Archive for the ‘Historical Reflections’ Category
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)
The legacy of Passover has inspired the cause of liberty, as a natural right, in the United States in particular and throughout the globe in general.
I have compiled the following reflections on Passover based on writings by Jewish sages as a backdrop to the notion of liberty as a God given right.
The Exodus took place around 1500 BC. The Passover is celebrated on the 15th day of the Jewish month of Nissan, the first month of the Jewish year and the introduction of natural and national spring (Nitzan is the Babylon word for spring and the Hebrew word for bud). Nissan (“Ness“-miracle in Hebrew-is the root) is the month of miracles, such as the Exodus, parting of the sea, Jacob wrestling the Angel, Deborah’s victory over Sisera and Daniel in the lion’s den. The 15th day of any Jewish month is endowed with a full moon, which stands for optimism in defiance of darkness and the most difficult odds.
Passover has four names: Holiday of Pesach (the sacrifice), Holiday of Liberty, Holiday of Matza and Holiday of Spring. It is the first Jewish holiday, according to the Jewish calendar, which starts in the spring (Aviv in Hebrew). A time when all things come alive. The word spring is mentioned three times in the Torah, all in reference to Exodus. Passover, which commemorates the creation of the Jewish nation, lasts for seven days, just like the creation of the universe.
David Ben Gurion, Israel’s founding father, highlighted Passover’s focus on the land of Israel and memory (UN Commission, 1947): “300 years ago, the Mayflower launched it’s historical voyage. How many remember the data of the voyage? How many passengers were on the Mayflower and what kind of bread did they consume? However, 3,300 years earlier, the Exodus from Egypt took place. Every Jew knows the date of the Exodus, the 15th day of the month of Nissan, and the kind of bread, Matza (unleavened bread) consumed. To this day Jews all over the world, tell the story of the Exodus and eat Matza on the 15th of Nissan. They conclude the story of the Exodus (Hagadah) with the statement: “This year we’re slaves, but next year we shall be liberated; this year we’re here, but next year in Jerusalem.” Consistent with Ben Gurion’s comments, Jacob and Joseph demanded to be buried in Hebron and in Shchem (Nablus) and not in Egypt, since burial sites perpetuate presence and deed.
Passover, just like monotheism, the Sabbath, Ten Commandments and repentance/Yom Kippur, constitute a Jewish gift to humanity. It has been a global inspiration to liberty and to national liberation (Let my people go).
The Exodus inspired the Puritans, the Pilgrims and the Founding Fathers, who considered themselves “the modern day People of the Covenant”, King George III “the modern day Pharaoh”, the Atlantic “the modern day Red Sea” and America “the modern day Promised Land”. The term “Federalism” is based on “Foedus“, the Latin word for “The Covenant”. The Founding Fathers considered the political structure of the Twelve Tribes, sustaining semi-independance, governed by Moses, Aharon, Joshua and the 70 person Legislature, a model for the 13 colonies and the US political system.
Moses, the hero of Passover, has become a role model of leadership. The Mosaic legacy has greatly impacted US democracy, hence Moses’ marble replica at the House Chamber on Capital Hill, at the Rayburn House Office Building’s subway station and at the Supreme Court (holding the Ten Commandments).
The Exodus is mentioned 50 times in the Torah, equal to the 50 years of Jubilee, another historical pivot of liberty. “Proclaim liberty throughout the land to all the inhabitants thereof” (Leviticus 25:10) is inscribed on our Liberty Bell in Philadelphia.
Our forefathers viewed our country’s founding through a biblical lens. Consider:
*George Washington and John Adams were compared to Moses and Joshua.
*Adams, Jefferson and Franklin proposed a depiction of Moses parting of the sea as the official US seal. This was mentioned in several past UIWU bulletins along with the likeness.
*John Locke considered Moses’ 613 laws as the most fitting legal foundation of the new society in America.
*Ezra Styles, the President of Yale University, stated that “Moses, the man of God, assembled 3 million people, the number of people in America in 1776…” (May 8, 1783).
*John Winthrop, the first Governor of Massachusetts: “God has entered into a Covenant with those who are on their way to wilderness in America, just as He had entered into Covenant with the Israelites in the wilderness of Sinai…” (1630 sermon on the Arbella).
The legacy of the Exodus has nurtured optimism, principle-driven defiance of odds, long-term tenacity and the centrality of tradition, education and national memory. It may be best summed up by a statement by President Calvin Coolidge on May 3, 1925: “The Hebraic mortars cemented the foundations of American democracy…”
For more on this subject, please see previous UIWU blog articles entitled: “America’s Hebrew Heritage” and “George Washington, an American Joshua”.
Ralph Buntyn
It is our essential nature to question and seek information concerning our ancestral lines. If one subscribes to the theory, as did UIWU founder and president, David Horowitz, and an increasing number of proponents, that there are many of us who could be descendants of the Ten Lost Tribes or Israelites, then the questioning and seeking becomes compelling.
Armed with very limited information, my husband, Ralph, and I traveled to Wales, the land of my maternal forefathers and England, my paternal forefathers in September, 1996 to trace my genealogy. We knew the name of the village in Wales which was the birthplace of my Great Grandfather and Great Grandmother, but little else.
