Israel begins wall cutting into Jesus's birthplace : Melbourne Indymedia

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Israel begins wall cutting into Jesus's birthplace
By Mark Heinrich
Fri 5 March, 2004

BETHLEHEM, West Bank (Reuters) - "We are being sealed off," Abu Salem said, watching his backyard vanish under a new Israeli wall that is to cut into the town where Jesus was born to safeguard Jews coming to pray at a biblical tomb.

Israeli army crews laid the first 100 metres this week of a towering barrier that will scoop part of Bethlehem into an enlarged security zone being carved out of occupied West Bank territory fringing Jerusalem.

The barrier is the latest spur in a swathe of fences and walls Israel says is meant to keep out Palestinian suicide bombers. Palestinians see a strategem to annex land they want for a viable state under a stalled U.S.-backed peace plan.

In the Bethlehem area, the cement rampart will separate thousands of Palestinians from farmland as it twists and turns to take in Jewish settlements -- a recurrent pattern elsewhere in the West Bank now under World Court scrutiny.

By looping into north Bethlehem to create a corridor from Jerusalem to Rachel's Tomb, the barrier will also isolate nearby Palestinian residents, mainly Christians, from the town centre with its Church of the Nativity, revered as Jesus's birthplace.

Israeli blockades imposed to stifle Palestinian violence earlier in an uprising launched in 2000 put out of business most of the tomb district's merchants who had thrived from tourist pilgrims.

The eight-metre high wall may well finish off the rest and turn the district into a ghetto, local inhabitants say.

"We are being severed from our natural landscape. They seized part of my land to build this ugly wall. We cannot see Jerusalem any more. We cannot build any more. We cannot sell. We cannot move. We are frozen," said Abu Salem, 63, a grocer.

From a leftover patch of his yard, he gazed glumly at workmen lowering wall slabs with a crane into place along a razed tract where some of his olive and fig trees had stood.

18,000 TO BE IN ENCLAVES, MUNICIPALITY SAYS

The original army map handed out to residents a year ago delineating land to be requisitioned for the wall would have trapped 500 Palestinians in a north enclave of Bethlehem, whose municipality totals 140,000 people including outlying villages.

A revised map of the wall route issued last July, after the municipality filed suit in Israel's High Court, shaved the enclave to some 80 residents. But left intact were extensions that would encircle 18,000 villagers, the municipality says.

"When the wall closes in, the little trade I have left will die off," said Jihad Bandak, 27. His shop would fall into the barrier enclave, 200 metres from Rachel's Tomb.

As he spoke, an armour-plated Jerusalem bus rattled past and pulled up at the bunker-like shrine, disgorging devout Jews as Israeli soldiers stood by. The buses shuttle to and fro all day, passing rows of boarded-up souvenir shops and restaurants.

Palestinians living within barrier pockets will need special Israeli permits to remain, as will others to visit. Gates will be installed. But they have been opened only at brief, irregular intervals at the whim of soldiers elsewhere along the barrier.

"Precedent is poor. It'll be a prison here," said Bandak.

Palestinians say Israel's security squeeze is disproportionate to any threat to Rachel's Tomb, which Jews regard as the final resting place of the biblical matriarch.

Israel dismisses Palestinian assurances the shrine would be safe under their control. Gunmen and stone-throwers, often Muslims from the nearby Aida refugee camp, targeted visiting worshippers regularly before an army clampdown.

Bethlehem's Applied Research Institute says thousands of acres (hectares) of local farmland will end up behind the wall. Institute chief Jad Issac said the barrier would strangle the local economy and leave no space for a growing population.

Two suicide bombers from Bethlehem have hit Jerusalem in the past six weeks, killing 19 people. Israel says Bethlehem remains a haven for militants. Requisition notices said land was seized "under steps to prevent terrorist attacks", not set new borders.

Palestinians point to expanding settlements and bypass roads around Bethlehem due to be shielded by the barrier and which Israel vows never to yield under any peace deal.

"Israel begins wall cutting into Jesus's birthplace"

Jesus was a Jew!!! How'd this Jewish city get overrun and OCCUPIED by Arabs?

Simple really, the march of the years combined with changes in society and history.

Now can all you racists, religious dipshits and related unbalanced fuckwits please allow Moslems, Jews, Christians, little green Martians and whoever else wants to live there - peacefully get on with their lives.

Learn to share.

the evil thugs of Hamas and Al Aqsr today used two teenage boys as suicide bombers, killing about 10 factory workers as well as the two Palestinian fools, at an Israeli sea-side town

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/s1065756.htm

that should please you all

Jewish city get overrun and OCCUPIED by Arabs?
=================================

Easy: the fictional character known as "Jesus" was an ARAB.

The original Jews of the tribal kingdoms of Judah and Israel (not the post Judah European religious converts) were....ARABS!!!

Jews = ARABS.

Semite = ARAB
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=semite

Shalom - Salem?

" Jews = ARABS.
Semite = ARAB
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=semite
Shalom - Salem?"

Arabs invaded Judea and Samaria, Occupied the land and eventually colonized the are, just as they did across North Africa, into Europe and India...Arabs are from the Arabian Peninsula.
Semitic language group includes Amharic and Maltese also...(5 languages in all) it doesn't make maltese or Ethiopians Jews or Arabs.
Regardless; the arabs invaded in the 7th century, forcing conversion to Islam on Christians and Jews...Even today, Moslem arabs are abusing Christian arabs in Lebanon...it's a very old story, going back to the murderer and thief Mohamed...not much has changed in Islam since...

Notes & Code: Blue Type = from the first Hebrew (Abraham) to the end of significant Jewish presence in the Middle East (Abraham may have appeared as early as 2000 BC, but most scholars think 1600 is more likely); Some may be surprised at the Moses & Monotheism bit, but that is the current thinking among most Bible scholars. BC dates are approximate; Arab historical facts / Jewish historical facts.

"1948 CE l On Palestinian land, against the will of the Palestinian people, Israel declares itself a country"

You left out the massacres of the Jews between 1900 and 1948, but that's OK when you're revising history...

