Libelous fabrication of documented factual truth and Quora

What's on my mind? For three days now I have had the two "Old Guys" arguing in my head ever since I saw an aborrent horrifically horrendous libelous fabrication of documented factual truth posted by a Rami Canaan on Quora. entitled "The Ethnic Cleansing of Haifa":

"Testimony of Aisha Al-Furani, a Palestinian refugee from Haifa. The story of a Palestinian refugee from the village of Sheikh Haifa District."

As I read this highly falsified "Testimony" I sat in stunned silence realising that members of the "computer-based illiterate - cellphone dependent" generation outside of Israel are exposed to this outrageously falsification of a well documented incident that occured on December 30, 1947 at the, then British owned Mandatory oil refinery in the Haifa bay area.

What is NOT mentioned - ad nausem- as it flies in the face of their mendacious tale of the events of their Nachba- and is ALWAYS "blissfully omited" by apologists for the “Arabs of the Mandated Areas” such as Rami Canaan in this story of this “poor refugee Aisha Al-Furani” is the WELL documented recorded true facts from the

achived British Criminal Investigation Department (CID) and administrative records from the late 1940s and in C.RASC Ivor Wilks’ "A Once And Past Love: Palestine 1947, Israel 1948" - "A Memoir" and Balad Al-Sheikh. (* C.RASC stands for Commander, Royal Army Service Corps.)

These "neutral" records provide a specific, often clinical perspective on these events. Because the British were the sovereign power at the time, their records are now housed in the National Archives in Kew (UK) or within the Israel State Archives. They focus on the timeline of British Mandatory law enforcement failure and the sequence of escalation.

According to these British CID archived reports we learn the REAL DOCUMENTED HOSTORICAL TRUTH regarding the “poor refugee Aisha Al-Furani's” village Balad al-Sheikh and NOT mendacious revisionist history by the perpetual UNWRA refugees.

One of the reasons that led to Balad al-Sheikh being depopulated during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War (also known as the Nakba) was because the village was the home of Izz ad-Din al-Qassam, who even before the establishment of the state, acted against the Jewish Yishuv and was a leader who inspired local villagers to commit brutal murderous attacks on the Jews of the area of Haifa.

Izz ad-Din al-Qassam was killed by the British Mandatory authorities in 1935, following his role in the killing of a Mandatory policeman and was buried there and his grave became a “Palestinian” symbol of resistance and of Palestinian terrorism.
Even today members of the Hamas terror organization fight in his name and carried out the October 7th massacre with green headbands bearing his name on their foreheads!

After the United Nations voted for the Partition Plan (Resolution 181) in November of 1947, Arab attacks on Jews were escalating rapidly across British Mandatory Palestine. Jewish Kibbutzim, agricultural Villiages and transportation in various parts of British Mandatory Palestine were violently and murderously attacked by "local Arab villagers" -according to the recorded British CID documents "Under the guidance of the Grand Mufti Haj Muhammad Amin al-Husseini".
During December 1947, tensions had reached a boiling point.

According to the archived British CID reports Balad al-Sheikh, which stood on the road between Haifa and Jewish kibbutzim and farming villages Afula and Beit Shean in the Yizrael valley, was a center for attacks on Jewish transportation.

The village was "depopulated" during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War (also known as the Nakba).
The events occurred in three main stages: increasing attacks by village and area Arab residents on Jewish civilian buses and trucks, retaliatory raid at the turn of the year and the final capture of the village in April.

The spark, that led to the Irgun (Etzel) attack was "An eye for an eye" attack on the Arabs working at the British owned oil refinery for the increasing Arab "resistance" against the Jewish civilian residents of the area of Haifa.

Prior to the incident at the oil refinery on December 30, 1947, 1700 Arabs and 470 Jews worked their, not including the British management.

At approximately 10:20 AM exactly one month after the United Nations voted for the Partition Plan (Resolution 181), British CID police reports recorded, that two bombs were thrown from a passing vehicle (identified as a black car or taxi) into a crowd of roughly 100 Arab day-laborers outside the refinery gate who were waiting at a bus stop or seeking employment. Six Arabs were killed and 42 were wounded.

One of the most critical aspects of the British records is the admission of a delays in intervention.British records show that although the refinery was owned by the British (Consolidated Refineries Ltd), it took nearly an hour for police and military units to arrive after the Arab riot began inside the gates.

In the internal reports, CID Summary, they recorded a a "spontaneous reaction" and scene of "uncontrolled mob violence" within minutes of the Irgun's bombs exploding outside the gate, where Arab workers inside the refinery (who previously had relatively good relations with their Jewish coworkers) turned on the Jewish staff and used "industrial tools, iron bars, and pickaxes" to attack Jewish coworkers. The CID noted that the British management was unable to exert any authority once the riot began.

