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## Nachricht <6ftCs8Cyg2B@forum.nadeshda.gun.de> vom 15.10.97 21:29 weitergeleitet
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## Ersteller: i.musa@NADESHDA.gun.de (Izzeddin Musa)

## Nachricht <971015070005_946794134@emout18.mail.aol.com> vom 15.10.97 07:00 weitergeleitet
## Ursprung : I.Musa@Forum.gun.de
## Ersteller: Zeveiwolf@aol.com

==========================3D F  r  e  e  d  o  m ==================3D========
  auto-info: help@alquds.net  >>>> Linking Palestinians & Their Friends
==========================3D=========================3D======================

Fifty years seems like a long time, and I suppose it is, since I will be that
age this week.  One hundred seems longer.  Yet on the stage of human history
it is merely seconds, in geological time a blip.  

The article below was released by AP yesterday and was reported in the
Washington Post.  It speaks for itself.   There used to be an inter alia joke
about "What is a Zionist?" the answer to which was "It was a Jew who raised
money to send another jew to (Palestine/Israel [depending on the year the
joke was told])"

This is true even now, when such staunch American Zionists as Morton Klein of
the Zionist Association of America, and Bingo King Irving Moskowitz, prefer
the "fleshpots of the diaspora" to "medina Yisroel".   To an outside
observer, and to Israeli Jews, this seems hypocritical, it seems one should
put ones money where one's mouth is.   Other American Jews who are not
extremely observant of their faith
(and of all religious groups in the U.S., Jews are known to be among the
least observant - attendance at Synagogue statistics bear that out.), take
either of two routes depending on their level of knowledge, interest, and
other circumstances.         

(a) Many have substituted Zionism for Judaism as their "religion". I.e, they
remain in their minds good Jews because they do positive things for the state
of Israel, such as send a few dollars to the UJA each year, or have a tree
planted ( of course you might be thinking a better exercise would be to take
a trip and replant the ones that were uprooted that belonged to the
Palestinians - but most American Jews, are not even aware that things such as
uprooting of orchards, and demolition of homes occurs.  You can't even blame
them for being unaware as a survey of American newspapers shows that even
though these items are reported in the wire services, the newspapers [and
most people do not read The Washington Post or The New York Times, which in
themselves leave out a lot of information] more often than not ignore it.  To
television, there is no news in regard to the Middle East unless someone
blows someone up, and there is a good photo-op.   These assimilated Jews, at
best, might make a trip or two to Israel.   They will come home waxing
eloquent about how beautiful the country is (which it is), how safe it
is(!!!!), especially when one compares it to NEW YORK! (why they always bring
up NY, defies logic since NYC is not the most crime ridden city in the
country by a long shot.).  They have usually taken the "disneyland" version
tour of the country, with a bilingual guide who has been trained to
propagandize them and to also keep them away from any hot or nascent trouble
spots.   The typical tour is Yad Vashem (the Holocaust Memorial -  Just so
they know why they are there in the first place - because they are
"victims"), Masada (because if a small fanatical group of your "ancestors"
committed mass suicide rather than be put in chains by the Romans, then you
want to pay homage to their memory by standing in a desert at 120 degrees.
   BTW one is hardly ever told about rabbi Akiba who absented himself from
this territoriality, got permission from the Romans to establish a Yeshiva,
and eventually left for more quiet habitations.),  The Western Wall (keeping
in mind that this entire phenomenon of the Wall is singular.   Jews do not
pray to walls.  A wall has absolutely no religious significance whatsover.
  Even if the Temple was intact, Jews would not be praying in those times at
the outer bearing wall to the property.
Typically Jews that do pray, pray before the Torah scrolls.   The act of
placing written prayers in the cracks in the wall so that they may ascend
straight to heaven, are actions totally outside of Jewish tradition, and all
smack of idolatry.). Why? Because it's there.   The photo-op of Bibi praying
[or making believe he was praying is more accurate] at the Wall, after his
electoral victory was laughable for someone who is in no way shape or form
religious and is an admitted adulterer.
No Jew, except for a very tiny group of fanatics has any interest in seeing
the Temple rebuilt.  Judaism as a religion {even among the Orthodox) has
evolved far beyond those days.   Many Jews who are progressive or reform in
the religious sense would object just on the grounds of animal sacrifice
alone as being against current notions of the proper way to treat animals.
  Yet the truth is that most Jews have a dim understanding of their religion,
and an even dimmer understanding of Zionism.    I know this because I've
asked enough of them, and heard the silly answers.   One concludes this
typical tour with a visit to the Dead Sea, perhaps Mea Shearim to see what
"real Jews" are like, and of course the nightlife in Tel Aviv.
During this entire tour, contact with Palestinians is discouraged.

