RABBI WOLPE'S SERMON.

Rabbi David Wolpe’s sermon.

Rabbi David Wolpe is one of the great modern rabbis of America. Here is a part of his Rosh HaShana sermon this year.

If someone asked me “what would be your last sermon” this is the sermon I would give.

In the 20^th Century there were two things that happened that we knew must never recur. One is represented by Auschwitz that is the attempted destruction of an entire people, and the other is represented by Hiroshima that is the deployment of the ultimate weapon. And yet, astonishingly and horrifyingly enough, at this very moment, the world faces the possibility that those two things will be combined. And that will happen if Iran gets a nuclear bomb. You face, simultaneously, Auschwitz and Hiroshima.

And if you think I’m an alarmist I would remind you that the president of Iran, Ahmadinajad, described Israel as a cancer and an insult and called for its disappearance. But people who claim that he doesn’t wield that much power forget that the Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces – let me repeat that man’s title – the Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces, said the Iranian nation is standing for its cause, and that is the full annihilation of Israel.

In June, the Vice President of Iran told a United Nations drug conference that the Jews are responsible for the spread of drugs around the world, that the Zionist control the drug trade, and that we have orders to kill black babies. In some ways worse of all the so-called Supreme Leader, Khameni, has a website on which you can read a long and detailed rationale for wiping out the State of Israel.

You may or may not know that Canada has cut off diplomatic relations with Iran and, in the Globe and Mail, a journalist wrote that “OK. So maybe they’re kidding. Maybe they are 99% rational.” But that other one percent is a bit worrisome, especially if they get nukes.

Honestly, we stand on a precipice. There are some things we must keep in mind. I used to train councilors and we used to go through the same drill. I taught them that the most important thing they must do is to ensure that the children under their care return home to their parents safe and sound. That, before anything else. Everything else is second to that. The most important thing as a nation is to make sure that your citizens stay safe. Nothing else comes close to that. And Israel right now can’t say that with confidence.

We are told as a people that we are obsessed with the Holocaust so I ask you what that it possibly mean to be too concerned a half century ago that the only reason all our people were not killed was because we won the world war. How can you think about that too much, especially when those enemies have not disappeared from the earth. This is what everyone should be talking about. There is nothing more important. For Israel it is about survival, but it is not just about survival. There are lots of reasons why people hate and everybody who gives simple answers you should distrust them but for Israel it is because it has succeeded, it is a fair democracy and it has fair and free elections. This is one reason that hate against it exists. This is why they can take such a ridiculous pretext as that stupid You Tube video and use it as a recruiting tool because the resentment is there. It is a flag they can wave and it bursts into flame.

And I ask you, as a people, what is our gift?  I just read a book for review. It’s called “Jews and Words” by Amos Oz and his daughter. In this book it says that Jews survived because of two things – children and words. You didn’t have a synagogue, you didn’t have a community. That’s OK, as long as you had a word, a book.  Our gift is that we are a vocal people. We make noise in this world.  If you have not spoken about it you have a role to play. This is what Jews have to be talking about especially now. We have to use whatever influence we have, whatever voice we have, whatever channel we have.

You remember the Iran-Iraq war, don’t you, when Iran gave children a token to use when they get to heaven to be martyrs for their cause. This is the rationale of the people we are dealing with. Little children found dead with a little token in their hands. I am warning you and I hope you are listening to me, the world, and I mean the Western world, the civilized world, is getting accustomed to the idea that Iran will get a bomb. Last week in the NY Times, and I don’t care of you like or hate the NY Times,  the most influential newspaper in the world, and the editor wrote a big editorial making out that we are too quick on Iran, that it couldn’t be contained like the Soviet Union could be contained.

On ‘Morning Joe’ I appeared with Joe Klein, a very good reporter, and he talked about the fact that we could contain an Iranian bomb because they’re not crazy. Yet Joe Klein, that same Joe who said they weren’t crazy, had endorsed a book by writing of “the lethal immorality at the heart of the Iranian regime.” Well you can’t have it both ways. If it is your home in the path of the bomb wouldn’t you say they were crazy?

Let’s say they really don’t decide to blow up the state they said they want to blow up, don’t you think that Hizbollah wouldn’t use the bomb. It only takes one scientist to pass on the material. What happens can never unhappen. Once Iran gets the bomb the world will never take them on. Don’t forget that it was Israel that took out the Iranian facility and they were condemned for it. From the perspective of Jewish history there is not a possibility that our enemy can be given a weapon of such potency and that any Jew can sleep well afterwards. Today is Rosh HaShana. Today the world was born. While we celebrate the birth of the world, there are those who are relentlessly and assiduously plotting to destroy the world. Do you remember the line that went through Robert Oppenheim’s mind as he witnessed the first atomic blast. “I am become death, destroyer of worlds.” We don’t have the luxury of a shameful obliviousness.

I am not a one issue voter and I am sure you are not also. But this year, this year, if there was a candidate that had a candidate who had a plausible plan for preventing Iran from getting their bomb that candidate would get my vote. This is what matters. This won’t get anyone a job, and won’t bring manufacturing back from China, but if someone knew how to do this it might prevent annihilation.

Abba Eban, the great Israeli diplomat, said that “there are things too terrible to imagine but nothing too terrible that it hasn’t happened.” This is too terrible to imagine but it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t happen. So I beg of you don’t forget it, don’t ignore it, and don’t keep quiet about it. This is different. It isn’t a small threat. This is everything, and even if it starts with Israel, as we know from history, it never ends there. The enemies of the Jews become the enemies of the world. That is the iron law of truth. Don’t think that this will go away. It is not only our task but it is surely our task. I leave you with two words – never again.

WE WANT PEACE, BUT LET'S GET REAL. IT AIN'T GOING TO HAPPEN!

This is the text of a speech I gave in Israel, Britain, and South Africa between February and April 2012 with additional material to update the essential message. It is shockingly revealing that my words are even more relevant, not less, with the passing of time.

When it comes to viewing the Middle East, people tend to live in a kind of dream world. I know. I used to do it. It's a world of wishful thinking, not reality.

People said, just bring Arafat back into the area from his exile in Tunis and he would bring us peace. We did. He brought us death and destruction.

People said that all we had to do was to allow the Palestinians to vote and we would get a pragmatic peaceful neighbour. We did. We ended up with a divisive and rejectionist enemy, and the Islamic Hamas terror regime.

People said, just move all the Israelis out of the Gaza Strip and the Palestinians would give us peace. We did, and they gave us rockets and mortars.

