Jeff Dirdack, Danny Berman Final Movie

The Most Interesting Man in the Jewish world - Shabbetai Zevi, by Jeff Dirdack and Danny Berman

Documentary on the 1973 Arab-Israeli war

History Channel documentary on the establishment of Israel.

This documentary has 10 segments on Youtube, of which this is the first.

History Channel documentary on the Six Day War

This 2008 History Channel documentary traces the military history of the Six Day War.

My Oma

Hey guys. So, my grandma was a WWII Holocaust survivor and her footage from the interviews used by Steven Spielberg in Remember the Shoah is now open to the public. If you have some free-time and want to watch and listen to my grandma's story, heres the link...
Hermina's Story

Hannah Wolinsky- Questions due December 4

Hannah Wolinsky

Blog Questions Due Wednesday December 4

Who were the Canaanites and what kind of Israeli culture did they advocate?

The Canaanites was a very small group of individuals who contributed a great deal to the formation of modern Israeli culture. They denied the Diaspora and felt that Jews and Arabs could live together. It was a goal of the Canaanite party to liberate Jews from Judaism and Arabs from Islam. They were quite radical in the sense that they rejected Judaism and Jewish history. They believed that instead of those things, the people should have a sense of “Hebrew universalism.” The Canaanites said that a large part of the Kedem, meaning east, formed a community rich in Hebrew.  

Why was political and cultural integration of Holocaust survivors into Israeli society so difficult for them?

Many Zionists wanted to believe in only the strength and the positive attributes of the Jews in Israel. They were in denial to the struggles still faced by Holocaust survivors living in Israel. Zionists felt that these holocaust survivors “must learn love of the homeland, a work ethic, and human morals.” The holocaust survivors, on the other hand, felt it was their job to share their experiences. This was a problem because most people living in Israel did not even want to hear about the holocaust, rather they just wanted to focus on the present. 

Questions for Wed Dec 4

Who were the Canaanites and what kind of Israeli culture did they advocate?

The Canaanites were a group of activists made up of poets, authors, journalists, sculptors and educators. This group was led by Yonatan Ratosh, a poet. Also, Binyamin Tammuz and Yitzhak Dazigner who were sculptors. The modern Israeli culture was impacted by their ideology, which was “negation of the Diaspora.” They were considered radicals, who rejected their connections to Judaism and their Jewish history. The Canaanites wanted to go back to a Middle Eastern identity, and they wanted to do so without including Islam or Judaism. The Canaanites were big supporters of Hebrew universalism.

Who were the Israeli Black Panthers and what were their demands?

Between the 1950s and 1960’s many Jews were immigrating to Israel. Bad living conditions, increased rates of unemployment and lack of education were all problems that these Jews faced during this time period. The blame for this was placed on the ruling Labor class who mostly constituted of European or Ashkenazi Jews. In 1971 The Israeli Black Panthers organization was established in order to fight oppression placed on Israeli’s from Middle Eastern countries and North Africa. On the third of March, 1971, the organization held a demonstration in Jerusalem against the cost of living. A series of violent demonstrations, forced the Oriental Jews into the public light. The people of Israel could no longer be ignorant to the oppression placed upon these Jews. This organization, the Israeli Black Panthers became the centerpiece of Israeli politics, and created a  lot of change.

12/4 Questions

1. The Caanites was a group of radical activists, mostly made up of educated men from several different occupations such as journalists, sculptors, poets, and teachers. These activists hoped for a Hebrew renaissance that would liberate Jews from Judaism and the Arabs from Islam.



2. It was not easy to integrate Holocaust survivors into the modern world because almost all of them had to restart their lives from scratch. This involved finding somewhere to live, building credit, finding family members, and mentally recovering from the tragedy they went through.

