United Israel

This is the descriptive entry that will appear in the new 8th edition of the Encyclopedia of American Religions, the most authoritative reference work on religions of all types in America:
★2086★

United Israel World Union (UIWU)
200 East 10th Street
Suite # 111
New York, N.Y. 10003

Editorial Offices: P.O. Box 561476, Charlotte, NC 28256

The United Israel World Union (UIWU) was incorporated under the laws of the State of New York in 1944 by founder David Horowitz who served as President until his death at age 99 (1903–2002). The primary purposes of UIWU are to represent a universal version of the Hebraic faith to the non-Jewish world, based primarily on the Hebrew Bible, as well as to provide a meeting place for Jews with non-Jews who are accordingly drawn to this message. The hallmark of the organization is Isaiah’s prescription that “My house will become a house of prayer for all peoples.” Central to this mission is the conviction that scattered among the Gentiles are untold numbers of descendants of the Lost Tribes of Israel who are discovering their identity and their kinship to the Jewish people. Membership is based on the simple declaration of faith in the One God of Israel and a commitment to live according to the principles of the Hebrew Bible. Members, accordingly, observe the Sabbath day, Jewish festivals, and a biblical “kosher” diet, although the manner and extent of such observances is left to one’s individual conscience.

During the decades of the 1950s through the 1970s the movement flourished with centers in New York, Michigan, and West Virginia; members scattered through 30 States and 15 foreign countries; and an active mailing list of 9,000. Horowitz edited and published the triennial United Israel Bulletin from 1945 until his death. As an accredited member of the United Nations Press Corp since 1945, and serving twice as its president, Horowitz rubbed shoulders with many Ambassadors and heads of State, forming a close friendship with the late Dag Hammarskjöld. He published a syndicated weekly column that appeared in 22 Anglo-Jewish newspapers, reflecting his Jewish perspectives on world events in the light of UIWU perspectives. Horowitz received many honors including Israel’s Defender of Israel Medal presented by Prime Minister Menachem Begin. In the 1980s and 1990s operations of UIWU reached a low ebb due to the age and health of Mr. Horowitz.

Although it remains incorporated in New York, in 2004 the UIWU transferred most of its records, archives, and operations to Charlotte, North Carolina. Administered by Dr. James D. Tabor, the offices house the David Horowitz Memorial Library, which holds correspondence between Horowitz and various world leaders and celebrities including David Ben Gurion, Eleanor Roosevelt, and King Abdullah of Jordan, 60 years of back issues of the United Israel Bulletin, and a complete archive of Horowitz’s weekly UN Columns (1950-1998).

Membership: As of 2008 membership is at 300 with active surface and e-mail lists totaling 1700.

Periodicals: United Israel Bulletin has ceased regular publication but both archive and current materials are regularly added to the organization’s Web site: unitedisrael.org, and special issues will be published on specific topics once a year.

Sources:
http://unitedisrael.org
By-Laws of United Israel World Union, approved 1944, amended 2005.
David Horowitz, Thirty-three Candles (New York: World Union Press, 1949)

Although there are examples of the Covenant God made with all Israel through Moses at Horeb/Sinai being “renewed” at various points (e.g. Deuteronomy 29:1; 2 Kings 23:1-3), the “New Covenant” of which Jeremiah speaks (31:31-34) seems to stand out in terms of how it is both described and placed in context.

If one reads carefully that historical context, namely chapters 30-31 of Jeremiah, it is abundantly clear, both by the descriptive content and the timing indicated (”At that time” “in that day” “the days are coming” etc.), that this is a singular, unique, event that has not come about or transpired as of yet but is to take place in a specific time when all the Tribes of Israel are gathered together back in the Land, with Judah and Israel becoming one, etc. This event is spoken of in all the prophets with a consistency and a specificity that rivals any other theme or subject in the Hebrew prophets, and is particularly evident in Ezekiel 37, that also mentions this “new” covenant, using different words. Although there is a sense that one might still refer to this as a “renewed” covenant, it seems to stand out as different from the various “renewals” in the previous history of Israel, so that it is understood, by analogy at least, like a divorce and a remarriage. That said, there is only ONE covenant with Israel, as the Psalmist says, commanded to a “thousand generations,” thus the abbreviation O.T. could perhaps more rightly refer to the Only Testament, rather than the “Old” Testament.

