Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News: pogrom

Showing posts with label pogrom. Show all posts

Thursday, November 30, 2023

More EoZ cartoons

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

Jewish women don't matter to the UN: @UNWomen tries to bury Hamas rapes. UN Office @EndRapeInWar has not said a word about October 7 rapes.

JTA reports:

Nearly 50 days after Hamas’ attack on Israel left 1,200 dead, and after weeks of criticism over its silence about allegations of sexual violence during the attack, the women’s rights group UN Women issued a statement condemning the terror group on Friday.

Then it deleted the post.

“We condemn the brutal attacks by Hamas on October 7 and continue to call for the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages,” read the initial statement, posted on UN Women’s instagram page. It was soon replaced with a statement that dropped the condemnation of Hamas and only called for the release of the hostages.

Reached for comment, UN Women told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that the Instagram post had been scheduled in advance and was deleted because the message in it no longer reflected where the organization wanted to put its main focus.

Here is the initial post and what replaced it.

It is pretty obvious that the real reason they took down the post condemning Hamas is that there are a lot of Hamas fans in the UN that were upset..

CNN anchor Bianna Golodryga asked UN Women Deputy Executive Director Sarah Hendriks why they couldn't specifically call out Hamas atrocities. Her response was a word salad about independent investigations that didn't come close to answering the question.

This is all a way to say that UN Women doesn't care about Israeli women victims of war. And it isn't only from October 7 - Hamas sent thousands of rockets all over Israel and women were the targets of those attacks as well. Today there was a terror attack that murdered two women in Jerusalem. Where is UN Women?

UN Women has published about 16 posts on Instagram specifically calling to protect Gazans without mentioning or even hinting at Israeli victims. It cannot be bothered to call out Israeli victims or to condemn Hamas.

But perhaps there is a UN organ that is even worse.

The UN has an Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict. It's X account is named @EndRapeInWar. If any UN organization should condemn the brutal rapes and sexual assaults against Israeli women on October 7, this should be the one.

It hasn't said a word.

The message is clear: Israeli and Jewish women are not a concern to the UN. On the contrary: it actively tries to hide and obfuscate the violence that is aimed specifically at them by Palestinian terror groups.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

Morocco op-ed expresses anger at Palestinians

Moroccan choosing to care more about Gaza and Taza, a city in Morocco

Palestinians have been insulting Morocco for normalizing relations with Israel.

An op-ed in the mainstream Morocco Hespress news site lashes back at them, in ways that are still rare in Arabic language media:

It talks about how Palestinians made Arab nations feel guilty for allowing them to lose in 1948 and not destroying Israel since then:

This complex was copied by the Arab nationalists to the fullest extent, and they made the Arab peoples responsible for the loss of Palestine from the Gulf to the ocean, the holocaust of the Palestinian people, everyone who did not contribute to the liberation of Palestine or did not show support for the struggle of the Palestinians or showed signs of fatigue or abandonment is thrown with the lowest epithets and boycotted and considered an enemy of the cause. What is the fault of the Moroccans in the tragedy of the Palestinians?

The Palestinians are the ones who sold their property before the British Mandate, and they are the ones who fled from the Jews at intervals and sought refuge in the countries of the Levant, and they are the ones who drummed and honked for Gamal Abdel Nasser, who drugged the Arabs with the illusion of liberating Palestine and was defeated in a humiliating war with his Arab brothers in Jordan and Syria. All that happened was not caused by the Moroccans, whether from near or far.

In the summer of 1967, we, the boys of the Borj Omar neighborhood in the city of Meknes, were organizing gangs armed with sticks and slingshots and traveling six kilometers to attack the Jews in Al-Mallah. Who was inciting us? Who was organizing us into gangs? Why weren't the authorities getting in our way or punishing us? There is no doubt that the Arab defeat mixed with religious feeling was the only motive for our criminality.

There is a bad neighbor next to us [Algeria], one of the ugliest creations of history, threatening our country in terms of its geography, history and heritage, and slandering us with lies and incitement every day and every hour. Is there an issue more dangerous than threatening our existence?

If the Palestinians are unable to help us in this ordeal of ours, let them be neutral and let the Moroccans defend themselves by all means, and not choose these means for us according to their taste, mood, and interests.

The only problem is that this op-ed is (probably unintentionally) antisemitic, comparing the Western feeling of guilt over the Holocaust with the guilt that Palestinians have instilled in Arab people for their "nakba."

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

Palestinian media today celebrating the murderous 1929 Arab pogroms against Jews

Palestinian media are celebrating the murderous pogroms that targeted unarmed and innocent Jews in Jerusalem, Hebron, Safed and elsewhere in 1929.

June 17th was the anniversary of the 1930 British execution of three Arabs who were convicted of murdering Jewish civilians during the pogroms.

Originally, the British court found 25 Arabs guilty and deserving of the death penalty; 22 of them had their sentences commuted to life imprisonment. The three who remained were clearly found guilty of multiple murders and premeditation, two of them in Hebron and one in Safed.

