THE CHOSEN

Adapted by Aaron Posner from the novel by Chaim

Potok
Directed by Aaron Posner
Produced by Theater J
Dramaturgy Packet

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Table of Contents

About the Authors……………………………………...3

Glossary of Terms……………………………………...6
The Origins of Hasidism…………………………….…9
An “Observer of the Commandments”…………….….12
Yiddish…………………………………………….…..13
Williamsburg, Brooklyn…………………………….….15
The Study of Talmud……………………………….…19
Israel and Zionism……………………………………..24

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About the Authors

Chaim Potok

Excerpted and adapted from Margalit Fox. “Chaim Potok, 73, Dies; Novelist
Illumined the World of Hasidic Judaism.” New York Times, July 24, 2002 by
Margot Melcon, Dramaturg, Marin Theatre Company

Herman Harold Potok was born in the Bronx on Feb. 17, 1929. His
parents were traditional Hasidic Jews, immigrants from Eastern Europe.
As a boy, his daily life centered on the local yeshiva where in addition
to secular subjects, the focus was on studying sacred Jewish texts.

As a boy, Potok showed proclivity for drawing and painting, and

dreamed of becoming an artist. This was not popular at home. In the
Orthodox tradition, the arts were dismissed as narishkeit (Yiddish for
foolishness), any occupation that distracted from the study of Torah
and Talmud. Visual art was also a violation of the second
commandment, the taboo against the making of graven images.

He turned instead to literature devouring secular books at the local

library. While his parents tolerated his interest in literature—the
written word, after all, was the foundation of Judaism—it was, they
made clear, no fit occupation.

By the time he was an undergraduate at Yeshiva University, an

Orthodox Jewish school in Upper Manhattan, Potok had begun to write
short stories. He continued on to the Jewish Theological Seminary, a
Conservative Jewish institution near Columbia University. To his family
and friends, his choice to pursue a non-fundamentalist education was a
serious betrayal. Potok received his master’s degree in Hebrew
literature from the seminary in 1954. With it came ordination as a

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Conservative rabbi; he served as a United States Army chaplain in
Korea.

After his Army service, Potok went on to earn a Ph.D. in philosophy

from the University of Pennsylvania and continued to write as well as
teach. As his literary reputation grew, Potok was able to devote himself
to writing full time.

Potok came to international prominence in 1967 with his debut novel,

The Chosen, the first American novel to make the fervent, insular
Hasidic world visible to a wide audience. In his books, he drew readers
—Jews and non-Jews alike—into a world that few had ever
encountered. There, bearded, black-garbed men kept alive an ecstatic
brand of Judaism--born in 18th-century Eastern Europe--that centered
both on a charismatic spiritual leader and on an individual’s direct
relationship to God.

Potok’s heroes, mostly adolescents on the brink of manhood, feel both

sustained and suffocated by their traditional communities. Though
they never consider abandoning Judaism, they agonize over whether
they dare seek lives in the larger world, knowing full well that if they
do, they will be branded apostates. My Name is Asher Lev, written in
1972, explores the struggle of self-discovery while remaining faithful to
tradition.

With his writing Potok tapped into something universal. Although some
critics would fault him for revisiting again and again the struggle
between faith and secularity, it was his repeated exploration of this
tension, he would say, that allowed him to explore a range of
additional questions: familial obligation, the role of religion in
contemporary society, the meaning of human suffering.

Chaim Potok on Writing

If I had [the resolution of THE CHOSEN] in mind when I started the
book, why in heaven's name would I go through the process of
writing the book?
Chaim Potok on writing THE CHOSEN.

In the video link below, Chaim Potok reflects on his writing

process and how he developed characters for some of his
greatest novels.
http://wejew.com/media/2996/Chaim_Potok_Talks_On_Being_A_
Writer_/

Other Works by Chaim Potok

Novels and Novellas:

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The Chosen, 1967
The Promise, 1969
My Name is Asher Lev, 1972
In The Beginning, 1975
The Book of Lights, 1981
Davita's Harp, 1985
The Gift of Asher Lev, 1990
I Am the Clay, 1992
Old Men at Midnight (3 novellas), 2001
Nonfiction:
Wanderings: Chaim Potok’s History of the Jews, 1978
Tobiasse: Artist in Exile, 1986
The Gates of November, 1996
Potok also published short stories and many essays and articles.

