"Perfidious Albion" and the Mandate for Palestine

 In replying to a comment by a friend on Facebook who wrote: 

"I honestly don't understand how they drew the border between Jordan and Iraq up north, Jordan's shape makes no sense to me."

Why England demanded the Mandate over Palestine 

As a (highly paid Oh, how I wish!!!) Hasbarnik and "historian", I wanted to draw everyones attention to historically recorded facts and the nefarious act of "Perfidious Albion", used by the British.

I especially want to point out British Imperial interests in the 

events surrounding the "Balfour  Declaration" and the creation of the League of Nations and the eventual division of the Ottoman Turkish Empire as outlined in the De Bunsen Committee report on 30 June 1915 that called for the creation of a decentralised, federal Ottoman state in Asia.

Background:

What initially drove the British to control the area of "Palestine" was the guarding of the "Gateway to India".

Since the opening of the Suez Canal on 17 November 1869, the Middle East had become the gateway to India, so who controlled the lands adjacent to the canal, and what happened there, was of vital importance. It had long been obvious that the Ottoman Empire – the famous “Sick man of Europe” – would eventually collapse. The burning question was what would succeed it. 

To the alarm of Britain and France, Russia was keen to extend her influence into the Levant, and the general thrust of British foreign policy was aimed at preventing that happening. Initially, Britain supported attempts to prop up and reform the Ottoman regime, but when it became clear that these were not going to work, the problem became how she could shape the post-Ottoman world to suit her own ends. Balfour and others took the view that if the Zionists were allowed to build up a Jewish “state”, with British support and encouragement, they would be reliable allies in the region.

Allow me to insert here that the highly Machevallian manuvers behind Lord Arthur James Balfour's Declaration, "MAY" have been based or in part influenced by his fundamentalist Christian belief, the culmination of four hundred years of British Christian Zionism prevelant in the British aristocracy and upper class British political establishment. 

At the same time one should note as well as the existence of a vile trope of European antisemitism articulated in the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion", first published in Russia in 1903, which claimed there was a secret Jewish conspiracy to dominate the world present among many of the British aristocracy and upper class British political establishment.  . 

The extent to which elements of  the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" were a malicious parody of Herzl’s Judenstaat, and the Zionist Congresses were the “reality” behind the alleged meetings of the Elders of Zion.

By issuing the Balfour Declaration, a great power had gone public with its support for the creation of a Jewish homeland in Palestine as was mentioned in Der Judenstaat (1896), which would form for (Christian) Europe “an integral part of its defensive wall in Asia . . . an outpost of civilization against barbarism”.

Gertrude Bell & TE Lawrence

It should be noted that Britain saw to it that the Declaration: "...in favor of the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people" was included the terms of the Mandated region that the League of Nations gave it to administer to elicit symapthy supposedly from the "Jewish Cabal".

Once the Mandate was given to Britain suddenly the British Administration began to "back peddle" on their promises. 

Specifically as TE Lawernce, Gertrude Bell-( who openly hated Jews) who was managing

control of Mesopotamia as its Oriental Secretary alongside the Military Governor and Lord Curzon claimed there was; "...uncertainty and unrest among certain sections of the population". 

Because of this, and to sooth Arab emotions, the British Issued the "White Paper of June 1922" where the wording of the Balfour Declaration is reviewed in vague terms; 

"...“a national home” was capable of both statist and non-statist interpretations". 

"the terms of the (Balfour) Declaration referred to, do not contemplate that Palestine as a whole should be converted into a Jewish National Home, but that such a Home should be founded `in Palestine.'

"Further, it is contemplated that the status of all citizens of Palestine in the eyes of the law shall be Palestinian,(meaning Jew and Arab alike)"

When it is asked what is meant by the development of the Jewish National Home in Palestine, it may be answered that it is not the imposition of a Jewish nationality upon the inhabitants of Palestine as a whole, but the further development of the existing Jewish community, with the assistance of Jews in other parts of the world, in order that it may become a centre in which the Jewish people as a whole may take, on grounds of religion and race, an interest and a pride. 

But in order that this community should have the best prospect of free development and provide a full opportunity for the Jewish people to display its capacities, it is essential that it should know that it is in Palestine as of right and not on the sufferance. 

That is the reason why it is necessary that the existence of a Jewish National Home in Palestine should be internationally guaranteed, and that it should be formally recognized to rest upon ancient historic connection."

Pictured to the right; Emir Abdullah receiving the British Colonial Secretary, Winston Churchill, and his wife Clementine, upon their arrival in Cairo for the conference .  

It needs to be noted that the nefarious "White Paper" also reconfirmed the promise made to the Arabs in a letter, dated the 24th October, 1915, from Sir Henry McMahon, 

"His Majesty's High Commissioner in Egypt, to the Sharif of Mecca, now King Hussein of the Kingdom of the Hejaz agreed to an "independent national government" to be established in the Mandated Palestine Territory EAST of the Jordan(river). As to the remainder of the Mandated Palestine Territory "west of the Jordan" it is intended by the League of Nations and the Balfour Declaration to be converted into a Jewish National Home and was thus excluded from Sir. Henry McMahon's pledge.

As to WHAT drove British Machiavellianism?

From my extensive research of historical records British aims in the Middle East were driven by both the strategic importance of the Suez Canal and to assertain the continual supply of oil from the vast oil fields of Kirkuk and Persia for the Royal Fleet and the British military.

It was these two reasons that drove British demands during negotiations in San Remo for the Treaty of Serves, for the assignment of Mandated regions as outlined in the De Bunsen committee report "Committee of Imperial Defence: Asiatic Turkey, Report of a Committee" which was issued on 30 June 1915. The 

"Concerning Palestine it reported that it would be “...idle for His Majesty’s Government to claim the retention of Palestine in their sphere. Palestine must be recognized as a country whose destiny must be the subject of special negotiations, in which both belligerents and neutrals are alike interested”. 

In case of the partition or zones of influence options then the Committee defined a British sphere of influence that included Palestine while accepting that there were relevant French and Russian, as well as Islamic interests in Jerusalem and the Holy Places."

"Britania rules the waves": 

Regarding the urgent need for secure sources of fuel oil:

When the industrial revolution ended the “Age of Sail,” coal that fired the boilers of steam-powered ships became a major strategic resource. 

Worldwide “coaling stations” were essential for major naval powers like England at a time when oil was little more than a lubricant or a resource for making lamp kerosene.

Oil production began in the United States in 1859, but as Pennsylvania oilfield discoveries continued, Congress in 1866 appropriated $5,000 to evaluate petroleum as a potential replacement for coal to fire the Navy’s boilers. 

The conclusion arrived at by US Admiral George Henry Preble; 

“Was that convenience, health, comfort and safety were against the use of petroleum in steam-vessels,” and that “The only advantage shown was a not very important reduction in the bulk and weight of fuel carried,”

As the leaders in naval, trade and industrial power Great Britain had control of massive local coaling resources which served to strengthen its grasp of power. With supplies of coal on hand the Admiralty in Great Britain also resisted making the coal to oil switch.

What changed the minds of the "world sea powers" about using coal for fuel was the Spanish-American War of 1898.

For the first time, coal-fired war vessels had to fight far from the continental shores. Despite American victories in Manila Bay in the Philippines and Santiago de Cuba, hard strategic lessons were learned by the U.S. Navy about fueling coal-powered battleships. 

