A Letter to the World at large from Jerusalem

A Letter to the World at large from Jerusalem

 

       Please take a few moments to read this letter

On November 24, 2006, at the age of 92, a man named Stanley Goldfoot passed away.

He is remembered by family and friends for his love for and devotion to Israel and the Jewish people.

Stanley Goldfoot was born in Johannesburg , South Africa . Subsequent to his hearing a speech about the Zionist vision by Ze'ev Jabotinsky, he headed for Palestine where, at the age of 18, he joined a HaShomer HaTzair kibbutz.

After the rebirth of the Jewish State of Israel his main goal, which he eventually realized, was to establish a Zionist English newspaper, "The Times of Israel."

 In the first issue of "The Times of Israel", Stanley Goldfoot wrote his famous controversial "Letter to the World from Jerusalem", which caused quite a stir. The article is still relevant and, in his memory, we want to share it with you.

 

A Letter to the World from Jerusalem

by Eliezer ben Yisrael (Stanley Goldfoot)

I am not a creature from another planet, as you seem to believe. I am a Jerusalemite, like yourselves, a man of flesh and blood.

I am a citizen of my city, an integral part of my people. I have a few things to get off my chest. Because I am not a diplomat, I do not have to mince words. I do not have to please you or even persuade you. I owe you nothing. You did not build this city, you did not live in it,  you did not defend it when they came to destroy it. And we will be damned if we will let you take it away. 

There was a Jerusalem before there was a New York.  When Berlin, Moscow, London, and Paris were miasmal forest and swamp, there was a thriving Jewish community here. It gave something to the world which you nations have rejected ever since you established yourselves - a humane moral code.

Here the prophets walked, their words flashing like forked lightning. Here a people who wanted nothing more than to be left alone, fought off waves of heathen would-be conquerors, bled and died on the battlements, hurled themselves into the flames of their burning Temple rather than surrender, and, when finally overwhelmed by sheer numbers and led away into captivity, swore that before they forgot Jerusalem, they would see their tongues cleave to their palates, their right arms wither. (see psalms 137)

 For two pain-filled millennia, while we were your unwelcome guests, we prayed daily to return to this city.

Three times a day we petitioned the Almighty: "Gather us from the four corners of the world, bring us upright to our land, return in mercy to Jerusalem, Thy city, and swell in it as Thou promised."

On every Yom Kippur and Passover, we fervently voiced the hope that next year would find us in Jerusalem.

 Your inquisitions, pogroms, expulsions, the ghettos into which you jammed us, your forced baptisms, your quota systems, your genteel anti-semitism, and the final unspeakable horror, the holocaust (and worse, your terrifying disinterest in it) - all these have not broken us. They may have sapped what little moral strength you still possessed, but they forged us into steel.

 Do you think that you can break us now after all we have been through?

Do you really believe that after Dachau and Auschwitz we are frightened by your threats of blockades and sanctions?

We have been to Hell and back - a Hell of your making. What more could you possibly have in your arsenal that could scare us?

 I have watched this city bombarded twice by nations calling themselves civilized. In 1948, while you looked on apathetically, I saw women and children blown to smithereens, after we agreed to your request to internationalize the city.

It was a deadly combination that did the job - British officers, Arab gunners, and American-made cannon.

 And then the savage sacking of the Old City - the wilful slaughter, the wanton destruction of every synagogue and religious school, the desecration of Jewish cemeteries, the sale by a ghoulish government of tombstones for building materials, for poultry runs, army camps, even latrines.

And you never said a word.

You never breathed the slightest protest when the Jordanians shut off the holiest of our places, the Western Wall, in violation of the pledges they had made after the war - a war they waged, incidentally, against the decision of the UN.

Not a murmur came from you whenever the legionnaires in their spiked helmets casually opened fire upon our citizens from behind the walls. Your hearts bled when Berlin came under siege. You rushed your airlift "to save the gallant Berliners". But you did not send one ounce of food when Jews starved in besieged Jerusalem.

You thundered against the wall which the East Germans ran through the middle of the German capital - but not one peep out of you about that other wall, the one that tore through the heart of Jerusalem.

 And when that same thing happened 20 years later, and the Arabs unleashed a savage, unprovoked bombardment of the Holy City again, did any of you do anything?

