First We Mourn
On Yom Ha Zikaron, we remember all who gave their lives to build the State of Israel; fearless, dedicated, selfless IDF men and women, members of the Border Police, and all security services. We also mourn and remember those civilians killed by terrorists.
In 2023, the following lost their lives to terror and are remembered and recorded in the Jewish Virtual Library.
Celebrating Israel’s 75th Birthday, 2023
Appreciating Israel and the miracle of its re-establishment is part of the wonderment and joy we have in Zion, in Israel. The many marvels and miracles that are its sine qua non are too numerous to mention, but several impressive expressions of such are shared here.
Rabbi Jarod Grover, senior rabbi of Beth Tikvah Synagogue in Toronto, gave the following D’var Torah on Shabbat, April 21, 2023. Every word expresses love for Israel and prayers for her peace, security and unity of the Jewish people.
Parashat Tazria-Metzora: The Miracle of Israel's 75th
The National Post has celebrated Israel’s 75th year for several months featuring major articles, images, opinion pieces, and accurate current news and historical reporting. Below is the editorial that appeared on Saturday, April 22, 2023 ahead of Yom Ha’atzmaut, celebrating Israel at 75, entitled, Beacon of freedom and democracy.
CAEF welcomes this honest reflection and urges everyone to send a message to acknowledge the decision of Post Media and the editors at the National Post that tell the truth about Israel at all times. Letters@nationalpost.ca
Seventy-five years ago, on the fifth day of lyar on the Hebrew lunar calendar, which falls on April 26 this year, on the eve of Great Britain, a diminished superpower, pulling out of Palestine, the region’s Jewish community declared “the establishment of a Jewish state in Eretz-Israel, to be known as the State of Israel.” But the story of modern-day Israel begins nearly 2,000 years earlier, with a superpower unrivalled in world history.
In 70 AD, the Roman Emperor Titus laid siege to the Jewish city of Jerusalem to quell a rebellion in the Roman province of Judea. The troops razed the city and sacked the Temple, the cornerstone of the Jewish faith. According to Josephus, a Roman-Jewish historian who wrote an account of the events at the time, over a million people, mostly Jews, were killed, and tens of thousands enslaved.
Sixty-five years later, at the end of the third Jewish-Roman war, many of Judea’s Jewish communities were massacred and Jews were forbidden from living in their historic capital of Jerusalem. To further humiliate the beleaguered people, a temple dedicated to the Roman god Jupiter was built on the site of the demolished Second Temple (the first of which was destroyed by the Babylonians, according to biblical accounts) and later replaced with an Islamic shrine.
Judaism was fundamentally transformed from a religion centred around Temple worship and the priestly tradition, to a more diffuse faith governed by the rabbinate and the codified laws of the Talmud. The Jewish population scattered throughout the world in search of freedom and safety, but never found it.
How to Identify an Antisemite
The blogger, Elder of Ziyon, posted a list of characteristics that one can use to assess if one’s own views align with those of an antisemite. Use it to assess those whom you might worry are antisemites. This list has gone viral. CAEF invites everyone to continue to circulate it.
If the Star of David on Israel's flag upsets you but the crescent, crosses and other religious symbols on more than 60 other flags doesn't bother you...you just might be an antisemite.
If you think that 21 Arab states isn't enough, and 1 Jewish state is too many, you just might be an antisemite.
If you show more sympathy towards the person who stabbed the Jew than for the Jew he stabbed, you just might be an antisemite.
If you have to jump through hoops to pretend to find apartheid in the Jewish state while ignoring everywhere it really is, you just might be an antisemite.
If every terrible event in world history prompts you to compare it with Israeli actions, you just might be an antisemite.
If you believe that the Palestinian Arabs, who never thought of themselves as a people until the mid-20th century, have more of a claim to nationhood than Jews who have been a nation for 3000 years, you just might be an antisemite.
If you think that Zionism is racist, but Palestinian Arab nationalism is justice, you just might be an antisemite.
If you claim that Zionism is incompatible with feminism, but have nothing bad to say about Islamism, you just might be an antisemite.
If Saudi ties to Israel upset you more than Saudi ties to Osama bin Laden did in 2001, you just might be an antisemite.
If the only democracy you want to see in the Middle East is one rigged for Jews to be in the minority, you just might be an antisemite.
If the only refugees from the 1940s that you insist "return" to where they lived previously are Palestinian Arabs, you just might be an antisemite.
If you believe that the only "settlers" in the world who must move out of their homes are all Jews, you just might be an antisemite.
If you think that the very concept of a Jewish state is racist, but you are okay with an Arab or Muslim state, you just might be an antisemite.
If there are any parts of the world that you believe Jews should not be allowed to live, you just might be an antisemite.
If there are any historic Jewish holy places where you believe Jews have no right to pray, you just might be an antisemite.
If you call Jews who insist on praying in their holiest spot "extremists," you just might be an antisemite.
If you get a thrill comparing Israelis to Nazis, you just might be an antisemite.
If you are compelled to respond to any mention of the Holocaust with "nakba," you just might be an antisemite.
If you aren't Muslim but refer to Jewish shrines like the Temple Mount, Rachel's Tomb and the Cave of the Patriarchs by their Muslim names that came centuries later, you just might be an antisemite.
If you believe that it is a moral duty to boycott Israeli Jews but not Israeli Arabs, you just might be an antisemite.
If you need to believe that Ashkenazic Jews are descended from Khazars and have no Middle East ancestry, you just might be an antisemite.
If you claim that there is no archaeological proof for Jewish history in Jerusalem, you just might be an antisemite.
If you claim to be pro-Palestinian but ignore how Palestinians have been and continue to be mistreated by their fellow Arabs, you just might be an antisemite.
If you believe that "occupation" is one of the worst crimes but never said a word about any occupation that cannot be linked to Israel, you just might be an antisemite.
If you claim that the only reason Israel does anything progressive or moral is to cover up for its crimes, you just might be an antisemite.
If Jews must pass a test of being anti-Israel for you to allow them to speak publicly or join movements, you just might be an antisemite.
If you consider the word "Zionist" an insult, you just might be an antisemite.
If you are offended by the lyrics of Hatikva but have no problem with the Palestinian national anthem that extols violence and vengeance, you just might be an antisemite.
If you regard terrorists Leila Khaled, Rasmea Odeh and Dalal Mughrabi as feminist role models, you just might be an antisemite.
If your response to every terrorist attack that kills Jewish civilians is that they deserve it, you just might be an antisemite.
If you defend or excuse Arab antisemitism, you just might be an antisemite.
If you feel a burning desire to equate the Taliban with Orthodox Jews, you just might be an antisemite.
If you think putting on a hijab makes you a person of color but putting on a yarmulka makes you white, you just might be an antisemite.
If you are upset by scenes of Jews dancing in Jerusalem, you just might be an antisemite.
If you bitterly complain about how Israel's separation barrier inconveniences Palestinians, but don't mention how it has saved hundreds of Jewish lives, you just might be an antisemite.
If you go to a religious Jewish neighborhood to harass random Jews with "pro-Palestinian" slogans, you just may be an antisemite.
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