Yom Yershalim today and Israel at 73 by David Harris and Jerusalem's D-Day: When Heaven Altered the Course of History and How is gold formed? and Israel First Country Outside China to Launch Train on Wheels; First Line in Samaria and The Anti-Defamation League is no longer about protecting Jews By Andrea Widburg and Yom Yerushalayim, Rubinger’s Photograph, And Me By Saul Jay Singer
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's D-Day: When Heaven Altered the Course of History
A short video produced by World Mizrachi especially for Yom Yerushalayim highlighting the totally unexpected political and military twists and turns guiding the epic and historic return to the Holy City for the first time in almost two millennia.
The Three Musketeers at the Kotel
Israel First Country Outside China to Launch Train on Wheels; First Line in Samaria
Cities in Australia, Europe and the US have expressed interest in the new mode of transport, but Israel is the first in the world to receive the vehicle for road trials and demonstrations.
By Aryeh Savir, TPS
Israel is the first country outside China to launch an Autonomous Rail Rapid Transit (ART) train-on-wheels system, and its first line will run from Tel Aviv to the heart of Samaria.
The ART is electrically powered, using advanced batteries that are sufficient for about 80 kilometers of travel and recharged in a few minutes. The train can carry up to 500 passengers.
The vehicle is semi-autonomous and the locomotive follows the virtual track lined on the road, with the driver responsible only for stopping and accelerating. In the future, the train will be fully autonomous, controlled by a municipal control center.
The train on wheels was developed in China several years ago and was put into commercial use in 2019. Dozens of these mass transport vehicles operate in several large cities in China successfully and without incident.
Cities in Australia, Europe and the US have expressed interest in the new mode of transport, but Israel is the first in the world to receive the vehicle for road trials and demonstrations.
The train was brought to Israel about two weeks ago and the work to assemble it is currently underway toward the start of a pilot, which is scheduled to start in about two months.
Minister of Transport and Road Safety Miri Regev announced Wednesday evening that the first train on wheels line will run from Tel Aviv to the Tapuach Junction in the center of Samaria.
"The development of the Gush Dan ring [Tel Aviv area] eastward toward Ariel and Samaria is the future of settlement in Israel and therefore we need to promote accelerated development of transportation infrastructure, paving length and breadth and mass transit solutions to the Samaria area and settlement, all in order to work together to promote the "million vision" – one million Israelis living in the regions of the homeland in the land of the Bible," she stated.
It isn't. No gold has ever formed in the earth or could ever form in the earth (outside of a few experiments in particle accelerators).
Gold is an element. An atom of gold contains 79 protons, 79 electrons, and (most commonly) 118 neutrons, making it among the most dense of naturally occurring elements.
The big bang and a short period of nucleosynthesis thereafter left the universe filled almost entirely with hydrogen. This gave rise to the first generation of stars, in which nuclear fusion gave rise to ever heavier elements (in ever-smaller quantities) up to the mass of iron. When this first generation of stars ran out of fuel, they went supernova, and the extraordinary energy of these and other high-energy cosmic events caused heavy elements already present to fuse into even heavier elements all the way up to uranium.
All the iron, oxygen, carbon, potassium, and other elements that make life on Earth possible were formed inside stars. All the gold on the earth was produced in supernova explosions neutron star collisions, and similar high-energy cosmic events.
Gold seams, nuggets, dust, etc. are formed by geologic processes. When the planet formed, most of the heavier metals settled into the core. One way that gold seams form is through the action of deep hydrothermal vents—like those on today's seafloor, but deep in the crust where metamorphic rock is forming. Gold dissolves in superheated water and is carried up through faults where the water cools and the gold precipitates out into cracks. Geologic processes can then, given enough time, carry the seams to the surface where we can find the gold.
Modern Israel celebrates its 73rd birthday this week. Let me put my cards on the table. I'm not dispassionate when it comes to the country.
For nearly 1,900 years, Jews around the world prayed for a return to Zion and Jerusalem, after the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 C.E. and the loss of sovereignty. That's a span of approximately 75 generations.
The Jews never lost hope, however remote the likelihood of return may have seemed at any given time. How could they have, though, since without Zion and Jerusalem at the center of Judaism's universe, what would Jewish identity be?
