fbpx

GET HOME DELIVERY! CLICK HERE »

ADVERTISE
pick up locations
HOME DELIVERY
donate

Jewish Journal

Connect. Inform. Inspire.

April 26, 2023

Pahlavi Visit to Israel Brings Hope

Commentary, Opinion /

The world was pleasantly surprised last week when the Iranian Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi and his wife Yasmin announced on April 16 that they were visiting Israel for Yom Hashoah—that is, all the world except for the Islamic Republic of Iran and its affiliated terrorist groups. The Pahlavis’ words and actions demonstrated their profound understanding that global peace and security depends upon friendship between Iran and Israel. The Pahlavis met with top Israeli officials and dignitaries including Israeli President Isaac Herzog, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife Sara, and Israel’s Minister of Intelligence Gila Gamliel.

At a moving and historical visit to the Western Wall, the Pahlavis inserted prayers into the Wall and paid tribute to the six million Jews who perished in the Holocaust. Referencing an edict documented in the Book of Ezra, Reza Pahlavi stated “2,500 years ago, Cyrus the Great liberated the Jewish people from captivity and helped them rebuild their temple in Jerusalem.” With those words the Pahlavis refuted the fiction that Israel is a “neocolonial” entity with no roots in the Middle East and signaled that it is time to resume warm relations between Iran and Israel. 

Pahlavi added, “the regime in Iran does not represent the Iranian people.” They “aspire to have a government that honors [Cyrus the Great’s] legacy of tolerance for different faiths and protection of human rights.” Recent polling has indeed shown that Iranians hold a more favorable view of Israel than the EU and the UK. This polling has also shown that Reza Pahlavi has top favorability by far, from a list of potential alternative leaders of the Iranian people.

The Pahlavis also visited Yad Vashem. While there, Reza Pahlavi emphasized that “Anti-Semitism is evil. It’s not just a Jewish problem. It’s a problem for all humanity. Together with my Iranian compatriots, I condemn the Islamic Republic’s genocidal Jew-hatred and Holocaust denial, and commit to never allow such an unconscionable atrocity to ever happen again.” 

Indeed, one of the primary antisemitic tropes of Ali Khamenei, the theocratic leader of Iran, is to refer to the Holocaust as a myth. Each year, the Iranian government bankrolls the reprinting of the Tsarist forgery “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” spends nearly $1 billion to arm terrorist groups such as Hamas, Hezbollah and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), and sponsors Holocaust denial and terrorism conferences to train BDS activists. The corrosive effect of these activities keeps violence alive not only in the Middle East but also globally, and spills over into European capitals, international bodies, and onto college campuses. 

The Pahlavis are proposing a true alternative vision, the Cyrus Accord, a peace treaty between Iran and Israel that would “rekindle friendship between Iranians and Israelis” and “seek cultural, scientific, and economic exchange with Israel and other neighbors across the region.” They recognize that, like the Abraham Accords—a peace treaty between Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain—working toward the Cyrus Accord would signal a new role for Iran in the Middle East and globally. 

As an exemplar of their vision, the Pahlavis visited the Sorek Desalination Plant “to see Israel’s impressive water technology firsthand.” Noting the environmental disasters that the Islamic Republic’s mismanagement of Iranian natural resources has wrought (the Regime has indeed imprisoned, tortured and killed environmental scientists who spoke out), the Crown Prince proposed environmental scientific exchanges between Iran and Israel.

The Pahlavis also visited the Bahá’í World Centre in Haifa, honoring the most vilified religious minority in Iran. That alone acknowledged the plight of Iran’s many other oppressed religious and ethnic minorities, including Jews, Zoroastrians and Sunni Muslims. Although many of these groups have sought refuge in the diaspora, those who remain continue to be voiceless and oppressed by the regime.

The Pahlavis’ vision of freeing the Iranian people from its current theocratic dictatorship has wide support both inside Iran and in the diaspora.

The Pahlavis’ vision of freeing the Iranian people from its current theocratic dictatorship has wide support both inside Iran and in the diaspora. Iranian Americans, for example,  are lobbying Congress for passage of H.Res. 589, the Mahsa Act. This bi-partisan effort will sanction top regime officials, including Ali Khamenei, and implement mechanisms to hold the Islamic Republic accountable for its human rights abuses. The Act is named after the 22-year old Mahsa Amini, whose September 2022 death at the hands of Iran’s “morality” police sparked a powerful democratic movement to topple the regime that is still very much underway. 

