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Wednesday 15 April 2015

Netanyahu on Yom Hashoah: ‘World Has Not Learned Lessons of Holocaust’ The proof... Iran's deal

Photo/Ohad Zoigenberg

Upping his attack against the recent framework deal reached with Iran, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu connected the policy of appeasement of world leaders prior to WWII to the current Iran deal, suggesting the West has not learned the lessons of the Holocaust. 

Speaking at the state ceremony commemorating “Yom Hashoah Ve-Hagevurah — Day of (remembrance of) the Holocaust and the Heroism” at Yad Vashem Wednesday evening, Netanyahu stated, “The danger is there for all to see… and yet the blindness is vast. The West is capitulating in the face of Iran’s aggressive actions.. Democracies cannot turn their eyes away from the dictatorships of the world that seek to spread their influence. Ahead of World War II, the world attempted to appease the Nazis. They wanted quite at any price, and the terrible price did come. 

“Iranian leaders are exported death and destruction,” Netanyahu roared. “The world is not listening to the calls in Iran urging death to Israel, death to America.. Appeasement towards these regimes increases their aggressiveness. If this aggressiveness is not curbed in time, humanity may find itself in far greater wars in the future.”

He vowed, “We will continue to work towards opening the eyes of the world.. Even if we will be forced to stand alone, we will not falter. We will maintain our right to defend ourselves… we will not let the state of Israel become a passing phase in the history of our nation.”

Netanyahu stated that he views preventing another Holocaust as his “personal responsibility” as Prime Minister of the State of Israel. 

“Even if we are forced to stand alone, we will not be afraid – in every scenario, in every situation, we will preserve out right, we will preserve our capability and our determination to defend ourselves,” declared the israeli premier. “Seventy years ago, we were a nation of helpless refugees – today we can speak for ourselves. We are determined to ensure our existence and our future. Our job is to fight those who want to destroy us… we will not allow the State of Israel to become a fleeting episode in the history of our people.”

President Reuven Rivlin also addressed the commemoration ceremony, themed “The Anguish of Liberation and the Return to Life: 70 years since the end of World War II.”

“Israel was established by right, and by love of the ancient homeland and the power of dreaming a dream which became a reality. It was not established because of the threat of destruction or the hate of the other,” Rivlin said. 

Monday 13 April 2015

Holland Chief Rabbi: We Need to Stay Visibly Jewish

Holland’s Chief Rabbi Benjamin Jacobs

In light of the rise of anti-Semitic incidents spreading across the globe the European Jewish Association has undertaken a campaign calling on gentiles to wear Jewish symbols and religious items such as Yarmulkes, to express solidarity with Jewish people.

Holland’s Chief Rabbi Benjamin Jacobs said in a video message to EJA representatives, published by  the Jerusalem Post: “Forty years ago when I came to Holland, it never, ever happened that someone would call me in the street ‘dirty Jew’ or curse me because I’m Jewish, visibly Jewish. Today it’s normal.”

Rabbi Jacobs also shared his personal experience how he has survived several anti-Jewish attacks. “They threw things at my windows,” he said of the anti-Semitic people. “A car drove into me. But, thank God, the government is protecting me in a very good and friendly way.”

In response to the uptick of hate incidents, many Jews are refusing to publicly wear items that identify them as Jews. But the Rabbi offered strong words of support that one should not fear wearing his true identity. “Our response should be that we stay visibly Jewish. Wear a yarmulke on the streets, not a baseball cap. Wear a Magen David, whatever someone needs to show the world he’s is Jewish,” he said.

The EJA launched a campaign “to get as many non-Jews as possible to wear Jewish symbols and show solidarity, and that they are a part of the silent majority that is not anti-Semitic,” Rabbi Menachem Margolin one of the organization leaders said.

Friday 10 April 2015

Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign Thugs Facing Procecution for Antisemitism

Article below is from their Website:
Trial is set for Thu 17 & Fri 18 September inside the building above, Glasgow Sheriff Court. Prosecution will be calling 10 police officers among 17 prosecution witnesses in their effort to convict two Palestine campaigners of a 'racially aggravated' offence. Please put these dates in your diary now and come to the demonstration outside Glasgow Sheriff Court 9.30 on Thurs 17 September. We will not be intimidated!