Because of this need to change to fuel oil naval ships in a message to Congress by President Taft on December 6, 1910 stated: 

"As not only the largest owner of oil lands, but as a prospective large consumer of oil by reason of the increasing use of fuel oil by the Navy, the federal government is directly concerned both in encouraging rational development and at the same time insuring the longest possible life to the oil supply."

This message to the US Congress of the need to achieve secure sources of oil was heard and understood by British Admirals and the Admiralty in England. The Admiralty had also closely observed the actions of the US Navy during the Spanish-American War of 1898 and the awarness of the American administration to the change realized that: 

“Despite the many advantages that oil held over coal for naval ships (cleaner, easier to refuel, more powerful, etc.), the fact that Britain did not own a supply of oil made the decision to switch painful necessity.”

Thereupon, the British government sought a majority share of the Anglo-Iranian oil company, and the age of ‘petro-politics’ began.”

"THE" major "wake-up call" to instigate the need for a rapid change over from coal to oil in England was the Agadir Crisis of April 1911 which had a profound effect ob Britain's Home Secretary Winston Churchill who "awoke" to the realization that the Royal Navy must convert its power source from coal to oil, to preserve its supremacy. 

In June 1914, Winston Churchill convinced the House of Commons to authorise the government purchase of a 51 percent share in the profits of oil produced by the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, to secure continued oil access for the Royal Navy.

Until then, the locally abundant coal readily available Welsh Coal fields was favoured over imported oil from the area of Kirkuk in Persia.)

Subsequently, when asked by Prime Minister H. H. Asquith to become First Lord of the Admiralty, Churchill accepted despite his previous views about the need for naval expansion

Winston Churchill as the initiator of the change in the Royal Navy as First Lord of the Admiralty, was convinced that speed and efficiency offered by oil convinced him that "Mastery itself was the prize of the venture." 

As First Lord of the Admiralty, Churchill knew that England "MUST" achieve control over the oil fields of Kirkuk in Persia. 

It was this knowledge as British Colonial Secretary at the 1921 Cairo Conference that influenced the manuevers by the British in it's dealing with the Arabs in the designation and control over the specific Mandated Areas assigned by the League of Nations to ascertain the flow of oil through the Trans Arabian Pipeline (TAP line). 

Also known as the Kirkuk/Iraq–Haifa oil pipeline or Mediterranean pipeline it allowed the flow of crude oil from the oil fields in Kirkuk, located in the former Ottoman vilayet of Mosul in northern Iraq, through Transjordan to Haifa in the then Britsh Mandated Area of  Palestine (now in the territory of Israel). 

Instead of the time consuming expensive transfer to ships for a long voyage or by  tanker trucks by land. The oil was piped directly to Haifa where it was distilled in the Haifa refineries, stored in tanks, and then put in tankers for shipment to Europe.

The pipeline was built by the Iraq Petroleum Company between 1932 and 1934, and was operational between 1935 and 1948 during which period most of the area through which the pipeline passed was under a British mandate approved by the League of Nations.

The pipeline and the Haifa refineries were considered so strategically important by the British Government, that what was once a beautiful "natural harbor" with pristine beaches was horribly defaced by the Mandate power (England)  forever solely to provide much of the fuel needs of the British and American forces in the Mediterranean before and during World War II. 

It is highly important to note that in the late nineteenth century the major naval powers began a naval race to construct new types of warships like the HMS Dreadnought of the British Navy launched in 1906, and the USS Texas launched in 1912, also known as Battleship Texas. The Royal Navy had 22 dreadnoughts (another 13 were completed during World War I), Germany built a total of 19 (five completed after 1914) and the United States completed 22 (14 of them after 1914). Japan and Italy built six, while Russia and France each built seven.

Many civilian ships also slowly converted from coal to oil. Since oil has a higher energy density than coal and more energy can be obtained from the same capacity, it was possible to reduce the size of the fuel tank on board and expand cargo space. It also meant a significant reduction in the number of crew members required as it negated the need to load coal and throw coal into the boiler.

The development of internal combustion engines led to the introduction of marine diesel engines, and ships began to convert their main engines to them, which had significantly higher fuel efficiency compared to the external combustion engines such as reciprocating steam engines or steam turbines.

75 year of Arab Rejection

On this 75 Independence Day let the truth REAL TRUTH be known! 

On November 29, 2022 we marked 75 years since the historic move of the United Nations to FINALLY partition the British Mandate of Palestine into two countries, one Jewish and one Arab. 

The historical vote essentially symbolized the release from the treachery and infidelity, in their "Perfidious Albion" or "promise" of the Balfour Declaration, by the United Kingdom.

The infamous "Balfour Declaration" was a Machiavellian promise essentially made to gain the assistance of the "cabal" that is seen in "World Jewry", in WWI and WWII.  

A promise "supposedly" made to help in the rebirth of the Jewish State to Jewish and Zionist leaders anxious to save precious Jewish lives but negated by the British desire for oil and the foiling of Arab revolts. 

A promise, not unlike those secretly made to the Arabs, and repaid with land from the Mandated Area from the "intended future homeland of the Jews".

Throughout history we have see how England had, as it had done throughout the world, used it's colonies only for their needs and interests. 

So too did England use their area, "Mandated" to them by the League of Nations, as a "forward military base" and essential supply depot in World War II.

How factories and industries created by Jews and Zionists supposedly for the building of a country were cyniclly used in the British war effort. 

How the once beautiful and scenic Haifa Bay and surrounding area were despoiled, ecologically damaged and converted into a terminal and refinary of Iraqi oil, piped in from the distant oil fields of Iraq to supply the needs of the Royal Navy.

How during the years of British control, thousands of Arabs from the surrounding countries flocked unrestricted to the "Mandated Areas" whilst Jewish immigration was restricted and the area given across the Jordan River made "Jew Free"!

It was ONLY when England was bankrupt and it lost the sub-continent of India that the "death crasp" of the Empire called it quits and sent the matter to the UN.

Since the 75th Anniversary of the UN vote we are seeing a deluge of false mendacious lies on ALL forms of media regarding the "Legal creation" of the State of Israel.

Cambridge Professor, Sir Eliahu Lauterpacht, past Judge ad hoc of the International Court of Justice, a renowned expert on international law, clarified that from a legal standpoint, the 1947 UN Partition Resolution had no legislative character to vest territorial rights in either Jews or Arabs. He explained:

"The coming into existence of Israel does not depend legally upon the Resolution. The right of a State to exist flows from its factual existence - especially when that existence is prolonged shows every sign of continuance and is recognized by the generality of nations."

Reviewing Lauterpacht's arguments, Professor Julius Stone, a distinguished authority on the Law of Nations, added that Israel's "legitimacy" or the "legal foundation" for its birth does not reside with the United Nations' Partition Plan, which as a consequence of Arab actions became a dead issue. Professor Julius Stone concluded:."

 "The State of Israel is thus not legally derived from the partition plan, but rests (as do most other states in the world) on assertion of independence by its people and government, on the vindication of that independence by arms against assault by other states, and on the establishment of orderly government within territory under its stable control."

In the Media posts by the "detractors", HOIZs (Haters Of Israel and Zionism), NONE of them mention the basic fact that there was NO representation by a UNITED "Arab of the Mandated Territory" -those whom have usurped the title "Palestinians" in ALL the discussions and committees regarding Partition.

Also pay heed and note that NOT ONE of the detractors mentions that THEIR leadership was divided in an intense rivalrie that existed between competing Arab leaders; the Grand Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini and exiled Iraqi former Prime Minister Rashid Ali. 

