Author: David Mark

David Mark is the founder and editor of Israel Rising. Besides Israel Rising, he heads up outreach for Ateret Cohanim in Jerusalem's Old City and acts as the Managing Director for Pulse of Israel. On the side he teaches classes that blend minimalism, mindfulness, and ecology with the teachings of Rebbe Nachman of Breslov.
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Weekly Update: Security Deterioration, Court Cases, and More

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In this podcast Daniel and I cover the week’s events. I have to say you can literally feel the growing intensity in many of the neighborhoods in and around the Old City of Jerusalem.  Of course what is known as the Jewish the Quarter has remained calm, yet the Yemenite Village, Abu Tor, the Old Jewish Quarter (Muslim Quarter) and the City of David have experienced a tremendous uptick in terrorism.

Daniel and I also cover the current court cases and rulings on the newest Jewish acquisitions.

 

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Great News from Kfar HaTeimanim

Very early Thursday morning…a few hours ago (TO AVOID UNNECESSARY FRICTION WITH SOME OF THE LOCAL ARABS DURING THE DAY) Jewish families and Yeshiva students entered a large premises, which is located in the old Yemenite Hekdesh in the Shiloach, on the slopes of Mt Olives overlooking the City of David and the Old City with Temple Mount.

The building is to be caled Beit Rachel.

The significant building complex is located in close proximity to all other Jewish buildings in the old Yemenite Village. (Beit HaDvash, Beit Yehonatan, Beit Frumkin and Beit Ovadia. It is also only a minutes walk from the recently redeemed sections of the original Yemenite Beit Knesset- Ohel Shlomo-Heichal Yonatan.(Named for Jonathan Pollard)

Some Basic History of the Area:
Yemenite Jews first arrived to Jerusalem in 1882. Kfar Hateimanim in the Shiloach was established. (BEFORE A SINGLE ARAB WAS LIVING IN THE AREA, which is today called Silwan by some people) At its peak 144-150 Yemenite Jewish families wereliving in the thriving and successful Yemenite Village on the slopes of Mt Zion overlooking the City of David, the Shiloach springs, the Temple Mount and the Old City.
1/ Attempt by extreme Arab elements including the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Husseini to “ethnically cleanse” Jerusalem and Israel of Jews in the 1920’s and 1930’s. Pogroms and riots throughout Jerusalem was the result.
2/ British authorities who were not willing and incapabe to protect the Jews of Shiloach, evacuated the last remaining 35-40 Yemenite families in August 1938 (77 years ago), with a promise that the JEWISH REFUGEES could shortly return to their homes. British promise never kept.
3/ Arabs squatted in private Yemenite homes and squatted in Hekdesh properties.
4/ Arabs desecrated the Yemenite Synagogues and destroyed many of the buildings in the area. (even taking stones from buildings, roof tiles, floor tiles, taps, doors, wondow frames.
In 2004 the first Jewish families returned to the old Yemenite Village.
TODAY: After 77 years, Jews have returned home, including to properties owned legally (and ratified by all Israeli courts) by the Heldesh Benvinisti.
It is hoped that Jews and Arabs will be able to live side by side with each other in peace and coexistence, like can be seen when Arabs legally move into predominantly Jewish neighbourhoods like Pisgat Zeev, Ramat Eshkol, French Hill, Armon HaNetziv. 
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The Revolution Can Come At Any Moment

Revolutions come when a populace has lost the ability to make necessary change through ordinary means. Israelis from all spectrums of society feel they live in a country that has gone mad.  Prices are too high, wages are too low, infiltrators are set free, and young men are placed in administrative detention just for a set of beliefs. We should not forget the looming external threats and increasing internal security issues.

Governments come and go and yet the problems internally and externally increase. It’s true Israelis are the happiest of people and yet we all know in many ways it is a self projected veneer covering the frustration with the impossibility of change.

So where is the revolt? Where is Israel’s version of the Bastille? By now the populace should be beseiging the Supreme Court or setting fire to the Sauvignon.  Alas, there is barely an outcry save for the various community activists and organizers from the myriad of sectors making up Israeli society.

