Jerusalem Day 2021 starts tonight and is tomorrow and Criticizing BLM is Unforgivable, Killing Jews is UnderstandableBy Daniel Greenfield and Dershowitz on Chauvin Verdict: No Due Process When Jury Faces an Angry Mob By Alan M. Dershowitz and INTO THE FRAY: When did Palestine become Palestine? By Dr. Martin Sherman -and A new tour book shows you The Jerusalem you’re looking for
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.
Jerusalem Day (Hebrew: יום ירושלים, Yom Yerushalayim) is an Israeli national holiday commemorating the reunification of Jerusalem and the establishment of Israeli control over the Old City in the aftermath of the June 1967 Six-Day War. The day is officially marked by state ceremonies and memorial services.
Under the 1947 United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine, which proposed the establishment of two states in British Mandatory Palestine – a Jewish state and an Arab state – Jerusalem was to be an international city, neither exclusively Arab nor Jewish for a period of ten years, at which point a referendum would be held by Jerusalem residents to determine which country to join. The Jewish leadership accepted the plan, including the internationalization of Jerusalem, but the Arabs rejected the proposal.
On 15 May 1948, the day after Israel declared its independence, it was attacked by its Arab neighbours. Jordan seized East Jerusalem and the Old City. Israeli forces made a concerted attempt to dislodge them, but were unable to do so. By the end of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War Jerusalem was left divided between Israel and Jordan. The Old City and East Jerusalem continued to be occupied by Jordan, and the Jewish residents were forced out. Under Jordanian rule, half of the Old City's fifty-eight synagogues were demolished and the Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives was plundered for its tombstones, which were used as paving stones and building materials.[6]
This state of affairs changed in 1967 as a result of the Six-Day War. Before the start of the war, Israel sent a message to King Hussein of Jordan, saying that Israel would not attack Jerusalem or the West Bank as long as the Jordanian front remained quiet. Urged by Egyptian pressure and based on deceptive intelligence reports, Jordan began shelling civilian locations in Israel,[7] to which Israel responded on 6 June by opening the eastern front. The following day, 7 June 1967 (28 Iyar 5727), Israel captured the Old City of Jerusalem.
This morning, the Israel Defense Forces liberated Jerusalem. We have united Jerusalem, the divided capital of Israel. We have returned to the holiest of our holy places, never to part from it again. To our Arab neighbors we extend, also at this hour—and with added emphasis at this hour—our hand in peace. And to our Christian and Muslim fellow citizens, we solemnly promise full religious freedom and rights. We did not come to Jerusalem for the sake of other peoples' holy places, and not to interfere with the adherents of other faiths, but in order to safeguard its entirety, and to live there together with others, in unity.[10]
The war ended with a ceasefire on 11 June 1967.
Celebrations
On 12 May 1968, the government proclaimed a new holiday – Jerusalem Day – to be celebrated on the 28th of Iyar, the Hebrew date on which the divided city of Jerusalem became one. On 23 March 1998, the Knesset passed the Jerusalem Day Law, making the day a national holiday.
One of the themes of Jerusalem Day, based on a verse from the Psalms, is "Built-up Jerusalem is like a city that was joined together" (Psalm 122:3).[11]
In 1977, the government advanced the date of Jerusalem Day by a week to avoid it clashing with Election Day.[12]
The slogan for Jerusalem Day 2007, celebrated on 16 May,[13] marking the 40th anniversary of the reunification of Jerusalem, was "Mashehu Meyuhad leKol Ehad" (Hebrew: משהו מיוחד לכל אחד, "Something Special for Everyone"), punning on the words "meyuhad" (special) and "me'uhad" (united). To mark the anniversary, the approach to Jerusalem on Highway 1 was illuminated with decorative blue lighting, which remained in place throughout the year.
In 2015, Yad Sarah a non-profit volunteer organization began organizing a special tour specifically for residents who use wheelchairs, which focuses on Jerusalem history.[14]
The Yakir Yerushalayim (יַקִּיר יְרוּשָׁלַיִם "Worthy Citizen of Jerusalem") prize is awarded annually by the Jerusalem municipality on Jerusalem day.