The only time you came to life was when the city was at last re-united. Then you wrung your hands and spoke loftily of "justice" and the need for the "Christian" quality of turning the other cheek.

The truth - and you know it deep inside your gut - is that you would prefer the city to be destroyed rather than have it governed by Jews. No matter how diplomatically you phrase it, the age-old prejudices seep out of every word.

If our return to the city has tied your theology in knots, perhaps you had better re-examine your catechisms.

 After what we have been through, we are not passively going to accommodate ourselves to the twisted idea that we are to suffer eternal homelessness until we accept your saviour.

 For the first time since the year 70, there is now complete religious freedom for all in Jerusalem .

For the first time since the Romans put a torch to the Temple, everyone has equal rights (you prefer to have some more equal than others.)

We loathe the sword - but it was you who forced us to take it up.

We crave peace, but we are not going back to the peace of 1948 as you would like us to.

 We are home. It has a lovely sound for a nation you have willed to wander over the face of the globe. We are not leaving.

We are redeeming the pledge made by our forefathers:

Jerusalem is being rebuilt.

"Next year" and the year after, and after, and after, until the end of time - "in Jerusalem "!

 

Stanley Goldfoot,

Founder Editor

The Times of Israel

A Letter to the World at large from Jerusalem

A Letter to the World at large from Jerusalem

 

       Please take a few moments to read this letter

On November 24, 2006, at the age of 92, a man named Stanley Goldfoot passed away.

He is remembered by family and friends for his love for and devotion to Israel and the Jewish people.

Stanley Goldfoot was born in Johannesburg , South Africa . Subsequent to his hearing a speech about the Zionist vision by Ze'ev Jabotinsky, he headed for Palestine where, at the age of 18, he joined a HaShomer HaTzair kibbutz.

After the rebirth of the Jewish State of Israel his main goal, which he eventually realized, was to establish a Zionist English newspaper, "The Times of Israel ."

 In the first issue of "The Times of Israel ", Stanley Goldfoot wrote his famous controversial "Letter to the World from Jerusalem ", which caused quite a stir. The article is still relevant and, in his memory, we want to share it with you.

 

A Letter to the World from Jerusalem

by Eliezer ben Yisrael ( Stanley Goldfoot)

I am not a creature from another planet, as you seem to believe. I am a Jerusalemite, like yourselves, a man of flesh and blood.

I am a citizen of my city, an integral part of my people. I have a few things to get off my chest. Because I am not a diplomat, I do not have to mince words. I do not have to please you or even persuade you. I owe you nothing. You did not build this city, you did not live in it,  you did not defend it when they came to destroy it. And we will be damned if we will let you take it away. 

There was a Jerusalem before there was a New York.  When Berlin, Moscow, London, and Paris were miasmal forest and swamp, there was a thriving Jewish community here. It gave something to the world which you nations have rejected ever since you established yourselves - a humane moral code.

Here the prophets walked, their words flashing like forked lightning. Here a people who wanted nothing more than to be left alone, fought off waves of heathen would-be conquerors, bled and died on the battlements, hurled themselves into the flames of their burning Temple rather than surrender, and, when finally overwhelmed by sheer numbers and led away into captivity, swore that before they forgot Jerusalem, they would see their tongues cleave to their palates, their right arms wither. (see psalms 137)

 For two pain-filled millennia, while we were your unwelcome guests, we prayed daily to return to this city.

Three times a day we petitioned the Almighty: "Gather us from the four corners of the world, bring us upright to our land, return in mercy to Jerusalem, Thy city, and swell in it as Thou promised."

On every Yom Kippur and Passover, we fervently voiced the hope that next year would find us in Jerusalem.

 Your inquisitions, pogroms, expulsions, the ghettos into which you jammed us, your forced baptisms, your quota systems, your genteel anti-semitism, and the final unspeakable horror, the holocaust (and worse, your terrifying disinterest in it) - all these have not broken us. They may have sapped what little moral strength you still possessed, but they forged us into steel.

 Do you think that you can break us now after all we have been through?

Do you really believe that after Dachau and Auschwitz we are frightened by your threats of blockades and sanctions?

We have been to Hell and back - a Hell of your making. What more could you possibly have in your arsenal that could scare us?

