Jerusalem Old City, Burnt House & Davidson Center

Less than two weeks ago, my Tanach/Bible learning group, aka chevruta, went to a couple of Jerusalem's Old City-- Rova Yehudi-- Jewish Quarter museums. The Burnt House and Davidson Archeological Center, which are extremely different.

First we went to the Burnt House, which is the same sort of "museum" as Plugat Hakotel, which I've visited a few times. Plugat Hakotel is in the building we had lived in when we first made aliyah-- moved to Israel, so it's very special to me. Both museums are located in accurately historic locations and offer a fictionalized versions of what had happened there.

In the Burnt house the movie is in Hebrew, English, Spanish, Russian, Chinese and French

Davka, both museums write it up as a young man's story to help people identify with the history. The big difference is the eras when the stories happen, the Burnt House a couple thousand years ago and Plugat Hakotel close to a hundred years ago. Heroism is idealized, of course, which is good. 

The Burnt House is comfortable and recommended for those who can't walk easily, since you sit to watch the movie.

After the Burnt House we walked to the Archeological Garden Davidson Center, which can best be described as a "mixed bag." First with the good things. We took the tour led by a very charming young lady. Yes, there's a lot of walking and steps, so if you or some of your group isn't up to it, find out about an easier version. There are indoor parts of the tour which would be much easier, but we all managed quiet well. You can also do the tour on your own, following the instructions they'll give you when you pay and enter.

We walked around a section of the Kotel, Western Wall of the Temple Compound and around to the Southern Wall. It's all so majestic. Our guide explained why the building stones are so different in the same wall, the time periods and the builders.

We were mesmerized by the views and the stories. Luckily we were all up to the walking and steps. 

Following our guide, we ended up inside the archeological museum where there were movies, mostly short and one longer. One movie explained the significance of the seven branched menorah, but they made a mistake. They started off correctly saying that the seven branches were for the seven days of the week, but they got the days wrong. they stated that the middle, tallest branch was Wednesday, the fourth day of the wee, but that's wrong. The middle branch is for Shabbat, the most important day of the week.

Judaism has Shabbat at the center of the week. Wednesday, Thursday and Friday one prepares for Shabbat, and then Sunday, Monday and Tuesday one "cleans up" from Shabbat and can make the Havdala prayer, which ends one's observance of Shabbat. I checked this out with a rabbi friend, who said that I'm correct. I'm surprised that the mistake hadn't been caught and corrected soon after the museum reopened a few years ago.

We followed our guide further and I can't imagine going through this museum without a guide...

Then we got to the movie they had about Jerusalem which I remembered from my visit soon after the Davidson Center had reopened. I was very upset with the movie then and even more so this visit. 

The best way of describing it is that it's a "woke" version of the history of Jerusalem, intentionally masking and confusing the timeline, history of the city to give the impression that Judaism, Christianity and Islam have been around in the same timeframe. 

The truth is very different. Judaism began about two thousand 2,000 years before Christianity. The Jewish Bible begins its story almost six thousand 6,000 years ago. Christianity is barely two thousand years old, and Islam began about five hundred years later.

The Jewish People were ruled by Jewish Kings in Jerusalem and had two Holy Temples there before either of those religions even began. 

I was terribly disturbed by the sections about Islam. They were like knives in the back. It's clear that whoever wrote the screenplay for that section has an agenda, and it's not a good one. As you can see here, an Arab man and boy are playing chess. The man is showing the boy how to win. There's no actual history; it's sneaky at best. The more I think about it, the angrier I get. There was no need at all to add it. It doesn't relate to the rest of the movie in any way. Jerusalem isn't even mentioned in the Koran. It's political, anti-Israel and anti-Jewish.

I hate to end this blog post in such a negative way, because I really did enjoy most of my time in the Davidson Center.

DISSONANCE, An Amazing Adventure In The Days of The USSR- A Book Review

DISSONANCE A Novel by Carol Cosman is set in the USSR on the eve of the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Cosman deftly weaves the struggles of Soviet Jews, USSR dissidents, spies, Israel's security and the difficulties for elite musicians in this fast-paced historical novel.

Young Soviet pianist Natalia Aronovich is poised for international stardom when, in one shocking act, a Red Guard officer interrupts her performance and removes her from the stage. She later learns the KGB has arrested her father, Pravda journalist Mikhail Aronovich, for his undercover involvement with Soviet dissidents, refuseniks, and Israeli Intelligence.