(b) the other route of course has been complete assimilation (or better,
acculturation) into American society.   Now for obvious reasons, this has
been called a "problem" that requires solving, and the cries about this
non-existent problem are getting strident.    One need only ask  a Jew who
has taken this route if they have a problem.  Usually what one finds is they
are quite content with their lives, are neither anti- nor pro- Zionist, and
want to absent themselves (as is their individual right) from the entire
mishigas (nonsense).   As a friend of mine has observed, what is interesting
 is not that this trend is occuring now, but that it took so long to occur.
These people ask themselves some pointed philosophical questions.   Does the
religion mean anything to me?  Does it matter if I marry a non-Jew?   If this
person is a genuinely good person and I love them, why should it matter to
someone else?  What right do "they"(the organized community) have to my
life?"   Given a choice of a place to visit on vacation, should I go
somewhere that is still in effect a war zone, or should I rather go to Hawaii
or the Canadian Rockies?

Group (b) is now the target group of those within organized Jewry, who
purport that they are worried about the continuity of the Jewish people with
regard to the religion (if it has value it will survive), but in reality are
worried about numbers.   Numbers are important.   There was a time when most
of American Jewry was concentrated in a few small enclaves, and because of
this concentration, and the electoral college system, were able to exert
influence beyond their numbers.  The third generation has scattered to the
southwest and other areas, has intermarried at a rate that would have been
inconceivable to their grandparents or great-grandparents, and AIPAC and the
CofPofMAJO KNOW this, and they are worried.    So what does one do?
Well there are two choices.   There is the Dershowitz option which the OJ
defense lawyer outlines in his recent book THE VANISHING AMERICAN JEW, in
which he admonishes Jews to "feel" Jewish, even if like him, they are total
non-believers in the religion.  Mr. Dershowitz received a great deal of
criticism from the Jewish community over this book, being assaulted from all
sides of the spectrum.  But not to worry, Dersh's ego is big enough to handle
it.

The other choice is given by one Mike Rosenberg, an expatriate from NJ, in
the AP article alone.   Many would call Mr. Rosenberg's proposal an
incredibly naive leap of faith.   It should prove to be about as successful
as the 100 year celebration of the founding of Zionism was in the Jewish
community, or Jerusalem 2000 was, or the very best gauge of all, - Out of 3
million North American Jews eligible to vote in the WZO/JA elections, barely
more than 100,000 exercised that option.  Most of the other 3 million
eligible voters either were unaware of it at all, realized that it implied
dual loyalty, or that it smacked of  idolatry to the worship of land, as the
same friend I mentioned before pointed out.    

That Western Jewry and Israeli Jewry are a quantum leap apart , culturally,
poltically (western Jewry are extremely in favor of democratic institutions
over theocratic or other non-democratic forms EXCEPT OF COURSE WITH THE
EXCEPTION of itsy bitsy teeny weeny little Israel.), and religiously
(favoring pluralism over the hegemony of the Orthodox).  Yet these very facts
do not seem to deter Mr. Rosenberg, for whom the Don Quixote, Tilting At
Windmills Award is most appropriate:

One last thing should be noted with regard to population statistics.
 Israelis who are out of the country for as much as four years (some of whom
have no intention of returning) are still counted in the population as Jewish
population.   Israel makes much of the numbers of Jews coming in, but DOES
NOT release the statistics on the number of Jews leaving the country.

Israel Moves to Attract Immigrants 
By Gwen Ackerman 
Associated Press Writer 
Tuesday, October 14, 1997; 2:54 a.m. EDT 

JERUSALEM (AP) -- Searching for a new reservoir of immigrants, Israel is 
looking west and trying to make it easier than ever for American and 
other Western Jews to move. 

In need of a job? Israel will help hook you up with a high-tech firm. 
Worried about making the adjustment? There's a program to set up a 
support group. 

Perhaps nowhere else is immigration as important as it is in this 
49-year-old country where only half of the 5.8 million people are 
native-born. 