The same intense rivalry was reflected in the forces of the Arab Liberation Army (ALA) led by Fawzi al-Qawuqji, who had been awarded the rank of a colonel of the Wehrmacht (German Army) and that of Abd al-Qadir al-Husayni, the Nephew of the Mufti, as the commander of the Army of the Holy War (Jaysh al-Jihad al-Muqaddas) .

Just as Fawzi al-Qawuqji had threatened in August of 1947 that: 

"...should the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine vote go the wrong way, “we will have to initiate total war. We will murder, wreck and ruin everything standing in our way, be it English, American or Jewish" and the final purpose is to "rid Palestine of the Zionist plague."  

Even today this same threat is made by Hamas and the "Palestinians! 

In ALL the media stories and reports we nary see any reference to the historical fact -read truth- that the SEVEN Arab League member countries HAD INVADED the Mandated area intending to divide up the mandated areas between themselves!!

Even fewer mention that the poor execution, carrying out /performance and ignomius defeat by the "Arabs of the mandated areas" during the course of the 1948 war was marked by the personal, family, and political rivalry between al-Qawuqji (who fought mainly in northern Palestine) and al-Husayni, who fought mostly in the Jerusalem area.

Some facts regarding UNGA Resolution 181 November 29th 1947:

The following telegraphic response; to UNGA Resolution 181 November 29th 1947, was sent by the Arab Higher Committee and was received by the Secretary General of the United Nations on January 19th,1948:

(The) Arab Higher Committee is determinded presist [persist] in rejection partition and in refusal recognize UN[O] resolution this respect and anything deriving therefrom[there from]. For these reasons it is unable [to] accept[the] invitation.

The UN Palestine Commission's February 16th,1949 report (A/AC.21/*) to the Security Council noted that Arab-led hostilities were an effort:

"To prevent the implementation of the General Assembly's plan of partition, and to thwart it's objectives by threats of acts of violence, including armed incursions into (Mandate) Palestinian territory.

On May 17th, 1948 - after the invasion began, the Palestine Commission designed to implemant 181 adjourned "sine dine"-Latin for without determining a date after the General Assembly appointed a United Nations Mediator in Palestine,which relieves the United Nations Palestine Commission from the further exercise of its responsibilities.

Denying the Jewish people's right to a state of their own, the Arab countries openly declared their intention of preventing the creation of the Jewish State by all means. 

A wave of violent attacks was launched against the Jewish population and when Israel declared its independence on May 14, 1948, five Arab armies invaded the new state the same night, seeking its annihilation and some 800,000 Jews (refugees) were expelled from Arab countries, finding refuge and were absorbed in Israel. 

The Arab population of the Mandate territory also suffered as a result of the Arab refusal to accept the partition plan. Some 700,000 heeded their leaders' calls to flee or left after being caught up in the fighting. The large numbers who stayed in Israel became full citizens, with equal rights, while their brethren were kept by their Arab hosts in perpetual refugee status to serve as pawns in the political struggle against Israel. 

Furthermore, a July 30th,1949 working paper of the UN Secretariat entitled; "The future of the Arab Palesine and the Question of Partition" noted further that:

"The Arabs rejected the United Nations Partition Plan so that any comment of theirs did not specifically concern the status of the Arab section of Palestine under Partition but rather rejected the scheme in its entirety."

The refusal by the leadership of the Arab population of the mandate territory to accept UNGA Resolution 181 demonstrated that they WERE NOT interested in establishing their own state if it meant allowing the existence of a Jewish state. 

This opposition to acknowledging the right of a Jewish state to exist still lies at the core of the conflict until this very moment!

HaYehudim - We the Nation and People of Israel

Ever since I first started doing "Hasbara" on the Internet in 2005  I have witnessed the spread and "trend" of ignorance and "revisionist anti Israel / anti-Zionistic" rhetoric and teachings. 

In my research I have found that this has been going on now since 1967 ever since Israel successfully defended itself and liberated the areas of Judaea and Shomron, which we were unable to do so in 1948.

This trend is also due to the total neglect and abandonment of the field of "Hasbara" by successive Israeli Governments and clarity of Israel's stance regarding the fate of our Indigenous homeland. 

As for many Jews in the Diaspora, our greatest failure was caused by our parents overwhelming desire to "blend in" and assimilate to negate "Zionism" - to be "faithful citizens" in reponse to the latent anti-Semitism that exists in the world. 

How during the post World War II / Holocaust rush to identify as  "faithful citizens" our parents negated and hid their Jewishness and rushed to embrace secularization. 

There are countless stories, but what stood out to me the most was the volunteer work I did in the summer of 1970 in New York when we would deliver food to elderly Jewish couples -the parents of children who fled New York City to the neighboring states and the wealthy suburbs leaving some of their parents in rat infested decrepit apartment buildings!

Though many of the apartment buildings were utterly disgusting, once you entered the apartment of the elderly mother or father. you entered a lost world, a world of Yiddishkite. As an 18 year old, totally "Driving Miss Daisy" Southern reform and secular Jew I was dumbfounded. You could not "just deliver" the packages of food we brought! My two fellow volunteers would be immersed in such warmth and love of grandparents from a world we never knew, the world of the Shtetl of Galicia. The Jews of the "Old Country". I was embarrased, for I knew nothing, no Hebrew no Yiddush. Even the basic terminology of Jewishness of religious ceremonies to "daven" "Mincha" "Tefliah" or even what a "Tallit" was! 

One can vividly see today the outcome of how our non-Orthodox parents, failed or out right refused to teach their children nor adhere to even the basic rudimentaries of Judaism, are responding! 

In Israel, our greatest success was in the liberation of our indigenous homeland in the immediate aftermath of the Six Day War and our two greatest failures were the failure to "stop" the local Arab populace from fleeing and our establishment of control over the Temple Mount!

Our secondary failure was the makeup of the post 1956 Sinai War  Israeli political system that allowed the spread of the "soul searching among comrages" inspired by those Israeli communists of Mapam and Matzpen who were at a loss when Stalin broke and purged the Jews from the "Party", as part of the embarassment of the defeat of the Soviet Armed Armies.

This "soul" searching spread throughout the "Leftist" -read Labor Party, reached it's peak in the aftermath of the Six Day War in 1967. When those "Labor Party affiliated" Israeli leaders rejected outright any Israeli attempt to annex or cease control over or settlement -read "occupation" of the liberated areas and allowed the void to be filled with the "Big Lie". The "Lie" of Palestine!! 

Israeli leaders failed then to relay the HISTORICAL TRUTH! That Judaea and Shomron ARE (still) part of the Balfour Declaration designated "Homeland" of the Jewish People enshrined by the League of Nations "Mandate" that was given to the British to rule over 

That the Arabs who claim today to be "Palestinians" said zilch, nada to King Abdullah I of Jordan when he invaded and conquered the area in 1948! Nor when he tried to Annex the area.

Israel was a society "drunk" with the financial victory of the Post Six Day War and the control over expansive territory in Sinai, the Golan and the "Disputed Territories" of Judaea and Shomron.  Israel suddenly had a large pool of cheap laborers. Jews from "Arab lands" who had been neglected and held in destain suddenly went up the ladder in society from being the street cleaners and laborers to the "managerial" positions. 

We -those who ARE NOT of the Knitted Kipa modern Orthodox -have failed to impress upon our "secular youth" what life was like as stateless people, and how daily life was prior to the Six Day War!! We need to teach and impress upon each and everyone of them how precious it is to have a "country/home" of our own. 