A year ago the world viewed the upheaval on the Arab street as something positive. They called it the Arab Spring. Israel said, you've got your seasons wrong. We were right. It's become the Islamic Winter. 

Let's stop the pretence. Let's honestly face some home truths from the region. Let's get real. You cannot fight for peace if you can't face the reality of what is going on.
When the Arabs lost five aggressive wars against Israel, after they had rejected the United Nations Partition Plan in 1947, they reframed the conflict from the Arab-Israeli War into the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. They came up with a new narrative. The land is Palestine and the Jews are colonialists. They invented their new identity, new history, and erased any Jewish connection to the land. They said they would kill until they liberate every inch of that land. They have not given up on their ambition to eliminate the Jewish State.

In their narrative, Israel is always projected as being anti-peace and they as the victims of Israeli occupation. So why is it that consequtive Israeli Prime Ministers including Rabin, Peres, Barak, Olmert, Sharon, Netanyahu, have all said we are prepared to accept and recognise the rights of the Palestinians to a state of their own? And why haven't the Palestinian leaders accepted the generous land concessions offered by Barak and Olmert? Has any Palestinian leader said they recognise the rights of the Jewish people to a land of their own? Have they accepted our historic and ancient connections to this land? Where did the word 'Judaism' come from? From Judea. Where is Judea today? In Palestine?

What has happened is not peace. The Arabs have taken the concessions given to them to mean 'Aha! You see! By giving us this land the Jews admit that the land is not theirs otherwise why would they give it up? They must give us the rest of the land, now!' You see the twist they put on peace gestures. So when you demand that Israel pull back even further you have become an advocate for the Palestinian Arab cause. You are saying that the land is theirs. It's not. You are saying we have no rights, no legitimacy for being there. Once you start thinking like that you are saying, as they are, that we have no legitimacy in any of the remaining land, and that means Israel. They totally reject the notion that we have an legitimacy anywhere.

Mahmoud Abbas has said, 'We will never accept the legitimacy of a Jewish State, not in a thousand years!' Not in a thousand years! How do you have peace with someone who refuses to recognise your legitimacy?

Peace is presented as a one way street. Palestinians make demands and Israel makes concessions. Peace is a two-way street. Both sides must make concessions. Both sides must show that they are conditioning their peeople for peace, not confrontation.

Israelis want peace. We don't object to giving land to Palestinian Arabs if for no other reason than to get them off our backs. Let them create a state of their own. We want to see a new Middle East. We know that Israel can contribute greatly for the benefit of everyone on our region. Do I think it's going to happen? No, absolutely not. Will their be peace? No. Is here anything Israel can do to help foster peace? No, except perhaps for packing out bags and quietly leaving the area. That's the reality.

Let's get real. Let's take off our rose-tinted glasses, as I did some years ago, and let's get real. Let's put aside our wishful thinking that includes the futile concept that all Israel has to do is make more concessions, more one-sided gestures, and Jew and Arab can live around the campfire singing 'Kumbaya.'
It isn't going to happen. It isn't going to happen because the Arabs, the Islamists, the Palestinians, the BDS Movement, and many others, have an agenda that is completely different to our utopian dreams.

A part of their malevolent ambition is shrouded in anti-Semitism. There are four well defined points by which you can judge if anti-Zionism (Meaning anti-Israelism) is anti-Semitism, and I invite you to take the Barry Shaw Test when defining anti-Israel statements as being anti-Semitic;

1. You can't live among us as Jews.
2. You can't live in a State of your own.
3. You can live among us.
4. You can't live.

On all four counts the Palestinians are guilty.

It's time to stop being lovely peacemakers, forcing Israel to take even more concessions for peace and, instead, become what I call 'pragmatic realists.' It's time to demand the Palestinian stop their ambition to eliminate the Jewish State of Israel.
Governments, NGOs, peace group, church leaders, rabbis, the media, academia, anyone genuinely interested in promoting Middle East peace, must turn their attention away from Israel and concentrate all their efforts to reform the Palestinian and Arab leadership with the message 'let's get real.' Not, 'let's get Israel,' but 'let's get real.'

The truth of what the Palestinian want, the truth of what their program is all about, is not what they tell the Western media in English, but what they tell their own people in Arabic. What they tell CNN and the BBC is a subterfuge. It's deception. It's a message designed to put the pressure on Israel to weaken itself. This truth is to be found in what they are telling their own people. What they are telling their own people is that they are weaking the 'Zionist entity' and they will eventually annihilate it. They are telling their people that there must be no compromise on this holy mission, and that every Palestinian, every Arab, must play his part in this mission.
I know there are millions of people who say that if only

I know that there are millions out there who say if only Israel would make more concessions, if only we pump more money into Palestinian society, they will become more moderate and love us. After all, all they want is to have a job, put food on the table, raise their kids, and live in peace. If only that were true. So many so-called peace organizations want to boycott Israeli industries that give Palestinian Arabs gainful employment and self respect. How does throwing these people in to unemployment with a sense of frustration help the peace process?

Whatever land is surrendered to them, whatever they have received from us, has emboldened them further. They have become more rejectionist, more adament in their ongoing demands. Concessions have become staging posts from which to move on to the next stage in their continuing campaign to eradicate the Jewish State. Nothing you can do will change their strategy.

Get real. I want you to know, in a hard-headed way, what is happening here.
Those who say, as I once did, that we ought to have two states living side by side in peace and security are living in a delusional world. It ain't going to happen. It isn't going to happen not because the majority of Israelis don't want it to happen. They do. It isn't going to happen because
successive Israeli Prime Ministers didn't want it to happen. They did. It isn't going to happen because the Palestinian leadership, both Fatah and Hamas, don't want it to happen. They can't allow it to happen. They have other ambitions, and they don't include Israel. Just listen to what they are telling their own people, and I include the so-called 'moderate' Palestinian Authority, and our so-called 'peace partner,' Mahmoud Abbas.

Fatah and Hamas are part of the same disfunctional body. Fatah is the mouth. Hamas is the muscle. That is how they have divided up the task of removing Israel. They main problem is that Fatah is desperately worried that the muscle is going to punch it in the mouth. This is inevitable.

Listen to what they are saying, watch what they are doing, look at their strategy, and what is happening within Palestinian society.
I recently wrote an article called 'Palestinian hatred and incitement are the real obstacles to peace.' The exposure of everything being spoken, printed, shown on their TV screens, enshrined in their Charters, preached in their mosques, educated in their schools, promoted in their civic, cultural, and sporing events, dedicated at their official ceremonies, concecrated in the naming of their streets and squares, point to one thing. They are for confrontation with Israel and against peace.

