Israel Beat

The World Rummikub Championships took place this month and to celebrate we look at some great Israeli / Jewish board games.

1.      Rummikub – Created by Ephraim Hertzano, who left Communist Romania to create the tile game in his Israeli home.

2.      Guess Who? Created by husband and wife team Theo and Ora Coster. Theo survived the Holocaust and was a classmate of Anne Frank. Hear excerpts from his book about her.

3.      Aliyah – The Jewish trivia game created by American Jewish Sunday School teacher Sallie Abelson.

4.      Juden Raus! – A German Nazi era game. Whoever sends the most Jews to Palestine wins.  

5.      Exodus Adventure – Exclusive interview with developer Rabbi Pesach Stadlin on this new innovative role-playing game featuring a 20-sided dreidel.

NOTES:

* Exodus Adventure Players manual and more information

* Exodus Adventure: An Israelite role playing experience - Amazon

* Classmates of Anne Frank documentary with Theo Coster

* We All Wore Stars: Memories of Anne Frank from Her Classmates by Theo Coster

* Juden Raus! Board Game review

* History of Rummikub - Rummikub.com

* Interview with Micha Hertzano, head of the company that makes of Rummikub

* From Romania to Israel: Rummikub Makes Waves - JTA

* Rummikub is the chairman of the board - Israel21c

* Sallie Abelson Developed Popular Trivia Game to Teach Jewish History

* Sallie Abelson, business entrepreneur created Aliyah game

* Making Aliyah—the Board Game - Tablet

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Elhanan Leib Lewinsky wrote the first sci-fi book in Hebrew in 1892 called Journey to the Land of Israel in the Year 5800. Find out how much of his futuristic vision came true. Would Lewinsky love Levinsky market in Tel Aviv which is named after him? Will Jerusalem’s Mount of Olives get an astronomical observatory as described in his book? Find out as we go back to the future and learn about the man who pre-dated Theodor Herzl’s Altneuland in envisioning a utopian Hebrew-speaking independent Jewish State.

Thank you to tour guide Rachel Lazar who specializes in Tel Aviv tours.

NOTES:

* Rachel Lazar tours

* Elḥanan Leib Lewinsky biography - YIVO Encyclopedia of

Jews in Eastern Europe

* A Trip to the Land of Israel in 2040 - excerpts in English

* Journey to the Land of Israel in 5800 - full text, Hebrew

* Elhanan Leib Lewinsky (1857-1910) - National Library archives

* Writings of A.L. Levinski - Hebrew

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The story of the Vietnam Boat People who were rescued in the late 1970s. Learn about the reaction of Israeli officials like Menachem Begin who compared them to Jews fleeing the Holocaust and how the Vietnamese felt arriving to a country they never heard of before.

NOTES:

* 35 years on, where are Israel’s Vietnamese refugees? - Times of Israel

* 45 years on, Vietnamese refugees are still writing their story in Israel - JNS News

* Israel and the boat people - Jewish Policy Center

* Vietnamese Refugees Arrive in Israel, 1977 - JTA

* Vietnamese Boat People Arrive in Israel, 1979 - AP News video

* When the People of Ofakim Opened Their Hearts to Vietnamese Refugees - National Library

* Plans Being Developed to Absorb 100 Vietnamese Refugees, 1979 - JTA

* Begin Urges Haven for Vietnamese Refugees, 1979 - JTA

* Cabinet Agrees to Admit-100 Vietnamese Refugees to Israel Also Discusses Problem of the Falashas, 1979 - JTA

* Vietnamese 'boat people' become Israeli - Jerusalem Post

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For about 30 years, Gush Katif was a miracle in the desert where Jewish agricultural towns grew bug-free lettuce, cherry tomatoes and developed thriving communities with innovative, organic farming techniques. Join Avner Franklin of the Gush Katif Museum as he takes us on a journey from the 1970s when Golda Meir, Ariel Sharon and Yitzhak Rabin developed the Five Finger Plan to develop Israeli Gaza. Over the next several decades, barren deserts were turned into lush, green farmland and tourists flocked to the white sand beaches of Hotel Neve Dekalim. It was just a short drive from Ashkelon through Gaza City to what was called a “Garden of Eden” in the desert.

This special podcast marks the 19th anniversary of the Disengagement from Gaza in 2005.

NOTES:

* Gush Katif Museum in Jerusalem

* History of the Jews of Rafah in Gaza - Jewish History Moment Podcast

* History of Jewish Gaza - Jewish History Moment Podcast

* The Israeli Government's Policy Towards Settlements in the Gaza Strip 1967 - 2005 by Hagai Huberman and Miriam Bilig (Hebrew)

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George Eliot was neither Jewish, nor religious, but her 1876 novel Daniel Deronda influenced many Jewish leaders to become Zionists and seek the repatriation of the Jews to the Land of Israel. Learn about Eliot’s relationship to Emanuel Deutsch, the Jewish scholar who taught her Hebrew and about the reaction of Victorian-era England to the celebrated writer’s unusual subject matter for the time. Included are sound bytes from rare adaptations of the novel.

Will Gwendolen escape her abusive husband and marry Daniel? Or will Daniel marry Mirah, who is also being courted by his best friend Hans? Will Daniel ever find his real mother? Will Mirah ever find her lost brother? And did any of this parallel George Eliot’s real-life relationships? Find out in this podcast.