Our arrival in Llandudno, Wales was on Friday, September 13 and we attended the Llandudno Hebrew Congregation for Rosh Hashanah and Shabbat services. This is the oldest Orthodox synagogue in Wales, dating to the 16th century. We were greeted with surprise and curiosity by the congregants. It seems they are unaccustomed to visitors-especially from “across the pond”.
One of the nights spent in Wales was at a resort high in the mountains with a view of the Irish Sea. The bucolic setting was breathtaking!
Equipped with maps and the meager information we brought with us we located the township of Corris, Wales and began exploring the valley of so many of my ancestors. The cemetery was situated on the grounds of the Carmell Corris, Talyllin, Wesleyan Methodist Church erected in 1810. The Welch inscriptions on the gravestones were startlingly close to Hebrew and as David Horowitz often told us, the Welch and Hebrew languages are strikingly similar. I was not prepared for the impact that discovering the tombstones of my Great, Great, Great Grandparents and relatives, whom I was unaware even had existed, would have on me. It was a strange, unnatural and unnerving experience and one which would subsequently take me months to reconcile and resolve.
The process of researching information which we acquired during the trip has revealed astonishing points of history for me. I’d like to summarize some conclusions by quoting a few excerpts from Seventh Day Adventist Leslie Hardinge’s work, The Celtic Church in Britain. “Before the coming of Augustine to England in A.D.597, the Christian church in the British Isles was profoundly Celtic, rather than Roman. The beliefs and practices of the Celtic Christian Church were much closer to the first century church than the Church of Rome. Foremost in the Celtic belief was an insistence on a literal interpretation of the Bible, with a tendency to reject the writings of the ‘Church Fathers’, and a disdain for the authority of Church Councils (Council of Elders). The Celtic theologian was keenly interested in the whole of the scriptures, but his preoccupation with the Ten Commandments was even deeper.”
“Many Celtic believers were Arians (anti-trinitarian). They kept the Sabbath, believing that the day begins at sundown. They were known to be Quartodecimans, observers of the Christian Passover, on the fourteenth day of the first month in Spring. They eschewed unclean meats.”
“The legendary Patrick (ca. 387-463) was born a Briton, and evangelized Ireland. He was said to have founded over 300 churches and baptized more than 120,000 converts, earning him the title of patron saint of Ireland. However, Christianity existed in Ireland long before his time.”
Wherever Patrick went and established a church, he left an old Celtic law book, Liber ex Lege Moisi (Book of the Law of Moses), along with the books of the Gospel. The Liber begins with the Decalogue and continues with selections from Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, totaling 35 in all.
“It is most significant that the Liber should commence with the Decalogue, which certainly points to the interest of the Celtic Christian in keeping the Ten Commandments. This passage also includes prohibitions against the forming of idols of silver or gold, and directions for making an altar of earth without steps, underlying the early stress in the Celtic Church of ‘altars of stone’”
While ‘St. Patrick’ is revered as a Roman Catholic Saint, his writings appear to place him squarely in the “Sabbath-keeping Messianic tradition”.
Hardinge indicates that the Celtic British Isles had a long history of Sabbath-keeping. Professor James Moffatt, D.D. in his 1882 book, The Church in Scotland, p.140 states: “It seems to have been customary in Celtic Churches of early times, in Ireland as well as Scotland, to keep Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath, as a day of rest from labour.” They obeyed the fourth commandment, literally, upon the seventh day of the week.
A surprising conclusion has much relevance for us today. To it’s detriment, the Celtic Church was not unified. Each group seems to have been dependent upon the founder and it’s tribe, but independent of all others. No church leader among the Celts was held to be the spokesman of all. There was little unity of purpose thus they were unable to present a unified front and were absorbed into Roman Christianity piece by piece and finally disappeared.
Assimilating this information intellectually and emotionally has given me much to ponder and has imparted a strong sense of pride in my Welch-Celtic-Hebrew influenced heritage.
Don Feder, a writer for the New York Post wrote recently, “Torah came into the world to change the world and not to reconcile itself to it”. This profound truth applies to Jews and non-Jews alike. It is, however, incumbent on both groups to seek those truths which apply to each in order to fulfill a destiny which was ordained at the Creation for those of us who are either practicing Jews or are members of the Ten Lost Tribes and are joined with those faithful Jews in a literal sense who are studying, searching, and beseeching HaShem to show His Face.
Rebecca Buntyn
Works cited: Hardinge, Leslie. The Celtic Church in Britain. Teach Services, Inc.,
Brushton, NY, 1973
Moffatt, James C., D.D. The Church in Scotland. 1882
The Israelites cried out to the YHVH, and the YHVH raised a champion for the Israelites to deliver them….Judges 3:9.
Founder and president David Horowitz wrote an article in the first issue of United Israel Bulletin dated July 1944, entitled “Washington and Ezekiel’s Vision”. He opened by saying that very few Americans are aware of the fact that George Washington was a Godly man who had been inspired with visions of truth and there can be no doubt that Jehovah guided him in his actions and deeds. The article gave an account of the most important of Washington’s visions which was the one he personally related to Anthony Sherman who in turn related it to Wesley Bradshaw. Following this mysterious experience, a troubled Washington felt that he had seen a vision wherein it had been shown to him the birth, progress and destiny of the United States. It is a remarkable accounting, the majority given in Washington’s own words.
I would like to recount for you another of Washington’s inspirational thoughts and actions. Coming at a time in our struggle for independence in 1776, it was the closest the Americans ever came to disaster.
