Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By simmons on July 11, 2017

JERUSALEM (JTA) Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu put a kippah on his head and read from the Bible during the weekly Cabinet meeting to illustrate the Jewish peoples and Israels connection to Hebron.

Sundays display came after the UNESCO World Heritage Committee on Friday acting on a request from the Palestinians, declared Hebrons Old City to be a heritage site in danger.

I would like to read fromGenesis 23:16-19, Netanyahu said in opening up the meeting. And Abraham hearkened unto Ephron; and Abraham weighed to Ephron the silver, which he had named in the hearing of the children of Heth, four hundred shekels of silver, current money with the merchant. And after this, Abraham buried Sarah his wife in the cave of the field of Machpelah before Mamre the same is Hebron in the land of Canaan.And the field, and the cave that is therein, were made sure unto Abraham for a possession of a burying-place by the children of Heth, Netanyahu said.

The connection between the Jewish people and Hebron and the Tomb of the Patriarchs is one of purchase and of history which may be without parallel in the history of peoples. Of course this did not prevent the UNESCO World Heritage Committee last Friday from passing yet another delusional resolution which determined that the Tomb of the Patriarchs, the same Cave of Machpelah, is a Palestinian heritage site.

In fact, the resolution applied more broadly to Hebrons Old City and did not describe it as Palestinian, though it did note that the resolution was submitted by Palestine. An outside report that the committee cited in the resolution noted the Old Citys importance to Jews, Muslims and Christians.

Netanyahu reiterated an announcement first made Friday that Israel would cut an additional $1 million from Israels United Nations membership dues and transfer the funds to the establishment of The Museum of the Heritage of the Jewish People in Kiryat Arba and Hebron. The money also will be used for additional heritage initiatives related to Hebron, he said.

Israel announced in May that it would withhold $1 million in its funding for the United Nations following the passage by UNESCO of a resolution that condemned the countrys sovereignty in Jerusalem.

Israels annual contribution to the United Nations amounts to over $40 million, a spokesman for the mission told JTA in an email in January after Israel said it would withhold $6 million following a Security Council resolution the previous month condemning settlements.

The U.N.s budget for 2016-17 totals $5.4 billion, with the U.S. being the largest contributor followed by Japan and China.

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After UNESCO Vote, Netanyahu Reads From Bible To Prove Jewish Ties To Hebron - Jewish Week

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Posted By admin on July 11, 2017

Israels Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi David Lau said in a letter that he did not know of the existence of a blacklist of Diaspora rabbis and that it should not have been released to the public.

The chief rabbi was shocked to discover this list, read the letter written by an aide on behalf of Lau and issued Sunday. This was done without the rabbis knowledge or his agreement. How can a list like this be publicized without the rabbi being made aware of the list itself or of its publication?

The results of this are very serious, the letter continued. First of all, an employee in the Chief Rabbinate cannot decide on his own to publicize who the Rabbinate approves or not. Secondly, the damage this does to certain rabbis cannot be exaggerated including to the Chief Rabbinate.

The list consists of 160 rabbis from 24 countries whom the Chief Rabbinate does not trust to confirm the Jewish identities of immigrants. It includes rabbis from the United States and Canada, and Orthodox, Conservative and Reform rabbis. It was released to JTA and other news outlets over the weekend by Itim, a nonprofit that guides Israelis through the countrys religious bureaucracy, after it received the list as part of a freedom-of-information request made in 2015 in a Jerusalem municipal court demanding a list of approved foreign rabbis and received this list as part of that case.

According to a JTA tally of the 66 American rabbis on the list, at least one-fifth are Orthodox, including several prominent Orthodox rabbis and one alumnus of the Baltimore ultra-Orthodox seminary Ner Yisroel. The vast majority of US rabbis on the list are Reform or Conservative.

In Sundays letter, Lau ordered Chief Rabbinate Director-General Moshe Dagan to call in Rabbi Itamar Tubul, who kept and released the list, for questioning and a reprimand.

In December, rabbis at the Chief Rabbinate set up a controversial committee to vet conversions, but it is not clear whether the committee approved the published list.

Earlier Sunday, Lau had dismissed reports of a schism between Israel and US Jews over the Western Wall deal as fake news, claiming that the vast majority of American Jews never set foot in Israel anyway.

Speaking at a conference organized by the ultra-Orthodox daily newspaper Hamodia, Rabbi David Lau said that the biggest issue facing US Jews was not the Western Wall or the conversion bill, but intermarriage and apathy about the Jewish state.

In the past two weeks we have been exposed to lies, that American Jews are tearing themselves away from Israel, said Lau. Eighty-five percent of American Jews have never set foot in Israel.

