Shavout

Shavuot is the day the Torah was given -- celebrating the supernatural encounter between God and the Israelites at Mount Sinai, an event which changed mankind forever. Shavuot commemorates the giving of the Torah to the Jewish people at Mount Sinai and is also the Festival of the First Fruits or the Feast of the Weeks. Every Jewish holiday falls on a specific day of the month, with one exception: Shavuot, the day on which we received the Torah. Aish says:

Shavuot is always the 50th day following the beginning of Passover. Under the essential Jewish calendar in which the rabbinical court determined the beginning of a month through witnesses who saw the new moon, it could technically fall on any one of three dates since the number of days in a Jewish month could vary from year to year.

The name Shavuot alludes to its independence from the standard calendar. The name means "weeks," demonstrating how the holiday marks the culmination of
seven weeks regardless of the date.

What is the essence of that dateless day? Hints to the answer lie within the process that leads to Shavuot, the book we read on Shavuot, and the number 50 itself.

The key to understanding Shavuot lies within the process that leads up to it. We start counting the days from our exodus from Egypt, our birth as a people, and continue to count until Shavuot, the 50th day. That count marks a period of national metamorphosis. The Jewish people had been so entrenched in Egypt that the Torah described the Exodus as the extraction of one nation from amidst another. As a child just born, we were in our spiritual infancy and in just 50 days we achieved the lofty stature that enabled us to receive the Torah. Our count begins with a simple sacrifice of barley, food regarded as animal fodder. It culminates with a special sacrifice of the finest bread, human food, signifying our national arrival at a new level of existence.

The synagogue and home are decorated with flowers, plants and fruits. Dairy foods such as cheesecake and blintzes (which represent the shape of the Torah) are traditionally served. Shavuot, which means "weeks", refers to the timing of the festival which is held exactly 7 weeks after Passover.

Click for some delicious recipes for Shavuot.

Who did God give the Torah to at Mount Sinai? Moses, right?

Wrong.

According to the Torah, all of the Israelites heard God speak at Mount Sinai. He appeared to everyone, approximately 3 million people and this is mentioned several times in the Torah.

[Moses told the Israelites]: 'Only beware for yourself and greatly beware for your soul, lest you forget the things that your eyes have beheld. Do not remove this memory from your heart all the days of your life. Teach your children and your children's children about the day that you stood before the Lord your God at Horev [Mount Sinai]...

God spoke to you from the midst of the fire, you were hearing the sound of words, but you were not seeing a form, only a sound. He told you of His covenant, instructing you to keep the Ten Commandments, and He inscribed them on two stone tablets.' (Deut.4:9-13)

'You have been shown in order to know that God, He is the Supreme Being. There is none besides Him. From heaven he let you hear His voice in order to teach you, and on earth He showed you His great fire, and you heard His words amid the fire.' (Deut. 4:32-36)

Moses called all of Israel and said to them: 'Hear, O Israel, the decrees and the ordinances that I speak in your ears today -- learn them, and be careful to perform them. The Lord your God sealed a covenant with us at Horev [Mount Sinai]. Not with our forefathers did God seal this covenant, but with us -- we who are here, all of us alive today. Face to face did God speak with you on the mountain from amid the fire.' (Deut. 5:1-4)

Today begins the two day holiday of Shavuot (or Shavuos in the Ashkenazic pronunciation).

It is the anniversary and celebration of the giving of the Torah on Mt. Sinai to the Jewish people more than 3,319 years ago. It is a time of rededication and commitment to learning Torah.

For lots more about Shavuot, go to http://www.aish.com/holidays/shavuot/default.asp

But let's not also forget the Farhud, where Arabs trained by the Nazis in Baghdad, killed, maimed and committed numerous atrocities against the Jewish population on the two days on the Jewish holiday of Shavuot in 1941. The Farhud was the beginning of the end of 2,600 years of Jewish life in Iraq. This event commenced with a rampage of mass murder, mutilation, rape, burning and looting. The carnage would be forever seared upon the collective Iraqi Jewish consciousness.

Until now, the term "Farhud" and the riots and subsequent persecution of the Iraqi Jews during Holocaust and has been completely omitted from virtually all Holocaust study and memorials. This turning point event--the Farhud--was recently resurrected, during the fall of 2004, by a series of Iraqi community seminars, an award-winning bestselling book by author Edwin Black, as well as recent lectures and articles on the subject.

