Is It Time for the Jews to Leave Europe?

Jeffrey Goldberg’s excellent piece in The Atlantic on Jews and their future in Europe.  It’s not 1933, but it’s definitely not pretty.

For half a century, memories of the Holocaust limited anti-Semitism on the Continent. That period has ended—the recent fatal attacks in Paris and Copenhagen are merely the latest examples of rising violence against Jews. Renewed vitriol among right-wing fascists and new threats from radicalised Islamists have created a crisis, confronting Jews with an agonizing choice.

Is It Time for the Jews to Leave Europe?

“All comes from the Jew; all returns to the Jew.”

— Édouard Drumont (1844–1917), founder of the Anti-Semitic League of France

I. The Scourge of Our Time

The French philosopher Alain Finkielkraut, the son of Holocaust survivors, is an accomplished, even gifted, pessimist. To his disciples, he is a Jewish Zola, accusing France’s bien-pensant intellectual class of complicity in its own suicide. To his foes, he is a reactionary whose nostalgia for a fairy-tale French past is induced by an irrational fear of Muslims. Finkielkraut’s cast of mind is generally dark, but when we met in Paris in early January, two days after the Charlie Hebdo massacre, he was positively grim.

“My French identity is reinforced by the very large number of people who openly declare, often now with violence, their hostility to French values and culture,” he said. “I live in a strange place. There is so much guilt and so much worry.” We were seated at a table in his apartment, near the Luxembourg Gardens. I had come to discuss with him the precarious future of French Jewry, but, as the hunt for theCharlie Hebdo killers seemed to be reaching its conclusion, we had become fixated on the television.

Finkielkraut sees himself as an alienated man of the left. He says he loathes both radical Islamism and its most ferocious French critic, Marine Le Pen, the leader of France’s extreme right-wing—and once openly anti-Semitic—National Front party. But he has lately come to find radical Islamism to be a more immediate, even existential, threat to France than the National Front. “I don’t trust Le Pen. I think there is real violence in her,” he told me. “But she is so successful because there actually is a problem of Islam in France, and until now she has been the only one to dare say it.”

Suddenly, there was news: a kosher supermarket in Porte de Vincennes, in eastern Paris, had come under attack. “Of course,” Finkielkraut said. “The Jews.” Even before anti-Semitic riots broke out in France last summer, Finkielkraut had become preoccupied with the well-being of France’s Jews.

We knew nothing about this new attack—except that we already knew everything. “People don’t defend the Jews as we expected to be defended,” he said. “It would be easier for the left to defend the Jews if the attackers were white and rightists.”

I asked him a very old Jewish question: Do you have a bag packed?

“We should not leave,” he said, “but maybe for our children or grandchildren there will be no choice.”

Reports suggested that a number of people were dead at the market. I said goodbye, and took the Métro to Porte de Vincennes. Stations near the market were closed, so I walked through neighborhoods crowded with police. Sirens echoed through the streets. Teenagers gathered by the barricades, taking selfies. No one had much information. One young man, however, said of the victims, “It’s just the Feuj.” Feuj, an inversion of Juif—“Jew”—is often used as a slur.

I located an acquaintance, a man who volunteers with the Jewish Community Security Service, a national organization founded after a synagogue bombing in 1980, to protect Jewish institutions from anti-Semitic attack. “Supermarkets now,” he said bleakly. We made our way closer to the forward police line, and heard volleys of gunfire. The police had raided the market; the suspect, Amedy Coulibaly, we soon heard, was dead. So were four Jews he had murdered. They had been shopping for the Sabbath when he entered the market and started shooting.

France’s 475,000 Jews represent less than 1 percent of the country’s population. Yet last year, according to the French Interior Ministry, 51 percent of all racist attacks targeted Jews. The statistics in other countries, including Great Britain, are similarly dismal. In 2014, Jews in Europe were murdered, raped, beaten, stalked, chased, harassed, spat on, and insulted for being Jewish. Sale Juif—“dirty Jew”—rang in the streets, as did “Death to the Jews,” and “Jews to the gas.”

The epithet dirty Jew, Zola wrote in “J’Accuse …!,” was the “scourge of our time.” “J’Accuse …!” was published in 1898.

The Hyper Cacher kosher supermarket in the Porte de Vincennes neighborhood of Paris in the aftermath of the January 9 attack that killed four Jews

The resurgence of anti-Semitism in Europe is not—or should not be—a surprise.

The chutzpah! #Putin Defends #Ukraine’s Jews, Slams Ukraine’s Jewish Oligarchs

The chutzpah!

Putin Defends Ukraine's Jews, Slams Ukraine's Jewish Oligarchs

Cites Ukraine's appointment of oligarchs as governors as reason for unrest
Yesterday morning, Vladimir Putin, president of the Russian Federation, gave his first post-Crimea invasion press conference. What rapidly became apparent, as he slouched in a gilded hall studded with Russian flags, was that the combination of Putin's surreal interpretation of events with his lavishly baroque epistemology has given form to some bizarrely contradictory dualities in his worldview. He railed against a politicized judiciary selectively prosecuting the enemies of the chief executive, overlooking that it's exactly what the Russian Judiciary does routinely; he argued the change of government in Kiev was an armed coup, but the one in Crimea was entirely legitimate. The usage of force by Ukrainians is unjustified, but completely justified from the Russian side.

The Russian leader also insisted that Ukraine's deposed president, Viktor Yanukovych, retains authority as the country's elected head of state, but also described him as a corrupt failure whose political career was finished. Putin also admitted that he understood well popular demands for "cardinal changes in government" by Ukrainians—demands, he asserted, that simply stemmed from their "having become habituated to switching one thief and opportunist for another thief and opportunist." He spat out the word "opportunist" in disgust.

The History and Disappearance of the Jewish Presence in Pakistan / ISN

11 July 2011

Karachi in another time

Pakistan was never traditionally anti-Semitic. In fact, it may come as a surprise that Pakistan hosted small, yet thriving, Jewish communities from the 19th century until the end of the 1960s.

By Shalva Weil for ISN Insights

In November 2008, Lashkar e Taiba (LET), a radical Islamist group from Pakistan, specifically targeted “Nariman House” in Bombay (Mumbai) for a terrorist attack, along with other tourist locations, such as the Taj Mahal hotel. Nariman House was a ‘Chabad house’ of the ultra-Orthodox Chabad-Lubavitch movement in Hasidic Judaism – a Jewish outreach center that included an educational center, synagogue and hostel. It was run by Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg and his wife, Rivka. When the building was attacked, six occupants, including the Rabbi and his pregnant wife, were killed. A total of 164 people were killed in the Mumbai attacks. David Coleman Headley, who testified in the United States at the end of May 2011 in the trial of his friend, Chicago businessman Tahawwur Rana, confessed that he had planned the Mumbai attacks in conjunction with an officer of Pakistan’s ISI intelligence agency, a man whom he called “Major Iqbal”. The officer was reportedly delighted that the Jews were targeted.