 I have watched this city bombarded twice by nations calling themselves civilized. In 1948, while you looked on apathetically, I saw women and children blown to smithereens, after we agreed to your request to internationalize the city.

It was a deadly combination that did the job - British officers, Arab gunners, and American-made cannon.

 And then the savage sacking of the Old City - the wilful slaughter, the wanton destruction of every synagogue and religious school, the desecration of Jewish cemeteries, the sale by a ghoulish government of tombstones for building materials, for poultry runs, army camps, even latrines.

And you never said a word.

You never breathed the slightest protest when the Jordanians shut off the holiest of our places, the Western Wall, in violation of the pledges they had made after the war - a war they waged, incidentally, against the decision of the UN.

Not a murmur came from you whenever the legionnaires in their spiked helmets casually opened fire upon our citizens from behind the walls. Your hearts bled when Berlin came under siege. You rushed your airlift "to save the gallant Berliners". But you did not send one ounce of food when Jews starved in besieged Jerusalem.

You thundered against the wall which the East Germans ran through the middle of the German capital - but not one peep out of you about that other wall, the one that tore through the heart of Jerusalem.

 And when that same thing happened 20 years later, and the Arabs unleashed a savage, unprovoked bombardment of the Holy City again, did any of you do anything?

The only time you came to life was when the city was at last re-united. Then you wrung your hands and spoke loftily of "justice" and the need for the "Christian" quality of turning the other cheek.

The truth - and you know it deep inside your gut - is that you would prefer the city to be destroyed rather than have it governed by Jews. No matter how diplomatically you phrase it, the age-old prejudices seep out of every word.

If our return to the city has tied your theology in knots, perhaps you had better re-examine your catechisms.

 After what we have been through, we are not passively going to accommodate ourselves to the twisted idea that we are to suffer eternal homelessness until we accept your saviour.

 For the first time since the year 70, there is now complete religious freedom for all in Jerusalem .

For the first time since the Romans put a torch to the Temple, everyone has equal rights (you prefer to have some more equal than others.)

We loathe the sword - but it was you who forced us to take it up.

We crave peace, but we are not going back to the peace of 1948 as you would like us to.

 We are home. It has a lovely sound for a nation you have willed to wander over the face of the globe. We are not leaving.

We are redeeming the pledge made by our forefathers:

Jerusalem is being rebuilt.

"Next year" and the year after, and after, and after, until the end of time - "in Jerusalem "!

 

Stanley Goldfoot,

Founder Editor

The Times of Israel

 

A short synopsis of Jewish History and the Arab Israeli conflict r5 - YJ Draiman

A short synopsis of Jewish History and the Arab Israeli conflict r5

Jews have the absolute right for their homeland. Zionism the movement itself was created during the second half the 1800′s. Jews purchased a substantial amount of territories in Palestine-Israel (see testimony of the Mufti of Jerusalem in front of the British Peel Commission - 1937) from local sheikhs and lords and built settlements there. This dates as early as 1860, that is 79 years before WWII.

During all of this time Jews kept migrating back to their historic homeland which comprised of two kingdoms: the Kingdom of Israel and the Kingdom of Judah.  They were driven out of the Kingdom of Israel by the Assyrians in 720, B.C.E.  The Babylonians in 586, B.C.E., drove the Jews out of the Kingdom of Judah, Including Jerusalem. Then followed the Persians in 536, and the Hellenistic Syrian Seleucid Rulers in 332 BCE.  Jews - The Maccabees re-conquered Israel in 166 BCE.

Romans conquered Israel in 63 C.E., and in 70 A.D. destroyed the Jewish second Temple.

Which was followed by these conquests:

Byzantines in 313; Persian in 614; Arabs Muslims 636 CE; Crusaders 1099; and the Mamluks in 1291.

Then came the Ottoman Empire in 1517.  In 1564 the Ottoman Empire encouraged and stimulated Jewish immigration which added over 10,000 new Jewish returnees to Palestine-Israel (The Ottoman land records for Palestine showed that the government owned over 90% of the land) and the British Rule 1918-1948.

During the time of the Roman rule of Israel, the Jews in the kingdom called Judea revolted against the Roman rule. The Romans crushed the rebellion, exiled many Jews out of the country, seized many others and turned them into slaves deporting them to Rome and other places. Not only that, they changed the name of the land from Provincia Judea to Palestine to humiliate the Jews.

