Remembering Israel's Birth Pangs and Stern Group

Nadene Goldfoot
We had 650,000 Jews in  Israel in May 1948.  It went up to 806,000 residents including Arabs.  The 1948 War took 6,373 of their lives, or 1% of our total Jewish population there.  We remember that Moses, born in Egypt, son of Amram and Jochebed of the tribe of Levi,  had left Egypt with 600,000 Jews bound for Canaan. 

The largest city in 1948 was Tel Aviv-Yafo with 248,000.  Today, there are 14 cities with more than 100,000 residents out of which 6 have more than 200,000.  The largest are Jerusalem with 773,800; Tel Aviv-Yafo with  393,900; Haifa with 265,600; Rishon LeZiyyon with 227,600, Ashdod with 211,300 and Petah Tikvah with 197,800.   Portland, Oregon in 2005's population was 533,427.  It's the largest city in Oregon. 

At the time of 1948, Israel had no cannons or tanks, only 9 obsolete planes.  The  Haganah, the Jewish self-defense group organized from 1920 to 1948, brought about for lack of protections for Jews under the British administration,  had only 18,900 armed soldiers.  There were other smaller groups such as the Stern Group (the Fighters for the Freedom of Israel-Irgun Tzevai Leumi or otherwise known as Etzel of which my cousin, Stanley Goldfoot was the Chief of Intelligence) and (Lohame Herut Israel).  Yigael Yadin told David Ben-Gurion that they had a 50/50 chance of survival.  David Ben Gurion became Israel's first Prime Minister.  Yadin served as chief of operations during the Israel War of Independence and as chief of staff of the Israel army 1949-1952. 

64 years later we find that Israel's population has survived the war of 1947-49, 1956, 1967, 1968-70, 1973, 1982 (I was there then), 1991,  and 2006 and more firing into Israel leading to Operation Cast Lead of December 27, 2008 to January 18, 2009  to have a population of 7,836,000.  Of those, 5,901,000 are Jewish.  1,610,000 are Arabs and there are also unidentified 325,000, probably of which many are Christians.  Today 70% of Israel's Jewish population is made up of Sabras, or people born in Israel, compared to the 35% native-born in 1948. 

Among the nations of the world, Israel is a teeny country with a teeny population.  Jews make up less than 1% of the total world population as it is.  In the United States, we make up 2.1% of the population with New York having the most with 8.4% of that state having 1,635,020 Jews and California with 3.3% of that state having 1,219,740 Jews.  Our total population in the USA is at 6,588,065, making slightly more Jews living in the USA than in Israel.  We have just about the same number today in the USA that were killed in the Holocaust.  It's taken 67 years to reach that point. 

Our population as grown and our country, starting off like an arid orphaned  desert with swampy malaria- carrying mosquitoes has become a regular Garden of Eden, which our neighbors now covet.  Our numbers have slowly increased while our accomplishments have abounded amidst the hatred of neighbors surrounding us.  This little group of stubborn people have given much to the world already that they have created and shared.  I hope their love of life also permeates the air people breathe.  L'Chaim!  To Life! 

Resource: http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/1948_War.html
Book:  Genesis 1948 by Dan Kurzman
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0108588.html
http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/History/Modern+History/Israel+wars/CategoryDefaultTop.htm?DisplayMode=print
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Peace/Gazaincursion.html

Britain's Cheating Heart: Fleecing the Jews of Their National Homeland

Nadene Goldfoot
Tonight we Jews celebrate Passover, which commemorates the Exodus from Egypt after serving as slaves for 400 years  and our 40 years of travail in the wilderness to get to our Promised Land of Canaan with Moses and Joshua. 

We can also remember another Exodus in 1947.  There was a ship by that name full of Jewish emigrants from France who left port on July 11, 1947 to go to the British mandated Palestine as they intended to live, after surviving the Holocaust, in the promised Jewish Homeland.   It was virtually impossible for Jews to get into any other place at this time.  Even to go to the USA, one had to have a sponsor to guarantee that they would not become in need of finanaces.  Many countries required baptism certificates, something Jews wouldn't have.  Palestine was the one and only hope in this great time of need. 