At the end of June, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government backtracked on a January 2016 plan to officially recognize a separate, permanent, pluralistic prayer area at Robinsons Arch, adjacent to the main Western Wall prayer area, in a compromise reached after years of negotiations between liberal Israeli and American Jewish groups and the Israeli authorities. The frozen deal would have given non-Orthodox Jewish leaders a joint role in the oversight of the pluralistic site. Currently, a temporary prayer facility exists there.

Archaeologists claim the egalitarian platform harms the visual story of the Western Wall by hiding important archaeological artifacts. (courtesy, Eilat Mazar)

Under ultra-Orthodox management, the main Western Wall area is separated between mens and womens prayer sections.

Lau rejected claims that the Western Wall was only for ultra-Orthodox Jews.

I was in the US a few months ago, he said. I was asked: Why do you not let people of other faiths come to pray at the Western Wall? I told them that is also false. I was at the Western Wall. Next to me was a man from Nigeria. I dont know how he prayed, who he prayed to. But he stood there. Did I bother him? Did he bother me?

Lau quoted the verse that My house is a place of prayer for all the nations, saying that all were welcome to come and pray. He did not explain how those who want pluralistic prayer could do so, but he said those making a fuss about the mixed gender plaza werent interested in coming to Jerusalem to pray.

A young member of Women of the Wall holds up the miniature Torah scroll during the monthly Rosh Hodesh service on June 25, 2017, in the womens section of the Western Wall plaza, just before Netanyahu froze the Kotel Agreement. (Melanie Lidman/Times of Israel)

Of the 15% of US Jews who have visited Israel, Lau said, many of them are Orthodox, or wanted only separate prayer at the Western Wall. He implied that the actual number who cared about a mixed plaza was insignificant.

In the same meeting at the end of June, the cabinet also advanced a bill that would have granted the Israeli Chief Rabbinate, an ultra-Orthodox-dominated body, sole authority over recognized Jewish conversions within Israel. The conversion bill, however, was shelved on Friday for six months.

Efrats Chief Rabbi Shlomo Riskin officiates at a conversion examination for the Giyur Kahalacha private conversion court, November 2015. (courtesy)

Lau said this was also fake news and denied that the judges on the rabbinate conversion courts were out of touch with reality.

You should know that most of the judges in rabbinic courts were officers in the IDF, he said. They are connected to the Jewish experience as much as everyone else.

But he said that Israel cannot allow a situation where any three Jews can convene to form a conversion court, and award certificates of conversion. They give a certificate, he said, but what about Judaism.

He stressed that Israel bears a responsibility to care for US and Diaspora Jews, who are our brothers. But the way to do that was not through the Western Wall or conversion, but through education and strengthening their Jewish commitment.

Lau, along with Chief Sephardi Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef, was instrumental in pushing ministers to force the government to backtrack on the Western Wall deal. Just a week before the cabinet decision the rabbinate released a letter that condemned the plans to improve the mixed-gender prayer at the Wall.

View of the current mixed-gender prayer section at the Western Wall in Jerusalem Old City on March 6, 2016. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

The position of the Chief Rabbinate is that the government decision on dividing the Western Wall is invalid and cannot stand, the letter said, according to a copy obtained by the Israel Hayom daily. The Chief Rabbinate is the highest halachic [Jewish legal] authority in the state, and therefore it is entirely forbidden to hold mixed prayer, men and women together, at any site of the Western Wall.

The governments reneging on the two decisions about the Western Wall and conversions were met with fierce opposition from American-Jewish groups, philanthropists, businessmen and various figures active in the Jewish world, as well as Israeli politicians, who expressed their dismay and disappointment. Some have intimated the decisions might impact financial contributions to Israel and warned of eroding support for the Jewish state.

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Chief Ashkenazi rabbi says he didn't know of 'blacklist' of Diaspora rabbis - The Times of Israel

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Posted By simmons on July 11, 2017

A former Israeli ambassador to the US on Monday slammed as fake news claims by Israels Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi David Lau that 85 percent of American Jews had never visited Israel.

Three times as many Jews have visited as Rabbi Lau claims, Michael Oren told The Times of Israel.

The most recent comprehensive study of American Jewish life the 2013 Pew study shows that 43% of American Jews have visited Israel, and that number is increasing over time.

Talk about fake news! Oren continued. Rabbi Laus comments are symptomatic of the condescending and dismissive attitudes that some Israelis have toward American Jews.

He added, Its that kind of lack of understanding of each other that underlies the Western Wall controversy.

Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi David Lau attends a special meeting of the Rabbinate Council at the Western Wall Tunnels in Jerusalem Old City on May 24, 2017. (Shlomi Cohen/Flash90)

Oren was referring to a cabinet decision late last month to suspend a government-approved plan for a pluralistic prayer pavilion at Jerusalems Western Wall, following calls by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus ultra-Orthodox coalition allies to scrap the deal.

The decision sent shock waves through the worlds non-Orthodox Jewish community, particularly in the US, with community leaders declaring that the decision had hurt Israel-Diaspora relations in an unprecedented way.

Lau the Ashkenazi chief rabbi had on Sunday dismissed reports of an Israel-Diaspora schism as fake news, claiming that the vast majority of American Jews had never set foot in Israel anyway.

Speaking at a conference organized by the ultra-Orthodox daily newspaper Hamodia, Lau said that the biggest issue facing US Jews was not the Western Wall, but intermarriage and apathy about the Jewish state.

In the past two weeks we have been exposed to lies, that American Jews are tearing themselves away from Israel, said Lau. Eighty-five percent of American Jews have never set foot in Israel.

Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.

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Deputy minister blasts chief rabbi's 'fake news' on US Jews - The Times of Israel

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Posted By simmons on July 11, 2017

Regardless of who will be elected to be the new head of Israels Labor Party in the second round Amir Peretz or Avi Gabbay one fact is already known: the person to replace Isaac Herzog is of Moroccan origin.

So what? is the wrong reaction to this statement. What should really be very irrelevant in Israel 2017 is actually very relevant. To begin with, in the 70 years of the State of Israel there has never been a Sephardi [descended from the Jews of the Iberian peninsula] prime minister, Moroccan or otherwise.

Now two contestants from Moroccan families and the social and geographical peripheries are competing for the leadership of the political party still strongly identified with the white tribe, an unsavory term gaining momentum as society matures. In fact, Labor has actually already had two Sephardi chairs: Benjamin Ben-Eliezer of Iraqi descent and Amir Peretz himself over ten years ago. Nevertheless, the party is still perceived as the Bastille of the white Ashkenazi [Jews of Eastern European descent] hegemony, resented and rejected by masses of Sephardi voters.

The roots of this phenomenon are deeply embedded into the history of Israel. They are the crime and the punishment for wrongdoings perpetrated by the then-ruling old Labor in the process of absorption of Jewish immigration from North Africa. Humiliation is the key word. The wound refuses to heal despite the belated public forgive us act by Ehud Barak as a Labor prime minister in 1999; The gaps opened over decades between Ashkenazi and Sephardi have not closed despite the attempt to verbally bury what is called in Hebrew the ethnic devil.

This time, it feels different. The two Peretz and Gabbay, of humble background, defeated two who best represent the old elite of Labor Party. One is the acting chair, Isaac Herzog, son of the late Gen. Haim Herzog, Labor politician and sixth president of Israel; the other is Omer Bar-Lev, son of the late Lt-Gen. Haim Bar Lev, one of the stars of the old Labor and a cabinet minister on multiple occasions.

A world-renowned Israeli writer of Iraqi origin, Eli Amir, defined the victory of the two runner-uppers over the crown princes as the emergence of a new aristocracy. He strongly believes that the outcome of this election marks a conceptual change.

He might be right, although not necessarily. The recognition that no party in Israel can win the elections without Sephardi voters and the assumption that a Sephardi leader may attract those votes, might provide an alternative explanation. It might be both. In any case, both candidates hate the reference to their ethnic background. They hardly mention it, if ever. They let others do for them what is still considered to be an unpleasant job in Israeli society.

Gabbay, by now a millionaire with an impressive record in the sphere of business and management, hardly mentions his roots, though he makes wise use of the hardships of his youth, growing up in a tiny house with eight siblings. Peretzs biography is well known to Israelis, and so is his statement of wishful thinking ten years ago that the ethnic problem is non-existent. Little did he know.

Whatever the future holds, the two victories over the old elites are an event of historic importance. Unlike the two former short-lived episodes of Sephardi leadership of Labor party, this one grows of from fertile ground in a more comfortable climate.

About two years ago, a new social movement emerged on the Israeli scene. Young intellectuals of Sephardi origin formed an organization under the name Golden age - it is our turn now. The name Golden Age refers to those days of Jewish cultural prosperity in Spain in the Middle Ages; now is our turn was their way of saying that the days of the exclusive Ashkenazi hegemony in Israel are over - now is the turn of Mizrachi Israel, to get control of all the strongholds in society that really matter.

So far, the new movement has had limited success. Nevertheless, the double victory of the two contestants in the Labor Party certainly has a lot to do with the changing social climate and audacious, unapologetic Sephardi discourse relentlessly spread by public opinion leaders and intellectuals of Sephardi origin.