For 600 years or so, Arab Muslims imperialism spread throughout the Middle East from Arabia. Among other conquests, the Arabs conquered Judea-Palestine, killing many of the local Jewish population, and converting many into Islam. The story of how the Arabs got to Palestine is the story of conquest, imperialism, violence and occupation.

During the 19th and 20th century, when Arabs had little to no interest in the land of Israel, Jews bought massive amounts of land and resettled there. After WWI the Allied Powers, the international community and the League of Nations under the San Remo Treaty of 1920 assigned the British "The Mandate for Palestine" as trustee over the land so that a Jewish state would be created in that land, confirmed by the 1920 Treaty of Sevres and Lausane. The British had their own agenda in mind and violated the Treaties.

The original Mandate territory included what is today Israel; Gaza, Parts of Sinai, West Bank (Judea and Samaria), Jordan and the Golan Heights. The British had their own agenda and divided the country up. They gave to the Arabs the allocated land which had been Mandated to the Jewish people in violation of the San Remo Treaty: everything East of the Jordan river.  This land which was intentionally given to the Arabs constituted 80% of the land allocated to the Jewish people.  The British gave the land to the Hashemite Kingdom for the Arab population in order to create a new State: Trans-Jordan.  The British also traded the Golan Heights to the French who ruled Syria for oil in Iraq. Thus, after already separating the country into one Arab state Trans-Jordan (a new state in history), which is present day Jordan, they intended to break up the remaining Jewish land West of the Jordan River, present day  Israel and wrongfully give it to the Arabs.

In the meanwhile a conflict emerged over territorial boundaries between the Jewish inhabitants and the Arabs. The U.N. proposed a deal to split the remaining land of the British Mandate for Palestine (yes, split yet again) into an Arab state and a Jewish state. The Jewish leadership accepted the proposal, provided the Arabs also accept it. The Arabs declined. Thus the 1948 war began. A war in which the Arabs with 6 armies from Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon and local militias of Arabs, and help on a smaller scale from the armies of Algeria and Libya attacked the new Jewish entity. The Arab coalition had the weapons, a large army and were confident on victory, to the extent, that they asked the local Arab inhabitants to vacate the land while they decimated the Jews. But fate had other plans. Through divine intervention, the Arabs lost that war. Many Arab civilians fled their homes because their Arab leadership told them to. Some were panicked by rumors. There were only a few incidents with civilians. (It is an important fact to note that during the war of 1948, Jewish settlements that were seized by Arab forces were razed  to the ground – Kfar Etzion for example and the remaining population there killed).

The true and detailed facts and history is much more voluminous and complex. The problems Israel faces is that it is not as quick to explain the 4000+ years of Jewish history in Israel to counter the Arab lies, obfuscation and propaganda. Lies are easier to spread.  However, upon close examination of the historical facts, the lies are exposed as baseless propaganda and should be dismissed as such. 

It should be understood that only a small segment of history is being presented here. I did not enumerate anything about how Arabs used terror and violence since the beginning of the conflict.  I did not mention that before Arab nationalism and Muslim radicalism took over. The small Arab community was glad that the Jews were coming back to their ancestral homeland, providing an economic boost and jobs to the region, (even king Faisal was delighted.) I did not enumerate or discuss in detail the Arab-Palestinian refugees without telling how and why they became refugees.

I might also mention that the Arab countries expelled over a million Jewish people and their children, confiscated their assets, businesses, homes and Real estate property (120,440 sq. km. or 75,000 sq. miles, which is five-six times the size of Israel and valued in the trillions of dollars). About 650,000 of those Jewish refugees from Arab countries and their children were resettled in Greater Israel. It is time for the Arab countries who expelled the million Jewish people and their children to resettle the Arab-Palestinian refugees in their own countries, and or Jordan, and put an end to this conflict and end the misery and displacement of the Arab Palestinians. This will bring about peace and coexistence which the people so rightfully desire and deserve. It will bring economic prosperity and an increase in the standard of living for all the people. 