The three murderers are being hailed as heroes in Palestinian media, in print and on video, and the murders of Jews are being called the beginning of the "Al Buraq Revolution."

The Palestine Bulletin in 1930 noted that they were hailed as heroes then, too, with an Arab Execuitve Committee notice that looks strikingly like those of Hamas and Islamic Jihad today.

Strikingly, many prominent Jews - including Einstein - lobbied against the death penalty for the murderers, on principle against the death penalty altogether.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

Pogroms, bombings, concentration camps: How Egypt treated its Jews in 1948

AP reported on the Egyptian and other Arab states' reaction to Israeli independence in 1948: "The weekly Akhbar el Yom said 600 persons, mostly Zionists, were rounded up and sent to concentration camps."

Yes, only three years after the Holocaust, Jews were being rounded up again. Reports of Jews in Egyptian and Iraqi concentration camps trickled into the media during 1948.

In August, 18 French Jews who were interned started a hunger strike after efforts by France to free them were fruitless. At the time it was estimated that 3,000 Jews were imprisoned in these camps. British Jews in Egypt were also arrested without charge. (The French internees were finally released in September.)

In November:

A large number of Jews, most of whom were born in Egypt and whose families have lived there for generations, were ordered to leave the country this week-end or “face the alternative of imprisonment in desert concentration camps,” the American Jewish Committee reported in a telegram to Acting Secretary of State Herbert C. Hoover, Jr.

The Committee disclosed that leaders of the Jewish Communities of Cairo and Alexandria “have already been placed in concentration camps.” At the same time, it reported that the property of Jews in Egypt has been seized as “enemy property” and placed under the custodianship of the Egyptian government.

And that wasn't the worse thing for Egypt's Jews. They were being murdered in the streets.

22 Jews were killed in a June bombing in the Karaite Jewish quarter of Cairo. 19 more were murdered by another bomb in the main Jewish quarter of Cairo in September. Four Jewish-owned department stores were bombed in July and August.

JTA reported this horrific testimony:

The situation of the Jews in Egypt was termed today as "highly alarming" by a Frenchman who returned from Cairo and gave the first detailed and uncensored report of the pogroms, mob violence, mass looting and terrorism which is now taking place throughout Egypt against the Jewish population.

Egyptian mobs, he revealed, killed three rabbis by splitting their throats, after dragging them into a Cairo slaughter house. He estimated that at least 150 Jews had either been killed or had "disappeared" in Cairo incidents during the last four weeks. A substantial number of Jews had been wounded, he said. The pogroms and anti-Jewish terrorism are tacitly encouraged by the passive attitude of the Egyptian Government, he charged.

The gravest single incident, he reported, occurred on July 20 at one of Cairo’s chief street car junctions, in Malika Farida Placo. An organized group of Egyptians ejected all the European passengers from several trolleys. All passengers suspected of being Jews were savagely killed on the spot, and many had their eyes pierced or were knifed, while non-Jews and Europeans were robbed of all cash and belongings. The police made no effort to intervene, the French visitor emphasized.

Of the large number of Jews in Cairo who have been wounded, he continued, 120 are now undergoing treatment in the Jewish hospital there and an unannounced number are in government or private institutions. Scattered incidents of knifing of Jews are repeatedly reported in various parts of the Egyptian capital, he said. The killing of three rabbis in the slaughter house took place on July 21, he reported.

I haven't seen verification of the specifics, but there are many reports of pogroms in Egypt against Jews and scores were known to have been killed.

Then, as now, the excuse given for antisemitism was "Zionism." Yet then as now, they were attacked because they were Jews.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

There is a relationship between Zionism and modern Islamic antisemitism

Former HRW head Ken Roth and other haters of Israel like to claim that antisemitic attacks by Muslims to Jews are often a response to Israel's actions, and therefore Israeli actions is partially responsible for those antisemitic attacks.

There is a tiny grain of truth there, but the modern antisemites are looking at the issue from the wrong angle.

We need to have a short overview of Islamic attitudes towards Jews.

Many apologists claim that Jews thrived under Muslim rule, and insist that Jews had a "golden age" in Spain under Islam. They purposefully airbrush two major but critical features of Jewish life in Muslim countries.

The first thing they ignore is that, while Jews under Islam did not suffer nearly as much as they did under Christendom, there were still some periods of serious persecution. Jewish Virtual Library summarizes some of the worst cases:

On December 30, 1066, Joseph HaNagid, the Jewish vizier of Granada, Spain, was crucified by an Arab mob that proceeded to raze the Jewish quarter of the city and slaughter its 5,000 inhabitants. The riot was incited by Muslim preachers who had angrily objected to what they saw as inordinate Jewish political power.

Similarly, in 1465, Arab mobs in Fez slaughtered thousands of Jews, leaving only 11 alive, after a Jewish deputy vizier treated a Muslim woman in an offensive manner. The killings
touched off a wave of similar massacres throughout Morocco.

