Comfort, comfort My people says your G-d…
This beautiful phrase initiates the readings of consolation that began this past Sabbath, after the 9th of Av. Its blessings of faith, love and renewed strength are as true as ever, and more needed in a time of wicked leaders who oppress, mock, mislead and crush the Jewish people, ravaging the vineyard, Israel (Isaiah 3:12-15, ibid. 27:6, cf. psalm 80:8-15). (more…)
The Atoms of Democritus / and Newton’s particles of light / are sand along the Red Sea Shore / Where Israel’s tents do shine so bright.
This quatrain by William Blake (1757-1827) celebrates the spitirual dimension of life in the context of Israel’s liberation from Egypt. How does Blake’s eccentric appropriation of Jewish principles intersect the redemptive grieving of Tisha B’Av and typify the knotty relationship of the West to Israel?
By the Jewish calendar we are in the midst of the three week period called bein ha’metzarim, “within the straits,” “within tight, painful constrictions.” This period runs from 17 Tammuz, when the walls of Jerusalem were breached until 9 Av when the Temples were destroyed by the Babylonians and Romans. It is a challenging and thus a perfect time to examine several sources that offer perspective on the unique wisdom and love that the Creator established and intends to establish eternally by planting the Jewish people in the Land of Israel to emanate Hashem’s love and light throughout the world. (more…)
Commentators with national, right-wing sentiments tend to base their critiques of Israeli and American policies on the notion that the leaders of these nations are unable to learn from their mistakes. For example, they complain that these policies and leaders can’t seem to learn that releasing jihadists from prison always produces more dead and wounded Israelis and more demands that Israel make more unilateral concessions to allay the “cycle of violence in the region.” Then they are ‘surprised,’ ‘pained,’ or ‘disappointed’ when this leads to more attacks ad infinitum. ‘How can they be so stupid’?!? exclaim all the “nationalist” commentators.
Don’t they know, the most informed of these “right-wing” analysts exclaim, that Fatah has a long history of jihadist activities, that it is supported by Egypt and now, Memri reports, by Saudi Arabia and Iran, too; that Syria is an expansionist Iranian and Russian client, a British and French-created artifice that wants to destroy Israel, exterminate Jews and is hostile to everything America was meant to be?
On and on they beat their breasts against keyboard and microphone bringing postprandial contentment to the very leaders whose “mistaken” and “futile” policies they perennially lament and chide. This kind of criticism insures them a ‘place at the table,’ albeit off to one side. (more…)
Review of WW III: the War on the Jews and the Rise of the World Security State (2007) by Jack Engelhard
Eugene Narrett is a professor (Ph.D from Columbia no less) so you’d expect a book of his to be so very academic, which this is, but at the same time it is written so skillfully that it reads like a thriller. This new one of his is a page-turner all right and from page to page, chapter to chapter, it shines and merits urgent attention.
Published by Lightcatcher Books, the title goes like this: “World War III: The War on the Jews and the Rise of the World Security State.”
I’d add this to the subtitle: “How The West Was Lost.”
It’s rare that a work of non-fiction should be so quotable. I could pick virtually any passage and give it here as a sample of the gems that exist in Narrett’s deeply researched documentation of the past and present (he sure is up to the minute) along with his prophetic insights and warnings. (more…)