The Guardian and antisemitism

Shiraz Socialist

It should not need saying, but it does: people can be as angry as they like at the Israeli government, but to attack a synagogue, threaten children at a Jewish school, or throw a brick through the window of a Jewish grocery store is vile and contemptible racism. It cannot be excused by reference to Israeli military behaviour. The two are and should be kept utterly distinct.

Some may counter that that is impossible, given the strong attachment of most Jews to Israel. But this is less complicated than it looks. Yes, Jews feel bound up with Israel, they believe in its right to survive and thrive. But that does not mean they should be held responsible for its policy, on which some may disagree and over which they have no control.

Nor should they be required to declare their distance from Israel as a condition for admission into polite…

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Digital Reconstruction of the Menorah on the Arch of Titus

Dr. Steven Fine, who heads Yeshiva University’s Center for Israel Studies, is leading a project to digitally reconstruct the Arch of Titus in Rome, complete with the colors that were originally on the monument. The project is starting with the menorah, part of the Temple treasures that were taken away when the Romans conquered Jerusalem and destroyed the Temple.

Earlier this month, a Yeshiva University-led team of international historians and scientists descended upon the first-century Arch of Titus in Rome’s city center. Equipped with cameras and high-tech 3-D scanners, they looked for traces of color on one of the marble arch’s three iconic, 1,900-year-old bas reliefs – the famous depiction of Roman soldiers carrying the seven-branched, solid-gold Temple Menorah, the Table of the Showbread, and Temple Trumpets, following the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 C.E. in a triumphal procession through Rome….

 “Technological breakthroughs in the last 10 years have allowed us to do two things,” says Dr. Bernard D. Frischer, the project’s co-director for technology and a professor of art history and classics at the University of Virginia. “To find more color that is not visible to the naked eye, and do it in a way that is non-invasive, that does not require that we take physical samples from the monument.”….

With the on-site survey of the Menorah relief completed, experts are now using the scans to create a 3-D “state” model of the relief as it appears today, while a professional restorer digitally “reconstructs” the relief’s broken or missing pieces. Once the tests for color traces are analyzed, the relief will be digitally “painted” in what experts believe was its original color. Both Fine and Frischer expressed the hope that the $8,000 pilot project’s test results will warrant a full-scale study of the entire arch in the near future.

Another interesting find: ancient Roman treasure near Kiryat Gat

Israeli archaeologists find ancient Roman treasure

Nir Hasson | June 5, 2012 | Ha’aretz

A precious cache of gold from the second century CE was discovered in a development-led archeological excavation near Kiryat Gat. The cache contained 140 gold coins, golden jewelry, makeup vessels, a bejeweled ring, and more.

The archeologist found a Roman home on the site. “In the house’s garden we discovered a hole that was dug up and covered again,” Saar Ganor from the Antiquities Authority described the moment of discovery. “We started digging and a meter into the hole we found the cache, I swung the pick and 140 gold coins simply poured out, it was an amazing moment.”

The objects in the cache had trace remains of a fabric, which leads the archeologist to believe that they were wrapped in a fabric and hid in the garden. “It seems that someone hid it there in great haste, planning to come back later and recover it, but didn’t,” Ganor said.

The coins in the cache make its dating quite accurate. The coins were minted in the reigns of Roman emperors Nero, Nerva, and Trajan. The oldest of the coins is dated to 54 CE; the newest was minted in 117 CE.

The archaeologists hypothesize that the valuables were cached for a reason related to the Bar Kokhba revolt (132–136 CE) as the Judean foothills, where the coins were found, played a central role in the revolt. The house’s residents may have had to flee their home because of the revolt, and decided to hide their valuables before making their escape….

Bulla with “Bethlehem” on it found in Jerusalem

Haaretz writes today about another cool archaeological discovery, this time in the City of David excavations.

Israeli archaeologists find earliest evidence of Bethlehem’s existence in Jerusalem dig: Ancient clay seal, dating to the First Temple period, bears the name Bethlehem in ancient Hebrew script; artifact located by researchers sifting soil removed from Jerusalem’s City of David.

