The Jewish New York Times

Many Jews today, especially those who see themselves as elite, sophisticated or intellectual, a cut above the rest, read the New York Times. Are they ignorant of the bias this paper has against Jews? They may, in fact, not know this bias dates back to WWII when Jews were being exterminated by the millions, but certainly they ought to have sensed the bias by now, after all its commentary on all those wars Israel had with its enemies, until today. More likely they've fallen victim of their own self-worth by identifying with Sulzberger's paper that, after all, is also "sophisticated and intellectual".

The NYT will always downplay horror perpetrated on Jews. Their avant-garde readers are all too eager to join in with its rationale. As you would expect, Reform Judaism plays a key role. (Notice the "aristocratic" air of the Sulzberger pose. No sign of "Jewishness" here.)

Here's a well enunciated, well presented 12 minute clip of the stance the NYT took during the holocaust years, and why:

P.S. See here for the NYT's latest advocacy of terrorism against Israel!
P.S. (7/21/14) See here how NYT toes the line of Hamas' demands during Protective Edge war.
P.S. During war on Hamas ("Protective Edge") - here.
P.S. (8/6/14) NYT Rejects Ad by Eli Wiesel Condemning Hamas - here.
P.S. (9/1/14) NYT censors Breitbart.com/s anti-ISIS ad: here.
P.S. (3/9/15) NYT with some faux-pas photography (link).

Marry Jewish - For an Ultimate Victory

Some people breathe air, others breathe hate. Jew-haters particularly are your best haters. After all, they can hate Jews without even ever having met one. They have all the right reasons, piled one atop the other, which they convey to their friends, layer by layer.

Their friends too have their own assortment of reasons to hate; None of which, of course, is true. The important thing is to stir up a heated conversation, one of urgency, to stoke the flames of hate against the Jews.

The best way to deal with this hatred, be it that of the Amalekite, the Yishmaeli or that of Esav, is to follow Torah's prescription - and that is to ignore the hate by learning Torah or partaking in some other holy endeavor.

Two holocausts swept through the Eurasian continent during and around WWII. Europe suffered from Nazism while to the East they reeled from Stalinism. Both holocausts destroyed many millions of Jewish lives, among others.

During this horrific period, out of the belching inferno that threatened to obliterate the Jewish identity,  came forth the cry of the Previous Rebbe to anticipate the Era of Redemption, for this catastrophe signaled the birth pangs of Moshiach. The Previous Rebbe summoned all Jewish people to "return to God" so Moshiach can redeem them.

The best weapon we have to deal with hate is to pursue Torah, the glue of the Jewish people. The Jews and Torah and God are really One. Torah practice preserves this unity.

Another sure way to prevent attempts to undo the special Jewish bond with their Creator is to marry Jewish, and to scorn intermarriage.

The Reform movement will be the first to protest, but these protests will follow the Reformists into self-extinction, for a Reformist, or an intermarrier, cuts off his genetic Jewish signature, certainly by 2 or 3 generations (see here). Should he persist to retire from Torah, this fringe Jew becomes lost to his Jewish people.

He who cuts off kinship with the Jewish nation continues to sustain - in a silent way - the former agenda of Hitler and Stalin. It is simply not "politically correct" to acknowledge this truth, or impolite to mention it, so it often goes unspoken. Nevertheless, the assimilationist in effect serves as the useful idiot of Jew-haters.

This picture I came across, of a Jewish lady, a holocaust survivor, with her grandchild, shows how the glue can heal long-open wounds that tore at Judaism, a process that will end, pretty soon, in a wonderful panacea for the Jewish people after their long struggle in exile, soon to be recognized as the Era of Redemption.

They tried to stop this grandmother early, but failed. It was she who celebrated victory. Yearning for her own people's freedom was her best knockout blow against former foes who wanted so much to deprive her of this beautiful little soul.

Dad's Dad - One of 6 Million

  אהרן מאיר אייכענשטיין  הי''ד

This father of 10 lived in Czechoslovakia during Germany's WWII occupation. He had left Poland, where his surname was פרידלנדר, and adopted his wife’s surname as a precaution against Poles who might pursue him to draft him into their army.

