The late Rabbi Jonathan Sacks declared:
“To defend a land, you need an army. But to defend freedom, you need education.”
We are coming up to the anniversary of the greatest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. And just as we have heard Holocaust deniers, we now have Oct 7 deniers, and when not denying they are justifying the massacre-it’s resistance to Occupation!
Really? Well, throughout the 1920s and 1930s, Palestinian terrorist groups like the Green Hand, the Black Hand, and others, murdered Jews, officials from the British Mandatory government that controlled the area after World War I, and Arab critics. That had nothing to do with Occupation or resistance – it has to do with innate, endemic, systemic Jew hatred.
The Jewish world began 1500 years before the Common Era. Islam entered the world in the 7th century CE in Saudi Arabia – not Israel – or the name Rome gave to the land Philistia-now translated to Palestine. So, how is it that Jews living on the land more than 1500 years before Muslims are the occupiers? Seems to me this is the result of the New Math and innate, systemic, endemic Jew hatred.
And we must debunk the New Math and the occupier lies and accusations of genocide. How do we do that? Shock! Education. Too many Jews in the Diaspora and Israel have no idea of the history of the Jewish people in her legal historical and biblical land. How can they present a strong front to the millions, if not billions, of Jew haters if they don’t know their own history, including up to the present?
We have failed our Jewish young people.
But there is hope. Now, more organizations are reaching out to our Jewish youth around the world. We must come together and build an extraordinary curriculum that will serve our Young Jewish people. Giving them facts will give them the backbone they need to push back on the Jew hatred, especially on campus since the horrific barbaric massacre of Jews in Israel October 7.
We must teach our Jewish children their legal, biblical and historical rights to the land of Israel-from the river to the sea. They must know the facts, the truth EMET in their hearts and souls so they, such a small number of people, can stand up to the millions of Jew haters coming after us every day all over the world especially, now, on University campuses; places where diverse students at one time came together to learn about each other. Not anymore. Now universities are places where Jews are not welcome. The New York Times revealed that police arrested more than 3,100 protesters during the wave of anti-Israel encampments on U.S. campuses this spring. This must end. We must be the strong David to their Goliath; a Philistine warrior.(The Philistines are referred to as the descendants of the Casluchim in Genesis 10:14 and Exodus 13:17. Known as a seafaring nation, the Philistines were a non-Semitic people who left Crete and arrived in Canaan at the beginning of the 12th century B.C.E. The Philistines then assimilated into the surrounding cultures and ceased to exist as a separate nation. The name Palestine originates from the Philistine inhabitance of the land of Judea. After the Romans conquered the region in the second century C.E., the Romans used the term Palestinia to refer to the region in an attempt to minimize Jewish attachment to the land.”
What do our young people need to know?
The legal, historical and Biblical rights of the Jews to all of Israel.
From the River to the Sea-Israeli Sovereignty
And the information has already been presented.
In the words of the late Salomon Benzimra, author of The Jewish People’s Rights to the Land of Israel
“Tell the world there will be no negotiating until the territorial sovereignty of Israel and Judea Samaria is no longer questioned.”
The State of Israel includes Judea/Samaria. Judea-as in JEW, not Muslim. And Samaria: Samaria (Heb. Shomron, modern Sebaste) is a city established as the capital of the northern kingdom of Israel during the reign of the Ephraimite ruler Omri c. 884 B.C.E. A time of no Muslims. The first reference to Arabs as a distinct group comes in 853 BC after the Battle of Qarqar, in which the Assyrian King, Shalmaneser III, led an army against the ruler of Damascus, Hadadezer.
Hmmm
John Adams was the first to call for the rebirth of Israel in Judea. He predated Theodor Herzl by almost a century. Adams should be known not just as a supporter and defender of Judaism, but one of the first Zionists in the modern era!
The Jewish claim rests on two complimentary foundations. The first is their aboriginal status on the land going back approximately 3,800 years. The second is the meeting of the Supreme Council Of the Principal Allied Powers in 1920 in San Remo, Italy, where the San Remo Resolution was adopted. This was followed by the League of Nations confirmation of the British Mandate for Palestine, which took place on July 24, 1922, 19 years before the beginning of the Holocaust.