The Jews of Pakistan

Pakistan was never traditionally anti-Semitic. In fact, it may come as a surprise that Pakistan hosted small, yet thriving, Jewish communities from the 19th century until the end of the 1960s. Recently, Yoel Reuben, a Pakistani Jew living in the town of Lod in Israel, whose family originated in Lahore, documented some of the history of the Jewish communities with photographs of original documents. When India and Pakistan were one country, before the partition in 1947, the Jews were treated with tolerance and equality. In the first half of the 20th century, there were nearly 1,000 Jewish residents in Pakistan living in different cities: Karachi, Peshwar, Quetta and Lahore. The largest Jewish community lived in Karachi, where there was a large synagogue and a smaller prayer hall. There were two synagogues in Peshawar, one small prayer hall in Lahore belonging to the Afghan Jewish community, and one prayer hall in Quetta. Even today, according to unofficial sources, there are rumors that some Jews remain in Pakistan, including doctors and members of the free professions, who converted or pass themselves off as members of other religions.

The Jews of Pakistan were of various origins, but most were from the Bene Israel community of India, and came to Pakistan in the employ of the British. Yifah, a student at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, relates that her great-great-grandfather Samuell Reuben Bhonkar, who was a Bene Israel, came to Karachi in British India to work as a jailer, and died there in 1928. The Bene Israel originated in the Konkan villages, but many moved to Bombay from the end of the 18th century on. In Pakistan, they spoke Marathi, their mother-tongue from Maharashtra; Urdu, the local language; and most spoke English. Prayers were conducted in Hebrew.

In 1893, a Bene Israel from Bombay, Solomon David Umerdekar, inaugurated the Karachi Magen Shalom Synagogue on the corner of Jamila Street and Nishtar Road, which officially opened in 1912. During these years, the Jewish community thrived. In 1903, the community set up the Young Man’s Jewish Association, and the Karachi Bene Israel Relief Fund was established to support poor Jews. In 1918, the Karachi Jewish Syndicate was formed to provide housing at reasonable rents, and the All India Israelite League, which represented 650 Bene Israel living in the province of Sind (including Hyderabad, Larkuna, Mirpur-Khas and Sukkur, as well as Karachi), was first convened – founded by two prominent Bene Israel, Jacob Bapuji Israel and David S Erulkar. Karachi became a fulcrum for the Bene Israel in India, the place where they congregated for High Holiday prayers. There was also a prayer hall, which served the Afghan Jews residing in the city. A 1941 government census recorded 1,199 Pakistani Jews: 513 men and 538 women. So accepted were the Jews of Karachi in these years that Abraham Reuben, a leader in the Jewish community, became the first Jewish councilor on the Karachi Municipal Corporation.

The beginnings of anti-Zionism

On 15 August, India was partitioned and the Dominion of Pakistan was declared. Partition effectively signaled the end of the British Empire. Fearful of their future in the new Islamic state, Jews began to flee. Some from Afghanistan and the Bene Israel community in Lahore fled to Karachi and from there moved to Bombay. Muslim refugees from India called Mohajir streamed into Pakistan, and attacked Jewish sites. The situation was exacerbated by the declaration of independence for the state of Israel in May 1948. Many of the Karachi Jews left the city in 1948, after rioters attacked the Karachi synagogue during a demonstration in May of that year against President Truman’s recognition of Israel. Some members of the community emigrated to Israel via India, while others settled in Canada and the United Kingdom.

Pogroms against the Jews recurred during the Suez War in 1956 and the Six Day War in 1967. Most of the remaining Jews emigrated and, in 1968, the Pakistani Jewish community numbered only 350 in Karachi, with one synagogue, a welfare organization and a recreational organization. After 1968, there is no record of any Pakistani Jews outside Karachi.

Today, anti-Israel discourse manifests itself in the notion that Israel and Pakistan are ultimately in competition and only one can flourish. In April 2008, Lt-Gen Hamid Gul, the former chief of Pakistan's powerful Inter-Services Intelligence, proclaimed that "two states came into existence in 1947 and 1948: one, Pakistan; two, Israel. The two are threats to each other. Ultimately, only one of them will survive." Pakistan aligns itself with the Palestinian Muslim cause and rejects the US insofar as it is allied with Israel.

The Karachi Jewish community since the 1980s

The Magen Shalom synagogue in Karachi was destroyed on 17 July 1988 by order of Pakistan’s President Zia-Ul-Hak to make way for a shopping mall in the Ranchore Lines neighborhood of Karachi. In 1989, the original Ark and podium were stored in Karachi; a Torah scroll case was taken by an American to the US.

As late as 2007, the sole survivor of the Karachi Jewish community, Rachel Joseph, a former teacher, then 88 years old, was battling for compensation for the broken promise from the property developers that had demolished the old synagogue: in exchange, she would receive an apartment, and a new small synagogue would be constructed on the old site. While the litigation wore on, she languished in a tiny room.

This year, a Muslim Pakistani-American filmmaker, Shoeb Yunus, shot a film about the Jewish cemetery in Karachi. Today, it is part of the larger Cutchi Memon graveyard, which has a Muslim caretaker. It took Yunus eight months to gain admission, and the camera crew was allowed only 10 minutes to shoot. He estimates that there are 200-400 Jewish graves. The neglected cemetery has not been destroyed since its last custodian, Rachel Joseph, died on 17 July 2006.

---

Dr Shalva Weil is a Senior Researcher at the Research Institute for Innovation in Education at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel. She is a specialist in Indian Jewry and is the Founding Chairperson of the Israel-India Friendship Association.

International Relations and Security Network (ISN)

Creative Commons - Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported

• Subscribe to ISN Insights

© 2011 ISN, Center for Security Studies (CSS), ETH Zurich, Switzerland

The History and Disappearance of the Jewish Presence in Pakistan / ISN

Share this|

________________________ The MasterBlog

Fidel: 'Cuban Model Doesn't Even Work For Us Anymore' - International - The Atlantic

Fidel: 'Cuban Model Doesn't Even Work For Us Anymore'

By Jeffrey Goldberg

There were many odd things about my recent Havana stopover (apart from the dolphin show, which I'll get to shortly), but one of the most unusual was Fidel Castro's level of self-reflection. I only have limited experience with Communist autocrats (I have more experience with non-Communist autocrats) but it seemed truly striking that Castro was willing to admit that he misplayed his hand at a crucial moment in the Cuban Missile Crisis (you can read about what he said toward the end of my previous post - but he said, in so many words, that he regrets asking Khruschev to nuke the U.S.).

