Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Sheikh Jarrah Jews are restoring Jewish character to neighborhood


JPost


As condemnations over the eviction of two Arab families from their homes in Sheikh Jarrah continued to pour in from around the world this week, renovations at a second disputed home on the other side of the east Jerusalem neighborhood were humming along unabated.

The home, which was the scene of multiple protests last week, is another tender nerve in east Jerusalem, as Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's statements that Jews may build anywhere in the capital have increasingly rubbed up against statements to the contrary from the United Nations, the United States and others in the international community.

While Palestinians view the increasing Jewish presence in east Jerusalem as a process of "Judaization" intended to jeopardize Palestinian claims, Jewish activists said that they see their work as a "re-Judaization" of an area that was once home to a vibrant Jewish community and has extensive Jewish roots.

"This used to be a Jewish neighborhood and this house belonged to Jews," right-wing activist Aryeh King said, as he sat outside the work site. King heads the Israel Land Fund (ILF), an organization that purchases land for Jews in east Jerusalem and is overseeing the renovations at the property.

"Before 1948, there was a Jewish community living in this section of Sheikh Jarrah, and we want to restore that," King said. "The Arabs that live here know the truth."

But Sheikh Jarrah residents last week told The Jerusalem Post that the home in question had belonged to an elderly woman, Mrs. Hijazi, who had recently passed away, and that the Jewish claimants had falsified ownership papers for the house.[...]

17 comments :

  1. Not all Jews agree with this "repeat of 1948":

    Author Richard Silverstein writes:

    Unlike some religious traditions, Judaism comprehends evil as something inherently human. In the Zohar, it is this evil or impurity which causes the sacred keylim (to break. Performance of mitzvot are the means to repair the vessels and so transmute evil into good.

    A Kabbalist would have no problem understanding that hatred and violence between Israels and Palestinians are evils that pollute the world. Likewise, I’d like to think such a Kabbalist might look favorably on efforts to repair this battered region with acts of gemilut chesed. "

    Continuing the author writes about:

    "The expulsion of two East Jerusalem Palestinian families who’ve lived in their homes for 56 years only to be thrown on the street by the Israeli police under orders from Jerusalem’s rightist mayor, who wishes to make Arab East Jerusalem safe for Bibilical theme parks funded by Irving Moskowitz and his henchmen. The Bibi-Barkat plan seems to entail that certain key areas to be made Palestinian-rein. Maybe after they achieve this goal they’ll create a Museum of the Palestinian as a memorial to everything they’ve destroyed. I seem to recall an earlier tyrant in European history who planned to create such a monument to Jewish history and culture once he achieved his own diabolical ends.

    Not that Bibi-Barkat seeks to exterminate Palestinians as that other mass murderer did. No, the Israeli rightists only plan to make the Palestinians disappear where ever they stand in the way of plans to establish Jewish dominance in greater Jerusalem. Not to mention poking a finger in the eye of a troublesome U.S. president who actually demands–gasp!–that Israel honor international law, the Road Map, and previously declared U.S. policy concerning a settlement freeze.....

    Look at this video and tell me, that you don’t have a twinge of conscience about this expulsion.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1aO9UrhDax4&feature=related

    Speaking of expulsion, this is the season of Tisha B’Av, the day of mourning commemorating the destruction of the Holy Temple and the exile of Jews from their land. We Jews seem to have forgotten in the midst of our own mourning, the suffering we are imposing on the Palestinian people. For some, there is one true suffering–Jewish suffering. As for Palestinians, they do not suffer. Or if they do, it’s their own fault. If they’d just cooperate with our aims and leave peaceably, there wouldn’t need to be any of this foolishness of forced expulsion."

    This is NOT the Judaism, this is NOT what our Torah teaches.

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  2. Maybe the author should speak with ACTUAL mekubalim to see what they really say. Or perhaps he should also bring what the Zohar has to say about Arabs, and more importantly Arab inhabitants of E"Y.

    Sorry but pick and choose scholarship is shady at best.

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  3. For the views of an authentic Mekubal on Arab inhabitants of E"Y I offer this,video from a year ago.

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  4. My father (he should live and be well until 120) who is from the house of a Chief Sephardic Rabbi came to me during the daytime while alive on many many occasions throughout my life and told me:

    "Arabs are not our enemies. We lived with them in peace for 2000 years until the French and British colonialists came and plundered their lands, natural resources and labor force.

