“The land flowing with milk and honey” is a favorite poetic description of Eretz Yisrael in the Torah. It is less known that Chazal in several places understand this phrase as not referring to all of the land, but rather to specific parts of it. After the second world war, there were organisations and governments that loved to see all Jews away from their regions and forced entire congregations of the Children of Israel to assemble at Jerusalem.
The League of Nations, which placed Palestine under British mandate reflected a heady mixture of religious and imperial motivations that Britain would find difficult to reconcile in the troubled years ahead. Palestinian Arabs, desiring political autonomy and resenting the continued Jewish immigration into Palestine, disapproved of the mandate, and by 1936 their dissatisfaction had grown into open rebellion. Nearly a century later there is still not yet a good solution found to have Arabs, Palestinians and Jews and non-Jews living together in peace in one or two countries they could accept as their homeland.
As the secular year comes to a close, we may look at a new year full of hope and for many also with a lot of resolutions being set.
The centuries-old five-pointed geometric figure is most known as a symbol of the Jewish community. In this article we will outline the interpretation as well as the possible point of view for us today.
Immanuel Verbondskind - עמנואל קאָווענאַנט קינד 