They held no legal immigration certificates to Palestine.  Red tape such as this was not prevelent in the death camps that they crawled out of.  The British Royal Navy seized the ship and deported all its passengers back to the hate-filled Europe.  The story of this ship was made into a book  by Leon Uris published in 1958 and a movie  that came out in 1960 with Paul Newman playing the main role of Ari Ben Canaan, as it was such a shock to our senses, no matter who we were. 

The sad state of affairs for them was that Israel was declared a state May 14, 1948, after they were deported.  It behooves me that the Navy couldn't have seen that this was about to happen.  To return these people to a place they could have died in is unforgivable. 

By 1942, London had received a detailed account that Auschwitz concentration camp alone had killed 4,000 Jews by shooting, 2,900 by gassing and 2,000 by phenol injection, 1,200 were beaten to death and 800 committed suicide by walking into the electric fence of the camp.

They continued to allow Arab immigrants enter the Jewish Homeland illegally.  They entered and some were escorted to the frontier, which was hundreds of miles long and guarded by the Arab Legion!  They then were told to go home.  You can imagine that this was a joke.  The British police didn't deport illegals and only those who were brought to their attention amounted to only about 546 in two months in 1942, perhaps done for show only.   This was at a time that the British had halted Jewish immigration to their National Home.

That they did so amounts to a time of the "Jews' greatest peril in Europe and is the most cynical and craven chapter in the tragic record of the Holocaust".   Double that atrocity by the British behavior of including new Arab immigrants and misrepresenting them as "millennia settled Palestinian Arabs" in order to get them to work in place of Jews they wouldn't allow in.  This amounted to sealing the fate of millions of would-be Jewish immigrants in the extermination camps of Europe. 

This happened as the White Paper of 1939 was defended and rationalized by the British.  They claimed that Palestine had reached the outside population limit of absorbing Jewish workers, but at the same time had special legislation that allowed the administration to import thousands of "illegal" Arab workers to meet the job needs of the government who said that there weren't enough workers.  So, while Jews were digging trenches in the death camps of the Holocaust to die in, their possible jobs and salvation went to nomadic Arabs in Palestine.  Those Jews who managed to get to Palestine were denied entry. 

This shocking piece of history shows that anti-semitism was active in Britain as well as in Germany, a country that has prided themselves with their outstanding organization skills.  I must figure that none of this was accidental but on purpose.  How quickly they disregarded their promises and friends.  At this very time it was Palestinian Jews who were fighting for the Allies, and these very British knew at the time that extermination of Jews in Eastern Europe was going on.  Yet, these very British continued to prevent Jewish immigration into Jewish-settled areas in Western Palestine on any basis.  This was not only against all sanity but was as callous and inexplicable as can be. 

The 2nd World War had started in 1939.  Jews were on the ship, Struma, trying to get to Palestine but were hit by a Soviet submarine off the Turkish coast, where many ships stopped to refuel.  7,000 Danish Jews and 700 of their non-Jewish relatives got out and were sent to Malmo, Sweden, where it was safer.  Ironic as it is, these are the Jews who have now been forced out of Malmo by Arab immigrants.  This seems to highlight the fact that the best or only place for Jews was the Jewish Homeland. 

Whatever Arab migrants managed to come into Palestine therefore was not all legal or according to hoyle.  There would have been many more Jews there if the British had been allowing them to enter according to the original deal.  The whole idea was that the Jews needed a place of their own in the midst of all the persecution they were going through in Europe as it was from the 1800's on and especially during the Nazi years.  Honesty was not Britain's policy at the time in dealing with Jews. 

Reference:  From Time Immemorial by Joan Peters, pages 376-381. 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Exodus
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exodus_(novel)
http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005470

One Lone Jew Left in Afghanistan with the Taliban: Can They Be Related?

