Israel Cohen Quotes

We state it with a pure heart and full confidence that no Jew has ever thought and is not thinking now in any way whatsoever of impinging on Muslim rights and their holy places.

In Israel, no one really dies. In Israel no one really lives in.

Palestinians have been welcomed nowhere—not, anyway, as full-fledged citizens. They remain Palestinians, generation after generation, a people who nurse an understandable grudge, who are contained either physically or culturally in camps in which hate festers. They have been wronged, no doubt about it—not just by Jews but by their leaders and their fellow Arabs as well. They are stuck in the amber of grievances. They want a nation they never had. They want to return to a place where most have never lived. It may seem like folly, but history argues otherwise. They have seen it done.

We make ourselves out to be innocent victims of attack. It’s true that in August the attackers were Arabs. Since they have no army, they cannot observe the rules of the game. They availed themselves of all the barbaric means typical of an anticolonialist rebellion. But we need to look at the deepest sources of the uprising. We have spent twelve years in Palestine without having even once asked the Arabs’ consent, without conducting any sort of discussion with the people living in this land. We have trusted solely to British power. We have set ourselves goals that must inevitably lead to conflict. (Lavsky 1990, 204)

the Temple was rebuilt, but by then the religion of Israel had been marked forever by the piety of the exile. Alongside the single Temple, where blood sacrifice was celebrated, arose numerous synagogues, places for meeting and for prayer, and the dominium of the priests yielded to the growing influence of the Pharisees and Scribes, men of the book and of study. In 70 A.D., the Roman legions again destroyed the Temple. But the learned rabbi Joahannah ben-Zakkaj, slipped covertly out of Jerusalem through the siege and obtained permission from Vespasian to continue the teaching of the Torah in the city of Jamnia. The temple has never been rebuilt since, and study, the Talmud, has become the real temple of Israel.24 This complex relationship to the Talmud is in fact a key to understanding the life and work of Mark Rothko.

ISRAEL AND THE BOMB     Avner Cohen                    Columbia University Press NEW YORK        

The anti-Semite who avoids violence has no reservations about enabling, excusing, and rationalizing it. Israel,

Thus, as the Communication is a long sequence of Fortified remounting stations, so is the Line a long sequence of Taverns and Ordinaries, and absences of the same. One day, the Meridian having been closely enough establish’d, and with an hour or two of free time available to them, one heads north, one south, and ’tis Dixon’s luck to discover The Rabbi of Prague, headquarters of a Kabbalistick Faith, in Correspondence with the Elect Cohens of Paris, whose private Salute they now greet Dixon with, the Fingers spread two and two, and the Thumb held away from them likewise, said to represent the Hebrew letter Shin and to signify, “Live long and prosper.” The area just beyond the next Ridge is believ’d to harbor a giant Golem, or Jewish Automaton, taller than the most ancient of the Trees. As explain’d to Dixon, ’twas created by an Indian tribe widely suppos’d to be one of the famous Lost Tribes of Israel, who had somehow given up control of the Creature, sending it headlong into the Forest, where it would learn of its own gift of Mobile Invisibility.

Cohens are priests. Levis are temple attendants. Israels are the common

He was dismayed to find that his English—despite years of mandatory instruction in school, months of private lessons with a Bible studies PhD from Exeter visiting Israel to research Christ, repeated encounters with every episode of every season of Sex and the City (subtitled), sporadic encounters with Fast & Furious 1–6 (undubbed), and an aborted reading of the collected works of Sherlock Holmes (abridged)—sucked.

Though Yoav wasn’t quite able yet to discriminate between weekends and weekdays, American goyim and American Jews—Israel took off Fridays and Saturdays, the States took off Saturdays, Sundays, and apparently the rest of the summer.

After having served the State of Israel for 36 months, or 154 weeks, or 1,080 days, they exchanged their drabs for denims, beat their munitions into passports, and shipped beyond the sea to find their fortunes. To find themselves, or the selves they’d been, and to forget the commands that bound them.