A piece of clay was found during archaeological excavations at the City of David, in Jerusalem, bearing the name of the city of Bethlehem in ancient Hebrew script. The piece of clay dates back to the First Temple period (1006 – 586 BCE), making it the first tangible evidence of existence of the city of Bethlehem in ancient times.

The artifact, called a “bulla,” is a piece of clay typically used as an official seal on a document or object. Impressed with the seal of the sender of the document, an intact “bulla” upon deliver was proof that a document had not been opened by anyone unauthorized to do so….

Three lines of ancient Hebrew script appear on the artifact, including the words “Bat Lechem,” an ancient name for Bethlehem.

The artifact is of significant importance because that the area of biblical Bethlehem has yet to be archaeologically excavated, making the “bulla” the only proof of the city’s existence found outside of the bible. Elik Shukron, director of the excavation on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority, said “There’s a difference between reading the name of a city in the Bible, and reading that name written in ancient Hebrew script on an artifact.”

Shukron provided some historical background for the object. “It seems that in the seventh year of the reign of a king (it is unclear if the king referred to here is Hezekiah, Manasseh or Josiah), a shipment was dispatched from Bethlehem to the king in Jerusalem.The ‘bulla’ we found belongs to the group of ‘fiscal bullas’ – administrative ‘bullas’ used to seal tax shipments remitted to the taxation system of the Kingdom of Judah in the late eighth and seventh centuries BCE,” said Sukron….

“After many years of digging here, it’s the first time I found written evidence from the time of the First Temple that links Bethlehem to Jerusalem in an amazing way,” he said, adding that it was a very “exciting and important thing for this place [Jerusalem].”

Cool archaeological find at Tel Megiddo

Haaretz reports:

In the summer of 2010, while digging in the area of the ancient palace at Tel Megiddo in the Jezreel Valley, archaeologists from Tel Aviv University found a clay bowl containing a second clay bowl, inside of which was a small clay vessel, like some sort of ancient Russian nesting doll. The innermost vessel, which was packed with compressed dirt, was sent to the Weizmann Institute’s archaeology laboratory for a molecular analysis of its contents. Only after its return, six months later, did the archaeologists examine it.

To their surprise, the tiny clay pot was found to contain a precious treasure of gold and silver jewelry and semiprecious stones from 3,100 years ago. “This treasure began to pour out,” Prof. Israel Finkelstein of TAU’s Department of Archaeology and Near Eastern Cultures, related.

Finkelstein is a co-director of the Megiddo excavations, together with his TAU colleague Prof. David Ussishkin and Prof. Eric Cline of George Washington University.

The stash includes nine large earrings and a seal ring with a fish carved into it, all of them gold. The researchers also found more than 1,000 tiny beads made of gold, silver and carnelian, an orange semiprecious stone.

One of the earrings genuinely deserves to be called unique. It is shaped like a basket, inside of which is an ostrich and eight tiny animal figures, possibly goats. Nothing similar has ever been found in Israel or the entire Mediterranean region. The researchers believe its design was influenced by the Egyptian culture, which was dominant in the region at the time.

The archaeologists believe the collection dates from the early Iron Age, at around 1100 B.C.E. Megiddo was a Canaanite city-state under Egyptian rule at the time. At around 1130 B.C.E., the Egyptians withdrew from the area and Megiddo was destroyed. Finkelstein says the city thrived again later on.

Why was the Dome of the Rock erased?

Jim Davila reports (in PaleoJudaica) about a pamphlet the Israeli military rabbinate passed out for Hanukkah, with a picture in it supposedly of Jerusalem in the days of the Second Temple. The accompanying photo, however, was a photoshopped image of the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif with the Dome of the Rock removed and covered with a wispy ridge of clouds, while still preserving an image of the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the right hand side of the page. The far northern edge of the Dome of the Rock plaza is also still there.