Everything emanating from the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority and from Hamas displays a clear case of incitement to violence and anti-Semitism against the Jewish State and its citizens. In a sprintime Fatah event they included the message that Palestinian children are created so that their blood will be fertilizer to saturate the land. That is the inflammatory language they use. Kids are being conditioned today to be martyrs and suicide bombers by our negotiating parters. How is that conditioning their people for peaceful co-existence? It's not. It's not, because that is not their agenda.

Incitement is rampant within the Palestinian Authority. It conditions their people, from children to adults, to hate and kill Jews. The Palestinian Mufti of Jerusalem, Mohammed Hussein, gave a speech at yet another Fatah event in March of 2012. It was broadcast on official Palestinian TV. This religious leader said clearly and publicly 'Kill the Jews!' Quoting from a notorious Hadith that is also Article 7 of the Hamas Charter, this imam declared;

'The time will come when Muslims will fight the Jews and kill them. When Jews will hide behind the trees and rocks who will cry out, 'Oh Muslim! There is a Jew hiding behind me, come out and kill him!'"

Tell me. Is this the language of peace?
What, I wonder, would have been the Muslim world's reaction if Israel's Chief Rabbi had spoken on Israeli TV with a call to kill Muslims? In light of the murder and mayhem we have witnessed over a cartoon and a stupid amateur movie the consequences are too frightening to contemplate.
World leaders and the media, however, were totally silent when this religious representative of the Palestinians called to kill Jews. We witness a total lack of concern at the Islamic-based anti-Semitic incitement to kill Jews coming from Palestinians to the Ayatollahs in Tehran, to the religious head of Hizbollah in Beirut, to the rantings of Imam Qaradawi, the spiritual head of all Sunni Muslims, including the Muslim Brotherhood who control Egypt.

Last year, 2011, when Mahmoud Abbas spoke at the United Nations General Assembly, he referred to the Holy Land as Palestine, holy to Muslims and Christians. Hello! What about the Jews, Mr. Abbas? He never mentioned the Jews. Jews, to him, have no history, no rights, no claims, at all. It is as if the Bible never happened. The land, you see, is theirs, and we are just latter day colonialists and usurpers.
And now, this year, 2012, he was back in the UN chamber still pressing his claim in defiance of all the signed agreements between them and Israel that they will never take any form of unilateral action to replace mutual negotiations for peace. Signed agreements have no validity. They are there to gain a temporary advantage and can then be discarded and dishonored if advantages can be obtained elsewhere.
He was back at the United Nations to obtain a non-member statehood from the General Assembly. He does so in defiance of signed Palestinian commitments to refrain from such unilateral action. He does so not in the name of peace and reconciliation, but in the name of conflict and to use this added status to harry institutes such as the International Criminal Court with an endless series of accusations against Israel. 

Did you hear this loser and his lame libellous excuses for his failed leadership?  He can't hobble Palestinian unity together. It's crumbling in his hands and he cries that it's all the fault of those lousy settlers, sent there by that racist Occupying Power practising ethnic cleansing. Give me a break! What was all that crap about murder and torture? Him, who incites people like the grotesque killers of the Fogel babies, weeping to his Islamic friends about our fictitious torture. He also knows that Israel pursues and prosecutes any individual that carries out 'pricetag' attacks against Arab property. This is a criminal act and is treated as such under the Israeli legal system. Yet this useless prop attempted to tell the world that it is the policy of a government as part of a destructive war of aggression just days after Israel agreed to release $63 million to assist a failing Palestinian economy as well as granting a further 5000 jobs in Israel  to Palestinian workers. Tell me, Mr. Abbas, are we doing this while, at the same time, conducting ethnic cleaning?  If anyone is bring a new 'Nakba'  (disaster) to the Palestinians it's their leader, not Israel.

So let's be honest about this. According to the Arabs, Jews have no right to any of the land. It's not a question of borders. Jews have zero rights to sovereignty and self determination in any of the land. The Land of Israel is, for them, Islamic Arab Palestine. Everything given to them become just stations on the way to total victory, the Final Solution of the Jewish Problem in the Middle East. Jews are fine wandering the earth as minority citizens in strange lands. There is no such thing as the Jewish people. They are a religion only, and they should be sent back to that status and kept there. That doesn't make me the racist. It makes them the racists.

In the last Palestinian elections in 2005, the Islamic terrorist organization, Hamas, won 63% of the vote. That'a a majority. They keep talking about holding their long overdue elections but the split Palestinian society are not likely to practise electoral democracy any day soon. According to recent polls, should an election take place today Hamas would increase their grip on power with a minimum of 68% of the vote. When they complete their association with Egypt, under the rule of their Muslim Brotherhood brethren, they will increase their percentage even further.

Hamas took over the Gaza Strip in a bloody coup. They killed, arrested, or drove out their Fatah opponents. The expulsion of the Palestinian Authority was the first step. Their next step will be to take over the Palestinian Authority before implementing their main objective which is destroying the State of Israel and establishing an Islamic regime on the ruins of the Zionist entity.'
They intend to do this with the assitance of the neighboring Islamic nations while calling for an insurrection from their supporters within Israel. I ask you, is this the time to pressure Israel to withdraw to 1967 lines?

With the change of season from the Arab Spring to the Islamic Winter can anyone doubt that Israel is not increasingly surrounded by a threatening ring of enemies? Egypt has become an Islamic regime. Hamas is the Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood. A pact between Egypt and Hamas is inevitable. Over our northern border is Lebanon, now controlled by Hisbollah. Today, Hizbollah has four times the number of rockets it had at the time of the Second Lebanon War. It may also have chemical weapons from Syria. Both Hamas and Hizbollah have shoulder-held anti-aircraft missiles. Who can tell me who will be in charge of Syria by the end of this year? Who will be ruling Jordan at the end of next year? Israel is preparing to face not only terrorists but conventional armies again. We thought this was a thing of the past. Not any more. And I haven't spoken about a nuclear Iran.

But the war against Israel is not only a military and national security issue. We are also in a war of delegitimization. This war can be as deadly and as much a strategic danger to Israel as rockets and suicide bombers. Ehud Barak, Israel's Defense Minister, and others, have called the danger of delegitimization a real strategic threat to the State of Israel.

The anti-Israel cause is built on lies and fraud. It is not there to help the Palestinians create their State alongside Israel. It does not serve peace. It is a malevolent, anti-Semitic, agenda to eradicate the Jewish State. This war is bring fought on several fronts. It has been going on for more than thirty years, but it is getting more intense as time goes on.

