#this statement is really about newly created political holidays

[ruminativerabbi]

The Jewishness of Israel

As we move forward through the next weeks, I hope to discuss many of the issues that I found the most interesting and the most controversial this summer in Israel. Some I have addressed already, but others are—at least in their current iteration—brand new. Some have aroused a lot of interest outside of Israel, while others appear to have garnered almost no attention outside the nation’s boundaries. And some strike me as truly crucial issues, while others appear to me—an outsider, admittedly, but a regular visitor and an informed observer—to me, at least, as a huge amount of ado about almost nothing at all.

And so, first up is the issue that has aroused the most controversy both inside and outside of Israel, the newly passed Basic Law, more correctly known as the “Basic Law: Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People.”  All, even the most vehemently outraged, seem to agree that this law was almost entirely symbolic and merely grants a level of official recognition to a situation that all know already to exist and that all observers have considered fully self-evident for the last seventy years. Even Sayed Kashua, an Arab-Israeli author violently opposed to the new Basic Law, had to admit in his red-hot New York Times op-ed piece a few weeks ago that this summer’s bill simply makes de jure a situation that has been de facto reality since the founding of the State.

Defenders of the law have made the point, and sharply, that the Israeli Declaration of Independence formally acknowledged the Jewish nature of Israel at the moment of its national inception and that this summer’s bill merely ratified that concept and granted it a level of official recognition it has lacked from then to now. And, indeed, the opening lines of the Declaration could really not set out the concept of the Jewish nature of the new Jewish state in clearer language:

The Land of Israel was the birthplace of the Jewish people. Here their spiritual, religious and political identity was shaped. Here they first attained to statehood, created cultural values of national and universal significance and gave to the world the eternal Book of Books.

After being forcibly exiled from their land, the people kept faith with it throughout their Dispersion and never ceased to pray and hope for their return to it and for the restoration in it of their political freedom.

Impelled by this historic and traditional attachment, Jews strove in every successive generation to re-establish themselves in their ancient homeland. In recent decades they returned in their masses. Pioneers, ma∙apilim [that is, immigrants coming to Eretz-Israel in defiance of restrictive legislation] and defenders, they made deserts bloom, revived the Hebrew language, built villages and towns, and created a thriving community controlling its own economy and culture, loving peace but knowing how to defend itself, bringing the blessings of progress to all the country's inhabitants, and aspiring towards independent nationhood.

 But, as Americans also know, a Declaration of Independence is just that, a declaration that serves as a kind of political statement of intent and of ideals by a nation’s founders, and not a bona fide legal document at all. (That is why the oath of office that the President of the United States takes at the inauguration ceremony references the obligation to “preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States” and not, say, to uphold the ideals of the Declaration of Independence.) And this accurately mirrors the situation in Israel as well, say Israelis who favor the Basic Law: since Israel does not have a written Constitution akin to the U.S. one, the decision was made early on—in a 1950 decision of the Israeli Supreme Court called the Harari Decision—that in lieu of an American-style foundational document, the series of Basic Laws passed by the Knesset over the years would serve as the legal foundation for Israeli jurisprudence. This summer’s initiative, therefore, is merely an effort to translate the basic values of the Declaration of Independence into Israeli law, almost precisely in the way that the delegates to the Constitution Convention of 1787 took the task upon themselves to enshrine the values and principles that led to American independence in a legal document that would serve as the basis for future American law. And, they ask, should that be more controversial in Israel than it was in America…or in any modern country?

Furthermore, a nation’s right to self-determination and self-definition being basic to its sense of national self, this kind of effort to establish in law the values and principles that led to a nation’s founding is not seen in any other quarter as bogus or racist merely because the nation in question has citizens, even lots of them, who are members of minority faiths, ethnic groups, or language groups. Iran self-defines as an “Islamic republic,” for example, and the world seems to find it not at all troubling that there are non-Muslims among the citizenry. So do Pakistan, Mauritania, and Afghanistan, all three of which nations have non-Muslims among their citizenry. Nor do I notice people suggesting that Norwegian or Icelandic products be boycotted because their nations’ constitutions recognize a specific religion as the national one despite the obvious truth that among the nation’s citizens are people who subscribe to different faiths. The U.K. also has an official religion, by the way—and British law requires that the sovereign belong to it. But I can’t recall ever hearing anyone denounce the British for maintaining a formal relationship as a nation with the Anglican Church, much less suggesting a boycott of British products until the U.K. renounces its ties to its own national church…to which only a minority of the population maintains formal affiliation. (It is true that a majority, 62%, of British Christians are Anglicans. But fewer than 60% of the general population are affiliated with any Christian church—a majority, to be sure, but not a very large one.)

When taken in the context of other nations’ foundational documents, formal constitutions and otherwise, the situation seems even stranger to me. The Basic Law makes Hebrew the official language of Israel and grants Arabic special status and guarantees that the level of official Arabic usage will be maintained. (Arabic is the native language of about 18% of Israelis.)  By comparison, the Latvian Constitution recognizes Latvian as the national language of Latvia despite the fact that about a third of the citizenry speaks Russian, not Latvian. The Spanish Constitution makes Spanish the nation’s national language, and requires that citizens conduct their affairs in that language regardless of their actual native language, be it Basque or Catalan or any one of several lesser-known native tongues spoken by Spanish citizens. And many other nations, particularly ones that are the homes to unusual languages that are not widely studied or known elsewhere than in that single country—nations like Estonia or Armenia—have enacted laws designed to promote the use of the national language regardless of the fact that some of the citizenry grew up speaking different languages and continue to speak them. About these laws, however, no one seems much to care.