80% of the Palestine Mandate was given to the Hashemites...even today it's population is 70% "palestinian".
The Arabs were offered partition, but refused...now their fighing because they WANT partition...Arabs always seem to want a "Do over"
5 aggressive wars to destroy israel, ultimately culminating in the miraculous Six Day War...resulting in the liberation of Jerusalem, after 20 years of Trans Jordanian OCCUPATION and the ethnic cleansing of Jews and destruction of Holy Places...

the dragon lady: Golda Meir found revisionism fun. She said the palestinians didnt exist.

"There is no such thing as a Palestinian people... It is not as if we came and threw them out and took their country. They didn't exist." -- Golda Meir Statement to The Sunday Times, 15 June, 1969.
http://www.mideastfacts.com/index_zion1.html

"the dragon lady: Golda Meir found revisionism fun. She said the palestinians didnt exist. "

And, she was right!
Syria considered them Syrians, living in Greater Syria. While Trans Jordan considered them to be Trans Jordanians. The Pan-Arabists see them as Arabs..."palestinians" (generic arabs living in the west bank and gaza) didn't come into existence until 1967, when Egypt and Jordan lost the terrirtories they captured and annexed in 1948...
The Gaza was Egypt- the West Bank was Jordan. Most of the people in the west bank still hold Jordanian passports. 70% of Jordan's population is "palestinian". The PLO was at odds with the palestinian state of Jordan, mainly because the King of Jordan is a hashemite.
When the PLO tried to overthrow the Kingdom, the result was Black September...20,000 massacred in a month!!

This is done to foment hate from the world so they can continue perceiving them selves as the victims of this land grab saga..

dont hate them kind to them.

sounds like an hysterical zionist, and makes as much sense as these thugs usually do

Hama and Eggs anyone?
by Arab invaders, OCCUPIERS, colonizers Tuesday March 16, 2004 at 06:20 PM

"sounds like an hysterical zionist, and makes as much sense as these thugs usually do"

Historical facts, make lefties nervous...

Pop Quiz:

1) What was Black September. (who were the players, what was the result)

2) Why is this heineous massacre ignored, while the bogus jenin massacre is promoted?

3) What was so special about the town of Hama in Syria? What happened there? Who were the players?

This is an open book test, but your sources must be something other than Radio Islam, National Alliance and Electronic Intifada.

Look here you stupid humans with short time scales, before your existance in the area now know as Israel, before mammals, before the dinosaurs, before spinal columns and chlorophyll, this area between the Dead Sea and the Mediterranean Sea was OURS.

Now kindly return the area to it's rightful owners, the Virus Liberation Front.

1948 CE l On Palestinian land, against the will of the Palestinian people, Israel declares itself a country"

AGINST THE WILL OF THE VAST MAJORITY OF THE PEOPLE OF PALESTINE.

The British Mandate and Transjordania are not to be confused with historic Palestine - sorry!

mods - please delete the 800*1080 pixel image with absolutely no relevance whatsoever to any topic on this thread - it serves to distract and dilute from the very old Arab history of Palestine.

" The British Mandate and Transjordania are not to be confused with historic Palestine - sorry! "

And, neither do today's "palestinians" who, are nothing more then generic arabs...(don't be sorry, that's ust theway it is!)_
Historic Palestine was so named by the Romans at the end of the 200 year Jewish Wars (funny, the arabs will tell you there weren't any Jews there! Then they'll tell you that the Jews killed Jesus, and jesus was a Moslem...)

Back to Basics?
by Canaanite Freedom Brigade Wednesday March 17, 2004 at 04:16 PM

mods - please delete the 800*1080 pixel image with absolutely no relevance whatsoever to any topic on this thread - it serves to distract and dilute from the very old Arab history of Palestine.

as for the "generic-Arabs" guy, shall I explain the evidence-based history of the region yet again, step-by-step?

addendum
by Canaanite Freedom Brigade Wednesday March 17, 2004 at 04:49 PM

alternatively, you could replace the <IMG> tags with <A HREF="http://melbourne.indymedia.org/uploads/virus.jpg"

then people can see the irrelevant image if they so desire.

Generic Arabs!!
by Arabs: Invaders OCCUPIERS Colonizers Thursday March 18, 2004 at 07:20 AM

""as for the "generic-Arabs" guy, shall I explain the evidence-based history of the region yet again, step-by-step?"

Please do, but no fair using Radio Islam, National Alliance or Electronic Intifada as sources...

Please review the Moslem (arab) invasion of "palestine" in the 7th century!
Also, please tell us what happened in India, what happened to the Zoarastrians.
Please tell us how Morocco became a moslem arab nation!
Please also note...Arabs, are from Arabia!

Kosher if White
by British: Invaders, Occupiers, Colonizers Thursday March 18, 2004 at 03:30 PM

Let's start with some GENETIC FACTS for Chosen Ones, then--like all good stories--we'll throw together *seemingly* desultory evidence-based narratives, and at the end we'll pull all the threads together into a sequence.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Genetics of Familial Mediterranean Fever and Its Implications
Related Article
Related Letters
Annals of Internal Medicine, 1 October 1998. 129:581-582.

In 1945, Dr. Sheppard Siegal, an allergist at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, reported in Annals five cases of "recurrent paroxysms of severe abdominal pain with fever as high as 105 °F," all in men and all starting early in life. He named the syndrome benign paroxysmal peritonitis (1). The peritoneal signs were so severe that "emergency operation [had] been repeatedly urged." Pleuritic chest pain often accompanied the attacks. At least one of the patients had "urticarial" lesions near the ankle, and another had intermittent joint pains, usually monoarticular. As an allergist, Siegal approached these cases from his own vantage point, and the history of this condition is replete with references to potential allergens and allergic relatives. Unfortunately, except for noting that all of the patients were white men, he provided no other ethnic background data. Although an occasional similar case was found in previous published series, including some in which such manifestations were interpreted as "Henoch" purpura (from which Siegal clearly differentiated the condition), this landmark article was essentially the first to describe the clinical presentation of what is now known as familial Mediterranean fever.

Dr. Hobart Reimann, then working at the American University in Beirut, had long been collecting information on clinical phenomena of intermittent and periodic character, which seemed to be more common in the Middle East. He found many examples of what Siegal had described, as well as instances of many other conditions, such as cyclic neutropenia, periodic paralysis, and intermittent hydrarthrosis (2). It was clear from his descriptions, however, that what would later be called familial Mediterranean fever clustered among Arabs, Armenians, and Jews in the Levant. The creation of the state of Israel and the subsequent influx of Jews fleeing or expelled from Arab countries led to the recognition that the syndrome occurred predominantly in Middle Eastern peoples, with only sporadic cases in other groups (3). Although Siegal's paper failed to detail the ethnic background of his patients, they probably were Ashkenazi Jews.