All his children lived in Europe except for one daughter who lived with her husband in America.

This was during a troubled era for European Jewry. Much of his offspring gravitated to the lure of a bankrupt, secular "Zionism", but several held tightly and mightily to live the Torah life.

He went to the Germans to ask what they required for documentation in order for him to leave for America. They provided him with a list of requirements. His daughter in America sent him all that he needed. When he showed up again at the German office with his documentation in hand, they said, “You have, in fact, everything required – except for one thing: You need to shave off your beard!”

Because he refused they shipped him off to Auschwitz-Birkenau where they burned him.

The above was probably his passport picture.

About 10 years ago, at a simchah in Boro Park, an elderly gentleman approached me and asked if my name is אייכנשטיין. I said Yes. He said he knew my grandfather because he had been “shipped” to Auschwitz in the very same cattle-car as was my grandfather. My grandfather, he said, told everybody inside that cattle-car they should know that this “trip” they were on – will be the last trip of their lives. He said, when they were unloaded onto the platform at Auschwitz, my grandfather actually started dancing!

I bring this anecdote to your attention because Jews in the Holocaust offered their lives in self-sacrifice to Hashem for being Jewish, and proud of it.

I'd venture to say that very deep down every Jew who gave his life, in the face of then European "humanity", had to have harbored even a slight touch of happiness.

Rabbi Avigdor Miller's Latest Book

The recently published book "A Divine Madness", by Rabbi Avigdor Miller, tells about how Jewish reformist elements across Europe tore at the flesh of Orthodox Judaism, effectively bringing the traditional love and sanctity of Judaic lifestyle to the brink of extinction. Then came the terrible holocaust that, paradoxically, left mostly orthodoxy in its wake.

Rabbi Miller's words pack with emotion and plenty of detail as he describes European Jewry gutting that which had been so dear to Jewish people for millennia, and the subsequent horrific abuse and slaughter of the Jewish people.

He never quite says so, but the implication you are left with is - that the holocaust came as a result of the abandonment of religion.

Truth is, correlation does not prove causation. Every fact Rabbi Miller writes about is true, but nowhere, in fact, does the good Rabbi explicitly state that the former state of affairs caused the latter catastrophe.

I say this because the Rebbe had said that nobody can claim knowledge of why so great a horror was wrought upon the Jewish people. Just as sure as Abraham was surprised to learn his offspring will suffer for 400 years, with no reason offered, so too the holocaust came about as a decree of God - one that nobody can understand. The ways of God remain a mystery to Man and the holocaust, he said, was just such a decree. Nobody, said the Rebbe, can say this supreme tragedy came as the result of punishment.

It is important to note, therefore, that - in fact - Rabbi Miller possessed this manuscript for many years, as per the book's prologue, but never finished it and never published it. It's present publication was initiated by some of his students and admirers (of which I myself count as one) posthumously. Perhaps it was because, in fact, Rabbi Miller shared the Rebbe's view and therefore could not bring himself to establish with certainty real cause and effect.

Having said that, I really enjoyed every word in the book, including its great running commentary. The Rabbi, as in all his books, knows so much and delivers his diatribe against those who would dilute Judaism with brilliance and impact.

The book's subtitle, "Rabbi Avigdor Miller's Defense of Hashem in the Matter of the Holocaust", may well have been Rabbi Miller's reason for his writing the manuscript. "Defending Hashem" for the holocaust may just mean it worked out that Hashem's plan had full import, but this could be said of anything and everything Hashem does. However, the actual and many reasons for the holocaust will never and can never be known in this world.

Who were the Erev Rav? (part 1 of 4)

The following article (translated roughly from Yiddish), written in 1942 (May, p.326-9, הקריאה והקדושה), under the auspices of the Previous Rebbe, appeared at a time when Europe was convulsing in the throes of WWII, while Jews were being murdered by the millions.

The Rebbe here explains the term "Erev Rav" - a term many Jews, until today, still get wrong. I segment his article into 4 parts. By the 4th segment you'll understand the connection between the Erev Rav and the Holocaust.

