The National Commission onTerrorist Attacks Upon the United States (aka the 9/11 Comission) has its own website up at http://www.911commission.gov/. The main feature of the website is an on-line version of thier complete report on the 9-11 attacks.
This just in from Mobius over at JewSchool:
Those Egyptians sure love to spin some yarns. First we invented the Holocaust, and now, yes, yes... we use Chrisitan & Muslim blood in our matzahs, as we are allegedly instructed in the Talmud, which requires us to despise goyim. And both these fallacious contentions, ie. OUTRAGEOUS LIES, come from state-operated publications.I couldn't agree more that something needs to be done about this. Don't stop at contacting the state department, contact your senator and congressman as well.
Okay... here's a new petition: Ask the US State Department to withdraw funding to Egypt contingent on the government's cessation of the distribution of antisemitic propaganda. $60 billion US dollars* can't be wrong, but Colin Powell can be. And it's not like they want our money anyway. Click here to e-mail the Department of State. *CS Monitor understates the figures.
The year 5764 (aka 2004 CE) marks the 350th anniversary of the first Jewish settlers in America, a small group of Jews from Recife, Brazil who were fleeing persecution and landed in New Amsterdam (now known as New York). Today there are more Jews in the United States than any country outside of Israel.
Check out Celebrate350.org for more information.
An update on my initial Good News and More Good News posts. I've just been told that I have a confirmed room in JTS's on-campus housing! So now I actually have a place to live while I study!
I'll be moving in at the end of the month and attending orientation. And then I'll start classes the 2nd week in September.
With money and housing out of the way all I have to worry about is actually passing my courses!!
Continuing the theme of Jewish superheroes, I present two Israeli superheroes from DC and Marvel Comics.
The first is The Seraph (aka Israeli teacher Chaim Lavon), a member of DC Comics' international superhero group known as the Global Guardians. First appearing in Superfriends #7 (October 1977) he has the strength of Samson (derived from his long hair), the Ring of Solomon (shown to teleport wearer short distances), Staff of Moses (shown to have turned into a serpent and part water) and the mantle of Elijah.
According to IMRA (Indipendant Media Review Analysis), via Jim Davila's PaleoJudaica.com, the Palestinian Authority has recently produced an "educational" programme that further reinforces thier repaeted denials concerning the Jewish People's historic claim to the land of Israel:
On an educational program on PA TV, two senior Palestinian Authority [PA] historians went to great lengths to deny ancient Jewish history and erase the Jewish connection to the Land of Israel. At the same time they describe an ancient Palestinian - Arab history, creating a historical connection to the land that never existed.Translated transcripts of a portion of the programme are included with the IMRA article, including these gems:
Two central components of this Palestinian myth consist of turning Biblical Israel into Muslim- Arabs, while teaching that the Palestinians are the descendents of the Biblical Canaanites, who are also turned into Arabs. With both the Canaanites and Israelites becoming Arabs and the religion of ancient Israel becoming Islam, the PA takes authentic Jewish history, documented by thousands of years of continuous literature, and crosses out the word "Jewish" and replaced it with the word "Arab".
This creative historical revisionism is not new in the PA. Denying the thousands of years of Jewish connection to the Land of Israel, coupled with the invention of "Palestinian" history of thousands of years, have always been of supreme importance to the Palestinian Authority... incessant denial of Israel's history and right to exist, and the invention of a PA history have been backbones of PA indoctrination and education for years.
In the broadcast last week on PA TV the following are some of the main
points of the"history".
1. The Hebrews of the Bible have no connection to the Jews today.
2. The Hebrews of the Bible were Arabs.
3. The Prophets of the Bible were Muslims.
4. Biblical King Solomon was a Muslim Prophet.
5. Solomon's Temple was not built by Israelites but by Arab Canaanites.
6. The Canaanites are the forefathers of the Palestinians
7. The Bible is legends based on what Jews imagined and not on history.
8. The Jews today are descendents of a 13 th Century Khazar tribe with
no history in the Land of Israel.
