who were not expelled outright but left from 1948 to 1967 “leave of their own volition,” with less than ten dollars per person in their pockets!<br />
Expulsion, whether it is active expulsion (gun to head) or passive expulsion (squeezed out), is still expulsion by any other name. Did they “leave of their own volition”?<br />
Given the chance, Mr. Bizawe would have us believe that Albert Einstein also left Germany in 1940 of his own volition (after having resisted the impulse for quite some time).<br />
The Jews of Egypt saw the writing on the wall. Having no jobs, no money, no prospects, with the rest of their extended families expelled or still in jail, would they still wish to stay, and were they allowed to?<br />
Unfortunately, in certain cases (elderly Jews who did not rate imprisonment), yes on both accounts; some stayed and died in their “homes” in Egypt, because the trauma of being displaced, and of leaving the known for the unknown, was too much for them to bear, especially in their old age.<br />
“Home” is where you find the light switch in the dark, without having to grope for it. My mother, rest her soul, never found the light switch in the dark, in the United States, yet she had a choice: finding the switch or being with her children! She chose the latter, like most of the other mothers and fathers when their husbands or sons were expelled from jail to ship. They all left with their passports stamped “Exit with No Return.”<br />
Nowadays, the Jewish community is but a handful of women over 80 years of age; and now, finally, Egypt is rid of her Jews.<br />
And yet you dare to ask whether they were expelled?<br />
Did the knowledge that other minorities were expelled in 1956 and 1967 negate the fact that Jews were also expelled, just for being Jews? I’ll leave it to Mr. Bizawe, at this point, to answer such a simple question, as it suits his need for personal identification with his people: “...<i>with all my deep identification with members of my people</i>...”<br />
One more parting comment, before I wrap up: these other minorities who were also expelled never had to stay a day in a “detention camp” or hard-labor jail, or do any forced “calisthenics”; that was reserved <i>exclusively</i> for the Jews of Egypt.<br />
Finally, Mr. Bizawe, I assume you never experienced torture, jail, or abuse; you earn your own living, nobody took your assets away when you reached 50 or 60 years of age, thus forcing you to start a new life, in a new country, with less than ten dollars in your pocket while leaving of “your own volition”; you never had to worry, as a refugee would, about your children’s future... This list is too long and, yes, depressing to enumerate; I just wanted to tell you, I don’t wish any of it on you. No one deserves to see their parents age 10 years in one day; no one should have to be humiliated and persecuted for who they are: in this case, a Jew.<br />
Make no mistake, sir: We, the Mizrahi Jews, are not victims. We are survivors. Our stories need to be told, and we most certainly don’t need a reason or a lie to seek admission to any collective Jewish suffering club.<br />
I’d like to take this opportunity to personally thank the government of Israel for undertaking this Mizrahi curriculum initiative; I would also like to encourage them to include the impact of the Mizrahi Jewish communities’ contributions (e.g., on arts, commerce, politics, economics) on the respective countries they lived in, because of its historical relevance.</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3033850764934332913.post-22698508438628197422013-11-03T17:10:00.001-05:002013-12-06T07:09:18.446-05:00<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="color: grey; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: large; line-height: 14px;">The Jews of Egypt :</span><span style="color: grey; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: large; line-height: 14px;">Yesterday and Today</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span style="color: grey; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px;">By; Rami Mangoubi Ph.D</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: grey; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px;">In <a href="http://www.hsje.org/YahMasr122205.htm" target="_blank">“The Jews of Egypt” (<i>Elaph</i>, December 22, 2005)</a></span><span style="font-family: Arial;"><a href="http://www.hsje.org/coments_on_the_jews_of_egyp.htm#_edn1" name="_ednref1" style="color: blue; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; text-transform: capitalize;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span style="color: grey; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px;">[1]</span></span></span></a></span><span style="color: grey; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px;">, author Nabil Sharaf el Deen is respectful of Egyptian Jews, and even acknowledges that they suffered injustices, including expulsion, during the Nasser era. The reader will also be pleasantly surprised to see that Egyptian Jews who fled to Israel are not described as traitors, a common accusation, but as a community that is “bound by profound longing for the motherland, Egypt”. </span></div>
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<span style="color: grey; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px;">Jews who fled persecution in Egypt are “full blooded Egyptians”, declares Sharaf Al Deen. The article describes at length their active role in Egyptian cultural and artistic life. By emphasizing the cultural contributions, the author helps dispel the commonly held belief among many Egyptians that Jews were rich foreigners (khawagat) whose only contributions to Egypt was limited to the economic sphere at best. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span style="color: grey; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px;">The article, however, contains serious historical errors. It wrongly asserts, or at least implies, that prior to the Nasser era, Jews lived in total harmony. While Jews in the twentieth centuries had cordial, warm and unforgettable relations with many other Egyptians, they still experienced suffering and exclusion long before the Nasser era, even long before Israel and Zionism. </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: grey; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px;">Historically and through the middle of the nineteenth century, they, along with Christians, were tolerated as <i>Ahl el Zemma, </i>or Dhimmi. To be precise, they were shown condescending mercy provided they did not contest the inferior social and legal status imposed on them. The Dhimmi status implied the prohibition from testifying against Muslims in court, the prohibition from bearing arms or joining the army, and dress restrictions. Jews and Christians were also required to pay an extra poll tax, </span><i><span style="color: grey; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px;">the guizyeh</span><span style="font-family: Arial;"><a href="http://www.hsje.org/coments_on_the_jews_of_egyp.htm#_edn2" name="_ednref2" style="color: blue; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; text-transform: capitalize;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><b><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span style="color: grey; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 11px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 14px;">[2]</span></span></b></span></a></span></i><span style="color: grey; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px;">. </span></div>
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<span style="color: grey; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px;">Shortly after Khedewi Said ordered the emancipation of Jews and Christians from the Dhimmi status in the middle of the nineteenth century, and cancelled the guizyeh, new and increasingly dangerous forms of marginalization and exclusion started to appear. As far back as 1869, long before political Zionism was born, nationality decrees were interpreted so as to deny Jews Egyptian citizenship. These decrees were consolidated into Egypt’s 1929 Nationality Law. As a result, more than 90 percent of Egyptian Jews were denied citizenship, regardless of how many centuries they resided in Egypt. The majority, or 60 percent, remained stateless (<i>apatride </i>or <i>gheir mo’ayan lel genseyah), </i>while others were able to obtain foreign documents<i>. </i>Despite the enormous Jewish contribution to Egypt’s economy, employment laws implemented during the 1930’s and 40’s thought to deny Jews opportunities even in the private sector. The most notorious of these laws was the 1947 Company Law, as a result of which a huge number of Jews, because they lacked citizenship, lost their livelihood</span><span style="font-family: Arial;"><a href="http://www.hsje.org/coments_on_the_jews_of_egyp.htm#_edn3" name="_ednref3" style="color: blue; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; text-transform: capitalize;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span style="color: grey; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px;">[3]</span></span></span></a></span><span style="color: grey; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px;">. </span></div>
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<span style="color: grey; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px;">During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, accusations of ritual murders were also common in Egypt and other parts of the Arab world</span><span style="font-family: Arial;"><a href="http://www.hsje.org/coments_on_the_jews_of_egyp.htm#_edn4" name="_ednref4" style="color: blue; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; text-transform: capitalize;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span style="color: grey; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px;">[4]</span></span></span></a></span><span style="color: grey; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px;">. Nor was the article’s author made aware of the destruction of the Jewish synagogue in Cairo’s Darb el Barabra quarter on November 2, 1945, or the two massacres of Egyptian Jews that occurred during the Summer and Fall of 1948, shortly after the Egyptian army invaded Israel. As many as 42 Jews were murdered, and many more wounded during these massacres</span><span style="font-family: Arial;"><a href="http://www.hsje.org/coments_on_the_jews_of_egyp.htm#_edn5" name="_ednref5" style="color: blue; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; text-transform: capitalize;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span style="color: grey; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px;">[5]</span></span></span></a><span style="color: grey; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px;">. No serious trial took place. </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: grey; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px;">Also unbeknown to the well meaning author are the incarceration and torture between 1967 and 1970 of nearly all Egyptian Jewish males, in the notorious detention camps of Abu Za’abal and Tura. Nearly all were freed only on condition they leave the country, never to return; they were taken from prison to the airport without being allowed to see their homes, families, and neighbors</span><span style="font-family: Arial;"><a href="http://www.hsje.org/coments_on_the_jews_of_egyp.htm#_edn6" name="_ednref6" style="color: blue; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; text-transform: capitalize;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span style="color: grey; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px;">[6]</span></span></span></a></span><span style="color: grey; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px;">. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span style="color: grey; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px;">It is rather disappointing and sad that Jews living in Egypt were unable to provide Sharaf el Deen with an accurate historical account of Egyptian Judaism; a strong indication that the dozen or so elderly Jews still in the country live in fear, a fear that many of us Egyptian Jews remember only too well. We never dared discuss such matters in Egypt, and when pressured to talk to the press, Egyptian Jews had to claim that all was well. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span style="color: grey; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px;">The more courageous individuals, however, would refuse to abide. I recall for instance the time in 1969 when Mrs. Flore Marzouk, a member of the community who was volunteering her service at the Rabbinate, was asked to give an interview to <i>Le Monde. </i>The security officer accompanying the correspondent to the Abbassiyah Rabbinate warned Mrs. Marzouk against any mention of the Jewish men imprisoned and tortured in Abu Za’abal and Tura. The official let her know that she was expected to state that Jews are well treated in Egypt. He also advised her that the correspondent should be made aware “that you are certain that both Moshe Dayan and Golda Meir (Israel’s defense and prime minister at the time), are criminals.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span style="color: grey; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px;">That day, I was at the Rabbinate, now called the Jewish Community Center, delivering some food to be shipped to my brother and uncle at the Tura detention camp, and I recall how Mrs. Marzouk, with a mixture of determination, fear, and tear retention, flatly refused to talk to the correspondent from <i>Le Monde </i>under such conditions<i>. </i>As a result, the security officer never allowed the correspondent into the Rabbinate. Had he come in, the correspondent would have seen how incandescent with rage we all were at the suggestions of the security officer.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: grey; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px;">The article’s reader will quickly notice that courageous Jewish individuals like Mrs. Marzouk no longer live in Egypt. This is indeed a shame for we do see courageous Moslems and Christians like Sa’ad el Din Ibrahim, Ali Salem</span><span style="font-family: Arial;"><a href="http://www.hsje.org/coments_on_the_jews_of_egyp.htm#_edn7" name="_ednref7" style="color: blue; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; text-transform: capitalize;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span style="color: grey; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px;">[7]</span></span></span></a></span><span style="color: grey; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px;">, and Tarek Heggy</span><span style="font-family: Arial;"><a href="http://www.hsje.org/coments_on_the_jews_of_egyp.htm#_edn8" name="_ednref8" style="color: blue; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; text-transform: capitalize;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span style="color: grey; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px;">[8]</span></span></span></a><span style="color: grey; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px;">, openly calling for good relations with the Jewish state and even praising Israeli democracy. Even Ariel Sharon can hear good words from no less an Egyptian than President Husni Mubarak. The President of Egypt declared that only Sharon can bring peace, and, upon hearing of Sharon’s hospitalization, he called Israel and expressed concern</span><a href="http://www.hsje.org/coments_on_the_jews_of_egyp.htm#_edn9" name="_ednref9" style="color: blue; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; text-transform: capitalize;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span style="color: grey; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px;">[9]</span></span></span></a><span style="color: grey; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px;">. What Egypt needs and does not have today is an outspoken, courageous Jewish community leader who can explain to Egyptians what happened to Egyptian Jews, and what Zionism and Israel mean to all Jews. </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: grey; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px;">Few Egyptians</span><span style="font-family: Arial;"><a href="http://www.hsje.org/coments_on_the_jews_of_egyp.htm#_edn10" name="_ednref10" style="color: blue; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; text-transform: capitalize;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span style="color: grey; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px;">[10]</span></span></span></a></span><span style="color: grey; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px;"> are aware that, while Egypt’s government denied employment and citizenship to Jews living in the country for centuries, Israel offered them both upon arrival. The largest percentage of Egyptian Jews, roughly 40 to 45 percent, fled to the Jewish state, while most of the other sixty percent or so spread to various English or French speaking countries, mainly the United States and France. We therefore are grateful, and indeed morally indebted, to Israel, and to the other countries that support her and took us.</span></div>