Ashkenazi Jews—those chiefly from the Pale of Poland, Russia, and central European countries—seem to be genetically different from their Sephardic coreligionists, who mainly stem from the Mediterranean countries of Africa and Europe. Familial Mediterranean fever is rare among Ashkenazi Jews but common among Sephardim. This accounts for its further elucidation in Israel, where the late Professor Harry Heller and his team gave the disease its current name, solidified its clinical description, and suggested that it was an autosomal recessive disorder. These investigators also discovered that amyloidosis was part of the disease picture and was responsible for early deaths among afflicted persons (4).

By the early 1960s, Heller's group noted that joint manifestations played a prominent role in the clinical presentation of familial Mediterranean fever. In 1964, I was sent by the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare to help further investigate this clinical enigma (5). Only palliative treatment of symptoms was then available; Mamoud and Cattan had earlier tried colchicine for the acute attacks, having seen parallels with gouty attacks, but had been largely unsuccessful (6). Regular administration of colchicine, however, not only reduced the frequency, duration, and severity of attacks (7) but also delayed or prevented amyloidosis (8), suggesting a major role of inflammatory mechanisms.

The study by Eisenberg and colleagues in this issue (9) documents a breakthrough by identifying the genetic mutations responsible for familial Mediterranean fever and offering a rapid, accurate, and cost-effective method for detecting these genetic abnormalities (and confirming the diagnosis in affected persons and, perhaps, in those at risk). This is of more than passing interest to patients. When physicians can confirm a diagnosis of familial Mediterranean fever, unnecessary surgical interventions can be avoided.

The discovery of the three missense mutations carries both anthropologic and historical implications. Mutation M694V was found predominantly in Sephardic Jews; M6801 in persons of Armenian ancestry; and V726A in Armenians, Iraqi Jews, and relatively few Ashkenazi Jews. These findings further the debate over the origins of various peoples. In the case of Jews, almost two millennia may not be long enough to account for the genetic differences between the Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews in their inherited disease propensities (such as diabetes mellitus and Tay-Sachs disease in eastern Ashkenazi Jews and familial Mediterranean fever in Sephardim).

Professor Heller was among those who believed that Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews have different origins. Some speculate that Ashkenazi Jews descended from the Khazars, an early medieval empire that straddled the Volga River and dominated the eastern Black Sea and the Caspian Sea. Their rulers and many of their subjects CONVERTED TO JUDAISM, probably in the eighth century, and the Khazars were gradually forced westward after successive losses to Muslim armies from the south, Mongols from the east, and the Rus (Scandinavians who gave Russia its name) from the north (10). The genetic distribution of the missense mutations reported by Eisenberg and colleagues (9) adds further detail to the argument: It DISTINGUISHES BETWEEN the Sephardic (M693V) and Ashkenazi (V726A) Jews, grouping the latter with IRAQI Jews and some Armenians and suggesting that all three groups originated in an area contiguous to or encompassing the Khazar empire (which probably incorporated many of the Jews remaining in that area after the Babylonian captivity). In fact, the Khazars were a TURKIC people, and it would be of interest to look for this genetic mutation in contemporary Turks with the clinical signs and symptoms of familial Mediterranean fever. While anthropologists argue, the new technology bids fair to solve many puzzles in health and disease.

I had assumed some years ago that genetics would ultimately replace most contemporary treatments with more rational ones (11), and the pace of discovery promises this denouement sooner than even the most optimistic projections had indicated, providing not only the nidus for therapy but increasingly aiding in diagnosis and in the understanding of history. That the tracks of our ancestors should be found through the molecular biology of our cells implies a new role for medicine in understanding the origins and migrations of peoples and the propensities for and distributions of disease. In the case of familial Mediterranean fever, it has taken a mere 50 years to move from the description of a clinical syndrome by a perspicacious physician to a deep understanding of its pathogenesis and, it is hoped, more rational and effective treatment.

George E. Ehrlich, MD
Philadelphia, PA 19106

Requests for Reprints: George E. Ehrlich, MD, One Independence Place (1101), 241 South Sixth Street, Philadelphia, PA 19106-3731.

Ann Intern Med.1998;129:581-582. Annals of Internal Medicine is published twice monthly and copyrighted © 1998 by the American College of Physicians-American Society of Internal Medicine.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

What does this tell us about Jewish history?

Nationhood - The Impediment
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"But the greatest impediment in the path of the Jews to an independent national existence is that they DO NOT FEEL ITS NEED. Not only that, but they go so far as to DENY ITS AUTHENTICITY."
Leon Pinsker, Auto-Emancipation, 1882
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

" What does this tell us about Jewish history? "

It tells us that people are allowed to convert to Judaism, just as they can convert to any other religion...
Jesus was a Jew...most Christians harken back to pagan roots...
Mohamed was an Arab...most moslems are not arabs...

You're pretty much right - but it also also tells us that Judaism can only be accurately categorized as a religion

Not a "race" , and not a "nation of people".
(there is only one human race [sapien sapien], thus "racism" has no scientific foundation.)

It also helps us understand that Zionism is a eugenic political philosophy that is NOT to be confused with the word "Jewish."

"I believe in the ascent of man to higher and yet higher grades of civilization; but I consider this ascent to be desperately slow. Were we to wait till aver age humanity 'had become as charitably inclined as was Lessing when he wrote "Nathan the Wise," we should wait beyond our day, beyond the days of our children, of our grandchildren, and of our great-grandchildren. But the world's spirit comes to our aid in another way.
[...]

The unfortunate Jews are now carrying the seeds of Anti-Semitism into England; they have already introduced it into America.
[...]
Assimilation, by which I understood not only external conformity in dress, habits, customs, and language, but also identity of feeling and manner--assimilation of Jews could be effected only by intermarriage. But the need for mixed marriages would have to be felt by the majority; their mere recognition by law would certainly not suffice.

The Hungarian Liberals, who have just given legal sanction to mixed marriages, have made a remarkable mistake which one of the earliest cases clearly illustrates; a baptized Jew married a Jewess. At the same time the struggle to obtain the present form of marriage accentuated distinctions between Jews and Christians, thus hindering rather than aiding the fusion of races.
[...]

