Ruminations on the Destiny of the People of Israel, Part II

בס''ד

I. Introduction

Today (10 July 2012) is less than three weeks away from the 9th day of the Rabbinic month Av, tish'á b'av, the fast day of remembrance of the destruction of the Temples of Solomon and of Herod - both of which occurred on this day of disaster.  It is fitting that I return to the subject of the Destiny of the People of Israel, a subject I considered first in early 2007. The original essay on the topic can be read here, and I strongly suggest you do read it before you continue reading what I write below. It lays out, if nothing else, important definitions that allow one to speak with clarity of the Children of Israel, a clarity that avoids confusion. Like my previous essay six years ago, this essay does not deal with "the 'Arab-Israeli crisis,' the 'Middle East crisis' or any other of the cataracts that stand in the way of free flow of thought, ideas, people and commerce in this part of the world. I’m not writing about peace, I’m not writing about war. I’m not writing about making peace or making war. Those issues are not for this article. I’m writing solely about the destiny of my people, עם ישראל, the People of Israel."

II. בני ישראל - The Children of Israel -Their Traces

It is worth noting that the People of Israel world-wide refer to themselves with just this term - "Children of Israel" (b'néi yisraél). The Pakhtun, or Pashtun, also use this term, though it is influenced by the Arabic they have learned along the way, and they call themselves "báni israíl".

The reason this is worth noting is that Jacob, renamed Israel in the Torah [b'reishít/GENESIS 35:10], was blessed with twelve sons given him by four wives [b'reishít/GENESIS 35:23-26]. In addition to the twelve sons, he adopted as sons the sons of Joseph (his favorite son), Ephráim and Menashé [b'reishít/GENESIS 48:5-6]. These then constitute the Tribes of Israel, as these were the patriarchs who produced tribes. The Torah and Jewish tradition do not generally refer to a "Tribe of Joseph", referring instead to the tribes of his two sons. But amongst the Pashtun, we see a large tribe called Yusufzai - the tribe of Joseph. The Pashtun are the descendants of those Israelites driven from the Land by the Assyrians 2,730 years ago. We see their path to their present homes in Central Asia in this video in Hindi featuring Dr. Navras Ja'at Aafreedi. While most of you reading this have only the vaguest notion of Hindi, the maps repeatedly showing the path of the Israelites driven from the Land make the point rather clearly. The reason I raise this issue is that in the Torah, Jacob gives Sh'khem to Joseph as a possession. [b'reishít/GENESIS 48:22]

Is it possible that the tribe the Pashtun call the Yusufzai came from the city of Sh'khem and its environs? That they called themselves by this name, rather than Ephraim or Menashe? This seems, to me at least, a possible explanation for the title appended to such a large tribe. In attempting to trace the tribes of Israel, the only tribe I have heard no mention made of at all of is issakhár. So, out of the twelve tribes we are able to see the lines of at least ten.

At the moment, a powerful Pashtun nationalism is spreading among the Pashtun, something one can see in videos on YouTube. A large stretch of territory has been renamed Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa in Pakistan in recognition of the Pashtun living in the north of the country. A tremendous resentment is brewing against the Taliban, the Americans and all foreigners who, in the eyes of the Pashtun, have brought nothing but death and destruction to Afghanistan and northern Pakistan. One can look at You Tube videos - or read the work of Professor Fazal ur-Rehman Afridi, who is now a journalist writing from Paris.

It appears to Jack Golbert, an Israeli law professor commenting on the near genocidal death faced by the Pashtun in their own land, that

a striking fact about all of the descendants of the Lost Tribes of Israel is that they all are in places wracked by war and turmoil. The ground is fairly burning under their feet and they cannot remain where they are, where they have lived for much more than two thousand years. I am impelled to the conclusion that the time has come for their return to the House of Israel, the Torah of Israel and to our national homeland.

File that thought away. We'll come back to it later.

If you tote up the number of Pashtun and add it to the number of Jews in the world, you get a grand total of roughly 45 million souls, most of them Pashtun. Up until recently, that is how many Children of Israel I thought inhabited the planet.

I was wrong.

III. Check That Tote Board Again, Folks!

While communicating with Professor Afridi, I was requested to contact a gentleman named Remy Ilona from Igbo Israel Online, an organization in Nigeria. The name sounded familiar, and with a little research, I found out that the Igbo were already known to me as the Ibo. What I knew about the Igbo was that they were from southeastern Nigeria, many of them had been converted to Christianity by the British, were trained by the British as second level administrators there, and then when the Brits left in 1961, were stuck with the task of running Nigeria without the backup of British guns.

The familiar story happened to them as happens to any minority stuck with trying to rule. The majority - Hausa and Yoruba peoples of Nigeria - attacked the Igbo in pogroms (sounds awful familiar), and the Igbo fled most of the country to their homeland, which was then known as the Eastern Region. They declared independence for the region, naming it Biafra. A look at the map will tell you how successful that revolt was.

One of the first things I discovered from Mr. Ilona was that the white mainstream media never really reported on what was a genocide in Nigeria. The second significant thing I discovered from Mr. Ilona was that the "hopey changy Jesus salvation thing" (the Christianity the British shoved down their throats) wasn't working out for the Igbo - who have begun to return to their Israelite roots in a big way.

That's right. I didn't make a mistake typing. I wrote "Israelite roots".

Apparently for millennia, the Igbo have been keeping Israelite (or if your mind can't stretch that far, Jewish) customs. The big difference is that they have appeared to have lost all of their Hebrew, and, given that they have a four day week, do not have appeared to have kept the Sabbath in any way that a Jew would recognize it.

But when you look at the numbers, you have another 15 to 30 millions, living all over the world, but mostly in Nigeria.  There is an article in Wikipedia dealing with "Igbo Jews". According to this article, there are about 30,000 Igbo practicing Judaism in one form or another.  How accurate the article is per se is not all that important.  Christianity, the faith of the overwhelming number of Igbos, is based on a fellow who showed up about 2,000 years ago in Israel who was allegedly the messianic redeemer.  His claims and authority were rejected by Jews in what was then the Kingdom of Iudaea, a Roman puppet state, and he wound up nailed to a cross - the fate of hundreds of thousands of Jews under the rule of the Roman savages.

The point is that once messianic Redemption does occur, and it appears that it will occur relatively soon, Christianity will have outlived its usefulness.  So will Islam, for that matter.  Those people who are not Children of Israel, will take to obeying the Seven Commandments of Noah.  Those of us who are Children of Israel will be attempting to obey the Torah Moses gave us.  And one of the jobs of the messianic Redeemer will be to figure out just who is and who isn't a Child of Israel.  If we take the most generous estimate of the Igbo population, and assume that they are of one of our Tribes, we need to add another 30 millions to the 30 million Pashtuns and 15 million Jews.  

So now we are at 75 million souls.  And do note that the "Europeans" - the "white folk" among these 75 millions - are not the overwhelming majority at all.

IV. Shade Your Eyes From the Sun!

But there is more.  Here, however, it gets really tricky.

When we look at the Book of Ezekiel, we learn that the Hebrews living in Judea, the high priests especially, had become sun-worshipers [yehezkél/EZEKIEL 8:15-17].  When I spoke with a Pashtun woman about what religion the Pashtuns followed at first, she said that they too, were sun-worshippers.  So, we can come to the reasonable conclusion that our ancestors had departed the worship of the G-d of Israel, and at least some of them had become sun worshippers.

When you watch these You Tube videos - this one, this one and this one, you see the possibilities - though you also see serious errors in the perceptions of those who follow a religion that is based on, among other things, sun-worship - the Japanese.

I thought it worth following up, at least on You Tube, and found a series of seven videos dealing with this precise topic.  It is evident that the material from the videos highlighted in the previous paragraph were pulled from the seven videos linked to in this paragraph.  And, in watching it, I saw fewer distortions in perception.

The series of seven videos talks of 7,000 families, totaling up to about 190,000 people, who came to Japan along the Silk Road - this at a time when the total population of Japan was about 6 million people in all..  It displays similarities between Hebrew script and one of the ancient Japanese scripts, and quite a number of similarities between Hebrew words and Japanese words.  It talks of a "Gion Festival" where an ark, covered in gold, carried on two poles as was the ancient Ark of the Covenant, is hauled about for a month or so, .  claiming that this analogous to a "Zion Festival", supposedly from the days of King Solomon.

