Rivlin 200 years in Jerusalem

Rivlin family celebrates the birth of its 50,000th member

Mar. 23, 2009
Mel Bezalel , THE JERUSALEM POST

A Jewish family whose impressive history can be traced back more than 450 years celebrated the birth of its 50,000th member in Jerusalem on Tuesday at a special family event.

The Rivlin family consists of 22 documented generations and has researched its roots back to Vienna in 1550. It boasts among its ranks the Vilna Gaon (Rabbi Eliyahu of Vilna), Yosef Yoel Rivlin, the author of the first Hebrew-edition Koran, the first female mayor of Israel, several actresses, political figures and TV presenters, and former Knesset speakers Avraham Burg and Reuven Rivlin.

The newest family addition, Michael Ben-Shimhon, who was born in Jerusalem on February 16, joins some 35,000 of his ancestors residing (currently or previously) in Israel. The baby will be formally initiated into the Rivlin clan by Reuven Rivlin this afternoon at Airport City's Kenes International. Michael and his parents will be presented with a scroll documenting his historic birth. The family will also officially activate its application to the Guinness World Records, hoping to set the record for the world's largest tribe.

The family gathering is a precursor to the main Rivlin family event, set to take place in October. Some 5,000 Rivlin relatives will gather in Jerusalem to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the family's immigration to Israel in 1809, encouraged by the Vilna Gaon.

The family's departure to Israel predates the First Aliya by 73 years, and it is for this reason that Reuven Rivlin said his family was part of "the real aliya." His was among the last names to be added to the family's first genealogical project - created and maintained by his father's cousin, Eliezer Rivlin, who died two years after Reuven's birth in 1942.

Proud of his prestigious family heritage, Reuven Rivlin commented: "Family history is very important to me, and I was brought up knowing the origins of my family. They were the real Zionists at the beginning of the 19th century. I am a Rivlin from my mother and father's side, as they are seventh-generation cousins. My father is a descendent of the Gaon and the mitnagdim [opponents of Hassidism], and my mother is a descendent of the cousin of the Gaon, who was considered to have betrayed the Gaon."

The first known family ancestor, Rabbi Yosef of Ovan, lived in Vienna around 1550 and was exiled to Prague.

The Rivlin family intends to continue its commitment to its genealogical heritage, as their Web site (www.rivlinfamily.com) states: "It is said that a people who are not acquainted with their past will not have a future. Our family's past history is an impressive one, and it is hoped that its future will be just as great and will not constitute a disappointment to its past."

This article can also be read at http://www.jpost.com /servlet/Satellite?cid=1237727519032&pagename=JPArticle%2FShowFull

Moral Victory at Durban II

# DAY THREE AT DURBAN II

Wednesday: in many ways, today could be called victory day for
pro-Israel, pro-human rights forces at Durban II. Students, StandWithUs
fellows, a host of pro-Israel organizations, human rights victims, and
human rights groups from around the world converged in Geneva, countered
the evils of Durban II, and reclaimed the moral high ground.

Yesterday (Tuesday, April 21), Durban II delegates ended the conference
three days early, voting to accept the Durban II document. Perhaps they
ended early because ten important nations had boycotted the conference,
and there was little to debate. Or perhaps the Durban II organizers
simply wanted to hurriedly end an event that had become, in the words of
the BBC, a "UN public relations nightmare." But parallel meetings and
conferences continued to take place. That's where the real human rights
issues were seriously addressed. That's where leading international
figures in human rights advocacy repeatedly denounced the travesty of
Durbans I and II, of Ahmadinejad speaking at the opening session, and of
the anti-Semitic racism that has driven the UN to obsessively condemn
Israel and ignore the suffering and human rights abuses committed by the
very nations leading the charge against Israel. They expressed their
moral outrage that the Human Rights Council has ignored Iran's genocidal
incitement against Israel and Jews-in flagrant violation of the 1949
Genocide Convention, sometimes called the "Never Again" Convention-and
let 6 million die in genocides from Cambodia to Rwanda to Darfur while
they indulged their obsession against Israel.

