In L.A.'s Boyle Heights, Latino theater group pays homage to L.A.'s Jews of old

Contemporary, gentrification debates unlock the early history, stories and memories of Boyle Heights revealing the mythical and human dimensions of L.A.’s own Lower East Side during the premiere run of an audience participatory, immersive and theatrical celebration, created and devised by Josefina López, Corky Dominguez and the Remembering Boyle Heights ensemble. 

Josefina López, producer and co-writer of the Remembering Boyle Heights said, “The show is a theatrical celebration inspired by the diverse stories, memories and experiences of Boyle Heights, an Ellis Island of the West, from the beginning of the century to right after World War II. 

The show explores this time-period during which Mexican, Jewish, Japanese, Armenian, Italian, Russian and African-American communities co-existed in Boyle Heights.” 

From the turn of the 20th century until World War II, Boyle Heights served as the hub of Southern California's Jewish community. Kosher delis, bakeries and other Jewish businesses dominated Brooklyn Avenue -- now Cesar Chavez Avenue. In the 1950s, the Eastside neighborhood's Jewish population began to decline, with many leaving for West Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley. ("Event unearths the deep Jewish roots of Boyle Heights" - by Hector Becerra Los Angeles Times May 2018). 

Under the direction Corky Dominguez (of Boyle Heights), who is also a co-writer of the show, the Ensemble Cast will include: Michael Berckart (of Los Angeles), Joe Luis Cedillo (of El Monte), José Alejandro Hernandez Jr. (of South Central), Yvette Karla Herrera (of Montebello), Ángel Michel Juárez (of Montebello), Megumi Kabe (of Sylmar), Marcel Licera (of Koreatown), Jackie Marriott (of Inglewood), Roberta H. Martínez (of Pasadena), Allyson Taylor (of Valley Glen) and Raymond Watanga (of Glendale).

Video transcript: 
Urban anthropologist, Shmuel Gonzales: "Boyle Heights for many people has been kind of equated to the Lower East Side of New York. A lot of people who had come from New York or the Midwest or Canada who already had established themselves a little bit came to establish their families here. I think that's what's really just remarkable is how many families that came through Boyle Heights. Seventy-five thousand Jewish families came through Boyle Heights in the first half of the 20th century. One-third of the Jewish community of Los Angeles was located here in Boyle Heights, making it the largest and most important Jewish community west of Chicago.

Breed Street Shul (photo: Henry Briceno) 

"Congregation Talmud Torah, more commonly known as the Breed Street Shul, was a keystone in the Jewish community in Boyle Heights and nearby City Terrace from the 1920s through the 1950s. Architecturally, it was among the most monumental of the few dozen synagogues that were built in the area at the time, leading locals to nickname it "The Queen of the Shuls." Los Angeles Conservancy

Allyson Taylor, actress, in role of real-estate developer: "I want to modernize this neighborhood."

As herself:  "Well (the show) talks about the fact that in Boyle Heights - all people live together. During the 1930's and '40s, during the restrictive era of housing, not only were Hispanics, blacks, and Chinese restricted from buying homes in Los Angeles, Jews were as well."

(Scene of early 20th century Jewish family, portrayed by Allyson Taylor and Micael Berckart, of son, portrayed by Jose Hernandez, Jr.) disavowing speaking Yiddish).

Jose Hernandez, Jr. actor: "The dynamics of the family with the father, the son, I  have found it very natural and very similar to my experience with my father - it's the same argument."

(Scene of 20th century Latino family of daughter (portrayed by Yvette Karla Herrera) chiding parents for not speaking English).

(Scene of daughter (portrayed by Angel Juarez, telling Japanese mother (Megumi Kabe) about boyfriend she brought home (portrayed by Raymond Watanga). Angel Juarez: "I love him! I know that he's Colored."

Angel Juarez: "I didn't realize that there was a Jewish community (ever in my Boyle Heights). I used... there is a store and it has the Jewish Star, the Star of David and I always wondered why -  why was it just there -  out of nowhere? And when I came here I realized that this used to be a Jewish community!  So it just opened my mind to a whole, a new world of Boyle Heights"

Marcel Licera, actor: "Faith and religion took place in Boyle Heights. Whether it took place in a church, in a temple or synagogue, or just in the home."