The year opened with the British evacuating Boston. Then both the American Penobscot Bay Expedition and invasion of Canada failed. General Washington’s Continental Army moved to protect New York, but was routed by superior forces that outmaneuvered them at every engagement. Only by luck and British ineptness was Washington able to keep his forces relatively intact during the long retreat through New Jersey into Pennsylvania.
Then in mid-December when the weather turned extremely cold General Howe made one of the fateful decisions of the war. He suspended military actions until spring, establishing a string of outposts on the New Jersey side of the Delaware River and retired most of his army to New York.
Things were drastically different for Washington’s forces across the river from Trenton, a village of a hundred homes, two mills and iron furnaces and most of the townspeople had fled. Some 2500 Hessians occupied the town. Hessians were mercenary German soldiers supplied to the British army in it’s fight against America. They were employed by George III who simply did not have enough soldiers in his own army to supply the needs of his commanders in America. In total nearly 30,000 German soldiers fought for the British in North America. A stronger outpost was at Brunswick, 20 miles away.
Washington had about 6,000 troups, hundreds fell ill, and all suffered from the cold. The period of enlistment would expire for more than a third of Washington’s army in January. Congress had fled from Philadelphia and two members had gone over to the enemy. It was reasonable to presume that the war was essentially over and the Americans had lost.
On December 14, Washington told key members of his staff that “a lucky blow” against the enemy would “most certainly rouse the spirits of the people, which are quite shrunk by our misfortunes.” Later he confirmed plans for an attack on Trenton to begin on Christmas night.
On Christmas Eve, Washington went over the final details. The army would cross the Delaware and attack at three places, a force of 1,500 would cross downstream and advance on Burlington, and a smaller force would attack directly across the river at Trenton. The largest force of 2,000 led by Washington would cross upstream and come back south.
The first step, crossing the river, would commence at midnight, and all forces were scheduled to arrive at Trenton and attack at six. In spite of Christmas Day weather deteriorating: wind, snow and sleet, the river was up, and filled with broken ice, the password was still: “Victory or Death.”
The crossing was made on big flat-bottomed, high-sided boats that could carry 40 men standing up. The troops, with horses and 20 cannon began moving during the afternoon. Washington crossed early and observed the slow process. Near midnight a major storm arrived and temperatures dropped. It was three in the morning before all of Washington’s contingent was across.
Downstream both forces encountered so much ice that they were forced to abort their mission. Washington’s forces were behind schedule and the storm got worse, with rain, sleet, snow and violent hail. They had six miles to get to Trenton and got there about eight. The attack began.
The Hessians rushed out of their quarters and attempted to form up. Henry Knox’s cannon scattered them and their commanding officer was killed. Being surrounded, most of the Hessians lay down their arms and surrendered. It was all over in 45 minutes. Twenty-one Hessians were killed, 90 wounded, 900 became prisioners and another 500 escaped.
Only four Americans were wounded, including Lieutenant James Monroe, the future president of the United States. No Americans were killed.
Washington had prophesied that some “lucky blow” would “rouse the spirits of the people” and it did have a stunning effect on the morale of the country.
The war for independence would continue, endlessly it would seem for some, for another six and a half years before the Treaty of Paris formally ended the war in 1783.
Practically all of us have seen one of the most-recognized paintings in history: that of Washington crossing the Delaware in an 1851 oil-on-canvas work by Emanuel Leutze, a German-American painter, commemorating the attack by George Washington’s Continental Army on Hessian forces encamped at Trenton, N. J. on Christmas Day, 1776.
Dr. Ezra Stiles the seventh president of Yale College, often spoke of America as a “modern Israel.” In referring to George Washington, Dr. Stiles made this significant statement: “Whereupon Congress put at the head of the spirited army, the only man on whom the eyes of all Israel were placed. Posterity, incredulous as they may be, will yet acknowledge that this American Joshua was raised up by God for the great work of leading the armies of this American Joseph-now separated from his brethren-and conducting these people to liberty and independence.”
Later as president, George Washington would write letters of welcome and reassurance to Jewish congregations at Charleston, Philadelphia, New York, Richmond, and Newport, Rhode Island, the latter of which has become the classical expression of religious liberty in America.
None however revealed Washington’s sense of providential guidance quite as much as the following statement taken from a letter he wrote to Congregation Mikve Israel in Savannah, Georgia in 1789.
“May the same wonder-working Deity who, long since delivering the Hebrews from their Egyptian oppressors, planted them in the promised land-whose providential agency has lately been conspicuous in establishing these United States as an independent nation-still continue to water them with the dews of Heaven and to make the inhabitants of every denomination participate in the temporal and spiritual blessing of that people whose God is Jehovah.”
Ralph Buntyn
Today, October 27th, marks five years since David Horowitz, founder of United Israel World Union, passed on from this life. If anyone wants a copy of his 
autobiography, Thirty-three Candles, we have some available if you contact our Charlotte, NC offices. I think David would be totally amazed and thoroughly pleased at the ways in which the organization he founded, with its simple but Biblically grounded purposes, is alive and well, HQ in the lovely offices in Charlotte and increasingly visible on the Web, including the publication of nicely formatted and edited issues of the United Israel Bulletin on-line, now in its 65th year of publication. Archived on this site is a full obituary or tribute I published five years ago with some nice historic photos, A Life Remembered.
