Americans remember and honor the 2,403 Americans who were killed in the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor in Hawaii on December 7, 1941, which led to the United States declaring war on Japan the next day and thus entering World War II.
CHANUKAH- DECEMBER 7-15
1. According to Israel’s Founding Father, David Ben Gurion: Chanukah commemorates “the struggle of the Maccabees, which was one of the most dramatic clashes of civilizations in human history, not merely a political-military struggle against foreign oppression…. Unlike many peoples, the meager Jewish people did not assimilate. The Jewish people prevailed, won, sustained and enhanced their independence and unique civilization…. It was the spirit of the people, rather than the failed spirit of the establishment, which enabled the Hasmoneans to overcome one of the most magnificent spiritual, political and military challenges in Jewish history….” (Uniqueness and Destiny, pp 20-22, David Ben Gurion, IDF Publishing, 1953).
2. A Jewish national liberation holiday. Chanukah (evening of December 7 – December 15, 2023) is the only Jewish holiday that commemorates an ancient national liberation struggle in the Land of Israel, unlike the national liberation holidays, Passover, Sukkot/Tabernacles and Shavu’ot/Pentecost, which commemorate the liberation from slavery in Egypt to independence in the land of Israel, and unlike Purim, which commemorates liberation from a Persian attempt to annihilate the Jewish people.
3. Chanukah and the Land of Israel. When ordered by Emperor Antiochus IV Epiphanes of the Seleucid region to end the Jewish “occupation” of Jerusalem, Jaffa, Gaza, Gezer and Akron, Shimon the Maccabee responded: “We have not occupied a foreign land…. We have liberated the land of our forefathers from foreign occupation (Book of Maccabees A: 15:33).”
Chanukah highlights the centrality of the Land of Israel in the formation of Jewish history, religion, culture and language. The mountain ridges of Judea and Southern Samaria (the West Bank) were the platform for the Maccabean military battles: Mitzpah (the burial site of the Prophet Samuel, overlooking Jerusalem), Beth El (the site of the Ark of the Covenant and Judah the Maccabee’s initial headquarters), Beth Horon (Judah’s victory over Seron), Hadashah (Judah’s victory over Nicanor), Beth Zur (Judah’s victory over Lysias), Ma’aleh Levona (Judah’s victory over Apolonius), Adora’yim (a Maccabean fortress), Eleazar (named after Mattityahu’s youngest Maccabee son), Beit Zachariya (Judah’s first defeat), Ba’al Hatzor (where Judah was defeated and killed), Te’qoah, Mikhmash and Gophnah (bases of Shimon and Yonatan), the Judean Desert, etc.
4. Historical context Chanukah is narrated in the four Books of the Maccabees, The Scroll of Antiochus and The Wars of the Jews.
In 323 BCE, following the death of Alexander the Great (Alexander III) who held Judaism in high esteem, the Greek Empire was split into three independent and rival mini-empires: Greece, Seleucid/Syria and Ptolemaic/Egypt.
In 175 BCE, the Seleucid/Syrian Emperor Antiochus (IV) Epiphanes claimed the Land of Israel. He suspected that the Jews were allies of his Ptolemaic/Egyptian enemy. The Seleucid emperor was known for eccentric behavior, hence his name, Epiphanes, which means “divine manifestation.” He aimed to exterminate Judaism and convert Jews to Hellenism. In 169 BCE, he devastated Jerusalem, attempting to decimate the Jewish population, and outlaw the practice of Judaism.
In 166/7 BCE, a Jewish rebellion was led by the non-establishment Hasmonean (Maccabee) family from the rural town of Modi’in, half-way between Jerusalem and the Mediterranean. The rebellion was headed by Mattityahu, the priest, and his five sons, Yochanan, Judah, Shimon, Yonatan and Eleazar, who fought the Seleucid occupier and restored Jewish independence. The Hasmonean dynasty was replete with external and internal wars and lasted until 37 BCE, when Herod the Great (a proxy of Rome) defeated Antigonus II Mattathias.