Read more about Potok’s life and work here:

http://potok.lasierra.edu/menu.html

Aaron Posner

Aaron is a nationally recognized award-winning director, playwright,

and teacher. He has been the Artistic Director of two LORT theatres
and directed at major regional theatres across the country including
The Arden, The Alliance, Portland Center Stage, Seattle Rep, Milwaukee
Rep, Actor's Theatre of Louisville, The Folger Shakespeare Theatre,
California Shakespeare Theatre, Shakespeare Santa Cruz, Arizona
Theatre Company, Delaware Theatre Company, Roundhouse Theatre,
Woolly Mammoth Theatre, and many others. His adaptations of
literature -- which include Chaim Potok's novels The Chosen and My
Name Is Asher Lev, Ken Kesey's Sometimes A Great Notion, and a
musical of A Murder, A Mystery & A Marriage by Mark Twain (with
music by James Sugg) -- have been produced by more than 40
professional theatres from coast to coast (including many of those
listed above as well as Steppenwolf Theatre, Writers Theatre,

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Cleveland Playhouse, Florida Stage, and many others) as well as major
professional theatres in Canada, Israel, and South Africa. Three are
published by Dramatists Play Service. Aaron is the founder and former
artistic director of the Arden Theatre Company in Philadelphia. He won
two Barrymore Awards for playwrighting and two Helen Hayes Awards
for directing, is an Eisenhower Fellow, and is originally from Eugene,
Oregon.

Glossary of Terms for THE CHOSEN

(adapted from the Steppenwolf Theatre study guide for THE CHOSEN
and The Oxford Dictionary of the Jewish Religion)

Apikorsim: A derogatory term used to refer to secular or less

observant Jews—usually by an Orthodox Jew. The word translated
literally means an unbeliever or heretic.

Eretz Yisroel: [Hebrew] Literally, the Land of Israel. A special term for
the area which Jews believe God promised them in the Torah.

Gematriya: A method of interpreting a biblical word based on the

numerical value of its letters in the Hebrew alphabet. This discipline of
Jewish mysticism seeks to find hidden meanings of words through
numerology. See the Hebrew letters and their associated numbers,
below.

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Goyim or Goy [Yiddish]: Non-Jews; Gentiles.

Haganah: (Hebrew: literally, defense) was a militia founded in

Palestine in the 1920s to protect Jewish settlers from attack by Arab
Palestinians. At various times, Haganah cooperated with the British
Army (which controlled Palestine prior to the formation of Israel); but
the group also help Jews illegally immigrate during the 1930s. After
1948, Haganah was transformed into the Israel Defense Forces (IDF),
the Israeli army.

Hasidism: An Ultra-Orthodox denomination, founded in Europe in the

18th century. Hasidism places greater emphasis on ecstatic worship
and spirituality than on the Talmudic scholarship of Orthodoxy.

Irgun: A Zionist rebel group, also known as Etzel. Irgun was considered
a radical fringe organization by some; freedom fighters by others.

Kosher: (or Kasher, literally: fit, proper) Ceremonially clean according

to Jewish law. Often refers to food, but can be used more broadly—to
designate the ritual fitness of any object according to Jewish law.

Macher: [Yiddish] An important person; a big shot.

Meshugunah: [Yiddish] Crazy.

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Modern Orthodox: The Modern Orthodox movement developed in the
mid 18th century as a compromise between the Ultra-Orthodox
movement and the liberal Reform movement. Rabbi Samson Raphael
Hirsch led the movement. He differed from the advocates of Reform
Judaism in that he took a literalist approach to the biblical narrative
and divine revelation, insisting that the written and oral law are
eternally authoritative for all Jews. However he differed from
traditionalist Orthodox leaders in his readiness to harmonize traditional
Judiasm with modern life in dress, speech, forms of worship, and a
positive attitude toward the society and culture of 19th Century Europe.
Modern Orthodoxy requires a strict adherence to Jewish law and
practice, yet at the same time it encourages secular studies, including
history and philosophy.