NOTES:

* The Deronda Review: a journal of poetry and thought

* Interview with Esther Cameron of the Deronda Review

* Himmelfarb, George Eliot, and the Jews By Ruth R. Wisse

* How George Eliot Became a Social Outcast at the Height of Her Fame

On Her Final novel, Daniel Deronda

* George Eliot and Judaism: An Attempt to Appreciate "Daniel Deronda" by David Kaufmann, 1878

* George Eliot Archive - Emanuel Deutsch bio entry

* Daniel Deronda - full text

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Join me on a tour of the National Institutions building in Jerusalem with Eitan Behar of the World Zionist Organization as he shows us the secret chambers where Jews hid weapons to prevent them from being confiscated by the British as the War of Independence loomed close. Learn about the deadly terrorist attack in 1948 which injured the parents of today’s Israeli President Isaac Herzog and the dramatic stories of this historic landmark that served as a center for Israel’s critical decisions.

Plus, vintage news reels from the watershed United Nations vote of November 29, 1947 and the reaction of the Jewish community in what was then called “Palestine”.

Today, the WZO, Jewish Agency, Jewish National Fund (KKL) and Keren Hayesod - United Israel Appeal are still instrumental in helping Jews in Israel and around the world make aliyah, fight Antisemitism, learn Hebrew and appreciate their culture.

NOTES:

* Eitan Behar website

* Jewish Agency Bombed - 1949 - Associated Press

* About the National Institutions Building - WZO

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Jewish athletes were discriminated against in Europe, so in the late 1800s they created their own sports clubs which grew into the Maccabiah Games, an international competition held in the Land of Israel, despite British opposition. Learn about Zionist leader Max Nordau’s “Muskeljuden” or Muscular Jews, and Yosef Yekutieli who created what was called the “Jewish Olympics” during a time when the Nazis were gaining strength. Find out about the Jewish motorcycle club involved in a riot against the Anti-Semitic National Democratic Party in Poland, and the men and women who escaped the Holocaust to participate in the Jewish sporting event that continues to this day.

NOTES:

* Maccabi World Union / Official Maccabiah website

* Jewish Motorcyclists from Tel Aviv Arrested in Warsaw Riot - JTA, 1930

* Tel Aviv En Fete for Maccabiade: Town Decorated with Zionist Flags - JTA, 1932

* Palestine Maccabiade: 5,000 Maccabee Members March Through Streets - JTA, 1932

* History of Muscle Jews - Jewish Museum, Berlin

* Max Nordau - Muskeljuden, Muscular Judaism

* Biography of Yosef Yekutieli - Encyclopedia of the Founders and Builders of Israel

* Largest Stadium Crowd in Israel’s History at Third Maccabiah - JTA, 1950

* David Ben-Gurion Speech at 3rd Maccabiah Games - JTA, 1950

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Rabbi Chaim ibn Attar, author of the seminal work on Torah, the Ohr HaChaim led the Jewish community in Morocco. Learn about the difficulties the community faced including the tale of how he survived being thrown into a pit of lions. He led a group to make Aliyah to the Land of Israel in the mid 1700s and founded a yeshiva in Jerusalem which still stands to this day.

Find out about how his writings influenced the Baal Shem Tov and the growing Hasidic movement and why the Ohr HaChaim is still revered 281 years after his passing.

NOTES:

* The Ohr HaChaim - HaModia news

* The Holy Or HaChaim: Keeping the Fire in Purgatory Off - Gal Einai

* The Or Hachaim and the Lion - Gal Einai

* Rabbi Haim Ben Attar – Ohr HaHaim Hakodesh - Hevrat Pinto

* Remembering the Holy Ohr HaChaim - Israel National News

* The Grave that was Saved - Ohr Somayach

* Ohr HaChaim - full text (Hebrew) - Sefaria

* The Witnessing Tree - Wisdom from the Ohr HaChayim - Chabad

* Rabbi Chaim ibn Attar biography - Chabad

* A Good Environment for Torah Study - Rabbi Chaim Ibn Attar - Ascent of Safed

* The Story of the Holy Ohr HaChaim - Esther Nava

* The yahrzeit of the Or Hachayim - Western Wall Heritage Foundation

* Or HaChaim Retrieves Hidden Message from Mitzvah of Returning Lost Objects

* The Miracle of Rabbi Gershon from Kitov - Hebron.com

* The Ohr Hachaim and the Baal Shem Tov - Chabad News

* What We Learn From The Ohr HaChaim - Rabbi Dovid Goldwasser

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Famous American writer Mark Twain visited the Land of Israel in the 1860s and found “its soil rich enough” but “a silent, mournful expanse.” Were his words insulting, or simply the reality of Ottoman-era Palestine? Compare his biting wit to that of a writer of the same period whom Twain mocked: William Cowper Prime, who poetically praises the Holy Land.

Plus, Mark Twain’s classic essay Concerning the Jews in which he discusses Herzl and marvels over the secret of Jewish immortality. Learn about the anti-Semitic European parliament meeting that prompted it.

Also, the story of Mark Twain’s Jewish son-in-law, Ossip Gabrilowitsch, the pianist and conductor who married Clara Clemens.

NOTES:

* The Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain, 1869 (full text)

* Tent Life in the Holy Land by William Cowper Prime, 1857 (the book Mark Twain makes fun of)

* Stirring Times in Austria by Mark Twain, Harper's Magazine, March, 1898 (describes anti-Semitism in Europe.)

* Concerning The Jews by Mark Twain, Harper's Magazine, September, 1899.

* Mark Twain and the Jews by Michael Feldberg - Jewish Virtual Library

* The Enigma of Mark Twain: Jews’ Best Friend or an Inadvertent Antisemite? by by Rabbi Elie Mischel, Aish HaTorah, 2023

* Saves Miss Clara Clemens. O. Gabrilowitsch Stops Runaway Horse About to Plunge Down a Bank, New York Times, December 21, 1908

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This is from the audio Bible project I worked on. I read the Book of Psalms in its entirely. This is Book 1, chapters 1 - 41. I tried to pronounce all the Hebrew names and terms as they would be in Hebrew as opposed to their common English translation i.e. Daveed instead of David.

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