Corky Dominguez:  "My experience attending a Seder, I lived with the Jewish family for several years. I brought my mom to it to the one of the Seder dinners. And it was really interesting to me and I knew that I wanted to have something like that story of a Seder and the guests being non-Jewish and to see what that was all about.  Because I remembered that experience."

Raymond Watanga: "Mt. Carmel Missionary Baptist Church spiritual gatherings with African-Americans for many weeks while Mama and I went to our first Passover Seder that my friend Josh Bernstein invited. It was dinner at the Bernstein's - a Jewish dinner!"

Allyson Taylor: "This is my favorite holiday it's about celebrating our collective freedom." (Recites bracha for Yom Tov.)

(Photo: UCLA's Mapping Jewish L.A.)

Allyson Taylor: "So what we're doing is celebrating the fact that with all the issues of gentrification and the encroachment of the hipsters, and the developers coming into this area, that there was a time when we all lived together and we're hoping that we can bring that kind of feeling back. And not have the kind of tensions that are or have arisen from saying this belongs to me, this belongs to me, it belongs to all of us!"

Micael Berckhart: "Everybody went to Canters. Lined with pickle barrels, kosher butchers, bakeries, and delicatessen. The aromas were of corn beef and smoked fish, the smells, the tastes, the sounds of accents of Eastern European accents in Yiddish, the whole feeling was a visceral experience."

Corky Dominguez: "We end the show with Hava Nagila at our curtain call. And that just gets the crowd going!  Right now the show is scheduled to go until Sunday, December 16th."

Zionistic campus groups S.S.I. and Reservists on Duty oppose Students for Justice in Palestine nat'l conference at UCLA

Far-Left SJP hijacks UCLA's Students Supporting Israel (SSI) talk on indigenous cultures May 17, 2018
(Note flame-lettered, Socialist Revolutionary  T-shirts on chanters)

Students for Justice in Palestine demonstrate at
Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland in 2016
(photo: University Times)

The Islamo-Leftist political movement won a victory in overcoming Los Angeles civic and Jewish objections to University of California at Los Angeles ("UCLA") hosting Students for Justice in Palestine's the National Conference.

L.A. City Councilman Paul Koretz and the L.A. City Council appealed to UCLA Chancellor Gene Block to decline hosting the NSJP Conference. Block claimed in a press release he was legally obliged to. However, UCLA denied conservative author, Milo Yianopolous a venue on the same campus. Councilman Koretz explains his perspective in this video interview.

In May 2018, Students Supporting Israel at UCLA put on a club lecture featuring Jewish, Kurdish and Armenian people presenting their connection to their lands. Watch how Students for Justice in Palestine menaced and threatens the presenters and attendees, vandalized their personal property, and maliciously took-over the event.

Mr. Ali Adi, an Arab-Israeli citizen flew to UCLA with Reservists on Duty to contest the SJP conference and present his favorable life experience as a Muslim-Israeli to those who will listen. He expresses his view of the SJP movement and their leftist JVP colleagues exploiting Palestinians for political gain. 

An attempt to chronicle the SJP conference check-in was rebuffed by JVP's Estee Chandler and a representative from SJP. A request for a spokesperson to discuss the conference was declined.

Jewish Voice for Peace marches against Israeli policy Photo: Legal Insurrection 

Jewish parents protest Muslim SJP-club's bigotry and hostility towards Jewish students on UCLA campus - at SJP's Nat'l Convention hosted at UCLA, 11/18/18. Protesters assert that campus police reverse-discriminating leaves Jewish students vulnerable to potential Muslim/Palestinian-supporters' hostility.

Christian-Israeli, Jonathan Elkhoury, explains his experience of Israel as free and just - in contradiction to the national convention of (Muslim) "Students for Justice in Palestine" who advocate overthrow of the Judeo-Christian oasis in the Middle East - at Univ of California at Los Angeles, Friday Nov 16, 2018.

Miri Shepher, Board of Directors of the Israeli-American Council said that Israelis like her came down to party with SSI and show support for Jewish presence on campus.

