Limping Toward the Light
Friday, 15th of November 2024
Shabbat Shalom dear friends. Shabbat Shalom in a world that is becoming more and more unstable, more and more violent, yet we are hopeful, always optimistic that it will turn back into the world we always loved.
I’m back by the way!! Thanks to the care of Zvi, Rachel and all the doctors and nurses in Shaare Zedek Hospital, I’m home. I have to give a shout out to a good ol’ Tennessee doctor, a brilliant neurosurgeon by the name of Dr John Winestone. Not only brilliant but a caring, good human being.
I believe that there is not a person amongst us who is not familiar with the name Rachel Goldberg Polin. Rachel and her husband Jon travelled the world begging governments to intervene in the hostage release, especially for her son Hersh. Hersh, who was captured on October 7th, 2023 at the Nova Music Festival, was alive for 328 days of torture and starvation, then killed before reaching home. His battered body was found by soldiers and brought home for burial. Rachel wrote this beautiful, heart-breaking essay entitled “Limping Toward the Light” https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/limping-toward-the-light-a-letter-from-me-in-this-moment/
This morning’s news broadcast announced the deaths of yet another 6 young men, IDF soldiers, killed in action. 6 families who will never be the same, 6 circles of friends who have lost too many, which brings us to the root of the problem which is the centre of Israeli society, the conscription of Haredi young men. The refusal of many of the senior Rabbis to allow their students to even go to the conscription centre to get a free pass is tearing us apart and causing too many young people to move away from our roots, Judaism. Strangely enough the Rabbinic teachings over the centuries demands defending our beliefs and our people but somehow, Talmudic learning has become the be all and end all of Haredi life, rather than the defence of the Jewish State. For those families who lose their children to a cruel war, or the miluimnikim whose financial situation falls apart because they spend 300 days volunteering to fight in the IDF, resentment toward those who could but don’t fight is strong. More and more are volunteering, are accepting their duties, but it is hard, especially since the majority of the fallen are from religiously observant homes (kippa sruga) who are in tank regiments or the highly regarded Golani regiment.
Amsterdam. When I think about Amsterdam I think of bicycles, rivers, chips with mayonnaise and the red light district. I think of the long and important Jewish history of that city and of course of Anne Frank. Not any more. Say Amsterdam and I think about the riots, the foul, dangerous, violent riots, including car ramming and knifings. A well organised, definitely pre-organised, attack on Jews, not just Israelis. I also think about the fact that it wasn’t the Dutch police who came to the rescue of the Israelis, it was the Dutch Christians, the wonderful Dutch Christians, who stood up to the racist, disgusting “River to the sea” thugs. It was our wonderful friends Herman and Gerda who wrote, every word a tear of dismay, apologising for the behaviour of the Dutch fools. Through our distress it was clear, as always, that our allies, our only true allies, are our Christian friends. Erin Molan is a journalist and presenter on Sky Australia News. She is amazing, please watch to understand what happened https://youtu.be/bcjR9iXQ1d4?si=X6w6Vw7DEpzs7e-6
Donald Trump won the US elections outright. Why? Why did the vast majority of Americans choose a man that they would not choose as a dinner guest? I believe that the answer is twofold. Kamala Harris is someone who would be fun as a friend, would be great serving on a city council, would fight for the rights of everyone, but not as the leader of the free world. Right now, we need someone who scares the living daylights out of our enemies because he is unpredictable, has a habit of fulfilling his threats and is the absolute enemy of his enemies. We do not need nice right now, we need mean. Only time will tell if my prediction is right, but despite the best efforts of President Biden, who has definitely stood by Israel but perhaps not as effective in world terms, we are in a mess and it will take someone who thinks outside the box to put it all right.