It certainly was not like that just 11 years ago when Peretz was first elected to lead the party, many veteran Ashkenazi members left in angry protest. He just did not fit in. The most radical reaction was that of the then-new Russian speaking community in Israel. One of the major local newspapers in Russian called Peretz a garbage alley-cat from Sderot, in reference to the small town in the southern periphery where he chose to live. They hated his roots, his looks, and his accent. Everything. Peretz himself admitted then that he expected some dissatisfaction, but this level of racism surprised him.

Twelve years later, the same party has chosen not only him, but also another candidate of Moroccan origin to possibly lead the party. Ethnicity makes Israeli politics go round. The official reaction is that there is good reason to celebrate the success of two Moroccans, but that the revolution is far from over.

In July 2017, the two emerge on apolitical scene in days of a vocal, self-assured Sephardi discourse. The one elected will be on a double-pronged mission: to rephrase the left and right discourse and fine-tuning adjustments based on both security and identity. The rest just might become history.

Lily Galili is a feature writer, analyst of Israeli society and expert on immigration from the former Soviet Union. She is the co-author of "The Million that Changed the Middle East."

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Analysis: Now it's their turn - i24NEWS

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Posted By admin on July 11, 2017

Haredi soldiers learning Torah

Flash 90

MK Yisrael Eichler (United Torah Judaism) recently said on the Kol Belz radio program that "The Sephardim are going to the army because, unfortunately, their level of study is weaker. There are many of them there [in the army]."

MK Eichler's statement was one of the attacks on haredi IDF soldiers which prompted MK Amir Ohana (Likud) to slam the haredi leadership for its attitude towards IDF soldiers from their community. Speaking at the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee last week, Ohana said that "the blood that will be spilled here ... is on the hands of [Health Minister] Litzman and his men who allow incitement to rage unchecked."

In an interview with Arutz Sheva, MK Ohana explained that he singled out Minister Litzman in his remarks because the Health Minister is "the most senior member of the haredi delegation and is the only minister in the Ashkenazi haredi faction." He differentiated between the Sephardic Shas party and its Ashkenazi counterpart.

"The majority of the haredi delegation does not approve this incitement and violence. They denounce it and want to get rid of it. But there is a small and extreme minority that dictates the tone because the majority is silent and I expect the majority to remove them from the party," Ohana said.

Ohana was asked if his expectation is naiive, since the position of the haredi leadership against enlistment in the IDF is well known. He responded by saying that the issue is not the haredi acceptance of IDF service, but "what happens to the recruits who are the subjects of the incitement and violence."

"Litzman says, and his people say that the instigators and the violence are not from his constituency, but come from the Satmar sect who oppose the existence of the State of Israel. But if you remain silent, how will you bring this faction down? Why are we in the Likud, in the Jewish Home party, and in Yesh Atid able to condemn this and they are not? Suddenly Litzman can't find the time to condemn this. It began with [shouts of the slur] 'Chardak!' and with brochures, and continued with the hanging of effigies and sending a fake bomb to a haredi soldier. It will end in blood," Ohana said.

Ohana said that he is trying to get other ministers to speak out against the phenomenon, but it is difficult to criticize the leaders of the haredi parties when they are partners in the coalition. He said that the haredi soldiers cannot be taken for granted and must be helped, because "they are cut off from everything they have been told so far, and therefore they should be strengthened."

The anti-haredi soldiers' groups include Satmar, but also Neturei Karta and the Jerusalem Faciton.

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'Ministers are silent as haredi soldiers are attacked' - Arutz Sheva

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Posted By simmons on July 11, 2017

Heres a look at an interesting new release available to rent from cable and digital providers and a few titles that have recently hit streaming services.

Video on Demand

Norman: The Moderate Rise and Tragic Fall of a New York Fixer: In his English-language debut film, Israeli director Joseph Cedar introduces us to Norman (Richard Gere), a seemingly well-connected but nebbish man who can talk himself into just about any situation. He spends most of his time on the phone, pulling favors and acting as a middleman in order to move up the food chain of the rich and powerful in New York City. A chance meeting with a politician named Micha Eshel (Lior Ashkenazi) pays off years later when this man becomes the Prime Minister of Israel. It allows Norman to make more powerful connections, but things take a turn when his big promises (and occasional flat-out lies) catch up with him in an unpleasant manner. The title acts as its own spoiler, so you cant be too surprised when his promises fail to help him. Charlotte Gainsbourg, Dan Stevens, Hank Azaria and Steve Buscemi round out the stellar supporting cast. While this sluggish story gets mired in politics, Gere shines through in an unexpected performance. (Cable and digital VOD)

