COMMUNITY
ISRAELrealNATION seeks to unite and uplift Am Israel (the Nation of Israel), Erets Israel (the Land of Israel) and the peoples and nations of the larger world from a Musta'arabi, Misrahi, Sepharadi perspective, for one who is firmly grounded in their own Jewish history and tradition is better prepared to reach out to the larger Jewish community and the larger world with knowledge, integrity, and strength.
As Jews, our foundation, our inspiration, is Hashem and Torah. The origin of our Creation as human beings in the image of G-d is Hashem and Torah. The origin of Israel as a Nation, both physically and spiritually, is Hashem and Torah. The origin of our obligation to humbly serve as messengers to the world, as well as of our charge to seek humbly to be lights unto the nations, is Hashem and Torah. Thus, as Jews, how may we seek peace and justice in the world not only for Israel, but also for the larger Middle East and the larger world, without Hashem and Torah?
ISRAELrealNATION extends from our love of Hashem and our joy in sharing Torah with our fellow Jews, as well as with the larger world, in order that we may all one day soon know peace ~ a just peace ~ for Israelis and Palestinians, for Jews and Arabs, for Jews and Muslims, for all the peoples and nations of the Middle East, for all the peoples and nations of the world.
.שלום. سلام
"Holidays, candlelighting times, and Torah readings for 2017 and any year, past or present. Download to Outlook, iPhone, Google Calendar, and more.
Convert between Hebrew and Gregorian dates and see today's date in a Hebrew font."
"The goal of the Halacha Yomit team is to spread Torah knowledge, specializing in a broad range of Halacha topics.
Many of the Halachot on this site are based on the writings of Maran Rabbeinu zt”l in his precious works, and where he does not explain the issue himself, the Halacha is based on the rulings of Maran Ha’Shulchan Aruch whose rulings we follow.
The Halachot on this site cover all aspects of Jewish life, ranging from the laws of Shabbat to issues pertaining to the 'Choshen Mishpat' section of the Shulchan Aruch (monetary laws). One who studies the Halachot on this site on a daily basis can, within a short time, gain a broad scope of Torah knowledge in all areas of life. In addition to our primary focus being the study of Halacha, our website also discusses other relevant topics, such as Mussar, ethics, and thoughts on the weekly Parasha."
Site in Hebrew, English, Spanish and French.
"The Rabbi Jacob S. Kassin Memorial Halachic Series authored by Rabbi Eli J. Mansour continuing in the tradition of the The Chief Rabbi of the Syrian Sephardic Community of New York, Rabbi Jacob S. Kassin A"H (1900 - 1994).
DailyHalacha.com for mobile devices now available."
"Pa'am Shlishit, Glida!"
("Third Time, Ice Cream!") |
By Becky Anderson, CNN
2 March 2020 | 6 Adar 5780
"Israeli shops are offering free ice cream for the 2 March 2020 election. Ben and Jerry's even has a special election flavor. What's it all about? We went out to get the scoop!"
Again, With Heavy Hearts,
We Remember | By Ruth Rachel
Anderson-Avraham
6 August 2019 | 5 Ab 5779
BS"D
Dear ISRAELrealNATION and Friends,
Sadly, there were many shootings across the United States this past week which could technically be qualified as "mass shootings", according to which definition of the term one would choose to subscribe.
However, our focus at ISRAELrealNATION is upon those incidents which stem from specific forms of identifiable terrorist ideology and motivations, thus our particular focus on what happened in El Paso, Poway, Pittsburgh, Orlando, Charleston...
Though ISRAELrealNATION also certainly mourns for what happened in Chicago and Brooklyn this past week, stemming from other types of organized violence resulting from other identifiable ideologies and motivations, we must retain focus and highlight those incidents which are directly in line with the primary forms of racially, ethnically, religiously, and politically motivated terrorism and terrorist ideology which our own advocacy work specifically seeks to address.
On this point, we must disagree with certain claims that one is able to address all forms of gun violence, including all "mass shootings", in the same manner. To do so would simply be a disservice to the different communities affected, in our humble opinion.
