Secondary Effect of Israeli Founding and Other Truths

 

Let us first speak about the misconception that Israel was founded by Europeans as an apology for the Shoah, the Holocaust. The idea and beginning of the Mandate given the British to establish the Jewish State began during World War I and was part of a series of peoples returning to their ancient homelands. The Arabs had been promised lands and numerous tribal leaders were promised to have the rule over lands and there were promises to many Balkan nations and across the entirety of the MENA States.* These regions were divided up and were to be established by different nations who were amongst the victors of World War I. The nations from Europe established colonial governments which tied these nations to their European nation and were eventually granted independence and Israel was amongst those nations declaring their independence mostly after World War II (see map below). Surrounding Israel, who declared their independence on May 15, 1948, we have other nations who also declared independence with Jordan in 1946, Lebanon in 1946, Syria in 1946, Egypt in 1922, Saudi Arabia in 1932 and Iraq in 1930. Looking at the map, we see there were other MENA States whose independence was after Israel such as Libya in 1951, Yemen in 1967, Algeria in 1962, as well as Bahrain, UAE, and Qatar all in 1971. So, Israel declared her independence in the second wave but there was a third wave which came much later with all having reached independence by 1975 with Iran having gone from the Pahlavi Dynasty which was Persian rule to the Mullahs which is Islamic Theology in a coup which occurred in 1979. Iran was never held as a colony by the Europeans as they did not take part in World War I and were never subdued and conquered by the Ottoman Empire.

 

Dates that the MENA nations received their independence after colonial rule many since the times of the Persians or even earlier

 

There is another map of the MENA States which shows a different reality which many either have never known about or have ignored as it breaks with their preferred notion of Israel as a purely European peopled nation with none living in Israel from outside Europe and North America. That is a falsehood which need be eradicated from the conversation of the Arab-Israeli conflict and the realities. The reality was that by 1960 the population percentage of Jews expelled from Arab nations made up between thirty-five to forty percent of the Jewish population in Israel. As time has continued, with the Aliyah of the Ethiopian Jews brought to Israel in three operations named Moses, Joshua and Solomon, and the Aliyah of the Bnai Menashe from India, the numbers of non-European Jews has reached close to fifty percent if not over half. Further, there has been a fair amount of mixing through marriage with Ashkenazi Jews and Sephardi Jews as well as Mizrahim, Bene Israel, Bnei Menashe, Cochin Jews, Bene Ephraim, Ethiopians, Yemeni, and other even smaller populations all within Israel with others coming from places which stretch the imagination even to include from Japan, China and the Philippines. The world must disabuse themselves of the misconception that Israel is simply a place where the European Jews fled and are still fleeing from Europe, Russia, North America and the Ukraine. The Jews from many Arab nations across the width and breadth of the MENA Nations did not flee; they were expelled by threats, pogroms, expulsion where they were forced from their homes which they had held for some thousands of years and most many hundreds of years. They were denied taking their wealth and their businesses were left to be spoils for the Arabs as well as their homes, farms, herds, jewelry, money and anything else of any worth. They often were allowed one suitcase each which were searched and anything within the searcher desired, they took. These Jews landed in Israel next to destitute with their skills and nothing more. Israel in the 1950’s was not the economic powerhouse she is today; she was a farming economy which did not even have sufficient housing for these over half a million Jews. These Jews were refugees which outnumbered the Arabs displaced during the 1948-9 attempt by six Arab armies to destroy Israel in her cradle. The difference is the Arabs placed their brothers and sisters displaced by their war to annihilate Israel that failed, though they did take control of Gaza and regions of Judea and Samaria which Jordan renamed West Bank, placed them into camps and refused to permit them to work, own land, vote, have citizenship or anything resembling a normal life while the Jews who were expelled and came to Israel were given homes and accepted into Israeli society and treated as any normal society treats their kinfolk. That is why there are Palestinian refugees and not MENA Jewish refugees also in equal numbers in camps. If the Arabs would treat their brothers and sisters as family as Israel did their refugees, there would be no problem. But the Arabs demand that there be a problem and that Israel is to blame, refusing to accept any responsibility themselves.