Also on streaming services

Lion: Garth Davis (Top of the Lake) graduated from television work to the big screen, and his directorial debut earned him an incredible six Academy Award nominations including Best Picture. Based on a true story, the film follows a 5-year-old Indian boy named Saroo who falls asleep on a train and then wakes up hours later over 500 miles away in Calcutta. Hes stuck in a strange place where he doesnt know the language and cannot communicate, eventually being taken to an orphanage where he is adopted and moved away to Australia. Nicole Kidman was nominated for Best Supporting Actress for her role as Saroos adoptive mother and Dev Patel (The Newsroom) earned a Best Supporting Actor nomination for portraying Saroo as a grown man desperate to find his birth family. (Netflix)

Prince Avalanche: Austin-based filmmaker David Gordon Green returned to his indie roots with this quirky buddy comedy that was filmed up the road in Bastrop. Inspired by an Icelandic film named Either Way, it takes place in the late 1980s and follows a city worker named Alvin (Paul Rudd) who hires his girlfriends brother Lance (Emile Hirsch) to help him repaint traffic lines on a country highway after a wildfire. Filled with sharp dialogue and hearty laughs, its a charming story of an unlikely friendship. Bonus points for a beautiful score composed and performed by Explosions in the Sky and Ola Podridas David Wingo. (Hulu)

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Check out an unexpected performance from Richard Gere, now on demand - MyStatesman.com

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Posted By richards on July 11, 2017

Phoenix, AZ(ENEWSPF)July 10, 2017 The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) today announced a set of new initiatives in partnership with Latin American consulates in the United States that will help expand efforts in the Hispanic community to report hate crimes and incidents.

In addition to providing training on responding to harassment and hate crimes for staff members at Mexican, Central and South American consulates across the U.S., ADL is lending technology and know-how for establishing online Spanish-language reporting tools that will enable victims of hate incidents to report them quickly, confidentially and in real-time.

Those efforts were announced earlier today by Jonathan A. Greenblatt, ADL CEO, in remarks to the National Council of La Raza (NCLR), the nations leading civil rights organization serving the Hispanic community. Mr. Greenblatt gave the keynote address at their annual convention in Phoenix.

In times of trouble we turn to family. Im afraid these are, indeed, troubled times, Mr. Greenblatt told the gathering of nearly 2,000 NCLR leaders, activists and supporters. We are proud to be working closely with Latin American consulates across the country to help them establish reporting mechanisms on their websites so that anyone who experiences or witnesses a hate incident can have a place to report them in their language. This will help our country better track information on hate incidents and activities in the U.S., including crimes that people might otherwise be afraid to report to law enforcement.

ADL will be lending expertise to foreign consulates representing Mexico and various other Central and South American countries to establish consistent reporting mechanisms on their websites. Immigrants who experience hate or a bias crime, but who may be uncomfortable sharing that experience with law enforcement, will be able to access the online form for privately sharing information.

The data captured on the Spanish-language forms will be aggregated and analyzed to provide consular officials, Hispanic civil rights organizations, law enforcement and others who advocate against hate crime with real-time information on anti-immigrant and anti-Hispanic attacks in America. The forms are expected to be up and running on a number of consular sites by mid-August.

In the last 18 months, ADL has delivered trainings to more than 150 protection and community affairs officers at Mexican consulates, and has trained the staff of the Mexican consulates in Las Vegas, Phoenix, San Francisco, Sacramento, Philadelphia and New York. ADL is now working to deliver additional trainings to all 50 Mexican consulates in the U.S. and is expanding those efforts to include other Latin-American countries as well. ADLs trainings share information and resources on anti-immigrant and extremist groups in America, and provide guidance on how to effectively respond to and report incidents and hate crimes.

Since 2006, ADL has been collaborating with NCLR on a national level, and during their annual convention the League has provided workshops on extremist and hate rhetoric aimed at Hispanics and Latinos, addressing security concerns, and keeping community institutions safe.

Source: http://adl.org

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Anti-Defamation League Expands Efforts to Aid Hispanic Community in Reporting Hate Crimes - eNews Park Forest

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Posted By richards on July 10, 2017

The penchant of the prime minister, Narendra Modi, for turning every meeting with a world leader into an over-the-top bromance is by now well known. So is his ability to blur the lines between friendly and over familiar.

We have seen him swaying on a traditional Gujarati swing with Xi Jinping; taking Malcolm Turnbull for a metro ride in Delhi; steering the French president, Emmanuel Macron, through the gardens of the Elysee Palace as though he were the host and Macron his acolyte; and famously referring to the former American president, Obama, by his first name, Barack, not once or twice but 22 times in course of a single radio broadcast.