___________

In only five simple words Torah neatly dispenses with the entire issue of the Erev Rav:
וגם ערב רב עלה אתם
A big mix joined them.

How many were they? R' Yishmael reckons there were 1,200,000 of them. R' Akiva says there were 2,400,000; And R' Yonanssan sets their count to 3,600,000! The Mechilta says "twice as many as made the exodus", which could mean twice 600,000 - or much more if women, children and elderly were included!

And what were their demographics? Here too opinions vary. Holy Rashi believes "they were converts from variegate nations". The Midrash, in a few places, says they were "Kosher Egyptians". The Zohar (191:1) says they were "Egyptian Magicians".

During processions through the desert, or when camped, where did they hang out? Rashbi says "the Clouds of Glory did not embrace them [i.e., they dwelt outside the camp proper], and in procession they followed after the livestock." "The Manna", he says, "did not descend for them; They would get their food from leftovers Jews gave them."

Besides the above inconclusive data, many questions remain on all the above standpoints. It makes no sense Egypt had in their midst that many "Kosher" Egyptians; Or that many "Magicians". And why does Torah remain silent about them; Like, did they or did they not circumcise themselves? Or, how did they fit into familial accounting, if at all, or where was their place in the Jewish encampment? Did they marry, have children? Did they enter Eretz Yisroel in disregard of the law that Egyptians must not merge with the Jewish community until the 3rd generation? For if they did enter, this could mean the genuine Jews became diluted with 5 or 10 times 600,000 converts - a fact that's hardly credible.

After the Golden Calf affair, when Moshe prayed for the Jewish people, his main argument based itself on Jewish lineage with their forefathers. He said they were descendants of Avrohom, Yitzchok and Yakov. He said not one word about converts that led astray the Jewish people. When Moshe ordered the Levite tribe to kill those who worshipped the Golden Calf, he said to kill "a man his brother", a man his friend and a man his relative". Later, when he praised these Levites, he spoke of killing "a man his own son and a man his own brother". This means those who died were Jews! Nothing was said of converts who died. What our sages did tell us was the Erev Rav bore responsibility for persuading the Jews to stray, and that Moshe brought them out of Egypt on his own accord.

When prophets, later in history, punished the Jews, they reminded the nation of their illustrious forefathers:
‪.‬"הביטו אל צור חצבתם ... אל אברהם ... ואל שרה"
Certainly the prophets could not have said this had the Jewish nation absorbed 3 million Egyptians, converts or other nationalities. That the Holy Books make refer to the Jewish nation with terms such as
"שבטי ישורון" , "בית יעקב" or "שבטי ישראל",
proves their familial lineage stems from Jewish forefathers. Had the Jewish people been a minority among those who left Egypt, then a few generations later it would have been impossible to lay claim to the pure pedigree of the Jewish forefathers that ran in their blood.

Otherwise, the Jewish people would not have been a nation but some mass of people clinging to a Moses-given religion, tugging about after him in the desert. What purpose could it have served the true children of Yakov to submit to persecution when foreign converts got the same privileges with no hardships to endure and no sorrow to taste? Why did God never once mention anything to Moshe about taking converts out of Egypt - when all God ever spoke about were the children of Israel and His promise to the forefathers?

Can anyone really believe the Erev Rav who dragged the Jews into all the quarrels in the desert were actually real Gentiles; Or that Jews would allow themselves to be so influenced by Gentiles? Or, that Moshe would refuse to send them away (but rather took upon himself they should come along)? Or that Korach and his cohorts, his family and the many Jewish leaders he influenced, God allowed be swallowed by the earth, but Gentile converts God wouldn't touch? Or, had Gentiles actually wanted to convert, that they would then have the audacity to oppose Moshe?

Many more questions remain on the Erev Rav topic had their real origin been from conversion. But the main question would involve the bond God made with the forefathers, as when God told them their descendants will be "a kingdom of priests and a holy nation." If 5 or 10 times that many converts shared the paternal privileges accorded Jews, then the entire covenant made with Avrohom, and the promise "for your children shall be strangers in a land not theirs" (כי גר יהיה זרעך בארץ לא להם ...)‬ would amount to nil!

