Outrageous UNESCO Vote against History -- Craven European Response

The European and Arab countries that denied Jewish history in Israel demonstrated hostility to history in the notorious UNESCO vote that presented Jerusalem as an Arab-Muslim city.  In this case, we are dealing with facts continuously known in both the Arab-Muslim and Western historical traditions. Those who deny the Jewish identity of the city of Jerusalem are inventing a fake history apparently required for political/diplomatic purposes. But a lie. Now Western countries like France, Italy, Belgium, Portugal and Spain have long traditions of historical scholarship, which includes knowledge about the Land of Israel with which these countries have been in contact since the time when all of these countries plus the Land of Israel itself were part of the Roman Empire.

Since the study of the Latin language has long been part of higher education in those lands and they take pride in their scholars --who exemplify and demonstrate their higher civilization-- there is no excuse for the governments and foreign ministries of these lands not to know the real history as related in Latin [and Greek] ancient books. Even an abstention from voting against the lying resolution proposed in UNESCO bodies by Arab states on Jerusalem is shameful. Yes, it is shameful to let a historical lie go unopposed. To be sure, Prime Minister Matteo Renzi of Italy regretted his foreign ministry's vote which he may have been unaware of.

I do not mean that only ancient Latin or Greek writings are authoritative on the history of ancient Israel. Far from it. Jewish works in Hebrew and  Aramaic are important too (as well as writings by Jews in Latin and Greek). But let us approach it this way. The bigot, the Judeophobic ignoramus, including the academic variety, will say that he cannot accept Jewish accounts of Jewish history because Jewish historians are "biased". Parenthetically, the rejection of Jewish historians represents bias too. In this case, challenge this bigot or ignoramus --whichever label you like-- to accept accounts by non-Jews in Latin, Greek and other languages. The Roman historian Tacitus supplied an account of the Roman-Jewish war from 66 CE to 73 CE in his Histories. The Romans took Jerusalem in the summer of the year 70 CE and destroyed the Jewish Temple at the same time. The Roman general Titus Caesar won the war, however, not only with Roman legions but with auxiliary forces including a "strong contingent of Arabs" [various translations vary. See Tacitus' Histories V:1:2 ]. I quoted the Latin original and various translations years ago on this blog. Now I will quote what he wrote farther on in his book which is highly explicit in refuting the UNESCO lies:

V:8:1 --  The greater part of Judea [note that Tacitus calls the country Judea] is divided up into villages. They also have cities. The capital of that people is Jerusalem.

So Tacitus and Romans generally recognized Jerusalem as the Jewish capital. Rivka Fishman wrote a scholarly article about this recognition in Greek and Latin literature for the Jewish Political Studies Review. The key phrase that is important here is, "The capital of that people is Jerusalem." See the Latin original just below.

Now here is the Latin original of  the quote from Tacitus above:
V:8:1 -- Magna pars Iudaeae uicis dispergitur; habent et oppida; Hierosolyma genti caput.
[for full original of V:8:I see here]

The key word in that key phrase is "genti" which can be "of the people" or "of the nation." It is a declined form of the word gens meaning people or nation. Since Tacitus calls the country Judea and since the whole text, the whole context, furthermore, is about the Jewish revolt in Judea, we see that the "people" or gens (genti) in the phrase means the Jewish people or nation.

Full disclosure: While I write these lines I am translating from an Italian translation since I do not have an English translation available. The study of Latin is still important in Italy and the Italian translations from ancient Latin texts are fully as reliable as the English and American  translations of those works. Here is my source for the Latin and Italian texts: Tacito, Le Storie a cura di Francesco Nenci. Here is his Italian translation:

V:8:1 -- Gran parte della Giudea e' suddivisa in villaggi; hanno anche citta'; la capitale di quel popolo e' Gerusalemme. [for full original of V:8:I see here]

One of the reasons that this line from Tacitus is not more widely known in the English-speaking world may be that some translators into English of Tacitus' Histories have chosen not to translate the Latin word genti into English, for whatever reason.

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UPDATINGS/ADDITIONS AS OF 31 October 2016

Here is one of many good commentaries on the UNESCO disgrace -- [here]
Here is  a commentary by Herbert London -- here.
Rivka Fishman on the relevant line:
"Tacitus, Historiae V, 8:1, in Menahem Stern, Greek  and Latin Authors on Jews and Judaism (Jerusalem: Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, Vol. II, No. 281,1980), 21,28. The Latin reads: “Hierosolyma genti caput.” The term “gens” refers to the people of Judea, the Jews, mentioned in the first part of the sentence." [here]
Tablet online mag [here] on Arab accusation that Israel is trying to destroy the al-Aqsa  Mosque, built on the Temple Mount and effectively usurping it.
The Boston Globe ran a good editorial on the issue of the shameful UNESCO vote [here]

