Kristallnacht 2023: Swords of Iron and an alarming rise in Jew-hatred

Here we go again. Tonight it is the 85th anniversary of Kristallnacht, the “Night of Broken Glass” when hundreds of synagogues were burnt down across Germany and thousands of Jews were arrested, some sent to concentration camps, others simply murdered. It is considered the start of the Holocaust although anti-Jewish laws had been in place for almost 5 years by then. You can read my father’s recollections of Kristallnacht when he was a 9 year old boy here.

The demonic virus of Jew-hatred (given the euphemistic name “antisemitism” by the antisemites themselves to disguise their very Jew-hatred) is rising at an alarming rate. Jewish communities worldwide are suffering an unprecedented onslaught featuring vicious assaults, daubing of Jewish houses in Paris and Berlin with a Magen David, taunts, discrimination and more.

As part of an intimidation campaign, some people in Berlin have started marking the buildings where Jews live pic.twitter.com/DapVPnIJ6v

— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) October 14, 2023

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The daubings on a building in Paris (Image: Twitter)

A French Jewish woman was stabbed in her home and her door daubed with a swastika.

The presence of a mezuzah at her doorway, a traditional Jewish symbol, alongside the swastika points to a hate crime, prompting the Lyon public prosecutor’s office to suggest an “antisemitic motive” in their preliminary assessment, though not all authorities in France have yet to determine if it is considered an antisemitic attack.

Well, gee whiz, maybe the attacker just had a bad day at work! The stupidity and wilful blindness of the authorities enrages me!

In Dagestan, of all the obscure places in the world an antisemitic mob stormed a plane coming in from Israel “searching for Jews” (just like the Nazis and Hamas did).

Footage from the incident depicted a mob causing havoc within an airport terminal, fueled by information about the incoming flight from Israel. Dagestan, a region with a predominantly Muslim population, escalated as the mob reportedly moved from one plane to another, actively seeking Jewish passengers.

 

BREAKING:

A Lynch mob has stormed the airport in Dagestan, Russia and is now going from plane to plane looking for Jewish passengers.

A plane from Tel Aviv was landing.

In this video, they interrogate one of the plane technicians, asking him:

“tell us where the Jews are” pic.twitter.com/CEHrjrBmez

— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) October 29, 2023

Across the world, anywhere where posters of the 240 Israeli hostages kidnapped by Hamas have been posted on walls and lampposts, we have seen particularly nasty “pro-Palestinians” (again, these are Jew-haters, and are not pro anything) tearing the posters down. Posters of kidnapped children!! These haters cannot bear that Jews, Israelis even, are the victims in this situation. Palestinian victimhood MUST trump all. It’s juvenile and pathetic but evil and ultimately very dangerous.

Victoria Ruiz, a New York public defender, was filmed ripping down posters of Israeli hostages (Photo: StopAntisemitism/X/Twitter)

No matter how you feel about the war, you have to be an absolute demon to take a poster down of a 6 month old baby that’s been taken hostage by Hamas. pic.twitter.com/JQWNLxYnJd

— Robby Starbuck (@robbystarbuck) November 5, 2023

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Even the police in both Germany (!) and the UK got in on the act on spurious points of law of “keeping social order”:

Berlin officials were accused of playing ‘bull**** bingo’ after trying to justify several of the city’s officers tearing down posters depicting images of Israeli hostages held by Hamas.

At least three uniformed officers were videoed wordlessly taking down posters that share information about some of the roughly 200 civilians who were taken from Israel into Gaza by Hamas following its deadly October 7 attack.

The video, shared to social media, comes after police in London and Manchester were severely criticised for taking down fliers depicting hostages taken into Gaza by Hamas.

In the US, Laura Woll, President of a synagogue in Detroit, was found murdered, stabbed to death, on her doorstep with no apparent motive, certainly not robbery. Are we being paranoid in suspecting Jew-hatred as the motive? Are the police investigating this crime properly? Or are they going to be as useless as their French colleagues?

Yesterday in Los Angeles, Paul Kessler, a Jewish man, was killed by a “protestor” at a “pro-Palestinian” (read: anti-Israel, anti-Jewish) demonstration. He was forcefully hit on the side of his head by a megaphone wielded by one of the protestors which caused him to fall and hit his head on the pavement. A few hours later he died in hospital. An autopsy showed the cause of death to be homicide by blunt force trauma.

The size and viciousness of the anti-Israel protests in the US are jaw-droppingly awful, and the situation on US campuses for Jewish students is even worse.

NEW YORK — Friction is continuing on college campuses a day after a tense moment between Jewish students and participants in a pro-Palestinian rally at Cooper Union, heightening safety concerns amid ongoing clashes over the Israel-Hamas war.

Jewish leaders and students gathered Thursday afternoon on the Manhattan campus to condemn the college’s handling of the incident. Advocates said several Jewish students in the campus library felt threatened by protestors who shouted pro-Palestine messages and appeared to be intent on breaking into the library room.

“This school is in violation of the civil rights of these students,” said New York City Council Member Inna Vernikov — who was recently charged with gun possession after she protested against a pro-Palestinian rally.

“It is their job to protect Jewish students. Could you imagine this happening to any other ethnic minority in New York City?”

The clash at Cooper Union is the latest example of conflict between students and faculty on college campuses. Anxiety surrounding campus safety has been growing as protests erupt across the country over the conflict in the Middle East.

Columbia University earlier this week postponed a major fundraising drive following an assault on an Israeli student after he confronted a woman for tearing down posters with names of photos of Israelis that Hamas took as hostages and dueling demonstrations on campus.

And following an anti-Israel protest at Binghamton University, a student declared that “Israel is worse than Nazi Germany.” Jewish students, faculty and alumni at New York University, meanwhile, signed onto a letter this week condemning the institution’s lack of response to the rise in antisemitism.

Students at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., also projected pro-Hamas messaging onto campus buildings at night, with one reading “Glory to our Martyrs.”

And officials at Drexel University are investigating whether a Jewish student was the victim of a hate crime after the student’s dorm room door was set on fire.

There is so much more information out there, I’m sure you have all read and heard about all the protests and antisemitism ad nauseum.

Anti-Israel protests have taken place all around the world with increasing ferocity:

Tens of thousands of pro-Palestinian and anti-Israeli protesters rallied in London, Paris, Washington, Berlin and elsewhere on Saturday calling for a ceasefire in Gaza as the intense fighting showed no signs of abating.