Regarding immigration, the Basic Laws specifies that the “ingathering of the exiles” concept will remain fundamental to Israeli immigration policy and that, as a result, Israel will remain permanently open to Jewish immigration. Given the fact that the 1950 Law of Return declares unequivocally that “every Jew has the right to come to this country as an oleh,” that is, “as an immigrant,” the response to this part of this summer’s Basic Law seems particularly surprising. Nor is there any lack of international parallels: the laws of many nations, including such Western democracies as Italy and Ireland, grant special status to would-be immigrants who belong to the nation’s ethnic majorities. There is an American parallel to this as well, as Eugene Kontorovich pointed out in an essay in the Wall Street Journal  last July: the State Constitution of Hawaii specifically authorizes the state government to create policies that will facilitate land acquisition by native Hawaiians by enacting preferential policies openly favoring ethnic Hawaiians over the rest of the state’s citizenry.

So the short answer is that nothing has changed and the Basic Law largely codifies policies that have been in place  for well more than half a century.  And yet, the level of real anger—expressed both inside and outside of Israel in massive demonstrations and petition-signing campaigns—seems to me rooted in something more basic than the decision formally to declare Hebrew the national language of Israel or to create a legal basis for the Law of Return almost a cool seven decades after it was voted into law by the Knesset.

In an age of rising nationalism, many people—myself included—are at least on some level wondering what the whole concept of nationhood should mean in the post-colonial world.  The myriad issues relating to immigration here and particularly in Europe are part of this as well. As is the cardinal question of what it could or should mean for a nation to embrace a specific culture and to promote that culture to the exclusion of others. Sometimes, the issues involved are benign or, at the very least, not oppressive. (I have no clear idea why Christmas should be a federal holiday in a nation that has no state religion, but I’ve long since stopped fretting about it.) But other times the effects of enshrining a national culture in law are profound. So the larger question is really whether the concept of a national state with its own culture—and the attendant baggage that culture brings along in its wake—whether that idea is something that deserves a place at the table, so to speak, in the 21st century…or whether it should be consigned to the dustbin of history along with its malign offspring: ultra-nationalism, ethnocentrism, racism, and xenophobia. Or should the idea be specifically not to pitch out the baby with the bathwater and so to attempt thoughtfully and rationally to pursue a policy that promotes the healthy growth of a nation’s chosen identity without allowing its policies to veer off into intolerance or prejudice?

In the end, there are nations and there are nations. Some, like Israel, are the sole nation-states of an indigenous people whose land has been occupied over long centuries by a long list of foreign invaders and colonialists. Nations like that—Armenia, Finland, South Korea, or Estonia would be good examples of others—have, it seems to me, a reasonable right to promote their national heritage as long as that formal effort does not result in untoward discrimination towards citizens merely because they self-define culturally differently. Our own nation promotes American culture in countless ways. So do most countries. To single out Israel for opprobrium because of its wish to see itself as the embodiment of the national aspirations of the Jewish people is to deny it a right easily and almost automatically offered to every other nation. And that, it seems to me, is defensible solely by arguing that ultimately the Jewish people has no right to its own nation, its own national culture, or the pursuit of its own national aspirations. I’m sure there are people out there who think just that. But I’m far less sure why anyone who does not feel that way would be enraged by the Knesset’s decision to ratify as law the principles that have guided Israel since 1948.  The timing may have been controversial. There may even have been no specific need to undertake this specific action at this specific moment in history. But, in my opinion, the Basic Law itself seems a reasonable attempt to enshrine in law values that have been part of Israel’s national sense of purpose and identity for the entire length of its history as a modern state.

#Basic Law #Israel #Nationalism #Hebrew language

[englishchinesetranslations]

When the Jews took over Russia with Communism, they killed the entire Gentile ruling and upper classes, and replaced them with a Jewish ruling elite which was part of a larger Jewish order.

“Rosenthal also talks about a Jewish invisible government which also controls the USSR, and how the UN is “nothing but a trap door to the Red World’s immense concentration camp.” He says this invisible power is responsible for the wars and revolutions of the last 200 years.” — Harold Wallace Rosenthal, age 29, personal assistant to New York Senator Jacob Javits 1976 interview with Walter White Jr., editor, Conservative monthly, Western Front.

When the Soviet Jewion fell apart due to the long -term effects of the Second World War and the people openly rebelling in the streets, the Jewish elites in Russia simply put up new window dressing and did a game of musical chairs, in order to stop a full rebellion that would topple them. The new post-Soviet government was just as openly full of Jews as was the former one. It is the same ruling class.

