Muslim Crusaders Enter Syria From Europe to Fight

Nadene Goldfoot                                                                       

            Al Qaeda terrorist from Turkey killed by Assad's forces, Burak Karan

The Syrian Civil War is being invaded by Europeans who are joining the fight.  Muslims have moved into Europe, something they refer to as The Big Immigration.  When they do this they are active proselytizers so many Europeans have converted to Islam which is their goal.  Now, German Islamists are fighting against Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad by joining up with the rebels.  These new recruits have become more religiously radicalized since the civil war began in 2011.

In September it was estimated that there were 170 German fighters in Syria already.  50 had traveled there just recently.  Burak Karan, a German football (soccer) star who ended his career at age 20 to go to Syria and fight for al Qaeda,  was killed by Assad's army.  He wanted to be a jihadist.  He was from Turkey originally.  His coach said he could have lived safely in Germany as a soccer player.  He was 25 years old.

200 of them are now in the "German Camp" or on their way to Syria.  They are taking an old route from Germany to Istanbul and then through to the Syrian border.  Der Spiegel news magazine wrote all about it.  The Welt newspaper wrote that so many Islamists are heading to Syria from Europe that the German security services are concerned about the number.  They are afraid that they'll return to Germany even more radicalized after receiving terror training from Al Qaeda and other groups in Syria such as Hezbollah.

Teenagers as young as 15 are leaving Germany and Norway to fight against Bashar Assad in Syria.  Over 100  left Germany just this year.  They all adhere to jihadi ideology.  One child with Free Syrian Army was only 14 years old.  The Muslim Brotherhood is very radical and the Salafists are even more so.  "The Salafist community has also lured adolescents to radicalize them.”It appears that both immigrant Muslims and converted Muslims are becoming jihadists and want to be in the fighting.  

 57 radical Austrian Islamists are currently in Syria engaged in combat against Assad’s regime.  The Austrian intelligence agency stated that roughly half of the Islamists from Austria in Syria have a Chechen origin.

500 is the estimate by Gilles de Kerchove, Belgium senior European Union official,  Director of Justice and Home Affairs (HJA) in the Council Secretariat of the European Union from 1995 – 2007.    He has since been appointed as EU Counter-terrorism Coordinator, succeeding Gijs de Vries.   The largest numbers come from the UK, Ireland and France.  "In the Netherlands, officials have raised the terror threat level there to "substantial" - partly over concerns about radicalised citizens returning from Syria.   It happens that they have large numbers of Muslims.  All share the fear of what may be returning;   fanatical terrorists all trained to kill.  

Several thousand Europeans and Americans can be the total now fighting against Assad.  Most are joining the al-Nusra Front, al Qaeda’s main terrorist group in Syria, along with smaller Islamist militias made up of nationals from more than a dozen foreign countries.  "Nicole Mansfield, a single mother from Flint, Michigan,  was killed traveling with al Qaeda fighters in Syria last May."

USA intelligence estimates that there are now 6,000 foreign fighters in Syria.  "Most of the foreign fighters are from Middle Eastern, North African, and Central Asian states, including Libya, Egypt, Jordon, Kuwait, Lebanon, Morocco, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Algeria, and United Arab Emirates. They obviously will team up with those that came from Europe.  

There is so much zeal to kill that al Qaeda accidentally beheaded the wrong guy, another rebel terrorist.  It happened to be one of their allies.  They had already put the head out on public display, such as people did 2,000 years ago.Then they found out what they had done and apologized.  
  
Just recently the rebels hit a Christian church in Syria.  A school was next to it and the playground was hit, killing about 5 children.  Anyone seen become targets.  In Damascus there are Christians living next door to Muslims and have been getting along well.  Most rebels all belong to some terror group that is being funded.  Of course now we have a more western? group being armed by the United States.  People that really do no want to be part of all this craziness have fled and are refugees with many not even registered as such.  They had to flee on tourist visas quickly.  Homes, offices holding birth certificates, schools, churches have been flattened amid a ground-shaking deafening scream of landing missiles.  Some of the places hit have been very ancient, worthy of having many historic artifacts, now all destroyed.  The rebels don't care and don't even know the value of what they are destroying.

Resource:  http://www.thelocal.de/20131021/52489
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2509784/Former-German-footballer-quit-sport-Jihadist-killed-fighting-al-Qaeda-Syrian-civil-war.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-22275456
http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/German-TV-European-jihadist-teenagers-fighting-in-Syria-329480
http://freebeacon.com/american-european-jihadists-in-syria-raise-new-domestic-terror-fears/
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/11/15/al-qaeda-linked-rebels-apologize-after-beheading-wrong-man-report-says/

Jews' Return to Their Land Sparked By Pogroms and Government Restrictions

Nadene Goldfoot                                                                    

                                           19th Century Pogrom in Russia
Ever since 70 CE, life was one event after another of persecution for Jews. 1096 saw Crusaders slaughtering Jews as they went through European towns on their way to take Jerusalem.  1492 was the year of the Spanish Inquisition and forced conversions of Jews in Spain.   In 1648 to 1656, 100,000 Jews were murdered in the Chmielnicki massacres in Poland.  In 1727 and 1747, Jews were expelled from Russia.   In 1838, the entire Jewish community in Meshed, Persia (today's Iran) were forcibly converted to Islam..