5. The reputation of Jews as superb warriors was reaffirmed by the success of the Maccabees on the battlefield. In fact, they were frequently hired as mercenaries by Egypt, Syria, Carthage, Rome and other global and regional powers.
6. The significance of Chanukah. Chanukah celebrates the Maccabean-led national liberation by conducting in-house family education and lighting candles for 8 days in commemoration of the re-inauguration of Jerusalem’s Jewish Temple and its Menorah (candelabra).
The Hebrew words Chanukah (חנוכה), inauguration (חנוכ) and education ((חנוך possess the same root.
7. As was prophesized by the Prophet Hagai in 520 BCE, the re-inauguration of the Temple took place on the 25th day of the Jewish month of Kislev, which is the month of miracles, such as the post-flood appearance of Noah’s rainbow, the completion of the construction of the Holy Ark by Moses, the laying of the foundations of the Second Temple by Nehemiah, etc.
In 1777, Chanukah candles were lit during the most critical battle at Valley Forge, which solidified the victory of George Washington’s Continental Army over the British monarchy.
The 25th Hebrew word in Genesis is “light,” and the 25th stop during the Exodus was Hashmona (the same Hebrew spelling as Hasmonean-Maccabees).
The first day of Chanukah is celebrated when daylight hours are equal to darkness hours – and when moonlight is hardly noticed – ushering in brighter days.
8. Chanukah highlights the defeat of darkness, disbelief, forgetfulness and pessimism by the spirit of light, faith, commemoration and optimism.
https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2023/11/isaiah-berlin-and-the-meaning-of-life/
Excerpt:An amusing vignette about Churchill and Isaiah Berlin, from a very long article on Isaiah Berlin.
What to do? As it turned out, the Second World War ensured the question was deferred while Isaiah Berlin spent the next five years working for the British Information Service and Foreign Office in Washington and elsewhere, building up a vast network of useful contacts and a reputation as an incisive researcher and commentator on political, diplomatic and economic issues.
So prominent did his reputation become that he was honored with an invitation to lunch at Downing Street with the Churchills, along with the Commander of the Imperial General Staff and other dignitaries. At the table, the Prime Minister eagerly sought out the views of his special guest on various complex political matters, including the likelihood of Roosevelt being re-elected for a fourth term, but the answers he received seemed not particularly well-informed. He then asked Mr Berlin what he felt was the most important thing he had ever written. “White Christmas,” was the reply. Churchill, perplexed, gave up and turned to someone else. It was only later that he was told that through a mix-up it was the composer Irving Berlin who had been invited to enjoy lunch and Churchill’s company. Ironically, when the story of “the Irving–Winston–Isaiah affair” got out, it further enhanced Isaiah’s reputation, and he found that even more doors in the corridors of power and influence were now open to him.
The Nazi Roots of Hamas What the true origins of Hamas reveal about its nature. by Daniel Greenfield
https://www.frontpagemag.com/the-nazi-roots-of-hamas/
On Oct 7, Hamas, a terrorist organization born in part out of a collaboration between Nazis and Islamists, carried out the greatest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.
The butchery of men, women and children and the elderly, was not only ‘Nazi-like’, it was in some ways the final act of a Nazi crime nearly eight decades in the making.
In 1946, the Muslim Brotherhood held its founding conference in Gaza at the Samer Cinema. The movie theater which had opened two years earlier and would be shut down, along with much of Gaza’s movie theaters as the Islamist movement strengthened its grip over the area, represented the secular Western culture that the Islamic organization wanted to destroy.
It was a modest beginning for the group that would eventually become known as Hamas.
The Muslim Brotherhood’s expansion into Israel began a year earlier in 1945. The Brotherhood’s foreign backers, the Nazis, had surrendered earlier that year. The thousand pound checks which had helped take the Brotherhood from just another fringe Islamist theocratic movement to a dominant force in Egyptian political culture would no longer be coming. And Nazi Germany’s armies would not be arriving to help them kill all the Jews.