    The colonialists outlawed their religion (Islam) which is nearly the same as ours and in this way tried to force them to accept the Christianity of the Crusading Colonialists. The Colonialists applied a principle which they have used since the Crusades which is to "divide and conquer"; they pit brother against brother, tribe against tribe in order to cause havoc among the peoples they conquer.

    My father further went on to explain that Zionism is a movement antithetical to Judaism and rather a sect of Evangelical Christianity.

    My father (along with his Rabbis) forbade us to speak Modern Hebrew and banned "Ben Yehuda" from the house along with the JNF charity box.

    I have heard my father's sentiments being expressed from the pulpits of big Sephardic synagogues and by great Sephardic Chachamim from all over the world.

    All of these great Rabbis were alive when they spoke.

    But for those Hachamim who are no longer alive, they left their words in seforim that we can read and know for sure that they were not Christian Zionists trying to bring about the Second Coming of their dead Messiah by antagonizing the Muslims into a War of Armageddan that will kill most of the world's Jews so that the rest will convert to Christianity and bear witness to JC's messiahship (as their prophecies require).

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  5. First where is your proof that any Sephardi Rabbanim have said this? Name me a sefer where a Sephardi Rav has recorded these words? See I brought you a video of one of the greatest living Mekubalim. A chief student of R' Kaduri, as well as R' Yehuda Tzedaka Zt"l, R' Ben Tzion Abba Shaul Zt"L and R' Mordechai Sharabi Zt"L and the son of the oldest living, and possibly greatest living Mekubal in the world.

    Second your father and these other Rabbanim have gone against the words of our sages from the Rishonim till today. All have interepreted the vision of Daniel as the final kingdom in Daniel's vision being made of both Edom and Yishmael. In other words Xtians and Muslims.

    The Ben Ish Hai(Sefer Da'at U'Tevunah Perek 1) says they are are our enemies. Rabbi Yehuda Patiya(Minchat Yeshuda) says they are our enemies, the Baba Sali(Sefer Ahavat Yisrael) says they are our enemies. Look at what your "peaceful" Morrocan Muslims did to R' David Abuchatzeira... on a pogrom they shot him to pieces in front of his own Beit Midrash. This was Hanukkah 1920, when the Morrocans decreed that all Jews be massacred.

    The stories of Arab pogroms against Jews go back a thousand years. You can easily read them in the works of our holy Rabbanim. There may be a small segment of Jews who want to hug Ahmenijad and Hamas, who don't mind Holocaust deniers, who want to think that European Jewry has a corner on the suffering and persecution market. Its all a lie.

    If you want to say that the Zionist entity has no Torah right to exist, that is actually a discussion and debate amongst our Gedolim. That the Yishmaelites, and thus the Muslims are the enemies of our Jewish people... that you will have a very hard time proving, as most Torah sources say exactly the opposite. The Holy Ari lists being reincarnated as an Yishmaelite as a worse punishment then being reincarnated as a dog.

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  6. Mekubal- Rabbi Eliezer Papo throughout his writing much preferred the traditionalism of Moslem lands to the modernity of Christian Europe.

    Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, shlita is the Gadol entrusted to carry on the tradition of the Ben Ish Hai according to Rabbi Yaakov Hillel whose family was entrusted with Rabbi Yosef Haim's original manuscripts. I have also heard this personally from the grandson of one of Ben Ish Hai's closest students.

    One of Rabbi Yosef's earliest works was a detailed commentary on the Ben Ish Hai.

    Rabbi Yosef has long been a distinguished Rabbinical authority advocating peace negotiations, and has done so since the late 1980s. Rav Yosef's main justification is Pikuach Nefesh, in which all the Jewish commandments (excluding adultery, idolatry, and murder) are put on hold if a life is put in danger.

    Rabbi Yosef, argues as did Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik, claims that the Arab-Israeli conflict endangers Jewish lives, thereby meeting the above criteria and overruling the priority of commandments pertaining to settling the land of Israel.

    See Rav Ovadia Yosef. "Ceding Territory of the Land of Israel in Order to Save Lives", Tehumim Vol. 10, 1989

    Rabbi Yosef still maintains that Pikuach Nefesh applies to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and supports negotiations with the Palestinians.

    My father follows his Posek who is a close student of Rabbi Ovadia Yosef. My father's beliefs on this topic are typical of what I have heard among members of the Sephardic community in Brooklyn, Deal and Florida.

