By Rabbi Yair Hoffman for 5tjt.com
Something happened this week, that, pretty much, has not happened in 92 years. A sea-change has occurred. It is a change that is the unspoken elephant in the room.
People see it. But they ignore it and don’t talk about it.
What is that elephant? It is that the Arab rioters, those defacing synagogues, those lynching people, those stabbing people in the street, are not just the radical hooligans. They are the regular, run-of-the-mill, normal Arab neighbors that had previously co-existed peacefully with their Jewish neighbors.
And they are burning Israeli cities from within.
In shikun Vizhnitz in Haifa, this very morning, Arabs set on fire a number of Jewish cars on Rechov Ahavas Yisrael. The fire spread quickly to an adjacent apartment building and 60 people from the building were evacuated to hospital suffering from smoke inhalation.
Make no mistake. Murder was the intention. The surveillance cameras showed that the fire started before 4 AM when masked Arabs came to the car park, poured incendiary materials and set fire to cars.
2021 is Hebron, 1929 – all over again.
Acre. Haifa. Lod. These are all cities where there was once somewhat of a peaceful Arab-Jewish co-existence. This last week, a radical and complete change has taken place. And not one religious leader has condemned it.
HEBRON PRE-1929
Let’s go back to the once idyllic city of Hebron. It is 1929 – before the massacre. In, “The Hebron Massacre: A New Eyewitness Account” Rabbi Boruch Kaplan (husband of Rebbitzen Vichna Kaplan) says as follows (pp. 5-7):
“..they had very good relations with the Jews. They were friendly, they worked for the Jews, and they were peaceful.
An example of the good relations is as follows: About a mile or two from the Yeshiva [the Slabodka had moved to Hebron] there is a tree that is said to be the Aishel Avrohom, the tree under which Avrohom Avinu greeted the angels..
I would go to this tree, which was in an entirely Arab neighborhood. Every few blocks, there was a house of Arabs. The Arabs would greet us in a friendly manner, and we even learned to speak Arabic. Nobody ever said, “You’re going to an Arab neighborhood? It’s too dangerous!”
THE UNTHINKABLE
And then the unthinkable happened. Regular, normal, Arabs – formerly friendly neighbors, radicalized.
Yankel Velvel Weiss, was the shochet of the Ashkenazic community in Hebron. On the Friday before the Shabbos of massacre, there were rumors of Arab unrest. Reb Yankel Velvel said to the Yeshiva students, “If you are afraid, come to my house. I am on excellent terms with the Arabs.”
Rabbi Leo Gottesman writes (ibid p. 123), “Despite his confidence, his house was attacked the following morning. The Arabs broke in, and, as everywhere else, killed whom they could, wrought all the havoc they could, and left with any valuables that could be removed. Yankel velvel’s mother-in-law and his young brother had been killed.. Finally, he too left his house in the hands of the Arabs.. They pursued him, caught him in the middle of the street, killed him and left him there. His body lay in the mud of Hebron, his blood mingling with its earth, over 36 hours.”
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Last night, President Reuven Rivlin, a champion of the concept of peaceful Arab/Jewish co-existence released the following statement, “The silence of the Arab leadership about these disturbances is shameful, giving support to terrorism and rioting and encouraging the rupture of the society in which we live and in which we will continue to live once all this has passed.. The sight of the pogrom in Lod and the disturbances across the country by an incited and bloodthirsty Arab mob, injuring people, damaging property, and even attacking sacred Jewish spaces is unforgivable. Tearing down the Israeli flag by Arab rioters and replacing it with the Palestinian flag is a brutal assault on shared existence in the State of Israel.”
The Arab citizens of Israel do not really see themselves as Israelis. True, they vote and have full democratic rights. But we see that they have sided, by and large, with those who are raining thousands of rockets over Israel. There is a rage that is spreading and is not going away so fast.
The sad fact is that the vast majority of Israeli Arabs are not exactly loyal to Israel, and the very future of co-existence is questionable – if it ever had a chance in the first place.
