JEWISH KING JESUS IS COMING AT THE RAPTURE FOR US IN THE CLOUDS-DON'T MISS IT FOR THE WORLD.THE BIBLE TAKEN LITERALLY- WHEN THE PLAIN SENSE MAKES GOOD SENSE-SEEK NO OTHER SENSE-LEST YOU END UP IN NONSENSE.GET SAVED NOW- CALL ON JESUS TODAY.THE ONLY SAVIOR OF THE WHOLE EARTH - NO OTHER.
1 COR 15:23-JESUS THE FIRST FRUITS-CHRISTIANS RAPTURED TO JESUS-FIRST FRUITS OF THE SPIRIT-23 But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at his coming.ROMANS 8:23 And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.(THE PRE-TRIB RAPTURE)
LUKE 21:28-29
28 And when these things begin to come to pass,(ALL THE PROPHECY SIGNS FROM THE BIBLE) then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption (RAPTURE) draweth nigh.
29 And he spake to them a parable; Behold the fig tree,(ISRAEL) and all the trees;(ALL INDEPENDENT COUNTRIES)
30 When they now shoot forth, ye see and know of your own selves that summer is now nigh at hand.(ISRAEL LITERALLY BECAME AND INDEPENDENT COUNTRY JUST BEFORE SUMMER IN MAY 14,1948.)
JOEL 2:3,30
3 A fire devoureth (ATOMIC BOMB) before them;(RUSSIAN-ARAB-MUSLIM ARMIES AGAINST ISRAEL) and behind them a flame burneth: the land is as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness; yea, and nothing shall escape them.
30 And I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke.(ATOMIC BOMB AFFECT)
ZECHARIAH 14:12-13
12 And this shall be the plague wherewith the LORD will smite all the people that have fought against Jerusalem; Their flesh shall consume away while they stand upon their feet,(DISOLVED FROM ATOMIC BOMB) and their eyes shall consume away in their holes,(DISOLVED FROM ATOMIC BOMB) and their tongue shall consume away in their mouth.(DISOLVED FROM ATOMIC BOMB)(BECAUSE NUKES HAVE BEEN USED ON ISRAELS ENEMIES)(GOD PROTECTS ISRAEL AND ALWAYS WILL)
13 And it shall come to pass in that day, that a great tumult from the LORD shall be among them; and they shall lay hold every one on the hand of his neighbour, and his hand shall rise up against the hand of his neighbour.(1/2-3 BILLION DIE IN WW3)(THIS IS AN ATOMIC BOMB EFFECT)
EZEKIEL 20:47
47 And say to the forest of the south, Hear the word of the LORD; Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will kindle a fire in thee, and it shall devour every green tree in thee, and every dry tree: the flaming flame shall not be quenched, and all faces from the south to the north shall be burned therein.
ZEPHANIAH 1:18
18 Neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to deliver them in the day of the LORD'S wrath; but the whole land shall be devoured by the fire of his jealousy: for he shall make even a speedy riddance of all them that dwell in the land.
MALACHI 4:1
1 For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven;(FROM ATOMIC BOMBS) and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the LORD of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.
And here are the bounderies of the land that Israel will inherit either through war or peace or God in the future. God says its Israels land and only Israels land. They will have every inch God promised them of this land in the future.