 

Jews forced from Arab World Between 1948 and 1972

 

Still, the constant BIG LIE is told over and over and over until the world has come to believe and repeat as if an actual known fact that Israel is a European Colony and has no history or reason to be in the Middle East. This BIG LIE ignores the half of the population in Israel which has at least one parent whose lineage comes from other than Europe, Russia, Ukraine or North America. This must be corrected and the reality is that first, even the European Jews have a genetic link to the Middle East and the other half of the population is from the Middle East or North Africa. Half of the Israeli population originates from the Arab and Islamic world where they resided for centuries upon centuries. They had times where life was very good and they were treated almost equally and there were times when they faced pogroms and forced conversions and even times they were forced to flee the persecution of one area leader and reestablish themselves under a different Sheikh or Mufti where they would be treated better. Often the position of Dhimmi was the best the Jews could hope to find. Many of these Jewish families had histories which went back in their location to the time of the Caliphs and the Islamic conquest and back before Islam with some residing in what became the Arab and Muslim world even before the time of Jesus. We know this because of writings from the Talmud and other Jewish texts and historical writings. Additionally, there have been Jews living within the Promised Lands since the establishing of the initial conquest by Joshua. These are Jews mostly from the tribes of Judah and Benjamin and the Priestly classes of Kohanim and Levites. The main cities where these Jews lived included Jerusalem, Hevron, Shechem, Ashkelon, Ashdod, Beersheva and the other ancient cities of Eretz Yisroel (see map below).

 

Important Cities of Ancient Israel

 

These Jews which were expelled from the Arab World were almost as numerous as were the initial influx of European Jews by around 1955. This is the truth which the world ignores when they demand that the Jews simply return to wherever they came. Let’s imagine the Jews trying to return to the place they originally came from. Well, if you track the Jews back through their family tree say to around 1000 B.C.E., then you will find that their family origins is in the holy land as ruled by King David. Jerusalem has been conquered and is the capital city and declared to be the Eternal Capital of Eretz Yisroel. This was the beginning of the Israelite empire which eventually reached the Euphrates River in the area which is northern Syria near Iraq (see map below). This was the highpoint in the history of the Jewish People which then divided when the Northern Ten Tribes refused to accept the son of Solomon as King and broke from Judah which then established the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judea. Israel fell in 722 B.C.E. to the Assyrians and the people were assumed to have assimilated and all but disappeared. Judea fell in 597 B.C.E. to the Babylonians leading to the Babylonian Exile which ended when Persia under Cyrus the Great conquered Babylon and bid the Jews to return and rebuild the Temple and worship Hashem in their custom but were required to pay a tax to the Persians as their rulers with Judea being a province. Eventually came the Romans who, after the Jews had revolted and thrown off Roman Rule twice, decided to disperse the Jewish People throughout their empire as was the Roman method of destroying a people removing them from history. This was how the Romans dispersed the Carthaginians after the Third Punic War.

 

Eretz Yisroel as formed after the conquests by the Kingdoms of King David and King Solomon; both of whom allowed the Principalities of Edom, Moab and Ammon to be semi-autonomous as long as they and their armies supported Eretz Yisroel

 

We wish all the best of luck in finding any Carthaginians in the modern world. The Jews only survived because, though our religion is based on our ancient lands and Jerusalem and the Temple, it is also centered on the Torah and the rules it gives us in the form of six-hundred-thirteen Mitzvoth, rules by which to live. This provided the core of the Jewish People for close to two-thousand years along with the knowledge that Hashem promised that we would be returned to our homelands miraculously and our dispersal and exile would end. The promise gave a date according to Ezekiel who said the Jews were to be punished for 430 years because they had turned away from Hashem. This was to become the Babylonian exile. The Persians under Cyrus the Great defeated the Babylonians and freed their Jewish captives about 70 years after Judah lost independence to Babylon. This left 360 years which the Jews would require a second exile to fulfill as one must pay Hashem when one strays. In Leviticus 26:18, Leviticus 26:21, Leviticus 26:24 and Leviticus 26:28 the Torah spells things out quite clearly, should the Jews not fully repent their sins they would be punished increased by a factor of seven. Since most of the Jews freed from Babylon decided to live in the Persian society and adopted pagan ways, which is not exactly repenting, their remaining 360 years were multiplied by seven meaning their time in the Diaspora or under foreign occupation became 2,520 years on the original lunar Jewish calendar which translates to 2,484 years. Count from 536 BCE forward 2,484 years and you arrive at 1948. Further, Isaiah’s prophecy Chapter 66:8 states: “Who has heard of a thing like this? Who has seen things like these? Will a land be brought forth with labor pains in one day? Or will a nation be born at one time? For Zion has come into labor pains as well as given birth to her sons.” Israel was established exactly as Isaiah prophesized in a single day. These are just two prophesies which predicted the return of the Jewish People and the reestablishing of the state of Israel. There are a whole series of prophesies which tell of the future of Israel and the events which will transpire. A partial list can be found here. We figure this would be a great place to simply remind everyone that the Jews are being gathered literally from the four corners, or the far corners of the globe from every nation and every region. The miracle which Hashem promised is being realized and Israel is anything but a European colony, it is the realization of the promise by Hashem, it is that simple.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