These speakers knew that standing up for Israel also meant they were
standing up for the rights of all people. They knew they were rescuing
human rights values themselves from racists and human rights abusers who
had hijacked and perverted their meaning.

Jewish National Home

The U.S. Congress in 1922
March 7, 2008  |  Eli E. Hertz

On June 30, 1922, a joint resolution of both Houses of Congress of the United States unanimously endorsed the "Mandate for Palestine," confirming the irrevocable right of Jews to settle in the area of Palestine—anywhere between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea:

"Favoring the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.

"Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled. That the United States of America favors the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which should prejudice the civil and religious rights of Christian and all other non-Jewish communities in Palestine, and that the holy places and religious buildings and sites in Palestine shall be adequately protected." [italics in the original]

On September 21, 1922, the then President Warren G. Harding signed the joint resolution of approval to establish a Jewish National Home in Palestine.

Obama Arms Lebanon??

Israel shocked by Obama's approval of large Turkish arms sale to Lebanon

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report

April 22, 2009, 10:49 PM (GMT+02:00)

DEBKAfile quotes senior Israeli military circles as staggered by the discovery that US president Barack Obama had approved a large Turkish arms sale to the Lebanese army, including the services of Turkish military instructors. This was taken as further proof that the US president is deaf to Israel's immediate security concerns....

read more

Party Over?

Time To Get Off This Ride, Counsels Carter Worth

Investors are struggling to figure out what’s next for stocks. Oppenheimer’s Carter Worth reveals what his charts suggest.
If you watch Fast Money regularly you know that Carter Worth has been somewhat bullish on this market. Well, hold you hats because he's changing his call.
Now, Worth tells us not to expect too much from this market over the next few weeks. He's grown cautious. “It’s time to get off this ride,” Worth says.
According to Worth, the preceding plunge in the S&P that we experienced in February and March has now been offset by the recovery of late March and April. That leaves the market at a place where it should stop and just go dead..... read more

Jewish State called Israel

w w w . h a a r e t z . c o m

Last update - 03:36 23/04/2009 Netanyahu to offer U.S. 'laundry list' for peace talks By Aluf Benn and Barak Ravid Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is developing a "laundry list" that he will present to U.S. President Barack Obama when they meet next month in Washington. The Israeli premier will present Obama with a three-part plan involving halting Iran's nuclear program, closer relations with moderate Arab states and dealing with the Palestinian issue through several channels. Netanyahu will tell Obama that he will not recognize a nation-state providing Palestinian self-determination if the Palestinians don't recognize Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people. From the standpoint of the Israeli prime minister, the requirement that the Palestinians recognize Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people is a fundamental demand in any negotiations on a final settlement. It is not a precondition to conducting negotiations, but rather necessary to progress towards an agreement.... read more

Obama and Chávez

Obama Among the Dictators

• By DANIEL HENNINGER Wall Street Journal April 23, 2009
  

The now-famous photograph of Barack Obama sharing a handshake and mile-wide smile with happy Hugo Chávez recalled to mind a visit years ago of Philippine strong man Ferdinand Marcos to The Wall Street Journal's offices in lower Manhattan.

The Marcos entourage emerged from the elevators in a stream that included not only the dictator's entire cabinet but Philippine TV crews, cameras aloft, lights aglow. Some of the editors recognized the game and did a slow fade into the corners of the room. Others told the commando cameramen to shut down.

They had been sending the Philippines images of Marcos in the company of American symbols -- bankers, journalists, politicians. Propaganda. The message for the Philippine opposition was: Behold, the Americans are with me, not you. In 1986, that opposition defeated Marcos in Cory Aquino's "Yellow Revolution."

Hugo Chávez is a tin-pot dictator who has debauched Venezuela's democracy. Normally in such circumstances, an American president would show reserve. The weirdly ebullient Mr. Obama did not, and that image was the photo seen 'round the world.

Podcast

Listen to Daniel Henninger's Wonder Land column, now available in audio format.

In New York this week, I asked a former Eastern European dissident who spent time in prison under the Communists: "If you were sitting in a cell in Cuba, Iran or Syria and saw this photo of a smiling American president shaking hands with a smiling Hugo Chávez, what would you think?"

He said: "I would think that I was losing ground."