The fact is the Israeli populace is enslaved.  They are a prodct of their hopes and dreams that really the State can be their salvation.  This is statism at its finest.  The State provides and so to revolt would be suicide. Of course life has gotten more and more unbearable and the same players have put us into a situation where our very lives are at stake. But the State as we know it still stands. Make no mistake, this is the ghetto of 2015. Yet at least at the end of the Warsaw Ghetto, the Jews freed themselves of the mistaken notion that their ghetto masters would save them and decided to revolt. It was too late of course, but the point was not lost.

The political leaders of the State of Israel know the Israeli populace is tired.  They know it’s not capable of taking them to task on just about everything.  Yet the revolution that is needed is not about violence.  There is no need to storm the proverbial Bastille.  Revolutions begin far before the first shots are fired.  They begin in the minds of the populace when they dare to believe they can just walk away from their masters.

In Israel we too can walk away from the politics of the master class and redeem our Nation from its inner servitude.  We can build a true Jewish Leadership that stands up for its Nation, providing security, economy, and a Judaism that teaches love of fellow Jew with a clear pathway to fulfilling our redemptive mission.

We can begin now to disconnect from our failed leadership and rebuild our society and future.

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In State We Trust

“He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past.”
― George Orwell, 1984

When the Palmach fighters won control of the State from the Irgun and Lehi, a white washing of history and rewriting of the State’s past began in earnest. With all of the gusto of the elite Palmach unit and their mythical place in the anals of the State, the single most important thing they did along with the new emboldened socialist leadership was to cement complete control over the lives of the State’s citizenry.

Bureaucracy became their tool to control the masses and the masses being tired and poor gave in without a fight.  With a stroke of a pen State worship was born.  The bureaucracy was designed in a way to be unmoving, incapable of fault.  Year after year Israelis grew to depend and need the faceless dictatorship of the bureaucracy.

The Palmach fighters turned politicians and technocrats, built a super structure that grew and reigned through the media and the courts.  Dare to challenge it and you stood accused of destroying something akin to the destruction of the Temple.

The Palmach is gone.  Its leaders and leaders’ children no longer run the State openly, yet their bureaucracy remains.  The faceless dictatorship succeeded in controlling the past and in turn sets the tempo for the future. Dare to criticize and you stand a chance at being demolished publicly and personally ruined.

Yet there is hope.  Darkness can be dispelled by light. The emperor stands naked before us now and the faceless dictator has begun to crack.  We are plagued by income disparity, corruption, and security threats to our existance. People are beginning to see through the lies they have been fed.

It’s true the media is far reaching in its influence and the court seems unstoppable, but that is an impression and not the truth.  There is another way, but one cannot fear a system that has no power other than the power we let it have. The State is truly powerless if we do not give it power.

Who will provide for us? People have asked me. I turn and point up and then remind them that there was a time before all of this bureaucracy when yong Jews returned to the Land of our Nation’s past to fulfill the promise of the Creator.  Those young Jews had no State and did what needed to be done.  We must restore the light of redemption and free it from the confines of the State.  We must take control of our destiny and steer our Nation back on the proper course.  “If not now, when?”

Article originaly published on HaKol HaYehudi

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Building In Jerusalem is Key to Our Survival

Why is Jerusalem such a conflicted place when it comes to our national direction?  There is this feeling and has been since 1967 that if we just give on something then we will reach acceptance with our neighbors and the world.  Of course we know this is not the case.  Cutting away Jerusalem is the equivelent of slicing someone’s heart in half and expecting it to still function normally.  The World knows this and so it pushes us to freeze building even in the heart of our Nation.

Building is the expression of a Nation’s health. When we build we are telling the World that our dry bones have indeed come to life.  Where we build flips the area from death to life.  Our neighborhoods are vibrant and alive brimming with families, learning, and culture.

We have come back to our capital city and in the process fulfilling the words of the prophets who have said that once again there will be people in the streets of Jerusalem.  We have a lot of work to do before our heart is completely healed, but if we want our Nation to be strong, both in the physical the spiritual, building in Jerusalem is non-negotiable.