MENA States = the region and nations in the Middle East and North Africa

 

Current Assessments of Arab-Israeli Conflict Unhelpful

 

There are a number of glaring false assumptions about the Arab-Israeli conflict which serve only to minimize the antipathy felt by the aggressor which began the conflict and set it in motion for perpetuity. The most easily identified errors are that the conflict began in 1948 with the founding of the state of Israel, that the conflict is one-hundred years old, that the disagreement is over borders, that Jerusalem is a central core of the problem and a dozen other such falsities. This war started at the oasis of Khaybar outside Medina. For close to a thousand years Jews lived in the oases of Teyma, Khaybar, and Yathrib peaceably with the surrounding communities, both idolatrous and the growing Islamic community in Medina. There was one area of contention between the Jewish communities and Muhammad, the Jews refused to convert and refused to accept him as the final prophet holding to the historic Jewish belief that the period of the Prophets was long ended. In the year 628-9 A.D., Muhammad gathered his forces and invaded the Jewish community at the Oasis of Khaybar defeating them. In less than a decade, the Islamic forces had defeated all of the separate Jewish communities driving them from the area. It is partially because these were the first groups with whom Muhammad warred or due to the stiff resistance and lack of trust as treaties were disregarded when they were considered inconvenient and no longer to one’s advantage that a great animosity was built between the Jews and Muslims that the Jews are chosen for a particular hatred by Islam. Consider the example of the Qurayza Tribe of Jews, who were defeated by Muhammad despite their leader opting to stay neutral when their town was besieged by a Meccan army that was sent to take revenge for Muhammad’s deadly caravan raids. Their sin was not joining the fight to defend Muhammad and his fellow caravan raiders who were within their town. The tribe killed no one from either side and even surrendered peacefully to Muhammad after the Meccans had been turned back. Yet still Muhammad had every male member of the Qurayza Tribe beheaded. The wars between the Muslims and their continued history of periodic particularly harsh treatment of Jews emanate from these battles.

 

Further, the Quran even states, in Sahih Bukhari 52:177, “The Hour will not be established until you fight with the Jews, and the stone behind which a Jew will be hiding will say, ‘O Muslim! There is a Jew hiding behind me, so kill him.’” This requires the followers of Islam to war against the Jews, some now interpret this to mean defeating Israel, before their end-times can commence or at least have its time set. This adds to their reasons to fight against Jews which now means Israel. Additionally there are the two spheres which the world is divided among in Islam, Dar al-Islam and Dar al-Harb. Dar al-Islam is the House of Islam, the area under Islamic rule and thus considered to be at peace; and Dar el Harb being the House of War which includes all lands with which Islam is at war that includes everything outside Dar al-Islam, simply put, everywhere else. Another point is that once Islam conquers any territory, it is to then remain under Islamic dominance forever and should Islamic territory be lost, even or especially were it to revert to previous (infidel) ownership thus falling outside Islam, that becomes a mortal affront to the supremacy of Islam. Hamas has in their preamble to the Hamas Charter a quote from their founder, Imam Hassan al-Banna “Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it.” Obviously, throughout history at numerous times the Jews and even Israel was an area of supreme importance and considered to be the ultimate threat facing Islam. But then, we would simply ask ourselves, why should Islam be any different from everyone else. Before you get up and demand what we mean by everyone else, let us give a partial list of everyone else throughout history; the Pharos’s Egypt, Philistines, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Ancient Greeks, Roman Empire, Byzantines, Islamic Caliphate, Crusaders, English Empire, Rome’s Inquisition, Spanish Empire, Nazis, Communists and others.

