Friday, September 25, 2015
The ghost of the Grand Mufti lives on
The ghost of Haj Amin Al Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem who broadcast Nazi antisemitism into the Middle East from Germany during World War, II is alive and well. The ghost’s last known sighting was on a TV show hosted by Tamer Amin, a well-known and popular media personality in Egypt.Thomas Friedman’s Hectoring Yom Kippur Sermon
I'd use the word "journalist", but very few people are going to mistake Amin for a responsible journalist.
When an Egyptian woman was sexually assaulted at Cairo University and the event caught on video in March 2014, Amin told his audience that she asked for the assault by dressing provocatively. “She was dressed like a hooker,” Amin said, adding that while her attackers should be punished for violating Islamic law, he blamed the victim for the way she dressed and her parents for letting her out of the house dressed as she was.
If a television personality in the West talked like this, it would probably be the end of their career, but not for Amin, who hosts a show called Men Al Ahar (“From the Other,”) on Misreah Network in Egypt.
On September 5, 2015, Amin hosted a long interview with two commentators, one a former soldier and another an academic who spoke of a world-wide conspiracy of Jews who seek to oppress and conquer Egypt through the use of “fifth generation” technology that includes controlling the weather, causing earthquakes, floods and meteors from outer space to assault the land of the Nile.
Friedman, whose teen-age summer romance with Israeli kibbutzim morphed into affiliation with the J Street antecedent organization Breira while he was a Brandeis undergraduate, seldom misses an opportunity to seize the opportunity to flagellate Israel. Especially, it now seems, on Yom Kippur. This time, however, it was merely a prelude to his warning against “the divisive, bigoted campaigns of Donald Trump and Ben Carson,” thereby enabling him to kill two Republican birds with the stone of Israeli extremism.When Israeli volunteers help Syrian, Iraqi and Pakistani refugees
The day after Friedman committed his first journalistic sin for atonement next year, Times editors added their own epilogue to the Iran deal. They focused on “what America must do to reassure Israel and its American supporters that the agreement will not harm Israel’s security.” The obvious answer might be repeal. But the Times believes in soft power: “Increased cooperation between America and its regional partners, including the Arab gulf states as well as Israel.” Having found its mantra of linkage between Israel and the “Arab gulf states,” it twice repeated it. Linkage was crucial. The Times could not bring itself to support Israeli security alone – with, for example, the “dubious proposal” for a massive penetrator bomb that could damage Iran’s buried nuclear enrichment facility. That would be “provocative and dangerous.” It might even work.
For Times editors, “What’s most important for Israel’s security is the relationship with the United States,” which was “put at risk” by – guess what — Prime Minister Netanyahu’s decision to “polarize” the debate over the Iran deal. “A crucial sense of trust needs to be rebuilt.” That admonition expresses the determination of the Times to preserve its editorial embrace of the official American position on anything to do with Israel lest it be accused of divided loyalty.
Thomas Friedman found his true home, warning lest “a whole faith community [Islam] gets delegitimized,” while touting the cinematic delegitimization of rabbis, settlers and Prime Minister Netanyahu – by, of course, an Israeli filmmaker.
While IsraAID has plenty of experience in disaster relief and assistance in 31 countries — from the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa — this mission presents a unique challenge: The beneficiaries come from countries that are traditionally hostile, or even officially still at war, with Israel.
But for Shaltiel, that’s unimportant.
“You are meeting fellow human beings,” she said. “You see agony and pain, you see a need, then what does it matter where the person is from.
“In the end you hope that the human contact will bring us forward,” added Shaltiel, who also volunteered for the IsraAID mission in South Sudan.
But she does acknowledge that for the Syrians, Iraqis, Afghans and Pakistanis — who make up the vast majority of those arriving — having Israelis as a first contact in Europe can be unexpected and unnerving.
German Jews fear backlash from country’s welcome of refugees
But many Jews here believe that Germany’s atonement for its past is coming at Jewish expense. They’re worried that the influx of hundreds of thousands of Muslims will turn Germany into a place hostile to Jewish concerns and to Israel – and that along with the migrants there are terrorist infiltrators who will try to realize their dreams of jihad on German soil.'If Europe Opens Its Gates to Muslims There Will be Beheadings Here': Nobel Laureate Lech Walesa Speaks Out
It’s not that Jews in Germany are unmoved by the plight of the downtrodden migrants — many Jews here are themselves migrants from the former Soviet Union — but sympathy takes a back seat to the harsh concerns of realpolitik.
