Who are The Inheritors?

Who are The Inheritors?

I just learned something new. I love learning!

I have always heard the residents of Judea/Samaria described as settlers. I just learned that “settlers” is an inappropriate translation of the word “mitnachalim.” It is Hebrew and is properly translated as “inheritors” in English; not settlers, as it is too often. Translating from one language to another is not easy all the time.

Too often Jewish people, today, are accused of occupying and settling “Muslim lands.” Jews are accused of being settlers; especially in Judea/Samaria. A gross mistranslation of mitnachalim: The Inheritors.

He is ever mindful of His covenant, the promise He gave for a thousand generations. Psalms 105:8

Now, there was a time when “settlers” was a positive word: people who come from one land to another and make a home on the land. At one time we used the word pioneer.  When I was growing up – during the time of the dinosaurs-there were movies and television shows, like Rawhide – my favourite – that extolled the virtues of the men, women and children who got into their covered wagons and made their way West to SETTLE the prairies. They were SETTLERS and they were considered brave.

But today, because of DEI, CRT and Woke “values,” settlers now carries a negative connotation.

Today, there are those who have decided that the meaning of settler is evil- an occupier of another’s land. A victimizer.

Words change meaning – in time (synchronic) and through time (diachronic).

Think of the word “gay.” In the 1920’s gay meant happy. Now it refers to a person who is a homosexual. This is a change of meaning through time. Diachronic.

Now, the word “fag.” Unless the meaning has recently changed in Britain, a fag is a cigarette. In America and Canada it is a derogatory word for homosexual. Same word. Different meaning. Synchronic.

Jews living in Israel, in JUDEA/SAMARIA, Biblical lands, are called settlers; which now means occupiers/victimizers; taken from the improper translation of mitnachalim. Why the mistranslation? A mistake, or an intentional error?

I keep asking how Jews can be settlers in and on the land they have been cultivating for more than 3000 years? Long before Christians or Muslims walked the earth. How did a people who built TWO Temples on the Temple Mount, the second destroyed in 70 CE long, long, long before Islam and the Dome of the Rock, become labeled as settlers, today?

Perhaps the settlers are the Christians and the Muslims?

The Indigenous people, First Nations  acknowledge The Jewish people as the Inheritors.

On Monday November 4, 2023, 60 Indigenous representatives from across the globe converged on Jerusalem’s Western Wall Plaza to demonstrate their support for Israel and the Jewish people’s indigenous rights to the land.

The Grand Chief of the Nishnawbe Aski Nation stands at Jerusalem’s Western Wall. He understands the connection to a place that shapes identity, history, language, and culture.

Indigenous recognize Indigenous.

 

 

Other First Nations people were there as well, including Sheree Trotter, a Maori scholar: “We really wanted to show our support for the Jews as indigenous people of this land.”

What does indigenous mean? Inhabiting or existing in a land from the earliest times or from before the arrival of colonists. Hmm. Western culture is firmly rooted in the teachings of the Hebrew Bible. The American Constitution is founded on those teachings: given to the JEWISH people in the desert near Mount Sinai more than 3500 years ago. Who else was present? Christians? No. Druze? No. They came into being around 986 CE.  and originated from the mountainous regions of southeastern Turkey, northern Iraq and southeast Syria. Muslim? No.They formed around 610 C.E in Western Arabia.

So how did it come to pass that people claim the Jews were not the inheritors of the land? The original peoples? The First Nations?

It came to pass because of people like Barack Hussein Obama, the 44^th President of the United States of America. He approved UN Resolution 2234, which passed by 14-0, the most anti-Israel resolution ever passed in the Security Council, condemning Israeli “settlements”(Judea/Samaria) and called for all construction of them to cease. It also called for further international boycott of all Israeli products not only those made in “settlements”. In addition, it categorized the Western Wall as “occupied Palestinian territory.”

The Western Wall, also known as the “Wailing Wall” or the “Kotel,” is the most religious site in the world for the Jewish people. Located in the Old City of Jerusalem, it is the last remaining outer wall of the ancient Jewish Temple, and an incredibly important site of modern Israeli history.  King Herod built this wall in 20 BCE during an expansion of the Second Temple. When the Romans destroyed the Temple in 70 CE, the support wall survived.

Occupied Palestinian territory? Hmmm.

We, the Jews, are the Inheritors

“Across forty centuries, Jews have known that only in Israel is God so close that you can feel Him in the sun and wind, sense Him just beyond the hills, hear Him in the inflections of everyday speech, breathe His presence in the early morning air and live, dangerously but confidently, under the shadow of His wings.”

We, the Jews, are the Inheritors

Then [God] said to him, “I am God who brought you out from Ur of the Chaldeans to assign this land to you as a possession.”  Gen 15:7

We, the Jews, are the Inheritors

“Go from your land of your birth… to the land that I will show you, and I will make you into a great nation” (Genesis 12:1).

We, the Jews, are the Inheritors

God tells Moses: “Take possession of the land and settle in it, for I have given you the land to possess” (Num. 33:53). This, according to Nahmanides (Num. 33:53), is the source of the command to dwell in the land of Israel and inherit it.  

How is it possible that Jews are called settlers in Israel when the THE QUR’AN SAYS:

“To Moses We [Allah] gave nine clear signs. Ask the Israelites how he [Moses] first appeared amongst them. Pharoah said to him: ‘Moses, I can see that you are bewitched.’ ‘You know full well,’ he [Moses] replied, ‘that none but the Lord of the heavens and the earth has revealed these visible signs. Pharoah, you are doomed.'”

“Pharoah sought to scare them [the Israelites] out of the land [of Israel]: but We [Allah] drowned him [Pharoah] together with all who were with him. Then We [Allah] said to the Israelites: ‘Dwell in this land [the Land of Israel]. When the promise of the hereafter [End of Days] comes to be fulfilled, We [Allah] shall assemble you [the Israelites] all together [in the Land of Israel].”

“We [Allah] have revealed the Qur’an with the truth, and with the truth it has come down. We have sent you [Muhammed] forth only to proclaim good news and to give warning.”[Qur’an, “Night Journey,” chapter 17:100-104]

 Never forget what our Brilliant Jewish brother Albert Einstein said:

‘Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

STOP calling Jews “settlers” anywhere in Israel from the River to the Sea.

We, the Jews, are the Inheritors

Sovereignty From the River to the Sea

 

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