Naomi Farrell, our representative at the United Nations, has written a special memorial piece to appear in the Jewish Press this week. She has just received her credentials to represent us through World Union Press, for another year as an accredited correspondent. David founded WUP in 1946 and it was one of the first news syndicates accredited by the United Nations.
While searching the web for the phrase “Preaching Moses”, I came across a sermon entitled, How Christians Should Regard Moses.
In this sermon, the preacher declares that in history there were only two occasions in which God gave a public sermon from heaven. The first, he declared, is found in Exodus 19 and 20. The second public sermon given by God, according to this preacher is described in the New Testament’s book of Acts in the second chapter. Though not recorded by the preacher of this sermon, both of these events are reported to have taken place during the third month of the Hebrew year, 50 days after the Hebrew Festival of Passover at the Feast of Shavuoth or Pentecost..
The author of the sermon was not interested however in finding any correlation between the two events, but rather in pointing out the distinctions between the sermons called by him; (1) the Law and (2) the Gospel. His sermon was intended to declare once and for all that “these two sermons are not the same”. Note the language of the sermon on this very point from the text of the preacher’s sermon.
“Now the first sermon, and doctrine, is the law of God. The second is the Gospel. These two sermons are not the same. Therefore we must have a good grasp of the matter in order to know how to differentiate between them. We must know what the Law is, and what the gospel is. The Law commands and requires us to do certain things. The Law is thus directed solely to our behavior and consists in making requirements. For God speaks through the Law, saying, “Do this, avoid that, this is what I expect of you.” The Gospel, however, does not preach what we are to do or to avoid. It sets up no requirements but reverses the approach of the Law, does the very opposite and says, “this is what God has done for you; he has let his Son be made of flesh for you, has let him be put to death for your sake.” So, then, there are two kinds of doctrine and two kinds of works, those of God and those of men. Just as we and God are separated from one another. So also these two doctrines are widely separated from one another. For the gospel teaches exclusively what has been given us by God and not – as in the case of the Law – what we are to do and give to God.”
The preacher continues in his sermon by comparing the two sermons to two kingdoms; (1) the temporal and (2) the Spiritual – where the temporal equates to the Law and the Spiritual to the gospel.
He then identifies yet another kingdom that resides between the temporal and the spiritual – one that is half and half as it were. According to the preacher, it is constituted by the Jews, with commandments and outward ceremonies which prescribe their conduct toward God and men.
From this platform, he goes on to attempt to show that “here the Law of Moses has its place.” While admitting some good within this middle kingdom, he is clear to show that those things which apply to Gentiles are only those which are “written by nature into their hearts”. He is preaching this on behalf of a group he refers to as enthusiasts. This group “reads Moses (the Law), extol him and bring up the way he ruled the people with commandments. They try to be clever, and think they know something more than is presented in the gospel; so they minimize faith, contrive something new, and boastfully claim that it comes from the Old Testament. They desire to govern people according to the letter of the Law of Moses, as if no one had ever read it before.”
He sees no way to reconcile the two sermons. In fact he places them against one another using very strong language. Notice the following quote from his sermon.
“We would rather not preach again for the rest of our life than to let Moses return and to let Christ be torn out of our hearts. We will not have Moses as ruler or Lawgiver any longer. Indeed God himself will not have it either.”
He further tells those present at his sermon to tell those who would preach Moses that “Moses has nothing to do with us”.
The sermon goes on to state that the Sabbath is abolished and in fact he goes so far as to say that “not one little period in Moses pertains to us”.
Finally he seeks to set the record straight and inform the laity of why we should even keep Moses at all and not as he puts it, “sweep him under the rug”. He identifies three things “to notice in Moses”.
• Certain commandments are good for Christians. Not, says he, because Moses gave them, but “because they have been implanted in me by nature” and “Moses agrees exactly with nature”. He goes on to share which commandments he gladly and willingly accepts.
• He says that he also accepts those things in Moses that he calls “the promises and pledges of God about Christ” – promises that as he puts it, “sustain faith”.
• The third thing to be seen in Moses as worth keeping it around are “beautiful examples of faith, of love and of the cross, as shown in the fathers, Adam, Abel, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and all the rest”.
The sermon discussed above was delivered on this very date (August 27, 1525), 482 years ago by a preacher named Martin Luther as part of a series of seventy-seven sermons on Exodus preached between October 2, 1524 and February 2, 1527.
I could not let the day pass without taking notice that I stand with the historical Jesus against Martin Luther on the anniversary of his sermon (August 27, 2007) and declare that NOT one jot or one tittle will in no way pass from the Law until all be fulfilled – stating further that whoever breaks one of the least of the commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the Kingdom of heaven, but whoever does and teaches them will be called great in the Kingdom of Heaven. Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.
This gives me more reason than ever to Preach Moses Every Sabbath in the Synagogue – for those that abide in Christ ought to walk even as Jesus did.
More and more, followers of the Nazarene are turning towards things Hebraic and away from the anti-Torah tendencies of a church influenced by teachers such as Luther.
This article was submitted by Ross Nichols. To learn more of his restoration vision, log in to www.RootsofFaith.org.