More than 900,000 Jewish Refugees from Arab Lands

Given the general state of ignorance of history worldwide, it is no surprise that most people, even many Jews, are not aware of the  Jewish refugees from Arab lands. Of those who know something of this forgotten history, few know that these Jewish refugees outnumbered the Arab refugees who fled the Arab-initiated war on the not yet born Jewish State of Israel which started on 30 November 1947. Last year, Israel's parliament, the Knesset, passed a law that every 30 November is to  be a day to commemorate the Jewish refugees from Arab lands and Iran. Arab attacks on Jews on Arab lands accelerated after that date, which was the date, by Middle Eastern time, that the UN General Assembly  recommended partitioning the Land of Israel ["palestine" in Western parlance] between a Jewish state, an Arab state, and and international enclave in and around Jerusalem [corpus separatum]. After more than 1000 years of oppression, inequality, humiliation and recurrent persecution and pogroms in Arab/Muslim lands in the inferior status of dhimmis, the Arab states wanted to get rid of the local Jews, since they could not tolerate Jews sharing an equal status with Muslims.

Ashley Perry and Lyn Julius have written separately on this day of commemoration, a day to remember what has been too long forgotten and relegated to the periphery of discussion of Arab-Israeli issues, of Arab-Israeli diplomacy.

Here is Lyn Julius:
The date chosen was 30 November - to recall the day after the UN passed the 1947 UN Partition Plan for Palestine. Violence, following bloodcurdling threats by Arab leaders, erupted against Jewish communities. The riots resulted in the mass exodus of Jews from the Arab world, the seizure of their property and assets and the destruction of their millennarian, pre-Islamic communities. In 1979, the Islamic revolution resulted in the exodus of four-fifths of the Iranian-Jewish community.

Refugees are much in the news these days. Until the mass population displacement caused by wars in Iraq and Syria, however, the world thought that 'Middle Eastern refugee' was synonymous with 'Palestinian refugee.' Yet there were more Jews displaced from Arab countries than Palestinians (850, 000, as against 711,000 according to UN figures.)

The majority of Jewish refugees found a haven in Israel. For peace, it is important that all bona fide refugees be treated equally, yet Jewish refugee rights have never adequately been addressed. The 30 November commemoration is first and foremost a call for truth and reconciliation.

The Jewish refugee issue is more than simply a question to be resolved at the negotiating table. It is a symptom of the Arab and Muslim world's deep psychosis - an inability to tolerate the non-Arab, non-Muslim Other.

Today, both Muslim sects and non-Muslim minorities are being persecuted in the Middle East, but people are apt to forget that the Jews were one of the first. As the saying goes, 'First the Saturday people, then the Sunday people.' And it does not stop there. A state that devours its minorities ends up devouring itself.
This Arab/Muslim psychosis is the product of fundamentalist ideologies, many of them Nazi-inspired, which took root in the first half of 20th century. These ideological forces left a legacy of state-sanctionedbigotry and religiously-motivated terrorism. That legacy is with us today, in the atrocities in Paris, in Mali and in the stabbings on Israel's streets.

. . . .

The Israeli government is telling the Jewish refugee story at the UN on 1 December. From Amsterdam to Sydney, Toronto to Geneva, Liverpool to New York, San Francisco to London, Jewish organisations worldwide - my own (Harif) included - are organising lectures, film screening and discussions.

Read article in full 
Same article in The Algemeiner 
It's time to remember the other refugees on 30 November (Jewish Weekly)

here is Ashley Perry:

Making 2016 the Year of the Jewish Refugees from Arab Countries
. . . . . .
One of the issues I was able and proud to raise during my time in Government was the issue of the ethnic cleansing of almost a million Jews from the Middle East and North Africa, many of these communities massively predating Islam and the Arab conquest of the region in the Seventh Century, and the appropriation of their assetsestimated in today’s prices to be many billions of dollars.
. . . . . . . .

Growing up in a thriving Jewish community, attending a Jewish school and being involved in the Jewish community and Zionist organizations, I am amazed now, thinking back, how little was taught about the long and illustrious history of the Jewish communities of the Middle East and North Africa and their subsequent expulsion.

How many are taught about the Jewish communities of Algeria, Egypt, Syria and Yemen, to name but a few of many nations now completely without a Jewish presence?

We often raised this issue on the international stage and at the Foreign Ministry under the leadership of then-Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman, and even initiated a now annual event at the United Nations solely devoted to the issue of the Jewish refugees from Arab countries with our partners in the World Jewish Congress and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.

However, the more we pressed the issue, which by international and Israeli law must be part of any resolution to our conflict, the more I understood that Jews in Israel and abroad are not even aware of it.