For those too young to remember that era, DISSONANCE is a good introduction. Though I must say that to my knowledge, Cosman may have sanitized and underplayed the dangers. 

DISSONANCE has very well drawn characters and a fast-paced plot. Actually the book could have been at least fifty or more pages longer if we had been able to read the escape, rather than just a summary. I really enjoyed reading DISSONANCE and recommend it to readers of all ages.

I became an activist for the Soviet Jewry movement as a high school student in the 1960s and even met my husband at a demonstration. In addition, he went on a short mission to the USSR in the mid-1970s from Great Britain where we had been doing Jewish Zionist youth work. Later on back in Israel we were active helping new immigrant Soviet Jews adjust to life in Shiloh. 

It would be wonderful if Cosman could write a sequel, so we'd learn what happened to the very talented and brave Natalia Aronovich.

Product details

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Booklocker.com (March 10, 2021)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 404 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1647192978
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1647192976

Brigadoon in The Bible Land

Having grown up on classical musicals, mostly in movie media, these winter morning mists in the mountains surrounding Shiloh remind me of Brigadoon, an all-time favorite of mine.

Considering that so much of Ancient Jewish History took place in this very location, and in the past forty plus years, we've turned an empty wilderness into vibrant cities and communities, there must be a connection. It's obvious that the curse of Brigadoon has become a blessing.

Ancient Beauty, Glass and More in The Israel Museum

One of my all-time favorite exhibitions in the Israel Museum is Glass through the Ages. During my recent visit, besides getting a last view of the Israeli Fashion exhibition, which has now closed, I entered the Archeology section to see the Glass exhibit and the giant Shiloh jug. For me visiting the jug is like paying proper respect to ancient ancestors.

Shiloh was the first Religious and Administrative Capital for the Jewish People, after the Return Home from slavery in Egypt. It was in Shiloh, and archeologists and Bible/Tanach scholars agree that my village Shiloh is that very Shiloh where Joshua had the Mishkan, Tabernacle erected to serve as a place for central Jewish prayer. The Tabernacle remained standing in Shiloh for 369 years.

This ancient jug/jar is much larger than others found in archeological sites, because Shiloh was a place of pilgrimage and had to be prepared to welcome large numbers of people to pray at the Tabernacle.

Following the capture of the Holy Ark and the death of Eli, the Head Priest, leadership was transferred to Samuel the Prophet who anointed the first two Jewish kings, Saul and David. King David decided to make the more central Jerusalem as Capital (main city,) the location of Mount Moriah, the "place," מקום Makom of miracles including Akeidat Yitzchak, The Binding of Isaac.

And now for some photos of the Ancient Glass. I truly find it ironic that something as fragile and delicate as glass could have survived thousands of years. We can liken glass to the Jewish People and Judaism. No other Ancient People/Religion has survived thousands of years the way we Jews have. We still celebrate the Holidays commanded to us thousands of years ago. We read the Torah and Gd's words. And we live in the same Land from which long dead nations had banished us. Please remember this on Seder night. Passover holiday is so soon.

Searching for Family Roots/Stories, The Spiegelman's of Nasielsk*, Poland

When I was young, I'd been curious about family stories, family roots, but nobody ever really talked to me about them. My father's father had passed away before I was born, and in the 1950's it seemed that everyone had their eyes on the future, rather than the past. On my mother's side she had no aunts, uncles or cousins. My father had been involved with many of his cousins, and the David Spiegelman Family Circle got together periodically. We even had picnics in Kissena Park, Queens throughout the 1950s, which I always enjoyed attending.

The other day I got an email from second, or whatever distance, cousin with photos of our mutual great-grandparents' gravestones.

A careful reading of the gravestones gave me a bit of "surprising" information.

Years ago I had been told, or given the impression, that my paternal Grandfather, Harry Tzvi Hersh Spiegelman had been named for his grandfather Tzvi Hersh, and that name had been given to male family members for a long time. So, as far as I knew, my late brother was:

Tzvi Hersh ben (son of) Alexander Ziskind ben Tzvi Hersh ben David Yosef ben Tzvi Hersh Spiegelman

To strengthen this story is an additional one about a cousin of my grandfather, who had been given the same name, but changed his last name to "Spears," possibly with different spelling. This Harry Tzvi Hersh Spears had been a movie producer in the early days of Hollywood, according to family legend.