The truth is that the Palestinians, with the help of the Arabs, the Far Left, and the meddling of the useful idiots to their cause, have perpetrated the biggest political fraud in history, and the world has bought into their lies and deception. They help generate the phoney narrative of what Newt Gingrich called 'an invented people.' He was right, though he was not the author of that expression. Amazingly, Palestinian politicians called themselves 'an invented people.'
Asmi Bishara, who was a spokesman for the Palestinian cause in the Israeli Knesset (how's that for freedom of speech and democracy?) who escaped treason charges for aiding and abetting an enemy state. He once said, There is no Palestinian nation. It is a colonial invention.'
The founder of the PLO himself, Ahmed Shukri, declared at the podium of the United Nations, no less, way back in 1956, that 'such a creature as Palestine does not exist at all.'
Yasser Arafat admitted in an 1970 interview with Italian journalist, Arianna Palazzi, 'Our nation is the Arabic nation. We're fighting Israel in the name of Pan-Arabism. What you call Jordan is no more than Palestine.'
All these quotes and more can be found in my book 'Israel Reclaiming the Narrative.' It is important to remind ourselves of the origins of the false Palestinian narrative that seems to take center stage today.
My question rings out, loud and clear. If the main Palestinian protagonists deny their own existence why are we the ones today who are giving them legitimacy and helping them perpetrate their fraud?
Today, we have the battle of the narratives. The false Palestinian one, and the truth of the Israeli narrative.

Today, in Israel, we find ourselves under constant attack from all directions in a concerted attempt to demonize and delegitimize us while the Palestinians get a free pass, and the bonus of billions of dollars. There are a multitude of well funded anti-Israel NGOs, linked to the Palestinian cause, that are ranged against us.
This, sadly, is the reality on the ground. Despite that, Israel still holds out its hand in peace. This hand has been rejected.

Let me repeat. The Palestinian cause is the biggest political fraud in history. Yet, despite that, Israel stands ready for an accommodation that must give us iron-clad guarantees that are not simply a piece of paper, but something tangible, something we can control. You will pardon us for not trusting the Palestinians. To be honest, we don't trust the Europeans or the United Nations to act as guarantors. They have been found wanting in the past.
We should not relinquish any further land, or make any concessions that weaken us, until we are certain that we are getting a comprehensive and final end of conflict settlement. Until then, we will continue to be unjustly demonized and delegitimized.

There are so many groups supporting the Palestinian narrative. They outbid each other to satisfy their sponsors with stories, staged events, media publicity, campus activity, demonstrations, leaflets and posters, all attacking Israel. You saw them gathered in Durban, South Africa, so many years ago when the slogan 'Zionism is Racism' was adopted. Today, their numbers have multiplied. People outdo each other to get themselves on the world stage of Israeli delegitimization. That is why normally intelligent people such as Archbishop Desmond Tutu can invent a kangaroo court filled with Hate-Israel advocates to condemn Israel as an apartheid state while ignoring the apartheid of poverty that is South Africa. That is why the cultural elite of Britain, including Emmas Thompson and Mike Leigh, can publicly call for a boycott of the Israeli National Theatre Company, while welcoming to London the national companies of China, Zimbabwe, Turkey, and Bangladesh, such human rights luminaries. The hypocricy of such people would be laughable were it not so wrong and misplaced.

The enemies of Israel are on the rise. They are powerful, they are well funded, they are highly motivated, and very pro-active. What can be done to counter this?
We should adopt a new tactic of a more aggressive and affirmative campaign. We should take the spotlight off Israel and throw the harsh light of truth onto the Palestinians, and even those who support them in the battle for public opinion. We should position them so that it will be embarrassing for the broad middle ground to support them. We should isolate them by questioning their motives, proving their allegations and their narrative to be false, and showing that their words and deeds are not motivated by a desire for peace, but for conflict. We should highlight the sheer nonsense of their message. We should drive a wedge between the radicals and the public. And here's the good news. It works.

This is why we need you to get involved in an action plan for Israel. There is so much more that can be done for Israel. It is so easy to make a mark in the battle of the narratives. You first have to properly understand and explain the difference in the two narratives, the truth of the Israeli narrative, and the absolute nonsense of the Palestinian narrative. It is important to stop being reactive, responding to statements made against Israel. Instead, go on the offensive. Take the battle to them. Out them, name them, and shame them. By doing so you drive that wedge between their extreme message and the general public.

Christians and local church leaders have proven to be our greatest allies. They get it. They get it from their Bible reading and prayers, just as we Jews get it. They see the Jewish people returning to the God-given land as predicted in the Bible. They see the Jewish nation surrounded by enemies that threaten, harm, and insult, both Jews and Christians. Can anyone doubt that this is not so?
These are the people who come to us and quote the biblical phrase 'Those who bless Israel I will bless, and those who curse Israel I will curse,' and they believe that with all their soul.
If you understand that you can see the importance of introducing such Christian friends to our cause. They believe in the Bible and they beleive in the Jewish cause. They see that the Palestinians are not mentioned once in the Bible, despite the fact that the Palestinian deconstruction of ancient history puts them as one of the world's oldest civilizations, and that Jesus was a Palestinian!

There are people out there who would share our common cause but they are not getting our message. Nobody has explained to them the justice and truth of what Israel is all about. You have to recruit them, educate them, and motivate them.
Create a network of people through various interest groups such as teachers, doctors, lawyers, students, and others. Use the social media. Create open and closed Facebook groups for Israel or join existing ones. Your groups should be ready to act as rapid response groups when things happen as they inevitably do in Israel. It should be in instant contact with your local and national media, with the public, with your Government representatives, on the campus, to get Israel's position across forcefully and first and not, as has been done in the past, getting Israel's message over too late to make an impact.
This is what Israel needs. It needs one person to start a movement. That's all, just one person to inspire others. The cause is right. The cause is just. Do it.

The beauty of what I'm saying is that you don't need a budget. All you need in your personal motivation, an idea, a phone, a computer, and the world is yours. You will be amazed how soon one person becomes two, and two becomes ten, and ten becomes a hundred, and you are then making a massive difference in the battle of the narratives. I know this to be true. My private Facebook page rapidly raced beyond the Facebook 5000 limit before they blocked new friends, causing me to create a second and a third group page.

Coming back to recent events at the United Nations, we saw the public displays of the anti-Israel, Palestinian and Islamic narrative. It is time to change the discourse and pass on the truth of the Israeli narrative to others.
At the end of the day, we share the same values and ethics and we are all, as we have just witnessed, under attack.
For peace to take root we must first get real, stand firm to our principles, and show resolve to those who do not want the peace we crave.