December 4th Questions - Steven Gilburne

1. Who were the Canaanites and what kind of Israeli culture did they advocate?

The Canaanites were the Jews that came from Canaan. It is better known as modern day Israel, Lebanon, and parts of Palestine territories, as well as parts of Jordan and Syria. Their culture that they advocated evolved from a Nomadic/Arabic background. 

2. Why was political and cultural integration of Holocaust survivors into Israeli society so difficult for them?

After the Holocaust, it was very difficult for the survivors to find refuge in Israel. The issue was that Israel did not have the resource or capital to fill the needs of all these people. Also, the communities in which these people lived before, or communities and homes where they could have lived were destroyed which gave them no place left to stay. Since Israel was no longer an option, the Jews decided to move to Palestine to seek refuge.

- Steven Gilburne

December 4th Blog Question

1.Who were the Canaanites and what kind of Israeli culture did they advocate?

They were considered radicals, who rejected their connections to Judaism and their Jewish history and longed for Hebrew-speaking nation. Essentially, the Canaanites desired for the return to the Middle East and prayed for a Hebrew renaissance to finally free the Jews from Judaism and the Arabs from Islam. They believed that both religions were entrusted to their members of the medieval fallacy, “keeping at bay the advances of secular modernity.”

Originally, only two dozen people were registered members however membership grew quickly. The Canaanite activists included poets, authors, journalists, sculptors and even educators. Additionally the Canaanites fostered the differences between the native-born Israelis, or Sabra, and the diaspora Jew. This ideology of the “negotiation of the diaspora” contributed to the construction of modern Israeli culture.

Dec 4th Blog Question

1. Q: Pages 409-410: Who were the Canaanites and what kind of Israeli culture did they advocate?

    A: The members of the Canaanites ranged from poets such as Yonatan Ratosh, authors, educators, journalists, to sculptors like Yitzhak Danziger and Binyamin Tammuz. The type of Israeli culture they advocated is described as the "negation of the Diaspora". In other words, the Canaanites wanted to get rid of Judaism and go a Middle Eastern identity that combined both Islam and Judaism. They wanted to free Jews from Judaism as well as Arabs from Islam by way of an Hebrew renaissance. This was influenced by their Fascist culture.

Questions for 12/4

Who were the Canaanites and what kind of Israeli culture did they advocate?

The Canaanites were a group of activists comprised of poets, authors, journalists, sculptors and educators. They were led by Yonatan Ratosh, a poet, and Binyamin Tammuz and Yitzhak Dazigner, sculptors. The creation of modern Israeli culture was impacted by their ideology, which was “negation of the Diaspora.” The Canaanites wanted to go back to a Middle Eastern identity, without including Islam or Judaism. They also hoped for a Hebrew renaissance that would free the Jews from Judaism and Arabs from Islam. The Canaanites advocated for Hebrew universalism, were opposed to any connections to Judaism and Jewish history, and were against the explosion of the Arabs.

Why was political and cultural integration of Holocaust survivors into Israeli society so difficult for them?

Even though the Holocaust survivors had a large network of support, the political and cultural integration was hard for them. They had to recreate their family life. The survivors felt the need to share what they went through, but the country’s attitude and culture of the time did not coincide with the survivors’ suffering. They did not want to hear about their experiences and wanted to move on. Some were insensitive, such as David Ben- Gurion, who called the Holocaust survivors “human dust” and a Mapao leader stating, “They must learn to love the homeland, work ethic, and human morals.” Furthermore, the people who were able to come to Palestine before the Holocaust felt a sense of guilt for the Holocaust survivors, but there was still a tense relationship between the Yishuv and the Holocaust survivors.  

Blog Questions for December 4, 2013

Amanda Aussems

Blog Questions

For December 4, 2013 (Wednesday)

Who were the Canaanites and what kind of Israeli culture did they advocate?