President Franklin Roosevelt’s moving and historic “Day of Infamy” speech on Monday, December 8th, 1941, the morning after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, is still remembered by those born before 1935, and to millions of us of the Baby Boomer generation (born 1946 and thereafter) was recounted firsthand by our parents as we came of age after the horrors of World War II. My father, like so many, joined the military that Monday morning. It was the most decisive geopolitical event of the 20th century and changed everything for all of us even after nearly 66 years. It is wonderfully preserved on the Web, in sound, film, and even the typed transcript from which the President read.
I have devoted my academic career to the study of Jesus and early Christianity. The 1st century AD also witnessed such a Day of Infamy. It was commemorated just last week, on Tuesday, July 24th, known by Jews as Tisha b’Av, the 9th day of the fifth month of Av on the Jewish/Hebrew calendar. It is a day of complete fasting and abject mourning, remembering the destruction of Jerusalem, including both Temples, the First and the Second, in 586 BCE and 70 CE respectively, as well as countless other sad and tragic days in Jewish history.
Over the years I have come to realize that when it comes to understanding the 1st century Jesus movement, which developed into the new religion called “Christianity,” there is no greater factor or event than the horrific destruction of Jerusalem in August of 70 CE by the Roman emperor Vespasian. Indeed, the Romans called this period caniculares dies, the “dog days of summer,” a name that has stuck until our time, falling between July 15 and August 15, and characterized by oppressively hot and sultry temperatures when all creatures become languid and forlorn. I would urge all my readers to carefully read through the account of the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in Josephus’ Jewish War, in a translation other than that of William Whiston, which is just too outdated (1793). The Penguin edition, though abridged, by Williamson, is one easily available alternative.
I think it would be hard to overemphasize the critical and vital importance of this watershed event in 1st century Jewish Palestine. After that date everything changed, for Jews living in the Roman empire, but most decidedly for the followers of Jesus, certainly in the Homeland, but also those scattered through the Mediterranean world. To put it succinctly–nothing was ever the same again. Jesus had died in 30 CE but his influential brother James (Jacob/Yaaqov) had taken over and offered new hope and direction for the movement. When he too was brutally murdered in 62 CE by the same family of High Priests connected to the “Godfather” Annas, the Jesus movement was absolutely devastated.
Ironically, none of our New Testament documents record the horrors of August, 70 CE, and everything we have was written either a decade before or a decade after that decisive Day of Infamy. Before that date we have the authentic letters of Paul and the Q source, dating to the 50s CE. These writings anticipate an apocalyptic climax of all things directly on the horizon. After 70 CE we get our four Gospels and other materials (later Pauline letters, Peter, John, Revelation, etc.), which are basically sketching out a vision of “post-War” existence with the “End of the Age” much delayed and postponed.
The New Testament scholar, John Dominic Crossan has called the period from 30-50 CE, before Paul’s letters, the “dark age” of Christianity, due to the lack of historical sources. In terms of the first followers of Jesus, that is, those Jewish messianists led by James the Just, brother of Jesus, the “black out” hardly ends with Paul, who had begun to propose a wholly alternative vision of the “faith” of Jesus. The double blow of the death of James and the destruction of Jerusalem, with the death and scattering of those Jerusalem witnesses who had known Jesus, effectively ended any possibility of our direct access to a non-Pauline version of things. When the “curtain” comes up after 70 CE, a modified version of Paul was clearly the “only game in town,” and hope of the “kingdom of God on earth,” with a restoration of the nation of Israel under its Davidic Messiah, was thoroughly dashed.
Jews find many historic reasons to fast on Tisha b’Av, but I am thinking it might not be such a bad idea for Christians as well, at least for those who are interested in recovering the original faith of Jesus. In some ironic way I think one can say that the “end of the age” did indeed come during those dog days of the summer of 70 CE, and whether the new age that dawned was a loss or a gain is something with which all of us have to grapple. Christian pilgrims in the time of the emperor Constantine began to travel to Jerusalem to see the holy places that had become associated with the life of Jesus. One high point of the typical pilgrimage was to stand on the Mount of Olives, gazing over the plaza where the Temple once stood. We have accounts where they joyfully celebrate the confirmation of faith they received in thinking of how the Jews who had rejected “Christ” had been justly punished by the destruction of Jerusalem and their subsequent Exile. Luke offers us such a triumphant version of things as he rewrites Mark’s “little Apocalypse,” and Matthew as he reworks Mark’s narrative of the trial of Jesus:
“For great distress will be upon the earth and upon this people; they will fall by the edge of the sword, and be led captive among all nations; and Jerusalem will be trodden down by the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled” (Luke 21:23-24)
“And all the people answered, ‘His blood be on us and on our children!’” (Matthew 27:25)
Such post-War language echoes the brutally triumphant words of Paul, written decades earlier, when he speaks of “the Jews” who killed the Lord Jesus and “displease God and oppose all men,” but “God’s wrath has come upon them at last!” (1 Thessalonians 2:15-16).
Remembering Tisha b’Av…
JDT
I remember the Six Day War as vividly as any news event in my life, more vividly than even the JFK assassination, which for my generation is the “benchmark” of public memory. I was 21 years old, living temporarily in Abilene, TX, newly married with pregnant wife, just back from a year in Europe after graduating from college and preparing to head out to California to work on an M.A. at Pepperdine University. I was riveted to the radio and television and little else was on my mind throughout that hot first week of June.
June 7, 1967 is emblazoned in my mind, just as June 6, 1944 was to my parents before I was born.
