Tag: Land

The recently highlighted "crisis of Zionism" is in fact a quandary afflicting Jewry and no new phenomenon. Rather, it has two sources, each centuries old.

Avigdor Liberman says he will continue to pursue the drafting of all Israelis at the age of 18, but will uphold the current coalition.

When I look at the pictures of Brooklyn and Toronto, and Boca and Beverly Hills, I pray with all my heart that God open their eyes, and give them a heart of flesh to feel the horror of their plight, living in strange impure lands, living make-believe identities, as if they are Americans and Frenchmen and Australians and Germans, when they are really the descendents of Israelites displaced from their Homeland.

Doing my best to copy Sholom Aleichem’s gifted portrayal, and adding a bit on my own, I transformed the downtrodden Jew of galut into a proud pioneer in the Holy Land and a brave fighter for Jewish freedom. It’s a saga that I am sure you and your children will love. And now, thanks to The Jewish Press, it’s free!

When Tevye walked back to his wagon, Ruchel was missing. Tzeitl reported that a young man from the village had unharnessed Tevye's horse and taken it to the barn for a feeding. Apparently, he had taken Ruchel with him. Tevye's eyebrows rose in surprise. Of all of his daughters, Ruchel most resembled his Golda.

Nadia Matar, co-organizer of the Conference for the Application of Sovereignty over Judea and Samaria: "Just like we now express surprise that Israel did not have sovereignty over East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, so our children will express surprise that once we did not have sovereignty over Judea and Samaria."

The Rambam himself, in his famous, “Letter of Teman,” writes: “Those who seduce themselves and say that they will stay in their places until the king, Mashiach, comes to the lands of the West, and only then will they depart and go forth to Jerusalem – I don’t know how the decree of destruction will be stayed from them. Rather, they are transgressors, and they cause others to sin."

On July 11, 1947, the SS Exodus began its journey, but never reached its intended destination. Yesterday, another Exodus story occurred: 229 Jews left the U.S. on a special flight organized by Nefesh b'Nefesh and the State of Israel. Of those on board, 99 were children. There were 38 families - and 59 singles. The oldest person on the flight is 86 years old, the youngest, only 6 months old. But this time, no one stopped them before they could touch down on Israeli soil.

Mourning, repentance – and love of the Land of Israel. These are arguably the major themes of these Three Weeks of Mourning over the destruction of the Holy Temple. The first two are well known and require little elaboration. But how does love and concern for Eretz Yisrael fit in to the picture?

Ordinarily, an attack by the political hack of one party about a mega-contributor to another party would not merit attention or comment. But what made Harris’s vitriol most unfortunate was that it was one Jew deriding the two foremost private supporters of Jewish identity and the State of Israel in the entire world.

During his weekly talk, the Ashlag Rebbe, Rabbi Simcha Avraham Halevy, challenged politicians who promote the notion of an equal burden, describing them as imbeciles. He proposed a solution to the inequality: "Let every secular boy be forced to bear the burden of defending the homeland of Israel and fulfill his national duty to study Torah and keep the mitzvot." He also said, "The nation of Israel did not survive our brutal history by the deterrence of the IDF, nor by the might of the State of Israel, but by the merit of the study of Torah."

Some people don’t realize that Mashiach’s coming is a process that evolves over time. These people want everything to be finished at the start. They say that when Mashiach comes and does all the work of rebuilding the Land of Israel, and gathers all of the exiled Jews to Israel, and fights the wars of Hashem, and rebuilds the Beit HaMikdash, then they will come on aliyah. First, everything has to be perfect. First, the Mashiach has to do all the work.

The 140 participants on the “Remember Hebron!" tour were English speakers from places like Jerusalem, Ra’anana, Tel Aviv, and Modi’in. For 50 shekels (45 for Jerusalemites) they got to take a luxury bus for a tour of Hebron organized by Likud Anglos and Young Likud, and give "a show of support for the Jewish community of Hebron and Jewish settlement in all the Land of Israel!" There was no mention of the fact that Likud Prime Minister Netanyahu in 1997 delivered most of Hebron into the hands of the PLO.

Surveys reveal that only about 15% of Diaspora Jews have visited Israel. To me, that’s simply shocking. How can it be that God gave us back our homeland and so many Jews don’t come? You can say it is hard to move to a country far away, but what’s the big deal about coming for a visit? It certainly isn’t because of the money. Snorkeling in the Caribbean, and enjoying a gondola ride along stinking, garbage-filled sewers of Venice, cost about the same.

Yishai Fleisher is joined by Alternative Peace Activist Yehuda HaKohen to discuss the roots and life of former Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir.