This brings us to Vladimir Putin who was a Lieutenant Colonel in the KGB before the fall of the Soviet Union. He was then brought into the New Government. This is revealing the facts on the KGB, like the NKVD and Cheka before it. It is created, staffed, and run by Jews, as it is the important arm of the Jewish ruling classes’ control:

http://heretical.com/miscellx/bolshies.html

According to a report in The Canadian Jewish News of 13 November 1964, the present Soviet boss Leonid Brezhnev is married to a Jewess and his children are brought up as Jews. There are a number of prominent Jews in the Soviet government, including Dimitri Dymshits in charge of industry, Lev Shapiro regional secretary of Birobidjan, and Yuri Andropov in charge of the secret police, the KGB. In fact, every secret police chief in Soviet history has been a Jew, from the first, Uritsky, the murderous Beria… A Jew is also in charge of the Soviet economy – Leonid Kantorovich.

Keep this in mind when you realize that Putin within 16 years, rose to Lieutenant Colonel of the KGB, proceeded to be high -ranking in a Jewish owned and staffed government, and is now the front man for the ruling kosher cabal:

Putin admitted to growing up in the same apartment with a bunch of Jews. When speaking before a Jewish audience, Putin revealed that his own father was an “avid Talmudic scholar.”

“Mr. Putin said he was familiar with both the menorah and the Chanukah holiday, because as a child his family shared their communal apartment with a Jewish family. “

Source: Chabad.org – Jewish News – Chanukah Journal Nov 26, 1999 http://www.chabad.org/news/article_cdo/aid/1119/jewish/Chanukah-Journal.htm

Putin: “I will do everything for the Jews!” Posted October 18, 2012. “Putin will save us” says Jew Kapner! By “us,” he means Jews.

“RUSSIA’S PM TO JEWISH DELEGATION: I WAS FIRST TO RESTORE JEWISH PROPERTY!

MOSCOW — In an extraordinary 40 minute meeting with Russian Jewish leaders yesterday (November 25), Russian Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin promised to assist the Jewish community in combating anti-Semitism, building schools and reclaiming former synagogue buildings for Jewish communities.”

“Rabbi Berel Lazar, chief Lubavitch emissary to the region, who was recently elected as the head rabbi by delegates to the newly formed Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia, accompanied Federation officials Lev Leviev, Michael Gluz and Mark Grubarg to present the prime minister with a silver Menorah. Rabbi Lazar described the Menorah as a symbol of religious freedom. Speaking about the miracle of Chanukah, the rabbi and his colleagues described the resurgence of Jewish life in Russia since the fall of communism as a modern miracle.”

Jew-lover Putin admits growing up in the same apartment with a bunch of Jews. While talking to a Jewish audience, Putin reveals that his own father was an avid Talmudic scholar…“Mr. Putin said he was familiar with both the menorah and the Chanukah holiday, because as a child his family shared their communal apartment with a Jewish family.” Putin’s father’s real name was Epstein, his mother’s Shalomova.

http://henrymakow.com/putin-is-nwo-pawn.html

Tamara: “The photo at bottom left shows Opposition to Putin saying Putin is 100% a Jew (his mother is a Jew and his father is a Jew). In Russia, many Jewish people hide their Jewish origin or they do not know or do not want to know. Putin is a person who hides his Jewish origin but uses it in the corruption nets. Historians tried to find his ancestors but failed. Common Russians think that Putin is an ethnic Russian. If they understood that Putin is a Jew, they would not vote for him. The picture bottom right shows Putin’s resemblance to a Jew from Tsarist era.”

“In Russia, the eternal question is: “Who Lives Well in Russia?” At different times, they were different people, but now everyone knows that life is only good for the super-rich oligarchs, mostly Jews.”

Putin pledges to make Russia comfortable for the enemy Jew. Perhaps that will shed light on why he treats nationalists and proud Russian patriots like Jews treat animals.

“Focusing on the Federation, Mr. Putin described its founding as a positive development to bring diverse groups within the Jewish community together to work toward common goals. He expressed his hope that the new Federation would help foster a climate of communal strength that will make Russia a country where Jews will live comfortably.”

The following was written by a Christian Russian Nationalist, but it provides a clear understanding of what is really happening in the Jewish owned and controlled current Russia:

“Their goal is to create in place of Russia and Russian civilization a new supranational pseudo- empire within the framework of the New World Order, under the guidance of a Jewish elite.”

Russians in Russia: The State within the State April 24, 2012 —

Igor Artemov, Translated by Roman Frolov

No one in the Russian National political movement —or just anyone for whom his Russian identity is not simply a matter of fact but a defining aspect of his life, beliefs, and actions—should harbor any illusions regarding the corrupt, grotesquely hypocritical, bureaucratic and police-state nature of the modern state authority and ideology existing in the Russian Federation. All this is true and doubtlessly affects our lives. And yet the single most important thing to understand is that this system is explicitly and purposefully anti-Russian.

Although we cannot exclude that Putin and his close circle dream about their ‘empire’, there won’t be any place in their ‘empire’ for the Russian spirit and Russian ideology, just as there was no place for Russianness in the late Soviet Union. Remember that the process of destroying the Russian nation and Russian worldview, unprecedented in its scale and consequences, was launched precisely in the Soviet Union and the current authorities of Russian Federation carry on this process more or less consistently. The Russian culture and the Church were being destroyed in the USSR. Internationalism and inter-racial marriages were promoted. The USSR has done everything possible to make people to identify themselves not as Russians, Tartars, or Tuvans but as Soviet people. All the facts show that it is the USSR and not the old Russia that serves as a role model for the current Russian authorities. They are building a post-Soviet state and not in any way a Russian national state. I consider this statement essential because of the conclusions and actions that follow from it directly.