As it was written in Psalm 137 some 2,500 years ago: "If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning ... if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy." And recall these words in the same psalm: "By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept when we remembered Zion."
We are the lucky ones who have seen those prayers answered.
The road to sovereign rebirth — and redemption — in 1948; the fulfillment of Israel's envisioned role as home and haven for Jews from the four corners of the earth; the wholehearted embrace of democracy and the rule of law; and the impressive scientific, cultural, and economic achievements are all, to say the least, extraordinary.
And when one adds that Israel's neighbors tried from day one to annihilate it, the story of Israel's first 73 years becomes all the more stunning.
No other country has faced such overwhelming odds against its very survival, or experienced the same degree of unending international demonization — abetted by too many nations ready to sacrifice integrity on the altar of political expediency, or confronted the same relentless challenges to its very right to exist, to defend itself, or to designate its own capital.
Yet Israelis have never succumbed to a fortress mentality, never abandoned their deep yearning for peace or willingness to take unprecedented risks to achieve that peace — as was the case with Egypt in 1979 and Jordan in 1994; in the unilateral withdrawal from Gaza in 2005; and one day, perhaps, in a two-state deal with the Palestinians if their leadership ever convincingly accepts the legitimacy of Jewish self-determination, the abandonment of the so-called right of return, and the desire to live in enduring peace.
To be sure, nation-building is an infinitely complex process. Just take a look at any of today's leading democracies and their histories on this score. In Israel's case, it began against a backdrop of tensions with a local Arab population that laid claim to the very same land, and, tragically, refused a pragmatic UN proposal in 1947 to divide it into Arab and Jewish states (one of several outright refusals by Palestinian leadership from 1947 onward).
It continued as the Arab world sought to isolate, demoralize, and, ultimately, destroy the fledgling state and its 650,000 Jews; as it was forced to devote a vast portion of its limited national budget to military preparedness; and as it coped with forging a national identity and social consensus among a culturally diverse population — from Holocaust survivors to refugees from the Arab world, from those fleeing communism to others leaving democratic societies to join in building the state.
Like any vibrant democracy, Israel is a permanent work in progress. To be sure, it has its shortcomings, including the excessive, unholy intrusion of religion into politics, a messy political system requiring constant deal making, as no political party has ever won an outright electoral majority; the marginalization of non-Orthodox Jewish religious streams, and the unfinished task of fully integrating Israeli Arabs into the mainstream, much as notable progress has been made.
But such challenges, important as they are, cannot be allowed to overshadow Israel's remarkable achievements.
In just 73 years, Israel has established a thriving democracy unique in the region. This includes a Supreme Court prepared to overrule the prime minister or the military establishment, or even send a former president to prison; a feisty parliament that includes just about every imaginable viewpoint from right to left, secular to religious, Arab to Jewish; a robust civil society; and a vigorous press.
It has built a dynamic economy increasingly based on mind-boggling innovation and cutting-edge technology. It has joined the OECD, become a global hub of research and development, and is a magnet for foreign direct investment. And of late, thanks to natural gas discoveries, it has gone from an energy-scarce to an energy-rich nation.
It is home to universities and research centers that have contributed to advancing the world's frontiers of knowledge in countless ways, and won a slew of Nobel Prizes in the process.
It has created one of the world's most powerful and effective militaries — always under civilian control — to ensure its survival in a rough-and-tumble neighborhood, where Iran and its satellites continue to call for its destruction. At the same time, it strives to adhere to a strict code of military conduct that has few rivals, even as its enemies seek cover in mosques, schools, and hospitals, often hide behind the backs of children, and bamboozle a frequently gullible media.
Israel has become the answer to centuries of powerlessness, pogroms, expulsions, inquisitions, ghettos, yellow stars, and crematoria directed at the Jewish people. Then, Jews had to rely on good will, which was in rather short supply, to say the least. Today, there is undaunted, unafraid Israel — as once-beleaguered Soviet and Ethiopian Jews can attest, as the rescued passengers of the Palestinian-German hijacking of Air France 139 to Entebbe can confirm, and as the charred remnants of the anything-but-peaceful nuclear reactors in Iraq and Syria remind us.