Nadene Goldfoot
After a 2,500 year history of living in Afghanistan, we have one Jew left there.  All that were there have emigrated, mostly to Israel, Pakistan and the USA.  Zablon Simintov, b: ca1920 has remained and cares for the run-down synagogue in the capital of Kabul.  Sympathetic Muslims and Jews around the world send him aid.  I'm glad to see that there are kind Muslims with the Taliban operating from there.  This is a hot spot, as of yesterday, the USA has had 1,740 soldiers die there since the Afghanistan War that started October 7, 2001. 

Zablon had a Jewish friend, Isaac Levy, also born ca. 1920 until he died in January 2005.  Simentov is alone amongst 30 million Afghanis.  He's trying to recover a confiscated Torah.  A man, a Taliban member,  had stolen it, now in US custody in Guantanamo Bay.  His wife and 2 daughters live in Israel.  Simentov ran a store selling carpets and jewelry until 2001.  He and Levy had lived in opposite ends of the synagogue and didn't like each other, winding up in Taliban jails. 

The Taliban are fundamental Sunni Muslims made up mostly of the tribe of Pashtun.  They dominate much of Pakistan by terrorism and want a puritanical caliphate.  They don't like democracies and feel they are an offensse against Islam.  Their brand of religion is close to Saudi Arabia's form of Wahhabism, though differs.  They are even stricter in following their Sharia law.  Al Qaeda supported them by importing fighters to help their cause.  They were the ruling political party in Afghanistan but have been replaced by Operation Enduring Freedom in 2004 with President Hamid Karzai who has been influenced more by the USA. 

The Taliban are opening a political office/mission in Qatar in order to negotiate over the endgame in the Afghan war.  Karzai agreed to this a week ago.  Karzai is interested in talking about reducing tensions rather than a comorehensive solution to the war.  Qatar's religious leader, Qaradawi, hates Jews.  He's the main leader of the Muslim Brotherhood and the Emir of Qatar's great friend.  Both men have been doing a lot to reach out and be most friendly and influential  with groups in the USA. 

It is believed by many Muslim and some Jewish scholars that the exiled Lost Tribes of Israel had settled here. They made up the largest ethnic group in Afghanistan, now the 2nd largest in Pakistan.  This would be the Pashtuns.  This theory was written in 1612 The History of the Afghans  by Nimat Allah al-Harawi.  I'd love to see them take dna tests through familytreedna so we could find out their deep history. 

How can the Pashtun tribe who is now the Taliban have a Jewish history and have become the most strict of all Islamists?  This is indeed wild.  They are a wild terrorist group that think nothing of killing.  The USA entered a war on 7 October 2001 and 1,742 soldiers have died.  USA has soldiers in NATO, and out of 566 troops who died, 418 were Americans.  8 NATO troops just died in 3 attacks in southern Afghanistan on the 5th and 6th and 4 of them were Americans  The US-led NATO command is slowly handing over responsibillities to the Afghan government. The Taliban is still strong in the south, like in Kandahar, where trouble began in the 1990's.  Roadside bombs are the usual method of killing soldiers. 

At any rate, Jewish history can be traced back to the Babylonian Exile and Persian conquest with records of a Jewish population going back to the 7th century (when Islam started) with the Tahqat-i-Nasiri that mentioned people called Bani Israel settling in Ghor. 

It is claimed that "Kabul" is deried from Cain and Abel and the name "Afghanistan" from Afghana, a grandson of King Saul.  Historians V. Minorsky, W.K. Frazier Tyler and MC Gillet say that "afghan" appears in a 982CE book called Hudud-al-Alam, with this reference. 

   Saul, a pleasant village on a mountain has Afghans living in it.  This village probably was near Gardez, east of Ghazni in afghanistan.  The book tells about a village near modern Jalalabad where the local king had many Hindu, Muslim and Afghan wives. 

Benjam in Tudela in the 12th century counted 80,000 Jews living there and in 1080, Moses ibn Ezra mentioned 40,000 Jews paying tribute to Ghazni.  Then Genghis Khan invaded in 1222 and reduced the Jewish communities to isolated groups.  In 1839, the population increased by receiving refugees from Persia and had a population of 40,000 again. 