. . . . now more than ever, it is vitally important that the issue of the Jews of the Middle East and North Africa is studied and discussed in Jewish schools and educational and communal institutions across the Diaspora.
. . . . . .
In 2014, the United Nations General Assembly recommended that 2014 [be] a year of solidarity with the Palestinian people and called on people around the world to recognize their “inalienable rights”. Perhaps 2016 should become the Jewish year of solidarity with the Jewish refugees from Arab countries and there should be greater recognition, understanding and education of the inalienable rights of these people to rights and redress.

 We should not allow the suffocation and extinction of these historic communities to be erased from the pages of history. We should share their stories, and keep their memory alive, especially their destruction which was largely ignored around the world.

Let’s make 2016 the year where this changes.
[See full article here]
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Report on the upcoming commemoration on the News1 web site [in Hebrew]:
נתניהו: להרחיב לימודי יהודי המזרח
תישקל הצעת השרה גמליאל לתת פרס 
 ראש הממשלה לחוקרים ובאקדמיה על 
מחקרים בתחום מורשת היהודים יוצאי 

ראש הממשלה בנימין נתניהו הורה להרחיב את לימודי מורשת היהודים יוצאי ערב ואירן במערכת החינוך וכן לשקול את הצעת השרה לשוויון חברתי גילה גמליאל לקיומו של פרס שיינתן מטעמו של ראש הממשלה לחוקרים ובאקדמיה על מחקרים בתחום מורשת היהודים יוצאי ארצות ערב ואירן.  השרה גמליאל סקרה לפני הממשלה את נושא היציאה והגירוש של יהודים מארצות ערב ומאירן וזאת לרגל ציון יום מיוחד לנושא זה שיחול ב-30.11.15.  במסגרת סקירתה, מסרה גמליאל נתונים על מספר היהודים שעזבו את ארצות מוצאם והבהירה כי כשני שלישים מהם הגיעו למדינת ישראל והשתקעו בה.  היא הציגה גם את החלטות האו"ם בעניין פליטים והחלטות הכנסת באמצעות חקיקה לגבי השמירה על זכויות היהודים לפיצוי על רכושם. כן ציינה השרה את הפעולות הנעשות בארץ ובעולם לציון מורשתם של היהודים יוצאי ארצות ערב ואירן לרבות פעולות שצריך להמשיך ולנקוט בהן בעיקר במערכת החינוך ובאקדמיה.

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More Articles on This Subject
Jewish refugees from the Farhud in Baghdad [here]
A commemoration in Australia [here]
Dr Edy Cohen on Ynet news [here]
Elderly Jewish refugees remember their experiences [here]
Report on the commemoration in Jerusalem [here]
Review by Elliott A Green of a book on this subject compiled by Malka Hillel Shulevitz [here]
Excerpt from the aforementioned book, by Bat Yeor [here]
"Forgotten Oppression of Jews under Islam" by Elliott A Green [here]
Report on the commemoration event at the UN in New York [here]

The Tomb of Simon the Just [Shimon haTsadiq] in Jerusalem, a focus of Jewish pilgrimage for centuries

The enemies of Israel and the Jewish people are now working feverishly in high gear. Among other things, they falsify, even deny, Jewish history. The fanatical hatred of our enemies goes so far as to deny that Jews were ever a nation or ever in the Land of Israel or that modern Jews have any ancestral connection with ancient Jews. One of the current denials perpetrated by Arabs who deny the Jewish history of Jerusalem is the denial of Jewish holy places and Jewish residence in various place before 1947-48, when Jews were driven out of their homes in what became Judenrein "East Jerusalem" under Arab rule.

When the controversy over Jewish-owned real estate in the old Shim`on haTsadiq Quarter of Jerusalem erupted [here] in mid-summer of 2009, I visited the area and interviewed the spokesman for a group of Arabs belonging to a family, some of whom had been evicted from a house there for refusing to pay rent to the Jewish owners, the Sefardic Community Council. A group from this family were sitting outside a house where some of them had been living before being evicted. Other family members lived elsewhere in the city.

This spokesman, al-Hijazi by name, as he told me, changed his story several times as I showed that I had information about the history of the site. When I said that Jews said that the Tomb of Simon the Just [Shim`on haTsadiq שמעון הצדוק ] was on the site, he claimed that Simon's tomb was really in Jish Village in the north, that is, in the Galilee. Jish Village כפר ג'יש was called in ancient times by the Hebrew name Gush Halav גוש חלב, distorted by the Arab pronunciation of Jish, with the second word, Halav, left out. The spokesman's name al-Hijazi indicates a family origin in the Hijaz, northwestern Arabia, where Mecca and Medina are located.

