Tevye in The Promised Land, Great Adventure

Last night I finally finished the first volume of Tzvi Fishman's Tevye trilogy, Tevye in The Promised Land, and I loved it! I have the following two volumes waiting for me to read, but I'm taking off time in between each one to write reviews.

Fishman's jam-packed historical novel is superb. Tevye in The Promised Land is an extremely well-written example of a very difficult literary genre. He manages to create both believable characters and place them in accurate and factual historical context. Tevye in The Promised Land is full of surprises and actual historical figures. And if you were wondering, Fishman's Tevye is based on the character invented by the famous Yiddish author Shalom Aleichem, which can be seen on stage and screen.

Especially since I had read and reviewed Rebels in the Holy Land, which is about the early history of Mazkeret Batya, I can really believe that so many things could happen to one family and the awful things about Baron de Rothschild's administrators. The early Zionist pioneers, even the least religiously observant, were true tzaddikim, holy Jews. They had to put up with and overcome difficulties that dwarf everything that modern olim, immigrants to Israel must deal with. And in modern olim, I include people like myself who made aliyah almost a half a century ago.

The early Zionist pioneers had to cope with and conquer difficulties that rival the greatest fictional adventure stories. First of all, traveling in those days was extremely dangerous and difficult. Today you can safely and routinely fly to Israel from places in less than a day. Over a hundred years ago, lovers of Zion had to trek by foot, horse-drawn carts, unreliable boats and more. The trip could take months or longer.

When the immigrant arrived, he/she wasn't always allowed in to the Holyland. Whether the ruling occupier was a Turk or British, they had the same agenda, STOP JEWS FROM ENTERING. Their sympathy was with the Arabs, who had no national aspirations, which was what the occupying powers liked.

Even when Jews, like Tevye and his family, managed to get permits to enter the Promised Land, that didn't promise them an easy time. Besides the utter poverty, there were illnesses, locusts, Arab terrorism, impossible regulations by the Baron's staff, land unfit for agriculture, continued antagonism from the occupiers, tension/competition between the religious and secular Jews and even more challenges. Fishman has Tevye and his family encounter and cope with them all. They also get to know and work with some of the greatest real life historical giants of the times, such as Rabbi Kook, Zeev Jabotinsky, Yosef Trumpeldor among others.

Before Tzvi Fishman's aliyah, move to Israel, he was a Hollywood screenwriter. And I must say that his Tevya saga is just perfect, not for a two hour movie, but for a long-running television series.

I highly recommend Tevye in The Promised Land. It's a book that can be enjoyed by people of all ages. Children will love it, too. If they are too young to read it themselves, it's the perfect book to read to your children or students. As you read it, you can supplement it with history of the time, if clarification is necessary. I've already started on volume 2 and the third is waiting for me.

• Paperback: 580 pages
• Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform (August 11, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1466220872
• ISBN-13: 978-1466220874

Shiloh at Forty 40, The Dream Keeps Growing

As I blogged earlier, we in Shiloh are still celebrating forty 40 years since the return of Jewish Life to one of the holiest cities for Jews.  As Yehoram Gaon mentioned during his performance, Shiloh as the most important city for the Jewish People predates Jerusalem.

The anniversary events from Thursday night until and including Shabbat are supposed to be the end of about a year of celebrations. It has been a very thrilling time. In all honesty, I feel very privileged  to have taken part and be part of such a miracle, the revival of Jewish Life in the Land of Israel. And  no doubt this will be considered an extremely important event in Jewish History, like Ezra and Nechemia.








On Shabbat there were two get-togethers during which now-adults who grew up in Shiloh, some who were born when their parents had already moved to Shiloh while others came as children, spoke about what they've made of their lives. A few live in Shiloh, raising third a third generation of Shiloh residents, while others live in cities, other yishuvim and some of our locally grown kids have even founded/established new communities far and wide in the Land of Israel.

It was interesting to hear how their childhoods in Shiloh have influenced their lives and decisions as adults. The community life and chesed, helping neighbors taught them a lot, and they have all integrated that into their present lives.

One thing mentioned was so deja vu for me. I remember at a Bnai Akiva youth movement ceremony about twenty-five 25 years ago, a neighbor of my generation told the youth that she grew up trying to emulate her parents, chalutzim, who built a new community in the early days of the State of Israel. For that reason, she and her husband were among those to establish Shiloh. On Shabbat, one of the children raised in Shiloh said that she felt it important to emulate her parents and establish a new community.

We consider ourselves and our younger generations as the continuation of the early Zionist pioneers. This isn't a matter of political Right or Left; it is just pure Zionism, the return of the Jewish People to the Land of Israel. 

