In a special interview, the departing commander of the IDF Nahal Brigade, Col. Dan Goldfus, talks about the challenges of his position, the threats facing the various theaters, and dealing with the young generation joining the military. "The troopers come from a technological world where everything is instant. Our job is to challenge them"
Friday, April 28, 2023
Why Kings Are Annointed With Oil in The Bible
Nadene Goldfoot
When the Temple is rebuilt, the oil will be revealed from its hiding place – together with the Ark – and the future King of Israel (aka the Messiah, Mashiach in Hebrew, which means "the anointed one") will be anointed with it.
The anointing oil is referred to in the Torah (Exodus 30:22-33)
"You shall anoint Aaron and his sons and sanctify them to
minister to Me, "You shall speak to the Children of Israel,
saying: "This shall remain for Me oil of sacred anointment for
your generations....."
when God instructs Moses to produce it to consecrate kings
and High Priests, as well as the Tabernacle and its utensils
(such as the ark, altars and menorah). That’s a lot of
anointing! But the Talmud states that the original oil Moses
produced in the desert, though only 12 logs (around 1
gallon), miraculously lasted for all of Israel’s history and exists in its full quantity today (Horiyot 11b).
Nathan wrote a chronicle about his father, David and his
reign (chronicle 29:29) most likely one of the main sources for the Book of Samuel).
Why were Jewish kings anointed with oil specifically? And what’s the significance of the miracle of Moses’s oil lasting forever? (Seems like a far bigger miracle than the flask of oil burning for eight days!)
The oil was hidden away by King Josiah towards the end of the First Temple era – when he hid the Ark of the Covenant and some other sacred items, knowing that the Temple was soon to be destroyed.
Why were Jewish kings anointed with oil specifically? And what’s the significance of the miracle of Moses’s oil lasting forever? (Seems like a far bigger miracle than the flask of oil burning for eight days!)
In Judaism, anointing with oil signifies the endowment of divine power, authority, and blessings upon the new king. Oil, which was also used to light the menorah in the Temple, represents the light of Jewish wisdom that illuminates the world. Accessing the pure oil requires squeezing the olive, symbolizing the necessity to put in maximum effort to attain wisdom.
Talmud: We have two of them, the Palestinian and the Babylonian Talmuds. Books of the records of the academic discussions and judicial administration of Jewish Law. This was compiled all before 400 CE for the Palestinian Talmud; 500 CE for the Babylonian Talmud. The Babylonian Talmud is 3 times as long as Palestinian one, making Babylonian one far more important.
Torah: The Written Law of Moses-the 1st 5 books -Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy or (Bereishis), Shemos, Veyikra, Bamidbar, Devarim)
The Talmud (Megillah 6b) states that God makes a rare promise: no matter what your IQ is, if your yearning for Jewish wisdom is so strong that in translates into blood, sweat and tears, God will open up the gates of wisdom and coronate you with the Crown of Torah. Accessing the wealth of Jewish wisdom is totally available for anyone who wants it badly enough.
Perhaps that is why Moses’ oil will never be depleted. The oil represents the infinite Torah that is available always, to everyone, for all time.
But there’s one more catch. You can only attain it through humility. In the verse, "Where shall wisdom be found" (Job 28:12), the Hebrew word for "where" is "me’ayin" which also means "from nothingness".
The Talmud (Sotah, 21b) says that Torah wisdom can only be found in one who "makes nothing" of himself. That is why a king was commanded to write his own Torah scroll and carry it at all times next to his heart, reminding himself that he is not above God. 
Rabbi Coopersmith lives in Israel. He wrote that
The oil that will be used to anoint Charles, son of Queen Elizabeth as king was consecrated in Jerusalem’s Old City, two minutes away from his office, at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. 
Olive trees in Mount of Olives, Jerusalem
The new "sacred oil" – that’s how it’s being referred to in mainstream press – was created from olives harvested and grown on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem, under the order of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, who will officiate the coronation.
He said, "This demonstrates the deep historic link between the Coronation, the Bible and the Holy Land. From ancient kings through to the present day, monarchs have been anointed with oil from this sacred place. As we prepare to anoint The King and The Queen Consort, I pray that they would be guided and strengthened by the Holy Spirit."
Resource:
Aish, Rabbi Nechemiah Coopersmith : Coronating King Charles III.
Labels: Archbishop of Canterbury, Bible linked to Holy Land, Jerusalem, King Charles of England, kings, Messiah, Mount of Olives, sacred olive oil
Sunday, December 27, 2020
Brig General Dan Goldfus, Head of Infantry and Paratroopers Corps in Israel
Nadene Goldfoot
Brig Gen Dan Goldfus, Head of Infantry and Paratroopers Corps, Israel, paid a courtesy call on Gen. Purna Chandra Thapa, COAS, Nepalese Army, on 12 September 2019. The duo also discussed on possible future mutual cooperation. Now, which man is which? Both are generals! Dan's on the left in the blue shirt.
In Hebrew his rank is called a Tat Aluf-or Ta'al which shows one rocket? laying over a leaf. it's 3rd from the top rank.
Our surname was originally Goldfus. Dan Goldfus could be our cousin. Stanley Goldfoot of Jerusalem was a 3rd cousin. If his ancestors were from Lithuania, there's a 100% chance we are related and share a few genes. Stanley's parents emigrated to South Africa while ours emigrated to the USA.