 

In all honesty, we are not claiming by any stretch of the imagination that Israel’s only difficulty is with Islam as there are a plethora of others who would love for Israel to disappear. Many groups outside the Arab and Muslim worlds would also be happy for Israel to disappear. We also need to point out not all of the Arab and Muslim worlds actively want to destroy Israel. One of the main forces which in ambivalent at best and animosity at the worst we have Rome, Vatican City to be more precise where the Catholic Church has a long history of following Replacement Theology which turned the Jews from the Chosen People into the Cursed People. Much of Replacement Theology is based upon the Jewish People being dispersed and denied any return to the Holy Lands. The fact that Israel had been destroyed and the Jews apparently thrown from their homelands was all the proof that the Christians, or in this case the Catholic Church, had replaced the Jews as the Chosen People and the Jews cursed. Then we come to Martin Luther who carries Replacement Theology one-step further and claiming that the Catholic Church has sold their souls and were to join the Jews as cursed and his church was the replacement and true faith. This idea of Replacement Theology continued being used by each Protestant Church during the Reformation. The Church of England, Episcopal Church, also took the position of being the singular holy church for the British Isles which led to years of fighting between the Catholics and the Anglicans. Every step along the way, Replacement Theology was utilized by each Protestant Church founder claimed to have the rights to the title of the Chosen People and all previous forms of Christianity and the Jews now being the cursed people. Islam was no exception as when Muhammad came forth with Islam, he declared that he was presenting the final incarnation of Allah’s word and Islam would be the last and only Chosen People as they replaced all the various Christian faiths and especially the Jews, just as the Christians had denoted the Jews.

 

 

Along with each religion, the nation which adopted these various sects of Christianity, the different forms of Islam and the anti-religion Communism all declared their animosity against the Jews. When Israel was reformed by David Ben Gurion declaring Israel founded, all the aforementioned religions had a total conniption-fit expressing their protestation in various means. Most Christian faiths declared this not to be the real return of the Jews and in no way made them once again the Chosen People with the Catholic Church even declaring Israel as an abomination while much of the Islamic world and the Arab League declared total genocidal war of cleansing of the Zionist Entity. The thing which is interesting is how the Arab Islamic worlds ignore the reestablishment of the Jewish homelands of Israel by referring to Israel as the Zionist entity such that they can claim that this is not the reestablished Jewish or Israelite homelands. This is also why they also claim that the Jews of today are not related to the Jews from antiquity despite genetic proof of their having Middle Eastern DNA markers and many families have traceable histories back many centuries even beyond one millennium. They even doubt those Jewish families who have never left Jerusalem except temporarily after Christian and Islamic expulsions always to return as soon as they were able.

 

What makes much of the efforts in the modern era since 1948 to solve the various forms it has taken adjusting to changing conditions and models presented is that they take that the entirety of the problem either began in 1948 with the founding of Israel, it started with the treaties and conferences after World War I or it began with the onset of modern Zionism. These are all completely wrong, as Islam had been at active war with the Jews throughout their history at various levels. People will point to periods where Jews thrived under Islamic rulers but most of these rulers did not follow strict Sharia, the Quranic defined statutes of law. The other difficulty is that despite periods where Jews were treated fairly well, these were always limited periods similar to the periods under European rule in the various nations where Jews were accepted for periods always eventually to come under critical treatment and even actively murdered often by burning at the stake, hanging, boiled in oil and the many various tortures of the Inquisitions. Islam began with mistreatment of the Jews either demanding the Jizya, a special tax levied against non-Muslims for the privilege and protection living under Islamic rule. This tax varied depending on the requirements of the governance, the greater their need the greater the Jizya often leading to a condition which becomes unlivable. This war against the Jews began, as we pointed out at the beginning, in the year 628-9 A.D. and continued, as has the Christian warfare against the Jews, intermittently ever since or as the anti-religious forces of Communism and Nazism have constantly since their inception.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Israel Just Turned Sixty-Nine

 

The renewed State of Israel just turned sixty-nine in the usual emotionally roller-coaster ride. In Israel there is an unique lead in to celebrating the rebirth of the nation state for the Israelite People, also known in modern time as the Jews (more on that in a bit). A little while before the celebratory day we commemorate the remembrance of those lost in the Holocaust. Then the day immediately before Independence day we commemorate all those who have fallen in our defensive struggle to remain a thriving and wonderful nation, but we might be a tad bit biased as citizens living in Israel and very happy with our choice to make Aliyah. Memorial Day includes the soldiers and civilians including Christians, Muslims, Arabs, Bedouins, Druze, Baha’I, other racial and religious peoples who are represented in the society which is Israel and, of course, the Jews. Memorial Day also includes all of the above who have died or suffered debilitating and life altering injuries due to terrorism. Needless to point out, this is a very solemn day filled with tears and sorrow until sundown. That is when a transformation takes place that unless witnessed is impossible to envision. Sundown on the Jewish calendar marks the start of the next day, Independence Day and some of the highest spirits and joyous occasions in all of Israel. People dance in the streets, sing joyously, some pray, some chant their prayer aloud in the street, others soak it all in and are filled with a satisfaction and a warm glowing joy. Then there are of course speeches by politicians (something we unfortunately cannot prevent as they will talk, that is their job, to talk us into submission), singing (this is great usually even if in Hebrew and you do not yet speak Hebrew), dancing both with and without singing, music and in the midst of all this they launch a good half an hour or more of fireworks, and all this is in the town center of one of the smaller cities in Israel. If one wished to sit atop one of the twenty or thirty story building’s roofs, then they could gather in the little fact that the suburbs, other downtown neighborhoods, the neighboring Kibbutzim and all over the area there would be other fireworks and the sky would light up in sparkling explosions and bright sprinkles of joy in almost every direction one would look, well, except west as the Mediterranean Sea is west of our town.