The Canaanites were made up of various kinds of artists. They included poets, authors, journalists, sculptors and educators. They had an ideology called “ negation of the Diaspora” which had a critical influence on the formation of modern Israeli culture. The Canaanites veered from Judaism and hoped to return to more of a Middle Eastern sense of identity that did not involve Judaism or Islam. These radicals were lead by the poet Yonatan Ratosh and two sculptors, Binyamin Tammuz and Yitzhak Danziger. The Canaanites longed to free the Jews from Judaism and Arabs from Islam due to the fact that Arabs and Jews came from a shared place and should live in Israel together. Leaning toward a fascist culture, they promoted an idea of Hebrew universalism where there was glorification of the New Hebrew man and woman in addition to an uncompromising rejection to the Diaspora.

Who were the Israeli Black Panthers and what were their demands?

During the 1950-1960s, many Jews immigrated to Israel. These Jews often faced hardships such as difficult living conditions, increased rates of unemployment and lack of education. Thus, in 1971 the Israeli Black Panthers organization was established to protest about the problems faced by these Israelis, from Middle Eastern countries and North Africa, known as Oriental or Mizrahi Jews. The founders of the Black Panthers were young men from the Jerusalem slum neighborhood of Musrara, most of them of North African origin. The Israeli Black Panthers blamed the government and the ruling labor party, which was headed mostly by European Ashkenazi Jews. In March of 1971, the organization held a demonstration in Jerusalem against the oppression faced by the Mizrachi Jews in Jerusalem, despite the government turndown of the proposal. The Panthers conducted multiple demonstrations (which occasionally turned aggressive) in order to gain public awareness of the persecution faced by these Jews. Thus, the Israeli people could not deny or turn a cheek to this growing issue and were pushed to take a step toward adjustments of societal views. The Israeli Black Panthers began a start to changes within the area.

December 4 Blog

3. Page 410: What does the Israeli Law of Return state? What rationale did David Ben-Gurion give for the passing of this law?

The Israeli Law of Return states every Jew has the right to immigrate to Israel. Immigration shall be granted based on a Jews ability to obtain an immigration visa. The distribution of immigration visas was not selective; any Jew that expressed the desire to immigrate to Israel was granted a visa. A Jew can only be denied a visa if: a) the person is acting against the Jewish people or b) the person is likely to endanger public health or the security of Israeli. If a Jew travels to Israel and decides to settle there, they can obtain an immigration certificate. This law also states that any Jew who immigrated to Israel before the law was passed, including Jews born in the country, is to be considered as having immigrated in accordance with this law. The final stipulation of this law states the minister of immigration is responsible for the enforcement of this law, and has the power to create legislation to regulate it. They are also responsible for granting immigration visas to minors under the age of 18.  

David Ben-Gurion believed “The State of Israel is not a Jewish state merely because the majority of its inhabitants are Jews. It is a state for all the Jews wherever they may be and for every Jew who so desires.” The creation of this Jewish state was not new; Israel existed long ago during the times of Bar Kokhba and Rabbi Akiba. Gurion claimed the passage of this law was a pivotal moment in the fate of the state of Israel. He writes, “No event in our life from our emergence as a people until the present has been so decisive.” This law was central to the reasoning behind why the creation of a Jewish state was so necessary. This state would inhabit all willing Jewish exiles, putting an end to the diaspora. But Gurion does note the passage of this law is merely a means to an end. It is “another stage in the long path leading to the full redemption of Israel.”

7. Who were the Israeli Black Panthers and what were their demands?

The Israeli Black Panthers was an organization established in 1971 in order to fight oppression placed on Israeli’s from Middle Eastern countries and North Africa. These Jews who immigrated to Israel during the 1950s and 1960s faced high levels of unemployment, poor living conditions, and a lack of educational opportunities. The blame for this was placed on the ruling Labor class who mostly constituted of European or Ashkenazi Jews. On the third of March, 1971, the organization held a demonstration in Jerusalem against the cost of living. A series of other demonstrations, sometimes violent, catapulted the Oriental Jews into the public light. People of Israel could no longer remain ignorant to the oppression placed upon these Jews. As the Israeli Black Panthers stepped into the center stage of Israeli politics, they created a considerable wave of recognition and change.