During their visit the Pahlavis echoed the sentiments of many Iranians, noting that the visit to Israel affected them deeply and energized them to continue their struggle to free Iran.

At the Western Wall the Pahlavis entered into solemn prayer “for the day when the good people of Iran and Israel can renew our historic friendship.” May that day come soon. 

Pahlavi Visit to Israel Brings Hope Read More »

On Israel’s 75th, Founding Fighters Warn Internal Division Could End Zionist Dream

Israel /

To read more articles from The Media Line, click here.

Israel’s founding fighters are worried.

As the country marks its 75th birthday, which begins on April 25th at sundown, those who fought in the 1947-1949 War of Independence are warning that a growing rift in the nation over the government’s controversial judicial overhaul legislation could extinguish the Zionist dream.

Hundreds of thousands of Israelis continue to hold weekly protests against Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s government and its plans to weaken the country’s judiciary. Some reservists are refusing to report for duty over the reforms, which they have labeled as dangerous and undemocratic.

Meanwhile, global risk assessment agency Moody’s recently downgraded Israel’s credit outlook amid a flurry of warnings from financial experts over the economic impact of the legislation.

Government and opposition representatives are holding ongoing talks in the hopes of reaching a compromise; however, Netanyahu has vowed to press on with the reforms if these discussions fail to bear fruit.

Amos Horev, who is turning 99 in June and who fought in the War of Independence as a commander in the elite Palmach force, told The Media Line that the country is on a dangerous path.

Amos Horev. (Dario Sanchez/The Media Line)

“We have a problem here and we are taking a hit,” Horev said. “The one thing that I can say is that we are still strong from a national security perspective. It hasn’t really harmed us, but the things that are happening here are unbelievable. I’ve done a lot for this country.”

Born in Jerusalem during the British Mandate, Horev joined the Palmach, a paramilitary organization that was one of the precursors of the IDF, when he was 14 years old.

He served under future Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin during the 1947-1949 War.

“I was in the Harel Brigade’s 6th Battalion and we were in charge of protecting convoys during the conquest of Arab villages, which attacked the convoys,” Horev recounted. “It was a very tough war. The Harel Brigade lost many people.”

Horev, who has seven great-grandchildren and lives with his wife of 63 years in the city of Ramat Hasharon, wrote of his experiences in an autobiographical book that was published in Hebrew in 2020 (and which has not yet been translated).

Do I need a dictatorship here!? Are they crazy!?

In the decades that followed the war, Horev reached the rank of major-general in the IDF. Throughout his civilian career, he held a number of illustrious positions, becoming president of the prestigious Technion University and chairman of defense tech giant Rafael.

While he has not had to fight as a soldier for many years, he worries that the country is currently in a precarious state.

“Do I need a dictatorship here!? Are they crazy!?” Horev asked angrily. “Whose children are serving in the army? Is it those studying in the yeshivas? All of my children served [in the IDF]. My daughter’s husband was killed in action!”

The birth of a nation

Israel’s War of Independence took place between the newly created Jewish State and the combined armies of Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Transjordan, Egypt, and other Arab nations. Almost 6,400 Israelis—both combatants and civilians—were killed, while the death toll among Arab fighters and civilians totaled between 6,700 and 20,000 people.

“The Jewish militias that participated were the Palmach, Haganah, Etzel and the Lehi,” Prof. (emeritus) of Tel Aviv University Anita Shapira told The Media Line. “The largest was the Haganah and the Palmach took part in the hardest battles. The Etzel and the Lehi were smaller but they also had an impact on the outcome of the war.”

Tel Aviv University Prof. (emeritus) Anita Shapira. (Dario Sanchez/The Media Line)

Born in 1940 in the Warsaw Ghetto, Shapira’s mother smuggled her out of the ghetto and into a convent. In 1944, she was taken out of the convent and placed into an orphanage where she was later adopted by a Jewish family. They moved to Israel in 1948.