“I have no problem contributing some money to help some people, but for the German government to accept a tide of refugees? No,” said a Jewish immigrant who lives in Potsdam, near Berlin. Like others interviewed for this story who criticized Merkel’s welcome of the refugees, he asked that he not be identified.
“These Arabs have no possibility of integration,” he said. “They can’t contribute to society. I prefer Balkan immigration.”
For now, Germany’s Jews are keeping a low profile. They number some 200,000 in a country of 80 million. Their political influence is negligible.
“Why should the Jews talk publicly about it?” the Potsdam Jew said. “We’re not significant enough to make a difference in state policy.”
Lech Walesa, the former shipyard worker who famously helped bring down Communism in his native Poland in the 1980s has made his thoughts on the Europe migration crisis and religious beheadings clear in a remarkably frank interview.When Israel Was One Large Refugee Camp
Speaking to the Jerusalem Post, the former president of Poland, Nobel Peace Prize laureate, and human rights activist said he sympathised with people in Europe who expressed concern about mass migration. Yet his forthright views left even the usually unflappable broadsheet pre-emptively apologising for his words, calling his views “simplistic”and the man himself an “enfant terrible… a conservative homophobe”.
Responding to a question on the “humanitarian crisis” presently engulfing Europe, Walesa told the Post:
“I understand why Poland and Europe fear their influx. They arrive from places where people are beheaded. We are worried that the same will happen to us.
“We in Poland have small flats, low salaries and meagre pensions. Watching the refugees on television, I noticed that they look better than us. They are well fed, well dressed and maybe even are richer than we are.
“It’s a problem. If Europe opens its gates, soon millions will come through and while living among us will start exercising their own customs, including beheading.”
The current refugee crisis in Europe has evoked memories among Jews in particular.IsraellyCool: Sometimes It’s Only One Side Doing The Tango
More often than not, the comparison is made with Jews desperate to flee the Holocaust.
Overlooked is the fact that in Israel's early years, refugees outnumbered residents. Israel itself was one large refugee camp in the 1950s and 1960s. The sight of row after row of tents filling our TV screens recalls the ma'abarot, hastily erected "transit" camps of fabric tents, wooden or tin huts. These were conceived by Levi Eshkol of the Jewish Agency to provide temporary housing and jobs. The first ma'abara was established in May 1950 in Kesalon in Judea.
In 1964 1.3 million Israelis went to see the cinema box office hit Sallah Shabati -- a satire about a bearded Yemenite immigrant who has just arrived in the promised land with his seven children and pregnant wife. Sallah -- played by Topol, who would later achieve global fame as Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof -- uses all his wiles to try and make money and move into better housing. His name is a pun on words: "Sorry I came".
The EU as a whole, with a population of over 300 million, is taking in as many immigrants today as Israel, a country of half a million, absorbed in the early 1950s. As well as 100,000 Holocaust survivors, the tiny struggling country took in 580,000 Jewish refugees from Arab countries. By the 1960s, the refugees had tripled the country 's population.
Daniel Borg is a Swede who was actively engaged in Swedish politics, passionately pro-Palestinian and went to join the International Solidarity Movement (ISM). You can read his explosive observations from within the ISM here on Israellycool.Superintendent: Third Grade event “politically skewed, inflammatory” against Israel
There is nothing wrong with Left ideals, but there are some serious problems with Left-leaning people. Let me give one example. Some time ago I had a brief discussion with a Swedish political science graduate. She could not understand my total support for Israel. You are one-sided, she said. “It takes two to tango”, meaning that every conflict has two sides of the coin and no party is totally right. This is pretty typical left-thinking, a symptom of its moral relativism and pretention to be intellectual. But it is totally wrong.
What did the Jews do during the second world war to tango? Nothing, Nazi-Germany did the tango dance all by themselves and forced the Holocaust and World War upon the world, all by themselves. No coins here. This is the easiest example, because no sane person, not even an ardent leftist, should oppose this (but some most likely do, to appear intellectual).
Further example: What did the freshly established State of Israel do to tango when all neighbouring Arab countries attacked and tried to annihilate it in 1948? Someone? United Nations declared Israel a state, the “Palestinians” got an independent state for the first time in history. The Jews were dancing in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem while the Arabs counted the minutes to force a war upon Israel, annihilate it and make the modern State of Israel a little sidenotice in future history books. Where is the tango dance here, leftists?