Dec. 4 Answers

1) The Canaanites were a group of people lead by Yonatan Ratosh, Binyamin Tammuz, and Yitzhak Danziger whose goal was to eliminate any sort of Diaspora. They believed that both Arabs and Jews came from a common place in Israel and should live there together. They believed that this Middle Eastern identity predated both Judaism and Islam and thus they all stemmed from an ancient Hebrew people. They advocated an ancient Israeli culture and Hebrew universalism.

4) The Holocaust survivors were ready and willing to help Israel move forward. The problem with integration was that the survivors had a victim, “last Jew on Earth,” mentality that forced them to want to tell everyone about being a survivor. This irritated everyone else, because Israel was in a state to move forward and not live in the past, no matter how tragic it may have been. The new Israelis wanted to take back their land and expand on Israeli culture involving defining the New Hebrew man; they were wholly uninterested in Diaspora depression. They also felt guilt whenever they saw a survivor because there were many Jews that could have been saved that were not. They felt self-loathing based on their inadequacies during the war and decided to take out this anger on the survivors. This, in turn, created objection and antipathy of the survivors of the Holocaust making social and political integration difficult.

Blog questions for Wednesday, December 4, on state of Israel

Reading for Wednesday, December 4 is on the early years of Israeli statehood, in The Jews: A History, pp. 409-414.

Questions:

1. Pages 409-410: Who were the Canaanites and what kind of Israeli culture did they advocate?

Flag of the "Canaanites"

2. Page 410: Why and how did some high-ranking Israeli government officials think that Jewish immigration should be restricted?

3. Page 410: What does the Israeli Law of Return state? What rationale did David Ben-Gurion give for the passing of this law? David Ben-Gurion's address to the Knesset on the Law of Return can be found on pages 711-712 of The Jew in the Modern World and the law itself is on page 713.

4. Page 410: Why was political and cultural integration of Holocaust survivors into Israeli society so difficult for them?

5. Who were the Middle Eastern Jews who immigrated to Israel? How were they regarded by government officials, and how were they treated?

For information on the immigration from 1948-1952, see this article - http://israelsdocuments.blogspot.co.il/2013/04/immigrants-to-israel-1948-1952.html.  From May 15, 1948 to the end of 1952, 738,891 Jews had immigrated to Israel. (In 1948, there were about 600,000 Jews in mandatory Palestine, so in four years the population of Israel had more than doubled).

6. Page 411: What were the causes of the Wadi Salib riots in 1959? For more information, see this article in Haaretz - July 9, 1959: Wadi Salib riots.
Demands of the Wadi Salib demonstrators:

Individual freedom, freedom of religion, freedom of the press, an end to discrimination, free high school education for gifted students, ensuring that every person has the means to support himself and eradication of poverty.

The magazine "Ha-Olam Ha-Zeh" (This world).
The headline reads: "What set off the rebellion of the Moroccans?
The Haifa disturbances"

7. Who were the Israeli Black Panthers and what were their demands?
See documents from the Israeli State Archives - http://www.archives.gov.il/ArchiveGov_Eng/Publications/ElectronicPirsum/BlackPanther/
another article, this one about the reported remark of then Prime Minister Golda Meir that the Panthers "weren't nice" - http://israelsdocuments.blogspot.com/2013/05/the-black-panthers-arent-nice.html
From the Jerusalem Post, a retrospective analysis of the Black Panther movement: http://www.jpost.com/Features/In-Thespotlight/This-Week-in-History-The-original-social-protest

"End poverty! The Black Panther Organization"

8. What was the role of the Israeli government in fostering unity among Israelis?

November 20th Blog Questions

Why were the ghettos set up? What were the conditions in the ghettos?