… Meanwhile, European capitals saw the latest of a series of rallies that have included both calls for a halt to the fighting and alleged praise for the Hamas terror group’s onslaught of southern Israel.

Moving on to the UK, similar vicious protests have been seen across the country, particularly in the big cities like London, Brighton, etc.

Protesters gather with placards and Palestinian flags during the “London Rally For Palestine” in Trafalgar Square, central London on November 4, 2023. (JUSTIN TALLIS / AFP)

There’s been a lot of sick stuff today. But this? A celebration of the bulldozer breaking down the fence that led to the rape, murder, beheading and mutilation of men, woman and children? In LONDON? Clear glorification of Hamas. Once again paging @metpoliceuk pic.twitter.com/d4cVx5T5PL

— Jake Wallis Simons (@JakeWSimons) November 4, 2023

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All this brings us to ask some deep questions. The main one is this: how is it that on Simchat Torah, 7th October 2023, Israel was attacked in a surprise invasion by Hamas who invaded dozens of border communities, and proceeded to rape, torture, murder, behead and mutilate 1,400 (one thousand four hundred) Israeli civilians! Like the Nazis 85 years ago, they searched inside closets, under beds, inside dustbins, everywhere, to find the hidden Jews and kill them. They then kidnapped another 240 or more Israelis and dragged them off, many of them severely wounded, 30 of them children including babies!, several of them very elderly, and have hidden them around Gaza.

And then… the world exploded in rage AGAINST ISRAEL!! I just don’t get it. Well, obviously I do get it. It’s antisemitism, Jew-hatred, bigotry, prejudice, indoctrination of thousands of years of “the Jews killed Jesus”, “the Jews poison the wells”, “the Jews control the banks, the economy, the weather, the New World Order” – take your pick.

There are several worthwhile articles I’ve come across in the last few weeks, from different standpoints. I would recommend you read them for your own information and to spread the word to your friends, family and contacts around the world.

First is this from Ynet: Decoding the Enigma: what’s behind the largest anti-Israel protests in Britain?

In the post-war period in England: There has been a 1,353% surge in the number of anti-Semitic incidents. The country has witnessed 533 anti-Semitic events. There have been 150 incidents targeting Jews on campuses, according to Ministry of Diaspora Affairs.

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Another aspect to consider is the history of England itself. According to Lederman, one of the focal points of the Western left in recent decades has been addressing the legacy of European colonialism. He notes, “there is a sense of guilt and a desire for historical rectification regarding the crimes of colonialism—such as the killing of indigenous people, territorial occupation, exploitation of natural resources, and even slavery, for which the British were no less culpable than the Americans.

“And how do they perceive our conflict today? Exactly in those terms. They see it as ‘superior whites’ governing another nation. Israelis are viewed as colonizers settling on lands belonging to others. For some, all Israelis are considered settlers, whether they are an innocent family in a kibbutz or young people enjoying a nature party”.

 

Nick Timothy in The Daily Telegraph warns that British Society will pay a terrible price for indulging extremism:

For this is about hatred, not peace. Many of those attending the protests are unembarrassed about supporting the rape and murder of Israeli civilians. Some were content to cry “Allahu akbar!” and chant for “jihad”, a term that the police are eager to explain might sometimes mean a peaceful inner struggle. Some shouted “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”, a genocidal demand to destroy the state of Israel and cleanse the territory of its Jews.

…

The desire to play things down, to convince ourselves that this is all about a quarrel in a far away country, might be understandable, but it is profoundly wrong. The people chanting this hatred are almost certainly mostly British nationals. They are doing so in such huge numbers that the police have opted not to enforce the law for fear of wider public disorder. And while the hatred for now is targeted at Jews, it is also meant for the rest of us. One man yelled, “white trash!” at those who lined up to protect the Cenotaph from protesters. One speaker promised an intifada “from London to Gaza”.

And this is just what we can see on our streets. We now know the truth about the systematic sexual abuse of vulnerable white girls by gangs of mainly Muslim men,

… Meanwhile Islamist radicals, and organisations often set up and supported by foreign governments, have learned to exploit the absurdities of our modern politics. They operate the mechanics of our identity corporatism and competitive victimhood with skill. The Crown Prosecution Service, which helped to decide not to prosecute those chanting “jihad” last week, is advised on hate crime by the chair of Finsbury Park Mosque, who has praised Hamas as “martyrs of the resistance”. From the military to the prison service, the public sector is full of such examples.

…

We need a more muscular approach to end this culture of domestic separatism: in immigration, law enforcement, and public policy across the board. The police and CPS must be made to uphold the law, but the law should be tightened to clamp down on incitement, hate speech and extremism. There should be a register of imams and mosques, with unacceptable behaviour leading to preaching bans and closures.

TV channels that broadcast hatred must be shut. Charities that espouse extremist beliefs should be closed down. Foreigners who spread Islamist ideology should be deported. The burqa should be banned in public places, and the hijab banned for school children. Islamic supplementary schools should be regulated properly. The dual jurisdiction of our national law and sharia law must end, with sharia marriages criminalised. Public funding for mosques and Islamic centres must cease.

Some will say this amounts to picking on the Islamic faith, but the problem we face emanates from the Islamic world. Nothing will change until we tell ourselves the truth – and start to act accordingly.

The Wall Street Journal has a very important editorial on The Global War on the Jews (not Israel mind you). After listing the dozens if not hundreds of antisemitic attacks around the world they write:

Americans like to believe such things couldn’t happen in the U.S. They have. The Anti-Defamation League last week reported a 388% increase in anti-Semitic incidents from Oct. 7-23 compared with the same period a year ago. The 312 incidents the ADL recorded include a car carrying individuals with Palestinian flags allegedly swerving toward a Jewish family and several alleged assaults by pro-Palestinian protesters. The ADL tally counts 109 anti-Israel rallies that featured support for Hamas or violence against Jews in Israel.

These and too many other incidents to count put paid to the notion that one can distinguish anti-Zionism from anti-Semitism since Oct. 7. If protesters wanted to burn Israeli flags in a fit of wrong-headed pique about a two-state solution, that is one thing. Only anti-Jewish hate can explain how synagogues, children and airports are targets of this outrage.

Yet many Western intellectuals—and a growing number of politicians—insist on maintaining this false distinction. They’ve seen what Hamas has done to innocent Israeli civilians, and what pro-Hamas protesters have said and done in Western streets. They’d nonetheless forgive any violence by Hamas or Hezbollah against Jews as anticolonial defiance.

