RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://bit.ly/2KxtSRi

1. The miracle of Chanukah. According to ancient Jewish sages, Chanukah highlights a critical, non-conventional interpretation of the term “miracle,” which is a derivative of – and not superior to – reality. Thus, the Hebrew translation of “miracle” – Ness נס – is the root of the Hebrew translation of “(life) experience” – נסיון.

Accordingly, that which is conventionally perceived to be a super-natural outcome/miracle, attests to the unique capability of genuine leaders to overcome awesome odds, challenges, threats and adversities by leveraging personal, national and global experience, in addition to their outstanding capability to assess and impact future developments. Such capabilities shaped the victories of the Maccabees over the Seleucid Emperor in the 2nd century BCE, the US Founding Fathers over the British Empire in 1776 and the 650,000 Jews over the coalition of invading Arab armies in 1948.

2. The Chanukah-David Ben Gurion connection. Such a unique capability – to realistically and strategically assess past experience and future trends – was demonstrated by a modern day Maccabee, David Ben Gurion, the 1948 Founding Father and the first Prime Minister of Israel, who stated (Uniqueness and Destiny, pp 20-22, David Ben Gurion, IDF Publishing, 1953, Hebrew): “The struggle of the Maccabees was one of the most dramatic clashes of civilizations in human history, not merely a political-military struggle against foreign oppression…. The meager Jewish people did not assimilate, as did many peoples. The Jewish people prevailed, won, sustained and enhanced their independence and unique civilization…. The Hasmoneans overcame one of the most magnificent spiritual, political and military challenges in Jewish history, due to the spirit of the people, rather than the failed spirit of the establishment….”

www.geraldahonigman.com

As I prepare to try to once again fill in some important gaps which too many Jewish students–let alone others–have in education prior to or during their years of anti-Israel higher indoctrination and vilification on many, if not most, campuses, Chanukah 5779/2018 is fast approaching.

This endeavor will serve as a follow-up to my last analysis with this goal in mind. That earlier one dealt with, among other things, what perhaps the greatest Muslim scholar of all time, Ibn Khaldun, had to say about both the historical Jew and the Jew of the Nations–Israel–some six centuries ago… https://ekurd.net/asabiyah-wandering-desert-2018-11-18. If I say so myself, like this current essay, the former is also just what the doctor ordered when confronting groups like SJP/Students for Justice in Palestine (which is having its annual hate Israel fest conference at UCLA as I write this), J Street U, and duplicitous “Progressive” professors who specialize in using one set of lenses to scrutinize Israel and Zionism, and an entirely different set with regards to the rest of the neighborhood.

With that said, what you’re about to read is something precious to those interested in historical truths–not just religious and theological claims and inspiration…corroboration.

Too many of our younger folks (not to mention parents) are simply naive in these matters, and when confronted by hostile instructors and groups on campus, either cower or join the increasingly popular anti-Israel (and frequently anti-Semitic) chorus.

Let’s begin…

Chanukah is the first war ever recorded which was fought over religious liberty and it was waged by the Jewish nation…the one which Zionism’s opponents claim never existed.

One (very important) aspect of that nation–besides its unique culture, language, and so forth–indeed included a religious dimension, and there are prominent professors, not just Arab ones, who claim that since Jews are just a religious community, they do not deserve to have a state of their own…http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/4068

So, what’s the story?

For millennia, Jews have had a very unique set of religious beliefs and ethical standards which they are supposed to adhere to. One could join the nation of the people of Israel/Judah/Judea by conversion to the religious faith of that people.

“Jew” comes from the name Yehudah/Judah, originally the Hebrew tribe named after one of Jacob’s sons and later Judah/Judaea as the land was known in the times of the southern kingdom and the Greeks and Romans.

Judaean equals “Jew.”

https://bit.ly/2SbCQ9B

The legacy of Chanukah – the centrality of liberty and morality, freedom of religion and defiance of immense odds – has played a major role in shaping the American ethos and state of mind from the Early Pilgrims, through the Founding Fathers’ War of Independence and their composition/ratification the US Constitution until today.

The Chanukah holiday sheds light on Judeo-Christian values, which have imbued the United States since the arrival of the Mayflower in 1620, including the unique and positive attitude, by most Americans, toward the Jewish State.

On October 16, 2018, the US Postal Services issued the annual Chanukah stamp, portraying a Menorah, which is a nine-branched candelabrum lit during the eight-day holiday of Chanukah, commemorating the 167 BCE rebellion of the very few, conviction-driven Jewish Maccabees against the most powerful and oppressive Seleucid Emperor Antiochus IV Epiphanies.

On December 8, 2017, President Trump stated, during a candle-lighting at the White House: “The miracle of Chanukah is the miracle of Israel…. The descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob have endured unthinkable persecution and oppression, but no force has ever crushed [their] spirit and no evil has ever extinguished [their] faith….”

On December 14, 2016, President Obama held a candle-lighting at the White House, stating: “We take heart from the Maccabees’ struggle against tyranny, even in our darkest moments, a stubborn flame of hope flickers and miracles are possible…. George Washington was said to have been stirred by the lights of Chanukah after seeing a soldier with a Menorah in the snows of Valley Forge….”

https://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/a-melancholy-centennial-/
After four years and three months of unprecedented carnage, the Great War—the most catastrophic event in all of history—ended one hundred years ago, on November 11, 1918. That war destroyed an effervescent civilization, unmatched in its fruits and vigor. A decent and on the whole well-ordered world was wrecked for ever, thrown into the abyss in which we live now.