But these are not the real issues.  The real issues are "who are the Children of Israel in Japan?" and "how much of this is real?"   This is an issue for far wiser men than I.  What I can say is that if there are a significant number of Children of Israel amongst the Japanese, the image of Children of Israel being "your typical white man" will have been permanently erased.  If there are, say 20 million Children of Israel amongst the Japanese, then our numbers will have been increased to nearly 100 million people - and we will look like a cross-section of the entire world we will be expected to lead.  How this will sit with the types who think we should all look like pale wraiths clothed in black doesn't really bother me a whole lot.  They need their world-views shaken up badly.

V. Conclusion

In concluding this, I'm forced to return to a Biblical adage - "the people will starve for lack of vision".  The Jewish people lack for vision.  We don't lack intelligence or imagination.  If we did, we would not be the leaders of technology or science that we are, nor would we have survived against military enemies far stronger than we are.  We should have been defeated decades ago, suffering, if we were suffered to survive at all, in a backward morass of the Arab world, wounded indignity heaped upon indignity and going backwards on the planet, as our Arab neighbors are.

Why is Zionism Dying - Why Must it Die? Why is This Good for the People of Israel?

בס''ד

י'ד באייר, התשע''ב

6 May, 2012

Copyright © R. Kossover, 2012

 Published Originally as a Note on Facebook

     I have often asserted that Zionism is a dying movement - that it needs to move out of the way for the next stage of the evolution of the Hebrew People, of the People of Israel - Full Redemption.  Full Redemption involves not merely the "coming of the messiah"; it involves the full re-uniting of the People of Israel, of all of its Tribes, here and in Afghanistan and Pakistan as well.  It involves an immense upheaval; Jews will need to take a hard look at who they are, and what they have asserted over the last century and a half since the development of the "Self Emancipation Movement" that evolved into Zionism in the late 1800's, when Jews in England learned of the term Calvinists had appended to the concept of "return to the Land" that they had discovered, while studying our Tana"kh some 350 years ago.  It is these Calvinist theologians who had invented the word "Zionism".  This fact is rarely mentioned, if mentioned at all by the big shots at the World Zionist Organization.  This fact is not part of the curriculum of Israel high schools.  This is not to say that return to the Land by the Children of Israel - whether you call them b'nei yisraél or báni israíl  (which is what our Pashtun Hebrew brethern call themselves) - is a Calvinist concept.  Only a fool would make that assertion.  This is to emphasize, however, that the name of this movement came from Calvinist theologians.  Let us give credit where credit is due.  In addition, our Pashtun brothers will have to take a very hard look at who they are.  Assumptions they have made for 14 centuries will need to be re-examined.

     Let us also be clear on this point.  Zionism has not been a "wrong" movement.  It has been a necessary movement, and it has been a stunning success.   It has been the vehicle that has brought about a re-assertion of Jewish sovereignty over the Land of Israel; and the blessing of Jacob (Israel) to Judah was that the sceptre would belong in the hand of Judah. The sceptre of rule is in the proper hands now - and it will remain in the proper hands, from now through eternity - unless the G-d of Israel, the Creator of the Universe, decides otherwise.  In addition to being the vehicle of the re-assertion of Jewish sovereignty over this Land, Zionism has been the vehicle for raising the standard of living of all who live here.  The creation of the Zionist Movement, the State of Israel, is the economic engine of the Middle East, and its successor state will be the economic leader of the world, guiding the tiqqún ha'olám (recovery of the planet) that is so terribly necessary, and which will finally begin to occur in the Days of Full Redemption.

     So why must Zionizm die?  And more to the point, why is this good for the People of Israel?

     To begin to comprehend why, we need to look at events that took place 11½ years ago in Northern Samaria, when at Rosh haShana 5761, during the year 2000, the IDF abandoned a school near the Tomb of Joseph south of Sh'khém, yeshivát od yoséf Hai, abandoning also a Druze soldier who died when terrorists attacked it.  The soldier was named Madhat Yussuf.  Rabbi Herling, z"l, hy"d, head of the kollél birkát yoséf, was also killed about then  - from the "Joseph Lookout Point".  

     Rav Yossi Baumol, of Ateret Kohanim, wrote about this in a shi'úr parshát hashavúa, a lesson on the weekly reading of the Torah, parshát vayigásh.  It is reproduced in full below.  However, let it be clear that the copyright belongs to 'Ateret Kohanim.  I have highlighted certain portions of this essay - for they are crucial in understanding why it is that Zionism is dying, and more importantly, why it must die.   

_________________________________________________________________________________

Copyright © 1997, Ateret Cohanim - All Rights Reserved

"Ode Yosef Chai!" by Yossi Baumol

     In this week's Parsha, VaYigash, we read the moving story of there-unification of the Tribes of Israel, the "return" of Yosef to his family.Our Rabbis tell us "The Acts of our Fathers are a Sign for the Sons." The story of Yosef and what Yosef represents has a deepermeaning.

     Is it just a coincidence that the present conflict began with theRosh HaShana attack on Yeshivat Ode "Yosef" Chai at Kever "Yosef", that Madhat "Yusuf" was killed there, that Rabbi Herling the Head of the Kollel Birkat "Yosef" was killed at the "Yosef" Lookout Point?

     In both the writings of Rav Kook and the Vilna Gaon, "Yosef"represents the force of physical redemption. Just as Pessach precedes Shavuot, the future redemption is almost always described in theTanach in two stages - first the physical redemption of the land and the people and afterwards "A new heart and a new spirit" will infuse the people. In older sources these forces are referred to as Mashiach Ben Yosef and Mashiach ben David. This, by the way, is the reason the Sefardic/Chassidic order of "Ushpizin" on Succot puts Yosef immediately preceding David (Hoshana Raba).

     The Midrash indicates that Mashiach ben Yosef will be killed in Milchemet Gog U'magog and then Mashiach Ben David will take over. The Vilna Gaon claimed that this was not inevitable, that Mashiach BenYosef did not have to die, but rather his death might be replaced by a series of painful events and crises. The Gra taught his disciples tosay a special daily prayer for the welfare of Mashiach ben Yosef and also taught them that the suffering of Mashiach Ben Yosef could be mitigated by taking an active part in the physical redemption - in planting, settling, rebuilding Jerusalem, etc.

     The actual movement that took on Mashiach Ben Yosef's work ofphysical redemption is Zionism.  A century before the advent of Zionism, the Vilna Gaon pointed out that "Yosef" and "Zion" have the same Gematria - 156. This served to reveal many aspects of the redemption. For example, his disciples quoted his prediction that manyJews would not grant recognition to the validity of the physical redemption, as it says in the Torah that: "His brothers did not recognize Yosef".

     The argument as to whether Mashaich ben Yosef will die is the symbolic backdrop to the rift between the Chareidim and the Religious Zionists. The Religious Zionists believe that the Zionist movement or at least its political manifestation - the State of Israel - will evolve into the Messianic State. The Chareidim believe that there is no connection between the physical ingathering of Jews to Israel and the Messianic State.

     The truth is, though, that Zionism almost died - we call this phenomenon "Post-Zionism". The events of the recent weeks have pushed the most hard-bitten Post-Zionists into a corner - the rest of the nation seems to be shaking off the shackles of Post-Zionism.

     This is how both the advent of Post Zionism, as well as its demise, was predicted by Rav Kook in "Orot" over 70 years ago: "We have a tradition that a spiritual rebellion against Eretz Yisrael and Yisrael will take place during the initial stage of the nation's rebirth. The material bliss which will come to a part of the nation who think that they have achieved all their goals, will shrink the soul and will bring on a time lacking in motivation. The aspiration to lofty, holy ideals will cease, resulting in the descent and sinking of the spirit. This will be followed by a veritable whirlwind whichwill turn everything upside-down. Only then will it become apparent to all, beyond a doubt, that the source of Israel's strength is the Eternal Holy One, His Light, and His Torah."

     According to the Midrash, the original Yosef was released from prison on Rosh HaShana. This Rosh Hashana , Post Zionism was dealt a fatal blow and the Zionist Movement was dealt a reprieve. The burning of Kever Yosef is one of those painful crises which come in place of the death of Mashiach ben Yosef.