50th anniversary
Jerusalem Day 50 logo
In 2017, the golden jubilee of Jerusalem Day was celebrated. During the course of the year many events marking this milestone took place in celebrations of the 50th Jerusalem Day.
Many events were planned throughout the year, marking the jubilee. The main theme of the celebrations is the "Liberation of Jerusalem". The celebrations began during Hanukkah 2016, at an official ceremony held at the City of David National Park in the presence of Minister Miri Regev, who is responsible for the celebrations marking the 50th anniversary.[15]
A logo was created for the jubilee and presented by the minister Miri Regev.[16
The Three Musketeers at the Kotel
Dershowitz on Chauvin Verdict: No Due Process When Jury Faces an Angry Mob By Alan M. Dershowitz
*Editor's Note: This is the second from Prof. Dershowitz concerning the potential violation of the Constitutional Rights of Derek Chauvin, convicted for murdering George Floyd. The first article can be read here.
"I very seriously doubt if the petitioner … has had due process of law … because of the trial taking place in the presence of a hostile demonstration and seemingly dangerous crowd, thought by the presiding Judge to be ready for violence unless a verdict of guilty was rendered."
No, this is not your author complaining about the lack of due process in the trial of Derek Chauvin in 2021. It Is the great Oliver Wendell Holmes describing the trial of Leo Frank, a Jew convicted of murder in 1913 and eventually lynched by a mob that included prominent officials, after the governor commuted Frank's sentence from death to life imprisonment.
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For generations, the scene that we saw in Minneapolis, with demands for a guilty verdict or else, by Congresswoman Maxine Waters and other prominent people, has been played out, especially but not exclusively in the deep South. The Supreme Court reversed the Ohio conviction of Dr. Sam Sheppard in 1966, in part because the trial judge did not sequester the jury and keep it from being influenced by outside pressures.
It does not matter to due process whether the crowd is right or wrong, Black or white, well-intentioned or malevolent. Nor does it matter whether the defendant is guilty, innocent or somewhere in between. Oliver Wendell Holmes correctly pointed out: due process simply cannot be achieved for any defendant in the presence of hostile crowds ready for violence if a verdict of not guilty is rendered.
Every police chief and mayor of a large city understood that a verdict of not guilty for George Floyd's murder would result in demonstrations and perhaps violence. They, along with the president, understandably prayed for the right verdict — which they defined as a conviction for murder regardless of whether the evidence supported that result, rather than a verdict of manslaughter, which the evidence clearly did support.
Like Oliver Wendell Holmes, every American should "very seriously doubt" if Chauvin had "due process of law." He may well be guilty of at least manslaughter, but the process by which he was convicted was fatally flawed, in the same way that the process was flawed in the Leo Frank, Sam Sheppard and other cases. The ACLU, if the shoe were on the other foot, would be demanding a new trial — if the defendant were black, and white crowds were demanding a conviction or else. But the ACLU is no longer a neutral civil liberties organization. It has become a partisan claque that espoused due process for "me but not for thee." Real civil libertarians, who demand due process for all, including guilty police officers, must now take over where the ACLU has left off.
Oliver Wendell Holmes was correct in expressing his serious doubts, and you can be correct in expressing the same feelings, regardless of the negative feelings you may have toward Chauvin and what the videotape showed he unjustly did to George Floyd.
Whether guilty or not, Chauvin must be given a new trial at which the jury is sequestered, as it should have been from the beginning of this one. As an alternate juror candidly acknowledged, she had "mixed feelings" about jury duty, because of concerns about "disappointing" either side and the possibility of "rioting." There is no reason to believe that the unsequestered jurors who actually decided the fate of Chauvin were oblivious to this concern.