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  7. Rabbi Yaakov Culi d. 1732 repeatedly admonishes Jews to "be nice to their Arab neighbors". (ie 21:20-21 Sefer Bereshit, and 5:27-30 Sefer Melakhim I
    Meam Loez translated by Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan).

    Yishmael did teshuva during Avraham's life and was regarded positively in Talmudic times. That is why Rabbi Ishmael ben Elisha was named for him.

    The Ishmaelites are identified with the Arab people by Christians (and Jews under Christian influence) but this is not a Jewish belief, nor is it historically correct.

    In Genesis 37:25-28; 39:1, the Ishmaelites are called the Midianites and in Judges 8:22-24, the Midianites are called the Ishmaelites. The identification cannot be made any stronger and so the idea that the Arabs are Ishmaelites is entirely non Jewish in origin as it is clear in the Torah that the Ishmealites completely assimilated into the Midianites.

    Islamic tradition concurs with Jewish tradition in this case as it teaches that Arabs are descended from nomadic tribes dependent on cattle for their livelihood. Muslims believe that Mohammad began preaching Islam and united the idolatrous tribes of the Arabian peninsula into the Islamic people.

    "Arab" as an ethnicity is defined independently of religious identity, and pre-dates the rise of Islam, with historically attested Arab Christian kingdoms and Arab Jews.

    The earliest documented use of the word "Arab" as defining a group of people dates from the 9th century BCE.

    Islamized but non-Arabized peoples, and therefore the majority of the world's Muslims, do not form part of the Arab World but comprise what is the geographically larger and diverse Muslim World (1.5 billion people, the second largest religion in the world).


    The source for the belief that Ishmaelites are Arabs comes from Christianity. It is a canonical doctrine of the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and Protestant Churches who claim to have adopted it from the writings of Josephus, the famous self aggrandizing Jewish apostate who is also well known to be an unreliable historian.

    The belief that there is a concept in Judaism that "one should hate Arabs because they are Ishmaelites" is completely false.

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  8. First of all R' Ovadiah Yosef does not carry on the tradition of the Ben Ish Hai. As a matter of fact R' Ben Zion Abba Shaul Zt"L had to save him from being put into cherem for his sharp renunciations of the Ben Ish Hai. R' Hillel is but one Sephardi Rav who is adamently opposed to many of R' Yosef's psakim.

    Secondly R' Yosef has, very publically withdrawn his psak on negotiating with Palestinians. Perhaps you will recall when he said they were reincarnated vipers and scorpions. It was in the same speech. He publically renounced his position in 2005. He said that, if they would work negotiations, as they would save Jewish lives, would be a Pikuach Nefesh, however, he has become convinced that they will not work. Secondly even in the Psak that you quote, he says quite forcefully that Jerusalem May NOT be devided that both East and West Jerusalem must be the capital of Israel.

    Furthermore the video I linked above is one of his primary Chavrutot. One of the select group of Rabbanim that he allows to give drashot Motzei Shabbat with him. I have come to build a kesher with R' Ovadiah himself through my own Rosh Yeshiva...

    R' Ovadiah publically opposed the withdraw from Lebanon, he publically opposed the withdraw from Gaza(his faction left the government over it), and he opposes ceding any land in Jerusalem. So even with the ability to negotiate(anything but Jerusalem which will never work), that does not mean that ideologically he does not see Arabs as the enemies of the Jewish people, as the Sephardi Gedolim have held for centuries.

    Finally you have to decide which posek you are going to claim that your family follows. Initially in a previous post you said that you family followed a student of the Chazon Ish. Now you say a student of R' Yosef. Which is it?

    Here's a simple question that will answer the problem. Do you say the bracha before or after you light the candles erev Shabbat?

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  9. Jersey Girl Said here...
    "The Chazon Ish was a man of the Shulchan Aruch - and this was reflected in his writings as well as in his every move. In many respects, he was considered the posek acharon--the final halachic authority of his time.

    In his writings, the Chazon Ish departed from the norm of the yeshiva movement in that he was not content to work on the theoretical level alone--concentrating on analysis of the Gemara without consideration to its further, practical application. Instead, he developed every subject from its source in the Talmud through pertinent commentaries, to the halachah as recorded in the Shulchan Aruch. He then united theory with its practical application by explaining the Gemara in a manner that reflected the halachah. "

    from ArtScroll/Mesorah Publications Judaiscope Series.