     "Yosef" still has a crucial role to play. Our Rabbis tell us that the passage: "And the House of Joseph will be a fire, and the house of Esau will be straw" means that the Guardian Angel of Esau can bedefeated only by Yosef. This too is the meaning of Yosef's blessing in Parshat "Zot HaBracha": "Bechor Shoro Hadar Lo, v'karnei re'em karnav bahem amim yenagach." - The symbol of Yosef - a bull - will gore the nations.  Let us take courage from the fact that Ode Yosef Chai - Am Yisrael Chai. May the painful passage from "Yosef" to"David" bring us a minimum of suffering and may we merit the re-uniting of "Etz Yosef V'Etz Yehuda.

_________________________________________________________________________________

     It's worth taking a careful look at the highlighted portions.  The first highlighted paragraph explains the concept of messianism as it developed in the Jewish faith.  We have not one messiah, but two.  One brings about a physical redemption - people coming home, settling farms, cities, factories, etc.  The second brings about a spiritual redemption - another way of saying a change in human nature.  

     The next two paragraphs explain what Zionism really is - the "messiah, son of Joseph", the first messiah, the messiah of physical redemption.   During the decade of the 1990's those Israeli traitors who viewed Zionism as evil, the black hats of history, ruled here, pushing materialism and a false solution of "two states for two peoples", where  the heartland of the country, Judea and Samaria, would be torn out and handed to a terrorist régime, all with the backing and blessing of the United States of America and the European Union. These were the "Post-Zionists" referred to in Rav Baumol's essay.  We continue to see their evil influence today in groups like "Peace Now", "Yesh G'vul", ICAHD and other traitorous groups of Israelis who are supposed to take the fall when the government does evil in the Eyes of G-d, by destroying the Jewish settlement effort in the land.

     Were it not for the fact that the terrorists who hate us in this land always bring us back to their own hatred of us with their thirst for our blood, with murders, stabbings, and a bombardment of missiles, we should have handed over all sorts of strategic territory to an enemy that our régime - the Zionist Régime - erected in the first place.  But we cannot turn our eyes from the fact that it is the Zionist Régime doing evil.  THEY erected the Palestinian Authority; THEY evacuated South Lebanon in 2000; THEY refused to clamp down with an iron fist on Arafat's Initifada; THEY allowed the rape of the Church of the Sepulchre; THEY ruined the lives of 10,000 law-biding Israelis with the expulsion and destruction of Gush Qatif in 2005.  THEIR High Court of Injustice continues on this path of evil, and THEIR security and police enforce the evil deeds of this High Court of Injustice.  


     And it is WE who have had to face the consequences of their evil; over 1,500 Israelis killed in terror attacks, a war in the north in 2006, a war in Gaza in 2008, the continuing bombardment of our towns by the terrorists in Gaza, and now the sending of additional troops to the border.  WE face 200,000 enemy missiles that can destroy this nation due to the evil of the Zionist Régime.

     In the fraying moral fabric of this nation, WE see the predictions of Rav Kook, z"l, in his work, "Orot".  Let me repeat what Rav Baumol wrote above to drive the point home.    

     "We have a tradition that a spiritual rebellion against Eretz Yisrael and Yisrael will take place during the initial stage of the nation's rebirth. The material bliss which will come to a part of the nation who think that they have achieved all their goals, will shrink the soul and will bring on a time lacking in motivation. The aspiration to lofty, holy ideals will cease, resulting in the descent and sinking of the spirit. This will be followed by a veritable whirlwind whichwill turn everything upside-down. Only then will it become apparent to all, beyond a doubt, that the source of Israel's strength is the Eternal Holy One, His Light, and His Torah."

     While Rav Kook was not a prophet himself, in 1930, he quoted a tradition which foresaw the future with scary accuracy.

     Zionism has to die because it is involved with physicality - with what our sages call gashmiút - materialism.  Take a trip to Tel Aviv or turn on Israeli TV and you will get the point very very quickly.  Chasing money, status, sex and entertainment does not bring you any sense of spirituality at all.  Violating the Sabbath and advertising oneself for sex does not change your nature at all; and Redemption will be a change in human nature.  But in the Zionist State, gashmiút  - materialism - is what it's all about; it's all cool.  So, the gashmiút, the materialism of the Zionist State, only brings down the Jew spiritually, and brings him further from and not closer to Redemption.

     But there is more.

     Ezekiel, in Chapter 37 of the his Book in the Tana"kh presents two distinct visions.  The first vision is the vision of the bones brought to life.  This is the vision made famous in the Negro spiritual singing about how "the thighbone connected to the kneebone, the kneebone connected to..." etc.  One can see in this the Holocaust of the Nazis, and the rebirth of the Jewish entity in our Land with soldiers who had been concentration camp inmates only 3 years earlier, fighting in the National Military Organization, the haganá territorial defense force of the kibbutzím, the  plugát maHátz, the night fighters and shock troops trained by the late and blessed Orde Wingate, the Fighters' Organization of Yaír Stern, and later the successor to all of these, the Israel Defense Force - in short, an abbreviated view of Zionism and the rise of the State.  The second vision in this chapter of the Book of Ezekiel, which is yet to occur, and which is just beginning to occur now, is the vision of the stick (tree) with the name "Ephraim" written on it; and the stick (tree) with the name "Judah" written on it - and that G-d has Ezekiel bring the two sticks together to create ONE stick - with ISRAEL written on it.  This vision is the vision of the reunification of the all the Tribes under one king and one law.

     The trouble with being a believer is that you have to believe.  And I believe in the Prophecies of the Tana"kh.  This vision is the future.  There are many more Children of Israel than the 15 million Jews who inhabit the planet.  There are the 30 million Pashtuns as well.  To hold them all, the future Kingdom of Israel will have to much bigger than the territory stretching from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River.  And it will be.   

     And it is for this reason that all these assertions that "I'm a Zionist and proud of it" are ultimately self-defeating.  Jews have to look at who they are, and take a very hard look.  We are the descendants of the Southern Tribes of Israel.  Zionism is a club only Jews can join as full participants.  The Zionist State cannot fathom the idea that while all Jews are Hebrews, not all Hebrews are Jews.  And saying, "I'm a Zionist and proud of it" means leaving out our Pashtun brethren - who never were Jews - even when they were the northern Tribes of this nation almost 3 millennia ago - and never will be Jews.   But we are ALL Hebrews - ALL sons of ISRAEL - and ultimately this entire land - and more - will belong to the sons and daughters of  ISRAEL.  

     Will our Pashtun brethren remain Muslims?  I do not think so.  They are the Children of Joseph, and ultimately, they will return home.  They will return home first to the Pakhtunwalí, and then to the Torah.  And they will return home to fight the sons of Eisav - the Americans and the Europeans.  They, the Children of Joseph, have already gored the British, the Russians and the Americans in the land they now call home.  The bull of Yosef has already gored Eisav.  He will continue to gore Eisav.  The questions are -  "Will Judah recognize Joseph as his brother?" and "Will Joseph recognize Judah as his brother?"  I believe the answers to both questions are "yes".  Whether this happens before or after the messiah arrives is not for me to say.  But Zionism will have to die for this to happen.  And all the sons and daughters of Israel will need to look hard and long at each other with eyes of understanding to bring about the true unity of our nation.

LOOKING INTO THE FUTURE PAST 2012: Peeking beyond Zionism and its malcontents

בס''ד

Originally published as a Note on Facebook, 14 February, 2012

Copyright © R. Kossover, 2012

The headlines seem to get scarier and scarier daily, with warships and air forces doing military exercises and nations threatening war.  Looking at these events, they only portend evil.  With over 200,000 missiles aimed at Israel; and her enemies arming to become stronger daily, I suspect that war in the not too distant future is inevitable, a view shared by many of my fellow Israelis.   I happen to believe that that the rabbinic year 5773 (which begins on 17 September, 2012) may well see the beginning of a war that will engulf the world. But I am not so arrogant as to call it prophecy. I have been wrong too many times, and to stick my head out like this and name a date tempts the fates, as they say.  Nevertheless, I will.

Those of you who want to understand where one looks for prophetic signs should watch the following You Tube video.  This video deals with “tetrads” or groups of four lunar eclipses.  Usually when they occur, one occurs in the spring and one in the autumn of two successive years.  Obviously, the two men talking of this in the video are Christians and put a Christian spin on this.  This Christian spin should be ignored.  But the data should not. 