 

Well, time for a short bit of history and why Israelite became to be known as Jews. If one were to take the refounding of the State for the Israelite People with Jerusalem as their Capital City, then Israel in approximately three-thousand-one-hundred-fifty-years old. That is because somewhere between 1,000 BCE and 1150 BCE King David took an elite group from his army and entered Jerusalem (Yerushalayim) in the middle of the night and took care of the majority of the night guard, took over the main gates and opened them to allow the rest of the Israelite army to enter Yerushalayim. From that day forward, Yerushalayim became the Capital City of Israel and the Israelite People such that wherever they would reside they prayed facing Yerushalayim. Many of their services, especially the Passover Haggadah, end with the final phrase of, “Next Year in Yerushalayim.” History would note that King David’s son, King Solomon would build the Temple to Hashem allowing for a place for Hashem’s presence on Earth to settle. The Ark of the Covenant rested within the Holy of Holies, the central chamber within a chamber within the Temple. Only the Cohen Gadol (Heb. כהן גדול) was permitted to enter and then only on Yom Kippur when he was to atone and account for the people’s sins and the state of Israelite society and its reverence towards Torah. The Cohen Gadol would have a strong narrow rope capable of dragging his remains from the chamber attached to his ankle in case the recounting went badly. There are many accountings of attributes, the positions the Cherubim would face atop the Ark of the Covenant and other strict rules on how the Cohen Gadol was to prepare for entering the Holy of Holies. Let it rest that we are quite glad that we could never qualify for the position.

 

There was the instance when during a war the Israelites lost the Ark of the Covenant allowing the Ark to be captured in a battle they lost because they took the Ark of the Covenant without having been instructed by Hashem to do so. Things went quite badly for whatever city it was harbored. City after city would pass it off to save themselves and finally they begged the Israelites to take the accursed item back and never to allow it in their lands again. The Israelites took the Ark of the Covenant back with great joy and great care in handling the Ark. The Temple was subsequently destroyed by the Babylonians and the Ark of the Covenant was nowhere to be found and has remained in hiding ever since. Also between the building of the First Temple and the Babylonian conquest and destruction of Yerushalayim and the Temple when Solomon dies the nations split into two kingdoms, the Northern Kingdom held ten tribes plus their priests and was named Israel and the southern nations was called Judea as it was made up of Juda and Benyamin, two tribes and Juda was the larger of the two. Judea also controlled Yerushalayim. The Assyrians conquered the Northern Kingdom of Israel and never were they heard from until recently since the formation of the State of Israel, where these tribes emerge from around the globe and have proven genetic links to the Nation of Israel and the Israelite People. They were, and oft still are, referred to as the ten lost tribes of Israel. The Southern Nation continued until the Roman dispersion and their people were referred to as Judeans, which over time shortened and shortened until Judean became Jude and finally simply became Jew.

 

While in captivity, the Babylonians demanded our Priests sing songs for them so they wrote the Song of Babylon, which includes a very strong reference to the special place Yerushalayim plays in the lives of the Israelites. The Song of Babylon is also known as Psalms – Chapter 137 and those special lines are below.

Sing for us of the song of Zion.
How shall we sing the song of the Lord on foreign soil?
If I forget you, O Jerusalem, may my right hand forget its skill (lose its cunning and strength)
May my tongue cling to my palate (roof of my mouth), if I do not remember you,
if I do not bring up Jerusalem at the beginning of my joy.
Remember, O Lord, for the sons of Edom, the day of Jerusalem, those who say,
“Raze it, raze it, down to its foundation!”