Rudy Rochman, founder of Coumbia Univ's "Students Supporting Israel" counters "Students for Justice in Palestine" convention at UCLA the obvious history that Jews living in Judea can't be considered occupying as they are the INDIGENOUS people of Judea.

(By JooTube with video from by Andrew Leibman, Students Supporting Israel)

Part 2 of interview exclusive with Rudy Rochman.

To avenge SJP's busting-up SSI's "Indigenous Peoples United" Event at UCLA in May, leaders of Students Supporting Israel infiltrated the highly-guarded Students for Justice in Palestine conference - to unfurl an Israeli flag on-stage. We interviewed the other avenger, Ilan Sinelnikov, National President of Students Supporting Israel.

Mr. Ali Adi, a Muslim-Israeli disputes the intentions and claims of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) outside the opening of their 2018 National Convention at University of Southern California (U.C.L.A.) Nov. 16, 2018.

Arab-Muslim, Ali Adi, came to UCLA to present an impression about Israel's free society for Muslims (and other minorities) in contrast to the Far-Left/Islamist activist convention of S.J.P. being held on the UCLA campus. Mr. Ali Adi was the guest of the Univ of Calif club, Students Supporting Israel, who have been menaced in the past year by the anti-Israel activist, Students for "Justice" in Palestine on California campuses.

Islamo-Leftist activists have garnered power by scapegoating "colonial Zionists" for impeding Palestinian sovereignty. The global exposure of Palestinian "sufferage" at Israel's hand (typically provoked (or faked) by kleptocrat, Palestinian politicians) vilifies Jews all around the world. 

Anti-Israelism is so strong in liberal Ireland, for example, that their capital city which once elected a Jewish man Mayor of Dublin, that  much of Ireland's Jewish population preceded France's Jews in emigrating from Europe. North Americans are now fighting in common cause with European Jewry against Leftist anti-Semitism cloaked in anti-Israelism, particularly noticeable on-campuses.

'How Kahane's assassination relates to Pittsburgh's shul massacre Nov. 1990' - terror eyewitness

11 Jewish congregants were killed at Pittsburgh's Etz Chaim Synagogue

On Rav Meir Kahane's 28th yahrzeit, in the wake of the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre, former Jewish Defense Leaguers Fern Sidman and Shannon Taylor assess the state of anti-Semitism from the far-right and the far-left. Was Pittsburgh massacrist Robert Bowers inspired by Pres. Donald Trump? Is Pres. Trump anti-Semitic? A friend or foe of Zionists?

Rabbi Meir Kahane's Jewish Defense League rallied for police
protections, deploying civic patrols and retaliatory deterrents

The Pittsburgh Etz Chaim synagogue massacre occurred near this week of Rav Meir Kahane and Yitzchak Rabin assassinations, and Kristalnacht. On the 28th anniversary of the assassination of Rabbi Meir Kahane, acolyte Mr. Shannon Taylor recalled in video the context of the event and its aftermath. He assesses the Kahane and Jewish Defense League legacy in Jewish leadership today.
Recorded November, 2018 in Manhattan.

Question: This is the 28th commemoration of the night of the assassination of Rabbi Meir Kahane. What was the event like to your recollection?

Mr. Shannon Taylor, eyewitness
to Islamist assassination of
JDL leader Rabbi Meir Kahane

Taylor: I've been, as I said, on every unhappy event that ever would take place. I was also at Avery Fisher Hall when Arafat came in with his two guns - and Bruce Teitelbaum and Suri Kasira and Mayor Guiliani's head staff, Mastro, the new chief of staff told me he was there with his guns. I was the first to challenge him and I was going to take the picture of a lifetime like I took the picture for evidence of the assassination of Rabbi Meir Kahane on November 5th 1990 at 9:00 p.m. at the Marriott Hotel not too far from here on the eastside. But I was so mad at Arafat I couldn't concentrate on the picture and I took his ponytails. And the result was that I'm still looking for jobs because I could have retired on that picture. 

But every Jew in that place hugged him. They hugged Arafat, the same ones who condemned Kahane and wouldn't have him in B'nai Zion-invited Arafat in the B'nai Zion when he was on that tour. He was uninvited to Avery Fisher Hall and after I challenged him, Rudy Guiliani (to his credit and he got credit from all over the world for this because I put the story in the Post enough the New York Times) Rudy Giuliani summarily threw him out he left with a whimper.

