For those of you who are asking about the military force thing: if you look at the history of the area where I live, it’s been the focus of how many wars over hundreds, of not thousands of years? In all that time, has any one country given back the land, after it’s been conquered, to the country that had it previously? Romans, Ottomans, Greeks, Arabs - have any of them said, “My bad! Here, take your land back? Sorry we took it from you?”
If anything, maybe Israel should cede the place back to Jordan, and let them deal with the problem. We saw how fast Jordan gave the Palestinians a homeland from 1948 to 1967, right?
While the official date for the Exile is the destruction of the Second Temple, it isn’t really that simple - Jews had already spread out throughout the Levant and further even before that date, with many simply not returning from the Babylonian Exile several centuries before; OTOH, a very large Jewish presence remained in Judea even after the Great Revolt until the land was nearly completely depopulated as a result of the Bar Cochva Revolt in 136 AD. The latter date could be considered the true beginning of the Diaspora, because while it had existed before that, from that point onward it lacked a recognized “center”.
Anyway, Jewish thought did indeed largely forbid return to Israel until the Messiah’s return. That’s why the original Zionists were almost all secular Jews, and faced significant opposition from Orthodox circles. While a small religious Zionist movement had been established in the early 20th Century (the Mizrachi movement, headed by Rabbi Kook), it never received any real prominence until the destruction of European Orthodox Judaism in the Holocaust. Even after that, religion and Zionism made an uneasy match until the 1967 war, which many Orthodox Jews - particularly Americans - saw as a sign from God that they were now welcome, nay, commanded to resettle the land. This led to a major shift in the coming decades, until Religious Zionism became the dominant school of thought among non-Haredi Orthodox Jews.
Restating my question from post #129: If the land you currently occupy is given over to the Palestinians(a distinct possibility), will you move out of the area, or will you stay?
We would leave. It’s not so pashut (obvious) that where we are would be handed over; many of the articles and maps I’ve seen show our area as staying under Israeli rule, with equivalent land being exchanged in other places. But we would not stay, and I don’t know anyone who would.
I was actually thinking of pashut in the “yeshivish” learning sense, as someone will say “that’s not so pashut.”
But thanks for the correction. Something I’ve learned here is to always appreciate when natives correct my Hebrew, as they mean well and it helps me learn.
It was never contrary to make aliyah over the centuries. The problem was that it was close to impossible for many people. Think about it - it was a dangerous trip that could have taken months or years. The yearning has always been in the prayers, and people have always wanted to come, but circumstances being what they were over the centuries made the trip close to impossible.
It’s much simpler these days. Some planning, get an aliyah visa, sell the house, hop on a plane at JFK, and 11 hours later you’re walking on the tarmac at Ben Gurion airport. The trip is easier and much less dangerous.
Not all orthodox Jews consider aliyah necessary or an important part of their Judaism. I’ve often heard people say that they won’t make aliyah until the Moshiach (Messiah) comes. Aliyah is something that either burns inside you or not.
We keep dual citizenship for two reasons:
[ol]
[li]we can vote in U.S. elections, and[/li][li]we can enter the U.S. on our American passports, so we don’t have to worry about obtaining a visa[/li][/ol]
If it came down to it, and for some reason we were forced to give up one or other of the citizenships, we would give up the U.S.
I still file American taxes.
I don’t find it hypocritical. It’s legal; if it wasn’t, I wouldn’t do it.
Ok thanks for answering my question but what I underlined (at least) is pure bull.
Jews all throughout the Middle Ages were regularly expelled from the countries they lived in (to be allowed back in centuries later, to then be reexpelled , and so on). As a result each time the Jews resettled in other countries. There were always some going for Jerusalem. But always in very little numbers. More than once did they relocate in lands as far or further than Jerusalem. Clearly it wasnt distance (it never is for any city on the Mediterranean, anyway, those would be the most accessible places to go to). Hence the great number of Jewish comunities around the Meditteranean.
As I said I thought that it was more or less forbidden (or rather say, not particularily welcome) to settle in Jerusalem. “We moved here because this is what God commanded us to do in the Torah”, if that was, why then, for centuries, a great number of occasions to do so propped up, and almost no one emigrated there? If you only got “distance” as an answer, it seems you didnt have the curiosity to at least check why. I find it strange, as this seems to be a subject that you greatly care about.
Which is probably the biggest indictment I can think of, of what you and other Israeli settlers in the West Bank are doing. Since there are lots of places to live somewhere that’s “like suburbia everywhere else”, and only one of them involves tearing up someone else’s homeland into progressively tinier bits…well, you get the idea.
The thread was started between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, it’s been Sukkos for the last week, and Sheminei Atzeres/Simchas Torah just started at sundown in Israel. Oh, and then there’s Shabbos. OP is Orthodox and cannot use the computer on holidays, plus he’s probably been really busy. Maybe it’ll pick up later.
As chizzuk says, it’s a crazy time of year. I should have waited to start the thread until after the holidays were finished . . . which they are now. What else did you want to hear?
