UPDATES
9:00 am Israel time, Monday, August 31 2015
**The daily Palestinian Terror Report:
To begin with this morning, we will merely focus on Palestinian Molotov cocktail attacks yesterday.
A car set on fire by terrorists yesterday (picture 0404).
It is worthwhile remembering that in each of the following attacks, the purpose of the terrorists was to burn Israeli men, women, and children alive:
–at 3:32 pm, Palestinian terrorists hit Israeli motorists with Molotov cocktails near Talmonim.
–at 4:46 pm, Palestinian terrorists attacked Israelis near Ras Karbar with Molotov cocktails.
–at 9:26 pm, Palestinian terrorists attacked Israeli motorists with Molotov cocktails at El Moaiir.
–at 9:37 pm, terrorists threw Molotov cocktails at border policemen in Ras Al-Amud in Jerusalem.
–at 9:40 pm, Palestinian terrorists threw Molotov cocktails in the Benjamin area.
–at 9:42 pm Palestinian terrorists threw Molotov cocktails at the Anata Junction setting multiple fires.
Multiple shooting incidents also occurred in Samaria and Judea yesterday.
In one near Kedumim, an Israeli motorist was wounded when his car was hit by a hail of gunfire from a passing car (see picture below). He managed to continue driving and received help from a medical detachment of the Ephraim Regional Brigade. The terrorists escaped.
Note at least 6 bullet holes in the side of the car. It was miraculous that the driver was not killed (picture: kolyehudi).
The wounded man, Ronan Edri, is reported in good condition this morning at the Kfar Saba Medical Center and commented: “Living in Samaria is like living in a game of Russian roulette.”
**Remember the picture two days ago of the Golani soldier being attacked by Palestinians at Nabi Saleh . . .
Your humble servant never fails to point out that the Palestinians at Nabi Saleh are always joined by “international lawbreakers” and Israeli leftists. It turns out that in the background of that picture was just such a person, Herzl Schubert, an Israeli teacher at the Ort school in Ramat Gan.
Yesterday, a parents’ movement was started at the school to have Schubert fired.
One parent said this:
“It is a disgrace that he will teach our children. . . I tell you with certainty that this man is constantly putting left-wing extremism into the brains of our children. But now he has crossed the line, and we will not be quiet. Unless he is fired, we will not send our children to school. “
**Let’s see if you can wrap your mind around this . . .
It was announced this morning that the Prosecutions Unit in the Samaria and Judea District has outrageously filed charges against Noam Federman of Kiryat Arba for “harming Arab cars.”
Nine months ago, Federman was driving in Hebron with his two sons when he was attacked by “rock” throwers. Federman got out of his car and ran into an alleyway after the “rock” throwers–despite the fact that they continued to pelt him. Federman then picked up the “rocks” he was being hit with and threw them back at the terrorists. In his act of self-defense, he hit some Palestinian cars parked in the alley.
Federman has already made a statement to the media today: “It is unbelievable that the victim becomes the accused in Israel. Everyone knows that “rocks” were thrown at me and my family, and that all my actions were in self-defense. I’m going to make my trial a political one in which the IDF policy of restraint in Judea and Samaria will be the focus. The policy of restraint has led and will lead to murder of Jews. I cannot be silent about it even in the face of an indictment.”
**The Daniel Barenboim circus continues . . .
In case you are unfamiliar with the name, Daniel Barenboim is the Argentinian-born Israeli citizen renowned the world over for his brilliance at the piano and on the musical conductor podium. He is currently the general music director of the Berlin State Opera House.
Barenboim conducting in Berlin (picture: Ynet).
He also happens to be an uber-left wing “activist” who does everything possible to support the Palestinians (who have even made him a “Palestinian citizen”) and to delegitimize Israel wherever and whenever possible.
In this latter regard, Barenboim announced a couple of weeks ago that he wanted to take the Berlin Opera to Tehran in October when German Chancellor Angela Merkel is scheduled to visit. The outcry in Israel over this announcement was deafening.