---

MORE ON Fidel Castro:
Jeffrey Goldberg: Castro has misgivings about how he handled the Cuban Missile Crisis

---

Even more striking was something he said at lunch on the day of our first meeting. We were seated around a smallish table; Castro, his wife, Dalia, his son; Antonio; Randy Alonso, a major figure in the government-run media; and Julia Sweig, the friend I brought with me to make sure, among other things, that I didn't say anything too stupid (Julia is a leading Latin American scholar at the Council on Foreign Relations). I initially was mainly interested in watching Fidel eat - it was a combination of digestive problems that conspired to nearly kill him, and so I thought I would do a bit of gastrointestinal Kremlinology and keep a careful eye on what he took in (for the record, he ingested small amounts of fish and salad, and quite a bit of bread dipped in olive oil, as well as a glass of red wine). But during the generally lighthearted conversation (we had just spent three hours talking about Iran and the Middle East), I asked him if he believed the Cuban model was still something worth exporting.

"The Cuban model doesn't even work for us anymore," he said.

This struck me as the mother of all Emily Litella moments. Did the leader of the Revolution just say, in essence, "Never mind"?

I asked Julia to interpret this stunning statement for me. She said, "He wasn't rejecting the ideas of the Revolution. I took it to be an acknowledgment that under 'the Cuban model' the state has much too big a role in the economic life of the country."

Julia pointed out that one effect of such a sentiment might be to create space for his brother, Raul, who is now president, to enact the necessary reforms in the face of what will surely be push-back from orthodox communists within the Party and the bureaucracy. Raul Castro is already loosening the state's hold on the economy. He recently announced, in fact, that small businesses can now operate and that foreign investors could now buy Cuban real estate. (The joke of this new announcement, of course, is that Americans are not allowed to invest in Cuba, not because of Cuban policy, but because of American policy. In other words, Cuba is beginning to adopt the sort of economic ideas that America has long-demanded it adopt, but Americans are not allowed to participate in this free-market experiment because of our government's hypocritical and stupidly self-defeating embargo policy. We'll regret this, of course, when Cubans partner with Europeans and Brazilians to buy up all the best hotels).

But I digress. Toward the end of this long, relaxed lunch, Fidel proved to us that he was truly semi-retired. The next day was Monday, when maximum leaders are expected to be busy single-handedly managing their economies, throwing dissidents into prison, and the like. But Fidel's calendar was open. He asked us, "Would you like to go the aquarium with me to see the dolphin show?"

I wasn't sure I heard him correctly. (This happened a number of times during my visit). "The dolphin show?"

"The dolphins are very intelligent animals," Castro said.

I noted that we had a meeting scheduled for the next morning, with Adela Dworin, the president of Cuba's Jewish community.

"Bring her," Fidel said.

Someone at the table mentioned that the aquarium was closed on Mondays. Fidel said, "It will be open tomorrow."

And so it was.

Late the next morning, after collecting Adela at the synagogue, we met Fidel on the steps of the dolphin house. He kissed Dworin, not incidentally in front of the cameras (another message for Ahmadinejad, perhaps). We went together into a large, blue-lit room that faces a massive, glass-enclosed dolphin tank. Fidel explained, at length, that the Havana Aquarium's dolphin show was the best dolphin show in the world, "completely unique," in fact, because it is an underwater show. Three human divers enter the water, without breathing equipment, and perform intricate acrobatics with the dolphins. "Do you like dolphins?" Fidel asked me.

"I like dolphins a lot," I said.

Fidel called over Guillermo Garcia, the director of the aquarium (every employee of the aquarium, of course, showed up for work -- "voluntarily," I was told) and told him to sit with us.

"Goldberg," Fidel said, "ask him questions about dolphins."

"What kind of questions?" I asked.

"You're a journalist, ask good questions," he said, and then interrupted himself. "He doesn't know much about dolphins anyway," he said, pointing to Garcia. He's actually a nuclear physicist."

"You are?" I asked.

"Yes," Garcia said, somewhat apologetically.

"Why are you running the aquarium?" I asked.

"We put him here to keep him from building nuclear bombs!" Fidel said, and then cracked-up laughing.

"In Cuba, we would only use nuclear power for peaceful means," Garcia said, earnestly.

"I didn't think I was in Iran," I answered.

Fidel pointed to the small rug under the special swivel chair his bodyguards bring along for him.

"It's Persian!" he said, and laughed again. Then he said, "Goldberg, ask your questions about dolphins."

Now on the spot, I turned to Garcia and asked, "How much do the dolphins weigh?"

They weigh between 100 and 150 kilograms, he said.

"How do you train the dolphins to do what they do?" I asked.

"That's a good question," Fidel said.

Garcia called over one of the aquarium's veterinarians to help answer the question. Her name was Celia. A few minutes later, Antonio Castro told me her last name: Guevara.

"You're Che's daughter?" I asked.

"Yes," she said.

"And you're a dolphin veterinarian?"

"I take care of all the inhabitants of the aquarium," she said.

"Che liked animals very much," Antonio Castro said.

It was time for the show to start. The lights dimmed, and the divers entered the water. Without describing it overly much, I will say that once again, and to my surprise, I found myself agreeing with Fidel: The aquarium in Havana puts on a fantastic dolphin show, the best I've ever seen, and as the father of three children, I've seen a lot of dolphin shows. I will also say this: I've never seen someone enjoy a dolphin show as much as Fidel Castro enjoyed the dolphin show.

In the next installment, I will deal with such issues as the American embargo, the status of religion in Cuba, the plight of political dissidents, and economic reform. For now, I leave you with this image from our day at the aquarium (I'm in the low chair; Che's daughter is behind me, with the short, blondish hair; Fidel is the guy who looks like Fidel if Fidel shopped at L.L. Bean):

This article available online at:
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2010/09/fidel-cuban-model-doesnt-even-work-for-us-anymore/62602/

Copyright © 2010 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All Rights Reserved.

