Daily Archives: August 29, 2005

Now things get interesting

No one should be indifferent to human suffering, and we have certainly been exposed to an overdose of suffering and tragedy over the past two weeks. As this phase of the disengagement draws to a close, we need to go beyond empathizing with its victims.

The big question – for supporters and opponents alike – is what happens next? Will Gaza become a base for Islamic terrorism, as Binyamin Netanyahu would have us believe? Will disengagement be followed by further withdrawals, as the settlers fear? Will Labor bolt the coalition and trigger new elections, as both radical Right and Left hope?

Rabbi Meir Kahane, Vindicated

No matter what you think of him, whether you hate him or love him, the name Meir Kahane is a name that will forever be engrained in the history of the Jewish people. But just this past week, fifteen years after his murder, he was vindicated on the world stage via American national television.

Rabbi Kahane, born in Brooklyn in 1932, was an author, political activist and a member of the Israeli Knesset. When concluding a speech in Manhattan, Rabbi Kahane was assassinated by El-Sayyid Nosair, an Egyptian and member of an Arab terrorist cell operating in New York in 1990. Nosair was one of Sheikh Omar Abd El-Rahman’s men, who would later be convicted for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing; today, he is serving life in prison. The gun that was used to kill Rabbi Kahane was supplied to Nosair by Wadih El-Hage, who is a member of Al-Qaeda convicted of conspiracy to kill American citizens in the 1998 US embassy bombings.

Cemetery moves Gaza graves to Jerusalem

A Gaza settler, his coffin draped in prayer shawls and an orange flag representing the settlers’ protest, was borne on shoulders along a winding path in Jerusalem’s ancient Mount of Olives cemetery, then buried Monday for a second time.

The ceremony was repeated five times in the hillside cemetery that overlooks Judaism’s holiest site, as graves from the Jewish cemetery in the Gaza Strip were relocated to Israel as part of the country’s pullout from the coastal territory.

Vandals burn swastikas into jewish family’s yard

Vandals burned swastikas and obscenities into the lawn of a suburban Jewish family Sunday, splattering windows with eggs and defecating on the front porch of their two-story home.

Two swastikas were spray-painted in the road in front of Ginger Ragans’ two-story home and a third was etched onto her lawn, along with the word “Fascist” and an obscenity scrawled in the grass. Her trees were draped with toilet paper and someone had urinated and defecated on the family’s porch and discarded the soiled toilet paper in nearby bushes.

15 Jewish Families in Hebron Slated for Expulsion

Fifteen Jewish families living in the Hebron market in the town’s Jewish quarter are slated for expulsion by the IDF.

A source in the Defense Ministry said the planned expulsion is not connected to the recently completed expulsion of 10,000 Jews from their homes in 25 towns in Gaza and northern Samaria.

He said the plan to expel the families was the result of a “decision” made by Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz.

Bochur critically hurt in Ukraine skinhead attack

A group of ten skinheads attacked two yeshiva students in Kiev, Ukraine on Sunday, critically wounding one of them and lightly hurting the other, Israel Radio reported Monday.

Rabbi Yaakov Zilberman, head of Kiev’s Jewish community, said the skinheads approached the two in an underground tunnel in the city center and attacked them with bottles, rods and knives.

The critically wounded student, 28, underwent surgery late Sunday.

Zilberman said that Jewish residents of Kiev continuously encounter acts of anti-Semitism. He said that they have appealed to the municipality with a request to protect the city’s Jewish community.