I remember that when I left Israel the last time I told myself that I wanted to be back before Rosh Hashana. To my biggest surprise I MADE IT! Hahaha, somehow I managed, with G-d's guidance of course, to finish massage school and get money and make aliyah preparations and everything all in time to be on the Sept. 7 Nefesh B'Nefesh flight. Not to mention that I didn't pay off all my debts before I left, but I am well on my way to accomplishing that anyway. And I also sent all my applications and stuff really late, so my getting to Israel so quickly was a big surprise to me. Honestly, I just thought of a plan that made it possible and then thought that it was very unlikely to really work but I just followed it anyway. And the next thing I knew I was making aliyah in Sept! Baruch Hashem! I love Hashem! I'm so lucky to be here. I really appreciate it day after day. Funny how so many people were telling me how hard it is to live in Israel. I hear Americans complaining about it tons, I don't think people know how to just be happy with what they have and realize the important things in life that aren't materialistic. Yes, I love driving and I love fast cars. Just because I live in Israel doesn't mean I can't have that. I don't know why people think Israel is such a hard place to make money. I see so many entrepreneur opportunities here and I wonder why more people aren't taking advantage of all the growth and opportunity that there is. This is the best place in the world. Kids here can walk down their block and play with their neighbors without adult supervision, and without their parents worrying for their safety. How many cities in Canada, the US and the UK do you know where children can do that? Name one megacity. In Jerusalem it's like that.
Rosh Hashana was spent in Rishon Letziyon with a lot of my Yemenite family. It's really nice being around a lot of family. Mostly I ate at my savta's (gradmother) house with my uncles and cousins. Yesterday I got a ride back to Jerusalem with my cousins that live in the Arab Quarter of the Old City. From there I made my way back to Tzur hadassah and had the apartment all to myself till the other girls got back today.
Finally tonight all three of us put money together and Mimi and Lia went shopping with our rakezet (the person in charge of us) in Beitar Eilit. So poor Lia was like "wow, finally, look how much food we have." The poor kid. They've been here at least a month and only now there's normal food around and a normal table for everyone to eat dinner at. We have a bedroom and a living room/kitchen, so it gets complicated trying to fit everything in and still look nice and have space. So while the girls went grocery shopping I brought in the table that was exiled to the outdoors because it didn't fit into the apartment without looking ridiculous. After moving around some heavy furniture I was actually able to fit the table in in a decent way so the girls approved when they got back. YAY!!! Hahaha!
So now we have a toaster oven that I can cook chicken and stuff, and normal food around. And maybe soon we'll hang our mirror up on the wall and that will be pretty cool. Mimi also brought and map of Israel from home, so we hung it on my dresser and I'm still soooo in love with Israel that I gave it a huge happy hug. :D
I'm planning on going to Itamar for shabbat to my dad's cousin from Toronto. She made aliyah when she was young and now lives with her thank G-d large family in a gorgeous settlement in the Shomron (Samaria) that I'm absolutely in love with.
Anyway, it's really late and I need to get some sleep because I want to be awake for the cute children in gan tomorrow. Not that I know which gan I'm actually going to yet... By Monday I'm supposed to have a final schedule though. I really hope that happens. I like when I get to see all the kids in all the different kindergartens. I'll keep ya posted!
Shabbat shalom.
Friday, October 3, 2008
Thursday, October 2, 2008
U.S. Textbooks: ‘Jesus was Palestinian’
by Ze'ev Ben-Yechiel
(IsraelNN.com) ‘"Christianity was started by a young Palestinian named Jesus." This is one of hundreds of distortions, misrepresentations and outright lies found about Judaism and Jewish history by a comprehensive study of the 28 most widely used Social Studies textbooks in the United States. In a landmark book called “The Trouble with Textbooks,” Dr. Gary A. Tobin and Dennis R. Ybarra show how millions of American schoolchildren are taught anti-Semitic versions of Jewish history and faith, particularly in relation to Christianity and Islam, in passages that often amount to sheer libel.