Fidel: 'Cuban Model Doesn't Even Work For Us Anymore' - International - The Atlantic

Share this|

________________________

Fidel to Ahmadinejad: 'Stop Slandering the Jews' - International - The Atlantic

Fidel to Ahmadinejad: 'Stop Slandering the Jews'

By Jeffrey Goldberg

The Atlantic

(This is Part I of a report on my recent visit to Havana. I hope to post Part II tomorrow. And I also hope to be publishing a more comprehensive article about this subject in a forthcoming print edition of The Atlantic.)
A couple of weeks ago, while I was on vacation, my cell phone rang; it was Jorge Bolanos, the head of the Cuban Interest Section (we of course don't have diplomatic relations with Cuba) in Washington. "I have a message for you from Fidel," he said. This made me sit up straight. "He has read your Atlantic article about Iran and Israel. He invites you to Havana on Sunday to discuss the article." I am always eager, of course, to interact with readers of The Atlantic, so I called a friend at the Council on Foreign Relations, Julia Sweig, who is a preeminent expert on Cuba and Latin America: "Road trip," I said.

I quickly departed the People's Republic of Martha's Vineyard for Fidel's more tropical socialist island paradise. Despite the self-defeating American ban on travel to Cuba, both Julia and I, as journalists and researchers, qualified for a State Department exemption. The charter flight from Miami was bursting with Cuban-Americans carrying flat-screen televisions and computers for their technologically-bereft families. Fifty minutes after take-off, we arrived at the mostly-empty Jose Marti International Airport. Fidel's people met us on the tarmac (despite giving up his formal role as commandante en jefe after falling ill several years ago, Fidel still has many people). We were soon deposited at a "protocol house" in a government compound whose architecture reminded me of the gated communities of Boca Raton. The only other guest in this vast enclosure was the president of Guinea-Bissau.

I was aware that Castro had become preoccupied with the threat of a military confrontation in the Middle East between Iran and the U.S. (and Israel, the country he calls its Middle East "gendarme"). Since emerging from his medically induced, four-year purdah early this summer (various gastrointestinal maladies had combined to nearly kill him), the 84-year-old Castro has spoken mainly about the catastrophic threat of what he sees as an inevitable war.

I was curious to know why he saw conflict as unavoidable, and I wondered, of course, if personal experience - the Cuban missile crisis of 1962 that nearly caused the annihilation of most of humanity - informed his belief that a conflict between America and Iran would escalate into nuclear war.  I was even more curious, however, to get a glimpse of the great man. Few people had seen him since he fell ill in 2006, and the state of his health has been a subject of much speculation. There were questions, too, about the role he plays now in governing Cuba; he formally handed off power to his younger brother, Raul, two years ago, but it was not clear how many strings Fidel still pulled.

The morning after our arrival in Havana, Julia and I were driven to a nearby convention center, and escorted upstairs, to a large and spare office. A frail and aged Fidel stood to greet us. He was wearing a red shirt, sweatpants, and black New Balance sneakers. The room was crowded with officials and family: His wife, Dalia, and son Antonio, as well as an Interior Ministry general, a translator, a doctor and several bodyguards, all of whom appeared to have been recruited from the Cuban national wrestling team. Two of these bodyguards held Castro at the elbow.

We shook hands, and he greeted Julia warmly; they have known each other for more than twenty years. Fidel lowered himself gently into his seat, and we began a conversation that would continue, in fits and starts, for three days. His body may be frail, but his mind is acute, his energy level is high, and not only that: the late-stage Fidel Castro turns out to possess something of a self-deprecating sense of humor. When I asked him, over lunch, to answer what I've come to think of as the Christopher Hitchens question - has your illness caused you to change your mind about the existence of God? - he answered, "Sorry, I'm still a dialectical materialist." (This is funnier if you are, like me, an ex-self-defined socialist.) At another point, he showed us a series of recent photographs taken of him, one of which portrayed him with a fierce expression. "This was how my face looked when I was angry with Khruschev," he said. 

Castro opened our initial meeting by telling me that he read the recent Atlantic article carefully, and that it confirmed his view that Israel and America were moving precipitously and gratuitously toward confrontation with Iran. This interpretation was not surprising, of course: Castro is the grandfather of global anti-Americanism, and he has been a severe critic of Israel. His message to Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, he said, was simple: Israel will only have security if it gives up its nuclear arsenal, and the rest of the world's nuclear powers will only have security if they, too, give up their weapons. Global and simultaneous nuclear disarmament is, of course, a worthy goal, but it is not, in the short term, realistic.

Castro's message to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the President of Iran, was not so abstract, however. Over the course of this first, five-hour discussion, Castro repeatedly returned to his excoriation of anti-Semitism. He criticized Ahmadinejad for denying the Holocaust and explained why the Iranian government would better serve the cause of peace by acknowledging the "unique" history of anti-Semitism and trying to understand why Israelis fear for their existence.

 
He began this discussion by describing his own, first encounters with anti-Semitism, as a small boy. "I remember when I was a boy - a long time ago - when I was five or six years old and I lived in the countryside," he said, "and I remember Good Friday. What was the atmosphere a child breathed? `Be quiet, God is dead.' God died every year between Thursday and Saturday of Holy Week, and it made a profound impression on everyone. What happened? They would say, `The Jews killed God.' They blamed the Jews for killing God! Do you realize this?"

He went on, "Well, I didn't know what a Jew was. I knew of a bird that was a called a 'Jew,' and so for me the Jews were those birds.  These birds had big noses. I don't even know why they were called that. That's what I remember. This is how ignorant the entire population was."

He said the Iranian government should understand the consequences of theological anti-Semitism. "This went on for maybe two thousand years," he said. "I don't think anyone has been slandered more than the Jews. I would say much more than the Muslims. They have been slandered much more than the Muslims because they are blamed and slandered for everything. No one blames the Muslims for anything." The Iranian government should understand that the Jews "were expelled from their land, persecuted and mistreated all over the world, as the ones who killed God. In my judgment here's what happened to them: Reverse selection. What's reverse selection? Over 2,000 years they were subjected to terrible persecution and then to the pogroms. One might have assumed that they would have disappeared; I think their culture and religion kept them together as a nation." He continued: "The Jews have lived an existence that is much harder than ours. There is nothing that compares to the Holocaust." I asked him if he would tell Ahmadinejad what he was telling me. "I am saying this so you can communicate it," he answered.

Castro went on to analyze the conflict between Israel and Iran. He said he understood Iranian fears of Israeli-American aggression and he added that, in his view, American sanctions and Israeli threats will not dissuade the Iranian leadership from pursuing nuclear weapons. "This problem is not going to get resolved, because the Iranians are not going to back down in the face of threats. That's my opinion," he said. He then noted that, unlike Cuba, Iran is a "profoundly religious country," and he said that religious leaders are less apt to compromise. He noted that even secular Cuba has resisted various American demands over the past 50 years.