BARRY SHAW is the author of ISRAEL RECLAIMING THE NARRATIVE. www.israelnarrative.com

WE WANT PEACE - SO LET'S GET REAL.

WE WANT PEACE - SO LET'S GET REAL by Barry Shaw.

This is the text of a speech I gave in Israel, Britain, and South Africa between February and April 2012 with additional material to update the essential message. It is shockingly revealing that my words are even more relevant, not less, with the passing of time.

When it comes to viewing the Middle East, people tend to live in a kind of dream world. I know. I used to do it. It's a world of wishful thinking, not reality.

People said, just bring Arafat back into the area from his exile in Tunis and he would bring us peace. We did. He brought us death and destruction.

People said that all we had to do was to allow the Palestinians to vote and we would get a pragmatic peaceful neighbour. We did. We ended up with a divisive and rejectionist enemy, and the Islamic Hamas terror regime.

People said, just move all the Israelis out of the Gaza Strip and the Palestinians would give us peace. We did, and they gave us rockets and mortars.

A year ago the world viewed the upheaval on the Arab street as something positive. They called it the Arab Spring. Israel said, you've got your seasons wrong. We were right. It's become the Islamic Winter. 

Let's stop the pretence. Let's honestly face some home truths from the region. Let's get real. You cannot fight for peace if you can't face the reality of what is going on.

When the Arabs lost five aggressive wars against Israel, after they had rejected the United Nations Partition Plan in 1947, they reframed the conflict from the Arab-Israeli War into the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. They came up with a new narrative. The land is Palestine and the Jews are colonialists. They invented their new identity, new history, and erased any Jewish connection to the land. They said they would kill until they liberate every inch of that land. They have not given up on their ambition to eliminate the Jewish State.

In their narrative, Israel is always projected as being anti-peace and they as the victims of Israeli occupation. So why is it that consequtive Israeli Prime Ministers including Rabin, Peres, Barak, Olmert, Sharon, Netanyahu, have all said we are prepared to accept and recognise the rights of the Palestinians to a state of their own? And why haven't the Palestinian leaders accepted the generous land concessions offered by Barak and Olmert? Has any Palestinian leader said they recognise the rights of the Jewish people to a land of their own? Have they accepted our historic and ancient connections to this land? Where did the word 'Judaism' come from? From Judea. Where is Judea today? In Palestine?

What has happened is not peace. The Arabs have taken the concessions given to them to mean 'Aha! You see! By giving us this land the Jews admit that the land is not theirs otherwise why would they give it up? They must give us the rest of the land, now!' You see the twist they put on peace gestures. So when you demand that Israel pull back even further you have become an advocate for the Palestinian Arab cause. You are saying that the land is theirs. It's not. You are saying we have no rights, no legitimacy for being there. Once you start thinking like that you are saying, as they are, that we have no legitimacy in any of the remaining land, and that means Israel. They totally reject the notion that we have an legitimacy anywhere.

Mahmoud Abbas has said, 'We will never accept the legitimacy of a Jewish State, not in a thousand years!' Not in a thousand years! How do you have peace with someone who refuses to recognise your legitimacy?
 
Peace is presented as a one way street. Palestinians make demands and Israel makes concessions. Peace is a two-way street. Both sides must make concessions. Both sides must show that they are conditioning their peeople for peace, not confrontation.

Israelis want peace. We don't object to giving land to Palestinian Arabs if for no other reason than to get them off our backs. Let them create a state of their own. We want to see a new Middle East. We know that Israel can contribute greatly for the benefit of everyone on our region. Do I think it's going to happen? No, absolutely not. Will their be peace? No. Is here anything Israel can do to help foster peace? No, except perhaps for packing out bags and quietly leaving the area. That's the reality.

Let's get real. Let's take off our rose-tinted glasses, as I did some years ago, and let's get real. Let's put aside our wishful thinking that includes the futile concept that all Israel has to do is make more concessions, more one-sided gestures, and Jew and Arab can live around the campfire singing 'Kumbaya.'
It isn't going to happen. It isn't going to happen because the Arabs, the Islamists, the Palestinians, the BDS Movement, and many others, have an agenda that is completely different to our utopian dreams.

A part of their malevolent ambition is shrouded in anti-Semitism. There are four well defined points by which you can judge if anti-Zionism (Meaning anti-Israelism) is anti-Semitism, and I invite you to take the Barry Shaw Test when defining anti-Israel statements as being anti-Semitic;

1.   You can't live among us as Jews.
2.   You can't live in a State of your own.
3.   You can live among us.
4.   You can't live.

On all four counts the Palestinians are guilty.

It's time to stop being lovely peacemakers, forcing Israel to take even more concessions for peace and, instead, become what I call 'pragmatic realists.' It's time to demand the Palestinian stop their ambition to eliminate the Jewish State of Israel.
Governments, NGOs, peace group, church leaders, rabbis, the media, academia, anyone genuinely interested in promoting Middle East peace, must turn their attention away from Israel and concentrate all their efforts to reform the Palestinian and Arab leadership with the message 'let's get real.'  Not, 'let's get Israel,' but 'let's get real.'

The truth of what the Palestinian want, the truth of what their program is all about, is not what they tell the Western media in English, but what they tell their own people in Arabic. What they tell CNN and the BBC is a subterfuge. It's deception. It's a message designed to put the pressure on Israel to weaken itself. This truth is to be found in what they are telling their own people. What they are telling their own people is that they are weaking the 'Zionist entity' and they will eventually annihilate it. They are telling their people that there must be no compromise on this holy mission, and that every Palestinian, every Arab, must play his part in this mission.   
I know there are millions of people who say that if only

I know that there are millions out there who say if only Israel would make more concessions, if only we pump more money into Palestinian society, they will become more moderate and love us. After all, all they want is to have a job, put food on the table, raise their kids, and live in peace. If only that were true. So many so-called peace organizations want to boycott Israeli industries that give Palestinian Arabs gainful employment and self respect. How does throwing these people in to unemployment with a sense of frustration help the peace process?

Whatever land is surrendered to them, whatever they have received from us, has emboldened them further. They have become more rejectionist, more adament in their ongoing demands. Concessions have become staging posts from which to move on to the next stage in their continuing campaign to eradicate the Jewish State. Nothing you can do will change their strategy.

