Judea Magazine, No. 1.3


      Hebron          Etzion
      _______          Bloc        Betar          Jerusalem
     /Kiryat \        _______      ______        _____________
    /  Arba   \      / Efrat \    /      \      /             \_______
___/           \____/         \__/        \____/        Maaleh Adumim
     #########    ####   ####     #           Tekoa         ______
         #  #  #  #   #  #       # #          _____        /      \
         #  #  #  #   #  ###    #####        /     \      /        \
     #   #  #  #  #   #  #     #     #     _/       \____/          \_
      ###    ##   ####   #### #       #
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JUDEA ELECTRONIC MAGAZINE   Vol.1, No.3  Iyar-Sivan 5753/May-Jun 1993
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Contents:
 - The President of Israel Tours Judea
 - Warsaw Ghetto Uprising Commemoration:
   - Because of That War - Movie Review
   - Searching for Meaning in the Holocaust - Book Review
 - Five Jewish Heroes
 - More Jewish Heroes - The IDF Undercover Unit
 - Public Opinion Survey
 - A Birthing Story
 - The Jewish Connection to Judea
 - Jerusalem Day:
   - Jerusalem: The City of David and the Old City
   - General Gur and the Jewish Soul
 - The Herodion Palace
 - Folkdancing in Jerusalem and Efrat
 - Mark Twain - Concerning the Jews
 - The Prophecy of Amos

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                    THE PRESIDENT OF ISRAEL TOURS JUDEA

    On June 21, 1993, President Ezer Weizman visited the Etzion Bloc
in Judea, in one of his first such tours of the country's communities
since taking office.  The President and his wife, Reuma, received a
warm welcome from the residents of Alon Shvut and Tekoa.  Dressed in
blue and white, the children of all six grades of Tekoa's elementary
school held class on the school lawn, each doing a different activity,
and the President visited each group.  Then the children sang and
presented the Weizmans with a basket filled with delicacies grown in
Tekoa -- mushrooms, grapes and sprouts.

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   ************************************************************
   *  May 8, 1943 -- Death of Mordechai Anielewicz, Commander *
   *                 of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising.           *
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                     Movie Review: BECAUSE OF THAT WAR

  with Yehuda Poliker, Jako Poliker, Yaakov Galed, Helena Birnbaum.

    _Because Of That War_ is a documentary movie -- a tribute really
-- to those who experienced the Holocaust.  It is also a labor of love
by two sons who felt the Holocaust through the eyes of their parents.
The children are the Holocaust's second generation.
    Jako Poliker's anger leaps out as he talks about his first son's
Bar Mitzva and how their yard was filled with friends and neighbors to
celebrate.  Then he recounts how suddenly he felt such anger: no one
-- not a grandfather, an aunt or a cousin -- was there to see his son
become a Bar Mitzva, and he found himself throwing a glass on the
floor and turning over a table -- rage from the depths of his soul.
    Helena Birnbaum shares her experiences with high school students
who join her on her painful journey back in time -- the visions are
remembered as if they happened only yesterday. Everything in life is
compared to that time, to that war.  In the time it takes to turn
one's head her mother was taken from her at Treblinka. Helena was 13
years old when she became an orphan and a prisoner.  In Maidanek
concentration camp she had a boyfriend, but they were separated when
the Nazis forced the inmates to march to Germany in front of the
advancing Allies. Helena saw him again on the Death March and they
promised to meet at a certain place if they both survived. Helena made
it to the meeting place, but her friend did not.
    Jako came from Saloniki, Greece while Helena came from Poland.
They survived, but everyone else in their families were murdered by
the German Nazis.  Jako had been married with a 2-year-old boy and his
wife was pregnant.  Helena was 10 when the Nazis invaded Poland and
spent the next three years in the ghetto until one day she and her
family were loaded onto a train to Treblinka where all of the others
in her family was murdered.
    The sons -- Yehuda Poliker and Yaakov Galed -- became friends and
discovered their similar backgrounds: both were children of survivors.
They both spoke of over-protective parents fearful of losing their
children as they had lost other loved ones.
    Jako Poliker describes the day in Auschwitz when his brother told
him that he could no longer go on living, but that Jako must live so
that something would remain of their family. While relating this
story, Jako began to cry -- forty years later the memory is still too
painful -- as the camera just focused on his face and we were all with
him in his pain.
    Helena Birnbaum visited Poland and Maidanek again after 40 years.
She spoke of entering one of the huts and stamping her feet in anger
and wanting to choke death.  She returned to her family in Israel and
told her son how empty she felt.  Before she returned to Poland she
was afraid that she would not be able to leave it, that it would
swallow her up. Her son could not understand how she could feel empty
when she had a family in Israel.
    The film is accompanied by music -- Yaakov Galed and Helena
Birnbaum's poetry, set to Yehuda Poliker's music.  All the songs
relate to a person, a place, a memory, or a feeling in the lives of
Yehuda Poliker and his father Jako, and Yaakov Galed and his mother
Helena.  The evil of the Nazis was visited not only upon the fathers
and mothers of that generation but it also continues to haunt the
children -- the second generation. -- Y.A.