What makes these particular tetrads so special is that they occur on the first day of two major feast days on the rabbinic calendar, Sukkot and Pessah.  This rarely happens.  In 5709-5710 (1949-50 on the Christian calendar), there was such a tetrad, and in 5727-5728, (1967-68 on the Christian calendar), there was also such a tetrad - the next one is for 5774-5775 (2014-15 on the Christian calendar).  Sukkot and Pessah are holidays that deal with the Divine Redemption of Israel.  Events occurring in 5708-09, and 5727, respectively, were major events dealing with the re-establishment of  Jewish (and eventually Hebrew) rule over Israel.  Based on past events, in my opinion, the events that are likely to occur in 5773 or 5774 will bring about a major furtherance in the establishment of OUR rule here in Israel and a shift in the way non-Hebrews view us.  I expect war to break out in a major way one year before this upcoming tetrad occurs - exactly as happened with the re-establishment of a Jewish entity in the Land of Israel.

There is more here about the likelihood of war in 5773 and 5774.  According to the people in this You Tube video, some of whom I know personally, "the big band comes on stage in 2012. The big events occur in 2013, possibly extending into 2014." (an approximate quote). This video deals with the Torah Code, known to some as the Bible Code, developed about 25 years ago by Drs. Eliyahu Rips and Doron Witztum, mathematicians from Israel. It doesn’t matter to me whether you believe this or not.  The point is that I believe this, and I base my view of the future on it.

In looking at future events beyond the near term of the next five or six years, I go by the Talmudic sages who predict that "ben David" (the messiah) will have arrived and COMPLETED HIS WORK by the year 5790 (2030 on the Christian calendar). What does this mean?  Amongst other things:

            a. Either a Temple will have been built or will be under construction on the Temple Mount. Implication: the major earthquake in Jerusalem and other events in the last two chapters of the Book of Zechariah and chapters 38 & 39 of Ezekiel (all read during Sukkot, by the way) will also have occurred. This means war on a major scale.

            b. Religions (including Judaism) will begin to undergo major changes, as G-d judges Mankind, and makes His Presence manifest. Implication: our Hebrew brothers, the Pashtuns, will begin the return home - both leaving Afghanistan-Pakistan, and Islam. Second implication: our "Palestinian" brothers will also begin to return home to Judaism, and the difficult healing process will begin in Israel.

           c. Water, which many predict will be a major cause of war in the near future, will become a primary issue in what we call "tiqqún 'olám" the repair of the earth, and instead of fighting, the world will turn to Israel, which is already emerging as a technological leader on the planet, for solutions.  The world is already dependent in great degree on Israeli technology, though in many cases, that technology has been bought up by foreigners.

This is why we need to look BEYOND Zionism, which gathered in many of the Jewish exiles, to Redemption, and to work towards the in-gathering and reunification of ALL of our brother Jews and Hebrews, world-wide, including the Pashtuns who live in Afghanistan and Pakistan and suffer a terrible war there, and including the so-called “Palestinians”, many of whose ancestors were forced to convert from Judaism to Islam, because of the Muslim occupation of our country.  Zionism was a stunning success in what it sought to do.  But having succeeded, inheritors of the Zionist Movement, the leaders of the State of Israel, have lost their vision.  We, THE PEOPLE OF ISRAEL, must take the next steps in the development of our Destiny.  We will be led, either gently or rudely, by the Almighty.  Our human “leaders”, such as they are, will either follow their foreign paymasters in the States and Europe (into exile) -- or they will follow US, THE PEOPLE OF ISRAEL – or they will be forced out of power by circumstances beyond their control and beyond my present vision and understanding.

Faith and Imagination - One Feeds the Other, and Both Lead to Accomplishment

בס''ד

Originally published in Facebook as a "Note" on 21 June, 2011.
Copyright © R. Kossover, 2011


In looking at the articles one sees here on Facebook and elsewhere in that whiny, complaint-filled Augean Stable known as "the Jewish world", all we see is whining and complaining. Do Jews do anything to merit the respect they whine they do not get?

What are we doing to command respect?

Are we kicking terrorist ass, and executing the bastards who murder our children? Are we really protecting the Jewish settlement enterprise in Israel - or are we trying to snuff it out? Are we officially boycotting Europeans and others who boycott us? Are we sending assassins to get rid of the liars who defame us? Are we making clear to Israelis who are self-hating Jews - not to mention all the self hating trash overseas - that they are no longer welcome in this country? Are we kicking out the leftist traitors who infest our universities, schools, businesses, police and army? Are we even protecting ourselves against foreign missionaries? ARE WE SHOWING FAITH IN G-D THAT HE WILL BRING US REDEMPTION?

NO!!! We kiss everyone's ass and we whine.

We are only whining because the world - which wants to kill us - doesn't love us. Respect is earned. And we do nothing to earn it. Love? We do not need the love of the world. We need to learn to love ourselves, and the G-d Who created us.

So we have nothing to complain about. We refuse to learn from the heaps of feces our enemies pour upon us.

Nevertheless, the pathetic Yid-whining and kvetching and krekhtzing and utter fear that infests a country that possesses nuclear weapons and submarines and doesn't have the leaders with the guts to use them - or the faith in G-d to destroy its enemies - is disgusting, to say the least, and enough to raise a man's blood pressure to give him a stroke, to say the most. It is sickening that WE SHOULD GIVE A DAMN what the goyim say! A long time ago a young Sefaradí lady shut me up when I tried to explain about non-Jews and why we should cooperate with them. She said the following - and her words still ring in my ears to this day:

קודם כל,כל גוים חיות - kódem kol, kol goyím Hayót! This young lady was saying, "first of all, all goyim are animals!" On the bus in 1973, my mouth fell open in shock. But based on what I have seen out of Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and most of rest of the Arab world, not to mention the allegedly "civilized" countries of Europe, the "people" who live there indeed meet her description of them. When you look at the way Filipinos, Thais, Indians, Chinese and Japanese sexually exploit their children, you're forced to come to the same conclusion about them as well. It's an ugly world out there.

Now, because you most of you lack imagination, let me outline for you the difference between faith and the lack of faith. In parashát sheláH פרשת שלח, ten of the twelve spies Moshe sent out lacked faith in their own ability to cope with the creatures who inhabited Canaan - giants. And they said "we were grasshoppers in their eyes, and in our own eyes!" And they discouraged the People from having faith in the G-d Who had brought them forth from Egypt with signs and wonders, and Who had destroyed Egypt in the process. What if they had said, as did the other two spies, Yehoshua and Kalev, "yes they may be difficult to beat, but we can do it!" Or, for those of you who agonize over issues of "free will", let's say ten of the spies came back with a positive report, and the other two cowards were ignored? The Children of Israel would have conquered yeriHó the next week - or maybe the next month. Since RaHav the whore wasn't alive yet (there would not have been 39 years for her to have been conceived and born and grow up in yeriHó), a different method would have possibly been found, but the city would have been destroyed. MOSHE would have led the legions and divvied up the LAND. And likely, when Moshe died, Yehoshua would have taken over and conquered the entire country. The Land would have been cleared of the enemy - no Canaanites, no idols to serve as a temptation, but instead, a nation serving HASHEM with faith and confidence. This is something we have never had.

The period of time when this conquest of Canaan took place was the cusp of the change from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age. The Children of Israel were exposed to some pretty sophisticated technology in the desert - the stones in the High Priest's Ephod and úrim and túmim, the lights (or energy sources) within, essentially describe a modern computer; the ashes of the pará adumá, the Red Cow, essentially describe a water filter. Imagine what would have been the fate of a nation that had faith in G-d. Instead of struggling to obtain iron weapons from the neighboring oppressors, which is an underlying theme of the Book of Judges séfer shoftím, the Children of Israel might have been exposed to - and taught to develop- technology far in advance of the neighboring peoples - who were savages by comparison. Israel would have been technologically advanced far beyond the comparatively uncivilized barbarians of the ancient world.

Would Assyria have come to conquer this Land? NO. Would Babylon have come to conquer this Land? NO. The Torah itself would have read differently - no description of 40 years of wandering, no speech by Moshe warning of a nation that would be exiled; AND NO EXILE! The language of all of us would be Hebrew and we would be princes of a land that we would have occupied for 100 generations, defended by the CREATOR OF THE UNIVERSE and the tools He would have made available to us, because we would have had faith in Him. This country would stretch from the lakes of Suez to the mountains of Persia (or further east), filled who over 200 or 300 million HEBREWS. There would be NO Jews, no Christianity, and Muhammad's legions would have never contaminated this land with their barbarism. In fact, there would be no "Palestinians" - no residents of Israel would have ever been forced to convert to Islam and content themselves with the savagery that is Arab culture.