This is what Christians say in their teachings - that one need not be from Avrohom's lineage in order to be "The Chosen People". It's enough, they say, to be spiritual children of Avrohom. They make this claim so they can thereby take over the special status of being "The Chosen People".

(Part 2 of 4: Here)

Memorializing the Holocaust Can Be Wasteful

Rabbi Avigdor Miller (zt'l) answered this question once, at the end of his lecture:
"Is it true too much time, money and energy is spent studying the Holocaust instead of disseminating Torah and Judaism?"

ANSWER
Yes and No. Without reference to God, it's absolutely a waste of time; It's a waste of money! All the Holocaust memorials are almost worthless if they think they're going to change the gentiles into being more remorseful by making a big memorial, to make the gentiles ashamed and therefore they'll become kinder to the Jewish people; It's not so.

The Holocaust memorials only give some gentiles more appetite to do the same. The more they hear what Hitler did, the more they're inspired to emulate him. You have to know that; You cannot make them sorry for what they did.

However, for Jews - it's a valuable study if we'll begin to understand "What has God done to us?" (Gen.42:38) God did it. Try to understand; What was the situation in Eastern Europe and Germany before the Holocaust came? What was the situation of Jews in Holland and in Belgium, and in France?

Those Jews who were suddenly dragged from their comfortable homes and deported to the crematoria, what were they doing before this happened? Were they assimilating, were they getting lost? What were the Jews in Poland and Lithuania and Latvia doing? What were the Jews in Russia doing? Were they getting lost with Communism? Millions of Jews in Russia were trying their best to become real Russians; Very many were members of the anti-God societies.

The Yevsektsia was a Jewish organization that was devoted to the eradication of the Jewish religion - they were all Jews, by the way. And in Poland, the Tarbut school was the most popular form of school for children. All Tarbut schools were in the hands of atheists, and they were the most widespread schools for Jewish children in Poland.

So you have to look back and understand the Holocaust didn't come for nothing, otherwise it's a waste! God visited such punishments on His people, and no lessons are being learned! "For what should you be smitten?" (Isaiah 1:5). "Should you persist to get worse?", instead of getting better? And therefore, when people utilize the Holocaust as an argument against God, "Why did He do that to us?" - instead of arguing for God - certainly they're misusing it.

But it could be used properly, were it taught as one of the forms of the Rebukes (Deut.28:15-68, Lev.26:14-42), and just like you learn about the destruction of The Temple and we say, "For our sins we were exiled from our Land" (Musaf), we'll understand also from the Holocaust; There's very much to learn. And we in America have to take it to heart, because in Germany they were just as confident it can never happen there. Had you told a German in 1920 that someday his children would be murdering Jews, he'd put his hand on his children's head and swear by his god it would never happen. Even to Germans it was unthinkable they would kill people for nothing. Germany was a decent, civilized country.

And therefore the Jews of America and of all other countries where they are enjoying liberty should take the Holocaust to heart and study it like we study the Rebukes. Such a study would be valuable.

-- From the Introduction to Rabbi Miller's book, "A Divine Madness"

A Rebbe Letter - On the Holocaust

By the Grace of G-d
5733

Dr. _____
Cambridge, Mass.

Greetings and blessings

I duly received your letter of ___, in which you write that you feel a rage, etc. as a result of the holocaust.

There is a prevalent misconception about the holocaust in the belief that it was something new and unprecedented, and therefore requires an explanation which had never before been thought of. Yet, the only thing that is new about it is that it happened in the 20th century, in a country which was one of the foremost in philosophy and science, with the rest of the world looking on with complete indifference. It only points out the glaring bankruptcy of the world's so-called "civilization".

The fact is - and in view of your academic background (Ph.D.) you must surely know - that the Jewish people had suffered holocausts before, and, relatively speaking, even worse. There was the destruction of the Beth Hamikdosh at the hands of the Babylonians, and the second destruction by the Romans. In both cases more than 1/3 of our people, men, women and children, were brutally slain, and most of the remainder uprooted and exiled, or sold into slavery. This, in addition to the loss of the spiritual center in Jerusalem, loss of the country, and independence, etc. There were the Crusades in the Middle Ages, with the loss of countless Jewish communities and Jewish lives, and more. So why single out the recent, and let us hope, last holocaust?