We returned repeatedly in this first conversation to Castro's fear that a confrontation between the West and Iran could escalate into a nuclear conflict. "The Iranian capacity to inflict damage is not appreciated," he said. "Men think they can control themselves but Obama could overreact and a gradual escalation could become a nuclear war." I asked him if this fear was informed by his own experiences during the 1962 missile crisis, when the Soviet Union and the U.S. nearly went to war other over the presence of nuclear-tipped missiles in Cuba (missiles installed at the invitation, of course, of Fidel Castro). I mentioned to Castro the letter he wrote to Khruschev, the Soviet premier, at the height of the crisis, in which he recommended that the Soviets consider launching a nuclear strike against the U.S. if the Americans attack Cuba. "That would be the time to think about liquidating such a danger forever through a legal right of self-defense," Castro wrote at the time.

I asked him, "At a certain point it seemed logical for you to recommend that the Soviets bomb the U.S. Does what you recommended still seem logical now?" He answered: "After I've seen what I've seen, and knowing what I know now, it wasn't worth it all."

I was surprised to hear Castro express such doubts about his own behavior in the missile crisis - and I was, I admit, also surprised to hear him express such sympathy for Jews, and for Israel's right to exist (which he endorsed unequivocally). 

After this first meeting, I asked Julia to explain the meaning of Castro's invitation to me, and of his message to Ahmadinejad. "Fidel is at an early stage of reinventing himself as a senior statesman, not as head of state, on the domestic stage, but primarily on the international stage, which has always been a priority for him," she said. "Matters of war, peace and international security are a central focus: Nuclear proliferation climate change, these are the major issues for him, and he's really just getting started, using any potential media platform to communicate his views. He has time on his hands now that he didn't expect to have. And he's revisiting history, and revisiting his own history."

There is a great deal more to report from this conversation, and from subsequent conversations, which I will do in posts to follow. But I will begin the next post on this subject by describing one of the stranger days I have experienced, a day which began with a simple question from Fidel: "Would you like to go to the aquarium with me to see the dolphin show?"

This article available online at:
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2010/09/fidel-to-ahmadinejad-stop-slandering-the-jews/62566/

Copyright © 2010 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All Rights Reserved
Fidel to Ahmadinejad: 'Stop Slandering the Jews' - International - The Atlantic

Rosh Hashana Recipes Routed Through Africa - NYTimes.com

Rosh Hashana Recipes Routed Through Africa

Nanda Gonzague for The New York Times
From left, Carole Chaouat, Cathy Levy, with makroud, and Corynne Mas share recipes for the High Holy Days. Like many Jews in France, their holiday meals have North African influences.

August 31, 2010

Rosh Hashana Recipes Routed Through Africa

By JOAN NATHAN

Perpignan, France

CORYNNE MAS said the pastries she makes for Rosh Hashana were like teiglach, Eastern European cookies covered with nuts and honey.

But the version she’ll give her family when the holiday starts next Wednesday night will be stuffed with spiced dates and scented with orange flower water — Middle Eastern touches her mother, a French Jew with Eastern European roots, would not have recognized. They are called makroud, something she learned from her mother-in-law, an Algerian Jew.

Most of the dishes Ms. Mas cooks are North African. And when she gets together with her good friends Carole Chaouat and Cathy Levy, North African Jews, the food they share is more likely flavored with harissa, cumin and honey, than horseradish, dill or sugar.

The culinary transformation Ms. Mas experienced would feel familiar to many French Jews. About a quarter of the 300,000 Jews in France before World War II died in the Holocaust, and others later left for Israel or the United States. But as independence came to the former French colonies of Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria in the late 1950s and early 1960s, many more Jews emigrated to France. The customs they brought came to define French Jewish food.

Ms. Mas, 54, said she was not raised with an appreciation for her Jewish background. “I have learned everything from my Algerian mother-in-law,” she said. “The Sephardic Jews are attached to their religion and are refueling Jewish life in France.”

Many of these Sephardic dishes actually have centuries-old roots here in southwestern France and Catalonia, from before Jews were expelled and settled in North Africa. Jewish cooks here still use the ingredients of those ancestors — anise, olive oil, rose water, and pine nuts — reimagined on stovetops in Marrakesh, Oran and Tunis.

The physical traces of these traditions here are literally cast in stone in the remains of Jewish quarters in nearly every town — Hebrew letters on a grave, the indentation on the right side of an ancient doorpost indicating a once-posted mezuza, names like Rue de la Juiverie or Rue de Jérusalem found on cobblestone streets.

But new synagogues in Perpignan, or nearby in Narbonne and Béziers, have only initials in French outside the door: A.C.I.N., for Association Culturelle Israélite de Narbonne. There is no clear indication to the passer-by that these are Jewish houses of prayer.

Ms. Mas; Ms. Chaouat, 54, born in Tunisia; and Ms. Levy, 45, born in Morocco, grew up in Perpignan, a center of Jewish culture during the Middle Ages. It now has about 450 Jewish families.

As the women gathered beneath an almond tree on the patio of Ms. Mas’s home, Ms. Chaouat served a potato salad, dipping two fingers in a jar of harissa and dabbing at the potatoes she had prepared, as she would do with other cooked vegetables.

“This is the way we share recipes,” Ms. Chaouat said. “Food is our identity, tradition and our roots.”

Each group of immigrant Jews brought its own influences.

“Moroccans like sweet and salty in everything,” said Ms. Chaouat, who works as a caregiver for the elderly. “Tunisians eat couscous, but it is always savory and we serve everything on the table at once.”

Vegetables stuffed with meat are a popular holiday dish. The stuffing sometimes is made with parsley or eggs, sometimes with nuts, and always cooked slowly. Ms. Levy’s version, a Moroccan dish with roots here, includes cinnamon, turmeric and nutmeg and is cooked at low temperature overnight to be ready on the first night of the holiday. (But it can also be cooked more quickly at a higher temperature.)

Ms. Levy, a deputy mayor in her village outside of Perpignan, is usually in charge of food for synagogue events, gathering her friends to cook with her.

“We cook everyday and our children like to eat our food,” she said. “Living in a small town, we don’t lose time in traffic. So we have time to cook.”

Ms. Levy added: “If you don’t make traditional recipes at Rosh Hashana or the Sabbath, it is the revolution. Every holiday meal starts with at least two dozen tapas. Once my son said: ‘Why do you work so hard at cooking? Why don’t you make just one salad for Rosh Hashana!’ ” The next holiday, she brought out one salad. Her son looked chagrined and said, “Where are the other 23?”

So she brought out the 23 other dishes that she had hidden in a cupboard.