There might have been a Greece - but it never would have conquered this Land. There might have been a Rome, but it never would have destroyed a Temple to the G-d of Israel, the G-d That created the universe.

This is what we missed out on when ten men looked about them and rejected G-d's gift of the Land and G-d's reassurances that He would be with us. Instead of 200 or 300 million Hebrews in a powerful empire, we are a mere 15 million Jews, 3 million Palestinian "Arabs" and 40 million Pashtun - divided by ignorance and mistrust, surrounded by enemies and torn by conflict, internal and external, and in the case of our Pashtun brothers, divided by 3,000 kilometers as well. While Jews in Israel live in relative prosperity, our Pashtun brothers, originally from the northern Tribes, suffer starvation, war, lack of education and persecution. Our Palestinian brothers, forced away from their native faiths by the lash of Islam's persecution, suffer under a terrorist dictatorship in Israel and suffer terrible privations in "refugee camps" - really concentration camps - in Syria, Lebanon and elsewhere.

WHEN YOU LACK FAITH, YOU ALSO LACK IMAGINATION.

But does it have to be this way? No.

Must it remain this way? NO!!

WE CAN CHANGE!

That is what "free will" is all about - the ability to change. And in this case, to try to change for the better.

JEWS can start to look at the Pashtun and "Palestinian Arabs" and see them for what they are - lost Brothers of the Nation of Israel, imprisoned in an alien culture, and suffering (as Jews suffer) the loss of their ancient glory.

PASHTUNS AND "PALESTINIAN ARABS" can start to look upon the Jews not as people to be hated and despised - but lost Brothers in the Nation of Israel.

Islam has not given the Pashtuns the access to education they need, and it has not given the "Palestinian Arabs" a secure homeland.  Instead, Wahhabi jihadis  have incited and influenced estranged Children of Israel to kill their blood brothers, the Jews, so that they can laugh up their sleeves as one "Jew" kills another.  Further, Wahhabi jihadis call the Brothers of the "Palestinian Arabs" and of the Pashtuns, us Jews, "children of pigs and dogs".  If someone called my brother or sister such a name, I'd pull out my meat cleaver and chop his head off.  Both peoples have gained nothing from Islam but persecution, terror and death.  In addition, "Palestinian Arab" terrorists and vandals have desecrated the tomb of their own ancestors, and that of the Pashtun, the Tomb of Joseph.

When JEWS, PASHTUNS AND "PALESTINIAN ARABS" can attempt to do these things, to view each other as brothers rather than enemies, one step at a time if necessary, the nation of ISRAEL  will begin to heal.  The Prophecy of the Book of Ezekiel [séfer yeHezkél], where Ezekiel takes two sticks, one for Ephraim and one for Judah, and molds them into one - for Israel, will finally come true [Ez. 37:15-28].  The time has finally arrived for us to attempt this.  That way, each man will sit in peace under his own fig tree, we will sow our seeds and reap our harvests with joy, and justice and righteousness will flow through our Land and through our lives like rivers.  After 4,000 years, we Children of Israel deserve to see the goodness of the L-rd Who called us to His service.

It is time. It is past time.

The Coming Invasion of Israel by the United States and NATO - Do the Jews Have Any Friends?

בס''ד

Published as a "Note" on Facebook
Copyright © R. Kossover, 2011

Manhigut Yehudit, led by Moshe Feiglin, has been warning of this for a long time. Manny Winston of Chicago, has been warning of this for over a decade, as has Barry Chamish and anybody else with open eyes. The future very likely holds war and very possibly a holocaust - in the form of an invasion by either NATO or the United States. The money lines from this article taken from the "Love of the Land" blogsite drive home the point with a sledge hammer.


    "The time when we will have to decide if we are willing to entrust our fate to the very same West     that will always be happy to be rid of the "Israel Problem" is rapidly approaching. We see ourselves as an inseparable part of the Western world. It is difficult for us to accept that the West, our cultural patron, will simply close its eyes with relief when six million Jews in Israel will once again be facing wholesale slaughter.


But that is precisely the direction that events are taking. The only difference between 1948 and today is that then we were a rabbit that thought it was a lion and today we are a lion that thinks it is a rabbit. In 1948, our physical weakness invited invasion. Today, our mental weakness invites invasion.



What invasion am I talking about? If we were not living in denial, the media would be abuzz about Samantha Power, head of the National Security Council, who advocates taking the funds that the US now invests in the IDF and investing them instead in the 'Palestinian' army. In no uncertain terms, she discusses a possible US invasion of Israel – to keep the peace, of course. When that goal is accomplished, Power advocates leaving us here to enjoy the loving kindness of the righteous souls in Ramallah.



As surrealistic as all of this sounds now, it is most important to remember that only terror organizations and Arab states used to deny Israel's right to exist. Now this concept is coffee table talk throughout Europe. The denial of the right to exist always precedes physical annihilation. That is another important lesson of the Holocaust."


So, it is time to open our eyes and cut the BS of FOOLING OURSELVES WITH COMFORTABLE DELUSIONS. The government of the United States, and the governments of Russia and the European Union are all awaiting eagerly the day when they can see us murdered off. It's just that they don't want to bloody their own hands with the unpleasantness. That's what the Arabs and Persians are there for - to do the "wet work" of murdering us off for them. The Arabs and the Persians do the dirty work, and the European and American élites come in with their goons to claim the spoils. That's the deal. That's what the New World Order is all about for this part of the world. So we cannot afford to regard ourselves as part of the West any longer. We cannot look to China as an ally, for the Chinese will swallow us up like a tasty chicken, suck up every asset they can and spit out the bones (that is what they are in the process of doing to the American people, who are not being allowed to see the truth). We have NO allies among the councils where men of power meet - only those happy to see us die, and those who don't really care because they have their own problems. We have only the G-d of Israel to protect us - NOTHING ELSE.

Let's get used to that fact, because if we expect G-d to do all that He does for the sake of Israel, as our rabbis tell us every Wednesday and Thursday, we better damned well be prepared to do all that we do for the sake of the G-d of Israel and His Holy Name.


Let's look for a moment at the second part of the title before going to what we in Israel must do. Do the Jews have any friends? Among individuals of good will, our friends number in the millions. I do not mean people who are willing to "befriend" us so they can try to get us to give up the faith of our ancestors We all know who they are, even if we don't like to admit it. I mean friends. Friends are people who love us for who we are, no matter how bad we stink or how stupid we act, or what we have or haven't done for them lately. Do they have power? Well, in a way they do; they can speak up for us when we are too busy doing other things - like fighting for our survival, for example.

Is there anybody else. Maybe there is. Miracles do happen.

Prophecy happens also.

         And the word of the L-RD came unto me, saying: 'And thou, son of man, take thee one stick, and write upon it: For Judah, and for the children of Israel his companions; then take another stick, and write upon it: For Joseph, the stick of Ephraim, and of all the house of Israel his companions; and join them for thee one to another into one stick, that they may become one in thy hand. And when the children of thy people shall speak unto thee, saying: Wilt thou not tell us what thou meanest by these? say into them: Thus saith the L-rd G-D: Behold, I will take the stick of Joseph, which is in the hand of Ephraim, and the tribes of Israel his companions; and I will put them unto him together with the stick of Judah, and make them one stick, and they shall be one in My hand. And the sticks whereon thou writest shall be in thy hand before their eyes. And say unto them: Thus saith the Lord G-D: Behold, I will take the children of Israel from among the nations, whither they are gone, and will gather them on every side, and bring them into their own land; and I will make them one nation in the land, upon the mountains of Israel, and one king shall be king to them all; and they shall be no more two nations, neither shall they be divided into two kingdoms any more at all; neither shall they defile themselves any more with their idols, nor with their detestable things, nor with any of their transgressions; but I will save them out of all their dwelling-places, wherein they have sinned, and will cleanse them; so shall they be My people, and I will be their G-d. And My servant David shall be king over them, and they all shall have one shepherd; they shall also walk in Mine ordinances, and observe My statutes, and do them. And they shall dwell in the land that I have given unto Jacob My servant, wherein your fathers dwelt; and they shall dwell therein, they, and their children, and their children's children, for ever; and David My servant shall be their prince for ever. Moreover I will make a covenant of peace with them--it shall be an everlasting covenant with them; and I will establish them, and multiply them, and will set My sanctuary in the midst of them for ever. My dwelling-place also shall be over them; and I will be their G-d, and they shall be My people. And the nations shall know that I am the L-RD that sanctify Israel, when My sanctuary shall be in the midst of them for ever.'
[יחזקאל/Ezekiel 37:15-28]

