Thursday, March 31, 2016

1977 The Watershed Year in Israeli Politics..... Menachem Begin and the Likud end 30 years Labour Domination in Zion.



Menachem Begin addressing what was then the largest ever meeting in Zion at Kikar Haatzmaut ( now Rabin) the day after the King of Israeli Realty shows Dudu Topaz called all Sephardi Jews Chach-Chachim and extremely derogatory Israeli  term meaning sort of a corrupt low life. Begin was a wonderful  and very skilled Orator   , animated and a trill to watch and hear. May his memory be blessed. If you don't speak Hebrew never mind....just watch, listen ....if you don't speak Hebrew ... listening to Menachem Begin speak is at least for me like watching the Rebbe Menachem Mendel speak in Yiddish or Polish ..... something innate in me is strange attracted to him longingly and willingly....hard to explain but after watching the Rebbe 's many movies and video clips online I feeel emotionally  and spiritually recharged .... 


On 17 May 1977 the Likud, headed by Begin, won the Knesset elections by a landslide, becoming the biggest party in theKnesset. Popularly known as the Mahapakh ("upheaval"), the election results had seismic ramifications as for the first time in Israeli history a party other than the Alignment/Mapai was in a position to form a government, effectively ending the left's hitherto unrivalled domination over Israeli politics. Likud's electoral victory signified a fundamental restructuring of Israeli society in which the founding socialist Ashkenazi elite was being replaced by a coalition representing marginalized Mizrahi and Jewish-religious communities, promoting a socially conservative and economically liberal agenda.

Begin  exit from an aircraft at Andrews Air Force Base,Maryland, United States

The Likud campaign leading up to the election centered on Begin's personality. Demonized by the Alignment as totalitarian and extremist, his self-portrayal as a humble and pious leader struck a chord with many who felt abandoned by the ruling party's ideology. In the predominantly Jewish Mizrahi working class urban neighborhoods and peripheral towns, the Likud won overwhelming majorities, while disillusionment with the Alignment's corruption prompted many middle and upper class voters to support the newly founded Centrist Democratic Movement for Change ("Dash") headed by Yigael Yadin. Dash won 15 seats out of 120, largely at the expense of the Alignment, which was led by Shimon Peres and had shrunk from 51 to 32 seats. Well aware of his momentous achievement and employing his trademark sense for drama, when speaking that night in the Likud headquarters Begin quoted from the Gettysburg Address and the Torah, referring to his victory as a 'turning point in the history of the Jewish people'.

With 43 seats, the Likud still required the support of other parties in order to reach a parliamentary majority that would enable it to form a government under Israel's proportionate representation parliamentary system. Though able to form a narrow coalition with smaller Jewish religious and ultra-orthodox parties, Begin also sought support from centrist elements in the Knesset to provide his government with greater public legitimacy. He controversially offered the foreign affairs portfolio toMoshe Dayan, a former IDF Chief of Staff and Defense Minister, and a prominent Alignment politician identified with the old establishment. Begin was sworn in as Prime Minister of Israel on 20 June 1977. Dash eventually joined his government several months later, thus providing it with the broad support of almost two thirds of the Knesset.

Menachem Begin  Hebrew: מְנַחֵם בֵּגִין; Polish: Mieczysław Biegun; Russian: Менахем Вольфович Бегин Menakhem Vol'fovich Begin; 16 August 1913 – 9 March 1992) was perhaps Israelis Greatest Politicianpolitician ( hey that is in my opinion and this is my blog ... so in your face if you don't agree) He was the  founder of Likud and the sixth Prime Minister of the State of Israel. Before the creation of the state of Israel, he was the leader of the Zionist militant group Irgun, the Revisionist breakaway from the larger Jewish paramilitary organization Haganah. He proclaimed a revolt, on 1 February 1944, against the British mandatory government, which was opposed by the Jewish Agency. As head of the Irgun, he targeted the British in Palestine. Later, the Irgun fought the Arabs during the 1947–48 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine.

Begin was elected to the first Knesset, as head of Herut, the party he founded, and was at first on the political fringe, embodying the opposition to the Mapai-led government and Israeli establishment. He remained in opposition in the eight consecutive elections (except for a national unity government around the Six-Day War), but became more acceptable to the political center. His 1977 electoral victory and premiership ended three decades of Labor Party political dominance.