Florence Schwartz (left) and Izzy Katz (right) comforts Rabbi Meir Kahane, whom Islamist, El Sayyid Nosair shot
through the neck at the east-side Marriott in Manhattan in the first Islamist terror attack on US soil. Police had no translators for his Arabic documents containing plans to blow-up the WTC. (Photo: Shannon Taylor) 

And on Kahane's assassination, I want you to know the police station was no more than five minutes away- but it took 20 minutes for them to get there. And the detectives have since been dishonorably  investigated. And they commingled all the evidence the Homeland Security took away every evidence that was relevant. I went to Jeff Sessions who was the head of the FBI who believed me it was a conspiracy. As did the A.D.A. Greenbaum from Morgenthau's office. And Sessions was fired by Clinton because he didn't want to have anything to do with fighting terrorists. And then New York was supposed to be a terrorist-ridden city , so they didn't publicize anything the stories died away and Nosair was acquitted the first time!

Question: What was the scene like?
 

Well, picture that synagogue today in Pittsburgh. Picture a guy in a civilian crowd well nobody has a gun (except my friend Ralph Elder who had just left). And in comes a gunman and shoots him right square in the face where I was standing. And I was taken away from security so this could be done. So you wonder about the security, you wonder about the enforcement. But Kahane was so strong and so healthy at 58 - 10-years younger than Meir when Meir died that his heart beat for another hour.

But the same Jewish doctors who couldn't save him - saved his assassinator, Nosair.

El Sayyid Nosair mugshot 1993

And Nosair said it was a Jew killed him, it was a Jew! And counselor a Jew came to defend him when Ron Kuby who was not a Jew but pretended to be a Jew and a member of the JDL. It was the farce of farces - on one side were all of Al Qaeda . Everybody involved in the bombing in 9/11 was there protesting in favor of the assassination of Kahane. And everybody who was a righteous Jew was on the other side protesting them!

And when the sentence came down that acquitted the murderer of the murder that everybody knew he did, even Schlessinger, my mother-in-law's opera mate, who I had a sit next to the judge who never got certiorari after that to stay on longer, he said the verdict make no sense and  because of the evidence I had of the gun that I saw Nosair had (I took a picture of he spent another year and a half in jail) and so they had the evidence when in '93 the World Trade Center blew up the first time to keep him there after that event and then read in Arabic what they should have read in the beginning. It' still didn't help them for 9/11.  No matter how many times I warn the mayor and his staff and them and the FBI and so on they were all blind deaf and dumb as they are today - except for Trump.

Trump is the only person who was seeing and hearing and knows. And because all the villains of the world know he knows - they condemn him instead of saying "come and rescue us! Come bring in more terrorists! Don't keep them out!" This is the Jewish organizations' answer. And there's a protest tomorrow for Trump, so we're on the streets, too.

Question: Who's on the streets?

The ones who believe in the Trump administration, that America protects Jews at it did my father who performed the French and American armies and in the resistance and the Israeli independence War. He came here found a marvelous life in this marvelous country and these bastards are not going to ruin it. And the media that protects them is not going to ruin it. And the politicians on the Left are not gonna ruin it. They are losing - they will lose, they will always lose. Am Yisrael Chai! As Carlebach wrote for Meir Kahane's rescue of Soviet Jews.  

Question: Do you believe there was a conspiracy to hide El Sayid Nosair's notes about leading to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing?

No question that there was a conspiracy and the death of Meir and Binyamin Kahane. Binyamin killed on the Millennium and Israel and Meir killed November 5th, 1990. But it was not a conspiracy to conceal the notes the notes were there nobody wanted to read them nobody in law enforcement bothered. I went to every . . .

I went to every law-enforcement agency the Federals confiscated most of it and they didn't have Arabic translators. And Morganthau's office was convinced it was one person on Prozac. Like the one who downed the Egyptian airplane who was out of a job and who was in fact an emissary of the PLO.  

