Virginia Assembly Passes Resolution Defending Israel - Mark Martin CBN News

Virginia Assembly Passes Resolution Defending Israel

03-10-2016 Mark Martin CBN News

Jewish communities across Virginia are expressing gratitude to the state General Assembly for passing a bipartisan resolution that defends Israel from anti-Israel forces that have been trying to undermine the Jewish state. 

House Joint Resolution 177 condemns the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement (BDS) against Israel.

The Virginia House of Delegates adopted the resolution Wednesday, 85 to 5. 

Lawmakers sent a message rejecting BDS, calling it "inherently antithetical and deeply damaging to the cause of peace, justice, equality, democracy, and human rights for all peoples in the Middle East."

Delegate Jason Miyares (R-Virginia Beach) was the chief patron of HJ177.

"The BDS movement is a misguided and dangerous attempt to isolate Israel from the community of nations at a time where the threats to the Jewish state are the highest in decades," Miyares said.

In a news release, Virginia Jewish Communities called BDS "a serious domestic policy matter" that "impacts the citizens of the Commonwealth by spreading anti-Semitic hatred and creating an intimidating and hostile environment for those who support strong US-Israel ties or engage in economic, cultural, academic, or scientific activities with the people of Israel."

The release went on to say, "BDS supporters have tried to chill debate and intimidate Israel supporters on campuses, in professional associations, and the interfaith community. Moreover, by seeking to shut down the mutually beneficial and longstanding ties Virginia has with Israel, BDS promotes severe damage to the Commonwealth and its economy."

The group expressed appreciation to the General Assembly, for showing support for the State of Israel, opposing BDS, and "standing up for reconciliation, hope, and a peaceful future in the Middle East."

"I was proud to carry the legislation and am extremely proud that the Virginia General Assembly, the oldest democracy in the Western Hemisphere, has publicly stood with America's strongest ally in the Middle East, Israel," Miyares said.

The United States federal government, Canada, the UK, France and more than 10 states have taken a stand against BDS.

Israel's History - a Picture a Day (Beta) - In Honor of our 2 Millionth Viewer Today, This Damascus Jewish Woman Put on her Finest, 1865

Jeune fille juive de Damas en grande toilette.  A Jewish girl of Damascus in her best outfit. (Paris, Musée d'Orsay) Israel's History - a Picture a Day (Beta)

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In Honor of our 2 Millionth Viewer Today, This Damascus Jewish Woman Put on her Finest, 1865 Posted: 27 Feb 2016 Sometime today, our 2 millionth visitor will open this site.   Flash (2:32 PM EST)  All time history  2,000,014 Researching a recently digitized collection in France, we decided to celebrate and share one of the pictures we found this week. The photo was taken by French photographer Charles Lallemand in 1865 and can be found in the archives of the D'Orsay Museum in Paris.  The young woman welcomed us in her fanciest outfit, wearing on her feet elaborate platform shoes used in the hammam (Turkish baths). Some of the shoes at the time were inlaid with mother-of-pearl and silver. This site has published features on early pictures of lost Jewish communities in Tunisia, Egypt, Syria, and Iraq.  We recently published 19th century pictures of other Jewish girls from the Middle East, including Syrian/Damascus Jewish girls, found by the British Library in an endangered Beirut collection of Bonfils photographs. "Jewish girl from Syria" (Bonfils, British Library) "Jewish girl from Damascus" (Bonfils, British Library) Jewish home in Damascus (1901, Library of Congress)

Does Hamas' Renewed Tunnel Digging Concern No One?

Monday, October 20, 2014 |  Israel Today Staff

An official Hamas newspaper, Al-Risalah, openly and proudly acknowledged this week that the terror group had renewed the digging of attack tunnels connecting the Gaza Strip to targeted Jewish communities in southern Israel.

And this just days after the international community pledged billions of dollars to Hamas-ruled Gaza, and while Western leaders are again putting pressure on Israel to restart peace talks with a Palestinian unity government that includes Hamas.

A reporter for Al-Risalah wrote that he personally visited one of the tunnels now under construction. Like many others, the tunnel had been destroyed by Israeli forces during the summer’s Gaza war. That these tunnels are being restored, at great financial cost, is seen as a victory in Gaza, even though they are likely to lead to another devastating war.

Israeli commentators have responded to the situation with great frustration. Western blindness and willingness to tacitly support Palestinian terror, so long as not too many Israelis die, has become the norm. But many Israelis are increasingly upset that their own government is playing along with this dangerous diplomatic game.