 Jews finally had a formal emancipation in Central and Western Europe from the 18th to 20th centuries, but it did not put an end to discrimination and social ostracism of Jews. This was supposed to be the removal of the disabilities imposed on Jews that had been in place from the 4th century  on.  The Christian Empire enacted an elaborate system of discrimination against Jews which was adopted and intensified in medieval Europe as well as in the Islamic world.  It brought in the Ghetto system aiming at keeping Jews away from the gentile society.      The Dreyfus case in France was a good example of Jewish discrimination and anti-Semitism in 1894 when he was condemned to life imprisonment and ordered to Devil's Island. This led to the affect it had on Herzl and to the development of Zionism.

Continued oppression and outbreaks of pogroms in Eastern Europe were combined with extreme poverty for most of the Jews.  The Hep Hep riots against them began on August 2, 1819 in Wurzburg, Germany. Hep! Hep! was an anti-Jewish slogan used during these riots.  The cry was then said to be of Crusader origin, being formed from the initials of the words Hierosolyma est perdita (Jerusalem is lost).   This continued and reached Denmark, Poland, Latvia and Bohemia.  By 1821 Odessa, Russia  had pogroms against them.  This started up a wave of pogroms.  More occurred in 1859.

A new movement came out of all this suffering of returning to their land and of a revival of Jewish national life.  The Yishuv-the Jewish community already living in Palestine that had never left, started it all.  In 1860, they built the first quarter outside the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem.  Two Hebrew periodicals were regularly published in Jerusalem calling for a return to the Land.  It couldn't have happened at a better time.

In 1870, the first Jewish agricultural college was established in Mikveh Israel which today is on the outskirts of Tel Aviv.  Back in Russia, the next year of 1871 and non-stop until 1921 were years of anti-Jewish pogroms in the towns of Russia including the Pale.  By being in the Pale, it was so much easier to attack Jews.  It was no wonder that the early 1900's saw the immigration of over a million Jews.

By 1881 and subsequent years, Jewish immigrants that belonged to the Hibbat Zion (Love of Zion) movement arrived in Israel from Eastern Europe.  Meyer Levin's "The Settlers", a historical novel, tells about their arrival from the turn of the century to the Balfour Declaration and covers over a 1/4 of a century of turbulent events and their hardships as pioneers.  Some had joined existing villages while others founded new ones.  Some of the villages established during the last 2 decades of the century are large towns today; Hadera and Rishon Le-Zion, for example.

From  1882 to 1890, 750,000 Jews living in Russia were forced to re-settle in the Pale of Settlement; 25 provinces of Czarist Russia,  areas under Catherine II's reign of Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, White Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and the Crimea.  In 1891 Jews were then expelled from Moscow and St. Petersburg and sent to the Pale.

The Jews who returned to the Land during this period are known as "the First Aliya."  Aliya  literally means: going up-spiritually, ascent;.  In practice, it has come to signify immigration to Israel.   The conditions in which the first Aliya-and subsequent waves of immigration-settled in the Land were extremely harsh.  The population was small and dispersed.  Communications were poor and insecure.  The Land had been completely neglected.  Pioneers faced swamps,and with it,  malaria,  The Ottoman Empire, which lasted for 400 years by 1917, was hostile and oppressive towards both Arabs and Jews, which is probably  why the native Jews hadn't been able to keep up the land.  Life for these pioneers was a continuous ordeal and new villages survived precariously.

By 1897, Theodor Herzl organized the First Zionist Congress in Basle and founded the World Zionist Organization.  Zion  had been the traditional synonym for Jerusalem and for the entire land, so was the proper word to use.  A growing realization that Jews should follow the path of self-determination which other nations were following such as the Greeks, Italians and Poles.  Zionism became the national liberation movement of the Jewish people.  It's aims were to carry out the return of Jews to the Land and the revival in it of Jewish national life; socially, culturally, economically and politically.

So a 2nd Aliya came to Israel in 1904 to 1914 which reinforced existing villages and founding new ones.  The Yishus began to organize itself politically with socialist groups figuring prominently.  In 1909 the first kibbuts-Degania-was establish on the southern shore of Lake Kinneret.  That same year was when Tel Aviv was founded on the sand dunes outside of Jaffa.

Hebrew was becoming the principal language of the Yishuv with the emerging Hebrew literature.  Life was still harsh and many of the newcomers left.  However, by 1914, there were 85,000 Jews in the Land.  The Land became occupied by Britain 4 years later with the end of WWI and they governed it for 30 more years.  They left and Israel was declared a state on May 14, 1948.  .

After all the suffering Jews have had to endure for 2,000 years at the hands of the governments of the world, they finally passed the Balfour Declaration that gave Jews the right to have their own land back, a decision on November 2, 1917 with the League of Nations.   The promise on paper was given to establish the Jewish National Home, and now even that is in limbo with nations today with discrimination in the UN.  The struggle continues for rights and recognition in our own homeland.  This time we're not going to be driven out.  