This is why Israel is fighting, and must fight, as hard as it is for its survival as a state. And why it’s inexcusable for any Western politician now to demand a cease-fire in Gaza. No leader who is demonstrably incapable of protecting Jews in his or her own country should try to prevent Israel from defending itself. This is how the West slips from “never again” into “nowhere is safe.”

This global war on Jews also clarifies what is at stake for Western societies in this fight. The West spent the decades after the civilizational catastrophe of the Holocaust vowing never again to allow itself to slide into such barbarism. What we see now in the attacks on Jews is how that slide began.

…

Today’s threats to democracy are different, but one lesson is the same and is crystal-clear: A Western society that can’t or won’t muster the will to defend its Jewish neighbors and fellow citizens won’t be able to defend itself.

And one more article which caught my attention by “Alan in Australia” who writes at his blog with the cute name C.R.A.P – Countering Racist Anti-Israel Propaganda.

He wrote a moving article “Something Evil This Way Passed” which I highly recommend:

Because multiculturalism remains an untouchable edifice in the West, that same progressive multiculturalism, for all the right reasons, has led to a wrong outcome where, in London for example, Mohammad Sawalha, a former Hamas terror leader was given British citizenship after he fled to the UK and now lives in a London house he bought on a municipal discount scheme.

In American universities, unchallenged statements by faculty professors labelling Israel a “fascist ideology”, a “genocidal machine”, a “settler-colonial invasion in Palestine”, left yet other lecturers feeling “invigorated” and “inspired” by the Hamas atrocities as they upended any moral decency and deleted agency by stating that “Hamas, unfortunately, has become a convenient scapegoat…”

The massive demonstrations of support for Hamas on the streets of European and American cities, with mobs calling for the destruction of Israel and the murder of Jews everywhere, and where the liberal, educated classes are either silent or are actually supporting barbarism under cover of supporting a “free Palestine from the river to the sea”, a term that doesn’t include the existence or security of a sovereign, legal Jewish state, continues to mystify and confound.

The false (and perhaps convenient) dichotomy of “Hamas bad, Palestinians good” ignores the fact that Gazans have brought the 2023 October war upon themselves.

…

For the tens of thousands of effectively Hamas supporters in the West, this empathy for the ghastly ideology as it were, points to a profound crisis of moral clarity for western democracies still unheeding of the slogan that “The West is Next”, an inexorable though bloodless erosion of Western values, ethics and, importantly, way of life.

The very concept of altruistic multiculturalism has been hijacked.

Read it all.

I don’t want to end this post on such a terrible note despite the desperate reality. Alan concludes his post with these stirring words:

But, the strength of Israel remains in its people, it survivors. The strength is its indomitable will to survive and re-calibrate its way forward.

And while its flesh was unforgettably ripped and scarred on October 7, 2023, the iron in its veins still courses strongly.

Am Yisrael Chai! The People of Israel lives!

 

Swords of Iron: A view from outside Israel (Guest Post)

This is another guest post by Brian Goldfarb, who sent me a kind of war diary as the horrific events of Simchat Torah, 7th October 2023 unfolded in front of his eyes while he was visiting family in New York:

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Am Yisroel Chai!

Am Yisrael Chai! !עם ישראל חי

In what seems like a lifetime ago (in 2014), given the most recent events, Anne published this article, jointly authored by us both, the first part by me, the second by Anne. The historical context was the withdrawal by Israel from the Gaza Strip of all Israeli citizens, the dismantling of housing and much other infrastructure (much of which could be repurposed within “Green Line” Israel). The first major irony was the following destruction of the remaining Israeli built (mostly agricultural) infrastructure  – which had been left for the use of the Arab population – by Hamas, presumably because it was Israeli built. The following year there was the first (and only) election in Gaza, won by Hamas and which was followed by the murder of those few Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) politicians who had been elected. Mind you, Mahmoud Abbas, the President of the PLO Government in the West Bank is in the…is it the 15th or 16th year of…his 4 year term as President. So not much liberal democracy there either.

Since then, Hamas has ruled (hardly governing in any sense understood by those of us who live in functioning liberal democracies) Gaza, using its geographical base to launch numerous attacks on Israel and getting hammered by the IDF in reply and complaining about Israel’s overwhelming response every time. Some of you may recall that I wrote an article that included a section on what was the legal definition of a proportionate response by a state to being attacked. The answer was not a bullet for a bullet, but a force strong enough to halt the attacker. This means that every response by the IDF, from and including the 1967 war, has been a proportionate response to force and/or threats of force by Israel’s neighbours.

And then came October 7: a brutal, unprovoked attack by a terrorist organisation, so proclaimed by its own pronouncements, so designated by an increasing number of properly elected governments around the world, so defined by its Charter, killing more Jews (and other, non-Jewish Israeli citizens) than had been deliberately killed since the Holocaust. It is, apparently, several times worse, given the size of the population of Israel, than the death toll caused by the terrorists of 9/11. We were in New York, visiting the family there, and we woke up, hours after the event, to this. One notable (positive) event was the sudden switching  (literally as though a switch had been flicked) of MSNBC from its normal programming  as a comment on the politics of the US and some other parts of the world to becoming a news reporting channel.

Suffice to say, we were (and are) traumatised: my wife Ros has family in Israel: she rang them, of course: they were safe (for the time being) in the north of Israel; I emailed Anne: and she and her family were safe: they too live a distance (as these things go) away from Gaza. Still…The younger son of Ros’s family will probably not be called up: he was invalided out during his National Service (a training injury, not a wound), and his older brother is in the UK, posted there by his multinational company employer. Will he go back? No idea, and we haven’t asked…not for us to know or even appear to be pressuring him.

Of course, the IDF response has been aggressive (see the second paragraph of this article) and was even before the scale of the murderous incursion became apparent: Iron Dome did its job. The vast majority of rockets from Gaza were brought down short of their targets. In this regard, Hamas (and Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah) are living proof of Albert Einstein’s definition of madness: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. And it’s  only those who mindlessly chant “from the river to the sea…” who really believe that Israel it was that launched the rocket that fell into the hospital car park – you know, the people who don’t care that if “from the river…” came true, there would be another 6 million dead Jews. And, to my astonishment, one of the first non-Israelis to report otherwise was a BBC (yes! a BBC) reporter who was in Gaza and commented that the crater was too small for an Israeli rocket, and that he suspected that it was, as the IDF claimed, an Islamic Jihad rocket that fell  disastrously short.