Egypt east of the Nile River, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, The southern part of Turkey and the Western Half of Iraq west of the Euphrates. Gen 13:14-15, Psm 105:9,11, Gen 15:18, Exe 23:31, Num 34:1-12, Josh 1:4.ALL THIS LAND ISRAEL WILL DEFINATELY OWN IN THE FUTURE, ITS ISRAELS NOT ISHMAELS LAND.12 TRIBES INHERIT LAND IN THE FUTURE
Foreign Ministry tells Israelis to avoid Zimbabwe amid apparent coup-Israel tells the African nation's 170 Israelis and Jews to remain indoors as situation unfolds-By Raphael Ahren and AFP-TOI-15 November 2017
The Israeli Foreign Ministry on Wednesday revised its travel advisory for Zimbabwe, warning Israelis not to visit the country and telling those who are there to remain inside their homes amid reports of a coup in the southern African nation.While issuing the recommendation, the ministry emphasized “the decision whether to visit the aforementioned areas or to stay there is left to the discretion of all individuals and is solely their responsibility.”There are some 170 Jews and Israelis in the country, 108 in the capital Harare and another 64 in the city of Bulawayo.“We have no reports of distress from Jews or Israelis in the country,” the ministry said earlier on Wednesday, adding that Israel’s ambassador in Pretoria, South Africa, is in constant contact with the community leaders.-Unstable future-On Harare’s streets, many locals expressed amazement and delight that President Robert Mugabe’s long reign may be coming to a close, but people also admitted the future looked unstable.Mugabe, 93, has ruled Zimbabwe since 1980 — longer than many can remember — and the sudden move against him by the military left some hoping that his repressive regime would soon fall.“We are happy with what has been done,” Keresenzia Moyo, 65, a housewife told AFP after visiting a hospital in the capital.“We needed change. Our situation has been pathetic. The economy has been in the doldrums for a very long time.“What is good is that this has happened at the top and it is not affecting us people on the ground. People could be killing each other.”Moyo said that she was not against Mugabe being allowed safe passage out of the country — despite his tenure being marked by brutal repression of dissent, corruption and election vote-rigging.Mugabe, who is under house arrest after the military took control, led Zimbabwe to independence.But his decades in power have turned a country once known as the breadbasket of Africa for its bountiful produce, into an economic basket case where many go hungry.“What we want is for our children to be able to get jobs and live a normal happy life,” Moyo said.“We want to have food on the table, not one side having everything and others dying of hunger. Mugabe was once a good person, but he lost it. Now we need a fresh start.”-‘We need some kind of direction’-Zimbabwe’s military has denied staging a coup, saying Mugabe was still president.“We don’t know what this all means and we don’t know what to do,” student Karen Mvelani, 21, told AFP.“We need some kind of direction on where we are heading.”The visible impact of the momentous political upheaval was limited in Harare, with many people shopping at street markets, catching mini-buses to work or lining up outside banks as normal.The country’s economic crisis has caused a severe cash shortage and sharply rising prices, for which many Zimbabweans blame Mugabe.“He was a liability to the country because he was focusing on his leadership, he was a dictator,” said Tafadzwa Masango, a 35-year-old unemployed man.“Our economic situation has deteriorated every day — no employment, no jobs,” he said. “We hope for a better Zimbabwe after the Mugabe era.“We feel very happy. It is now his time to go.”Mugabe sacked vice president Emmerson Mnangagwa last week, seemingly provoking the intervention of the military, which reportedly opposed First Lady Grace Mugabe’s emergence as the likely next president.Precious Shumba, director of Harare Residents Trust action group, said Zimbabwe was entering “a new phase.”“Now at least we break with the past,” she said. “My wish is that they immediately announce a transitional government and state clearly when the country will have the next elections.“We need a transitional government to rid the country of the toxic politics of patronage, corruption and nepotism.”
Hauling Trump baggage, US bedeviled by planned ‘no’ vote on UN anti-Nazi motion-Though it always votes against resolution because of wider implications, State Department pressed to go further in explaining position given president's comments on Charlottesville-By Josh Lederman-NOV 16,17-TOI
WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States government wants you to know: It really, truly doesn’t like Nazis.At the United Nations this week, the US plans to vote against a yearly resolution that condemns the glorification of Nazism, State Department officials said Wednesday. Although it may seem counterintuitive — who wouldn’t want to condemn Nazis? — officials said free speech protections and other problems with the resolution make it impossible for America to support.Introduced by Russia, the resolution calls on all UN nations to ban pro-Nazi speech and organizations, and to implement other restrictions on speech and assembly. That’s a non-starter in the US, where First Amendment protections guarantee all the right to utter almost anything they want — even praise for Adolf Hitler’s followers.The United States votes against the resolution every year, along with just a handful of others, while the European Union nations and some others typically abstain. The resolution always passes overwhelmingly, usually with little fanfare.But this year, the “no” vote from the US is likely to create more of a stir, given it’s the first rendition of the vote since President Donald Trump entered office. Trump adamantly denies any secret affinity for white supremacists.Yet his blame-on-both-sides response to violence in August at a white nationalist protest in Charlottesville, Virginia, gave fodder to Trump critics who say he’s insufficiently critical of neo-Nazis.So US officials are working overtime this year to try to explain that no, America doesn’t support pro-Nazi speech — but can’t vote for a resolution that calls for outlawing it, either. The vote is scheduled for Thursday in the UN General Assembly’s human rights committee.On top of voting “no” itself, the US has also been been pushing Israel to vote “no” this year, or at a minimum to abstain.Though Israel normally votes with the US in the UN, it has in the past voted for the resolution.It’s unclear how Israel will vote. A spokesman for Israel’s mission to the UN didn’t respond to a request for comment.All resolutions in the General Assembly committees are nonbinding and don’t impose any legal requirements on member nations. But American support for resolutions that contradict domestic law could end up being used as arguments in US federal court, and officials worry about undermining national law enforcement efforts.A similar drama bedeviled the Trump administration last month when the US voted against a resolution at the UN Human Rights Council condemning the use of the death penalty to punish homosexuality — another apparent no-brainer.The US couldn’t vote for that because of the resolution’s broader condemnation of the death penalty, even though the US adamantly opposes capital punishment for homosexuality, blasphemy, adultery and apostasy, State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said at the time.“The United States clearly has the death penalty, both at the state and at the federal level,” Nauert said. “That is why we voted against this.”With the anti-Nazi resolution, there are other problems, too. The US has long expressed concerns that Russia uses the annual resolution to mount political attacks against its neighbors. That’s because Moscow has for decades sought to portray the Baltic states and others that sought independence from Soviet domination as either pro-fascist or pro-Nazi, US officials said.The United States has been considering a last-minute push in the General Assembly to amend the resolution to remove what it considers the problematic parts, in what officials said would amount to a wholesale overhaul.But officials said no final decision had been reached. Even if the US does try to change the resolution so that it could vote for it, the effort is unlikely to succeed.
