Arab-Palestinians Stealing Jewish History About Jerusalem

Arab-Palestinians Stealing Jewish History About Jerusalem

Nadene Goldfoot                                                                  

Such Chutzpah! audacity. Saying that Jerusalem is the eternal city of Islam.  Hamas killers are now declaring that Jerusalem is the "Eternal Capital" of the Islamic world.  
                                                   

David, King of Israel,  ruled from 1010 BCE to 970 BCE, capturing the city in 1010 BCE.    Mohammad died in 632 CE, 1,600 years later.  Jerusalem is in the Judean Mountains, part of the land of the tribe of Judah which was part of the land of Israel and then the land of Judah.  David made Jerusalem the religious center of Israel by transferring the Ark of the Covenant there.  His empire reached from the Red Sea to the Euphrates.  Religious activities centered in Jerusalem.  

Jews have been saying that Jerusalem is the eternal capital of Israel!  It was King David who built it and used it for his capital.  It is Jerusalem that Jews have prayed for 2,000 years to return to in Psalm 137 when they were in Babylon by saying: "O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its skill.  Let my tongue adhere to my palate if I fail to recall you, if I fail to elevate Jerusalem above my foremost joy."  Babylon's Nebuchadnezzar had captured Israelites and took them to Babylon in 597 BCE and again in 586 BCE.  The Persian, King Cyrus, allowed them to return after 50 years. 

                                                                            

Jerusalem 70 CE being burned by the Romans

Romans invaded and their rule was unbearable, causing the Jews to revolt in 66 CE. In 70 Jews saw Jerusalem burned by the invaders and many fled.   General Bar Kochba fought the Romans for 3 years from 132 to 135 and Jerusalem was liberated until he was killed in 135.  Then it was turned into a Roman colony and Jews were told they could not enter upon pain of death.  

It then became a Christian city under Constantine.  

Mohammad died in 632 and by 638 the city fell to the Caliph Omar. No one really loved or cared for the city which was the center of Judaism.  In our Jewish Bible (Old Testament) Jerusalem is mentioned 669 times, Zion, which refers to Jerusalem and Land of Israel are mentioned 154 times and this adds up to 823 times.  In the Christian Bible, Jerusalem is mentioned 154 times and Zion 7 times.  

                                                                         

Tower of David

Israelis have said that Jerusalem shall always be undivided.  Palestinians notice what works for Jews and then copies it.  Too bad they haven't done this in trying to build a more secure state for themselves by making peace with Israel and become workers and not killers.  

It's like the situation that King Solomon faced when two ladies brought forth one baby and each lady claimed it belonged to her.  King Solomon threatened to kill the baby by cutting it in half and giving half to each lady.  The real mother, the one who cared, said to give it to the other person.  So it was with the Jews and Eretz Israel.  When the UN planned to give the Arabs land and decided to cut it into 80% and 20% with the largest piece going to the Arab King Abdullah I, the Jews went along with it to save the land and save their own people.  Not so Fatah and Hamas terrorists.  They are fighting in every imaginable way to take all the land from the Jews including such lies.  Palestine was just a backwash piece of unwanted, weedy, mosquito infested swamp and desert that nobody wanted until the Jews rose up on their high horse and started to develop it when exiled Jews started returning in the 1880s.  

What were the Arabs doing then?  They weren't doing so well and had no ideas about "returning to the land" like the Jews.  The land had been under the Ottoman Empire for the past 600 years and this Turkish rule was harsh.  The Palestinian peasants' life was already deteriorating because of taxes.  Those that owned a bit of land  would be forced to borrow money to pay taxes, causing these farmers to put themselves under protection of the very rich bigger landowners or of the Muslim religious endowment fund (Waqf.  They were eventually compelled to give up their title to the land.  

In 1858 there was the Turkish Land Registry Law but until then there were no official deeds giving these fellahs title to land.  Their own Muslim culture consisted of blood-feuds between families, clans and entire villages including  incursions by Bedouin tribes.  So we see with the Muslim that the rich took advantage of the poor and drove them away.  By the 1880s when Jews were arriving because they were leaving anti-Semitic lands that were impossible to live in anymore, they bought land from large landowners who were anxious to leave as well and go to real cities such as Paris and Beirut.  The amazing thing is that the homes of some of the Arabs had Jewish symbols on them, showing past residents were Jews who had lived there. 