Without the Nazis, the Brotherhood no longer had the money or any protection from the British, who might seek to punish their Nazi collaboration, or the Egyptian monarchy which was worried that the Islamist group was seeking to overthrow it. By 1948, Egypt had banned the Brotherhood and Hassan al-Banna, its charismatic leader, had been shot dead in the street a year later.
Al-Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, had admired Nazi organizations and methods. A British report noted that he had made “a careful study of the Nazi and fascist organizations. Using them as a model, he has formed organizations of specially trained and trusted men who correspond respectively to the Brown Shirts and Black Shirts.”
The Muslim Brotherhood from which Hamas sprang had been built in imitation of the Nazis.
The Nazis and the Brotherhood had fundamental religious and ethnic differences but shared common goals: especially when it came to the Jews. A Nazi agent who helped funnel money to the Brotherhood reported on one of its conferences calling for Jihad in Israel.
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2023/11/negotiating_for_hostages.html
Prisoner exchange is not a new event in Jewish history. From the 1940s on, Israel exchanged Palestinian prisoners and POWs from Arab armies in exchange for Israeli soldiers and civilians taken captive during the war.
In the ancient world, in Numbers 21:1, Israel did not negotiate with the enemy but went to battle against her respective enemies in order to save prisoners.
A seminal case occurred in the early 13th century. Rabbi Meir of Rothenberg (1215–1293) was taken captive when he was 70 years old by Emperor Rudolf I, who demanded an exorbitant sum for the rabbi’s release. This act was done in peacetime, and the rabbis and leaders of the Jewish communities in that generation were the rabbi’s students. They were absolutely prepared to raise the sum necessary to free their teacher, even though it would spell financial disaster for the community.
Notwithstanding, the renowned rabbi would not permit the ransom to be paid, for he understood that such an act would only encourage the enemies of Israel to imprison other rabbis in the future and demand huge sums for their release.
Fast-forward, and Israel continually faces the intractable issue regarding Israeli hostages. Since its inception in 1988, Hamas is absolutely clear about its total opposition to Zionism and Israel. Hamas constantly celebrates the killing of Jews.
According to Rabbi Eliezer Melamed, the “rule is that in times of war one does not submit to any of the enemies’ demands.” For as soon as one gives in to them, they will gain confidence and increase their efforts to strike again and again.
In fact, “[a]ny concession is seen as a sign of weakness and merely leads to more attacks and more attempts to take hostages.”
What’s more, as a result of [Israel’s] willingness to free large numbers of prisoners for one or two Israeli hostages, the terrorists … figure that even if they do get caught, they most likely will be freed eventually in a prisoner exchange deal.
It should also be noted that many of the terrorists who have been released by Israel in the past simply returned to their terrorist activities, murdering more Israelis. Therefore, as a result of our receiving one Israeli hostage, scores of other innocent Israelis have been murdered.
Presently, the chair of the Israeli Otzma Yehudit party has “stated that that any such swap ‘will bring us to disaster,’ pointing to the 2011 deal to release more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners — including Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, thought to be the mastermind of the October 7 massacre [emphasis mine] — in exchange for captive IDF soldier Gilad Shalit.”
http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/sharpe
With both friends and enemies of Israel still exercised over what we know as the “Two-State solution,” it’s worth remembering that the very first such solution was enacted in infamy 102 years ago.
In 1920, Great Britain was given the responsibility by the League of Nations to oversee the geographical and non-state territory known as Palestine, with the express intention of reconstituting within it a Jewish national home. The territory in question stretched from the Mediterranean Sea to the eastern boundary of Mandatory Palestine, a border that would separate it from what was to become the future British-created state of Iraq.
The League of Nations drew up a few articles to this end, which were in line with the original intent of the Balfour Declaration of Nov. 29, 1917. At the last minute, however, a new and ominous article was introduced by the British Colonial Office: Article 25.
At first the sudden addition of this article was not cause for alarm, but gradually it became apparent that its inclusion directly enabled Great Britain in 1921/22 to tear away all the territory of geographical Palestine east of the River Jordan and give it away to the Arab Hashemite family; the territory to become Transjordan, led by the emir Abdullah. That took place some 102 years ago.