We also noted that the appearance in the third grade class involved Ithaca-based anti-Israel activist Ariel Gold, who also uses her own children as part of her anti-Israel activism. Gold self-describes her occupation as a Community Activist “delegitimizing zionism.” Gold’s history includes organizing the failed attempt to force the local GreenStar Food Coop to boycott Israeli products, and a contrived arrest at the 2015 AIPAC conference as part of a Code Pink protest.What you won’t read at the Guardian about the exploitation of the Tamimi children
During a late 2014, early 2015 trip to the town of Bil’in in the West Bank, Gold and her family met the Tamimi family, including Bassem and Ahed. It is no surprise, therefore, that Gold serves as the coordinator for Bassem Tamimi’s national speaking tour, which is ongoing.
Based on the Facebook postings of Gold and activist Mary Anne Grades Flores, who also attended, it was clear that the presentation to the third graders was political and meant to demonize Israel. One of the speakers, in addition to Tamimi, was Gold’s 12-year old daughter who doesn’t even attend the school.
From everything I have heard about Superintendent Brown, he is a good guy who takes this issue very seriously, as his email to me reflects. It will be interesting to see where this leads.
Clearly, there is a problem at the Beverly J. Martin School, where the anti-Israel fox has been let into the hen house.
Does anti-Israel agitation extend beyond that school, and what steps will the School District take to make sure that the classrooms are not turned into anti-Israel political theaters?
We will continue to follow this story until all the questions are answered.
While working on two articles documenting the questionable methods and associations of the Tamimis of Nabi Saleh – who for years have been organizing almost weekly confrontations with the IDF – I came across an op-ed published in the Guardian that cheered a viral video showing Tamimi women and children fighting off an armed Israeli soldier trying to arrest one of the Tamimi children for stone throwing. Another Guardian article on the same topic offered a somewhat more nuanced take, but aside from noting that there “is evidence that the Tamimis are acutely aware of the value of such footage in their activism,” the article also avoided any serious criticism of the participation of the Tamimi children in efforts to provoke IDF soldiers in front of the watchful cameras operated by their parents and other family members.UK opposition leader Corbyn to address pro-Israel event
While I had no illusions that the Guardian would be interested in exposing the harsh views of the elder Tamimis about their children’s “duty” to “resist,” I thought the fact that I used to be a Guardian contributor a few years ago might slightly improve the chance that Guardian editors would consider publishing the fairly restrained criticism of the Tamimis’ exploitation of their children I submitted. But since my submission was immediately acknowledged in an automatic reply, I haven’t heard anything for the past two weeks – which obviously means the Guardian is not interested in evidence that the Tamimis relentlessly push their children to engage in potentially lethal stone-throwing and other provocations, and that they feed the media whatever lies and fabrications seem most useful at any given moment.
Below is the post I submitted to the Guardian; however, I should note that since I wrote it, I have become increasingly convinced that when the Tamimis invoke their “right to resist,” they also mean the “right” to commit murder. This is particularly obvious in statements reported by an Israeli news site and highlighted in a recent post at the blog of Frimet and Arnold Roth, who lost a daughter in the 2001 Sbarro pizzeria massacre masterminded by Ahlam Tamimi. As the Roth’s translation of the Hebrew original shows, Bassem Tamimi’s wife Nariman – the mother of the child stars of the recent viral video – declared in no uncertain terms:
“What she [Ahlam Tamimi] did was an integral part of the struggle. Everyone fights in the manner in which he believes. There is armed uprising, and there is popular uprising. I support every form of uprising.”
Jeremy Corbyn, the newly elected leader of Britain’s Labour Party who has been accused of being anti-Israel, will address a pro-Israel event.French firm Orange invests in Israeli start-up
Corbyn will speak next week at the Labour Friends of Israel dinner, his office confirmed Thursday to The Jerusalem Post. Some 400 people, including about 30 members of Parliament, are scheduled to attend the dinner, which traditionally hosts the Labour Party’s leader.
He has called Palestinian terror groups Hamas and Hezbollah “friends,” and recently defended an Anglican minister who posted anti-Semitic conspiracy theories online. Corbyn also has publicly endorsed a blanket arms embargo on Israel and the boycott of Israeli universities involved in weapons research.
His Jewish critics have said that if he is to be trusted, he must first clarify or backtrack from such remarks or stances.
