Tisha B’Av in Jerusalem
Acceptance of German reparations created a rift in the State of Israel
Letter Excerpts:
“…its Tisha B’av and I’m fasting.”
“Last night we read ” Kinnot” on a lawn in the dark by means of a flashlight. I never knew that Kinnot should be read in a semi darkness. It really made it a touching scene. This afternoon mass services are held at Mt Zion overlooking the Wailing Wall. What a pity it’s not in our hands.”
— August 6, 1957
Chamber of the Holocaust on Mt. Zion
Opposition leader, Menachem Begin leads the popular protests against Reparations
A mass protest in Israel against accepting Reparations (“Jewish blood money”) from Germany
Why did my father fast & read Kinnot on Tisha B’Av
The Jewish People fast and mourn on Tisha B’Av ( the 9th day of the Hebrew month of Av) to remember the destruction of the Jewish Temples in Jerusalem by the Romans and Babylonians along with the murder and the expulsion of the Jewish People from the Land of Israel.
Kinnot are Jewish lamentations which are read on the evening and morning of Tisha B’Av. These lamentations, written in a poetic form, mourn the destruction of the First and Second Temples as well as other tragedies in Jewish history.
Why were the Temples Destroyed?
The first Temple was destroyed by the Babylonians. The sages teach us that the Jews were punished for engaging in idol worship, murder, and sexual immorality. The second Temple was destroyed by the Romans because of baseless hatred amongst Jews.
The destruction of Gush Katif on Tisha B’Av
I did not live through the destruction of the Temples, the massacres of the Crusaders, the Spanish Inquisition or the Holocaust. However, I did experience the destruction of the Jewish communities of Gush Katif and Northern Samaria during the time of Tisha B’Av (August 2005). I saw Jewish soldiers and policemen dragging Jewish women and children from from their homes and destroying their life’s enterprise. Many of the expelled residents, especially from Elei Sinai, were officers in the IDF.
The fact that our own Jewish brothers perpetrated this act of expulsion against their own people, makes it in a way, more painful than when done by the Babylonians or Romans.
We hope and pray that this will never happen again. Up until today, many Jews who had been expelled from their houses from Gush Katif are still living in caravans as missiles from Gaza are being launched from their former homes.
The Farchan Family: A Case in Point
Rav Bar-Chen
How can the Temple be rebuilt?
It is believed that if the Jews keep the commandments of the Torah and are reunited (as a “tikun” for the baseless hatred that caused the destruction), they will succeed in defeating their enemies. This will create the conditions for the building of the third Temple.
Destruction of the Holy Jewish Temple 70 A.D
Destruction of the Holy Jewish Temple 70 A.D
Neve Dekalim in Gush Katif before destruction
Jewish homes destroyed by Jews
Jews forcibly evacuated from their homes
Add with Avi’s story
“A Jew Does Not Expel a Jew”. Bob wearing his anti-expulsion t-shirt on Tisha B’Av, 2020
On the Arch of Titus in Rome is depicted the destruction of the Jewish Temple by the ancient Romans. Today, this empire has disappeared from history however the Jews have returned to Jerusalem
1957 vs today and links
In 1957, the United States under President Eisenhower was pressuring Israeli PM Ben Gurion to withdraw from the Gaza Strip which had been captured a year earlier. Ben Gurion eventually gave in to the pressure, despite mass protests warning that the “Fedayeen” terror attacks against Israeli civilians and soldiers would continue. The opponents of the 1957 Gaza withdrawal were correct, as the attacks from Gaza continued until the War of 1967, when Israel recaptured it.
Today, Israel withdrew once again in 2005 in the hope that attacks against them launched from Gaza would stop. Unfortunately, nothing has changed, and the Gaza Strip continues to be a hub of terror as missiles fly daily into Israel’s civilian population. It is difficult to have a presence in Gaza, but not being there at all is a danger to Israel’s survival.
LINKS:
Video explaining Tisha B’Av: https://youtu.be/vAoSODDghE8Video on Elei Sinai, a Jewish community in Gush Katif destroyed on Tisha B’Av. Produced by the Jacobs Family
Jerusalem’s First Holocaust Museum
Tucked away on the slope of Mount Zion near David’s Tomb adjacent to the Old City stands the Hall of Destruction, also known as the Chamber of the Holocaust.
The outside roof of the “Hall of Destruction”, also know as the “Chamber of the Holocaust”- from Bob Jacobs’ 1957 photos
The museum was created in 1949 (prior to Yad Vashem) by thirteen Holocaust survivors who came to Israel following the Holocaust and felt a need to memorialize their loved ones who perished. The Chamber showcases unique items that are not found in Yad Vashem. For instance, on display is a jacket sewn from a Torah scroll which a Nazi officer ordered a Jewish tailor to make.
A Nazi officer forced a Jewish tailor to sew him a shirt using a Torah scroll
German Compensation
Speaking of German reparations, the August 26, 1957 letter parenthetically mentions, that the train being traveled on was “built with German reparations”. Following the establishment of the Jewish State in 1948, the Germans offered the government of Israel reparations (compensation) as an apology for the Holocaust they perpetrated on the Jewish People. This German-made train is an example of that. But many Holocaust survivors were bothered by riding on these trains – it gave them the eerie reminder of being transported to the death camps.
Train manufactured by the German company, Maschinenfabrik Esslingen
in the old Jerusalem railway station, aquired as part of the reparations agreement with Germany, 1956
David’s possible changes and links
Review Aug 12 Holocaust memorials and Aug 26 German Reparations
In the book we put Chamber of Holocaust and German repaations on one page to fit. Some of the graphic were lost, especially the “pajamas”.
Should Holocaust Remembrance and Reparations be put on separate pages right next to each other?
1952 | Begin opposes the Reparations Program https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMWuS5_-M2c&t=5s
Following the defeat of the Herut Party in the elections for the Second Knesset, receiving only eight seats, Begin announced his resignation as head of Herut. However, his friend, Yochanan Bader, did not present his resignation to the Knesset Foreman. After a month-long leave in Europe, Begin began to contact lawyers to prepare for obtaining a license practice law. A few months later it was revealed that the government, led by David Ben-Gurion, intends to sign an agreement toward getting reparations from Germany. Begin, who objected strongly, decided to return to the political arena and lead the movement to fight against the reparations.
The idea of receiving reparations sparked strong public controversy. The government asked the Knesset to approve its power to negotiate with the German government for providing reparations to Israel. Begin attacked the upcoming agreement due to problematic phrasing – the agreement was presented as a kind of a way to correct and wipe clean the genocide committed by the Germans – and because the payments did not reflected on the true amount of the looted and stolen items from the Jewish people in Europe.
On January 7th, a debate took place at the Knesset, which was then located on King George Street in Jerusalem. Before the hearings started, Begin gave a heated speech at a mass rally in Zion Square nearby, and then returned to the Knesset, where he was the target of repeated insults from Ben-Gurion. Begin retorted with harsh words of his own, and when he refused to retract them, he has been banned for three months from the plenum. The battle regarding the reparations became a violent demonstration, during which protesters clashed with police and threw stones at the Knesset, shattering the windows of the building.
The opposition to reparations among Israelis was rooted in their belief that it would be blood money, given that Jews were the ones who had endured such atrocities. Menachem Begin, future Israeli prime minister, was one of those who jointly opposed reparations with West Germany in 1951. His arguments against it are still worth noting today: “You want to erase what happened from the memory of mankind? Wipe out history? Wipe out memory?”