YJ Draiman

Operation Magic Carpet - Saving the Jews of Yemen

Operation Magic Carpet - Saving the Jews of Yemen

The story of the modern exodus of “Beta Israel,” the Jews of Ethiopia during Operations Moses and Solomon, which together airlifted some 22,000 Ethiopian Jews to Israel, is well known. Less well known is the dramatic exodus of over 48,000 Jews from Yemen. Almost unknown is the role played by Alaska Airlines. 

No one knows for certain when the first Jews came to Yemen. Local legend has them being sent as traders by King Solomon. In any event, Jews have lived in Yemen for many centuries. In that backward and poverty-stricken country, the Jews were the poorest and lowest of citizens living in contempt and on sufferance as dhimmis. However, in their synagogues and schools, they taught their   male children to learn and write Hebrew. They never forgot their faith, protected the traditions, observed the Sabbath and passed the Torah and Talmud to each succeeding generation. Following World War I, when Yemen became independent, life in that Muslim country for the Jews became intolerable. Anti-Semitic laws were revived; Jews were not permitted to walk on pavements; in court a Jew’s evidence was not accepted against a Muslim’s; Jewish orphans had to be converted to Islam. Some Jews were able to escape to Palestine but most were trapped. 

In 1947, following the United Nations vote to partition Palestine, the situation of the Jews in Yemen turned from despair to physical danger. Arab rioters in the adjacent port of Aden, then a British Crown colony and now part of Yemen, killed 82 Jews and torched the Jewish quarter. The establishment of the State of Israel on May 14, 1948 and Israel’s War of Independence increasingly endangered the Yemeni Jews as it did in all Arab countries. It was not, however, until May 1949, when the Imam of Yemen unexpectedly agreed to permit all Jews to leave his country that they were able to flee. They longed to return to Zion if only they had the means. At that time, slightly over 49,000 Jews lived in Yemen. 

As the War of Independence ended in early 1949, Israel was devastated and virtually bankrupt. Notwithstanding, David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first Prime Minister, defying logic and the advise of his economic advisors, ordered the immediate and rapid “Ingathering of the Exiles”. Where would Israel get the money? “Go to the Jews in the Diaspora and ask them for the money”, Ben-Gurion answered the skeptics. 

For the Jews of Yemen, Egypt had closed the Suez Canal to them and therefore they would have to be transported by air to Israel. The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC), the international Jewish humanitarian aid organization, agreed to fund the Yemenite exodus and organize the airlift, but they needed aircraft. 

Alaska Airlines was founded in 1932, when Mac McGee purchased a used three passenger Stinson and started an air charter business in Alaska. With the arrival of James Wooten as president in 1947, the airline began to purchase surplus planes from the U.S. Government and within a year became the world’s largest charter airline. 

The JDC approached Wooten and asked if Alaska Airlines would agree to accept the Yemen airlift. Wooten wanted Alaska Air to take on the mission of mercy but Ray Marshall, Chairman of the Board, was cool. Marshall felt the deal was a waste of the Airline’s time and money. It would take at least $50,000 to set up the charter, cash that the Airline did not have. Marshall insisted that Wooten front the funds himself. Wooten raised the $50,000 by borrowing it from a travel agency associated with the JDC. The contract was signed and Operation On Wings of Eagles, more popularly known by its nickname, Operation Magic Carpet commenced.

As Yemen would not permit the Jewish refugees to be flown out of their country, Britain had agreed to the establishment of a transit camp in the adjoining Crown Colony of Aden from which the airlift could commence. Alaska Airlines set up its base in Asmara, Eritrea with their ground crew, pilots and aircraft– DC-4s and C-46s. The arrangement was to fly from their base in Asmara to Aden each morning, pick up their passengers in Aden and refuel. Thence fly up the Red Sea and Gulf of Aqaba to the airport in Tel Aviv, unload the refugees, fly to the safety of Cyprus for the night and return to their base in Asmara at dawn, before starting all over again. The round trip would take about 20 hours. 

The aircraft as configured could not carry enough passengers or sufficient fuel. So, the planes were modified by replacing the regular airline seats with rows of benches and fitting extra fuel tanks down the length of the fuselages between the benches. Aircraft intended to carry 50 passengers could now carry 120 and fuel would last a skinny extra one hour. 