Shavuos is rapidly approaching and Klal Yisroel is making hachanos, preparations. What should be the reaction of the Torah world? There should be an increase in five elements: Teshuva, Tzedaka and chessed, Tefillah, more dedication to Torah. As far as other types of hishtadlus, there should be cooler heads prevailing with less provocation, and perhaps steps toward more separation.
The author can be reached at [email protected]
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5 Responses
Rav Hoffman – I generally find your Halachic articles interesting and informative, but this article, on a political issue, is off-base. Unless you are proposing a Meir Kahana HY”D-style solution, there are no “steps toward further separation” to be taken – the Arab residents of Israel are facts on the ground, and are not going anywhere.
an Israeli Yid
Today – 2 Sivan – is the Ahavas Yisroel’s yahrtzeit; the very same Ahavas Yisroel mentioned above in connection with the fires in Kiryat Vishnitz, Haifa.
What is the significance of this? On a tzadik’s yahrtzeit we ask HKB”H that the zechus of the tzadik should protect us; zechuso yagein aleinu (v’al kol Yisroel). That such an act should happen on this very day, in the neighbohood named for the chasidus he lead, and on the street named for him should be very telling. It says that HKB”H is not letting his zechusim protect. And even if you will claim, but it could have been much worse, so you see his merits ARE protecting, this poster would replybut HKB”H is saying something to us by leting this happen when and where it happened. The zechusim will not protect fully.
This sounds so much like the message – at least according to what so many of our leaders and talmidei chachomim have said – that was sent to us just two weeks ago; the zechus of the great Tanna Rebbe Shimin bar Yochai whose very exisitance/sustanance in this world was l’maalah min ha’teva, and the Torah he revealed to us of such a deep and supernatural “nature”, was not permitted to protect so many nefashos kedoshos on his yahrtzeit.
Perhaps there is nobody in our generation who can tell us WHY these things are happenning. And although we must realize this is all the Yad HaShem (see RaMBa”M Hilchos Taanis 1:1-3 and Hilchos Avel 13:12), it seems that to find a particular cause is not the the desired responce. Rather it is to connect to the sibas ha’sibos! To stop explaining things based on socia-economic and/or political conditions. Stop “blaming the weather, or carbon emissions and the depleteing ozone layer. It’s not fracking or the January 6th protests.
Please consider:
Just last week, after the Meron tragedy, it was (brothers of) those same Israeli Arabs who purchased food, etc. for Jews in need.
Think about that. They went out of their way and spent their own money to help their fellow Jewish “country-men”.
The obvious question, then, is what changed in a week’s time.
The obvious answer is, of course, not mentioned by those blinded by Zionism because that would mean admitting that Zionism (including but not limited to their antagonizing the Arabs) has been a disaster for Jews for over a century:
In 1929, just prior to the Chevron Massacre, the mentor of the present Zionist leader’s mentor, Jabotinsky, led his youth group in a march on the Kosel proclaiming “Shema Yisrael HaKosel Kosleinu HaKosel Echad”. This, from a group that didn’t believe in G-d.
A rumor then spread that the Zionists were threatening Al Aqsa Mosque. That’s what caused that Chevron massacre.
So, obviously, for anyone not blinded by the idol of Zionism, it is very clear. Both massacres, both a century ago and the other day, as well as the Arab rockets and all the rest, are a simple result of Zionism and Zionist provocations.
Had the Zionists never invaded the holy land, besides for Mashiach having come long ago, Jews would have continued to live peacefully in the holy land and elsewhere, as they did before the Zionists invaded and as they do in every civilized country world-wide (with some exceptions when the Zionists are particularly egregious in their outrages), R”L.
> HaKatan
I just looked up the event and the “Arabs” as you call them who donated food were mainly Druze, who are a people long suffering under the Arab yolk.
georgeg:
Seems like both, not just Druze.
From the Times of Israel:
“Arab leaders expressed sorrow over the tragedy.
Joint List leader Ayman Odeh spoke of “heartache” for the dozens of families “left torn and bereaved.” He said he was heartened to see Jews and Arabs work together to respond to the disaster, calling it “a small ray of light in the great tragedy.” “