David Borowich was raised as a Zionist in America, and when he was a teenager and his neighbors made aliyah he knew he would soon follow. Borowich went further than some olim by serving in the IDF as a tank gunner, and planned to raise his family there. Yet he returned to the United States for graduate school and now, as a financial professional in the New York area, has stayed in America, though he visits Israel frequently.
As Israel turns 60, Jews from around the world view the homeland with a range of emotions, whether reverence and awe, or disillusionment and aloofness. And for the first time since its establishment in 1948, the country may be losing more emigrants than immigrants it receives, some experts say.
But Jews love Israel even if they decide not to live there, says Borowich, founder of Dor Chadash, a group that seeks to build ties between Israeli and American Jews.
"Jews around the world walk with their heads held up a little higher because there is a State of Israel," he said. “Whether Jews decide to live in Israel or not, there is an inextricable link between their Jewish identity and the fact that we have a Jewish homeland.”
Israel's Jewish population has grown from less than 800,000 at its founding on May 14, 1948, to roughly 5.5 million out of 7.3 million Israeli citizens today. There have been several waves of immigration from around the world. Nearly a million former Soviet Jews have migrated to Israel since 1989.
Lost Diary Tells of Teenage Holocaust Victim
By Wendy Griffith
CBN News Reporter
May 11, 2008
CBNNews.com - Many people worldwide know the story of Anne Frank -- and now the discovery of a long lost diary is causing a sensation about another teenage Holocaust victim.
Her story has been waiting to be told for more than 60 years.
Rutka's Story
Beautiful 14-year-old Rutka Laskier was forced to live with her family in the Jewish ghetto during the Nazi occupation of Poland.
For four months in 1943, she recorded her life - memories of typical teen-age life mixed with the unbelievable horrors of the Holocaust.
Her story survived thanks to a non-Jewish friend, entrusted with the diary months before Rutka, her baby brother and mother perished in the gas chambers of Auschwitz.
After 60 years, that friend - now in her 80s - revealed her secret: she had kept Rutka's diary. The news was life-changing for Rutka's half-sister Dr. Zahava Scherz.
"I simply fell in love with her and also full of sorrow that I couldn't meet her," Zahava said.
Scherz was born after WWII to Rutka's father who narrowly survived the Holocaust and remarried. After learning of her half-sister's diary, she believed the world needed to know the story and helped publish - "Rutka's Notebook" - a voice from the Holocaust.
"She was an extraordinary girl. As you can see from the picture, she was beautiful. She knows that the Nazis are determined to kill the Jews and they are throwing them to gas chambers. She writes specifically that I would like to live but I don't think we Jews are going to make it," Scherz said.
An unnoticed prophecy about dividing of Israel
Joseph Farah -- World Net Daily -- Posted: May 07, 2008
There is a Bible story familiar to practically everyone that relates directly to efforts by the international community to divide Israel for the purpose of creating a Palestinian state.
It can be found in 1 Kings 3.
The young king Solomon dreams of a conversation with the Lord in which he asks for wisdom to judge God's people. God grants the desires of Solomon's heart as well as bestowing upon him a long life, great riches and honor.
Immediately after Solomon claims this promise with sacrifices, peace offerings and a feast to all his servants, he gets to judge the most famous case of his life.
Two harlots come before him – each claiming a baby as their own.
"And the one woman said, O my lord, I and this woman dwell in one house; and I was delivered of a child with her in the house. And it came to pass the third day after that I was delivered, that this woman was delivered also: and we were together; there was no stranger with us in the house, save we two in the house. And this woman's child died in the night; because she overlaid it. And she arose at midnight, and took my son from beside me, while thine handmaid slept, and laid it in her bosom, and laid her dead child in my bosom. And when I rose in the morning to give my child suck, behold, it was dead: but when I had considered it in the morning, behold, it was not my son, which I did bear.
"And the other woman said, Nay; but the living is my son, and the dead is thy son. And this said, No; but the dead is thy son, and the living is my son. Thus they spake before the king.
"Then said the king, The one saith, This is my son that liveth, and thy son is the dead: and the other saith, Nay; but thy son is the dead, and my son is the living. And the king said, Bring me a sword. And they brought a sword before the king. And the king said, Divide the living child in two, and give half to the one, and half to the other.
"Then spake the woman whose the living child was unto the king, for her bowels yearned upon her son, and she said, O my lord, give her the living child, and in no wise slay it. But the other said, Let it be neither mine nor thine, but divide it.
"Then the king answered and said, Give her the living child, and in no wise slay it: she is the mother thereof.
"And all Israel heard of the judgment which the king had judged; and they feared the king: for they saw that the wisdom of God was in him, to do judgment."
That's the story everyone knows. But is there special meaning for today in these words? Could this story relate directly to the two-state solution being planned by the internationalist busybodies who seek to split Israel in half? Is it possible that this familiar old Bible story actually contains a prophecy yet to be fulfilled?
Assume for the moment that King Solomon in this story represents the King of all creation, the Lord of the universe. The first woman in the story represents the Jewish people. Her baby represents Israel. Let's further assume the second mother represents the Arabs.
Notice the second woman had her baby three days after the first woman. The Jewish state was first created 3,000 years ago. The Arabs are trying, 3,000 years later, to create an Arab Palestinian state where none has previously existed.
The Bible tells us in both the Old Testament and the New Testament that one day is like a thousand years to God. There is the reference in Psalms 90:4: "For a thousand years in Thy sight are like yesterday when it passes by." And there is the reference in 2 Peter 3:8: "But do not let this one fact escape your notice, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day."