Other mass murders of Jews in Arab lands occurred in Morocco in the 8th century, where whole communities were wiped out by Muslim ruler Idris I; North Africa in the 12th century, where the Almohads either forcibly converted or decimated several communities; Libya in 1785, where Ali Burzi Pasha murdered hundreds of Jews; Algiers, where Jews were massacred in 1805, 1815 and 1830 and Marrakesh, Morocco, where more than 300 hundred Jews were murdered between 1864 and 1880.

Decrees ordering the destruction of synagogues were enacted in Egypt and Syria (1014, 1293-4, 1301-2), Iraq (854-859, 1344) and Yemen (1676). Despite the Koran's prohibition, Jews were forced to convert to Islam or face death in Yemen (1165 and 1678), Morocco (1275, 1465 and 1790-92) and Baghdad (1333 and 1344).

Even so, these persecutions and pogroms did not approach the horror of those under Christian rule, for two reasons: Islam did not have the same antipathy towards Judaism as a religion as Christianity did, and Muslim leaders would allow Jews who were forced to convert to convert back in later generations. At the same time, most Jewish rabbinical leaders in Muslim lands said that conversion to Islam was not considered idol worship and did not require martyrdom; Jews could accept the Muslim declaration of faith without violating Torah law and remain secret Jews much easier than the crypto-Jews of Spain and Portugal.

The second thing that the apologists ignore is the pervasive issue of dhimmitude. Jews were legally defined as second class citizens, and usually had to submit to humiliating rules and the jizya tax, in exchange for state protection. By any yardstick, this was official persecution of a minority - apartheid, if you will - limiting how Jews could act, dress, pray, work, travel and interact with Muslims.

Given that Jews didn't have any better options, they generally accepted this tradeoff, because most Christian countries were worse. Muslims were of course quite comfortable with this class system with Muslims on top, dhimmis in the middle and infidels on the bottom, not to be tolerated at all.

For the better part of a millenium this was the situation of Jews in the Muslim world - second class citizenship that was accepted, punctuated with occasional cases of major persecutions.

This was the status quo.

And Zionism has upset that status quo.

Zionism is the philosophy that Jews deserve to be treated exactly like other peoples. It is compatible with modernity - and utterly incompatible with the Muslim view of Jews since the 8th century.

Today's Muslims don't attack Jews because Jews are mistreating Muslims and Arabs. They know that Muslims are treated far worse in other Muslim countries. They attack Jews because they cannot stomach a world where Jews assert their rights, and they want to put the Jews back in their proper place. They do not want Jews to challenge their worldview. They want to turn back the clock to the good old days where they could strike Jews for riding a donkey.

That's why they claim to want a binational state - but only one where they are the majority. It would be a step towards re-asserting their control over Jews and placing Jews back to dhimmitude. Anything less is an insult to their pride and honor.

How better to assert your superiority than to attack Jewish institutions and Jewish people? How better to revert to a situation of Jews fearing to upset their Muslim overlords than to instill fear through terror today?

So in a narrow sense, Israeli actions do prompt Muslim antisemitic attacks - because Israeli actions are showing the world that Jews will not be pushed around anymore, no longer depending on gentiles for their safety. Jews are ready to pro-actively stop terror attacks on their own terms, not weakly surrender to the whims of the current ruler.

So, yes, some attacks by Muslims against Jews are indeed a reaction to Israel's actions - but they are not tit for tat, nor a cycle of violence. They are an attempt to take Jews back down a few notches to what Muslims consider their proper place.

This is only part of the story. Antisemitism goes much deeper that that. It is a remarkably adaptive hate, and this is only one component of the Palestinian version. Palestinian Christians maintain the supersessionist ideas of the Church; Palestinian socialists frame the conflict as a class issue where Jews are the oppressive class, Islamists like Hamas believe that killing Jews is a necessary step to salvation in end times. Amazingly, all these conflicting philosophies of antisemitism co-exist beautifully because antisemitism itself is, I believe, an independent mindset that can find an infinite set of excuses to justify hate, and it is the only belief system that Palestinians have in common with each other. (And this is also why today's "progressives," who should oppose dhimmitude and support Zionism as a Jewish minority rights movement, instead find other excuses to oppose Jewish assertions of self-determination.)

But within the historical Muslim frame of reference, modern antisemitism is a desire to put the Jews back in their place. And every time Israel asserts Jewish rights, mainstream Muslims get angry enough at this humiliation to want to kill Jews and terrorize them to submit, as they did in what they consider the good old days.

Obviously, a crazed psychological linkage between Jews acting assertively in their defense and Muslima attacking Jews is not the Jews' fault. Only bigots think Muslims cannot control their emotions, that they cannot accept a multicultural world where all peoples have rights, and that they are not responsible for their actions. And only antisemites would blame Jews for antisemitic attacks.

But the linkage is there.

And if we are going to fight a war against all the kinds of antisemitism that are out there, we need to understand the different and often contradictory motivations that make hating Jews so appealing to so many.