The appellate courts should use this case to establish a clear rule that jurors must always be sequestered in racially charged cases where outsiders are threatening violence in the event of a not guilty or reduced verdict. In that way, protesters will have their First Amendment right to demand a conviction, and the defendant with have his constitutional right to due process and a jury that is not influenced by the protesters. In the absence of sequestration, the legitimate protests of the outsiders may well deny the defendant his equally legitimate right to a fair trial. That is unacceptable under the Constitution.
Criticizing BLM is Unforgivable, Killing Jews is Understandable
In 2019, Rina Shnerb, a 17-year-old girl who had been hiking in Israel with her father and brother, was blown up by a bomb. Rabbi Eitan Shnerb, who ran a charity that handed out clothes and food to the poor, had enough time to kiss Rina on the forehead, before she died.
"I will say of the LORD, who is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust," the Rabbi at her gravesite chanted the words of Psalm 91. "Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold, and see the recompense of the wicked."
Abdel Razeq Farraj, who was indicted for authorizing the attack, had been named as a career PFLP terrorist who had served 6 years in prison and had been arrested six times. The year that Rina was murdered, Farraj took part in an Adalah youth event in partnership with a PFLP affiliate.
Adalah is one of the anti-Israel hate groups funded by the New Israel Fund (NIF).
According to an NGO Monitor report, the NIF has directed $720,481 to Adalah. George Soros' Open Society Foundation, who has also funded J Street, is another major donor.
Last fall, Beth Badik, a J Street supporter who serves on the regional committee for the anti-Israel NIF, and Barbara Penzner, a Reconstructionist cleric who had signed a J Street petition opposing a ban on BDS and another calling for engagement with a terrorist government, demanded that the Jewish Community Relations Council of Boston kick out the ZOA.
The Zionist Organization of America is the country's leading pro-Israel group so Badik and Penzner's animosity toward it and to Morton Klein, its unapologetically pro-Israel leader, was understandable. The anti-Israel Left had spent generations trying to seize control of the organizational establishment of the Jewish community in order to cut off support to Israel.
And they didn't have far to go.
Badik, who is a supporter of one anti-Israel group and affiliated with another, also sits on the JCRC of Boston's Israel & Global Jewry Committee.
What was bizarre was the accusation in Badik and Penzner's op-ed, "We're Calling for ZOA to Be Kicked out of Boston's JCRC", the petition backed by J Street, the NIF, and a number of other anti-Israel groups, and the JCRC's final response affirming the bizarre accusation that Morton Klein, the son of Holocaust survivors, was supporting white supremacists.
Their evidence was that Klein (pictured above) has called Black Lives Matter "a Jew hating, White hating, Israel hating, conservative Black hating, violence promoting, dangerous Soros funded extremist group of haters" and correctly noted that its ranks are "filled with hatred against Jewish people."
Not only had the Boston JCRC and Jewish organizations failed to condemn the BLM riots which had vandalized synagogues and assaulted Jews, especially in the Fairfax Pogrom in Los Angeles, but they had decided to treat criticism of the black supremacist hate group as racist.
If the Boston JCRC had any standards, it's the anti-Israel organizations calling for ZOA's removal which should have been condemned and kicked out of any Jewish community alliance.
Beginning with J Street.
Rep. Ilhan Omar had attended J Street's gala dinner and praised an exhibit smearing Israel. It's chosen to honor Jimmy Carter who had falsely accused Israel of being an apartheid state.
While the anti-Israel groups were attacking the ZOA for opposing BLM, neither they nor the Boston JCRC seemed particularly interested in actually defending Jews against antisemitism.
The anti-ZOA petition was obsessed with social justice, election integrity, and the other shibboleths of a leftist establishment that is incapable of actually talking about Jewish issues as an end, not a means.
J Street, which was behind the petition, had defended Rep. Ilhan Omar, even as ZOA and Klein had condemned her antisemitic tweets. Just as J Street has called for making a deal with Hamas. The J Street campaign to oust the ZOA attacked it for condemning George Soros while neglecting to mention that Soros had been a major funder of the anti-Israel organization.