The world leader in COVID vaccinations, Israel is ranked among the world's healthiest nations, with a life expectancy higher than that of the U.S. — not to mention a consistently top ranking, again ahead of the U.S., in the annual UN "happiness index."
It has forged a thriving culture admired far beyond Israel's borders, including among American television audiences, and has lovingly taken an ancient language, Hebrew, the language of the prophets, and rendered it modern to accommodate the discourse of the contemporary world.
Notwithstanding a handful of despicably extremist voices, it has built a climate of respect for other faith groups, including Baha'i, Christianity, and Islam, and their places of worship. Few other nations in the region can even begin to make the same claim.
Israel has built an agricultural sector that has much to share with developing nations in Africa and beyond about turning an arid soil into bountiful fields of fruits, vegetables, cotton, and flowers. And speaking of parched land, through human ingenuity, it has turned a water-scarce nation into a net exporter of water.
It has formally extended the arc of peace beyond Egypt and Jordan to include Bahrain, Morocco, Sudan, and United Arab Emirates, and, informally, still further. It now has diplomatic ties with an overwhelming majority of the world's nations. And on any given day, Israeli humanitarian projects are underway in various countries stricken by man-made or natural disasters.
Indeed, given the multitude of the world's 21st century priorities — from food security to clean water, from public health to medicine, from technology to cyber security, from climate change to environmentalism, from terrorism to national resilience— Israel ranks near the very top as a global problem-solver.
Step back from the twists and turns of the daily information overload and consider the sweep of the last seven-plus decades.
Look at the light-years traveled since the all-enveloping darkness of the Holocaust, and marvel at the miracle of a decimated people returning to a tiny sliver of land — the land of our ancestors — and successfully building and defending a modern, pulsating state against all the odds.
In the final analysis, the story of Israel is the wondrous realization of a 3,500-year link among a land, a faith, a language, a people, and a vision.
To put it in the words of "Hatikvah," Israel's national anthem, it is the quest "To be a free people in our own land, the land of Zion and Jerusalem."
Indeed, it is an unparalleled tale of tenacity and determination, of courage and renewal.
And it is ultimately a metaphor for the triumph of enduring hope over the temptation of chronic despair.
David Harris is CEO of American Jewish Committee (AJC).
The Anti-Defamation League is no longer about protecting Jews
By Andrea Widburg
B'nai B'rith, a Jewish service organization, founded the Anti-Defamation League in 1913 to fight anti-Semitism. However, perhaps because most Jews are Democrats, the organization has drifted from its missions. Now, under the leadership of Jonathan Greenblatt, a former Obama administration official, the ADL is just another arrow in the Democrat party quiver.
Therefore, it's no coincidence that the ADL's latest target is the same person as the Democrat party's latest target: Tucker Carlson. Carlson's sin is that he objects to having tens of millions of illegal aliens living in America and millions more flooding into America over the border that Joe Biden has illegally opened.
During his show last week, Tucker Carlson was open about the fact that Democrats are seeking to replace existing Americans with a population of people who will reliably vote for Democrats:
The discussion [on CNN between "Tater" Stelter and Greenblatt] centered around a segment on Fox News last week in which Carlson said, "I know that the left and all the little gate-keepers on Twitter become literally hysterical if you use the term 'replacement.' If you suggest that the Democratic Party trying to replace the current electorate, the voters now casting ballots with new people, more obedient voters from the third world. But they become hysterical because that's what's happening actually. Let's just say it that is true."
He added, "This matters on a bunch of different levels, but on a basic level, it is a voting rights question. In a democracy, one person equals one vote. If you change the population, you dilute the political power of the people who live there. So every time they imported new voters, I become disenfranchised as a current voter. Everyone wants to make a racial issue out of it. 'Oh, the white replacement theory.' No, this is a voting rights question. I have less political power because they're importing a brand new electorate. Why should I sit back and take that? The power that I have is an American, guaranteed that birth is one-man and one-vote, and they are diluting it. Why are we putting up with this?"