My happier coreligionists will not believe me till Jew-baiting teaches them the truth; for the longer Anti-Semitism lies in abeyance the more fiercely will it break out. The infiltration of immigrating Jews, attracted to a land by apparent security, and the ascent in the social scale of native Jews, combine powerfully to bring about a revolution. Nothing is plainer than this rational conclusion.

[...] However much I may worship personality-powerful individual personality in statesmen, inventors, artists, philosophers, or leaders, as well as the collective personality of a historic group of human beings, which we call a nation--however much I may worship personality, I do not regret its disappearance. Whoever can, will, and must perish, let him perish. But the distinctive nationality of Jews neither can, will, nor must be destroyed. It cannot be destroyed, because external enemies consolidate it.

[...] The movement towards the organization of the State I am proposing would, of course, harm Jewish Frenchmen no more than it would harm the "assimilated" of other countries. It would, on the contrary, be distinctly to their advantage. For they would no longer be disturbed in their "chromatic function," as Darwin puts it, but would be able to assimilate in peace, because the present Anti- Semitism would have been stopped for ever. They would certainly be credited with being assimilated to the very depths of their souls, if they stayed where they were after the new Jewish State, with its superior institutions, had become a reality.

[...] many an apparent friend of the Jews turns out, on careful inspection, to be nothing more than an Anti-Semite of Jewish origin, disguised as a philanthropist.

[...] The transportation of Anti-Semitism to new districts, which is the inevitable consequence of such artificial infiltration, seems to me to be the least of these evils. Far worse is the circumstance that unsatisfactory results tend to cast doubts on intelligent men.

[...] Although I speak of reason, I am fully aware that reason alone will not suffice. Old prisoners do not willingly leave their cells.

[...] PALESTINE OR ARGENTINE?
Shall we choose Palestine or Argentine? We shall take what is given us, and what is selected by Jewish public opinion. The Society will determine both these points.

Argentine is one of the most fertile countries in the world, extends over a vast area, has a sparse population and a mild climate. The Argentine Republic would derive considerable profit from the cession of a portion of its territory to us. The present infiltration of Jews has certainly produced some discontent, and it would be necessary to enlighten the Republic on the intrinsic difference of our new movement.

Palestine is our ever-memorable historic home. The very name of Palestine would attract our people with a force of marvelous potency. If His Majesty the Sultan were to give us Palestine, we could in return undertake to regulate the whole finances of Turkey. We should there form a portion of a rampart of Europe against Asia, an outpost of civilization as opposed to barbarism.

Source: Translated from the German by Sylvie D'Avigdor, This edition published in 1946 by the American Zionist Emergency Council, Essential Texts of Zionism

I've never been to Israel, nor have my anglo ancestors for all I know. If I were to convert to Judaaism, should I be entitled to a state-legislated and deity "covenented" "birthright" to "return" to the "promised land"?

a l ph a b e t a
by Canaanite Freedom Brigade Sunday March 21, 2004 at 06:28 PM

…although language is an instinct, written language is not. Writing was invented a small number of times in history, and alphabetic writing, where one character corresponds to one sound, seems to have been invented only once. Most societies have lacked written language, and those that have it inherited it or borrowed it from one of the inventors. Children must be taught to read and write in laborious lessons…and people do not uniformly succeed. Illiteracy, the result of insufficient teaching, is the rule in much of the world, and dyslexia, a presumed congenital difficulty in learning to read even with sufficient teaching, is a severe problem even in the industrial societies, found in five to ten percent of the population.

But though writing is an artificial contraption connecting vision and language, it must tap into the language system at well-demarcated points, and that gives it a modicum of logic. In all known writing systems, the symbols designate only three kinds of linguistic structure: the morpheme [the smallest meaningful pieces into which words can be cut (eg: ir-respons-able, un-re_present_ative)], the syllable [a vowel or other continuous voiced sound, together with one or more consonants preceding or following it, that are pronounced as a unit (eg: ar-tic-u-late, test-i-mo-ny)], and the phoneme [one of the units of sound that are strung together to form a morpheme, roughly corresponding to the letters of the alphabet (eg: b-a-t; b-ea-t; s-t-ou-t)].

Mesopotamian cuneiform, Egyptian hieroglyphs, Chinese logograms, and Japanese kanji encode morphemes. Cherokee, Ancient Cypriot and Japanese kana are syllable-based. All modern phonemic alphabets appear to be descended from a system invented by the Canaanites around 1700 B.C.[E.].

Agri_Culture
by Natufian Liberation Front Tuesday March 23, 2004 at 03:01 PM

The Natufian culture existed in the Mediterranean region of the Levant. It was an Epipalaeolithic culture, but unusual in that it established permanent settlements even before the introduction of agriculture. The Natufians are likely to have been the ancestors of the first Neolithic settlements of the region, which may have been the earliest in the world. There is also evidence that the Natufians themselves had already begun deliberate cultivation of cereals.

Radiocarbon dates of 12500-10200 BP place this culture just before the end of the Pleistocene.

A sedentary life may have been made possible by abundant resources due to a favourable climate at the time, with a culture living from hunting, fishing and gathering, including the use of wild cereals. Tools were available for making use of cereals: flint-bladed sickles for harvesting, and mortars, grinding stones, and storage pits. Settlements have been estimated to house 100-150 people.

According to one theory (described in [4]), it was a sudden change in climate, the Younger Dryas event, that inspired the development of agriculture. The Younger Dryas was a 1000-year-long interruption in the higher temperatures prevailing since the last ice age, which produced a sudden drought in the Levant. This would have endangered the wild cereals, which could no longer compete with dryland scrub, but upon which the population had become dependent to sustain a relatively large sedentary population. By artificially clearing scrub and planting seeds obtained from elsewhere, they began to practice agriculture.

Some burials have been found, including a few men buried with shell headdresses and carved bone pendants.