(Some information from Professor Mark R. Cohen)

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

75 years ago: Another forgotten massacre of Jews

From The Palestine Post, January 11, 1948, referring to events from the previous Friday, January 9:

Eleven Jews were killed in a planned massacre when Arabs attacked a party of 23 unarmed agricultural workers on Friday morning as they went to work in Jewish orange groves near Sukreir village .

After killing the Jews, the Arabs stripped them of their clothing and decapitated one of the bodies.

The dead so far identified are all of Rishon Le Zion ; Zvi Hayn, 33; Yechiel Danziger, 23; Yoel Weisseltier , 22 ; Michael Abrahamov, 18; Josef Okashi, 18; Pinhas Kaufman, 22 ; Zeharia Tabib, 18 ; and Avraham Feldklein, 18 . The bodies of the other three men are still missing.

During Friday night, well motors in four Jewish orange groves near Sukreir were blown up .

It looks like the dead were not orange grove workers but a Haganah patrol. There is a garden in Rishon LeTzion in their memory (sign above.)

In Benny Morris' Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited, he reports that the Haganah leveled the village of Sukreir (Suqrir) on January 11 in retaliation after the entire village evacuated.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

Libyan politician says Libyan Jews have equal rights. Only one problem.

From EanLibya:

Fathi al-Shibli, head of the People's Voice Party and the official spokesman for the Gathering of Libyan Parties, said that Libyan Jews are Libyan citizens, with no difference between them and any other Libyan citizen in terms of rights and duties.

He added in his statement: “There is a Libyan Arab, there is a Libyan Tariq, there is a Libyan Tabawi, and there is a Libyan Berber, all of whom are components of the Libyan people..and all of them have the right to live and citizenship..we never differentiate between them.”

Al-Shibli continued: “Judaism is a heavenly religion that we Muslims recognize and respect.

He concluded by saying: “As for the position on the Zionist movement, that is another matter.”

What a great guy! He emphasizes that Libyan Jews have the same rights as any other Libyan. He's so liberal!

Except for one tiny detail. There are no Libyan Jews, and there hasn't been a single one for 20 years.

They were discriminated against, slaughtered, plundered and chased out of Libya. They were placed in concentration camps during World War II, and then afterwards...

In November, 1945 there was a vicious, three-day pogrom against the Jews in Tripoli: 120 Jews were murdered, hundreds more were wounded, and at least five synagogues were completely destroyed. The rioters not only destroyed and looted the city’s synagogues, but they also ruined hundreds of homes and businesses as well.

Again in 1948, coinciding with the declaration of the State of Israel, anti-Semitism escalated and rioters killed 12 Jews and destroyed 280 homes. This time, though, the Jews fought back and prevented even more deaths and injury. As a result of the rampant anti-Semitism, 30,972 Jews immigrated to Israel.

A new law in 1961 required a special permit to prove Libyan citizenship. Virtually all Jews were denied this permit. By 1967 the Jewish population had decreased to 7,000. Following Israel’s Six Day War, antisemitic rioting began again. The King of Libya, as well as Jewish leaders, urged the remaining Libyan Jews to emigrate. An Italian airlift saved 6,000 Jews and relocated them to Rome, though they were forced to leave behind homes, businesses and possessions. In 1969, when Muammar al-Qaddafi came to power, there were only 100 Jews remaining in Libya. His government confiscated all Jewish property, cancelled Jewish debt and made emigration for Jews legally prohibited. Some Jews still managed to get out. By 2004 there were no Jews left in Libya.

So this is nothing but virtue signaling.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

75 years ago: Jews in Arab countries in grave danger

Continuing looking at the newspapers from 75 years ago in the wake of the UN Partition vote.

From the Manchester Guardian, December 10, 1947:

From the Palestine Post, December 11, 1947:

Commentary magazine summarized the pogrom in Aden a few months later:

In the riots that broke out suddenly last December 2 after the decision of the United Nations in favor of partition in Palestine, and following an appeal of the Arab League for a three-day strike of protest in all Arab countries, over eighty Jews were killed and as many seriously wounded. Fourteen Jewish houses were burnt to the ground, and many more were looted. Of one hundred and seventy Jewish shops and stores, over a hundred were burnt or looted and the two Jewish schools were burnt out.

It is alleged that the greatest part of the casualties was caused by the military force, the Aden Protectorate Levies, which were called in by the civil authority when the police were unable to deal with the mob. The Aden Levies are composed of Arab tribesmen with British and Arab officers. It was apparently asking too much for them to take firm action against Arab looters attacking Jewish houses and shops. They soon turned to take an active part themselves in the looting and shooting of Jews.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

Would Netflix allow a drama about the 1929 Hebron massacre? (UPDATE)

There has been a lot of coverage of the Jordanian film Farha, now available on Netflix, which includes a scene of Israeli soldiers execute a family with a baby for sheer pleasure.

Israellycool excerpts some scenes.

