In the wake of Journalist Steven Sotloff’s horrific recent public beheading by ISIS (don’t click on that unless you want to see the actual ISIS video of the beheading), I felt the need to go off and see what the rooftops of the Old City had to say about it. When you’re in the streets of the Old City of Jerusalem, things are so cramped that you rarely get a chance to see much above your head. Only when you are standing from a high vantage point can you see the full panorama, as I did when I snuck into the Ecce Homo convent on the Via Dolorosa. There one can see that there has always been an ancient battle for control of the horizon – as if physical closeness to God equals religious and theological legitimacy.

I’m not kidding – I know it seems silly but it should be noted that while the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (location identified by St. Helena as the site of both Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection) is 34 meters high, the Dome of the Rock was purposely built to be 35 meters high by Umayyad Caliph Abd al-Malik. Apparently these sorts of shenanigans have been going on for a long time – as if taller people are intrinsically holier!

But I digress… As I was saying, I was on the roof of the Ecce Homo Convent and a quick survey showed half a dozen black Islamic Jihad flags, the kind favored by Al-Qaeda, Jabhat al-Nusra. al-Shabaab and most recently, the beheading crazy ISIS. It should be noted that I only saw 3 Palestine flags… The black flag of Jihad is in and of itself pretty innocuous. It simply has the words of the Shahada inscribed on it, the Islamic declaration of faith – There is no god but Allah, Muhammad is the messenger of Allah. Say it 3 times and you’re a Muslim! Kidding – but it’s the equivalent of the Jewish Shema – Hear ye O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one – or the Christian version – Santa Claus is coming to town! Again, just kidding.

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The historical significance of the Black Flag is varied. The Umayyads flew black flags when they were fighting. Some Haddiths make reference to Black Flags being borne by the Mahdi signalling the End Times – Muslim apocalypse. Today the black flags have been adopted by pretty much every extremist Jihadist organization. That having been said, in “apartheid” Israel, flying the black flag is not illegal – as long as no one is losing their head in the vicinity. But it does seem that the Palestine Authority’s popularity is on the decline, while that of Islamic Jihad is on the rise, judging by the flags.

Duly noted. I wish everyone would forget all the craziness and instead fly a Humus flag. Mmmm… humus.

Humus not Hamas

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About the author

ck

Founder and Publisher of Jewlicious, David Abitbol lives in Jerusalem with his wife, newborn daughter and toddler son. Blogging as "ck" he's been blocked on twitter by the right and the left, so he's doing something right.

3 Comments

  • BS”D
    Discussion with Moishela (with his family)
    A Handicapped child
    10 Tamuz 5774 (July 7, ’14)

    “When The Final Curtain Comes Down”

    There‘s no business like show business! Don’t you get the feeling that we’re living in a play? From one minute to the next we don’t know what’s going to happen. In the morning there’s big news. Mid-morning there’s more news. Nighttime could be a big bang of news, and it goes on and on like that. Sometimes we have a relatively quiet period, but that’s always followed by unbelievable, strange news that we never would have dreamed of.

    The times that we are seeing now, are very much like what’s written in the Nevuas, and I would imagine that most of us feel that it’s a sign that Moshiach is almost here, and it is. However, something is going on that we don’t understand, because things took a dramatic turn from the moment that the twin towers fell. From that moment strange and disastrous things have become everyday events. By the time one unbelievable happening happens, the next one is exploding. We all feel it. We all feel fear. We feel emptiness in our hearts. Life has lost much of its taste, especially the Gashmiusdik life. Air travel has become a frightening thing, and if not frightening then very degrading, especially when you have to go through x-rays that show a person without clothes on, where everybody that’s traveling could take a peek, and if you don’t agree to do that then you are open to a physical search which is very very degrading.

    We’ve become a world without happiness, without the Gashmiusdik frivolous Simcha and the true deep Simcha. We have become a world of confused people not quite finding our direction. We keep doing the things that we are used to doing, but it doesn’t seem to have meaning, and the road doesn’t seem to lead to anywhere in particular. We can’t plan things like we once did. We used to plan that in six months exactly we’re going to the dentist. We could plan ahead of time where our three year olds are going to go to college or what they would learn. Today people are empty and are afraid. Money is hard to come by except for those eighty-five people in the world that own more than half of the wealth of the world. For the rest of us it’s just an everyday struggle to borrow more money and more money. We are getting into a major rut full of fear and nervousness, full of being frightened for our children and worried for our future, and this is felts all over the world.

