[net.religion.jewish] Clarifications on Resistance to the Nazis

martillo@ihuxj.UUCP (Yehoyaqim Shemtob Martillo) (05/10/84)

Eli requested clarification of some statements in my reply to the
holocaust question.

>>This resistance to the Germans took on Messianic proportions because North
>>African Jewish services often  include a prayer pleading to God that
>>Armelius should not be permitted to kill the Messiah.  Armelius is Aramaic
>>for Romulus which in German is Rommel who was threatening the Jewish
>>settlements in Palestine which many North African Hakamim (rabbis) were
>>equating with the coming of the Messiah (how little did they know). 

>I just want to clarify one thing Mr. Martillo mentioned in the above
>quote. 

>Was Mr. Martillo implying when he said "how little did they know"
>with regards to the Rabbis of North Africa belief that Jewish settlements
>in Israel was part of the coming of Messiah (atchalta di'geula), that
>they are and were wrong ????!!!!


>If so , I am shocked that Mr. Martillo could ignore the obvious
>events that are occuring in the Mid. East, and not connect them
>with what we were told would happen in the Mesianic period.
>For example, 1) the blossoming of fields and meadows in Israel only
>occured once Israel was under Jewish rule. Before that, under Arab rule,
>Israel was a barren wasteland. 2)Kibbutz Goliot- After 2000 years, Jews
>are beginning to re-settle Eretz Yisrael, coming from all over the world.
>200 years ago, who could have thought this possible?

No oriental Hakam would have associated the athalta' dige'ula (beginning
of salvation) with the successful wiping out of traditional oriental
Jewish culture by the Labor government and with the mixed-successful
attempt to turn oriental Jewish young into leftist secular Israelis with
European mentalities.  Nor would the Hakamim have expected so little help
from the Ashkenazi religious establishment in fighting the leftist goals
if salvation were beginning.

>3) "Ain bein Yimot hamasheich li'yomeinu ellah SHEE'BOOD GOLIOT"-Mesechet Megila
>    The only change in the Messianic period will be the that the Jews will
>    have self-rule, and not be enslaven by any foreign force.

A majority of Ashkenazim and a large part of the Sefardi elite enslave
themselves in their worship of European ways and European culture.  Dan V.
Segre in A Crisis of Identity (Israel and Zionism) calls this form of
alienation self-colonization.  Jews do not need non-Jews to be enslaved.

>My apologies to Mr. Martillo if I misinterpreted him.

>>Fighting the Germans was considered a milhemet mitswah (jihad).

>Obviously it was. It's straight-forwardly written in the Rambam.

I am aware of the halakah.  I obscured my point.  I know off-hand of
shuyukhun and dayanim in Libya who declared a jihad when the Germans
occupied Libya and immediately developed programs of resistance and
sabotage.  I know of no similar reaction among religious Jews in Europe.

By the way the resistance in Algeria which was almost entirely Jewish with
a few notable exceptions overthrew the Vichyite government just days
before this government was going to deport Algerian Jews to the death
camps.  In so doing, the resistance made Allied landings in North Africa
much easier and shortened the war.

None of this history and in fact almost no history of oriental Jewish
communities is taught in Israeli government schools.  Likewise, in the
religious schools all important oriental and sefardi religious thinkers
after Yosef Karo are ignored.  I am sorry but many more recent Hakamim
like Yosef Haim are a lot more important than many of the rebbes that the
children do learn about.

I prefer to be addressed as Yaqim.