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, new citizens poured into the Jewish 
state from the Soviet Union or strife-ridden regions such as Ethiopia. 
This pool, though, has dwindled. 

In 1991, more than 100,000 former Soviets moved to Israel. Last year, 
that number was 50,000 -- a figure expected to remain steady in coming 
years, according to the Jewish Agency, the government body which helps 
bring immigrants to Israel. 

In response, the agency this year began an unprecedented drive to help 
attract Jews, specifically Westerners, to Israel, agency chairman 
Avraham Burg told the Associated Press. 

It appointed a New Jersey native, Mike Rosenberg, to lead its 
immigration department, hoping to draw from his experience as an 
American emigrant. Rosenberg left Bayone, N.J., in 1971. 

``I think it is very important that Israel grow and extremely important 
that the majority of the Jewish people live here in Israel,'' said 
Rosenberg, 48. ``It is the only Jewish state. It is the only place where 
you can't miss the Jewish holidays.'' 

The United States is home to the largest Jewish community in the world, 
with about 6 million, but convincing American Jews to immigrate to 
Israel won't be easy. 

Many American Jews enjoy comfortable lives in the United States and 
belong to the Reform and Conservative streams which are fighting a tough 
battle for recognition in Israel, where Orthodox Judaism controls 
religious affairs. 

Since Israel's founding in 1948, only about 80,000 American Jews have 
settled here compared to the hundreds of thousands of Jews who came from 
relatively small countries such as Morocco, Poland and Romania. Last 
year, the number of American immigrants was about 2,000. {NOTE:  what the
article does not state is that these two thousand are either extremely
political Zionists or are very pious Orthodox Jews, or both-Zevei}

Reform and Conservative leaders in Israel say that if the government 
wants to attract Western Jews, it has to make the environment for 
non-Orthodox more comfortable. More than 90 percent of U.S. Jews belong 
to non-Orthodox streams of Judaism, compared to less than 1 percent of 
Jews in Israel. 

Israel's Reform and Conservative movements are in the midst of a bitter 
dispute over proposed legislation that would formalize the Orthodox 
monopoly over conversions conducted in Israel. 

Earlier this year, Jewish seminary students threw stones and excrement 
at Reform worshippers at the Western Wall, Judaism's holiest site. 
Orthodox rabbis have compared Reform Judaism to idolatry, and Reform 
rabbis are barred from performing weddings or serving on religious 
councils. 

``An Israel which sends the message to the American Reform and 
Conservative ... that you are not welcome within the gates of Jerusalem 
is not going to see any significant influx of non-Orthodox Jews,'' said 
Uri Regev, a leading Reform rabbi. 

In a new program, the agency is recruiting people in their home 
countries who would immigrate together and live near each other in 
Israel. 

For Rosenberg, it's an effort to protect not only the future of Israel, 
but of Judaism itself. The greatest danger to U.S. Jewry is 
assimilation, he said, noting that more than half of American Jews marry 
non-Jews. 

``I see it as a fight against time because Jewish identity is weakening. 
Assimilation is taking place,'' he said. ``If we had such a thing as a 
Jewish Geiger counter that could measure Jewish identity ... I would say 
the signal is getting weaker.'' 

So far, Israel's efforts have not always borne fruit. One recent 
American arrival, Ben Abrams, 23, of Harrisburg, Pa., intends to return 
to the United States after just a year in Israel. 

Israel, he said, still hasn't made up its mind whether it wants to be a 
theocracy or a democracy and has yet to develop a decentralized, 
service-oriented economy that could attract large numbers of immigrants 
from the West. 

Abrams said his parents also worry about his security in Israel, where 
Islamic militants have carried out more than a dozen suicide bombings 
since 1994. Among the victims were several Americans. 

My mother hates the fact that I am here,'' Abrams said. ``She is 
worried, and 7,000 miles away, and people blow themselves up on the 
street. That is not cool.'' { HE forgot to say DUDE! - z}

Just a few days before boarding a plane home, Abrams said Israel must 
see there would be a big difference between getting people to listen to 
its campaign and getting people to come. { I wager you will not even get
people to listen - Z}

``I see it as not even an uphill battle, more like scaling a wall,'' he 
said. { It will be like trying to climb Mt. Everest without an oxygen tank -
Z}


+ Copyright 1997 The Associated Press
-----------
ZEVEIWOLF (North American born and bred)