Over the years I have timed a few trips of mine to Israel to coincide with the June 7th Anniversary. I went there for the 30th anniversary in 1997 and sat for hours overlooking the Old City and thinking about it all. When I began my book, The Jesus Dynasty, in 2005, I also began the preface on June 7th, in the Old City, at the American Colony hotel. I have always been that way about dates, marking them, noticing them, and just thinking about them, especially as they pertain to biblical events or modern events in the history of the State of Israel.
This year was no exception. I knew we would be digging in Israel on Mt. Zion and the times are flexible, mostly set based on my academic schedule and that of the students. Months ago it looked like we would end up there on first week of June. And so it was. I wanted to be in Israel, in Jerusalem, on the 40th Anniversary of the Six Day War–particularly on June 7th itself. I had thought about this years ago, intending to somehow be in Jerusalem on the 40th anniversary. As it turned out, with the Mt Zion dig, it was easy to schedule. I realize that Israel celebrates “Jerusalem Day,” as they call it, based on the Jewish Calendar, on Iyyar 28th, which fell on May 16th this year. I understand the reasons for this but as an historian the more accurate “marker” of the Gregorian date appeals to me more–so June 7th was the date that was on my mind last week in Jerusalem.
I took my group to stand at the Zion Gate, where you can still see the bullet marks from the 1948 and 1967 War. We walked down to the Wall and I related the story as best I knew it. I had interviewed in the past Rabbi Ariel, who was a young man in his 20s at the time, a soldier, who made it early on to the Wall. I was able to relate to the students some of the things he had told me about the sights, sounds, and feelings of that heady afternoon when Jewish soldiers and later rabbis and others rushed down to the Wall for the first time since 1948.
I was not in the US for the 40th anniversary this year but I picked up here and there from the world news media a lot of revisionist thinking about the Six Day War, especially in Europe. In these circles Israel is to blame for an unnecessary war, deliberately provoked in order to mask their failed domestic policies. According to this line of thinking the Arabs had little to do with the outbreak of hostilities and Israel blew out of proportion the Arab threat to justify its actions. These views were recently published by Tom Segev in his book 1967 and they have been picked up with relish by an anti-Israeli press. Michael Oren, whose book Six Days of War, effectively counters this line of thinking with a careful examination of now declassified documents from the period. The truth is clear. Not only did Israel feel its very existence was in the balance, they were deeply fearful of military confrontation and desperate to avoid conflict. The victory left them reeled back on their heels in utter wonder and surprise. The truth is, no one anticipated the events of June 6-9th, and the capture of the entire West Side of the Jordan and Sinai by the Israelis, and the Old City of Jerusalem, left everyone thinking of the words of Psalm 126, which many Jews knows by heart from the Hebrew chanted in the synagogue:
When the LORD turned the returnees of Zion
We were like those who dream.
Then our mouth was filled with laughter,
And our tongue with shouts of joy;
Then they said among the nations,
The LORD has done great things for them.
The LORD has done great things for us,
And we are glad.
One has to remember that 1967 was just 20 years after the Holocaust and Israel was an adoloscent State indeed, just stirring itself into adulthood with the first generation of 1948 pioneers still dominant on the scene. I could not help noticing last Shabbat in Jerusalem that the Torah and Haphtarah readings were, respectively: Numbers 13:1 through 15:41 and Joshua 2:1-24. I should remind everyone that these readings have nothing to do with the Gregorian calendar, and that they would fall on the anniversary of the June 6th Six Day War is purely “happenstance.” The readings have indeed to do with a 40 year period, yes a 40th year anniversary, back in the time of Moses and the Exodus. One has to do with the beginning of a 40 Year period after the amazing victory over Egypt, and God basically “handing the Land” to Israel. But Israel became fearful and would not enter in. The second, has to do with the period 40 years later, with the second generation–when they did finally enter the Land, after the old generation has passed. As I sat in my hotel room last Sabbath morning thinking of this periodization I could not help but think of the rough parallels. Israel now stands on the brink of a new era. The old generation is indeed passed or passing, and a new Day has come. What the future will bring is in the hands of us all I suppose, directly or indirectly, but the situation has so drastically changed from 1967 it is hard to imagine what things were like then.
I was corresponding with Robert Eisenman last week, on the 40th Anniversary. He has a new book soon to be out, not about Jesus or the Dead Sea Scrolls, but a wonderful book of poetry that I have had the privilege to read in manuscript form titled New Jerusalem: A Millennium Poetic/Prophetic Travel Diario 1959-1962. It is wonderful stuff, his personal writings as a young man traveling the world. I highly recommend it and it will show those who don’t know him personally his wonderfully passionate soul and his sharp sense of observation and philosophical insight. In the back of the book he has a longer poem, written later than the rest, worth the price of the book alone, on the Six Day War. I hope you will order his book or get it when it comes out.