Uncovered Lithuanian trove shines new light on lives of Europe’s Jews-Discovery of 170,000 papers dating back to mid-18th century which survived the Holocaust and Soviet rule depict a flourishing culture-By Josefin Dolsten-NOV 16,17-TOI
NEW YORK (JTA) — Last month, the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research made an astonishing announcement: the discovery of 170,000 Jewish documents thought to have been destroyed during the Holocaust.The papers, which date from the mid-18th century through World War II, survived destruction attempts by both the Nazis and the Soviets.In 1941, as part of program to loot Jewish museums and institutions, the Nazis raided YIVO, which is now based in New York but then was headquartered in Vilna. A group of Jewish slave laborers called the “Paper Brigade” smuggled some books, papers and artwork into the Vilna ghetto — risking their lives in the process.After World War II, a non-Jewish Lithuanian librarian, Antanas Ulpis, hid the collection in the basement of a church amid a campaign by the Soviet government to rid the country of religion.In 1991, the Lithuanian government said it found 150,000 documents that Ulpis had kept in the church, but the new discovery appears to surpass that collection both in terms of size and the condition of the documents, said Jonathan Brent, YIVO’s executive director.Together the two discoveries make up “the largest collection of material about Jewish life in Eastern Europe that exists in the world,” Brent told JTA earlier this month at YIVO’s downtown headquarters here. Brent said the documents shed new light on the lives of Eastern European Jews, whose history is often told as a series of persecutions.“It was nothing but pogroms,” Brent recalled of being taught about Ashkenazi history as a child. “And what this opens up to is it was so much more than that, that indeed the Jews had a real civilization that flourished.”The Lithuanian government found the documents in 2016 and told YIVO about them earlier this year. Most of the material remains in Lithuania, but 10 items are being shown through January at YIVO, which is working with the Lithuanian government to archive and digitize the collection.Here is a look at a handful of the documents displayed at YIVO and what they teach about Jewish life in Eastern Europe.-1. Communal record book, Lazdijai, Lithuania, 1836-The book, called a Pinkas, was written for a Talmud study association and used to record information about its members, such as births, deaths and business transactions. It is decorated with ornate illustrations and states that in order to be a part of the group, members must study a full page of Talmud together.“What you see here in the way it’s decorated is the pride and the care that they felt about their life and their desire to memorialize it for generations,” Brent said.2. Letter written by Sholem Aleichem from a health resort, Badenweiler, Germany, 1910-The famed Yiddish author had health problems and would spend time in health resorts far away from friends and family. In this note, Sholem Aleichem makes fun of Leon Neustadt, a leader in the Warsaw Jewish community, writing that a biblical verse referring to non-kosher animals forbidden to Jews actually refers to Neustadt.3. Agreement between a water carrier union and the Ramayles Yeshiva, Vilna, 1857-In the document, the group of carriers promises to donate a Torah scroll and raise money to purchase a Talmud set for the prominent yeshiva in exchange for using a room for religious services.Water carriers, workers who ferried water to people’s homes, were “the lowest economic rung of society, and the fact they had a contract with the yeshiva was significant,” Brent said. “What this modest document shows us is that this community functioned in such a way that the very top of the community and the very bottom of the community communicated with each other and helped each other.”4. 10 poems by Avrom Sutzkever, Vilna, 1943-The prominent Yiddish poet wrote these on top of old documents, creating a makeshift book for his poems in the Vilna ghetto, where paper was scarce. These are the earliest-known versions of the poems Sutzkever wrote in the Vilna ghetto, which he reproduced several times and knew by heart. He composed some of them while living in the woods as a partisan fighter. Writing the poems in the book helped give other ghetto residents greater access to them.Epstein was 12 when she wrote this book and submitted it to YIVO for a youth autobiography contest. The fifth-grader writes about the day-to-day happenings of her childhood, such as dealing with a strict teacher: “At first, he was good to us. Later he got strict, and even stricter.” Epstein also detailed various illnesses she suffered from and complained about having too much homework. Epstein was later forced to live in the Vilna Ghetto and in concentration camps, but she survived the war and moved to the United States.
