8-9 Av 5779
9-10 August 2019
Dvir Sorek (2000-2019)
May His Name Be Forever Blessed
Dvir Sorek, murdered at Migdal Oz, buried last night at a funeral attended by thousands.
Your humble servant cannot hold back his anger. How many times must we write something like this? How many of our young people will be gruesomely murdered before we act?
Dvir Sorek, a student and a soldier who would have been 19-years-old in two days, was buried last night. At his funeral, we heard what we have heard so many times before–that he was the best of the best, the person who brought light into everyone’s life that he touched.
It was such a person that Palestinian terrorists stabbed repeatedly and then threw into a patch of rocks and weeks.
Palestinian terrorists.
Palestinians who tried to interrupt the funeral of Dvir last night in Ofra by firing celebratory fireworks in nearby Silwad.
Palestinians who passed out candy throughout Areas A and B of Judea and Samaria to celebrate when they found out about this incredible young man’s murder.
Palestinians who praised the butchering murderers as heroes.
Palestinians whose barbarism knows no bounds.
The News On The Israeli Street
The weekly election poll . . .
In light of the horrific murder of Dvir Sorek, it hardly seems important, but here is the weekly election poll. According to the Smith survey, if the election were held tomorrow:
Likud (Netanyahu) 32
Blue and White (Gantz and Lapid) 30
Joint Arab List 11
United Right (Shaked) 10
Yisrael Beiteinu (Lieberman) 9
Shas (Sephardic ultra-orthodox) 8
Democratic Camp (Meretz and Barak) 8
United Torah Judaism (Ashkenazi ultra-orthodox) 7
Labor/Bridge (Peretz and Levy) 5
What does this mean?
The Right Block (Likud, United Right, Shas, United Torah Judaism) would have 57 seats.
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The Left Block (Blue and White, Democratic Camp, Labor) would have 43 seats.
Unaccounted for (Arab List, Yisrael Beiteinu) would have 20 seats.
Since the Arab List will not form a coalition with either Likud or Blue and White, we would be back to square one with no one able to form a government.
Tisha B’Av on the Temple Mount . . .
Who knows what will happen on Saturday night?
As tens of thousands of Jewish mourners flood the city of Jerusalem on their way to wail at the Kotel, the PLO has decided to close all mosques in Jerusalem except for the Al-Aksa Mosque in order to force Arabs to go there to celebrate Eid Al-Adha–which really does not begin until Sunday night.
Expect violence to erupt.
TODAY’S BLOG:
Our Trip To Eastern Jerusalem and the Old City with Ateret Cohanim, Part 2
Today we continue with the Shield of Jerusalem Tour operated by Ateret Cohanim which we took on Tuesday.
Yesterday, I left you as we were leaving Abu Tor headed toward the Mount of Olives. Our guide along the way was Daniel Luria of Ateret Cohanim.
Just before leaving the rooftop of the home at Abu Tor, Daniel asked us to look across to the Mount of Olives cemetery at the road that the Jordanians cut through the cemetery destroying Jewish graves–the tombstones of which were used to build latrines for the Jordanian soldiers and homes for Palestinian squatters. Then we loaded into the van for the short trip to Solomon’s Garden, the Yemenite Village of Shiloach, Maaleh HaZeitim, and Kidmat Zion.
Note Abu Tor in the lower left and the red pinpoint at Ma’ale HaZeitim. The drive from Abu Tor is downhill through Kfar HaShiloah (Silwan) and then uphill to Ma’ale HaZeitim.
Since I have blogged many times about Solomon’s Garden and Yemenite Shiloach, I will pick up the trail today at Maaleh HaZeitim which sits high up on the Mount of Olives on the outer edge of the Arab neighborhood of Ras Al-Amud.
One of several large residential buildings in the Ma’ale HaZeitim compound.
Its history is fascinating. The land on which it sits was first purchased by Chasidic Jews as a place for burials in 1886; however, no burials ever took place there because the Ottoman Turks–the occupiers at the time– would not allow them.
In 1923, the land was formally registered to the Wollin and Chabad kollels. After the War of Independence, the Jordanians occupied the land and it came under the administration of the “the Jordanian Custodian of Enemy Property”; after the Six-Day War in 1967, it became administered by the Israel Land Administration–which eventually turned it over to the city of Jerusalem.
In 1990, the land was purchased by Irving Moskowitz–an American philanthropist who worked closely with Ateret Cohanim.
In essence, Ma’ale HaZeitim today is an extensive compound housing about one thousand people with a kindergarten, library, synagogues, and a community center.
One more fact: it is constantly under attack from Palestinian terrorists who often throw Molotovs and IEDs at the families in the compound.
When we visited Ma’aleh HaZeitim on Tuesday, we only saw it from the rear and did not go inside. Here is a photo:
If you look carefully along the walls you will see black smudges–which are places where Molotovs have struck.
That is where we will stop for today. On Sunday (there is no blog on Tisha B’Av) we will journey with Ateret Cohanim over to Kidmat Zion and down to the Old City. Throughout this series about our trip, I want you to remember that the bottom line is that the remarkable Ateret Cohanim needs your help. Visit its website and judge for yourself; for example, here is a link to the American Friends of Ateret Cohanim!
You may also click here for information about the Shield of Jerusalem tour we were on.
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.