FARHUD - The Farhud Recognition Project

Folks, pay close attention. The Farhud happened in 1941. Do the math, folks. Israel wasn't reborn until 1948.

So was it the "occupation" of the "thepoorpalestinianpeople" that caused the Farhud? Or was the murder of Jews by Iraqis in 1941 just plain Jewicide for the sake of Jewicide?

I know you see my point, readers. I know you can't reject this fact. What you must do, is simply denounce the true intentions of the palestinians and convince all the dopey leftwing "peace supporters" to stop their blind encouragement for the palestinian "occupation" claim, because the reality is - it's a shill.

The fact that Jews in the British Mandate have been attacked by Arabs since the early 1900's - was not because of any territorial dispute - but just because Jews existed.

Maybe Islam is the root of the problem.

Israel's Historic Achievement

From Israel's Historic Achievement:

To think of Israel as 60 years old may be wrong when its enemies seek to portray it as an alien usurper. In fact, the Jews have lived in the Land of Israel for over 3,300 years, since 1312 BCE. They had lived there at least 1,800 years before the Arab conquest of 635 CE, which lasted only 22 years. Jerusalem was the Jewish capital for over 3,300 years and never was the capital of any Arab or Muslim entity. King David founded Jerusalem; Muhammad never set foot in it. Jews pray facing Jerusalem, and Muslims face Mecca. Jerusalem is mentioned hundreds of times in the Old Testament and not once in the Koran. The Jews have never had any other national homeland.

The Jews who became Israelis have cultivated desolate lands with one of the world's most innovative agricultural economies; they have established legal systems that protect civil liberties against the backdrop of the most lethal security threats. They have made a home for the world's largest Jewish population, passing America. The realization of the dream that Israel represents with its rebirth has evoked the spirit of kinship and emotional association with those who share the Judeo-Christian community throughout the world.

Yossi Harel, Commander of 'Illegal' Pre-State Aliyah, Dies at 90

A great Jewish hero. Via INN:

Yossi Harel, who commanded four ships bringing Jews to Israel illegally, died at the age of 90 in Tel Aviv Saturday.

Harel assisted 24,000 Jews in reaching Israel aboard four ships, including the famed SS Exodus, between 1945 and 1948. Great Britain, which controlled the region at the time, banned Jewish immigration due to Arab pressure. The other three ships were called Knesset Yisrael (Gathering of Israel), Atzma'ut (Independence) and Kibbutz Galuyot (Ingathering of the Exiles).

The Exodus was made famous by a film of the same name.

Born in 1919, Harel was the sixth generation in his family born in Jerusalem. At the age of 15 he joined the pre-state Hagana defense force. By the age of 28 he oversaw the clandestine immigration operations bringing Jews, many of them survivors of the Holocaust, to the Holy Land.

Later on, Harel oversaw the IDF’s Unit 131, an intelligence unit that ran a spy ring in Egypt until the so-called Lavon Affair of 1954.

Harel will be buried at the Ceasaria-area kibbutz, Sdot Yam, at 5 PM Monday.

Today in Jewish History - Tevet 14

Sponsored by Aish.com:

Yahrtzeit of Pinchas Rutenberg (1879-1942), founder of the Israel Electric Corporation. A Russian Jewish immigrant, Rutenberg was a visionary and pioneer, whose efforts to bring electricity to Israel is regarded as a crucial factor in building a strong modern economy. Rutenberg's flagship project was a hydroelectric plant on the Jordan River in 1931, which he built after gaining Winston Churchill's political backing and Baron Edmond de Rothschild's financial support. In 1948, the plant was destroyed by the Arab Legion.

Arabs Desecrate Grave of Biblical Joshua

Just when you thought that Muslims couldn't stoop any lower, what do they do? They go and desecrate the graves of the great Jewish Biblical Joshua, Caleb and Nun (Joshua’s father). Joshua served as the Jewish Nation's Prime Minister from the year 2488 until 2516 on the Hebrew calendar (1272 BCE - 1300 BCE). Members of the One Shechem organization that organizes visits to the graves arrived in the village of Timnat (Kifl) Haress, near Ariel in Samaria, to prepare for a special prayer gathering, discovered that Muslim barbarians had desecrated the village’s Jewish tombs. The tombs of Yehoshua (Joshua) ben Nun, Nun, and Calev (Caleb) ben Yefuneh were covered with garbage and feces – both human and animal, and anti-Semitic and Nazi slogans and symbols had been painted in the area.