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Remarkable Pictures of Extinct Jewish Communities, Part 3 - Israel's History - a Picture a Day (Beta)

Remarkable Pictures of Extinct Jewish Communities, Part 3 The pictures from the University of California - Riverside Archives Posted: 13 Jan 2014 Original caption: "Jew Tailor in his Booth on a Street in Old Cairo" (Credit: Keystone-Mast Collection, California Museum of Photography at UCR  ARTSblock, University of California, Riverside)  We present Part 3 of a series of vintage pictures on the Jews of the Middle East.  Like the communities in previous features -- Baghdad, Mosul, and Constantinople (Istanbul) -- the Jews of Cairo, Alexandria, and Damascus are on the verge of extinction.  Some of the pictures presented here show both the poverty and the wealth of the various Jewish communities. Egypt Cairo:  In 1948, the Cairo Jewish community numbered an estimated 55,000. Pogroms and imprisonment caused almost all of the Jews of Egypt to emigrate. Zaoud-el Mara (Jewish Quarters) Alexandria,  Egypt.  A Library of Congress photo dates this picture from 1898. Alexandria:  According to a Jerusalem Post article from 2008, Alexandria "is said to have boasted a community of tens of thousands of Jews of both Ashkenazi and Mizrahi descent, but some were expelled as French or British citizens during the Suez Canal crisis of 1956. Others were expelled and/or imprisoned for up to three years during the Six Day War. Some, too, left on their own accord, feeling that there was a brighter future for them as Jews in countries like Israel, America and Australia." There are believed to be around 40 Jews living in Egypt today. Syria - Damascus  "Beautiful shaded court of a Jewish Home in Damascus, Syria." Look at the details of the picture. (Credit: Keystone-Mast Collection, California Museum of Photography at UCR  ARTSblock, University of California, Riverside)  The Damascus Jewish community numbered an estimated 15,000-17,000 in 1918.  Riots, government discrimination, and imprisonment caused almost all of Syrian Jewry to flee. Today, perhaps a few dozen Jews live in Syria, but the savage civil war has also engulfed old Jewish neighborhoods and ancient synagogues. At the start of the 20th century, several wealthy Jewish families lived in Damascus, and photographs of their homes are presented here. Enlarging the photos disclosed  several interesting details.  The matron of the home?  Children of the home?   Grand Mosque and Damascus from the Jewish  Quarters, Syria. Three women on a balcony  overlooking city.  Credit: Keystone-Mast Collection, California Museum  of Photography at UCR ARTSblock, University  of California, Riverside)    Court of a Wealthy Jew’s Home in Old  Damascus, Syria. See also here. Keystone-Mast Collection, California Museum of Photography  at UCR ARTSblock, University of California, Riverside)  Click on pictures to enlarge.  Click on the caption to view the original photo. Subscribe to www.israeldailypicture.com to receive features by email.   Enter your address in the box in the right sidebar.

Calling Shiloh Home: Committed to the Promise - CBN News

Calling Shiloh Home: Committed to the Promise

By Scott Ross and Julie Stahl

CBN News Jerusalem Bureau

Wednesday, Sept. 11, 2013

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SHILOH, Israel -- Twenty years ago, Israel and the Palestinians signed the Oslo Accords. Since then there have been countless rounds of negotiations, stalemates, terror attacks and still no peace.

Israel and the Palestinians are once again back at the negotiating table. At stake for many Israelis is a huge chunk of the Promised Land where Palestinians want to establish a future state free of Jews.

CBN's Scott Ross recently talked with Israelis who live in Judea and Samaria about their commitment to the Bible and the land.

Known to many as the West Bank, Judea and Samaria today is home to some 360,000 Israelis and at least 1.4 million Palestinian Arabs.

David Rubin, former mayor of the Samarian town of Shiloh and author of Peace for Peace: Israel in the New Middle East, spoke with Ross about the biblical significance of Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria.

Rubin reminded Scott that Shiloh was the first capital of ancient Israel where the tabernacle stood for 369 years.

Rubin: This is where Joshua stood before the Israelites and he said, 'How long will you wait before coming to take possession of the land that the Lord God of your fathers has given you?' This is the place where the woman, Hannah, came to pray for a son. The son, who was born from her prayers, was Samuel the prophet, who grew up in Shiloh, along with the people of Israel.

Ross: And that is the issue that remains today. This is the land that God gave you.

