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Yehuda Lave, Spiritual Advisor and Counselor

Yehuda Lave is an author, journalist, psychologist, rabbi, spiritual teacher, and coach, with degrees in business, psychology and Jewish Law. He works with people from all walks of life and helps them in their search for greater happiness, meaning, business advice on saving money, and spiritual engagement. Now also a Blogger on the Times of Israel. Look for my column

Love Yehuda Lave

with age, I realize:

I TALK TO MYSELF. Sometimes, I need an expert opinion.
The biggest lie I tell myself: OH YOU'LL REMEMBER.
Wouldn't it be great if we could put ourselves in the dryer and come out 3 sizes smaller & wrinkle-free.
GETTING' LUCKY means walking into a room and remembering why.

Can you cry underwater?

What disease did cured ham have?

Why do you have to put your 2 cents in but it is only a penny for your thoughts?

Why do people say they slept like a baby when a baby wakes up every 2 hours?

Why are you IN a movie but ON TV?

How did the person who made the first clock know what time it was?

Boys don't kiss and tell; they kiss and exaggerate.

I went to a massage center but it was self-service

Sunday night I went to an English Rally for Bibi. It was the most powerful experience of my life. The Hebrew term for gratitude is hikarat hatov, which means, literally, "recognizing the good." Practicing gratitude means recognizing the good that is already yours. We owe BiBi a tremendous debt of gratitude for standing up to Obama. I also learned how his father was instrumental in helping to form the state

Sunday night I was invited to an English Event for Bibi.

I was on the fence about going, it was a long trip and I knew I wouldn't get back to Jerusalem until late. It turned out going gave me the most powerful experience of my life as instead of just seeing words on the computer, I was with BiBi (10 feet away) as he was making history.

I am not exaggerating. Israel is at the crossroads of its existence (again). Since the country has been founded, by those living here and the Holocaust survivors who ran for their lives to establish a home where they could live in peace, there has been no peace.

One war after another has rocked us from bombs and rockets.

No other people in the world would take this murderous abuse, but the Jews have because G-d tells us to live in this little New Jersey size piece of land and almost as importantly, we have no place else to go.

When we have won against those attacking us (usually the Arabs), the victors and losers were interviewed, and the consensus was that we were the victors, because we were fighting for our lives, with no place to go. The Arabs were just fighting for hate, no reason to give it everything they had, like we had to, to survive.

Israel has always been willing to compromise and all Israeli governments have been willing to make major sacrifices for the sake of peace. However, peacemaking requires concessions as well as confidence-building measures on both sides. Just as Israel is willing to address the rights and interests of the Palestinians, Israel has legitimate rights and interests that need to be addressed. Peace can only be achieved through negotiations to bridge gaps and resolve all outstanding issues.

Israel believes that it can make peace with a moderate Palestinian leadership that rejects terrorism. When in the past, Israel met Arab leaders, like President Sadat of Egypt and King Hussein of Jordan, who spoke the language of peace and were willing to take concrete steps for coexistence, Israel reached agreements with them and peace was achieved. Israel is willing to stand in peace with all the moderate states of the region.

For negotiations to be possible and for them to have a chance to succeed, Palestinian terrorism and incitement, supported by countries such as Iran and Syria, must be brought to an end. Extremist Palestinian elements, such as Hamas, are unwilling to recognize Israel's very right to exist, and continue to violently act against Israel, against the moderate Palestinian leadership, and against the peace process. As such, they have no place at the negotiating table.

Against this backdrop, we have the new "Deal of the Century. For the first time since the founding of our State, our rights are being recognized. It is no wonder that I, like many others like me, who came to Israel to fulfill the Bible and to avenge my Holocaust family history have felt such a sense of relief.

Sunday night Bibi said:

"The 'deal of the century,' the opportunity of the century; we're never going to have something like this [again], and the only one who will implement it, is me," said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Netanyahu: Blue and White won't follow through on Trump peace plan

In a special interview with Mark Levin, the host of Fox News show "Life, Liberty & Levin," Netanyahu explained that Blue and White is "a leftist party in disguise. Remember, the majority of Israelis are right and center-right. So in order to get center-right voters, they [Blue and White] pretend to be a center-right party."

BiBi repeated these points to me life on Sunday night.