Begin’s most significant achievement as Prime Minister was the signing of a peace treaty with Egypt in 1979, for which he and Anwar Sadat shared the Nobel Prize for Peace. In the wake of the Camp David Accords, the Israel Defense Forces(IDF) withdrew from the Sinai Peninsula, which was captured from Egypt in the Six-Day War. Later, Begin’s government promoted the construction of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Begin authorized the bombing of the Osirak nuclear plant in Iraq and the invasion of Lebanon in 1982 to fight PLO strongholds there, igniting the 1982 Lebanon War. As Israeli military involvement in Lebanon deepened, and the Sabra and Shatila massacre, carried out by Christian Phalangist militia allies of the Israelis, shocked world public opinion, Begin grew increasingly isolated. As IDF forces remained mired in Lebanon and the economy suffered from hyperinflation, the public pressure on Begin mounted. Depressed by the death of his wife Aliza in November 1982, he gradually withdrew from public life, until his resignation in October 1983.

Menachem Begin was born to Zeev Dov and Hassia Biegun of Polish Jewry in Brest, a town called Brest-Litovsk, then part of the Russian Empire, but today Belarus, and was known for its Talmudic scholars. He was the youngest of three children. On his mother's side he was descended from distinguished rabbis. His father, a timber merchant, was a community leader, a passionate Zionist, and an admirer of Theodor Herzl. The midwife who attended his birth was the grandmother of Ariel Sharon.

After a year of a traditional cheder education Begin started studying at a "Tachkemoni" school, associated with the religious Zionist movement. In his childhood, Begin, like most Jewish children in his town, was a member of the Zionist scouts movement Hashomer Hatzair. He was a member of Hashomer Hatzair until the age of 13, and at 16, he joined Betar. At 14, he was sent to a Polish government school, where he received a solid grounding in classical literature.

Begin studied law at the University of Warsaw, where he learned the oratory and rhetoric skills that became his trademark as a politician, and viewed as demagogy by his critics. During his studies, he organized a self-defense group of Jewish students to counter harassment by anti-Semites on campus. He graduated in 1935, but never practiced law. At this time, he became a disciple of Vladimir "Ze'ev" Jabotinsky, the founder of the nationalist Revisionist Zionism movement and its Betar youth wing.[11] His rise within Betar was rapid: At 22, he shared the dais with his mentor at the Betar World Congress in Kraków. The pre-war Polish government actively supported Zionist youth and paramilitary movements. Begin's leadership qualities were quickly recognised. In 1937[citation needed] he was the active head of Betar inCzechoslovakia and became head of the largest branch, that of Poland. As head of Betar's Polish branch, Begin traveled among regional branches to encourage supporters and recruit new members. To save money, he stayed at the homes of Betar members. During one such visit, he met his future wife Aliza Arnold, who was the daughter of his host. On 29 May 1939 the couple married. They had three children: Binyamin, Leah and Hassia.

Living in Warsaw in Poland, Begin encouraged Betar to set up an organization to bring Polish Jews to Palestine. He unsuccessfully attempted to smuggle 1,500 Jews into Romania at the end of August 1939. Returning to Warsaw afterward, he left three days after the German 1939 invasion began, first to the southwest and then toWilno.

In September 1939, after Germany invaded Poland, Begin, in common with a large part of Warsaw's Jewish leadership, escaped to Wilno (today Vilnius), then eastern Poland, to avoid inevitable arrest. The town was soon occupied by the Soviet Union, but from 28 October 1939, it was the capital of the Republic of Lithuania. Wilno was a predominately Polish and Jewish town; an estimated 40 percent of the population was Jewish, with the YIVO institute located there.

NKVD mugshots of Menachem Begin, 1940

As a prominent pre-war Zionist and reserve status officer-cadet, on 20 September 1940, Begin was arrested by the NKVD and detained in the Lukiškės Prison. He wrote about his experience of being tortured, in later years. He was accused of being an "agent of British imperialism" and sentenced to eight years in the Soviet gulag camps. On 1 June 1941 he was sent to thePechora labor camps in Komi Republic, the northern part of European Russia, where he stayed until May 1942. Much later in life, Begin would record and reflect upon his experiences in the interrogations and life in the camp in his memoir White Nights.

In July 1941, just after Germany attacked the Soviet Union, and following his release under the Sikorski–Mayski agreement because he was a Polish national, Begin joined the Free Polish Anders' Army as a corporal officer cadet. He was later sent with the army to Palestine via the Persian Corridor, where he arrived in May 1942.

Upon arriving in Palestine, Begin, like many other Polish Jewish soldiers of the Anders' Army, faced a choice between remaining with the Anders' Army to fight Nazi Germany in Europe, or staying in Palestine to fight for establishment of a Jewish state. While he initially wished to remain with the Polish army, he was eventually persuaded to change his mind by his contacts in the Irgun, as well as Polish officers sympathetic to the Zionist cause. Consequently, General Michał Karaszewicz-Tokarzewski, the second in command of the Army issued Begin with a "leave of absence without an expiration" which gave Begin official permission to stay in Palestine. In December 1942 he left Ander's Army and joined the Irgun.