Given this historical context one must pause over Paul’s ideas that the “new covenant” spoken by Jeremiah has come through his ministry, in contrast to the ministry of death that Moses instituted, that those who read the “old covenant” are blinded until they turn to Christ, or that the glory Moses experienced at Sinai is or has faded (2 Corinthians 3). The “last” Prophetic word we have on the level of the Hebrew Prophets is to “Remember the Teachings of My Servant Moses,” and that appears to take us to final days, characterized by the appearance of Elijah (Malachi 3/4). Rather than fade, the “glory” Moses experienced, that was the very Kavod of HaShem, will be renewed and enhanced in the time of which Jeremiah speaks. If one just reads Jeremiah 30-31 one does not find Paul’s ideas, that is, including his “heavenly Christ” who brings eternal life to those who accept him (with the rest blinded and hard of heart), or anything he says in 2 Corinthains 3 (and one really needs to include chapters 4-5 to get his full views here) referred to or predicted. There seems to be zero correspondence, other than the catchword “new covenant.”

This is not to say that the images of putting the Torah in the heart, or having a “new heart,” that Paul makes use of, are not found in the prophetic passages that speak of the “new covenant” and its operation. They lie at the heart of things, but they are nothing new, in that these very possibilities and potentials are all at the center of the covenant Moses made with Israel. Moses constantly tells the ancient Israelites to circumcise the heart, to have hearts of flesh not stone, and to put the Torah within. This is repeated constantly in the Psalms and Prophets as well. This is nothing “new” that comes with Paul and his “heavenly Christ.” It is at the heart of the Sinai/Horeb revelation always, and people in so-called “Old Testmant” times always had access to the Holy Spirit, a truly spiritual conversion, the Law written in the heart, etc. Grace, forgiveness, and a bonded friendship with the Creator through the Holy Spirit has always been offered freely to human beings, and all the more so through Moses’s covenant with Israel. Paul’s view of a “fleshly” and “spiritual” dichotomy is well known to us in all the hellenistic dualistic systems of thought of the ancient Mediterranean world, particularly the Platonists, Pythagorians, and to some extent the Stoics. That is why he thinks what one “eats or drinks” or observing “days” has nothing to do with the “real” inner person, or that God does not care for “oxen” when he says not to muzzle an animal threshing grain, but really has in mind his “new covenant” ministers being supported financially (1 Corinthians 9:3-12). Another response to Paul’s question–Does God care for oxen? is a resounding “yes,” as the Torah addresses ALL aspects of human life on planet earth.

A central issue when it comes to Paul is not whether he was a good guy or a bad guy, sincere or insincere, or even whether the ethical principles of the Torah are abrogated or carried through into the “new covenant” as he understands it. I have no doubt that Paul thought he was living in the “end times” and would live to see all that Jeremiah spoke of come about, at least in some “spiritual” way, since he had given up the idea that what he calls “fleshly” Israel mattered anymore. The real issue is whether one, Jew or Gentile, can have a right relationship with God by grace through faith, as Abraham had, by turning directly in repentance and faith, without the requirements of “accepting Christ” and receiving “eternal life” through the blood of the cross, as the exclusive new “way of salvation.” This is where “Christianity,” at least as viewed by Paul, parts with Judaism, and for that matter, with a plain reading of the Hebrew Bible, both Torah, Prophets, and Writings. And yet for Paul, centering everything on God offering his divine Son as a sacrifice for sins is the heart of his “new covenant” ideas. If one then turns back and reads Jeremiah 30-31 there is little to no correspondence between what Jeremiah says and the ideas Paul expounds that he calls the “New Covenant.”

Jesus himself offers something dead center in terms of reflecting the Hebrew Bible and its “way of salvation.” His well known story of “justification” given by Jesus in Luke 15 and the lost son who comes home, requires only the father’s gracious acceptance of a son who is truly broken up over his past wrong behavior. Even more to the point, the tax collector of Luke 18 who bowed his head, struck his breast, and said “God be merciful to me a sinner.” This is the one Way of turning to God that has always held true through the ages, from Adam to our time, and it involves none of the major elements of Paul’s system of people receiving eternal life.

There are two verses from the Hebrew Bible that seem to put it most clearly:

Psalm 145:18: “The LORD is near to all who call upon him, to all who call upon him in truth.”

Isaiah 56:6-7: “Seek the LORD while he may be found; call upon him while he is near; let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the LORD, that he may have compassion on him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.”

The Hebrew means to seek truly/sincerely, and it not referring to a set of “truth” in terms of religious dogmas and doctrines. These texts are bedrock and they cut through any theological or complex systems of religious dogma. They are relational not systematic. Many seminaries have courses called “Systematic Theology” and most all are complex expositions of Paul’s teachings, with all the ins and outs. These verses seem to skirt that whole arena, even though they are addressing a similar question–How can one come to know God, be forgiven, and walk with him?