That as Jews WE CAN BE a "moral nation" and people- a true "light upon other nations", but we must be totally aware of the very real and malicious world we live in!

Though the Nazis were "THE" most "efficient" and most "successful" in their attempt to eradicate us -and when I say US I mean ALL Jews! The very real hatred and despisal known as anti-Semitism is still whispered behind our backs or shouted in our faces, or passed out in leaflets, or posted on Social Media. Anti-Semitism the hatred of Jews exists openly throughout the "Western" "Enlightened World" and it is spreading thanks to OUR failure to unite as one to push back! 

As Jews We -collectively-  cannot afford the luxury of descending into a state of slumber! We must arise -TOGETHER -from the stupor 

We -ALL JEWS MUST remember "WE" -especailly here in Israel,  are surrounded by a people whose basic instincts for utter barbarity are well documented! 

For example here is a portion of transcript from the interrogation of the terrorist Arafat Arfaiah, who murdered 19 year old Ori Ansbacher. In reading it we can learn of the deep hatred and sickness that is taught and exists in the Arabs of "Palestine".

Arfaia: "I made my parents very proud of what I did".

Q: "How do murder and rape cause pride?"

Arfaia: "I didn't just rape someone, I murdered a Jewish woman. You won't be able to understand it because our thinking is different. If you ask anyone if they would be happy to kill a Jew... you will see that I have done everything that Arabs dream of doing".

Q: "Why didn't you just do it a while ago if you so longed for it?"

Arfaia: "This is not what Allah planned for me this murder is the best and most important thing I have done in my life.  If she had stayed alive it would have meant that I had failed in what I had planned and failed in the mission, that was the hardest feeling I felt in my life".

Arfaia: "I planned to enter Jerusalem through the forest to kill Jews ...I wanted to kill multiple Jews and not just one, but when I was there I saw that Allah had sent me the Jewish woman I realized that I had to kill her, this was the fate that Allah summoned me".

"I planned to enter some place to wear a kippa so that they would think I was Jewish and to stab as many Jews as possible to kill them".

"If I hadn't met the girl on the way I would have entered Jerusalem to carry out the attack and murder Jews".

"After I murdered her, I stayed by the body for a while longer, waiting for more Jewish people to come so that I could surprise them and stab them with a knife and kill them...." "If I had died during the attempt to kill more Jews, for me it is a blessed thing because then I would have died as a martyr"

We see by the words of Arafat Arfaiah the deep hatred and sickness within the "Palestinians" the same sickness that is reinforced daily to their children. 

One should take heed and note from this recorded transcript he refers to murdering JEWS and not "Israeli" nor Zionist's nor Settlers as the apologists for falestinian dezinformatsiya claim!

We must live by the words of Zev Jabotinsky, and in the mannerisms of warfare taught to our pre state "Night Squads" by Major General Orde Charles Wingate -A son of missionaries, Wingate carried a Bible wherever he went in pre-state Israel and trumpeted Jewish claims to the land just as British Mandatory policy turned anti-Zionist. 

Wingate, known as the "Known Friend"(Hayedid HaYaduah) strived to remind us of to be like Gideon, Shimeon Bar Kochba and Judah HaMaccabee! To be leaders who are willing to stand boldly -unafraid of death to fight like lions and to be proud Jews.  

Above ALL else we Jews must cease to fight between ourselves! WE all of us must work to stay a people united for only then will AM Yisrael continue to be Alive in Ertzanu!

The phrophetic words of the heathen prophet Balaam

As I was going through, my extensive files of historical writings and information, that I have read and accumulated in my fifty some odd years as a teacher of history, Lately in my "free time" of retirement I find myself drawn to be spokesperson a "Hasbaranik" for Israel. I would define "Hasbaranik" as: "a concientious reader of Social Media News sources who sees the fabrications and mendacious lies of those who post "falestinian dezinformatsiya" and replies to them."

As a very "learned" -educated and knowledgeable from reading ACTUAL historical documents- pro-Zionist Israeli and Jew, I find it my duty to enlighten the passive unknowing "audience" of those who take the "click bait" and are exposed to the utter fabrications and blatant viciously mendacious lies presented by the minions of the "falestinian Nachba Tragedy Tourists™" and their brainwashed and bamboozled sycophants on "Social Media". 

As I was reviewing and reorganizing I came upon this article from several years ago, "The Case for 'Dwelling Alone" by Yehuda Avner who had served on the staff of five prime ministers, including Golda Meir and Menachem Begin.

In light of today's "headlines" of the rise of anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism as well as the isolation and profound criticism of Israel by the UN, I found Avner's words and quotes of those famous Zionist Israeli leaders quite prophetic. Though long this article is well worth the read:

Golda Meir, Israel's most celebrated model of straitlaced probity, once gave a pep talk to 15 diplomatic probationers at the Foreign Ministry in 1958. Clearly wishing to take our measure, she leaned leisurely into her chair, combed back her bund hair with the fingers of both hands, lit up a cigarette, and eyeing us through the flame of the match, said in a Hebrew filled with Milwaukee-sounding pronunciations, "Are you sure you greenhorns want to join the Foreign Service? 

"Representing the Jewish state can be a very lonely experience. I'll tell you why: When I'm at the United Nations I look around me and think to myself, we have no family here. Israel is entirely by itself in the international community, less than popular, and certainly misunderstood.All we have to fall back on is our own Jewish, Zionist faith."

Whereupon, her tone gritty, her fists balled, she proceeded to ask herself;

 "Why should this be?""Why such solitude?"

"Why is it that we are the one country in the world that is Jewish?

"Why are we the one country in the world whose language is Hebrew?"

"Why is it that we have no independent kith and kin, or any historic relationship with any other state, or group of states, or cultures, or religions, or languages; as do say, the Anglo-Saxon nations, or the Christian nations, or the Muslim nations, or the Nordic nations, or the Slav peoples, or the Francophonic nations, or the Spanish-speaking, or the Arabic-speaking, or the Chinese-speaking peoples?"

Here she paused to rummage inside her copious black leather handbag, from the depths of which she extracted a handkerchief with which she blew her bulbous nose, and then, shoulders stooped, face glum, voice pensive, continued;

 "Everybody in the world has sovereign and cultural family except us. Everybody in the United Nations is grouped into blocs bound by a common geography, or religion, or history, or culture, except us. They vote in solidarity, like family.

We belong to no family. Our most natural regional allies - our Arab neighbors - do not want anything to do with us. Indeed, they want to destroy us. So, we really belong nowhere and to no one except to ourselves, impelled by our own Jewish, Zionist faith."

With that, the foreign minister stubbed out her cigarette and brooded over the ashtray, clearly pondering her next thought. When it came her voice was mulish:

"Since we have no blood ties to stand by us in solidarity, we suffer severe diplomatic consequences. 

Nobody recognizes Jerusalem as our capital city. We have no membership in any international regional alliance. We have no membership in any trade area. We enjoy no international recognition of our national medical emblem, the Magen David Adom. We have no accredited membership in any United Nations regional grouping.

Consequently, we are the only UN member that has no prospect of ever becoming a member of the Security Council.

"Of course," she added with a pious smile, "there is one important exception - our natural blood ties with our fellow Jews in the Diaspora. But everywhere they are a minority, and nowhere do they enjoy any form of national or cultural autonomy, let alone sovereignty."