When Israel’s real response comes, it, I both predict and fear, will be heavy. Those tanks aren’t there on the border for a training exercise. And given his response last time Hezbollah started sending rockets into Northern Israel and got a massive kick-back when Nasrallah (head of Hezbollah) said “Had I known the scale of the response, would I have started the shelling? No.”, we have to wonder what his game is. He must know that Israel has enough fire power to fight on two fronts, even against terrorists rather than regular troops.

And I have even heard a suggestion from a commentator in the area that he suspected that Israel already had agents in the field attempting to locate the hostages.

The contrast between the supporters of the two sides could hardly be more different. 100,000 (it is claimed: really? Who was doing the counting? The organisers?) people in London waving Hamas flags – the flag of an organisation designated as a terrorist organisation – and chanting “from the river to the sea…”

Anti-Israel demonstration in London, October 2023

Sunday 22nd October saw 10,000 (it is claimed) of us in Trafalgar Square. Were we chanting for the destruction of Hamas? Well, one or two of the speakers did (Michael Gove M.P. and the Shadow Minister for International Trade), but beyond condemning the terror, the vast majority of speakers (including the Chief Rabbi of the UK) were demanding that the hostages be brought back (bring them home!). And we sang Hatikvah at the end: not a battle cry, not a call to arms, but a song celebrating Israel, Jerusalem and the Jewish people.

Pro-Israel rally in Trafalgar Square, London, 22 October 2023 (From Times of Israel)

And President Joe Biden has been as good as his word: back in 2020, before the US presidential election, Anne kindly posted this article about whether Biden is good for Israel. There are now 2 (TWO) US Carrier Task Forces in the Eastern Mediterranean. loaded for bear (as the Americans would say) with military re-supplies for Israel. He has been consistent in his support for Israel, even though he and Netanyahu are hardly on the same page re domestic politics. But he did say, pre-election, that “Israel is our only true, true, friend in the region”.

To lighten the mood a bit, we were all so moved by the Canadian pianist Kevin Chen who opened his Carnegie Hall concert on 19th October 2023 with Hatikva in memory of the victims of Hamas:

Am Yisroel Chai!

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Brian, thank you so much for this moving and touching recollection of seeing the terror attack and the atrocities from so far away, amid your very real worry for the safety of family and friends. And kol hakavod for participating in the rally at Trafalgar Square. The support of our Jewish brethren is so important for our morale here in Israel.

Since you wrote this letter – and apologies are owed to you from me for the delay in publishing this – events have overtaken your tale, with the IDF having now entered Gaza in full force, and the northern border heating up with Hezbollah provocations. I might write more about this at some stage but I’m not making any promises!

I would add one small (or not so small!) quibble about the BBC: you wrote that the BBC were the first ones to notice that the crater was too small to be an Israeli rocket. This may be so and I don’t doubt that you saw this comment. But the editors obviously had other ideas and a different agenda (we know what it is: demonise Israel wherever possible, and even wherever technically not possible). And this is not what the BBC eventually put in its headlines. as Camera report.

Those inflammatory and outright false headlines claiming that Israel deliberately targeted the hospital and killed 500 Palestinians incited some of the most massive anti-Israel, and more importantly anti-Jewish riots throughout the world, leading to shuls being burnt down, threats against Jews, chants of genocide and “from the river to the sea” and all the rest of that sickening farrago of racism and bigotry.

In any event, thank you so much also for that beautiful piano recital from Kevin Chien. Just what our aching souls need at the moment.

Swords of Iron: The Simchat Torah War of 7th October 2023: First thoughts

I have not blogged in a very long time and I’m out of practice. One big reason was that I was burned out, and in general fed up with posting the same old stuff every time: antisemitism, Jew-hatred, anti-Zionism, Israel-hatred, terrorism, the bigotry and hypocrisy of the UN and all its associated organizations, the blatant anti-Israel bias of the BBC (who still won’t call Hamas terrorists), and the list goes on.

And then came the morning of Simchat Torah, the happiest day in the Jewish calendar, which turned into the most traumatic day in the lives of every Israeli and almost every Jew in the world.

My first reactions, our first reactions, were shock, horror, disbelief, grief, anger, trauma… I felt I was reeling with the emotions and the shock, I simply couldn’t process any of it. A few days later, a friend of mine living in Canada reached out to ask how I was doing. I’m not sure he was expecting the long screed that I wrote. I’m going to reproduce it here with some light editing just to give you an idea of how I was feeling and coping in those first few days.

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We will win with G-d’s help (Play on words: We will win in Gaza)

Thank you so much for reaching out to me.  Yes our family is OK for the moment, Thank God. I have two sons-in-law in the army, one is up north, and the other one is in the Rabbanut (Rabbinate/chaplaincy), I didn’t ask too many questions. Two of my brothers 4 sons-in-law are also in the army, one up north and one down south, another one is in the local search and rescue team so he’s on call here. My sister’s son is also up north, my younger brother is part of his own local search and rescue team. My own two sons have not been called up, one has had a medical exemption ever since he was actually in the army, but he’s on his local settlement security detail. My younger son, his reserves unit was disbanded a few years ago, so he is at home, I wouldn’t necessarily say safe, because none of us are safe at the moment with the Rockets coming in in the thousands.

This story repeats itself in every family in the country, that’s what happens when you call up 300,000 reserves in 24 hours out of a country of 9 million. There was total chaos at the beginning, and I’m not talking about the initial attack but when the soldiers reached their meeting points, there was no food, they were no uniforms, there weren’t even enough weapons, not to mention bulletproof vests, helmets, and all the rest of it.

That’s where the public stepped in. I don’t know if you’ve been following what’s going on in this country since the last elections. I’m not a huge fan of Bibi, but the left went completely berserk when he was elected and pretty much rejected the election result. They’ve been holding massive weekly demonstrations, including road blocking and minor acts of vandalism and violence for eight months straight. At the beginning, it was very nerve-racking, but lately people have gotten used to it, I’ve lately ignored those demos, just not interested. But they’ve been ramping up the rhetoric, and it took a very ugly anti-religious turn, which turned into something that in any other country would be called antisemitic, when they broke up public Yom Kippur prayers in Tel Aviv under the excuse that they won’t allow gender separation in public spaces.

The thing is that this is something that’s been on for years at the request of the secular residents who don’t necessarily want to go into a synagogue, but do want to hear some prayers. Also  Muslim prayers have been allowed to take place with gender separation with no objection. In any case things reached a head on Yom Kippur, which was about three weeks ago. [Edited to add: I wrote this about 2 weeks ago. Yom Kippur was towards the end of September]. It feels like a lifetime ago now. Things carried on ramping up with the decision by Tel Aviv municipality to ban Simchat Torah celebrations in public which was petty and vengeful.