By 1948, 5,000 Jews lived in Afghanistan, and were allowed to emigrate in 1951.  By 1969, 300 Jews remained but left after the Soviet invasion of 1979, leaviing only 10 Afghan Jews there in 1996, just enough for a minion in Kabul.  Probably there are 10,000 Jews residing in Israel with Afghan descent.  More than 200 families live in New York City.  However, Zablon is in no hurry to leave. 

Resource: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_afghanistan
http://middleeast.about.com/od/afghanistan/ss/me080914a.htm
Oregonian newspaper page A3; Taliban's Qatar move may signal peace talks
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/talking/79_Qaradawi.html and all my references on Qaradawi in this jewishfactsfromportland. 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taliban
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/vjw/Afghanistan.html
http://www.jpost.com/LandedPages/PrintArticle.aspx?id =251913 Scrolls raise questions as to Afghan Jewish history by Gil Shefer
Oregonian newspaper 1/7/12 page A5  8 coalition troops killed in 3 attacks

Lies Palestinians Tell About Our City, Hebron-Holy Sites Closed Now to Jews

Nadene Goldfoot
Hebron has been a Jewish city  since the creation of Judaism by Abraham, who had bought the Mearat Hamachpela or Tomb of the Patriarchs.   This is recorded in  the Torah.  Thousands want to pray at the Meara.  David Wilder of Arutz Sheva writes about its history for this timely Shabbat Hevron.  Jews have lived there continuously for thousands of years, which is so sad considering that the Muslims have now grabbed Jewish religious sites  and are preventing Jews access. It is our ancient city in Judah and is 18 miles south of Jerusalem. 

Abraham had bought the Cave of Machpelah  from the Hittites so he could bury his wife, Sarah, and the tomb now has a mosque built over it, as that is what Muslims seem to do when they take someone's land, either right on or very near.    Hebron became a city of refuge under Joshua.

The Hittites disappeared along with many other ancient peoples.  Their main kingdom in existence from the 15th century BCE fell in  1200.  Smaller groups in N. Syria and around the Euphrates River were finally overrun by the Armenians and the Assyrians.  Jews are the only ones that remain.  Esau, the son of Isaac and twin of Jacob,  had taken wives from the Hittites.  They were one of 7 peoples that the Israelites had conquered in Canaan.  King David had Hittite warriors and his son Solomon had Hitttie wives, so one can say that some were integrated into the Jewish society after their kingdom ended.  They were not killed or necessarily exiled by the Jews. 

King David (1,000 BCE- 960 BCE) ruled for over seven years from Hebron before moving to Jerusalem..  For proof, archaeologists have found artifacts dating to the era of our Patriarch Abraham that are 2,700 years old inscribed with the word "Hevron" in ancient Hebrew.  (the b and the v are the same letter using the bet/vet.)  Along with Jerusalem, Tiberias and Safed, it was one of the four sacred towns for Jews. 

By 1890 there were 1,500 Jews living there with yeshivot and religious schools.  The great Lithuanian yeshival of Slobodka was transferred there in 1925. 

In August 1929, Arabs rioted against Jews suddenly, killing 67 and wounding 70 in a Jewish population of  700.  Survivors were then exiled from the city by the British, of all people, who held the reins then for the League of Nations.  In 1931  30 Jewish families returned, but there were more Arab riots in 1936, and the Jews were exiled again. 

Jews entered their city again after the 1967 War when Israel won over many Arab countries that had attacked them.  At that time the population of Arabs had grown to 38,310.  Jews were not occupiers, they were returnees to their homes after forcible exile of 38 years.  1968 was the year Jews koshered a kitchen in the Park Hotel when Jews had their first Pesach in decades at home. 

Moshe Dayan, Minister of Defense, must have been thinking of his defense problems because he told his people to live in the Hebron militry compound which was several kilometers outside the center of the city.  It had originally been a British police station, hardly homelike.  It was either live there or leave entirely, as he could not defend them in Hebron at that time.  So they lived in there for 2 1/2 years until they created the suburb of Kiryat Arba. 