We Jews have friends - but more important, we have family. We are the Southern Tribes of the Children of Israel, who inhabited Judea and Binyamin after the destruction of the northern rebel Kingdom of Israel by SenHarív. But nothing - and nobody - is lost in the Sight of G-d. A hefty portion of the Northern Tribes, after they left, became a people by another name, the Pashtun. In their tribal names and in many of their customs, they preserve the ancient heritage of Jacob, of Israel, their Patriarch. In names like Rabbanizai, we see Reuven, Yusufzai, we see Joseph, Afridi, we see Efraim. They are family. But at present, huge difficulties stand in the way of the two brother peoples drawing closer; partly are the closed-minded attitudes of many Jews and Pashtun; partly is the refusal of the governments of Afghanistan or Pakistan, where the majority of the Pashtun live, to recognize the Jewish state. Partly is the fact that the Pashtun presently regard themselves as Muslims. And they are virtually the only people on the entire planet to have embraced Islam willingly other than the original followers of Muhammed (pbuh). Finally, is the fact that as long as this government sits in power in Jerusalem, Yehudá will not be allowed to lift even a finger to reach out his hand to his brother, Yoséf, who is suffering in war, starvation and incipient genocide. So, it may take more than the usual human efforts to get the two brother peoples together. This will be more complicated than putting together a family reunion in summer-time.


Saying that it will take G-d's help to bring about the prophecies in יחזקאל/Ezekiel 37:15-28 is not just a phrase to be uttered in conversation.

Having considered our friends and our family, now let's move on. Time's a wastin'! What do we do? This is usually where all the arguing starts.

What I am outlining here is this. We have no real reason to waste our time on a broken political system that now serves only the rich élites of North Tel Aviv or their puppet masters in Europe or America. That leaves out Mr. Feiglin of Manhigut Yehudit, or MK Katz of the National Union. I admire both these men immensely. They do not serve these élites. G-d forbid I should ever say such a thing! But, there is no reason to try to muscle in on their turf, only to experience the disappointment of being manipulated to the sidelines even if we succeed. That is exactly what has happened to both Mr. Feiglin and MK Katz. And I'm not saying this as an insult. I'm merely telling the truth. Remember - no BS.

We cannot hope to contemplate fomenting a revolution or civil war - even if this is what the traitorous scum at the head of the Shaba"k or the Security Ministry want to see. They have the goons and the guns and we don't. It is all as simple as that.

What can we do? We can pray. But beyond prayer?

Yes, there is quite a lot we can do. In essence the future holds a situation where the war we will face will be so large that even the Lion of Judah will have to crouch and hide for a bit; a hundred missiles a day launched at Tel Aviv, and 500 a day launched at the rest of the country, an invasion of the north and the destruction of much or the country's infrastructure will also entail the likely collapse of the régime. Someone has to be there to replace the régime that collapses. It is very likely that the Knesset building will be a missile pit, having taken at least 50 hits. The same will be true of Government Hill where the various ministries are located in Jerusalem. These are the things we need to expect in the coming war. Nobody will be there to answer the phones in the government offices. A lot of the government offices won't even exist. If the prime minister and security minister are even alive, they will be in hiding.


If we expect to survive as a nation, we will have to have figured out - somehow - a plan of survival. That plan starts with a cabinet - a regency council, really (that is what you form when you are awaiting a prince of David, the messiah, to arise), to form the nucleus of the government-to-be when the Zionist régime finally collapses under its own cowardice, fear, and enemy missiles.


Now beyond that, there is much that is dicey. But the beginning must be that regency council. That council will be there to figure out what to do with a very dicey situation. It will have to have people on it who understand what to do about preserving health; about how to handle food distribution; about how to handle natural and man-made disasters; about disposing of garbage; about defense; how to rig up communication systems with a minimum of equipment It will need people on it who can throw together a system of exchange where the banks will likely be closed and where the New Israeli Shekel will likely have been consigned to the trash bin. I'm trying to make all this sound simple, but the fact is that every action, and every moment will be pregnant with danger, and there will be the ever-present possibility of a missile strike. The goal will be to make chaos - the chaos of war - our friend, so as to make sure that our nation survives. And it will take a tremendous amount of faith in G-d.


Now finally, let us get to the issue that is the title of this essay - the coming invasion of Israel by the United States and NATO. That will occur because either we will have succeeded somehow in defeating the Arabs in the war that they will have started - or we will have lost, and the Americans and Europeans will be coming to double-cross the Arabs and Persians.  It doesn't matter which it will have been.  What matters is that the Americans, whether with NATO or not will find a reason to invade.  This invasion may not even take the form of an open invasion.  It may be the form of an "invitation" by what is rapidly degenerating into a qvisling régime (consider the model of the Czech communists "inviting" their neighbors to end the "Prague Spring" of 1968).  But the exact form is not material.  What is material, what is the bottom line, is that it will be the boots of foreign soldiers on our ground issuing orders to Israeli citizens and effectuating an occupation.

It will be against this force that we will need our government-to-be, our regency council.  This regency council may or may not succeed.  We may seem to lose militarily - but we cannot afford to lose faith!  This will be our true test of faith in G-d!  It is this force that I believe Prophecy speaks of in the Books of  יחזקאל/Ezekiel and  זכריה/Zechariah.  Samantha Power and her veiled threats are the mere outrider of what is coming.

Our sages say that the Full Redemption will be on the outlines of the events that happened in the Exodus.  In His bringing us out from Egypt 3,500 years ago, G-d destroyed Egypt, so that it would not have a serious say in world affairs for 400 years.  G-d's  hits - improperly translated as "plagues" - that struck Egypt killed millions of them.  We can look at the world events occurring now - like the swarms of earthquakes and popping off volcanoes, the terrible weather hitting North America and which hit Europe, the radioactivity coming from the destroyed Fukushima nuclear plant, as akin to the hits G-d struck Egypt with.  We should expect all this to get worse. 

In other words, we should expect the weather to get worse, we should expect to see food shortages, political instability world-wide, and finally wars - terrible wars.

And we need to prepare the government-in-waiting.  For the government we have now in Israel obviously has no clue - for all the intelligence, for all of its good military , etc. etc.  When that government falls, we cannot be found wanting.  Our lives are at stake.

Murder and Desecration at the Tomb of Joseph - A Call to my Pashtun Brothers and Sisters

בס''ד

Originally Published as a Note in Facebook

Copyright ©, R. Kossover, 2011

 
This morning (24 April, 2011) a Jew went to pray at the Tomb of Joseph near Sh'khém a few kilometers north of where I live in Samaria.   Joseph is the ancestor of the Yusufzai and the Afridi, and probably the Khattak at the very least, amongst my Pashtun brothers and sisters.  He was the favorite of our ancestor, Israel, and the lands of Ephraim and Menashe (the modern Afridi-Khattak and Yusufzai) were the largest tribal grants in all of ancient Israel.  The Jew, a relative of one of the cabinet ministers, Limor Livnat, was killed.  Several other Jews were wounded.  The murderers, were members of the American trained "Palestinian Police".  Thus we see yet again, Children of Israel murdered and killed by American trained and equipped soldiers.  This has happened in Afghanistan and Pakistan as well, even though Americans themselves have attempted to do acts of goodwill in Afghanistan.

Apparently, it was not enough to kill Children of Israel.  The Arabs living in the area also decided to set the Tomb of Joseph on fire.  The people who set the tomb on fire were people who often receive the sympathy of Pashtun who dislike Jews, and prefer that Muslims rule their ancestral homeland.  But what these Pashtun miss is that these Muslims who hate Jews would and have just as easily desecrate the tomb of the Pashtun Patriarch who is most important aside from Jacob.  Speaking as a Jew, and as a loyal Son of Israel, I have no sympathy at all for those who persecute my Pashtun brothers in Central Asia.  This is most especially true if the persecutors are ethnic Pashtun themselves, as most of the Taliban are.