Yes, I have found him on my tree. We are 4th cousins twice removed according to my Family Tree Maker chart. I'd love to have a DNA test from Dan to see what genes we share. If my research was correct, and I worked on this some years ago, his father was a Chaim Goldfus and mother was Caroline Ida Stern. He is 42 years younger than me. How wonderful to have him as a relative, though a distant one! If I am correct, Dan's birthday is tomorrow! Happy Birthday cousin Dan! What a coincidence!
I have our common ancestor being:
Iankel (Yankel) Goldfus b: 1768 in Telsai, Telsiai, Kaunas, Lithuania
Dan was from his son, Chaim c: 1801
I was from his son, Iosel (Josel) Symka ben Yankel b: c1798.
June 4, 2020 had an article in it from Jerusalem Post mentioning "Head of the Infantry and Paratroopers Corps, Brig. Gen. Dan Goldfus to lead it.
Lt.-Col. Avichai Mor Yosef was accidentally shot in the abdomen by another commander during a live-fire drill into Wednesday night.
Challenges of Command
The departing commander of the IDF Nahal Brigade, Col. Dan Goldfus (Photo: IDF)
The commander of the IDF Nahal Brigade, Col. Dan Goldfus, is regarded as one of the most daring and ethical officers in the IDF. A fighter through and through, he encountered numerous terrorists at point-blank range during his 23 years of service in the IDF, in nearby theaters like the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, as well as in remote places which must remain unnamed. (I notice he's right-handed. My brother and a cousin and I are left-handed.)
"Goldfus is the son of new immigrants from South Africa who settled in Jerusalem. Originally religious, he does not wear a Yarmulke anymore. Goldfus joined the IDF in 1995 and volunteered for the IDF Navy's 13th Flotilla ("Shayetet") – the Naval Commandos. During Operation Shirat HaTzaftzafa, the fiasco in Ansariyeh, Lebanon in 1997, Goldfus, then a young warfighter, was a member of the rescue team that rushed to help the detachment that had sustained heavy casualties. This incident evolved into one of the most tragic disasters in the history of the 13th Flotilla, and remains an open, unresolved case for many within the unit even 21 years later. Back then, Goldfus was a 20-year-old warfighter in an operation still regarded as a severe and traumatic incident, and the actual circumstances and causes remain a mystery, as far as he is concerned. The IDF Chief of Staff has recently appointed Goldfus as Chief IDF Infantry & Paratroopers Officer. He will be promoted to the rank of Brigadier General, and the implication is that he would not fulfill the dream of every naval commando – to become the commander of the 13th Flotilla. If Goldfus is disappointed – he hides it well, and definitely does not allow this fact to affect his demanding job as commander of the IDF Nahal Brigade."
Stanley Goldfoot was from South Africa. Many Jewish Lithuanians emigrated there.
"In a special interview, the departing commander of the IDF Nahal Brigade, Col. Dan Goldfus, talks about the challenges of his position, the threats facing the various theaters, and dealing with the young generation joining the military. "The troopers come from a technological world where everything is instant. Our job is to challenge them.""
Goldfus' IDF career has always been a zigzag between the Naval Commandos and the Nahal and other brigades of the "larger IDF" – those outside the realm of elite specialist units. During Operation Protective Shield, Goldfus served as the commander of the Nahal Brigade's reconnaissance company – Sayeret Nahal. For his performance while in this position, in a series of successful counter-terrorism operations in the territories, the general officer commanding IDF Central Command, Maj. Gen. Moshe Kaplinski, awarded Goldfus a Major General's citation. He subsequently served as deputy commander of the 13th Flotilla, and then as commander of the IDF 769th Brigade – the Hiram Formation (the eastern brigade deployed along the Lebanon border). While in this position, the Brigade sustained a severe attack by anti-tank missiles Hezbollah had launched at a convoy of the Givati Brigade on Mount Dov. This incident, IDF designation "Shemesh Horpit," brought the State of Israel very close to the outbreak of the "Third Lebanon War," or the "First War of the North."
We met Col. Goldfus at the training camp of the Nahal Brigade in Tel Arad. The training troopers practice close-range running engagement drills, a 'dry run' followed by a 'wet run' (live fire). "They study the posture and acquire the ability to shoot effectively. I am a great believer in the simulators they had trained on before. We want to develop this activity further," says Goldfus.
Col. Goldfus is the type of commander you can tag as "old school" – one who regards his service as a calling, who regards the IDF as a military whose range of tasks transcends the realm of just fighting or training for war. The IDF Nahal Brigade has recently experienced a major trauma. On November 30, 2017, local Bedouins knifed to death one of the Brigade's troopers, Sgt. Ron Kokia, at a transport station in Arad, and escaped with his firearm. The victim was on his way back to the Nahal Brigade's training camp. "He had arrived at the transport station and waited there on a bench. We never thought it would come from within. We expected it to come from the territories, from the area of Hebron."
Out of the shock and rage, Goldfus announced a new project titled "Ohel Avraham" (Abraham's Tent) – a series of encounters aimed at getting to know the Bedouin community of the Negev, living close to the Nahal training camp. The formal objective was reconciliation and mutual acquaintance. The informal objective was to increase the percentages of Bedouins recruited into the IDF, opposite the trends of Islamization and radicalization, with Hamas, the Islamist Movement, and ISIS competing against the IDF over the hearts and minds of the young Bedouin generation.
"The project consists of four meetings, beginning with a meeting of the commanders," Goldfus explains. "We aim for a partnership, for 'togetherness.' The idea is for the (Bedouin) youngsters to see the troopers, and for the troopers to see the (Bedouin) youngsters, and drop off the stigmatic labels."