At least in America, you lose your house, you can get it back from the bank. In Israel, you lose it to the rockets.

Every Jewish community in every generation invents itself anew. Conservative Judaism is one such brilliant reinvention, one which now finds itself in a phase of dynamic reinvention. With roots in European Jewish Emancipation of the nineteenth century, Conservative Judaism provides an approach to Jewish thinking and practice that allows us to engage with the broader world and live our lives fully as Jews in that world. As a result, Conservative Judaism nurtures the optimistic faith that an ancient tradition can be successfully carried forward by people wholly invested in the success of an open society … if they use methods of inquiry that are intellectually honest, and also developed in the framework of a caring spiritual community. Conservative Jewish Torah thus becomes the “grid” on which the religious and spiritual framework of modern Jewish life and thought can be built by those committed to engaging with the world—intellectually, emotionally, socially, and spiritually. And so the Conservative approach has evolved. Generations of knowledgeable practicing Jews have brought the Jewish passion for justice, community, and Torah into every sphere of life. The movement has helped build and support the State of Israel; Conservative Jewish scholars and knowledgeable Jewish professionals lead institutions of all types around the world; and Conservative Jewish communities have taken root in every major city, providing opportunities for Jews throughout the world to live lives guided by the tenets of the Torah, as interpreted for modern times through the lens of Conservative Jewish ideology and belief. The essays in this book are a product of modern times, speaking to the realities of Jewish life in the twenty-first century. The wisdom and learning of the rabbis who authored them remains emblematic of Conservative

Among the 650 Jews who remained to the very end were the Cohen Henriques brothers and their Amsterdam comrades. For twenty-four years, Recife had been a Rock of Israel. Now, threatened with the Holy Fire, the Jews were forced to hit the familiar Diaspora road again. The

Notwithstanding the preeminence of cultic observances, religious life during the Second Temple era increasingly emphasized personal duties to purify oneself, follow the Torah, and perform daily rites. Jews prayed in both public and private, beyond as well as within Jerusalem. Scripture study emerged as a principal function of a new local institution, the synagogue. Injunctions for holy living (like dietary prohibitions) multiplied. This shifting emphasis toward God's relationship with Jews individually, as opposed to Israel collectively, was manifested theologically by an intensified interest in the workings of God's justice and personal redemption, stimulating heated speculation about resurrection, free will, and eternal judgment. In some circles, apocalyptic (Greek, "revelation") theories explaining evil's persistence and Jews' subordination posited a final war between the righteous and the wicked in which the former would triumph, led by a messiah (mashiach, "anointed one") who was ordinarily conceived as a transcendently powerful human figure and occasionally as a cosmic one. Still, Jews coalesced around their rules of conduct, not their beliefs.

One can classify Judaism, Christianity, and Islam variously. From one perspective, they are monotheisms, religions that uphold God's singularity. Islam itself provides another view, linking them by a tradition of continued divine revelation disclosed in scripture and culminating in the Quran. Muslims regard Jews and Christians as "People of the Book"—a name that outside observers occasionally apply to Muslims too. As apt as these designations may be, however, they do not entirely differentiate these three religions from others. Sikhism and ancient Egyptian Atenism, for example, also qualify as monotheisms, and Muslims came to include Zoroastrians and Hindus as other "People of the Book." The most useful term for collating Judaism, Christianity, and Islam into a single category is "Abrhamic," which distinguishes them by stressing the significance they accord to Abraham: Israel's founding patriarch for Jews, guarantor of the covenant for Christians, and a prophet for Muslims. These Abrahamic identities unite the religions conceptually, even while frequently polarizing their adherents.

The People of Israel understood their relationship with God as a covenant, an agreement stipulating mutual obligations. While this form was a political commonplace in the ancient Near East, its use to articulate the relationship between a people and their deity seems to have been unique to them.