"This is a terrific plan … that's very good for Israel—it has Israel applying Israeli law, adding to Israel's sovereign territory important places like the Jordan Valley, which is a strategic buffer against invasion and the smuggling of weapons from the east; it recognizes the legitimacy and sovereignty of Israeli over communities in our ancestral homeland in Judea and Samaria," he said.

However, he added, the plan "is completely anathema to Blue and White, and their leaders said the opposite just a few months ago. But when the Trump plan came out, they said, 'Oh, we're for the Trump plan.'

"There's only one problem with that: A, they're not. B, they've said horrible things about President Trump just before the Trump plan was announced, like comparing him to Hitler. And three, they're dependent on the support in the Knesset, in our parliament, to form a government, on the Joint Arab List that says to them: 'If you actually accept the Trump plan, you won't be prime minister.' So they're not going to adopt the Trump plan."

This, the prime minister continued, "would be a historic miss. The 'deal of the century,' the opportunity of the century; we're never going to have something like this [again], and the only one who will implement it, is me."

Israel's voters, said Netanyahu, understand the stakes.

"I think the voters are getting that message. We have a historic opportunity; I don't intend to miss it. I intend to do it, but the only way that I can do it is to be elected prime minister, and that's what I tell the voters," he told Levin.

"The other guy," Netanyahu said, referring to Gantz, "is dependent on the Joint Arab List, which refuses to recognize the State of Israel and will certainly not support the Trump plan in any way."

'One big con job'

Netanyahu said the two Gantz advisers who compared Trump to Hitler "are the guys who give him the lines," adding that he has "asked [Gantz] to fire them. But he wouldn't."

Levin responded: "I'm familiar with this. Two staffers who refer to our president in one way or another as Hitler, and Mr. Gantz keeps them on board as senior advisers."

Netanyahu said that Gantz was "being fed by two people. One is an Israeli adviser called Ronen Tzur, he compared President Trump to Adolf Hitler. It's incredible—the greatest friend we've ever had in the White House, he's compared him to Adolf Hitler."

The second person, said Netanyahu, "is an American adviser, he's Joel Benenson. … He worked for Obama. But he, too, did something which I think is illegitimate. He, too, compared President Trump to Adolf Hitler."

Tzur is a former Knesset member, while Benenson advised not only former U.S. President Barack Obama, but also presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and former New York Gov. Mario Cuomo.

"These are the two closest advisers of Benny Gantz, who tell him what to say, when to say it, and so on," stressed Netanyahu. "They're [Blue and White] putting on an act. As though they're for the Trump plan. These people, who call President Trump Hitler, are for President Trump's plan. Give me a break. So this is one big con job, that's what it is."

At the talk, Bibi talked about his Father and his role in helping to form the State of Israel in the first place:

Benzion Netanyahu ( בֶּנְצִיּוֹן נְתַנְיָהוּ,); born Benzion Mileikowsky; March 25, 1910 – April 30, 2012) was an Israeli historian. He served as Professor of History at Cornell University. A scholar of Judaic history, he was also an activist in the Revisionist Zionism movement, who lobbied in the United States to support the creation of the Jewish state.

Bibi talked about how his father had used his influence in writing to the Politicians in the 1940"s in the United States to be open and support the idea of the Jewish State. Bibi learned from his father not to take the demands of Politicians in the US, but to fight against them with public opinion, and as we saw he was able to fight against Obama in his demand for us to return to the 1948 Armistance lines and against the Iran nuclear deal which would have given Iran the ability for another Holocaust and wipe us out.

All in all, we must vote for Bibi for the principal of Hikarat Hatov -recognizing the good he has done for us. This is even without the wonders he has done for the economy and security for the country for the last decade.

Benzion Mileikowsky (later Netanyahu) was born in Warsaw in partitioned Poland which was under Russian control, to Sarah (Lurie) and the writer and Zionist activist Nathan Mileikowsky. Nathan was a rabbi who toured Europe and the United States, making speeches supporting Zionism. After Nathan took the family to Mandate Palestine (aliyah) in 1920, the family name eventually was changed to Netanyahu. After living in Jaffa, Tel Aviv, and Safed, the family settled in Jerusalem. Benzion Netanyahu studied in the David Yellin teachers' seminary and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Although his father was a rabbi, Benzion was secular.[4] His younger brother, mathematician Elisha Netanyahu, became Dean of Sciences at the Technion. It was a common practice for Zionist immigrants at the time to adopt a Hebrew name.[5] Nathan Mileikowsky began signing some of the articles he wrote "Netanyahu," the Hebrew version of his first name, and his son adopted this as his family name. He also used the pen name "Nitay."