So, three days, or 3,000 years, ago the Jewish people gave birth to the nation of Israel. Today, three days, or 3,000 years, later, Palestinian Arabs who are mostly recent migrants to the land with no established history there and no prior national claim arrive and try to steal the baby.
It's also worth noting that a tactic used by the Arabs is to sacrifice their own children as suicide bombers in their effort to "liberate" the land.
Further, did they not, perhaps even unknowingly, kill their own baby when they rejected a state of their own with the 1947 partition plan?
Like the first mother, haven't the Jewish people expressed a willingness to give up half the land in a division plan just to keep their precious baby alive?
And haven't the Arabs, like the bitter second mother, agreed to the division plan – the splitting of the child in two, knowing it would result only in the death of the baby.
If my analogy is true, though, it's not going to happen. The baby will not be killed. Because like King Solomon, God Almighty has already decided the baby belongs to the Jews.
Court applies
Law of Return
to Messianic Jews because of father
The Jerusalem Post -- April 22, 2008
Messianic Jews are entitled to Israeli citizenship according to the Law of Return if their father is Jewish, according to a precedent-setting ruling handed down last week by the High Court of Justice.
Fifteen years ago, the court rejected a petition by Messianic Jews who demanded to be recognized as Jews so as to automatically receive Israeli citizenship according to the Law of Return. In that landmark case, the court ruled that Messianic Jews had converted, and therefore were no longer Jewish.
Since then, the state has refused to grant all requests for citizenship according to the Law of Return by Messianic Jews.
Two years ago, however, a number of new immigrants to Israel belonging to the Messianic Jewish community petitioned the High Court after the Interior Ministry refused to grant them new immigrant status and citizenship according to the Law of Return.
Iran smuggling arms into
Gaza by sea
The Jerusalem Post -- April 18, 2008
Iran has stepped up its efforts to smuggle weapons into the Gaza Strip by using floatable devices that it drops near the waters off the Gaza coast to be picked up by Palestinian fisherman, senior defense officials have told The Jerusalem Post.
According to defense officials, Iran is now sending rockets and other advanced weaponry to Hamas and Islamic Jihad in the Gaza Strip by sea as well as via tunnels dug under the Philadelphi Corridor and connecting the Sinai peninsula with Rafah.
Officials said that the Navy is doing a fairly effective job in curbing the smuggling by sea, but that there are some shipments Israeli forces did not succeed in intercepting.
Selling Terror --
Madison Avenue Meets The Bekaa Valley
The Weekly Standard (Online) -- April 16, 2008
Hezbollah, the radical Shiite terrorist organization in Lebanon, is best known for attacking Israelis. But the organization also attempts to gain the support of Lebanese citizens with a sophisticated network of social services, political outreach, and financial aid. And recently, the militia has turned to advertising campaigns to bolster its image.
Hezbollah owns or controls at least two known advertising companies: Ressalat and Media-Publi Management. The U.S. Department of the Treasury should designate both as Specially Designated Global Terrorist entities (SDGTs) immediately as part of its ongoing campaign to cut off Hezbollah from the global financial system.
According to a recent article in the Lebanese al-Nahar, Ressalat is a "Hizbullah-funded organization that handles advertising and cultural events for the group." The company does not appear to have a web presence, but al-Nahar identified Mohamed Noureddine as Ressalat's creative director. One French report also identified Noureddine as the director of a think tank tied to Hezbollah's secretary general Hassan Nasrallah. His name can also be found alongside pro-Hezbollah videos on YouTube.
Hamas says Carter visit a boost to militants' legitimacy
Associated Press, 16 April 2008
CAIRO, Egypt (AP) — Hamas officials said Wednesday that Jimmy Carter's meetings with leaders of the Palestinian militant group will boost its legitimacy despite criticism by Israel and the U.S. government of the former president's personal peace mission.
Carter arrived in Egypt from Israel and the Palestinian territories, where he raised Israeli anger Tuesday by embracing a Hamas official in the West Bank.
A delegation of senior Hamas officials from the Gaza Strip also came to Cairo, escorted by heavy security, and said Carter planned to meet with them Thursday.
A Carter spokesman refused to comment on Hamas' claim. After sitting down with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and speaking at the American University on Thursday, Carter is scheduled to meet in Damascus, Syria, on Friday with Hamas' top leader, Khaled Mashaal.
Hizbullah Planning Offensive on Israeli Territory
IHC News Analysis, 15 April 2008
According to the Iranian Fars News Agency, a senior Hizbullah official told the Syrian newspaper, al-Hakikah that part of the fighting in the next war will take place inside Israel.
"In the next war, we will run the battle for the first time since 1948 inside Palestine," said the official adding, "They will be more surprised than ever before, as they will see our fighters fighting them not only in Lebanon, as they did till now, but also inside their homes and settlements."
JERUSALEM (AFP) - Syria is supplying Lebanon's Hezbollah militia with rockets in violation of UN Security Council Resolution 1701, Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak charged on Tuesday.
"Resolution 1701 is not being applied. The transfer of rockets from Syria to Lebanon is continuing and Hezbollah's military build-up is continuing," Barak's office quoted him as saying during a visit to an air force base.
"I think the Security Council has to act and see how the resolution is applied and enforced," the former army chief of staff and premier said.
Bolivia Raises hackles with ID
The Washington Times, April 10, 2008
SANTA CRUZ, Bolivia --
The appearance of a Star of David on new national identity cards has alarmed opponents of President Evo Morales, who recall how the symbol was used to brand Jews in Nazi Germany. Tiny six-pointed stars within a tight circle are printed on some, but not all, recently issued picture IDs in the Santa Cruz region. The mark was present on three cards seen by the Washington Times.