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            Book Review: SEARCHING FOR MEANING IN THE HOLOCAUST

_Wrestling Until Day-Break: Searching for Meaning in the Thinking on
the Holocaust_, by Eliezer Schweid (Lanhan, Md.: Jerusalem Center for
Public Affairs and University Press of America, 1993), 380pp.
    In most of the other famous persecutions of Jews in history, the
Jews were given a choice: convert -- to Christianity or Islam -- or
die.  The Holocaust was different; the Jews were offered no choice.
Most could not even run because no one else would let them in --
neither the world nor the antisemitic locals or nationalist partisans.
But the bottom line was this huge change in the rules of the game of
life that puts the event in a category all by itself. A modern Western
society murdered one-third of the Jewish people.  This reality, now
viewed 50 years later, is still too recent for Jews to trust the West.
    Most chilling is Chapter 3, "Dilemmas of Ethics and Faith in
Literature Written During the Holocaust."  Here one reads the writings
of those who came to realize they were trapped and would soon be dead,
sees their constant surprise at the acts of the cultured Germans and
many of their own Slavic neighbors, and views their certainty that
they were caught in something unique and unprecedented in modern
Jewish history -- modern, Western, scientific genocide, and not just
"another pogrom" -- facing every Jew in the territory controlled by
the Nazis.
    "Who has seen or who has heard of a similar event in which a whole
people, the men and the women, the elderly and the children, are
doomed to death?" - Ch.A. Kaplan, _A Diary of the Warsaw Ghetto_.
They were defenseless -- no territory, no army.
    One lesson of the Holocaust drawn by Professor Schweid, a
philosopher: "Those who persist in the exercise of moral freedom and
self-respect as human beings and as Jews will find meaning and purpose
in life.  Those who are able to find meaning and purpose will prevail
and be victorious, either in life or in death" (Intro.). -- M.A.

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                           FIVE JEWISH HEROES: 

MOSSOLLAM, THE ARCHER

    The Greek historian Hecataeus of Abdera chose to record the
following incident to explain his admiration for the Jews:

    As I was myself going to the Red Sea, there followed us a man,
whose name was Mossollam; he was one of the Jewish horsemen who
conducted us; he was a person of great courage, of a strong body, and
by all allowed to be the most skilful archer that was either among the
Greeks or barbarians.  Now this man, as people were in great numbers
passing along the road, and a certain augur [one who predicts the
future] was observing an augury by a bird, and requiring them all to
stand still, inquired what they stayed for. Hereupon the augur showed
him the bird from whence he took his augury, and told him that if the
bird stayed where he was, they ought all to stand still; but that if
he got up, and flew onward, they must go forward; but that if he flew
backward, they must retire again.  Mossollam made no reply, but drew
his bow, and shot at the bird, and hit him, and killed him; and as the
augur and some others were very angry, and wished imprecations upon
him, he answered them thus: "Why are you so mad as to take this most
unhappy bird into your hands? for how can this bird give us any true
information concerning our march, which could not foresee to save
himself? for had he been able to foreknow what was the future, he
would not have come to this place, but would have been afraid lest
Mossollam the Jew would shoot at him, and kill him." -- Reuben
Ainsztein, _Jewish Resistance in Nazi-Occupied Eastern Europe_
(London: Paul Elek, 1974) (subtitled: with a historical survey of the
Jew as fighter and soldier in the Diaspora), p. 5.