French telecommunications company that generated controversy earlier this year when its CEO said he wanted to cut all business ties to Israel has invested in an Israel-based start-up.BBC editorial guidelines breached in report on Hebron incident
Hola, a video distribution network for publishers, said Wednesday that it raised $17 million in a funding round led by a strategic partnership between France’s Orange and Publicis Groupe, Reuters reported.
Hola, based in Netanya, has raised a total of $30 million. The company was founded by CEO Ofer Vilenski and its chief technology officer, Derry Shribman, according to Globes.
Speaking in Cairo in June, Orange CEO Stephan Richard said he would cancel the company’s partnership with an Israeli affiliate “tomorrow morning” if not for contractual penalties. However, within a week he backtracked, and in a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the company would never boycott the Jewish state.
Notably however, the BBC refrains from informing readers that the man – Dia al Talahmeh – was a member of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and that misinformation concerning that incident was also promoted by Palestinian sources, with false claims that he had been shot by Israeli forces circulating widely.IsraellyCool: BBC Radio 4 Knows Whodunit: It Was The Joooos
It is worth recalling that the opaquely funded group ‘Youth Against Settlements’, which is actually the source of the narrative amplified in this report, has previously been given BBC platforms from which to promote the claim that last summer’s search and rescue operation in Hebron following the kidnappings and murders of three Israeli teenagers was “a kind of revenge against the Palestinian civilians” and the notion that “Israeli society is getting more aggressive and extreme”.
As long as the BBC continues to promote messaging from political NGOs without informing audiences of their underlying agenda as its editorial guidelines demand, it cannot of course meet its remit of enhancing audience understanding of international issues.
Setting the level of Jew hatred to 10 in the UK isn’t enough. Just like the volume control on their web-player, the BBC likes to take everything to 11.BBC Radio 4 News downplaying terror: set Jew Hatred to 11
Just before Yom Kippur a story broke of a Palestinian Woman in a complete face covering burka (something that is not particularly common here in Israel) being stopped by a metal detector check, pulling a knife and being shot. She subsequently died in hospital.
The first version of events largely reported came from the IDF people from the checkpoint. The BBC did not report at that stage. It took a day or two for the alternative stories to emerge from Palestinian sources including selective photos and video released by an anti-Israel NGO that just happened to be waiting while this woman went through the checkpoint.
As we’ve shown so many times in the past, “Palestinian sources” are often contradictory and unreliable. Which, of course, means they’re the go-to reports for the BBC to take as gospel, while sneering (as only the Brits can) at IDF accounts. This case is still up in the air, but one thing is for sure, the BBC will do everything it can to pre-judge the case and find the Jews guilty.
How many firebomb attacks on a Jewish home does it take for the UK media to notice?
How many firebomb attacks on a Jewish home in Jerusalem does it take for the UK media to take notice?BBC Trending, Saudi Arabia and the missing link
How about 15 in one week?
Indeed, that’s the number of times three families living in a building in the southeast Jerusalem neighborhood of Armon Hanatziv (East Talpiot) – bordering the Arab neighborhood of Jabel Mukaber – were firebombed over the course of ten days earlier this month according to a Jerusalem official we spoke to at a press briefing today, as well as the testimony of one of the occupants.
However as readers will see if they follow that link about the election of Saudi Arabia to a UN Human Rights Council panel, the writer of this article had to link to a report on the subject from the Independent – presumably because to date the BBC has refrained from producing any reporting of its own on that matter.75 Holocaust Scholars Demand Austria Cancel Jewish Historian’s Prison Sentence
Quite why the BBC did not consider it newsworthy when one of the worst human rights abusing regimes in the world bagged a top position at a UN body it regularly quotes and promotes (including on Gaza Strip casualty figures during the summer 2014 conflict) is of course a question in itself.
But the timing of this particular example of BBC self-censorship is all the more remarkable because just last week the BBC News Press Team saw fit to promote a particular quote from the latest article by a Carnegie Europe employee (there has been at least one other) extolling the virtues of the BBC World Service on the occasion of the International Day of Democracy.
Some 75 Holocaust scholars warned the Austrian ambassador in Washington that his country’s sentencing of a prominent historian and journalist who exposed Austria’s failure to return pre-Holocaust property risked looking like an “extreme overreaction.”Irish tycoon uses phrase 'synonymous with Nazi inhumanity' in parting shot to bailout bank
In a letter to Austrian Ambassador Hans Peter Manz organized by the David S. Wyman Instiute , whose committee includes Elie Wiesel, these scholars from around the globe called on President Heinz Fischer to reconsider rejections of Stephan Templ’s appeals, which were exhausted after Vienna’s highest court upheld that Templ had attempted to defraud the state.
