#Jewish Resistance

[lasttarrasque]

The opresser can not claim self defense

[todaysjewishholiday]

26 Menachem Av 5784 (29-30 August 2024)

The 26th of Av is the yahrzeit of the Polish-French Jewish communist Szmul Cecel Tyszelman (Shmuel Cecil Tischelman) known to his friends as “Titi”, whose execution set off a cycle of militant Resistance actions and violent Nazi reprisals that raised the brutal repression of the Nazi occupation of France to new levels.

Szmul was a Jewish refugee in France who had, at the outset of the German occupation, joined several Resistance groups, including the Youth Battalion of the French Communist Party. While communists generally eschewed national emblems in favor of internationalism, France’s communists viewed the legacy of the French Revolution as fruitful material for organizing, and even immigrants like Tyszelman saw themselves as fierce patriots. Since the Nazi invasion and armistice between the Vichy government and the Nazi occupiers in 5700, display of French national emblems in the occupied zone was especially charged.

On the 23rd of Av 5701, Szmul Tyszelman helped to lead a peaceful demonstration with approximately a hundred other members of the Communist Youth Battalion. They marched under the tricolore of the revolution and French republics, and sang La Marseillaise, Frances’s revolutionary national anthem. Members of the crowd also shouted “Down with Hitler” and “Long Live France”. German soldiers treated the marching youth, mostly in their teens or early twenties, unarmed and nonviolent, as a direct threat, and opened fire on the crowd. Tyszelman was shot in the leg. The demonstration ended in chaos with most of the youth outrunning the German soldiers and French police who attempted to round them up. Szmul Tyszelman and another demonstrator, Henri Gautherot, were among those arrested.

The next day the commander of the German Occupation banned the French Communist Party entirely and declared that anybody caught participating in communist demonstrations would be charged with aiding the enemy— a capital offense under the Nazi occupation. Despite the proclamation having occurred after their arrests, Tyszelman and Gautherot were tried by a Nazi military tribunal, and then executed by firing squad on the 26th of Av. Tyszelman was only twenty years old. Posters announcing their execution were plastered across the city of Paris.

The executions were a shock to the young communists, who had up until that point emphasized peaceful demonstrations and the distribution of leaflets against the occupation. Friends of the murdered men called for a militant stand, and many in the movement concluded that if even marching was to be punished with death, fighting was needed. Several days later one of Szmul’s friends shot a German soldier in the Metro, declaring that this was revenge for Titi. When Hitler was informed of the incident, he demanded that a hundred French prisoners be executed in retaliation. The Nazi commander in France, hesitant to lose the support of the Vichy government with too much brutality, asked for ten hostages who would be shot in response to any further Resistance militancy, and then executed eight communists included five more of those arrested at the demonstration led by Tyszelman. De Gaulle, leader of France’s government in exile, heard of Tyszelman’s execution and its aftermath and declared in a radio broadcast to the French people “French killings of the German occupiers are absolutely justified. If the Germans don’t want to be killed, they should have stayed home and not gone to war with us.”

The next four months saw an additional 243 executions by the Nazi occupation, with sometimes as many as fifty at a time, in response to any militant act by Resistance forces. Communists and Jewish prisoners in particular were targeted because the Nazi regime claimed that they were fundamentally guilty regardless of what they’d been arrested for. 154 gentile communists and 56 Jews were among those murdered. The executions were intended to cow the French populace into compliance with the occupation— instead, the killings had the opposite effect, uniting a majority of those under the occupation, many of whom had been skeptical of the value of militant action, with the Resistance as horror of the Nazi’s brutality increased. The Vichy government’s cooperation and complicity with the reprisal massacres also soured much of the public on the Vichy government’s stance that they were simply protecting France by cooperating with the Nazi occupiers. Szmul Tyszelman had burned with righteous indignation, determined to stand against the slaughterers of his people and occupiers of his chosen home. He was unjustly arrested and unjustly killed. His death ignited a conflagration of resistance which his murderers were unable to quench with any amount of bloodshed.

Today is also Erev Shabbat. Prepare to welcome the Shabbos Queen tonight with candles and song. May the peace of the holiest day in all Jewish tradition settle upon your heart and bring you rest.

[dailyhistoryposts]

On This Day In History

January 18th, 1943: Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto begin an armed insurgent resistance to their deportation to concentration camps by Nazi Germany.