1967 meant being able to again stand at the Wall in Jerusalem

                                                                     

Outside the Knesset in Jerusalem-The Menorah

This anti-Semitic world has not yet recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, though it has been since 1967 when the Six Day War took place and Israel won against immeasurable odds.   Then we have the Palestinians who refuse to recognize Israel as a state let alone Israel as its capital.  They are getting away with it because the rest of the world is not ready to accept the fact that Jerusalem is the capital and always has remained so.  Face it.  It's importance has only been to the Jews.  Jesus recognized it as the capital, though, and held his Last Supper there.  This is the reason Christians are interested in it; for their own religious connection to the city.  Muslims have the saga of Muhammad flying there on his horse which they have deemed as the farthest mosque.  The religious places of Christians and Muslims are safely guarded by the Israeli government.  This has not proved true under their administrations for the Jews.  

It was c1320 BCE when Joshua entered Canaan.  Jerusalem was a watering hole then from the Old Stone Age period (Paleolithic).  Foundations date back to 3500-2000 BCE.  Old.  Yes.  Israel sits on ancient land.  However, Jews have never left the land nor had they left Jerusalem.  

"In ancient days, Judaism revolved around the Temple in Jerusalem. The Sanhedrin, which governed the nation, was located in the Temple precincts. The Temple service was at the heart of the Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur  holiday. 

                                                                                

The Temple was central to the Three pilgrim festivals, namely Passover, Shavuot and Sukkot, when all Jews were incumbent to gather in Jerusalem. Every seven years all Jews were required to assemble at the Temple for the Hakhel reading. The forty-nine day Counting of the Omer recalls the Omer offering which was offered at the Temple every day between Passover and Shavuot. The eight-day festival of Hanukkah celebrates the rededication of the Second Temple after its desecration by Antiochus IV. A number of fast days including the Ninth of Av, theTenth of Tevet and the Seventeenth of Tammuz, all recall the destruction of the Temple." 

Tell me:  Would the Parisians allow Paris to be in foreign hands and have a name change? Jews lived here in Roman times.  

Would the Romans allow Rome to come another's rule? Jewish community here was the oldest in Europe and one of the oldest in the world dating from 139 BCE

Would Americans allow Washington DC to fall into China's hands?  1776 is its birthday.  

Resource:  http://www.jewishpress.com/news/breaking-news/hamas-declares-jerusalem-as-eternal-capital-of-islamic-world/2015/05/25/
http://www.wordfromjerusalem.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/the-case-for-israel-appendix2.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerusalem_in_Judaism

Tuesday, May 19, 2015

Jerusalem Fell: Where Were Jews Allowed to Live? THE PALE OF SETTLEMENT

 Nadene Goldfoot                                                                        

Israel since 1967

Pale of Settlement 1835-1917

                                                                                           

Today we have about 14 million Jews in the world or about 0.02% of the population. 6 million live in Israel, 6 million in the USA, and about 2 million are scattered elsewhere, such as in France,  England, Germany and South Africa.  

In 1791, we had about 12 million Jews.  That was  224 years ago.  Since then we have gone through the Holocaust of WWII and have lost 6 million from Europe within about 6 years from 1939 to 1945.

Our lives were always dependent on the good graces of other countries that we found ourselves living in since the year 70 when the Romans had been occupying Judah and had managed to burn down Jerusalem, our biggest population center.  We've wandered from country to country for 2,000 years, chased out as the Christian religious heads decided we either had to convert or leave, often leaving us with no choice as we were targets for slaughter.
                                                                           

RASHI, 1040-1105

Germany was nice when Jews entered around the year 321.  In the 9th century or 1,000, Jews were living in several towns, and by the 10th century they were in Worms, a major center in the Rhineland including Mainz and Speyer, Cologne, etc, that became a center of intellectual life.  .
                                                                           