One important characteristic of the Prophets is that they are on the whole relational and almost completely non-systematic, so even a fool, yea a wayfaring man, will not stumble on the path. They sketch out in fairly plain language the “vision” of things for the “days to come,” and along the way, with the Prophets commenting on their own day and time, they offer avenues toward repentance and return to their contemporary hearers, and thus by extension, to readers down through the ages.

Even though the Israeli celebration of Independence Day, based on the Hebrew calendar, was last week, there is something profound about May 14 on the Gregorian Calendar that really acts as a marker of great events of the last century.

Just to think, on this very date, in 1948 these great and momentous things happened. One very interesting fact is that if you follow an “observed” Jewish calendar for 1948 and don’t add the 13th month that year, it moves everything one month back–that is “Adar II becomes Nisan, Nisan becomes Iyyar, and Iyyar becomes SIVAN–which makes the establishment of the State of Israel fall on Sivan the 5th…Well that just happens to be the fixed date for Shavuot or Pentecost in Jewish tradition…

One can not help but think of Isaiah’s ancient query:

Is. 66:8 Who hath heard such a thing? who hath seen such things? Shall a land be born in one day? shall a nation be brought forth at once? for as soon as Zion travailed, she brought forth her children.

There is a nice set of article on the Aish HaTorah Web site dealing with the history of Israel. I found a very nice set of articles on the Web that talk POSITIVELY about Zionism and returning to the land of Israel. If you have some time read through some of these, they are really good, this is one of the BEST Web pages I have ever found and I can not recommend it highly enough for this day in history!

http://www.aish.com/holidays/Israel_Independence_Day/holiday_page.asp

In this day and time when “Zionism” is used by so many as some kind of ugly word, it is refreshing to capture some of the Spirit that the true “returnees to Zion” really had 60 years ago.

For those a bit “rusty” on the history, here is a crash course Crash_Course_in_Jewish_History:

Crash Course in Jewish History Part 65 - The State of Israel
by Rabbi Ken Spiro
After the British brutally turned away Holocaust survivors from Israel, the UN voted to partition the land.

The British broke promise after promise to the Jews while they created new Arab countries out of the land of the former Ottoman Empire. In addition, because of Arab revolts and pressure, the British even barred entry to the land of Israel to Jews fleeing the Holocaust. (See Part 64.)

Even when the full scope of the Holocaust was known, and thousands of Holocaust survivors were stranded in refugee camps (DP camps), the British refused to relent.

One of the most egregious of the British actions involved the refugee ship, Exodus, which the Royal Navy intercepted in 1947 in the Mediterranean Sea with 4,500 Jews aboard. The ship was brought into Haifa port under British escort; there the Holocaust survivors were forcibly transferred to another ship and returned back to Germany via France.

Abba Eban, who was then the Jewish liason to a special UN committee — called Special Commmitte On Palestine or UNSCOP — persuaded four UN representatives to go to Haifa to witness the brutality of the British against the Jews.

Historian Martin Gilbert includes Eban’s account of what happened there in Israel: A History (p. 145):

“[In Haifa] the four members watched a ‘gruesome operation.’ The Jewish refugees had decided ‘not to accept banishment with docility. If anyone had wanted to know what Churchill meant by a “squalid war,” he would have found out by watching British soldier using rifle butts, hose pipes and tear gas against the survivors of the death camps. Men, women and children were forcibly taken off to prison ships, locked in cages below decks and set out of Palestine waters.’

“When the four members of UNSCOP came back to Jerusalem, Eban recalled, ‘they were pale with shock. I could see that they were pre-occupied with one point alone: if this was the only way that the British Mandate could continue, it would be better not to continue it at all.’”

UN PARTITION OF PALESTINE

The British also wanted out of the problem. They had 100,000 soldiers/police trying to maintain control with a total population of about 600,000 Jews and 1.2 million Arabs. (Interestingly, they had the same size force controlling India with a population of over 350 million!)

And so it came to pass that the British turned the matter over to the UN which decided to end the British Mandate over what was left of “Palestine” (after the creation of the country of Jordan) and to divide the remaining land among the Arabs and Jews. The proposal called for the Jews to get:

a narrow strip of land along the Mediterranean coast, including Tel Aviv and Haifa

a piece of land surrounding the Kineret (Sea of Galilee), including the Golan Heights

a large piece in the south, which was the uninhabitable Negev Desert
The Arabs were to get:

the Gaza Strip

a chunk of the north, including the city of Tzfat (Safed) and western Galilee

the entire West Bank of the River Jordan and the hills of Judea and Samaria
Jerusalem was to be under international control.

On November 29, 1947, the United Nations voted for this partition plan. Of those voting, 33 nations voted yes, including USA and USSR; 13 mostly-Arab nations voted no; 11 nations abstained.