Can you imagine if the abomination referred to as the al-aqsa mosque had been slopped with feces? There'd be no end to the international outrage, because frankly, everyone loves Muslims, because Muslims are scary and threatening and dangerous - and everyone hates the Jew because we are actually winsome, weak, and cowardly.

Nevertheless, Jewish worshippers still gathered at the tombs Tuesday night for special prayers on the tenth of Tevet, the day Kaddish and other prayers are recited for those whose date of death is unknown, such as Calev ben Yefuneh.

The prayers were also to mark the end of the 30-day increased-stricture mourning period for murdered Jewish father Ido Zoldan of Kedumim, by a Muslim police officer.

See, that's the difference between Jews and the Muslim miscreant. We pray for the dead, while Muslims pray to be dead.

Don't ever let me hear any one of you say that "we all worship the same god". Like hell, we do.

Click here for an Arutz-7 Exclusive Photo Essay of a midnight visit to the graves of Joshua, Calev and Nun.

Smooth Stone Fun Facts

After the failed Bar Kochba revolt against the Roman Empire (135 AD), any semblance of Jewish political independence in Judea ended. Jews were then forbidden to live in Jerusalem; hundreds of thousands were killed and many were dragged off as slaves, and the land was desolated. Later, Jews returned to live in Jerusalem. Through a host of occupying empires; first the Byzantine, then the Persian, Arab, Crusader, Muslim, and finally Ottoman-Turks, Jews continued to live in their homeland as an occupied people.

A new museum confronts an old mystery at Masada

Via Ha'aretz:

The exhibit at the end of the tour of the new museum at Masada consists of 11 tiny sherds bearing intriguing names.

Hundreds of inscriptions on sherds were found at Masada, including some on earthenware jugs. Some are only a single letters, others contain names and numbers from the days of the rebellion and the Roman siege. The archaeologists, in particular Yigael Yadin, were reasonably good at decipher the inscriptions on the various sherds, but the inscription on these 11 sherds was unusual.

They were all found in the same place, next to the network of internal gates that controlled the passage to the foodstores, and were not scattered over a wide area like the other sherds. They were all written in the same handwriting, and each sherd contained only one name.

Most important, the names were not regular names but rather nicknames, such as Ben Hanahatam (or Ben Hanahtum), Tzayda (or Hatzayad, "the hunter"), Ha'amaki (someone from a village in the Acre area). Among them was one well-known name - Ben-Yair, the name of the leader of the Masada rebellion, Elazar Ben-Yair.

When these sherds were found, Yigael Yadin came up with the theory that this was evidence of the terrible story of the mass suicide on the top of Masada.

Read the rest of this article here.

The National Revelation - Shavuot

Who did God give the Torah to at Mount Sinai? Moses, right?

Wrong.

According to the Torah, all of the Israelites heard God speak at Mount Sinai. He appeared to everyone, approximately 3 million people and this is mentioned several times in the Torah.

[Moses told the Israelites]: 'Only beware for yourself and greatly beware for your soul, lest you forget the things that your eyes have beheld. Do not remove this memory from your heart all the days of your life. Teach your children and your children's children about the day that you stood before the Lord your God at Horev [Mount Sinai]...

God spoke to you from the midst of the fire, you were hearing the sound of words, but you were not seeing a form, only a sound. He told you of His covenant, instructing you to keep the Ten Commandments, and He inscribed them on two stone tablets.' (Deut.4:9-13)

'You have been shown in order to know that God, He is the Supreme Being. There is none besides Him. From heaven he let you hear His voice in order to teach you, and on earth He showed you His great fire, and you heard His words amid the fire.' (Deut. 4:32-36)

Moses called all of Israel and said to them: 'Hear, O Israel, the decrees and the ordinances that I speak in your ears today -- learn them, and be careful to perform them. The Lord your God sealed a covenant with us at Horev [Mount Sinai]. Not with our forefathers did God seal this covenant, but with us -- we who are here, all of us alive today. Face to face did God speak with you on the mountain from amid the fire.' (Deut. 5:1-4)

Today begins the two day holiday of Shavuot (or Shavuos in the Ashkenazic pronunciation).

It is the anniversary and celebration of the giving of the Torah on Mt. Sinai to the Jewish people more than 3,319 years ago. It is a time of rededication and commitment to learning Torah.