Natufian sites include: Tell Abu Hureyra, Ain Mallaha (Eynan), Beidha, Ein Gev, Hayonim, Jericho, Mureybat, Nahal Oren, and Shuqba.
http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Natufian-culture
===================================

The Hebrew language belongs to [the] Canaanite branch of the so-called Semitic family of Afroasiatic languages. It strongly resembles Aramaic and to a lesser extent the South-Central Arabic, sharing many linguistic features with them. Hebrew is currently spoken by a community of about 10 million people, of whom about 5 million live in the State of Israel, and the rest in the various countries of the Jewish diaspora. Hebrew is one of the three official languages of Israel, alongside English and Arabic.
http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/History-of-the-Hebrew-language
======================================

what renders Ariel sharon jewish and further more
what does not render yassir Arafat a jew himself?

An explosive topic
by Seems like explosives and Islam go together Thursday March 25, 2004 at 10:32 AM

"what renders Ariel sharon jewish and further more
what does not render yassir Arafat a jew himself? "

Jews protect their children
Islamists blow them up

Jews educate their children
Aafat's moslems educate their children to hate Jews..and blow them up

Sharon is a Palestinian, while Arafat is an Egyptian!...Go figure...

I could post a compendium of rabbid fundamentalist Jews in the U.S. with an obsession for explosives and moving vans...if that were the topic of dicsussion.

I could post a compendium of psychological abuse and genetic-facts for chosen-ones as propogated by the likes of Israel's Chief Rabbinate...if that were the topic of discussion.

But it isn't.

=======================================
Arabic Science during the ninth to twelfth centuries CE.

At a time when European minds were trapped in the mental vice of early medieval Christianity, the burgeoning Islamic empires of the Middle East were carrying the torch of science that had been lit by the Greeks more than a millennium earlier. Not only did the Arabs preserve much of the learning of the classical world for us, but they also made major contributions in their own right to the modern scientific corpus. Active in centres of learning from Cordoba to Baghdad and beyond, they were responsible for significant advances in mathematics as well as astronomy and chemistry. The eight-century alchemist Abu Musa Jabir ibn Hayyam was probably the single most important figure in the history of chemistry. His penchant for trial-and-error experimentation (he was the first of the alchemists to recognize and emphasize its importance) led to the discovery of a number of new chemical reactions (including ones for the production of pure mercury and sulphur from naturally occurring mineralized forms). His theory that the differences between metals arose from the relative mixture of the two pure elements mercury and sulphur and their contamination with other impurities (itself a refinement of Aristotle's ideas) formed the basis of the phlogiston theory (the precursor of our modern atomic theory of chemistry) which was developed and refined in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries by the German chemists Johann Becher and Georg Stahl, respectively. One of the most renowned intellectual figures of his day, Jabir's name was seldom absent from the many Arabic alchemical treatises written over the next four centuries. Through them, he found his way into the later European alchemical literature of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, where his name appeared in the Latin form 'Gerber'.

While the practical-minded Greeks gave us geometry, the more esoteric-minded Arabs gave us algebra. Indeed, the very word 'algebra' comes from the title of an influential treatise entitled Hisab al-jabr w'al-muqabala ('Calculation by Restoration and Reduction') written by the renowned Arab mathematician Abu Jafar ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi that was published in Baghdad in 825 CE. Even the word 'algorithm' (now so central to computing) derives from the Latin translation of the title of one of his books, Algorithmi de numero indorum ('Calculation with Indian Numerals'), the original Arabic editions of which have been long lost.

The impetus that the Arabs gave to this branch of mathematics proved to be absolutely vital for all later developments in science. Physics since the time of Newton would have been impossible without it; modern quantum physics, cosmology and chemistry, not to mention large sectors of nutritional biology (and its application to the agricultural sciences), evolutionary biology and demography would otherwise be quite impossible. Even the symbols we now use for counting derives from the Arabs, as their common name 'Arabic numerals' acknowledges. Their notation was a significant improvement on the cumbersome systems that had been in use throughout Europe since the heyday of the Roman empire.

Among the other lasting contributions of the Arab mathematicians were systematic treatments of the basic rules of algebraic operations, solutions to non-linear simultaneous equations and the invention of the decimal fractions. One of the leading Arab mathematicians, incidentally, was the algebraicist Omar Khayyam, better know in the West today for his lyrical poem the Rubaiyat but more famous among his contemporaries for his skill as a mathematician.

It is worth noting here that the Arabs were by no means the only ones who made significant contributions to modern mathematics. Much of their work was, in fact, made possible by developments originating in even more exotic cultures. They owed their numeral systems, for example, to the Indian mathematicians of the closing centuries of the pre-Christian era. These ancient Hindu sages developed the decimal system of counting, invented the concept of zero and made a number of important contributions to both trigonometry and algebra (including methods for solving determinate equations and the beginnings of calculus - the latter some two millennia before it was officially discovered by Leibnitz and Newton in the West). The Arabs adopted these ideas, refined them, and subsequently passed them on to us. The concept of zero, in particular, was of fundamental importance: modern science simply could not have been developed without it. Yet it was invented by Indian mathematicians two millennia ago.

On the more empirical side, we can point to several influential Arab scientists who made significant contributions to the later development of physics. The eleventh-century al-Haytham sought to introduce a new mathematical and experimental approach to the study of vision and light, and his book Optics was probably the most influential treatise on the subject until Newton's own book of the same title was published 700 years later. Al-Haytham's ideas were developed by Kamal al-Din al-Farisi (d.1320), who used them in a series of experimental studies which demonstrated, among other things, that the rainbow consists of two refractions and a reflection of light within a water droplet. Al-Haytham's work was widely known to the early medieval theologian-scientists, including Bacon, Grosseteste and Theodoric of Freiburg (who independently replicated al-Farisi's rainbow experiment in about 1304). In fact, the later medieval Europeans often referred in their books to 'our Arab masters'.

In his book The Rise of Early Modern Science, Toby Huff emphasizes Copernicus's great debt to his Arab predecessors and argues, not without justification, that Copernicus's great breakthrough for modern science would have been impossible had he not had the benefit of developments made by Arabs. He used the same graphical device, called a Tusi couple, to calculate planetary motions that had been developed by the astronomers of the Maragâh observatory in western Iran (established by the thirteenth-century Mongol ruler Huragu Khan). Moreover, his models for planetary and lunar orbits were based on those developed by the great Arab astronomer ibn al-Shatir (d. 1375) more than 150 years before. This is not to belittle Copernicus's great contributions to modern science (Copernicus had, after all, paved the way for Galileo through his revolutionary idea of inverting the Arab's geocentric model of the solar system to produce the modern heliocentric view); rather, it is to place him in his proper context as part of a great international community of scientists and thinkers whose uninhibited sharing of knowledge made it possible for science to advance rather than stagnate during the millenium-and-a-half that seperated the heyday of ancient Greek science from the development of modern science that began with Galileo.