Get real. I want you to know, in a hard-headed way, what is happening here.
Those who say, as I once did, that we ought to have two states living side by side in peace and security are living in a delusional world. It ain't going to happen. It isn't going to happen not because the majority of Israelis don't want it to happen. They do. It isn't going to happen because
successive Israeli Prime Ministers didn't want it to happen. They did. It isn't going to happen because the Palestinian leadership, both Fatah and Hamas, don't want it to happen. They can't allow it to happen. They have other ambitions, and they don't include Israel. Just listen to what they are telling their own people, and I include the so-called 'moderate' Palestinian Authority, and our so-called 'peace partner,' Mahmoud Abbas.

Fatah and Hamas are part of the same disfunctional body. Fatah is the mouth. Hamas is the muscle. That is how they have divided up the task of removing Israel. They main problem is that Fatah is desperately worried that the muscle is going to punch it in the mouth. This is inevitable.

Listen to what they are saying, watch what they are doing, look at their strategy, and what is happening within Palestinian society.
I recently wrote an article called 'Palestinian hatred and incitement are the real obstacles to peace.'  The exposure of everything being spoken, printed, shown on their TV screens,  enshrined in their Charters, preached in their mosques, educated in their schools, promoted in their civic, cultural, and sporing events, dedicated at their official ceremonies, concecrated in the naming of their streets and squares, point to one thing. They are for confrontation with Israel and against peace.

Everything emanating from the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority and from Hamas displays a clear case of incitement to violence and anti-Semitism against the Jewish State and its citizens. In a sprintime Fatah event they included the message that Palestinian children are created so that their blood will be fertilizer to saturate the land. That is the inflammatory language they use. Kids are being conditioned today to be martyrs and suicide bombers by our negotiating parters. How is that conditioning their people for peaceful co-existence? It's not. It's not, because that is not their agenda.

Incitement is rampant within the Palestinian Authority. It conditions their people, from children to adults, to hate and kill Jews. The Palestinian Mufti of Jerusalem, Mohammed Hussein, gave a speech at yet another Fatah event in March of 2012. It was broadcast on official Palestinian TV. This religious leader said clearly and publicly 'Kill the Jews!' Quoting from a notorious Hadith that is also Article 7 of the Hamas Charter, this imam declared;

'The time will come when Muslims will fight the Jews and kill them. When Jews will hide behind the trees and rocks who will cry out, 'Oh Muslim! There is a Jew hiding behind me, come out and kill him!'"

Tell me. Is this the language of peace?
What, I wonder, would have been the Muslim world's reaction if Israel's Chief Rabbi had spoken on Israeli TV with a call to kill Muslims? In light of the murder and mayhem we have witnessed over a cartoon and a stupid amateur movie the consequences are too frightening to contemplate.
World leaders and the media, however, were totally silent when this religious representative of the Palestinians called to kill Jews. We witness a total lack of concern at the Islamic-based anti-Semitic incitement to kill Jews coming from Palestinians to the Ayatollahs in Tehran, to the religious head of Hizbollah in Beirut, to the rantings of Imam Qaradawi, the spiritual head of all Sunni Muslims, including the Muslim Brotherhood who control Egypt.

Last year, 2011, when Mahmoud Abbas spoke at the United Nations General Assembly, he referred to the Holy Land as Palestine, holy to Muslims and Christians. Hello! What about the Jews, Mr. Abbas? He never mentioned the Jews. Jews, to him, have no history, no rights, no claims, at all. It is as if the Bible never happened. The land, you see, is theirs, and we are just latter day colonialists and usurpers.
And now, this year, 2012, he is back in the UN chamber still pressing his claim in defiance of all the signed agreements between them and Israel that they will never take any form of unilateral action to replace mutual negotiations for peace. Signed agreements have no validity. They are there to gain a temporary advantage and can then be discarded and dishonored if advantages can be obtained elsewhere.
He is back at the United Nations to obtain a non-member statehood from the General  Assembly. He does so in defiance of signed Palestinian commitments to refrain from such unilateral action. He does so not in the name of peace and reconciliation, but in the name of conflict and to use this added status to harry institutes such as the International Criminal Court with an endless series of accusations against Israel.

So let's be honest about this. According to the Arabs, Jews have no right to any of the land. It's not a question of borders. Jews have zero rights to sovereignty and self determination in any of the land. The Land of Israel is, for them, Islamic Arab Palestine. Everything given to them become just stations on the way to total victory, the Final Solution of the Jewish Problem in the Middle East. Jews are fine wandering the earth as minority citizens in strange lands. There is no such thing as the Jewish people. They are a religion only, and they should be sent back to that status and kept there. That doesn't make me the racist. It makes them the racists.

In the last Palestinian elections in 2005, the Islamic terrorist organization, Hamas, won 63% of the vote. That'a a majority. They keep talking about holding their long overdue elections but the split Palestinian society are not likely to practise electoral democracy any day soon. According to recent polls, should an election take place today Hamas would increase their grip on power with a minimum of 68% of the vote. When they complete their association with Egypt, under the rule of their Muslim Brotherhood brethren, they will increase their percentage even further.

Hamas took over the Gaza Strip in a bloody coup. They killed, arrested, or drove out their Fatah opponents. The expulsion of the Palestinian Authority was the first step. Their next step will be to take over the Palestinian Authority before implementing their main objective which is destroying the State of Israel and establishing an Islamic regime on the ruins of the Zionist entity.'
They intend to do this with the assitance of the neighboring Islamic nations while calling for an insurrection from their supporters within Israel. I ask you, is this the time to pressure Israel to withdraw to 1967 lines?

With the change of season from the Arab Spring to the Islamic Winter can anyone doubt that Israel is not increasingly surrounded by a threatening ring of enemies? Egypt has become an Islamic regime. Hamas is the Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood. A pact between Egypt and Hamas is inevitable. Over our northern border is Lebanon, now controlled by Hisbollah. Today, Hizbollah has four times the number of rockets it had at the time of the Second Lebanon War. It may also have chemical weapons from Syria. Both Hamas and Hizbollah have shoulder-held anti-aircraft missiles. Who can tell me who will be in charge of Syria by the end of this year? Who will be ruling Jordan at the end of next year? Israel is preparing to face not only terrorists but conventional armies again. We thought this was a thing of the past. Not any more. And I haven't spoken about a nuclear Iran.

But the war against Israel is not only a military and national security issue. We are also in a war of delegitimization. This war can be as deadly and as much a strategic danger to Israel as rockets and suicide bombers. Ehud Barak, Israel's Defense Minister, and others, have called the danger of delegitimization a real strategic threat to the State of Israel.

The anti-Israel cause is built on lies and fraud. It is not there to help the Palestinians create their State alongside Israel. It does not serve peace. It is a malevolent, anti-Semitic, agenda to eradicate the Jewish State. This war is bring fought on several fronts. It has been going on for more than thirty years, but it is getting more intense as time goes on.