Jewish teenager stabbed 12 times in London park-Attack in Regent's Park not thought to be anti-Semitic; police appeal to public for leads-By JTA-TOI-15 November 2017
A Jewish teenager was seriously wounded in a stabbing at a London park on Tuesday evening.The 16-year-old, a student at London’s Jewish Community Secondary School, was stabbed 12 times in the legs by a group of men. Police said the teenager did not know his assailants.The Community Security Trust, a nonprofit that helps secure British Jewish institutions, said the attack “is not believed to be anti-Semitic.”The teenager was walking with a group of girlfriends in Regent’s Park on Primrose Hill when he was attacked just before 9:15 p.m. Police and paramedics rushed to the scene.He was taken to the hospital, where he is in serious but stable condition and will likely need surgery. Scotland Yard said the suspects are four white males. No arrests have been made.Regent’s Park is in the heart of the British capital and is surrounded by some of London’s most expensive properties, including some owned by celebrities.Local residents expressed surprise to the London Evening Standard newspaper, with one saying, “There has been a spate of scooter thugs coming along and grabbing phones, but not stabbings. This is an escalation in violence; it’s very shocking.”Detective Sergeant Steve Masterson told the Standard, “The victim in this case sustained a significant injury that continues to be classified as ‘serious’ and will require surgery. It is vital that we trace and apprehend those responsible for this motiveless and cowardly attack and I appeal to anyone who was in the park at around 9:30 p.m. who saw a group of males to contact police.”
New center helping trace roots of Jews in New England-Over a million documents digitized for archive recording Jewish influence on local economy, area's history of anti-Semitism-By AP-TOI-15 November 2017, 6:04 pm 0
BOSTON — The vibrant and influential history of New England’s Jewish population chronicled in a vast repository of documents stored at the New England Historic Genealogical Society was being celebrated Wednesday.The Jewish Heritage Center at the Boston-based genealogical society is not just a resource for people tracing family roots, but a trove of information for scholars researching the Jewish influence on New England’s economy and the history of anti-Semitism. It also preserves the records of Jewish philanthropies and synagogues.“The information archived here provides some context and shows what part Jewish immigrants played in growing the community,” said Stephanie Call, the center’s manager.The Jewish Heritage Center oversees the archives of the American Jewish Historical Society-New England, which has collaborated with the New England Historic Genealogical Society for several years. Wednesday’s reception is the formal celebration of the partnership.The archives have had several homes in the Boston area over the years, but moving them to the genealogical society permanently was a natural fit, because it is already considered the premier national resource for genealogists and family historians.About 1.2 million documents have been digitized as part of an ongoing project to get the records online and available to the public, said Ryan Woods, the genealogical society’s senior vice president.The archives play a critical role in preserving the unique history of Jews in New England, said Jonathan Sarna, a professor of Jewish history at Brandeis University and a member of the Jewish Heritage Center’s advisory council.Boston was actually behind many other cities when it came to Jewish immigration, and the first synagogue in the area wasn’t founded until the 1840s. But the region’s Jewish population had increased to about 100,000 by about 1900, Sarna said.The documents provide a better understanding of how Jewish immigrants fit into the history of the region as a whole, Sarna said.“Telling the history of Jews in Boston is telling the story of the shoe trade, the garment trade, banking and was very important to the development of the US generally,” he said.The archive is home to copies of the Boston Jewish Times newspaper, the records of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society and Combined Jewish Philanthropies, as well as the personal papers of some of the region’s most prominent Jewish citizens including Abraham Ratshesky and the Rabb family.The Rabbs founded the Stop & Shop supermarket chain and were also philanthropists who have buildings named in their honor at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Brandeis.Ratshesky was a state senator and banker who led Massachusetts’ relief effort to Halifax, Nova Scotia, in 1917 after a munitions ship exploded in the harbor, destroying a huge portion of the city and killing an estimated 2,000 people. Ratshesky’s legacy lives to this day in Nova Scotia’s annual gift of a Christmas tree to Boston.