Meanwhile the transit camp in Aden, called “Camp Geula” (Redemption) was organized by the JDC and staffed by Israeli doctors and social workers under the directorship of Max Lapides, an American Jew. Also headquartered at the camp were emissaries responsible for paying various Yemeni tribal chiefs a “head tax” which would permit the Jewish refugees to pass through their territory 

As news of the evacuation reached the Jews of Yemen, they left their few possessions behind (except their prayer books and Torahs) and like the biblical exodus began to walk out of slavery into freedom. They traveled in family groups, some hundreds of miles, through wind and sandstorm, vulnerable to robbers and a hostile local population, until half-starved and destitute they reached the border with Aden where Israeli aid workers met them and transported them to the transit camp. There they encountered electricity, medicines, running water, toilets and personal hygiene for the first time. During the entire operation, the Jews of Yemen arrived at Camp Geula in a steady stream, newer ones arriving as an earlier group was airlifted out.

Getting the Yemenite Jews to Aden was one problem, getting them on the aircraft was another. Nomads who had never seen an airplane before and never lived anywhere but in a tent, many of the immigrants were frightened and refused to board. Once reminded that their deliverance to Israel by air was prophesized in the Book of Isaiah, “They shall mount up with wings like eagles,” reinforced by the painting of an eagle with outstretched wings over the door of each aircraft, induced them to board the planes. Once inside many preferred sitting on the floor to unaccustomed soft seats. Keeping them from lighting fires to cook their food was a task. During the flight, about half would get sick vomiting over the extra inside fuel tanks. Notwithstanding, the Yemenites upon landing in Israel chanted blessings and burst into song. 

To start up Operation Magic Carpet, Alaska Airlines sent Portland native Bob Maguire, a pilot with management experience, to the Middle East. Maguire flew between 270 and 300 hours a month. Had he been in the U.S., the limit under its aviation rules was 90 hours. Ben-Gurion called Maguire the “Irish Moses”. The work cost Maguire his career. He contracted a parasite that affected his heart and as a result lost his commercial pilot’s license in the early 1950’s. Another pilot was Warren Metzger, born in Lethbridge who found time between flights to marry his flight attendant. At least one pilot, Stanley Epstein, was Jewish. 

The airlift that began in June 1948 was hard on the pilots who were flying 16-hour days and hard on the planes that flew well beyond their scheduled service intervals. Fuel was difficult to come by, the desert sand wreaked havoc on the engines and flying was seat-of-the-pants with navigation by dead reckoning and eyesight. 

The work was dangerous. Many airplanes were shot at. One pilot, getting a little close to Arab territory while approaching Israel, watched tracer bullets arching up towards his airplane. Another plane had a tire blown out during a bombing raid in Tel Aviv. On one occasion, Maguire was forced to land his aircraft in Egypt when it ran out of gas. The Israelis had warned all pilots that if they had to land in Arab territory, the Jewish refugees and perhaps even the crew would likely be shot. The quick-witted Maguire told airport officials he needed ambulances to take his passengers to hospital. When they asked why, he replied that his passengers had smallpox. The frightened Egyptians wanted him out of there right away. Maguire received his fuel and flew on to Tel Aviv. 

Part way through the operation, the U.S. Civil Aeronautics Board forced Alaska Airlines to shut down its international charter business and a company called Near East Air Transport, whose president was James Wooten and whose pilots, and aircraft were all Alaska Air’s, completed the Operation Magic Carpet airlift. Near East Air Transport was just Alaska Airlines operating under another name.

By the time Operation Magic Carpet ended in September 1950, 28 Alaska Airlines pilots had made some 380 flights and airlifted 48,818 refugees, almost Yemen’s entire Jewish population, to Israel. Miraculously not one death or injury occurred. 

Operation Magic Carpet was kept secret for reasons of security and to prevent sabotage. It would be many months later before the public or the press would become aware of the remarkable operation. 

Later, Israel would once again call upon Alaska Airlines to aid in the rescue of Jews, this time from Iraq. El Al and Alaska Air, in a secret partnership, formed a new airline, again using the name Near East Air Transport for that purpose. Israeli ownership was hidden so that the airline appeared to be strictly an Alaska Airlines venture. 

Today, Alaska Airlines is an international carrier serving 60 cities and 3 countries. Passengers flying Alaska Airlines do not realize that they are flying with the airline that saved the Jews of Yemen.