                            *     *     *

QUEEN KAHINA DARIYA

    When the Arabs began the conquest of what is today Tunisia,
Algeria and Morocco, they were opposed by Jews and Berbers who had
lived together for hundreds of years.  At the time, the most powerful
tribe among the Berbers was the judaised Kahina tribe of the Aures
mountains.  In 693, the largest Arab army ever assembled, under the
command of Hassan, began the conquest. Kahina and Berber fighters led
by their Jewish priestess-queen, Kahina Dariya bint Tabita ibn-Tifan,
routed Hassan near Tebessa and stopped the Arab conquest for five
years. -- Ainsztein, p. 23.

                            *     *     *

LEIB GOLDSTEIN

    During World War II, in the Ukrainian town of Kamien Koszyrski,
60-year-old Leib Goldstein lived with his son, daughter-in-law, and
two grandchildren. When the Germans exterminated the Jews of Kamien
Koszyrski, the Goldstein family found shelter with a Ukrainian friend.
After a few months in hiding, Leib began to cough badly, thereby
endangering the lives of both his family and his friend.  One evening
Leib took two hand-grenades which he had been hiding, walked into the
local Gestapo headquarters, and told the guard he wanted to see the
commanding officer on an important matter.  Brought into the main
room, he set off the grenades, killing 10 Germans, 2 Ukrainian police,
and himself. -- Ainsztein, p.  262.

                            *     *     *

SIMAN-TOV GANNA

    During Israel's War of Independence in 1948, Siman-Tov Ganna lost
both legs when the half-track he was driving took a direct hit from an
Egyptian tank.  Though the rest of his force withdrew, Ganna not only
kept the Egyptians at bay for six hours but tended the other wounded.
(_Shield of Zion_, by Netanel Lorch, Howell Press, 1993).

                            *     *     *

YEHUDA KEN-DROR

    In 1956, Yehuda Ken-Dror volunteered to drive a jeep through the
Mitla Pass in broad daylight in order to draw the Egyptians' fire and
thereby reveal their precise positions.  He ran a gauntlet of rifle,
machine-gun, bazooka and anti-tank missile fire at a range of 50
meters.  Long after hope had been abandoned for him, he returned,
wounded, under cover of darkness. (_Shield of Zion_)

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               MORE JEWISH HEROES - THE IDF UNDERCOVER UNIT

    The Israeli army's undercover unit operating in Judea and Samaria,
Duvdevan (Cherry) is largely comprised of young Jewish soldiers aged
19 to 22 who are responsible for the capture of many armed terrorists.
    Lt. A., 22, reports that an operation is considered successful
when the suspect is arrested, not killed.  "We shoot only when
confronted by an armed terrorist who is not surprised enough."
    R., also 22, recounts, "Once we arrested a terrorist who was armed
with a Kalashnikov rifle and we pushed him, blindfolded, into a car.
Until we could remove his blindfold he begged for his life, thinking
he was kidnapped by Palestinians of a rival organization who were
after him.  He sounded relieved when we told him we were the army."
    N., 20, described how his "parents are both human rights
activists.  When they heard what unit I joined they tried to persuade
me to leave.  I think we are conducting a battle here so that people
in Netanya and Tel Aviv will be able to carry on discussions about
moral issues.  The armed terrorists -- the hard-core wanted ones --
don't care much about other people's lives.  We do, and that's the
difference." (excerpted from Michael Rotem, _Jerusalem Post_, 8 Jan
93).