Carlson is correct. If an illegal alien votes in an election, that nullifies a legal vote. The same is true if illegal aliens are suddenly given mass amnesty and instantly receive the right to vote. This is not about race; this is, as I said, about the Democrat party using illegal means to ensure that legal Americans who disagree with their political agenda lose their voice in elections.
In the past, what Carlson said would not have been of any concern to the ADL. There is nothing in Carlson's words that implicates anti-Semitism. However, that didn't stop Greenblatt from demanding – just as the Democrat party wishes – that Carlson be silenced, something he does by conflating Tucker's accurate words about illegal immigration with the words and deeds of a small fringe of open anti-Semites:
Tucker Carlson has a history of sanitizing stereotypes and of spreading this kind of poison, but what he did on Thursday night really was indeed, as you put it, a new low. The great replacement theory, as it is known, is this toxic idea that there are a cabal of Jews plotting to overrun the country with immigrants, Muslims, Black people and commit what they call "white genocide." It is literally a staple of white supremacist and extremist ideology. And so, when Tucker Carlson introduces it to his 4.5 million viewers, he's serving as a gateway to one of the most damaging and dangerous conspiracy theories out there.
Inevitably, of course, Greenblatt ended up with a claim that Carlson is somehow responsible for Nancy Pelosi's failure to take steps to protect the Capitol when she learned that a small group of provocateurs had been planning for months to use Trump's rally as a reason to storm the Capitol:
First and foremost, Tucker has got to go. Again, it is a risk not just to the corporation. It is a risk to our society to be promoting these anti-Semitic and racist myths that literally were used by people on January 6th to try to not just interfere with the election but to murder lawmakers. I think we've really crossed a new threshold when a major news network dismisses this or pretends like it isn't important. This has deadly significance. So number one, Carlson needs to go, and they need to look at their entire primetime lineup and ask does this work. At the end of the day, let's acknowledge, Fox isn't alone in this. They have advertisers. They have affiliates. There are cable companies who carry their signal. If Fox won't act, it may be time for the advertisers to act. It may be time for again the affiliates and the cable companies to act to finally once and for all say that America is simply put no place for hate.
Did you catch the lies there? Nobody was trying to murder lawmakers and only one person was armed. Nor was anybody trying to interfere in an election. They simply wanted an accounting.
Greenblatt is a sleazy Democrat party operative who's using a venerable organization as a Trojan horse to smear Tucker Carlson, an honest broker about what Democrats are doing to America. At least, though, it shows that Carlson is over the target when he attacks the administration's lawless conduct
See you tomorrow bli neder
Today is Yom Yershalim! A historic day when the Kotel and the temple mount came back into our hands.
It is a day of Parades and Joy and celebration including Hallel
You know The Photograph. If you close your eyes, even now, you can see it as clear as day and, if you are like most Jews who love Israel, it is indelibly etched upon not only your memory but upon your soul.
The Photograph has become the definitive and iconic image of Israel's 1967 victory, the recapture of Jerusalem after 2,000 years, and the Jewish people as a nation returning after two millennia of bitter exile to the Western Wall, the sole (and "soul") remnant of their Holy Temple.
On one level seemingly a mere moment frozen in time, The Photograph is in reality an eternal image that transcends time. One commentator perfectly described it as "the most beloved Jewish photographic image of our time whose power to inspire hasn't diminished."
Whenever I see it, my mind turns instantly to the glorious Psalm 126 written by King David some three millennia ago, which today we recite after every Shabbat and Yom Tov meal. As the Psalmist so beautifully writes in describing the return of the Jews to their homeland, "Shir hamalot…b'shuv Hashem et shivat Tzion, hayinu ki'cholmim – A song of those who ascend [to Eretz Yisrael]: When Hashem returns the captives of Zion, we were as dreamers."
Study the faces of the three paratroopers standing in silent awe before the Wall, the last remnant of the Holy Temple that never left the thoughts and prayers of the Jewish people. I always imagine them thinking "Are we here? Can this be real?"
Indeed, "as dreamers…"
Exhibited here is a print of The Photograph on which I personally obtained the autographs of the three paratroopers. From left to right, they are Tzion Karasenti, Yitzhak Yifat (who also signed in English and added the year "1967"), and Chaim Oshri. Although their names are not famous, they have become the face of the return of the Jews to Jerusalem.