Furthermore, from the viewpoint of the question "Shall the Judge of all the earth not do justice?" (a question, incidentally asked by our Patriarch Abraham), in other words, from the viewpoint of Divine Justice, which is clearly the basis of your rage, etc., as you state in your letter - surely there is no difference in principle between the holocaust and seeing a child afflicted with disease (as you also mention), for the child's suffering cannot be justified punishment.

Has it not occurred to you - to mention a further point - that throughout the ages there were faithful and G-d fearing Jews, among them profound thinkers, who deeply thought about these and other problems, dedicating a lifetime to study and research, whose works have become the Guide for the Perplexed (the actual title of the celebrated classic by Maimonides)? Do you think that all these great minds simply ignored such a problem as the holocaust?

Finally, and this is perhaps the most essential point, what would you say of a person, even a super human being, who declared that were it not for the holocaust he would walk humbly before G-d and obey all His commandments, yet because of the holocaust he is impelled to conclude that G-d is limited in His intellect, like me and you, and indeed more so, for you and I would not tolerate such a thing?

In summary, the question about the holocaust is as old as the age-old question, Why do the wicked prosper? It has been dealt with at great length and with great profundity by great minds and in great books throughout the ages. We have not only learned to live with it, but it has not shaken the belief of the believer, for the simple reason that the human mind, even the greatest, is woefully limited and inadequate to question the Divine Mind.

The main point I wish to bring out here is that those who say that they cannot obey and fulfil the Divine Mitzvos because of the holocaust, are only looking for an excuse, and it is a feeble attempt at self-justification in the face of a troubling conscience.

Moreover, to use the memory of the sacred martyrs who lost their lives in the holocaust for no other reason but that they were Jews, does not reflect, in my opinion, an honest concern for them, if their sacred memory is used as an excuse for shrinking commitment to our people and our sacred heritage.

I trust you will forgive me, if I feel impelled to add - because of what is at stake, that the last remark is an understatement.

I note that you wanted to see me personally in regard to the subject matter of your letter, but there is really no need for it, since there is surely no need to add more to what has been said above. Besides, the schedule of appointments is fully booked for a long time ahead. So why wait?

With blessing,

A Soup-Story of Auschwitz

Where Mengele (יש''ו) did his "experiments"

My dear mother, ע‫''‬ה, hardly ever answered my questions as to what happened in Auschwitz, the concentration camp she eventually was liberated from. Sometimes she'd try, but then the hairs on her arm would stand on end, which she'd sometimes show me - her way to get me to back off. Other times she'd just politely say "No".

Nevertheless, from childhood into adulthood, once in a blue moon I'd give that question a try. On occasion she'd respond with a "safe" story, one for which she'd feel no surge of anxiety. (Like the time she worked, as seamstress, sewing clothes in a German officers' barrack, where German soldiers, male and female, drank heavily and fell asleep, and she sewed a huge hem into her "skirt", into which she stuffed many sugar cubes she took out of a large barrel, then shared her "treasure" with the other inmates in her "bunk" that night.)

But then, once, in my adult life, she did tell me a story she'd witnessed. She was in the kitchen, busy making chicken soup on a Friday afternoon, getting it ready for Shabbos, and I was sitting at the kitchen table behind her. (She was, by the way, an outstanding cook, never needing a recipe to prepare mouth-watering, aroma-savoring Hungarian dishes.) One of the ingredients she used in her chicken soup was large slices of cow bones, those with marrow in them. This triggered a memory she decided firmly to share with me on the spur of the moment.

She turned around, said "You want to hear a story of Auschwitz?", sat down across from me and began telling me.

Railways into Auschwitz

My mother often saw transports of Jews coming into Auschwitz behind wire fences that separated her camp ground from the transport platform. As I understood it, Auschwitz had two sets of rails that hugged either side of a platform onto which the Jews, transported there in cattle-cars, were unloaded. Both sides of this platform were last stops for this railway system.