In the ensuing riot, 41 Jewish workers were killed and 49 were injured.
After the the murderous attack on the Jewish workers of the refinery, many of those Arabs who carried out the debauchery returned to Balad Al-Sheikh.
Despite condemning the Irgun's initial bomb attack as an "act of madness".

All of this is recorded in the British CID records as recounted by Zachary Lockman in his book "Comrades and Enemies: Arab and Jewish Workers in Palestine, 1906–1948" whe he focuses on how the violence at the Haifa Oil Refinery shattered a rare instance of inter-communal labor solidarity.

In his book, Lockman analyzes the 1947–1948 events in a section titled "The Descent into Madness" where he provides specific casualty figures and observations that sometimes differ slightly from other contemporary sources.

British records provide the "official" version of the Haganah/Palmach attack on the village of Balad al-Sheikh Raid (Dec 31, 1947).
The Haganah launched a massive retaliatory raid on the village of Balad al-Sheikh where those Arab refinery workers who participated in the murder of their Jewish co-workers lived.
In the Haganah’s retaliatory raid on the village, according to "Arab testimony" recorded by the CID, the Haganah attackers used mortars and explosives to demolish houses while residents were inside the attack "killed some sixty men, women, and children and destroyed several dozen houses".

According to records cited by historians like Benny Morris and Yoav Gelber, from the official history of the Haganah (specifically the Sefer Toldot HaHaganah) and the internal reports of the Palmach units involved.
The official operational order issued to the 170 men of the First Battalion of the Palmach( Hebrew Plugot Maḥatz, "Strike Companies") who were the elite combined strike forces, the orders were quite specific:
"To encircle the village, and to inflict harm on the largest possible number of men, to damage property, but to refrain from attacking women and children."

Furthermore the Hebrew records often use the term "טוהר הנשק" (Purity of Arms) to discuss these incidents in hindsight—debating whether the "deviation" at Balad al-Sheikh was a failure of this moral code or a tragic necessity of the 1948 conflict.

The retaliatory raid on the village of Balad al-Sheikh began in the dark of night (it was a 2:00 AM raid). 170 members of the Palmach that carried out the attack were "forced to deviate from the line agreed upon" because they were met with severe resistance from within residential structures in the village by the village residents and elements of the Grand Mufti's Army of the Holy War (Jaysh al-Jihad al-Muqaddas) who used the civilian structures as their combat positions.
Due to the "heat of battle" those Palmach commanders claimed they could not distinguish between "combatants" and "non-combatants" once a house was identified as a source of fire.

And because the Arabs used their homes as implacements the fighters of the Palmach unit fired into these houses and used explosives to silence the resistance, resulting in "unintentional" civilian deaths.

The Palmach and the official Haganah General Staff (HGS) internal report initially claimed 21 killed (including 2 women and 5 children) at under the stress of close-quarters urban combat were "regretfully" killed due to the military necessity and the tactical chaos.
Arab records say 60-70 dead (many women/children). The Times (London), January 2, 1948: contemporary report, titled "17 Killed In Attack On Arab Village," initially provided lower figures. The discrepancy arose from whether the count only included identified "combatant" males or every body found in the destroyed homes.

In the "Testimony of Aisha Al-Furani" she states:
"On their way to fetch water, a group of the Haganah gang caught them and executed them behind the port and they were added them to the 600 Men, Women, and Children massacred in my village."
However, according to WO 261/573 and the RASC War Diaries, the Haifa Port was a "sealed military enclave." The idea that a "Haganah gang" could enter this hyper-guarded military zone, execute civilians at a water point, and leave without the RASC or the Royal Marines recording a major security breach is historically untenable. If there had been mass executions at the port—Wilks have recorded it exposing the Quora testimony as a fabric of lies.

Zachary Lockman in his book "Comrades and Enemies: Arab and Jewish Workers in Palestine, 1906–1948" on page 353, he explicitly states:
"The Jewish attackers killed some sixty men, women, and children and destroyed several houses." His research relies heavily on labor records and press reports from the time, noting that the sheer scale of the funeral processions in Haifa the following day supported the higher casualty figures

The Haganah recorded that the objective was to destroy the homes of "refinery rioters." They argued that because the attack was a surprise raid intended to destroy property and "punish" the adult male population, the collapsing of houses with explosives inevitably led to deaths among family members who had not or could not flee.

Some internal diaries and later testimonies from Palmach members - some of whom were related or friends of the 39 butchered Jewish refinery workers. Later admitted that the "retaliatory zeal" emotional intensity of the previous day's refinery massacre led to a "harshness" in the field.

The following file series contain the primary cables, police summaries, and high-level reports from the British administration in Palestine to the Colonial and Foreign Offices in London:

CO 537/3855: This file contains "Palestine: Situational Reports" from 1948. It includes detailed telegraphic correspondence from the High Commissioner describing urban and rural violence.