Is being a brigade commander in the IDF more complicated today than it was when you joined the Flotilla back in 1995?
"We had a training activity where we took the guys out and spent three days without access to mobile phones. Suddenly there was interaction among the troopers. Suddenly they started speaking to one another. When those three days were over, each one took back his mobile phone and went away, engrossed in the screen. It was an interesting challenge. The hierarchy has become flat since I had joined (the IDF). The story you are telling will be challenged. You must be prepared to answer the questions of even the last trooper. Maj. Gen. (res.) Yom-Tov Samia, who had served as the commander of the 931st Battalion of the Nahal Brigade, came to speak to the Battalion's troopers. Suddenly, a trooper stood up and asked 'Why would you go into politics?' Back in the day, who had the nerve to stand up and ask? It is amazing. It is great. You must understand the life of these guys. Especially the younger commanders – the challenge they face is even more substantial. Their friction is with the information. Today it is 'sit down, platoon commander, and I will tell you what it was like.' We must empower the platoon commander. We take what we do for granted. An 18-year-old youth hears a radio commercial for a college. Here with us, you will find command and a mission. We assign crazy adult responsibilities to 18 and 20-year-old youngsters. Today they are regarded more as children and the parents are more intensively involved and you attempt to establish a triple commitment: command-trooper-parent."
Col. Goldfus walks over to the new recruits near the encampments. "What's up, guys?" he asks them while shaking hands with each one in turn.
You are a little old fashioned with regard to military-society relations, are you not? Is it actually the military's job to educate about and become acquainted with the Bedouins? People will say 'what is to you? Go out and fight or prepare for war.'
"Yes, I believe in it. If that means being old fashioned, so I am, and I do believe in it. This is the real strength. I do not believe in a professional military. I will be delighted to take off my uniform, but I am here because I believe in what I do. It is amazing, nothing is more virtuous than this. Nothing equals the opportunity to raise and lead people."
In the week when we met at the Nahal training camp, elements of the Nahal Brigade were operating in all of the different sectors: Col. Goldfus' brigade had one battalion deployed in Hebron, another battalion on the Golan Heights along the Syrian border and two more battalions deployed along the Lebanon border. As the brigade commander, he is running around from one battalion to the next.
"We are just like any other infantry brigade," says Goldfus. "We set ourselves a goal to be excellent and relevant. The infantryman asks himself 'how can I be relevant?' We should have the best equipment, use simulators and be able to identify the reference threat. Hezbollah and the built-up area are relevant to both the north and the south and we are preparing our men accordingly."
You have recently concluded a division-level training exercise with the IDF Southern Command's 162nd Division to which the Nahal Brigade had been attached. How close did it feel to a situation where, at a moment's notice, you would be inside the Gaza Strip in the context of a new major operation, owing to the deterioration in the Gaza Strip?
"I believe that with the 162nd Division we came and managed to reach a common language at a very, very high level with regard to plans, concepts and how we expect ourselves to accomplish the mission when the time comes. All the way, that is the plan. Go all the way – wherever we may have to go. Based on that, you may say that you want to stop somewhere or initiate a certain act to influence the operation. The prevailing feeling is that it is a matter of decision-making – to embark or not to embark (on a new operation in the Gaza Strip – O.H.) – and we are ready. That is what we say to the Chief of Staff: we are ready, we are determined, and we will accomplish the mission. We have no doubts about it. One of the most significant problems is the fact that we sometimes doubt our own capabilities.
"We listen too much to the other side. To Nasrallah, to Sinwar, to anyone who wants to tell us stories. We need to ask ourselves what about us. We will always have gaps. Am I fully satisfied with what I have, with the training time allotted to me? No. Definitely not, but we must be ready to accomplish the mission with what we have, without excuses. To come in and initiate all the time. We remain on a very high state of alert for whatever we may be required to do. My mission, as a field commander, is to prepare my men to be resolute, to be the kind of men who can, at the end of the day, remain ethical and accomplish the mission."
How do you view the criticism the IDF is sustaining over its activities in the Gaza Strip following every major operation and even over the operations along the border fence?
"I have no problem with all kinds of organizations that state 'we were not like this and we were not like that.' On the contrary, I draw strength from the fact that I have to explain things better, to ourselves and to our soldiers. With regard to all kinds of incidents. An incident has occurred. Why did we act this way and not that way? Let us ask ourselves why we did what we did. We live in a democratic country. We must be strong enough to allow it."
Challenging the Troopers
Do you ask yourself what it would be like next time, in the next major operation in the Gaza Strip?
"Certainly. All the time. I am obliged to ask myself what it would be like all the time. I took my platoon commanders and asked them 'Tell me what the next war will be like. Envision the next war and describe it to me'. At the time of Operation Protective Edge, the troopers you see here were in the ninth grade, but where were the commanders? It is very difficult for them to envision the war, but it is very easy for them to envision their vacation in Thailand. You must help them envision the challenges of the next war, the encounter with combat. I think we are very powerful. We do not have to be arrogant. We must allow the problems to float up without fear of criticism. Anyone who fails to do it will be lost.
"I keep asking myself and the commanders above and below me: what can I do and what would be more complex for me to do. Scaring myself to death with casualty figures is ineffective. I always strive to get everyone I can back safely. It was during Operation Protective Edge that I witnessed realization that these things involve casualties. I believe the civilians were very strong. Some mistakes were made during Operation Protective Edge that we must learn from in order to be better next time."