Rosh Hashana Recipes Routed Through Africa - NYTimes.com: "

Share this|

________________________

The Clinton-Mezvinsky nuptials took place about two hours before the end of Shabbat... The MasterLiving Blog

The MasterLiving Blog: The Clinton-Mezvinsky nuptials took place about two hours before the end of Shabbat.

read the rest on

More People Choosing Kosher for Health - Well Blog - NYTimes.com

APRIL 13, 2010, 3:12 PM

More People Choosing Kosher for Health

By KAREN BARROW

Librado Romero/The New York Times Is kosher food safer and healthier food?

An ancient diet has become one of the hottest new food trends.

A growing number of supermarket shoppers are going kosher — not for religious reasons, but because they are convinced the foods are safer and better for health.

Kosher foods, which must meet a number of dietary and processing rules to comply with traditional Jewish law, are the fastest growing ethnic cuisine, reports the market research firm Mintel. Sales of kosher foods reached $12.5 billion in 2008, an increase of 64 percent since 2003.

Reflecting the growing interest, Manischewitz, a major kosher food company, held a kosher cook off last month in Manhattan. It featured five chefs from around the country who prepared dishes with the most traditional of kosher-recipe ingredients: chicken broth.

Four of the chefs do not keep kosher but look for certain kosher products in the supermarket. One of those is Julie DeMatteo, a 68-year-old grandmother from Clementon, N.J., who is not Jewish but regularly shops for kosher foods. She believes they are more closely monitored during their processing and “more consistent in taste,” she said.

According to the market research survey, 62 percent of people who buy kosher foods do so for quality reasons, while 51 percent say they buy kosher for its “general healthfulness.” About one-third say they buy kosher because they think food safety standards are better than with traditional supermarket foods. Only 15 percent of respondents say they buy kosher food because of religious rules.

“We see consumers looking for a convergence of ethics, supervision and quality to general health and wellness,” said David Yale, chief executive of Manischewitz.

Joe Regenstein, a professor of food science at Cornell University who specializes in kosher laws, notes that kosher food restrictions were created for religious reasons, not to produce healthier or safer food. Although some of the kosher laws related to ingredients and preparation may have potential health advantages, there’s no evidence to show that kosher food products are healthier or safer than those from traditional food companies, he said.

But the strict rules for producing and certifying kosher food products may result in closer scrutiny of food safety issues. For instance, independent organizations such as the Orthodox Union are paid by food companies to send trained personnel to factories to ensure that all of the restrictions of kosher laws are met. The extra monitoring typically means that kosher products are produced more slowly than other foods.

In general, kosher food has to be carefully watched throughout its processing and preparation. Grains, packaged vegetables, fruits and similar products are thoroughly inspected for any trace of non-kosher substances like insects. Because kosher laws prohibit the mixing of meat and dairy, all kosher dairy products are processed separately from any meat product. No shellfish is allowed, and all fish, like anything that is kosher, must be processed with utensils that have not been in contact with anything non-kosher.

“The extra eyes and slower speeds probably allow the government inspectors to do a better job,” Dr. Regenstein said. “The fact that a kosher company is meeting a lot of rules and subjected to random inspections is something of real value. Although most consumers don’t really understand it in that detail.”

Certifying a meat as kosher is even more complicated. First, only certain animals are allowed to be eaten: no pigs, rodents or birds of prey, for example. Additionally, every cow, chicken or other animal that is certified as kosher has to be killed and butchered in a particular way.

During this process, called “shechting,” each animal is killed quickly by a trained individual. Some believe this form of butchering is more humane and less painful than traditional slaughterhouse practices. Every butchered animal is closely inspected for signs of disease, and any animal that may have been sick is not used.

Certain non-kosher animal parts, like the tail, the sciatic nerve and some fats generally found in the hindquarters, are separated and sold to non-kosher meat-processing companies. And because all kosher meats are thoroughly salted, they may be less likely to carry E. coli and salmonella, experts say, though no studies have been done to confirm this speculation.

A kosher symbol on a food can also be particularly helpful for those with strict dietary requirements or allergies to a certain food. Kosher foods are a good option for consumers with allergies to shellfish, for example. A vegetarian can buy a kosher product labeled “pareve” and be certain that it contains no trace of milk or meat. Muslims and Seventh Day Adventists, who also follow strict diets, also are regular buyers of kosher foods.

Ultimately, the best part of buying kosher products is that it may help you know what is — and more importantly, what’s not — in your food.

Copyright 2010 The New York Times Company Privacy Policy NYTimes.com 620 Eighth Avenue New York, NY 10018

More People Choosing Kosher for Health - Well Blog - NYTimes.com

The MasterBlog

LIFE in Israel in 1948 – Part 1

LIFE in Israel in 1948 – Part 1

Some excellent pictures from LIFE Magazine from Israel's independence.

Haganah Soldiers. May 1948. Frank Schersche

Enjoy!