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<span style="color: grey; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px;">The absence of any honest discussion of taboo subjects like Israel or the fate of Egyptian Jewry only reflects poorly on the country. Regrettably, in today’s Egypt, it is more common to hear Holocaust denial by high profile personalities like Mohamed Mahdi Akef, the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood</span><span style="font-family: Arial;"><a href="http://www.hsje.org/coments_on_the_jews_of_egyp.htm#_edn11" name="_ednref11" style="color: blue; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; text-transform: capitalize;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span style="color: grey; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px;">[11]</span></span></span></a></span><span style="color: grey; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px;">. And such criminal bigotry is not limited to fundamentalist circles. William Fisher, who for a long time managed for the state department economic development project in Egypt and in the Middle East, despairs that even graduates of the American University in Cairo whom he considers Egypt’s future leaders, consider the Holocaust “an idea that's been pushed by the Jewish lobby in America.”</span><span style="font-family: Arial;"><a href="http://www.hsje.org/coments_on_the_jews_of_egyp.htm#_edn12" name="_ednref12" style="color: blue; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; text-transform: capitalize;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span style="color: grey; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px;">[12]</span></span></span></a></span><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span style="color: grey; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span style="color: grey; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px;">The sad irony is that such mindset constitutes an injustice not only to Jews who fled the country, but also to non-Jewish Egyptians who were tolerant to Jews. For it definitely ought to be mentioned that not a few Christians and Moslems friends and neighbors were affectionate to the Jews they knew. Our neighbors protected us from hostile elements in some neighborhoods like Abassiyah and Sakakini. They bought our grocery when it was too dangerous to step outside. Our custodians would chase away harassers. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span style="color: grey; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px;">The fondness that some Jews have for their former lives stems from such memories, and Egyptian Jews inside and outside Egypt have the moral obligation to act as a bridge of peace with Israel, a peace that an increasing number of Egyptian Moslems and Christians realize will benefit Egypt too. Jewish spokespersons must also inform Egyptians and others about the massacres, the incarceration, the torture, and the years of persecution, if only to explain and acknowledge the deep loyalty and friendship of Egyptian Moslems and Christians who stood by their Jewish neighbors and friends.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span style="color: grey; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px;">Rami Mangoubi is a Jewish refugee from Egypt. He holds a doctorate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and works as an engineer in the United States. </span></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.hsje.org/coments_on_the_jews_of_egyp.htm#_ednref2" name="_edn2" style="color: blue; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">[2]</span></span></a><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span style="color: grey; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px;"> For an excellent account on the lives of Jews in the Arab countries, Iran, and the Ottoman empire since the Seventh century, see Bernard Lewis, <i>The Jews of Islam, </i>Princeton University Press, 1987. The Dhimmi status is also discussed in Sanaa Hasan,<i>Christians vs. Moslems in Modern Egypt, </i>Oxford University Press, 2003.</span></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.hsje.org/coments_on_the_jews_of_egyp.htm#_ednref3" name="_edn3" style="color: blue; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">[3]</span></span></a><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span style="color: grey; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px;"> Shimon Shamir, ed., “The Evolution of Egyptian Nationality Laws and their application to the Jews in the monarchy period,” in <i>The Jews of Egypt, A Mediterranean Society in Modern Times, </i>Boulder: Westview Press, 1987, pp. 33-67.</span></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.hsje.org/coments_on_the_jews_of_egyp.htm#_ednref4" name="_edn4" style="color: blue; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">[4]</span></span></a><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span style="color: grey; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px;"> Bernard Lewis, p. 158. </span></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.hsje.org/coments_on_the_jews_of_egyp.htm#_ednref5" name="_edn5" style="color: blue; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">[5]</span></span></a><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span style="color: grey; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px;"> <i>Al Ahram</i>, July 16, 1948, and September, 23, 1948. </span></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.hsje.org/coments_on_the_jews_of_egyp.htm#_ednref6" name="_edn6" style="color: blue; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">[6]</span></span></a><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span style="color: grey; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px;"> I have personally lived through that period. Michael Laskier, Egyptian Jewry under the Nasser Regime, 1956-1970, <i>Middle Eastern Studies, </i>31, (no 3: 1995), pp. 573-619. See also Norman Stillman, <i>The Jews from Arab Lands in Modern Times, </i>Jewish Publication Society, Philadelphia, 1991.</span></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.hsje.org/coments_on_the_jews_of_egyp.htm#_ednref7" name="_edn7" style="color: blue; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">[7]</span></span></a><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span style="color: grey; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px;"> Ali Salem, <i>A Drive to Israel – An Egyptian Meets his Neighbor,</i> Syracuse University Press, 2003.</span></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.hsje.org/coments_on_the_jews_of_egyp.htm#_ednref8" name="_edn8" style="color: blue; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">[8]</span></span></a><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span style="color: grey; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px;"> <a href="http://www.heggy.org/" style="color: blue; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; text-transform: capitalize;">Www.Heggy.Org</a></span></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.hsje.org/coments_on_the_jews_of_egyp.htm#_ednref9" name="_edn9" style="color: blue; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">[9]</span></span></a><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span style="color: grey; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px;"> “Mubarak Phones Olmert, wishes PM well”, <i>Ynet News</i>, January 6, 2006.</span></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.hsje.org/coments_on_the_jews_of_egyp.htm#_ednref10" name="_edn10" style="color: blue; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">[10]</span></span></a><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span style="color: grey; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px;"> Rami Mangoubi, “A Jewish Refugee Answers Youssef Ibrahim,” <i>Middle East Times</i>, October 30, 2004. <a href="http://www.metimes.com/articles/normal.php?StoryID=20041030-025149-4018r" style="color: blue; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; text-transform: capitalize;">Http://Www.Metimes.Com/Articles/Normal.Php?StoryID=20041030-025149-4018r</a></span></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.hsje.org/coments_on_the_jews_of_egyp.htm#_ednref12" name="_edn12" style="color: blue; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">[12]</span></span></a><span style="color: grey; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px;"> </span><span style="color: grey; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;">William Fisher, “Why should We Be Surprised?,” <a href="http://www.billfisher.blogspot.com/" style="color: blue; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; text-transform: capitalize;">Www.Billfisher.Blogspot.Com</a>, posted on January 18, 2006.</span></span><span style="color: grey; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px;"></span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3033850764934332913.post-67927675593689468792011-02-06T14:36:00.001-05:002011-02-06T20:25:09.014-05:00Egypt, Enslaved<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Sat 5 Feb 2011<br />
Dr Maurice M. Mizrahi</b> (<a href="mailto:mizrahim@cox.net" style="color: #7799bb;" target="_blank">mizrahim@cox.net</a>)<br />
<b>Congregation Adat Reyim<br />
D’var Torah on Terumah<br />
<br />
</b></span></span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; font-family: 'Times New Roman';">These days, every pundit and his uncle is a self-styled expert on Egypt, and will give you an in-depth opinion about what's going on there and what it means. Me, I am not a pundit. I am only an uncle. Many times over. But the rabbi asked me to do this and I figured, why not? After all, I </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><i>was</i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; font-family: 'Times New Roman';"> born and raised in Egypt, until I was forced out in 1967, after the Six-Day War, when I was eighteen. So I may be able to give you some insights.</span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt;"> <br />
To be sure, I have received many e-mails lately asking me to comment on the situation in Egypt. I have done so in English, in French and in Italian. I have not done so in Arabic: Those who might write to me in Arabic have found their Internet feed cut in recent days.<br />
<br />
In this week's Torah portion, <i>Terumah</i>, the Israelites have just gotten out of Egypt amid signs and wonders and miracles, led by God "with a strong hand and an outstretched arm" <span style="font-size: 7.5pt;">[Deut. 26:8].</span> They have just witnessed the spectacular giving of the Torah on Mount Sinai, and are finally settling down to more mundane tasks, such as building an ornate tabernacle to house the Tablets of the Law.<br />
<br />
But the thundering words they heard at Sinai are still ringing in their ears, beginning with:<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">I am the Lord your God, who took you out of the Land of Egypt, the house of bondage.<span style="font-size: 7.5pt;"> [Ex. 20:2]</span><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt;">Our commentators wondered: Why does God describe Himself that way? Would you not expect God to identify Himself by saying:<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">I am the Lord your God, who created the heavens and the earth?<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt;">This would make it clear that He is the Beginning, the Boss, the <i>Adon Olam</i>, the Master of the Universe. After all, even lowly human beings can be great leaders and liberators, but only God can create a world, so shouldn't God stress this unique aspect of His being, just as He is about to give us the Torah?<br />
<br />
One reason that comes to mind is that people, then as now, are afflicted with the "What have you done for me lately?" syndrome. In other words, spare me the creation of the world -- that's ancient history -- and tell me what you have done for me lately. So God anticipates that and obliges by saying: "OK. I just freed you from slavery".<br />
<br />
But our commentators saw beyond that. They argued that if God had said only that He was the creator of the world, it might imply that he has distanced Himself from the world since then, and abandoned it to its own devices. By saying "I just freed you from slavery", God tells us that He cares and watches over us as history unfolds. He did not just create the world and withdraw. He is here with us and His presence is all around us. Yehudah Halevi, the 12th century Spanish Jewish poet, argues in his greatest poem, <i>The Kuzari</i>, that God is a "God of History", not just an abstract "God of the philosophers". God is always present.<br />
<br />
So God took the Jews out of Egypt and they are ready to begin a new chapter in their march through history, as a proud and free people. But what about the Egypt they left behind? Did <i>it</i> ever get free? No, never. To this day, it has always remained enslaved by masters foreign and domestic. Are the Egyptians condemned to perpetual retribution for enslaving the Jews? Or has their time finally arrived to "proclaim liberty throughout the land, unto all the inhabitants thereof" <span style="font-size: 7.5pt;">[Lev. 25:10]</span>, in the middle of the massive demonstrations in Cairo and Alexandria we have been watching on TV?<br />
<br />
First, why should we care what happens to Egypt? We are happy to be out of it, we are happy to be rid of it. Our 601st commandment states, <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">Thou shalt never again dwell permanently in the Land of Egypt.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 7.5pt;">[Deut. 17:16; Deut. 28:68; Ex. 14:13],</span><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt;">a commandment that, sadly, I broke the moment I was born. Yet we are <i>commanded</i> to remember Egypt every single day. The Torah says:<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">Remember the day when you came out of the Land of Egypt all the days of your life.<span style="font-size: 7.5pt;"> [Deut. 16:3]</span>.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt;">The Talmud reinforced this message<span style="font-size: 7.5pt;"> [Berachot 12b].</span> The Passover <i>Haggadah </i>adds that in every generation, every person must consider that he, himself, was personally rescued from Egypt. (That’s easy for <i>me</i> to say.) The Exodus from Egypt is highlighted at the Kiddush for every Shabbat and holiday eve: <i>Zecher litziat Mitzrayim</i>. Egypt is where we truly became a people, where we received the Torah. We are not allowed to keep Egypt out of our collective consciousness. We are linked to it, by proximity if nothing else. <br />
<br />
So what can we say about Egypt today? Egyptians have a history of being passive, fearful. They are afraid to speak their mind. They may tell you in private what you want to hear, but in public they will go with the flow, out of fear. You are never sure what they <i>really</i> think. They fear their leaders and the police state that keeps those leaders in power. What is happening now in the streets of Egypt is totally unprecedented in their 5000-year recorded history. The people are demanding the ouster of their totalitarian ruler and are publicly reviling him, to his face, with astonishing vehemence. This has never happened before.<br />
<br />
Let us briefly review the history of Egypt before we proceed:<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">-First, the Pharaohs of Ancient Egypt were in charge, all absolute rulers with absolute power over the people. The people, then as now, were mostly dirt-poor peasants. The Pharaohs were backed by the priests, whose job was to scare the people into submission, by threatening the wrath of the many false gods that were worshipped.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">-Recorded history can be said to begin with the Pharaoh Menes, who united Upper and Lower Egypt in 3000 BCE, 5,000 years ago.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">-By the time Cleopatra ruled in the first century BCE, Ancient Egypt was already moribund. It was conquered by Alexander-the-so-called-Great in 331 BCE. He built the city of Alexandria in his name and image. The Greeks -- or Ptolemies, as they called themselves in Egypt -- were the masters for three centuries. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">-Then the Romans took over from them for about four centuries. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">-When the Roman Empire split, the Byzantines took over Egypt in 395 and kept it for another three centuries. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">-Then Islam was born. The foreign Arabs conquered Egypt in 639 and ruled it for six centuries, up to about the middle of the 13th century. The Egyptians of today are mostly the descendants of these invaders. The Ancient Egyptians morphed into the Christian Copts, and declined in proportion to become only about 10% of the population today.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">-The Mamluks then took over Egypt in 1250 and held it for some three centuries. They were former slaves from Russia and the Caucasus who converted to Islam.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">-They were followed by the Turks, or Ottomans, for another three centuries. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">-Even Napoleon tried his hand at conquering Egypt. He came in 1798, but gave up and withdrew, leaving a power vacuum.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">-That vacuum was quickly filled in 1805 by an Albanian commander by the name of Muhammad Ali. He managed to gain some autonomy from the Ottoman Empire and ruled Egypt ruthlessly as viceroy, along with his descendants, for a century and a half. His descendants ruled under the colorful names of khedive, sultan, and finally king.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">-In 1882, some thirteen years after the Suez Canal opened, the British invaded, ostensibly to protect the vital waterway and ensure the stability of the Egyptian dynasty. They became the de facto rulers for many decades.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt;">All this time, the poor Egyptian people watched their foreign masters, helplessly, licking boots and trying to survive by being as servile as possible.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">-Then the 1952 revolution came and brought Nasser to power. It was not a grass-roots event. It was a bloodless palace coup. The Army simply came and told the king, "Your time is up. Get out!" Nobody consulted the common people. As expected, they cheered Nasser with the same gusto as they cheered King Farouk a few years earlier. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt;">It's true that for the first time since the Pharaohs, the Egyptians were now ruled by one of their own. But ruled is the right word. The new rulers proved to be every bit as totalitarian and oppressive as their foreign predecessors. Democracy was never part of their vocabulary. Maintaining themselves in power was their foremost concern. There were only three rulers in almost sixty years Nasser, Sadat and Mubarak and the first two were stopped only by death, one natural and untimely, and one unnatural. Nevertheless, human nature is such that, if you are going to be ruled with an iron hand, better that it be by one of your own than by a foreigner, so the Egyptian people felt better in that regard.<br />
<br />