My great-grandfather's grave David Yosef ben Alexander Ziskind

However the truth is engraved in stone, at the grave of my great-grandfather. It's written here that he had been:

David Yosef ben Alexander Ziskind

That means that the Tzvi Hersh ancestor was further back, maybe Alexander Ziskind's father. My father's Hebrew (Jewish) name was Alexander Ziskind, who had been his great-grandfather, and my brother's real name was probably:

Tzvi Hersh ben (son of) Alexander Ziskind ben Tzvi Hersh ben David Yosef ben Alexander Ziskind ben Tzvi Hersh Spiegelman

Not all of my Spiegelman cousins are involved in this effort to research our family, but enough of us to make it very exciting.

*My branch of the Spiegelman clan seems to have left Nasielsk, Poland in the very early 20th century, well before the Nazis invaded. My great-grandparents both died in New York. From what we know now, not even cousins remained in Nasielsk, and Glenn Kurtz who has taken on the project of researching, repairing and conserving the history of Jewish Life in Nasielsk has found no record of donations from my family after World War Two.

"Maybe Esther-A Family Story," Book Review

A few months ago, a neighbor invited us to meet some friends of hers, who were visiting from abroad. They were Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern and his wife. Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern is the brother of Katja Petrowskaja, the author of Maybe Esther-A Family Story  We found them to be charming, intelligent and fascinating people. And then a few weeks later, my neighbor gave me Petrowskaja's family memoir/history book which is totally amazing.

"Maybe Esther-A Family Story" tells not only about Katja Petrowskaja's family but about herself, too. She grew up in the Ukraine not knowing all that much about her family's history. There were things like the great-uncle Judas Stern who was an assassin, a crucial tidbit which nobody wanted to talk about. Nobody was certain of her great-grandmother's name; it might have been Esther.

Petrowskaja left the Ukraine as a young woman and, davka, chose to make her life in Germany. "Maybe Esther-A Family Story" was originally written in German. The English translation by Shelley Frisch is excellent. I have no idea how it compares to the original, but it's very readable and flows nicely.

As a young woman, Petrowskaja attempted to distance herself from her Jewish Ukrainian roots, while her brother became a religious Jew. Their ancestors also went in different directions, and Petrowskaja tells of the challenges she took on to search for and document their amazing sagas.

Petrowskaja is descended from teachers, but not the usual academic, science, math or history teachers. Her family taught the deaf and had unique techniques for teaching clear speech to those who couldn't hear.

Of course, as with any Jewish Ukrainian family there are two large "elephants in the room," the Soviet Union and the Holocaust. Petrowskaja manages to deftly weave all of this together in a very readable tapestry. I highly recommend Maybe Esther-A Family Story.

Product details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Harper (January 30, 2018)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0062337548
• ISBN-13: 978-0062337542

Mixing Fact and Fiction

Last night I reviewed Arise and Shine by Tzvi Fishman on my blog Shiloh Musings, a book I coined a Forrest Gump historical fiction novel. Arise and Shine is part of a series of books by Fishman which follows the lives and adventures of  Shalom Aleichem's iconic Tevye character. Fishman has Tevye and most of his family coming to the Promised Land after being banished from their home in Anatevka.



The novel takes place after World War One, and one of the important subplots concerns the internal politics of the giants of the Zionist Movement. Fishman creates realistic characters out of true historic figures, many who had still been alive when I became a Zionist and my husband and I made aliyah. Yes, we knew some of them in real life, though they were a generation or two older than us.

Many of our friends in the Betar Zionist Youth Movement knew them, too. Betar is the youth movement connected to Jabotinsky, Trumpeldor and the Zionist Revisionists, who had been marginalized by the more politically "adept" Labor Zionists.

While the Labor Zionists idealized socialism, kibbutzim, The Haganah and Palmach, Jabotinsky's Revisionists promoted free enterprise and founded the Etzel and its breakaway freedom fighters Lechi aka Stern Gang. All in their ways claimed to be doing everything in their power to establish a Jewish State in Mandated Palestine.

Considering all of the groups and factions there had been fighting the British and each other in those very early pre-State of Israel, I have no doubt that that we all found ourselves imagining which group we would have joined, if we had lived in those exciting and historically significant times. And many of us now very grownup young Zionists continue dreaming and wondering. That could be the seeds of many more books in the genre of Forrest Gump historical fiction. Where would you have been?