Do such guys as the recruits of the Nahal Brigade train, for example, to fight in the underground tunnels – what the IDF calls subterranean warfare?
"We strive to avoid the subterranean medium. What we have to do is turn the subterranean medium into a death trap for the other side. Look at history, at the battle of Okinawa. What did the Japanese say? 'We cannot cope with the Americans, so let's build tunnels.' They built three lines of defense made up of tunnels. They had intended to force the Americans to fight for every inch.
"Hamas says: I cannot resist the IDF. If the IDF wants to – it will conquer the entire Strip in a second. Consequently, I have to think of a way to turn their space into a death trap, to drive them out of their safe space. That is the name of the game. That is the battle. I want to deliver my advantages and my subterfuge to the battlefield. We have the method to do it and the cooperation to do it. Nothing is perfect. We must practice our advantages and work on our disadvantages. They look for ways to kidnap an IDF trooper. They look for ways to turn a small incident into a major strategic event, and I look for ways to deny it to them, to kill them under the ground and not to play into their hands.
"These troopers are currently going through their basic training. For the first time since the year 2000 and the second Intifada, we are once again training according to the 17-17 pattern: seventeen weeks of training followed by seventeen weeks on frontline duty, so the troopers are training much more. The troopers get to know their weapons and the commanders can evaluate the quality of the training activity. We want to see how a trooper, who goes into the training activity at a performance level of X, emerges from that activity: X plus how much? We need to understand what the training had given him. This applies to the simulators that simulate the battlefield, including the casualties.
"We have to challenge them. The troopers come from a technological world where everything is instant. Our job is to challenge them in the context of what we are about to encounter during the war. We developed a training seminar on being the 'coiled spring.' Only for the Gaza Strip, only scenarios."
Resource:
https://www.israeldefense.co.il/en/node/36727
me-research on genealogy of Goldfoot/Goldfus
Labels: Commander, genealogy, Goldfoot, Goldfus, IDF, Israel, Jerusalem, South Africa, Stanley Goldfoot
Wednesday, June 10, 2020
Rabbi Abraham Shmuel Goldberg, Part of the Goldfoot Line
Nadene Goldfoot
Rabbi Abraham Shmuel Goldberg 68 possibly Rabbi Moshe Twersky 59
I never did find out how Abraham was connected to the Goldfoot line. He was an only child, and his wife's name is Breine. His mother's maiden name was Sheinfield. His occupation was that of a chemical engineer. He and his wife make aliyah in 1991. He's buried in Givit Shaul Cemetery in Jerusalem.
"In Jerusalem, thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jews swayed in prayer at the funeral of Twersky, a descendant of two rabbinical dynasties. He was the head of an English-speaking religious college in Jerusalem, the son of Isadore Twersky, the founder of Harvard University’s Centre for Jewish Studies, and the grandson of a founder of the Modern Orthodox movement. "
The other American rabbis killed were Rabbi Kalman Levine 55, and Rabbi Aryeh Kupinsky.
It happens that Goldberg is a name that many share DNA segments with me. They all aren't related to each other. I hope some have Abraham Shmuel on their tree and notify me.
Labels: Abraham Shmuel Goldberg, Goldfoot, Jerusalem, Rabbi Moshe Twersky, synagogue, terrorist attack
Thursday, July 23, 2015
After 2nd Temple Was Destroyed in 70 CE, What Happened To Our Families
Nadene Goldfoot
Our small trickle of a Jewish population of 14 million is so lucky to exist after millenniums of people trying to destroy us. We only make up 0.02% of the world population today, but long ago in King David's time, must have grown into a goodly %, for the great numbers slaughtered were huge. Above, Danny's father came from Russia with his family as a little boy via a guide in the night like the Mexicans of today leave Mexico. His mother was a German Jew, born in the USA with a paternal grandfather Greenstein from Russia. My paternal grandparents came from Lithuania. My grandfather died when my father was 4 years old so we knew nothing about his life, just that he came from "Russia." By the time my Bubba immigrated, her city of Lazdijai had been taken over by Poland. My mother had converted to Judaism. Here we live in the melting pot of the best country in the whole world for Jews since Judah had been destroyed.
The destruction of the 2nd Temple in 70 CE was about to change the whole world and especially the Jews. Romans entered Judah when they replaced the Seleucids as the great power of the region. They granted the Hasmonean king Hyrcanus II limited authority under their Roman governor of Damascus.
 |
| Danny and I and our Aliyah party 1980 Danny's mother's surname was Cohen. His father was a Levite, making him one, too. He became a high school history teacher and then earned his master's in testing and evaluation and became a counselor. His father's surname had been Iskowitz, but changed to become more American.   Danny, after moving to Israel wearing an Israeli prayer shawl |
Our small trickle of a Jewish population of 14 million is so lucky to exist after millenniums of people trying to destroy us. We only make up 0.02% of the world population today, but long ago in King David's time, must have grown into a goodly %, for the great numbers slaughtered were huge. Above, Danny's father came from Russia with his family as a little boy via a guide in the night like the Mexicans of today leave Mexico. His mother was a German Jew, born in the USA with a paternal grandfather Greenstein from Russia. My paternal grandparents came from Lithuania. My grandfather died when my father was 4 years old so we knew nothing about his life, just that he came from "Russia." By the time my Bubba immigrated, her city of Lazdijai had been taken over by Poland. My mother had converted to Judaism. Here we live in the melting pot of the best country in the whole world for Jews since Judah had been destroyed.