Hard-hearted to the end, the British did not vote yes; they abstained.

As disappointed as the Jews were with the portion allotted for the Jewish state, they felt that something was better than nothing after all the waiting and the pain.

However, the Arabs, always maximalist in their demands, rejected the UN resolution. The next day Arab rioting began, and two weeks later soldiers from surrounding Arab countries began arriving into Palestine.

The British, happy to be out of the situation, were packing up to go and turned their backs on what was going on. Writes David Ben Gurion in his Israel: A Personal History (p. 65):

“The British did not lift a finger to stop this military invasion. They also refused to cooperate with the UN committee charged with supervising implementation of the General Assembly resolution. At the same time, the Arabs living in the district destined to become part of the Jewish state began evacuating their homes and moving to the Arab states neighboring Palestine at the orders of the Arab High Committee.”

In the midst of confusion, the rioting continued with almost 1,000 Jews murdered by Arabs in the ensuing four months.

One of the worst incidents occurred on April 13, 1948. A convoy of 70 doctors and nurses making their way to Hadassah Hospital on Mount Scopus was ambushed by Arabs. This happened 200 yards of a British police station. After a seven-hour shoot-out, during which the British did nothing, all the doctors and nurses were killed. Afterwards, the Arabs mutilated their bodies.

JERUSALEM UNDER SIEGE

In all of this, the British encouraged the King of Jordan, Abdullah, to invade and annex the Arab sections to his kingdom. To Abdullah this was not enough. He wanted Jerusalem too.

As a result Jerusalem came under siege.

The focus of the struggle during April and May 1948 was the road to Jerusalem which passes through the mountains. The vehicles on that road are completely exposed to gunmen up above. It was on this road that all supplies to the Jews of the city had to come. But they could not get through.

Hunger reigned. The residents of the Jewish Quarter of the Old City were completely cut off.

And then an amazing incident happened. A young Yemenite Jew, who was not known for his shooting skills, almost accidentally killed three Arab men in the hills. One of these men was the Arab leader, Abdul Khader el Husseini. Demoralized, the Arab forces abandoned their positions to attend his funeral.

As a result a huge convoy of 250 trucks of food was able to re-supply the city. Writes Berel Wein in Triumph of Survival (p. 397):

“[On Shabbat, April 17, 1948] Jews left their synagogues and, with their prayer shawls still draping their shoulders, helped unload the convoy. The siege of Jerusalem was broken for the moment. The Arabs, however, mounted a strong counter-attack, and by the end of April once again cut the Jerusalem road… for the next seven weeks Jewish Jerusalem was isolated.”

A NEW STATE IS BORN

The official date given by the United Nations in their partition vote for the creation of the two new entities was May 15th, 1948.

Thus, May 14th was to be the last day of the British Mandate. At 4 p.m., the British lowered their flag and immediately the Jews raised their own.

It was a flag designed in 1897 by the First Zionist Congress. It was white (the color of newness and purity), and it had two blue stripes (the color of heaven) like the stripes of a tallit, the prayer shawl, which symbolized the transmission of Jewish tradition. In its center was the Star of David.

Thus on May 14, 1948 at 4:00 p.m., Hay Iyar, the 5th of Iyar, Israel declared itself a state.

After 2,000 years, the land of Israel was once more in the hands of the Jews.

David Ben Gurion read the Declaration of Independence over the radio:

“The Land of Israel was the birthplace of the Jewish people. Here the spiritual, religious and national identity was formed. Here they achieved independence and created a culture of national and universal significance. Here they wrote and gave the Bible to the world…

“Exiled from Palestine, the Jewish people remained faithful to it in all the countries of the dispersion, never ceasing to pray and hope for their return and restoration of their national freedom.

“Accordingly we, the members of the National Council met together in solemn assembly today and by virtue of the natural and historic right of the Jewish people and with the support of the resolution of the General of the United Nations, hereby proclaim the establishment of the Jewish state in Palestine to be called Israel…

“We offer peace and amity to all neighboring states and their peoples and invite them to cooperate with the independent Jewish nation for the common good of all…

“With trust in the Rock of Israel, we set our hands to this declaration at this session of the Provisional State Council in the city of Tel Aviv on Sabbath Eve, 5th Iyar 5708, 14th day of May 1948.”

(Note that the Declaration of Independence of Israel — unlike the American Declaration of Independence — does not mention God. This is because the hard-line secularists that dominated the Jewish Agency opposed any such thing. “Rock of Israel” became a compromise.)

Everyone was dancing in the streets. But not for long.

Almost immediately five Arab countries declared war and Egypt bombed Tel Aviv.