Resource: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pogrom
Facts About Israel by the Division of Information, Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Jerusalem 1973

Life Outside of Israel and Judea in Diaspora: Expulsions in an Intolerant World Society

Nadene Goldfoot                                                                         

                     The Life, Culture and Religion of the Byzantine Empire

 Jews faced expulsion from Rome in 139 BCE by the praetor, Hispanus.  Jews had migrated to Rome from Alexandria, Egypt.  They then made up a significant part of the population there.   This was during the Ptolemaic era.   They had then gone to Rome.  Josephus, the Jewish general who had been the historian for the Romans said that he himself had led 120,000 Jewish captives, probably from the fall of Jerusalem in 70 CE  to Egypt from Jerusalem and other parts of Judea, Samaria and Mt. Gerizim.  Soon after they were freed of their bondage  by Philadelphus.

The Roman Empire made Constantinople its capital by the 4th Century and this was called the Byzantine Empire.  This empire extended throughout the world and included "Palestine" even by the year 637.  The eastern emperors  had specific religious attitudes towards Jews.  Justinian (527-65) created anti-Jewish laws in his Code, and also issued a decree in 553 which affected the conduct of the synagogue services.  Heraclius around 614 to have issued an edict ordering the conversion of the Jews.  Judaism was continually forbidden by successive emperors; by Leo in 223, Basil I in 873-4, Romanus Lucapenus in 932-6, and so it went.  Each time Jewish life picked up and continued.  It was not about to be stomped out.

Benjamin of Tudela around 1170 found Jewish communities throughout the Byzantine Empire.  He discovered that Jews were treated with contempt in Constantinople.  The last remaining Jews there were conquered by the Turks in 1453.

The results of religious intolerance grew in the early Middle Ages.  Forced conversions to the dominant faith of Christianity without the alternative of exile was frequent during the days of the Byzantine Empire.  Jews faced expulsions when they refused to be converted to Christianity.  Today, the city of Constantinople is renamed as Istanbul.  The Eastern orthodox church grew out of it and separated from the Western Church with its headquarters in Rome in 1054.  Later it again divided into the Greek Orthodox and the Russian Orthodox with each group being independent.

  This is why the Pilgrims braved a journey in the Mayflower and sailed from Holland to the unknown land of America in 1620.  Though they were Christians, their outlook was a little different than the English viewpoint.  Thus, the USA became a country of religious tolerance; not quickly, but eventually.

We're still wondering if Christopher Columbus was Jewish by birth.  He wrote letters to his son in Hebrew.  His interpreter, Luis de Torres, a converted Jew, was the first European to set foot on American soil. His name was Yosef ben HaLevi Halvi.   Jews who were hiding the fact and pretending to be Catholics that had been converted were called Marranos.  Marranos had settled in both the Spanish and the Portuguese colonies because of the Inquisition of 1492.  The term, Marranos is not used today. Jews do not eat any meat from pigs.   It means "swine" in Spanish and was applied in Spain and Portugal to the descendants of baptized Jews who were suspected of secret adherence to Judaism.  Another word used today to replace the pejorative term of Marranos is Anussim, a Hebrew word.   Inquisitors would have people report on suspects who were thought to have evidence of them refusing to eat any pork products.  It is said that the Inquisition still exists in Portugal today!

 After the massacres in 1391 in Spain, more Jews in this position grew to appreciate their Jewish heritage.  All the Jews of Portugal for forcibly converted in 1497.  With the Inquisition in Portugal by 1540, the Marranos/Anussim were persecuted in Spain to the close of the 18th century and into Mexico into the 1800's.  Many escaped to Italy, North Africa and Turkey.  Anussim in Italy lived in Ancona, Ferrara, Venice and Leghorn.  Antwerp was another popular center in the 16th century.  Amerstadam, Holland was another as well as the Hague and Rotterdam.   When Brazil was under Dutch rule (1630-54) the first openly Jewish communities were founded by native Anussim and immigrants from Holland.

By 1880, the Jewish population in the USA had grown to 250,000 mostly from German Jews.  A small group settled in Canada then.   The pogroms of 1881 in Russia brought Russian Jews and immigration continuing into 1914, when it was lessened.  Jews went into Latin America such as Baron de Hirsch's agricultural colonies in Argentina.  1924's legislation in the USA  caused more Jews to immigrate to Canada and South America.  By 1933 those Jews in Germany were trying to immigrate to these places.  Spanish-speaking Sephardi immigrants were attracted to South America.  By 1989, Jews of the USA numbered 5,825,000.  47,000 lived in Central America and 390,000 lived in South America.

Religious intolerance continues in the USA but has taken on a new form.  By being intolerant to Israel, people  are venting their intolerance again towards Jews.  I notice many Protestant groups that are boycotting Israel's products as a religious body in trying to force them to think their way, not towards religion, necessarily but towards their attitude towards the Palestinians whom they know very little.  They side with a people trying to destroy Israel.  This is plain enough for me to see that they are not much different than the Byzantine Empire's attitude towards Jews.  On the other side of the coin are the Evangelical Christians who support Jews in order to carry forth their own religious concepts and that they support our right to live there as Jews.