Thus spoke this extraordinary woman, then in her early sixties, making no attempt to answer her own earth-shattering question: why, indeed, was the Jewish state without any sovereign kith or kin in the family of nations? Why was Israel the odd state out?

Years later, when she was prime minister and I a member of her staff, I discovered she had an aversion to analytical, conceptual discourse of any sort. A tough character with a domineering streak, Golda Meir knew to ask the right questions but was wont to simplify the most complex issues and go straight to the crux of the matter for a practical answer. Impatient with the convoluted theorems favored by academics and seasoned career diplomats, she wanted bottom-line answers. And, for her, "Jewish, Zionist faith" was a bottom-line answer.

This enigma, of Israel's diplomatic solitude, once came up for discussion at the Bible study circle which Menachem Begin regularly hosted at his home when he became prime minister in 1977. Every Saturday night 20-odd people, among them Bible scholars of repute, would seat themselves comfortably around the couch on which Mr. Begin sat, and for an hour or so would zestfully delve into an attention-grabbing biblical text.

On the Saturday night in question the chosen text was from the Book of Numbers,chapters 22 to 24, in which the Bible records how, 38 years after the children of Israel embarked on their Exodus from Egypt and two years before entering the Promised Land, the heathen prophet Balaam was coaxed by the Moabite king Balak to curse the advancing Israelites and thereby devastate them. However, Balaam, impelled by God's command, and much to Balak's fury, found himself involuntarily blessing them profusely instead.

The discussion that evening centered primarily on the evocative verse nine of chapter 23, in which Balaam foretells with remarkable prescience the future destiny of the Jewish people, predicting that "this is a people that shall dwell alone and shall not be reckoned among the nations."

Reading the verse out loud, prime minister Begin fixedly peered at the page of his Bible as though studying a museum manuscript and, sounding a mild chuckle, said, 

"One does not have to be a mystic for the imagination to be stirred by such an improbable vision of a nation 'dwelling alone.' What Balaam said is a startlingly accurate prophecy of our Jewish people's experience in all of history."

Professor Ephraim Urbach, a rotund, semi-bald scholar of refinement, wit, and brilliance, cited classic commentators to suggest "dwelling alone" really meant voluntarily setting oneself apart. In other words, the Jewish nation distinguished itself from other peoples by virtue of its distinctive religious and moral laws, and by the fact that it had been chosen by God as the instrument of a Divine purpose within the family of nations.

A woman in her fifties raised a finger for attention. She was fairly tall and lean, her face equine, her dress an unfussy nut brown, her beret a plain gray, her shoes sensible, and her eyes brilliantly intelligent. This was Nehama Leibowitz, famous for her profound biblical scholarship and for her immensely popular weekly Torah discourses, composed in a comprehensive and highly comprehensible style, graspable even to laymen.

Deftly, she drew attention to the verse's grammatical structure, elaborating upon and reinforcing Professor Urbach's comment, explaining that the verb yit'hashav, generally translated in English to mean reckoned - "this is a people that shall not be reckoned among the nations" - was here rendered in the reflexive form [hitpa'el], meaning, "this is a people that does not reckon itself among the nations."

As an aside, she pointed out that this form of that particular Hebrew word - yit'hashav - occurs but once in the whole of Scripture.

Professor Ya'acov Katz, a slight figure with dour features and a deeply analytical disposition, broke in to refer to the eminent talmudist Marcus Jastrow. Citing Jastrow's talmudic sources, Katz showed the hitpa'el of the root word hashav, ["reckon"] signifies "to conspire," meaning that Israel "is a people that dwells alone and does not conspire against other nations."

Another participant, whom everybody knew simply as Srulik - a ginger, bushy-haired archeologist and Bible prodigy in an emerald-green yarmulke which he had picked up at the door - provocatively remarked that whatever which way one interpreted Balaam's prophecy it stamped the Jewish people as an eternally abnormal nation within the family of nations. This flew in the face of the classic Zionist creed which expounded that Zionism's aim was to normalize the Jewish people so that it should become a goy k'chol hagoyim - a nation like other nations.

Indeed, the central thesis of the Zionist theorists and thinkers of the late 19th and the early 20th centuries was that once Jews possessed what every other normal nation possesses - a country of their own - they would automatically become a normal nation within the international community. And the consequence of that, so the classic Zionist theory went, would be that anti-Semitism would wither and die.

To which Dr. Haim Gevrayahu, chairman of the Israel Bible Society, and involved in one way or another in many high-profiled Bible study circles throughout the country, added words to the effect that, in making their confident predictions, one wondered in hindsight what led those brilliant secular Zionist founding fathers of yesteryear to believe that Jewish self-determination would, of itself, lead to national normalization and put an end to anti-Semitism. 

Indeed, were Jews to become a normal people they would cease being Jewish. But that could never happen because nothing could ever put an end to anti-Semitism. In fact, one thing to be learned from the biblical portion under review was that the so-called prophet Balaam was the archetype anti-Semite. His whole intent was to curse the Jews, not to bless them. The blessing was God's doing, not his.

This triggered off a firestorm of controversy because some of the scholars present took the Bible as a paradigm of God's own writing, while others related to it secularly as a piece of extraordinary literature.

Listening attentively, Mr. Begin lowered the temperature by saying in an earnest voice that it could hardly be denied by any reading of the text that the Jewish people did, indeed, live separate, apart, and often alone. And to prove his point he picked up a volume called A People That Dwells Alone. 

This was an anthology of the utterances of Dr. Ya'acov Herzog, confidant of several prime ministers, and universally admired for his remarkable gifts as a diplomat, philosopher, Talmudist, and theologian. Scion of a famous rabbinic family, he was the son of Israel's first chief rabbi, Yitzhak Isaac Halevy Herzog, and younger brother of Chaim, who was to become Israel's sixth president. He died in 1972 at the age of 50. To me, (Yehuda Avner)-he was a mentor, counselor, and tutor.

The prose of Ya'acov Herzog's anthology reads like a great rolling stone, accumulating intellectual threads and philosophic concepts as it gathers momentum and accelerates deeper and deeper into the mysteries of Jewish identity and eternity. And it was one such concept that Menachem Begin chose to quote that night to the members of his Bible study circle. He read:

“The theory of classic Zionism was national normalization. What was wrong with the theory?

It was the belief that the idea of a "people that dwells alone" is an abnormal concept, when in actuality, “a people that dwells alone" is the natural concept of the Jewish people.

That is why this one phrase still describes the totality of the extraordinary phenomenon of Israel's revival. If one asks how the ingathering of the exiles, which no one could have imagined in his wildest dreams, came about, or how the State of Israel could endure
such severe security challenges, or how it has built up such a flourishing economy, or how the unity of the Jewish people throughout the Diaspora has been preserved, one must come back to the primary idea that this is "a people that dwells alone." More than that, one must invoke this phrase not only to understand how the Jews have existed for so long; one must invoke it as a testimony to the Jewish right to exist at all in the land of their rebirth.”

"So, there you have it," concluded Begin, closing the book with a resolute air. "Cease 'dwelling alone' and you cease to exist. What a conundrum!"

The REAL Truth regarding the "Disputed Territories"

As I have stated over and over again the Minions of the Usurpers of Falestine" are like a Tsunami of viral hatred in Talkback sections of ALL news sites. 

I see that almost ever "news article" -read slander and lies- regarding the issues here in tiny Israel are so misconstrued by unscrupulous and unvirtuous news editors and journalists who totally lack the very basic integrity in their relaying of a story that ones brain fries!