Most Egyptians are tolerant, good-natured, kind-hearted, and not fundamentally antisemitic. There are three centers of antisemitism in Egypt: The Islamic fundamentalists, the intellectuals, and the Coptic Christians:<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">-The Islamic fundamentalists have always opposed peace with Israel and have vowed to abrogate the 1979 peace treaty with Israel if they ever get the chance. They support terrorists and view Jews in the most outrageously negative of terms, which I will not repeat here. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">-The intellectuals are whipping up antagonism towards Jews and Israel through the media. They know that if war comes, they can always get out of fighting on the battlefield by pulling the appropriate levers. They speak bravely of honor, as long as others do the fighting and the suffering and the dying. The government has always given them free rein as a safety valve, as long as they do not criticize the totalitarian regime.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">-And the Copts are stuck in a medieval interpretation of Christianity from which the rest of official Christianity has been moving away. I remember shivers going down my spine when I heard the Coptic pope on the radio in 1967, right before the Six-Day War, when war frenzy was whipping up the masses. He said, The time has finally come when the Jews will pay, and they sons will pay, for the crucifixion of Christ. He spat out the word pay with great anger.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt;">But the three of them together do not add up to a majority. The Copts are only 10% of the population and are always at odds with the Muslim majority. Clashes are becoming more frequent. The bombing of a church in Alexandria last December, that left scores of dead and injured, is the last episode. Numerically, the intellectuals are but frosting on the cake. The Muslim fundamentalists are significant in numbers, some estimate 20%, but still a minority. So there is hope for less hatred in the air, <i>if</i> the majority decides not to be silent anymore.<br />
<br />
Corruption and nepotism are rampant and a way of life. You may find that to get a driver’s license, you have to slip the examiner a fifty-dollar bill. But thats not the worst part. The worst part is that bad drivers are driving around. If you want a good job, who you are and who you know are more important than what you can do. But that’s not the worst part. The worst part is that incompetents are frequently in charge of things. All that is not likely to change soon.<br />
<br />
So far the demonstrators have been careful to limit their demands to three things. First, President Mubarak must leave immediately. Second, a provisional government must quickly organize multi-party elections. And third, these elections must be free and fair. They were smart not to bring up Islam, or Israel, or the United States, or terrorists, or any other specific or divisive issue. That should gain them international support.<br />
<br />
So how do I personally see the future of Egypt? First, to answer the earlier question I posed, no, Egypt is not under a perpetual curse. The prophet Isaiah tells us that after much punishment Egypt will eventually see the light and be blessed.<span style="font-size: 7.5pt;"> [Isaiah 19:1-25]</span> But Isaiah does not say when that will happen. <br />
<br />
But back to the present. I believe Mubarak will go, leaving his newly appointed Vice-President in charge of a provisional government that will organize multi-party election within six months. A new government will be elected, more or less fairly, depending on how well the thugs and goon squads are kept out of the process, most likely by the Army. <i>Nobody</i> knows who will emerge the victor, for the simple reason that no one has ever heard the Egyptian people express themselves in total freedom, in public or in private or at the ballot box . I repeat, <i>nobody</i> knows who will emerge the victor, not even the Egyptians themselves.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">-If the new government is Islamic, it's curtains for Egypt. They are in for a long night, with Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas, and maybe even Al Qa'eda as its best friends. Israel will have to prepare for war again. And the Islamists will tolerate no second chance for democracy. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">-If the new government is secular, it will start out well, but as its term of office comes close to its constitutional end, its top priority will be to keep itself in power by hook or by crook, and they will be sorely tempted to slyly derail all opposition, as in the past. As they say, the proof of democracy is in the second election, not the first. At any rate, it will probably distance itself from Israel and make the cold peace even colder, if that is possible, to avoid angering the Islamists. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">-Corruption and nepotism will continue, as it is a cultural matter that cannot be eradicated overnight. Whether the people will press <i>continuously</i> for transparency and accountability, or limit themselves to this initial burst, is anybody's guess.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt;">As the Egyptians collectively decide their own future, for the first time in their long recorded history, they would do well to remember the promise made to Abraham in his very first encounter with the Divine:<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you.<span style="font-size: 7.5pt;"> [Gen. 12:3]</span>. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">As history has shown repeatedly, that promise <i>will</i> be kept. Whether it's the United States of America in the blessing, or Nazi Germany in the curse, or Spain in the blessing followed by the curse depending on how they behaved, that promise <i>will</i> be kept. If the Egyptians choose to move in the direction of cursing the Jews, they may well find themselves right where they were before.<br />
<br />
Or lower.<br />
<br />
</div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3033850764934332913.post-77069378534352802012010-11-14T16:46:00.003-05:002010-11-14T16:52:05.606-05:00UNESCO: PROTECT, NOT DENY, JEWISH HERITAGE Petition<a href="http://www.petitiononline.com/rabbiv/">UNESCO: PROTECT, NOT DENY, JEWISH HERITAGE Petition</a><br />
<br />
To: The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s (UNESCO)<br />
H.E. Mrs. Eleonora Valentinovna Mitrofanova, Chairperson of the Executive Board of UNESCO<br />
Ms. Irina Bokova, Director-General of UNESCO<br />
Mr. Davidson L. Hepburn (Bahamas), President of the General Conference<br />
Bureau of the World Heritage Committee<br />
Chairperson: H.E. Mrs. Mai Bint Muhammad Al Khalifa (Bahrain)<br />
Rapporteur: Mr. Ould Sidi Ali (Mali)<br />
Vice-Chairpersons: Mr. Tyronne Brathwaite(Barbados,H.E.Mr. NarangNout(Cambodia),H.E.Mr. Margus Rava(Estonia),H.E.Ms.Dolana Msimang(South Africa),H. E. Mr. Rodolphe Imhoof (Switzerland)<br />
<br />
<br />
We the undersigned protest The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s (UNESCO) ruling that Israel has no right to add the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron, where almost all of Israel’s patriarchs and matriarchs are buried, to the National Heritage list. The Tomb of the Patriarchs, the oldest Jewish shrine and the second holiest site in Judaism, centers around the Cave of Machpelah, an ancient double cave revered for almost 4,000 years as the burial site of the Hebrew patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and their wives. The connection of the Jewish people to the Cave of Machpelah was established some 3,800 years ago, when Abraham, the first Hebrew, purchased it for the express purpose of using it as a burial site for himself, his wife Sarah, and their future generations. It is the cradle of Jewish history and the focal point of Jewish identity. The rectangular enclosure over the caves is the only fully surviving Herodian structure. Thus the Tomb of the Patriarchs is of inestimable historical value as well as great sacred significance for the Jewish people.<br />
<br />
We also protest the decision by UNESCO to re-label as an Islamic mosque the tomb of Rachel, Israel’s other matriarch, and to demand that Israel remove the site from its National Heritage list. The Tomb of Rachel, Judaism's third-holiest site, has been the scene of prayer and pilgrimage for more than three thousand years, and has an especially meaningful connection for Jewish women. Rachel, the matriarch who died in childbirth and was buried at that spot on the road to Hebron, has been a comfort and hope to Jews since biblical days. “Thus says the Lord, 'Refrain your voice from weeping, and your eyes from tears; for your work shall be rewarded…and they shall return from the enemy's land and there is hope for the future'… 'Your children shall return to their own country.” Jeremiah 31:16-17. Until 2000, the Palestinians recognized the site as Rachel’s Tomb. It was called “Rachel’s Tomb” in Al-mawsu'ah al-filastiniyah, the Palestinian encyclopedia published after 1996 and in PALESTINE, THE HOLY LAND, a Palestinian publication, with an introduction by Yasser Arafat. However, during the second intifada, Al-Hayat al-Jadida, a Palestinian daily, announced a new-found historical connection to Rachel’s Tomb, declaring that is was "originally a Muslim mosque.”<br />
<br />
In an effort to erase Jewish history and supersede Jewish religious sites with Islamic institutions, Muslims have intentionally built mosques upon numerous synagogues and Jewish holy sites. The clearest examples are the Al-Aqsa mosque which sits on Jerusalem's Temple Mount, and the Dome of the Rock, which was built on Judaism’s holiest site of the two biblical Jewish Temples. This pattern repeats itself at the second and third holiest sites. Thus at the Tomb of the Patriarchs, there are domes over the tombs of Abraham and Sarah and a mosque over the tombs of Isaac and Rebecca. Photos from the early 1900's show no Muslim cemetery near the Tomb or Rachel. After 1948 Muslims built their own cemetery surrounding three sides of Rachel’s tomb and now claim that Rachel's Tomb is one of their burial plots and that it contains a Muslim rather than Jewish notable.<br />
<br />
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office decried the ludicrous nature of the UNESCO decision:<br />
“The attempt to detach the Nation of Israel from its heritage is absurd. If the nearly 4,000-year-old burial sites of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs of the Jewish Nation – Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel and Leah –are not part of its culture and tradition, then what is a national cultural site?”<br />
“Sites such as the Tomb of the Patriarchs and Rachel’s Tomb (which sits on the edge of Bethlehem) present an inconvenient truth for the pro-Palestine movement and its supporters, who want to claim that the Jews have no historic ties to this land.”<br />
<br />
In cooperating with efforts to erase Jewish historical ties to Israel, UNESCO is aiding and abetting those who hope to and obfuscate Israel’s Jewish past and undermine Israel’s Jewish future.<br />
<br />
The UNESCO mission states: “Heritage is our legacy from the past, what we live with today, and what we pass on to future generations. Our cultural and natural heritage are both irreplaceable sources of life and inspiration.”<br />
<br />
We demand that there be no exception to UNESCO’s mission when it comes to Jewish heritage. Israel’s Jewish legacy must be recognized and preserved and not swept away to conform with the pro-Palestinian narrative. In attempting to sever the Jewish cultural, religious and natural heritage bond with the Tomb of the Patriarchs and Rachel’s Tomb, UNESCO denies the history it is mandated to preserve, engages in a political maneuver designed to weaken a member UN nation, and undermines its own principles. It aims to rob the Jewish people not only of two sacred sites, which are irreplaceable sources of life and inspiration, but also of their past and a legacy to pass on to future generations. We demand that UNESCO, whose purpose it is to protect heritage, also protect Jewish heritage, rather than deny it.<br />
<br />
Sincerely,<br />
<a href="http://www.petitiononline.com/mod_perl/signed.cgi?rabbiv">The Undersigned</a><br />
<br />
<br />
<form action="http://www.petitiononline.com/rabbiv/petition-sign.html" method="get"><input type="submit" value="Click Here to Sign Petition" /></form><a href="http://www.petitiononline.com/mod_perl/signed.cgi?rabbiv">View Current Signatures</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3033850764934332913.post-71820747439214725312010-11-01T00:42:00.001-05:002010-11-01T00:45:53.461-05:00Cafe Noah: Cultural exile in Israel - WITNESS - Al Jazeera English<a href="http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/witness/2010/10/2010101871221949705.html">Cafe Noah: Cultural exile in Israel - WITNESS - Al Jazeera English</a><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3033850764934332913.post-20027255189456457622010-09-19T17:38:00.000-05:002010-09-19T17:38:04.185-05:00Neilah<div style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Sat 18 Sep 2010<br />
Yom Kippur service<br />
Congregation Adat Reyim<br />
Dr Maurice M. Mizrahi</span><b><br />
</b><br />
<b><div align="center"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;"><br />
</span></div></b><b> </b>-The Neilah is the concluding service on Yom Kippur. It was not always part of the liturgy. It was introduced in Talmudic times (Jerusalem Talmud, Berachot 45a).<br />
-Some 2000 years ago a certain Rabbi Levi said: God said in Isaiah 1:15:<br />
<br />
Even if you pray profusely I will not answer, [because] your hands are full of blood.<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">úÇøÀáÌåÌ úÀôÄìÌÈä àÅéðÆðÌÄé ùÑÉîÅòÇ éÀãÅéëÆí ãÌÈîÄéí îÈìÅàåÌ âÌÇí ëÌÄé</span><br />
-He concluded that if your hands are not full of blood AND you pray profusely you WILL be answered! It’s a promise. He turned the negative-sounding biblical verse into something positive. So the Sages added Neilah to increase the chance that our prayers will be answered on Yom Kippur.<br />
<br />
-50 years ago this minute, I was standing in Shaar HaShamayim synagogue in downtown Cairo, Egypt, where I grew up. The people were tired, sleepy, hungry. The prayers were down to a low monotone. They did not want to hear about the origin of the Neilah service. They wanted the Neilah itself. Then came the Neilah song. The transformation was something to behold. All of a sudden, everybody woke up and started singing at the top of their voices, with great enthusiasm, with abandon and a feeling of liberation!<br />
<br />
-What they sang was "El nora 3alilah", by Moses Ibn Ezra. It’s on page 775b of the Enhanced Edition of the machzor. If you don’t have that, it’s in the High Holy Day Supplement. If you don’t have either, your response is to sing, every two verses:<br />
El nora 3alilah, el nora 3alilah<br />
Hamtsi lanu mechillah, besha3at hanne3ilah<br />
which means:<br />
God of Awe, God of Awe,<br />
Grant us pardon at this hour when the gates are closing.<br />
The first letters of the verses form an acrostic, "Moshe Hazzak".</div><div style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br />
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<img alt="Emacs!" height="400" src="https://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=2&ik=4ca8fd25e4&view=att&th=12b2be33127646d6&attid=0.0.1&disp=emb&zw" width="335" /><br />
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<div align="center"><u>El nora 3alilah</u></div><br />
El nora 3alilah, el nora 3alilah<br />
Hamtsi lanu mechillah, besha3at hanne3ilah<br />
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M't<u>e</u>i mispar kru-im, lecha 3ayin nose-im<br />
Umsaldim bechillah, besha3at hanne3ilah<br />
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Shofch<u>i</u>m lecha nafsham, m'cheh fish-3am v'kha-chasham<br />
Hamtsi em mechillah, besha3at hanne3ilah<br />
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Hey<u>e</u> lahem lesitra, v'chal-tsem mim-era<br />
V<u>e</u>chat-mem lehod ulgillah, besha3at hanne3ilah<br />
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Chon otam verachem, vechol lochets v’lochem<br />
3ass<u>e</u>h vahem p'lillah, besha3at hanne3ilah<br />
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Zech<u>o</u>t tsidkat avihem, v'chadesh et yemehem<br />
Kekedem ut-chillah, besha3at hanne3ilah<br />
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Kr<u>a</u> na shanat ratson, vehashev sh'erit hatson<br />
L'ah<u>a</u>liva v'ahalah, besha3at hanne3ilah<br />
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T<u>i</u>zku l'shanim rabbot, habbanim veha-avot<br />
B<u>e</u>ditsa uv-tsahala, besha3at hanne3ilah<br />
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Michael sar Yisrael, Eliyahu v'Gavriel<br />
Basru na ha-geula, besha3at hanne3ilah<br />
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<b><br />
</b>The Sephardic greeting for the season is not “L’shanah tovah” but a line from the song we just sang:<br />
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Tizku l’shanim rabbot<br />
May you merit many years<br />
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The response is:<br />
Tizkeh v’tichyeh<br />
May you merit and live</div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br />
</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3033850764934332913.post-19575300454768294632010-07-13T10:37:00.000-05:002010-07-13T10:37:02.815-05:00Rabbi Ovadia to Mubarak: Get well fast, your highness<table align="left" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" border="00" cellpadding="00" cellspacing="00" dir="ltr" style="font-family: Arial, Arial, David, 'Courier New'; font-size: 12px;"><tbody>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 14px; font-weight: bold;">Shas' spiritual leader send letter to Egyptian president, wishes him 'full, speedy recovery'</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-size: 13px; font-weight: normal;">Ronen Medzini</span><br />
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 12px; font-weight: normal;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><a href="http://www.ynetnews.com/PicServer2/02012008/1664570/ovadia_a.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Photo: Ata Awisat" border="0" src="http://www.ynetnews.com/PicServer2/02012008/1664570/ovadia_a.jpg" /></a>Rabbi Ovadia Yosef has written a letter to President Hosni Mubarak, in which he wished him health, following the Egyptian president's recent medical treatment in Germany and reports about his deteriorating health. "We pray to the creator of the universe to send you full and speedy recovery," he wrote.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><a class="bluelink" href="http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3482383,00.html" style="color: blue; font-family: Arial, Arial, David, 'Courier New'; font-size: 12px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline;" target="_blank">Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu</a> will hand the letter to Mubarak on behalf of Ovadia, during the leaders' scheduled meeting on Wednesday.<br />