The hopeful way to view the Obama administration's openings to Chávez, the Castros, Iran and the others would be: This had better work. Because if it doesn't, a lot of people who've spent years working in opposition to these regimes -- in hiding or in prison in Iran, Syria, Cuba, Venezuela, China, Russia, Burma, Libya, Egypt, Sudan, Zimbabwe, Uzbekistan -- are going to get hammered. North Korea's opposition is invisible.

Change in autocratic regimes doesn't come from talking to the dictators. Wonder Land columnist Daniel Henninger explains. (April 23)

Other than physically controlling their populations, the biggest problem for autocrats -- most of them narcissistic monomaniacs -- is maintaining the legitimacy of their authority, which by definition is always on thin ice. To Mr. Obama and his handlers perhaps it was just a photo-op. For Mr. Chávez it was priceless. Merely being seen or photographed in the presence of civilized society -- at summits, negotiations, in state visits -- empowers the autocrat and discourages his opposition.

Within days of the Summit of the Americas, former Venezuelan presidential candidate Manuel Rosales formally applied for asylum in Peru, fearing a corruption trial at home.

When Barack Obama was a candidate for president, the main plank of his foreign policy, other than withdrawing from Iraq, was agreeing to "talk to our enemies," notably Iran and Syria. The intellectual rationale for this policy, as far as one can make out, is that because George W. Bush wouldn't commit the office of the presidency itself to direct negotiations with the leaders of these regimes, and because everything George W. Bush did was wrong, reversing that policy would bear fruit.

Iran just sentenced Iranian-American journalist Roxana Saberi to eight years in prison. Syria's leading pro-democracy dissident, Riad Seif, has spent the last year in Adra prison and is reportedly dying of prostate cancer. Syrian "president" Bashar Assad won't let him leave the country to get treatment.

In Cuba, Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet is serving a 25-year prison sentence. In China, the whereabouts is unknown of Liu Xiaobo, co-author of a new, online pro-democracy petition. His wife has written to Mr. Obama for help. Tens of thousands of North Koreans are hiding in China.

The Obama people seem to believe that talking top guy to top guy is the yellow brick road to progress. Why do they think that? They say Ronald Reagan negotiated over nuclear arsenals at Reykjavik. But virtually all desirable regime change in our time -- Soviet Communism, South Africa, the Philippines -- has come mainly from below, from the West protecting and supporting people in opposition to autocrats.

The origin of the change-from-below movement was the 1975 Helsinki Accords, which ratified the legitimacy of self-determination. There was no stronger supporter of this liberal turn than AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland. Where is his like today in the Democratic Party or its unions? Where is the left-wing blogosphere when the pro-democracy prisoners of Cuba, Iran and Syria need them? It's ranting about Bush "war criminals."

It is early in the Obama foreign policy. They say the right thing on political rights. But there appears to be no coherent strategy beyond "talk to our enemies." So far, what do we see? Hugo Chávez is smiling. His fellow prison wardens around the world are smiling. The joke must be on someone else.

Haaretz Talkbacks

Israel need look no further than Oslo. In preparation for a 2 state
solution they withdrew their military from major cities and other areas.
When sustained suicide bombing forced them to re-occupy, the outrage in
the world, particularly europe, was as if Israel were invading fresh
territory.
It`s nice to be popular, but the europeans are the last people Israel
should be taking advice from. It`s easy to "talk" about a two state
solution forever, and maybe that`s the game Israel should be playing
along with. Few smart people actually believe a successful 2 state
solution can be salvaged from negotiations. The Pal. side just isn`t
capable or willing. Instead, "2 state solution" means `something other
than the one state solution of Greater Israel. For serious negotiations
to take place, these things have to be clarified. Of course, the euros
aren`t meant to be taken seriously.

EU froze ties during the gaza war. The EU foreign commissions leader
told the commission to stay away from Israel and ties would not be
upgraded. This happened in January long before Netanyahu.

Let`s see: Israel signs agreements with temporary West Bank government
-then Hamas takes over West Bank neutralizes agreement
and bombs Tel Aviv-then Israel fights back and Europe demands Israel
stop--so the real answer is Europe wants Israel to disappear..