28 And when these things begin to come to pass,(ALL THE PROPHECY SIGNS FROM THE BIBLE) then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption (RAPTURE) draweth nigh.
29 And he spake to them a parable; Behold the fig tree,(ISRAEL) and all the trees;(ALL INDEPENDENT COUNTRIES)
30 When they now shoot forth, ye see and know of your own selves that summer is now nigh at hand.(ISRAEL LITERALLY BECAME AND INDEPENDENT COUNTRY JUST BEFORE SUMMER IN MAY 14,1948.)
JOEL 2:3,30
3 A fire devoureth (ATOMIC BOMB) before them;(RUSSIAN-ARAB-MUSLIM ARMIES AGAINST ISRAEL) and behind them a flame burneth: the land is as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness; yea, and nothing shall escape them.
30 And I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke.(ATOMIC BOMB AFFECT)
ZECHARIAH 14:12-13
12 And this shall be the plague wherewith the LORD will smite all the people that have fought against Jerusalem; Their flesh shall consume away while they stand upon their feet,(DISOLVED FROM ATOMIC BOMB) and their eyes shall consume away in their holes,(DISOLVED FROM ATOMIC BOMB) and their tongue shall consume away in their mouth.(DISOLVED FROM ATOMIC BOMB)(BECAUSE NUKES HAVE BEEN USED ON ISRAELS ENEMIES)(GOD PROTECTS ISRAEL AND ALWAYS WILL)
13 And it shall come to pass in that day, that a great tumult from the LORD shall be among them; and they shall lay hold every one on the hand of his neighbour, and his hand shall rise up against the hand of his neighbour.(1/2-3 BILLION DIE IN WW3)(THIS IS AN ATOMIC BOMB EFFECT)
EZEKIEL 20:47
47 And say to the forest of the south, Hear the word of the LORD; Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will kindle a fire in thee, and it shall devour every green tree in thee, and every dry tree: the flaming flame shall not be quenched, and all faces from the south to the north shall be burned therein.
ZEPHANIAH 1:18
18 Neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to deliver them in the day of the LORD'S wrath; but the whole land shall be devoured by the fire of his jealousy: for he shall make even a speedy riddance of all them that dwell in the land.
MALACHI 4:1
1 For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven;(FROM ATOMIC BOMBS) and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the LORD of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.
And here are the bounderies of the land that Israel will inherit either through war or peace or God in the future. God says its Israels land and only Israels land. They will have every inch God promised them of this land in the future.
Egypt east of the Nile River, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, The southern part of Turkey and the Western Half of Iraq west of the Euphrates. Gen 13:14-15, Psm 105:9,11, Gen 15:18, Exe 23:31, Num 34:1-12, Josh 1:4.ALL THIS LAND ISRAEL WILL DEFINATELY OWN IN THE FUTURE, ITS ISRAELS NOT ISHMAELS LAND.12 TRIBES INHERIT LAND IN THE FUTURE
Foreign Ministry tells Israelis to avoid Zimbabwe amid apparent coup-Israel tells the African nation's 170 Israelis and Jews to remain indoors as situation unfolds-By Raphael Ahren and AFP-TOI-15 November 2017
The Israeli Foreign Ministry on Wednesday revised its travel advisory for Zimbabwe, warning Israelis not to visit the country and telling those who are there to remain inside their homes amid reports of a coup in the southern African nation.While issuing the recommendation, the ministry emphasized “the decision whether to visit the aforementioned areas or to stay there is left to the discretion of all individuals and is solely their responsibility.”There are some 170 Jews and Israelis in the country, 108 in the capital Harare and another 64 in the city of Bulawayo.“We have no reports of distress from Jews or Israelis in the country,” the ministry said earlier on Wednesday, adding that Israel’s ambassador in Pretoria, South Africa, is in constant contact with the community leaders.-Unstable future-On Harare’s streets, many locals expressed amazement and delight that President Robert Mugabe’s long reign may be coming to a close, but people also admitted the future looked unstable.Mugabe, 93, has ruled Zimbabwe since 1980 — longer than many can remember — and the sudden move against him by the military left some hoping that his repressive regime would soon fall.“We are happy with what has been done,” Keresenzia Moyo, 65, a housewife told AFP after visiting a hospital in the capital.“We needed change. Our situation has been pathetic. The economy has been in the doldrums for a very long time.“What is good is that this has happened at the top and it is not affecting us people on the ground. People could be killing each other.”Moyo said that she was not against Mugabe being allowed safe passage out of the country — despite his tenure being marked by brutal repression of dissent, corruption and election vote-rigging.Mugabe, who is under house arrest after the military took control, led Zimbabwe to independence.But his decades in power have turned a country once known as the breadbasket of Africa for its bountiful produce, into an economic basket case where many go hungry.“What we want is for our children to be able to get jobs and live a normal happy life,” Moyo said.“We want to have food on the table, not one side having everything and others dying of hunger. Mugabe was once a good person, but he lost it. Now we need a fresh start.”-‘We need some kind of direction’-Zimbabwe’s military has denied staging a coup, saying Mugabe was still president.