During the Holocaust, Begin's father was among the 5,000 Brest Jews rounded up by the Nazis at the end of June 1941. Instead of being sent to a forced labor camp, they were shot or drowned in the river. His mother and older brother Herzl also died in the Holocaust.

References worth looking at:-
http://www.mfa.gov.il/mfa/aboutisrael/state/pages/menachem%20begin.aspx
http://www.begincenter.org.il/en/FAQ.aspx?CID=8070
http://www.biography.com/people/menachem-begin-37331
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menachem_Begin


Yachad and its Hate Generation in Zion



As you can see from the above screenshot, Yachad's FaceBook page is advertising their latest (subsidised) indoctrination tour of the West Bank. As usual their timing is impeccable. Their previous tour was run by the anti-Zionist NGO B'Teslem at the very time they were exposed as being involved in the murder of Arabs simply because they were interested in selling land to Jews.

Now their tour guides are Breaking the Silence just as they have been exposed for committing treason against Israel (see this article for full details of the depth of depravity of Breaking the Silence activists) and for publishing accusations against the IDF that turned out to be completed fabricated. Their other guides are Machsom Watch whose spokesperson Raya Yaron, travelled to comfort the relatives of the terrorists who slaughtered the Fogel family in 2011. Yaron was photographed hugging the mother of one of the terrorists.

And there are still goons who believe that Yachad are 'pro-Israel, pro-peace' as stated on their web page.

Wednesday, March 30, 2016

A Letter to my Daughter Kim Before She Embarks on the March of the Living





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A Letter to My Daughter Kim before she embarks on the March of The Living…


Dearest Kim,

The March of the Living is an extraordinary, unforgettable experience. With thousands of Jewish people, from countries all around the world, you will share in a once in a lifetime experience when they march three kilometers from Auschwitz to Birkenau, the largest concentration camp complex built by the Nazis during World War II. The March commemorates Yom Hashoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day. You with be there – along with over 8,000 participants who will be part of this historic event.

As one of the Marchers, you will retrace the steps of the March of Death, the actual route which countless numbers of our people were forced to take on their way to the gas chambers at Birkenau. You will experience Jewish history where it was made. This time, however, there will be a difference. It will be a March of the Living with thousands of Jewish youth, like yourself, marching shoulder to shoulder. You will take part in a memorial service at one of the gas chambers/crematoria, in Birkenau, which will close with the singing of Hatikvah, reaffirming Am Yisrael Chai – The Jewish People Live.


Kaddish is a Jewish Prayer to Remember the Dead and normally said by Men. In the absence of a Male Member of the Family ( there are only your brother Jonathan and I left) when you place the Three Jerusalem Stones with the Names of Three Branches of your Family that were Murdered in the Holocaust say Kaddish out Loud . Say Kaddish for the Drues of Kraków and your Great Aunt Hadasaeah that died in Belzec extermination camp and all the other Drues cousins of Kraków that died in Belzec,Treblinska and Auschwitz .Over 280 Drues s of Kraków relations died. There are no known survivors.. Say Kaddish for the Drues of Majzugola near Vilna who died in the Vaivara and Auschwitz Camp if they were not murdered first in the Forest of Paneriai .There are no known survivors . Say Kaddish for the Shabelshok/Fialkov Families of Riga who were murdered between 30th November and 8th December in the Rumbula Forest near Riga with 25,000 thousand other Jews from Latvia. Say Kaddish for the sisters and brothers of your Great Grandmother Freda Shabelstok Baker who died in the Forrest of Rumbula . Say Kaddish for Sarah , Robert, Michael, David , Gregor , Rachel , Lazer, Leah and Fredrich , Freda and Rosa Shabelstok’s older sisters and brothers and all their children and even grandchildren Not one survived. Over 850 members of the Shabelstok / Fialkov Extended Families died in the misty Forest of Rumbula with other Latvian Jews mainly from Riga and surrounding areas. Say Kaddish for all the Shabelstok/Fialkov/Drues cousins and relations …there must have been hundreds and hundreds,  if not thousands and thousands, in the extended ealthy and long established Riga families of  the Shabelstok / Fialkov families .Four Shabeltok Siblings married four Fialkov Siblings. There were no  survivors.

bergen belsen concentration camp | Emaciated bodies of dead prisoners at the Bergen-Belsen horror camp:

Say Kaddish in Tears and then Shout… “We Survived and Are Here Now Again -Never Ever Again” , אנחנו שרדנו ואנחנו כאן עכשיו – לעולם לא עוד יהיה שם שואה חוזרת