CO 733/477: This series often covers police reports and local intelligence summaries (CID reports) during the final months of the Mandate.

FO 371/68502: Foreign Office records that include "intelligence summaries" regarding the Arab-Israeli conflict in the Haifa sub-district.

WO 261/573: War Office monthly historical reports for the Palestine Command, which provide the British military's perspective on the Balad al-Sheikh raid and the subsequent refinery investigation.

The success of Dyzinformation The Passive Reader and Gullibility

 The success of Dyzinformation:

 “A lie can get halfway around the world in the time it takes the truth to get its pants on." - A quote widely attributed to Mark Twain.

The Passive Reader and Gullibility:

 "For the great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie—deliberate, contrived, and dishonest—but the myth—persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic."

This quote is taken from a speech delivered by JFK during his 1962 commencement address at Yale University and it remains a profound observation on how societies process information.

“By far the most vicious and hate-filled pathological liars are those people that today's TikTok generation imitate, “parrot” and admire.” (the author) Yakov Marks 

The “Active Measures” (aktivnyye meropriyatiya) campaign of the KGB is often described by intelligence historians as the most successful propaganda campaign of the 20th century.

This campaign has outlived the Soviet Union and has metamorphosized into the digital "mythmaking" that JFK warned about in his speech.

By my referring to Kennedy's terminology, you can realize that Operation SIG (Russian: Sionistskiye Gosudarstva or "Zionist Governments") was the mechanism used to transform a “deliberate lie” into a “persistent myth”.

The very name of the operation reveals the intent: to create a global perception of a shadowy, controlled "Zionist Government" (a direct echo of the virulently antisemitic Protocols of the Elders of Zion), which Kennedy would have classified as a "contrived" and "dishonest" construction.

From Print to Pixels: The Digital Hegemony

The utter success of "Operation SIG" is in the transition from the KGB's 1970s print propaganda to today's social media landscape and is reflected in the "corruption" of the major influencers in the passive mind of todays "computer- based illiterate - cellphone dependent" generation and demonstrates a move from disinformation (manufacturing a lie) to hegemonic narrative (rewriting history until the lie is the default truth).

In the "moral binary" created by Operation SIG, the truth is branded as "hate speech" because it disrupts the myth.

The minds of the "computer-based illiterate - cellphone dependent" generation confirmed biased audience generation of today has been corrupted by the overly corrupt algorithm-driven social media platforms just as JFK mentioned.

For once a "myth" is established, the digital ecosystem feeds the user more of the same, creating a hermetically sealed reality where the "negation" of the other becomes a moral duty.

We, older "Highly (non) paid" Hasbaraniks, have witnessed over the years, how the followers of the "False Narrative of Palestine", have rewritten, reprogrammed and subverted ALL the social media web sites to demonize, defame and to cause the "negation" Israel / the Jewish State.

Semantic Engineering: The "Big Red Lie"

When I look at modern political discourse, as a member of the older generation, I see the fulfilment of a masterclass in "Semantic Engineering" seen in the 1975 "Zionism is Racism" UN speech (Resolution 3379) to "de-legitimize through categorization".

This "historical "Ground Zero" was achieved when operatives for Operation SIG and the "False Narrative of Palestine”, successfully moved the conflict from a territorial dispute to a moral binary by the labeling of Zionism as "racism”.

Over the years, I have readily witnessed the intentional connotative shift in words like "Zionism" or "Imperialism" to corrupt the minds of the naïve “corruptly taught” uneducated " "computer-based illiterate - cellphone dependent" generation to make it beyond their comprehension to distinguish between historical fact and "persistent myth".

Only those of us from the older generation can recall the powerful defense of truth against "persistent and persuasive" propaganda in the now forgotten responses by Israeli Ambassador Chaim Herzog and U.S. Ambassador Daniel Patrick Moynihan on that 10th of November 1975.

Even fewer today can remember how Israeli Ambassador Chaim Herzog pointed out in his speech the staggering irony of the date—November 10, 1975—which was the 37th anniversary of Kristallnacht.

He famously told the assembly:

"For the Jewish people, this is no more than a piece of paper, and we shall treat it as such," before tearing the resolution in half at the podium.”

And even fewer remember U.S. Ambassador Daniel Patrick Moynihan "masterclass in linguistic precision" when he recognized that the UN was not just passing a resolution, but redefining language itself to serve an ideological goal (exactly what I have noted about the "corruption" of influencers).

"The United Nations is about to make anti-Semitism international law... The lie is that Zionism is a form of racism. The overwhelmingly clear truth is that it is not."

Moynihan warned that if we “destroy the words that were given to us... we will not have words to replace them."