http://benatlas.com/2009/07/life-in-israel-in-1948-part-1/

Mumbai-Based Rabbi and Wife Killed in Terrorist Attacks

obituary UPDATE: Rabbi Gavriel and Rivkah Holtzberg were killed in one of the worst terrorist attacks in Indian history. By Joshua Runyan and Motti Seligson Nov 28, 2008 11:00 AM Rabbi Gavriel and Rivkah Holtzberg, the beloved directors of Chabad-Lubavitch of Mumbai, were killed during one of the worst terrorist attacks to strike India in recent memory. Jewish communities around the world reacted with shock to the loss of the couple, who were killed Thursday at their Chabad House during an apparent standoff between Indian military forces and terrorists. Also killed at the Chabad House were kosher supervisors Rabbi Leibish Teitelbaum of New York and American-Israeli Bentzion Chroman. Citing confirmation from Israel's Foreign Ministry, the English Web site of Yediot Achronotreported the identity of a fifth victim as Israeli woman Yocheved Orpaz. At least one other hostage was reportedly killed. Through the heroic actions of his nanny, the Holtzberg's toddler son, Moshe, managed to escape many hours before Indian commandos stormed their building, known as the Nariman House, in the popular touristy neighborhood of Colaba. The Associated Press reported that the boy - whose birthday was Saturday - was unharmed, but was wearing blood-soaked pants. "Gabi and Rivky Holtzberg made the ultimate sacrifice," said Rabbi Moshe Kotlarsky, vice chairman of Merkos L'Inyonei Chinuch, the educational arm of Chabad-Lubavitch. "As emissaries to Mumbai, Gabi and Rivky gave up the comforts of the West in order to spread Jewish pride in a corner of the world that was a frequent stop for throngs of Israeli tourists. Their Chabad House was popular among the local community, as well as with visiting businesspeople. "For five years, they ran a synagogue and Torah classes, and helped people dealing with drug addiction and poverty," continued the statement. "Their selfless love will live on with all the people they touched. We will continue the work they started." The Holtzbergs arrived in Mumbai in 2003 to serve the small local Jewish community, visiting businesspeople and the throngs of tourists, many of them Israeli, who annually travel to the seaside city. Gavriel Holtzberg, 29, was born in Israel and moved to the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, N.Y., with his parents, when he was nine. A prodigious student, Holtzberg was a two-time champion in a competition of memorizing the Mishnah, a compendium of rabbinical laws and enactments redacted in the second century C.E. Rivkah Holtzberg holds her son Moshe (center). He studied at yeshivas in New York and Argentina, and as a rabbinical student served communities in Thailand and China under the Summer Rabbinical Visitation Program run by Merkos L’Inyonei Chinuch, the educational arm of Chabad-Lubavitch. His 28-year-old wife, born Rivkah Rosenberg, is a native of Afula, Israel. Chayki Rosenberg described her sister as dedicated to helping Jews. She “gives lots of classes for women at the Chabad House,” Rosenberg told The Jerusalem Post. Friends described her as always having a positive outlook and a kind word for everyone. Two years ago, the Holtzbergs raised funds to purchase the current location of the Rohr Chabad Center, a five-story building in Mumbai’s Colaba market area known as Narimon House. A trained ritual circumciser and slaughterer, the rabbi also conducted weddings for local Jewish couples in addition to teaching Torah classes and visiting with tourists. His last known phone call was to the Israeli Consulate Wednesday night to report that gunmen were in his house. In the middle of the conversation, the line went dead. The Holtzbergs joined the more than 195 people who were killed in the Wednesday night through Friday attacks, which saw at least 10 suspected Islamic terrorists come ashore in Mumbai near the Gateway of India monument. The terrorists, carrying assault rifles and grenades, quickly fanned out to a central train station, the Chabad House and other tourist locations, including several popular hotels. According to security services, the Chabad House was a pre-selected target. Rivkah Holtzberg cuts the ribbon at the grand opening of a Jewish ritual bath in Mumbai. A team of 15 Chabad-Lubavitch representatives in California, New York, Washington, Israel, India and Bangkok worked the phones throughout the crisis, spending long, sleepless nights awaiting any morsel of information and working to confirm at-times conflicting reports from the field. Hundreds of thousands of Jews around the world prayed for the Holtzbergs, saying Psalms in their merit. The local police in Mumbai and the highest reaches of the Indian government got involved, but military assault teams first concentrated their efforts on the Taj Mahal and Oberoi hotels, where hundreds of foreign tourists were either holed up or being held hostage. When they finally entered the Chabad House on Friday, they found that the worst had occured. Rivkah Holtzberg's parents, Rabbi Shimon and Yehudit Rosenberg, arrived in Mumbai early Friday morning to bring their now-orphaned grandson home to family. To contribute to a fund established to aid relief efforts in Mumbai, go to www.ChabadIndia.org. This story will be updated as new information becomes available. A press conference was given by Rabbi Yehuda Krinsky, chairman of the Educational and Social Services arms of the Chabad-Lubavitch Movement, click here to view the video.

"El Angel español en Budapest". El español que superó a Schindler

El Angel español en Budapest

Ángel Sanz Briz, el español que superó a Schindler

Rubén Kaplan

Porisrael.org

Sin poseer la notoriedad del encumbrado alemán Oskar Schindler, pero habiendo quintuplicado por cinco la lista de judíos salvados por su accionar, Ángel Sanz Briz, el diplomático español que evitó la muerte de 5200 judíos húngaros durante la II Guerra Mundial, será objeto este lunes de un merecido homenaje por parte del Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores de España, que colocará en su recuerdo, una placa conmemorativa, en su embajada en Budapest.