Since many countries covet India's expanding markets and eagerly eye big ticket defence deals that New Delhi dangles before them, world leaders too have reciprocated Modi's hyper-friendly gestures, albeit a little gingerly. And every time Modi goes on a foreign trip, there is no end to gushing media coverage describing his sojourn as "historic" - even when it is, more often than not, just a continuation of India's engagement with the world that has steadily expanded over several decades past.

Yet, even his critics will concede that Modi's visit to Israel last week and his excessive camaraderie with Benjamin Netanyahu were on a different plane altogether - and the trip was, in every sense of the term, historic.

The P.V. Narasimha Rao government may have established full diplomatic ties with Israel back in 1992 and cooperation between India and Israel in many fields may have grown over the last 25 years.

But Modi was absolutely right in describing his July 4-6 visit to Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, the first ever by an Indian prime minister, as "path breaking"; just as Netanyahu was spot on when he referred to 2014 as the turning point when "we had decided to tear down the final walls dividing our countries".

That Modi and Netanyahu enjoyed a great chemistry was there for all to see - the frequent embraces; Modi's calling the Israeli prime minister by his pet name, "Bibi", and being referred to as mere dost in return; the private dinners; the schmaltzy meeting of the two with 26/11 survivor, Moshe Holtzberg; the walks on the beach.

But it was not this personal chemistry or the decision of the two countries to elevate their relationship to "a strategic partnership" that made Modi's trip path breaking. What made it so lies in two profound decisions - a refusal and an acceptance - taken by Modi. His refusal to visit Palestinian territories such as Ramallah which all visiting Indian and world leaders make a point to do, and his acceptance of Netanyahu's "impromptu" proposal to visit the tomb of Theodor Herzl, the founding father of Zionism, together underscore why exactly Modi's visit was so significant.

The two decisions not just broke with India's long tradition of supporting the Palestinian people who were forced out of their homeland in 1948 and continue to be homeless or occupied, but they also reflect a much greater bond rooted in a common sense of history and ideology between the right wing leaderships currently ruling both India and Israel. Modi and Netanyahu were well aware of this historic shift.

Within minutes of Modi landing in Israel, Netanyahu declared: "We love India. We view you as kindred spirits in our journey." A day later, Modi told the Israeli president, "I for I, when I say it, doesn't mean an eye for an eye. It means India for Israel."

That was a deliberate rhetorical flourish to gloss over the fact that not all of India supports Israel unconditionally and from the time of Indian Independence in 1947 and the formation of Israel less than a year later in May 1948, India had been a resolute defender of the Palestinian people and a steadfast critic of Israeli aggression.

Instead of "I for I", the more accurate description of what took place in Jerusalem would be "H for Z" - or Hindutva for Zionism. For the truth is that Hindu nationalism championed by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and the Hindu Mahasabha has always been supportive of Zionism and Israel for reasons both political and ideological.

One key reason is that the RSS greatly admires Israel's success in fighting the Muslim countries that surround it. For RSS followers, a "Hindu" India and a "Jewish" Israel have long been regarded as natural allies in the fight against Islam - with occasionally a "Christian" America thrown in to make a more formidable troika.

But the bonds between Zionism and Hindutva go much deeper. Zionism, founded by Theodor Herzl in 1897, was a political movement dedicated to the creation of a Jewish state and nation. The fusion of religious and cultural identity with a "holy" geographical entity is common to both Hindutva and Zionism. The Zionist idea, encapsulated in the Israeli declaration of Independence, states: "The Land of Israel was the birthplace of the Jewish people. Here their spiritual, religious and political identity was shaped... After being forcibly exiled from their land, the people kept faith with it throughout their Dispersion... Impelled by this historic and traditional attachment, Jews strove in every successive generation to re-establish themselves in their ancient homeland..."

In light of Europe's long history of anti-Semitism that culminated in Hitler's horrific Final Solution in the last century, the desire of the Jewish people to have a safe homeland gained much sympathy after the Second World War - not least from the guilt-ridden Western world that had failed to prevent the Holocaust.

But much before Hitler came on the scene, V.D. Savarkar - in an echo of the Zionist creed - declared that Hindus alone were the legitimate people of India because their pitrabhoomi (fatherland) was the same as their punyabhoomi (holy land). In his book Hindutva, first published in 1923, Savarkar wrote: "... no people in the world can more justly claim to get recognized as a racial unit than the Hindus and perhaps the Jews."

