My spirits were lifted today to see the Chanukah decorations at the entrance of the sports club that I attend in Jerusalem. Knowing that the club is owned and run by a nonreligious kibbutz, reaffirmed what I like about my choice to leave the US and move to the Jewish homeland. We are all Jews and share a wonderful common denominator. We share the same historical memory and identity with the same national symbols.
Then I walked into the building and was literally stopped in my tracks. For the first time since I have been attending this club, I saw Christmas decorations. I was shocked and angered.
I asked the kibbutz member at the desk about it. She smiled and proudly said," we are "eclectic" and embrace all traditions."
Are we going to see Ramadan decorations as well I asked.
Maybe. Why not?
I asked her if she knew why we celebrate Chanukah. Did she know that our ancestors in this very city gave their lives to battle the influence of foreign cultures so that we can be Jews today?
She was not at all impressed.
I told her that she would be impressed if taught what Chanukah is and why being Jewish is meaningful.
She laughed and scoffed, " I did not receive a good Jewish education". She seemed to be proud of it.
Indeed, tragically she and many others did not.
Something is happening this year that I have not noticed before.
When I first came to Israel in the 1970s, I noticed a strange sign on the Hebrew University campus where I studied.
It was about a "Sylvester" party.
I had no idea what that was.
Apparently, it was a New Years’ party.
I was surprised then that in Israel, New Year was celebrated at all. I told myself that it was just a few campus party animals looking for an excuse to party.
I thought it was a bit amusing.
The "Sylvester" revelry of the few was confined to the campus.
Fast forward to today.
This year for the first time: Halloween" was celebrated in choice venues in Tel Aviv.
There is a call by the losers of this last election to display Christmas trees this year, "In protest" against the dark, fanatic government that won the overwhelming confidence of the electorate, especially the Jewish population.
What is the message of this particular protest?
We, the enlightened, will show you Jews!!
For the first time a major Israeli university, a hotbed of post-Zionism, has placed a Christmas tree at the front entrance.
In their dorms which house a majority of Arabs, the mezuzot are torn down and replaced with their own messages. (When I lived in those same dorms many years ago when the Arabs were a small docile minority that would be unthinkable.)
Political power for these forces is their tool to extract the "Jewish" from the Jewish state.
That is their raison d'etre.
From increasingly desecrating the Sabbath to displaying chometz publicly on Pesach to encouraging the destruction of the family unit, to taking Bible and Jewish studies out of the schools, to admitting as many Jews non into the country as possible, their work was just beginning.
Their Hellenist antecedents would be proud.
Their government coalition of the Muslim Brotherhood and post-Zionist, post - Jewish “progressives" were on a sure path to de Judaize Israel but then suddenly their program was stopped in its tracks when the large Jewish majority rose up and said NO.
"Who is for God to come to me"! said the Maccabees of old - and today.
.
There is panic among the modern Hellenists. Calls for mass emigration(yeridah) from Israel. Million-man marches, Refusal to pay taxes, Refusal to serve in the army, and Refusal to cooperate with the new government.
They are in a panic.
Our rabbis of old tell us that just as God's land spit out the Canaanites in favor of His people, so too does this land not tolerate anyone who does not merit to be here.
Are the over one million Israelis who left the land for the lands of "milk and honey" where they disappear as Jews, an illustration of our rabbi's deterministic prediction?
Are the threats to leave today part of a historic process?
Will many other Jews in the Exiles who do understand the unique honor of being a Jew in His land take their place?
Are we witnessing events today of Hanukkah proportions?
shalompollack613@gmail.com
tour guide and author
"Jews, Israelis and Arabs"
3 comments:
Yes. It's the small Torah-true, Jews of old defending the Holy Land from the treif of today's hellenistic Jews. Things got to be pretty bad in those days. Let's not forget. Ultimately, we were murdered or exiled from our Land. So we repeat the battle once again. I believe the outcome will be different this time.
IY”H it should be different, as this is the last stop on the History Train.
Very important post at this time for the public to see and start thinking about.
Surprising but not so very much anymore, as I do believe that the notzri world has infiltrated in EY to a great degree. Today, rather than battles on the grouond, they use honeyed words to try to conquer, r'l. The woman at the desk might be halachaly Jewish but surely has no Jewish neshasma. She merits the same onesh as the notzri if she doesn't do teshuvah.
I've noticed the westernization and xtianization rapidly increasing where no way would a stranger think it's the 'Jewish' country. In the States, many of the fundamentalists and just regular notzrim organize groups to Israel and speak of their notzri places, as if the Land is, c'v elef alfei p'amim, theirs. The chutzpah is mind boggling. The worst part is that there is a great # of completely assimilated Jews in EY and, of course, in the galut, that it's easy for our sonim to blur the lines and that's their goal which is to make a mishmosh of beliefs.
We are so close to the keitz and Moshiach is almost at the door. He must be because, chas v'chalilah, if it goes any further in this abysmal direction, it would be almost like a shoa. We pray for Hashem's Rachamim aleinu v'yigaleinu MIYAD!
Rachamim
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