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<tr><td align="left" class="text16" style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Arial, David, 'Courier New'; font-size: 16px;"><b>Head of Egypt's Jewish community faces jail time /</b>Smadar Peri</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="text13" style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Arial, David, 'Courier New'; font-size: 13px;"><div style="text-align: justify;">Carmen Weinstein convicted of defrauding local businessman, sentenced to three years in prison. Israel not intervening due to Jewish community's 'sensitive position'</div></td></tr>
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"For your highness, President of <a class="bluelink" href="http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3488497,00.html" style="color: blue; font-family: Arial, Arial, David, 'Courier New'; font-size: 12px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline;" target="_blank">Egypt</a> Muhammad Hosni Mubarak, may his glory be exalted," wrote Shas' spiritual leader.<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><a href="http://www.ynetnews.com/PicServer2/24012010/2570798/CAI512_a.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Photo: Reuters" border="0" src="http://www.ynetnews.com/PicServer2/24012010/2570798/CAI512_a.jpg" /></a>"May you continue to lead you countrymen in majesty, courage and strength, for a lifetime and in peace; may you succeed in all your doings, according to your heart's desire," the letter read.<br />
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</div>Rabbi Ovadia signed the letter with a warm greeting, "Respectfully yours, in the greatness of your virtue."<br />
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</div>The rabbi and <a class="bluelink" href="http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3499178,00.html" style="color: blue; font-family: Arial, Arial, David, 'Courier New'; font-size: 12px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline;" target="_blank">Shas</a> Chairman, Interior Minister Eli Yishai, have kept in close touch with Mubarak for many years. Only recently, journalist Yotam Feldman, who was <a class="bluelink" href="http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3866058,00.html" style="color: blue; font-family: Arial, Arial, David, 'Courier New'; font-size: 12px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline;" target="_blank">arrested in Egypt</a>, was released from custody with the help of Yishai's mediation.<br />
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</div>Arab media has been reporting about Mubarak's <a class="bluelink" href="http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3863657,00.html" style="color: blue; font-family: Arial, Arial, David, 'Courier New'; font-size: 12px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline;" target="_blank">deteriorating health </a>condition for many years, and recent reports have rekindled the debate over who will <a class="bluelink" href="http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3891558,00.html" style="color: blue; font-family: Arial, Arial, David, 'Courier New'; font-size: 12px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline;" target="_blank">inherit the presidency</a>, with his son, Gammal, leading the race.<br />
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</div>However, President Mubarak never confirmed such reports and is due to complete his fifth year of his sixth tenure as president. He has yet to announce whether he will compete in the upcoming elections slated for 2011.<br />
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</tbody></table></div></div>Speculations over Mubarak's health have increased in recent months following his March trip to Germany, where he underwent an <a class="bluelink" href="http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3858493,00.html" style="color: blue; font-family: Arial, Arial, David, 'Courier New'; font-size: 12px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline;" target="_blank">operation</a> to remove a gull bladder. Doubts about his medical situation surfaced again last week after Mubarak made a sudden visit to Paris and met with President Nicolas Sarkozy.<br />
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</div></span><span style="color: black; font-size: 12px; font-weight: normal;">Daily Arab newspaper al-Quds al-Arabi reported that the Egyptian president conducted medical check ups while visiting the European country.</span></div><div id="articleContainer"><span style="color: black; font-size: 12px; font-weight: normal;"></span><br />
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</div></span><a href="http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3918809,00.html">http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3918809,00.html</a><br />
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<a href="http://www.ynetnews.com/Ext/Comp/ArticleLayout/CdaArticlePrintPreview/1,2506,L-3918809,00.html" style="color: #6600ff; font-family: Arial, Arial, David, 'Courier New'; font-size: 12px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none;">Back</a></td><td style="color: #666666; font-family: Arial, Arial, David, 'Courier New'; font-size: 12px;" width="20"></td></tr>
</tbody></table><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Arial, David, 'Courier New'; font-size: 12px;"><img alt="" height="1" src="http://secure-uk.imrworldwide.com/cgi-bin/m?rnd=1279034591438&ci=Ynet-il&cg=20.ArticlePrintPreview&cc=1&sr=1280x1024&cd=32&lg=en-US&je=y&ck=y&tz=-4&c9=nnr-title%2C20.ArticlePrintPreview&si=http%3A//www.ynetnews.com/Ext/Comp/ArticleLayout/CdaArticlePrintPreview/1%2C2506%2CL-3918809%2C00.html&rp=http%3A//www.ynetnews.com/articles/0%2C7340%2CL-3918809%2C00.html" width="1" /></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3033850764934332913.post-14798376416782479172010-07-11T21:06:00.000-05:002010-07-11T21:06:50.746-05:00Israel Asks Cairo To Protect Remaining Jews In Egypt<h1 style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 36px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 38px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 5px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #888888; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; font-style: italic; line-height: normal;">July 11, 2010</span></h1><div class="entry" style="color: #444444; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">Cairo – The Israeli ambassador to Cairo, Yitzhak Levanon, has asked the Egyptian government to protect Jews in Egypt, following the conviction of the head of the Jewish community in Cairo on charges of fraud, media reports said Sunday.<br />
Carmen Weinstein was sentenced on Saturday to three years in jail after being convicted of defrauding an Egyptian businessman of three million Egyptian pounds (around 520,000 dollars).<br />
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She had sold him a building which did not belong to her and then refused to return his money, the court said.<br />
Al-Jareeda newspaper reported that Levanon sent a note protesting the sentence to the Egyptian Foreign Ministry, accusing the judiciary of “oppression and cruelty” and saying it reflected a bias against Weinstein because of her religion.<br />
There are less than 100 Egyptian Jews in the country. They are the remaining members of what was once the most vibrant community in the region, after the mass expulsion of Egyptian Jews in the 1950s.</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3033850764934332913.post-18466987230452782842010-05-06T11:00:00.000-05:002010-05-06T11:00:47.272-05:00A Lonely Levantine Shabbat<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0054a8; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; line-height: 13px;">In Cairo, the once-crowded Shar Hashamaim is restored, but there are almost no Jews left to pray in it.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0054a8; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; line-height: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></span><br />
<div class="field field-type-text field-field-byline" style="color: #333333; display: inline; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; font-weight: bold; margin-top: 5px; padding-top: 5px;"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item odd">Lucette Lagnado</div></div></div><div class="field field-type-text field-field-jobtitle" style="color: #3366cc; display: inline; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; font-weight: bold;"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item odd">Special to the Jewish Week</div></div></div><div class="field field-type-date field-field-pubdate" style="color: #cc6600; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; font-weight: bold;"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item odd"><span class="date-display-single">Wednesday, April 28, 2010</span></div><div class="field-item odd"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_ouvs5wdWpWk/S-Llsne5eVI/AAAAAAAABeM/wW___V4AhxM/s1600/ben+ezra.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_ouvs5wdWpWk/S-Llsne5eVI/AAAAAAAABeM/wW___V4AhxM/s1600/ben+ezra.gif" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #660000; font-size: 9px; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; line-height: 10px;">david cowles, Ark at Ben Ezra, Cairo,1994.</span></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; font-weight: normal;"><div style="font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 10px; margin-top: 5px; padding-bottom: 15px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">I make it a point to go to shul on Saturday morning, and that wasn’t going to change when I found myself in Cairo last summer. Yes, it is in an Arab country, but it is my Arab country, where I was born and where of late I have found myself traveling again and again. There is no one there for me — the 80,000 Jews who once lived in Egypt are pretty much gone, as are all my relatives. Cairo, to paraphrase Janet Flanner, was yesterday.</div><div style="font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 10px; margin-top: 5px; padding-bottom: 15px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">While at a festive gathering at the home of the United States ambassador, I asked if there were services I could attend that coming Saturday. Everyone shrugged, but then the head of Egypt’s virtually nonexistent Jewish community, Carmen Weinstein, spoke up to say there was certainly a place where I could pray, and I thought I detected a certain edge in her voice.</div><div style="font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 10px; margin-top: 5px; padding-bottom: 15px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">I could go, she informed me, to the magnificent central synagogue, Shar Hashamaim — The Gates of Heaven. My parents were married there back in World War II, and I have always had a romantic attachment to it. When I’d first returned to Egypt in 2005, I saw little beauty in the careworn massive stone building. Like most of the synagogues in Cairo, it looked like the house in the Addams Family: dark, frayed, forbidding.</div><div style="font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 10px; margin-top: 5px; padding-bottom: 15px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">But since that time, Weinstein had overseen a major renovation, encouraged and embraced by the American Jewish Committee, to restore the temple to its former splendor. Hundreds of thousands of dollars were apparently spent by the Egyptian government to fix it up, and there’d been a formal ceremony marking its reopening. The Gates of Heaven has no rabbi and no regular minyan, but come certain holidays, the handful of Jews who remained in Cairo, many quite elderly, venture out and reunite in the sanctuary.</div><div style="font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 10px; margin-top: 5px; padding-bottom: 15px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: normal;"></span></div><div style="font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 10px; margin-top: 5px; padding-bottom: 15px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">One Saturday morning last June, my husband and I made our way to downtown Cairo, the hub of what had once been an intensely glamorous city; the synagogue had been situated steps from delightful patisseries, fashionable department stores, cinemas and boutiques. But, of course, that was when Jews and a multitude of Europeans — French, Swiss, Italians, British and Belgians — made Cairo one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the world. Since these “foreigners” were thrown out or forced out, Cairo had become hopelessly provincial. The elegant stores gave way to cheap emporiums. And the Gates of Heaven was essentially abandoned — there were no Jews left to pray. </div><div style="font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 10px; margin-top: 5px; padding-bottom: 15px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">I spotted a small, armed militia outside the temple’s doors. They looked suspiciously at us, but I was ready for that: Egypt likes to post armed guards outside all its Jewish sites no matter how dusty. Gotta give them credit. How many other Muslim countries protect their Jewish sites with such diligence? Once we showed our passports, we were free to enter.</div><div style="font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 10px; margin-top: 5px; padding-bottom: 15px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">The synagogue was poorly illuminated, but it was clear much work had been done to restore it to its original splendor. The marble steps leading to the Holy Ark were gleaming. And the wooden pews that once accommodated hundreds of worshippers had some of their original luster. On the bima, I saw an open Torah scroll. </div><div style="font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 10px; margin-top: 5px; padding-bottom: 15px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">There were all the elements of a great synagogue except one: people.</div><div style="font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 10px; margin-top: 5px; padding-bottom: 15px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">I went up on the bima and put my hand on the scroll. Then, I climbed the marble stairs and kissed the velvet curtain that covered the Holy Ark. I looked around me, unsure what to do next. </div><div style="font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 10px; margin-top: 5px; padding-bottom: 15px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">I felt excruciatingly lonely. Though I have prayed the Sabbath morning prayers a thousand times, I didn’t feel I could recite them anymore, not without the soothing voice of a rabbi or a cantor or fellow worshippers. It all seemed heartbreakingly pointless.</div><div style="font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 10px; margin-top: 5px; padding-bottom: 15px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: normal;"></span></div><div style="font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 10px; margin-top: 5px; padding-bottom: 15px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">The Gates of Heaven had once accommodated several hundred worshippers, and its women’s section upstairs alone had scores of seats. I had been told the strict separation between men and women only encouraged romance; young men would stealthily look up as pretty girls dressed in their loveliest clothes would preen as close to the balcony as possible, to make sure they were noticed by their intended. There were flirtations and matches and fateful encounters, every Shabbat.</div><div style="font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 10px; margin-top: 5px; padding-bottom: 15px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">I grabbed a prayer book and flipped to the page of the Amidah, the silent devotional, and prayed quietly. Then, after taking one last walk around the empty sanctuary, I picked up my passport from the guard in the booth, took my husband by the hand, and left. </div><div style="font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 10px; margin-top: 5px; padding-bottom: 15px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">I could think of nothing more to do on this lonely Levantine Sabbath. </div><div style="font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 10px; margin-top: 5px; padding-bottom: 15px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> * * * * </div><div style="font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 10px; margin-top: 5px; padding-bottom: 15px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">In the last couple of months, we’ve heard that Egypt is repairing more synagogues; indeed, that they expended funds to restore the most venerable temple of all, Rav Moshe, in the Old Jewish Quarter, where Maimonides was said to have studied and prayed some 800 years earlier. Egyptian Jews, myself included, regularly went to Rav Moshe when they were sick, hoping to be healed. I traveled to Cairo again last month to visit Rav Moshe and was impressed by the meticulous restoration. The Egyptians have also begun work on a broken-down Karaite shul and vowed to renovate some other once-grand institutions.</div><div style="font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 10px; margin-top: 5px; padding-bottom: 15px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">It all has seemed pretty wonderful to me — an Arab country faithfully restoring its Jewish institutions? It was as if my most fervent wish was coming true. Or was it? Is fixing up the empty, abandoned Jewish properties in countries devoid of Jews really worthwhile?</div><div style="font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 10px; margin-top: 5px; padding-bottom: 15px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Looking back at my less-than-transcendent experience at Shar Hashamaim, I wonder if what I did had any meaning. Perhaps I could have communed with God nearly as well by staying in my room at the Marriott and davening there. It would have been more cheerful.</div><div style="font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 10px; margin-top: 5px; padding-bottom: 15px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">In Philadelphia, Rabbi Albert Gabbai of Congregation Mikveh Israel, who was born in Egypt and even sang in the choir of Gates of Heaven as a child, echoed the view that repairing it and other synagogues is essential — if only to remind the world, he says, that once upon a time Jews were there and in substantial numbers.