    Given the Sephardic community's tradition to hold by the Beit Yosef , it should not be a surprise that the Posek for my extended family (and everyone else I know from Deal) for the past 30 years would be a student of the Chazon Ish, ztl.

    If you were, as you claim to be, a member of the Sephardic community, I would not need to tell you who this is.


    Main point to make here: The Chazon Ish is a decidedly Ashkenazia halachic authority.

    One other point to make on Maran Ovadiah Yosef, considering his repeated and public statements and psakim that Jerusalem is for the Jews alone. It seems that he would quite agree with actions referenced in the OP.

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  10. "Bibilical theme parks"--Is that sort of like a neighborhood in Betair, Kiryat Sefer or Efrat? A biblical theme park, cute expression for my block in Flatbush.

    Heard this dialogue before between Jersey and Mekubal, it will continue for years till the Mashiach arrives. Cut & Paste, cut & paste and each one can scream their POV.

    Baruch hashem that the property that belonged to Rav Shmuel Salanter is finally in the hands of his desendents.. Amen vAmen.

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  11. Jersey Girl,
    One final point. When all of your information is going to come from wikipedia check to make sure their sources and information are correct.

    First and foremost is the psak you mentioned above. I notice that lifted the entire paragraph as well as the citation that you offer from the english wikipedia site. Unfortunately that offers incomplete information.

    Second is by saying that one of Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef's earliest works was a detailed commentary on the Ben Ish Hai. This simply is not true. His only commentary on the Ben Ish Hai. The truth of the matter is that the first volume was not published until 1998, and the the set wasn't finished until 2003. This can easily be confirmed by going to Nehora or MySefer and clicking on the look inside option.

    Furthermore it is not such a detailed commentary as it leaves out major portions of the Ben Ish Hai's work, and the actual work of the Ben Ish Hai is only found in the footnotes. Again easily confirmed by checking the seforim against one another.

    The only work, of the many, that R' Ovadiah has put out after this is his ongoing Halacha Berura series.

    His earliest work was actually a commentary on Resheit Chochmah.

    Fact checking myself, it was actually R' Ezra Attiah that saved R' Ovadiah from Cherem. However leading the charge was R' Yehuda Patiah(the Ben Ish Hai's premier student) and carried on to its bitter conclusion R' Kaduri(Another major Talmid of the Ben Ish Hai) backed by the Beit El Mekubalim. This actually lead to a split between the Yeshivat HaMekubalim and Porat Yosef.

    Finally Rabbi Yaakov Hillel, recieved the manuscripts of the Ben Ish Hai's works actually from the family of R' Patiah, whom the Ben Ish Hai considered his successor as is well known.

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  12. Once again Jersey Girl needs to check her facts. here we have a muslim website that brings proofs from the Quran as well as the various oral traditions that certain tribes of Arabs and Mouhamed himself are descended from Yishmael.

    Furthermore R' Yehuda Patiyah in his Minhat Yehuda, Parshat Vayeira states the same.

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  13. Jersey Girl said...

    My father follows his Posek who is a close student of Rabbi Ovadia Yosef. My father's beliefs on this topic are typical of what I have heard among members of the Sephardic community in Brooklyn, Deal and Florida.


    However,

    In this post Jersey Girl said...


    "The Chazon Ish was a man of the Shulchan Aruch - and this was reflected in his writings as well as in his every move. In many respects, he was considered the posek acharon--the final halachic authority of his time.

    In his writings, the Chazon Ish departed from the norm of the yeshiva movement in that he was not content to work on the theoretical level alone--concentrating on analysis of the Gemara without consideration to its further, practical application. Instead, he developed every subject from its source in the Talmud through pertinent commentaries, to the halachah as recorded in the Shulchan Aruch. He then united theory with its practical application by explaining the Gemara in a manner that reflected the halachah. "

    from ArtScroll/Mesorah Publications Judaiscope Series.

    Given the Sephardic community's tradition to hold by the Beit Yosef , it should not be a surprise that the Posek for my extended family (and everyone else I know from Deal) for the past 30 years would be a student of the Chazon Ish, ztl.