People kept trying to return to the 450 year old Jewish Quarter of Beit Hadassah, but had problems.  In 1979 with Menachem Begin, Prime Minister, 10 women and 40 children set up housekeeping in the basement of the old medical center of Beit Hadassah in the very middle of the city.  The next year 6 men were murdered outside Beit Hadassah.  Then they were given the green light of official Israeli recognition of being there as a Jewish community.  By 1988 there were 3,700 Jews in Kiryat Arba. 

Hebron now has 1,000 plus of almost 100 families with a yeshiva for 250 post-high school student.  They'd have more but there isn't any more apartments available.  Thousands of Jews have been coming there to visit each year.  People come from all over the world besides Israel.  The total population of Hebron is 163,146 and is under the control of Abbas of the Palestinian Authority.  75% are Muslim, 17% Jewish and 8% Christians and others making up Hebron.  Altogether, there are 350,000 Jews living in Judea-Samaria and 210,00 Jews living in East Jerusalem. 

Jordan messed things up for us by illegally occupying Judea with Hebron from 1948 to 1967, a total of 19 years,  keeping Jews out but allowing Arabs to propagate.  The UN is against Israel in saying that Jews living here again is an illegal settlement.  Jews say they are only 3% of Hebron's population.  The land is divided into two areas; H1 and H2.  H2 is 20% with H1 being 80% of the land.  To protect the 3%, Israel is defending  H1 where it lies. 

The mayor is an Arab, Mustepha Natsche.  He told visitors that Jews were not allowed to pray at Ma'arat Hamachpela, the 2nd holiest site to Jews in the whole world.  He went on to tell them that it is a mosque, and only Muslims are allowed to pray there.  They have now claimed a Jewish site as a mosque!  Jews and Christians cannot pray at the Tomb of the Patriarchs either, because it is not a church or a synagogue, but is a mosque, and again, only Muslims are allowed there. 

To top off this horror, Israel has put Hebron on its list of Heritage Sites with UNESCO, and the Palestinians are claiming it as Muslim, which UNESCO goes along with.  We're fighting two battles here; constant missiles and mortars from Gaza and now the lies about our teeny land just claimed for the Muslims through downright detestable lying.  We have a Russian roulette situation with missiles raining down on Southern Israel from Gaza but how do we fight people willing to believe such lies:  only with education and the hope that people will be willing to learn.  Denying our presence in this Holy Land and right to our Jewish Homeland has already been decided in 1948.  We shouldn't have to keep reiterating our history as proof that it is our homeland over and over again because of others who covet what is precious to us.  Actually, they don't really want these places; they just want to keep us away and out of the country completely.  Otherwise they would continue sharing, like Israel does with Jewish religious sites. 

Resource Arutz Sheva news@israelnationalnews.com by David Wilder, Hevron
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia; Hebron
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judea
http://www.hebron.com/english/article.php?id=632
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Bank

What the U.N. Needs to Learn About Jews: They're Not Racists-Never Have Been

Nadene Goldfoot

If anyone in the U.N. has ever read "Genesis" in what is typically called "The Old Testament" which is part of the Jewish "Five Books of Moses", or  "Torah", they would have read the genealogy of mankind (Chapter 10) in that the people of the world were descended from the three sons of Noah and formed one huge family.    The belief is that G-d is the Creator of the world and Father of all men.  This is the beginning of the belief in the brotherhood of man.  Now we know that we are all Homo Sapiens regardless of our color, and science proves this.  In fact, science has even come up with the fact that some Europeans carry a few genes left over from Neanderthal Man.  We all carry quite a mixture of genes. 

