Tikkun Olam

As seen in The Times of Israel , discovered by a couple who bought an apartment in a university town in Germany were two paintings of a Nazi officer and his wife, on the back of two portions of Torah scrolls, the sections of the parshiyot * clearly visible and readable.  This is reminiscent of the paving of the streets with Jewish gravestones . I've reprinted an excerpt here.  The link above is the entire article.  The depravity of the perpetrators of the Holocaust and the world which stood silently by will haunt them (and ourselves) for years to come... In January 2011, a pair of unique objects turned up in the ancient university town of Tübingen, Germany, when a Christian theology instructor and his wife bought a new apartment, occupied by an elderly, reclusive man. Shortly after the purchase, the man died, and his possessions fell into the hands of the new owners. Among these possessions were two original oil paintings depicting a uniformed Nazi German...

This is amazing.  Representatives of the U. S. and Swiss Amish communities actually violated their own principles of avoiding modern technology and transportation to fly to Israel and visit the Kotel (meaning "the Wall," in Hebrew). The sole purpose of this visit was to ask forgiveness from the Jewish people , for not speaking up against the Sho'ah (Holocaust) during the Nazi attempt to exterminate the Jews. According to an announcement issued by the office of Rabbi of the Western Wall and Holy Sites Shmuel Rabinovitch, with whom the group met, the Amish delegates saw a great importance in coming to Israel and expressing their contrition, as well as declaring their unreserved support of the Jewish people and the State of Israel.  The Amish then promised to publicly pledge support of Israel and the Jews in the future, especially in light of the existential threats towards Israel by Iran's Ahmadinejad. It's really nice to have a friend.  Now we have two: Ca...

Alice Herz-Sommer is 106 years old.  She is a Holocaust survivor, and yet after all these years, bears no enmity towards those who tried to exterminate her, her family and her people. Her 107th birthday (G-d willing) is November 26th.  May we all merit, in her honor, a world of GOODNESS as opposed to the evil one we have now.  May she live to 120 (at least), healthy and happy, Amen. (hat tip Ani, my sister-in-law's sister-in-law. There's nothing like family!)

In addition to being there to protect the Jewish People, another reason for Israel's existence--for those who have the audacity to question it--is that it serves as the the world's conscience. Hat tip, A Soldier's Mother .

I just finished reading various posts, some discussing Muslim attacks on Jewish students at York University , and politically correct jokes about Israel and the "peace process " (hat tip Rafi ), to comments (on YouTube videos of Israel's excellent rescue efforts) deriding Israel for helping the Haitians with "money from America," and it's occured to me that we seem to be in the very, very early stages of the culture which led to the Shoah. That is the culture where it is universally ok to blame Israel (definition: the Jews) for everything, and to use that blame as an excuse to incite to violence against Jews. One can see this 'acceptance' of such behavior in the Defense Dept. report on the Ft. Hood massacre . If people continue to be afraid to name the enemy, or when they don't protest against violent Islamic culture because of a fear of antagonizing Muslims, our free society's future is doomed. Being sick, I think I wrote a rather disjoin...