[tendernobody]

I find it hard to articulate my feelings. How can friends I know and care so dearly for be for the other side? Is it because we were destined to be hated? How do I show my support for the young nation of Israel?

It's lonely where I live

It's safer too because the town has no Shul.

[dirjoh-blog]

Warsaw Ghetto Uprising

The Warsaw Ghetto, which was the largest ghetto established by the Nazis in Poland, where hundreds of thousands of Jews were confined in overcrowded and unsanitary conditions. The uprising began on April 19, 1943, when the Nazis attempted to liquidate the ghetto by deporting its remaining inhabitants to concentration camps. Instead of passively submitting to their fate, the Jewish inhabitants…

[trendynewsnow]

Yehuda Bauer: A Pioneering Scholar in Holocaust Studies

Yehuda Bauer: A Scholarly Legacy on the Holocaust Yehuda Bauer, whose family narrowly escaped the clutches of the Nazis by fleeing to Mandatory Palestine from Czechoslovakia in 1939, passed away on Friday at his residence in Jerusalem. He was 98 years old. His daughter, Anat Tsach, confirmed the news of his death. Initially, Dr. Bauer did not set out with the intention of studying the Holocaust;…

[the-peruvian-whovian]

I am so afraid for them.

[rebel-girl-queen-of-my-world]

Germany is arresting Jewish protesters like this lady, who protested for Palestinian liberation on her own because assemblies have been so cracked down on. What she was doing was perfectly legal and they arrested her anyway.

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A post shared by Ahmed Eldin | أحمد شهاب الدين (@ahmedeldin)

[valkyries-things]

BELA HAZAN // RESISTANCE FIGHTER

“She was a Jewish Polish resistance fighter, who joined the He-Halutz ha-Za’ir-Dror movement. She escaped to Vilna on the outbreak of WWII, where she worked as a smuggler for Dror, posing as a Pole. She was arrested by the Gestapo in 1942, though they did not know she was Jewish. She worked as a nurse in various concentration camps, including Birkenau, Auschwitz, Ravensbruck, Malchow, and finally Taucha in Leipzig. When Taucha was evacuated, she stayed behind, escaping with 140 inmates to American forces. She immigrated to Israel, where she died in 2004.”

[rebelwheelsnycshow]

by the way, I wrote this article in my essay blog. it talks about the influence and exploitation of trauma regarding zionism, Israel & Palestine and is call for accountability.

[ramadan90s]

Palestine will be free

[danielleurbansblog]

Review: The War Girls

Synopsis: Perfect for fans of Kate Quinn, Kristin Harmel, and Pam Jenoff, this new historical fiction novel from an acclaimed author is based on true WWII stories of life in the Warsaw Ghetto during the Occupation and the women who served the Allies as agents and spies. Casting light into one of the darkest periods of World War II, this powerful book tells of two Jewish sisters– one imprisoned…

[infiniteglitterfall]

A Chabad synagogue in Pomona, New York, burned to the ground on April 17th, along with its three Torah scrolls.

Torah scrolls are hand-written, hand-made, and kept in elaborately decorated cases or wrappings.

Many of them have long histories; my synagogue has two, I think, that were smuggled out of villages being destroyed in pogroms or in Nazi attacks. One of them is the only remaining piece of that village on earth.

Sometimes, the Torah scroll doesn't even belong to the synagogue, but is on loan from a place like the Memorial Scrolls Trust:

There's an entire Jewish holiday just for taking them out and dancing with them: Simchat Torah, "The Joy of Torah."

In fact, that was the holiday on which Hamas's invasion took place.

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A post shared by We Are Tov (@wearetov)

So it's a particular tragedy when a Torah is destroyed.

Chabad itself has a page about what goes into making just one Torah scroll:

"An authentic Torah scroll is a mind-boggling masterpiece of labor and skill. Comprising between 62 and 84 sheets of parchment -- cured, tanned, scraped and prepared according to exacting Torah law specifications -- and containing exactly 304,805 letters, the resulting handwritten scroll takes many months to complete.

"An expert pious scribe carefully inks each letter with a feather quill, under the intricate calligraphic guidelines of Ktav Ashurit (Ashurite Script). The sheets of parchment are then sewn together with sinews to form one long scroll. While most Torah scrolls stand around two feet in height and weigh 20-25 pounds, some are huge and quite heavy, while others are doll-sized and lightweight."