“We don’t know what this all means and we don’t know what to do,” student Karen Mvelani, 21, told AFP.“We need some kind of direction on where we are heading.”The visible impact of the momentous political upheaval was limited in Harare, with many people shopping at street markets, catching mini-buses to work or lining up outside banks as normal.The country’s economic crisis has caused a severe cash shortage and sharply rising prices, for which many Zimbabweans blame Mugabe.“He was a liability to the country because he was focusing on his leadership, he was a dictator,” said Tafadzwa Masango, a 35-year-old unemployed man.“Our economic situation has deteriorated every day — no employment, no jobs,” he said. “We hope for a better Zimbabwe after the Mugabe era.“We feel very happy. It is now his time to go.”Mugabe sacked vice president Emmerson Mnangagwa last week, seemingly provoking the intervention of the military, which reportedly opposed First Lady Grace Mugabe’s emergence as the likely next president.Precious Shumba, director of Harare Residents Trust action group, said Zimbabwe was entering “a new phase.”“Now at least we break with the past,” she said. “My wish is that they immediately announce a transitional government and state clearly when the country will have the next elections.“We need a transitional government to rid the country of the toxic politics of patronage, corruption and nepotism.”
Hauling Trump baggage, US bedeviled by planned ‘no’ vote on UN anti-Nazi motion-Though it always votes against resolution because of wider implications, State Department pressed to go further in explaining position given president's comments on Charlottesville-By Josh Lederman-NOV 16,17-TOI
WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States government wants you to know: It really, truly doesn’t like Nazis.At the United Nations this week, the US plans to vote against a yearly resolution that condemns the glorification of Nazism, State Department officials said Wednesday. Although it may seem counterintuitive — who wouldn’t want to condemn Nazis? — officials said free speech protections and other problems with the resolution make it impossible for America to support.Introduced by Russia, the resolution calls on all UN nations to ban pro-Nazi speech and organizations, and to implement other restrictions on speech and assembly. That’s a non-starter in the US, where First Amendment protections guarantee all the right to utter almost anything they want — even praise for Adolf Hitler’s followers.The United States votes against the resolution every year, along with just a handful of others, while the European Union nations and some others typically abstain. The resolution always passes overwhelmingly, usually with little fanfare.But this year, the “no” vote from the US is likely to create more of a stir, given it’s the first rendition of the vote since President Donald Trump entered office. Trump adamantly denies any secret affinity for white supremacists.Yet his blame-on-both-sides response to violence in August at a white nationalist protest in Charlottesville, Virginia, gave fodder to Trump critics who say he’s insufficiently critical of neo-Nazis.So US officials are working overtime this year to try to explain that no, America doesn’t support pro-Nazi speech — but can’t vote for a resolution that calls for outlawing it, either. The vote is scheduled for Thursday in the UN General Assembly’s human rights committee.On top of voting “no” itself, the US has also been been pushing Israel to vote “no” this year, or at a minimum to abstain.Though Israel normally votes with the US in the UN, it has in the past voted for the resolution.It’s unclear how Israel will vote. A spokesman for Israel’s mission to the UN didn’t respond to a request for comment.All resolutions in the General Assembly committees are nonbinding and don’t impose any legal requirements on member nations. But American support for resolutions that contradict domestic law could end up being used as arguments in US federal court, and officials worry about undermining national law enforcement efforts.A similar drama bedeviled the Trump administration last month when the US voted against a resolution at the UN Human Rights Council condemning the use of the death penalty to punish homosexuality — another apparent no-brainer.The US couldn’t vote for that because of the resolution’s broader condemnation of the death penalty, even though the US adamantly opposes capital punishment for homosexuality, blasphemy, adultery and apostasy, State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said at the time.“The United States clearly has the death penalty, both at the state and at the federal level,” Nauert said. “That is why we voted against this.”With the anti-Nazi resolution, there are other problems, too. The US has long expressed concerns that Russia uses the annual resolution to mount political attacks against its neighbors. That’s because Moscow has for decades sought to portray the Baltic states and others that sought independence from Soviet domination as either pro-fascist or pro-Nazi, US officials said.The United States has been considering a last-minute push in the General Assembly to amend the resolution to remove what it considers the problematic parts, in what officials said would amount to a wholesale overhaul.But officials said no final decision had been reached. Even if the US does try to change the resolution so that it could vote for it, the effort is unlikely to succeed.