Today, we see those replaced words: "Settler-Colonialism," "Apartheid," and "European usurpers." These terms bypass the analytical mind and trigger an immediate emotional response—the ultimate success of Operation SIG.

The Holocaust Inversion

The "False Narrative" of an entity and a "people" who never existed in documented -albeit written history, framed in the language of "liberation" and "justice," has now become the persistent worldview among today’s "computer based illiterate - cellphone dependent" generation because they have a hard time reading (illiteracy), lack of vocabulary and the lexical meaning of words as well as reading comprehension. They do not -are literally unable -as they do not possess the ability to actually read and to do fact checking in texts of historically provided documented written “book / text” facts for the "truth".

The most "contrived and dishonest" element of this operation is "Holocaust Inversion"—labeling the survivors of a genocide as the new "Nazis." This rhetorical flip has become "persistent and persuasive" in Podcasts or on platforms like TikTok, Instagram and X (formerly Twitter).

The Choice: The Myth or The Truth?

 

The epitome of irony is that a whole generation with the world's information at their fingertips lacks the lexical depth and historical context to decode the very information they consume.

They find it abhorrent to be on the side of righteousness and truth because they wish to be accepted and loved by their fellow brainwashed and bamboozled peers.

In Conclusion: The Choice Between the Myth and the Truth

To the "Bamboozled": You believe you are part of a revolution, but you are merely repeating a script written in a 1970s Kremlin basement. You have been traded a "persuasive myth" for the "discomfort of thought." The algorithm loves your compliance; it feeds your need for peer acceptance while starving your intellect. True righteousness doesn't require a hashtag; it requires the courage to realize you’ve been conned.

The "utter success" of Operation SIG is not found in the archives of the KGB, but in the glowing screens held by a generation that has traded its analytical soul for social validation.

To my fellow survivors of the pre-digital age:

To my fellow survivors of the pre-digital age: We cannot afford the luxury of silence. We are the last generation that remembers the world before the "Big Red Lie" became the "Digital Truth." Our task is to provide the lexical armor our children lack. Do not let the "persistent myth" go unchallenged at your dinner table. If we do not preserve the meaning of words, the "negation" of our history will be complete.

The "truth" is not just hidden today—it is actively being replaced. It is time we start putting its pants back on.

Christopher Coloumbus - Was he a "Secret Jew"

 

I was asked:"IS" there proof that Christopher Coloumbus was a "Secret Jew"?

As an educator I always told my students one needs to understand the times and circumstances but more importantly to do the research "Due Diligence" by searching as many documented references /sources you can find, and ONLY then the true picture is revealed.

Additionally, all good honest historians who are worthwhile are those who see the person or incident within the confines of the time and comprehend how those influences motivate an individual. 

The theory that Christopher Columbus (Cristóbal Colón) was a "Secret Jew" (a Converso or Crypto-Jew) is a long-standing historical debate. 

While there is no "smoking gun"—such as a birth certificate or a diary entry—there is a significant body of circumstantial evidence that historians like Salvador de Madariaga and Simon Wiesenthal have highlighted.

It is factual that there was a Colon family living in Northern Italy and that there was evan a famous Rabbi, who was one of the foremost Talmudist of Italy in the second half of the fifteenth century.

Rabbi Josef Colon, the son of Rabbi Solomon Trabbotto, known as the Maharik, in Northern Italy was born probably at Chambéry, Savoy, about 1420 .

During the reign of Isabella and Ferdinand, Columbus could have many reasons to rewrite his own personal history. 

“His past is murky — apparently purposefully so,...the idea of him blurring his past because he was of Jewish ancestry is very possible,”

This according to Prof. Ram Ben-Shalom, director of Hebrew University’s Center Hispania Judaica.

"According to a 1934 JTA article discussing then-breaking edge research indicating Columbus’s Sephardic Jewish origins, “In Spain, it was fatal to admit being a Jew, because there was more chance of being favorably accepted in Madrid as a foreigner rather than as a native from Galicia, which at that time was not in the good graces of the ruling provinces of Castile and Aragon.”"

Now for the true documented facts:

• One of the strongest arguments that Coloumbus was a "Secret Jew" comes from the language Columbus used:
• That despite claiming to be from Genoa, Columbus never wrote in Italian, even when writing to his family or the Bank of San Giorgio in Genoa. He wrote in Castilian Spanish.
• Linguists have noted that his Spanish was peppered with Ladino nuances (Judeo-Spanish) syntax and archaic terms that were common among the Jewish population of the Iberian Peninsula but not in Italy.
• Some point out Columbus’s signature was a "Hebraic" Signature in a cryptic, triangular cipher.
• Some scholars interpret the letters (S. S. A. S. etc.) as a substitute for the Kaddish or other Hebrew prayers, intended to be read by those "in the know."
• In the margins of his personal books, Columbus frequently used a unique dating system.
• He occasionally calculated dates based on the destruction of the Second Temple rather than the birth of Christ.
• In letters to his son Diego, he often included a small, handwritten mark in the top left corner that looks remarkably like the Hebrew letters Bet-He (ב"ה), an abbreviation for B'ezrat HaShem ("With the help of God").

