tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12677825.post4558363372574509182..comments2024-03-14T02:22:26.957+00:00Comments on Point of No Return: Jewish Refugees from Arab and Muslim Countries: Wistrich z''l and the missing panelUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12677825.post-61064518324171205152015-05-27T12:06:31.814+01:002015-05-27T12:06:31.814+01:00The "missing panel" that will not go awa...The "missing panel" that will not go away.<br /><br />It’s important to keep the subject in mind: <i>“People, Book, Land – The 3, 500-Year Relationship of the Jewish People to the Holy Land</i>” was the name of the project, not persecution or Islamic judeophobia. Sure, persecutions, anti-semitism were part of it, but by no means all of it. Despite the efforts of many to brush the matter under the rug by reducing it to Muslim antisemitism, it is not going away. <br /><br />It will not go away because this scandal is not simply a matter of Muslim countries wanting to deny that there were persecutions, they already know it and it is a well established fact. Rather and much more importantly, <b>it is a matter of erasing half the Jewish people, the Jews of North Africa and the Middle East, the Sephardim, from 3500 history, from existence, and from consciousness.</b> The irony is that it is precisely the North African and Middle Eastern Jews, the part of the Jewish people that maintained a continuous link with the holy land since Roman times and thus maintained the relationship alive that have been cut off from history and memory. <br /><br />As to this now famous sentence, “By 1968, Middle Eastern Jews already represented 48% of the entire Jewish migration to Israel" I wished North African Jews were also mentioned as part of those 48%. I doubt that would have made a difference.<br /><br />Since the opening there have probably many visitors to the exhibit who left with the “knowledge” that to Jews of North Africa and the Middle East, there was no historico-religious connection to Israel and they therefore have no justification to being in Israel. <br /><br /> The untimely death of Robert Wistrich has brought this matter back into the fore. That will not go away.<br />Sylvianoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12677825.post-26323591689887535862015-05-27T04:50:16.060+01:002015-05-27T04:50:16.060+01:00Wistrich and his committee had two choices. To acc...Wistrich and his committee had two choices. To accede to the demands of the UNESCO leaders, or to kick up a huge row. In my opinion the second option would have been better. Israel has no interest whatsoever in agreeing or appearing to agree to any recounting of Jewish history that trivializes or denies the facts of the oppression and maltreatment of Jews. And a well-prepared campaign against UNESCO and the Arab states would have countered the impression that the Jews can be pushed around and dissed.Bennoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12677825.post-32084289622865473352015-05-26T17:16:54.065+01:002015-05-26T17:16:54.065+01:00Thanks for these links, Eliyahu, they are very inf...Thanks for these links, Eliyahu, they are very informative.bataweenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15829104245735619972noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12677825.post-90849384347822910892015-05-26T14:47:25.596+01:002015-05-26T14:47:25.596+01:00these links go to articles by Wistrich on the dan...these links go to articles by Wistrich on the danger of Islamic Judeophobia.<br /><br />http://www.acpr.org.il/english-nativ/02-issue/wistrich-2.htm<br /><br />http://users.ipfw.edu/bartky/Y200Y401%20Judaism/Judaism%20Course-Wistrich%20on%20Muslim%20Anti-Semitism.pdf<br /><br />http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/2.209/comparing-islamic-anti-semitism-to-nazi-germany-at-its-worst-1.4854Eliyahu m'Tsiyonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07973268399414290195noreply@blogger.com