Around 2012 I attended a Jewish Halloween-like event at the Lauralwood Club with Mark Gall. There was a Russian Jew dressed in a Soviet uniform. We talked and he gave me some Soviet buttons which I gave away at a OCCUPY rally. Mistake. That Russian inspired to dress as Uncle Santa.
John Presco
Israel is considering its position as tensions rise on the Russia-Ukraine border, and the Foreign Ministry plans to deliberate the matter on Monday.© (photo credit: REUTERS)Ukrainian soldiers fire artillery during the conflict in Donbas
Jerusalem has generally maintained a position of neutrality between the countries since their 2014 war. Maintaining good relations with Moscow is a strategic interest for Israel in light of Russia’s significant military presence in Syria. Israel also has strong ties with Ukraine in a variety of areas, and Kyiv has the support of Israel’s most important ally, the US, in the current crisis.
Another major concern for Israel is how the Ukraine-Russia crisis will impact the Iran nuclear talks. The US and Russia sit around the same table, and their delegations met in Vienna over the weekend.
Mikhail Ulynanov, head of the Russian delegation to the Iran talks, on Saturday tweeted: “Russia-US relations are in extremely bad shape. However, on Iran we managed to work productively so far.”
In addition, both countries have large Jewish communities that could be impacted by conflict and are a consideration, a diplomatic source in Jerusalem said.© Provided by The Jerusalem PostRUSSIAN PRESIDENT Vladimir Putin meets with Prime Minister Naftali Bennett in Sochi in October (credit: Evgeny Biyatov/Sputnik-Kremlin via Reuters)
Other than Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky asking Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and his predecessor, Benjamin Netanyahu, to try to mediate between him and Russian President Vladimir Putin last year – Putin wasn’t interested – there has been little international interest in Israel getting involved or taking a side.American Dog Owners Are Ditching Kibble For ThisAdThe Farmer’s Dog
Even when Russia-Ukraine tensions arose in a phone call between Putin and Bennett this month, and when US Secretary of State Antony Blinken brought the matter up in his call with Foreign Minister Yair Lapid, the Israelis mostly listened and did not view those conversations, nor the readouts mentioning Ukraine after the calls, as pressure.
According to Ksenia Svetlova, director of the program on Israel-Middle East relations at the Mitvim – The Israeli Institute for Regional Foreign Policies think tank, it remains unclear what direction the crisis will take. Anything from a Russian cyberattack to a limited military incursion to a full-scale invasion of Ukraine could happen, she said.
As long as the situation is unclear, the world will accept Israel’s neutrality, Svetlova said.
“The moment of truth is coming, and Israel has to think about what it’s doing,” she said.
Pressure on Israel to take a side would likely be both international and domestic, Svetlova said.
“If there is a war, with civilians killed, there will be pressure from the US and the very large Ukrainian community in Israel,” she said. “Many thousands of Israelis have family in Ukraine, and they are preparing to hold protests.”
Israel will have to maintain a very delicate balance if it chooses to make a public statement about the tensions, Svetlova said.
“We have almost total dependence on cooperation with the Russians on our northern border,” she said. “Israel may have to condemn [Russian actions against Ukraine], but in a delicate way that won’t reach the point of summoning ambassadors.”
That Germany and other European actors are not totally aligned with Washington against Moscow helps Israel maintain its ambiguity and allows it to take a softer line if it speaks out against Russia, Svetlova said.
Zelensky’s attempt to have Israel host a summit between him and Putin, or even mediate at a lower level, shows desperation, she said.
“Ukraine sees Israel as an extension of American policy, like everyone else does,” she added. “Israeli mediation was an attempt to bring their distress to the Americans’ attention. It never had a chance of working.”
If Russia invades Ukraine, thousands of Ukrainian Jews or descendants of Jews may choose to immigrate to Israel, Svetlova said, calling on the Aliyah and Integration Ministry to prepare for their arrival.
“It is important to emphasize that nothing is over yet… a decision hasn’t been made [by Putin] yet about how to act or what the final goal is,” she said.
In fact, Russia is gaining from the continuing uncertainty and tension, in which the US and Europe are paying attention to Moscow and listening to its demands, and may have more to lose from launching an actual war, Svetlova said.