If JCRC Boston and J Street consider Klein's statements provocative, what of Soros' belief that the "resurgence of anti-Semitism in Europe" is caused by Israel and that the "attitudes toward the Jewish community are influenced by the pro-Israel lobby's success in suppressing divergent views." What are these except typical antisemitic tropes and defenses of antisemitism?
Has J Street ever been asked to condemn these statements by its own backer?
And if "rhetoric that has been associated with antisemitic tropes" is a cause for expulsion, then how can the Boston JCRC justify letting any Soros-funded group remain in its umbrella group?
And it gets worse.
The Boston Workmen's Circle, one of the groups petitioning to kick the ZOA out, proudly notes in its own literature that members of the Workmen's Circle included Communists and that "The first member expelled from the Workmen's Circle was kicked out in 1901 for working on behalf of the Republican Party." A member of the group recently wrote an angry open letter to Chelsea Clinton celebrating the fact that one of her heroines was a Marxist and a Communist.
Even though the Communists killed countless Jews and ethnically cleansed the Jewish communities under their rule, forcibly closing synagogues, imprisoning and killing Rabbis, and banning the entire Hebrew language, that doesn't get you condemned by the JCRC.
The BWC even held an event featuring "longtime BWC member Alice Rothchild".
Rothchild is a radical anti-Israel activist who is a member of the anti-Israel JVP BDS hate group that was considered too extreme even for the Boston JCRC.
Rothchild has described herself as a "self-hating Jew", falsely claimed that "the anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism that can now be found in Muslim countries began almost entirely with the founding of the State of Israel", and posted on an antisemitic site that, "If I believed in a wrathful God, I might wonder why the Jewish National Fund forests were burning?"
"Hamas has produced horrific suicide bombers and incredible social service agencies building schools and hospitals and caring for the forgotten population. Hamas grew out of a response to Israeli oppression during the First Intifada," Rothchild was quoted as saying.
According to the JCRC, uplifting the voices of the worst sorts of deranged antisemitism from the Left isn't a problem, but Morton Klein condemning BLM, Soros, and other Jewhaters is a crisis.
The Badik and Penzner op-ed argued that failing to kick out the ZOA would "convey an astonishing lack of empathy, decency and basic compassion, for people of color, for immigrants and Muslims". The only astonishing thing here is the utter lack of interest in Jewish interests by leftist activists who claim to be Jewish and even more falsely to speak on behalf of Jews.
Where is their basic compassion, their empathy and decency toward the Jewish synagogues and small businesses hatefully assaulted by Black Lives Matter rioters, and for the Jews of Israel living under the shadow of Islamic terrorism?
The New Israel Fund, in which Badik plays a role, and which is one of the leftist groups that demanded the expulsion of the ZOA, has funded BDS organizations and groups linked to terrorism. The lack of basic compassion, empathy, and decency that is required to be a member of the New Israel Fund is astonishing. As is the disinterest from the Boston JCRC.
Criticizing Black Lives Matter is unforgivable no matter how many synagogues they trash, but Jewish lives are worthless to organizations with 'Jewish' in their names, but not their hearts.
INTO THE FRAY: When did Palestine become Palestine?
The Arabs didn't provoke war with Israel in 1967 to achieve Palestinian independence…Arab rulers could have established a Palestinian state in those territories whenever they chose to do so. But Palestinian statehood was of no interest to them.- Jeff Jacoby, The Boston Globe, June 7, 2017.
Not since the time of Dr. Goebels [Head of the Nazi Propaganda Machine] has there ever been a case in which continual repetition of a lie has born such great fruits…Of all the Palestinian lies, there is no lie greater or more crushing than that which calls for the establishment of a separate Palestinian state in the West Bank…—From "Palestinian Lies" [Hebrew], Ha'aretz, July 30, 1976, by former Education Minister, Prof. Amnon Rubinstein of the far-Left Meretz faction.
With Joe Biden in the White House, the question of Palestinian statehood is now back on the international agenda, after being largely sidelined under the Trump administration.