Haaretz reported:

Israel’s military rabbinate released an educational document ahead of the holiday of Hanukkah last month, featuring a photo of Jerusalem’s Temple Mount without the Dome of the Rock, Haaretz learned on Thursday.

The photo was featured in a packet prepared by the Military Rabbinate issued to Israel Defense Forces bases ahead of Hanukkah, under the section titled “The Festival of Jewish Heroism,” which included an article and a quiz on the Jewish struggle against Hellenistic rule.

The photograph is by Mikhail Levit, and I took it from Elder of Ziyon, who found the source. It is from a series of photographs of the Kotel by Levit (available on Jerusalem Shots). None of the other photographs erase the Dome of the Rock.

The IDF explained that the picture lacked the Dome of the Rock because it was “meant to illustrate Jerusalem during the period of the Second Temple. ‘As was explained to the reporter, the Dome of the Rock did not exist at that time, so there was no need for it to appear in the picture,’ the IDF said.” As Jim said, this explanation is “ridiculous.” The picture still has the Al Aqsa mosque in it, as well as the modern Kotel plaza with worshipers on the men’s and women’s sides – something that did not exist during the Second Temple period. No one could mistake this for a picture of Jerusalem in Second Temple times.

So the question is – why did the military rabbinate create a pamphlet for Hanukkah that used a photo that photoshopped away the Dome of the Rock on the Temple Mount? Was this genuinely an attempt to create an image from the Second Temple period? If so, why not photoshop in an image of the Temple and by the way eliminate the Al Aqsa mosque as well? Also – if this is depicting the Second Temple of Maccabean times, the Kotel shouldn’t be there at all, since it was only when Herod had the Second Temple rebuilt that the platform was expanded in size and the retaining walls were built to support it. Or why not just use a painting of the Second Temple and remove any doubt about what was being depicted.

Could the rabbinate’s use of this image be a hint towards the hope that the Dome of the Rock should be removed and replaced by the Third Temple? In that case, we might expect to see some kind of image of the rebuilt Temple.

It would be useful to see the entire pamphlet – perhaps that would answer these questions.

Today in the Old City of Jerusalem

I arrived in Israel earlier this week, on Monday, and I’m just starting to get over jet lag. I walked around the Old City this afternoon with a friend, and we saw some interesting things – including the preparations for some kind of army ceremony at the Kotel (the Western Wall). I didn’t have my camera with me so I wasn’t able to get any photos of the scene.

The plaza was already pretty full of people. There were flags flying on the low wall that separates the prayer area from the plaza – I think they were of the army unit which was having the ceremony – יחידת שפיפון (according to Wikipedia it’s part of the paratroopers). My friend didn’t want to stay for the ceremony, although I was curious enough to want to stay, having never attended one before – she didn’t like the connection ceremonies like this make between the army and the Kotel. When I was visiting Israel in January 2003, I came across the preparations for a ceremony like this at the Kotel, but again didn’t see it (photo of that ceremony can be found below).

We then left the Old City to catch a cab back to our neighborhood. Just outside the Old City at the Dung Gate, we got a cab, and the driver insisted on taking a route through Silwan rather than driving on the road that hugs the Old City walls. We went down the very steep, unmaintained streets of Silwan and then up again into Abu Tor, and reentered the western part of the city. Below is a photo of Silwan, also from January 2003.

May 16, 1948: Jews in danger in all Muslim lands (NY Times)

An article in CiF Watch about Jewish refugees posted a screen shot of a New York Times article published on May 16, 1948, with the headline, “JEWS IN GRAVE DANGER IN ALL MOSLEM LANDS,” with the content largely based on a report that the World Jewish Congress had submitted to the United Nations. I had never seen this headline and was intrigued by it. I reproduce it here. I find this particularly interesting because it reveals that right at the very beginning, just as the Arab armies were invading Israel, Jews in Arab and Muslim countries were under threat because of the existence of Israel. Already at the establishment of the state all Jews in Arab countries were identified by their governments with Israel (even if they were not Zionists, or were anti-Zionists). It was no idyllic pre-Zionist utopia that the Mizrahi Jews fled when they went to Israel or western countries.