I am calling upon my Pashtun brothers and sisters in Central Asia and elsewhere to reconsider how they view the desecrators of the Tombs of their ancestors.  I am calling upon them to similarly reconsider how they view their Jewish brothers who pray at these Tombs - and die at the hands of Arabs.  If someone called for the murder of my brother, I would oil my gun, load it with ammunition and seek to protect my brother, if I could.  I cannot do this in the case of Pashtun but I can and do speak out against the evil perpetrated against my Pashtun brothers by their persecutors.  I am asking for similar support from my Pashtun brothers.

You will discover that the Pashtun stand alone; the only people who will stand by you are your brothers here in Israel.  I am one such brother, and stand by you in your attempts to secure self-rule in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and justice and education for your people.  A brother stands with his brother.  Can you do the same?  Will you?

First Ever Holocaust Films Retrospective in South Asia

בס''ד

This article was written by Dr. Navras Jaat Aafreedi, a Pathán researcher into the history of the People of Israel. As a Pathán, he is a descendant of the tribe of Efraim (Afridi in Pashto), which used to live in the Samarian mountains that surround me. He is not a Jew, but as my friend and colleague Lowell (Aryeh) Gallin points out, he is one of 40 million Patháns who claim descent from the tribes of Israel who were exiled by SanHerív when Assyrian armies conquered the separatist Kingdom of Israel 2,800 years or so ago. Therefore, Dr. Aafreedi is a fellow Israelite - my brother Israelite. And it is privilege to count him as a friend as well.

I post this here to give it a URL, so that his words, and the words of my friend and colleague Lowell Gallin, can have voice and spread world-wide.

R. Kossover, Editor
Root & Branch Information Services
4 February 2010

YERUSHALAYIM, Israelite Tribal Territories of Judah and Benjamin, Kingdom of David and Solomon, United Israelite Kingdom of Judah and Joseph, Twentieth Day, Eleventh Hebrew Month of "Shvat", 5770; Yom Chamishi (Fifth Day of Week/"Thurs"-day, February 4, 2010), Root & Branch Information Services mailto:rb@rb.org.il www.rb.org.il :


First Ever Holocaust Films Retrospective in South Asia

Copyright © 2010 by Dr. Navras Jaat Aafreedi

Navras Jaat Aafreedi, Ph.D.
Indian Co-Chair, R&B Indian Pathan-Israel Fellowship
Open Space Fellow, Centre for Communication and Development Studies
http://openspacelucknow.blogspot.com
http://aafreedi.googlepages.com/home
http://navrasaafreedi.blogspot.com
mailto:aafreedi@gmail.com

Reprint Notice: Permission granted to redistribute this R&B Information Services item through email Lists, and to post on Internet web sites, as long as text & title are not modified. Source (R&B Information Services) and author's copyright must be displayed.





Introduction:

Dear R&B Readers,

It is with immense pride that we present to you this inspiring report by Dr. Navras Jaat Aafreedi on the Holocaust Films Retrospective that Navras organised in India, in Southeast Asia's Muslim heartland, from September-October, 2009.

Navras Jaat Aafreedi, an Israelite prince of the Afridi Pathan tribe, came to study in Eretz Yisrael from the Fall of 2006 through the Spring of 2007. Navras is Indian Co-Founder and Co-Chair of the Root and Branch Association's Indian Pathan-Israel Fellowship (R&B has a Pakistani Pathan-Israel Fellowship, too). As you (should) know, Pathans (forty million of them) believe that they are descendants of the Lost Tribes of Israel. Navras the Pathan of course believes this. So do I.

Read Navras' report below and marvel at what ONE PERSON, a volunteer operating on a shoestring budget (if that!), with a good head and a good heart, can accomplish. Austrians say, "The situation is hopeless, but not serious". Prussians say, "The situation is serious, but not hopeless". Count me in with the Austrians when it comes to that "peaceful, easy feeling" state of mind http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44_rtJxPg0s. Count me in with the Prussians when it comes to Blitzkrieg ("Lightening War") Time.

Navras took ACTION, amazing ACTION. Remember that when paper pushing, brain and heart dead apparatchiki of the Israeli "government" and E.J.O's (Establishment Jewish Organizations) tell you "We can't do this" or "We can't do that" or "We need to convene a committee" or "We need a big budget", or "We need to conduct a study" or, or, or...Just press the "delete" button!

Navras brought Israel's battle to the Muslim heart of Southeast Asia. He did not ask himself, "Am I afraid?", or "Will there be a pogrom?", or "What will the goyim say?" or, or, or...It is a DIFFERENT kind of thought/perception world, that of the free Men (and Women) of the Mountains, the Fighting Israelite Pathans.

Today, Lucknow. Tomorrow, UP to the hills and valleys of northern Pakistan, where Saudi Arabian, Kuwaiti and Gulf State petro-dollar profit financed Wahhabi mind murderers destroy the lives of orphan Pathan boys by attempting to turn them into suicide/murderers in Wahhabi madrassot ('schools'). Not much longer. Soon, oh so soon, the Pathans will REALLY wake up to their Israelite heritage, and SEE what the Wahhabi (primarily) Arab "imams" and "sheikhs" have done to Our People. And when the Pathans REALLY wake up, they will wipe out the Wahhabis among them, leaving none surviving. They will kill them.

So, my advice to all Wahhabi murder masters at your madrassot in northern Pakistan, and Afghanistan. Get out. Flee, while you still have time. Because your time is coming to an end.


Shalom from Yerushalayim,


Mr. Lowell Gallin

Founder and President
The Root and Branch Association, Ltd.
www.rb.org.il
mailto:rb@rb.org.il

Author
Cracking the Qur'an Code:
God's Land, Torah and People Covenants with Israel in the Qur'an and Islamic Tradition
Volume One, E-Book First Edition
(Jerusalem: Root and Branch Association, Ltd., 2009, 399 pages, $12.00)
http://stores.lulu.com/store.php?fAcctID=3743146



**************************************************************************************

First Ever Holocaust Films Retrospective in South Asia

Conscious as I was of how ignorant my fellow Indians were of the Holocaust and how a section of Muslims among them denied its scale and magnitude, I had for a long time desired to do something to create awareness on the subject. Also, the fact that although Western History was taught at my alma mater, the University of Lucknow, but that the students were never told about the Holocaust, saddened me.

The Open Space Fellowship from the Centre for Communication and Development Studies, Pune, emerged as the means to that end and enabled me to organise, with worldwide help and support, largely in the form of film contributions, THE FIRST EVER HOLOCAUST FILMS RETROSPECTIVE IN SOUTH ASIA. During the Retrospective, forty-six film screenings took place in fourteen days in three phases at five venues - two universities, two offices of non-profit organisations and the world's largest school - over a period of two months, September and October 2009.

The films screened during the retrospective (absolutely free of charge) were seen by four thousand people. It was an event driven completely by philanthropy. All the films at the Retrospective had either been lent free of charge or donated. Almost all the films screened at the Retrospective had never been seen in South Asia before. The films Retrospective was accompanied by an exhibition of twenty posters, donated by Yad Vashem, Jerusalem.

During the event, a trilingual brochure containing synopses of the films in English, Hindi (India's national language), and Urdu - the lingua franca of almost all South Asian Muslims, and a poem written exclusively for the event by the great Urdu poet, Anwar Nadeem, was distributed among the audiences, which consisted of noted intellectuals as well as academics and students.

All film screenings were followed by discussions which were attended by celebrities such as acclaimed filmmaker, M. S. Sathyu; theatre personalities, Dr. Surya Mohan Kulshreshtha, Jugal Kishor, Salim Arif and Professor Thontadarya; Urdu literary figures, Professor Malikzada Manzoor Ahmad, Dr. Ayesha Siddiqui and Anwar Nadeem; educators and social activists, Professor Roop Rekha Verma and Dr. Jagdish Gandhi; religious leaders of almost all communities in India and a number of academics and university students. It was also perhaps the first event dedicated to the Holocaust to have been attended by Muslims in such large numbers.

While the event was in progress, the two largest circulation Urdu newspapers of Lucknow, Rashtriya Sahara [2] and Aag [3], carried a story each denying the Holocaust and calling it "The Biggest Hoax of the Twentieth Century", which confirms the event's importance. It is highly significant that the Retrospective took place in Lucknow, which is not only a major Muslim cultural centre, but the centre of the Muslim heartland of South Asia, home to the world's largest Muslim population.