Standing Ovation for Hidden-The Secret Jews of Spain

Photo by Batya Medad

that's me

As I had written yesterday, last night I was one of the lucky ones to have attended Opening Night of Hidden - The Secret Jews of Spain.

Opening night excitement was in the air. Multiple generations of women came to watch what we consider a "Sharon Katz Production." Sharon's shows have gotten better every time!

A few years ago, after hearing too many times that women who don't live in Gush Etzion also want to perform with her, she established The Women's Performance Community of Jerusalem. The Women's Performance Community of Jerusalem does more than grand musicals. When there isn't a big show in the works, there are monthly events where women perform for women, mostly to music. Though last year in the Yom Aliyah event, I performed stand-up.

Standing Ovation, Photo by Batya Medad

Last night, there was a rousing standing ovation for Hidden-The Secret Jews of Spain.

Hidden-The Secret Jews of Spain is based on the book “The Family Aguilar” by Rabbi Marcus Lehmann. Katz, her daughter Bati and Avital Maccles, who also starred, brought the story to life.

Music, production, sets, costumes, acting, singing etcetera were so professional, I had to keep reminding myself that The Women's Performance Community of Jerusalem is only an amatuer company.

An added bonus for me was seeing so many friends in the audience. There were many I've known for over half a century, newer ones I've met more recently in Matan and even facebook friends whom I had never met f2f until last night. Women came from all over the country to see Hidden-The Secret Jews of Spain.

There are only a few more performances, so get your tickets now. Click here to order.

The auditorium was packed. Photo by Batya Medad

Photo by Batya Medad

Photo by Batya Medad

Photo by Batya Medad

"60+ is Fun," Getting Together Talking About Wars

Salute to Israel Parade, New York, 1970
NCSY Dance Group
That's me holding the flag. (photographer unknown)

Here in Shiloh new genres of social activities are developing as we get older. One of them is the "60+ is Fun," which can also be called "empty-nesters." Few of us still have children at home, and the children who live at home are adults, too. The group includes retirees and those still working.

There are two reasons for these activities. One is that as the house empties, we find ourselves with empty evenings. And the other is that so many young families live in Shiloh now, we are no longer the "face of the community," meaning that our interests/experiences/needs are different from Shiloh's young mothers of today.

Some of our activities are also for men, but every month or so we gather around someone's table, which fills with nosh, for some discussion or other activity.

Last night we celebrated Yom Ha'atzma'ut, Israeli Independence Day by reminiscing about the 1967 Six Days War. About half of us were in late high school at the time, and we all had very clear and different memories of the war and the tense weeks leading up to it.

We also come from a number of places; half were raised in Israel. I brought these two pictures to show my friends in order to try to give them an idea of what it was like to be a "Jewish activist" and Zionist fifty years ago in New York.

It's a shame that the discussion wasn't recorded, since it had very serious historical value. It was led by a retired History Teacher.

Salute to Israel Parade, New York, 1970
NCSY Dance Group
That's me holding the flag. (photographer unknown)

New Discovery in Shiloh Hakeduma, Tel Shiloh

On Rosh Chodesh, when my friends and I were walking from the entrance, coffee/souvenir shop to the site of the Mishkan, Tabernacle for prayers, we noticed a new, active section being dug by archaeologists.  We stopped by to chat with the archaeologist in charge, and he pointed to a stunning piece they had just dug up, the base of a pillar, with exquisitely detailed carvings. I tried hard to photograph it, but then was told that it wasn't to be publicized yet.

Then we continued on our way, prayed together, and then each of us continued our day.

Imagine my surprise when just a few hours later, Shiloh Hakeduma, Ancient Shiloh, the administrators of Tel Shiloh davka publicized the discovery:

photo by Batya Medad

photo by Batya Medad

To summarize:

It's believed that the pillar was part of a Byzantine church, the 6th discovered at Tel Shiloh. And one must remember that many holy sites to Judaism, like the Biblical Shiloh, were later adopted by other religions. We, the Jewish People, were in Shiloh before them and after them, too.

This is the perfect message and reminder as we Israelis and Jews celebrate seventy 70 years of modern statehood. We have returned to our Ancestral Homeland, the Land of Israel, the Land of the Bible, our Jewish Bible, the Tanach.

No other people ever had an independent country here, just the Jewish People.

Chag Sameach!