9. The location of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem is a Zionist invention.
10. Zionism is Racism.
Moderator: "Where did the story of Solomon’s Temple come from?"***
Al-Qidwa: "Solomon’s Temple, I believe, was built by the Canaanites who were the neighbors of the Israelis, the Israelites... I want to state several words clearly: the Bible became an archival document, not representing what the Israelis and the first Jews were, but what they thought they were, what they imagined. The Temple is the fruit of their imagination. In any case, when our nation or our Canaanite forefathers came to Palestine, they built the Temple a temple in Jerusalem."
Viewer calls studio: "We say that when the Israelites... migrated to America. But the World Zionist Movement and the Free Masons drove them, while distorting the Bible and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and the newly prepared Bible, drove them to come here [Israel] these [the Jews] are the foreign invaders that will pass as the others passed, Allah willing."There is more, unfortunately. I encourage you to read it.
Al-Qidwa: "Allah willing."
Sissalem: "Allah willing."
Albaz: "Allah willing."
Caller continues: "And Palestine will be for them a cemetery, Allah willing..."
I ran across an interesting little piece by Dr. Eliezer Segal, an Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Calgary, called Looking for Lilith. In it he examines some apparent misconceptions about the origins of the Lilith legend:
As one who is normally sympathetic with feminist aspirations, I have often been disappointed with the scholarly standards of the debate, especially when it has been directed towards the classical texts of Judaism... I find too frequently that sweeping generalizations are being supported by flimsy or questionable evidence, with a disturbing disregard for factual accuracy and historical context.
Prof. Segal has many other facinating articles at his website and is the author of several books including Why Didn't I Learn That in Hebrew School?
As an example of this sort of scholarly sloppiness, I wish to discuss an intriguing Hebrew legend that has found its way into dozens of recent works about Jewish attitudes towards women.
The legend in question was inspired by the Bible's dual accounts of the creation of the first woman, which led its author to the conclusion that Adam had a first wife before his marriage to Eve. Adam's original mate was the demonic Lilith who had been fashioned, just like her male counterpart, from the dust of the earth. Lilith insisted from the outset on equal treatment, a fact which caused constant friction between the couple. Eventually the frustrated Lilith used her magical powers to fly away from her spouse. At Adam's urging, God dispatched three angels to negotiate her return. When these angels made threats against Lilith's demonic descendants, she countered that she would prey eternally upon newborn human babies, who could be saved only by invoking the protection of the three angels. In the end Lilith stood her ground and never returned to her husband.
The story implies that when Eve was afterwards fashioned out of Adam's rib (symbolic of her subjection to him), this was to serve as an antidote to Lilith's short-lived attempt at egalitarianism. Here, declare the feminists matronizingly, we have a clear statement of the Rabbinic Attitude Towards Women!
There is only one slight problem with this theory: The story of Lilith is not actually found in any authentic Rabbinic tradition. Although it is repeatedly cited as a "Rabbinic legend" or a "midrash," it is not recorded in any ancient Jewish text!
The tale of Lilith originates in a medieval work called "the Alphabet of Ben-Sira," a work whose relationship to the conventional streams of Judaism is, to say the least, problematic.
The unknown author of this work has filled it with many elements that seem designed to upset the sensibilities of traditional Jews. In particular, the heroes of the Bible and Talmud are frequently portrayed in the most perverse colours. Thus, the book's protagonist, Ben-Sira, is said to have issued from an incestuous union between the prophet Jeremiah and his daughter. Joshua is described as a buffoon too fat to ride a horse. King David comes across as a heartless and spiteful figure who secretly delights in the death of his son Absalom, while putting on a disingenuous public display of grief. The book is consistently sounding the praises of hypocritical and insincere behaviour.
So shocking and abhorrent are some of the contents of "the Alphabet of Ben-Sira" that modern scholars have been at a loss to explain why anyone would have written such a book... Eventually the tale of Lilith was included in a popular English-language compendium of Rabbinic legend, and some uncritical readers--unable or unwilling to check after the editor's sources--cited it as a representative Rabbinic statement on the topic. As tends to happen in such instances, subsequent authors kept copying from one another until the original error turned into an unchallenged historical fact.
And finally Bush starts telling the truth about the intentions of his administration:"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we," Bush said. "They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we."
- "President" George W. Bush, 6 August 2004