The destruction of the 2nd Temple in 70 CE was about to change the whole world and especially the Jews. Romans entered Judah when they replaced the Seleucids as the great power of the region. They granted the Hasmonean king Hyrcanus II limited authority under their Roman governor of Damascus.
 |
| Danny's Bar Mitzvah and family in Brooklyn 1951 His grandmother was Sarah Cohen nee Greenstein |
Who was a Jew? In this Talmudic period from 100 BCE to 500 CE, anyone who had a Jewish mother was Jewish, or if the person had been rabbinically converted. Jews themselves are divided into 3 male castes; Cohen, Levi and Israelite. It is estimated that Cohanim and Levites each comprise about 4% of the Jewish people today, although about 40% that have tested their DNA are found to have the Cohen gene. This makes me wonder.
Herod was the son-in-law of Hyrcanus II and in 37 BCE was appointed King of Judea by the Romans. He was given almost unlimited autonomy in the country's internal affairs and became one of the most powerful monarchs in the eastern part of the Roman Empire. He loved Greco-Roman culture. So he launched a massive construction program including the cities of Caesarea and Sebaste, and the fortresses at Herodium and Masada. He also remodeled the Temple into one of the most magnificent buildings of its time. However, he failed to win the trust and support of his Jewish subjects He was not of the Davidic dynasty. He was the son of Antipater who was an Idumean and his mother was a Nabatean, named Cypros. His father appointed him governor of Galilee when he was a young man and he immediately showed a strong hand by executing dissidents. For this he was summoned by the Sanhedrin and only saved from death by the intervention of Hyrcanus and Sexus Caesar, governor of Syria.
In the middle of the 2nd century BCE, a Jewish writer of the 3rd book of the Oracula Sibyllina spoke to the "Chosen People" and told them that "every land is full of thee and every see." Other notables such as Strabo, Philo, Seneca, Luke-author of the Acts of the Apostles, Cicero, and Josephus all mentioned Jewish populations in the cities of the Mediterranean basin. Jews were in India and in China. King Agrippa I sent a letter to Caligula numbering the Jews in their provinces which were almost all of the Hellenized and non-Hellenized countries of the Orient. He didn't mention Italy or Cyrene having Jews, then. Josephus said that after Judea and Babylonia were in Syria and especially in Antioch and Damascus, where 10,000 to 18,000 Jews were massacred during the great insurrection. Philo said that Jews in Egypt numbered one million which was 1/8th of the population. Alexandria was the most important Jewish community. They were on par with their Ptolemaic counterparts and had close ties with them with Jerusalem before the destruction. Moving to Egypt then was a choice of the people there, not an imposition.
When Herod died in 4 BCE, Judah came under direct Roman administration. The population's anger kept growing against increased Roman suppression of their Jewish life and this resulted in sporadic violence which escalated into a full-scale revolt in 66 CE. Titus brought in his superior Roman forces and they were finally victorious by razing Jerusalem to the ground in 70 CE by burning it and defeating the last Jewish outpost at Masada in 73 CE.
The was total destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple's destruction was a huge catastrophe for the Jewish people. Hundreds of thousands of Jews perished in the siege of Jerusalem and elsewhere in the country, and then many thousands more were sold into slavery.
Shimon Bar Kokhba came along in 132 CE and regained Jerusalem from the Romans, giving the population a respite from Roman rule, but his attack on the ended in defeat after 3 years of fighting and he was killed in battle, regaining Judea as it was called by the Romans. The holy city was plowed up with a yoke of oxen. Judea was then renamed as Palaestinia just to be ornery against the Jews and Jerusalem was renamed as Aelia Capitolina.
After this, many Jews were taken as slaves and brought into other lands which they called "the Diaspora." By the 4th century CE, many of these slave populations may have served as the basis of later European Jewish communities.
The majority of Jews lived outside of Judea rather than in it, and they were already living outside of Judea at the time of the destruction of Jerusalem. As many as a million Jews were already living in Alexandria. The Romans treated and put to the law all Jews, no matter where they lived. They collected an annual temple tax even though they had destroyed the Temple. They were treating Jews as a distinct ethno-national group.
There was a revolt in 115-117 CE in Egypt, Libya and Crete which likely decimated the Jewish Diaspora population. Wholesale massacres had taken place in Cyrenaica, Cyprus and Meseopotamia where there were large numbers of Jews. When Caesar Augustus had started his rule, there were over 7,000 Jews living in Rome, though this is only the number that is said to have escorted the envoys who came to demand the depositionof Archelaus. Bringmann talks of about 8,000 Jews who lived in Rome. Many sources say that the Jews made up about 1/10th of the population of Rome. In the year 62-61 BCE, the tax paid showed that the Jewish population of Asia Minor was about 45,000 adult males out of a total of at least 180,000 people. There was another in 132-135 of the Bar Kochba Revolt causing the Romans to engage in mass executions and enslavement. The Romans then destroyed large numbers of Judaean towns, and forbade Jews from settling in Jerusalem or its environs. there was no further Jewish government or overarching legal system in Judaea. Jews had now become permanently exiled people with no national homeland. The restrictions continued such as taxation, discrimination, social exclusion which further alienated and marginalized remaining Jews in the Negev and Galilee.
What the Romans did was favor the settlement of culturally pagan Syro-Phoenicians and others. These would have been the ancestors of the people the Arabs have displaced.