I was invited to meet them in 2017 at a Friends of the IDF event at Chabad of Northern Virginia, and it was the thrill of a lifetime to speak with them one on one, to touch them, to personally experience them. I am not at all embarrassed to admit that I engaged in some less-than-subtle hero worship; the photo I had them sign is a treasured personal memento and the memory of my experience with them is irreplaceable.
The tale of how photographer David Rubinger came to take what he characterizes as his "signature photograph" is a classic of being at the right place at the right time. He was about as far as could be from Jerusalem – with his camera at el-Arish on the Sinai Peninsula – when he heard a rumor that something momentous was about to happen in Jerusalem.
At the time, the rumor made little sense to him because Israel never had any intention to take Jerusalem, and the Old City as a military target was never on anyone's horizon; in fact, but for Jordan's folly in ignoring Israel's call to stay out of the war, the Holy City would likely still be in Jordanian hands. However, Rubinger had come to respect his instincts, which were screaming at him to rush to Jerusalem.
As he tells the story, he jumped aboard the first helicopter he could find which, as it turns out, was transporting wounded soldiers to Beersheba, where he happened to have left his car. He drove the rest of the way to Jerusalem, so overcome by fatigue that he asked a hitchhiking soldier he had picked up to drive, arriving at the Western Wall only about 15 minutes after the first Israeli paratrooper battalion had liberated it.
In his autobiography, Israel Through My Lens (it is a terrific read), he describes the very narrow area between the Kotel and the dwellings near it as spanning only about 10 feet across, making it necessary for him to lie on his back and shoot skyward to be able to include both the jubilant paratroopers and the Wall itself in the frame of his shot.
Describing the entire scene as incredibly emotional, particularly following three weeks of extreme gloom and despondency – people forget how dire the situation was leading to Israel's preemptive strike, with genocidal threats issuing from Arab capitals and vanishing international support – Rubinger says that he shot his photos with tears streaming down his cheeks and watched as hardened paratroopers all around him wept.
When he rushed home to develop his film and reviewed the results, he thought that his best shot was of Rabbi Shlomo Goren, then Chief Rabbi of the Israel Defense Forces, blowing a shofar at the Western Wall (another eternal image to emerge from the victory), but his wife chose the photograph of the three paratroopers as the best of the shoot.
Rubinger writes that in a moment of generosity, he was so "filled with euphoria about our victory and bursting with pride for Israel's Defense Forces" that he unthinkingly handed the negative to an army spokesman, who immediately turned it over to the Government Press Office, which wasted no time in making voluminous reprints and disseminating them broadly for a dollar apiece.
His fury evident, he describes how various news agencies ran the photo without approbation, and certain photographers actually had the gall to claim authorship of the already renowned photograph.
He filed several failed lawsuits to protect his copyright, but the Government Press Office continued to distribute the photo. He describes as "the ultimate indignity" an attempt by Israeli Supreme Court Judge Mishael Cheshin to placate him by characterizing the photo as "a national treasure" which, of course, did nothing to mitigate the damages sustained by the photographer when others continued to use it as their own property and without paying compensation.
In response to frequent questions regarding whether he considers The Photograph to be of high artistic quality, Rubinger modestly answers:
My answer must quite definitely be no. What made it significant were the circumstances under which it was taken, and it was this that caused it to emerge as the symbol with which so many people identify. As so often occurs in art, people read into images what they want. Repeatedly I heard that the image was referred to as the "Crying Paratroopers at the Western Wall." The simple fact is, not one of the people in the photograph was weeping, but if people choose to see it like that, then it is up to them.
The irony is that, had it not been so widely distributed, my reputation would not have spread internationally so rapidly. Instead, the photo would probably have appeared on half a page in the next edition of Time and then disappeared into oblivion. I suppose I should thank the Government Press Office for giving such a boost to my career!
When I spoke with them in Virginia a few years ago, the three paratroopers explained that they did not learn that Rubinger's photograph had brought them worldwide fame until after the war. Yifat repeated a story in which he described his astonishment when his neighbor, a new Polish immigrant, showed him the photo in a Polish newspaper, and the others told similar stories.