May we be able to appreciate the fact that all mass shootings are tragedies, even though the means by which they come about may be very, very different. Many thanks in advance for your understanding.
~ Ruth Rachel Anderson-Avraham, ISRAELrealNATION
Tuesday, 5 Ab 5779, 6 August 2019
Copyright © ISRAELrealNATION |
Ruth Rachel Anderson-Avraham, 2006 - 2019.
All Rights Reserved.
With Heavy Hearts, We Remember |
By The Virginian-Pilot
7 June 2019 | 4 Sivan 5779
With heavy hearts, we remember
all those who lost their lives
as a result of the mass shooting
in Virginia Beach, Virginia
(our home in America) :
LaQuita C. Brown
Tara Welch Gallagher
Mary Louise Gayle
Alexander Mikhail Gusev
Katherine A. Nixon
Richard H. Nettleton
Christopher Kelly Rapp
Ryan Keith Cox
Joshua O. Hardy
Michelle "Missy" Langer
Robert "Bobby" Williams
Herbert "Bert" Snelling
May their memory be blessed,
and may their families and friends
be comforted by Heaven.
Matilda Albuhaire – "A Sephardic Family Story" | By Centropa Films and the Bulgarian Photographer's Association
2 May 2019 (Yom HaShoah 5779)
"After the death of his wife, Matilda Albuhaire's grandfather traveled with his young son [from Istanbul] to the Black Sea port of Bourgas, where he opened a small shop in a town filled with Greeks, Turks, Jews, Muslims and Bulgarian Christians. Matilda became a teacher in the Bourgas and Sofia Jewish schools, and when war came, waited with the other Bulgarian Jews for their deportation 'to Poland,' not knowing what awaited them there..."
Singing from a Multitude of Songsheets | By Point of No Return Blog
29 April 2019
"If asked how to define her identity, Aline P'nina Tayar would say she was a Jewish Maltese Australian Englishwoman.
Multiple identities are not uncommon among Sephardi Jews, but Maltese? To be a Jew of Malta is unusual, pace Christopher Marlowe.
Aline Tayar was born in Malta in 1948 from a family of Tunisian Jews of Livornese descent on her mother's side. Her father's great-grandfather was a Rabbi who had settled in Malta. Devoutly catholic and claustrophobic, Malta was not a particularly hospitable place to be a Jew, and the community never had more than 100 members in modern times. Aline's family remained far-flung, with eccentric, multilingual relatives living in France, Italy, Tunisia and Egypt..."
Adon Hasselihot | By Erez Yehiel
and Torah Ohr
27 August 2017
אדון הסליחות | Adon Hasselihot,
בוחן לבבות | Bohen Lebabot,
גולה עמוקות | Goleh 'Amoukot,
דובר צדקות | Dover Tsedakot,
חטאנו לפניך | Hatanu lefanekha,
רחם עלינו | rahem 'aleinou.
Master of Forgivings,
Examiner of Hearts,
Revealer of Depths,
Speaker of Justice,
We have sinned before You,
have mercy upon us.
Jewish Languages of Brooklyn |
By The Endangered Language Alliance
27 March 2017
Take a field trip across one of the world's most diverse Jewish communities, featuring Juhuri dance, Judeo-Arabic music, Ladino books and more.
This pilot fieldtrip was part of ELA's Jewish Languages Project, a new effort to recognize and document those languages while they are still spoken and remembered.
(Breaks in paragraph added for emphasis.)
Israel Opens Database with 400,000 Declassified Documents on Yemenite Children Affair | By The Times of Israel
28 December 2016
"Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu inaugurated an online database on Wednesday that gives the public full access to some 400,000 pages of declassified documents that the state hopes will help bring closure to the decades-long controversy known as the 'Yemenite Children Affair.'