I am a firm believer in God intervening in history. He rose up and gave us a massive slap around the face like you would do to a person having an attack of hysteria, and woke us up. No, there were not going to be any Simchat Torah celebrations at all. Instead He visited upon us the most devastating attack since the Holocaust and that’s no exaggeration. 1400 people murdered, slaughtered savagely, the most ghastly atrocities committed on livestream go-pro cameras by the terrorists themselves and broadcast by those sadistic bastards – it almost outdid anything the Nazis did.

I don’t need to tell you about the atrocities they committed, it’s all over the media. Israel has completely changed tactic, and they have woken a sleeping tiger. It sounds like a cliché, but the newly convened emergency unity government is hopefully going to change the face of the region. Firstly, in a totally different tack, the government have been broadcasting worldwide the horrific pictures, something the Palestinians always did to gain public sympathy, and Israel was too humane to do for our own cause. Unbelievably, even with all the reports of the atrocities there are people who refuse to believe it, just like holocaust deniers.  The army has given unprecedented access to foreign reporters to the scenes of the devastation, and seeing respected reporters collapse in tears as they describe what they saw cannot be denied.

And now the army has instructed the whole northern part of the Gaza Strip to be evacuated forthwith, either as a prelude to a massive bombing, or for the incursion of ground troops. Of course, the UN, being the UN, has protested saying it’ll create a humanitarian crisis. Do we give a rat’s ass? No we do not. Please excuse the language. Well, they should complain to Hamas, and not to Israel. What was will be no more. Both the previous situation and hopefully not Gaza itself. I used to have a smidgen of sympathy for the Gaza residents, but now I feel nothing. I just hope our leaders don’t lose their nerve and stop before the job is finished.

There is incredible public spirit here, after the first 24 to 36 hours when we were numb with the trauma, shock and grief, the country has come together in a 180° turnaround from what was going on literally up to a week ago. Literally last Friday (Simchat Torah eve) they were still discussing the prayers in Tel Aviv!

People who literally could not speak to each other, who wouldn’t even share the same public space till that Friday, crowded into Dizengoff Square, the scene of the vilified prayers, bringing in donations and contributions for the evacuees for the soldiers, for people stuck in shelters and under fire, it was an incredible sight. Even more incredible, Israeli Arabs did the same thing in their own communities, raising funds and contributions for the army! Have you ever seen or heard anything like it? As I am writing this I have tears in my eyes. Every single community in Israel, whether the cities or the settlements, or the kibbutzim have been doing the same thing. It’s now reached a situation where the soldiers are begging people to stop sending food, and they also say that they’ve all received their equipment now, it was a temporary glitch, because so many soldiers turned up within 24 hours. The logistics couldn’t cope.

There is another important aspect of this war. During these leftist, I would say, anarchist demonstrations, you might’ve heard that there have been calls for the last few months from the leaders to reservists not to report for reserve duty. The pilots threatened not to report for training, it was anarchy, it was in effect an attempted coup.

So what do you know? There was something like 130% reporting for duty on Sunday! Literally everyone who was called up reported, and people who were not called up, got offended and turned up at their units anyway demanding to be enlisted.

Not only that, but the ultra-Orthodox have been queuing up to enlist as well. Honestly, I would not be surprised if the Messiah arrived today riding on his white pickup truck. I’m guessing that is the modern day equivalent of a donkey!

Back to the grim reality, the son of my friend Hannah Katzman who used to blog at A Mother in Israel, her son Hayim Hy’d was murdered in kibbutz Holit on Shabbat. At first, she publicized that she had been kidnapped, but a day later they found his body. He died as a hero, protecting his neighbour and 2 small children. They could only hold the funeral a few days later . And so far over 300 soldiers have been killed, the numbers are horrific, but they pale in comparison to the 1400 civilians, not to mention the dozens or hundreds of soldiers and civilians who have been kidnapped. The worst is we do not even know how many there are.  We all feel sick at the prospect. I am pretty sure that a lot of them are no longer alive and the army is bombing as if there are no hostages, the grim reality is, they cannot be careful not to harm them because that is exactly what Hamas wants, they want us to refrain from attacking . If we don’t go all out, this will only happen again, and again. There have been no calls from the public, even from the families of the hostages, for the army to refrain from attacking in Gaza. They understand the situation full well. The modern world doesn’t really know how to deal with these barbarians, even Israel with all is its bitter experience .

We get notices all the time of funerals taking place, sometimes people with no family because everyone else was kidnapped or murdered.  It’s indescribable.They are still working to identify the bodies from the south, some of them have been burnt beyond recognition. There are also very many unconscious victims in hospitals, and no one has come to claim them. The hospitals do not know the identity of these people, they could very well be people who have been reported missing or dead. Hospitals are publicizing pictures of tattoos and scars and other identifying marks, and asking families to come to the hospitals with some kind of DNA source because some of them have been so badly burnt. In my absolute, worst nightmares, I could never have dreamed of a situation like this. Those sadistic bastards came not just to kill, and certainly not to conquer territory, they came to slaughter, to destroy, to humiliate and demoralize. They didn’t only attack the humans, they burnt the fields and the houses. I don’t know how many kibbutzim no longer exist, burnt to the ground, the fields and livestock destroyed, it’s almost biblical.

There is a paragraph that we read from the Torah every year on the Shabbat before Purim,

“wipe out the memory of Amalek from under the heavens, you shall not forget“.

תמחה את זכר עמלק מתחת השמיים, לא תשכח

The connection to Purim is because Haman the villain was descended from Amalek. We all thought that this is a nice story, and it doesn’t apply in our day any more. And then of course it applied to the Nazis and we thought that was it. But here we go again, it applies not only to Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, but all their supporters, they are obviously connected to ISIS, there can be no doubt, and, of course, the hand of Iran is not even bothering to hide itself.

What I have been pleasantly surprised, even amazed, is the worldwide support for Israel, and the practical support. America has already sent two aircraft carriers to our region and are apparently sending a third. I have a feeling they are being sent as a threat to Iran not to open a regional war, because they will have to contend not only with Israel, which they feel confident they can do, but also with western armies, hopefully that will be a deterrent. But the Iranians don’t act with logic, they act with religious zeal.