- Robin Dunbar, The Trouble With Science, pp 40-43
=====================================

Fundamentalism

Islam's insistence that anything of any consequence had already been written down in the Koran made it impossible for the philosopher-scientists of the Arab world to debate openly any of the newly discovered dimensions to science. Broaching new frontiers was considered blasphemous because it implied that God, in dictating the Koran, had done an incomplete job, and any implication of imperfection was deemed to be an insult to the Almighty - something that was punishable by death. The result, as Toby Huff has pointed out in his book The Rise of Early Modern Science, was the active suppression of the developing sciences in the late medieval empires of the Middle East and North Africa just at the point when they were leading the world in the embryonic sciences of chemistry, astronomy, and physics. The classic case of this was the twelfth-century Moorish philosopher al-Rashi, better know in the West as Averroës. Al-Rashid managed to maintain a substantial output (including his authoritative commentaries on Aristotle) while under protection of the politically powerful caliph Yusuf of Cordoba. But when al-Rashi fell out with Yusuf's successor Yusuf al-Mansur (mainly thanks to pressure from fundamentalists anxious to control the insidious influence of the independent thinkers), his career came to an abrupt end. Al-Rashid's death in 1197 marked the beginning of the end for Arabic liberal science in the West.

- Robin Dunbar, The Trouble With Science, p169
====================================

Terrorists have strapped up a retarded child with explosives and despatched him kill Israeli civilians. The boy surrendered to Israeli checkpoint guards complaining he did not want to be blown up.

The bomb was sown to his clothes and had to be cut free with scissors.

The family of the teenager, identified as Hussam Abdo, said he was gullible and easily manipulated.

"He doesn't know anything, and he has the intelligence of a 12 year old," said his brother, Hosni.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&e=5&u=/ap/20040324/ap_on_re_mi_ea/palestinians_young_bomber

Subsequent to this report, it was revealed that Hussam is 14 years old.

Earlier, Israeli troops arrested a 10-year-old Palestinian boy who was trying to carry a bag full of explosives through an army checkpoint in the West Bank.

The boy has told the soldiers he was offered a large amount of money to transport the bag through the checkpoint.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/s1066493.htm

If that's what you want:

=============================
December 13, 2001
JDL pair charged in bombing plot
A lawmaker's offices and a mosque were targeted, U.S. alleges.
By Laura Mecoy -- Bee Los Angeles Bureau

LOS ANGELES -- The confrontational chairman of the Jewish Defense League and a follower were charged Wednesday with plotting to blow up a Culver City mosque and the offices of Rep. Darrell Issa, a San Diego congressman of Arab descent.

Irv Rubin, 52, and a member of the militant group, Earl Krugel, 56, were arrested Tuesday after a confidential informant delivered the last component of the bomb -- 5 pounds of explosive powder -- to Krugel's home, U.S. Attorney John S. Gordon said Wednesday.

FBI agents said they uncovered the plot after the source, a JDL member who had committed crimes for the group in the past, told them of the bombing plans and agreed to wear recording devices to meetings with Rubin and Krugel.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Victor Kenton ordered Rubin and Krugel held without bail Wednesday afternoon, saying they posed a danger to the community.
Sacramento Bee

http://www.sacbee.com/content/news/projects/attacks/story/1312193p-1380623c.html
===================================

May 13, 2002
A Budget truck was pulled over in Oak Harbor, Wash., last Tuesday near the Whidbey Island Naval Air Station and found to have traces of TNT on the gearshift and traces of RDX plastic explosive on the steering wheel, Fox News has learned.

Traces of explosives were also found on one of the truck's two occupants.

The FBI, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, and local police are all investigating. Government officials said the roadside stop was so close to the naval air station that military personnel took part in the initial arrest and naval intelligence has also been involved in the subsequent investigation.

Shortly after midnight on May 7, federal officials say local police pulled the vehicle over for speeding. Documents read to Fox News indicate that the driver and passenger told local police they were delivering furniture from California but that authorities doubted the story because of the early morning hour.

A bomb-sniffing dog first detected explosives on one of the men and inside the truck. High-tech equipment was used later to confirm the presence of TNT and RDX plastic explosive.

Documents read to Fox News indicate that both driver and passenger were Israeli nationals. Investigators say a roadside check of the national database of immigration records indicated that one of the men had not entered the country legally, and the other was in violation of his visa. Both men were taken into custody for immigration violations.

At 7:30 that morning local police were notified that the BATF and FBI had tested the truck and found traces of explosives on the steering wheel and gear shift. Officials say no other charges of been filed against the driver and passenger and an investigation is ongoing.

Authorities say records for the Budget truck do not indicate any recent rental for the purposes of transporting explosives, which would require special permits.
FOX
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,52681,00.htm
=======================================

March 22, 2003
LaGuardia Airport evacuated
3/22/2003 6:22 AM
By: Capital News 9 web staff

The central terminal of LaGuardia Airport was evacuated. It happened Friday when a gas mask and white powder were found in an Israeli woman's bag.

She was travelling from Israel to Texas. The first test came up positive for anthrax, but a second test proved negative.

The Port Authority for New York and New Jersey eventually cleared the bag. The American Airlines ticket counter and one of the airport food courts were closed during the investigation.

An airline spokesman said the incident had no "operational impact on American Airlines."

http://www.capitalnews9.com/content/top_stories/Default.asp?ArID=19298&
======================================

How 90 Peruvians became the latest Jewish settlers

When a delegation of rabbis travelled to Lima to convert a group of South American Indians to Judaism, they added just one condition: come and live with us in Israel. As soon as these new Jews arrived in the country, they were bussed straight to settlements in the disputed territories. So how are they coping? Neri Livneh tracks them down

Wednesday August 7, 2002
The Guardian

In a prefab structure at a school in the West Bank settlement of Alon Shvut, a few dozen people are sitting and singing a popular Hasidic song: "The whole world is a very narrow bridge and the main thing is not to be afraid." They are singing with feeling, even though most of them don't understand a word of the song. As is the custom in religious schools, the class is divided into a men's section and a women's section. The women are wearing hats and the men's heads are covered by knitted skullcaps. The men and women alike have distinct South American Indian features.
Almost unnoticed, a new branch of Jews is springing up in the settlements, Jews who are connected to Israel and all things Israeli by a very narrow bridge indeed. They have yet to visit Tel Aviv or Haifa, and have never even heard of Degania, the very first kibbutz, or its neighbour, Kinneret. Miki Kratsman, the photographer, and I had the privilege of being the first secular Jews they had ever met. Nevertheless, they are fired with a historic sense of their right to this land.