“My mother woke me up when the establishment of the State of Israel was declared,” Shapira recalled. “I remember it as if were today. It was midnight on a Friday. Since then I’ve lived for Israeli history.”

Today I’m worried, very worried because what we’re seeing here is a disappearance of solidarity and a loss of our common goals

Like Horev, the award-winning historian and author—who has written numerous books on Israeli history—is also concerned about Israel’s internal turmoil.

“Today I’m worried, very worried because what we’re seeing here is a disappearance of solidarity and a loss of our common goals,” she related. “It’s super depressing. On the other hand, the fact that there is such a strong and dramatic protest shows that there is a new generation of Israelis that cares [about the country] and is concerned. This is a positive sign.”

Others who fought in the War of Independence are also troubled, likening the situation to the Altalena Affair.

The Altalena Affair, which took place in June 1948, is considered to be one of the most divisive episodes in Israeli history. Just weeks after the state had been established, a civil war nearly broke out.

The Altalena was a ship carrying immigrants, a huge cache of weapons, and fighters from the Irgun or Etzel, a Zionist paramilitary group that was being absorbed into the newly-formed Israel Defense Forces. When the ship arrived on Tel Aviv’s shores, a violent confrontation broke out between the IDF and the Irgun, resulting in the deaths of 16 people.

“When then-Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion told forces to fire on the Altalena, Irgun members aboard wanted to return fire,” former Irgun fighter Haim Avni said to The Media Line. “But Menachem Begin, who was head of the Irgun, ordered them to hold their fire and said: ‘There will not be a civil war.’ Nowadays we are in a civil war: Roads are being blocked and we’ve become lawless. Still, I’m optimistic that we’ll get past this.

Haim Avni. (Courtesy)

“The State of Israel is strong and I believe in it,” Avni continued. “The problem we have is that our enemies don’t have to do anything because we’ll destroy ourselves if we continue to be divided.”

Avni, 91, joined the Irgun when he was only 14, becoming one of the group’s youngest members. The organization carried out a number of deadly operations against the British before the founding of the State of Israel.

During the War of Independence, Avni helped them take over parts of Jaffa and the town of Yehud.

“I was placed in the explosives lab,” he recounted. “I was still just a boy and couldn’t really fight. I was given empty hand grenades and had to fill them with TNT. I would crawl between the fighters in Jaffa and distribute these grenades.”

This wouldn’t be happening if Begin were in charge. He knew how to govern, he was honest and he would know what to do.

As the fate of the judicial overhaul hangs in the balance and Israel celebrates its 75th birthday, the country’s founding generation hopes that it will be able to overcome its internal divisions.

For his part, Avni believes that both the pro- and anti-reform camps need to rethink their positions.

“I think that the people leading the reform made a mistake by trying to pass it all in one go instead of doing it piece by piece,” he said. “On the other side, the anti-reform camp is mistaken in their protests, refusal to serve, and threats.

“This wouldn’t be happening if Begin were in charge,” he added. “He knew how to govern, he was honest and he would know what to do.”

On Israel’s 75th, Founding Fighters Warn Internal Division Could End Zionist Dream Read More »

Ode to Friendship

Columnists /

In a fracturing world, where politics divide family and friends, it is timely to reflect on the value and importance of friendship.

Sources ancient and modern, religious and secular, emphasize different aspects of friendship from the scholarly Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy’s lengthy analysis to the cynical La Rochefoucauld’s declaration that friendship is “just an arrangement for mutual gain and an exchange of favours.”

Most of those who reflect on the issue point to the personal benefits that one may receive from a close relationship with another individual, such as Henry David Thoreau’s “Friends will not only live in harmony, but in melody” and Aristotle’s famous description of friends as “a single soul dwelling in two bodies.”

The biblical injunction to “love your neighbour as yourself” (Lev.19:17-18) is key to the nature of friendship. What has loving yourself got to do with loving your friend or neighbor? I think the Torah is telling us that we must accept ourselves before we can be a friend. If we are filled with bitterness, jealousy, anger and other negative thoughts, we are unable to reach out to the other in empathy and caring. If we are consumed with our own grievances, we have nothing to offer anyone else.

