HELENA, Mont. — In Montana, a rabbi is an unusual sight. So when a Hasidic one walked into the State Capitol last December, with his long beard, black hat and long black coat, a police officer grabbed his bomb-sniffing German shepherd and went to ask the exotic visitor a few questions.   Though there are few Jews in Montana today, there once were many. In the late 19th century, there were thriving Jewish populations in the mining towns, where Jews emigrated to work as butchers, clothiers, jewelers, tailors and the like.   The city of Butte had kosher markets, a Jewish mayor, a B’nai B’rith lodge and three synagogues. Helena, the capital city, had Temple Emanu-El, built in 1891 with a seating capacity of 500.

The elegant original facade still stands, but the building was sold and converted to offices in the 1930s, when the congregation had dwindled to almost nothing, the Jewish population having mostly assimilated or moved on to bigger cities.

Israel's title to Palestine,
under international law

From The Legal Foundation and Borders of Israel Under International Law by Howard Grief, international lawyer, 10/2008, mazopublishers@gmail.com), ISBN-10: 9657344522, ISBN-13: 9789657344521), 710 pages. .
 

Jewish sovereignty over the Land of Israel did not arise from the UN’s 1947 partition plan (which was merely advisory) or from British abandonment of the Mandate over Palestine in 1948. Rather, Jewish sovereignty was recognized in 1920 when the post-World War I Allied Supreme Council (Britain, France, Italy and Japan), meeting in San Remo, Italy, "converted the 1917 'Balfour Declaration' into a binding legal document."

"Binding?" “…its wording gave effect to the provisions of Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations and became incorporated into the Mandate for Palestine.” The Jewish people retained sovereignty despite the British acting as their agents by running the Mandate.

The end of the Mandate did not terminate the Jewish people’s rights to all of Palestine as it had been defined, to also include northwestern Golan and Jordan. Under the doctrine of estoppel, those rights cannot be abrogated by countries that formerly had recognized them.

For example, “The U.S. endorsed Jewish sovereignty over Palestine in all its ‘historical parts and dimensions.’ The U.S. cannot now declare Israel's presence in Judea and Samaria as an illegal ‘occupation’ of lands upon which it favors the creation of a Palestinian State. The 1924 Anglo-American Convention on Palestine made the U.S. a ‘contracting party’ to the Mandate, further reinforcing a unanimously passed Joint Resolution of the 67th Congress two years earlier, signed by President Warren G. Harding, recognizing a future Jewish State in ‘the whole of Palestine.’"
 

The “…Mandate for Palestine that was ceremoniously incorporated into U.S. law in 1924 ‘was a constitution for the projected Jewish state that made no provision for an Arab state and which especially prohibited the partition of the country. Thus, he concludes, the fierce exception the U.S. has taken to Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria and its unremitting pressure for creation of a "Palestinian State" amount to a repudiation of its signature to the Anglo-American Convention on Palestine. It is in violation of American law and America's obligations under international law.”
 

If PM Begin had annexed Judea, Samaria, and Gaza right away, they would not have gone through stages in the popular mind from non-allocated to disputed to “occupied” (Winston Mideast Analysis, 12/3).

World Bank Gives Palestinian Authority
$64 Million

Ukraine academic:
Israel imported 25,000 kids for their organs

Ukraine PM Yulia Tymoshenko

Stories appearing on several Ukrainian Web sites claim Israel has brought around some 25,000 Ukrainian children into the country over the past two years in order to harvest their organs.

The claim, which was made by a Ukrainian philosophy professor and author at a pseudo-academic conference in Kiev five days ago, is the latest expression of a wave of anti-Semitism in the country. It comes a few months after a Swedish tabloid ran an article alleging that Israel Defense Forces soldiers have killed Palestinian civilians for their organs.

Jews, Israel and anti-Semitism have become a major motif of the presidential election campaign in Ukraine, with some figures making anti-Semitic statements and others condemning them. Some candidates, including a Jew and someone whose rivals claim is Jewish, blame a third rival - Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko - for bringing anti-Semitism into the race.
 

Obama delays moving US Embassy to Jerusalem

Israel police 'arrest Mossad spy on training exercise'

A trainee spy for Israel's secret service agency Mossad was arrested by Tel Aviv police while taking part in a training operation, media reports say.

US, Israel
'don't have guts' to attack: Iran

BRASILIA (AFP) - Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad said late Monday that US and Israeli military threats against Iran were a thing of the past, and that, in any case, “they don’t have the courage” to attack Iran.
 

“The age of military attacks is over, now we’ve reached the time for dialogue and understanding. Weapons and threats are a thing of the past,” the Iranian told a joint Press conference with Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, closing his one-day visit.
 

Fielding a question on whether he feared an attack from Israel or the US, Ahmadinejad said armed confrontation was no longer a possibility. That’s clear “even for mentally challenged people,” he said with a smile.
 

Twitter co-founder in Israel

to speak about social networking and business

Co-founder of Twitter Biz Stone is in Israel for the first time to speak at a conference being held on Tuesday night by the College of Management Academic Studies. The networking conference, intended for the college's alumni, will focus on the topic of social networking sites.

Palin Ignites New Debate On GOP Support For Israel

Jewish Democrats say she’s the best thing that could happen to them in 2012, and Republicans say she’s almost beside the point as Jewish voters sour on President Barack Obama’s Israel policies, runaway budget deficits and a faltering domestic agenda.

Welcome to the first skirmishes of Campaign 2012 and the adventures of Sarah Palin, the former governor of Alaska, 2008 GOP vice presidential nominee and maybe the latest in a line of Evangelical Christians who think Bible prophecy is being fulfilled in today’s Middle East conflict.

Palin, touring to promote her new book “Going Rogue,” sparked reactions ranging from concern to bafflement when she criticized Obama administration pressure on Israel over Jewish settlements — and said settlement growth is needed for the many Jews who will be “flocking to Israel in the days and weeks and months ahead.”

Was she simply misinformed about recent immigration trends in Israel — or was she echoing popular millennial prophecies that predict a great ingathering of Jews in the last days before Israel is consumed in the terrible wars signaling the coming of the Christian Messiah?

A leading analyst of the religion-politics intersection said the latter is the only likely interpretation.  “This notion of Jews flocking to Israel in the days and weeks ahead can only come from a pre-millennialist perspective,” Mark Silk, a Trinity College professor and director of the school’s Leonard E. Greenberg Center for the Study of Religion in Public Life, told The Jewish Week. “It seems to be her frame of reference when it comes to the Middle East.”

A prominent Jewish Republican, though, scoffed at that interpretation.

“This was just Sarah being Sarah,” said this political veteran, who asked not to be identified. “This is a sideshow; the real issue is President Obama’s failed domestic agenda and his even worse Middle East policies.”