Regarding the situation, the Aliyah and Integration Ministry said: “At this time, there is no increase in the number of immigrants from Ukraine compared to last year. If there will be, the ministry is prepared to handle it as it has in the past and is in contact with the relevant parties, including the Jewish Agency and Nativ.”
Aliyah and Integration Minister Pnina Tamano-Shata is following the situation and receiving constant updates, her representative said.
Baja-Israel – An Old Idea
Posted on May 15, 2018 by Royal Rosamond Press
Maybe the Jews are right, and…..Jesus is garbage!
Those crazy orthodox Jews HATE the evangelical End Time Rapturist, and their plan for the Jews during the Tribulation. This will be more apparent as the Big Lie persists. Right now millions of Democrat Liberals are having their mind frozen, as Messiah Trump & Friends, are forcing them to weigh their innermost Moral Fiber.
“Do I hate God – and His Chosen People?”
“Am I really for Law and Order, and Separation of Church and State?”
“Am I a traitor to my Nation because I don’t want to see my flag broadcast on the most holy shrine in recent Jewish history, next to the Star of David, who founded a kingdom whose boundaries must be restored so Jesus will return?”
“What to do! What to do!”
Jon Presco
https://www.city-journal.org/html/why-don’t-jews-christians-who-them-13068.html
https://forward.com/opinion/359370/why-jews-need-to-stop-using-the-word-christian-as-a-slur/
There is a widespread but little-mentioned problem in Judaism today: namely, the derisive dismissal of Reform Jews by the Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox. This often takes the form of slurs and insults. One of the most noxious and oft-repeated of these is the assertion that Reform Jews are not really Jews, but Christian
Read more: https://forward.com/opinion/359370/why-jews-need-to-stop-using-the-word-christian-as-a-slur/
Baja California: Jewish Refuge and Homeland
My Shtetele California: 19th Century proposal to make Baja California the Jewish homeland
January 23, 2010
By Rabbi Will Kramer
(December 24, 1971)
Not long ago, we reviewed Sam J. Lee’s Moses of the New World the story of the life and work of Baron de Hirsch. It made us de Hirsch-conscious.
In 1896, Rabbi Jacob Voorsanger of San Francisco admired Hirsch’s success in South America and hoped that Baja California might become a new Israel with Hirsch-like help. Voorsanger wrote:
“It is encouraging to learn that the De Hirsch colonies in Argentina are
no failures. In California, we have not been successful with colonization.
Our means were too limited, our lands too rich and expensive. Isolated as we are, locked in between the sea and the mountains, we could not command the attention of the world.
“And yet, there are opportunities here, which, in their extent and character,
are larger than those offered in the sub-equatorial republic.
“Right across from San Diego, in Lower California, an empire is still awaiting fostering hands. The time will come when the inevitable migration of large numbers of colonists must be directed to these sunny slopes, which are Mexican in name only and which have a welcome for all honest men.
“These slopes, coasting a princely area of uncultivated, rich lands, need the exploring power of modern commerce and enterprise, and the impetus of population.
“It is still a comfort to know that whilst governments are restricting the right of admission, and nations cry out against the wanderers from abroad, there is still room elsewhere to make a new cradle forgrowing nations.
“The earth is still large enough to hold the children made of its dust.
Where to send them is often the question.
“But, like the mariners of old, when we go far enough, we are sure to
find land. We are always hopeful for lsrael, particularly now when
its hopes are enlarging.”
http://pages.uoregon.edu/mgall/vita.htm
http://www.sandiegohistory.org/journal/74spring/br-baja.htm
http://www.debatepolitics.com/archives/69526-we-should-give-baja-california-jews.html
Book Reviews
David J. Weber, Book Review Editor
Baja California: Jewish Refuge and Homeland. By Norton B. Stern. Baja California Travels Series, No. 32. Los Angeles: Dawson’s Book Shop, 1973. Notes. Illustrations. 69 Pages. $10.00.
Reviewed by William O. Hendricks, director of the Sherman Foundation Library in Corona del Mar. Dr. Hendricks is editor-translator of David Goldbaum, Towns of Baja California, and co-president of the Asociación Cultural de las Californias, sponsor of the annual Baja California Symposium.