Etz Chaim synagogue massacre memorial

These are not lone soldiers! They are part of conspiracies with deep money and deep training. And the one who went into the (Pittsburgh) temple today was an assassin! He had us he had rifles and handguns and only experts use! And he led his men know and his women know who watch his blog that this is the day and we're too dumb to recognize it or take it seriously! Meir Kahane took it seriously, as did Shlomo Carlebach. They brought Jews to Judaism, they said not one inch from Israel, and they would have protected us today - but we don't have any Jews today to protect us anywhere!

I might add that Dov Hikind was in the forefront of always protecting Jews. And he was there in Crown Heights when the locals went up against us and the Mayor Dinkins and his staff were told by Governor Cuomo to do nothing. So if you're expecting protection from government, or you're expecting protection from your friends, you're not gonna get it.

Speaks with my father's voice who went through everything, that God Almighty should see us through. We have the strength and the intelligence and the ingenuity to overcome all adversity - but we don't have the ability to confront ourselves. We have to, somehow or other , put reason in the minds of people who are normally reasonable. To see who the enemy is -  that this is not an Orwellian world - that there is right and wrong there are no gray areas where events like this take place. The assassination of Kahane or the death of Carlebach, where they should have had a defibrillator on the plane. Now he would have been alive today and now they do. And certainly not a synagogue that should have had guns.

But I want to make one last point- that Cincinnati, that everybody talks about. The Democratic mayor the Democratic white mayor of Cincinnati allowed the Nazis to hold submachine guns in front of the synagogue doors.

Question: No, you mean Charlottesville?

Yes, Charlottesville. I love Cincinnati of course, it has challenged me but I love Jefferson. So they allowed the machine guns in front of the synagogue doors the entire morning and that's the responsibility of the mayor and his police to have removed them. And the Jews had to go out through the back. But our days of going out through the back or depending on law enforcement are over! We are now going to take ourselves very seriously against our own enemy and against the enemy from outside. And I put my faith and trust in this administration with Trump and Governor Cuomo - because they are both very good friends of the Jews and have always been."

Fern Sidman, editor-in-chief of the Jewish Voice of New York weekly newspaper (and former activist with Rabbi Meir Kahane joins the discussion).


Ex-JDL'ers on Kahane's yahrzeit- anti-semitism on the Left and Right, but is Pittsburgh Trump's fault?

Shannon Taylor: Obviously no one ever condemned anti-semitism from a White House stronger than Trump. Certainly not FDR- who sent six million Jews to their death- happily! And it's certainly not Truman who begrudgingly allowed Israel a few months to breath. No, this is the finest president for Jews and the most against hate. And this guy (Bowers) has hate-sites of Trump on his web.  He has said over and over again that Trump is a globalist and not a nationalist. He would never have voted for him. And the other guy, with his silly pipe-bombs that don't explode because he doesn't know what he's doing and wasn't meant to-  he was a hanger-on who wasn't the supporter either he just a hanger-on like the guy who followed John Lennon for six months until he shot him. You have to understand that these are maneuvers used against us, against the Jews, against the Trump administration (who is a best friend of Israel ever) to try and derail momentum before the midterms.  That's what this is. These are not isolated acts and they're certainly not done by Trump people. Rather quite the contrary so on this night of Rabbi Kahane's yahrzeit.

Question: What words would you have for Jews who are feeling sympathy, obviously at this time and don't have an outlet for expressing their indignation against this anti-semitism?

Fern Sidman:  Look, Jews can always have an outlet for expressing their indignation. You know Jews are great writers, they can be on radio programs, they can organize within themselves. They can realize that self-defense is not something that's verboten- that's not something that's evil. That Rabbi Kahane implored Jews to learn to use guns to defend themselves. And I think it's very important for American Jews to realize that the alarming escalation of Jew-hatred didn't just happen yesterday or the day before. It's been slowly percolating over the last few decades.

Fern Sidman, Editor-in-Chief,
Jewish Voice of New York

It's high time for Jews to realize that the real enemies, the ones who are fomenting anti-semitism in the world, yes are the sick hate-filled people like Bowers. But the real enemy are the BDS movement that has taken over our college campuses. Every single campus has an Israel Apartheid Week. Mr. Taylor, I'm sure, will elaborate on his recent experiences at Columbia University. BDS to those folks who don't know is Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel. It's a movement that was created to economically, academically, culturally,  politically boycott Israel.