For lots more about Shavuot, go to http://www.aish.com/holidays/shavuot/default.asp

But let's not also forget the Farhud, where Arabs trained by the Nazis in Baghdad, killed, maimed and committed numerous atrocities against the Jewish population on the two days on the Jewish holiday of Shavuot in 1941. The Farhud was the beginning of the end of 2,600 years of Jewish life in Iraq. This event commenced with a rampage of mass murder, mutilation, rape, burning and looting. The carnage would be forever seared upon the collective Iraqi Jewish consciousness.

Until now, the term "Farhud" and the riots and subsequent persecution of the Iraqi Jews during Holocaust and has been completely omitted from virtually all Holocaust study and memorials. This turning point event--the Farhud--was recently resurrected, during the fall of 2004, by a series of Iraqi community seminars, an award-winning bestselling book by author Edwin Black, as well as recent lectures and articles on the subject.

FARHUD - The Farhud Recognition Project

Folks, pay close attention. The Farhud happened in 1941. Do the math, folks. Israel wasn't reborn until 1948.

So was it the "occupation" of the "thepoorpalestinianpeople" that caused the Farhud? Or was the murder of Jews by Iraqis in 1941 just plain Jewicide for the sake of Jewicide?

C'mon, I know you see my point, folks. I know you can't reject this fact. What you must do, is simply denounce the true intentions of the palestinians and convince all the dopey peace supporters to stop their blind encouragement for the palestinian "occupation" claim, because it's a shill.

The fact that Jews in the British Mandate have been attacked by Arabs since the early 1900's - was not because of any territorial dispute - but just because Jews existed.

Maybe Islam is the root of the problem.

Today in Jewish History - Adar 4

Sponsored by Aish.com:

Yahrtzeit of Menachem Begin (1913-1992), prime minister of Israel. Prior to the creation of the state, Begin became leader of the Irgun and used militant means to force the British government to withdraw from Palestine. In the Knesset, Begin led the opposition party for decades, before being elected prime minister in 1977. Begin negotiated the Camp David Accords with Anwar Sadat of Egypt, for which he was awarded the 1978 Nobel Peace Prize. Begin is also remembered for his conviction to Jewish tradition (he was known to consult with great rabbis and to walk to meetings on Shabbat), and his resolve to defend the Jewish people from another Holocaust (Begin had lost his parents and a brother to the Nazis), which factored greatly in his decision to bomb the Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981.

Today in Jewish History - Adar 3

Sponsored by Aish.com:

In 350 BCE, the building of the second Holy Temple was completed in Jerusalem, as recorded in the biblical Book of Ezra (6:15). The re-building of the Temple had begun under Cyrus when the Persians first took over the Babylonian empire. The re-building was then interrupted for 18 years, and resumed with the blessing of Darius II, the Persian king whom is said to be the son of Esther. The Second Temple lacked much of the glory of the First Temple: There was no Ark of the Covenant, and the daily miracles and prophets were no longer part of the scenery. The Second Temple would stand for 420 years, before being destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE.

Reopening of the Yeshiva Chachmei Synagogue in Lublin

From The European Jewish Press:

Poland’s Jewish community celebrated on Sunday the reopening of the Lublin synagogue in the building which once housed the largest rabbi school in Europe before being nearly destroyed in the Holocaust.

Michael Schudrich, Poland’s chief rabbi, performed theopening ceremony at the Yeshiva Chachmei synagogue inthe eastern Poland city. Schudrich said the reopening of the synagogue is asign of the "growing up" of Poland’s Jewish community.

With the affixing of the mezuzah – a special parchment with required Hebrew inscriptions - to the synagogue doorposts and the ceremonial entry of the Torah scroll, the synagogue once again became a place of worship for Poland’s Jewish community, 77 years after its original opening.

Dancing, singing and prayers accompanied the reopening of the first synagogue in Poland since WWII to be renovated entirely through the efforts of the country’s Jewish community and without state or foreign aid.

Around 10,000 Jews live today in Poland. Some 3. 5 Jews lived in Poland prior WWII, one- tenth of the population and the largest Jewish diaspora in the world.

Up to 3 million were murdered by the Nazis during the Holocaust, with the majority of survivors fleeing the country following the wave of post-war anti-Semitism.

Before WWII Lublin was one of the most important centres of the Jewish life, especially in field of education. Jews first settled in the city at the beginning of the 14th century and intensified after 1336, when King Casmir the Great gave the Jews so called “privilege of settlement”.