Uncovered Lithuanian trove shines new light on lives of Europe’s Jews-Discovery of 170,000 papers dating back to mid-18th century which survived the Holocaust and Soviet rule depict a flourishing culture-By Josefin Dolsten-NOV 16,17-TOI
NEW YORK (JTA) — Last month, the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research made an astonishing announcement: the discovery of 170,000 Jewish documents thought to have been destroyed during the Holocaust.The papers, which date from the mid-18th century through World War II, survived destruction attempts by both the Nazis and the Soviets.In 1941, as part of program to loot Jewish museums and institutions, the Nazis raided YIVO, which is now based in New York but then was headquartered in Vilna. A group of Jewish slave laborers called the “Paper Brigade” smuggled some books, papers and artwork into the Vilna ghetto — risking their lives in the process.After World War II, a non-Jewish Lithuanian librarian, Antanas Ulpis, hid the collection in the basement of a church amid a campaign by the Soviet government to rid the country of religion.In 1991, the Lithuanian government said it found 150,000 documents that Ulpis had kept in the church, but the new discovery appears to surpass that collection both in terms of size and the condition of the documents, said Jonathan Brent, YIVO’s executive director.Together the two discoveries make up “the largest collection of material about Jewish life in Eastern Europe that exists in the world,” Brent told JTA earlier this month at YIVO’s downtown headquarters here. Brent said the documents shed new light on the lives of Eastern European Jews, whose history is often told as a series of persecutions.“It was nothing but pogroms,” Brent recalled of being taught about Ashkenazi history as a child. “And what this opens up to is it was so much more than that, that indeed the Jews had a real civilization that flourished.”The Lithuanian government found the documents in 2016 and told YIVO about them earlier this year. Most of the material remains in Lithuania, but 10 items are being shown through January at YIVO, which is working with the Lithuanian government to archive and digitize the collection.Here is a look at a handful of the documents displayed at YIVO and what they teach about Jewish life in Eastern Europe.-1. Communal record book, Lazdijai, Lithuania, 1836-The book, called a Pinkas, was written for a Talmud study association and used to record information about its members, such as births, deaths and business transactions. It is decorated with ornate illustrations and states that in order to be a part of the group, members must study a full page of Talmud together.“What you see here in the way it’s decorated is the pride and the care that they felt about their life and their desire to memorialize it for generations,” Brent said.2. Letter written by Sholem Aleichem from a health resort, Badenweiler, Germany, 1910-The famed Yiddish author had health problems and would spend time in health resorts far away from friends and family. In this note, Sholem Aleichem makes fun of Leon Neustadt, a leader in the Warsaw Jewish community, writing that a biblical verse referring to non-kosher animals forbidden to Jews actually refers to Neustadt.3. Agreement between a water carrier union and the Ramayles Yeshiva, Vilna, 1857-In the document, the group of carriers promises to donate a Torah scroll and raise money to purchase a Talmud set for the prominent yeshiva in exchange for using a room for religious services.Water carriers, workers who ferried water to people’s homes, were “the lowest economic rung of society, and the fact they had a contract with the yeshiva was significant,” Brent said. “What this modest document shows us is that this community functioned in such a way that the very top of the community and the very bottom of the community communicated with each other and helped each other.”4. 10 poems by Avrom Sutzkever, Vilna, 1943-The prominent Yiddish poet wrote these on top of old documents, creating a makeshift book for his poems in the Vilna ghetto, where paper was scarce. These are the earliest-known versions of the poems Sutzkever wrote in the Vilna ghetto, which he reproduced several times and knew by heart. He composed some of them while living in the woods as a partisan fighter. Writing the poems in the book helped give other ghetto residents greater access to them.Epstein was 12 when she wrote this book and submitted it to YIVO for a youth autobiography contest. The fifth-grader writes about the day-to-day happenings of her childhood, such as dealing with a strict teacher: “At first, he was good to us. Later he got strict, and even stricter.” Epstein also detailed various illnesses she suffered from and complained about having too much homework. Epstein was later forced to live in the Vilna Ghetto and in concentration camps, but she survived the war and moved to the United States.