Question: But are you saying that the that the BDS movement is a bigger problem than outright anti-semitism from the far left and far right well I think that the anti-semitism from the far left especially I mean we're talking about the ante for people and the far right has all got it is be the wind beneath their wings is the BDS movement the fact that you see with a person says look I'm anti-israel they'll go on campus oh yeah Jewish I have nothing against you could shoot you I just need Israel don't believe it Israel's the bogeyman in the world it's the Jew of the world when Israel is attacked the Jew is attacked and those two isms anti Israel it it they're inextricably intertwined and nobody can really debate that and yes there are anti-semitic websites and anti but we living at a time where people are not doing enough to stop the expression of hatred against Jews on campuses and who's not doing enough the ADL the liberal Jews to say but what about the freedom of speech freedom of expression we can't silence them because if we silence them there will be silence and so on and so forth no it's high time to speak the truth to challenge the BDS to be out there and to have sympathetic media behind us we already have the president behind us but to talk about the dangers of BBS is really an ethereal thing once you here we occurred a Columbia University courtesy of Mr. Taylor I am sure your image of us will change.

Shannon Taylor: I agree with everything that Fern said and she says it mildly. I might add she's very mild appear to be I have gone to Tufts University I've given panels at Columbia on diversity we have an organization of diversity multiculturalism Tufts University developed from a anti-Zionism course - now colonizing Palestine it's a symbolic of what's happened to all the universities at Columbia it escalated to the point where all free Diane the daughter of the Consul General to New York was assaulted and threatened and feared for her safety and went out publicly and to show you the paucity of our ranks you asked about the Jewish establishment leaders there are none there are no leaders we have no leaders anymore Carl Beck was a leader Kahane was a leader snoozer was a leader there are no leaders today except Netanyahu who has his hands full they even go after his wife for God's sakes at Columbia every member of the Faculty of political science and South Asian departments is a Muslim or hates Israel and Jews and they condemn every Israeli and Jew see and they tell you if you don't even have brown eyes you're not entitled to Israel and and bigger affect their grades and their graduation who would want to go to these schools anyway but did you send the money and the Jews want to go they don't know but I'm telling you that hatred it's from the BDS movement first spoke about and yes that is a far greater danger in America than these isolated right-wing people because I'm sure they're coordinated I'm sure that's a conspiracy I'm sure they're meant for political purposes and to try and dissuade voters but though BDS means hate against Jews in Israel across the world.

While archaeology supports Jewish claims to Hebron, see Jews' tenuous struggle to pray where Abraham & Sarah lived and died

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks interprets Bible's Parshat Chayei Sarah optimistically for reconciliation between descendants of Isaac and Ishmael.
Excitement is growing for the annual Shabbat Hebron starting tonight Nov 2nd, 2018, Parshat Chayei Sarah. 

From atop the Hebron Observatory, David Wilder shows us dominant

Muslim habitation area from which Jews are prohibited from entering

Hebron Community spokesman (retired), David Wilder, showed JooTube the Jewish perspective of Hebron. He shows us the synagogue built atop the Cave of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs, explains how the Jews keep this area safe for Jews and Christians to worship, and shows us the contentious conditions the Muslim impose upon Judeo-Christian worshippers. 

(Step through the video playlist menu from the upper left corner)

The Hebron Fund offers English speakers an opportunity to experience this unique Shabbat with trained tour guides  and a chance to hobnob with political celebrities like law professor Eugene Kontorovich of the Kohelet Policy Forum. 


Shabbat Hebron has humble beginnings in the 1990s and today has grown to thousands with last year's weekend breaking the record at 35,000 people. The highlight of course is the Tomb of Machpela complex, built 2,000 years ago by King Herod the Great to house the Cave of the Matriarchs & Patriarchs. The atmosphere of Shabbat Hebron is both festive and with a sense of purpose. Tents dot the lawn across the the Cave of the Patriarchs as people camp out and picnic for Shabbat. Of course the reading of Parshat Chayei Sarah takes on a greater significance, as one stands in the Tomb of Machpela while hearing of our Abraham purchased the site as a final resting place for his beloved wife Sarah. After Shabbat, the festive scene continues as music fills the streets from BBQs. 