I learned all of this on Tumblr.

Once upon time, in people's "punch Nazis" days, I would've been able to find some mention on Tumblr of this synagogue burning.

There is none, so I'm posting about it.

And I'm going to quote Daniel Weiner, Rabbi of Temple de Hirsch Sinai in Bellevue, Washington, when his own synagogue was vandalized last November:

"It’s horrific and heartbreaking.... [Taking out your feelings about] what's going on in the Middle East by defacing a sacred space of a synagogue -- that’s the very definition of antisemitism."

I'm also posting about the Kehillat Shaarei Torah Synagogue in Toronto, whose windows were broken on Friday, April 19th, by someone who also tried to break the front door down.

And the April 15 graffiti outside a Bangor, Maine synagogue that said, "Nazi Israel 30K murdered," next to a crossed-out Star of David. The same synagogue faced pro-Hamas flyers plastered around it in November.

I was going to include all the synagogues vandalized over the past six months. But there are way too many. Several every week. Lots are swastikas.

I'll go back to just doing attacks on and near synagogues.

Someone has to talk about the 1-year-old who was stabbed outside Temple Beth Zion-Beth Israel (BZBI) synagogue, in Philadelphia, on April 13th.

The foiled terrorist attack on a Moscow synagogue on April 11th.

The man who, on April 9th, screamed at the rabbi at Moldova's Great Synagogue, "What are you doing here? How come no one has finished you off for everything you are doing to the Palestinians?" Just one week after people had vandalized a Holocaust memorial in nearby Soroka, and sprayed "Free Palestine" on it.

The Oldenburg, Germany synagogue that was firebombed on April 5th.

The Florida Las Olas Chabad Jewish Center, which on March 16 burned, but not to the ground. The Torah scrolls were safe, and no one was hurt, but the back of the building was severely damaged.

The planned-but-thwarted-on-March-7th ISIS massacre in a Moscow synagogue.

The stabbing of an Orthodox Jew in Switzerland on March 5th. (He was badly injured, but expected to survive.)

A man leaving a synagogue in Paris was beaten on March 3rd.

People set the courtyard of a synagogue in Sfax, Tunisia on fire on February 27th. Firefighters managed to put the fire out before it consumed the inside of the building.

The synagogue is no longer used; there are no Jews left in its area, and fewer than 1,000 Jews left in Tunisia overall.

(Thousands of Tunisian Jews were sent to work camps during the Holocaust. Antisemitism across the Middle East continued to increase rapidly for decades. By the 1970s, 90% of Tunisian Jews had fled to France or Israel.)

On February 18, an Orthodox Jew leaving Synagogue of Inverrary-Chabad in Lauderhill, Florida, was beaten by an attacker yelling racial slurs.

Someone deliberately chose International Holocaust Remembrance Day, January 27, to smash all the windows in the front of Sgoolai Israel Synagogue in downtown Fredericton, New Brunswick.

On December 29, Turkey arrested 32 people linked to ISIS who were planning attacks on synagogues and churches.

On December 17, a man drove a U-Haul truck up onto the sidewalk between a barrier and the front door of the Kesher Israel Congregation in Washington D.C., got out, and started yelling "Gas the Jews." He also sprayed a foul-smelling substance on two people leaving the synagogue.

December 17 also saw 400 synagogues across the United States receive bomb threats.

On December 11, a man attacked an elderly couple on their way into a synagogue in Los Angeles, screaming, "Give me your earrings, Jew!!" and beating one of them bloody with a belt. (Happily, he chased the guy down the street, and caught him when his pants fell down.)

On December 10, a 16-year-old was arrested in Vienna for planning an attack on a synagogue.

On December 8, on the first night of Hanukkah, 15 synagogues in New York State received bomb threats. And someone screamed, "Free Palestine," and fired shots outside of Temple Israel in Albany, NY. Which has a preschool that was in session.

Meanwhile, the five Jews left in Egypt were canceling public Hanukkah candle-lighting at their synagogue out of fear of reprisals. Particularly after two Israelis in Alexandria had been gunned down by terrorists on October 8. (While Israel was still fighting Hamas in Israel.)

On November 15, a terrorist group set the only synagogue in Armenia on fire.

Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia (ASALA) has a history of working with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).

(PFLP is part of Hamas's network of groups. Samidoun is their nonprofit arm - which is why Germany banned Samidoun last year, although it's still active in many other countries.