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                           PUBLIC OPINION SURVEY

    Yehezkel Mizrachi of the East Talpiot neighborhood of Jerusalem
was stabbed to death at a bus stop in February 1993 by someone coming
from the direction of the nearby Arab village of Jebel Mukaber.  A
poll conducted by _Kol Ha'ir_ [a local Jerusalem newspaper] indicates
66 percent of East Talpiot residents want a fence erected; 96 percent
want permanent border guard positions; 81 percent favor the
deportation of Jebel Mukaber Hamas members; 60 percent want to ban
Arab villagers from entering East Talpiot; and 26 percent favor
emptying the entire village of Jebel Mukaber of its population. --
("In Jerusalem," _Jerusalem Post_, 26 Feb 93)

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                             A BIRTHING STORY

    My son Akiva's birthday is on the fourth day of Hanukkah, which
fact I shared with the saleswoman at a Jerusalem toy store.  She told
me her birthday is on the fifth day of Hanukkah.  I then asked her age
(in Israel you tend to ask personal questions faster than in North
America).  She told me she is 45 and when she was born Israel was not
yet independent and the U.N had just voted on the famous Partition
Plan.  The only way for this woman's mother to reach Hadassah Hospital
on Mt. Scopus to give birth was by armoured ambulance, since the road
passed through Arab neighborhoods, and that is how her mother
traveled.  Hers was one of the last births on Mt.  Scopus for 19 years
until Israel reclaimed the eastern section of Jerusalem, after being
attacked by Jordan in 1967 during what is now called the Six-Day War.
     -- Y.A.

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                      THE JEWISH CONNECTION TO JUDEA

    Judea (Judah) is named after the fourth son of Jacob.  The
geographical area was the possession of the Tribe (descendants) of
Judah, the largest of the twelve tribes.  
    The territory of Judea includes the Judean mountains (Mt. Beit El,
Mt. Jerusalem, and Mt. Hebron), their foothills to the west, and the
Judean desert to the east -- all located in the center of Eretz Israel
(the Land of Israel).
    The importance of the Judean mountains in the history of
Eretz Israel and even in the chronicles of the world extends
beyond their limited area.  The spiritual values of the Jewish
people crystalized in these mountains, and their center of power
and authority arose here.
    Israelite settlement in Judea began around 1500 BCE.  Hebron,
where the patriarch Abraham purchased a plot of land, might be called
the first Jewish "settlement."  Hebron boasted a continuous Jewish
community until the Arab riots of 1929 when 69 Jews were murdered and
their survivors fled in terror.  After the Six-Day War, Jews returned
to rebuild Hebron's Avraham Avinu Synagogue and reclaim its old Jewish
neighborhoods.
    Judea takes its name from the area assigned to the Tribe of Judah,
centered in the area of Bethlehem-Hebron, but geographically and
historically it includes parts of the area of the Tribe of Dan in its
northwestern foothills, the entire area of the Tribe of Benjamin in a
strip north of Jerusalem, and parts of the area of the Tribe of Shimon
in the northern Negev, southwestern foothills, and Judean desert
(p.32).
    After the death of Joshua, the Lord promised to deliver the land
into the hand of Judah (_Book of Judges_, 1:2).  The children of Judah
took Jerusalem and afterward extended to the hill country and
Hebron/Kiryat Arba (_Judges_, 1:8-10).  "They gave Hebron to Caleb, as
Moses had spoken" (1:20).
    The period of Israelite settlement in Judea is recorded in
the Books of Joshua, Judges and I Samuel.  The Kingdom of Judah
began when King David organized all the families of the tribes of
Judah and Benjamin under his leadership, broke the power of the
Philistines who threatened from the west, and captured Jerusalem
from the Jebusites, making it his capital in place of Hebron.
    King David went on to rule over all the tribes of the north, the
center, and across the Jordan river to the east, turning the Kingdom
of Judah into the most important military power between Egypt and what
is today Iraq.
    From "Judea," _Israel Guide_, Vol. 9, Sefi Ben-Yosef, ed.
(Jerusalem: Keter & Israel Ministry of Defense, 1980) (Hebrew).