"We are of Indian origin," says Nachshon Ben-Haim, formerly Pedro Mendosa, "but in Peru, in the Andes, there is no Indian culture left. Everyone has become Christian, and before we became Jews, we also were Christians who went to church."

The miracle of the creation of this community of new Jews has to be chalked up wholly and exclusively to the credit - or debit - of the CHIEF RABBINATE OF ISRAEL. At the order of the Ashkenazi chief rabbi, ISRAEL MEIR LAU, a delegation of rabbis travelled to Peru. During their two weeks in the country, they converted 90 people to Judaism, most of them of Indian origin.

"We found a small river between Trujillo and Cajamarca and everyone immersed in it. We took the people from Lima to be immersed in the ocean and then we also had to remarry them all in a Jewish ceremony according to the halakha [Jewish religious law]," says Rabbi Eliyahu Birnbaum, a judge in the conversion court and a member of the delegation.

The rabbis converted only those who said they were willing to emigrate to Israel immediately. "WE LAID DOWN THAT CONDITION because in the remote areas where they live, there is no possibility of keeping kosher and it was important for us to ensure that they would live in a Jewish environment. In fact, there was no need for the condition because they were in any case imbued with a love of the land of Israel in a way that is hard to describe," says Rabbi David Mamo, the deputy president of the conversion court.

"Because we saw their enthusiasm for the land of Israel, we understood that conversion was part of a complete process including aliyah [immigration to Israel], so we told them: just as you live in a community here, you should join a community in Israel, too," says Birnbaum. "Rabbi Mamo and I both live in Gush Etzion [a group of settlements south of Bethlehem] and we believe that when it comes to community-oriented settlements, there are none that can compare with Alon Shvut and Karmei Tzur [both in Gush Etzion], which said they would be willing to absorb the new immigrants."

The 90 new immigrants, comprising 18 families, were taken straight from the airport to the two settlements. Leah Golan, director of the Jewish Agency department responsible for immigration, says: "We, as the Jewish Agency, bring to Israel ANYONE WHO HAS BEEN DEFINED AS BEING ENTITLED to aliyah - that is, anyone who has been RECOGNISED AS A JEW BY THE CHIEF RABBINATE OF THE INTERIOR MINISTRY.

"Generally, the potential immigrants are in touch with our aliyah emissaries and are given very reliable information about housing, employment and education possibilities in Israel. But in Peru, we do not have an emissary: there is only a small Jewish community of about 3,000 people there, so we only have an office in Lima that is staffed by a local woman. Therefore, the Jewish Agency was not involved in any way in the decision about where these new immigrants would live or what kind of work they would do. All the decisions on those subjects were apparently made by the rabbis." Theoretically, the new Jews had the option of joining the Jewish community in Peru, but that was ruled out.

"How can I put it without hurting anyone?" Birnbaum says. "The community in Lima consists of a certain socio-economic class and did not want them because they are from a lower level. There was a kind of agreement that if they were converted, they would not join the Lima community, so there was no choice but to lay down THE CONDITION THAT THE IMMIGRATE TO ISRAEL."

The new Jews have not encountered similar difficulties in the settlements, where they have been integrated smoothly. "Now, thank God, we live where the patriarch, Abraham, the number one Jew, roamed," says Ephraim Perez, who until two weeks ago, in Trujillo, Peru, was known as Nilo.

It turns out that Peru also had an ancient Jewish forefather of its own: "It is known that Christopher Columbus was a Jew," Batya Mendel who, until two months ago, was a Peruvian citizen whose first name was Blanca says. "And since he was in Peru, many Jews have been born there."

Columbus was Jewish? "They always say that about him in Peru, and he visited many places in Peru and left Jewish blood everywhere," says Mandel. "There are also a lot of Christian sects that obey the commandments since then. When we were Christians, we also observed all kinds of commandments, such as Pascha [sic] and Shavuot."

So, in fact, are of Jewish origin? "No. In Peru everyone is a mixture of natives and all kinds of conquerors, but there was a great deal of Jewish influence through the Marranos [Jews living during the Spanish Inquisition who secretly kept their faith despite converting to Christianity] and through Columbus. When we were still Christians and went to the church we observed some commandments such as Shabbat and holidays."

Rabbis Mamo and Birnbaum, along with officials of the settlements, refer to the 90 new Jews as the "third aliyah " as there were two previous groups who came over from Peru in 1990 and 1991.

Batya Mendel decided, on the occasion of her immigration to Israel, to Hebraize not only her first name, but her surname as well: "I Hebraized my name to Mendel," she explains, "because every year in the 1990s, a rabbi named Miron Sover Mendel came to Peru at Passover and he would always spend a few days in Trujillo and a few days in Cajamarca and a few days in Lima, and teach us Judaism. He died about half a year ago, so when they asked me at the conversion about a name, I asked in his memory that my surname be changed to Mendel."

What made you come to this settlement? "The Absorption Ministry told us to go here and thank God they sent us here," says Mendel. "This is the land of the patriarch, Abraham, and the people here are very nice."

According to Ben-Haim, "the idea that there are Palestinians here at all is a lie. THE PALESTINIAN PEOPLE NEVER EXISTED and only when the Jews leave their country, the Arabs come in and try to take over and prove they have a right here. But we cannot agree to that because the Lord gave the land to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob for all time, and all the Jews will be united and love the Lord with all their heart, and then all the problems will be solved."

What is the solution? "In Peru I thought that all the Jews in Israel were religiously observant," says Mendel. "It was only when I came here that I heard that almost 30% of the Jews are not religious, and that broke my heart."

Is that what you were told, I ask - that the majority of the Jews in Israel are religious? "Yes, the majority but not everyone. But if they all become fully religious and unite, the Messiah will come and the problems with the Palestinians will be solved because THEY WILL GET OUT of here."