The truth is that the Palestinians, with the help of the Arabs, the Far Left, and the meddling of the useful idiots to their cause, have perpetrated the biggest political fraud in history, and the world has bought into their lies and deception. They help generate the phoney narrative of what Newt Gingrich called 'an invented people.'  He was right, though he was not the author of that expression. Amazingly, Palestinian politicians called themselves 'an invented people.'
Asmi Bishara, who was a spokesman for the Palestinian cause in the Israeli Knesset (how's that for freedom of speech and democracy?) who escaped treason charges for aiding and abetting an enemy state. He once said, There is no Palestinian nation. It is a colonial invention.'
The founder of the PLO himself, Ahmed Shukri, declared at the podium of the United Nations, no less, way back in 1956, that 'such a creature as Palestine does not exist at all.' 
Yasser Arafat admitted in an 1970 interview with Italian journalist, Arianna Palazzi, 'Our nation is the Arabic nation. We're fighting Israel in the name of Pan-Arabism. What you call Jordan is no more than Palestine.'
All these quotes and more can be found in my book 'Israel Reclaiming the Narrative.' It is important to remind ourselves of the origins of the false Palestinian narrative that seems to take center stage today.
My question rings out, loud and clear. If the main Palestinian protagonists deny their own existence why are we the ones today who are giving them legitimacy and helping them perpetrate their fraud?
Today, we have the battle of the narratives. The false Palestinian one, and the truth of the Israeli narrative.

Today, in Israel, we find ourselves under constant attack from all directions in a concerted attempt to demonize and delegitimize us while the Palestinians get a free pass, and the bonus of billions of dollars. There are a multitude of well funded anti-Israel NGOs, linked to the Palestinian cause, that are ranged against us.  
This, sadly, is the reality on the ground. Despite that, Israel still holds out its hand in peace. This hand has been rejected.

Let me repeat. The Palestinian cause is the biggest political fraud in history. Yet, despite that, Israel stands ready for an accommodation that must give us iron-clad guarantees that are not simply a piece of paper, but something tangible, something we can control. You will pardon us for not trusting the Palestinians. To be honest, we don't trust the Europeans or the United Nations to act as guarantors. They have been found wanting in the past.
We should not relinquish any further land, or make any concessions that weaken us, until we are certain that we are getting a comprehensive and final end of conflict settlement.  Until then, we will continue to be unjustly demonized and delegitimized.

There are so many groups supporting the Palestinian narrative. They outbid each other to satisfy their sponsors with stories, staged events, media publicity, campus activity, demonstrations, leaflets and posters, all attacking Israel. You saw them gathered in Durban, South Africa, so many years ago when the slogan 'Zionism is Racism' was adopted. Today, their numbers have multiplied. People outdo each other to get themselves on the world stage of Israeli delegitimization. That is why normally intelligent people such as Archbishop Desmond Tutu can invent a kangaroo court filled with Hate-Israel advocates to condemn Israel as an apartheid state while ignoring the apartheid of poverty that is South Africa. That is why the cultural elite of Britain, including Emmas Thompson and Mike Leigh, can publicly call for a boycott of the Israeli National Theatre Company, while welcoming to London the national companies of China, Zimbabwe, Turkey, and Bangladesh, such human rights luminaries. The hypocricy of such people would be laughable were it not so wrong and misplaced.

The enemies of Israel are on the rise. They are powerful, they are well funded, they are highly motivated, and very pro-active. What can be done to counter this?
We should adopt a new tactic of a more aggressive and affirmative campaign. We should take the spotlight off Israel and throw the harsh light of truth onto the Palestinians, and even those who support them in the battle for public opinion. We should position them so that it will  be embarrassing for the broad middle ground to support them. We should isolate them by questioning their motives, proving their allegations and their narrative to be false, and showing that their words and deeds are not motivated by a desire for peace, but for conflict. We should highlight the sheer nonsense of their message. We should drive a wedge between the radicals and the public. And here's the good news. It works.

This is why we need you to get involved in an action plan for Israel. There is so much more that can be done for Israel. It is so easy to make a mark in the battle of the narratives. You first have to properly understand and explain the difference in the two narratives, the truth of the Israeli narrative, and the absolute nonsense of the Palestinian narrative. It is important to stop being reactive, responding to statements made against Israel. Instead, go on the offensive. Take the battle to them. Out them, name them, and shame them. By doing so you drive that wedge between their extreme message and the general public.

Christians and local church leaders have proven to be our greatest allies. They get it. They get it from their Bible reading and prayers, just as we Jews get it. They see the Jewish people returning to the God-given land as predicted in the Bible. They see the Jewish nation surrounded by enemies that threaten, harm, and insult, both Jews and Christians. Can anyone doubt that this is not so?
These are the people who come to us and quote the biblical phrase 'Those who bless Israel I will bless, and those who curse Israel I will curse,' and they believe that with all their soul.
If you understand that you can see the importance of introducing such Christian friends to our cause. They believe in the Bible and they beleive in the Jewish cause. They see that the Palestinians are not mentioned once in the Bible, despite the fact that the Palestinian deconstruction of ancient history puts them as one of the world's oldest civilizations, and that Jesus was a Palestinian!

There are people out there who would share our common cause but they are not getting our message. Nobody has explained to them the justice and truth of what Israel is all about.  You have to recruit them, educate them, and motivate them.
Create a network of people through various interest groups such as teachers, doctors, lawyers, students, and others. Use the social media. Create open and closed Facebook groups for Israel or join existing ones.  Your groups should be ready to act as rapid response groups when things happen as they inevitably do in Israel. It should be in instant contact with your local and national media, with the public, with your Government representatives, on the campus, to get Israel's position across forcefully and first and not, as has been done in the past, getting Israel's message over too late to make an impact.
This is what Israel needs. It needs one person to start a movement. That's all, just one person to inspire others. The cause is right. The cause is just. Do it.

The beauty of what I'm saying is that you don't need a budget. All you need in your personal motivation, an idea, a phone, a computer, and the world is yours. You will be amazed how soon one person becomes two, and two becomes ten, and ten becomes a hundred, and you are then making a massive difference in the battle of the narratives. I know this to be true. My private Facebook page rapidly raced beyond the Facebook 5000 limit before they blocked new friends, causing me to create a second and a third group page.

Coming back to recent events at the United Nations, we saw the public displays of the anti-Israel, Palestinian and Islamic narrative. It is time to change the discourse and pass on the truth of the Israeli narrative to others.
At the end of the day, we share the same values and ethics and we are all, as we have just witnessed, under attack.
For peace to take root we must first get real, stand firm to our principles, and show resolve to those who do not want the peace we crave.