I have been writing about UNWRA for nearly 5 years, since the Impact-se team discovered the hate-teaching and incitement to Jihad of UNWRA schoolbooks. We informed all the relevant Governments, demanded defunding, but they continued to deny involvement in Hamas and the October 7th massacre. I hope that you will take the time to read this report. It sets out facts of the UNWRA teachers who were directly involved in October 7th, the teachings and the results https://mailchi.mp/impact-se.org/impact-se-report-exposes-deep-terror-ties-to-unrwa-education?e=a928e53ca6
I have a question for you. How do you know from which country Israeli Jews fled persecution and came home? It’s easy! Through the dishes they cook every Friday for Shabbat!!! The obvious chopped liver, chicken soup with kneidlach (matzo balls), cholent (a type of stew with meat or chicken, loads of beans, potato etc, that one leaves in the oven overnight) all of which come from the communities of Eastern Europe including the one and a half million Russians who fled after Perestroika; if you call the Cholent Hamin, then you came from the North African communities, part of the 900,000 Jews who fled or were thrown out of countries in the MENA region. Hamin, is similar to Cholent but spicier, same principle of cooking overnight since one should not cook on Shabbat. If your family fled Iraq or Kurdistan, then Friday lunch is inevitably Kubeh soup, sometimes made with beetroot and sometimes a sour, predominantly celery and courgette soup but inevitably with the delicious, meat filled dumplings. Often members of the family come from far and wide to sit at the Matriarch’s table and eat their kubeh soup. Moroccan food is popular amongst food snobs around the world, but here it is traditional, food of the people. Couscous, both vegetable and meat or chicken cooked and served in a Tagine, accompanied by a myriad of salads. Desserts are always sweet, very sweet, candied fruits and vegetables. Yemenite Jews eat Jahnun, a delicious rolled dough with tons of oil, that is baked overnight and eaten shabbat morning together with grated, spiced raw tomatoes. The Ethiopian Shabbat demands Wat, a stew, and doro wat,a spicy chicken and egg stew eaten with one’s fingers using injerabread to scoop up the morsels of food and gravy and to temper the heat of the incredibly spicy Ethiopian seasonings. Such is the mosaic of Jewish Israel. Almost every family has a tale of life in the land of their birth, how they had a good life alongside their neighbours but whether early in history or recently, everything suddenly changed and their lives were saved by fleeing to Israel, coming home, together with their family epicurean traditions.
Today I am very excited! Our beautiful friend Kim, aka Dr Kimball Taylor, is arriving and will stay with us for Shabbat. So exciting. We love Kim, we love his devotion to his LDS community, his family, to Christianity, to Judaism, to Israel in no particular order. Kim will attend the JAFI congress as a representative of Keren Hayesod. Kim is loved by all the other participants and we are proud to call him friend.
This Shabbat I will be home, still not quite back to normal, but Zvi will go to celebrate his granddaughter Ori’s thirteenth birthday with a Shabbat meal in Nes Ziona with all the family.
Obviously, I will not go to Rachel today but she has been with me throughout the past week or two, spending her precious time being the best daughter anyone could wish for. Zvi has really been amazing and deserves an evening off!
So what songs do you want today? I know it may not feel like it but I think that we all deserve a reminder of what an amazing world we live in and how the world we want is worth fighting for.
Satchmo, Louis Armstrong, whose life was changed by a wonderful Jewish family, Satchmo, who sings our hopes and prayers. https://youtu.be/VqhCQZaH4Vs?si=FNfsJv9jJY8HCr5M
I asked Zvi what is his favourite Israeli song. His immediate answer was “Ha Reut”- The friendship. This song is inevitably linked to Yitchak Rabin as his favourite song from when he was a young soldier in the War of Independence. Harel Skaat sings at the Rabin memorial concert. https://youtu.be/OECguJxFO94?si=Q9mwuJ93t9OpAnUc The chorus speaks of friends lost in war
“They are gone from our midst, All their laughter, their youth and their splendour.
But we know that a friendship like that, We are bound all our lives to remember,
For a love that in battle is forged, Will endure while we live, fierce and tender.”
Finally a song written by Israeli hero Idan Amedi who could have stayed in his very comfortable life as a famous singer but headed south on October 7th taking his uniform and his gun to join his battalion and fought bravely in Gaza Idan was seriously injured and as he finally left hospital he said that he wanted recover and to live his life in privacy. A fine man. This song is his way of explaining that we cannot understand the pain of soldiers in wartime, no matter how hard they try to explain. https://youtu.be/DPeCNCkydXc?si=tivmHM7GY52bPwi-
Shabbat Shalom dear friends, I wish you a peaceful Shabbat. Be strong, this isn’t the first time that we have had to contend with inexplicable hatred and probably not the last, but we always rise up and thrive and our enemies disappear from history.
As I walk out onto the veranda, look over the view of Jerusalem on the horizon, of the trees that we planted on a barren land, of the beauty that surrounds me, I know that we will defeat this enemy as we have defeated all the others. We must stand united, Jews and Christians alike. Together we make an unbeatable force for good. Mikki Abitbol sent me a wonderful saying “If we could spread love as quickly as they spread hate what an amazing world we would live in” Well, we can try!
With much love
Sheila