As one who consistently states that WORDS DO MATTER!!! and that so does HISTORICALLY RECORDED and DOCUMENTED FACTS! I am sickened that the public of ALL ages is being exposed to the "art of dezinformatsiya" to vilify and negate the existence of the one lone Jewish State!

Besides the endless lies regarding the Temple Mound we are now exposed to the BIG LIE state once more by Palestinian PM Mohammad Shtayyeh:

"This is not a disputed land. Palestine belongs to the Palestinians, and this occupied land will be liberated. Jerusalem is ours, and Palestine is ours."

So world news sources how about the TRUTH for once in your coverage?

1) The Green Line, (pre-)1967 border, or 1949 Armistice border, was intended ONLY as a DEMARCATION line rather than a permanent border between the armies of Israel and those of its neighbors (Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria) after the 1948 Arab–Israeli War.

2) The drawing of the "Green Line" SUPERSED entirely the partition lines proposed and voted on by the United Nations in the Partition Plan of 1947, which the Zionists Jews had accepted in the Israeli Declaration of Independence and founded the sovereign State of Israel. 

3) The Arabs of the Mandated Areas (those who have usurped the term palestine- a long story in of its self) and Arab leaders had repeatedly rejected any permanent partition of Mandatory Palestine and at the 1949 Rhodes Armistice Conference the Arabs INSISTED that they were NOT creating permanent BORDERS. 

4) With the seizure of the area, beyond the "Green Line" to the West Bank of the Jordan River by the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan in 1948. The area came to be designated the West Bank. And furthermore the "Eastern Part" including the ETHNICALLY CLEANSED Jewish Quarter became known euphemistically as "East Jerusalem". The area, though under the control of an Arab nation, the Arabs of the Mandated Area DID NOT assert sovereignty to create a "Palestinian State" from May 1948 - June 1967.

5) Ergo, the Arabs of the Mandated Area DID NOT assert sovereignty leaving the territory as "Terra nullius" which is a Latin term meaning in INTERNATIONAL LAW as 'land belonging to no-one' or land not under the sovereignty or control of any other state or socially or politically organized grouping; or by prescription, where a state acquires territory through a continued period of uncontested sovereignty.

6) This "Terra nullius" area was part of The League of Nations Internationally agreed Mandated Area given as a Mandate to the British to Govern in 1922 as per the preamble which states; "... in favor of the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people."  "...recognition has thereby been given to the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country;"

7) And as stated in the INTERNATIONAL agreement of the League of Nations in the Treaty of Sèvres (San Remo conference ) and later ratified in the Treaty of Lausanne July 24th 1923. 

THERE IS NO MENTION OF THE "PEOPLE" nor "Sovereign NATION of PALESTINE! 

8) TO CLARIFY what IS MENTIONED is; 

"... it being clearly understood that nothing should be done which might prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine," 

9) After the DEFENSIVE Six-Day War, the aforesaid "Mandated area for ‎‎the Jewish Homeland" (Article 8 Mandate for Palestine) was liberated from Jordanian "Occupation" in 1967, the ‎‎‎"West Bank" officially became Israeli territory under Uti ‎possidetis juris (Latin for "as you possess under law"). 

10) INTERNATIONAL LAW and the U.N. Charter states that not all wars are illegal. Indeed the U.N. Charter expressly reaffirms the legality of a defensive war. Since defensive war is not illegal, it follows that the defender’s territorial gains from such a war would not be illegal.

In fact the legality of defensive conquest was endorsed by the International Law Commission, a body created by the General Assembly, and tasked with providing fuller explanations of the legal significance of the U.N. Charter and related documents. All agreed that post-war frontier adjustments were justified to help protect the victim of aggression.

So it is way past time that the REAL TRUTH be told by real News sources, journalists and above ALL else political leaders with integrity!!!

The World's purposely selective amnesia of the Holocaust

On the 11th of April 1961 an attempt to awaken the world to the immense banality of evil that laid behind the Holocaust began with the trial of Adolf Eichmann,  the principal architect of the Holocaust in Jerusalem.

SS-Obersturmbannführer Adolf Eichmann was in no way a "simple" bureaucrat. 

Eichmann was head of the Reichssicherheitshauptamt (RSHA, Reich Security Central Office) Department IV B4 (Jewish affairs) that managed all the bureaucracy of the "total annihilation [Vernichtung] the "Final Solution to the Jewish Question"—the deportation and the genocide of ALL Jews in German-occupied Europe. He was assigned this task by SS-Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich who was assigned by Hitler, Göring, and Himmler in all matters pertaining to the deportation, imprisonment, and extermination of Jews.

It was at the infamous Wannsee Conference that the highly detailed plans, plans drawn up by Eichmann and his staff, were laid out for the implementation of the Final solution to the Jewish question (German: Endlsung der Judenfrage).

In the beginning the Nazis encouraged emigration through violence and economic pressure. 

With the rise of the Nazi's to power in 1933 and after the publication of the atrocious Nuremberg Laws. The Nazi leadership were encouraged to take further more drastic steps when they saw that the whole world were reluctant to allow Jewish immigration, as witnessed in countless attempts by German Jews to flee. The Nazi leadership were encouraged were especially encouraged by the hypocrisy of the British in their appeasement of the Arabs by creating the "White Paper" limitation of Jewish immigration to the promised "Jewish Homeland".

After the outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939, Eichmann and his staff arranged for Jews to be concentrated in ghettos in major cities with the expectation that they would be transported either farther east or overseas. He also drew up plans for a Jewish reservation, first at Nisko in southeast Poland and later in Madagascar, but neither of these plans was carried out.

After the Nazis began the invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941 their Jewish policy changed from emigration to "relocation" the euphemism used for "extermination".

The plans of Eichmann's office were nefarious in that they implemented means never before used in a vast modern "computerized"  industrialized extermination resplendent with the means of mass murder-albeit cheaply, by zyklon b-B gas and the means of disposal of the bodies -read evidence - in "the finest German made" - baking ovens meant to turn the bodies through cremation to dust. 

It was also a "first" in it's  implementation of efficiency by the use of data collected and processed IBM punch card and card sorting system-a precursor to the computer by Deutsche Hollerith Maschinen Gesellschaft, or Dehomag, IBM's German subsidiary. 

It was these machines that gave the Nazi regime the technology and the tools it needed to expedite and, in many ways, automate, all six phases of Hitler's war against the Jews.

It was a totally monstrous plan which encompassed a vast continental wide operation that committed such immense financial and transportation resources: to track down and murder every last Jew in Europe.

On 11 May 1960 an Israel team of Mossad agents captured Eichmann near his home on Garibaldi Street in San Fernando, Buenos Aires, an industrial community 20 kilometers (12 mi) north of the centre of Buenos Aires. He was secretly transported to Israel on 22 May, and Ben-Gurion announced his capture to the Knesset the following afternoon.

Eichmann's trial before a special tribunal of the Jerusalem District Court began on 11 April 1961 in Jerusalem, Israel.

The prosecution case, presented by Israeli Attorney General Gideon Hausner, as chief prosecutor over the course of 56 days, involved hundreds of documents and 112 witnesses (many of them Holocaust survivors).  

It was Hausner's intention to not only demonstrate Eichmann's guilt but to present material about the entire Holocaust, thus producing a comprehensive record. 