</div><div style="font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 10px; margin-top: 5px; padding-bottom: 15px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Since he left Egypt decades ago — after spending some years in prison camp, which is what happened to Jewish men who lingered — Rabbi Gabbai has had no desire whatsoever to go back, except to his synagogue, except to Gates of Heaven. He embraced my decision to pray there. “It means that you are reclaiming the place for Jews — for you as a Jew, and for all the Jews — [saying that] it belongs to them.”</div><div style="font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 10px; margin-top: 5px; padding-bottom: 15px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Not everyone would agree. Rabbi Gerald Skolnik of the Forest Hills Jewish Center casts a tepid eye on efforts to refurbish synagogues in places where there are no Jews; from Poland to Egypt, he wonders what is the point other than to attract tourist dollars. </div><div style="font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 10px; margin-top: 5px; padding-bottom: 15px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">“Is it better for a synagogue to be rehabilitated instead of being torn down or made into a mosque? Halachically, yes. But what is sadder than seeing an empty synagogue?”</div><div style="font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 10px; margin-top: 5px; padding-bottom: 15px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Rabbi Elie Abadie, who presides over the Edmond J. Safra congregation in New York, staunchly argues in favor of restoring these lost synagogues. As a native of Lebanon, he has suffered the heartbreak of watching grand houses of worship destroyed or converted or sold or abandoned — as most were in and around Beirut. He passionately believes that the governments that drove out their Jews “have the financial and ethical responsibility to restore the synagogues.” </div><div style="font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 10px; margin-top: 5px; padding-bottom: 15px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">As for my woebegone feeling on that Cairo Sabbath, he says, “If a person is praying in a synagogue — albeit empty — those prayers are at a higher level and more meaningful because the synagogue maintains its sanctity. Even if there is no minyan [quorum of 10 men] the prayers are at a higher level,” Rabbi Abadie contends. God, he says, was of course there in the original Great Temple, and then in the Second Temple. “Once the Temple was destroyed, its sanctity was transferred to all synagogues all over the world,” he said. When a synagogue is built, he said, “it is believed that God enters it and remains there,” till eternity. </div><div style="font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 10px; margin-top: 5px; padding-bottom: 15px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">I found comfort in hearing that while I may have felt desperately alone that Sabbath morning, God was indeed there beside me in that great cavernous space in Cairo. </div></span></div></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3033850764934332913.post-77115889741122546792010-04-12T18:18:00.015-05:002010-04-23T00:47:32.069-05:00ISRAEL-EGYPT GALA EVENT– 12 March 2010<span style=";font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;" >Celebrating 30 Years of activity of the Israel-Egypt Friendship Association<br />1980-2010</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br />and 31 Years of the Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty – signed on 26.3.1979</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:130%;" >Report</span><br /><br /><div style="text-align: left;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_ouvs5wdWpWk/S8PamzFe1OI/AAAAAAAABdg/D2-PnwgBn24/s1600/Image1.jpg"><span style="font-size:85%;"><img style="margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; width: 283px; float: left; height: 211px;" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5459447533386257634" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_ouvs5wdWpWk/S8PamzFe1OI/AAAAAAAABdg/D2-PnwgBn24/s400/Image1.jpg" border="0" /></span></a><span style="font-size:85%;"> Levana Zamir, President of the Israel-Egypt Friendship Association, with Minister Silvan Shalom (right), Vice-Prime-Minister, and H.E. Barakat Ellessi, Egyptian Embassy Israel.<br /></span></div><span style="font-size:85%;">Tel-Aviv, March 12th 2010.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /></span><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><p><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></p><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-size:85%;" ><strong></strong></span>The Gala Event was held at the Einav Center in Tel-Aviv by the Israel-Egypt Friendship Association, in cooperation with the Egyptian Embassy in Israel, the Menahem Begin Heritage Center and the Municipality of Tel-Aviv.<br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:85%;">Attending this successful and joyful event were some 350 participants, representatives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ambassadors and delegates of 28 foreign countries in Israel, the Academy, and many Jews from Egypt who enjoyed gathering at this much elegant festivity.<br /><br /></span></span><span style="font-size:85%;">Attending this successful and joyful event were some 350 participants, representatives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ambassadors and delegates of 28 foreign countries in <st1:country-region st="on">Israel</st1:country-region>, the Academy, and many Jews from <st1:place st="on"><st1:country-region st="on">Egypt</st1:country-region></st1:place> who enjoyed gathering at this much elegant festivity.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:85%;">Levana Zamir, with 3 former Ambassadors <a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_ouvs5wdWpWk/S8PjqqHrwLI/AAAAAAAABdw/4lckfzrcG1o/s1600/Image2.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; width: 300px; float: right; height: 232px;" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5459457495303700658" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_ouvs5wdWpWk/S8PjqqHrwLI/AAAAAAAABdw/4lckfzrcG1o/s400/Image2.jpg" border="0" /></a>of Israel to Egypt: Prof. Shimon Shamir (right), Shalom Cohen and Zvi Mazel. 30 years of activities in a 16-minute movie:<br /><br />The highlight of this event was a dynamic movie of 16 minutes, presenting the many and important events and achievements of the Israel-Egypt Friendship Association during 30 years of activities in Israel and Egypt, ebbing and flowing to the historical<br />waves of "cold or warm peace".<br />After this successful event, we received many emails<br />of appreciation. Here is one received<br />from Andrew C.Parker, Consul General of the<br />United States of America Embassy:<br /><br />Dear Mrs. Zamir,<br />Thank you for making it possible for us to attend your event today. It was an honor to<br />participate in an event marking such an important milestone in the history of both Israel and Egypt.<br /><br />Regards,<br />Andrew C. Parker<br />Consul General<br />U.S. Embassy Tel-Aviv.<br /><br />The guests of honor presented their speeches during the event, very shortly.<br />Here below some "pearls" from those speeches:<br /><br />Herzl Makov, Director General of the Menahem Begin Heritage Center<br />The Peace Treaty between Israel and Egypt is the second most important historical event after the proclamation of the State of Israel and the Liberation of Jerusalem.<br />Sadat and Begin ‘s achievement should be remembered and learned from.<br /><br />H.E. the Ambassador of Egypt<br />Since the signing of Peace between Israel and Egypt, our relations are developing steadily and constantly. This is the logical result of the Sadat and Begin initiative. President Mubarak is always calling for peace in the region, which suffered so much. As we celebrate Peace today, so let us work to create the proper environment for peace.<br /><br />Nathan Wallach – Tel-Aviv Municipality<br />The normalization process is long and difficult, with many obstacles. But both sides know that Peace between our two countries is of strategic importance. Commercial ties are forming and there is no doubt that the Israel-Egypt Friendship Association is playing an important role in fostering closer relations for a dialogue between the two countries.<br /><br />Silvan Shalom, Vice Prime Minister<br />Egypt being the major power and the leader of the entire Arab world, it was very important that the first Peace Treaty was signed with Egypt. By so doing Egypt said to the whole Arab world that Israel is here, and Israel is here for ever.<br />We should learn from 1977 that direct negotiations work and avoid time-wasting.<br /><br />Professor Shimon Shamir – Tel-Aviv University and former Ambassador of Israel to Egypt:<br />I believe that Israel-Egypt peace is a remarkable success story, achieving what the architects of peace had in mind: no more war, no more bloodshed.<br />Today, there is a convergence of interests between Israel and Egypt: both of them want stability in the region, both of them are threatened by extremists and terrorism, both of them are worried by the ambitions of a neighboring regime which aims is to destabilize them.<br />These shared interests are the solid foundation of our relations, serving the purposes of both countries. People like Levana Zamir and her colleagues at the Israel-Egypt Friendship Association are playing a very important role in developing those shared interests, through friendship between the two societies, leading to peace in the region.<br /><br />Levana Zamir – President of the Israel-Egypt Friendship Association<br />After more than 30 years of Peace with Egypt, we should be looking ahead. As early as in 1939, our first Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion advocated a Middle-Eastern Confederation including a Jewish State. In the third millennium, when Europe, rising from the ashes of WWI and WWII, is merging into one entity, Ben-Gurion’s dream is not a delusion. The multicultural and cosmopolitan Jews of Egypt could be a bridge to achieving this aim.============</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3033850764934332913.post-79914804951420061902010-04-11T13:35:00.005-05:002010-04-11T16:04:40.511-05:00The Assertion of Egyptian Jewish Identityhttp://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft2290045n&chunk.id=s1.8.52&toc.depth=1&toc.id=ch8&brand=eschol;query=historical%20society%20of%20jews%20from%20egypt#1<br /><br /><br /><br />People who began their political lives as Marxists probably never imagined they would be involved in a struggle to preserve the remnants of the Jewish cemetery at Basatin, a suburb of Cairo on the road to Ma‘adi, a project with religious overtones and no apparent “practical” value. But the ASPCJE contributed hundreds of thousands of francs to finance the efforts of Carmen Weinstein, one of the few remaining active Jews living in Cairo in the 1990s, to construct a wall around the cemetery and engage a guard to protect it from squatters.<sup>[<a href="http://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft2290045n&chunk.id=d0e10744&toc.id=ch8&toc.depth=1&brand=eschol;query=historical%20society%20of%20jews%20from%20egypt&anchor.id=bn8.28#X" target="_top">28</a>]</sup> I met Carmen Weinstein in Jacques Hassoun's home in Paris in 1994. Though both are secular Jews with little attachment to orthodox religious observance, they were united by a fierce determination to preserve the cemetery as material evidence that a Jewish community had lived and flourished in Egypt.<o:p></o:p><p></p> <p class="normal">Egyptian Jews in the United States also began to organize themselves in the late 1970s and early 1980s. I discussed the organization of the Karaite Jews of America in San Francisco in Chapter 7. A Rabbanite Egyptian Jewish community settled in Brooklyn, New York, following the 1956 Suez/Sinai War. Some of its members, especially those of families who came to Egypt from Aleppo in the nineteenth century, assimilated to the larger and previously established Syrian Jewish immigrant community. In the late 1970s, Egyptian Jews in Brooklyn established the Ahaba ve-Ahva synagogue, which practiced the Egyptian liturgical tradition.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="normal">In October 1995, a group of Egyptian Jews gathered at the Ahaba ve-Ahva synagogue to initiate the formation of the <a name="1" xtf="http://cdlib.org/xtf"></a><span class="subhit"><span xtf="http://cdlib.org/xtf">Historical</span><span class="hitsection"> </span><span class="subhit"> Society</span><span class="hitsection"> </span><span class="subhit"> of</span><span class="hitsection"> </span><span class="subhit"> Jews</span><span class="hitsection"> </span><span class="subhit"> from</span><span class="hitsection"> </span><span class="subhit"> Egypt</span></span>. Their objective was to record and preserve their cultural heritage, the same purpose that motivated the formation of the French ASPCJE. Among the leading activists in this initiative with some previous public exposure were Victor Sanua, a research psychologist who has gone beyond the boundaries of his field to publish historical articles about Egyptian Jews, and Mary Halawani, an independent film maker whose short documentary, <i>I Miss the Sun,</i> records her grandmother's fond memories of Egypt.<sup>[<a href="http://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft2290045n&chunk.id=d0e10744&toc.id=ch8&toc.depth=1&brand=eschol;query=historical%20society%20of%20jews%20from%20egypt&anchor.id=bn8.29#X" target="_top">29</a>]</sup> The society began publishing a newsletter, <i>Second Exodus,</i> and organized a series of lectures in private homes. This form of ethnic organizing has been quite common and acceptable in the United States, so it is remarkable that it has begun so recently. The leading individuals had been in contact with Jacques Hassoun and the ASPCJE and were obviously inspired by that example; but the New York group was organized several years after the demise of the French association, and its leading members did not share the same political commitments.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="normal">These associations have had modest and limited success as institutions; a certain kind of failure is inherent in the nature of such activity. The Jewish community of Egypt is nearly extinct, and there is little prospect for its revival in the foreseeable future. Those who remember their lives in Egypt are gradually passing away. Most of their children, even those who maintain some level of curiosity and engagement with their parents' heritage, have become assimilated to the dominant cultures of Israel, France, and the United States.<o:p></o:p></p>Therefore, examining the revival of Egyptian Jewish identity associated with these institutions cannot be an effort to map out a coherent cultural or political alternative. Rather, it is an excursion into memories and current sensibilities that have not found adequate space for expression in the brave new world of national states in which Egyptian Jews have found themselves after their dispersion. I have argued that the Egyptian-Israeli peace agreement altered the insistently negative images associated with Egypt sufficiently to allow Egyptian Jews to begin the process of recalling and reconstructing their past and representing it to themselves, their children, and the public. In the remainder of this chapter, I elaborate this argument, focusing on the post-1977 literary production of Egyptian Jews living in Israel.<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3033850764934332913.post-18891256248405894452010-04-07T10:19:00.006-05:002010-04-07T10:35:02.088-05:00OUR PARENTS, THE REFUGEES<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.communitym.com/article_images/reffuges.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://www.communitym.com/article_images/reffuges.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><p><em>“We left. And we lost everything. We lost the business, the manufacturing shop, a very beautiful villa with a garden full of orange blossoms and lemon blossoms that I can still remember. But I did take with me a Star of David. It was made by my grandfather. Luckily I was able to get it out. And luckily, the Egyptian authority didn’t search me, because if they had, they would have pulled it from my neck.”</em></p> <p> So recounts Joseph Abdul Wahed, a resigned, saddened old man and former refugee from Egypt. His story is one of many told in <em>The Forgotten Refugees,</em> and among the hundreds of thousands of stories of loss and displacement, of uncertainty and pain that nearly one million Jews were subjected to after 1948. But in spite of the huge number of people involved, these stories are rarely told.</p> <p> </p> <p> Discrimination in Arab Lands</p> <p> I attended the award-winning David Project documentary aired by the Edmond J. Safra Synagogue, expecting to learn about a subject I knew nothing about. But I walked out changed. Changed by the raw emotion of the film’s participants—the breaks in their voices, the wrinkles cutting grooves in their faces, the soft, quiet strength emanating from each and every one of them. Coming on the heels of Yom Hashoah, it was shocking to learn that Hitlerian discrimination was rampant long before the Holocaust began; that before concentration camps like Auschwitz and Dachau were ever built, Jews were being interred in huts, driven from their homes, stripped of their assets and forced to start a new life with not even their personal identity intact.</p> <p> Every year, we commemorate the six million Jews, 1.5 million of who were children, murdered in Nazi Germany—as we should. But not until recently have the stories of the Jewish Refugees from Arab countries garnered much attention. They are all but forgotten, and, when word of this documentary circulated, many of them came forward of their own volition, grateful that an organization was finally going to act on their behalf.</p> <p> That organization was The David Project Center for Jewish Leadership, a non-profit group dedicated to educating and inspiring strong voices for Israel. The association teamed up with Ralph Avi Goldwasser and Israeli director Michael Grynzspan of IsraTV to produce this invaluable film, <em>The Forgotten Refugees</em>. Spurred by the anti-Israel sentiment permeating college campuses, they worked to shed light on an oft-neglected chapter of our nation’s history.