Those that Survived The Holocaust but did not experience it first hand:-

Shabelskok: Freda and her younger Rosa . Freda was in Uitenhague ,South Africa married to Chaim Baker and Rosa, her younger sister in Norway taken there by the Danish Resistance with most of the Danish Jews.They were the youngest of 11 siblings . All the siblings were married with kids .all the siblings and their families were murdered in the Forest of Rumbuka

Fialkov: Twin Brothers Manny ( Mordechai) and Jay ( Josef) in Cape Town,South Africa . They were the youngest of 10 siblings . None of their siblings or their families survived the Holocaust..

Drues: Samuel ( your great grandfather) and Naomi in Cape Town, South Africa and William in Chicago, USA survived the Holocaust.. The children of Hadaseah who died in Belzec, joined Shomer Hazair,immigrated to Israel in 1932 and survived in Israel . They were Freda and Hashya who married the Kurman Brothers , Max , who was wounded twice in Palmach operations and Chaim who was a teacher for 43 years before retiring.

Mourn and then Celebrate the Shabelstok/ Fialkov / Drues Survival when you March from Birkenau to Auschwitz… you are their Symbol of Survival .

 
  
 
 


Love You To Bits
xoxoxo
Dad



On the Origin of our surname
Stephen Darori ( דרורי)

Before I Hebrewized my surname on the 6th September 1986 I was Stephen Ellis Drus…the son of Fay Baker Drus and Morrie Drus z’l

Fay Baker Drus was the daughter of Freda Shabelstol Baker and Hymie ( Chaim Baker) one of the 3 founders of Betar in South Africa in 1931 and Jabotinskyt stayed at him when he visited the Eastern Cape, South Africa in the same year.

Morrie ( Morris ) Drus is the son of Samuel Drues and Sarah Kaplan Drues. . They were married in Poland and then in 1921 immigrated to Cape Town , South Africa. Drues became Drus. Sarah Kaplan Drus founded the Socialist Poalei Zion and the (Dor)Habonim Youth Movement in South Africa in 1933 which today is the huge Bnoth Zion Organisation.

Surprisingly Sarah and Haim always got along united in their belief in Zionism and they worked endlessly to great and support the establishment of a Jewish State in the British Mandate of Palestine. Both listened to the the UN vote on 23rd November 1947 from separate wireless full of static,joy and plenty of tears united in Zionism , Jabotisky's Betar and Herut Movement and Ben Gurion's Histadrut, Jewish Agency and Labour Movement. Chaim and Freda Shabelstock Baker in Uitenhague in the Eastern Cape , South Africa with their children Fay Baker Drus and Sydney Baker and their family and freinds and comrades in Betar , Herut and the future Machal contingent of volunteers from South Africa who later fought and some died in the Israeli War of Independence and in Cape Town Sarah Kaplan Drus with her husband Samuel Drus and children Ethel Drus and Morrie ( Morris) Drus under the red banner of Socialism but no longer communism after Stalin's infamous agreement with Hitler that became known as the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pactsigned on 23rd august ,1939. Our family's last Polish remnants ( Krakow) embraced in Zionism our familiy's last Latvian remnant ( Riga) crying with joy and fear of the Arab threat of invasion and the annihilation of the Jews of Palestine . They were at that moment in time just two future machatosim ( family by marriage) working and praying with their last remnant belief in God for the survival of the Jewish Nation . 9 Betar comrades in arms left immediately to join the Machal Contingent to fight in Israel's War of Indeendence. 3 died herotically carrying a Gift Bible from Chaim Baker and the Betar Movement in South Africa,
 "למות או לכבוש את ההר"


שיר בית"ר 

מילים: זאב ז'בוטינסקי
לחן: דב פרנקל
קיימים 2 ביצועים לשיר זה 

ביתר 
מגב ריקבון ועפר 
בדם וביזע 
יוקם לנו גזע 
גאון ונדיב ואכזר 
ביתר הנלכדה, 
יודפת, מסדה, 
תרומנה בעז והדר. 

הדר 
עברי גם בעוני בן שר 
אם עבד, אם הלך 
נוצרת בן מלך 
בכתר דוד נעטר 
באור ובסתר 
זכור את הכתר 
עטרת גאון ותגר 

תגר 
על כל מעצור ומיצר 
אם תעל או תרד 
בלהב המרד 
שא אש להצית - אין דבר 
כי שקט הוא רפש 
הפקר דם ונפש 
למען ההוד הנסתר 


למות או לכבוש את ההר - 
יודפת, מסדה, ביתר. 