Hausner's opening address, meant to bring awareness of future historians of the  world to the crimes of the Holocaust began:

"It is not an individual that is in the dock at this historic trial and not the Nazi regime alone, but anti-Semitism throughout history." 

Complicity:

In 2006 US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)  declassified documents show that the capture of Eichmann caused alarm at the CIA and West German Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND). 

Both organizations had known for at least two years that Eichmann was hiding in Argentina, but they did not act because it did not serve their interests in the Cold War. Both were concerned about what Eichmann might say in his testimony about West German national security advisor Hans Globke, who had coauthored several anti-Semitic Nazi laws, including the Nuremberg Laws. The documents also revealed that both agencies had used some of Eichmann's former Nazi colleagues to spy on European communist countries.

Regretfully, as we have seen all too many times, Israeli Attorney General Gideon Hausner's prophetic words have been forgotten as there have been way to many hate filled racists  as well as Palestinians and their minions who have tried to brand it is a "Hoax" as the world has done it's best to forget.

That is why this quote by General of the Army and commander of Allied Forces Europe in WWII and later President of the USA Dwight D. Eisenhower is so important: 

“Get it all on record now - get the films - get the witnesses -because somewhere down the road of history some bastard will get up and say that this never happened.”

Jews and the Ukraine: The long history of the Homelessness and Wandering

What is on my mind, thanks once again to the two old guys who would not stop arguing ALL night in my brain, was the story of the Ukraine and just how many different versions of this sad historical tale regarding "Our" history as the "Wandering Jews" is being spread but this time live online on the internet and social media.

And of course, we have the age-old Jewish part of the story, but with an ironic twist. In that the "hero" and leader of the nation of the story involved is Volodymyr Zelensky a "native born " Jew.

Zelensky is THE prime example of the modern-day Jew of the Diaspora. An atypical secular non-religious "person of Jewish heritage" who is totally assimilated in the culture and society of his native land. 

Yet, Zelensky is NOT the first "court Jew", whilst in our long diaspora several Jews have achieved a place of prominence in the lands we have settled in. There have been several Jews who have achieved-been appointed or been elected to "high office".

What is happening of course is an immense tragedy of human suffering that is caused by festering hatreds based on historical differences between peoples. These same areas that were latter termed the "Pale of Settlement" have been an area contested and vied for centuries between the Germanic tribes and those who would become the Polish people and the Russians.

What IS THE twist is that in THIS war is taking place in what   was once "The Pale of Settlement" "Galicia" that historical area   where Jews fleeing the immense hatred of the Catholic Church in the aftermath of the Alhambra Decree in 1492 against the Jews were invited to live and where confined to by Catherine the Great.

The area of the Ukraine is a vast burial ground of millions of Jews who were butchered and murdered by the Einsatzgruppen of the Nazis and their over eager local collaborators. The very presence of local Jews was totally erased from their villages during the "Holocaust" with the overly enthusiastic participation of many "fellow Ukrainians". Who out of fear in late 1943-1944 together with the Nazi's  brought Sonderkommandos; work units made up of Jewish death camp prisoners to exhume the bodies of the victims of the executions.

“We used to uncover the graves where there were people who had been killed during the past three years, take out the bodies, pile them up in tiers and burn these bodies, grind the bones, take out the valuables in the ashes, such as gold teeth, rings and so on, and separate them. After grinding the bones, we would throw the ashes up in the air so that they would disappear, replace the earth over the graves, and plant seeds so that nobody could recognize that there was once a grave there."

What IS different, THIS TIME. is that these Jews fleeing the hell of war are seeing the flag with the two blue stripes and the star of David flying on the borders symbolizing a place to flee to OUR homeland and freedom!! They see our representatives sent to shepherd them to life in OUR INDIGENOUS HOMELAND!!

Our enemies, the those ever so sad descendants of the self-inflicted tragedy of their ignomius defeat in 1948 whom I call the "Tragedy Tourists of Nachbaland™" and their overly enthusiastic minion of anti-Semite followers are once more frustrated and full of sick vile vulgar hatred once more!

Only this time they cannot refuse our people, who in dire need to flee death DO have the doors open to our homeland.

The long history of the Jews and the Ukraine

Many of the descendants of Jews in Europe are according to DNA studies descendants of the more than 100,000+ Jewish male and some female slaves sent to work the marble mines of Northern Italy with Vespasian's defeat of the "First" Jewish Revolt in 73CE.

Eastern Ukraine was home to the Khazar empire, a kingdom of Turkic people that arose in southeastern Russia in the 6th Century CE and extended as far west as Kiev, the capital of present-day Ukraine.

It is said that in the 8th Century, that the area was ruled by a semi-divine king called a Khagan, and local chieftains called “Begs”. Legend says that the Khazar king at that time invited representatives from the three monotheistic faiths to his palace and listened to each of them discuss their religion. It is said that the Khazar king was so struck with Judaism’s beauty and lucidity that he converted to Judaism and ordered that his followers do so as well. According to this story many Khazars became Jewish, embracing Jewish holidays and Shabbat and keeping kosher.

In the Middle Ages, the great Spanish Jewish sage Judah Halevi (1075-1141) wrote The Kuzari, a beautiful philosophical book that imagined the discussion between the king of the Khazars and the visiting rabbi. The Kuzari is accepted as a robust defense of Judaism against critics from other religions and from indifference.

In the early Middle Ages, the largely Jewish kingdom of the Khazars was buffeted by invading Russian forces, which ransacked its capital city in about the year 965 CE. The end of the Khazar kingdom came in the 1200s, when Mongol tribes invaded much of present-day Ukraine and Poland, causing huge devastation and loss of life.

In order to build back its power and wealth, Poland invited new residents to move into its territories from the west, primarily from Germanic lands. The Middle Ages were indeed a tumultuous time in Ukraine. Accounts describe the city of Kiev as being home to a substantial Jewish community in the 11th and 12th centuries. There were two heavily Jewish suburbs of the city, and one entryway into Kiev’s city walls that was known as the “Jewish Gate”. There are also references to a Jewish scholar at the time known as Moshe ben Yaakov of Kiev.

In 1264 Bolesław V the Chaste of what we call Poland today had invited Jews to settle and granted certain privileges to Jews. For example, he prohibited the kidnapping of Jewish children under penalty of death for the purpose of enforced Christian baptism, and he inflicted heavy punishment for the desecration of Jewish cemeteries. Casimir III the Great confirmed these privileges granted the Jews and allowed the exiled Spanish Jews to settle in Poland in great numbers and protected them as people of the king

Poland’s invitation for immigrants to come attracted Jews who were fleeing massacres in central Europe in the wake of the Crusades and the Black Death. Jews settled throughout Poland, including in territories that form present-day Ukraine, most notably the region of Volhynia, which lies at the intersection of Poland, Belarus and Ukraine. By the 1400s, up to 30,000 Jews were thought to be living in 60 different communities across Ukraine, including in the present-day capital city, Kiev.

Hasidim and the Ukraine

The founder of Hasidic Judaism, the Baal Shem Tov (1700-1760) didn’t live in Ukraine; his home was a couple of miles outside the Ukrainian border, in Poland. But the friend and disciple who spread the ideas of Hasidic Judaism and developed it into a distinct religious movement did so within Ukraine, from his base in the city of Mezeritch.