</p> <p> “In talking to students,” said Goldwasser, “I realized that most Americans, including Jewish Americans, don’t know that most of the people in Israel are…actually Mizrachi and Sephardic from the Middle East and North Africa. And that triggered the need to educate.” Ignorance was thus the main catalyst for this film, a desire to bring this neglected piece of history to the fore and enrich our cultural awareness. Few of us properly appreciate our origins and heritage, or realize that until 1945 approximately one million Jews populated the Middle East, building their lives in Lebanon, Tunisia, Iraq, Syria and other countries. Each of these countries boasted a prominent Jewish community—Iraq, formerly Babylonia, was where the Talmud was written—and each has its own story of exodus and destruction.</p> <p> “We wanted to focus on the good, the bad and the ugly; the historical and the personal,” says Goldwasser. “We’re trying to show that Jews lived in Arab countries under some very difficult circumstances for thousands of years. It wasn’t all a golden age. Minorities in Muslim countries suffered.”</p> <p> </p> <p> Massacre in Libya</p> <p> <em>I ran and they were chasing me until they caught me. They beat me up until they got tired of it. They wanted to cut my arms and legs. And my head too…with axes. Then they got tired. They thought I was dead.</em></p> <p> This is the testimony of Yizhak Dvash, a survivor of the 1945 Libyan riots in which 130 Jews were massacred. In the film, a close-up image shows his hand, slashed and stitched back together. Yizhak looks upon his hand, frowning, distraught by the reminder permanently etched upon his skin—that meaningless hatred not only exists but mangles lives.</p> <p> Lydia Hayoun, another survivor, squints her eyes while speaking, as if to shield herself from a vision that is too vivid even today: “The Arab rioters killed and burned. They stormed houses, killing, destroying and plundering. And we were so scared<em>…</em>”</p> <p> Her voice trails off as if she still hasn’t found her way, as if she’s still lost trying to contemplate such horror. Indeed, it was more than horror that took place in Libya; it was akin to genocide. In a country that once had 38,000 Jewish residents and a thriving Tripoli Synagogue, no Jews remain.</p> <p> </p> <p> The 20<sup>th </sup>Century Egyptian Bondage</p> <p> Following the Six Day War, Jews in Egypt were arrested and put in concentration camps. They were forced to live in huts, surrounded by dust and exposed to the harsh elements. They also lost their jobs. The Egyptian Companies Law of 1947 required that 40 percent of every company’s directors and 75 percent of its employees be of Egyptian citizenship, resulting in the dismissal and eviction of all Jewish residents who weren’t citizens. It was common for Jews in the region to hold foreign citizenship, so the majority of Egypt’s Jews were subject to this law, and scores found themselves unemployed.</p> <p> Caroline Shushan’s parents were French citizens living in Egypt in 1956 when they were suddenly, without warning, expelled from their homes. “They had 48 hours to leave,” she recalls. “They were a little confused, obviously. My mom was young; she had two little kids.”</p> <p> The forced eviction took place at the time of the Suez Crises, and Caroline suspects that her family was targeted mainly because they were citizens of France—an enemy country. The war certainly exacerbated the circumstances, doubly crucifying Egyptian Jews —not only because of their religion but because of their loyalties.</p> <p> “They had nothing.” Caroline laments. “One suitcase—no jewelry, no money. Nothing, really, just some clothes.”</p> <p> They flew to Switzerland—a rare mode of escape as most people went by boat—and stayed with her mother’s uncle. Interviewed as one of the first refugees to come out of Egypt, her father told the authorities in Switzerland, “We just did what they said.” Unaware of just how bad the circumstances were, Caroline’s parents never truly believed they were the targets of anti-Semitism, but were worried about the random and injudicious imprisonment of Jews believed to be Zionists. People with Israeli connections were put in internment camps (which were not at all a German creation) in an effort to provoke fear and elicit confessions. Several of the Shushans’ friends, including her mother’s cousin, were sent away.</p> <p> The Shushan family has expended enormous effort to seek reparations, without success. They have found themselves unwelcome in Egypt, and their trips to the country are fruitless. Sadly, there are hardly any Jews left in an area that was once bursting with them. Levana Zamir, another refugee, lamented, “We could say that the Jewish community in Egypt is not anymore. It’s finished. Vanished.”</p> <p> </p> <p> A Long History of Persecution</p> <p> Film narrator Eliana Gilad estimates that the oppression of Jews in Arab lands began as early as 622, with the creation of Islam and the Arab conquest of the Middle East. Jews under Arab rule were assigned the status of “<em>dhimmi</em>,” which literally means “protected people,” but in actuality translated into anything but protection. The Jews were guaranteed to have their lives spared in the event of war, but on the condition that they would never attempt to outdo their Muslim neighbors, and would always remember their place as lower class people. Jews could not ride horses and put themselves higher than Muslim pedestrians. They could not build new synagogues, and the ones that were established had to be lower than the mosques. Houses, too, had to be low to the ground and Jews even had to wear yellow patches on their clothes. The adornment of the Jewish Star—like so many other anti Semitic measures—was not a Nazi invention and actually existed as early as the 7<sup>th</sup>century.</p> <p> Fast forward through centuries of <em>dhimmi</em> oppression and a fair number of blood libels, to modern times when Jews living in Muslim dominated Middle Eastern countries approached the one million mark. In the early 1930s, Arab nationalists rose to power and gave vitriolic speeches which focused primarily on blaming the Jews for the country’s ills. In Iraq, a pro-Nazi government was established. The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin Al Husseini, met with Hitler and discussed plans to create a “final solution” to the “problem” of Jews in the Middle East. “Arabs rise as one man and fight for your sacred rights,” he pronounced on a Nazi radio station. “Kill the Jews wherever you find them!”And kill they did, rioting through the Jewish ghetto, pulling babies apart by their limbs, raping women in front of their families, and robbing Jewish houses while the owners ran from rooftop to rooftop trying to escape.</p> <p> “I listen to Iraqi music,” says Linda Abu Azziz. “I read in Arabic, I cook the same food… so I’m very much Iraqi—and this is the problem. Because on the one hand I have a lot of affection for the Iraqi people, but on the other hand I am very much hurt by what happened to us in Iraq.” Linda’s conundrum was shared by many Iraqi Jews, who lived in a place they considered home but where life had become unbearable.</p> <p> Mordechai Ben Porat, proud founder of the Babylonian Jewish Heritage Center, walked to Jerusalem by foot in 1945 and then helped 120,000 others follow him. “I came to the decision that that country wasn’t our country, and we had to leave,” he says.</p> <p> </p> <p> In the Shadow of the Arab-Israeli Conflict</p> <p> Fortuitously, there was a Jewish country in the making and, in 1948, Jewish refugees began coming to the fledgling State of Israel where they believed they would be safe. But for those who remained behind, the creation of a Jewish state further infuriated the Muslim world, leading to more massacre and distress.</p> <p> “When Israel was created, it unshackled the Jew,”explains Joseph Abdel Wahad.“And for the Arabs and Muslims it was unacceptable for the Jew to be independent—because for fourteen centuries, the Jews were under them.”</p> <p> The film briefly shows snippets of a May 16, 1948 headline from the <em>New York Times</em> entitled, “Jews In Grave Danger In All Moslem Lands.” The article details the persecution that spanned every sector of the Middle East once Jews gained their independence. Jewish bank accounts were frozen and used to finance resistance to the Zionist cause, Jews believed to be active Zionists were imprisoned, and the Iraqi government did not allow any Jew to leave the country without first paying an enormous sum as collateral. Jews in Syria began suffering even before the State’s creation, with the UN Partition Resolution of 1947. Mobs began rioting in Aden and Aleppo, and Jews were stripped of their jobs. The government also denied Jews freedom of movement, making it nearly impossible for them to leave their ravaged country.</p> <p> </p> <p> A Personal Survival Story</p> <p> Rabbi Elie Abadie of the Safra Synagogue is the child of survivors of the 1947 Syrian riots. The mobs—aided by police the Jews had once trusted—began burning synagogues and <em>sifrei Torot</em> in what became known as the <em>harayik</em>. One day, rioters entered the building in which Rabbi Abadie’s parents lived. Within minutes, Mrs. Abadie heard shrieks of terror. “They were beating Jews, destroying their property, looting stores, ruining businesses,” she recalled.</p> <p> Escape was risky. Syrian police patrolled the border and imprisoned Jews who were caught trying to cross. Some were daring enough to bribe a well-connected official or walk outside the border where no one would see them. But many of these attempts were unsuccessful, and resulted in death, torture or incarceration. Rabbi Abadie’s parents hid in his grandparents’ house, and a few days later they made separate attempts at escape. His mother obtained a doctor’s permit and took her sons to the Lebanon Mountains, but his father was unsuccessful after several attempts to escape Syria. In one instance, he was caught by a Syrian guard whom he happened to know. The guardsaid, “The authorities are after you because you’ve tried to escape several times, and I have orders to arrest you. I’m coming back to arrest you tomorrow.”Mr. Abadie understood the hint, and the very next day, with the help of some friends, he boarded the train to Lebanon. A train official with whom he was acquainted hid him in the cargo hold, warning that if he would sneeze or move a muscle they’d both be caught and killed.</p> <p> His father hid there silent and motionless for hours, his fear intensifying once the train reached the border. The police conducted a thorough search of the cargo. When they came to his wagon, he was certain he’d be discovered. Miraculously, the guard was distracted and moved on to the next wagon. </p> <p> As soon as the train crossed the border, Rabbi Abadie’s father jumped off the moving train and into a ravine. Somehow, he landed safely, suffering only minor bruises. He began walking through the Lebanese terrain in search of his family, traveling by night so as not to be seen. Eventually, he found his wife and children. They were entirely unaware of his escape, and were stunned when he walked through the door.</p> <p> Stories of separation and reunion were not uncommon during those tumultuous times. Families were never allowed to leave the country together, as stray family members were seen as insurance that the deserter would return. For one man, his family’s decision to leave Syria in the seventies in favor of a more progressive country—namely the United States—meant a year and a half separation from his mother. He and his father ventured ahead, while his mother, brother and sister remained behind in Syria, awaiting nothing short of a miracle. He was just seven years old while this upheaval was taking place and was painfully uncertain of what was going on—if his mother would ever come, if they would have to return, or if his family would just remain separated forever. Finally, after enormous bribes were paid, connections tapped, and begging levied, his mother was allowed out of Syria.</p> <p> In 1992, under pressure from many fronts, Bill Clinton issued a mandate requiring the release of the rest of the Syrian Jews as part of a deal with President Assad. Many migrated to the United States, Israel, and other friendly countries.</p> <p> </p> <p> Bringing Their Plight to the Fore</p> <p> Though <em>The Forgotten Refugees </em>has received a good deal of attention in recent years, the producers hope that this is just the beginning. It has been translated into six languages and was presented last February at the prestigious Herzliya Conference. It’s been shown to the U.S. Congress; Israeli government ministers; the U.N. Human Rights Commission in Geneva; and the British Parliament. On March 31, 2008, the first-ever Resolution recognizing the rights of “The Forgotten Refugees” was adopted by the United States House of Representatives. The Resolution asks the President to ensure that, when the issue of Middle Eastern refugees is discussed in international forums, any explicit reference to Palestinian refugees must be matched by a similar explicit reference to Jewish refugees.</p> <p> Still, not enough is being done to remember and address the claims of the Jewish refugees. After the screening, the Honorable Irwin Cotler addressed the crowd to contextualize the documentary, point out its lessons and advocate for change. Professor Cotler, an international human rights lawyer and scholar, is a member of the Canadian Parliament and a former Justice Minister and Attorney General. He is a founding member of Justice for Jews of Arab Countries and has worked tirelessly on behalf of this cause.</p> <p> He recalls his father teaching him the verse, “<em>Sedek, sedek, tirdof</em> – Justice, justice shall you pursue.” Cotler has lived his life by this precept, focusing special attention to this <em>missva</em>. In the 1990’s, he challenged the oppressive Syrian regime and flaunted his <em>talit </em>in the streets. He was never allowed back in the country, but is confident his point was made.</p> <p> “We have to appreciate that while justice has been delayed, it can no longer be denied,” Cotler said in his address to the audience. “This is a truth that is not known; it is a truth that needs to be heard.” And not just heard—but acted upon. Cotler listed four valuable lessons to be taken from this atrocity, including the danger of state-sanctioned incitement to hate and genocide. He denounced the forgiveness of other countries who have the power to make a difference but have ignored the cruel reality taking place. We can no longer exculpate the villains of history, he insisted, protecting people like Ahmadinejad and inviting them to be guests at international forums. We have to understand the Jewish refugee story for what it is—a forgotten people, a forced exodus and the ethnic cleansing of entire communities. These people are the innocent victims of injustice and addressing their claims is a key requisite in the pursuit of lasting peace in the region.</p> <p> Cotler poignantly described the chain reaction that needs to take place: “If there is no remembrance, there is no truth. If there is no truth, there is no justice. If there is no justice, there will be no reconciliation. And if there is no reconciliation, there will be no lasting peace towards which we all work and pray.”</p> <p> “There are refugees other than the Palestinians,” says Mr. Goldwasser. “There were people who were dislocated as a result of war and conflict—and they’re totally invisible. Why isn’t the mainstream media talking about [them]?”</p> <p> “We don’t want to be forgotten anymore,” insists Mr. Wahed. “We want to tell our story!”</p> <p> Both the producers and the victims hope that by spreading awareness of the refugees’ plight, we can begin to seek justice for one of the largest ethnic expulsions in modern history. As one woman exclaimed, “The Arab governments have taken away our homes. They have taken away our culture. They have destroyed our communities. But they can never take away our spirit to fight for justice.”</p> <p> </p> <p> To organize an educational screening of <em>The Forgotten Refugees</em> film, e-mail The David Project at <labelx href="mailto:sg@davidproject.org" title="blocked::mailto:sg@davidproject.org">sg@davidproject.org. Contact <labelx href="mailto:jp@davidproject.org" title="blocked::mailto:jp@davidproject.org">jp@davidproject.orgto learn more about the Project’s <em>Forgotten Refugees</em> curriculum for middle school and high school students.</labelx></labelx></p><p><br />http://www.communitym.com/article.asp?article_id=100681&article_type=100007<br /><labelx href="mailto:sg@davidproject.org" title="blocked::mailto:sg@davidproject.org"><labelx href="mailto:jp@davidproject.org" title="blocked::mailto:jp@davidproject.org"></labelx></labelx></p><p><labelx href="mailto:sg@davidproject.org" title="blocked::mailto:sg@davidproject.org"><labelx href="mailto:jp@davidproject.org" title="blocked::mailto:jp@davidproject.org"><br /></labelx></labelx></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3033850764934332913.post-88640476985889429192010-02-21T06:27:00.006-05:002010-02-21T06:37:00.695-05:00Makeshift bomb thrown at Cairo synagogue, no dead<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:7.5pt;mso-outline-level:1"><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/21/AR2010022100831.html">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/21/AR2010022100831.html</a></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="Arial","sans-serif"; font-family:";font-size:10.0pt;color:black;">The Associated Press<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><br />Sunday, February 21, 2010; 5:20 AM</span><span style=" Arial","sans-serif";font-family:";font-size:8.5pt;color:black;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:13.0pt;color:black;"></span><span id="aptureStartContent">CAIRO -- A man hurled a suitcase containing a makeshift bomb at Cairo's main downtown synagogue in the early hours Sunday morning, but there were no injuries or damage, police said.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:13.0pt;color:black;">According to the police report, a man entered a hotel located on the fourth floor of a building across from the synagogue at around 3 a.m. and as he was checking in, abruptly threw his suitcase out the window.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:13.0pt;color:black;">The case contained four containers of gasoline each attached to a glass bottle of sulfuric acid meant to shatter on impact and ignite the makeshift bomb, said police, who speculated the man may have panicked.