The two most important covenants in Tanakh involve God's pacts with Abraham and Moses. The former assigns Abraham's offspring a permanent homeland; the latter stipulates that the People of Israel belong to the Lord who led them from bondage and commanded their obedience. God will bless them if they comply and punish them if they refuse.

Recognizing a supreme divinity did not . . . translate immediately into conceiving one universal God. Israelites first took YHWH/El as their own while sometimes continuing to worship other people's deities as well. God could be described as heading an assembly of divine beings, but the Lord also sentences its members to death for "showing favor to the wicked" (Ps. 82:2). The prophets frequently express both themes: God is both virtuous and unique. This characterization of a single God who upholds moral standards ("ethical monotheism") surfaced strongly in light of the theological and military problems that Assyria posed. Did that empire's devastating triumph discredit God for having betrayed or failed Israel? "No," answered the prophets. God rules the nations, disposes their affairs justly, and deploys foreign powers as agents to rebuke Israel's iniquities. By the sixth century, this conclusion had become axiomatic. Consoling the exiles, the anonymous "Second Isaiah" reverenced "The Creator.... who alone is God" and who will reduce Babylon for having shown Israel "no mercy" (Is. 45:18, 47:5, 6).

The actual exercise of Israel's relationship with God began with the king and was managed by a hereditary priesthood. During the monarchical period, publics devotions took place at various shrines, and the Jerusalem Temple eventually became the supreme focus of state-sanctioned ceremony. The principal rite—public and private—was animal sacrifice. Tanakh glosses over the underlying rationales, but, at its root, such sacrifice was intended to repair divine-human relationship disordered by the supplicants' impure acts.

Exile and restoration had impacts on belief, observance, and religious identity that can be discerned even if the forces shaping them remain obscure. Competitors to the One God dropped away; adoration of figurines vanished. Israel's sense of its covenantal obligations came to include not simply ritual performance but, more importantly, each individual's internalized commitment to ethical behavior, a change signified by Jeremiah's proclamation of the "new covenant" in which God "will put My Teaching into their inmost being" (Jer 31:33).

By ca. 400 BCE, roughly when Tanakh's historical material ends, a religious community, the self-acknowledged heir of Biblical Israel, had unified itself around a collective self-understanding that distinguished it from its neighbors. That identity included lore about how the God of nations had covenanted with them and guided their history, an attachment to the land God had deeded them, distinctive customs (such as infant male circumcision and a prohibition against eating pork), a common language, and shared worship. Religious life revolved around the Temple, not sacred scripture, and presumed that its rituals were secured by either an Israelite government or a foreign ruler disposed to protect it. We can begin to call these people "Jews" (Yehudim), a name derived from "Yehud" and used in some of Tanakh's late-written books. It is, however, to early to speak of a coherent "Judaism," at least if that designation denotes the liturgical centrality of the Torah, much less of Tanakh, the whole of which did not yet exist.

The Hebrew Bible is called "Tanakh," a title that amalgamates its collective parts: Torah, Nevi'im (Prophets), and Ketuvim (Writings). Tanakh preserves and interprets the historical, cultural, and religious heritage of Israel and Judah. In its current form, it serves as both the definitive anthology that constitutes Judaism's holy scriptures and a pillar of Jewish religious life, but these roles postdate its compilation.

Torah" can be construed as "law," but to prioritize this sense assumes the perspective of early Christians, who regarded Jewish devotion as fixated on obeying divine law and thus insufficient for salvation. For Jews, the broader meaning of "Torah" is "teaching" or "instruction." Its organizing narrative relates the People of Israel's fortunes from the time of their progenitor, Abraham, until they stand along the River Jordan poised to conquer Canaan; it also contains myths, cosmology, genealogies, and poetry, as well as legal codes.

