http://maggiesfarm.anotherdotcom.com/archives/21123-Differing-Chanukah-Stories-Still-Argued.html Differing Chanukah Stories Still Argued The earlier written narrative of the Maccabean revolt against Hellenization and outlawing Jewish worship differs in emphasis from the later “official” Jewish take on the result. The portion of the Apocrypha (biblical era writings not included in the Jewish Bible) dealing with the events does not mention a miracle […]
This dispatch can also be read here: http://www.tomgrossmedia.com/mideastdispatches/archives/001321.html
* “The fragrance is pleasant and attractive, like the missiles of the Palestinian resistance, and especially the M-75”
* Chants of ‘Jews to the gas’ and bomb threat greet Israeli musicians in Belgium
* Stevie Wonder pulls out of pro-Israel concert after pressure from staff at the UN
* Former editor of The Sun: anti-Israel coverage is “a form of proxy for anti-Semitism” by many journalists
* Young Afghan woman beheaded by her husband for refusing to work as a prostitute
(One or two of the items below are from last month, but I didn’t have time to include them in a dispatch until now.)
CONTENTS
1. MacKenzie: anti-Israel coverage is “a form of proxy for anti-Semitism”
2. New perfume in Gaza named after Hamas missile
3. Huge billboards in Gaza say “Thank You, Iran” in Arabic and Hebrew
4. Two arrested for beheading teenage girl in Afghanistan
5. Chants of ‘Jews to the gas’ and bomb threat greet Israeli musicians on European tour
6. Batsheva dance performance interrupted in Britain
7. Stevie Wonder pulls out of yesterday’s “Friends of the IDF” concert after UN pressure
8. Krauthammer: The UN became a playpen for dictators
9. Despite ongoing atrocities, Ivory Coast elected as UN Commission Vice-Chair
10. Iranian writers, poets call for end to censorship
11. Iran to investigate jailed blogger’s death
12. Two Israeli documentaries make shortlist for Oscars
http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=6661
You summoned our ambassadors to be reprimanded over the most natural thing on earth: settling our own country. You’ve got it wrong. We never settled on “occupied Palestinian territory.” This is our country, the Jewish people’s only homeland. We didn’t come to Israel because of the pogroms or the Holocaust. We didn’t ask you to do us any favors “at the Palestinians’ expense” because other countries had a centuries-long hobby of destroying, killing and wiping out Jews.
We came home because it was what we wanted, with all our souls, for generations. We never gave up the dream of returning to Zion. No matter where on earth they were, Jews prayed facing toward Zion. Three times a day they asked to be allowed to behold the return to Zion with their own eyes. Even as they thanked God every time they ate bread, they always prayed in grace after meals: “Have mercy on Zion” and “Build Jerusalem speedily, in our own time.” At the happiest moment of their lives, groom and bride swore the oath of Zion’s exiles, “If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget itself.” Even during the exile, the cycle of the Jewish year was set according to the agricultural seasons in the land of Israel. Our people started returning to our land in steadily-growing groups over a hundred years before the Zionist movement was established.
And the land kept faith with its own. It never accepted another nation. After we were exiled, no state ever existed here. Most of the land remained desolate for centuries. Nomads passed through it. After the Second Temple was destroyed in the first century C.E., many Jews remained there. They survived the Christian occupation until the seventh century, when the Muslims occupied the land and gave the Jews there two choices: conversion to Islam or exile. Those who cleaved to the God of Israel went into exile. Those who cleaved to the land of Israel converted to Islam. They lived like the anousim — forced converts — of Spain for a generation or two and then were assimilated. What a historical irony — the real old-timers among the Arabs in Israel have Jewish roots. Most of the rest arrived after we started coming back home. Like the Muslim immigrants in your countries, Muslims from the region came to the land of Israel seeking work. Many of them arrived here when the British conquered the country.