For decades, the discourse on the "Palestinian issue" has been dominated by the Palestinian-Arabs contention that Judea and Samaria (a.k.a. "The West Bank") has long been their ancient homeland.
Preaching Genocide
However, many would probably be interested—and certainly very surprised—to learn just when realization dawned on the Palestinian-Arabs that this territory supposedly comprised their yearned–for motherland.
Indeed, long before Israel held a square inch of "the West Bank"—before there was any "occupation" or "settlements"—the Arabs claimed all the territory of pre-1967 Israel i.e. within the Green Line—as "Palestinian" territory and threatened to reclaim it by force of arms, and annihilate all its Jewish inhabitants.
Thus, in March 1965, over two years prior to the 1967 Six-Day War—after which the "West Bank" came under Israeli administration—Egyptian President, Gamal Abdul Nasser threatened, with chilling genocidal malevolence: "We shall not enter Palestine with its soil covered in sand, we shall enter it with its soil saturated in blood".
No less blood-curdling were the words of Yassir Arafat's predecessor as head of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), Ahmed Shukeiry, who on the very eve of the Six-Day War—in a somewhat premature flush of triumph—crowed:
"D Day is approaching. The Arabs have waited 19 years for this and will not flinch from the war of liberation…This is a fight for the homeland – it is either us or the Israelis. There is no middle road. The Jews of Palestine will have to leave.[but] is my impression that none of them will survive…We shall destroy Israel and its inhabitants and as for the survivors — if there are any — the boats are ready to deport them."
"…Jordanians & Palestinians are considered … one people."
Significantly, the first version of the Palestinian National Covenant was formulated three years before the Six-Day War—in May 1964—in East Jerusalem (then under Jordanian control).
In it, the Palestinian-Arabs explicitly foreswear any sovereign claim to the "West Bank" (or to Gaza):
Thus, while in Article 16 it reads: "...the people of Palestine [look] forward [to] restoring the legitimate situation to Palestine, establishing peace and security in its territory, and…enabling its people to exercise national sovereignty and freedom", in Article 24 the "West Bank" (and Gaza) are explicitly excluded from the scope of Palestinian sovereign aspirations.
Indeed, in Article 24, the Covenant unequivocally stipulates that the "Palestinian people" do NOT aspire to "any… sovereignty over the West Bank in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, on the Gaza Strip [then under Egyptian control] or the Himmah Area [then under Syrian control]".
Moreover, when the original National Covenant was drafted, all the Arab residents in the "West Bank" were, in fact, Jordanian citizens—without that causing any great discordance between their national identity and the citizenship they held.
Accordingly, as late as 1977, Farouk Kaddoumi, then one of the most senior members of the PLO, told Newsweek: "…Jordanians and Palestinians are considered by the PLO as one people."
Moreover, it was Jordan who demanded sovereignty over the "West Bank" until July 1988, when King Hussein relinquished his claim to the territory and stripped all his erst-while subjects of their Jordanian citizenship. On this, Anis F. Kassim, a prominent Palestinian international lawyer, commented: "… more than 1.5 million Palestinians went to bed on 31 July 1988 as Jordanian citizens, and woke up on 1 August 1988 as stateless persons."
Palestine is where the Jews are.
Accordingly, it is clear that Palestinian Arabs' claim to sovereignty over what they now insist is their long yearned-for homeland arose only after 1967—i.e. when it came under Jewish administration.
Indeed the Palestinian homeland seems to be a very fluid concept. After all, prior to 1967, it excluded all the territory it now purports to include. The common thread between the pre-1967 demands and the post-1967 ones, is that the Palestinian Arabs appear to focus their "national aspirations" on land only to deprive the Jews of it. Imagine that!
A new tour book shows you The Jerusalem you're looking for
In and Around Jerusalem for Everyone really is for everyone, whether you're reading it on the trail or on your couch.
This comprehensive and attractive guidebook was compiled by semi-retired pediatric endocrinologist Arnold Slyper, originally from the UK, who's been hiking the Land avidly since his aliyah about seven years ago from Allentown, Pennsylvania.