Photo (below) at Glasgow Sheriff Court this morning.
The apartheid state continues to kill, using Scottish guidance systems to drop bombs on Gaza. Scottish and British low-life forms make money from murder and those who oppose the criminals get prosecuted.

A user's photo.

Recognition of the Palestinian State. Scottish parliamentary motion. Sandra White MSP

 
S4M-12630# Sandra White: Recognition of the Palestinian State—That the Parliament believes that the recognition of the state of Palestine alongside the state of Israel based on 1967 borders could be a stimulus to securing a negotiated two-state solution in the Middle East and notes the opinion of many Israelis and Palestinians living in Glasgow, the rest of Scotland and beyond that resolution through peaceful means is the only option.

SNP may force Labour to take tougher line on Israel

Scaremongering or more than a kernel of truth?

Ms Sturgeon’s much-advertised hostility to austerity provides some clues as to the price the SNP will try to extract for its support. But what impact might it have on a Labour government’s foreign policy?

One statistic speaks volumes. The Scottish government issued double the number of statements during last summer’s six week-long war in Gaza than it had during the previous three years of conflict in Syria. 

That is hardly surprising — former first minister Alex Salmond’s position on Israel is well known. He was an early supporter of an arms embargo on Israel during Operation Protective Edge, while in 2010, he backed economic sanctions against Israel, terming its interception of the Mavi Marmara, the ship attempting to break the blockade of Gaza, “an atrocity on the high seas”. 

Mr Salmond is hardly a yesterday’s man. Scottish Parliament member Ms Sturgeon is not standing for a seat at Westminster. With polls indicating Mr Salmond should comfortably succeed in his bid to return to the Commons, expect him to play a key role in relaying the SNP’s demands to Mr Miliband. 

Ms Sturgeon’s own inclinations are not hard to discern. Last August she agreed to headline a Stop the War coalition Women for Gaza rally in Glasgow. That she would be appearing alongside the former journalist and Respect party candidate, Yvonne Ridley, who had days earlier called for a “Zionist-free Scotland”, did not seem to unduly concern the then-deputy first minister.

Mr Miliband would, no doubt, disown such rhetoric. But there are some potentially easy trades he could make with the SNP. Having whipped his MPs to support it last autumn, for instance, it is not hard to see him following the lead of Sweden’s Social Democrats who, days after winning power in October 2014, unilaterally recognised a Palestinian state. 

The SNP’s views on the Middle East beyond Israel are equally worrying. Last August, its MPs joined Labour’s hard left in voting against air strikes against Islamic State in Iraq. Last month, its current leader in Westminster, Angus Robertson, made clear his party would attempt to nudge Mr Miliband toward an anti-interventionist foreign policy, citing “the joint approach we took on Syria” as an example. 

Ms Sturgeon will receive another moment in the national limelight next week when, alongside Mr Miliband, she participates in the televised “challengers” debate . Foreign policy was, predictably, ignored in the leaders’ debate last week. Perhaps this time we will get to hear what she has to say on the subject.

Thursday 9 April 2015

British Rabbis Launch Online Gay Matchmaking Service

Rabbis from the Reform movement of Great Britain are launching an online matchmaking service with the intent of making it easier for gay and lesbian Jews to find Jewish partners.

The proposed website, which will cater to both gay and straight Jews, is the initiative of Rabbi Laura Janner-Klausner, senior rabbi of England’s Movement for Reform Judaism, and other Reform rabbis acting at the behest of English same-sex couples, according to the Religion News Service.

Unlike in the United States, where many Reform rabbis perform interfaith marriages, British Reform rabbis will only marry couples if both partners are Jewish.

Janner-Klausner told RNS that a large part of her motivation boiled down to the simple difficulty of gay Jews meeting other gay Jews in Britain.

“At the bottom of it all is the question of numbers,” she told RNS. “Jewish gays live in a niche religious community. They are a minority within a minority. If they want to remain Jewish, it’s even harder for them than other gay people.”

RNS reports that the Reform movement does not yet know when the service will launch.

Source: http://forward.com/articles/218325/

Thousands of Orthodox Christian Pilgrims in Jerusalem for Holy Fire Ritual

Thousands of Orthodox Christian pilgrims will once again converge in Jerusalem, one of Christianity’s holiest cities for what many call a miraculous annual event. Known simply as “the miracle of the Holy Fire” by Orthodox Christians throughout the world, it is the annual event that draws worshippers and cynics alike.