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                JERUSALEM -- THE CITY OF DAVID AND OLD CITY

    Not far from the Dung Gate of the Old City of Jerusalem is the
City of David, the original site of Jerusalem in King David's time.
Until the British evicted the remaining Yemenite Jews from the area in
1936, it was home to many Jews.  Land was purchased there by the
Jewish National Fund in the late 1800s and a vast section is
still legally owned by the Rothschild family.  In recent years Jews
have begun returning to the City of David, with some 30 families
making it their home.
    Throughout the ages, what are currently known as the "Jewish"
Quarter, or "Moslem" Quarter, etc. of the Old City were never
exclusive districts restricted to a single ethnic group.  At different
times in the past, the "Jewish" Quarter existed in other parts of the
city, occasionally in more than one area at the same time.  In 1900,
19,000 Jews lived in all parts of the Old City, constituting the vast
majority.  However, by 1936, during the British Mandate period,
eruptions of Arab violence drove the Jews from most of the Old City,
ghettoizing the few remaining Jews in the area known today as the
"Jewish" Quarter.  By the eve of independence, less than 2,000 Jews
remained within the Old City walls.
    From 1948 until the Six-Day War of 1967, the Old City of Jerusalem
remained *Judenrein*.  Since then, the "Jewish" Quarter has been
replenished with 3,200 Jews (including 1,500 visiting students),
although today's numbers are far below Jerusalem's Jewish population
of a hundred years ago.
    Today, some of the buildings that had been in Jewish propriety in
the "Moslem" Quarter prior to the 1936 Arab riots have been purchased,
along with a number of other buildings, on the open market.  Over 200
Jews now live in this section of the Old City, with 300 more Jewish
families on a waiting list to make the area their home.
    --From the Israel Community Development Foundation Report (1993).

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                      GENERAL GUR AND THE JEWISH SOUL

    In his book _The Temple Mount is Ours_, General Mordechai (Motta)
Gur -- today Israel's Deputy Minister of Defense in the Labor
government, and commander of the paratroop brigade that liberated the
Old City of Jerusalem -- describes the events of 26 years ago, which
are celebrated throughout Israel and the Jewish world as Jerusalem Day
(May 19).  Here General Gur describes his feelings as he stood with
his soldiers facing the ancient Kotel (the Wailing or Western wall of
the biblical Temple):
    "In the right-hand corner, a short distance from the soldiers,
stood a man.  No, he was not standing.  It was as if he was glued to
the stones.  He was like a part of the Kotel -- a stone of its stones.
No part of him moved -- not his head, nor his hair, not his body nor
his legs.  His hands, spread wide, were leaning on the stones as if he
wanted to bore into the Wall.
    "I locked on to him like radar and I could not move my gaze from
him.  I was glued to him from afar just as he was affixed to the Wall.
Through him I felt the Kotel.  Through his body (which seemed
paralyzed) I felt the pounding of the Jewish heart penetrating the
stone.  This is how we stood glued together for several minutes -- he
and I and the Kotel." (Excerpted from _Otiot_ magazine, 12 May 93;
Hebrew.)

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                            THE HERODION PALACE

    Herodion is a magnificent mountain fortress-palace situated in the
Judean hills, eight miles southeast of Jerusalem.  It was built by
King Herod in 23 BCE (_Biblical Archeological Review_, May/June 1983).
From the historian Josephus Flavius we learn that Herodion was manned
by Jewish fighters at the time of the First Jewish War against the
Romans.  From documents written by Shimon Bar Kochba found in Judean
Desert caves, we also learn that the Bar Kochba fighters were deployed
there during the Second Jewish War.  An abundance of coins minted
during both wars gives further evidence of Jewish presence at
Herodion.
    The First Jewish War against the Romans broke out in 66 CE but did
not produce a central personality who could command the confidence of
all.  Nevertheless, Judea was the only eastern province in the Roman
Empire to rebel in that epoch (David Ben-Gurion, _The Jews in Their
Land_).  With the outbreak of war the mountain-fortress of Herodion
was taken over by the Jews.  It was one of the last three Jewish
fortresses to hold out against the Romans.
    The Second Jewish War against Roman rule was fought from 132 to
134 CE.  The revolt arose out of the Jews' determination to preserve
the Jewish character of the Land.  Judea became the center of the
revolt and the main rebel force was concentrated there.  The military
leader of the Jewish rebellion was Shimon Bar Kochba and he was
supported by the community's spiritual leader, Rabbi Akiva Ben Yosef.
    Bar Kochba's soldiers improved the defensive possibilities of
Herodion by digging a system of tunnels inside the mountain, using the
Herodion water cisterns (originally installed by Herod) as junction
points.  These were connected to the outside by a few hidden outlets
situated on the steep slopes. All this was unknown to the Romans who
were subject to surprise Jewish attacks.
    Visitors to Jerusalem are welcome to visit Herodion, a historical
site supervised by the Israel National Parks Authority 20 minutes to
the south.  The site is open to the public, although a guided tour
provides a richer experience (one licensed tour guide is Mori Alon of
nearby Tekoa, 02-964487). -- Y.A.