 Then the Crusades started and killed many, causing Jews to leave and enter countries of eastern Europe, always going north.  Many found themselves living in Poland.  By 1791, there were 5 million Jews in and around Russia.   Catherine the Great was the ruler of the Russian Empire, and she decided to force all Jews to live within the Pale of Settlement, countries designated where Jews were allowed to live.  This would solve her Jewish problem. Now the pale came from the Latin word, palus, which was a stake.  It was inferring an area enclosed by a fence or boundary.  That was it.  Jews couldn't go outside the Pale upon fear of death.  Jews were not allowed to enter the Russian Empire since the early 1500s.  Why?  The Russian Orthodox Church was afraid that Jews would enter and try to convert Christians to Judaism.  Jews hadn't tried to convert anyone for a thousand years.  Thus, the Pale of Settlement.  People are always eager to blame social problems on economics, which plays a part, but basically it always boils down to religious persecution.  Religion has caused much hatred when it is designed to be peaceful.
                                                                               

Not only Jews, but the native population also lived there in the Pale of Settlement.  The native population was not forced out.  The Jews just had to find their own space in there, and so they created little villages or shtetls.    Think of the play and movie, Fiddler on the Roof.   This amounted to 25 provinces of Czarist Russia and included Poland, Lithuania, White Russia (Belorussia-Belarus), Ukraine, Bessarabia (formerly Romanian, now in the Moldavian and Ukrainian republics),  the Crimea, and Latvia.

The native population of the Pale was mainly Catholic while in Russia they were Russian Orthodox.  The Pale's land made up about 20% of Russia's holdings when the Russian Empire  fell in 1917.  "During World War I, the Pale lost its rigid hold on the Jewish population when large numbers of Jews fled into the Russian interior to escape the invading German army. The Pale was finally abolished on March 20/April 2, 1917.   A large portion of the Pale, together with its Jewish population,then became part of Poland.
                                                                             

Nathan Goldfoot b: 1870

Charles, 1st son b: 1906

My grandmother was from Lazdijai, Suwalki, Lithuaniawhich was to become part of Poland, but she always told everyone she was a LITVAK!  She was proud of that as many academics came from Lithuania including the famous Vilna Gaon who was from Vilna, Lithuania. She immigrated to Idaho in about 1904.  The Gaon of Vilna was the Rabbi Eliyahu who was an expert on the Torah.  Her husband, whom she met in Council, Idaho, was from Telsiai, Lithuania,  which never became part of Poland, being in a different section.  He was a Litvak, also.  In 1495, 10,000 Jews were living in Vilna, Grodno and Kovno, Lithuania. Some had entered as early as 1321 and in 1398 those there were mostly Karaites in Troki. 

Today we can trace where our ancestors came from through DNA testing.  My grandmother's female ancestor came from a branch ( mt- haplogroup W) from the Ural mountains where Khazaria lay but before Khazaria was created. My grandmother was W 16145A, 16223T, 16265G, 16519C. Jewish W made up 3.1% in a test in Poland and 2.7% in Russia and Ukraine.  http://www.thecid.com/where.htm

My grandfather's Y-haplogroup Q1b1a or Q-L245) came from  an ancestor 1,000 years ago  and is also found in Arab populations, in Anatolia, modern Iran, and the ancient city of Ur down to Saudi Arabia and Oman..  That covers places where ancient Israel, Judah and Samaria were. On my testing, I show 3% of my DNA coming from the Middle East. it even shows my dna from Italy from a famous Jewish italian family .  Chances are that's how we found we are  from Germany.  Our ancestor left Jerusalem for Rome, then was forced out of Germany and the family eventually landed in Lithuania.  

Latvia's Courland saw Jews living there from the 16th century and 2,000 lived there in 1795 when it was annexed to Russia.  However, in 1835, Courland and Livland were excluded from the Pale of Settlement.  

Poland's Jews came in the 9th century probably from Germany and Bohemia or even from Ukraine's Kiev and the Byzantine Empire.  Those from Khazaria also moved there. This state was powerful from the 8th to 10th centuries.    In 786 to 809  the King Bulan of Khazaria and 4,000 of his nobles converted to Judaism and was assisted in this by Jews living there from other lands who were escaping pogroms and Prince Obadiah.   Supposedly the first charter for Christian- German traders was in 905 who came with Jewish traders.  Then the Tartars invaded in 1240 and 1241 and devastated Poland.  That's when the kings wanted German Jews to enter.  The Christian-German traders were anti-Semitic to the Jews as this was competition in their business.  Then the Christian clergy complained about the growing Jewish population and this led to blood libels in Posen in 1399.  Poland unified with Lithuania in 1569 and Ukraine came under Polish control.  Polish nobles needed someone to manage their large estates and do other administrative jobs, so Jews were invited to live there for this job.  The noble would not be living in the area but headed for more exciting places.  Often the Jewish manager would receive exclusive rights to distill and sell alcohol.  They worked as artisans and merchants. This is when shtetls developed.  