Nationalism, one of the strongest forces at large in the world during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and often carrying racist overtones, caught Europe’s Jews in an ugly predicament. On the one hand they found themselves the victims of a new and particularly virulent brand of anti-semitism, while on the other hand they had no nation of their own to which they could turn for sanctuary. This dilemma, plus the growth of their own nationalistic sentiment, resulted during the late 1890s in the birth of the Zionist movement. The movement was aimed at colonizing Jews in their ancient homeland of Palestine, where it was hoped they would eventually constitute a majority and obtain the protection of public law and at least a measure of political autonomy. But there was a question in the minds of some Zionists as to whether or not this goal was feasible with regard to Palestine (then under Turkish rule), and a difference of opinion on this point led to a split in the movement and to the birth, in 1905, of the Territorialist faction. While the main body of Zionists insisted that only Palestine could provide a true Jewish homeland, the Territorialists argued that a more important and pressing consideration was that some suitable place in the world be found. According to Dr. Stern, though it has never appeared in Zionist histories, “Evidence now at hand indicates that the first area which the Territorialists considered was Baja California.”
Stern’s book actually treats several related but somewhat different topics. The first chapter, which covers a period from 1891 to 1905, deals primarily with the interest shown in Baja California by Alta California Jews, especially as an area for settling refugees of the Russlan pogroms. The second chapter, which is as long as the other two combined, is concerned mainly with the lives of three of northern Baja California’s early jewish settlers: Luis Mendelson, Maximiliano Bernstein, and David Goldbaum. Mendelson arrived on the Peninsula in 1871 and the other two men during the 1880s, but each of them came on an individual basis, for strictly personal reasons, and not as part of any organized movement. The third chapter focuses on the interest shown in Baja California by the leadership (in London) of the Territorialist organization, and which occurred in late 1905 or early 1906. Though the leadership’s decision was negative and their interest short-lived, the subject continued to excite a few Alta California Territorialists for some years afterward. The chapter then concludes with Baja California once again under consideration as an area for settling Jewish refugees—this time the German-jewish refugees of the 1930s. But since the idea was announced before first being discussed with Mexican authorities, the latter gave it a decidedly cold reception, one of them referring to it as a “fantastic dream.”
At times the book gives the impression that except for a mistaken assessment of its agricultural potentialities by certain Territor-ialist leaders (i.e., that it was too arid), Baja California might well have become a New World Israel. Stern quotes David Lubin, a Sacramento merchant: “Why could not some arrangements be made with the Mexican Government for the sale of Lower California, so as to form there an autonomous Jewish State under the joint protectorate of the United States and Mexico?” Although certain Jewish figures may have thought of this as a distinct possibility, is there any evidence that Mexico ever considered going along with the idea? The answer, I think, is a definite “no.” It is true that throughout his long tenure as Mexico’s president, Porfirio Díaz welcomed Jewish colonists (as he did colonists in general), making him in this respect almost unique among heads of government. However, there is no evidence to show that he entertained for one moment the notion of their obtaining political autonomy at his nation’s expense. Other considerations aside, Baja California bears too strategic a geographical relationship to the northwestern coast of the Mexican mainland for that country to have willingly agreed to its alienation. Surely little short of United States force could have wrenched it away; yet if this had occurred, can anyone seriously imagine that it would then have been turned over to the Territorialists?
A Santa Monica optometrist, Dr. Stern is the founder-editor of the Western States Jewish Historical Quarterly and has previously published, among other items, California Jewish History, A Descriptive Bibliography. His present book, though relatively short, not only contains a good deal of interesting information but it discloses a noteworthy and hitherto unrevealed facet of Baja California history. And like all the volumes in this series, it is handsomely printed and put together.
http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Rocketing_to_the_Apocalypse
http://books.google.com/books?
id=77eNSYr2gsQC&pg=PA106&lpg=PA106&dq=Weed+Atman&source=bl&ots=6NXL4CxZeD&sig=t92a1p7FwO3fkBv334QdUtKBiA8&hl=en&sa=X&ei=e33rU9PjHIShogSu1oHgCg&ved=0CEMQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q=Weed%20Atman&f=false
http://home.foni.net/~vhummel/Image-Fiction/chapter_4.1.2.html
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