In 1930 Rabbi Meir Shapiro, creator of the Daf Yomi, founded the biggest Talmudic school in the world in Lublin, the Yeshiva Chachmei. During the Middle Ages Lublin was known as the "Jewish Oxford" due to its tradition of study and community of learned Jews.

Jewish life in the city developed till the outbreak of the war. In 1939 the Jewish population of Lublin was about 40,000 (40 percent of total population).

During the Holocaust Nazis killed not only almost all Jewish residents but destroyed the entire Jewish quarter. Most of Jewish Lublinians were murdered in the Majdanek concentration camp. Until 2003 the building of the former yeshiva was occupied by the Lublin Medical Academy but three years ago it was returned to the Warsaw Jewish Religious Community, to which the around 30-strong Lublin Jewish community belongs.

Shanghai restoring historic synagogue

From the Jerusalem Post:

Shanghai is restoring one of the city's two remaining synagogues as part of a growing celebration of the city's Jewish heritage, the government said Thursday. Built in 1927-28, the Ohel Moishe synagogue was a center of the community in the Tilanqiao neighborhood, where Shanghai's Japanese overlords, under German pressure, forced German and Austrian Jews to live in the final years of World War II. The refugees left after the war's end and the 1949 communist takeover, and in 1996, the city turned the synagogue into a museum of Jewish history. Its collection will be expanded under the fix-up that began last month, according to a spokeswoman for the Hongkou district government.

The Beast in Chains

Who is Adolf Eichmann? A detailed article from Time Magazine, dated Monday, June 06, 1960, on the historic arrest of Nazi war criminal and Jew-exterminator, Adolf Eichmann, who was responsible together with the Nazi leaders for what was called the 'final solution' of the Jewish question— the extermination of 6,000,000 Jews of Europe. An excerpt:

The Israelis found Adolf Eichmann in Argentina. He arrived in this country in 1952 from Spain. He was traveling with an Italian Red Cross document obtained through the Vatican's D.P.-relief department, which qualified him as a displaced person. The document was in the name of Krumey, one of Eichmann's assistant exterminators who was rearrested in West Germany following Ben-Gurion's announcement [of the arrest of Adolf Eichmann].

Eichmann at first worked as a surveyor for a German-American engineering firm called Capri. For the next several years he turned up under various aliases in Brazil, Paraguay and Bolivia. By 1956 he was back in Argentina with a job as mechanic in the capital's outskirts, worked later on as an overseer on a farm in the interior. In 1958 he returned to Buenos Aires, became an office employee in an automobile plant and lived near the airport with his German wife and four children (the last was born after his family joined him).Eichmann, now 54, bore no resemblance to the jaunty SS officer of the past. He had gone almost completely bald, hollow-cheeked, with big, flopping ears and a long, drooping nose. Yet early last month Israeli secret agents identified their quarry. From then on, they stalked him day and night. A five-man commando squad headed by one Yehudah Shimoni was sent from Israel to Buenos Aires. At the same time. El Al (Israeli Airlines) New York Station Manager Joseph Klein, who himself bears a tattooed number from one of Eichmann's concentration camps on his arm, flew down to make arrangements for a special El Al flight. It was to carry an Israeli delegation headed by Minister of State Abba Eban to attend the isoth anniversary of Argentine independence.

On May 13 Eichmann walked along General Paz Avenue on his way home from work. An automobile swerved out of the heavy traffic, screeched to a halt. Before the startled Eichmann could struggle or cry out, he was grabbed and flung into the car. That night a message was flashed to Ben-Gurion. Decoded, it read: "The beast is in chains." Eichmann's family spent the night telephoning friends and checking hospitals and morgues. Next morning, they disappeared into hiding.

Maps: The Arab Israel Conflict in Maps

Here is exceptional visual content in an updated link to the Arab Israel Conflict in Maps via The Jewish Agency for Israel. Please add this to your list of resources.

Today in Jewish History - 30 Shvat

Sponsored by Aish.com:

In 1667, the Jews of Rome ran the humiliating "Carnival race" for the last time. Every year, during Rome's annual carnival, scantily-clad Jews had been forced to race along the main street, while the crowd mocked them, threw trash, and reigned heavy blows. (The event often proved fatal.) As further indignity, Jews were forced to contribute financially to the operation of the Carnival. During this time, Jews were confined to living in the Roman Ghetto, a walled quarter with three gates that were locked at night. The Jews were subjected to other degradations, including having to attend compulsory Catholic sermons on Shabbat. Outside the ghetto, Jews were required to wear identifying yellow clothing.