If the Russian Federation was just a red-tape bureaucratic or corrupt state, then these defects of the political system could be fought against and to a certain extent eliminated simply by dealing with the mistakes. Yet the problem is that both corruption and despotism in our country are consciously enforced from the very top of state power. Long ago I realized that the situation in our country does not result from the stupidity, greed or incompetence of the ruling circles. Only an idiot would have trouble understanding that it is better for the country to have its own competitive manufacturing instead of exporting raw materials or to have honest officials instead of bribe- takers. The Russian authorities understand this too. And yet they do everything the other way around, strengthening and hardening from above all the vices of the state system. “Why?” you ask me. Well, because they have aims that are very different from those they publicly declare on television and through the mass media.

Their goal is to create in place of Russia and Russian civilization a new supranational pseudo- empire within the framework of the New World Order. Under the guidance of a Jewish elite, the Russian majority will be gradually replaced by Asian migrants. Of course, they cannot acknowledge this openly as it will cause mass protests and they will be quickly swept away. So for the people’s consumption they have an official ideology of building a society of prosperity, social justice and interethnic peace. Yet they cannot hide the truth, especially from those who have access to objective information. As a result, the silence of the ruling circles is bought by enormous material benefits on one hand, and by intimidation on the other. In this light, it is easy to understand the murders of generals Lebed and Rokhlin, ophthalmologist Fyodorov, Governor Evdokimov and many others who had ascended to the political Olympus in Russia but had not become completely loyal to those forces that control and deliberately destroy our country as the heart of Russian civilization. I think that the mysterious death of General Shebarshin, the last chief of the KGB, is in the same line of political murders.

The main supports for the Russian authorities in this enterprise are the security agencies. Their purpose is to suppress any popular protest and discontent by unlawful use of force — simply because it is impossible to do it by lawful methods. It is not a coincidence that today the members of the security agencies and not regular officials or manufacturers who get the most of benefits and opportunities. Not long ago I had a conversation with an old acquaintance of mine who sells real estate on the Black sea coast and in the Caucasus Mineralnye Vody region [translator’s note: popular resorts]. He claimed that 80%.

of the expensive property [$500,000 and up] in these areas is purchased today not by state officials or businessmen but by highly-placed officials of the Federal Security Service [FSS], Interior Ministry, Public Prosecutor Office, and other similar agencies from various regions of the country [sometimes such purchases are made using front persons]. In this way these ‘people’s servants’ prepare for their retirement. Needless to say, such property acquisitions are far beyond the means of an honest official, even considering their large salaries.

Thus a conspiracy of silence emerges. Every member of this criminal system knows that he can keep his power and unlawfully acquired riches only if he remains silent and does everything his masters order him to do. If he doesn’t, however, and takes the liberty of excessive high-handedness or independency, he will face huge problems.

I would like to describe two examples from my personal experience, which clearly show that highly stationed Russian officials have a perfect understanding of what is going on in our country and of the direction it is leading into. In the beginning of the last decade when I was a Deputy of the Legislative Assembly of Vladimir Oblast I had a conversation with one of the representatives of the President in that region. The conversation has stuck in my memory. There was high turnover at this position and I would like to avoid naming this person. The official sympathetically inquired about the Russian national movement and our ideology, and he demonstrated impressive knowledge of Bolshevism, Freemasonry and pretty good personal erudition. He told me that he reads our newspapers [the Internet was not as widespread then as it is now], and that some of his relatives voted for me in the elections to the Russian Parliament. I even felt some sympathy toward him because of his education and culture. In the end he talked about himself. He said that he understands the rightness of our cause albeit there were not only Russians among his ancestors. He told me that in Soviet times he and other members of the Communist Party were shown special movies on the danger of world Zionism and Freemasonry, and he mentioned some facts which I was not aware of. At some point, I even thought that he could provide a tacit support to our cause.

Yet it ended differently. My confidant finished our conversation with a parable. Let’s say, he told me, a gang of robbers attacks a woman and wants to rape her. She has a choice, to resist, get seriously beaten and injured and be raped anyway, or “to relax and try to get some pleasure”…. So this is what is being done with our country. We can’t fight against the whole world. So let’s relax and try to benefit from this situation as much as possible. I remember being quite shocked, both at his level of awareness and his conclusions.

As a second example, in 2003 I was one of the originators of the internal investigation of the Police Department of Vladimir Oblast by a special commission from Moscow. The commission was headed by an elderly Lieutenant-General Golubev, if I remember correctly. He expressed his wish to meet me personally. It was a long conversation. I told him all I knew about incidents of bribery, racketeering etc. He listened carefully and took notes. At the end, we had turned to the Russian question again. Looking away, he asked me: “If things in Russia continue in the future as they are today, for how much longer will the Russian people survive?” I answered that I look forward to positive changes and aspire for the establishment of Russian national rule, but if the regime perseveres, the Russians as a nation will likely hold on for thirty or forty years more, and after that all sorts of irreversible changes are possible. “I also think so” — he replied.