His characterization of the film as a blood libel is accurate. People assume that a historic drama is based on reality, and while there were scattered instances of Israeli outrages in 1948 as in any war, they were most definitely the exception and were generally punished. Farha says that this was - and is - the norm for Israel, and as such it is outrageous.

But let's do a thought experiment.

Let's pretend that someone made an accurate drama about the massacre of Jews in Hebron in 1929.

The reality is that the Arabs did do atrocities then. As survivors testified, these included "widespread rape. The castration of seven men, including rabbis in their 60s and 70s. A seventy year old tied to a door and tortured until he died. A two-year-old with his head torn off. A rabbi set on fire. An elderly disabled pharmacist tortured to death, his wife mutilated, his daughter raped and murdered."

It would be a compelling story, with real drama and real facts. And it would never be shown on Netflix.

Movies about Nazis massacring Jews are fine, and the more detail, the better. But movies about Arabs abusing Jews? No, that would be considered Islamophobic, and wouldn't be touched by any mainstream streaming service or distributor. Imagine the outcry that would accompany such a film - it would make the Jewish reaction to Farha look like nothing.

Furthermore, imagine what such a film would include. Even if made by a fervent Zionist, it would feature subplots of Arabs saving Jews - which some did - to humanize the Arab side and ensure that the film is not incitement against Arabs as a whole.

Now, can you imagine a Jordanian or Palestinian film about the Nakba that would humanize Jews?

A documentary was once made about Hebron, in 1999, where survivors told about what they witnessed. It had decent reviews.

And you essentially cannot find it nowadays. It isn't streamed anywhere, and the only place I can find to buy a DVD is here at the National Center for Jewish Film.

Why is such a seminal event in Zionist history virtually ignored in film?

We know the answer.

UPDATE: The Hebron documentary is (unlisted) on YouTube with the English subtitles. You can watch it here:

(h/t GnasherJew)

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

Did Arabs and Jews live in peace in 19th century Palestine?

I saw once again today the assertion, in an academic paper, that Arabs and Jews lived quite well together in the late 19th century in Palestine. I looked at the footnote and it refers to a 2014 paper by Menachem Klein, which brings an impressive amount of evidence for cooperation between the Jews of Palestine and the Arabs, including Arabic words that became part of Palestinian Yiddish and Yiddish words that became part of Arabic, as well as evidence of the groups working together, even politically, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Whenever I read this sort of thing, I wonder how this jives with anecdotal evidence of derision and insults from Arabs to Jews in the 19th century. For example, John MacGregor published in 1870 that "Men in Palestine call their fellows 'Jew' as the very lowest of all possible words of abuse."

In an 1824 letter from Rev. W. B. Lewis to the London Society, he writes, "Jerusalem is truly miserable, groaning under the tyranny of the oppressor. Jews...are subject to daily insults, and are shamefully and inhumanly oppressed." He then gives page after page of examples of Muslims treating Jews like garbage, stealing from them, the Ottoman authorities falsely accusing Jews and their Rabbinic leaders of petty crimes and torturing them and extorting obscene sums of money as fines. (See below)

James Finn, the British consul to Jerusalem from 1846-1863, says that Jerusalem Jews were forced to bury their dead at night: - "the usual practice is to pay the gate-keeper to let them out of the town in the middle of the night, and this from fear of having the dead disinterred by Moslems or Christians."

There were pogroms against Jews in 1834 in Hebron and Safed, in 1837 in Safed again, and in 1847 a Jewish boy was accused of a blood libel in Jerusalem.

How can we reconcile the stories of Arab abuse of and attacks on Jews in Palestine with the academics who claim that Jews and Arabs lived so cooperatively?

It appears that before the 1840s, the Jews were indeed treated like dirt. Then things started changing. The reason is that the increasing number of European Jews could appeal to their own governments for protection, starting in that decade. Different European powers even competed for influence in the Ottoman Empire and protecting Jews gave them more power. Oddly, in 1848 the Russians told their Jewish subjects that they would no longer be protected, and the British consul stepped in to be their protector. This protection made it much harder for Jews to be routinely harassed by the Arabs - being backed by European powers suddenly gave the Jews powers they hadn't had beforehand.

Only after the Jews came under the protection of European states did the Arabs start to treat the Jews with more respect. The Ottoman leaders were no longer able to mistreat most of their Jewish subjects out of fear of creating an international incident.

It is an old story: Arabs respect power. When Jews were powerless, Arabs treated them like garbage. Only when they had some protection did the Arabs start to "live with them together in peace." Did the Arabs suddenly become philosemitic? Of course not. But they were practical: The Jews couldn't be attacked with impunity anymore.

And that is the story of Israel in a nutshell. When Israel acts weak, it invites Arab (now, Palestinian) derision and attacks. Acting strong is the only formula for peace. It isn't a peace based on love or friendship, but a peace based on respect.

It is no different now than in was 200 years ago.

(Some information here comes from Arabs and Jews in Ottoman Palestine: Two Worlds Collide, by Alan Dowty.)