139 BCE:  Jews expulsed from Rome

 19 CE        "        "                       "

 49/50        "        "                       "

115 CE     Jews expulsed from Cyprus

1182      Royal dominions of France-expulsed Jews who wouldn't convert

1290     All Jews expulsed from England

1306      Jews expulsed from France
1322       "                                "
1394      "                                "
1348/49  Jews expulsed from Germany  after Black Death Massacres
1349-60 Jews expulsed from Hungary
1421     Jews expulsed from Austria
1484     Jews  kept out of Andalusia, an autonomous community in Spain with Seville as capital
1492    Jews expulsed  from Spain and Spanish dominions including Sicily and Sardinia of 180,000
1495    Jews expulsed from Lithuania
1497    Jews expulsed from Portugal or fate was forced conversions, also Sicily and Sardinia
1498    Jews expulsed from  Navarre, now part of Spain and France
1502    All Jews expulsed from Rhodes, or forcibly converted or taken as slaves
1512   Jews expulsed from  Provence, a province of SE France
1541   Jews expulsed from kingdom of Naples, Italy
1569   Jews expulsed from smaller centers of papal dominions in Italy and France.
1727   Jews expulsed from Little Russia
1739    "                              "
1742   "                              "
1747  Jews expulsed from Russia again.
1891  Jews expulsed from Moscow and St. Petersburg
19th Century Jews expulsed periodically from areas outside of PALE OF SETTLEMENT (Russian land where Jews were allowed to live-Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Belorussia, Ukraine)
1930's during Nazi power people with Jewish ancestry, regardless of present religious affiliations, compelled their emigration by means of ferocious persecution before they even started to deport and exterminate Jews.

For the Jewish people today, the remnant of a people who brought to the world the 10 Commandments and laws of which acts are acceptable and which aren't,  as well as a vast history of the beginnings of man in the Middle East and even brought into the world Jesus according to their own history,  there has been nothing but intolerance and unacceptedness.  Because Jews refused to convert and let go of their beliefs, they have suffered mightily.  Here they are today in their own land once again.  They know what has happened to their people when they were forced to leave.  They hold on with all their might to land legally theirs once again.

One of the miracles of today are a few Christians who are actually studying the Torah and are finding it awesome.This is not through any Jewish proselyting but they are discovering this on their own.   I believe this has brought on new found respect for the Jewish people who have always found it awesome and worth saving.  Perhaps if such an attitude existed long ago, the world would be a much different society.  At least we can say that many Jewish lives wouldn't have been uprooted or wouldn't have suffered such horrible deaths.  .

Resource:  The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10721a.htm on Navarre
http://sefarad.org/sefarad/sefarad.php/id/29/  "I am a Marrano"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marrano
http://www.jackwhite.net/iberia/portugal.html   excellent
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luis_de_Torres
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Egypt
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ptolemy_II_Philadelphus
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnaeus_Cornelius_Scipio_Hispanus
Facts About Israel , divisionof Information, Ministry for foreign affairs, Jerusalem 

Part II The Holocaust-How It Got Started With Kristallnacht

Nadene Goldfoot                                                               

                                      Jewish Stores in Berlin
The American Wall Street Crash of 1929 affected Europeans as well.  It had a devastating effect on the German economy which was very dependent on loans from American banks.  The loans were called in and German businesses and banks folded, so unemployment suddenly spun out of control. Political  parties in Germany from 1918 to 1924 were in political and economic turmoil. It was said that it took a wheelbarrow full of marks to buy a loaf of bread.   As the value of the German mark fell, savings of the middle class disappeared and unemployment had soared.  The far right parties opposed the Weimar Republic, hated democracy and socialism, resented the Versailles peace settlement that took away German territory, probably stolen in the first place by them, regarded modern culture as degenerate, which it was becoming, and believed that the Jews were behind all these ill, which they weren't.  

State sponsored boycotting of Jewish businesses was allowed by Hitler on 1st and 2nd of April 1933.  If the Jews didn't fight in WWI from 1914 to 1918, they were fired from  civil service.  Many other laws pushed Jews from other areas of government employment, such as doctors working for state health plans.  Jews were "systematically purged from cultural institutions" after they were taken over by the Nazi Party.  Everyone was of the mind that this wouldn't last long.  July 1934 was when Hitler started a bloody purge of the SA( storm troopers).  August 20, 1935 was the enactment of the Nuremberg Laws against Jews.  The list is long.  One thing was that they couldn't marry a Jews or have intercourse with one.  If you had 3 or 4 Jewish grandparents you were also Jewish, even if you were a practicing Catholic!  One reason Jews had converted to Christianity was to evade restrictive laws on Jews that were in existence, but now even that didn't help.

12,700 Jewish children attended Jewish schools from 1933-1934.  58,000 were in non-Jewish ones.  Suddenly Jews in Jewish schools rose to 18,500 and then 20,000 from 1935-36.  By 1936-37 there were over 23,600 in the Jewish schools.  Most of their teachers were Jewish as well, some having been teachers in the city schools that were fired.  They all tried to act normal, so the paradox was that Jewish cultural life flourished.  

In September 1935 Hitler announced in Nuremberg that Jews would lose their civil rights and would be 2nd class citizens.  For 2 years there was calm.  In  1936 Jews could still sit in cafes on the boulevards of Berlin and drink coffee while reading Jewish newspapers.  Few Jews felt the need to emigrate though in 1933 there were 37,000 who left Germany in a panic, but only 23,000 left the next year.    In 1935, 10,000 returned thinking it was all over.  Emigrating to Palestine were 7,600 in 1933 and 9,800 in 1935 but for the next 2 years only 8,500.  Then the emigration was held down due to restrictions imposed by the British who controlled Palestine.  The Jews were kept out while they let Arabs in without any documentation.  