Elsewhere, in the same book, he wrote: "Look at the Jews; neither centuries of prosperity nor sense of gratitude for the shelter they found, can make them more attached or even equally attached to the several countries they inhabit. Their love is, and must necessarily be divided between the land of their birth and the land of their Prophets. If the Zionists' dreams are ever realized - if Palestine becomes a Jewish State and it will gladden us almost as much as our Jewish friends - they, like the Mohammedans, would naturally set the interests of their Holy land above those of their Motherland in America and Europe..."

The RSS ideologue, M.S. Golwalkar, may have been less explicit in his admiration for Zionism and he even extolled Germany for showing "how well nigh impossible it is for Races and Cultures, having differences going to the root, to be assimilated into one unified whole, a good lesson for us in Hindusthan to learn and profit by."

But Golwalkar's appreciation for the "race spirit" of the German people was in keeping with his belief that the bedrock of nationhood is religion, language, race and culture; not a shared citizenship based on universal values. In fact, Golwalkar's writings, too, borrow heavily from Zionist and Judaic exhortations. If orthodox Jews believe they are god's "Chosen People", Golwalkar has described India as the land of the Hindus or "The Chosen Land".

He has written, for instance, "Our forefathers were of the conviction that throughout the world this is the holiest of the lands where the least merit will bear fruit a hundred or thousand-fold... It was given to the great sons of this soil to see and realize God in His full effulgence."

Imbued with great pride in their ancient roots and their holy lands, and fed by centuries of real and perceived persecution, both Hindutva and strong strands within Zionism today seek to champion a muscular militarized nationalism that is exclusionary to the core and has no place for the un-chosen Other.

No wonder Netanyahu and Modi bonded so well together. It was a meeting of hearts and minds, certainly - between a Hindutva hardliner and a zealous Zionist.

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Hindutva for Zionism - Calcutta Telegraph

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Posted By richards on July 10, 2017

Grenfell Tower apartment building goes up in flames in London

Reuters

An Islamist activist who claimed that the victims of the Grenfell Tower fire in London were murdered by Zionists is being investigated by British police, The Telegraph reports.

Nazim Ali, a director of the Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC), is accused of exploiting the tragedy during an Al-Quds Day demonstration in the days after the fire.

The Metropolitan Police said it was now investigating allegations of anti-Semitic comments made during the protest, according to The Telegraph.

Ali, who is managing partner of a private health clinic in west London, told the rally on June 18, As we know in Grenfell, many innocents were murdered by Theresa Mays cronies, many of which are supporters of Zionist ideology.

In video footage posted online, Ali goes on to say, Let us not forget that some of the biggest corporations who were supporting the Conservative Party are Zionists. They are responsible for the murder of the people in Grenfell, in those towers in Grenfell, the Zionist supporters of the Tory Party.

In another heated outburst, he says, It is the Zionists who give money to the Tory party, to kill people in high rise blocks.... Careful, careful, careful of those rabbis who belong to the Board of Deputies, who have got blood on their hands.

The participants in the Al-Quds Day march held up the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) flag as well as the flag of Hezbollah, which has been named in Britain as an illegal terror organization.

Supporters on the parade route held up banners reading Zionism is Racism and, We are all Hezbollah.

Al-Quds Day, which is marked on the final day of Ramadan, was initiated by Iran and is generally used to incite against Israelis and Jews.

Ali, who chaired the London rally, is listed as a director of the IHRC, which co-organizes the event in the UK. In 2012, Ali introduced Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader, as the keynote speaker at the protest march, noted The Telegraph.

Corbyn did not attend this years event, though he has in the past come under fire for calling Hamas and Hezbollah his "friends" and for outright refusing to condemn those two terrorist organizations .

The Community Security Trust, which monitors anti-Semitism in the UK, said it was appalled by Alis comments and had reported him to the police. It said it was grotesque for Ali to link the Grenfell Tower disaster, in which more than 80 people perished, with his opposition to Zionism.

A CST spokesman said, according to The Telegraph, In any circumstance, these comments would have been utterly hateful, but to hang them on what happened at Grenfell Tower beggared belief. It was, of course, a pro-Hezbollah demonstration, but such hatred would have been staggering even in Beirut or Tehran, never mind the streets of London.

A Scotland Yard spokesman said, We received an allegation of anti-semitic comments and it is being investigated by detectives from Westminster CID. The inquiry continues.

The IHRC would not respond to request for comment from The Telegraph.

Ali told the newspaper, You have not presented what I said accurately in the wider context of what was said in the prelude to the minute's silence for Grenfell. As presented it sounds somewhat inelegant To say that some of Theresa May or the Tory party's supporters are Zionists is hardly controversial.