The timing of his departure in 1492 is often cited as more than a coincidence:

• It came when the The Edict of Expulsion (Alhambra Decree) required all Jews to leave Spain by July 31, 1492.
• Columbus was originally scheduled to sail on August 2nd, but he moved his departure to August 3rd. August 2nd happened to be Tisha B'Av, the Jewish day of mourning for the destruction of the Temple—a day on which religious Jews traditionally do not begin new journeys.
• His crew included several prominent Conversos, including his translator Luis de Torres, a Jew who converted just before sailing because he was needed for his knowledge of Hebrew (which Columbus believed might be the language of the "Ten Lost Tribes").

As to financial backing and contrary to the popular myth, it wasn't Queen Isabella’s jewelry that funded the voyage. 

The venture was largely financed by Louis de Santángel and Gabriel Sanchez, both of whom were Conversos (New Christians) who held high positions in the Spanish court and were eager to find a safe haven or a new route to wealth outside the reach of the Inquisition.

On the otherhand, there are the "Counter-Arguments" by many "Mainstream historians" and the official Genoese record that argue that:

His use of Spanish and his cryptic behavior were attempts to hide his "low-born" Genoese origins and pass himself off as a member of the Spanish nobility.

That much of his writings are filled with intense, almost fanatical Catholic imagery and a desire to fund a new Crusade to Jerusalem, which some argue is inconsistent with being a "Secret Jew."

Hugo Gutmann the Jewish Officer and Adolf Hitler

 Yet, another historical and profound and ironic fact,  given Hitler's subsequent role in the Holocaust. Was the tragic irony of Jewish soldiers', veterans of WWI , and their deep loyalty to Germany and their subsequent persecution by the Nazi regime.

Approximately 100,000 German Jews served in the German Army during WWI, with around 12,000 killed in action and 18,000 receiving the Iron Cross. Many believed their wartime service proved their patriotism and would guarantee their place in German society.

For a period, some Jewish WWI veterans—especially those decorated (like with the Iron Cross) or wounded—were given limited, temporary privileges and exemptions from the most severe Nazi persecutions. This was partly due to the influence of sympathetic senior military officers and the elderly, highly respected Paul von Hindenburg, a WWI Field Marshal, who was the President of the Weimar Republic and who personally intervened to protect "Frontline Fighters" (Frontkämpfer).

This protection by President of the Weimar Republic Paul von Hindenburg, a WWI Field Marshal was slowly and systematically stripped away as the Nazi regime consolidated power. The Nuremberg Laws and subsequent decrees gradually eliminated any privileges based on their service. The Reichsbund jüdischer Frontsoldaten (Reich Federation of Jewish Front-Line Soldiers), the Jewish veterans' organization, was outlawed in 1936 and dissolved in 1938.

Ultimately, for the vast majority of Jewish veterans, their decorated service provided no immunity. They were subject to the same deportations and extermination as all other Jews. Many decorated and wounded veterans were specifically targeted for the Theresienstadt Ghetto beginning in 1942, which was falsely portrayed as a "model ghetto" for privileged veterans, but was, in reality, a transit and death camp.

While it is difficult to detail the fate of every Jewish soldier who served in Hitler's List Regiment (Bavarian Reserve Infantry Regiment 16), their stories generally reflect the wider, horrific fate of Jewish German veterans.

Among these stories is the story of The Jewish officer Lieutenant Hugo Gutmann. who recommended Adolf Hitler for the Iron Cross First Class during World War I.

Gutmann was Hitler's superior officer, serving as the adjutant (administrative officer) of the battalion in the Bavarian Reserve Infantry Regiment 16 (known as the List Regiment) where Hitler was a corporal and a dispatch runner.

On August 4, 1918, Lieutenant Hugo Gutmann made the recommendation for Hitler to receive the Iron Cross First Class decoration which was a relatively rare award for a soldier of Hitler's low rank (Gefreiter).

Gutmann's case is one of the rare exceptions. He was arrested by the Gestapo in 1938 but, according to some accounts, was released through the help of former comrades from the List Regiment. 

He managed to emigrate to the United States in 1940 and survived the war. Some historians suggest Hitler himself may have intervened on his behalf, as he reportedly did for a few individuals with ties to his life (like his mother's Jewish doctor).

Despite his service to the German army and his action recommending Hitler for the medal, Gutmann was persecuted under the Nazi regime. 