___________________________________

Here are excerpts of the 1924 letter from W. B. Lewis with many examples of Arab oppression of Jews, most first-hand:

PROCEEDINGS OF THE LONDON SOCIETY.

PALESTINE. .

LETTER PROM THE REV. W. B. LEWIS. THE Rev. W. B. Lewis in a letter dated Aintoura, February 23d, 1824, gives the following statement of the present condition of the Jews at Jerusalem :—

Jerusalem is truly miserable, groaning under the tyranny of the oppressor. Jews...are subject to daily insults, and are shamefully and inhumanly oppressed. Their firmans are disregarded, and they know not where to apply for relief or protection, for the power of the consul does not extend to Jerusalem, and the European ministers at Constantinople are at too great a distance to protect them ; but I will describe some of their grievances more particularly.

Those Jews who endeavour to obtain a livelihood by the work of their hands, are frequently forced to give up their time, and to work for the ungrateful Turk without payment. Sometimes a mere trifle is thrown to the Jew, but in either case if he attempts to reason with the Turk, he is threatened with the bastinado, and I know not what.

Rabbi Solomon P ** is an engraver of seals. In the open street he was accosted by a Turk, who produced a large stone, and told him to cut out a seal. Solomon replied it was not in his power, for he only knew how to engrave, not to cut and prepare the stone ; the Turk thereupon laid hold of him by his beard, drew his sword, kicked him, and cut and struck him unmercifully. The poor man cried, but there was no one to assist him. Turks in the street passed by unconcerned, and the wounded Jew afterwards sought redress in vain from the officers of justice.

Rabbi M. Bolter (now dead) with three or four of the Sephardim Jews, was thrown into a dungeon under pretence of their having sold wine to a Turk ; for Jews and Christians are not allowed in Jerusalem to make wine for Turks, but only for their own private use. Although the charge could not be proved, instruments to bastinado and to torture him were produced, to force money out of him for the governor; the man in his fright, and not able to speak Arabic, made a sign with three fingers, meaning to signify, as he said afterwards, that he would give three hundred piastres to be released, but the governor interpreted the sign as a promise to give three burses (or fifteen hundred piastres,) and he demanded that sum accordingly from each of the other Jews in prison for the same pretended crime, and ordered the house of the foreign Jew to be rifled, and himself detained until the sum was paid. The man was not in possession of half the money, and when he had been in confinement for some time, and dragged about the streets among his brethren as a criminal with a chain round his neck, an order was sent to the chief of the Askenazim Jews to appear before the governor. The old Rabbi was ill in bed, but this was no excuse, he was compelled to rise, and was placed on the back of an ass, supported by two men; the governor told him that he should be considered responsible for the money due from the Jew in prison, and on the Rabbi's remonstrating, he told him that he should likewise be sent to prison. The young man who accompanied the Rabbi as interpreter, said, that it was contrary to the Turkish laws, thus to imprison the chief Rabbi, upon which the young man himself was ordered to prison, put in chains, and kept with his brother Jew in a dark, dirty dungeon, until the avarice of the governor was satisfied.

The Jews at Jerusalem, (I speak even of European Jews) are liable to be stopped by the lowest of the country, who, if he pleases, may demand money of them as a right due to the mussulman ; and this extortion may be practised on the same poor Jew over and over again in the space of ten minutes.

The Jews are fond of frequenting the tombs of their forefathers, especially on particular days, to read their prayers of remembrance of the dead. Here advantage is taken of them again. They are rudely accosted and pilfered, and if resistance is made, they are beat almost to death, and this not by common highwaymen or Bedouin Arabs, but by men they may have been in the habit of seeing and talking with every day.

The Jew is always known by the manner in which he wears his hair. In my visit to Hebron, I was accompanied by a Jew, the same now with me in Amtoum ; I had the utmost difficulty in protecting him on the road, as well as in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem ; the Turks would have forced from him the chaphar, though under the wing of an Englishman. This same young Rabbi on his way to me one morning in Jerusalem, was laid hold of by soldiers, who were going to yoke him with another Jew to one of the heavy cannons they were drawing out against Bethlehem. Had he not been fortunate enough to escape, 200 piastres which he was bringing to me for Hebrew Scriptures, would, in all probability, have been seized upon by the soldiers, as well as a gold watch which I had desired him to get repaired for me.

Rabbi Israel, also a foreign Jew, and chief Rabbi of the Parushim in Safet, was setting out for that place from Jerusalem, when the animals he had hired for the journey, and which he had actually paid for, were taken sans are-monis., for the use of the Cadis of Mecca and Cairo, who were to proceed to Damascus in a few days. This is a common Turkish trick, and it may afford a good picture of despotism, united with fanaticism, and in full exercise. Horses, camels, mules, &re. are considered as made for the exclusive use of the haughty followers of Mahomed, as well as the inferior animals of the man kind, so that he may seize and use or torture them at his will. But to add to the unpleasantness of the trick in the present instance, the Turkish muleteer refused to return the money paid by the Rabbi for the journey, and in vain the Jew asked for justice, until having applied to me, I interfered and succeeded in obtaining for the Rabbi his money through Omar Effendi.