Rabbi Dov Ber, also known as the Maggid (preacher) of Mezeritch (1704-1772), first consulted with the Baal Shem Tov when he was ill. The Baal Shem Tov was known as a healer, as well as a religious sage. Rabbi Dov Ber was so impressed that he adopted the Baal Shem Tov’s worldview, which emphasized worshiping God with joy. Within a generation, Ukraine was home to some of the most important and influential Hasidic masters, including Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev and Menachem Nachum (and his son Modechai Twersky) of Chernobil. Ukrainian Jewish communities embraced Hasidic Judaism, with its emphasis on rigorously religious practice combined with spirituality and an emphasis on infusing religious observance with joy.

Perhaps the greatest Hasidic rabbi in Ukraine was Rabbi Nahman, from the Ukrainian town of Breslov (1772-1811), a great grandson of the Baal Shem Tov and a direct descendent of the Maharal, one of Europe’s greatest rabbis who lived in 16th century Prague. Rabbi Nahman built a large community in the Ukrainian town of Zlapotol in the early 1800s. He taught that Jews should strive to feel close to God at all times, and that feeling happy is best way to appreciate all of God’s many blessings.

The Ukrainian town of Uman, about 125 miles south of Kiev, is where Rabbi Nachman of Breslov lived during his final years and is buried. Uman has emerged as a major pilgrimage site for thousands of Jews each year. The most popular time to go is Rosh Hashanah, when tens of thousands of Jews visit Uman to celebrate the holiday together in the place where Rabbi Nahman taught.

The Cossacks and the Chmielnicki Massacres

A series of Cossack raids began in 1648, aimed at freeing Cossack communities from the domination of Polish landlords. The leader of these attacks was Bohdan Chmielnicki, who agitated for an independent Ukrainian country. Reflecting Cossack culture, Chmielnicki blamed Jews for his countrymen’s problems and encouraged his followers to massacre Jews.

Between 1648 and 1651, Chmielnicki’s followers killed about 20,000 Jews with unimaginable barbarity. Approximately half of all Jews living in Ukraine fled. So great was the Cossacks’’ depravity that some terrified Jews even fled into Crimea, where they faced slavery in the hands of Muslim Tatars.

The official records of the Jewish community in Kiev recorded the beginning of the massacres:

"Immediately after the death of the pious King Wladyslaw (1648) tens of thousands of villains, among them Cossacks…went forth and committed manu murders in the holy communities of Niemirow, Tulczyn, Machnowka, and other hold communities who congregated in order to save their lives from the…sword… Since the destruction of the Temple no other cruel murder like this one was committed for the sanctification of the name” of God."

Another eyewitness account described:

“they massacred about 6,000 souls in the town…and they drowned several hundreds in the water and by all kinds of cruel torments. In the synagogue, before the Holy Ark, they slaughtered with butchers’ knives…after which they destroyed the synagogue and took out all the Torah books…they tore them up…and they laid them out…for men and animals to trample on…they also made sandals of them…and several other garments.” The Cossacks knew no bounds in their sadism and cruelty and attacked and killed Jews – as well as some Polish nobles – with horrific barbarity."

Chmielnicki appealed for military aid from Russia and in 1654 much of Cossack-controlled Ukraine became a client state of Russia. Sporadic pogroms continued through the years, most notably in the city of Uman in 1768.

Ukrainians blamed Jews for their landlords’ greed.

Jewish life in present-day Ukraine became even more entrenched after 1569, when much of present-day Ukraine came under a new political alliance, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

Ukraine was an uneasy mix of many different ethnic groups. Much of the farmland and industry in Ukraine was the property of Polish nobles who were Catholic. The peasants in Ukraine were a mix of Eastern Orthodox Ukrainians and groups known as Cossacks, who lived primarily in the southern part of Ukraine. In the far south, the Crimean Peninsula was owned by the Ottoman Empire and populated largely by Tatar Muslims, who engaged in constant, low level warfare with Cossacks along their border. Both groups would stage skirmishes into each other’s territories, seizing property and slaves.

With many farms and businesses owned by absentee Polish landlords and nobles, an exploitative system called "Arenda" developed, which allowed agents to manage farms and other enterprises on behalf of absent landlords. It was often Jews who were employed to manage the "Arenda economy", acting as caretakers for absentee nobles and landowners. Jews managed salt mines, farms, mills, and inns. They also became local tax collectors for Polish noblemen. Many "Arendas" were given out in the alcohol trade: brewing, selling alcohol and managing inns and taverns were often seen as Jewish professions.

Working for hated landlords put Jews in an impossible position: they needed the "Arenda" system in order to survive economically, but the local peasants blamed Jews for their employers’ increasingly abusive practices. When Polish nobles increased taxes on their already suffering tenants, it was their Jewish agents who bore the blame. In time, extreme antisemitism became engrained in much of Ukrainian culture.

The term “pogrom” was invented after riots in Ukraine.

In 1881, Czar Alexander II was murdered by a left-wing terrorist. Soon, it was being (incorrectly) reported across Russia that the new Czar Alexander III had ordered Russian subjects to kill Jews. Pogroms broke out, with the greatest number taking place in Ukraine. These weren’t the first massacres of Jews in Ukraine and elsewhere in the Pale of Settlement, but the frequency and intensity of the mob attacks resulted in the phenomenon being given a new name: pogrom, which means violence in Russian.

In April 1903 an Easter pogrom took place in Moldova’s capital, Kishinev.  Forty-nine Jews were murdered, hundreds brutally injured.

Pogroms continued throughout the end of the 19th century. Some of the most horrible pogroms took place in 1905, after Czar Nicholas II issued the October Manifesto, guaranteeing all Russian subjects some basic political rights. The manifesto came at a perilous time in Russian politics, with political rivals ready to attack each other. As violence broke out, mobs turned on the Jews in their midst. Some of the worst anti-Jewish attacks were in the Ukrainian city of Odessa: The Jewish newspaper Voskhod reported that over 800 Jews were murdered in pogroms in Odessa in the days following the October Manifesto, and several thousands more were wounded.

Among the many towns engulfed in pogroms in 1905 was Kiev, Ukraine’s capital. There, the rampaging crowds attacked Jews for three days and nights. One of the terrified Jews during that ordeal was the well-known Yiddish writer known as Sholem Aleichem (his real name was Solomon Naumovich Rabinovich). For three days, he and his family hid in a hotel, listening to the terrible screams from their fellow Jews as they were attacked, maimed and killed outside.

Sholem Aleichem’s daughter later described the moment they realized their lives were in danger: “We ran from our beds to the windows on the street and looked down on the scene of brutality and murder – a gang of hoodlums beating a poor young Jew with heavy sticks; blood was running over the face of the young man, who was vainly shrieking for aid. A policeman stood nearby, casually looking on and not moving a finger.”

After the Kiev pogrom, Sholem Aleichem’s entire family fled Ukraine, eventually settling in New York.

The Russian Revolution in 1917, the Polish Ukrainian War of 1918-1919, the Ukrainian War of Independence, and the Soviet-Polish War of 1919-1921 sparked waves of hundreds of pogroms across the region which killed approximately 100,000 Jews. (Ukraine was briefly independent, before being divided by Poland and Russia.)

The violence was unspeakably intense. In the Ukrainian town of Proskurov, for instance, a three-day pogrom that broke out on February 15, 1919 killed 1,500 Jews. The town of Pogrebinschi experienced two pogroms: in May, 1919 Soviet troops went on a murderous rampage, killing 400 Jews. Three months later, Ukrainian nationalists staged a second pogrom and murdered a further 350 Jews there. Over 1,300 towns became scenes of horrific violence towards Jews.