The start of 1938 found Hitler feeling stronger and meaner.  Austria was merged with Germany by occupying the country with his army.  Austria was home to about 185,000 Jews.  170,000 lived in Vienna, the capital.  Jews made up a little more than 3% of Austria's population but about 10% of Vienna.  They lived in 8 districts and in some were the majority.  62% were Viennese lawyers, about 62% were in finance and commerce, and almost half of the city's doctors were Jewish.  Jews were outstanding in trade, from corner shops to department stores here.  They made an easy target for anti-Semites and the socially disaffected.  Austria, where Hitler was born, was even more anti-Semitic than Germany.  Vienna had been ruled by Dr. Karl Lueger from 1897 to 1911, one of the most anti-Semitic politicians.  

They came into the fold with  hatred for the Jews.  Soon after Austria's annexation, Jews were assaulted in the streets and ritually humiliated.  Anti-Jewish laws had been passed over a period of 5 years in Germany were enforced quickly.  Jewish businesses were shut down and sold off.  Apartments were seized and occupants evicted.  By August 1938, Adolf Eichmann, the SS lieutenant-colonel, was to organize the rapid emigration of Jews.  In 18 months he had 150,000 Jews stripped of their rights, property and money on their way to other countries who refused them.  .  

Switzerland was afraid of Jewish immigration to their country in the autumn of 1938 so wanted passports marked with a J stamp, and Jews had to add Israel and Sarah to their names on all personal documents so that Nazi officials and immigration officers in other countries could identify a Jew easily.  

In October the Germans moved against Jews of Polish nationality or origin.  They were rounded up and expelled to Poland, who didn't want them so refused to admit them.  They were left to die in the frontier zone.  This made the son of such people, Herschel Grynszpan, who lived in Paris, so mad that he got a revolver and went into the German Embassy on November 7th and shot the first man he met, Ernst vom Rath, who died 2 days later. 

 Now  Josef Goebbels had the reason to start a pogrom against the Jews.  During November 9th all over Germany and Austria were thugs beating up Jews and Jewish men were arrested.  The SA and SS men set fire to 1,000 synagogues, smashed 7,500 Jewish owned businesses, invaded and ransacked Jewish homes and assaulted and killed over 90 Jewish men.  30,000 Jewish men were herded by the police into concentration camps until ransomed out by their frightened families.  Ursula Rosenfeld's father was taken to Buchenwald concentration camp where he was beaten to death.  Jack Hellman's father got out of the camp alive, somehow.  This was Kristallnacht.  The main streets were littered with broken glass of Jewish shops. 

The Jewish community then had to pay a huge fine for vom Rath's death and had to compensate all damage. Following this were many laws taking away any way to make a living.  They couldn't get out of the country.  Countries were so anti-Semitic and wouldn't let them in. as pro-German fascist movements ruled in them.  In Evian, France in July 1938 a conference was held about this refugee problem which was a failure.  President Roosevelt had called for it.  The 32 countries that had delegates there wouldn't accept any Jews except a very tiny number.  This was the background to take children from Germany and Austria to England. 

 Roosevelt recalled the US ambassador in Berlin.  Neville Chamberlain,  who was always wrong on visualizing what the Germans would do,  told his sister that he was "horrified by the German behavior to the Jews."  By the 25th of November, Viscount Samuel asked through the BBC Home Service for foster homes and received 500 offers.  Any home that was clean and the family looked respectable was treasured and acceptable.  By the end of August 1939, the organization, RCM, ran out of money and couldn't take in any more children.  WWII  broke out a few days later.  Hundreds of children waiting on trains were trapped.  Homes in England were bombed and the government then made plans to evacuate children and pregnant women to "safe" areas.  So the children of the Kindertransport were caught in this great migration to the countryside as well.  

Continuing with Into the Arms of Strangers by Mark Jonathan Harris and Deborah Oppenheimer

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/nurlaws.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_Laws

How German Jews Became Stateless and Tattooed, in Holocaust of 6 Million Jews

Nadene Goldfoot
Chaim  Weizmann was quoted in The Manchester Guardian as saying: "The world seemed to be divided into two parts – those places where the Jews could not live and those where they could not enter."

German Jews were being persecuted by Hitler who called Jews "criminals" when the Nuremburg Laws of 1935  came out making Jewish stateless refugees in their own country.  No one thought they weren't at home in Germany.  German Jews had been soldiers and had fought for Germany.  My uncle's father put on his uniform when he was forced to clean the streets, he, a Jewish sausage maker.  I've traced his family back to 1830 and they were probably there sooner than that.  Jews were in Germany as early as 321 CE in Cologne and elsewhere on the Rhineland.  There had even been Jewish soldiers in the Roman garrisons in Germany.  In the 8th and 9th century the Carolingian royal house had a pro-Jewish policy encouraging the settlement of Jews with the object of developing trade.  So Jews never expected to suddenly be expelled one day.  

By 1938, 450,000 of the 900,000 German Jews had fled to Palestine, held by the British who had the mandate.  Then the White Paper of May 23, 1939  by Neville Chamberlain came out barring most Jews from entering all during WWII.  Only 75,000 were allowed to enter from 1940-1944, the major part of the war.  They had it fixed so only 10,000 could come each year and the extra 25,000 was only for emergencies.  Jews already there were kept from buying land in Palestine.  