Rubin: …as a special responsibility to cherish it and to take care of it.

Rubin's commitment to the land came at a personal price when he and his son were ambushed by terrorists while traveling on the road home.

Rubin: The car was hit by a massive hail of bullets, and I was shot in my leg, my son was shot in the head.

Ross: Is your son still alive today?

Rubin: Thank God, my son is alive today. He had a miraculous recovery. The bullet missed his brain stem by one millimetre.

Ross: Why do people choose to live in the middle of the threat of violence, your children, so forth, being exposed to this? Why do people want to be here?

Rubin: We've come home. We're fulfilling prophecy in these times.

Today, 35 years after it was re-established in 1978, 230 Jewish families call Shiloh home.
  
And yet Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas said recently that a future Palestinian state in this area must be completely free of Jews.

Rubin: There never was a Palestinian state. It's all an illusion. It's all a political game by the Islamic world to try and make sure that Israel doesn't have the right to exist anymore.

Ross: How do you feel about the land-for-peace negotiations -- that you give up the land [and then] there's going to be peace?

Rubin: It's time for a new plan, which is called "peace for peace."

Ross: Which is….

Rubin: Which is -- we extend our hand in peace, they extend their hand in peace, we shake it, and we have peace. We sign a peace treaty. And all is well. That's a fair deal.

Shiloh is in biblical Samaria, north of Jerusalem. Judea and Samaria and including the Jordan Valley is 79 miles long and between 19 and 34 miles wide.

To the south of Jerusalem and Bethlehem is a large block of Jewish communities in Judea called Gush Etzion, another part of what the world calls the West Bank.

Ross also spoke with Ruth Lieberman, a wife, mother and CEO OF Jaffe Strategies, Ltd.  Originally from Ohio, Lieberman is raising her family in a community called Alon Shvut, which means "return to the oak tree."

Standing at the highest point in Gush Etzion, Lieberman called it the "backbone of the hills that control the lowlands in both directions."

From that one point it is possible to see the Mediterranean Sea and the coastal plain, Tel Aviv, Ashdod, and Ashkelon on down to Gaza.

"You can see the rockets come out of there," Lieberman said.

Looking east is the view to Jordan -- the Moabite Hills. From that same point she indicated it's possible to see the hills of Hebron all the way to Jerusalem with Jordan on the other side. 

"That's it, that's all we got. This is the width. And we're on top," she said.

Jews established several farming communities here before the modern State of Israel was established in 1948. But during Israel's War of Independence, the communities were destroyed and the residents killed or driven away. After the 1967 Six-Day War, the Jews returned to Gush Etzion to rebuild.

Ross: Who are your neighbors?

Lieberman: I think having Lebanon in the north, Syria to the northeast, then we come around and have Egypt to the south. We're not in a great area.

There are 24 Muslim states surrounding Israel from Morocco to Iran - 8 million square miles of land - 500 times the size of Israel, where some half a billion people live.

Judea and Samaria stand between Israel's major population centers and the Arab world. Without it, in some places Israel is just 9 miles wide.

Ross: The Arabs, many factions of Palestinians, hate the Jews. But do you hate the Arabs?

Lieberman: I don't think the Arabs who live nearby in the village over there, I don't think they hate me. I think they're taught to hate me. We have our Arab friend whom I know by name, I know his profession, I know the names of his kids. He's behind the cheese counter with this huge cleaver. And he's, you know, what can I get you? And he's our friend. And I'm not afraid. I'm actually encouraged.

Twenty years ago, then Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO leader Yasser Arafat signed the Oslo Accords and shook hands on the White House lawn. And still there is no peace.

Ross: Do you see that this could possibly become a future Palestinian state?

Lieberman: If it were to become a Palestinian state, I would imagine it would be because there's some huge breakthrough and the whole world believes that now we have peace in this part of the world. And if that's true, then I can live here. I'm Jewish, I bought the land, and I should be able to keep my home. In every talk that we hear, we're out of the picture. We'll have to pack up and go.

Ross: Do you feel like God is watching over you, watching over this land?

Lieberman: I can't imagine that we would be succeeding at this venture that's called Zionism in our time if we didn't have God behind us 'cause this is a -- it's a bit crazy.

Ross: The scriptures teach us to pray for Jerusalem, pray for Israel. Do you think it makes any difference?

Lieberman: I hope that all of you continue to pray for Jerusalem every day. It strengthens us, it strengthens our psyche. It strengthens our hopes. We know that we're not alone.