Nacido en Zaragoza el 28 de septiembre de 1910, Ángel Sanz Briz, habiendo cursado Derecho, ingresó en la Escuela Diplomática en 1933 y finalizó sus estudios poco antes del comienzo de la Guerra Civil Española.
En marzo de 1944 ya se columbraba que la guerra estaba perdida para el Tercer Reich. Mientras los Aliados ultimaban los preparativos para el desembarco en Normandía, los rusos avanzaban decididamente por el este.
Ante ese sombrío panorama, el vesánico Hitler, decidió invadir Hungría, el único país de Europa central que hasta ese momento no había caído bajo la férula nazi.
Al nombrar al sanguinario Adolf Eichmann como Gauleiter (Gobernador) en Hungría, el régimen nazi patentizó su decisión de implementar la Solución Final, penoso eufemismo de aniquilación, con los judíos húngaros. Estos, integrantes de una centenaria y próspera comunidad, mientras eran saqueados y despojados de sus pertenencias, fueron obligados a registrarse, a bordarse en la solapa la estrella de David, para casi de inmediato ser transportados en trenes de ganado al sur de Polonia, al campo de concentración de Auschwitz, donde serían gaseados.
Dada la premura por acelerar el exterminio, a diferencia de otros países de Europa, en Hungría no hubo guetos, no fueron necesarios.
Mientras el Gobierno filo alemán de Miklos Horthy colaboraba con los invasores, los nazis húngaros de la Cruz Flechada, consumaban despiadados pogromos y persecuciones por las calles contra los judíos de Hungría, al tiempo que instalaban campos de tránsito para concentrarlos antes de su envío a la muerte.
El cuerpo diplomático destacado en Budapest, era testigo horrorizado de los acontecimientos.
En la legación española, que no era sospechada ni mucho menos, de simpatizar con los Aliados, el encargado de negocios, Miguel Ángel de Muguiro, escribió a Madrid, reportando escandalizado, las vejaciones, palizas, registros y otras aberraciones con las que se solazaban los miembros de las SS.
En Madrid, estaban absolutamente al tanto de las intenciones del "amigo alemán" en Hungría. Un año antes, según consigna en una excelente nota Fernando Díaz Villanueva, Federico Oliván, secretario del embajador español en Berlín, había escrito al ministerio de Exteriores, pidiendo permiso para ayudar a los pocos judíos que iban quedando con vida en el Gran Reich: "Si España se niega a recibir a esta parte de su colonia en el extranjero, la condena automáticamente a muerte, pues esta es la triste realidad". La colonia a la que se refería eran los judíos sefarditas, herederos lejanos de aquellos que fueron expulsados de España por los Reyes Católicos en 1492.
Tanto Oliván en Berlín como Muguiro en Budapest habían rescatado un viejo decreto promulgado por Primo de Rivera en 1924, en virtud del cual todos los que demostrasen pertenecer a aquella Sefarad errante, obtendrían de inmediato la nacionalidad española. Ocultaban que el efecto del decreto había expirado en 1931, pero en Madrid no se acordaban y los nazis, naturalmente, no lo sabían. Muguiro se agarró a él para solicitar a las autoridades húngaras la protección de los sefarditas. El problema es que en Hungría, sefarditas, lo que se dice sefarditas, había muy pocos. No daban ni para llenar un tren".
Sin amilanarse, informando a Madrid del futuro aciago que aguardaba a la comunidad hebrea, usufructuando su condición de diplomático, Muguiro, intercedió a favor de todos los judíos que pudo y engrandeció su obra al apropiarse de un cargamento de 500 niños, a los que les extendió visado y envió a Tánger, salvándolos de la inexorable muerte que les esperaba en Polonia.
Este hecho y otros análogos que trascendieron, fueron los que generaron la animosidad en su contra de los húngaros y alemanes, y los que determinaron, el cese inmediato de sus funciones.
La causalidad, en nombre de la Divina Providencia, hizo que el sucesor fuera su secretario, un joven de 32 años que se llamaba Ángel Sanz Briz, un zaragozano casado con una hermosa mujer, con la que tenía una niña recién nacida.
Sanz Briz, quien estaba consustanciado con la política de Muguiro, fue nombrado encargado de negocios de la Embajada de España. Junto a un italiano llamado Giorgio Perlasca, que había combatido en la Guerra Civil, refinó y perfeccionó los procedimientos de su antecesor. La premisa era hacer lo mismo, pero con mayor sigilo y menor exposición.
Para evitar elucubraciones y conjeturas, a Perlasca lo nacionalizó español y lo contrató para que trabajase en la Embajada, donde en lugar de su primigenio nombre Giorgio, se lo empezó a llamar Don Jorge.
Entre los diplomáticos acreditados en Budapest, hubo varios más comprometidos en la salvación de vidas. Con seguridad, fueron inspiradores de Sanz Briz.
En la Embajada de Suecia descollaba, Roul Wallenberg, quien fue la tabla de salvación de miles de judíos condenados a muerte. En la de Suiza, Carl Lutz, el inventor de los salvoconductos de protección denominados "schutzbriefe" , que significaron para los judíos, certificados de vida.
Imposibilitado de informar al Ministro de sus intenciones, para no correr el riesgo de ser cesado en sus funciones, al igual que Muguiro, Sanz Briz se limitaba a detallar las atrocidades que estaban perpetrando los nazis y los vernáculos Cruz Flechada en Hungría, contra la inerme población judía
Las denuncias de Sanz Briz, no tenían respuesta de Madrid. El silencio, interpretado por él, como haga lo que le parezca, pero no genere complicaciones, fue el acicate que necesitó para intensificar sus esfuerzos en aras de salvar la mayor cantidad posible de vidas.
Curiosamente, a Madrid, no le parecía del todo mal que los sefarditas retornaran a su patria, de la que injustamente habían sido expulsados los judíos cinco siglos antes. Los nazis incrédulos, no comprendían que la España de Franco, a la que habían auxiliado, se preocupara por unos judíos desterrados tanto tiempo atrás. Aún sin entenderlo lo toleraban. En un hecho sin precedentes, la Embajada de España en Berlín, logró sacar de Bergen-Belsen a 365 judíos que según el embajador, eran de origen sefardita, judíos de origen español.
Los nazis de Hungría, no conocían fehacientemente el número de judíos de origen sefardita, pero sabían que eran muy pocos.
Sanz Briz, conocedor de la propensión del asesino Eichmann a la molicie, le envío una carta en respetuosos términos, acompañada de una considerable suma de dinero, para que los descontrolados batallones de las SS no afligieran a "sus" judíos.
Los cuantiosos estipendios recibidos, lograron que el representante español, obtuviera el exiguo cupo de 200 personas, que eran la cantidad de sefarditas estimados en el país. Sólo podría emitir 200 pasaportes, ni uno más.
Sanz Briz aceptó sin protestar la dádiva y dio órdenes en la Embajada para preparar los salvoconductos, pero no los 200 asignados, sino todos los que fuera posible. Para ello, se valió de un ingenioso y arriesgado ardid. Ninguno de los pasaportes debía tener un número mayor al 200, pero tampoco debían repetirse. Para ello fue creando varias series que iban del uno al 200. Por ejemplo del pasaporte 80, había varios de las distintas series.
El truco era perfecto pero insuficiente. Para salvar a mil necesitaba cinco series, 2000 diez y así sucesivamente. Pasaportes con el mismo número y diferente serie eran entregados a los temerosos portadores.
A los efectos de disminuir las series, ideo aplicar el cupo otorgado por los nazis, no a individuos sino a grupos familiares, de modo que un pasaporte pudiese pertenecer a cinco o seis personas.
No obstante, el riesgo de ser descubierto por los nazis era muy grande.
Todo podía desmoronarse si un agente de la SS en un control de documentos, parase en la calle a dos portadores de un pasaporte con igual número pero de diferente serie. En virtud de ello y contemplando el hecho que los nazis advirtieran que había muchos sefarditas en las calles de Budapest, Sanz Briz, alquiló varias casas para cobijar a los judíos. Estos debían restringir al máximo sus salidas, salir un rato preferentemente por las mañanas, mientras que la Embajada se encargaría de proveerles comida y medicación, y fundamentalmente de tener alejados a los nazis de sus viviendas.
Para extremar los recaudos, Sanz Briz mandó colocar una placa en húngaro y alemán que decía: "Anejo a la legación de España. Edificio Extraterritorial"
Los judíos permanecían en sus casas hasta que Sanz Briz conseguía trasladarlos a Suiza, España u otro país en el que estuviesen a salvo.
Alrededor de 5.200 personas fueron salvadas de la muerte por Sanz Briz. Cuando regresó a España, no fue objeto de felicitaciones y tampoco de críticas. Prosiguió con su carrera diplomática siendo destinado a los Estados Unidos y durante 35 años representó a España en numerosos países del mundo y falleció el 11 de junio de 1980, siendo embajador ante el Vaticano.
En 1991 el Museo del Holocausto Yad Vashem de Jerusalén, en Israel, distinguió su acción y transfirió a sus herederos el título de Justo entre las Naciones, inscribiendo su nombre en el Memorial del Holocausto. En 1994 el gobierno húngaro le concedió a título póstumo la Cruz de la Orden del Mérito de la República Húngara.
En el acto en su homenaje en la Embajada de España en Budapest, estarán presentes dos refugiados salvados por Ángel Sanz Briz, el piadoso cristiano , el primer diplomático que apareció en un sello de correos de España, al que recuerdan usando su nombre de pila, como al "Ángel español en Budapest".

Fuente y distribución: http://www.porisrael.org