For Arabs came from the Arabian peninsula and regions nearby it, but left their land when Islam was created by Muhammad before and after 632 to proselytize. They burst forth from their homeland to conquer the greater part of the then civilized world. They are a Semitic people like the Jews, coming from Abraham's first son, Ishmael by the Egyptian woman, Hagar, who was Abraham's wife's handmaid.
Judaea became known as Syria Palestina. The Romans did their best to ensure that Jerusalem would ever rise again or that there would ever be another Jewish Temple.
Jewish people were now in exile. Some time around the year 615, Muhammad spoke to the Jews of Mecca and Medina as though they had been expelled 2 times from the land of Judaea by the servants of Allah and told them it was a punishment for their rejection of Jesus and of the prophet, (himself).
He was wrong. The outside world in which Jews were living in (the Diaspora) happened over the centuries since they had returned from Babylon where they had a taste of living outside. Then they had to live through the Roman destruction and the subsequent rule of Christians and Muslims. For generations to come, the Jews were to be seen as an exiled and persecuted people for much of their history. The Babylonian captivity created the promise of return and getting on with their lives.
So we find many Jews were living outside of the Land of Israel before the Roman imperial oppression and before the Jewish uprisings for independence and freedom from Roman rule in their homeland. Many went back to 4 BCE like the settlement in Puteoli, Italy and originated in voluntary emigration by the lure of trade and commerce. I would think that the scholars tended to remain in Judah for as long as they could until they too, saw the writing on the wall and fled, most likely before the burning started.
Jews were living in France before 70 CE. Organized Jewish communities were living there in the period of the Roman Empire. When Christianity entered, their position deteriorated because the church councils took steps to enforce the conventional anti-Jewish codes. Under the Merovingians, some Jews occupied prominent positions at their court.
From the 8th century on, Jews were under the protection of Charlemagne and his house, so Jewish merchants began to settle in France for purposes of trade, importing foreign luxuries and establishing new communities up the Rhone Valley and into Champagne. In the 9th century, southern France was the main center of the activity of the international traders, the RADANITES.
Sephardi originally meant Jews descended from the communities that existed in Spain before their expulsion of 1492. Today we use Sephardim to mean all descendants of the communities of North Africa and the Near East who follow the Sephardi rite of worship and their cultural traditions. Before the middle of the 20th century, gene flow between Ashkenazi and non-Ashkenazi groups was restricted by distance, but some cities found both living there, each attending their own synagogues. Language would have been a barrier and some small differences in customs, for instance, Sephardi allowing rice to be eaten during Passover but Ashkenazis not allowing it. I wonder if Jacob's wife, Rachel, was this beautiful. I hope so.
Resource: https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/Romans.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_diaspora
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
The Jews of Khazaria 2nd edition, Kevin Alan Brook
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0007_0_07174.html- Genetic Ancestry, Jewish
https://www.google.com/search?q=Sephardi+Jews,+pictures&biw=1024&bih=677&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0CDYQ7AlqFQoTCL3W3rPn8cYCFc1biAodOZ0PrA#imgrc=sWBiEDr6U7q7MM%3A
In the middle of the 2nd century BCE, a Jewish writer of the 3rd book of the Oracula Sibyllina spoke to the "Chosen People" and told them that "every land is full of thee and every see." Other notables such as Strabo, Philo, Seneca, Luke-author of the Acts of the Apostles, Cicero, and Josephus all mentioned Jewish populations in the cities of the Mediterranean basin. Jews were in India and in China. King Agrippa I sent a letter to Caligula numbering the Jews in their provinces which were almost all of the Hellenized and non-Hellenized countries of the Orient. He didn't mention Italy or Cyrene having Jews, then. Josephus said that after Judea and Babylonia were in Syria and especially in Antioch and Damascus, where 10,000 to 18,000 Jews were massacred during the great insurrection. Philo said that Jews in Egypt numbered one million which was 1/8th of the population. Alexandria was the most important Jewish community. They were on par with their Ptolemaic counterparts and had close ties with them with Jerusalem before the destruction. Moving to Egypt then was a choice of the people there, not an imposition.
When Herod died in 4 BCE, Judah came under direct Roman administration. The population's anger kept growing against increased Roman suppression of their Jewish life and this resulted in sporadic violence which escalated into a full-scale revolt in 66 CE. Titus brought in his superior Roman forces and they were finally victorious by razing Jerusalem to the ground in 70 CE by burning it and defeating the last Jewish outpost at Masada in 73 CE.
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| Leaving Jerusalem |
Shimon Bar Kokhba came along in 132 CE and regained Jerusalem from the Romans, giving the population a respite from Roman rule, but his attack on the ended in defeat after 3 years of fighting and he was killed in battle, regaining Judea as it was called by the Romans. The holy city was plowed up with a yoke of oxen. Judea was then renamed as Palaestinia just to be ornery against the Jews and Jerusalem was renamed as Aelia Capitolina.
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| The Arch of Titus leading away the loot from the Temple and Jewish slaves |
The majority of Jews lived outside of Judea rather than in it, and they were already living outside of Judea at the time of the destruction of Jerusalem. As many as a million Jews were already living in Alexandria. The Romans treated and put to the law all Jews, no matter where they lived. They collected an annual temple tax even though they had destroyed the Temple. They were treating Jews as a distinct ethno-national group.
