RSS
Mayim Bialik Expresses Solidarity With Israelis in Rocket-Attacked City Named After Her Ancestor
Mayim Bialik arrives at The Los Angeles LGBT Center Gala held at the Fairmont Century Plaza in Los Angeles, CA on Saturday, April 22, 2023. Photo: Sthanlee Mirador/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect
Jewish actress and neuroscientist Mayim Bialik shared on Tuesday a message of support for residents of Kiryat Bialik, a northern city in Israel named after her great-great-grandfather’s cousin, after it was hit with heavy rocket fire this past weekend from the Lebanese Hezbollah terrorist group.
“You may have seen that Iran-backed Hezbollah hit Kiryat Bialik this weekend,” the former “The Big Bang Theory” star wrote in an Instagram post. “Thousands of rockets have been fired upon Israel by Hezbollah over the last year, and the situation in the north is intensifying in terrifying ways … My heart is with all the innocent civilians of Kiryat Bialik.”
The city was named after Israel’s national poet laureate Haim Nahman Bialik, who is related to the actress. He died in 1934 of a heart attack at the age of 61 in Vienna, Austria. Bialik House, his former home in Tel Aviv, has been converted to a museum dedicated to the poet and his work. Most major cities in Israel also have a street named after him, Bialik noted in her Instagram post. She added that her ancestor was “a Zionist visionary, a gifted poet, and a lover of Israel.”
Hezbollah launched more than 100 rockets and drones at northern Israel over the weekend and three people suffered shrapnel wounds.
Bialik was honored with the Ambassadors for Peace award on Tuesday night at a gala hosted by Creative Community for Peace (CCFP), a nonprofit organization comprised of members of the entertainment industry who have the shared goal of combating antisemitism and the cultural boycott of Israel while using the arts to promote peace. Upon accepting the award at the CCFP gala on Tuesday night, Bialik spoke about “feeling overwhelmed” since the Oct. 7 Hamas massacre that took place in southern Israel.
“I took my oldest son to college this week as my family is sleeping in bomb shelters in Israel. That contrast is what many of us are feeling for this entire year,” she said. “CCFP was founded over a decade ago but I do admit that it wasn’t until Oct. 7 that the work of CCFP became an integral part of my daily life. I want to thank everyone at CCFP for the support that has given me the ability to stand strong in the face of intimidation, threats, hatred, and ignorance.”
The post Mayim Bialik Expresses Solidarity With Israelis in Rocket-Attacked City Named After Her Ancestor first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Treasure Trove: An Israeli stamp reflects the complex mix of emotions about Oct. 7
Michelle Shalmiev was born in a village in the Caucasian mountains and immigrated to Israel and settled on a kibbutz when she was 14. Her series “Putting Your Stamp on History” […]
The post Treasure Trove: An Israeli stamp reflects the complex mix of emotions about Oct. 7 appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.
RSS
Download a special Oct. 7 print edition of The Canadian Jewish News
Printable obituaries of eight Canadian victims and more of our original coverage.
The post Download a special Oct. 7 print edition of The Canadian Jewish News appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.
RSS
The Jewish People Perform Another Miracle
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah is seen addressing supporters, in Beirut, Lebanon. Photo: Reuters.
JNS.org – This Oct. 7 will not only be an anniversary of tears, of pure contrition, even if the memory is burning as the people of Israel live. As to how, it wasn’t at all obvious. Our whole history is made of miracles—from the splitting of the sea to escape from the Egyptians to the Inquisition to the pogroms to the thousand other genocidal attacks to which the Jews have been subjected. In every case, the results are always incredible and surprising, especially for how we have emerged active, faithful to our Torah tradition and committed to the return to Jerusalem until we made it happen.
The War of Independence in 1948 was fought by concentration-camp veterans, yet we defeated all the Arab armies, united in hatred, who marched against us. Later, in 1967, 1973 wars were won by a hair’s breadth with miraculous strokes of imagination and leaders who gave birth to ideas that people would have expected. No one would have ever bet a euro, penny or shekel on the idea that Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and his entire hierarchy could be eliminated, petrifying Iran, especially since we have already reduced its other favorite proxy, Hamas, to pieces. And now we have bombed Iran’s other proxy, the Houthis, some 2,000 kilometers away, destroying the airport from which they receive their weapons and aid from the ayatollahs. The Islamic Republic’s leader, Ali Khamenei, is reportedly hiding underground, the Iraqi and Syrian Shi’ites are waiting to see if they are next, and cities controlled by Tehran are shaking.
As President Joe Biden said, it is a measure of justice, but one that Israel has undertaken in an impossible fashion, defending its citizens amid a thousand prohibitions with determination and without fear. Only in this way can a 76-year-old young state, which has been attacked from all sides, defend itself. The country’s existence is the latest chapter in the history of a people born many millennia ago in the Land of Israel, who are finally back home and defending their state.
The war is certainly not over, as Hezbollah reportedly had 100,000 fighters. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu knows that he must see this fight through to the end, despite the international pressure to which Israel has been subjected for nearly a year. Israel’s leadership understands that its very existence is at definitive risk if there is no “new Middle East” in the aftermath of Oct. 7.
While previous generations and Israeli leaders hoped that peace agreements would establish peace in the region, today’s leaders know that there is also a need for battle to stop those who, dominated by absurd fanatical and religious beliefs, wish to kill you. (After all, what do the Houthi rebels in Yemen have to do with the Jews and Israel?)
This is the lesson of our time—not just for Israel and the Jewish people but for everyone. The Jewish people are writing a new page in history, one in which the free world must write and fight alongside them, as it is a battle for the survival of Western ideals. Israel has eliminated the two most dangerous terrorist groups in the world—Hamas and Hezbollah—with operations that will set a precedent for decades. And it challenges Iran. I would like to hear the applause, please.
The post The Jewish People Perform Another Miracle first appeared on Algemeiner.com.