An encyclopedia vs. the Bible

This post is a response to someone who holds that the proof which he concludes that the Palestinian Arabs have had their land stolen by Israel, can be found in a map in an encyclopedia under "Palestine".

Well, sir, evidently there is confusion and lack of knowledge of the Jewish biblical and modern historical connections to Palestine.

I have a book called the Bible. There are no pictures in it at all, but it is a book about people, places and things, much like your encyclopedia. In the Bible, Gaza is a named region and it's size, shape, region and identifying markers are precisely mentioned and illustrated. In reality, Gaza is but another area of Jewish land that has been stolen from Jews by Arab Muslims.

Historically speaking, I hope your unnamed encyclopedia mentions that during the 3rd century BC, Gaza and Akko were the leading centers of trade and industry. Both cities had numerous Jewish residents, including some very wealthy and influential families. There were Jewish communities in Gaza during the Hasmonean period (166-63 BC). During ancient times, in the taking of tithes, the Gaza area was included in this Jewish religious obligation. Tithing is observed to this day in Jewish settlements located in the Gaza Strip as it was deemed part of ancient Israel. During the 4th century AD, Emperor Constantine attempted to build a church in Gaza but the Jewish population located there was opposed to this. At that time, Gaza was the principal port for trade and commerce for the Jewish population of the Holy Land. A very ancient synagogue was excavated there some time ago.

It is also helpful to note that Mohammed was born circa 570 AD in Mecca. Islam was not invented until several thousand years after the Bible was written. Mohammed died June 8, 632 in Medina. There is no historical connection between Islam and Jerusalem.

During the 7th century AD, when the Arabs spread northward, they encountered the first focus of resistance in the city of Gaza, then occupied by a strong Byzantine garrison under the command of the provincial governor, Sergius. At that time Gaza embraced a substantial Jewish settlement, in fact the most important community in Judea. Jews seem to have fought alongside the Byzantines in the ensuing battle, which ended in Sergius' defeat. Also during this period, "According to the famous grammarian, Jonah ibn Janah, Gaza, too, lost its status as the foremost community in Judea, but it remained a center of learning and well-developed community life."

From 1885 to World War I Jews lived in Gaza. A renewed Jewish community existed in Gaza until the Muslim pogroms against Jews in 1929. Jews were murdered in many communities throughout Palestine, especially Jerusalem, Hebron and Safed - three Jewish holy cities.

I doubt that you would acknowledge this, but Biblically speaking, in 1. Genesis 15 is the area in which Gaza is located and which was included as part of Abraham's inheritance.

In Numbers 34:2-6, the Bible details precisely the northern, southern, eastern and western borders of ancient Israel. Readers should note that in every reference there is a body of water - the Mediterranean Sea, a lake, a river and a wadi (a dry river bed that flows only after an infrequent heavy rain). Bodies of water are permanent markers in most cases.

In Numbers 34:5 with reference to the southern border it states: From Azmon the boundary shall turn towards the Wadi of Egypt (near el-Arish) and terminate at the sea (Mediterranean). This would include the entire present-day Gaza Strip and additional land in the Sinai.

In Joshua 13:2, all the districts of the Philistines, those of the Gerurites, from the Shihon, which is close to Egypt, to the territory of Ekron in the north, are accounted. Canaanite, namely those of the five lords of the Philistines - the Gazities (Gaza), the Ashdodites (Ashdod) etc.

In Joshua 15:47, most Biblical commentators hold that the modern day Gaza Strip was within the territory allotted to the tribe of Judah. Consider in Joshua Chapter 15: This was the portion of the tribe of Judea (15:20); Ekron, with its dependencies and villages (15:45); Ekron, westward, all the towns in the vicinity and Ashdod, with their villages (15:46); Ashdod, its dependencies and its villages, Gaza, its dependencies and its villages, all the way to the Wadi of Egypt and the edge of the Mediterranean Sea (15:47).

In Judges 1:18, Israel captured Gaza and its territory, Ashkelon and its territory, and Ekron and its territory.

In Kings 5:1, Solomon's rule extended over all the kingdoms from the Euphrates to the land of the Philistines and the boundary of Egypt (Wadi of Egypt or to el-Arish).

In Ezekiel 47:19-20 - 47:19, the southern limit shall run: A line from Tamar to the waters of Meriboth-kadesh, along the Wadi (of Egypt and ) the Great Sea (Mediterranean). That is the southern limit.