The ghettos were set up after the ordering of the ghettoization of Polish Jewry by Heydrich in 1939. The inhabitants of Jewish communities smaller than 500 people were led out of their homes, and into camps along the side of the railroad. The end goal for the concentration camps was to exploit the Jews for the German war effort, and also a 'final aim' that would be determined later. 

One of the conditions of the Jewish ghettoes were that they would be let by the Judenrat, which was the "Council of Jewish Elders". Each Judenrat was comprised of 24 members of the Jewish community who were considered to be the religious and secular elite, before the war. Even though the Jewish Council sought out to provide things like welfare, housing, medical care, food, and education for the Jews, they were bound to Nazi orders. Instead of seeking out what was in the best interests of their people, the council was responsible for providing the Nazis with maps of the ghettos, records and lists of the Jews and their professions, labor, and property. They were also responsible for voting who would be sent to the gas chambers to be exterminated. 

Ghettos were fenced off toe the outside world, 

How did the Einsatzgruppen (the murder squads) proceed in killing the Jews of the Soviet Union?

The Einsatzgruppen sought out to find civilians from the Baltic States in the north to the Black Sea region in the south. They usually killed Jewish men, but later women and children were included. They would torture their victims by forcibly entering their homes in the middle of the night or the dead of the morning, when no one is awake. Using the element of surprise, The Einsatzgruppen would rob and strip the Jews, and then would kill them with machine guns. Sometimes they would make their victims dig their own graces. The group was often drunk during the killings, which would typically occur from dawn until dusk. Between July 23 and October 15, 1941, one of the divisions of the Einsatzgruppen killed 135,567 Jews.

RealTimeWWII: Nazi occupiers of Czechoslovakia take over Terezin for ghetto

I follow the twitter feed for Real Time WWII, and this is today's post:
Nazi occupiers of Czechoslovakia have taken over walled fortress of Terezín to use as a ghetto & concentration camp. pic.twitter.com/lNq1oJvSac

Blog Questions for 11/20

JAH 386-404:

Why did the Nazis change their method of extermination from mass shooting to gassing in the death camps? How many Jews, and from which countries, were killed in the camps?

There was a horrific group of Nazi’s who committed mass murders and mass shootings called the Einsatzgruppen. They either would shoot Jews into a ditch, or just throw them in.The number of Jews that were killed by Einsatzgruppen A-D was jaw dropping and sickening. Some of the groups killed up to of 33,000 Jews. The Nazis began to feel that shooting was laborious and to dependent on man power. Additionally, it began getting too emotional for the men doing the shooting. At the Wannsee Conference, 15 members discussed the "Final Solution," which was meant to find a solution for a more efficient way to kill all the Jews in Europe. Concentration camps were fixed killing institutions, which makes me sick to even talk about. The gassing started with carbon monoxide poison in busses and then was switched to gassing in camps. By 1943 1.7 million Jews were killed by gas. The gassing method was used in all major extermination camps in Trebinka, Chelmno, Auschwitz, Sobibor, Belzec and Majdanek. The number of Jews that were murdered in camps was overwhelming. From 1942-1944 107,000 Dutch Jews were gassed at Auschwitz and Sobibor. In 1944- 77,000 French Jews were killed. 25,000 Belgium Jews were sent to Auschwitz.

pp. 491-493 Report of the Iraqi Commission of Inquiry on the Farhud

The Farhud was an attack on the Jews of Baghdad in 1941 - what happened and why did it happen?

The Farhud was a horrific attack on the Jews of Baghdad in ’41. What happened was soldiers punched and stabbed Jewish people near the Khurr bridge. The individuals that were stabbed were sent to a nearby hospital. Then, a mob formed outside of the hospital demanding that they release the Jews so they can kill them. The hatred of these people is disturbing. Additionally, soldiers began to hurt and even kill other civilians. Jews and Muslims were the main targets of the hate crimes. The mayhem in Baghdad also involved robberies. The reason all of this was happening was because of Nazi propaganda such as The German Legation.