As we spoke, we were both sitting about 100-150 feet away and slightly downhill from the location of the Tomb --which always has some visitors/pilgrims around-- although our view of the tomb, located in a cave, was obscured by Arab houses built on the Shimon haTsadiq plot [about 18 dunams = 4 1/2 acres]. Arab houses were built on the plot about 1955 at the initiative of the Jordanian custodian of enemy property. That is, Jewish-owned property under Jordanian control between 1948 and 1967 was considered enemy property by Jordan. Furthermore, Jordan did not allow Jews to visit Jewish holy places under Jordanian control in that period, in violation of the Israel-Transjordan armistice accord of 1949. [Transjordan changed its name to Jordan circa 1950]

The houses built by Arabs circa 1955 are on a flood plain, that of the upper Qidron creek [Nahal Qidron or Kidron נחל קדרון] which is usually dry. When I responded to al-Hijazi that there was an old synagogue uphill [it is on a cliff over Simon's Tomb] with an old Hebrew inscription on it [see here], he claimed that the area had been a quarry before 1948. This was a ridiculous claim, although there is an adjacent plot where ground had been dug out for construction purposes. I believe that that plot was dug out only after 1967. When I said to al-Hijazi [we spoke Hebrew]: The Jews say that Jews lived here before 1948,
he answered: Not true [לא נכון]!!

So much for the credibility of Arab witnesses. I must say that al-Hijazi had the trimmed short beard typical of Hamas believers and most likely supported Hamas rather than Fatah.

What is most outrageous is that in much or most of the media coverage of the controversy over the Shim`on haTsadiq Quarter, it is never mentioned that Simon's Tomb was a focus of Jewish pilgrimage for centuries, especially on the Lag b`Omer holiday, like the tomb of Shim`on bar Yohai in the Galilee at Meron, which attracts much much larger crowds on Lag b`Omer. Here are three illustrated, illuminated tables of Jewish holy places in the Land of Israel that show that it was considered a Jewish holy place and a focus of pilgrimage centuries ago. These illustrated, illuminated tables were exhibited by the Israel Museum in a show in Winter-Summer 1996, two years before 1998 when Jews came back to live in some of the old Jewish homes from which Jews had been driven in December 1947 [one family stayed until the 8th to the 10th of January 1948. Their date of flight is uncertain to a surviving family member]. These tables show the long-standing Jewish reverence for this tomb.

The illustration above shows the Tomb of Shim`on haTsadiq in the lower right corner. Unfortunately, the original document suffered a crease going through the letter shin [ש ] of the name Shimon [שמעון]. The picture shows the tomb or tomb marker [ ציון] inside a cave, which is correct. The table was published in 1659 [click on photo to enlarge].

In this illustration, the tomb of Shim`on haTsadiq [here the name's two parts are in reverse order: צדיק שמעון ] appears at the left middle of the table, just below the depiction of the Western Wall כותל מערבי [Wailing Wall] and between the names of the Sanhedrin tombs [here: שבעים סנהדרין ] and Kalba Savu`a [ כלבא שבוע ], a former name for what is now called the Tombs of the Kings, a Jewish holy and historical site under French government control under the name Tombeau des Rois. The location of the tomb's name on the table shows that it was in Jerusalem, along with the other sites mentioned just above and adjacent to Shim`on haTsadiq on the table. The table dates to the Hebrew year TAQPAH [ תקפ''ה ]. That is, 1824-1825 on the Gregorian calendar. The table is drawn with watercolor and ink on paper and was made in the Land of Israel.

On this table, the name Shimon haTsadiq appears on the left side on the second tier from the bottom. This table is dated to 1829-1830 [the year on the Hebrew calendar תק''ץ]. It too was produced in the Land of Israel and is watercolor and ink on paper.

The attack on Jewish history in general and Jewish history in the Land of Israel in particular is common in English-speaking countries, especially Britain and the United States, it seems to me. See my post on the Financial Times out of London [here]. The FT, a pro-capitalism, pro-free market newspaper, was trying to promote the asinine and wildly dishonest book of Shlomo Sand, a Communist on the faculty of the University of Tel Aviv. Sand claims that the Jewish people was "invented" in the 19th century. Nadia Abu el-Hadj, a degree-holding "anthropologist" ["palestinian" Arab by her background] appointed to the Columbia University faculty in New York, despite many objections, denies aspects of the history of Second Temple Times [here & here]. The assault is happening now. Among other venues of attack, Arab nationalists, Islamists, anti-national Israelis, American and other Western apologists for Arab terrorism have seized on the issue of the Shimon haTsadiq neighborhood in Jerusalem.

This endeavor to eliminate Jewish history is obviously an obstacle to peace.

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source of illustrations:
Rachel Sarfati, ed., Offerings from Jerusalem: Portrayals of Holy Places by Jewish Artists
(Jerusalem: The Israel Museum 2002)