March 1938 was when Germany annexed Austria and 200,000 more Jews became stateless.
September 1938 was when Britain and France let Germany occupy Czechoslovakia and by the next year, March 1939, 200,000 more Jews found themselves stateless.  

Doesn't this sound familiar?  "In February 1939, the British held a conference  in London to negotiate an agreement between the Arabs and the Zionists. The Palestinian Arab delegates would only attend on condition that there were no direct meetings with Zionist representatives since this would be recognition of the legitimacy of Zionists claims over Palestine. So the British government held separate meetings with the two sides. The conference ended in failure on March 17, 1939.

"According to David Wyman, "The United States and its Allies were willing to attempt almost nothing to save the Jews."  Anti-Semitism was rampant in the 1920's and even worse in the 1930's.  By 1940 Jews were 3.7% of the national population.  Today there are about 5 to 6 million Jews in the USA making Jews under 2% of the USA population.  About 100,000 German Jews arrived in the 30's.  My uncle was one of the last who arrived  about May 12, 1939 from Boppard Germany through Hamburg's port.  These Jews had strings attached.  They had to be backed by someone in the states who took economic responsibility for them and had to get them jobs first before they could come here.

"The Holocaust was largely ignored by America media as it was happening  We didn't have internet then.  Newspapers didn't report on it.  Our government knew and didn't tell us.  Sulzberger, publisher of the New York Times, a Reform Jew himself, "kept issues of concern regarding Jews off the editorial page and burying stories about Nazi atrocities against Jews in short items deep inside the paper. In time he grew increasingly out of step with the American Jewish community by his persistent refusal to recognize Jews as a people and despite obvious flaws in his view of American democracy.  Hollywood films and radio with few exceptions avoided questioning Nazi persecution of Europe's Jews prior to Pearl Harbor. Jewish studio executives did not want to be accused of advocating Jewish propaganda by making films with overtly antifascist themes."  Oh, the webs we weave.  By deceiving themselves and not caring for their Jewish brothers they helped Hitler to kill off 6 million by their over-zeal at being an American.

Resource:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89vian_Conference
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/nurlaws.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Paper_of_1939
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia: Germany

Alfred de Zayas: UN Human Rights Blunder

Nadene Goldfoot
The UN must stay up nights trying to think up ways to gang up on Israel.  Yesterday they adopted a resolution ratifying 22 resolutions against Israel and only 4 against others in the world. they have also  appointed in March another special Rapporteur, Alfred de Zayas as the Independent Expert on the promotion of a democratic and equitable international order, which is an anti-West mandate written by Cuba's Communist regime.  Of course he's Cuban-born. This makes him eligible to be on a UN committee of Human Rights, comprising such countries  as" Congo, China, Cuba, and Saudi Arabia, and has as its Vice President a country, Mauritania, that is considered the world’s worst enabler of modern slavery."

Zayas, born May 31, 1947 in Havana, Cuba and a Roman Catholic, came to America with his family after the Cuban Revolution and grew up in Chicago,  and graduated from Harvard Law School.  He also has  a doctorate of philosophy in modern history from a Georg-August University of Gottingen, Germany.  He attended other schools in Germany, such as in Heidelberg, Braunschweig and Tubingen, Baden-Wurttemberg.  He was an American corporate lawyer with Simpson Thacher & Bartlett from 1970 to 1974, and a retired member of the Florida Bar, writer, historian and leading expert in human rights and international law as well as a retired high-ranking UN official from 1981-2003 in Human Rights..  This explains their stand against Israel which has become the rule rather than the exception.  He now lives in Geneva, Switzerland, teaching there at the Geneva School of Diplomacy and International Relations.

How does he feel about Jews and Israel and America?  He said that "Israel emerged out of terrorism against the indigenous population " and its representatives should be denied UN accreditation.  America bears "responsibility for the destabilization of...countries in the Middle East."  George W. Bush and Tony Blair are Pharisees."  Thoughts on the Bible and WWII are also shocking.  "He expounded that "The Old Testament is characterized by "cruelty" and "profound unreligiousity," its patriarchs equipped with divine legitimacy and justification to take our promised Lebensraum by force."  "Moses had such a rough time bringing the Jewish people across the Red Sea because half of them were busy picking up pretty shells." World War II shows what side he has been on with, "Churchill and Roosevelt connived at "a form of genocide" against the Germans.  World War II Allies who fought Nazi Germany should have been prosecuted for "barbarous" and "gruesome" crimes;  the Nuremberg court that judged Nazi war criminals had "hardly any legitimacy."  "Nurembuerg was an exercise in hypocrisy.  A continuation of hate and war...a corruption of legal norms and procedures, a pollution of philosophy, a truly Pharisee tribunal."   Doesn't he fit the seat at the Human Rights table, though, to judge others.

A German historian, Dr. Bernward Dorner who specializes in anti-Semitism said that Zayas ignores decades of research in his quest to absolve the Germans of having known about the Holocaust, and his evidence and reasoning are faulty.  Professor Frank M. Brucher said in the 1993 issue of German Studies Review article that Zayas "makes no attempt to integrate his work with that of existing historiography on WWII, Nazi Germany or war crimes in general."  Another article of September 17, 2011 by Willi Van Ooyen, "Main-Taunus-Kurier, said that "Controversial international law expert Alfred de Zayas operates in the discourse of the extreme right."  German historian Wolfgang Wipperman accused him of historical revisionism in the Frankfurter Rundschau, "Revanchismus an Schulen: Vertriebenen-Thesen fur Abendgymnasien."