Loving oneself in this instance does not mean vanity, self-centredness or ego. Rather, it refers to an inner peace that is neither arrogance nor self-deprecation, a recognition of one’s qualities and shortcomings, a concern for self that leaves room for others.

It is this kind of caring friend that the author of Ecclesiastes refers to in his description of a friend in need: “Two are better off than one, in that they have greater benefit from their earnings. For should they fall, one can raise up the other, but woe betide him who is alone and falls with no companion to raise him” (4:9-11).  Ecclesiastes writes about falling and raising up, but he is referring to assistance, physical, spiritual and practical.

A practical application of this principle can be found in the age-old practice of the chavrusa, or study partner, as distinct from the shiur, or formal classroom. Two people decide that they want to study a Jewish source text and dedicate themselves to do so on an ongoing basis. Often, the two are laymen who simply want to learn about Jewish teachings by exploring them with a friend. As it states in Proverbs (27:17), “as iron sharpens iron, so a man sharpens the wit of his friend.”

The point is beautifully expressed by the poet John Donne: “No man is an island entire of itself … any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind.” We simply cannot navigate the world successfully without others.

Similarly, centuries later, Paul Simon of Simon and Garfunkel sang about his unrequited love: “I am a rock, I am an island … I have no need of friendship … I am shielded in my armor, hiding in my room,” only proving the futility of trying to live completely isolated.

Donne’s notion of involvement with mankind evokes the idea of moral responsibility, which is found also in the Jewish concept of “kol Yisrael areivim ze l’ze,” every Jew being responsible for his fellow.

In the Tanach, King Saul’s son, Yonatan, in protecting his friend David, puts his friendship above his own self-interest. In return, when David becomes king, he protects Yonatan’s family after Yonatan’s death, a demonstration of loyalty that transcends death.

The idea, in secular and religious literature, is that living for oneself is not merely sad or unfortunate, but rather morally irresponsible. It is detrimental to a healthy, cohesive society.

Not everyone can reach the exalted level expressed by the Dalai Lama who gave voice to an ideal of fraternity and moral responsibility: “May I become at all times, both now and forever, a protector for those without protection/A guide for those who have lost their way … A sanctuary for those in danger/A lamp for those without light/A place of refuge for those who lack shelter/And a servant to all in need.” This extension of friendship constitutes a moral framework for social justice.

On a more modest level, for Rabbi Harold Kushner, in his book “When Bad Things Happen to Good People,” friendship is simply a presence, a sharing, a support. Sitting on a beach, he saw a boy and girl work long and hard to build a sandcastle only to see it washed away by a huge wave. He was sure they would be devastated, but instead they laughed and, holding hands, ran together to a different site and started to build another sandcastle: “Only our relationships with other people endure. Sooner or later, the wave will come along and knock down what we have worked so hard to build up. When that happens, only the person who has someone’s hand to hold will be able to laugh.”

Whether they are grand, exalted notions of friendship and social justice or simple, small gestures it all comes down to the fact that we need one another. The simple fact is that civility and morality deteriorate when people lose the capacity to befriend one another.

Anyone who has suffered the loss of a loved one or a close friend knows the value of a single soul and has felt the emptiness that results from his or her demise.

Applying that appreciation acquired in a period of loss to our wider, daily lives and interactions is a challenge that needs to be taken up because friendship is the web that holds together civil society.

Dr. Paul Socken is Distinguished Professor Emeritus and founder of the Jewish Studies Program at the University of Waterloo.

Ode to Friendship Read More »

Rosner’s Domain | At 75, a History Lesson

Rosner's Domain /

Last Saturday, April 21, was exactly 41 years since the final evacuation of the city of Yamit. Golda Meir made the decision to establish the city, and after a decade Menachem Begin made the decision to evict the city. A small town, a few hundred families, on the border of the Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza Strip, by the sea. A dim, distant memory.

Yamit was the price of peace between Israel and Egypt. Israel evacuated the Sinai Peninsula, a territory that’s double the size of current Israel, that was captured from Egypt in the Six Days War. I was in the fifth grade when the debate about peace with Egypt erupted in Israel. The class split into two camps. One — the whole class, against the agreement. The second — two children, in favor of it. This was a Zionist-religious school, and the sentiment was strong and clear. No to the agreement. No to evacuation of settlements. 