Mendel's eyes glitter as she talks: "IT WILL BE THE MOST WONDERFUL DAY IN THE WORLD WHEN ALL THE ARABS WILL BECOME JEWS and observe the commandments and love the Lord and when the Messiah comes, there will be no one in the land of our fathers who does not love the Lord and Judaism with all their heart."

You only became a member of this nation a few months ago, and have been in the country less than two months, I say. Do you know that there are Arabs whose families have lived here for hundreds of years?

"But God said that whomsoever becomes a Jew with a full heart and observes the commandments - only to a Jew like that will He give the land for generation unto generation."

Ben-Haim is not bothered by the fact that by being sent to a settlement, he has also been effectively recruited to a particular political group: "We knew we were coming to a place that is called 'territories' because people we know immigrated earlier and are living in the settlements in the territories. But I have no problem with that because I do not consider the territories to be occupied territories. You cannot conquer what has in any case belonged to you since the time of the patriarch, Abraham."

Ben-Haim says that after he finishes the Hebrew course, he may join the army, "because I wasn't in the army in Peru and that is something I lack, and also because I want to defend the country and if there is no choice, I will kill Arabs.

But I am sure that Jews kill Arabs only for self-defence and justice,
but Arabs do it because they like to kill."

He bases this belief on his scientific view of Judaism: "The Arab has the instinct of murder and killing like all gentiles, and ONLY JEWS DO NOT HAVE THAT INSTINCT - THAT IS A GENETIC FACT."

But if you were not born a Jew genetically, don't you have that instinct? "Maybe it was there, but it makes no difference because now we are all Jews."

· This is an edited extract of an article which first appeared in the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz.

So what!!? Moslems are committing crimes against humanity WORLDWIDE!! Any nation that borders a moslem country, or that has a sizeable moslem community is at war with the bastards...
Churches are burning in Kosovo. Synagogues are burning in France. Mosques are blowing up in Iraq, Christians are enslaved and murdered from Sudan to Mauritania...
It's WWIII MUstafa, and you're on the wrong side!

=====================
"The miracle of the creation of this community of new Jews has to be chalked up wholly and exclusively to the credit - or debit - of the CHIEF RABBINATE OF ISRAEL. At the order of the Ashkenazi chief rabbi, ISRAEL MEIR LAU, a delegation of rabbis travelled to Peru. During their two weeks in the country, they converted 90 people to Judaism, most of them of Indian origin.

[...]
...ANYONE WHO HAS BEEN DEFINED AS BEING ENTITLED to aliyah - that is, anyone who has been RECOGNISED AS A JEW BY THE CHIEF RABBINATE OF THE INTERIOR MINISTRY. "
[...]

"ONLY JEWS DO NOT HAVE THAT INSTINCT - THAT IS A GENETIC FACT." - Ben Haim
========================

"So what!!?" [!]

"During their two weeks in the country, they converted 90 people to Judaism, most of them of Indian origin. "

You've apparently never heard of "Crypto-Jews".
These are people who were forced to hide their Judaism during the Inquisition, once arriving in the New World, they left their Spanish Masters and joined with local indians...it was only then that they were allowed to practice their Jewish traditions...Indians were much more tolerant then the Christians of the time...
There are "Crypto-jews" in South America, the Carribbean and the USA and Mexico...

Why…are Hindus forbidden to eat beef? Why are Jews forbidden to eat pork and shellfish and to mix meat with milk? For thousands of years, rabbis have offered ingenious justifications of the Jewish dietary laws. Here are a few listed in the Encyclopedia Judaica:

With all due respect to rabbinical wisdom, these arguments can be demolished by any bright twelve-year-old, and as a former temple Sunday School teacher I can attest that they regularly are. Many Jewish adults still believe that pork was banned as a public health measure, to prevent trichinosis. But as [Marvin] Harris points out, if that were true the law would have been a simple advisory against undercooking pork: “Flesh of swine thou shalt not eat until the pink has been cooked from it.”

Harris observes that food taboos often make ecological and economic sense. The Hebrews and the Muslims were desert tribes, and pigs are animals of the forest. They compete with people for water and nutritious foods like nuts, fruits, and vegetables. Kosher animals, in contrast, are ruminants like sheep, cattle, and goats, which can live off scraggly desert plants. In India, cattle are too precious to slaughter because they are used for milk, manure, and pulling plows. Harris’ theory is as ingenious as the rabbis’ and far more plausible, though he admits that it can’t explain everything. Ancient tribes wandering the parched Judaean sands were hardly in danger of squandering their resources by herding shrimp and oysters, and it is unclear why the inhabitants of a Polish shetl or a Brooklyn neighborhood should obsess over the feeding habits of desert ruminants.

Food taboos are obviously an ethnic marker, but by itself that observation explains nothing. Why do people wear ethnic badges to begin with, let alone a costly one like banning a source of nutrients? The social sciences assume without question that people submerge their interests to the group, but on evolutionary grounds that is unlikely. I take a more cynical view.

In any group, the younger and poorer, and disenfranchised members may be tempted to defect to other groups. The powerful, especially parents, have an interest in keeping them in. People everywhere from alliances by eating together, from potlatches and feasts to business lunches and dates. If I can’t eat with you, I can’t become your friend. Food taboos often prohibit a favourite food of a nearby tribe; that is true, for example, of many of the Jewish dietary laws. That suggests that they are weapons to keep potential defectors in. First, they make the merest prelude to cooperation with outsiders—breaking bread together—an unmistakable act of defiance. Even better, they exploit the psychology of disgust. Taboo foods are absent during the sensitive period for learning food preferences, and that is enough to make children grow up to find them disgusting. That deters them from becoming intimate with the enemy (“He invited me over, but what will I do if they serve…EEEEUUUW!”). Indeed, the tactic is self-perpetuating because children grow up into parents who don’t feed the disgusting things to their children. The practical effects of food taboos have often been noticed. A familiar theme in novels about the immigrant experience is the protagonist’s torment over sampling taboo foods. Crossing the line offers a modicum of integration into the new world but provokes open conflict with parents and community. (In Portnoy’s Complaint, Alex describes his mother as pronouncing hamburger as if it were Hitler.) But since the elders have no desire for the community to see the taboos in this light, they cloak them in talmudic sophistry and bafflegab.