He was allowed to emigrate and ultimately fled to the United States in 1940, where he changed his name to Henry G. Grant.

The Irony in History

Nick Fuentas recently referred in his interview with Piers Morgan to Adolph Hitler as a "cool guy". I wonder if these Aryan Neo nazi types who hate Jews realize the truth about Hitler.

Do they know a well-known, profound irony of history due to Hitler's later antisemitism and the Holocaust of the relationship Hiler had with Dr. Eduard Bloch, the Jewish doctor who treated Adolf Hitler's mother, Klara Hitler, for breast cancer until her death in 1907?

Dr. Bloch was a highly respected physician in Linz, Austria, known as the "poor people's doctor" for often reducing or waiving fees for his indigent patients, including the Hitler family.

He treated Klara Hitler in 1907 who was diagnosed with advanced breast cancer. Dr. Bloch oversaw her care, which included a mastectomy and a then-common, but extremely painful, chemotherapy-like treatment using daily applications of iodoform gauze directly to the wound.or breast cancer, a painful and ultimately fatal illness. 

Klara died in December of that year.The young Adolf Hitler was reportedly devastated by his mother's suffering and death.

Dr. Bloch later recalled that he had never seen anyone so distraught with grief. Bloch described young Adolf as a "respectful, well-mannered, quiet, and neatly dressed boy" who seemed characterized by a "certain inwardness—a strangeness... he was a lad who seemed to live within himself."

The most striking feature Bloch recalled was Adolf's profound love and devotion to his mother, Klara. He noted a strong familial bond, particularly between Adolf and his mother and sister.

Following his mother's death, Adolf visited Dr. Bloch, expressed his everlasting gratitude, and promised to remain thankful. 

In later years, he sent several postcards to Bloch reiterating his appreciation and his "everlasting thankfulness" to Dr. Bloch through postcards and handmade gifts.The Gestapo later seized these postcards in the 1930s, likely to suppress evidence of this relationship.

Decades later, after the Nazi annexation of Austria (the Anschluss), Dr. Bloch was subject to anti-Jewish laws. He reportedly wrote to Hitler asking for help, and Hitler is alleged to have intervened, referring to Bloch as an "Edeljude" (a noble Jew) and stating that if all Jews were like him, there would be no Jewish question.

In 1940, Bloch and his wife, Emilie, immigrated to the United States, settling in the Bronx, New York City, to join their daughter's family.

In March 1941, Dr. Bloch published a two-part essay in Collier’s Weekly titled "My Patient, Hitler." In it, he details young Adolf's "everlasting gratitude," his desolation at his mother's death, and the postcards he received.

It should be noted that within the context of the essay is particularly famous line where Bloch asks himself: 

"What does a doctor think when he sees one of his patients grow into the persecutor of his race?"

—a question that perfectly underscores the "profound irony" 

This video provides a concise historical overview of Dr. Eduard Bloch's unique relationship with the Hitler family and how he managed to survive the Holocaust through the dictator's personal intervention.

Works Cited:

Bloch, Eduard. "My Patient, Hitler." Collier’s Weekly, vol. 107, no. 11, 15 Mar. 1941, pp. 11-39.

Geheran, Michael. Comrades Betrayed: Jewish World War I Veterans Under Hitler. Cornell University Press, 2020.

Hamann, Brigitte. Hitler's Noble Jew: The Life and World of Eduard Bloch, Joseph Stalin, and the Other Doctors Who Treated the Dictators. Translated by Alan Bance, I.B. Tauris, 2008.

"Hugo Gutmann." United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, www.ushmm.org. Accessed 5 Jan. 2026.

"Jewish Veterans in the German Army." Leo Baeck Institute, Center for Jewish History, lbi.org/collections/jewish-veterans-german-army/. Accessed 5 Jan. 2026.

Marmor, David. "Dr. Eduard Bloch: The Physician Who Treated Hitler’s Mother." Rambam Maimonides Medical Journal, vol. 3, no. 2, Apr. 2012, doi:10.5041/RMMJ.10072.

Weber, Thomas. Hitler's First War: Adolf Hitler, the Men of the List Regiment, and the First World War. Oxford University Press, 2010.

The Teacher, Vladimir Putin - the Student, and the Tel Aviv Apartment

 

While the world's stage is often dominated by geopolitics, there is a deeply personal story that bridges the gap between the Soviet Union of old and the Israel of today. 

It is the story of Mina Yuditskaya Berliner, a Jewish woman who taught German to a young Vladimir Putin in Leningrad, and how that bond survived decades of silence and a move across the world.

The Leningrad Classroom In the late 1960s, at High School No. 281, Mina was more than just a teacher; she was a mentor to a young man who was reportedly quite reserved. She remembered him as a student who excelled in her German classes—a skill that would later define much of his early career in the KGB.