After the war, there is going to have to be a massive accounting from the political and military echelons, how this catastrophic failure occurred. Was there a cyber attack which paralyzed our intelligence? Or was it the Yom Kippur war redux with overconfidence and misjudgment? Whatever the result, I think this is an inglorious end to Bibi’s illustrious career. This will forever taint him, and it has drowned out any of the good that he has done. And certainly the public have lost all confidence in the politicians, and despite the massive response to the military call ups, I wonder how much confidence the soldiers have in their leaders.

I spent the first week of the war at my daughter in the Shomron, she was very stressed out at coping with two children on her own after her husband went in to the army on Sunday. It was also a help for me to get me away from the sporadic air raid sirens and rocket attacks which freak me out.  But we returned home to Petach Tikva, rockets and all, the following Sunday. I needed to get back to my normal life, this situation can go on for months. Our older son lives literally a five minute drive from his sister, he has a big house and balcony and garden, and he and his wife have very kindly invited our daughter for as long as she wants. Now that school has resumed in the Shomron since it is relatively quiet, their lives are halfway normal again.

My niece lives in Netanya and she has moved into her parents here in PT so that a family from the south can take refuge in her flat. This is only one small act of kindness and has been repeated throughout the country. Pretty much the entire south of Israel was evacuated as soon as possible, and as Hezbollah started shooting anti-tank missiles and other rockets into northern cities, the north of Israel was evacuated too. The evacuees are being put up in hotels and boarding schools all around the country, thousands of them will not be able to return because they have nothing to return to.

There have been many reports of the incredible heroism of the first response teams in the southern towns and kibbutzim, literally fighting off the terrorists in hand to hand fighting. One of those heroes is our daughter-in-law’s cousin who is in Sufa. He saved the kibbutz with “only” 2 casualties. Sadly it did not help in many kibbutzim.

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I apologize for this very rambling and slightly incoherent report. I could post dozens of links and films and articles but I will simply recommend that you check out any Israeli news site such as Times of Israel, Jerusalem Post, Ynet, Arutz Sheva.(Do NOT read Ha’aretz).

There are many excellent blogs out there too. Israellycool is one of them, Elder of Ziyon is invaluable, Abu Yehuda and C.R.A.P. are great, and there are so many others.

Use the resources listed on the right-hand side panel of this blog, they are invaluable for getting the truth as opposed to propaganda. And for everyone’s sake, avoid the BBC, the New York Times, Sky News and the Guardian unless you like reading antisemitic bile and drivel.

If you go onto “X” (Twitter) or Facebook and search for the hashtag “theGazaYouDontSee” which was thought up by an Israeli woman called Imshin, you will get a very good taste of the lies spread about the “open air prison” of Gaza, posts that will leave you gobsmacked at the luxury and good life that exists (or existed pre-war) in Gaza.  But you can also just go to Israel’s government sources as well, the foreign ministry, the IDF, the list goes on. You know, as well as me where to look.

If you would like to help Israel, donations are always welcome to Magen David Adom, Zaka (whose workers are suffering terribly under the horrendous strain of identifying bodies and body parts in the most horrific situations you could hope never to imagine), Friends of the IDF, and many other organizations.

I will continue this series in the next few days with reblogs from other blogs, a guest post (or 2?) and other reports as my time and my nerves hold out. Since I started writing and editing this post I have been up and down to my bomb shelter because of a rocket attack – always followed by checkins with family and friends, and I lose my train of thought.

PS: yesterday the nation received the first excellent piece of news as one of the hostages, Cpl. Ori Magidish was rescued by the IDF in a daring operation in Gaza. She returned home unharmed to an ecstatic welcome! The feeling in Israel was one of pure euphoria, it is something literally indescribable. There were Hassidim dancing in the street celebrating the return of a female soldier!

Celebration in the streets of Kiryat Gat, following the rescue of captured Israeli Soldier Ori Megidish.

Jews of all backgrounds can be seen dancing outside the Megidish family home. pic.twitter.com/Zt8TY1ooEe

— Chabad.org (@Chabad) October 30, 2023

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This morning (31st October) we returned to grim determined reality as the ground incursion gets fully under way. Listen to the address by the commander of the southern Command as he addresses the troops before they go into battle. Truly inspiring, almost Churchillian in his words.

“It doesn’t matter how long it takes. There is no other outcome except victory.”

We are facing the enemy and we will defeat them. Bless the IDF. pic.twitter.com/xiaiG5sPde

— The Mossad: Satirical, Yet Awesome (@TheMossadIL) October 31, 2023

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Here is the translation by Josh Feldman on Twitter:

English: “Southern Command forces, this is the Commander. We are striking Hamas and the terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip. We have one goal – victory. No matter how long or how hard the fighting will be, there is no other outcome than victory. We will fight with professionalism and strength, based first and foremost on the IDF values which were instilled in us – dedication to mission, and the pursuit of victory. We will fight in alleys, we will fight in tunnels, we will fight wherever necessary. We will eliminate the abominable enemy before whom we stand. My brothers in arms, the residents of Be’eri, Sderot, Nir Oz, Kfar Aza, and the West Negev communities, and alongside them are all the people of Israel – they are all looking at us now. Like me, they trust you and believe in you, you are the generation of victory. This is the Commander, complete your mission, strike the enemy, over and out.”

Keep well and keep safe everyone.

May Hashem protect our soldiers and bring them home safely. May their mission be successful.

May Hashem protect the hundreds of hostages held by the barbaric Hamas and their allies in Gaza, may they all return home safely.

May Hashem protect all the evacuees from the north and the south, may He protect all of Israel, and all the Jews in the Diaspora who are suffering under an unprecedented onslaught of antisemitic hate crimes.

May Hashem give strength to His people, May Hashem bless His people with peace.

ה’ עוז לעמו יתן, ה’ יברך את עמו בשלום

 

Guest Post: The Wiener Holocaust Library and Its Role in the Fight Against Hate

This is a guest post by frequent contributor Brian Goldfarb. Brian has been a volunteer for a long while at the Wiener Library. Here he tells us something about the library and its history.

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The Wiener Holocaust Library and Its Role in the Fight Against Hate

At this time of year, it seems especially appropriate to look at the work of the Wiener Holocaust Library, with Holocaust Remembrance Day (Yom Hashoah) with its lighting of yellow candles and Yom Hazikaron, Israeli Day of Remembrance of the Fallen, to look at the work of one organisation dedicated to teaching the world about the brutality of mass killings, whatever the scale, small or large, perpetuated especially by state agencies. I would predict that in a decade or two, the Wiener Holocaust Library will be adding the Russian invasion of Ukraine and its human consequences to its catalogue.