Being Jewish is a nationality, not merely a religion. We Jews are the Children of Israel. We are members of the Nation of Israel. It doesn’t matter where we live. Only because of having been exiled from our own Jewish Land and scattered to foreign countries for the last 2000 years do we mistakenly think we are members of those foreign, gentile nationalities. Yes, a Jew may have citizenship in the United States or France, but he is still, first and foremost a Jew.

When Moshe led the war against Amalek, he didn’t just pray on the mountain – he sent Yehoshua to lead the soldiers of the Molech Israelite Army to fight down below on the battlefield. Yehoshua didn’t merely blow shofars in conquering the Land, he cut off the heads of the enemy. And who was a greater scholar than Rabbi Akiva? To defend the Land of Israel from the Romans, he closed his Gemorah, rushed to the battlefield, and accompanied Bar Kochba into battle!!

How can it be that outstanding Torah scholars in Europe, before the Holocaust, and even after it started, were against the Zionist movement and told their congregations not to uproot themselves from where they were and flee to Eretz Yisrael? Even today, there are Torah leaders who tell their followers that the time has not come to go to Israel. The question arises – can Gedolim err?

The Jewish Press reports that Kosher Delight is closing its doors in New York, the third Manhattan kosher emporium to do so this year. The real question is: when will “Galut Delight” close up shop? When will the exile lose its delight in the eyes of Diaspora Jews? When will we understand that we don’t belong in gentile lands, no matter how delightful and kosher our Jewish communities may be?

Managing Editor of Jewish Press Online, Yishai Fleisher, is joined by friend and college Baruch Widen where they discuss a recent trip to the Temple Mount along with the launch of Yishai's plan for 40 days of positive speech about the Land of Israel.

The message of the Biblical account of the Spies has tremendous relevance today, here in the modern State of Israel. With a nuclear threat from Iran, enemy states on its borders, the ever-constant fear of terrorism, and pressure from the International Community, Israel is not without its challenges. But it’s also the ‘Start Up Nation,’ with a healthy, growing economy when most of the world’s economies are failing.

Notice the amazing historical confluence of the ingathering with the communications revolution: just as the Jewish people were set to start off on the adventure of building a state in the Middle East, so too did the technology to communicate and broadcast globally explode - from the wire, to the radio, to the TV, to the internet, to the iPhone - there are no boundaries to the exchange of information.

We mustn't forget that the gentile nations do us a favor by allowing us to stay in their lands - until they expel us. One must realize that we are on foreign soil there. It is not our society, nor government, nor culture. Nothing is ours. Only in Israel are we at home with family, living according to our customs, and our uniquely Jewish year, living in the one place designed for our holiness, for our psychological health, even for our physical wellbeing.

Rabbi Yisachar Shlomo Teichtal was one of the respected leaders of Orthodox European Jewry before World War II, the head of the Beit Din in Budapest. Witnessing the horrors of the Holocaust, he discarded his fierce anti-Zionist ideology, and wrote a brilliant scholarly treatise on the vital necessity for Aliyah, titled "Eim HaBanim Semeichah."

Written in the form of a conversation between a Rabbi and a gentile king who is looking to find the true religion, The Kuzari lucidly explains the foundations upon which Judaism is based. What better time than “Book Week” to take another look at this wonderful classic? If you never studied its teachings, you’re missing a building block in your understanding of Judaism which the Gaon of Vilna made top priority for his students.

For any reader who may be confused about the obligation to live in the Land of Israel, this sweeping halachic and Talmudic overview of Rabbi Kahane will surely put all uncertainty to rest. Because of its vital importance to each and every Jew, we will be presenting it in two installments.

Yishai Fleisher and Baruch Viden discuss a recently-read book about the Lubavitcher Rebbe's view of settling the Land of Israel and also how programs like Taglit are decreasing the intermarriage rate among young Jews.

The Third Jewish Commonwealth has accomplished remarkable growth and productivity in its first six decades, and inspires the world with its resourcefulness. Yet as a young country, Israel has much room for improvement. Here are the Top 12 most pressing issues facing the reborn nation today:

Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda Kook used to refer to Rabbi Yehuda Hazani affectionately as "the assembler of great assemblies." Hazani was one of the people who nurtured Gush Emunim, the grassroots movement that worked to resettle Jews in the territories liberated from Arab occupation in 1967, but always behind the curtain. He was an unknown figure to most of the public, a person who took care to be known only by those who had to know him.

Those of you who can come, and there are millions out there, we are waiting to welcome you. And those of you who would like to come, but just can’t seem to put the right pieces together, then you can get involved, in every way that you are able, by encouraging others to come, by coming on frequent visits, by donating money, and by volunteering your time at organizations that have Israel at the top of their programs and agenda.