The spirit of Judaism is the opposite of racial discrimination.  Moses was the Jewish leader who developed the teachings of Judaism.  He himself married a Cushite woman (Numbers 12) who was considered to be of Ethiopia and was a black woman.  Moses's sister, Miriam and brother, Aaron complained about his choice and were chastised by G-d.  Perhaps this is where Jews first learned not to be racists.  They quickly learned that only marriage with someone of another faith was wrong, not the color of one's skin.   The same had happened with ethnic differences.  Once there was the law against the people of Ammon and Moab from converting to Judaism but this was abolished (Mishnah-Yadayim, 4:4).  In fact, this very point of Moses having married a Black woman has been a point used by others for anti-semitism.  We have been pointed out as a people of mixed black and white heritage.    I for one am a very mixed person with a Jewish father and Gentile mother who converted to Judaism.  My dna test shows me that I am 99.77% European and 0.23% Asian. 

Jews are not a pure race, though many carry the J1 haplogroup which is found to come from Aaron and Moses.  This is called the Cohen haplogroup because Aaron was the first Cohen. 15-23% of Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jews carry the J2 haplogroup.  In the early days of Judaism, women of other beliefs married into the group and converted to Judaism.  This has happened all through history.  Today some Jewish women have been known to marry non-Jewish men.  Most Jews are carrying non-Jewish genes as well as Jewish ones.  Even the descendants of Khazaria, a people whose royal family had converted to Judaism, are such a mixture. 

What is happening today is that a few Palestinians are  being tested for their dna and are finding they also carry the J1 haplogroup genes.  Then the story is coming out that they have been secretly practicing certain rituals found in Judaism.  Many may have not even known that what they were doing came from Jewish practices.   The history is that their ancestors were members of Jewish tribes in the Middle East who were conquered by the early Moslems and the whole tribe was converted  under penalty of death.  Of these, some are thinking of converting back to Judaism.  .  I imagine that these are already Israeli Arab citizens amongst the already 1.3 million Arabs in Israel.  So these people are finding that they are not 100% Arabs as well.  Kurds have also been found to be carrying the J1 haplogroup. Genetically they may be the closest people to the Jews. 

The problem may lie in the fact that Jews are considered "The Chosen People."  In Fiddler on the Roof", Tevia asks G-d if He couldn't choose someone else for a change as he was so tired of pograms.  Moses wrote that Israel had been singled out as G-d's Covenant people.  They out of all peoples had accepted his laws of the 10 commandments which continued to grow to 613.  (Amos 3:2)  You only have I known of all the families of the earth:  Therefore I will visit upon you all your iniquities-(gross injustice, wickedness, sins.)  Being G-d's chosen meant that Jews were to be the example of rightous living for all of mankind.  If they were not perfect, they would pay the penalty.  More was expected of them.  It did not mean that they were better than others.  Indeed, this was a very hard position to have accepted.  They haven't waned for the 3,000 years they have been in existence as Judaism, first monotheistic religion, continues .

The U.N. made the charge in 1975 that Israel,  with a 75% Jewish population is racist because they were created as a Jewish state.  They compared this with South Africa's former apartheid position.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  How sad that such an elite body of nationhood can come up with such rulings without knowing a thing about a people.   Their anti-semitic beliefs have fused into their critical thinking and shows in this decision. 

Jews make up less than 1% of the world's population. They sit in an endangered species group being their neighbor, The Gaza Strip's Hamas terrorists' charter is to destroy them and Iran's beliefs are such that they are also set to exterminate them.   Christianity has 2 billion people, Islam has 1.3 billion, Hinduism has 900 million, Buddhism has 360 million and Judaism has 14 million people.  The Jews are divided almost equally between Israel and the United States with smatterings in other lands.  Though they are the smallest of religious groups, they are able to offer the rest of the world the results of their creative talents which is abundant in the medical fields. 