Special tours that take place during the weekend are the Hall of Isaac and Rebecca, a section of the Machpela complex that includes the actual entrance into the underground double cave. Tours of the historic casbah and Tomb of Otniel Ben Knaz will also take place. The Hebron Fund will be again sponsoring a special program for English speakers. 

Parshat Chayei Sarah: On Judaism and Islam 

by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks in Algemeiner Oct 30, 2018

The language of the Torah is, in Erich Auerbach’s famous phrase, “fraught with background.” Behind the events that are openly told are shadowy stories left for us to decipher. Hidden beneath the surface of Parshat Chayei Sarah, for example, is another story, alluded to only in a series of hints. There are three clues in the text.

The first occurs when Abraham’s servant is returning with the woman who is to become Isaac’s wife. As Rebecca sees Isaac in the distance, we are told that he is “coming from the way of Be’er-laĥai-ro’i” (24:62) to meditate in the field. The placement is surprising. Thus far we have situated the patriarchal family at Be’ersheva, to which Abraham returns after the binding of Isaac, and Hebron, where Sarah dies and is buried. What is this third location, Be’er-laĥai-ro’i, and what is its significance?

The second is the extraordinary final stage of Abraham’s life. In chapter after chapter we read of the love and faithfulness Abraham and Sarah had for one another. Together they embarked on a long journey to an unknown destination. Together, they stood against the idolatry of their time. Twice, Sarah saved Abraham’s life by pretending to be his sister. They hoped and prayed for a child and endured the long years of childlessness until Isaac was born. Then Sarah’s life draws to a close. She dies. Abraham mourns and weeps for her and buys a cave in which she is buried, and he is to be buried beside her. We then expect to read that Abraham lived out the rest of his years alone before being placed beside “Sarah his wife” (Gen. 25:10) in the “Cave of Machhpelah” (Gen. 25:9).

Unexpectedly, however, once Isaac is married, Abraham marries a woman named Keturah and has six children by her. We are told nothing else about this woman, and the significance of the episode is unclear. The Torah does not include mere incidental details. We have no idea, for example, what Abraham looked like. We do not even know the name of the servant he sent to find a wife for Isaac. Tradition tells us that it was Eliezer, but the Torah itself does not. What then is the significance of Abraham’s second marriage and how is it related to the rest of the narrative?

The third clue to the hidden story is revealed in the Torah’s description of Abraham’s death:

And Abraham expired, and died in a good old age, an old man, and full of years, and was gathered to his people. Isaac and Ishmael, his sons, buried him in the Cave of Machpelah, in the field of Ephron the son of Zohar the Hittite, which is before Mamre, the field which Abraham purchased of the children of Het. There was Abraham buried, and Sarah his wife. (Gen. 25:8–10)

Kay Wilson leads us through West Bank where Trump cut Pali-politicos' pay-to-slay incentives- so they stepped up attacks on Anglos

Though police said murder of American-Israeli, Ari Fuld was random, witness testified Palestinian terrorist targeted  an Anglophone. Anglo-Israeli slaying-survivor, Kay Wilson tours us along the West Bank / Judean route where Abbas cultivates murderers like hers. 

 U.S. Officially Cuts Funding to Palestinian Authority Over Payments to Terrorists and Their Families  by Amir Tibon in Ha'aretz March 24, '18

The Taylor Force Act, named after an American citizen killed in a terror attack in Israel, was part of a large budget bill that Trump has signed into law. The legislation that cuts American funding for the Palestinian Authority over its payments to convicted terrorists and their families, officially became a law  after President Donald Trump signed a large budget bill that the act was a part of. The P.A. protested the passage of the legislation, which is named after Taylor Force, an American citizen murdered in a terror attack in Tel Aviv two years ago.

Witness says Ari Fuld’s killer deliberately targeted an American - by Jacob Magid, Times of Israel, 21 Sept '18

“There were other people in the area that he could have targeted first, but he chose Ari,” falafel cook, Hila Peretz, said. “But them he didn’t target, he must have wanted an American.” As for why Jabarin wanted an American, Peretz acknowledged that she could not know for sure. “I’m not sure what goes on in those Arab villages. They’re probably all riled up about Trump there or something,” she said. 