PFLP is also actively supported by the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM), a diaspora nonprofit group, and Within Our Lifetime (WOL), an SJP spinoff in NYC.)

On November 11, halfway through Shabbat services, police asked Central Shul in Melbourne, Australia to evacuate "as a precaution" due to a "pro-Palestinian" protest that had chosen the neighboring park as its gathering place. Australia has seen some very outspoken antisemitism at protests, including the march shortly after October 7 that chanted "Gas the Jews."

Also on November 11, protesters targeted a synagogue along a march route. They sat in their cars, spraying green smoke and shouting at people leaving the synagogue. The march itself featured a record number of horrifying signs and chants.

On November 7th, Congregation Beth Tikvah in Montreal was firebombed, and the back door of the Jewish organization across the street (Federation CJA) was set on fire.

On November 4, protesters chanted "Bomb Israel," and burned an Israeli flag outside the only synagogue in Malmo, Sweden.

During October, there were 501 antisemitic acts under investigation in France in just three weeks, including groups gathering in front of synagogues shouting threats, and graffiti such as the words “killing Jews is a duty” sprayed outside a stadium.

On October 18, people firebombed a synagogue in Berlin after homes all over the neighborhood were graffitied with stars of David.

And also on October 18, hundreds of "pro-Palestine" rioters attacked the Or Zaruah Synagogue, in the Spanish enclave of Melilla in North Africa, while worshippers were inside.

Based on the video, they seem to have blocked the synagogue entrance completely, while screaming "Murderous Israel" and waving Palestinian flags. (Melilla is an autonomous zone belonging to Spain. It borders Morocco.)

On October 17, during pro-Palestinian protests, hundreds of rioters set fire to Al Hammah synagogue, an abandoned house of prayer in central Tunisia. They hammered down the building’s walls and raised a Palestinian flag on the building. Police did not intervene.

The Facebook page "Tunigate", which has around 88 thousand followers, published a video of the assault. So did "Radio Bousalem”, with 83 thousand users. The vast majority of comments on these videos welcome these acts. The building was severely damaged and almost completely razed to the ground.

On October 15, bomb threats were sent to many East Coast synagogues. Attleboro synagogue Congregation Agudas-Achim received one of the emails, which read, "The bombs will blow up in a few hours. A lot of people will die. You all deserve to die."

On October 8 -- again, while Hamas was still in Israel -- Madrid’s main synagogue was defaced with graffiti that read “Free Palestine” next to a crossed-out Star of David.

And on October 7, an assailant in Rockland, NY fired a BB gun at two women entering a synagogue. Later in the month, a banner at the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue in the area was vandalized with the words, “Fuckin kikes."

[rebel-girl-queen-of-my-world]

Meet Edgar Morin - a 102-year-old Jewish veteran of the French Resistance, a renowned philosopher, and a strident voice for justice. It truly upsets me that I’d never heard of this incredible man till now.

“I am both astonished and outraged by the fact that those who represent the descendants of a people who were persecuted for centuries for religious or racial reasons... That the descendants of this people who are today the decision-makers of the State of Israel, could not only colonize an entire people, partly drive them out of their land and seek to expel them for good... But also, after the massacre of October 7, engage in a real massive slaughter on the population of Gaza and continue, incessantly, hitting civilians, women, and children.

And to see the silence of the world, the silence of the United States, protectors of Israel, the silence of the Arab states, the silence of the European states who claim to be defenders of culture, humanity, human rights.

I think we are living through a horrible tragedy because we are also powerless in the face of this thing that is unleashing. At least, I say: bear witness! The only thing that remains if we cannot resist concretely is to TESTIFY. Let’s RESIST IN OUR MINDS, let’s not be fooled, let’s not forget, let’s have the courage to face things head-on.”

Repost from @middleeasteye

“After the massacre of 7 October, (Israel) engaged in a real massive slaughter on the populations of Gaza.”

French philosopher Edgar Morin, a Jewish WWII resistance fighter, criticised Israel’s actions in Gaza. He expressed disappointment at the silence of countries like the United States, Arab and European nations, whom he referred to as “protectors” of Israel.

#jewsforpalestine #jewsagainstzionism #gaza #gazagenocide #humanrights #palestine #freepalestine #freegaza #freethewestbank #israel #crimesagainsthumanity #antifascist #solidarity #ceasefirenow #neveragain #neveragainisnow