Crimea  It is thought that descendants of the Jewish Khazars probably survived among the Crimea Karaites, the Krimchaks and other Jews of eastern European origin.  It is probably that only the king of Khazaria with a good proportion of the nobility and some of his people became converted.  the Jewish element in Khazaria always constituted a minority.  There was evidence of Jewish settlement here on this peninsula in the Black Sea from the 1st century BCE from several Jewish inscriptions found from succeeding centuries.  From the 7th century to 1117, eastern Crimea was controlled by the Khazars.  They also had a large Karaite population from the 12th century.  Many Jews became Moslems under Tatar rule from the end of the 13th century since Mohammad died in 632.  Jewish captives from Ukraine were sent to Crimea after 1648.  Russia conquered Crimea in 1783 and many Ashkenazi Jews settled here.  

Ukraine:  Jews immigrated to this state in waves from Khazaria, the Caliphate and Byzantium between the 9th and 12th centuries;  from Central Europe in the 14th and 15 centuries; and from Poland in the 16th to 17th centuries. Ukrainian peasants began to resent the taxes they had to pay to their absentee landlords, and it was the Jews who were the collectors for them.  In 1648, horrible massacres of Jews took place during the Chmielnicki and Haidamak uprisings of the 17th and 18th centuries.  The Frankist and Hasidic movements originated here in the 18th century.. During the revolt that lasted for 2 years, about 300 kehillos were destroyed and 100,000Jews were massacred, mostly in very cruel manners.  Jews who survived fled westward with nothing but what they were wearing.  Why is it that people return to places of tragedy?  They did in hopes of a long-term peace and quiet, only to find that this would not happen, even in 2015.  

 Zionism also developed here in Ukraine.  By the 19th century, Jews from Galicia and Belarus  moved here.  Ukraine has always been an anti-Semitic center. Pogroms took place in 1905 and as late as 1918 to 1920 after WWI  Yet, the Soviet government promoted Jewish settlement in the Ukraine in the 1920s using funds from the American Joint Distribution committee in Kalinindorf, Zlatopol and Stalindorf.  By 1930 there were 90,000 Jewish agriculturists there, waiting to be slaughtered in the coming Nazi takeover and war against the Jews. About half of Soviet Russia's 3 million Jews lived in Ukraine before WWII.    During WWII, the native population were about as bad in their acts against the Jews as the Nazis were.  From 1941 and 1942, the Jews were wiped out by the Germans and Ukrainians. Some 900,000 were murdered.   Somehow, the Jewish population bounced back by 1970 and 777,126 were living there.  by 1989 it had dropped to 484,129.  Russia and Ukraine are at it again which began last year.  Some of Ukraine's present 100,000 Jews seriously consider leaving.  Since they've gone through so much in the past 1,000 years, one wonders if they will be leaving for Israel soon.  226 Jews left from Kiev  for Israel already.  " They joined more than 5,000 Ukrainian Jews who have moved to Israel last year, about 1,300 of them from eastern areas claimed by separatists." Many came from the eastern city of  Luhansk.
                                                                           

Jerusalem, unified city and capital of Israel where all religions are allowed to worship

Now Israeli Jews live on  8,000 square miles, and when they build on land that their legal experts swear is theirs after winning the 1967 Six Day War from attacking neighboring countries which allows them to build in Judea and Samaria, their original land as ordained by G-d, and where they were living in 70 CE when the Romans came and occupied their land and then burned down Jerusalem, the world shudders at those "terrible Jews".  Perhaps they are also shuddering at the modernity and beauty of what Jews are creating in Israel, which had lain in waste for 2,000 years in the hands of previous empires yearning for the return of the Jews who loved it.  

Reference:  http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/pale.html
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
The Jewish Press, May 8, 2015, feature section insert, Beyond the Pale.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pale_of_Settlement
http://jewishfactsfromportland.blogspot.com/2010/01/jewish-genes-what-haplogroup-could-they.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/fleeing-their-countrys-civil-war-ukrainian-jews-head-for-israel/2014/12/24/f79fb866-8619-11e4-b9b7-b8632ae73d25_story.html By Ruth Eglash December 25, 2014