The far end of the train's offload platform was fenced off; This was a "one-way" platform. At the other end, towards which Jews were prodded to "line up" and navigate to, sat the nefarious "Doctor" Josef Mengele, may his name be blotted out forever. Here this monster decided the fate of over 1.5 million Jews. On his hand he wore a white glove. With his little finger, he pointed right or left as each Jew passed him by, then and there determining this Jew's fate to live or die.

A unique, obsessive hobby of this fiend was to make "experiments" on twins.

She related: One particular day, this barbarian noticed in the crowd making their way towards him a father and son, both hunchbacks. Mengele suddenly was seized with excited frenzy.

With wicked delight he took the father and son into the "kitchen", where stood two huge pots used to make "soup" for the enslaved inmates. This soup was nothing more that hot water and some peels of potato thrown in. He had the father placed in one pot and the son placed in the other, and boiled them until their flesh simply could come away from the bone with minimal effort. He did this just so he could compare the bones of father and son.

Surprisingly, she got through the whole story under full composure. That's my memory of it, which I here record, for the first time since about 30 years ago, when I first heard it. (I saw a picture of that demon on the web and decided to write up this short story I'll never forget.)

UPDATE (Jun 9/15): Just read this article regarding Auschwitz, where it also makes mention of father and son hunchbacks, and what happened to them. Not that my mom's story needed corroboration, but the morbid proof is overwhelming.
quote: 
"Above all, the Lilliputs dreaded suffering the same fate as two male dwarfs — a hunchback and his son — who’d arrived in the camp three months after them.

Having decided to send their skeletons to a museum in Berlin, Mengele had ordered his staff to boil their bodies over a fire until the flesh separated from the bones."

The Holocaust in Support of Rebellion

A Jewish Author wrote:

"This idea of God as half-security blanket ... is completely antithetical to the idea of God I was raised with. The God I was brought up to worship was a mercurial force requiring annual appeasement in the form of High Holiday services, when the entire congregation would gather to personally apologize to Him for eating bacon and cheating on our taxes, and beg Him not to kill us this year.

"... I mean, if He couldn't be bothered to intervene in the Holocaust why intervene for me .... There is no plan. I'm one of billions scurrying around a senseless universe. And honestly, the idea couldn't come as more of a relief."

In response:

The single argument that consistently arises among rebellious Jewish disbelievers in God reverts back to the Holocaust. How could a "wise" and "beneficent" God, they ask, have destroyed 6 million people - and of His people no less?

This question takes as its premise that this God must be understandable, as least enough to provide a good answer for so obvious an injustice.

By demanding an answer, this question, in effect, wants to cast God in anthropomorphic guise, as a God that makes "human sense", which really tells you more about the questioner than it does of his object of inquiry. The questioner reckons his mind will grasp the explanation and the scope of that explanation, and if not, this God cannot fit his reasoning. Hereby we sense the mindset of an inflated ego.

As to why the Holocaust occurred, we cannot answer. The Jewish prophets relayed the words of God to the Jewish people, "For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways." (e.g., Isaiah 55:8)

In fact, says Maimonides, God's thoughts, unlike man's, are not set apart from Him, as thoughts and the thinker can be separated in man; God and His thoughts are - one and the same! How can this be? We cannot even begin to fathom this reality; We'll simply never know.

But our ignorance of God should not surprise us. Can a nest know its bird? Can an explosion understand its etiology? Can milk understand the cow? In other words, can a product know its maker? The idea that man can get to "know" his creator is infinitely more ludicrous.

That's not to say God keeps us completely in the dark. He gave us Torah and prophecies from which we can learn how best to behave and interact with the world at large - to please Him, as well as for our own benefit.

That we have questions about God's leadership is fine; But to take this doubt as justification for abandoning Him - really is more a self-serving convenience than a reasoned response on whether to acknowledge a controlling omnipotent deity. To perceive the world as "senseless" can only come from a simmering, restless mindset oblivious of all the wonderous phenomena and natural aesthetics that surround us. For every process in the universe, from the nanoscopic to the astronomic, reveals beautiful and amazingly intricate organization. Despite the full-scoped continuous blueprint of brilliant planning displayed by nature, the tunnel-vision of this Jewish author sees "no plan", no organization. Were she to walk the desert and find lying in the sand a fine-tuned Swiss watch, her high-strung mind might just conclude that "random events" created that masterpiece, and by mere accidents of nature it ended up by her feet.