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British Islamist investigated over remarks on 'Zionists' - Arutz Sheva

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Posted By richards on July 10, 2017

Speaking in unison at a Sunday ceremony marking three years since the establishment of a Gush Etzion outpost built in response to the June 2014 kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teens, settler leaders said the advancement of the settlement enterprise is the most appropriate response to Palestinian terror.

Some 500 people gathered at the illegal outpost for the event organized by the World Zionist Organization, the Gush Etzion Regional Council, the Jewish National Fund, and Yehudit Katzover and Nadia Matar, two founders of the outpost, a nature reserve.

Today, our hearts are full of strength and pride, said WZOs Deputy Chair Yaakov Haguel, using the two Hebrew words chosen for the name of the site, Oz Vegaon. Our enemies will destroy and we will build. Our enemies will incite and we will establish.

Oz Vegaon was founded weeks after the June 12, 2014 disappearance of Eyal Yifrach, Naftali Fraenkel and Gilad Shaer. The three teens had inadvertently hitched a ride from a bus stop at the Alon Shvut Junction in Gush Etzion with terrorists from a Hamas cell. Their fate was unknown for almost three weeks, but they were killed mere hours after the kidnapping.

The three kidnapped and murdered teens, from left to right: Naftali Fraenkel, 16, Gilad Shaer, 16, and Eyal Yifrach, 19. (photo credit: Courtesy)

Following the kidnapping, Israel launched Operation Brothers Keeper in the West Bank in an attempt to crack down on Hamas and to track down the three yeshiva students only to find their bodies in a field north of Hebron 18 days later.

Israel then embarked on Operation Protective Edge in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip in an effort to stem rocket fire and later to also destroy the terror groups subterranean military infrastructure. Over 70 Israelis were killed in the war, most of them soldiers, and over 2,000 were killed on the Palestinian side at least half of them combatants, according to Israel in an intense bombing campaign and ground invasion in Gaza.

Just hours after the bodies of the three teens were laid to rest on June 30, 2014, Katzover and Matar led members of the Women in Green pro-settlement group along with a collective of youth from Gush Etzion to begin staking out the Oz Vegaon site a hill adjacent to Gush Etzion Junction and Kibbutz Migdal Oz that is designated as state land.

A widespread renovation of the area commenced with the help of groups of new immigrants from Russia and Ukraine. By the end of the summer of 2014, Oz Vegaon was opened to tourists as a campsite and hosting grounds for cultural events in memory of Shaer, Fraenkel, and Yifrach who were said to have been deeply connected to the area.

The second word in the nature reserve name, Vegaon, was chosen using the first-name initials of Gilad, Eyal and Naftali in Hebrew.

A walkway at the entrance to the Oz VeGaon outpost in Gush Etzion seen on June 28, 2016 (Gershon Elinson/Flash90)

Representatives from each of their families were present at Sundays commemoration.

Eyal Yifrachs father Uri addressed the crowd briefly, telling attendees: In the place of death and destruction there is flowering and building here. This is the true Zionist response to the terrible event that took place not far from here.

While some of the speakers took the opportunity to discuss what they viewed as the modern-day challenges to Zionism, the overarching theme was how West Bank settlement activity helped preserve the memory of the three slain teens.

About three years ago we accompanied the three boys to their final resting place. Three boys, students and children of Gush Etzion, who symbolize unity and connection to the land, said Gush Etzion Regional Council Chairman Shlomo Neeman. Who would have believed that from this place, which was once so neglected and rampant, such a magnificent project would be able to thrive and flourish.

Also during the ceremony, organizers inaugurated the Zionism Boulevard at the heart of the reserve, commemorating the 120th anniversary of the Zionist Congress.

Gush Etzion Regional Council spokesman Eliya Mor Yosef referred to the establishment of the outpost as price-tag building, employing the phrase used to characterize vandalism and other hate crimes usually carried out by Jewish ultra-nationalists in retaliation for government policies perceived as hostile to the settler movement.

Mor Yosef told The Times of Israel that contrary to the lawless attacks against Palestinians, the construction of the campsite was a more positive response to Palestinian terror.

The Oz Vegaon outpost consists of three families living in separate caravans at the site, previously a neglected forest filled with garbage before being converted into a nature reserve by the Women in Green group.

It is one of roughly 100 outposts built without the authorization of the government and against Israeli law.

Israeli children take part in activities during an event opening the new Zionism Boulevard at the Oz Vegaon outpost in Gush Etzion, on July 9, 2017. (Gershon Elinson/Flash90)

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At West Bank outpost, settlement building feted as 'true Zionist response to terror' - The Times of Israel

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