The Aliyah In 1973, Mina left the Soviet Union and made Aliyah, joining the "People of Israel" in their indigenous home. For decades, she lived a quiet, humble life in a small, rent-controlled flat in Tel Aviv, likely never imagining that her former student would one day become one of the most powerful men on Earth.

The King David Hotel Meeting (2005) When Putin arrived in Jerusalem for an official state visit in 2005, Mina reached out to the Russian Consulate. She didn't want a favor; she simply wanted to see her student.To her surprise, she was invited to the King David Hotel for tea with the President of Russia.

"I walked in and told him: 'Now you really look like yourself.' He looked at me and said: 'See, I haven't changed much,'" she later recalled."

The reunion was filled with nostalgia. She later told the press that they sat and talked about their old school days as if no time had passed at all.

The Gift on Pinsker Street Following that meeting, Putin demonstrated a level of loyalty that is rarely seen in international politics. After discovering his former teacher was living in cramped conditions, he instructed the Russian government to purchase a comfortable apartment for her on Pinsker Street in Tel Aviv. He also sent her a signed copy of his autobiography and a clock.

The Final Honor Mina passed away in December 2017 at the age of 96. In a final act of respect, the Russian Embassy funded her funeral in Petah Tikva, and Putin himself reportedly sent a wreath to be laid at her grave.

A Teacher’s Legacy As a retired teacher myself, I find this story particularly resonant. It reminds us that:

• The relationship between a teacher and a student transcends borders, political shifts, and even the "civil" frameworks of states.
• Even those who rise to lead empires cannot forget the Jewish educators who shaped their formative years.

Mina’s journey from a Leningrad classroom to a Tel Aviv apartment is the story of our people—the quiet, persistent return to Zion.

For those of us observing the Hebrew calendar and the approaching Tu BiShvat, Mina’s life is a reminder of a different kind of "planting"—the seeds of knowledge and language planted in a classroom that bore fruit decades later in the Land of Israel.

Samuel Langhorne Clemens (Mark Twain) Tu BiShvat and the Jewish New Year for Trees

As always when the two old guys had began to argue I woke up made coffee and opened my computer and came to the Facebook prompt; "What is on my mind? 

So as a historian and retired teacher of English literature what was "On my mind" from the argument in this old guys head, was memory of a recent post by a "Lover of Balestine" in their abysmal attempt to belittle the "People of Israel" regarding the lack by Jews / Zionists in our non observance of the New Year as proof that Jesus was indeed a Balestinian.

As indigeneity is defined by whose calendar matches the land’s seasons, the Symbolism of Tu BiShvat to the "People of Israel" means that we ARE the true indigenous inhabitants of the land of "Eretz Yirael" and Zion. 

The "secular" calendar doesn't know when the rains of Israel start or when the almond blossoms; the Hebrew calendar does. This is the ultimate proof of who is truly "native."

For those of us in Israel today we note that we are entering the Hebrew month of Tevet, the contrast is particularly sharp. 

While the secular world is focused on the "New Year" and mid-winter, the Hebrew calendar is moving toward Tu BiShvat (the Jewish New Year for Trees) which is the exact time those early returnees / Halutzim would have been preparing for tree-planting ceremonies, reaffirming that the land was no longer "forsaken" but "remembered."

Our celebration of our Hebrew / Jewish calender highlights the difference between a calendar based on a human-made starting point and one based on the natural and spiritual cycles of the Land of Israel.

So for the record while the Christian and secular world is focused on the "New Year" and mid-winter, we the indigenous inhabitants of "Eretz Yisrael" the "Land of Israel" -aka "Eretz HaKadosh" the Holyland-  recognise the Hebrew calendar which is moving toward Tu BiShvat (the Jewish New Year for Trees) in just a few weeks. 

As such when the first Jews returned to Israel one of the first thing these Jewish returnees did was to plant trees.

To reinforce my story I refer you to one of the most stark and famous descriptions of the Land of Israel in modern literature, the description given by Samuel Longhorn Clemmens of the country side of the Holyland.

While reading this blog entry note how we the "Native inhabitants" go from Twain’s "ghosts of trees" to the millions of trees planted by the pioneers, which is one of the most significant environmental "translations" in history.

I of course am referring you to some of the most famous and stark descriptions of the Land of Israel in modern literature, given by Samuel Longhorn Clemmens of the "bleak and barren" country side of the Holyland that he and his compatriots encountered.

When Samuel Langhorne Clemens (Mark Twain) visited in 1867, he recorded his observations in newspaper articles which he later made into a book entitled simply, The Innocents Abroad. In his work, his prose painted a picture of absolute desolation that serves as a powerful "before" to the Zionist "after."

Twain’s description is often cited by historians as the proverbial "Sackcloth and Ashes" story because he had no political agenda; he was simply a cynical, sharp-eyed traveler. 