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:13.0pt;color:black;">The bag, which also contained clothes, cotton strips, matches and a lighter, fell onto the sidewalk in front of the hotel and briefly caught fire before being extinguished. There were no injuries and no damage to the historic synagogue.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size:13.0pt;color:black;">The suspect fled the scene and is now being sought by police.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:13.0pt;color:black;"><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/world/countries/egypt.html?nav=el"><span style="color:#0C4790;">Egypt's</span></a></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="mso-fareast-mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin;font-family:Calibri;font-size:13.0pt;color:black;"> </span></span><span style="font-size:13.0pt;color:black;">once thriving Jewish community largely left the country 50 years ago during hostilities between Egypt and</span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="mso-fareast-mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin;font-family:Calibri;font-size:13.0pt;color:black;"> </span></span><span style="font-size:13.0pt;color:black;"><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/world/countries/israel.html?nav=el"><span style="color:#0C4790;">Israel</span></a>, but a number of heavily guarded synagogues, open only to Jews, remain.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:13.0pt;color:black;">The downtown synagogue, Egypt's largest, is the only one still conducting services for the Jewish high holidays, which are sometimes attended by Israeli diplomats.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:13.0pt;color:black;">The temple, known as Shaar Hashamayim, or the Gate of Heaven, was built in 1899 in a style evoking ancient Egyptian temples and was once the largest building on the wide downtown boulevard.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:13.0pt;color:black;">Egypt's Jewish community, which dates back millennia and in the 1940s numbered around 80,000, is down to several dozen, almost all of them elderly.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:13.0pt;color:black;">Egypt and Israel fought a war every decade from the 1940s to the 1970s until the 1979 peace treaty was signed.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:13.0pt;color:black;">Despite that treaty, Egyptian sentiment remains unfriendly to Israel, and anti-Semitic stereotypes still occasionally appear in the Egyptian media.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:13.0pt;color:black;">Since an Islamist insurgency based in southern Egypt was quashed in the 1990s, there have been few organized terrorist attacks in Egypt's Nile valley and the capital Cairo. There have, however, in a number of amateurish attempts to target foreigners over the years.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:13.0pt;color:black;">In February 2009 a crude explosive device planted in a bazaar popular with tourists killed a French teenager.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3033850764934332913.post-25511912422378958712010-02-14T05:49:00.000-05:002010-02-14T05:49:35.077-05:00The Life and Death of Majority Rule<div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Sat 13 Feb 2010</span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">D’var Torah on Mishpatim</span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Congregation Adat Reyim</span></div><div style="text-align: right;"><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">By: Dr Maurice M. Mizrahi </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">This week’s Torah portion is Mishpatim, which is Hebrew for ‘laws’ or ‘ordinances’. The title is very appropriate because it contains no less than 53 commandments, 23 positive and 30 negative, which are collectively known as the Covenant Code. It is a primary source in Jewish Law.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">I would like to focus on one of these laws. In Exodus 23:2, it says:</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Lo tihyeh acharei rabbim lera’ot </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">You shall not follow the majority for evil</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">The meaning is clear: Don’t follow the mob when you know what they are doing is wrong. Don’t be swayed if a majority is against you and you know you are right. The rabbis of the Talmud deduced that if you must not follow the majority for evil, then surely you must follow the majority for good [Sanhedrin 2a]. They extracted from this verse the notion that decisions must be made by majority vote in the appropriate forum.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">This is not full democracy, in that not everyone gets a vote: Only designated judges appointed to decide specific matters posed before them get to vote.</span><br />
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</span><span style="font-size: x-small;">First, how many judges? </span><br />
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</span><span style="font-size: x-small;">-Well, it cannot be one. It says in Pirkei Avot, “Do not judge alone, for no one may judge alone, except the One [meaning God]”. [Pirkei Avot 4:8]</span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">-It cannot be two or any even number, because our verse commands to “rule in accordance with the majority,” [Ex. 23:2] and an even number may result in a tie, i.e. no majority.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">-The minimum it can be is three, and that is the number of judges in a standard Jewish court, a bet din, which handles ordinary cases.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">-For capital offenses and other life-and-death matters, there must be, not 3, but 23 judges, constituting a ‘Small Sanhedrin’. Why 23? The answer is in the Talmud:</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">How do we derive that the Small Sanhedrin has only 23 members? It is said [in the Torah], “and the congregation shall judge... And the congregation shall deliver.” [Num. 35:24-25] One congregation may judge [i.e. condemns] and the other may deliver [i.e. acquit], hence we have twenty [because a congregation is not less than 10]. But how do we know that a congregation is not less than 10? It is written [in the Torah], “[God said, referring to the 12 spies:] How long shall I bear with this evil congregation?” [Num. 14:27] Excluding Joshua and Caleb, we have 10. And how do we derive the additional 3?.. [We need a majority of one to acquit and a majority of two to convict, so we must have at least 22. Since we can’t have an even number, we add one and reach 23.] [Sanhedrin 2a]</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Now, here comes the shocker. Having 23 judges allows for at least ten to argue for conviction and ten to argue for acquittal. But it does not guarantee it. What if the crime is so heinous and the evidence so overwhelming that no judge will argue for acquittal? Then, believe it or not, the defendant goes scot free. The logic here is that there is a spark of goodness is every person, because every person was created “b’tsellem Elohim”, in God’s image [Gen. 1:27], and if a tribunal cannot find it, bring it to the table and tie it to the case, it is not fit to judge. Note that, back then, there were no defense lawyers and no juries. The judges heard the case and the witnesses, then deliberated and rendered a majority verdict. This provision ensured that some judges would take on the role of defense lawyers, to avoid criminals going free. This point of Jewish law may be the source of the Western practice of giving a defense attorney to every defendant.</span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">-Finally, a Great Sanhedrin of 71 judges was established, which served as the Supreme Court of Israel. Why 71? Because God told Moses in the Torah to assemble 70 elders to help him judge and govern Israel [Numbers 11:16.]. Adding Moses, this makes 71.</span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Our subject verse, “Follow the majority for good” was also used in a famous and critical story in the Talmud, which many call “the keynote of the Talmud”. Let me read it to you:</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">[The rabbis were discussing whether a certain oven was ritually clean.] </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">-R. Eliezer brought forward every imaginable argument [to prove that it was clean], but [his colleagues] did not accept them. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">-[R. Eliezer] told them: 'If the halachah agrees with me, let this carob-tree prove it!' At that point the carob-tree was uprooted 100 cubits out of its place (others say 400 cubits). </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">-[The rabbis] retorted: No proof can be brought from a carob-tree.' </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">-Again he said to them: 'If the halachah agrees with me, let [this] stream of water prove it [by flowing backwards]!' At that point the stream of water flowed backwards. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">-[The rabbis] rejoined: 'No proof can be brought from a stream of water.' </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">-Again he urged: 'If the halachah agrees with me, let the walls of the schoolhouse prove it.' At that point the walls inclined to fall. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">-But R. Yehoshua rebuked them, saying: 'When scholars are engaged in a halachic dispute, what business do you have interfering?' Hence they did not fall, in honor of R. Yehoshua, nor did they resume the upright position, in honor of R. Eliezer; and they are still standing [today] thus inclined. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">-Again he said to them: 'If the halachah agrees with me, let it be proved from Heaven!' </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">- At that point a Heavenly Voice cried out: 'Why do you argue with R. Eliezer? The halachah agrees with him in all matters!' </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">-But R. Yehoshua arose and exclaimed, [quoting the Torah]: 'Lo bashamayim hi -- It is not in heaven.' [Deut. 30:12] </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">-What did he mean by this? Said R. Jeremiah: [He meant] that the Torah had already been given at Mount Sinai; [therefore] we pay no attention to a Heavenly Voice, because You, [God] have long since written in the Torah at Mount Sinai, ‘Follow the opinion of the majority.’ [Ex. 23:2 our verse].</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">R. Nathan met Elianu HaNavi [Elijah the Prophet] and asked him: What did the Holy One, Blessed be He, do in that hour? </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">-[Elijah] replied, ‘He laughed [with joy], saying, 'My sons have defeated Me, My sons have defeated Me.' </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">[Talmud , Bava Metzia 59b]</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">This extraordinary passage is no less than a declaration of independence by the rabbis. In it, the rabbis tell God that the Torah is out of His hands, and that human beings will make Torah decisions by majority vote, without interference from God. God evidently approved, and liked to see His children take charge so decisively. Rabbenu Chananel, an 11th century Tunisian sage, even said that the voice from heaven was a test of whether the rabbis would hold their ground, and that they passed the test.</span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">In the end, Rabbi Eliezer refused to accept the majority decision and, as a result, was expelled from the Sanhedrin. But note that later Sages said that God and Rabbi Eliezer had gotten it right. The majority rendered the wrong decision. But no matter. The 12th century sage Nachmanides (the Ramban) said that people, even Sages, will make mistakes occasionally, but it is better to let them make mistakes a few times and render decisions applicable to all, rather than have different Jewish communities follow different rules.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span><span style="font-size: x-small;">So minority opinions are not always “wrong”, in the sense that the logic that led from the Torah to them is not faulty. The Talmud says of them, ‘Ellu v’ellu divrei Elohim Hayyim These and these are the words of the Living God’ [Eruvin 13b]. Both interpretations are “right”, even though they may be contradictory. The Talmud also says:</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">If the Torah had been given in a fixed form, the situation would have been intolerable. What is the meaning of the often-recurring phrase "The Lord spoke to Moses"? Moses said before God, “Lord Of the Universe, make me know what the final decision is in each manner of the law.“ God replied: "The majority must befollowed. When the majority declares a thing permitted, it is permitted, and when the majority declares a thing forbidden, it is forbidden… The Torah is capable of interpretation, with 49 points [arguing one way] and 49 points [arguing the other way]." </span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">[Jerusalem Talmud, Sanhedrin 22a]</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Well, majority rule is a thing of the past. The last Great Sanhedrin folded in the year 358 CE, yielding to Roman persecution. After that, no more central decisions in Judaism. From that point on, new halachic decisions were made by individual Sages, who made them stick only by virtue of the respect they inspired. And their decisions were sometimes controversial even centuries after their death.</span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">It’s a wonder we Jews lasted so long in recognizable form in spite of that. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">-The Samaritans refused to accept the books of the Bible that came after the Torah and split off. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">-The Karaites refused to accept the Talmud and split off in the 9th century.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">-Both groups flourished for a while, numbering in the millions. The Karaites were reported to make up 40% of Jews at one time. But today their combined numbers are down to a few thousand.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">-Hasidism came more than two centuries ago and promptly broke into dozens of independent sects.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">-The last 150 years or so have seen a flowering of non-traditional Jewish movements in the West, each writing its own rules. The thinking was, and still is: You disagree with this or that traditional practice? Form your own movement! Associate only with those who agree with you, and vituperate against the others!</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span><span style="font-size: x-small;">Freedom of religious thinking is a wonderful thing, but unity of tradition is also a wonderful thing. Who is to say who is right? Nobody. But the debate does not end here. There are still a few inconvenient facts to be considered. One of them is that the retention rates are much lower for offshoots. There is a deep abyss between the retention rates of secular, humanist, Reform, Reconstructionist, Renewal, or Conservative Jews on the one hand, and the much higher retention rates of traditional Jews on the other. I don’t think anybody disputes the fact that the shortest book in the world is the Book of Fourth-Generation Reform Jews.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">And the fragmentation is not confined to the left. Among religious Jews, in the last few decades alone, movements have sprung up that vociferously oppose the legitimacy of the State of Israel, that refuse to take up arms to defend the State, that even refuse to work for a living, as long as the State, or somebody, continues to support them as full-time students (which flies in the face of established halacha), that refuse to accept modern conveniences such as Shabbat elevators, and that generally work hard to impose more and more religious restrictions, over and above those of established halacha, by reinterpreting traditional teaching to suit their purposes. It is not just the do-less we have to contend with, but the do-more as well.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">I miss the synagogue in Cairo, Egypt, where I grew up. It was, of course, nominally traditional, but in the Sephardic world everybody went to the same synagogue, whether they were on the far right or the far left or anywhere in between. Their personal observance was just that, a personal matter. They did not feel the need to create new movements that reflected their philosophy, complete with their own platforms and their own rabbis and their own seminaries and their own schools and their own butcher shops and their own synagogues. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">If the past is any indication, all these movements will eventually wither away and die, causing huge drops in Jewish numbers. All, that is, except one. That one will carry Judaism into the far future. I don’t know which one that is. But I do know this:</span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Hinne! Lo yanum, velo yishan shomer Yisrael. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Behold! The Guardian of Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps. [Ps. 121:4]</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Shabbat shalom.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span>HSJEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10939904377424666189noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3033850764934332913.post-20342143126498257032010-02-11T00:40:00.000-05:002010-02-11T00:40:33.598-05:00Ode to those of Abu Zaabal and Tura<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><a href="http://www.hsje.org/images/sultana.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" ct="true" src="http://www.hsje.org/images/sultana.jpg" /></a>By: Suzy Vidal a/k/a Sultana Latifa</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Voices too long smothered come to our ears</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div>They tell us of horrendous tales and tears<br />
<br />
Keeping their secrets deep in their hearts<br />
<br />
To the surface come crying out their hurts<br />
<br />
An easy unprotected prey, Jewish were they not?<br />
<br />
To bear all the sins of Israel in their flesh and blood<br />
<br />
Some have in heavy silence carried their secrets to their tombs<br />
<br />