I thank Gd for the privilege to live in such a holy and historic location, Shiloh. And even more than that I thank Gd for giving me life in the generation which has seen such great miracles as the 1967 Six Days War and the opportunity to help bring Jewish Life to Our Holy Land.

Shiloh Celebrating 40

It's the Jewish Month of Shevat, the middle of the winter, when mud is deepest, and it's hard to thaw out toes and fingers. So, we really must give a lot of credit to those seven hardy pioneering families who came davka on TU B'Shvat to live in Shiloh and re-estblish it as a vibrant Jewish city. Most had babies and toddlers, so water, electricity and gas were necessities for daily life. Even when we came to Shiloh three years later, you couldn't take it for granted that you'd have both water and electricity when you needed to turn on the washing machine.

Shabbat lunch we had, what is now an annual event, an "oldtimers meal." Way back when, community events had high attendance levels. Now, it's rare to see our old friends from those early years, so we make a point of eating together once a year and exchanging news and memories. And every year I learn something new about those early years and days in Shiloh.

Here are a few of my old pictures from decades ago:

Considering The State of The World, Glad I'm in Israel

52Frames "Work of Gd"

I see danger and chaos all over, even in the United States of America which was once the most powerful, wealthy and stable and safest seeming country in the world.

Way back when, in the post-1967 Six Days War euphoria, many Jews from all over the world, including countries that were much more advanced, comfortable and safe, began to make aliyah in unheard of numbers. In relative terms it was a mass-movement. That's because until then, it was more a one-way street in the other direction. I remember the argument against our decision to move to Israel by an aunt who said:

"Why would you want to move to Israel when all the Israelis want to leave it?"

But there was no arguing with me and my husband. We just got on that boat and never looked back. That was in the summer of 1970. Israel was a more difficult place than New York to live then, but it didn't stop us. We took the 1960's simplistic non-materialistic idealism and combined it with Jewish Zionism.

And then we went up a notch in 1981 when we made Shiloh our home. In the early years it was a challenge, but conditions were certainly much easier than the early Zionists endured. Yes, we have always considered ourselves and our moves to be continuations of Zionism in its most basic form. Remember that the early Zionists all of the Land of Israel as a potential home. And prior to that there were Jews in many cities including Gaza, not just Jerusalem, Hebron, Tzfat and other holy cities.

Today Israel is not only an internationally well-known high-tech haven, but traditional Biblical crops are thriving too.

Nearby Vineyard, 52Frames

In another few hours it will be Shabbat, so I'm logging off for now.

Shabbat Shalom u'Mevorach

May You have a Peaceful and Blessed Shabbat

From the Holocaust to the Holyland, Survivors' Strength and Determination

This has been quite a week for me, and it isn't over yet. One of my cousins came here with his wife for their first ever trip to Israel. Their daughter, davka, spent this summer on a work program based in Tel Aviv, yes, while it was under attack.

We have been living in Israel since 1970, and although Brooklyn, NY is no longer the center of our clan's life, my branch is still the only one in Israel, and visits to here are few and far between.  But actually we weren't he first.  The very first member of the clan to come was my Uncle, the father of this cousin. Uncle Izzy was one of the American heroes of the "war" against the British by manning ships full of Holocaust survivors as Chief Pharmacist Mate.

Together we did some touring, going from Yad Veshem to the Clandestine Immigration and Naval Museum.

Yad Veshem, It's forbidden to take pictures inside.

Clandestine Immigration and Naval Museum

The highlight of the visit was certainly meeting with my uncle's superior officer, Yosef Almog, who told us about what is was like to work with my uncle and the ships they ran together, how they were prepared for the hundreds and thousands of passengers.

The Pal-Yam, the "naval" branch of the pre-state elite forces, the Palmach, had the logistically and technologically impossible task of purchasing reject ships from various countries and then converting them into "passenger liners," which were more like concentration camp sleeping sheds. Almog's description of the triple-leveled "sleeping lofts" was reminiscent of those the Nazis constructed to house the captive Jews, lihavdil, differentiate, please.

These are a concentration camp's sleeping arrangement. It also shows how skinny people got as a result of malnutrition. Picture credit

In today's world it's hard to imagine living and surviving in such difficult conditions. But the truth was that the survivors enthusiastically competed for space on these outdated and possibly unsafe ships. Almog told us about the icebreakers that had been bought from America. They were refurbished in Europe. Sleeping lofts for over a thousand were constructed in the hold, and additional sleeping space was made in what had been the hangar for planes. That way the "Jewish State" managed to fit 2,664 Holocaust survivors, plus the crew, food, supplies and extra fuel.

The Hagana ship The Jewish State palyam.org

The story behind the other ships was very similar.