We had parted amiably. A couple of weeks later I received a letter signed by this same General, in which he thanked me for my assistance and informed me that, based on my information, around fifteen police officers were subjected to disciplinary action, but not a single ‘brave’ officer was punished seriously, though they deserved it. The commission had returned to Moscow and things in Vladimir resumed their ‘natural’ course. I guess that our General retired soon after these events.

Make no mistake: both of the high state officials described here represent the best part of the establishment. They at least say that they are not against us. Others, however, are much, much worse: they are stupid, avaricious and cynical. Yet even these two wouldn’t openly side with us. They would stand aside and wait for something. This is why the Russian movement today should avoid internal dissent and squabble between parties. The regime hates us all, no matter who we are — backers of the empire or national democrats or Russian Orthodox nationalists or whoever else — it hates us just because we are Russian, because we don’t hide it and because we fight as best we can for our rights and ideals.

We interfere with their desire to destroy Russia quickly and quietly. It is time now to begin building a “state within a state” in our midst, a society closed to outsiders where we can resolve all internal questions within it. We have no friends among the authorities, but we have many friends and like -minded people among businessmen, scientists and military men, among virtually all strata of Russian society. I will return to this topic in subsequent articles.

Igor Artemov is a well-known Russian Nationalist. His organization, Russian All – National Union [RONS] was proscribed last year and Artemov himself is on the run, as he is wanted by Federal Security Service for the ‘hate crime’ of writing

______________________________________________________________

Note – the Jews pretend they were victims of the very system they instituted and controlled:

At Putin’s side, an army of Jewish billionaires. “We have to keep our Jewishness and be united in the Diaspora,” says Russian Jewish Congress VP. ”

http://www.jpost.com/Jewish-World/Jewish-Features/At-Putins-side-an-army-of-Jewish-billionaires

When the air-conditioning broke down at the reception for the unveiling ceremony of the Red Army monument in Netanya on Monday, it didn’t matter if you were a billionaire, multimillionaire or broke. Everyone suffered the same.

In one corner sat Mikhail Fridman, the seventh-richest man in Russia, whose fortune is estimated at $15 billion by Forbes. He stayed hydrated in the sweltering heat by sipping a glass of water. In another stood Moshe Kantor, the chemicals tycoon who Forbes said was worth $2.3b. He repeatedly removed the beads of sweat from his head with a napkin.

The two men were part of a group of two dozen or so affluent Russian-speaking businessmen who came to the ceremony where President Vladimir Putin was the guest of honor. Some, like Fridman, flew in especially from Russia. Others, like Kantor, drove from nearby Herzliya, where many businessman from the former Soviet Union including Leonid Nevzlin and Gabriel Mirilashvili, to name a few, have made their homes.

For many members of this class of ultra rich Putin’s arrival in the country was an opportunity for them to brush shoulders with one another and to mingle with friends and officials from the motherland. The richest man in the room filled with rich men was probably the media-shy Fridman, who declined to speak to The Jerusalem Post. “I am a private person,” he said, displaying seemingly good English.

Other faces were more familiar to locals. Lev Leviev, the diamonds and real estate mogul who is a bit of anomaly in this world, was on hand. Although born in Uzbekistan, then part of the Soviet Union, he immigrated to Israel as a teenager in the 1970s and made his money in the Jewish state. Only after the markets in the former Soviet Union opened did the Israeli, whose worth was estimated at about $1.7b. earlier this year, invest extensively in natural resources and property in that part of the world.

Not everybody in the room was a billionaire. Some were worth a mere couple of hundred of million dollars Alexander Levin, a Ukrainian businessman who was among those who donated to build the monument, is one of latter.

The real estate developer, who last year set up the World Forum for Russian Jewry, an advocacy group based in New York, explained why he it was an important cause.

“My two grandparents were killed during World War II so it’s very important to us,” he said. “We are paying just a little [in comparison to what they paid].”

How much is a little? Levin said the exact sum “was not important” but that it was “a lot of money.”

Members of United Israel Appeal-Keren Hayesod, which raised the money to build the marble and concrete monument overlooking the azure Mediterranean Sea, were also tight-lipped.

“We organized a group of 10 to 15 top businessmen who raised the money that helped transform this dream to reality,” said Gadi Dror, the UIA’s director of the eastern region. “We do not go [into the] figures because they [the donors] prefer not to but it is meaningful amount.”

A source later said each businessman had donated at least $100,000. Watching the group of mega-wealthy interact, one cannot help but wonder how so many affluent businessmen in the former Soviet Union are Jewish.

German Zakharyaev, vice president of the Russian Jewish Congress, cited two main reasons for that. First, Jews are few among many.

“We are a minority and as such we have to be strong [if we are] to preserve our customs,” said the businessman who, as a member of the Mountain Jewish community of the eastern Caucuses, is a minority within a minority.

“This is something in our commandments that we have to keep our Jewishness and be united in the Diaspora.” Second, he said, Jewish businessmen are hard workers. “We think a lot and we sleep a little,” he said.