There was a revolt in 115-117 CE in Egypt, Libya and Crete which likely decimated the Jewish Diaspora population. Wholesale massacres had taken place in Cyrenaica, Cyprus and Meseopotamia where there were large numbers of Jews. When Caesar Augustus had started his rule, there were over 7,000 Jews living in Rome, though this is only the number that is said to have escorted the envoys who came to demand the depositionof Archelaus. Bringmann talks of about 8,000 Jews who lived in Rome. Many sources say that the Jews made up about 1/10th of the population of Rome. In the year 62-61 BCE, the tax paid showed that the Jewish population of Asia Minor was about 45,000 adult males out of a total of at least 180,000 people. There was another in 132-135 of the Bar Kochba Revolt causing the Romans to engage in mass executions and enslavement. The Romans then destroyed large numbers of Judaean towns, and forbade Jews from settling in Jerusalem or its environs. there was no further Jewish government or overarching legal system in Judaea. Jews had now become permanently exiled people with no national homeland. The restrictions continued such as taxation, discrimination, social exclusion which further alienated and marginalized remaining Jews in the Negev and Galilee.
What the Romans did was favor the settlement of culturally pagan Syro-Phoenicians and others. These would have been the ancestors of the people the Arabs have displaced.
Judaea became known as Syria Palestina. The Romans did their best to ensure that Jerusalem would ever rise again or that there would ever be another Jewish Temple.
Jewish people were now in exile. Some time around the year 615, Muhammad spoke to the Jews of Mecca and Medina as though they had been expelled 2 times from the land of Judaea by the servants of Allah and told them it was a punishment for their rejection of Jesus and of the prophet, (himself).
He was wrong. The outside world in which Jews were living in (the Diaspora) happened over the centuries since they had returned from Babylon where they had a taste of living outside. Then they had to live through the Roman destruction and the subsequent rule of Christians and Muslims. For generations to come, the Jews were to be seen as an exiled and persecuted people for much of their history. The Babylonian captivity created the promise of return and getting on with their lives.
So we find many Jews were living outside of the Land of Israel before the Roman imperial oppression and before the Jewish uprisings for independence and freedom from Roman rule in their homeland. Many went back to 4 BCE like the settlement in Puteoli, Italy and originated in voluntary emigration by the lure of trade and commerce. I would think that the scholars tended to remain in Judah for as long as they could until they too, saw the writing on the wall and fled, most likely before the burning started.
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| Worms, Germany |
Jews migrated into NW Europe, including NE France and N. Germany with settlement documented back to the 6th century.
Jews were living in France before 70 CE. Organized Jewish communities were living there in the period of the Roman Empire. When Christianity entered, their position deteriorated because the church councils took steps to enforce the conventional anti-Jewish codes. Under the Merovingians, some Jews occupied prominent positions at their court.
From the 8th century on, Jews were under the protection of Charlemagne and his house, so Jewish merchants began to settle in France for purposes of trade, importing foreign luxuries and establishing new communities up the Rhone Valley and into Champagne. In the 9th century, southern France was the main center of the activity of the international traders, the RADANITES.
From the 10th century, Ashkenazi Jews spoke Yiddish which was written with Hebrew letters but using a language that was mostly from German.
Jews were in Lithuania from 1321. By 1398 a community of Karaites lived in Troki. by 1495 (3 years after the 1492 Spanish expulsion) Jews were living in Vilna, Grodno and Kovno totalling 10,000.
Poland had Jews living there since the 9th century. They were thought to have come there from Germany or Bohemia or from the kingdom of Kiev or the Byzantine Empire and reinforced by some from Khazaria.
Ukraine's Jews are thought to have come from Khazaria in waves, the Caliphate and Byzantium between the 9th and 12th centuries, from Central Europe in the 14th-15th centuries, and from Poland in the 16th to 17th centuries. It's always been an anti-Semitic center.
Latvia had Jews from the 16th century. 2,000 lived there in 1795 when it was annexed to Russia. In 1835 Courland and Livland were excluded from the Pale of Settlement where Jews were allowed to live as they couldn't live in Russia proper according to Catherine II"s law.
Belarus or Belorussia was called White Russia. Jews moved there from Poland and were living in Grodno in the 12th century at Brest-Litovsk in the 14th century and Pinsk from 1506; capital is Minsk.
Crimea had Jewish settlement from the 1st century BCE. From the 7th century to 1117, eastern Crimea was controlled by the Khazars. Karaites ived there from the 12th century centered at Kaffa. Many of those Jews converted to Islam under Tatar rule.
Russia had Jews since since classical times. In 986 Jews lived there, but Catherine II put a stop to that in 1791 and the law remained till WWI.
Jews were in Lithuania from 1321. By 1398 a community of Karaites lived in Troki. by 1495 (3 years after the 1492 Spanish expulsion) Jews were living in Vilna, Grodno and Kovno totalling 10,000.
Poland had Jews living there since the 9th century. They were thought to have come there from Germany or Bohemia or from the kingdom of Kiev or the Byzantine Empire and reinforced by some from Khazaria.
Ukraine's Jews are thought to have come from Khazaria in waves, the Caliphate and Byzantium between the 9th and 12th centuries, from Central Europe in the 14th-15th centuries, and from Poland in the 16th to 17th centuries. It's always been an anti-Semitic center.
Latvia had Jews from the 16th century. 2,000 lived there in 1795 when it was annexed to Russia. In 1835 Courland and Livland were excluded from the Pale of Settlement where Jews were allowed to live as they couldn't live in Russia proper according to Catherine II"s law.
Belarus or Belorussia was called White Russia. Jews moved there from Poland and were living in Grodno in the 12th century at Brest-Litovsk in the 14th century and Pinsk from 1506; capital is Minsk.