According to Austrian authorities, Templ, who is Jewish, omitted his aunt’s name in the application for the restitution of his family’s property, which was seized and never returned after the Nazis led the Anschluss of Austria in 1938. The state argued that when Templ filled out the form for his mother in 2006 claiming the entire property, he was defrauding the state through the omission of his estranged relative. In April 2013, a judge at Vienna’s criminal court upheld charges and claimed Templ was “greedy” and wanted “the highest amount of money for himself.”
Templ is expected to begin serving his sentence soon.
The use of a German phrase “synonymous with Nazi inhumanity” has landed an Irish business developer in hot water after submitting for publication documents concerning a banking inquiry from Ireland's National Asset Management Agency (NAMA), Irish news publication The Independent reported Thursday.Japan Seeks UN Recognition of 'Japanese Schindler'
Johnny Ronan, who made his fortune during the "Celtic Tiger" period in Ireland when the country was experiencing rapid growth between 1995-2000, wrote at the end of a 20-page document submitted as evidence the phrase: "Arbeit Macht Frei," which, when translated to English means "work will set you free," that hung over the entrance of numerous concentration camps including Auschwitz.
In response to the controversy, former justice minister of Ireland Alan Shatter, who is Jewish, said it was "beyond my personal comprehension that the notorious and diabolically misleading” phrase would be used by an “internationally known Irish businessman,” according to The Independent.
Shatter insisted that Ronan withdraw his statement from the document, and urged the NAMA to remove the phrase from his statement.
“It is totally bizarre that he felt the need to have the statement translated into Irish,” Shatter added.
Japan is seeking to have Chiune Sugihara - widely termed the "Japanese Oskar Schindler" - recognized by the UN for his heroic actions during World War II, when he saved around 6,000 Jews from the genocidal Nazi regime.Delta Adds 4 Weekly Flights on Tel Aviv Route
In his post as Japanese consul to Lithuania during the war, Sugihara defied the orders of his superiors and gave out 2,139 visas to Jews fleeing certain death in the Holocaust.
Just this week the Japanese government chose several documents recording his actions - such as an original visa Sugihara issued and his communications with his superiors - in an application to have him added to UNESCO's Memory of the World Register.
Japan's National Committee at the UN body is to submit the application next March to have the records recognized officially.
In response to the application, Shingo Akatsuka, the mayor of Sugihara's hometown of Yaotsu in Gifu Prefecture, told Kyodo News that "we feel very happy. We want to convey the cruelty of war and the value of life to future generations through Sugihara’s humanitarian act."
Sugihara, who has been recognized by the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum as a Righteous Gentile, selflessly sacrificed his own career by deciding to buck orders and write the visas for fleeing Jews by hand.
Delta is picking up traffic American Airlines will lose when it halts its Philadelphia-Tel Aviv route in January.Surf’s up for Israeli wave power
Delta Air Lines announced Thursday it is adding four flights a week to its JFK-Tel Aviv route in addition to the current daily round-trip service.
The new flights will begin in May, five months after American Airlines, which is merging with US Airways, halts its Philadelphia-Tel Aviv route. The company claimed it was losing $20 million a year on the route.
Delta obviously sees greener fields in Israel. Its additional flights will use a Boeing-77-200ER craft that can seat 291 passengers. Five daily round-trip flights from Philadelphia to JFK will help pick up the traffic that US Airways-American is abandoning.
The wind may not blow and the sun may not shine, but waves are pretty constant. That, according to some scientists, makes wave power a better and more reliable source of renewable energy than solar or wind. And few companies have embraced the idea of mass-producing energy using wave power than Israel’s Eco Wave Power (EWP).George Washington University Announces Israel Studies Program
EWP has received numerous awards for its technology since it was established in 2012, including an Energy Globe award, considered one of the world’s most prestigious prizes for environmental technology. Last week the company received its latest recognition — as a “Pioneering Device” — in an award presented by Israel’s Ministry of National Infrastructures, Energy and Water Resources. With the new status, EWP is eligible to receive a production quota and connect its wave-energy power plant and sell electricity to Israel’s power grid. This would be a first.
Wave power has been used for over 200 years in one form or another, with new interest generated in the 1970s when the Arab oil embargo prompted a wave of research that resulted in the development of new equipment that vastly improved the “power yield” of waves. Today, there are several wave-energy generation test systems in the US, Europe and Australia, with several commercial systems currently under development.