Finally, for something a bit more crazy and bizarre. It has been characteristic of apocalyptic groups, both ancient and modern, to try and make some sense out of the prophetic periods or numbers in the book of Daniel. We find indications of such in the Dead Sea Scrolls, the New Testament, in Rabbinic literature, and other ancient texts. They referred to these prophetic numbers as “the times and the seasons.” Moderns groups, particularly the heirs of William Miller, but others as well, have also delved into such things in an attempt to project the numbers of Daniel into our own time. Sir Isaac Newton was more interested in such matters of biblical and prophetic chronology than he was in physics and he spent many years working on such calculations. Modern scholars would of course see this as a vain enterprise, since the numbers of the book of Daniel seem to be well rooted historically in the period of the Maccabees. However, such historical readings have not deterred those who see these prophecies as having a kind of “dual” application, in the past but also projecting into the future. Some years ago I was reading the classic commentary of Adam Clarke, the 19th century Methodist biblical scholar, on Daniel. He commented, writing in 1831, that according to his calculations, based on the 2300 day/year prophecy of Daniel 8, Jerusalem would be “vindicated” in 1966, precisely 2300 years from the defeat of the Persian king Darius (the Ram) by Alexander the Great (the He Goat) in 334 BCE, when Jerusalem lost its sovereignty to a series of Greco-Roman powers. Since it is rare for anyone involved in “Bible Prophecy” to ever predict something long ahead of their lifetime, it stuck me as strange and a bit daring. He had made one error in his calculations. In moving from 334 BCE, which he saw as the beginning of period Jerusalem’s loss of sovereignty, when Alexander defeated the Persian ruler Darius, 2300 years forward, he had forgotten to add a year since there is no year zero. Hence his corrected prediction would be 1967 as the year when Gentiles would no longer exercise sovereignty over Jerusalem. Also, something Clarke did not know, but others have since pointed out, is that the battle at the Granicus River in 334 BCE took place on the Olympiad calendar corresponding to May/June.
JDT
In a previous issue of the Bulletin (Summer, 2004), I wrote of George Washington’s famous letter of 1790 “To the Hebrew Congregation in Newport, Rhode Island” which has become the classical expression of religious liberty in America. In this issue, I would like to again explore this principle of religious freedom and diversity in the shaping of America’s great experiment.
The horrible events of 9/11 and subsequent murderous activities of radical Islamists should remind us on a daily basis that religious liberity, toleration and diversity are precious gifts. Blessings not to be considered as our right, but to be appreciated and celebrated together and worthy of guarding and defending as our collective duty.
In August, 2004, a conference was held in Newport, Rhode Island celebrating 350 years of Jewish American history. The date of the meeting was chosen deliberately to coincide with Washington’s August 17, 1790 letter of welcome to Judah. Every August the members of Touro Synagogue read Washington’s letter aloud. The complete content of Washington’s message appeared in the Summer, 2004 bulletin.
At the conference, five other colonial Jewish congregations were also honored. The Fundamental Constitution of Carolina written by John Locke in 1669 was the first constitution in history to grant religious freedom to Jews. It was Charles Pinckney of Charleston, as a delegate to the Constitutional Convention, who successfully proposed a ban on religious tests for public office in the United States Constitution.
Actually, the synagogues of Charleston, Philadelphia, New York, and Richmond received their own letter from George Washington later in 1790, in which Washington said, “The liberality of sentiment towards each other which marks every political and religious denomination of men in this country stands unparalleled in the history of nations.”
Between 1790 and 1820 Charleston actually had the largest Jewish population of any city in America, surpassing New York and Philadelphia. The first Catholic Church in South Carolina, St. Mary’s, was built in 1800 on Hasell Street across the street from Beth Elohim, the first synagogue in South Carolina, and founded in 1749.
For Jewish Americans 2004 was a special year. The Jewish community celebrated 350 years of Jewish life in the United States. In 1654, after a perilous journey, 23 Jews from Recife, Brazil, landed in New Amsterdam. They were only “23 souls, big and small,” exhausted after surviving storms and pirates on the high seas. These five words in an early Dutch document describe America’s first Jews, who had fled persecution in Brazil (the Newport congregation of 15 Spanish Portuguese Jewish families arrived in the spring of 1658). Buccaneers in the Caribbean captured them before a French ship rescued them and brought them to what is now New York.
Peter Stuyvesant, the governor-general of the then-Dutch Colony of New Netherlands tried to get the Jews to leave, believing they would not assimilate, would not support themselves financially, and would not adequately participate in the Dutch colony’s lifestyle. Fortunately, The Dutch West India Company in Amsterdam disagreed and ordered Stuyvesant to permit the Jews to remain. The rest, as they say, is history.
Observances continued throughout 2004 in Jewish communities across the United States celebrating the 350th anniversary of the landing of the refugees.
The Library of Congress hosted an exhibit on Jewish life called “From Haven to Home.” The National Foundation for Jewish Culture also recognized the enormous contribution of Jewish talent to about 100 movies, from the Marx Brothers’ “Duck Soup” to Steven Spielberg’s “Schindler’s List.”
Elie Wiesel, the Nobel prize-winning Holocaust scholar and survivor remarked that Jews came to America, “chased by persecution, fanaticism, intolerance, and meanness. But they managed to transform memories of suffering into an American vision of moral harmony among cultures, religions and society.”
Celebrating religious freedom and diversity is important. Our nation has a long and distinguished history of and contributions to religious freedom, something I’m afraid many of us took for granted until 9/11. All citizens share a responsibilty in preserving this uniquely American harmony among cultures and religions.
Ralph Buntyn
A Bavarian “GroBe Kreisstadt” (Country Town) of 34,000 is located in southeastern Germany. It’s a quiet, dreamy country idyll nestled not far from Munich, the metropolis with over a million inhabitants. It’s also a town with a long and rich history. The Celts settled the land from the 5th century on and gave the rivers the names that they still bear today: Amper,Wurm and Glonn. Then came the Romans for a period.