Defeat, exile, and restoration had altered ancient Israel's religion, but the Second Temple's obliteration, coupled with Jews' declining status in the Roman Empire, would force a far greater reconstruction. Lacking a single agreed-upon holy place, modern Christians, however empathetic, may have difficulty imagining the magnitude of the liturgical renovations that the Temple's loss demanded, though Orthodox Byzantines watching Hagia Sophia—their monumental cathedral—reconfigured as a mosque certainly could. Muslims contemplating a hypothetical demolition of Mecca's Masjid al-Haram (Sacred Mosque) and the consequent disruption of the hajj (pilgrimage) may be able to entertain a more visceral understanding of what the Second Temple's loss portended for Judaism.

The religion of Biblical Israel developed first in conditions of self-determination, then of exile, and finally of mild toleration and limited self-autonomy under the Persians, circumstances that continued under Alexander and his successors until the reign of Antiochus IV (r. 175–164 BCE), who feared that Judea had rebelled against him. In reprisal, he erected a statue of Zeus in the Temple and forbade Jews from observing the Torah. This unprecedented intervention—the first instance in antiquity of an adversary targeting a religion rather than a polity—triggered a revolt led by Mattathias and Judah Maccabee. Beginning as a religious resistance movement, it had within a decade transformed into a national liberation campaign that established a kingdom ruled by the Hasmonean dynasty (140–37 BCE). The revolt has frequently been seen as a rejection of Hellenization, but the Maccabees counted Hellenized Jews as supporters and adopted Greek political customs.

Cohen monitoreó no solo cada movimiento militar, infiltrado en el propio territorio del enemigo, sino que trazó para Jerusalem el detalle más completo imaginable de cada funcionario del gobierno y de la oficialidad siria, incluido cada nombre de piloto de combate, mientras el país preparaba la siguiente guerra contra Israel tras la derrota de 1948, ahora en asociación con la Unión Soviética. Pero el detalle es que Cohen, además, trabó amistad con toda la política y todos los altos militares sirios, a niveles inclusive personales, sociales y culturales. Era invitado a cada reunión de los jerarcas de Siria, recorría las instalaciones militares del ejército, conocía cada aspecto de sus posiciones en la meseta del Golán, escenario, en junio de 1967, del jaque mate israelí, cuyas consecuencias llegan al día de hoy. Eli Cohen estuvo a punto de ser nombrado, inclusive, viceministro de Defensa de Siria, tal era el grado de infiltración que había logrado en tres años en Damasco. Hacia 1964-1965, el gobierno de Al Assad empezó a sospechar que había espías entre sus filas, porque era demasiada la información que estaba siendo utilizada por Israel en su contra, y hasta un plan para torcer el curso de las aguas del río Jordán se había visto frustrado. Cohen bajaba sus informaciones a Israel en ocasión de sus viajes a Europa y a la Argentina, en microfilms escondidos en tableros de ajedrez nacarados que enviaba de Damasco a Buenos Aires y, además, utilizando un transmisor radial, todo desde su casa en Siria.

Israel, and you who call yourself Israel, the Church that calls itself Israel, and the revolt that calls itself Israel, and every nation chosen to be a nation – none of these lands is yours, all of you are thieves of holiness, all of you at war with Mercy. Who will say it? Will America say, We have stolen it, or France step down? Will Russia confess, or Poland say, We have sinned? All bloated on their scraps of destiny, all swaggering in the immunity of superstition. Ishmael, who was saved in the wilderness, and given shade in the desert, and a deadly treasure under you: has Mercy made you wise? Will Ishmael declare, We are in debt forever? Therefore the lands belong to none of you, the borders do not hold, the Law will never serve the lawless. To every people the land is given on condition. Perceived or not, there is a covenant, beyond the constitution, beyond sovereign guarantee, beyond the nation’s sweetest dreams of itself. The Covenant is broken, the condition is dishonoured, have you not noticed that the world has been taken away? You have no place, you will wander through yourselves from generation to generation without a thread. Therefore you rule over chaos, you hoist your flags with no authority, and the heart that is still alive hates you, and the remnant of Mercy is ashamed to look at you. You decompose behind your flimsy armour, your stench alarms you, your panic strikes at love. The land is not yours, the land has been taken back, your shrines fall through empty air, your tablets are quickly revised, and you bow down in hell beside your hired torturers, and still you count your battalions and crank out your marching songs. Your righteous enemy is listening. He hears your anthem full of blood and vanity, and your children singing to themselves. He has overturned the vehicle of nationhood, he has spilled the precious cargo, and every nation he has taken back. Because you are swollen with your little time. Because you do not wrestle with your angel. Because you dare to live without God. Because your cowardice has led you to believe that the victor does not limp.