According to Karasenti, snipers were everywhere, many of his friends were killed before his eyes in the pathway to the Wall, and all of them could have been wiped away in an instant by a single grenade. He described how after almost two full days of battle, the paratroopers were all exhausted and filthy, yet when they saw and recognized the Kotel, many of these tough military men began sobbing.
One of the more amusing recollections came from Oshri, who explained that at first nobody was certain that they had actually captured the authentic Wall: "Everyone talked about the Kotel all the time, but we were new and we had never been there." The Kotel has become such an established image in our consciousnesses that it is difficult to imagine that, even as the paratroopers stood right before it, they were initially unable to definitively identify it until other paratroopers raised the Israeli flag over the Western Wall.
Karasenti's reflections particularly resonated with me when he talked of the "small role" he played in returning "the heart of the Jewish people after 2,000 years of longing." Similarly, Oshri described how special it was for him, as an Orthodox Jew who prayed three times a day for the return to Jerusalem, to play a role in the liberation of the city. Even Dr. Yifat, who is not observant, commented on how moved he was by what Israel accomplished that day and how important the return to the Old City and the Kotel was for all Jews around the world.
Perhaps The Photograph retains its power because it symbolizes not merely the return of the Jewish People to the Jewish Land, but also the return of the Jewish G-d to the Jewish people. I love how Yossi Klein Halevi described it:
The image endures, in part, because of the humility it conveys: At their moment of triumph, the conquerors are themselves conquered. The paratroopers, epitome of Zionism's "new Jews," stand in gratitude before the Jewish past, suddenly realizing that they owe their existence to its persistence and longing.
My friend and teacher, Rav Amnon Haramati, often spoke about facing certain death while on various missions during Israel's War of Independence when, despite being outnumbered 1,000 to 1 and virtually unarmed, he would turn confidently to his fellow Jewish soldiers and assure them, "Al tidagu, yehiye nissim – Don't worry, there will be miracles." And there always were – and Jewish survival through two millennia of brutal exile is nothing if not miraculous.
As the rav loved to explain, the return of a defeated and exiled people to its homeland is a monumental anomaly that, not at all coincidentally, has happened only once in all of human history. Similarly, Israel's unimaginable recapture of Jerusalem was viewed even by many non-believers as an open divine miracle (Rav Haramati was passionate about the importance of reciting Hallel with a bracha on Yom Yerushalayim.)
That, I believe, is the lasting legacy of The Photograph. The faces of the three paratroopers, a moment of awe and wonder captured for all time, portray perfectly the appreciation that there could be no rational explanation for the miracle before their eyes and that Hashem had revealed himself as the G-d of Jewish history.
One of my favorite poems was written by poet and Israel Prize winner Chaim Hefer after the Six-Day War:
This Kotel has heard many prayers This Kotel has seen many walls fall This Kotel has felt wailing women's hands and notes pressed between its stones This Kotel has seen Rabbi Yehuda HaLevi trampled in front of it This Kotel has seen Caesars rising and falling But this Kotel has never before seen paratroopers cry.
This Kotel has seen them tired and exhausted This Kotel has seen them wounded and scratched-up Running towards it with beating hearts, with cries and with silence Pouncing out like predators from the alleyways of the Old City And they're dust-covered and dry-lipped
And they're whispering: if I forget you, if I forget you, O Jerusalem And they are lighter than eagles and more tenacious then lions And their tanks are the fiery chariot of Elijah the Prophet And they pass like lightning And they pass in fury And they remember the thousands of terrible years in which we didn't even have a Kotel in front of which we could cry.
And here they are standing in front of it and breathing deeply And here they are looking at it with the sweet pain And the tears fall and they look awkwardly at each other How is it that paratroopers cry? How is it that they touch the wall with feeling? How is it that from crying they move to singing?
Maybe it's because these 19-year-olds were born with the birth of Israel carrying on their backs for 2,000 years.
Before 1967, it was referred to as the "Wailing Wall" because Jews would come there and cry for all they had lost. Now, 54 years later and forevermore, it is our Kotel HaMa'aravi where, after millennia of forced separation, Jews may come to pray and give thanks at their holiest site in their holiest city in the holiest of all lands.