According to many researchers, wave power has great potential to generate large amounts of electricity — more than either solar or wind power can generate. Studies have shown that just one meter of wave along the shore has an energy density (potential output) of 30-40 kilowatts. And further out into the sea, the yield could be as much as 100 kilowatts per meter.
George Washington University announced Monday that it was creating an Israel Studies program, including an endowed professorship, in the latest example of universities developing closer ties with Israel.Famed Egyptian satirist who drove across Israel dies at 79
The endowed position will be named after Rabbi Max Ticktin, a recently retired professor of Hebrew at GW and a former assistant director of Hillel, the world’s largest Jewish campus organization. It will be funded by a grant from the Morningstar Foundation, the family foundation of Michael and Susie Gelman.
“We are absolutely delighted to honor the legacy and impact on generations of students of our dear friend and beloved teacher, Max Ticktin, by establishing the Max Ticktin Professorship in Israel Studies,” the Gelmans said in a press release. “We are very excited to partner with the George Washington University in creating the cornerstone of what will be a significant academic enterprise that will strengthen the knowledge and understanding of the modern State of Israel, which is so important to Max and to our family.” “The addition of a dedicated professor who will advance the discourse and knowledge of the field will help us reach our goal of becoming one of the premier academic destinations for the study of Israel,” added Ben Vinson, dean of the Columbian College of the Arts and Sciences, which will house the program.
Ali Salem, a famed Egyptian satirical writer whose works include one of the Arab world’s most popular comedic plays, died Tuesday in his home in Cairo of natural causes, Egypt’s state-run Middle East News Agency said. He was 79.Torah Scroll Dedicated to Druze Israeli Policeman Killed Rescuing Jewish Worshipers in Palestinian Terrorist Attack
Salem’s writings include 15 books and 25 plays. His most famous work was “School of the Troublemakers,” a 1971 comedic play about a class of riotous teenagers reformed by a female teacher.
Salem courted controversy by visiting Israel in 1994, travelling by himself without even telling his wife or three daughters. He drove a car across the border after Israel and the Palestinians signed the 1993 Oslo peace agreements. He said he had been thinking about visiting the country since late President Anwar Sadat made the trip in 1977, leading to Egypt’s becoming the first Arab state to sign a peace treaty with Israel, in 1979.
Salem’s book “A Drive to Israel” sold more than 60,000 copies, a best-seller by Egyptian standards. But he was shunned in Egypt for the visit and fellow writers labeled him a sellout or collaborator.
Ten months after his heroic death, an Israeli Druze police officer is being honored with a Torah scroll in his memory, nrg reported on Thursday.The Photogenic Sukkot Festival -- 100+ Years Ago. Another Mystery Photo
Master Sergeant Zidan Nahad Seif was killed while trying to save Jewish worshipers at a Jerusalem synagogue under attack by Palestinian terrorists armed with axes, knives and a gun.
The Torah scroll is being donated by Chilean-Jewish multi-millionaire Leonardo Farkash.
Seif’s family members, including his widow and two children, as well as leaders of Israel’s Druze community, will take part in the dedication ceremony — which involves carrying the Torah scroll to the Kehilat Bnei Torah synagogue in the Har Nof neighborhood, where the police officer lost his life in the line of duty, along with four Jewish worshipers.
Rinal, Seif’s widow, expressed her gratitude for the dedication of the Torah scroll, so sacred to Jews.
The Jewish festival of Sukkot is called by several names: the Harvest festival, the Joyous festival, and the festival of Booths. Jewish families construct temporary huts -- Sukkot -- where they eat and some even sleep for the week-long holiday. Jews traditionally pray during the holiday while holding a citron fruit and branches of myrtle, palm and willow branches -- called the lulav and etrog.
And Now the Mystery Picture -- The Occasion for this Photo
We recently found this photograph of Australian soldiers at the Western Wall in an Australian library archives and posted it on this site. The men fought in World War I in Palestine in 1917-1918.
The woman conversing with the Australian soldier may be holding a lulav (between her left shoulder and knee); the soldier may be holding the etrog.
Sukkot 1918 would have been a holiday for everyone in the picture: The Jews were liberated from the oppressive Turks, and the Australians Light Horsemen were on their way home after hard-fought battles in the Sinai, Beer Sheba, and east of the Jordan River.
The date: September 27, 1918.
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