The book contains complete information on 20 places to explore on foot in Jerusalem and 23 more within a 75-minute drive of the capital city. Most of the routes chosen are conveniently circular. Each is accompanied by a panel of details such as duration, distance, difficulty, admission hours and fees (if any), public transportation and driving/parking directions, even Waze and Moovit destination names to type in.Easy-to-follow numbered maps and beautiful photos taken by the author are included, along with descriptions of nearby attractions, such as museums, workshops and amusement parks, often with QR codes.A section on outdoor swimming pools – natural and manmade – in the Jerusalem area is helpful for planning an after-hike cool-down in summer. There is also a list of nine walks accessible for wheelchairs and/or strollers, such as the zoo, botanical gardens and Temple Mount.What makes this book fascinating reading – even for non-walkers – are essays on the historic, biblical and geographic significance of each area mentioned. A timeline helps put in perspective the long history of this terrain. For example, Slyper introduces a walking tour of the Jerusalemneighborhoods of Zichron Moshe and Mea She'arim with a two-page overview titled "What distinguishes haredim from other religious Jews?" Each stop along the way contains interesting comments on everything from its architecture to the flavor of ultra-Orthodoxy typical to its residents.
The Sataf hike is prefaced by one essay on olives and olive oil, and another on the remnants of ancient agricultural practices still evident in this forest outside Jerusalem.And if you read Slyper's two-and-a-half-page encapsulation of the 1948 War of Independence before you visit Castel National Park, you'll get more out of that tour.By way of walking and hiking Jerusalem's neighborhoods and historic/religious sites – Jewish, Christian and Muslim – you'll learn about personalities such as King David, Herod the Great, Omar ibn al-Khattab, Rabbi A.Y. Kook, Sir Moses Montefiore, Eliezer Ben Yehuda, Dr. Abraham and Anna Ticho and Teddy Kollek.You'll learn more than you ever knew before about places that are familiar, such as Givat Ram (I found out that Ram is an acronym for rikuz mefakdim, gathering of commanders); and you will be introduced to some places you likely never heard of, such the cave formations in Nahal Halilim (so named because the wind blowing through these caves near Mevaseret Zion sounds like a flute, and the cave openings resemble the holes of a flute).A book so chock full of facts and step-by-step directions and instructions could well have been ponderous rather than engaging. Fortunately, Slyper turned to his Ma'aleh Adumim neighbor, book designer Ben Herskowitz, to package his all-encompassing guide in a colorful, organized and fun-to-read format. In and Around Jerusalem for Everyonehas been received enthusiastically by tour guides (one described it as "comprehensive, artistic, functional, like no other single book I have seen") and is available on Amazon and in Jerusalem bookstores including Pomeranz Booksellers, Moriah Books & Judaica, Dani Books, Holzer Books, Katamon Books and Rehavia Bookstore.The occasional typo and misplaced or missing apostrophe is quite forgivable as this is a guidebook rather than literature, and those errors could easily be remedied in an updated edition – which I assume will be necessary at regular intervals because information such as bus routes and admission hours is subject to change.If indeed a second edition is contemplated, I would make two suggestions to enhance the usability of In and Around Jerusalem for Everyone on the go: first, to reduce its heft as much as possible; and second, to bind it with wire or a similar binding that would enable the book to open flat and be held in one hand by the hiker.It is evident that Slyper invested countless hours into gathering the many details that make this book such an extraordinary resource. He relates that he has been exploring greater Jerusalem since the day he and his wife stepped off the plane as new Israeli citizens on December 24, 2013. It wasn't long before he created a website, inandaroundjerusalem.com, and a related Facebook group. He also formed a free monthly hiking club that's proved quite popular and has continued, when and where possible, during the pandemic. In and Around Jerusalemmakes for fascinating reading even in lockdown, but here's hoping the spring will bring many opportunities to start using it on location In and Around Jerusalem for Everyone By Arnold Slyper Kochav Press310 pages; $29.95