“The summer was more wonderful than ever and promised to become even more so, and we all looked out on the world without any cares,” Stefan Zweig wrote long after it was all over. “That last day in Baden I remember walking over the vine-clad hills with a friend and an old vine-grower saying to us: ‘We haven’t had a summer like this for a long time. If this weather continues this year’s wine is going to be beyond compare. People will always remember the summer of 1914.’”

We will always remember that summer indeed, and not for the exquisite Spätburgunder. The final verses of Philip Larkin’s MCMXIV summed it up:

Never such innocence,
Never before or since,
As changed itself to past
Without a word—the men
Leaving the gardens tidy,
The thousands of marriages
Lasting a little while longer:
Never such innocence again.

On the centennial of the Armistice, it is not uncommon to hear, from poorly educated members of the postpodern commentariat, the assertion that the Guns of August were the result of unintended blunders in various courts, foreign offices, and chancelleries. In what passes for the academe these days, one notable example is Christopher Clark’s The Sleepwakers, an audaciously revisionist whitewash of the Central Powers published in 2014. Clark rehashes the old claim that the decision-makers were swept into a maelstrom by malevolent forces beyond their control. The European balance was supposedly so volatile that two shots fired by a young Serb in Sarajevo could fatally disrupt it, with a revanchist France and an ever-malevolent Russia goading the hapless Kaiser and his officials into a trap.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-danger-of-rushing-into-peace-1541968382

On the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month in 1918, the guns were stilled in what was then the bloodiest war in history. A century later it’s worth remembering that while the armistice ended a world war, it also set the table for the next, thanks to the misguided idealism of its author, President Woodrow Wilson.

The Allies had no military reason to stop the fighting. The German army had been badly beaten in a series of battles and was streaming homeward in confusion. The British and French were at the point of exhaustion after four years of constant slaughter, but Gen. John J. Pershing, commander of the American Expeditionary Force, wanted to turn the German retreat into a rout. His forces had taken a bloody nose in the Argonne Forest, but they were still fresh—and growing in numbers. By the start of 1919 Pershing expected to have more than a million men in the field. Completing Germany’s defeat, even advancing to Berlin, would put the U.S. in a position to dictate final peace terms. Germany’s unconditional surrender would allow America to shape Europe in ways that would guarantee Americans soldiers need never die there again.

But Wilson demurred. The president had entered the war pledging “peace without victory.” His objective was to create a new world order. When the new German government sent a note to Wilson on Oct. 4 asking for an armistice, he saw an opportunity to achieve his aims without further bloodshed.

He was flattered that the Germans asked for peace terms based on his own Fourteen Points, which he’d announced in late 1917 as America’s war aims. They included “open covenants of peace, openly arrived at,” a reduction in world armaments, and the establishment of a League of Nations. Convinced that Germany was willing to act in the spirit of democracy and peaceful coexistence, Wilson proposed an armistice. On Oct. 20 Germany formally accepted Wilson’s terms, with the proviso that Kaiser Wilhelm II abdicate his throne.

https://amgreatness.com/2018/11/08/the-11th-hour-of-

The First World War ended 100 years ago this month on November 11, 1918, at 11 a.m. Nearly 20 million people had perished since the war began on July 28, 1914.

In early 1918, it looked as if the Central Powers—Austria-Hungary, Germany, Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire—would win.

Czarist Russia gave up in December 1917. Tens of thousands of German and Austrian soldiers were freed to redeploy to the Western Front and finish off the exhausted French and British armies.

The late-entering United States did not declare war on Germany and Austria-Hungary until April 1917. Six months later, America had still not begun to deploy troops in any great number.

Then, suddenly, everything changed. By summer 1918, hordes of American soldiers began arriving in France in unimaginable numbers of up to 10,000 doughboys a day. Anglo-American convoys began devastating German submarines. The German high command’s tactical blunders stalled the German offensives of spring 1918—the last chance before growing Allied numbers overran German lines.

Nonetheless, World War I strangely ended with an armistice—with German troops still well inside France and Belgium. Revolution was brewing in German cities back home.

The three major Allied victors squabbled over peace terms. America’s idealist president, Woodrow Wilson, opposed an Allied invasion of German and Austria to occupy both countries and enforce their surrenders.

By the time the formal Versailles Peace Conference began in January 1919, millions of soldiers had gone home. German politicians and veterans were already blaming their capitulation on “stab-in-the-back” traitors and spreading the lie that their armies lost only because they ran out of supplies while on the verge of victory in enemy territory.

The Allied victors were in disarray. Wilson was idolized when he arrived in France for peace talks in December 1918—and was hated for being self-righteous when he left six months later.

The Treaty of Versailles proved a disaster, at once too harsh and too soft. Its terms were far less punitive than those the victorious Allies would later dictate to Germany after World War II. Earlier, Germany itself had demanded tougher concessions from a defeated France in 1871 and Russia in 1918.

In the end, the Allies proved unforgiving to a defeated Germany in the abstract but not tough enough in the concrete.