JEWS IN GRAVE DANGER IN ALL MOSLEM LANDS

Nine Hundred Thousand in Africa and Asia Face Wrath of Their Foes

by Mallory Browne
Special to the New York Times

LAKE SUCCESS, N. Y., May 15 – For nearly four months, the United Nations has had before it an appeal for “immediate and urgent” consideration of the case of the Jewish populations in Arab and Moslem countries stretching from Morocco to India.

Even four months ago, it was the Zionist view that Jews residing in the Near and Middle East were in “extreme and imminent danger.” Now that the end of the mandate has precipitated civil war or even worse developments in Palestine, it is feared that the repercussions of this in Moslem countries will put the Jewish populations in many of these states in mortal peril.

Reports from the Middle East make it clear that there is serious tension in all Arab countries. The Jewish populations there are gravely worried at the prospect that an Arab-Jewish war may break out suddenly at any moment.

Feeling Runs High

Already in some Moslem states such as Syria and Lebanon there is a tendency to regard all Jews as Zionist agents and “fifth columnists.” There have been violent incidents with feeling running high. There are indications that the stage is being set for a tragedy of incalculable proportions.

Near 900,000 Jews live in these Moslem and Arab countries stretching from the Atlantic along the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean. Zionist leaders today are convinced that their position is perilous in the extreme.

When the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations meets in Geneva next July, this matter will come before it.

On Jan. 19, 1948, the World Jewish Congress submitted a memorandum on the whole problem to the Economic and Social Council, asking for urgent action during the spring session of the Council.

This plea arose to some extent from statements made by Arab spokesmen during the General Assembly session last autumn, to the effect that if the partition resolution was put into effect, they would not be able to guarantee the safety of the Jews in any Arab land.

The memorandum of the World Jewish Congress went into considerable detail on this danger. It cited the text of a law drafted by the Political Committee of the Arab League which was intended to govern the legal status of Jewish residents in all Arab League countries.

It provides that beginning on an unspecified date all Jews except citizens of non-Arab states, would be considered “members of the Jewish minority state of Palestine.” Their bank accounts would be frozen and used to finance resistance to “Zionist ambitions in Palestine.” Jews believed to be active Zionists would be interned and their assets confiscated.

The memorandum gave many details of instances of persecution of Jewish individuals and whole communities. It listed the following tabulation of the Jewish residents in Arab countries.

French Morocco	190,000
Iraq	130,000
Algeria	120,000
Iran	90,000
Egypt	80,000
Tunisia	80,000
Turkey	75,000
Yemen	40,000
Libya	30,000
Spanish Morocco and Tangier	30,000
Syra	11,000
Lebanon	7,000
Aden (including refugees from Yemen)	8,000
Afghanistan (including refugees in India)	5,000
Other countries (Hadramuth, Sudan, Bahrein)	3,000
Total	899,000

Later information submitted to the Economic and Social Council was to the effect that:

In Syria, a policy of economic discrimination is in effect against Jews. “Virtually all” Jewish civil servants in the employ of the Syrian Government have been discharged. Freedom of movement has been “practically abolished.” Special frontier posts have been established to control movements of Jews.

In Iraq no Jew is permitted to leave the country unless he deposits £5,000 ($20,000) with the Government to guarantee his return. No foreign Jew is allowed to enter Iraq even in transit.

In Lebanon Jews have been forced to contribute financially to the fight against the United Nations partition resolution on Palestine. Acts of violence against Jews are openly admitted by the press, which accuses Jews of “poisoning wells,” etc.

Danger Emphasized

Giving many other details of persecution, this report declares that “the very survival of the Jewish communities in certain Arab and Moslem countries is in serious danger unless preventative action is taken without delay.”