In 1944, Netanyahu married Tzila Segal, whom he met during his studies in Palestine. The couple had three sons —Yonatan (1946–76), former commander of Sayeret Matkal, who was killed in action leading Operation Entebbe; Benjamin, (b. 1949), Israeli Prime Minister (1996–99, 2009–present); and Iddo (b. 1952), an Israeli physician, author and playwright. The family lived on Haportzim Street in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Katamon.[6] Netanyahu's wife Tzila died in 2000.[7]

Zionist activism

Benzion Netanyahu studied medieval history at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. During his studies, Netanyahu became active in Revisionist Zionism, a movement of people who had split from their mainstream Zionist counterparts, believing those in the mainstream were too conciliatory to the British authorities governing Palestine, and espousing a more militant, right-wing version of Jewish nationalism than the one advocated by the Labour Zionists who led Israel in its early years. The revisionists were led by Jabotinsky, whose belief in the necessity of an "iron wall" between Israel and its Arab neighbors had influenced Israeli politics since the 1930s. Netanyahu became a close friend to Abba Ahimeir.[8]

Benzion Netanyahu was co-editor of Betar, a Hebrew monthly (1933–1934), then editor of the Revisionist Zionist daily newspaper Ha-Yarden in Jerusalem (1934–1935).[2] until the British Mandate authorities ordered the paper to cease publication.[dubious – discuss][9] He was editor at the Zionist Political Library, Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, 1935–1940.

In 1940, Netanyahu went to New York to be secretary to Jabotinsky, who was seeking to build American support for his militant New Zionists. Jabotinsky died the same year, and Netanyahu became executive director of the New Zionist Organization of America, the political rival of the more moderate Zionist Organization of America. He held the post until 1948.[10][11]

As executive director, Netanyahu was one of the Revisionist movement's leaders in the United States during World War II. At the same time, he pursued his PhD at Dropsie College for Hebrew and Cognate Learning in Philadelphia (now the Center for Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania), writing his dissertation on Isaac Abrabanel (1437–1508), a Jewish scholar and statesman who opposed the banishment of Jews from Spain.

Netanyahu believed in Greater Israel. When the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine was published (November 29, 1947), he joined others who signed a petition against the plan. The petition was published in The New York Times.[12] During that time, he was active in engaging with Congress members in Washington, D.C..

In 1949, he returned to Israel, where he tried to start a political career but failed. Relentlessly hawkish, he believed that the "vast majority of Israeli Arabs would choose to exterminate us if they had the option to do so".[13] In his younger days, he had been strongly in favour of the idea of Arab transfer out of Palestine.[14]

In 2009, he told Maariv that "The tendency to conflict is the essence of the Arab. He is an enemy by essence. His personality won't allow him to compromise. It doesn't matter what kind of resistance he will meet, what price he will pay. His existence is one of perpetual war."[15][16]

Academic career

Having previously struggled to fit into Israeli academia without success, perhaps due to a combination of personal and political reasons,[17] Netanyahu nonetheless continued his academic activities upon his return to Israel. Though he still was not able to become a member of the academic faculty of the Hebrew University, his mentor Joseph Klausner recommended him to be one of the editors of the "Encyclopaedia Hebraica" in Hebrew; and upon Klausner's death, Netanyahu became chief editor.

He returned to Dropsie College in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, first as professor of Hebrew language and literature and chairman of the department (1957–1966); then as professor of medieval Jewish history and Hebrew literature (1966–1968). Subsequently, he moved first to University of Denver as professor of Hebraic studies, (1968–1971), then returned to New York in order to edit a Jewish encyclopedia. Eventually he took a position at Cornell University as professor of Judaic studies and chairman of the department of Semitic languages and literature, from 1971–1975. Following the death of his son Yonatan during the Entebbe hostage rescue operation in 1976, he and his family returned to Israel. At the time of his death, Netanyahu was a member of the Academy for Fine Arts[dubious – discuss] and a professor emeritus at Cornell University.