No doubt the argument of "no plan and no organization" is a whimsical add-on to the author's main protestation - that which relates to the Holocaust. The anger for the Holocaust effectively renders all thought of universal planning and organization as practically irrelevant. The author's anger gets in the way of reasoning with equanimity, and until that primary emotion cools off, it will block any logic or reasoning from consideration. On the other hand, it may well be she seeks a good reason for rebelling, and by flaunting a "respectable discourse" she can convince herself and justify her break with tradition.

Anger and its associate, the inflated ego, Torah tells us, interfere with persuasion. But once that anger dissipates, space now becomes available for the brain, perched over the heart, to convey to the heart plenty of good reasons to reject anger and, instead, appreciate and trust our benevolent God Almighty.

The Rumblings of Gog and Magog

Those close to the Lubavitcher Rebbe were spared anxieties of troubling times in the past. For example, prior to the 6-Day War, his lone voice in the world echoed optimism and foretold of a great victory for Israel while everybody else shuddered at the prospects. Or when, before Iraq's war against Israel, amid much consternation about nerve gas bombs, the Rebbe said there was no need for gas masks. This list of prophecies can become quite long for one with a good memory.

The dire prospects of a bitter end Jewish people might suffer prior to their final redemption from our present state of exile - is a case in point. Everyone is concerned about and looking for Talmudic signs about the days of Gog and Magog.

With Iran on the verge of attaining nuclear capability, and bearing in mind Iran's Islamic ideology to sow worldwide terror as the proper setting for the debut of their holiest imam, the end of days as good as we knew it sure seems plausible. Any way you cut it, things don't look secure for the future of the Jewish state, nor for the Jewish people.

Unless, of course, you hold close to your heart the words of the Lubavitcher Rebbe. Before the 1st Persian Gulf War, the Rebbe said:

"It is a simple matter, to the extent there's no reason to doubt, that after the Holocaust, grief will not repeat itself, not like it was nor like any part of it, God forbid. In fact, on the contrary, there will be only good and favorable circumstances, as we ourselves deem goodness to be, for every Jew, and wherever he is. And, emphatically it bears repetition - in good and favorable circumstances!"

"... And surely ... in these days when nations provoke each other, when Jews have a special guarantee from God, 'My children, have no fear, all that I did I did only for your sake' [The Rebbe brought attention to and quoted this Yalkut Shimoni] ... and it's a certain thing that 'the Guardian of Israel neither rests nor sleeps', wherever Jews happen to be, either outside of Israel and how much more so in The holy Land itself, a land which our holy Torah refers to as 'The land ... upon which God's eyes keep watch over it from the beginning of the year until the end of the year.'"

The above good tidings by the Rebbe therefore negate the prospects of a "Gog and Magog" Armageddon.

There is a difference in how the Rebbe and his predecessor, the Previous Rebbe, viewed the forthcoming arrival of Moshiach. The Previous Rebbe witnessed and suffered from oppression in Russia and the Holocaust of Europe. These, for him, constituted the birth pangs of Moshiach. The Rebbe, on the other hand, talks of Moshiach coming under "favorable conditions and mercy," inasmuch as the birth pangs are behind us. In fact, we may well have Moshiach coming during a time of plenty and serenity. Says the Rebbe (Chayei Sarah, 1992), "The only thing remaining for Jews to do is to accept Moshiach for who he is!"

Some Horror Pictures

Got this email. Because my folks, ע''ה, survived the holocaust, I empathize with the sender's sentiments, even though I'd have worded the slides differently. I show them here to document this atrocity in one more place on the face of this globe; To counter the deniers, and to remind people what people can do to people.

A Memorable Cartoon - Click It to Enlarge It

My Mom (ע''ה) was in Auschwitz, and my Dad (ע''ה) was in German labor camps; Just another reason this topic speaks to my heart.