We have Jews from all the corners of the earth who come in all shades of colors from white Ashkenazis living in the cold countries of Eastern Europe to a darker mocha color from living in Arab lands to blacks from Ethiopia and other African countries to Orientals from China or somewhere along the Silk Route.  More Jews are now being discovered and brought to Israel as they are found to be from our lost tribes of Israel.  From what I've seen after living in Israel is that they all share one quality:  they're all beautiful people.  I just watched "Shalom Israel"'s AIPAC sponsored program on Demand TV of  interviewing a beautiful 30 year old Ethiopian Israeli woman.  Her beauty was remarkable and so much like the Ethiopians I saw living across the street from me on David Eleazar Street in Safed.  No wonder King Solomon fell for the Queen of Sheba!  Her intelligence shone as a great example of Israel's educational system.  She had become an architect and had also served in Israel's air force.  She came to Israel on one of the 3 airlifts at the age of 2 years.  She feels no racial problems.  That's Israel for you.  The goals that Israel's  forefathers had set about to aspire to are being fullfilled. 

Judaism as a religion defines the roles of men and woman and demands more of the men's time  to be in the synagogue than it does the women, but women and men are considered equally important in religious roles though they may serve differently.  In Israel's army, women serve as well and men quite often find that their sergeant is a woman.  From even before Israel's statehood of 1948, women have been fighting alongside men.  Israel even had Golda Meir as the world's first female Prime Minister.  Judaism has many faces and points of view, and women are even becoming rabbi's in the Reform movement. 

While Israel exists as the only Jewish state in the world, Islam has 56 majority countries, Roman Catholics have 49, Protestants have 20, Eastern Orthodox have 12, and the Hindus have 4. Doesn't this make the U.N. guilty of racial and apartheid practices in being against Israel? 

Research: Israel 101 from StandWithUs May 2007

What Does Judaism Say About...?  by Louis Jacobs, 1973

http://jewishfactsfromportland.blogspot.com/ "What Haplogroup We Be" by Nadene Goldfoot

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQzhNlL0lWE&feature=share

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=om9xF4eRTp4&feature=share

England's Murder of Jews in 1100's-1200's: Antisemitism

Nadene Goldfoot

Jews entered England with William the Conqueror inviting them in 1066.  A few could have been there during the Roman times. 

The Crusades took place from 1095 to 1291 with King Richard, The Lionhearted of England taking part in the 3rd Crusade from 1187 to 1192.  Crusaders, in their zeal to get to the Holy Land and chase out the Muslims didn't mind murdering Jews along the way. 

The 12th and 13th Centuries were bad times for Jews in Europe.  They were often murdered, persecuted or faced banishment from counties.  This was a time when Jews could not buy land, and the only occupation they were allowed to work in was money-lending as this was not only distasteful to Christians but not allowed to them.  Jews actually had been invited by the King to serve as money lenders.  As it happened, the Jews were making money from this occupation.  The Christians resented this and the fact that they were profitting from a business which did not include physical labor made them even angrier as they didn't consider it work. 

In 1190, the Jews of York, which was a center of Torah learning, were burned to death by a church mob.  The rabbis had to proclaim a prohibition to live in that city. 

Jews were executed in the 1230's after people falsely blamed them for kidnapping a Christian child.  In 1290 there were murders of Jews and pillaging of their homes.  King Edward II then banished the Jews from England.  Many drowned in the sea trying to leave. 

The remains of 17 Jews were  found in 2004 at the bottom of a medieval well in Norwich, England.  Norwich had been  thriving Jewish community since 1135.  Many had lived near the well.  The condition of the skeletons told the scientists that they were probably murdered or forced to commit suicide, being victims of persecution.  This was reported on the BBC.

The DNA suggests that five of them  were probably members of a single Jewish family.  Forensic anthropologist, Professor Sue Black of the U of Dundee led the investigation team and realized this was a case of persecution and ethnic cleansing. 

11 of the 17 skeletons were children from age 2 to 15.  The 6 adults were men and women.  They were thrown down the well head first. and then the children were thrown in. 

After being ousted in 1290, Jews did not return to England until 1655-57.  By 1690 3,000 had settled there.  There were some Sephardic Jews found to be living in England around 1753.  In the 1800's they were treated badly.  Daniel O'Connell in 1846 tried to make Jews wear identifiable Jewish clothing there. 
Resource: Arutz Sheva news@israelnationalnews.com by Elad Benari: "Jewish Bodies Found in Medieval Well in England "
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_England