China situation:

Russia, China Hold Large-Scale War Games

-High Priest Mageson666

[topbeautifulwomens]

#Peter,paul #And #Mary #Biography #Photos #Wallpapers #anastasiabeverlyhills #eroticmodel #hairstyles #lifestylemodel #makeup #makeupjunkie #makeuplover #maquiagem #photographer #topmodel

“Peter, Paul and Mary are folk singers.” So stated the liner notes to the group’s self-titled 1962 debut album. Today, this declaration seems redundant, because the term “folk music” has come to be virtually interchangeable with the group name, but when the words were written, they were meant less as a stylistic distinction than as a mission statement.

In the decades prior to the ’60s, through the work of such avatars as Woody Guthrie, the Weavers and Pete Seeger, folk music had become identified with sociopolitical commentary, but the idiom had been forced underground in the Senator Joe McCarthy witch-hunting era of the late ’50s. By the time Peter, Paul and Mary arrived on the scene, for the majority of America, folk was viewed merely as a side-bar to pop music which employed acoustic instruments. At this critical historic juncture, with the nation still recovering from the McCarthy era, the Civil Rights Movement taking shape, the Cold War heating up and a nascent spirit of activism in the air, Peter Yarrow, Noel (Paul) Stookey and Mary Travers came together to juxtapose these cross currents and thus to reclaim folk’s potency as a social, cultural and political force. But few at the time could have realized how fervently and pervasively the group’s message of humanity, hope and activism would be embraced.

Having their music associated with causes and solutions is as natural as breathing for Peter, Paul and Mary. The music they purvey and the action it generates are equally important to them and lie at the heart of their story. Most recently, their individual and collective efforts have focused on such crucial issues as gun violence against children, the rights and organizing efforts of strawberry pickers in California, homelessness and world hunger. “We’ve always been involved with issues that deal with the fundamental human rights of people, whether that means the right to political freedom or the right to breathe air that’s clean,” Travers points out.

No American folk group has lasted longer or amassed a more loyal following than Peter, Paul and Mary; indeed, few groups of any genre have logged more years (45) or miles (countless) in direct, yearly touring; spreading the message and engaging the next (now four) generations. During its now legendary career, the trio won five Grammy’s, developed 13 Top 40 hits, of which 6 ascended into the Top 10 – as well as eight gold and five platinum albums. That PP&M achieved such a rarefied level of commercial success without compromise, and while continuing a centuries-old tradition of people raising their voices in song for the sake of freedom, is simply further evidence of their extraordinarily successful career-as much a mission accomplished as a musical career.

In 2006, Peter, Paul and Mary received the latest in a long line of honors bestowed on the group: The Songwriters Hall Of Fame’s Lifetime Achievement Award (also known as the Sammy Cahn Award). It really is well-earned recognition that the group has mastered the art of topical songs-which can be overly directive, one-sided and preachy in less-seasoned hands. “The songs we sing invite the participation of the listener, who is central to finding a way of creating the life of the song at that listening,” Yarrow explains. “It’s the difference between poetry and didactic writing. One tells you, ‘This is it,’ and the other says, ‘Let’s find this together.'” Adds Stookey, “Whether it’s your own material or someentire body else’s material, it’s required that you identify with it thoroughly. It’s like you want to archive it; you want to freeze it in time in terms of your perspective on it, then move on, because folk music is that volatile and comments not only on overall human concerns but also on the specifics.”

Yarrow, Stookey and Travers have spent their years together communicating personal, political and social imperatives by way of their impeccably chosen songs, personally crafted harmonies and unmitigated passion. Remarkably, more than four and a half decades after their formation, they’re still singer/advocates. Their spirits and sense of purpose are undiminished and their message, if anything, is more relevant than ever before, particularly as America and the world approach what Travers characterizes as “a critical turning point in time.”

Through the years, that message has been expressed through traditional ballads like “The Three Ravens” and “Take Off Your Old Coat,” the work of such latter-day poets as Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan, Laura Nyro, Gordon Lightfoot, Tom Paxton, Phil Ochs and John Denver, and in songs penned by the group itself. It’s a canon of classics-indelible, important songs like “Blowin’ in the Wind,” “If I Had a Hammer,” “Cruel War,” “Leaving on a Jet Plane,” “Where Have All the Flowers Gone,” “500 Miles,” “Lemon Tree,” “In the Early Morning Rain,” “All My Trials,” and “Puff (The Magic Dragon),” among others.

Released in March, 2004, Rhino’s Carry It On boxed set features four CDs filled with such memorable musical moments from 1960 to 2003, including previously unreleased solo listingings by each member made prior to the group’s formation. The package also contains a bonus DVD with performance footage of some of the trio’s most iconic songs, including a live version of “If I Had a Hammer” from the 1963 Civil Rights March on Washington, where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech. Among the many luminaries offering testimonials in the Carry It On liner notes is the late Coretta Scott King, who proclaimed, “Peter, Paul and Mary are not only three of the greatest folk artists ever, but also three of the performing arts’ most outstanding champions of social justice and peace. They have lent their time and talents to the Civil Rights Movement, labor struggles, and countless campaigns for human rights for decades, and their compassion and commitment remain as strong as their extraordinary artistry.”

Carry It On was released simultaneously with In These Times, the group’s first all-new studio recording in more than a decade. The LP features no solo turns, only group vocals-an approach PP&M haven’t employed since their first four albums; their singular harmonies displaying unity in the face of a particularly fractious, and in their opinion, dangerous, era. “With In These Times, we wanted to make a contemporary statement,” says Stookey. “Folk music has the capacity to not only be aware of the continuum, but also to offer thoughts that are perspectives on the immediacy of human concern.”