Today, with a Jewish State an established fact, Jewish spokesmen at Lake Success do not conceal their anxiety that this danger to the survival of the Jewish population of the Arab countries is even more imminent, and that the only effective solution would be to facilitate their quick transfer, in so far as is possible and practicable, to the new Jewish State.

Conditions vary in the Moslem countries. They are worst in Yemen and Afghanistan, whence many Jews have fled in terror to India. Conditions in most of the countries have deteriorated in recent months, this being particularly true of Lebanon, Iran and Egypt. In the countries farther west along the Mediterranean coast, conditions are not so bad. It is feared, however, that if a full-scale war breaks out, the repercussions will be grave for Jews all the way from Casablanca to Karachi.

Benjamin Netanyahu and the American Right

Haaretz published an excellent article today on Netanyahu’s connections to the Christian Right in the US.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s links with U.S. Republican presidential candidates, and with the Christian right, are getting closer….

When Netanyahu and his aides are asked, they insist that they make every effort to avoid meddling in domestic American politics. The speech in Congress, they say, bore witness to widespread support for Israel and for Netanyahu among both parties. Netanyahu, they insist, makes a point of meeting with virtually any member of Congress, Democrat or Republican, who comes to Israel, and in every speech before an American audience, he emphasizes that Israel must remain a non-partisan issue in the U.S.

Yet, Netanyahu is very close to Newt Gingrich, and the two of them share connections with a right-wing Jewish millionaire, Sheldon Adelson, who has made his money as a casino mogul and has supported right-wing Israeli causes for a long time (he’s also now a major contributor to Birthright). Adelson has supported both Gingrigch’s and Netanyahu’s election campaigns. Adelson owns the right-wing Israeli newspaper Israel Hayom, which is distributed for free. When I read about this in the article, I thought about the legislative assault upon Israeli NGOs – laws have been proposed in the Knesset to limit the amount that an Israeli NGO can receive from a foreign government to 20,000 NIS a year. This attack is aimed at NGOs that receive money from the EU or various European countries, usually for coexistence work between Jews and Arabs in Israel or for human rights advocacy. If money is cut off from these NGOs, shouldn’t Israeli law also ban other foreigners trying to influence the Israeli political process – like Sheldon Adelson giving money to Netanyahu for his political campaign in Israel?

Netanyahu doesn’t exactly maintain balanced relations with America’s two political camps. He is deeply rooted in the conservative camp, and shows disdain for the “naivete” of the Democratic party’s liberal wing, from which Barack Obama emerged. As with Shas and Yisrael Beiteinu, his natural allies are evangelicals and members of the Tea Party movement.

Netanyahu and his associates are close to the Christians United for Israel (CUFI) organization, which is comprised mainly of evangelicals who believe that Israel’s existence is a necessary precondition for the return of the Messiah, and the coming of redemption. In their eyes, Iranian President Ahmadinejad, who threatens to destroy Israel, is nothing less than an agent of Satan on earth.

Each year, Netanyahu delivers a satellite address to thousands of participants at CUFI’s conference in Washington. “Our enemies think that we are you and that you are us,” exclaimed Netanyahu at July’s CUFI conference. “You know something? They are absolutely right.

With “friends” of Israel like Sheldon Adelson, Newt Gingrich, John Hagee, and CUFI, nothing can go wrong, right?

Is this apartheid?

Israel gearing for effective separation of East Jerusalem Palestinians (Haaretz).

Last week, a new border crossing was opened in East Jerusalem’s Shoafat neighborhood, to little fanfare. Two days later, Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat asserted that Israel should relinquish Palestinian neighborhoods of the capital that are beyond the separation barrier, despite the fact that their residents carry Israeli identity cards.

The Separation Wall at Abu Dis, Jerusalem

Some people view these events as two pieces of the same puzzle. A third piece is the resumption of work on separate roads for Israelis and Palestinians between Jerusalem and the West Bank settlement of Ma’aleh Adumim.

The Separation Wall at Abu Dis, Jerusalem