"The Commission was also criticized for bias against Israel. In 2002 Anne Bayefsky, a professor of international law at York University in Toronto, wrote that "commission members seek to avoid directly criticizing states with human rights problems, frequently by focusing on Israel, a state that, according to analysis of summary records, has for over 30 years occupied 15 percent of commission time and has been the subject of a third of country-specific resolutions." On April 15, 2002, the Commission approved a resolution affirming the "legitimate right of the Palestinian people to resist the Israeli occupation in order to free its land and be able to exercise its right of self-determination.  In so doing, the Palestinian people was declared "fulfilling its mission, one of the goals and purposes of the United Nations".

Of the 53-member commission, 40 countries voted yes, five voted no, and seven abstained. Although widely reported that the resolution condoned resistance to Israel by "all available means, including armed struggle," the resolution itself does not contain those words.Alfred Moses, a former United States ambassador to the commission and now chairman of the monitoring group UN Watch, said that "A vote in favour of this resolution is a vote for Palestinian terrorism"In a letter to the UNHRC on November 15, 2002, following an attack by Palestinians on Israelis in the town of Hebron, Nabil Ramlawi, the permanent observer for Palestine at the U.N., appealed to the resolution as justification for the attack.

When Zayas, considered a Holocaust deniers' hero,  was confronted about his attitude, he expounded that he had only received positive comments from professors hitherto.Indeed, British Ambassador Peter Booderham was supposed to represent the interests and values of Western democracies, but failed to do so.  Britain, France, Germany and the USA are now in peril if they worry about this Human Rights committee. Israel already is the main scapegoat.

This appointment reflects the values of Human Rights of the UN's morality.

Resource: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred-Maurice_de_Zayas
UN watch  briefing@unwatch.org
http://blog.standforisrael.org/articles/u-n-again-bashes-israel-while-ignoring-the-rest-of-the-world
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Commission_on_Human_Rights

Jews Getting into Lithuania From Charlemagne's Invitation to Germany

Nadene Goldfoot
Already in the year 300 CE Jews were scattered in many places from the fall of Jerusalem in 70CE and the Bar Kokhba's Uprising of 135 CE.  That was it. Though some were able to remain, many fled throughout the Roman Empire except Britain where they were not welcomed until 1066.  They went to Asia Minor, East to the Caspian Sea area and to the Persian Gulf.  They were even living in Cologne, Germany.  In fact, Jews were living in Germany by the 4th century.  It was in 321 that Emperor Constantine issued regulations allowing this Jewish community to have rabbis and elders.  Ashkenazi Jews descended from the medieval Jewish communities along the Rhine in Germany from Alsace in the south to the Rhineland in the north.  Jewish soldiers were even found to be in the Roman garrisons of the period.

"Many Jews fled to Mesopotamia, which is modern Iraq, and the rest fled to lands around the Mediterranean, presently known as southeastern Spain, southern France, southern Italy, Greece, Cyprus, and Turkey. Later, the Jews began to head north (to present day northern France, Belgium, Holland, and Germany, Austria, Bulgaria, Bosnia) and northern Africa (Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco)." Jews were established early along the Rhone River in Lyons in France.

Litvaks were what both my grandparents were. My grandmother (Bobba) was so proud to be one.   My grandfather, Nathan Goldfus, later changed to Goldfoot, was born in Telsiai, Lithuania and my grandmother, Hattie Jermulowske, was born in Lazdijai,  Suwalki, Poland, next door.  They met in the mountains of a tiny mining town of Council, Idaho.  They only spoke Yiddish, so must have been elated to find each other, both single, she being 18 years old and he 23.  She had been a recent immigrant to the USA but he had left Lithuania and meandered through England, then Dublin, Ireland into Canada and finally worked himself into Idaho.
 They most likely were speaking the main Yiddish dialects in Europe, The Litvishe Yiddish (Lithuanian Yiddish) dialect that was spoken by Jews in Lithuania, Belarus, Latvia, Estonia and the Suwalki regionof NE Poland.  Yiddish has 4 main components;  Hebrew (written in Hebrew) old French and Italian, German and Slavic.  The German stands out as what was used as medieval German of the Middle Rhine region.  German words make up about 85% of the vocabulary and basic grammatical structure.  Hebrew is found in the religious and intellectual areas.  Recently English was entering the language.  Neither one could read or write English and I doubt if they were even schooled in Lithuanian or Russian, either.   My grandmother never did get the chance to go to school.

Charlemagne, Ruler of France and Western Germany Invites Jews to Live There for Economic Reasons 742-814

By the 8th Century, Jews began migrating and living in Lithuania, probably coming out of Germany.  Possibly my paternal ancestors of Goldfus were with them.  They could not depend on their safety there.  It depended on the whims of those in power.

First Settlement of Jews in Great Lithuanian Princedom or Magnus Ducatus Lithuaniae

In 1387 the Christian Catholic religion was introduced all over Lithuania.  