Both timely and timeless, In These Times (co-produced by Yarrow and Stookey) spotlights selections penned by new or newly found writers including Tim Bays, Dave Allen, Anne Feeney, Gene Nelson and Bill Staines, offering wider exposure to fresh talent – long a PP&M tradition. In the past Peter, Paul and Mary put together new material for every summer tour, so the album actually collects several years worth of new material. Much of it is drawn from the Kerrville Folk Festival in Texas, an annual event whose New Folk Concerts are arguably the most important platform for the discovery and acknowledgment of new singer/songwriters in America.

In 2004 Carry It On, the boxed set, and an accompanying PBS TV special focused plenty of attention on the music of Peter, Paul and Mary, but the following year observers were more preoccupied with Mary Travers’ well being; she underwent a successful bone marrow transplant in April of 2005 for leukemia. That December, Travers joined Peter and Noel (Paul) on stage for the first time in a year to perform their renowned and much loved Holiday Celebration benefit concert at Carnegie Hall. “The emotionality of the response, and the love of the audience for Mary, showered the stage,” observed Peter. Today the three singers stand strong in their musical mission, and are eager to carry it on to new audiences.

Some Historical Notes and Thoughts on the Trio:

Forming at the dawn of John F. Kennedy’s presidency, when the tight lid of repression was about to blow off of the American sociopolitical stew pot, the trio emerged just as their nation was coming to grips with long-deferred issues of social and political justice, foremost among these the demand for racial equality. Through the airwaves, which came to be dominated by their music of conscience, and their relentless schedule of concert performances, many of which took place on college campuses, they helped to inspire and awaken the nation as it united in song and spirit, to finally stand up for its pledge to be a country with liberty and justice for all. During this remarkable era of reckoning, Peter, Paul and Mary reached out to personally touch the lives and hearts of tens of millions of Americans with their songs-a message they lived as much as they sang.

Peter, Paul and Mary came together during an unusually fertile period in popular music. Yarrow, who had come to Greenwich Village with a psychology degree from Cornell, recalls that “The Village in the early 1960s was a crucible of creativity. Involvement in music was a matter of joyous discovery, not business. We knew that folk music was having an enormous impact in the Village, but was a couple of years away from being embraced on a national scale.”

The Village was also the starting place for Stookey, a fledgling stand-up comic from Maryland who’d recently graduated from Michigan State. Stookey met up separately with Yarrow, who was playing Village coffeehouses as a solo act, and with Travers, who was already known for her work in the Song Swappers, a folk group that had recorded with Pete Seeger. Having grown up in the Village, the flaxen-haired singer was a familiar figure at the Washington Square Sunday singing event. Encouraged by folk impresario Albert Grossman, who became their manager, the three artists decided to throw their lots together after blending their voices for the first time in Stookey’s Lower East Side apartment. Peter, Paul and Mary made their formal debut at Greenwich Village’s Bitter End in late 1961.

The group’s self-titled 1962 debut on Warner Bros. Records, a stunning oasis of content in a sea of musical fluff, brought folk music of consciousness and concern to the top of the charts. Fueled by the enormous hits “Lemon Tree” and “If I Had a Hammer” (which enjoyed a second life as an anthem of the Civil Rights Movement), the album went straight to #1, remaining in the Billboard Top 10 for 10 months and in the Top 20 for two years on the way to a remarkable three-and-a-half year run on the album chart. In 1963, they released the LPs Moving and In The Wind, which hit #2 and #1, respectively, and continued to hold Top 20 positions alongside the first album.

This success marked the beginning of an astonishingly fertile and influential time for the group, and for the contemporary urban folk tradition they personified. Their commercial high water mark occurred in the third week of November 1963, when they held three of the top six positions on Billboard’s album chart (ironically, that was the very week President Kennedy was assassinated). That same year, their recording of “Puff (The Magic Dragon),” co-written by Yarrow and Leonard Lipton, won the hearts of millions, and went on to be an enduring children’s classic.

“‘Puff (The Magic Dragon)’ became metaphorical for a certain spirit because of its proximity to the era or idealism and hope in the ’60s,” says Yarrow. “If it had been written in a time of cynicism and selfishness such as this one, perhaps ‘Puff’ might not have resonated in the same way, save for those who were bemoaning the loss of innocence of their own time.” Meanwhile, their recording of “Blowin’ in the Wind” helped introduce a fellow Village songwriter (and Grossman client) named Bob Dylan. This was folk music as an agent of social change, and it was to spark the imagination and the passion of a generation intent on social change.

But Peter, Paul and Mary did more in those times than chronicle events-they lived their songs. When they sang at the 1963 March on Washington, and two years later at the Selma-Montgomery March, these courageous gestures, made under threat of violence, were nothing less than radical acts, launching more than four decades of ceaseless musical activism. “You have to put your body on the line from time to time in order to make a statement or change a law,” Stookey asserts. “Protest is inherent to this system,” adds Travers.

In 1969, as the turbulent decade was drawing to a close, Yarrow co-organized the March on Washington, and Peter, Paul and Mary sang before the half-million people who had come together for that landmark event.