    Here in Eretz Yisroel we have been in the last few weeks dealing with tragedy after tragedy. First there were many traffic accidents, many children drowning in swimming pools in their own homes, and many other terrible things, but when those three boys were kidnapped and then found murdered in the worst way, and before they were murdered there was a young single woman murdered in a terribly cruel way, this has brought us to some kind of sober reality that tells us that we are in big trouble. How could Jewish young men, Jewish boys kill an Arab boy in such a cruel way. It’s a big shock for a Jew to feel that another Jew could kill like that, burning him alive. True it’s a war, but still how could it be in our generation that a Yid could kill in such a cruel way, even though the Arab is the enemy?

    Well the first thing I will tell you is that the Nevuas and what is happening today coincide exactly. It’s interesting how Hashem makes His world. We all know that eighty five people control most of the world’s wealth. They control the wealth and that means they control the world. Besides those people, there’s a whole group of people who have all kinds of strategic positions in order Chas Vesholom to bring this world under the control of the Reshaim. These Reshaim are Edomites, and they don’t like the Arabs, and they don’t like the Jews. The Jews they can tolerate if we agree to be like them. However we’re not like them, and never will be. They have with all of their wealth and control of the world, almost brought all the Arab countries to their knees, not by coming in with the armies of Europe and America etc., but by causing inner strife. They write the script and they provide the players and they are sure that they’re controlling the world. They are very informed about the Nevuas, and they are going exactly according to them, and this makes everyone feel, rightfully so, that all the Nevuas are coming out true. Therefore, everyone is having thoughts about Olam Haba, about Hakodosh Boruch Hu, and for the non-believers maybe the beginning of faith, but the plan ends there, ends where the prophecies continue, and at that point they go in different ways because the plan of the Edomites is to control Eretz Yisroel and to sit in Jerusalem and to rule the world from here and that brings us to what’s happening today.

    You feel like you’re in a play, like everything has been thought out. Even the murders have been thought out. Did Arabs do it? Did someone else do it? Is everything really true? Somehow all the stories we are told have holes in them, don’t seem exactly correct like many things that happened in the United States. If we go back over history, we can find these discrepancies in many places. We feel we’re in a play. We feel that a script has been written, actors chosen, and in many cases they’re not very good actors, but it’s a deadly, deadly show. The leading actors of the show are murderers. Blood is shed and they are going to try to take over Medinas Yisroel. Eretz Yisroel is the main point of the world for the three main religions. Of course Eretz Yisroel was promised by Hashem only to the Jews and not to the Goyim, only to the Jews and it will stay only for the Jews, so any Edomite that thinks they are going to come and rule here is going to have a very very big surprise. Until now Hashem has let them do what they wanted to do. He has let them plan and succeed, even though it was almost impossible for them to succeed, but Hashem has let them succeed.

    At one point they are not going to make it anymore. They are going to fall apart. Hashem is going to punish them. They’re going to realize what they’ve done wrong. They are going to realize that the Satan isn’t Hakol Yachol. He’s only a creation of Hakol Yachol, of Hakodosh Boruch Hu, and because he is a creation of Hakodosh Boruch Hu, he can’t do what he wants. He is only a creation of Hakodosh Boruch Hu, like all of us, like the whole world, like everything in the whole universe, and only Hashem decides when, it will end. The Devil, or the Yetzer Horah, or the Malach Hamaves, or the Satan whatever you want to call him, (he has many names,) will be chopped up into pieces so-to-speak, and recycled in different points of creation, so his parts become positive, but the Yetzer Hara will disappear, and the Reshoim will disappear, but not before they are punished in the worst way.

    Now Am Yisroel I beg you. Now that I have given this historical background up to this point, I beg you open your eyes. Don’t you see what they are trying to do to us here in Eretz Yisroel? They’re trying to make us Goyim, and that will be the final solution Chas Vesholom. They are trying to do it with all kinds of plays, with all kinds of actions to make us not believe, Chas Vesholom, in Hakodosh Boruch Hu. They are trying to confuse us. They’re trying to bring Goyim here in the thousands, to make us like Goyim.