We were davka in Haifa the day before the Israeli Government officially withdrew from Gaza to "end" one of the most frustrating wars Israel has had. Personally I find it difficult to accept that today's Israeli leaders lack the confidence and determination that once existed. There never would have been a State of Israel if David Ben-Gurion, Menachem Begin and their followers had been like the Israel of today. I pray that we regain our confidence. Yes, we did better when we had no allies and no foreign advisers.

The "Fatal Flaw" in Early Zionist Ideology

The early Zionists added a dangerous secular concept/ideology to their Zionism and we're suffering from this still.  No, it wasn't their secularism, the non or anti-religious practices of many early Zionists.

Pioneers of the Second Aliya 
Farming in the Galilee
credit

From my Tanach, Biblical studies in Matan's Al HaPerek program, I've read and learned many references to the Teshuva, Repentance, return to G-d in the Prophets.  They do mention Jews who will return to the Land, though not otherwise all that observant.  Working the Holy Land can bring Jews closer to G-d.  There are many, many mitzvot, Torah Commandments that can only be observed by farming Eretz Yisrael, The Land of Israel.  They are the key to Judaism, Jewish Nationalism and the bringing of the Moshiach.

The big problem, fatal flaw, came with the addition of socialism and democracy to Zionism.  Those two western secular ideologies are like when the Jewish People demanded from Shmuel Hanavi, Samuel the Prophet that he make them a "now make us a king to judge us like all the nations," (1Samuel 8) instead of the type of king that G-d commanded us in D'varim 17.

יד  כִּי-תָבֹא אֶל-הָאָרֶץ, אֲשֶׁר יְ-ה אֱ-יךָ נֹתֵן לָךְ, וִירִשְׁתָּהּ, וְיָשַׁבְתָּה בָּהּ; וְאָמַרְתָּ, אָשִׂימָה עָלַי מֶלֶךְ, כְּכָל-הַגּוֹיִם, אֲשֶׁר סְבִיבֹתָי.	14 When thou art come unto the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee, and shalt possess it, and shalt dwell therein; and shalt say: 'I will set a king over me, like all the nations that are round about me';
טו  שׂוֹם תָּשִׂים עָלֶיךָ מֶלֶךְ, אֲשֶׁר יִבְחַר יְ-ה אֱ-יךָ בּוֹ:  מִקֶּרֶב אַחֶיךָ, תָּשִׂים עָלֶיךָ מֶלֶךְ--לֹא תוּכַל לָתֵת עָלֶיךָ אִישׁ נָכְרִי, אֲשֶׁר לֹא-אָחִיךָ הוּא.	15 thou shalt in any wise set him king over thee, whom the LORD thy God shall choose; one from among thy brethren shalt thou set king over thee; thou mayest not put a foreigner over thee, who is not thy brother.
טז  רַק, לֹא-יַרְבֶּה-לּוֹ סוּסִים, וְלֹא-יָשִׁיב אֶת-הָעָם מִצְרַיְמָה, לְמַעַן הַרְבּוֹת סוּס; וַי-ה, אָמַר לָכֶם, לֹא תֹסִפוּן לָשׁוּב בַּדֶּרֶךְ הַזֶּה, עוֹד.	16 Only he shall not multiply horses to himself, nor cause the people to return to Egypt, to the end that he should multiply horses; forasmuch as the LORD hath said unto you: 'Ye shall henceforth return no more that way.'
יז  וְלֹא יַרְבֶּה-לּוֹ נָשִׁים, וְלֹא יָסוּר לְבָבוֹ; וְכֶסֶף וְזָהָב, לֹא יַרְבֶּה-לּוֹ מְאֹד.	17 Neither shall he multiply wives to himself, that his heart turn not away; neither shall he greatly multiply to himself silver and gold.
יח  וְהָיָה כְשִׁבְתּוֹ, עַל כִּסֵּא מַמְלַכְתּוֹ--וְכָתַב לוֹ אֶת-מִשְׁנֵה הַתּוֹרָה הַזֹּאת, עַל-סֵפֶר, מִלִּפְנֵי, הַכֹּהֲנִים הַלְוִיִּם.	18 And it shall be, when he sitteth upon the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write him a copy of this law in a book, out of that which is before the priests the Levites.
יט  וְהָיְתָה עִמּוֹ, וְקָרָא בוֹ כָּל-יְמֵי חַיָּיו--לְמַעַן יִלְמַד, לְיִרְאָה אֶת-יְ- אֱ-ו, לִשְׁמֹר אֶת-כָּל-דִּבְרֵי הַתּוֹרָה הַזֹּאת וְאֶת-הַחֻקִּים הָאֵלֶּה, לַעֲשֹׂתָם.	19 And it shall be with him, and he shall read therein all the days of his life; that he may learn to fear the LORD his God, to keep all the words of this law and these statutes, to do them;
כ  לְבִלְתִּי רוּם-לְבָבוֹ מֵאֶחָיו, וּלְבִלְתִּי סוּר מִן-הַמִּצְוָה יָמִין וּשְׂמֹאול--לְמַעַן יַאֲרִיךְ יָמִים עַל-מַמְלַכְתּוֹ הוּא וּבָנָיו, בְּקֶרֶב יִשְׂרָאֵל.  {ס}	20 that his heart be not lifted up above his brethren, and that he turn not aside from the commandment, to the right hand, or to the left; to the end that he may prolong his days in his kingdom, he and his children, in the midst of Israel. {S}