The following is a list of Jewish communities in the Gaza Strip, some of which no longer exist, because they were misled by the Israeli government into believing that trading land would bring peace with arabs:

Alei Sinai, founded in 1983,
Bedolach, founded in 1986,
Bnei Atzmon (Atzmona), founded in 1979,
Dugit, founded in 1990,
Gadid, founded in 1982,
Gan-Or, founded in 1983,
Ganei Tal, founded in 1979,
Katif, founded in 1986,
Kerem Atzmona, founded in 2000,
Kfar Darom, founded in 1946,
Kfar Yam, founded in 1984,
Morag, founded in 1984,
Netzer Hazani, founded in 1977,
Netzarim, founded in 1984,
Neve Dekalim, founded in 1983,
Nisanit, founded in 1984, Peat - Sadeh, founded in 1989,
Rafiah - Yam, founded in 1986,
Shirat HaYam, founded in 2000,
Tel Katifa, founded in 1992.

I acknowledge the following sources, A Social and Religious History of the Jews, Salo Wittmayer Baron, Vol 1, page 255, (Original copyright 1937), Ibid, Vol 3, page 87, Ibid, page 102 and References to Jewish Connections to Gaza by Anthony David Marks, Israel Hasbara Committee - http://www.infoisrael.net, in compiling this article.

Today In Jewish History - 23 Shevat

Sponsored by Aish.com:

On this date in 1918, the Jewish Legion left England to join the Allies in liberating Palestine from the Turks. Four years earlier, Zev Jabotinsky had proposed that a Jewish legion be formed, but the British resisted the idea of Jewish volunteers fighting on the Palestinian front; this led instead to the establishment of the Zion Mule Corps. Meanwhile, Jabotinsky pursued his project of a Jewish Legion, which was eventually designated as the 38th Battalion of the Royal Fusiliers. It included British volunteers, members of the former Zion Mule Corps, a large number of Russian Jews, and later joined by a large number of American volunteers. A few years later, the Jewish Legion was demobilized by the anti-Zionist British Military Administration. Yet it would be remembered as the first organized Jewish fighting force since Roman times, and a precursor to the Israeli Defense Force (IDF).

Israel seeks return of Temple artifacts from the Vatican. Do any exist? What evidence do we have?

This post was moved to SmoothStoneBlog

Was there ever a flourishing Arab society in what used to be Palestine?

At the start of the Jewish resettlement -- in the 1870s-1880s -- Palestine was a province of the Ottoman Turkish Empire, ruled by the Sultan in far-off Istanbul. The entire non-Jewish population west of the Jordan River was about 140,000, including nomads who moved in and out and even roving bandits. That population had been stagnant or in decline for centuries.

The land was depopulated, deserted, impoverished and barren. Western travellers, who knew from the Bible of the beauty, fertility and vitality of ancient Israel, came to visit and found not the Land of Milk and Honey but an empty wilderness of ruin and desolation.

A British consul reported in 1857 that the land was not cultivated, villages had disappeared, and that "The country is in a considerable degree empty of inhabitants and therefore the greatest need is that of a body of population".

Mark Twain rode through just a few years before the start of Jewish resettlement and saw only ". . . the kind of solitude to make one dreary." The Galilee was "unpeopled deserts . . . rusty mounds of barrenness" where he "never saw a human being on the whole route". He concluded that "Palestine sits in sackcloth and ashes . . . desolate and unlovely."
-- From Innocents Abroad, 1867.

At about the same time, a British Christian clergyman came to the Holy Land and wrote: "But where are the inhabitants? This fertile [coastal] plain which might support an immense population is almost a solitude. . . . The denunciations of ancient prophecy have been fulfilled to the very letter - 'The land is left void and desolate and without inhabitants.'"
- Reverend Samuel Manning, These Holy Fields, 1894.

By the early Nineteenth Century it was perceived, especially in the United States and Great Britain, that the only hope for the restoration of Palestine was in the return of the only people who loved it and would care for it. Those who seriously espoused the idea of the Return of the Jews included U.S. President John Adams, British Prime Minister Disraeli, British Foreign Minister Lord Palmerston, and writer George Eliot.

This had indeed been the sustaining hope of the Jews themselves for two millennia, and it became an active movement by the 1870s-1880s, even before Theodor Herzl organized Zionism as a worldwide movement.