This is where Mr. Zemurray made the calls,” she told me. “He sat in a chair right here, calling every leader in Central and South America, talking and explaining until he got enough of them to change their vote to make modern Israel a reality.

a protest in Gaza on March 30, 2018, the beginnings of what was called the “Great March of Return,” where Israel shot 773 people, leading to 17 fatalities.6 He wanted to know why Democrats in Congress like Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, and former U.S. diplomats such as Samantha Power and Madeleine Albright, were silent about Israel’s overwhelming and unwarranted use of firepower in the incident. He added, “Where are the righteously angry op-eds from Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times, or Richard Cohen of the Washington Post, or David Aaronovitch of the Times of London, demanding concrete action against the human rights abusers of the IDF?

As with Nazism, the conspiracy theory needed Jews. The Iranian interior minister said that Zionists had ‘direct involvement’ in publishing the book. The Iranian president said that ‘Zionist-controlled news agencies’ had made Rushdie famous. In Syria, the Ba’athist dictatorship said that the novel was part of a plot to distract the world’s attention from Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians. In Pakistan, religious leaders talked of an ‘American Jewish conspiracy’. Across the planet, the drums shuddered to the same beat: ‘It’s the Jews, it’s the Jews, it’s the Jews.’ The demonstrations against Rushdie were not confined to the poor world. The faithful marched in Bradford and London as well as Tehran and Lahore. They inspired a fear in the West that went almost unnoticed during the elation the 1989 revolutions in Eastern Europe produced.

In Israel, Defense Minister Abraham Levenson went to President David Cohen’s office to talk. Once inside the President’s office, he said, “Mr. President, we need to solve this problem with Iran once and for all. Our borders may have been protected by God, but Iran will keep trying if we don’t put a stop to their attempts,” “I completely agree with you, Abe. You’re authorized to use nuclear weapons. Drop one on Tehran and detonate a high altitude nuke above the country. It will more than likely affect their neighbors, but we can deal with the political fallout from that later. If you need to, activate our Defense Forces for a potential conflict. Better to be safe than sorry,

Extreme suffering engenders revulsion. Bert felt what Saul Bellow would call the “sense of personal contamination and aversion” engendered by the “disintegrating bodies” of the survivors of the Nazi camps. He hated himself for it. He felt shame but could summon no sympathy. The humiliated Jew was a pathetic figure, his humanity shredded. As Joseph Roth observed, “No one loves victims, not even their fellow victims.” Israel arose to consign that figure to the past.

The private life of civilized society is built on white lies. Everyone except sociopaths self-censors when talking to friends and strangers. Our relations with others would break down if we did not restrain free speech and treat them with respect. No one, however, should demand respect for public ideas that have the power to oppress others as long as criticism is not a direct incitement to crime. Religious and political ideas are too important to protect with polite deceits, because their adherents can seek to control all aspects of public and private life. If you believe that Western democracies are the sole or prime source of oppression, then you are wide open to the seduction of fascistic ideologies, because they come from a radical anti-democratic tradition that echoes your own. If you think that Israel or the West is the sole or prime source of conflict in the Middle East, your defences against anti-Semitism are down, and ready to be overrun.