In 805 the community was made up of a manor, a church, a mill and 6 farms. It was located at the junction of two landscape regions: in the south, a broad area of impenetrable marshland; in the north, wooded, fertile, hilly country. If you go down to the foot of the Old Town today, you can visit the tavern which still bears the name of that ancient mill, marking the start of communal history: The Steinmuhle.
From the 12th century on many Bavarian kings would rule the area. At the death of Count Konrad II in 1182, his possessions passed to the House of Wittelsbach. For over 700 years, the Wittelsbach dukes and electors governed the fate of the market town and its inhabitants-for better and for worse. Between 1558-1573 Duke Albrecht V ruled and built the huge four-winged Renaissance palace in place of the old Gothic fortress. Part of this palace remains today as a superb attraction. Under Maximilian I (1573-1651), the market town experienced its worst time. It was plundered by Swedish troops 4 times within a period of 15 years.
With Napoleon, the little town’s era as the summer residence of the Bavarian princes came to an end. Still, it remained what it actually was: a small town where the farmers came to the cattle market and a town with renowned breweries and comfortable taverns.Then came an unexpected period of glory of a completely different kind. The painters arrived.
Only a few painters arrived in the 40’s and 50’s, but then starting around 1870, they stormed into town. Painters had discovered the landscape; they wanted to get away from their studios and out into nature. Hundreds of them made the pilgrimage from Munich, fascinated by the nuances in color of the moor landscape, in love with the rural idyll. There were famous names among them: Carl Spitzweg, Max Liebermann, Lovis Corinth, Ludwig Dill, Adolf Holzel and Arthur Langhammer. It would become the most important German artists’ colony.
A huge powder factory would be built during World War I on what was then the eastern edge of town. Thousands of workers came during the war to manufacture ammunition for the battlefields of Europe. After the war they lost their jobs: The Treaty of Versailles prohibited the manufacture of war materials. It would become a needy community. In 1928, 1,400 of the 7,100 inhabitants were dependent on public welfare, but a strong labor movement was also developing across Germany. What was soon to happen was not destined to bring good to the little town.
The lovely little Bavarian country town has a name.
That name is Dachau.
The presence of the empty halls of the powder factory was one of the reasons why Heinrich Himmler, the Munich Chief of Police, chose to erect the first Nazi concentration camp in Dachau.
The Nazis seized power on January 30, 1933. The concentration camp became operational on March 22, 1933. This would become the first among other camps throughout Europe to isolate enemies of the National-Socialist regime: political opponents, clergymen, so-called undesirable elements and offer a “final solution to the Jewish question”.
I had the opportunity to visit Dachau in 1993 and witness firsthand the memorial site of this reign of terror. It is an experience one is not likely to forget.
In 1937, the camp originally planned for 5000 persons proved to be too small. The prisoners had to build a larger camp which was completed in 1938. Between March 22, 1933 and April 29, 1945, more than 206,000 prisoners were registered in the official records, however, many prisoners were taken to Dachau without being registered. The exact figures are unknown.
Over 32,000 died, through torture, execution, hunger or epidemics. Horrible atrocities took place here. The experimental station of Dr. Rascher was set up in Block 5 where high pressure and exposure experiments were practiced on defenseless prisoners. Professor Schilling had prisoners infected with Malaria agents. Bio-chemical experiments were also carried out. Many of these experiments resulted in death.
The mortality rate among the prisoners increased so rapidly that the crematory constructed outside the compound in 1940 proved to be too small and a larger one had to be built by the prisoners in 1942.
Upon orders of the SS Economic Administration Main Office in Berlin, a gas chamber was installed. This gas chamber, camouflaged as a shower room, was not used. The prisoners selected for gassing were transported from Dachau to the Hartheim Castle, near Linz (Austria) or to other camps. In Hartheim alone, 3166 prisoners were gassed between January 1942 and November 1944.
The name Dachau, the lovely 1200 year old town became synonymous the world over for the inhuman error of the Nazi regime. On the 29th day of April, 1945, American troops liberated the concentration camp. The surviving prisoners in their weakness cheered their liberators and the town too could hope for a new and democratic start.
At the end of our visit, we paused for a moment of silence as my wife Rebecca placed a single red rose beneath the statue of “The Unknown Prisoner” memorial at the former crematorium. Words failed.
If you were to visit Dachau today, perhaps you would be welcomed, as we were, with a message:
“You have come to Dachau to visit the Memorial Site in the former Concentration Camp. I should like to welcome you on behalf of the Town of Dachau. Innumerable crimes were committed in the Dachau Concentration Camp. Like you, deeply moved, the citizens of the town of Dachau bow their heads before the victims of this camp.The horrors of the German concentration camps must never be repeated! After your visit, you will be horror-stricken. But we sincerely hope you will not transfer your indignation to the ancient 1200 year old Bavarian town of Dachau, which was not consulted when the concentration camp was built and whose citizens voted quite decisively against the rise of National Socialism in 1933. The Dachau Concentration Camp is a part of the overall German responsibility for that time. I extend a cordial invitation to you to visit the old town of Dachau only a few kilometers from here. We would be happy to greet you within our walls and to welcome you as friends”
Dr. Lorenz Reitmeier, Mayor
GroBe Kreisstadt Dachau
A horrible reality burned into the collective conscience. A little country town with pity.
Ralph Buntyn