Crimea had Jewish settlement from the 1st century BCE. From the 7th century to 1117, eastern Crimea was controlled by the Khazars. Karaites ived there from the 12th century centered at Kaffa. Many of those Jews converted to Islam under Tatar rule.
Russia had Jews since since classical times. In 986 Jews lived there, but Catherine II put a stop to that in 1791 and the law remained till WWI.
By the 16th century, Jews populated communities going from the Loire in the West to the Dnieper in the East, and from Rome in the South to the Danish border in the North.
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| My great aunt, Jenny Criss nee Jermulowske, spoke Yiddish and English |
Jews could tell by listening to someone where they had come from. There was Western Yiddish, now almost extinct, and Eastern Yiddish, subdivided into a northern dialect centered in Lithuania and a southern dialect extending from Poland to the Ukraine. and Romania. In the USA, the southern dialect dominated on the stage and the northern dialect on the lecture platform. My father only spoke Yiddish until he started 1st grade, where he had to start learning English. His mother never did learn English, so her children always spoke Yiddish with her. I learned such phrases as "kiss mere tuchus!" and "Oy Gevalt!" and "Potch'n tuchus!"
In the 9th and 10th centuries, Judaism became the most widespread religious influence upon the Khazars.
Jews from Khazaria's royal house had converted to Judaism. The state of Khazaria became independent in the 630's and 640's. I note that Muhammad had died in 630 as well and Islam spread quickly from then on. Some Khazars became Muslims from about 690 to the late 10th century. The Khazars became the dominant power in southern Russia and they displaced other ethnic groups, most notably, the Bulgars who were a mixture of Hunnic, Turkic and Iranian groups mixed together. Jews from eastern Europe facing anti-Semitism could find refuge in Khazaria as the royal family had chosen to convert to Judaism and allowed their people to choose whatever religion they wanted for themselves. So Khazaria was a vast land with many large Jewish settlements. The Khazars had 100 cities or clans. Settlements were located in the Don and Volga river valleys, on the Crimean peninsula, in today's Ukraine and north of the Caucasian mountain range. However, archaeological evidence indicates that Jews have lived in the Balkans, in the Caucasus including Georgia, along the northern shores of the Black Sea, and in other areas of eastern Europe since Roman times.
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| Yasmin Levy, Sephardic singer and song writer from Jerusalem with fans even in Pakistan |
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| Some of those Jews led to extermination camps |
There were about 8 million Ashkenazi Jews just prior to the outbreak of World War II of 1941. 6 million were slaughtered during the war.
650,000 Jews were living in Palestine in 1948.
Today, 6 million Jews live in Israel, about 6 million in the USA, and 2 million in the Diaspora.
Today, 6 million Jews live in Israel, about 6 million in the USA, and 2 million in the Diaspora.
Resource: https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/Romans.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_diaspora
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
The Jews of Khazaria 2nd edition, Kevin Alan Brook
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0007_0_07174.html- Genetic Ancestry, Jewish
https://www.google.com/search?q=Sephardi+Jews,+pictures&biw=1024&bih=677&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0CDYQ7AlqFQoTCL3W3rPn8cYCFc1biAodOZ0PrA#imgrc=sWBiEDr6U7q7MM%3A
Labels: Arabs, Ashkenazi, bar Kokhba, Damascus, Danny Eskow paintings, Egypt, Herod, Jerusalem, Judh, King Hyrcanua II, Rome, Sephardi, Syria, Syro-Phoenicians, Yiddish
Wednesday, April 16, 2014
The First Crusade and Rashi/Our Goldfoot Ancestors
The first Crusade was in 1096-9. This is when attacks were made on
Jews living in Northern France and especially in the Rhineland where massacres
occurred in cites of Mainz, Worms, Speyer, Cologne, etc and other places where
Jews had found refuge from the Roman attack in Judah.
Jerusalem was taken by them in 1099 and in that Jews and Karaites were massacred. Crusades went on with the last being in 1320 with attacks on Jews in southern France and northern Spain.
Jerusalem was taken by them in 1099 and in that Jews and Karaites were massacred. Crusades went on with the last being in 1320 with attacks on Jews in southern France and northern Spain.
The 2nd Crusade lasted from 1145 to
1149.
Rashi lived from 1040 to 1105 CE. He
was born and died in Troyes, France, studying in the Rhineland. Troyes (French
pronunciation: [tʁwa])
is a commune and the capital of the Aube department in north-central France. It is
located on theSeine river about 150 km (93 mi)
southeast of Paris. This area is known as the Champagne region of Northern
France. Many half-timbered houses (mainly of the 16th century) survive in the
old town. Troyes has been in existence since the Roman era, as Augustobona
Tricassium,
which stood at the hub of numerous highways, primarily the Via Agrippa.
We were lucky he survived the First Crusade, but he did die 6 years later. So his ancestors had gone there when the Romans attacked Jerusalem in 70 CE.
Our Goldfoot line is connected to the Rabbi of Worms who is connected to Rashi who is said to go back to King David. Our main connection is from the Rabbi Samson Wertheimer or his brother, Moses Wertheimer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Crusade
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
http://jewishbubba.blogspot.com/2014/02/rashis-family-tree-and-rabbi-of-worms.html
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
http://jewishbubba.blogspot.com/2014/02/rashis-family-tree-and-rabbi-of-worms.html
Labels: 1st Crusade, 70 CE, dna, France, Germany, Jerusalem, Rabbi of Worms, Rashi, Troyes, Worms
