From: MASH@WEIZMANN.WEIZMANN.AC.IL (Michael Shimshoni)
Subject: The Golan (was who wrote the Torah?)
Organization: Mail to News Gateway at Wang Labs
Date: Sun, 10 Jan 1993 10:39:23 GMT


In: <9301071409.AA07576@helix.nih.gov>
norm@helix.nih.gov(Norm Friedman) comments mainly on the sig of Hillel:

I shall skip all of the previous articles.

>>/ Hillel P. Applebaum     |> ISRAEL - where all         Better    the   Golan
>>/ Jerusalem,   Israel     |  jews should live !         then peace without it
>>-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*--*-*-*-*-*-*-*-
>Hillel, Shalom
>No further comments about your message, I agree.  What I want to comment on
>is your new signature and I CERTAINLY DO AGREE WITH YOU RE: GOLAN.  My wife
>and I recently (November) came for 1st time and toured through Golan.  Just
>visualizing how much Israeli blood has been spilled to make the area and
>all of Israel safe from the terror from North and Northeast, makes me
>realize more, that NOT AN INCH SHOULD BE RETURNED. Especially Syria will
>never be at peace and this area is certainly a important means of
>protection.  I applaud and thank the people who live and work in the Golan.

I will not deny that on the Golan, issue Israelis are divided (as are,
so it  seems, Jews  outside Israel).   I am  somewhat amazed  how Norm
after one visit to the Golan has such strong views, which he expresses
in absolute  terms. "NOT AN  INCH etc.".  Yes,  there are quite  a few
Israelis who  think thus, but  if Norm  brings up the  "Israeli blood"
which "has been spilled" (and it has!),  may I say, that even some who
are even more knowledgeable than Norm on those wars and its blood, are
ready to *consider* the possibility  of some compromise there.  One of
those, whose  name should  be known  to the readers  of scj,  is Prime
Minister Rabin,  who in 1967 was  Chief of Staff of  the Israeli Army,
and under his command the Golan was taken from the Syrians.

I am not  saying that because of  that no one should  hold a different
view from Rabin's, just to point out that matters are not as *obvious*
as Norm tries to  claim, and clearly Rabin is not the  only one who is
ready to compromise on the Golan.

The slogan Hille  brings, Better Golan then peace  without it, reminds
me of a slogan Moshe Dayan coined once: Better Sharam A'Sheikh (at the
southern tip of Sinai on the  Gulf of Eilat) without Peace, than Peace
without Sharam A'Sheikh.  Times changed, and Moshe Dayan became one of
the chief  architects of the peace  treaty (next to Menahem  Begin and
Ezer Weizman) with Sa'adat's Egypt.

> I now have the 3rd of my sons at Yeshiva in Yisroel.  #1 spent a year at
>Karem B'Yavneh, #2 1/2 yr at Ner Yakov (Har Nof) and a year at Ohr
>Yerushalayim (Beit Meir), #3 is currently at Ohr Yerushalayim.
>Am Yisroel Chai.  be well

I  commend  Norm for  the  way  he brought  up  his  sons.  BTW  do  I
understand correctly  that #1 and #2  are no longer here?  I know that
there are some mitzvot one can  do via one's children.  As an example,
if a person has not completely fulfilled the command of being fruitful
etc., which  the Orthodox take to  mean, at least one  child of *each*
sex, one  can indirectly  keep it  if one's  children fill  the quota.
Thus as  we had only three  *sons*, I was  (as in other cases)  not OK
with Orthodox rules  till some five years ago my  first grandchild was
born, and she,  in a most un-Shimshoni  way, was a girl.  So  now I am
OK, in this respect, even from the O point of view.

It seems that Norm must have had this in mind when his signature ends:

>+--------------------------------------------------------+
>
>
>   *    ***    ***     *
>   *   *   *     *     *
>   *   *   *           *
>   *    ***         ***
>   *   nissan reuven b'R Shami
>   *
>   *   *  *   ***   ***   **  **
>   *   ** *  *   *  *  *  * ** *
>   *   * **  *   *  ***   *    *
>   *   *  *   ***   *  *  *    *
>       norm  "EVERYWHERE I GO, I GO TO ISRAEL!"
               ===============  ==============

trying to do the "I GO" via his sons.

I am not joining in the  above mentioned Hillel's constant part of his
sig on  where all Jews should  live, everyone has to  make his/her own
decision on that.

Hillel posts  his sig from Jerusalem,  but it just sounds  odd to read
Norm's sig from his  place at work at N.I.H.  The  last time I visited
an N.I.H. place it was in Bet  Hasda, but not the part of Jerusalem by
that name,  but Bethesda (as  they misspell  it!) in Maryland.   So in
case Norm works there, he should  be careful when driving to work. :-)

Michael Shimshoni
Newsgroups: soc.culture.jewish