Britain presented this gift to Abdullah, the son of the Sherif of Mecca, as a consolation prize for its awarding of the Hejaz territory and Arabia, which included Mecca, to the rival Saud family: That vast territory is now Saudi Arabia.
British officials also claimed that the gift was in gratitude to the Hashemites for their contribution in helping defeat the Turks. However, even T.S. Lawrence, known as Lawrence of Arabia, later described the Hashemite role in derisory terms, as “a side show of a side show.”
https://www.nationalreview.com/2023/10/that-old-republican-brawl/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_medium=homepage&utm_campaign=right-rail&utm_content=capital-matters&utm_term=second
Republicans should learn from their own history to avoid a replay of the 1912 election in 2024.
If Republicans have this much trouble choosing a speaker of the House, they can’t consider policy. If they can’t consider policy, they can’t build a strong platform. And if they can’t build a strong platform, they will have nothing to stand on in the next presidential election.
The default will be a mêlée of loyalists of various stripes — traditional Republicans, the odd libertarian, Trump revivalists — and of course, Donald Trump himself. The result is that policy itself will get neglected in the crucial 2024 year, to the enormous detriment of the American economy.
The price of such a free-for-all becomes clear when you go back to another point when Republicans brawled: the year 1912.
Playing the Trump role in that period was Theodore Roosevelt, though TR hadn’t started out as a powermonger. In his early years TR was a reformer, shining a spotlight on corruption in New York state. The early TR was also an American expansionist and a warrior — the Rough Rider who breached a steep ravine to emerge victorious at the Battle of San Juan Hill. Roosevelt became president after an assassin felled William McKinley in 1901.
And the presidency went to Roosevelt’s head. As president, he electrified the nation with impulsive forays — to call some of them “policies” would be a stretch. He forced a coup in Colombia to secure the Panama Canal, a step so brazen that Senator S. I. Hayakawa of California would comment of Panama, “We stole it fair and square.” But it was on the domestic front that most Americans focused. Here Roosevelt proved equally heedless, wielding the Department of Justice like a cudgel against business leaders he branded as “malefactors of wealth.”
Roosevelt selected as successor his friend William Howard Taft, who had a certain Burkean incrementalism. “We are all imperfect,” Taft once intoned. “We cannot expect perfect government.” Taft was also a fine jurist who could lay out the value of the separation of powers with all the skill of Montesquieu. “Wise deliberation,” Taft said, “may constitute the salvation of our republic.”
When it came to defending the Constitution, Taft managed to convert theory into action: persuading Congress to back legislation that gave the Supreme Court more independence to set its own agenda, as well as supporting funding for a symbol of that independence, a separate Supreme Court building. It is this champion of judicial independence some of us hope to learn more of in Walter Stahr’s forthcoming Taft biography.
Meanwhile we can study the Taft whom we know — the one who, against his own nature, opted to play the loyalist in his era’s electoral theater. As Jeffrey Rosen shows in his own perspicacious biography, after his 1908 election Taft devoted his first years in office to dignifying Roosevelt’s excesses by forcing them into a constitutional corset.
https://www.renewamerica.com/columns/sharpe/231022
Ask one hundred people in the United States what a dhimmi is and perhaps a dozen would know but most would admit ignorance. In Eastern Europe, the number would be higher because of latent memories of battles fought against invading Moslem armies and Islamic occupation over hundreds of years.
Beneath the seemingly civilized exterior of man lies tribal hatred, desperately trying to claw its way out. When it does, man can easily rationalize even the most heinous of his acts as virtuous. His target invariably becomes a demonized, marginalized group he can scapegoat as needed. No group has suffered more of this tribal hatred than the Jews.
In the early 7th century, an Arabian warlord started a new religion: Islam. Mohammed, forced out of Mecca, found refuge with three Jewish tribes in Medina. Relations deteriorated quickly as Mohammed raided and plundered Jewish trade caravans. Mohammed banished two of the tribes and defeated the third at the Battle of the Trench (627). Mohammed was merciless in victory. All men were slain, and all women and children enslaved.
