Friday, December 12, 2014

Prince William's Great Grandmother

Long before Prince William walked down the aisle in Westminister Abbey, his great grandmother, Princess Alice (Princess Andrew of Greece), walked there during the wedding of her son Phillip, to Princess Elizabeth. Princess(Alice) Andrew, later at the Coronation of Elizabeth, wore the habit of a nun. An extraordinary woman, she had founded a nurses order composed of nuns in Greece. She modeled the order after one started by her aunt and mentor in Russia, whom she had visited many years earlier. Born Princess Alice of Battenberg, she married Prince Andrew of Greece in 1903, assuming her new title.
During the Second World War, she hid a Jewish widow and her children in Athens, saving their lives. In accordance to her wish, she is buried in Jerusalem, next to her cherished aunt Duchess Fyodorovna, in the Russian Orthodox Church of Maria Magdalene.

Thursday, November 20, 2014

Jew Killing, A Long Tradition

In response to the synagogue killings in Jerusalem, the media has been speculating about a religious war. I'm not sure where those reporters have been for the last 3,000 years, but killing Jews is a historical sport. Almost every language even has special words for the ritual. For many centuries before the Holocaust, killing Jews was called a pogrom. In 1929, the Jews of Hebron were massacred. Yes Dorothy, there were Jews living there long before Israel was created in 1948. There's even a long tradition of killing Jews in their synagogues. Twenty two Jews were murdered in an Istanbul Synagogue in 1986.

What's new is that Jews in Israel are capable of shooting back, capable of defending themselves. Although the world is used to dead Jews, they don't like Jews who fight back. For Israel's audacity to defend itself, it is called racist, apartheid and even nazi. Fortunately for Israel, it doesn't allow those insults to deter them from defending themselves.

Friday, April 18, 2014

A History Lesson From Ukraine


The famous photograph above is called The Last Jew in Vinnitsa. It was taken in Ukraine in September of 1941, when the Nazis shot every Jew in that city within five days. The flyers ordering Jews to register, distributed in Donetsk the other day, harken back to the Holocaust. All together, over 750,000 Jewish men, women and children, were shot to death in Ukraine during the war. Out of a population of 4.3 million, Donetsk currently only has 17,000 Jews. The flyers were a provocation of unknown origin, as opposed to a real threat, but they did make world news.

In Jerusalem, The Evangelical Sisterhood of Mary, a small order of Protestant nuns formed after the war in Germany, is closing it's retreat for Holocaust survivors. The order originally had come to Israel to work in hospitals as repentance for the Nazi crimes against the Jews.  Although the last of the survivors is passing away,  hatred is alive and well.

Thursday, April 3, 2014

Jewish Republicans, Two For One Special

As a group, it's hard for the Democrats to find one that they can count on more than the Jews. In 2008, Obama received 78% of their vote, and still received 75% of their support in 2012, after bashing Israel for four years. Last week, the Republican Jewish Coalition held their meeting in Las Vegas, at Sheldon Adelson's Venetian Hotel. They certainly didn't need such a large facility, Jewish Republicans could barely fill the small banquet room at a local Holiday Inn. Jews are less than 2% of the population. Allowing for independents, Republican Jews are less than 20% of that small number. Never the less, the press was climbing over each other to cover the event. Two of their favorite targets were in one room, Israel supporters and Republicans.