The 1920 San Remo Resolution “is the most momentous political event in the whole history of the Zionist movement.” It has the legal imprimatur of international support.
Preamble: “…Whereas the Principal Allied Powers have also agreed that the Mandatory should be responsible for putting into effect the declaration originally made on the 2nd November, 1917, by the Government of His Britannic Majesty, and adopted by the said Powers, in favour of the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people…”
Article 5 states: “The Mandatory shall be responsible for seeing that no Palestine territory shall be ceded or leased to, or in any way placed under the control of, the Government of any foreign Power.”
Article 6 states, in part: “The Administration of Palestine…shall facilitate Jewish immigration and shall encourage…close settlement by Jews on the land, including State lands and waste lands not required for public purposes.”
In 1922, the League of Nations produced the Palestine Mandate that not only awarded all the land “from the Jordan River to the Sea” to the Zionists, but it also “recognized the historical connection to the Jewish people with Palestine,” saying nothing of any “Palestinians.”
As of 20 April 1946, the League of Nations ceased to exist, having handed over all of its assets to the United Nations. The UN proposed terminating the Mandate and partitioning Palestine into two independent States, one Palestinian Arab and the other Jewish, with Jerusalem internationalized (Resolution 181 (II) of 1947).The Jewish people accepted it, but the local Arab population and Arab states rejected it.
People love to show Palestinian passports as evidence of a Palestinian state before the establishment of Israel. They never show the full cover, however. Perhaps because it says “British passport” on the front and “Land of Israel” (א”י) in Hebrew on the back.
That Mandate was later incorporated into the Charter of the new United Nations in 1945. Under international law, the Gaza Strip belongs to the Jewish people. As the legitimate landlord, Israel has the right to evict problem squatters, such as the 70% of the Arabs in the Strip on the UNRWA dole.
And then came the partition of the land of Israel. Israel accepted. The Muslims did not, and will never accept. Jihad is in their blood. A well-known Hadith refers to four primary ways in which jihad can be carried out: by the heart, the tongue, the hand (physical action short of armed combat), and the sword. Many premodern Muslim jurists went on to permit wars of expansion in order to extend Muslim rule over non-Muslim realms. Seems not much has changed.
We must all come together to bring facts and knowledge to our youth; our future leaders.
The Yael Foundation, an organization dedicated to preserving Jewish tradition and advancing Jewish education globally (particularly in Europe), is investing in a transformative project in Limassol, Cyprus! They have already invested in Rome, one of the oldest Jewish communities in the world. The Foundation is committed to enable a Jewish child in any city and in any community, small or large, to receive prestigious and value-oriented Jewish and general education. As of May 2024, Yael Foundation is supporting more than 75 schools, kindergartens, Sunday schools and after-schools in 34 countries.
And the Emet Academy. They believe that up until now, our youth have been ill-served. There has been a deficiency in Jewish and Zionist education, but there are signs, like Emet Academy, in New York City, that new initiatives are on the horizon.This academy is quite different. It promotes going back in time to a better place of education. Critical thinking. Classical education.
And for the Jews:
(We are up) “against radical states and vicious terrorist groups bent on wiping Israel from the map, (yet)the Jewish nation bravely endures. Yet the larger purpose of the Jewish people is to educate the West: to be a light unto the nations. We are Menorah Jews, whose Creation stories are depicted in vivid color on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, whose ancient Psalms still stir the human soul, whose Hebrew words – “Proclaim liberty throughout the land” – emblazon the Liberty Bell.”
When our Jewish youth understand this great responsibility they will fight against the Jews haters without fear. They will not duck and hide. They will not bend the knee. Education strengthens body and soul so we can stand up to the hatred – without fear: For God is with us!
From the Ethics of the Fathers: “Rabbi Tarfon used to say, it is not incumbent upon you to complete the task, but you are not exempt from undertaking it.”
Diane Weber Bederman