BARRY SHAW is the author of ISRAEL RECLAIMING THE NARRATIVE. www.israelnarrative.com

THE COINCIDENCE OF THE SHOFAR, NEW YEAR, AND THE FATE OF THE JEWS.

THE COINCIDENCE OF THE SHOFAR, NEW YEAR, AND THE FATE OF THE JEWS by Barry Shaw.

Life in the Jewish State of Israel is often made up of significant and special coincidences, a meeting of separate moments in time that merge into something ethereal.

My cruise vacation had taken me, among other places, to the Balearic Islands of Spain and into Barcelona. In Rome, we had made a special part of our visit to the Synagogue and the Jewish Museum to learn about the long history of the Jews in Rome. We wanted to do the same in Barcelona and discovered that although the most prominent geographic feature of this town is Montjuic, meaning ‘Jews Hill’, though you have to do some serious research to find out the reason for this name. It is harder still to receive any information pointing to the ancient synagogue or the Jewish Quarters in one of Spain’s major cities with a population of over 1,600,000.  Spain had been the nurturing ground for ancient Jewish genius.

The reason for the absence of Jews or Jewish heritage in this place dates back to the Spanish Inquisition that massacred Spanish and Portugese Jews, forcibly converted them to Catholicism under pain of death, or banished them from their lands. This reign of anti-Jewish terror went on from 1480 until 1501. In fact, it was not formally and finally abolished until as late as 1834. The spark of Jewish creativity and genius in Spain died at the stake, together with our rabbis and leading academics.

On return from my vacation I found an invitation to attend a conference to be held at the Netanya Academic College on October the subject of which is “The Struggle for Identity of the Secret Jews of the Balearic Islands of Spain” which neatly brings me to one of the coincidences I mentioned at the outset of this article.

The timing of our holiday was to get us back in time to celebrate Rosh HaShana, the Jewish New Year, at home in Israel. Reading through the supplement of the Jerusalem Post I stopped to read an interesting personal anecdote from Rabbi Yona Metzger, the Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Israel.  He described his meeting with the King of Spain. Rabbi Metzer told the newspaper team this story;

“Let me tell you a story that happened to me over seven years ago. It was 800 years since the death of the Rambam (Maimonides) and we organized an international conference in Rambam’s birthplace, Cordoba.  Two months beforehand, I traveled to Spain to invite the king to the conference. Before my trip we wondered what gift to give him. I saw this long Yemenite shofar (ram’s horn) partly covered in pure silver, with a crown that had an engraving of the Western Wall of the Temple Mount and a menorah on it.  We put it in a glass box and I presented it to the king who asked what was this strange horn.

‘Allow me to close a historical circle with you that began about 540 years ago,’ Metzger explained to King Juan Carlos.  ‘When your great-great-great-great-great grandfather was king of Spain, he decided to expel all the Jews, and among them was my great-great-great-great-grandfather. Only the Marranos remained in Spain. These Marranos were Jews who continued to practice their Judaism in secret, otherwise the Spaniards would have killed them. Before Rosh HaShana the question arose, ‘How do you blow the Shofar quietly and secretly?’ One of them had an idea. He was the conductor of the king’s orchestra, and the king loved music and didn’t know he remained a secret Jew. He went to the king and asked to put on a special concert using all the known musical instruments in history.”

With the king’s approval the conductor arranged to hold the special musical celebration on Rosh HaShana. He invited all the Marranos he knew to attend this concert.

“He showed the king the ram’s horn that he said was the oldest known instrument, from the time of Abraham. ‘Before you expelled the Jews from Spain,’ he said, ‘they used to usher in the new year with this, and before blowing the shofar, they used to say the following blessing, and he said the blessing for the shofar. And all the Marranos quietly said, ‘Amen!’’

“And thus, 540 years ago, my father’s father’s father’s father heard the shofar. And now today, all these years later, I am the Chief Rabbi of Israel, and I am returning this shofar to you, not under the table, but on your table. Because today you allow our fellow Jews to conduct prayers openly, learn Jewish studies and blow the shofar.”

“When Tzipi Livni was foreign minister, I met her at an event in Jerusalem, and she said, ‘You have regards from King Juan Carlos.’ She had visited the king, and had also given him a gift. And the king took out the shofar and asked her if she knew what it was. And she said to him, ‘Yes. Jews blow it on Rosh HaShana.’ ‘No,’ he said, ‘You don’t know the story,’ and he then proceeded to tell her the whole story.”

Further details of this remarkable event were divulged by Stewart Weiss in another article in the same magazine. It seems that the conductor of the Royal Barcelona Orchestra was Don Fernando Aquilar, a proud Spaniard and a Jew converted to Christianity during the Inquisition. He was a Marrano, a secret Jew, a Christian on the outside but Jewish to his core, a man emotionally torn apart by the conflict of indescribable religious pressure.

According to Weiss, the church, still holding Aquilar under deep suspicion, decided to hold a gala concert In the year 1497 on Rosh HaShana as much as a test of the musical leader as an entertainment. The Don decided to make this concert the most spectacular ever seen in Barcelona. This extravaganza would include every musical instrument, as mentioned by Rabbi Metzger. It was to be, as Stewart Weiss described in his article, ‘a sublime cascade of orchestral delight for the glory of the church.’  It was a sell-out.  Most of Spain’s rich and famous attended, including Queen Isabel. The concert was a masterpiece of orchestral arrangements that climaxed with the appearance of strange curved horns never before seen in a concert hall in Spain. On cue from Don Fernando Aquilar they produced the shrill and tremulous chords of ‘Tekia!’, ‘Tevarim!’, ‘Teruah!’ ‘Shevarim!’ one hundred notes played in unison with one last long note that seemed to go on forever. The audience went wild.

This was the last concert ever given by Aguilar of Barcelona. Weiss is not sure of his fate.  Some say he retired to his country home after his final triumph. Others say that the church learned, or were suspicious, of his deception and quietly executed him. 

What is known is that the candlelight of Judaism still burns in the heart of many Marranos and is slowly emerging into the light of day. Hence the importance of the upcoming Netanya conference.

The shrill notes of the Shofar this New Year, especially in Israel at this auspicious time, emanates with great significance.

 

Barry Shaw is the author of ISRAEL RECLAIMING THE NARRATIVE.  Available on Amazon in paperback and Kindle format or from www.israelnarrative.com

Barry Shaw is also the Special Consultant on Delegitimization Issues at the Strategic Dialogue Center of the Netanya Academic College.