    They’re pushing their money into our Gemachim, into our Shuls, into our Yeshivas, into our Kollels so we will be dependent on them. They’re gathering information about us so that they can come after us whenever they feel like, and most of all they are trying to change our religion. They are trying to take from us the Bris Milah. They are trying to take from us the Kiddushin of marriage. They’re trying to force us to be Chilonim, to be either without a religion or accept their own created religion. They are trying to force you to go in their way by giving you what you want the most money, food, whatever you need.

    True they’ve also caused us a very difficult time financially throughout the whole world. It seems now, also in Eretz Yisroel, that we were saved almost for the last. We didn’t have financial troubles until lately and now we are at the top of the list for everything, because they are ready to take over. They are building apartments, luxury apartments for their people here in Israel. They’re building buildings and shopping centers and trains and train tracks and all kinds of things that they have money for. The light rail was built to make it easier to get around the city of Jerusalem that has always been the center of the world, the center of the heart of every human being, Hashem’s center, where they want to come and sit instead of Hakol Yachol, instead of the Shechina, Chas Vesholom, but it won’t happen, it won’t happen!

    So Am Yisroel be strengthened. Come closer to Hashem. The Gashmius is going to fall very much, but don’t be afraid because Hashem is with us, and those who are with Him, He will be with them. As I have said many times, no Jewish Neshoma will be lost. If you trust in the idols of this world, and if you trust in the Egel Hazahav, then of course, it will be much harder for you to do complete Teshuva, but if you trust Hashem nothing will harm you.

    He will take care of you completely, whether you need food or clothing or a place to live, warmth in the winter and coolness in the summer. Do not worry. He only is Hakol Yachol. He can defeat any army. He can stop any atomic bomb. He can do anything, and we are His children that He loves particularly, His favorite sons and daughters. Don’t be afraid. We will survive. We will survive and they will not. When the final curtain comes down on this grotesque play that the Reshoim have written, we will go into Olam Habah of Moshiach, into eternity and they will disappear totally from the stage of this world and of all the worlds.
    .

  • BS”D
    Discussion with Moishela (with his family)
    A Handicapped child 5775 #3
    20 Kislev 5775 (Dec 11, ‘14)

    (from: http://ladaat.info/showgil.aspx?par=20141227&gil=1713)

    “Why Are We Living”

    Time is moving on and we are definitely getting very close to the Geula Shelaima. I think every true Jew, whether he is close to Hashem or a bit farther away, feels now is the time that the world is going to change completely. The Frum, the believing Jew will feel a kind of closeness to Hashem that he never felt before, even though every morning when he gets up he can feel a strange and frightening foreboding of what’s going to be in the future.

    The Jew that is not so close to Hashem will also feel the fear and he will start thinking what this life is about. What do I have? What are my goals? What does it matter if I go to a football game or not? What does it matter if I get the job exactly that I want or get into the right university just right for me? What does it matter? What really matters in this life? All the entertainment? All the social life? What is life all about? Why are we living? Is it just one big accident, Chas Vesholom, an accident that brought us into life against our will to suffer, Chas Vesholom? The fear of what’s coming in the near future together with the suffering that we are already going through, are bringing some people, some Jews to question, at least to stop for a moment from their partying to ask what is this about, why is this happening.

    These questions are not usually asked here in Eretz Yisroel because we are used here in Eretz Yisroel to go through many crisis and then the crisis disappears and we continue going on. Of course a certain amount of people are killed Shelo Naida and so on and so forth, but the ones that are left are the great majority and they can continue on with the life that they left, the life of enjoyment, of entertainment, of flying off to Europe, to Thailand, to who knows where, and enjoying themselves. As for the Frum we continue with our grand Bar Mitzvas and weddings and our own type of social entertainment. We continue with our restaurants, of course the most kosher, and all our entertainments with the best Hechsherim, our non-Tzniusdik dress with the best Hechsherim, and so on and so forth. Now however many people feel inside that we are not going to come out of this frightening projection of future events so easily. It’s not just going to pass.

    There is going to be a tremendous change in the world, a tremendous change that will in the end destroy much of the world, and therefore there are those, that are starting to feel great fear, have bad dreams, unnerving dreams and wake up very many times with a choking feeling with a fear that grabs a person and makes it difficult to breathe, a fear that makes a person want to jump up out of bed and feel alive again and this is all from the fear and the spiritual pressure of the world that is about to explode, a world that is about to change completely. This world of ours is going to disappear the way it is now, and we must change also, so that we can survive the greatest change since the creation of the world. All the dire predictions that are being made for the near future should be taken seriously if we want to be part of what’s going to be, be part of the Geula Shelaima, and a much more spiritual life. We have to become close to Hashem. We have to do Hashem’s will. We have to be Yidden the way we are supposed to be.