Betar
From the pit of decay and dust
With blood and sweat
Shall arise a race
Proud generous and cruel
Captured Betar, Yodefet, Masada
Shall arise again In all their strength and glory

Hadar
Even in poverty a Jew is a prince
Whether slave or tramp
You have been created the son of kings
Crowned with the diadem of David
Whether in light or in darkness
Always remember the crown
The crown of pride and Tagar

Tagar
Through all obstacles and enemies
Whether you go up or down
In the flames of revolt
Carry the flame to kindle
""Never mind""
For silence is filth
Worthless is blood and soul
For the sake of the hidden glory

To die or conquer the hill
Yodefet, Masada, Betar"



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPPx5yf5RFc
Chaim Baker is sitting on the right of Jabotinsky (0.55)

The logic of the Hebrewaization of Drus ro Darori. Drus דרוס pronounced Darus is the Gerund of “Ledareis”.לדרס..” to be trodden on to be run over”…. we could not live with that when I came on Aliyah from Cape town, South Africa and a letter change דרוס -> דרור which became דרורי the Biblical word for a Sparrow. Cage a Sparrow and it will die wrote Acad Ha’am so Eliezer Ben Yehuda, the reviver of the Hebrew Language in his New Hebrew dictionary gave Drori a new metaphorical meaning of “Freedom and Liberty”. The “a’ was added for Branding Purposes . Darori ( Drori) is very approproiate… Kim , your great Aunt Professor Ethel Drus led the committee of 12 ( 9 Jews and Nelson Mandela, Oliver Tambo and Z.K. Mathews ) who drafted the Freedom Charter , the most important document of the African National Congress. After being listed under the Suppression of Communism Act she left South Africa for the UK and headed the ANC Foreign Membership secretariate for the next 25 years. Both your Grandparents and I were very active in the Progressive Party of Helen Susman and Harry Oppenheimer which has evolved into the Democratic Alliance, the Liberal Opposition to the ANC, As Chairman of the Progressive Federal Party National Youth Organisation , I played a pivotal role in financing the activities of the United Democratic Front that merged with the ANC after Nelson Mandela was released and the ANC unbanned. I proposed the motion that called on the Progessive Federal Party to incorporate alternative military service in their official platform.... with a lot of schlentering this motion  resulted in the National Party Government introducing a 4 year alternative to military service, one of the pricipal gaols  of  End Conscription Campaign in south Africa.
.
References

Monday, March 28, 2016

Pingponging with a 12 year old VAT Problem in Ramla

The Ping Pong with the Israeli VAT Office continues. Bat Yam sent me to Tel Aviv, Tel Aviv Sent me to Ramla . Ramla's VAT Head Honcho Yossi Cohen sent me back to Bat Yam after appreciating my innocent by perceptive question...Are there only one Yossi Cohen in Ramla VAT/ Income Tax Dept?...... There are actually 3 and according him 82,345 people sharing his name in Zion as of Rosh Hashana 2015. Yossi edges out David ( Hebrew version of course) And Haam and Avi Cohen ...... by Hey I am still smiling ....( VAT/ INcome Tax Authority wherever they are never rank as a Happy Hour or Place to be and quite frankly to be avoid . All three offices are surprisingly elegant, airy, well organised and highly computerized and exploiting every possible technology to squeeze an extra shekels out of the citizens of Zion..... but hey I really am still smiling.... Back to the Bat Yam Office today..
Haven't been to Ramla for a while.... still a blue collar city in dire need of development and desasterous town planing....Architectural Digest will never come to this City.... asked where I could find a Steimatzky or Pinat Hasefer to the crowd waiting to get through security ... they looked at me in puzzlement and bewilderment...."the toshavim don't read books and only newspapers if they are free""' ( sorry I asked,,, but that sums up this town) .... .... a mixture of descendants and olim chadashim ( from 1949 to 1952 and a good spattering of Habeb of Arab Women....but then who am I really to differentiate the doekies religious Jewish women wear on their heads to the equivalent Habeb of their Arab neighbours.... no one escapes that tag ever in Zion) . The Main Street Herzl Street has surprisingly many christian Institutions .. all prior to 1948 Churches, Scools a Monastry and even 2 graveyards....and still a lot of abandoned property in derilict state from the older Ben Gurion gave Rabin.... fire sone shots and get them ( Arab Refugees ) moving towards Gaza and that they did accompanied all the way by macho Palmachniks and what a wonderful perceptive and wise decision that was..... read the revised edition of Ahron Bregman's Israeli Wars or Benny Morris book that tends to be hmmm and hmmm again.... both books will be reviewed soon in the Israel Book Review