    Lest we think that this mysterious Posek could be a student of both, let us consider R' Ovadiah Yosef's view of the Chazon Ish Zt"L,
    In this case he went so far as to declare that the Hazon Ish was not to be regarded as a moreh
    hora’ah, as he was only a private citizen without communal responsibilities. He
    furthermore “loved to be stringent, adding humrot on top of humrot”!
    Brought from two of biographies about R' Yosef, Maran Ovadiah Yosef p 318 by Nitzan Chen and Anshil Pepper(Jerusalem, 2004) and Ben Porat Yosef: Hayyav, Mishnato U'Mahalkhav ha-Politiyim shel HaRav Ovadiah Yosef p. 260 by Zvi Aloush and Yossi Elituv. It should be noted that both of these are authorized Haredi biographies with haskamot from recognized Rabbanim including R' Yosef.

    This is simply one glaring contradiction in Jersey Girl's statements. Inclusive in this is her mistaken belief that R' Ovadiah Yosef carries on the traditions of the Ben Ish Hai, which has been demonstrated as being false. His divergence as well has his defense for it and the support he had can be found in his own words in Yahaveh Da'at 4:45, as well as Halikhot Olam Vol 1, p5 and 8-9.

    What is obviously missing from her words is R' Ovadiah's strong support for Jewish settlement of Jerusalem, and his belief that Jerusalem should be solely Jewish. While lifting things from the R' Ovadiah Yosef Wiki in support of her arguments and trying to prove that she was familiar with Maran, she obviously missed this, “And where is our temple?! The situation there is a cause for grief! There is nothing there but evil Arabs who are occupying our lands… and I hope that the messiah will appear soon to destroy them," His original remarks, unedited by Arab press can be heard here.

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  14. Jersey Girl-
    I thought you suggested that the only people who are allowed to voice opinions on the Arab/Israeli conflict are people with first degree relatives in the Israeli army?
    Jersey Girl: "Maybe if it were you, your son, brother or husband who would die fighting in an endless war that can never be won, you would not consider the lives of Jewish men to be so cheap and disposable."

    Our third son just started his army service as part of Hesder. I'd rather not have him (and us) referred to as part of a "sect of Evangelical Christianity".

    Shabbat Shalom

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  15. "Perhaps you will recall when he said they were reincarnated vipers and scorpions."

    Rav Yosef was referring to "terrorists". I heard the speech myself. It was taken out of context by the secular media who love to attack Rav Yosef every chance they get.

    "Finally you have to decide which posek you are going to claim that your family follows. Initially in a previous post you said that you family followed a student of the Chazon Ish. Now you say a student of R' Yosef. Which is it?"

    A student of the Chazon Ish who now Paskens with Rav Yosef.

    The Chazon Ish passed away in 1953, as I am sure you know. So it is a bit difficult to ask him questions since then.

    If you are as "connected" with the Sephardic world as you claim to be, you should easily know who this is given that you know that I grew up in the Jersey Shore Syrian community.

    "Here's a simple question that will answer the problem. Do you say the bracha before or after you light the candles erev Shabbat?"

    We light on electric lights.

    Now you should CERTAINLY be able to guess who our family's Posek is.

    Not that our Posek is a Daat Yachad in this practice.

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  16. Jersey, take your head out of the sand and listen to the Chachamin of the holy Sefardic world of today. They are walking and talking a different lingo of the past, it was a time before the 1850's that Jews and Arabs were friends. After the large pomgron in Damascus & Egypt against Rabbanim and Jewish leaders the relationship soured.

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  17. Sorry,

    The only Rabbis I know from Deal are Rabbi Yitzchak Dwek(which I have always understood to be the posek for the Sephardi community in Deal) and R' Ben-Haim(who is now... on sabbatical). However neither of them pasken that one can light on electric lights.

    Your mystery Posek also obviously doesn't follow R' Yosef as he is reported to recomend against by his son in Yalkut Yosef Siman 264:5. He himself ossurs it in Yabiah Omer O.H. 16 and Yahaveh Da'at 2:33(stating in both places that if there is no other option it can be done B'dieved... however in Yahaveh Da'at he leaves it a question as to whether the bracha can be said with shem HaShem).

    Considering the antipathy that R' Ovadiah had toward the methods and rulings of the Chazon Ish and the fact the Chazon Ish was Ashkenazi(and so his students and anyone posek according to him would be Ashkenazi) it is beyond belief that R' Ovadiah would grant someone semicha who consistantly followed the Chazon Ish's teachings.
    BTW you didn't answer the question about where in the process you say the blessing. That aside... you have made it fairly clear that you essentially have no actual connection with R' Ovadiah or his rulings.

    ReplyDelete

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