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                    FOLK DANCING IN JERUSALEM AND EFRAT

    For anyone who believes that "to dance is to live," Jerusalem
offers the opportunity to folk dance nearly every night of the week.
After a year and a half of dancing in a women's dance class of 30-40
participants in Efrat (15 minutes south of Jerusalem), I was ready to
hit the "big time" -- the larger groups in Jerusalem (100-200) with
their more experinced dancers. After a while the faces began to look
familiar -- many people dance three and four times a week.
    "In the Israeli dances there is no cynicism or shame in the
biblical, agricultural, Zionist or Jewish symbols....The dances
express...pride in tradition and that the dances are ours and the
fruit of our creation." -- Dr. Dan Ronen, Head of the Culture and Arts
Department, Israel Ministry of Education, in "Program of the Carmiel
Dance Festival," _Maariv_, (25 June 93); -- Y.A.

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                     MARK TWAIN -- CONCERNING THE JEWS

    "If the statistics are right, the Jews constitute but *one per
cent* of the human race. It suggests a nebulous dim puff of star dust
lost in the blaze of the Milky Way.  Properly the Jew ought hardly to
be heard of; but he is heard of, has always been heard of.  He is as
prominent on the planet as any other people, and his commercial
importance is extravagantly out of proportion to the smallness of his
bulk.  His contributions to the world's list of great names in
literature, science, art, music, finance, medicine, and abstruse
learning are also away out of proportion to the weakness of his
numbers.  He has made a marvelous fight in this world, in all the
ages; and has done it with his hands tied behind him.  He could be
vain of himself, and be excused for it. The Egyptian, the Babylonian,
and the Persian rose, filled the planet with sound and splendor, then
faded to dream-stuff and passed away; the Greek and Roman followed,
and made a vast noise, and they are gone; other people have sprung up
and held their torch high for a time, but it burned out, and they sit
in twilight now, or have vanished.  The Jew saw them all, beat them
all, and is now what he always was, exhibiting no decadence, no
infirmities of age, no weakening of his parts, no slowing of his
energies, no dulling of his alert and aggressive mind.  All things are
mortal but the Jew; all other forces pass, but he remains.  What is
the secret of his immortality?" -- _Harper's Monthly_ (September
1899); as reprinted in _Jewish Student Activist Handbook_ (Jerusalem:
World Union of Jewish Students, 1990), p. KI16.

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                           THE PROPHECY OF AMOS

    Amos the Prophet was a herdsman from Tekoa.  After predicting the
near destruction and exile of the Jews from Judea and Samaria, Amos
concludes with this prophecy of hope:
    Said the Lord: "I will return My people Israel from their
captivity and they will rebuild their wasted cities and inhabit them.
They will plant vineyards and drink their wine, plant gardens and eat
their fruit.  I will plant them on their land, and they will never
again be uprooted out of the land which I have given them." 
    -- Amos 9:14-15.

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                               DID YOU KNOW?

    Judea is one of the fastest growing regions of Israel.  Its Jewish
population grew by two-thirds over the last five years due to
thousands of newcomers and a local baby boom.

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JUDEA Magazine is an academic-oriented bi-monthly electronic magazine
produced and transmitted from Judea, Israel.  Its focus is the
rebuilding of Jewish communities and Jewish life in Judea.  
Internet: amiel2@crosswinds.net Mail: Judea Magazine, Yael and Mark Ami-El,
Editors, Tekoa, D.N. North Judea, Israel Fax: 972-2-964588. JUDEA
Magazine is offered without charge on the Internet. All material may be
reprinted with attribution to JUDEA Magazine and original source as
cited.  Comments are welcome.

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Your comments and questions are welcome. Please reply to:
amiel2@crosswinds.net