 

The ritual dates back at least 1,200 years.

Christians believe Jesus was crucified, buried and resurrected at the site where the Church of the Holy Sepulcher now stands in the Old City of Jerusalem in the modern state of Israel.

While the source of the holy fire is a closely guarded secret, believers say the flame appears spontaneously from his tomb on the day before Easter to show that Jesus has not forgotten his followers.

Thousands of Christians wait outside the church every year for it to open on Holy Saturday morning. Custody of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher is shared by a number of denominations that jealously guard their responsibilities under a fragile network of agreements hammered out over the last millennia that often breaks down, leading to violent scuffles between rival religions.

In 2008 a violent fight broke out between Greek and Armenian Orthodox monks.

The Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem is the main guardian of the ritual. Every year after an elaborate procession, he is led into the small tomb structure where it is believed Jesus was buried. At exactly 2pm local time, a sun beam is believed to shine into the window of the ceiling of the church and light the lamp inside the tomb.

Church lights are switched off and the silence of anticipation follows.

The Patriarch then lights a bundle of candles with the holy fire— 33 of them, each representing a year of Jesus’ life on earth, and passes them on to worshipers inside the church.

Seconds after the Greek Orthodox Patriarch reveals the Holy Fire, it is rapidly spread throughout the church as worshipers light each other’s candles. The fire is then passed on to the worshipers who are waiting outside.

Many of those gathered carry similar bundles and try to have them lit by the Patriarch’s flames. Within seconds, the basilica is aglow from the candles church bells ring out in joy.

Lanterns containing the fire are sent throughout the world, in time for various Orthodox Christian churches to use it to celebrate the Resurrection. Special flights to Athens and other cities take place every year at great expense— often criticized by local non-believers.

Criticism and cynicism of the event Orthodox Christians call a miracle isn’t just a recent phenomenon.

In 1238, Pope Gregory IX denounced the Holy Fire as a fraud and forbade Franciscans from participating in the ceremony and many scientists, writers and foreign visitors have written about it over the centuries, some calling it a fraud, others calling a natural phenomenon using chemicals.

This year, a group called the Atheist Union of Greece wrote to Greek government ministries criticizing the government’s involvement in transporting the flame from Jerusalem to Athens, citing the financial crisis and the government’s spending crunch.

Citing the ongoing economic woes of the country, the union wrote in the letter: “In a time when taxpayers Greeks are experiencing cuts in wages and pensions, a severe taxation, unemployment and compression of real income, we consider unthinkable that the Greek State and therefore the Greek taxpayers give even one euro for the transfer of the supposed ‘Holy Light’.”

Sunday 5 April 2015

White House Seder included Ashkenazic, Sephardic traditions

(JTA) — Moroccan haroset balls, savory holiday brisket and carrot souffle were on the menu at the annual White House Seder.

The guests finished the meal with raspberry ganache marjolaine, and triple layer chocolate macaroon cake, according to the White House.

The guest list for Friday night’s seder was not made public. It is the seventh time that President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle have hosted a White House Seder.

Susan Barocas, a Washington-based filmmaker and foodie, served as guest chef for the meal, alongside White House chef Cris Comerford, according to the White House, to create the meal that incorporated both Ashkenazic and Sephardic traditions and which included dishes prepared by family members of several of the Seder’s attendees.

In recounting the story of the Exodus from Egypt, the “joined their guests in performing the Seder rituals and followed the Haggadah’s command that we see ourselves as though we personally were liberated from Egypt. And they acknowledged how this story has inspired generations of Americans in the struggle for civil rights,” according to the White House. .

President Obama issued Passover greetings on Friday to those celebrating Passover in the United States, in the state of Israel and throughout the world.

“The story of the Exodus – the signs and wonders that appeared when hope seemed lost, the Jewish people’s abiding belief that they would one day reach the Promised Land – has inspired countless generations over the years.  It inspired Jewish families to hold fast to their faith, even during times of terrible persecution.  It inspired young Civil Rights leaders as they marched across an Alabama bridge in search of their own Promised Land, half a century ago,” Obama said in his message.

“And it continues to inspire us today.  Tonight, my family will read the passage of the Haggadah that declares we must see ourselves as though we personally were liberated from Egypt.  The Exodus reminds us that progress has always come slow and the future has always been uncertain, but it also reminds there is always reason for hope,” he said.