I have been a volunteer at the Wiener Holocaust Library (as it is now titled) for 18  years, since shortly after retiring, and it has been a fascinating and enlightening experience. Possibly the most fascinating part is when I have been tasked with preparing archives so that they can be made available for researchers using the Library’s material in order to complete academic theses (often as part of their academic research leading to post-graduate degrees), write articles or books or even inform their teaching. While I am not a trained archivist, I have been ably instructed by the Library’s official archivist and was always able to consult him with any problems that arose. Indeed, one such task led directly to an article published right here on Anne’s Opinions (of which more anon).

However, it is with the origin and development of the Library that I wish to start, because it is these origins that have made the Library the force in the world of learning that it has become. And I want to start in what may seem like am odd place, but please bear with me, because I think it’s a good story.

Daniel Finkelstein, Conservative Party Peer (though he never uses the title in public), deputy editor of The Times of London (and occasional leader writer) and Times columnist, started one of his articles more or less as follows, by noting that his family accuse him of being incredibly untidy and a hoarder. He acknowledged that, indeed, he did (and does) keep vast quantities of paper items. But, he wrote, he knows exactly where every piece of paper is in the pile. And anyway, he continued, he has an excellent precedent: his grandfather did exactly the same. And his grandfather was Alfred Wiener, the founder of the Library that bears his name.

Daniel Finkelstein wrote this column (and numerous others like it) because the Wiener Library occasionally asks him for some publicity, and he willingly provides it.

This leads to the question: who was Dr Alfred Wiener and how did come to start the massive collection that bears his name (so vast that much of it is stored off-site and researchers may have to wait for some items to be delivered to their desk in the Library’s reading room, sometimes having to come back another day for it)? Before World War 1, he had earned a PhD in Arabic Studies and Arabic. During the War, he served in the German Army and was awarded an Iron Cross, 2nd Class. After the war, he joined the Central Association of German Citizens of Jewish Faith (always abbreviated as Centralverein or even CV) and rose quickly to a high position. Very early on, he recognised the danger of the rising of the far-right in Germany and especially, as early as 1925, that the Nazi Party was the major threat to Jews.

As a result of this insight into the German far-right, he created a specific Bureau within the CV to collect far-right and, again specifically, Nazi Party publications: their newspapers, pamphlets, leaflets, books written by far-right thinkers and so forth.

As soon as the Nazi Party came to power in 1933, he gathered up his collected papers, some of his staff, his family and so forth, and moved to Holland, where he continued his collecting, using, where necessary, friendly contacts (especially friendly anti-Nazi non-Jews). As soon as the Second World War broke out, he moved, lock, stock, barrel and staff members, to London.

Ruth, Eva and Mirjam Wiener, survivors of Westerbork and Bergen-Belsen camps, Wiener Holocaust Library Collection

However, for some unknown reason (and even on of his biographers, Ben Barkow, a long-serving Director of the Wiener Library, couldn’t answer the question), his wife and family (three daughters) didn’t go with him. As a result, they were sent to Thereseinstadt, where, astonishingly, all of them survived the war, although his wife, Margarete, died shortly afterwards. His daughters joined him in London.

His document collection (and he continued collected as long as he could) proved invaluable to the Allies in helping to plan the Nuremberg Trials, but they found the official title of his collection too clumsy and asked him to rename it, which is how it became, first, the Wiener Collection and then Library.

Naturally, if collecting had stopped there, the Wiener would be of interest only to historians and only those interested in the period between the First and Second World Wars and up to the end or a little beyond the end of the Second. However, of course, and sadly, the mass killing of people didn’t stop and neither did the Library. It continues to collect material, especially and mostly on the Holocaust, but also on other attempted or failed mass killings of innocent civilians.

This makes it a centre especially for graduate students and other writers to complete theses or books (as noted above) and seeking material for articles for other outlets, mostly, but not only, academic journals.

The Wiener also puts on exhibitions in its ground floor reception area to illustrate many facets of the history of attempts at or successful achievements of mass killings and also the resistance to these efforts. To explore the Library in more detail, visit the Wiener Library website online.

I noted in the first paragraph above that the Library had inspired an article right here on Anne’s Opinions, at this link: The Defence Committee Archive and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion

In this article I drew on a particularly massive archive, containing 70 boxes each holding up to 1000 pieces of paper, on permanent loan to the Library, from the UK Board of Deputies of British Jews Defence Committee, a pre-World War Two sub-organisation set up specifically to combat British Fascists in the 1930s, but also included in that article is a section tracing the history of the creation of the Protocols of The Elders of Zion, long known by those with a working brain to be a fabrication.

It is also the case that as well as public archives, there are many family archives donated to the Library. For example, there is the photo archive of a German Jew who fought in World War One and out of which fell a World War One Iron Cross: of the Chief Librarian who happened to be in the Reading Room that day, and is herself of German origin, had never seen one before.

And I must remember the time that I was preparing the photo archive of a young German Jew who had left Germany in the 1930s and returned as a Sergeant in the US Army. He had collected postcards as his unit fought its way up Italy. His collection was in ring binders, but one of the rings of one folder had broken and the leaves were held together by one of his US Army dog tags: the genuine article, not what we see on the cinema screen as dangling from the neck of a Hollywood actor!

Two  shivers down the spine: one that was of the good sort: holding a letter written by Otto Frank, the father of Anne, to the Library, informing them that he had sent, under separate cover, a parcel of the Diary of Anne Frank in 8 different European languages.

The nasty kind: opening up archives to find, more times than I would wish, Nazi-era passports with the notorious “J” in red stamped inside.

And not to forget the story of Maule Ramsay, Conservative MP for a Scottish constituency, who was suspected with good cause of being an active Nazi sympathiser, to the extent that he was imprisoned under the auspices of wartime Regulation 18B – in effect, detained without charge or trial. He wasn’t deselected until the 1945 election was called.

The place is a treasure trove for historians, whether professional or amateur, of that period of history, starting in the early 1920s and continuing still.

The coda is probably the last line of the Brecht play “The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui”, translating the Hitler story to 1930s Chicago and mobsters such as Al Capone, when the actor who plays Ui comes back on stage after the “end” of the play, wiping the make-up from his face and says, more or less don’t celebrate his fall too soon “the sow that bore him is on heat again”. A certain Russian President with the initials VP, anyone?

The price of freedom is eternal vigilance: and that’s why organisations like the Wiener Holocaust Library are so vital to maintain our freedoms.