I formed this man's acquaintance through the means of Achmet Bey of Damascus, who gave me a letter of introduction to him, and he (Omar Effendi) made high professions of friendship. He desired me to apply to him as often as I stood in need of his services, and I was punctual. in doing so as often as I wished to interfere in behalf of the European Jews. This shows very strongly the necessity of an European resident protector in Jerusalem, and I am more and more confirmed in the persuasion that the residence there or in Damascus, as headquarters, of a person entrusted with the authority of consul, and who could feel for the suffering Jews as well as Gentiles, would be productive of great advantage.

The facts I have mentioned may be substantiated, if necessary, by documents from the Jews themselves ; and to shew more fully the nature of Jewish grievances in Jerusalem, I might accumulate many such instances of barbarity on the part of the Turks of all classes, towards this people. One instance more of -shameless barbarity must suffice, and I will state it fully although I may be tedious, as it took place very lately, and will serve to shew how the governors and rulers in this part of the world manage their business without law, judge, or jury, and without respect to age, country, learning, or religion. The name of Mendel is well known to the Committee through the journals of Mr. Wolf, he is chief Rabbi of the Askenasim Jews in Jerusalem, an European, and an inoffensive old man. He is considered the most learned of the Jews in Syria, and in his religion lie lives in the strictest sense a Pharisee; he has a zeal for God, we must bear him record, though not according to knowledge. He was in bed, when, at a late hour of the night, he was disturbed by a loud knocking outside his door; he returned no answer, supposing robbers had entered. In a few moments the door was burst open, and in rushed a large party of soldiers. They approached the Rabbi with drawn swords, and seized and teal-treated the poor old man. His wife screamed, and the other Jews in the house came up. Young Rabbi Isaac, who speaks Arabic, demanded the cause of their unexpected visit. It is because the street door was found open, replied the soldiers, and one of you must go down to the governor, who is below. The young man accompanied the soldiers to the passage, and the governor asked him why the door was left open. Isaac said that Rabbi Mendel's daughter was near her confinement, that according to the custom of the country at this particular time, they had received company, and he supposed one of the visitors had forgotten to close the outward door. This was a simple answer, and the governor affected to be satisfied, and the Rabbi concluded the affair was over, excepting that they might be expected to pay a few pares, (about one penny English money,) usually levied upon houses where the street door is found open at night.

In the morning, however, they were surprised by the appearance of soldiers, who informed them that the governor desired to see both the old and young man at the palace : they went accordingly, and on the way were joined by two other Jews, Rabbi Nathan, a native of Austria, and Rabbi Jacob, of Prussia, but of English parentage or connexions, as I understood. These were likewise under an escort, and repairing to the for they were also charged with the crime of leaving the outdoor of their house open ; but Nathan and others assured me this accusation was unfounded. However, the four Jews were ushered into the presence of the governor, and of Omar Effendi, &c., and being accused of the crime in question, they attempted to make a defence; but no defence would be taken ; the governor said he heard the old Rabbi (Mendel) exclaim that be had a firman, and feared not the governor. It was answered that the Rabbi was unable to speak the Arabic. " Will you say then," replied the governor, " that I tell you an untruth?" The Jews were therefore obliged to be silent, and after a short time were told to go away. They thought to direct their steps homewards, but no, they were ordered to walk into another room, and were decoyed under various pretences from one chamber to another, until they found themselves at one of the dungeons. Here they were shut up in darkness, and told they must pay the governor ten burses, and that unless this money was forthcoming, hot irons would be applied to their heads the following day, and sharp nails driven through the palms of their hands, &c., modes of torture, amongst others, used, as I am told, in Jerusalem to extort money from these unhappy people.

The Jews without, soon heard the sentence which had been passed on their afflicted brethren in confinement; they lost no time therefore in doing every thing possible to hasten their deliverance, and though they succeeded with the governor in bargaining to pay four and a half burses instead of ten, still these poor people were obliged to strip even poverty itself to raise the sum required, and were even obliged to pledge their clothes.

This affair may give the Committee an idea of the indigent and oppressed state of the European Jews residing in Jerusalem. For the pretended offence of two doors having been left open at night, a sum little short of £60 sterling was wrung from a few miserable people, whose existence is supported by pittances sent to them chiefly by their brethren in foreign parts: and this is not a story made up by the Jews.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

Headlines from 75 years ago

All from newspapers published on December 2, 1947.

General overviews of the conflict often skip over the period from the Partition resolution to May 14, 1948, when Arab armies officially attacked. The threats and attacks on Jews in Palestine and throughout the Arab world are downplayed. But the media at the time documented it.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

Serban Flondor, a Holocaust "righteous gentile" you never heard of

I stumbled upon this JTA story from 1944:

I wanted to learn more about this, but couldn't find anything online about "Staroshentzi" or the people named here.