The authors found that U.S. textbooks “tend to discredit the ties between Jews and the Land of Israel. Israel is blamed for starting wars in the region and being colonialist. Jews are charged with deicide in the killing of Jesus. All in all, there are repeated misrepresentations that cross the line into bigotry.”
Among the teachings that were found in American textbooks are the following distortions:
· Jesus was a “Palestinian”, not a Jew.
· The Arab nations never attacked Israel. Arab-Israeli wars “just broke out,” or Israel started them.
· Arabs nations want peace but Israel does not.
· Israel expelled all Palestinian refugees.
· Israel put the Palestinians in refugee camps in Arab lands, not Arab governments.
· Palestinian terrorism is nonexistent or minimal.
· Israel is not a victim of terrorism or terrorism against Israel is justified.
· U.S. support of Israel causes terrorism, including 9/11.
· The intifadas were children’s revolts not involving adults or terrorism.
· Jews and Judaism are legalistic. Jews are only about the letter of the law and ignore its spirit.
Tobin and Ybarra point out that in many books the Jewish G-d is depicted as “stern and warlike. G-d’s compassionate qualities, highlighted in lessons about other religions, are missing when Judaism is discussed." They cite numerous cases of a bias against the very foundations of Judaism, while those of Islam and Christianity are treated as fact.
The textbooks “come dangerously close to perpetuating the idea that Jews caused the crucifixion of Jesus and are guilty as a group of deicide, “the killing of G-d.”
In the glossary of one such biased book, World History: Continuity and Change, the entry on the Ten Commandments describes them as "Moral laws Moses claimed to have received from the Hebrew G-d Y-hweh on Mount Sinai." In the very same glossary, however, the book treats the Koran as sacred: It is a "Holy Book of Islam containing revelations received by Muhammad from G-d.”
The study found that “Islam is treated with a devotional tone in some textbooks, less detached and analytical than it ought to be. Muslim beliefs are described in several instances as fact, without any clear qualifier such as ‘Muslims believe . . .’
According to Tobin and Ybarra, a preoccupation with placating Muslims results in “Politically motivated propaganda” that “wheedles its way into textbooks. “Islam is treated with a devotional tone in some textbooks, less detached and analytical than it ought to be. Muslim beliefs are described in several instances as fact, without any clear qualifier such as “Muslims believe...”
The authors found that the Islamic empire of the Middle Ages was presented as “a time of unqualified glory without blemishes” and that Islam and Muslims are portrayed as having “always tolerated Jews,” unlike their Christian counterparts. With respect to both Christianity and Islam, they found that Judaism, both as a spiritual contribution to mankind and as a physical presence in Israel, is commonly deprecated in comparison to the other faiths. Often the textbooks use the words “stories,” “legends,” and even “tales” when discussing Jewish writings, and chapters on Jewish history are full of phrases like “it is told that . . .” or “the Israelites are said to...”
They cited examples where the word “Palestine” was used to describe the land of Israel in historical periods long before the misnomer was invented by the conquering Romans, and found that “several textbooks describe Judaism as only a precursor to Christianity, not a faith of intrinsic value that stands on its own.”
Perhaps most disturbing, they discovered that the textbooks “come dangerously close to perpetuating the idea that Jews caused the crucifixion of Jesus and are guilty as a group of deicide, “the killing of G-d.”
“It is shocking to discover that history and geography textbooks widely used in America’s elementary
and secondary classrooms contain some of the very same inaccuracies about Christianity, Judaism, and the Middle East as those in Iran and the Arab world,” wrote the authors in a summary of the book.
Tobin said that these alarming distortions and inaccuracies were as much a product of “amateurish scholarship” as any anti-Semitic bias, but the effect, he noted, remains the same: “If the president of Iran wants to blast Israel at the U.N., he can use American textbooks to do so."
by Ze'ev Ben-Yechiel
(IsraelNN.com) ‘"Christianity was started by a young Palestinian named Jesus." This is one of hundreds of distortions, misrepresentations and outright lies found about Judaism and Jewish history by a comprehensive study of the 28 most widely used Social Studies textbooks in the United States. In a landmark book called “The Trouble with Textbooks,” Dr. Gary A. Tobin and Dennis R. Ybarra show how millions of American schoolchildren are taught anti-Semitic versions of Jewish history and faith, particularly in relation to Christianity and Islam, in passages that often amount to sheer libel.