In 1388 The Jews  had the good fortune to be granted a charter by Vytautas (Witold).  They were invited by the Grand Dukes Gediminas and Vytautas  where they formed a class of freemen that were subject in all criminal cases directly under the jurisdiction of the grand duke and  his official representatives.  In petty suits they were under the jurisdiction of local officials on an equal footing with the lesser nobles (szlachta), boyars, and other free citizens.  This meant that by living there they were protected as well as their property.  They had the freedom to maintain their religious rituals.  They were allowed to lend money and were protected against blood libels.  The community prospered.  Since Christians were not allowed to lend money, this may be why the dukes invited them.  They were valuable  as the merchants and financiers of Christian Europe.

The winds changed and in 1495, 3 years after the major Spanish Inquisition in Spain, these 6,000 Jews were expelled by Alexander Jagiellon, the Grand Duke. their property was confiscated.   Then the winds shifted again and they were allowed to return in 1503, 8 years later and he was the King of Poland.  He gave the Jews back only part their property.

The Christians now living there, mostly Germans, were envious.  They had organized into unions and saw Jews as competitors.

Later on, the Lithuanian statute or law of 1566 placed many restrictions on the Jews and imposed laws including the requirement that they had to wear special clothing that stood out, including yellow caps for men and yellow kerchiefs for women.

The northeast section of Lithuania was Zamut.  The first Jewish settlers there were involved with the business of customs and tax collection.  Vilna Jews were expelled and came here to live in 1827 and Memel Jews moved into there in 1567.

Many Lithuania Jewish institutions were destroyed in the Khmelnytsky Uprising.  Nevertheless, the Jews must have toughed it out because their population grew from about 120,000 in 1569 to about 250,000 by 1792.  I found my ancestor, Iones "Jonas" Goldfus,  living in about 1730 in Telsiai, Lithuania.  It's one of the oldest towns in Lithuania, mentioned in 1320.  .  Until 1795 it was part of the Polish-Lithuanian Kingdom and was under Russian rule.

From 1569 to 1795 was the period of actual unification of the Great Lithuanian Dukedom with Poland within the framework of the "Polish Republic" or Rzeczpospolita.  

My grandmother, Hattie, lived in Lazdey, Suwalki and Jews had already settled there by the end of the 16th century.  They had permission to live there from King Jan Sobiesky.   Jews had occupations there by the town was surrounded by Jewish farms and farmers until WWI.

People made a living from agriculture throughout this time from breeding cattle and poultry, fishing in rivers and lakes and harvesting trees.  A few Jews were peddlers.  (My grandfather took this up upon living in Portland, Oregon. Hattie's brother and sister's husband stayed in rural Eastern Oregon and dealt with buying hides.)   A few Jews worked with import and export of agricultural products.  A few were granted the privilege to lease the collection of levies..  Many Jewish artisans and merchants settled near the taverns and storehouses near crossroads and in river ports that sprung up  and became villages and towns.

By the 18th Century 83 settlements were granted recognition as a town.  Right for commercial activity was grated to 87 settlements.  There were no differences between small and big towns this way.

Christian Lithuanians still believed in devils and ghosts and Jews replaced those thoughts in Blood libels, saying that we killed children and drank their blood.

After 1793's Second Partition of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Lithuanian Jews became subjects of the Russian Empire.  Poland and Lithuanian were in what was called the "Pale of Settlement" an area set off where Jews were allowed to live. There were many harsh limitations imposed on the Jews living here that continued until WWI.  (Note the movie of Fiddler on the Roof.)   They were not allowed into Russia proper.

Resource: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Jewish_history
Book:  Preserving Our Litvak Heritage-a history of 31 Jewish communities in Lithuania by Josef Rosin by JewishGen, Inc.
http://fcit.usf.edu/holocaust/People/displace.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Germany
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashkenazi_Jews
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/10212-lyons

Warning of Future Anti-Semitic Attacks in Germany

Nadene Goldfoot
Germany's chief of Intelligence, Heinz Fromm has warned us about  the Salafist Muslims who have clashed with  the German police since April 2011.  They   have come into enough  clashes  to make him feel that it's possible there will be an attack on Jews similar to the Toulouse school attack in France.

Germany has 4 million peaceful Muslims living in their country.  Salafists numbering 4,000 have lately been causing problems and have been a  threat to the Jewish population, which in 2005 numbered 115,000. In 2004  there had been 50 anti-Semitic attacks.  Evidently it's getting worse.

There are about 81,880,000 people living in Germany.  It is the 15th most populous country in the world.  The area of Germany is only 357,093sq. km  which is 137,847 square miles.   That is about the same size as Montana which has 147,046 sq. mi or New Mexico with 121,593 sq mi.

That makes a very dense population.

Altogether in our 50 states, we only have about 5 million Jews (about 5,128,000), living mainly in New York and California.  There are about 2.8 million Muslims living in America.
Israel has a population of 7,881,000 with 5,931,000 being Jewish and 1,623,000 Arabs while 327,000 are Christian and other groups.

Resource: http://www.ejpress.org/article/news/58340
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Germany
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_American_state_is_Germany_closest_to_in_size
http://www.ejpress.org/article/news/58340
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Society_&_Culture/newpop.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Jews
http://judaism.about.com/od/jewishhumor/f/jewry_german.htm