To Remember and Not to Forget

יום השואה

לזכור ולא לשכוח

Yesterday my "senior citizens class" and I joined the other students in Ulpanat Ofra, the Ofra Girls High School in commemorating/remembering the Holocaust.

There were two parts to the memorial. First they divided the student body into a few smaller groups in large seminar rooms to hear personal Holocaust stories. As the Holocaust gets further away in time, there are fewer and fewer survivors left alive who can tell their stories. The woman who spoke to us is one of the youngest survivors. She was born in Holland during World War Two, and her parents took quite a bit of convincing to pass their newborn baby to a total stranger, someone in the underground who had volunteered to care for her.

The miracles continued in that not only did she survive and thrive, but both parents also survived, and the woman who had cared for her willingly returned her to them. Post-war Dutch Laws made it very difficult for Jewish families to reclaim their children who had been cared for by non-Jews. The woman and those who helped her parents survive have remained in contact to this day.

After that moving and amazing story, we all crowded into the auditorium for a much longer and varied program. It included standing for the siren, prayers, readings, dance and more. I must say that the students were quiet and attentive throughout the event. Here in Israel, it doesn't matter what your family history, it's clear that the message is relevant to all.

Shiloh Views and Memories, Celebrating 40 Years

I always enjoy being able to walk around my hometown of Shiloh. Views are always changing. Sometimes I try to reconcile the new with the tiny community of a few dozen families we moved to at the end of summer, 1981. Even in our wildest and most unrealistic dreams none of us could envision the large, vibrant, stunning and growing town that exists today.

Shiloh has grown and prospered despite our modest plans and dreams.

Absolutely nothing in these pictures existed or was even planned when we first came to Shiloh. It's clear that Shiloh's great growth and change from "the middle of no place" to being the center of a "settlement bloc" with easy travel to the Jordan Valley, Yarkon Junction, Rosh Ha'ayin-Petach Tikva, Ariel University and Jerusalem is miraculous. During the years I was on our "absorption committee," it became very clear that publicity/recruitment principles didn't hold with us. Something mystical was really controlling the traffic of new families to Shiloh. 

Ironically, or maybe more accurately, siyate d'Shmaya, the Hand of Gd has made the Gush Shiloh area the largest and most popular in Eastern Binyamin, rather than the two communities which had been favored by our regional council Mateh Binyamin in the 1980s.

During Biblical times, Shiloh had been the Jewish Capital City. I don't expect Shiloh to replace Jerusalem in any way, but I see our role in modern Israel growing, just like the gorgeous flowers pictured here.

Historical Novel, "The Quality of Mercy"

I borrowed an old Faye Kellerman book, "The Quality of Mercy," and found it very long and overstuffed with plot and history. Some people may consider it strange that I'm reviewing a book that's over twenty years old, but it's still for sale new, used and audial.

The copy I read had been bought by someone in a 2nd hand bookstore very recently. Print is small, and there are just under six hundred, yes 600, pages. If you have good eyes and lighting, that can keep you busy on a very long flight or two. This copy followed me around for about two months, during which I also read a couple of other books.

The Quality of Mercy is a historical novel that tries to give answers to a few questions. Literary historians for centuries have been trying to discover more about William Shakespeare:

• Was Shakespeare a real person?
• Was Shakespeare Jewish?
• Was Shakespeare a homosexual?
• About which people and events did Shakespeare write his great plays and sonnets?

Kellerman's novel tries to answer many of these questions. Actually, she does answer the first three in The Quality of Mercy and poses some interesting possibilities concerning the fourth. She does this by expanding on a Jew/converso who did live at the same time as Shakespeare, Doctor Roderigo Lopez, and his family. The book revolves the supposed relationship between Shakespeare and a daughter of Lopez. Kellerman embroiders an amazing and complex tapestry of love, intrigue and adventure. 

Like in every good historical novel, it's all "possible." I think that it would be much more readable and successful if it had been better edited. We really don't need all of the subplots, backstories and details to get the main points of the book. Kellerman is a good writer and obviously invested a lot of time and energy (or staff) researching. 

If you enjoy long sagas based on real history, especially if you're well acquainted with the works of Shakespeare, this is the book for you. I must admit that at times it was tedious, but I'm glad that I persevered, because it was worth the effort. So if you spot the book second hand some place, and you have the time to invest, get it. Tell me what you think afterwards.