So I crowdsourced the research on Twitter.

I was pointed by Aviva Hadara to the town of Storozhynets, Ukraine, sometimes spelled Storozhynets' [Ukr], Storozhinets [Rus], Storojineţ [Rom], Storojinet [Ger], Shtrozshnitz [Yid], Stordjinet [Yid], Storojineti [Hun], Storozynetz, Strizinitz, Strozynetz, or Sorojinet.

Then SD Homnick pointed me to another person who saved Jews from Storozhynets, also an agronomist, so chances are he was the real hero.

From "Solidarity and Rescue in Romania" written by the Elie Wiesel Commission:

Attempts to save Transnistria deportees were severely punished by the regime; therefore, rescue efforts—and they were not few—deserve great respect. Unfortunately, no systematic research has been done on this topic. However, several individual cases are highly relevant. .... Serban Flondor, a doctor of agronomics and renowned specialist in heraldry and geneology and son of Iancu Flondor (who played an important role in uniting Bukovina with Romania), supplied the Jews in the Storojinet camp with food. Additionally, with the assistance of railway managers, he sent Jews to Bucharest by locking them in unoccupied sleeping car compartments. While serving as councilor for the Chamber of Agriculture, he used his train car to take Jews from Bukovina to Bucharest, where they could hide more easily.

This website calls him the "Schindler from Bucovina:"

Serban Flondor, center

Agronomist engineer, deputy in the interwar Romanian Parliament, a well-known genealogist and mayor of his hometown, Storojinet, Serban Flondor was truly a character-hero, of a refinement and intelligence that all the Bucharest aristocrats of the interwar period and who would measure his own humanity in terrible times.

A few years after this photograph, Serban Flondor would fight to save the lives of dear Jewish friends, simple acquaintances or people he had never seen: Rubi Klein (whom he hid in the house in the yard of which the photograph was taken, at Storojinet), students Zalman Leon, Elias Corneliu or Iancu Moscovici from "Cultura" and "Ciocanul" high schools (he got involved and obtained their pardon), whole families from a death train heading towards Transnistria and which he managed to stop en route.

The chief rabbi of Storojinet, Benzion Katz, knew the exceptional merits of Serban Flondor and, years later, gave him a distinction from the heart, a gold plaque on which a wish for long life was engraved in Hebrew. The count from Bucovina wore this gold plate until his death (1971), saying that this is the only treasure he would like to take with him.

Sam Gold found the original report from the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee in Russian, where JTA got the story from. Not sure about the accuracy but it adds details not in the original story:

Before the war, more than three hundred Jewish families lived in Starozhenets, Chernivtsi region: they were mostly craftsmen, workers and employees of local enterprises. Having captured the city, the German-Romanian fascists began to deport Jews to Transnistria, where special ghettos were created.
In the third week of their rule, the invaders issued an order ordering the entire Jewish population to appear at Vokzalnaya Square at a certain time, taking only the most necessary with them. Death was threatened for violating the order.
By this time, many refugees from Germany, Czechoslovakia, Austria and other places had accumulated in Bukovina. They knew what these "special ghettos" meant. The Bukovinian Jews also knew about this, but there was no way out. The Romanian “siguranza” (okhrana), under the leadership of Gestapo instructors, cordoned off the Jewish quarters and expelled all Jewish residents from their apartments. All the janitors were called to the Gestapo. They were warned that if a hiding Jew was found in any house, the janitor would be shot along with him.
Jews filled Vokzalnaya Square. For three weeks they were kept here in the open air, waiting for the train. One and a half thousand souls - women with babies, old people, children were lying on the damp earth. Many of the cold, dampness and hunger died right there on the square. Some managed to escape and went into the forest.
The forest watchman Stepan Burlecu and his two daughters-in-law, who lived near the railway station, with the assistance of the agronomist Paskaranu, rescued a large group of Jews. They hid them for some time in the forest and finally, dressing them in peasant clothes, they sent them to work - in the forest, in the field.
Burleca and Pascarana rescued music teacher Hecht with his wife and child; tailor Gaiser with his wife and two daughters; soap factory master Gottlieb with a young daughter (his wife died on Vokzalnaya Square); engineer Behler, whose wife was shot for trying to escape from Vokzalnaya Square; Finder's teacher and his two boys, tannery and soap factory workers Solomon Neumann, David Rubinger, Moses Rosner, Yakov Singer and Ariel Kurtzman.
In addition to all these, some Jewish families survived, who dared, despite the threat of the death penalty, not to appear on Vokzalnaya Square and hid with their Moldavian neighbors.
Janitors Geku Lupescu, Nicolai Peranu and Jan Bruzha rescued the lawyer Bislinger and his family, the director of the real school Dr. Welt, the pharmacist Ribaizen and the accountant of the city bank Kantarovich.

The town was still the site of horrific massacres. Even though some Jews were saved, compared to the entire population, it was still a tiny percentage.