The following year, needing time for personal growth, the group disbanded, and each member began pursuing individual interests. Stookey’s spiritual commitment led him to pen “The Wedding Song,” record eight solo albums (one of which received a Grammy nomination) and create a multimedia organization that is still involved in a variety of children’s computer, television and music projects. Travers recorded five albums; produced, wrote and starred in a BBC television series; and lectured and concertized across the country. Along with his ongoing political activism and solo projects, Yarrow co-wrote and produced Mary McGregor’s #1 single, “Torn Between Two Lovers.” His three animated TV specials for CBS based on “Puff (The Magic Dragon)” earned Yarrow an Emmy nomination.

Fittingly, it was an important cause that reunited the erstwhile partners. In 1978, at an anti-nuclear benefit at the Hollywood Bowl that he had organized, Peter asked Noel and Mary to join him on stage. “We hadn’t sung together in six years,” Travers recalls. “We realized that we’d missed each other personally and musically, so we decided to try a limited reunion tour. We wanted to work together enough to have it be a meaningful part of our lives, but not so much that it wouldn’t be fun.” Looking at the chemistry that’s still so potent, Mary observes that, “Each of us has a talent that’s pivotal for the group. Peter is a patient and meticulous worker, especially when it comes to sound quality, and that commitment to excellence is what yields the best possible environment in which to be creative. Noel has a relaxed sensibility, and that’s a very calming influence when it comes to adjusting to difficult situations, which happen all the time. Of course, both are talented songwriters as well. I think I bring a spontaneity, an ability to connect with them emotionally and focus our attention on having a musical conversation. I believe that if we can have that conversation, then the audience will feel included.”

With “No Easy Walk to Freedom,” the title track from their 1986 album, Peter, Paul and Mary focused attention on the Anti-Apartheid cause, and were honored by the Free South Africa movement at a special benefit at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. That same year, they were among the vanguard of artists who worked to raise the public’s awareness of homelessness. Their opening night of a week on Broadway was a fund-raiser on behalf of the New York Coalition for the Homeless. These efforts all marked the group’s 25-year association and culminated in their PBS special, 25th Anniversary Concert, which was broadcast in support of public television

In 1988, Peter, Paul and Mary became the focus of yet another special for PBS with A Holiday Concert, taped before a live audience in New York City. For this performance, they were accompanied by the 160-member New York Choral Society and a 40-piece orchestra. Their renditions of holiday music were captured in the album, A Holiday Celebration.

In 1992, Peter, Paul and Mary re-signed with Warner Bros. and recorded Peter, Paul & Mommy, Too, their second children’s album. (Peter, Paul and Mommy, released in 1969, was the name Mary’s daughter Erika once gave her mother’s group.) The album and video received Grammy nominations.

The uniting of three generations of folk singers on their 1996 TV special and album, LifeLines, offered them the opportunity to sing with their mentors, their contemporaries who started with them in Greenwich Village and new singer/songwriters who are carrying on the time-honored folk tradition. Participants included onetime Weavers Ronnie Gilbert and Fred Hellerman, Richie Havens, Tom Paxton, Odetta, Dave Van Ronk, John Sebastian, Buddy Mondlock and Susan Werner. The vitality and resilience of the folk community were the hallmarks of this memorable collaboration.

The group’s message, more and more, is that their music belongs to everyone. In this, their fifth decade together, Peter, Paul and Mary can be viewed less as performers than as purveyors of a universal, accessible language that fosters universal recognition, mutual validation and empowerment. We can all draw encouragement from the fact that Peter, Paul and Mary are still together, still free of cynicism and still filled with hope.

“People can overcome their differences, and when united, move toward a world of greater fairness and justice,” says Yarrow. “As in folk music, each person has a unique role to play.”

Adds Stookey: “We live in more pragmatic times than when we originally recorded those songs. But many of the dreamers of the ’60s have been elected to governmental office or taken on a leadership role in their communities. They are now in the position to make a difference.”

The conviction that each individual can make a difference has continued to energize Peter, Paul and Mary’s political and social activism through the years. Having witnessed the enormous changes in society that were wrought by the early advocacies of which they were a part, the group remains optimistic as it confronts the challenges and pervasive cynicism of our times.

The legacy the trio inherited as well as the legacy they leave will continue to inspire, because theirs is a music and message of activism and hope. Current and future generations will find no better validation of their own search for social equity than the enduring music of Peter, Paul and Mary: Carry It On and the contemporary thrust of In These Times.

“I think the new album will be a wake-up call to the fact that folk music has never really gone away-it’s just manifested itself in a lot of different disguises, whether it’s Springsteen, Sting or Bruce Hornsby, all of whom happened after the ’60s, which was the opening of the awareness that songs could be about anything,” Stookey says.

“Folk music has a sort of a bubbling-under quality,” Travers asserts. “The stream runs through the cultural consciousness, and whether or not it’s on the radio is not the issue. Folk music is always there.”

“The wonderful thing,” she continues, “is that there is this remarkable wealth of material, the result of 40 years of trying to find the best of our contemporary writers and the best of the traditional stuff. Now there’s this massive box set, and it’s all there. People 50 years from now will go back and listen to those tunes. This music is not going to disappear.

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