The Israeli TV public watched a Channel 1 dramatization of the Palestinian attack on an American Christian and an Anglo-Israeli, Kay Wilson, stabbed 13 times and left for dead eight years ago December. 

Terror survivor recounts police capture of friend’s killers The Times of Israel July 10, 2018 

Kay Wilson is a British-born Israeli. She is a jazz pianist, cartoonist, a licensed tour guide and a writer whose articles are published in The Tower, Arutz 7 and the Times of Israel.

Ms. Wilson is intimately acquainted with evil. Eight years ago on a sunny December afternoon, Palestinian terrorists brutally stabbed Wilson and her friend as they hiked a trail in a picturesque forest outside Jerusalem. 

Bound, gagged and stabbed 13 times, Wilson was determined not to die deep in the woods alongside Luken where their bodies could be overlooked. Somehow, she mustered the strength to walk over a kilometer through the forest on what she calls her own personal “death march” to call for help.

Ms. Wilson recounts what Palestinian Muslims did to her and Ms. Luken on December 18, 2010 in this talk at a TEDx event at Ben Gurion University.

(Video: TEDx Talks)

Neta Sorek's murder was in the same area was confessed to by
the same, Hebron cell captured for the Wilson/Luken attack

Her eyewitness testimony and remnants of the killer’s DNA led to the capture of Luken’s killers. They later confessed to murdering another woman, Neta Sorek, in January 2010.

The extraordinary story of Wilson’s will to survive, and the subsequent police investigation was the subject of an 2018 Israeli TV documentary titled “Black Forest,” directed by Hadar Kleinman Zadok and Timna Goldstein Hattab.

The 50-minute film produced by public broadcaster Kan provided a therapeutic outlet for Wilson, who years later, is still healing from the physical and emotional trauma she suffered in the grisly attack.

Ayad Fatafta and Kifah Ghanimat, convicted of murdering Kristine Luken and injuring Kay Wilson in the Jerusalem
Forest on Dec 18, 2010, seen at the J'lem District Court, Nov 24, 2011 (Uri Lenz/Flash90)

Police revealed that Kifah Ghanimat was the leader of a small, Hebron-based terrorist cell that included his brother, Ibrahim, and Kifah's murder-accomplice Ayad Fatafta. Here is an excerpt from Kifah's return to the scene of the crime which aired on Kan TV.



Notice that when asked why did they want to kill Jews (not just Israeli citizens) Ghanimat would not admit to the Jews around him. Muslim culture believes that "infidel" Christians and (particularly) Jews should be subordinate to Muslims. Palestinian culture teaches that, in addition to Jews being enemies of Mohammed, Muslims are shamed by Israeli-Jews having autonomy (and power) over what Palestinian plutocrats inculcate to the Arab residents are their territories.

To make matters worse, the Palestinian Authority offers incentive pay to slay salaries while incarcerated or to families of suicide bombers. President Donald Trump has cut funding to the UN programs benefiting the Palestinian Authority. Ms. Wilson has lobbied both the UK government and the Dutch government to cut funding to the Palestinian Authority, but only the Dutch have agreed to cut the amount they determine goes to pay terrorists' salaries.

UK Daily Express article when Kay Wilson importuned Whitehall to cut funding for terror incentive Palestinian gov't

A licensed tour-guide, Kay Wilson, narrates her drive past Jewish and Arab communities in Judea (the West Bank) en route to the Hebron / Kiryat Arba area - where the Muslims who butchered her and Kristine come from. She tours us along the misrepresented areas, where Muslim intolerance for "infidel" Jews has led to a worldwide media campaign of defamation and delegitimization. 

Watch Ben Shapiro debate The Young Turks' Cenk Uygur at PolitiCon

Social-media heavyweights debate: Right-wing Ben Shapiro (Daily Wire) debates Left-wing Cenk Uygur (the Young Turks) at PolitiCon in Los Angeles.

Debate analysis by young, orthodox Jewish man comes with surprise perspective on Arab-Israeli conflict. 

Did Cenk Uygur cheat against Ben Shapiro in debate? Hayden Morales at PolitiCon.