Time has passed. Has peace with Egypt justified Begin’s decision to give up on the territory? This might seem like an odd question, but closer examination makes it interesting. During the week of Independence, the echoes of past decisions accompany us. Israel is a young country. Its history is short. Almost everything that was done in the past is still very much present. 

A lot of decisions were made in Israel. We chose 25 of those and asked the public to rank them from “excellent” to “terrible.” Of course, it is not easy to judge decisions in retrospect. Mainly because we don’t know what would have happened if other decisions had been made. Let’s say that Begin had rejected Anwar Sadat’s hand, would there have been another war? Or maybe Sadat would have gotten angry and then improved the offer. 

And what if in five years peace with Egypt collapses? Of course, we hope this will not happen, and there is no reason to assume that it will, but what if it does? Would it make us change our minds about the initial decision to sign a peace agreement? 

Moshe Arens, who was a member of Likud and later served as Minister of Defense and Foreign Minister, strongly opposed the agreement with Egypt. His speech in the Knesset at the time allows us to think about the questions we raised. Here is what he said: “This decision is difficult. We do not know what the results of this decision will be. Only in a few years, looking back, will we be able to say whether we made the right decision or not … Each of us can try to assess the chances, the likelihood and the probabilities … I did my assessment. In my opinion, we have gone too far with concessions. The risks we took are too great, and the stake is too great”.

Did you think this debate is over? In Israel, nothing is ever over.

So Arens assessed the risks and decided that it was too great. This was not far-fetched. The agreement certainly carried risks. And yet, for more than 40 years there has been peace between Israel and Egypt. But wait. Is 40 years enough? A majority of the Israeli public says today that the decision to sign the agreement was good (31%) or excellent (37%). But about a quarter of the public says it was not. That is, there are still quite a few Israelis who believe, even today, that peace with Egypt was not worth the cost!

Why would they have such view? We asked what people think about “the decision to sign a peace agreement with Egypt that includes the evacuation of the entire Sinai Peninsula and its settlements”. It is important to pay attention to the wording, and note that the question includes both “peace” and “evacuation”. This seems to be the key to understanding the remaining opposition to the old agreement with Egypt. The agreement that brought about peace also created a precedent of evacuation in exchange for peace. Egypt insisted on every inch, and Israel gave up every inch. Those who still believe that the decision to an agreement with Egypt are probably weighing in their position not only the peace but also the price of precedent.

The division of positions of Israelis reflect this analysis. A huge majority of left, center-left, and center voters, and also a large majority of center-right supporters – believe the decision to have peace was right. But half of the self-defined supporters of the “right” believe the decision was wrong, and this refers mostly to religious supporters of the right. Among voters of the Religious Zionist Party there is a solid majority (65%) of those who believe that the decision was bad. And remember: We are talking about the peace agreement with Egypt that was concluded more than 40 years ago. 

Did you think this debate is over? In Israel, nothing is ever over.

Something I wrote in Hebrew

The State of Israel celebrates 75 with a Zionist majority. It might celebrate its 100th, God willing, with a non-Zionist majority. And this claim needs to be made a little more precise: according to the Central Bureau of Statistics’ forecast, in 40 years the ultra-Orthodox will make up a third of the country’s residents, and the Arabs about a fifth. This is a non-Zionist majority. But the forecast is not about the 100th anniversary – so why do I say 100? Here is the answer I learned from an Israeli demographer: “ … Either the forecast is incorrect, or it will happen much sooner than expected.” Why sooner? “Because if the trends continue as they are now, at some point the non-Haredi population will start to leave.”

A week’s numbers

The current view of Israeli Jews concerning another historic decision:

A reader’s response:

Avi Herman asks: “Why are you writing about Haredi exemption and say nothing about the Arabs?”

My response: This is indeed an issue that needs to be addressed. But I find it curious that only on this matter the Haredi leadership demands to be last in line. Do they also want us to solve the issue of the housing problem first for the Arabs and only then for the haredi?

Shmuel Rosner is senior political editor. For more analysis of Israeli and international politics, visit Rosner’s Domain at jewishjournal.com/rosnersdomain.

Rosner’s Domain | At 75, a History Lesson Read More »