Muslim demonstrations against Israel are common in Lucknow. During the American invasion of Iraq, flags of Israel and the U.S. were drawn on the floor at the entrance to Lucknow's most famous landmark, the Shi’a Muslim monument called Bara Imambara, so that whosoever visited the monument trampled the flags. Americans and Israelis were barred from entering the monument.

Even India's response to the Holocaust was largely determined by Muslim attitudes towards Jews, as illustrated by the following paragraph:

"the opposition to the Jews came from the Muslim leaders in India who were pro-Arab. For them the bonds of religion were stronger than the sufferings of Jews under Hitler. Keeping in view the sentiments of the Muslims towards this question, the government imposed many restrictions on the settlement of Jews in India. How far the policy of the Indian National Congress to appease the Muslims was also responsible for this stand of the government needs further study. But there is no doubt that I.N.C.'s pro-Palestinian policy encouraged the British to insist that each Jewish refugee have a guaranteed job before allowed entry into India". [4]


The Holocaust Films Retrospective was inaugurated by the Mayor of Lucknow, Dr. Dinesh Sharma. During the first phase films were screened at the Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar University from September 14th to the 18th. The second phase took place at the University of Lucknow from October 12th to the 15th, with a one day gap on the 14th. During the third phase films were screened at the Open Space – Lucknow office from October 22nd to the 26th, while the concluding day's screenings took place at the office of the non-profit organisation, Saajhi Duniya, on October 27th. On October 2nd, Gandhi's birth anniversary, observed as the International Day of Non-Violence as per a U.N. resolution, a Holocaust film was screened before an audience of three thousand and five hundred, at the World Convention Centre of the City Montessori School, which holds the Guinness record for the largest number of students and is also a recipient of the U.N.E.S.C.O. Prize for Peace Education 2002.

I am glad that I did not succumb to pressure from various quarters to include films on other genocides, conscious as I was that doing so would be comparing the Jewish Holocaust in Europe to similar acts of genocide in the twentieth century, which could result in the obfuscation and dwarfing of the Jewish trauma.

Jewish/Israelite History had always fascinated me, but I fell in love with Israel and the Jewish culture during the one academic year (2006-2007) I spent in Israel, supported by a scholarship from the Israeli Government. Now I look for opportunities to introduce my fellow countrymen to Israel and Jewish culture through various media.

Also, coming from a Muslim background and being a Secular Humanist gives me the privileged position of being at once an insider and an outsider in the Muslim community. It makes me well aware of the Muslim anti-Semitism and Holocaust Denial among them. These efforts of mine are also aimed at improving South Asian Muslim attitudes towards Jews and Israel.

The work is significant in many respects. The field of Jewish-Muslim relations activism has largely been focused on Arab-Israeli relations, concerned with the Arab enemy right there at the doorstep of Israel. Yet eighty per cent of the Muslim population is non-Arab, largely resident in South Asia; and they have emerged as the epicentre of Muslim anti-Semitism and violence. They have declared war against the Judeo-Christian West and certain aspects of the composite Indic civilization. The Wahhabi Taliban and Wahhabi Al Qaida have their bases in South Asia. The strongest influence the extremist and fanatic Wahhabis have anywhere outside of Saudi Arabia is in South Asia, among the Muslims there.

I am of the view that ignorance gives birth to stereotypes, which ultimately leads to feelings of hatred and hostility, so evident in South Asian Muslim attitudes towards Jews. Most South Asian Muslims know Jews only through secondary sources, for example:

the Qur'an, whose references to Jews are generally misinterpreted in a negative way;

the Muslim Press, which may be considered guilty of yellow journalism by being selective in presenting the truth and refusing to present it in its entirety.

The biggest manifestations of Muslim anti-Semitism in the twenty-first century have all emerged in South Asia:

the 9/11 attack perpetrated by members of Al Qaida, which has its base in South Asia, in Afghanistan and the tribal region of Pakistan;

the assassination of Daniel Pearl;

the 26/11 attack on the Chabad in Mumbai.

I have touched upon each of the above mentioned unfortunate events by organising programmes focused on them, for example:

Preview Screening of the documentary New Muslim Cool at the University of Lucknow, a day before its world premiere on the American channel PBS;

An Evening dedicated to Jewish-Muslim Relations among Muslim youth at the Academy of Mass Communication, Lucknow, where the celluloid adaptation of Daniel Pearl's widow Mariane's memoir, A Mighty Heart, was screened and a bilingual (Urdu and English) booklet on inter-faith relations, published by the Centre for Interfaith Studies, Pakistan, was distributed (the event's photos, press coverage, report and a link to the OPEN SPACE - LUCKNOW blog is now there at the Daniel Pearl Foundation website;

Prof. Deepika Marya's (University of Southern Maine, U.S.A.) lecture on 26/11 Mumbai and the Radical Project of Secularism in memory of Rabbi & Mrs. Holtzberg of Mumbai Chabad, at the Giri Institute of Development Studies, Lucknow.

Besides this, I’ve gotten eminent Muslim scholars, such as the Anthropologist Prof. N. Hasnain, Urdu Poet Prof. Malikzada M. Ahmad and the Secretary General of the Italian Muslim Assembly, Sheikh Professor Abdul Hadi Palazzi, who is the world's most prominent Zionist Muslim cleric, to speak against Muslim anti-semitism, and Jewish speakers from the US, such as Human Rights Activist Dr. Richard L. Benkin and the filmmaker and writer Sadia Shepard, and from Israel, Sharon Rappaport, Political Secretary, Israeli Embassy in New Delhi, to give messages of Jewish-Muslim reconciliation.

Now I intend to invite the famous duo, Professor Judea Pearl and Professor Akbar S. Ahmad, for a Jewish-Muslim Dialogue in Lucknow, the first ever outside of the Judeo-Christian West.


I have also tried to introduce Indian youth, particularly Muslim Indian youth, to:

Jewish literature from India, Israel, the US, and Europe, by organising the readings of the works of Padmashri Nissim Ezekiel, Esther David, Meera Mahadevan (nee Miriam Jacob Mendrekar), Robin David, Yehuda Amichai, Sadia Shepard (Jewish, according to Halacha), Etgar Keret, and Tadeusz Borowski;

Jewish Music by organising "An Evening of Jewish Music" dedicaticated to World Peace in memory of Daniel Pearl on his birthday, as part of the Daniel Pearl World Music Days peace movement;
Jewish cinema by organising a retrospective of the Israeli filmmaker Professor Yael Katzir's award-winning documentaries.

One can read about my efforts for the betterment of Jewish-Muslim relations on the following sites:

http://aafreedi.googlepages.com/dr.navrasjaataafreedi%27seffortsforthebett2 ;
http://openspacelucknow.blogspot.com/search/label/Jewish-Muslim%20Relations .


It is my hope, going forward from this point, that others will be inspired to further elucidate the ties and commonalities between Muslims and Jews, and thereby increase understanding between these ancient peoples and faiths.



Shalom from Lucknow,

Navras Jaat Aafreedi, Ph.D.
Indian Co-Chair, R&B Indian Pathan-Israel Fellowship
Open Space Fellow, Centre for Communication and Development Studies
http://openspacelucknow.blogspot.com
About me: http://aafreedi.googlepages.com/home
About my research: http://navrasaafreedi.blogspot.com

Press Coverage:
English Press: http://openspacelucknow.blogspot.com/search/label/Open%20Space%20in%20Lucknow%27s%20English%20Press
Hindi Press: http://openspacelucknow.blogspot.com/search/label/Open%20Space%20in%20Lucknow%27s%20Hindi%20Press
Urdu Press: http://openspacelucknow.blogspot.com/search/label/Open%20Space%20in%20Lucknow%27s%20Urdu%20Press


Photographs of THE FIRST EVER HOLOCAUST FILMS RETROSPECTIVE IN SOUTH ASIA can be seen on
http://openspacelucknow.blogspot.com/2009/09/first-ever-holocaust-films.html

[1] http://aafreedi.googlepages.com

[2] Qutubullah, "Holocaust: Beesveen Sadee ka Sabse Badadaa Jhoota Afsana", Rashtriya Sahara, Lucknow, September, 16, 2009

[3] "Sadee ka Sabse Badaa Jhoot? Holocaust", Aag, Lucknow, October 18, 2009

[4] Tilak Raj Sareen, "Indian Responses to the Holocaust", in Anil Bhatti and Johannes H. Voigt, eds., Jewish Exile in India: 1933-1945, Manohar in association with Max Mueller Bhavan, New Delhi, 2005, page 59