However, it turns out that no protest against Barenboim’s visit was necessary after all. Yesterday an Iranian culture ministry spokesman declared that Barenboim is persona non grata in Iran because of his Israeli citizenship:
“We have no problem with the German orchestra coming to Iran, but we are opposed to the person leading that group . . . Our reviews revealed that the conductor has nationality and identity dependence to Israel, was raised in Israel and his parents have also lived there. So the suspicion of him being related to that country, which is illegitimate to us, was there . . .”
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Of course were Barenboim to surrender his Israeli citizenship, then the Iranians would let him in . . .
TODAY’S BLOG:
Today we finish our mini-series on the three synagogues that your humble servant visited in Jerusalem last Sunday. The focus today is the gorgeous and commanding Hurva Synagogue.
Note the Hurva Synagogue and Hurva Square just to the left of the Karaite Synagogue.
What you cannot tell from the above graphic is that the distance from the Hurva Synagogue to the Temple Mount is about a 300 meter walk downhill. The “street” where the word “Karaite” is marked above is not really a street but a pedestrian walkway; where the “street” ends on the map above, a long stairway takes one down to the Kotel (Western Wall).
Just like the Tiferet Synagogue, the Hurva Synagogue once dominated the Jerusalem skyline. The difference between the two is that today the Hurva has risen to dominate it again while the Tiferet awaits reconstruction.
But I am getting a little ahead of myself.
First, as always, a little history. Construction on the Hurva Synagogue (not then known by that name) began in October of the year 1700. Led by followers of Rabbi Yehuda Hasid, the construction took about a decade, but their efforts were sabotaged by local Muslims who burned the synagogue to the ground and destroyed its courtyard in 1721.
In 1816, another license to build a synagogue on the spot was obtained from the Turkish authorities (there are funny side stories to the obtaining of the license involving Ashkenazi Jews disguising themselves as Sephardic Jews so they could enter Jerusalem but that is for a different blog). Suffice it to say that the new synagogue was finally completed in 1864. Its name was “The Beit Ya’akov Synagogue in the Courtyard of the Ruin of Rabbi Yehuda Hassid” (“Hurva” means “ruin”).
A picture of the Hurva in 1930:
We move forward to May of 1948. Just as the Tiferet Synagogue was blown to pieces by the Jordanian Army and its “Palestinian” cohorts so was the Hurva Synagogue dynamited into rubble.
Note that this picture was taken just under the one arch that remained (you can see it in the previous picture).
It was after the destruction of the Hurva that the Jordanian commander Abdullah Al-Tal uttered his famous statement that has been proved so stupidly wrong:
“For the first time in 1,000 years not a single Jew remains in the Jewish Quarter. Not a single building remains intact. This makes the Jews’ return here impossible.”
And so the Hurva remained in ruins for the next 20 years until Israel retook the Old City. In 1967, the site was cleaned up and in 1977 a commemorative arch was erected, but the synagogue was not rebuilt. Finally, in the year 2000, the Israeli government approved plans to rebuild the Hurva.
Funded by 3 Ukrainian Jews in addition to the Israeli government, the Hurva was completed and rededicated on March 15, 2010.
Your humble servant was on the high walkway around the dome last Sunday. See the last picture in today’s blog.
The inside of the Hurva is gorgeous and particularly interesting because the ruins of the previous synagogue are incorporated into its walls (precisely what is planned for the Tiferet Synagogue reconstruction):
Note the stones incorporated into the walls–they are the existing walls of the previous Hurva.
The Hurva immediately became the highest point in the Old City of Jerusalem–and again dominates the Old City skyline–awaiting its companion Tiferet to be rebuilt:
Note how the Hurva dome is slightly higher than the minaret beside it (another funny story for another blog).
We conclude today with where we started three days ago. Remember how the Al-Aksa iman was so upset by the reconstruction of the Tiferet because the Tiferet will dwarf Al-Aksa.
Here’s a picture that I took from the top of the Hurva last Sunday:
Looking toward the Har HaBeit (Temple Mount) from the top of the Hurva.
What is that puny little building in the right of the photograph just over the rail?
The Al-Aksa Mosque.
A student from Malawi, who had worked with an Israeli health volunteer in his country battling AIDS, came up to us as we walked down the street in the UC-Davis Picnic Day Parade and wanted to carry the Israeli flag.