Under Islam, Jews and Christians would live uneasily as dhimmis, a non-Muslim underclass, forced to pay the jizya (tax), forbidden to own arms, and required to differentiate themselves from Muslims in their dress. For them, the story was one of forced conversions to Islam, slavery, death along with the Islamic institution of dhimmitude.
This is the word that describes the parlous state of those who refused to convert to Islam and became the subjugated, non-Muslims who were forced to accept a restrictive and humiliating subordination to a superior Islamic power and live as second-class citizens in order to avoid enslavement or death. These peoples and populations were known as dhimmis, and if such a status was not humiliating enough, a special tax or tribute, called the jizya, was imposed upon them.
https://issuesinsights.com/2023/10/17/hamas-and-israel-a-thought-experiment/
Antisemitism was intentionally baked into “Palestinian” nationalism.
The Hamas attack on Israel was not only reprehensible and unconscionable, but also incredibly very astonishingly stupid.
Typically, when you enter into a conflict of any type – from a war to a game of Go Fish – you tend to think you can win in the end. Sometimes you know it’s a long shot, sometimes you think you have a better chance, sometimes the brilliant plan you had going in turns out to be perfect or incredibly wrong.
But you tend not start something you know you cannot win and you know will end up killing you.
So what was Hamas thinking? Other governments have done stupid things to start and during wars – Pearl Harbor was stupid (at least some in the Imperial government knew it at the time) because a war with the United States that lasted more than a couple of years was unwinnable. Napoleon invading Russia was stupid because even though he achieved his goals — he took Moscow – he lost everything, including his most important ally: his aura of invincibility.
Did Hamas think the raid would make Israel think “Wow, they really have a credible military now, maybe we should give them what they want”? Impossible, because what Hamas wants is Israel – and especially Israelis – literally dead and gone forever.
There has been much chatter about blame and fault, with the vile crowds gathered in Harvard Square going on about de-colonization and settler mindsets and it’s not their land so Hamas can do anything it wants because they are noble and righteous fighters for social justice who just happen to decapitate babies.
This prattling does miss out on rather a large chunk of history, of course. There has never actually been a formal Palestinian “Palestine.”
https://www.frontpagemag.com/indigenous-slavers-american-indians-who-whipped-and-owned-blacks/
As leftists look to cancel Christopher Columbus and annual holiday commemorating him — that is, the man who discovered this land that is the United States of America — they’re also looking to replace the great explorer with a day of their own. That new day for these cultural revolutionaries, celebrated all the way up to the level of their president, one Joseph Robinette Biden, is something called Indigenous Peoples’ Day.
How ironic this is.
Among the sins that leftists try to peg on Columbus is slavery. And yet, many of their indigenous peoples, including the so-called “civilized” among them, in fact owned slaves. No, I’m not merely talking about their savage cruelty toward fellow tribes. I’m talking about their brute treatment of the black African slaves they owned, in some cases even after the Civil War.
Now there’s something that progressives will not be teaching the kiddies this Indigenous Peoples’ Day.
I unfortunately know too much about this subject, having written a book on slavery. The ugly truth about slavery is that it isn’t America’s original sin; it’s humanity’s sin. Scholars trace slavery back 9,000-11,000 years ago. Pretty much every culture engaged in the practice. Open your Bible and read about Jews being enslaved constantly. Do a little more digging and read about Egyptian slavers, Mesopotamian slavers, Chinese slavers, the Incans, the ferocious Aztecs and Mayans hailed if not revered by the maniacs in our public schools, and, of course, the most militant slavers of them all: Muslims.
But pick up your kid’s civics text and you’ll find a total whitewash on the subject of Native American slavers.
For the record, many modern black Americans are not ignorant of that past. There are blacks today with literal lawsuits still against those Indian tribes. These black Americans probably wonder why university professors, liberal journalists, and Democrats have been silent on this racism against their people.
My book includes a long chapter on these Indigenous slavers. I cannot do the subject adequate justice here, but I’ll share a few thoughts.