Of physical repeated unbearable and unforgotten wounds<br />
<br />
Four hundred helpless unjudged victims unfairly indicted<br />
<br />
We cannot close our eyes to the tortures inflicted<br />
<br />
The sin of being Jewish must forever be banished<br />
<br />
So that neither man nor woman can for this be punished<br />
<br />
The years are rapidly flying and our hair is greying<br />
<br />
Before it is too late, it is now time to join our hearts in saying<br />
<br />
you are among the Just among nations we shall not forget<br />
<br />
To those of you up in the Milky Way we pay tribute and respect.HSJEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10939904377424666189noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3033850764934332913.post-45781967526404709062010-02-09T16:01:00.009-05:002010-02-11T00:10:39.127-05:00And There Were None<a href="http://hsje.org/mystory/sultana.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://hsje.org/mystory/sultana.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: right; height: 102px; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; width: 81px;" /></a><br />
By <em>Sultana Latifa </em>(Suzy Vidal)<br />
<div><br />
<strong>A Jewish refugee from an Arab land</strong><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 85%;">I look into the mirror and ask myself: Who are you Sultana? Belgian, Italian, Egyptian, English, Israeli? Definitely none of these but a Jewish refugee from an Arab land!<br />
<br />
At last we have been recognised as refugees.<br />
We have even had Israeli coins paying tribute to Egyptian Jewry!<br />
When the word refugee is pronounced you imagine suffering, struggles, insults, wars, prison.<br />
Yes we went through all this. </span></div><br />
<div><br />
<span style="font-size: 85%;">Before 1948 we lived happily, I would say placidly. The everyday unhurried oriental life, no problems for the morrow practically planting our roots and happy to do that… but we were Yehud, Jews and that put us apart.</span></div><br />
<div><br />
<em><span style="font-size: 85%;">Come the foundation of the State of Israel in 1948, all this changed radically. </span></em></div><br />
<div><br />
<span style="font-size: 85%;">We were well off and our homes beautiful but not because manna fell from heaven!<br />
We worked hard and seriously to reach a certain standing. My grandfather woke up at 5 a.m. washed in cold water, drank his black coffee and trotted off to his shop where as a wholesaler, he sold exclusive fabrics directly imported from Great Britain. </span></div><br />
<div><br />
<span style="font-size: 85%;">My father worked at the Cotton Stock Exchange and was a stockbroker, whereas my mother was a very qualified Haute Couture seamstress catering for VIP ladies.<br />
And thus we never lacked anything, cultural activities, members of a sporting club, social life and contrary to Arab children we all went to school, some to university.<br />
A word about schools: The great majority sent their children to French-speaking schools because it was traditional to speak French at home. Except for the Lycée Français, the French schools were run by nuns or Jesuits, which may seem funny when you think the Jewish families sent their children to Christian schools. </span></div><br />
<div><br />
<span style="font-size: 85%;">As I was slightly on the wild side and very disobedient, I was sent off to a military academy managed by Irish generals (nuns) who would ‘tame’ me. I was the only child in the family to go to an English school. Looking back on that experience, I believe that the discipline we learned helped me to overcome the greatest difficulties of our exile.<br />
<br />
The country was under British rule as Egypt had became a protectorate after the collapse of the Turkish Empire and administrations were mainly staffed by British officers who did not allow their employees to smoke the sheesha (water pipe) on the job!<br />
<br />
As I was saying, the foundation of the State of Israel changed all that.<br />
We could hardly go out without being spat at and called Yehudeya, bent kalb, Jew daughter of a dog<br />
<br />
We were excluded from our sporting club where they said neither Jews nor dogs were admitted. Our Synagogue was shut down and out of bounds. Our Shaar Hashamaim, Gate to Heaven was a sight for sore eyes on the Friday Shabbat prayers: The ladies in their best dresses and the men in their elegant suits with their Talit around their shoulders. No weddings were celebrated or Bar Mitzvahs. Passing by the synagogue was like passing by a cemetery. No one there except the “boliss” standing guard. </span></div><br />
<div><br />
<span style="font-size: 85%;">The people in the Jewish community were questioned, preferably in the middle of the night. After World War 2 a lot of former Nazis found refuge in Egypt. It was said that the authorities took their advice very frequently. We were usually awakened in the middle of the night to force us to confess our Zionistic connections. When the authorities were convinced of such a connection there was only one place for the ‘so-called’ spy: prison in the middle of the desert: such infamous camps were Tura and Abu Zaabal. I had the privilege to write an Ode to the 400 (prisoners of these obnoxious places).<br />
<br />
Under martial law anyone could be imprisoned following a denunciation from any Tom, Dick, or Harry. Being Jewish was a very serious accusation. Those were the days we dare not wear our Star of David, and even after that we did not wear any visible signs of our faith.<br />
<br />
And strange to say, the less we could wear our star, the more Christians exhibited their cross seeming to say: look, I am not Jewish!<br />
<br />
Needless to say there was a huge panic because of the explicit description of what the Egyptians would do to us. Apart from the verbal insults, Jews were threatened in the streets by throat slitting gestures miming the nature of their death!<br />
Newspapers were full of insults and inciting the masses to go out and beat us up.<br />
Egypt had the secret of extraordinary riots when thousands of people literally sprang out from the ground invading the streets, shouting and vociferating against Jews. Anyone remotely looking Jewish was beaten up in the streets.<br />
<br />
Some people ask me: but how did they know you were Jewish? They knew! Maybe because of the colour of our skin, our way of dressing or because we did not wear the Muslim veil, THEY KNEW!<br />
<br />
My youngest aunt who was pregnant was beaten up in the street during one of the spectacular riots Egyptians indulged in. Naturally, it was impossible for her to go on living in a country that was ready to cut you to pieces.<br />
My mother’s family was composed of 9 brothers and sisters and my father’s of 8 brothers and sisters and it would be a lie to say we stood fearlessly waiting to see what would happen.<br />
<br />
There was a curfew and everyone spoke in undertones, walked without looking at anyone, panic was there!<br />
<br />
<strong>Why did we panic?</strong><br />
<br />
When the Jewish shops were confiscated and an ignorant ‘sequester’ (that is the name given to the man who lorded it) put in your place,<br />
When Jews were not allowed to work at the stock exchange,<br />
When a Jew could no longer retrieve his or her money from the bank without being checked out on an established black list,<br />
When people, even women, started being arrested and put in prison in the desert,<br />
When it became impossible to go out fearing an imaginary air raid by the Israelis and consequently be the target of wild Arabs in the street,<br />
When you had to be careful of every word you pronounced,<br />
When it looked very much like Nazism without the STAR on our lapel,<br />
When there was only one way to survive:<br />
<strong>FLEE! FLEE! FLEE!</strong><br />
<br />
Because of all that was said above there was a visceral fear. World War 2 had shown what could be done to defenceless Jews. Some like my grandmother, my mother and her sisters had panic attacks (though that medical term was not known then).<br />
Panic that terrible word:<br />
The families got ready even if they had to leave everything behind, but it was no longer viable to be a Jew in Egypt.<br />
There were strict rules for leaving:<br />
If you left then you were never to come back again<br />
You could not transfer your own money. It was left to the Egyptian government.<br />
If you had an Egyptian nationality you lost it and became apatride, without nationality<br />
<br />
Those who lived in the vicinity of the Royal Palace were forced to move, the King was afraid of Jews.<br />
<br />
But notwithstanding the sacrifices, two thirds of the Jews in Egypt left.<br />
The great majority could no longer cope with the harassment and they were willing to give up everything they had worked and hoped for as long as they could escape the unspeakably harsh terror treatment reserved to Jews. On my mother’s side all the brothers and sister except one brother left. On my father’s side one brother and two sisters remained. The rest went to Israel.<br />
<br />
Even that was dangerous for those who remained. Policemen came in the middle of the night to question the remaining family.<br />
<br />
There were no direct routes to Israel. The state of war went on even when the war ended.<br />
<br />
The Jewish refugees therefore left for either France or Italy by boat and were placed in camps: in France it was Marseille, in Italy it was Livorno (Leghorn) awaiting the possibility of transportation to Israel. All of them city people waiting for a new life!<br />
Later, after our second exodus (1957) when we were able to meet our families by going to see them in Israel, still avoiding any Arab territory but through Greece, they told us in detail of the difficulties of their life and living in tents. City people, bank managers or employees who now had to earn their living by working on the new roads or lifting cement bags off trucks.<br />
<br />
But once more they did not sit down in the streets holding out their hands begging, or crying to the U.N.<br />
<br />
<strong>They struggled and worked hard.</strong><br />
<br />
As one of my uncles said: “we rolled up our sleeves and worked!”<br />
The following two or three years in Egypt were more or less calm except that we were still very badly considered; being Jewish was like wearing a scarlet letter. All the family had gone but for us leaving the aged grandparents and flying off was not possible. Family solidarity was not a vain word.<br />
It took time but my grandfather recuperated his shop, the ‘sequestre’ left and work could be resumed.<br />
A word about the ‘séquestrer’ as they were called:<br />
In general he was a man who did not have much schooling, had no idea of how products were made, or how to handle business. But nothing could be done without his approval (that maddened my grandfather who had been trading for well on 50 years). So he would come home and pull his hair out telling us about the stupidity of that sequester. All we could do was tell him to be patient. We also encouraged my grandmother to believe in peace promising that she would see her dear children again as soon as a peace treaty was signed. The peace treat only came 40 years later with Sadat’s visit to Jerusalem. Meanwhile, her heart had given way and she never saw them again. She was only 55.<br />
<br />
<strong>Come January 1952:</strong><br />
<br />
The morning started off peacefully. Gradually the masses invaded the town, and the terrifying roars came closer. The town was on fire. They had set fire to Cairo! We lived in Malika Farida Street a few metres from The British Officers’ Club. That club was invaded and fire put to it. My best friend who lived just opposite the club saw the burning officers thrown from the windows and left downstairs on the ground blackened and smoking. It was horrendous!<br />
<br />
In front of our house was a shop selling alcohol, it was invaded and all the bottles thrown into a bon fire in the middle of the street. The bottles kept popping for hours on end sounding like gunshots.<br />
<br />
We shuddered home, shaking and praying hanging on to our Mezuzah nailed on every door, hoping the crowd would pass on. But they burst into our building looking for Yehud, Jews.<br />
<br />
Our hall porter, called a Bawab in Egypt, swore to them there were no Jews in that building. But we rushed up the metal service stairs looking for an escape: Fire everywhere, on the left, on the right and in front of us. There were five of us: my mother, father, my younger sister and my nonno, grandfather, with a kitchen knife in his hands!<br />
<br />
Well, and that passed away too and life settled down again, everyone going about his business. As the French say: tout passe!<br />
<br />
I registered at university (The American university at Cairo) at 17, in 1953. Those were the happiest years in my life. After the strict nuns I enjoyed the diversity and freedom University offered me! I could give way to my artistic inclination by being part of an actor’s guild and directing a play or taking care of the sets. And my love of sports found opportunities as never before. I was part of the basketball team and captain of the tennis one. I was a member of the Square Dancing team.<br />
The Touring club organised a visit to Upper Egypt and the Valley of the Kings where we sweated it out visiting the sights. I was doing very well in my studies except for Arabic never having had one hour of that language in my very English schooling. And for the first time in my life I was in love. Who could ask for more?<br />
At A.U.C. there were guests invited to ‘speak’ to us such as Helen Keller, blind deaf and dumb. Other visitors were the Harlem Globetrotters who gave a whirling exhibition.<br />
<br />
Then we were invited to the U.S. Embassy to demonstrate square dancing where we had our first taste of hamburgers with ketchup. In short as I said in my book: these were the Razzle Dazzle years.<br />
<br />
<strong>1956! The Suez Crisis! War!</strong><br />
<br />
<em>It fell on us!</em><br />
<br />
The French, English and Israelis attacked Egypt because Nasser nationalised the Canal. Pandemonium broke loose. No one ever thinks of those civilians in war. All the Jewish French and English subjects were given 24, 48 hours to leave the country. They could only have one suitcase and ten Egyptian pounds. The apartments went to officers, the money and businesses to the government to punish us for what was happening.<br />
<br />
And what about us Jews, responsible for everything as usual?</span></div><br />
<ul><li><span style="font-size: 85%;"><br />
Once again prison,<br />
Loss of the Egyptian nationality,<br />
Confiscation of shops,<br />
Ostracisme,<br />
Etc! Etc! Etc!</span></li>
</ul><br />
<span style="font-size: 85%;"></span><br />
<div><br />
<br />
All the borders were closed, only those expelled could leave; even then there were not enough planes to cater for this massive expulsion, they had to wait for their turn meanwhile receiving the visits of officers who had their eye on the apartments and listening to their comments on furnishing and decoration! Farewells were heart rending. Who knew when and where we would see them again!<br />
<br />
My father being of a very distant Italian origin and having kept his nationality, we were consequently Italians. My mother went to the consulate to ask for their help. She was told:<br />
We are not at war with Egypt and if you want to leave it will be through the desert and at your own responsibility! (Imagine the Sahara Desert? They did not offer to supply camels!).<br />
<br />
University was closed, the American teachers flown to safety by their government.<br />
As usual the American cultural centre was looted (every time the Egyptians had a grudge, they marched to the American Cultural centre and destroyed it).<br />
The Americans always rebuilt it!<br />
<br />
My grandfather’s shop and money once more confiscated, he had been put on a plane to Milan with his one suitcase and a piece of paper giving my cousin’s address in Milan.<br />
It was a tragic mistake. He only spoke Arabic and no one understood what he was saying.<br />
<br />
He cried like a schoolboy trying to explain that his children were in Israel. An interpreter was finally brought along and my cousin was contacted. (By the way she later told us we were morons to have put nonno on a plane all by himself ).It was true but we were afraid he would go to prison.<br />
My mother who had a sharp tongue kept insulting Nasser, praying his house would crush over his head! (Yekhreb betak ya Nasser)<br />
<br />
One day the Police came and took her away. She had been denounced by one of her apprentices whose uncle belonged to the Muslim brothers.<br />
<br />
What must be known is that during a crisis, everyone unites against Jews. After her short imprisonment nothing could make my mother stay. She packed off all our belongings and we went and lived in a hotel. The furniture was sold at auction and our former servant bought most of it!<br />
<br />
We no longer had anything: no home, no job: my father as a Jew could not work at the stock exchange. The clothes we had packed were stolen during the night at the hotel and when we called the police they treated us as though we were guilty. I was only a few months away from graduation and had to present my thesis so I hung on by my teeth to my studies.<br />
<br />
My mother and younger sister left. I went on living at the hotel with my father.<br />
All the Jews left Egypt, country of their birth, either by force or of their own ‘free will.’<br />
<br />
<strong>And then there were none!</strong><br />
<br />
After visiting my aunts and uncles in Israel, we settled in Milan convinced that as Italians we would get help the same way the French and the English had helped out the expatriates. Nothing came our way, (once we received a can of cheese from America). We went down and down and down living in a boarding house in two rooms. It was the worst years of our lives.<br />
<br />
Broken lives but who cared? An Italian told me we deserved it because we Jews had crucified Christ. My parents did not survive their exile. My mother died at age 55 and my father 57.<br />
<br />
P.S. There is a follow up to that black period. A much happier one! I have been blissfully married to a Belgian for 50 years; have three wonderful, intelligent grown children and three equally beautiful grandkids.<br />
<br />
As the French say: les chats ne font pas des chiens!<br />
<br />
Suzy Vidal (Sultana Latifa) </div><div>The following article could also be viewed at <a href="http://hsje.org/mystory/therewasnone.htm">http://hsje.org/mystory/therewasnone.htm</a></div><div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0