Babylon fell to Cyrus the Great who received the title of Great because he allowed the Israelites to return home to rebuild their Temple and worship Hashem. Truth be told, just as in Egypt with the Exodus, far less than half the Jews took the offer to return and reclaim their lands and make them productive. Many claim that both times the number was merely ten percent, we like to believe we could get at least double if not two and a half times as many, a full quarter of the Israelites. But many remained throughout the Persian Empire. Things went well until a descendent of one of the Israelites old enemies came back to haunt them. His name was Haman and he was the Visor (top advisor) to King Achashverosh. King Achashverosh called for his wife, Queen Vashti and her reply was, “No.” This angered King Achashverosh so he had her removed from her position as the Queen by beheading her. King Achashverosh held a contest to choose a new wife; a Jewess named Esther won and became Queen of Persia. Haman persuaded King Achashverosh that the Jews were a threat to his throne and had a Royal Order sent to all the regions that the Jews be killed on a set day. Esther’s Uncle Mordechai told her of these plans and asked her to intervene with the King, which at first she shrank from the task, but was persuaded to act. King Achashverosh could not repeal his first order so he issued a new order demanding that the Jews fight back and let the true people persevere. Haman and his sons hanged on the very gallows they had built to use on the Jews and on that fateful day the Jews won out and more anti-Semites died that day than any other day in history.

 

After this, there was a brief period of calm and then came the Greeks and Alexander who found circumcision to be abhorrent as they worshiped the human form and thought people to be born with perfection and it was an anathema to them to cut or change the body in any manner. Many Jews could not accept their making circumcision illegal and circumcision was simple to discern and once detected they faced sentencing to death. This caused them to live hidden in the caves of the Judean Hills away from the prying eyes of the Greek soldiers and officials. The Jews survived the Greeks despite many Jews being tempted and turning to following the Greek worship of idols. These were called Hellenized Jews and were very similar in many ways to the American and European Jews who have slowly over the years turned from their religion and now act as if they were gentiles in all manners except for attending church, but then many Europeans and a fair number of Americans, mostly leftists, also do not attend church. Then the Romans came replacing the Greeks and not much changed until the Jews managed to win their freedom briefly from the Romans who returned in force, defeated the Jews, and passed new restrictive laws in the hope it would break their will and force them to be Roman. Apparently, they were not familiar with Torah where the Israelites are often referred to as a stiff-necked people and stubborn beyond measure. The Jews managed the impossible and threw off Roman Rule a second time, Rome sent several legions, and this defeat was definitive. They dispersed much of the Jewish population to the far corners of their empire and everywhere in between with the hope that this dispersion would be the end of the Jewish People. Rome understood that a people without any connection to land became weak-willed and soon lost any mutual ties and became estranged and their being a nation terminated. The Jews were different because they were not tied to the land as much as they were tied to Torah, and the Romans could not take Torah away from the Jews, they had it memorized along with commentary, customs, celebrations and every iota which was within. This was the precious heritage that they passed on generation-to-generation and what kept the Jewish People defined as a people. It is Torah, which also is found in some traceable form that most of these tribes being discovered still observe to this day. They continue to observe the Sabbath from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday and hold the Seder for Passover and every other tradition plus a few new ones commemorating great miracles in their lives.

 

 

All of this brings us to the pertinent question, did Israel just turn sixty-nine as it was born in 1948, or was this the celebration of Israel turning somewhere around three-thousand-two-hundred-fifty years old from the anointing of the first King of Israel, King Saul? But that leaves out Moses which brings us to this being the three-thousand-four-hundred plus years old and even this is incomplete as the very first Israelite to live in the land of Israel was Abraham and from his founding of the start of a family, a religion, the following of Hashem and the rules he would teach to Moses all placed within Torah along with the History of a people. So the origin of the Israelite People and the Jewish religion begins with our Patriarchs and Matriarchs named Abraham, Izaak, and Jacob along with Sarah, Rebecca, Leah and Rachel. This makes this birthday approximately the four-thousand-seventeenth birthday as Abraham was estimated to have arrived in Canaan somewhere around 2000 BCE. The timeline above places Abraham appearance to be 2166 BCE, which makes our final approximation four-thousand-one-hundred-eighty-three years old, so have a happy, healthy and wonderful 4183rd birthday Nation of Israel. As we are writing this on Independence Day afternoon, we need to go to a picnic because in Israel we celebrate Independence Day much as it is everywhere, we go to morning religious services and a Bar-B-Q in the afternoon where there is lots of Kosher meat and no ice cream, it’s that meat and milk thing, so, good-bye for now.

 

Beyond the Cusp