ISRAEL, THE LITTLE NATION THAT COULD
Parts 1 & 2
The Jewish Problem Examined
A popular children’s story features a little locomotive put to the test in front of a great, heavy train. As it neared the top of the grade, it reduced speed, but kept saying, “I—think—I—can, I—think—I—can.” Drawing on bravery, it reached the top and then went on down the grade, congratulating itself by saying, “I thought I could, I thought I could.”
Like the little engine that could, Israel is the little nation that could. The history of Israel involves unprecedented obstacles, including forty years of wilderness wanderings; seemingly endless warfare, blood baths (Masada), brutal captivity and enslavement (Assyria, Babylon, Egypt); displacement and persecution; rabid anti-Semitism, pogroms (Russia), Intifadas and riots; plundering, and genocide. When, in 1348, the “Black Death” killed them, among others, Jews were blamed for the Bubonic plague.[1]
Don’t blame the victim for the crime
By Ted Belman
YNET News reports on Sharp rise in global anti-Semitism
- The report, published by Tel Aviv University’s Kantor Center for the Study of Contemporary European Jewry, in cooperation with the European Jewish Congress, cited three factors to explain the rise:
- First, the general increase in violent activity in France following the Toulouse terror attack, which made 2012 the most violent year since 2004.
HAUNTING SMILE OF GIRL FACING THE HOLOCAUST
by Paul Harris
How Hitler’s PERSONAL photographer captured for history the plight of the Jews in Nazi-occupied Poland
- Hugo Jaeger’s photographs normally celebrate the glory and triumphalism of the Third Reich
- But in this set he depicts the tragic circumstances of Jews while allowing them to retain their humanity and dignity
- Taken in the Polish town of Kutno in 1939 and 1940 they have been released to mark the official establishment of the Warsaw Ghetto
She has such natural beauty, she could pass for a movie star.
She smiles, her demeanour relaxed. In normal times, this young woman would surely have enjoyed a bright and happy future, perhaps with a husband, children, grandchildren.
But soon after this photograph was taken, she would face almost certain death. The haunting image is one of a series depicting Jews in Nazi-occupied Poland before they were rounded up to be sent to the gas chambers.
(Read more…)
Ted Belman
Jerusalem, Israel
Posts