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Anne adds:

Brian, thank you so much for this very interesting article, the background you have provided of the Wiener Library (of which I had never heard until you started contributing to this blog), and of the historical details surrounding its founding.

I would recommend to anyone travelling to London (including myself!) to pay a visit to this Library, especially to its upcoming 90th anniversary exhibition. I’m sure we could all find something fascinating there.

 

Yom Atzma’ut Same’ach! Happy 75th birthday Israel!

Israel at 75

As we have done for 74 previous years, Israel has stumbled from Memorial Day to Independence Day, but this year, despite the “round” number birthday, we are limping and bruised into the celebrations. Civic strife still bubbles beneath and above the surface, our enemies lurk in wait at signs of weakness, yet despite it all, the celebrations are taking place thank G-d.

To mark this wonderful day, Assuta Hospital in Ashdod dressed all the newborns in Israeli flag outfits. Aren’t they cute?

Assuta Hospital in Ashdod dresses the newborns in Israeli flag outfits

For a more optimistic view of our beloved country, here are some statistics on Israel at 75 provided by the Times of Israel:

The population of Israel is edging toward 10 million, making it a dozen times larger than it was on the day the Jewish state was established, according to figures released by the Central Bureau of Statistics on Monday ahead of the country’s 75th Independence Day celebrations.

There are 9,727,000 people living in Israel, the CBS said. Of those, 7,145,000 are Jewish, or 73.5 percent, along with 2,048,000 Arabs (21%) and 534,000 members of other minorities (5.5%).

Since last year, the population grew by 216,000 people, an increase of 2.3%. There were 183,000 babies born and 79,000 new immigrants arrived, while 51,000 people died.

…

When the state was founded on May 14, 1948, there were 806,000 people living in the country, meaning it has grown twelve-fold over the decades.

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According to the figures, at the end of 2021, 46% of the world’s total Jewish population was living in Israel.

On the economic front, 2022 saw real growth per capita reach 4.4% compared to an average of 3.3% for countries in the European Union. Over the period 2012-2022, Israel’s real growth per capita reached 23.4%, the CBS said, compared to an average of 14.7% for EU countries.

These numbers are quite staggering when you think of the circumstances in which Israel was founded. Truly a Divine miracle taking place in front of our eyes.

Tonight we went to our own synagogue for a change where they had a lovely prayer service, and we still had time to pop into the Central Shul for the second half of a boisterous musical tefila. Tomorrow we shall be heading over to our daughter for our traditional family BBQ (aka a “mangal”).

Several videos caught my eye this year which are very meaningful to me, and I hope you will enjoy them too.

A video by the late and very lamented Rabbi Jonathan Sacks z”l, originally produced for Israel’s 60th anniversary and re-released now for the 75th, is profoundly moving and evocative:

The following video was posted by “Imshin” on Twitter, it’s short and very sweet and very uplifting:

Israel celebrates 75 pic.twitter.com/ICuiG8YflR

— Imshin (@imshin) April 25, 2023

And here is a video on a similar theme, with historical film in the background, produced by the songwriter Yoni Leviatan:

My grandfather & his 3 brothers fought in Israel's 1948 War of Independence – 75 years later we're still living in this miracle they won.

It's hard to describe what that feels like, but I tried anyway with this guitar/video mashup. #Israel75

(It works better with the sound on.) pic.twitter.com/KxkME4Rb2X

— Yoni Leviatan (@songsofyoni) April 25, 2023

And here is the video of the central Yom Ha’atzmaut ceremony held at Har Herzl this evening:

May we merit to see many more years of love, unity and brotherhood in this crazy, wonderful little country of ours, till 120 and beyond!

זה היום עשה ה’ נגילה ונשמחה בו

This is the day that Hashem made, we will rejoice and celebrate on it.

Yom Hazikaron 5783 – Israel’s Memorial Day 2023

Before I start this post I just want to explain where I’ve been these past 6 months or so. I haven’t actually been anywhere, I’ve been hibernating in a sense, trying to avoid the terrible divisions in Israeli civic and political society. I have been feeling so dispirited by the whole situation that I could not bring myself to write about it or about anything else.

Yom Hazikaron

But today is Yom Hazikaron, Israel’s Memorial Day for fallen soldiers and victims of terrorism, and this is something I cannot ignore.

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The rollercoaster of the Israeli experience: From Yom Hashoah to Yom Hazikaron to Yom Haatzmaut. Credit: Shay Charka on Facebook

Sadly, despite the infighting, or maybe because of it, terror attacks against Israelis have increased dramatically, too many to list here. My heart breaks at the murders of 3 sets of siblings within the last couple of months: The Paley brothers Hy’d, Yakov Yisrael and Asher Menachem aged just 6 and 8, the Yaniv brothers Hy’d, Hallel Menachem and Yagel Yaakov, and and the Dee sisters Maya Esther and Rina Miriam, and their mother Lucy Hy’d.

All these families have been heroic in the way they have faced the trauma and grief head-on, in their pleas to the Israeli public to put aside their differences and calling for unity.

Rabbi Leo Dee in particular has stood out for his inspirational, awe-inspiring strength of character, for his pleas for unity, for Am Yisrael to take on good deeds in memory of his beloved wife and daughters.

This extraordinary man was asked to say the Memorial Prayer tonight as Yom Hazikaron ends, and he admits he feels he “doesn’t deserve this honour”. I can’t think of anyone who is more deserving.

Watch the interview with him by Arutz 7 for Yom Hazikaron:

Even as last minute preparations were taking place for the Memorial Day ceremonies in Jerusalem, another Palestinian terrorist attempted to murder Israelis in a car-ramming attack at Jerusalem’s busy Machane Yehuda market.  Seveen people were injured including a very seriously injured 80 year old.

And in the past couple of minutes we heard of another shooting attack in the Binyamin region near Ofra, a terrorist opened fire against a group of runners running in memory of fallen comrades.

It just never ends.

At last night’s central Yom Hazikaron ceremony at the Kotel, there was a chilling moment (amongst all the rest) where the father of Hallel and Yagel Yaniv said Kaddish, accompanied by his young son Tzur Yehuda. The MC explained: “Tzur Yehuda was born on 4th Iyar 5773. Tonight is his Bar Mitzvah”.  The heart breaks.

The war for Israel’s Independence is still ongoing, let no one be fooled.

Let the deaths of our precious soldiers and victims of terrorism not be in vain. May their memories be for a blessing and may Hashem avenge their blood.

“In their death, they bequeathed us life”.

במותם ציוו לנו חיים