Continuing his interest in Medieval Spanish Jewry, Golden age of Jewish culture in Spain and Portugal, Netanyahu wrote a book about Isaac Abrabanel and essays on the Spanish Inquisition and the Marranos. He developed a theory according to which the Marranos converted to Christianity, not under compulsion, but out of a desire to integrate into Christian society. However, as New Christians they continued to be persecuted due to racism, and not purely for religious reasons, as was previously believed. He argued that what was new in the 15th century was the Spanish monarchy's practice of defining Jews not religiously, but racially, by the principle of limpieza de sangre, purity of blood; which served as a model for 20th-century racial theories. Netanyahu rejected the idea that the Marranos lived double lives, claiming that this theory arose from Inquisition documents.[18]

Netanyahu is perhaps best known for his magnum opus, Origins of the Inquisition in Fifteenth Century Spain. His publisher and friend Jason Epstein wrote of the book:

The 1,400-page work of scholarship overturned [19] centuries of misunderstanding, and predictably it was faintly praised and in a few cases angrily denounced or simply ignored by a threatened scholarly establishment. Dispassionate scholars soon prevailed, and today Benzion's brilliant revisionist achievement towers over the field of Inquisition studies.[20]

His obituary in The New York Times stated: "Though praised for its insights, the book was also criticized as having ignored standard sources and interpretations. Not a few reviewers noted that it seemed to look at long-ago cases of anti-Semitism through the rear-view mirror of the Holocaust." Indeed, quite generally, Netanyahu regarded Jewish history as "a history of holocausts."[13] "Origins" led Netanyahu into a scholarly dispute with Yitzhak Baer. Baer, following earlier views, considered the Anusim (forced converts to Christianity) to be a case of "Kiddush Hashem" (sanctification of the name [of God]: i.e., dying or risking oneself to preserve the name of God). According to Baer, therefore, the converts chose to live a double life, with some level of risk, while retaining their original faith.[citation needed] Netanyahu, in contrast, challenged the belief that the accusations of the Inquisition were true, and considered the majority of converts to be "Mitbolelim" (Cultural assimilationists), and willing converts to Christianity, claiming that the small number of forced converts who did not truly adhere to their new religion were used by the Inquisition as propaganda to allege a broader resistance movement.[citation needed] According to Netanyahu, Christian society had actually never accepted the new converts, for reasons of racial envy.[19]

Netanyahu was a member of the American Academy for Jewish Research, the Institute for Advanced Religious Studies and the American Zionist Emergency Council. In the 1960s, Netanyahu edited in English two more major reference books: the "Encyclopedia Judaica" and "The World History of the Jewish People."

Awarded Doctorate Honoris Causa by the University of Valladolid (Spain) in 2001.

Death

Netanyahu died on the morning of April 30, 2012, in his Jerusalem home at the age of 102. He was survived by two of his three sons, seven grandchildren and twelve great-grandchildren.[21]

Published works

Don Isaac Abravanel. Statesman and philosopher, 1953. Ithaca, 1998; The Jewish Publication Society, 2001.
Toward the inquisition. Essays on Jewish and converso history in late medieval Spain, Ithaca, 1997.
The Marranos of Spain. From the late XIVth to the early XVIth Century, 1966. Ithaca, 1999.
The origins of the Inquisition. In fifteenth Century Spain. New York: Random House, 1st edition August 1995.
The Five Forefathers of Zionism, Yedioth Ahronoth, 2004.
The Founding Fathers of Zionism. Balfour Books & Gefen Publishing House, 2012. ISBN 978-1-933267159

Awards

1995: National Jewish Book Award in the Sephardic Studies for The Origins of the Inquisition[22]

A signature song

A signature song is the one song (or, in some cases, one of a few songs) that a popular and well-established recording artist or band is most closely identified with or best known for.
This is generally differentiated from a one-hit wonder in that the artist usually has success with other songs as well.
There have also been instances where an actor has acquired a signature song by giving a popular vocal performance in a film.
Signature songs can be the result of spontaneous public identification, or a marketing tool developed by the music industry to promote artists, sell their recordings, and develop a fan base.

List of signature songs for selected artists