    We must! We must do Hashem’s will completely in every aspect, to bend ourselves completely to Hashem, to His Ratzon. Otherwise we will never be able to go into the new world of Moshiach Tzidkainu.

    I’ve many times spoken to you again and again on the subject, and maybe you are tired of hearing this even though I’ve tried saying it in a different way each time to make you understand better and better. I will try again anyway. I will try to make you understand that this is a great year. This year is a great and frightening year. This year is when many things will change in the greatest way. The wars have already begun. Blood is flowing freely. We are not even impressed anymore when the barbarians cut people’s heads off, but we are terribly disturbed or will be terribly disturbed when we won’t be able to get a kosher hamburger or coca cola or just plain food. We will be terribly disturbed when we see great cities falling, destroyed together with their population, Shelo Naida, all disappearing.

    We will be greatly disturbed to say the least. How will we be able to overcome our feelings? How will we be able to get through all of this because even if we don’t actually see this happening next to us it will be such a shock when we know so many people in those places and even if we don’t know them still it will be a shock. It will be a terrible shock. I don’t think that any generation before ours since the Creation, except for of course Sedom and Ammorah experienced such a thing, such a catastrophe, such a horrible terrible type of destruction. Even in Sedom and Ammorah it wasn’t the size of what’s going to be now. It’s dwarfed next to what’s going to be now. Don’t you understand? There will be plenty of bloodshed here in Eretz Yisroel, Shelo Naida, but it won’t be destroyed. Those that are far from Hashem and don’t have the Zechus to come back to Hashem will be destroyed with the buildings, will be destroyed with the Edomites and the Yishmaelites and all other peoples that don’t accept Hakodosh Boruch Hu as their Creator. So what do we have to do? How can we get through all of this? We have to believe completely that whatever Hashem does is for our good, no matter what.

    There is only one relationship in this world. It is the person with Hakodosh Boruch Hu. That may sound difficult for you because you have children, you have husbands, you have wives that you love very much. True, but when push comes to shove we are only the children of Hakodosh Boruch Hu, all of us, and we have been in many Gilgulim here in this world and in every Gilgul we might have had a different husband, a different wife, children not always the same, and we have had different situations that we had to overcome. We are so low and now is our chance finally to pull ourselves up and come back.

    When we get to the point where we greet Moshiach, Be’ezras Hashem, don’t worry. Every Neshoma will have its true, true Zivig and every child will know its true parents, and we all will know and feel and have no question about the fact that we as a people have only one Father and that is Hakodosh Boruch Hu, and our whole lives, our whole beings will be involved in only one occupation coming closer and closer to Him. In order to come closer to Him we will eventually drop all our flesh and blood characteristics and become totally, totally spiritual and become one with Him.

    Lately we have seen many tragedies. Tonight one of the Bochurim that was killed in the tragic car accident in Holland was buried. He has a very special name, Langleben, “a long life”. May he have a long life, a life of eternity, he was a Bochur that was working to be close to Hashem as was the other boy that was killed. Both trying their best to be good Jews, trying to do what Hashem wants us to do.

    Why did they have to die? I can’t answer you why these particular ones had to die, but I can tell you this that the latest tragedies are a message to us that we must, must do Teshuva, and realize what we are doing wrong. When Hashem brings down so many tragedies on Am Yisroel at one time we must stop and think and take stock of our lives of what we may be doing wrong.

    There was a terrible incident in Crown Heights also, and lately there have been many tragedies all over the Frum Jewish world Shelo Naidah. We must open our eyes and try to figure out where we are going wrong. It’s not a pat on the back for us. It’s a Potsh in the face for us so we will wake up.

    So please understand that Hashem is not happy. He wants to save His Am, but generally speaking we are going in the wrong direction. Am Yisroel you better wake up! Stop the Machlokes. Stop the Pritzus. Stop the running after the Gashmius. Stop the gluttony and come back to what’s real. The only thing that is real is Hakodosh Boruch Hu and His Torah.