'Today we right a historic wrong,' Netanyahu said at a ceremony launching the database. 'For close to 60 years people did not know the fate of their children, in a few minutes any person can access the pages containing all the information that the government of Israel has...' ”
Book Review: From Sinai to Ethiopia: The Halakhic and Conceptual World of Ethiopian Jewry | By Sephardi Ideas Monthly
12 December 2016
"The mind-bending journey of Ethiopian Jewry to the state of Israel is usually told with an eye to Israel’s daring rescue operations, or to the difficulties faced by Ethiopian Jews in their old-new homeland. While both of these perspectives are interesting and important, they overlook what is arguably the richest aspect of the Ethiopian Jewish move to Israel: the meeting between Ethiopian Jewish tradition and normative Judaism. Because, if we take seriously the proposition that Ethiopian Judaism is an authentic form of Judaism, then the implications for conceptualizing normative Judaism are both fundamental and fascinating..."
Sephardi, Mizrahi Jews a Forgotten Part of the Refugee Equation | By Lior Haiat and Henry Green
28 November 2016
"For centuries Jews co-existed for the most part peacefully with their various neighbors across North Africa and the Middle East. Jewish communities thrived from the Atlantic Ocean to the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, from Casablanca to Alexandria and Baghdad.
Today, they all have been virtually driven to extinction. Within one generation, from 1948 to 1973, nearly 1 million people were displaced, many becoming refugees..."
An Ancient Melancholy: How a Handful of Jewish Musicians in Turkey Have Been Preserving Ladino's Musical Heritage | By Ezgi Üstündağ
14 July 2016
"Over 3,500 kilometres from the Iberian Peninsula – not to mention a temporal separation of half a millennium – Jak Esim, a Sephardic Jew, houses in his Istanbul home what he believes is the most comprehensive archive of Judeo-Spanish folk music in the world. Esim has lived in Istanbul his entire life, but traces his roots to that small landmass jutting into the eastern Atlantic. His native tongue, Judeo-Spanish – or, Ladino – is a dialect of Spanish whose words of Spanish origin have remained frozen in time, a relic of the 1492 Alhambra Decree. Over time, the Ladino of Istanbul’s Sephardic community has also absorbed a number of Turkish words. Esim has witnessed first-hand the decline of Ladino fluency in his community – the size of which is estimated to be around 17,000 – and believes transmitting the tongue through folk music to be the best way of preserving the language. To this end, he has spent the last two decades researching and performing traditional Ladino songs with his wife, the other half of the Janet-Jak Esim Ensemble..."
Wounds Over Missing Yemenite Children Open, MKs Renew Push for Truth | By Marissa Newman
21 June 2016
"The year is 2001. Saada Awawi, a Yemenite Jewish immigrant in her mid-sixties, is contacted by the state committee tasked with probing the disappearance of over 1,000 children in the 1950s in the so-called “Yemenite Children affair.”
We can now confirm that your daughter died in January 1952, on the day she was born, Awawi is assured by officials, following a six-year state-commissioned investigation.
There’s just one problem: Awawi gave birth to a baby boy..."
Aleppo Empty of Jews: The Last Two Jewish Women Rescued and Brought to Israel | By Yanun Yitzhaki and Yom L'Yom
23 November 2015
"In 2015, for the first time in many centuries, the city of Aleppo in Syria is empty of Jews. The two elderly Jewish women who remained in Aleppo, were smuggled out in a secret operation and are now residing in Ashkelon, according to a report by the veteran British Jewish newspaper, the Jewish Chronicle.
The Chronicle reported in detail how a businessman named Motti Kahana, a former Israeli who grew up in Jerusalem and now lives in the United States, was behind the operation to rescue the last Jewish women. Kahane has in the past funded operations to rescue Jews. He got involved after he became aware of the dire situation in Syria, and especially when he learned that the terrorist organization ISIL was encircling the city..."
I'm a Mizrahi Jew. Do I Count as a Person of Color? | By Sigal Samuel
10 August 2015
"When I look at my grandparents — four Mizrahim, or Jews from Arab lands — I see people who were born in India and Iraq and Morocco, who grew up speaking Hindi and Arabic. When I stand in Sephora buying makeup, the shade I choose is closer to 'ebony' than to 'petal.' When I walk down the street, perfect strangers routinely stop me to ask: 'Where are you from? Are you Persian? Indian? Arab? Latina?' When I go through airport security, I always — always — get 'randomly selected' for additional screening.
I was pretty sure all this made me a person of color..."