Jewish teenager stabbed 12 times in London park-Attack in Regent's Park not thought to be anti-Semitic; police appeal to public for leads-By JTA-TOI-15 November 2017
A Jewish teenager was seriously wounded in a stabbing at a London park on Tuesday evening.The 16-year-old, a student at London’s Jewish Community Secondary School, was stabbed 12 times in the legs by a group of men. Police said the teenager did not know his assailants.The Community Security Trust, a nonprofit that helps secure British Jewish institutions, said the attack “is not believed to be anti-Semitic.”The teenager was walking with a group of girlfriends in Regent’s Park on Primrose Hill when he was attacked just before 9:15 p.m. Police and paramedics rushed to the scene.He was taken to the hospital, where he is in serious but stable condition and will likely need surgery. Scotland Yard said the suspects are four white males. No arrests have been made.Regent’s Park is in the heart of the British capital and is surrounded by some of London’s most expensive properties, including some owned by celebrities.Local residents expressed surprise to the London Evening Standard newspaper, with one saying, “There has been a spate of scooter thugs coming along and grabbing phones, but not stabbings. This is an escalation in violence; it’s very shocking.”Detective Sergeant Steve Masterson told the Standard, “The victim in this case sustained a significant injury that continues to be classified as ‘serious’ and will require surgery. It is vital that we trace and apprehend those responsible for this motiveless and cowardly attack and I appeal to anyone who was in the park at around 9:30 p.m. who saw a group of males to contact police.”
New center helping trace roots of Jews in New England-Over a million documents digitized for archive recording Jewish influence on local economy, area's history of anti-Semitism-By AP-TOI-15 November 2017, 6:04 pm 0
BOSTON — The vibrant and influential history of New England’s Jewish population chronicled in a vast repository of documents stored at the New England Historic Genealogical Society was being celebrated Wednesday.The Jewish Heritage Center at the Boston-based genealogical society is not just a resource for people tracing family roots, but a trove of information for scholars researching the Jewish influence on New England’s economy and the history of anti-Semitism. It also preserves the records of Jewish philanthropies and synagogues.“The information archived here provides some context and shows what part Jewish immigrants played in growing the community,” said Stephanie Call, the center’s manager.The Jewish Heritage Center oversees the archives of the American Jewish Historical Society-New England, which has collaborated with the New England Historic Genealogical Society for several years. Wednesday’s reception is the formal celebration of the partnership.The archives have had several homes in the Boston area over the years, but moving them to the genealogical society permanently was a natural fit, because it is already considered the premier national resource for genealogists and family historians.About 1.2 million documents have been digitized as part of an ongoing project to get the records online and available to the public, said Ryan Woods, the genealogical society’s senior vice president.The archives play a critical role in preserving the unique history of Jews in New England, said Jonathan Sarna, a professor of Jewish history at Brandeis University and a member of the Jewish Heritage Center’s advisory council.Boston was actually behind many other cities when it came to Jewish immigration, and the first synagogue in the area wasn’t founded until the 1840s. But the region’s Jewish population had increased to about 100,000 by about 1900, Sarna said.The documents provide a better understanding of how Jewish immigrants fit into the history of the region as a whole, Sarna said.“Telling the history of Jews in Boston is telling the story of the shoe trade, the garment trade, banking and was very important to the development of the US generally,” he said.The archive is home to copies of the Boston Jewish Times newspaper, the records of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society and Combined Jewish Philanthropies, as well as the personal papers of some of the region’s most prominent Jewish citizens including Abraham Ratshesky and the Rabb family.The Rabbs founded the Stop & Shop supermarket chain and were also philanthropists who have buildings named in their honor at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Brandeis.Ratshesky was a state senator and banker who led Massachusetts’ relief effort to Halifax, Nova Scotia, in 1917 after a munitions ship exploded in the harbor, destroying a huge portion of the city and killing an estimated 2,000 people. Ratshesky’s legacy lives to this day in Nova Scotia’s annual gift of a Christmas tree to Boston.