The Jewish Nation's values and rules for a king/president/prime minister even today are supposed to be Jewish, not secular, nor "universal," western or any other value system that isn't commanded by G-d.

Unfortunately our politicians, academics, media etc are still enamoured with the secular western values and ideologies of democracy and socialism.  Even those who claim to be Torah observant, also called in America "Orthodox" rabbis worship democracy over G-d's commandments.  Rabbi Shlomo Riskin is one of those whose worship of secular democracy is most disturbing.  His Jerusalem Post Dvar Torah on Parshat Shmot goes against G-d's instructions.

I believe that every soldier must give priority to God’s law over human law, even the law of the IDF.
However, refusing to carry out a command of the IDF must only apply when the individual believes that by carrying out the order an innocent Jewish or gentile life is being taken, or that fundamental human rights are being removed. In the instance of giving land for peace, however, Rabbi J.B. Soloveitchik ruled that the elected government of Israel has the right to decide whether sacrificing land for peace is operable and under which conditions. Such a decision must be governmental and not individual.

Shiloh HaKeduma
Ancient Shiloh 

Less than ten years ago, Riskin at first supported Disengagement for that very reason he wrote in the quoted article.  It was for him a government decision and therefore, according to him we must obey the elected government.  It was just at the very last minute that Riskin backtracked and opposed Disengagement.  I was surprised to see him at the anti-Disengagement demonstration in New York where I had been asked to speak.  The fact that Riskin a YU graduate and rabbi continues to follow that old "psak," decision by the chutz l'Aretz, Diaspora Rabbi J.B. Soloveitchik is the crux of the problem.  I don't think that any rabbi in chutz l'Aretz, no matter how great a scholar has the moral or religious right to speak about any question concerning the Land of Israel.  Rabbi Riskin may dwell in the Land of Israel, but his heart is still in New York.

My rabbis are those who are taking their rabbinic/Torah decisions from today's reality in the Land of Israel. G-d willing their voices will get stronger among the Jewish Nation and that will bring the Moshiach speedily in our days, G-d willing.

Preparing for Yom Ha'Atzmaut, Israeli Independence Day

I've been seeing Israel flags and other Independence Day "accessories" on display and sale for the past few weeks.  Now, of course, the country is really into blue and white. 

For me personally, the most important thing is for us Jews to be a free, independent confident People and function freely and with full sovereignty in Our Land.   So to spend Rosh Chodesh Iyyar, the beginning of the Jewish Month of Iyyar at Shiloh HaKeduma, Tel Shiloh with other women, wandering around the ruins, praying, studying and feasting is just the right thing to do.

Shiloh is an ancient city, the first religious and spiritual capital of the Jewish Nation thousands of years ago, well documented in the Bible.  One of the most interesting things is that Shiloh is not recorded as a city conquered by Joshua after the exodus form Egypt.  From the Biblical text, the city welcomed Joshua without a fight.  The Book of Joshua is a narrative of military victories and defeats as the generation born in the wilderness, led by Joshua and Calev take over the Land G-d promised the Jewish People from the time of Abraham.

It was a period of great learning, failures and successes.  An entire people had to not only relocate but also learn to govern, defend itself  and take full responsibility for all needs.

It was very much like the Israeli War for Independence and the early years of the state.  Sixty-five years later, it's hard to imagine how survivors of the Nazi death camps could have gone straight to battle against the warring Arabs.  How did they have the physical, mental and spiritual strength to take up arms to join with the Zionist pioneers and defend the fledgling, newly declared State of Israel?

Maybe we're actually still in that stage, or more like the time of Judges, which had followed, Judges Chapter 21. 

כה  בַּיָּמִים הָהֵם, אֵין מֶלֶךְ בְּיִשְׂרָאֵל:  אִישׁ הַיָּשָׁר בְּעֵינָיו, יַעֲשֶׂה.  {ש}

25 In those days there was no king in Israel; every man did that which was right in his own eyes. {P}

Yes, I admit that the State of Israel isn't perfect.  But that is no reason for a Jew to refuse to live here.  It's our job to make Israel a better and more Jewish country.  It's ours; we have no other.