Clemens (Mark Twain) famously wrote:

"Of all the lands there are for dismal scenery, I think Palestine must be the prince. The hills are barren, they are dull of color... The valleys are unsightly deserts fringed with a feeble vegetation that has an expression about it of being sorrowful and despondent."

Most specifically regarding the absence of trees, he described the land as "blistering" and "naked". In Chapter 46 of The Innocents Abroad, page numbers vary depending on the edition (for example, in the original 1869 American Publishing Company edition, this begins around page 485), the chapter is the most reliable way to locate it. 

In this passage he describes the journey from the Sea of Galilee toward Mount Tabor and the surrounding plains:

"We traversed some miles of desolate country whose very rocks intended for blistering nakedness; we passed the traditional spot where the five thousand were miraculously fed... There was not a single foot of shade, and the sun beat down with a power that was almost insupportable."

Twain's specific choice of "blistering nakedness"is fascinating in that he isn't just describing a lack of plants; he is personifying the land as something exposed and suffering.

Later in the same chapter, he reinforces this "unshaded" theme:

"The desertion of the country was complete... we never saw a human being on the whole route. We moved blindly on, through the blistering heat."

There is, "A desolation is here that not even imagination can grace with the pomp of life and action... there was hardly a tree or a shrub anywhere. Even the olive and the cactus, those fast friends of a worthless soil, had almost deserted the country."

Here Twain uses "fast" in the archaic/literary sense of "firm" or "loyal" (like a "fast friend" or "color-fast"). He is marveling that even plants known for being indestructible and loyal to the poorest dirt have "given up" on this land.

It is worth noting that while Twain saw the "pallid" cactus as a "friend of a worthless soil," the Halutzim saw the "Sabra" as symbol of the "People of Israel" proving once again that the land was only waiting for those who knew how to speak its language.

In Chapter 52 of "The Innocents Abroad" on their journey from Samaria toward Jerusalem, note his rhythmic use of "mournful" and "desolation"as he builds a prose of despair that makes the absence of life feel almost intentional.

"The narrow canyon in which Nablous, or Shechem, is situated, is green and fertile—happily we call it so, for it is one of the very few spots in a dismal territory that is entitled to the epithet—but beyond it we came again upon the side-hills of Zion, with their sear and barren terraces.

It is a hopeless, dreary, heartbroken land. Small shreds and patches of it must be very fertile, but there is no help for it—it is only a rocky desert after all. The olive and the cactus, those fast friends of a worthless soil, had almost deserted the country, and the trees were few and far between and had no majestic size about them. They were only the ghosts of trees—pallid and discouraged."

Clemens (Mark Twain) describes the Sea of Galilee as a place of terrible "solitude" and Jerusalem as "mournful," reinforcing the idea that the "Prince" of dismal scenery was a land stripped of its former glory. For it' s indigenous inhabitants the "People of Israel" have been exiled. 

Clemens (Mark Twain) concluded by stating that the land sat in "sackcloth and ashes," which is famously cited in the final chapter of Mark Twain’s The Innocents Abroad (1869)—specifically Chapter 61. By using "sackcloth and ashes" (traditionally symbols of Jewish mourning and repentance found in the books of Esther, Job, and Daniel). Clemens (Mark Twain) is reinforcing to his readers a true view that the appearence of the Holyland without the "People of Israel" that the land itself appeared to be under a spell as though in a state of grieving or mourning in a divine punishment that had withered its fields.

When the first wave of early pioneers (Halutzim), the Biluim- "Bilu" is a Hebrew acronym for the biblical verse Beit Ya'akov Lekhu Venelkha ("House of Jacob, let us go [up]" those first returnees to Zion, who arrived shortly after Twain's visit. They didn't just see the desolation he described; they saw a mandate for reversing the desolation in restoration since the planting trees was not just an agricultural necessity—it was a foundational act of reclaiming the land.

Yet another of one of the most famous early efforts by these early returnees was the planting of Eucalyptus trees (often called "the Jewish tree" by locals at the time) specifically to drain the malaria-ridden swamps in places like Hadera and the Hula Valley.

In 1908, the Jewish National Fund (JNF) or Keren Kayemeth LeYisrael (KKL), is a Zionist organization founded in 1901 to buy land and develop infrastructure for Jewish settlement in historic Palestine, playing a crucial role in land acquisition and reforestation for the future state of Israel. The JNF / KKL  planted its first forest at Ben Shemen. 

This began a movement that transformed the "verdureless" hills Twain saw into the green landscape of modern Israel.

It is a profound irony of history that a man as famous for his wit and skepticism as Mark Twain provided the very "baseline" of despair that makes the subsequent greening of the land look like a literal fulfillment of prophecy.