The authors found that U.S. textbooks “tend to discredit the ties between Jews and the Land of Israel. Israel is blamed for starting wars in the region and being colonialist. Jews are charged with deicide in the killing of Jesus. All in all, there are repeated misrepresentations that cross the line into bigotry.”
Among the teachings that were found in American textbooks are the following distortions:
· Jesus was a “Palestinian”, not a Jew.
· The Arab nations never attacked Israel. Arab-Israeli wars “just broke out,” or Israel started them.
· Arabs nations want peace but Israel does not.
· Israel expelled all Palestinian refugees.
· Israel put the Palestinians in refugee camps in Arab lands, not Arab governments.
· Palestinian terrorism is nonexistent or minimal.
· Israel is not a victim of terrorism or terrorism against Israel is justified.
· U.S. support of Israel causes terrorism, including 9/11.
· The intifadas were children’s revolts not involving adults or terrorism.
· Jews and Judaism are legalistic. Jews are only about the letter of the law and ignore its spirit.
Tobin and Ybarra point out that in many books the Jewish G-d is depicted as “stern and warlike. G-d’s compassionate qualities, highlighted in lessons about other religions, are missing when Judaism is discussed." They cite numerous cases of a bias against the very foundations of Judaism, while those of Islam and Christianity are treated as fact.
The textbooks “come dangerously close to perpetuating the idea that Jews caused the crucifixion of Jesus and are guilty as a group of deicide, “the killing of G-d.”
In the glossary of one such biased book, World History: Continuity and Change, the entry on the Ten Commandments describes them as "Moral laws Moses claimed to have received from the Hebrew G-d Y-hweh on Mount Sinai." In the very same glossary, however, the book treats the Koran as sacred: It is a "Holy Book of Islam containing revelations received by Muhammad from G-d.”
The study found that “Islam is treated with a devotional tone in some textbooks, less detached and analytical than it ought to be. Muslim beliefs are described in several instances as fact, without any clear qualifier such as ‘Muslims believe . . .’
According to Tobin and Ybarra, a preoccupation with placating Muslims results in “Politically motivated propaganda” that “wheedles its way into textbooks. “Islam is treated with a devotional tone in some textbooks, less detached and analytical than it ought to be. Muslim beliefs are described in several instances as fact, without any clear qualifier such as “Muslims believe...”
The authors found that the Islamic empire of the Middle Ages was presented as “a time of unqualified glory without blemishes” and that Islam and Muslims are portrayed as having “always tolerated Jews,” unlike their Christian counterparts. With respect to both Christianity and Islam, they found that Judaism, both as a spiritual contribution to mankind and as a physical presence in Israel, is commonly deprecated in comparison to the other faiths. Often the textbooks use the words “stories,” “legends,” and even “tales” when discussing Jewish writings, and chapters on Jewish history are full of phrases like “it is told that . . .” or “the Israelites are said to...”
They cited examples where the word “Palestine” was used to describe the land of Israel in historical periods long before the misnomer was invented by the conquering Romans, and found that “several textbooks describe Judaism as only a precursor to Christianity, not a faith of intrinsic value that stands on its own.”
Perhaps most disturbing, they discovered that the textbooks “come dangerously close to perpetuating the idea that Jews caused the crucifixion of Jesus and are guilty as a group of deicide, “the killing of G-d.”
“It is shocking to discover that history and geography textbooks widely used in America’s elementary
and secondary classrooms contain some of the very same inaccuracies about Christianity, Judaism, and the Middle East as those in Iran and the Arab world,” wrote the authors in a summary of the book.
Tobin said that these alarming distortions and inaccuracies were as much a product of “amateurish scholarship” as any anti-Semitic bias, but the effect, he noted, remains the same: “If the president of Iran wants to blast Israel at the U.N., he can use American textbooks to do so."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
