Yom Rishon
Sunday
29 Elul 5782
September 25 2022
Chag Sameach! Happy Holiday!!
Rosh Hashana begins tonight at sundown. OneIsrael hopes that 5783 will be a year of happiness and prosperity for you dear readers. But most of all, we wish you and your family a year of good health!
The Mendacious Quote of the Day
“I will answer the question of whether I am willing to sit with Odeh and Tibi in the coalition only when the true results of the elections are verified.”
PM Yair Lapid yesterday.
What mendacity!
Everyone knows that Lapid will jump at the opportunity to sit with the Joint Arab List (of which Ayman Odeh and Ahmed Tibi are leaders) if he needs their votes to reach 61.
And even if he doesn’t.
After all, the anti-Israel ideology of Odeh and Tibi is not far removed from the post-Zionist ideology of Lapid.
The “Palestinian” Quote of the Day
It always amazes your humble servant how the West is deluded in its idea that the Palestinians have “moderated.” All one has to do is to look at the rhetoric coming out of Palestinian terror organizations to see that not only have the Palestinians not moderated, they have not changed in the last 60 years since the PLO was founded.
This morning in Shechem (Nablus), IDF forces ambushed a group of terrorists of the Al-Quds Brigades of Islamic Jihad as they made their way to an attack. In the ensuing firefight, at least one terrorist was killed, and an unknown number were badly wounded. No IDF soldiers were wounded.
Yet here is the quote from Al-Quds Brigades following the incident (emphasis mine):
“Al-Quds Brigades – Nablus Brigade: With Allah’s help and the strength of our Mujahideen in the Nablus Brigade, we managed to confront the occupation forces that stormed the Maskan neighborhood at dawn today. The Mujahideen ambushed the Zionist forces who stormed the city and rained bullets and explosive bombs on them during their retreat from the Maskan neighborhood. Our Mujahideen returned safely, thank God. This is Jihad, the victory of Jihad and martyrdom.“
Jihad, martyrdom, and mujaihideen in the service of Allah: these are the watchwords of the Palestinians who view death as the purpose of life.
The News on the Israeli Street
Palestinian terror in the last 24 hours . . .
5783 comes in tonight the same way that 5782 did last year–with Palestinian terror surging across Judea and Samaria.
The attempted murder of Israeli police in a “bulldozer” attack yesterday. The car that rammed the police car is on the other side of the police car.
An alert IDF soldier partially thwarted a ramming attack near Havat Gilad in Samaria yesterday. The soldier spotted the oncoming car on Road 60 and opened fire killing the terrorist. The policeman was not wounded.
A shooting attack at the Tzurim neighborhood of Har Bracha, a motorist narrowly evading death when attacked by baton-wielding terrorists on Road 463 at the Horseshoe Junction, an IED placed at the gas station at the entrance to Kedumim, Molotov and “rock” attacks at dozens of locations in Judea and Samaria: it was a typical day in our ancestral homeland.
The ongoing tragedy of Amiram Ben Oliel . . .
Amiram Ben Oliel as he was 7 years ago.
You may remember that Amiram was the person falsely accused to setting fire to the Dawabshe home in Duma which resulted in the deaths of three family members. Not only was he falsely accused, he was then tortured for 30 days by Shin Bet until he finally confessed. Even though the Court in which he was tried recognized that he was tortured into confessing, it still found him guilty and sentenced him to 3 life sentences.
Unlike any other prisoner in the Israel prison system including Palestinians convicted of the most barbarous crimes, Ben Oliel is incarcerated in inhumane conditions at Eshel Prison in the south.
According to a report today in Hamal: “He is only allowed to leave the cell about two hours a day to a closed yard by himself. He is not entitled to phone calls to his family and lawyers. His family is allowed to visit him once every two weeks for about half an hour through a glass partition. In addition, he is forbidden to go to the synagogue and participate in prayer services, and he is also allowed to keep about five holy books in his cell.”
The reason that Oliel’s circumstances arose again today is that he asked if he could join a minyan for religious services during the high holy days.
He was refused.
What has happened to him and is happening to him is an atrocity.
Great news in the sports world . . .
Israel beat Albania 2-1 at Bloomfield Stadium in Tel Aviv last night to punch our ticket through to Tier A in the Nations League and the playoffs for promotion to Euro 2024.
The Israeli team celebrating its win last night.
TODAY’S BLOG
The Jewish Population of the World As 5782 Ends
Demographer Sergio Della Pergola of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem has published his annual report for the American Jewish Yearbook (2022 AJYB).
Here are the facts about Jews in the world (all numbers below are rounded):
The total Jewish population in the world: 15,300,000 (comprised of people who define themselves as Jews). This is a 100,000 person increase from last year.
The total Jewish population of Israel: 7,080,000
Of the 8,250,000 Jews who live outside of Israel:
6,000,000 live in the U.S.; France 442,000; Canada 394,000; Great Britain 292,000; Argentina 173,000; Russia 145,000; Australia 118,200; Germany 118,000; Brazil 91,000; South Africa 51,000; Hungary 46,500; Ukraine 40,000; Mexico 40,000; Holland 29,700; Belgium 28,000; Italy 27,000; Switzerland 18,800; Uruguay 16,300; Chile 15,800; Sweden 14,900; Turkey 14,300; Spain 12,900; Austria 10,300; and Panama 10,000.
What can we say about these numbers? The increased total number of Jews is small–and almost completely attributable to the increased number of Jews here in Israel. One wonders to what degree those living outside of Israel are “Jewish” and will remain so. With intermarriage rates astronomically high, we might well expect the number of Jews living in the countries above to dramatically decline over the course of the next generation.
During this past year, nearly 60,000 Jews immigrated to Israel from 93 countries.
The countries from which the most came are Russia 26,000; Ukraine 14,000 immigrants; the USA and Canada 3,800; France 2,500 immigrants; Belarus 1,600; Ethiopia 1,450; Argentina 1,100; Great Britain 600; South Africa 500; and Brazil 400.
The number immigrating last year was nearly twice that in the previous year. As has been the case for several decades, most immigrants are coming from countries in the former Soviet Union while the number of those immigrating from North America continues an incremental decline.
But let’s conclude today by emphasizing the positive.
The number of Jews in Israel continues to substantially grow and with little intermarriage here, we can expect the same in the future.
And we should be happy that 60,000 new immigrants have chosen Israel as their home and will perhaps celebrate their first Rosh Hashana in Israel here tonight!
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.