Payos: Earlocks or sidecurls. Many strictly observant Jewish men wear

their earlocks long in accordance with a passage in the Torah.

Rabbi: Literally, a teacher. A rabbi is a scholar and an expert in Jewish

law. Rabbis serve as the spiritual and religion leader of their
congregation.

Shabbat or Shabbas: A day of rest and contemplation; the holy day

of the Jewish week, commemorating God's day of rest after creating
the world in six days. Shabbat lasts from sundown on Friday night until
sundown on Saturday. Orthodox Jews believe that no work should be
done on Shabbat, including driving, preparing food to be cooked, or
lighting a fire or stove.

Shul: A common term for an Orthodox synagogue. Literally, a school.

Synagogue: A Jewish house of worship.

Talmud: (literally: Teaching) The book of Jewish law and commentaries

on the Torah by learned rabbis. The name applies to each of the two
great compilations, the Talmud Yerushalmi and the Talmud Bavli—in
which are collected the teachings of the major Jewish scholars who
flourished between 200-500 CE, the classic period of rabbinic Judaism.

Torah: A term applied to both the entire corpus of sacred literature

and to the first section of the Hebrew Bible (which is known to
Christians as the Old Testament)

Tzaddik: A righteous man, often considered to possess spiritual or

mystical power. Not all tzaddiks are rabbis, but the leading rabbi of a
Hasidic community is deemed a tzaddik. According to Hasidism, the

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Tzaddik is the intermediary between God and man, the "soul of the
world.

Tzitzit: The fringes of the tallit, a shawl that Orthodox and Hasidic
men and boys wear beneath their clothes. The fringes extend beyond
the edges of the outer garments in order to remind the wearer of the
commandments.

Yeshiva: A school where students study sacred texts, particularly the

Talmud.

Yeshiva Bocher: [Yiddish] A student at a Talmudic academy; literally:

young man

Zionism: A political movement founded in the 19th century, dedicated

to the creation of a Jewish state in Israel.

The Zohar: A mystical commentary on the Torah.

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The Origins of Hasidism

Satmar Hasids in Brooklyn

Much of the conflict within The Chosen comes from the fundamental
differences between Hasidic Jews and their Jewish neighbors. In the
play and novel, Reuven Malter, the teenage narrator, befriends Danny
Saunders, the son of Reb Saunders, the leader of a Hasidic sect in
Williamsburg, Brooklyn. In the novel, Reuven goes to his father with a
question about his new friend, and his father explains to him how
Hasidism developed and why Danny’s family lives the life that they do.
Below is a summary of that explanation, combined with other research.
The italicized portions are quotes taken directly from the novel.

The movement that would come to be known as Hasidism has its roots
in 18th century Eastern Europe. Jews had been firmly established in
Poland, the Ukraine, and other areas of Eastern Europe for nearly 500
years.

Polish nobles were eager to have Jews settle in their country.

They came by the thousands from western Europe, especially
from Germany. They ran the nobles’ estates, collected their
taxes, developed Polish industry, and stimulated her trade.
Poland became a kind of Jewish Utopia.

But that Utopia was destroyed in the mid-1600s when a rebellion

initiated by the Cossacks was joined by various Orthodox Christian
classes. The Jews were marked, not only because of their religion, but
because they worked closely with the ruling nobility. Nearly all of the
Jewish communities in the Ukraine were devastated.

We are like other people, Reuven. We do not survive disaster

merely by appealing to invisible powers. We are as easily
degraded as any other people. That is what happened to Polish
Jewry. By the eighteenth century, it had become a degraded
people.

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Deep-seated discontent, both physical and spiritual, led to a gradual
shift by many Jews from exclusively rabbinical learning and toward a
kind of mysticism. Seeking spiritual relief, some Jews turned to Israel
ben Eliezer, a spiritual master and guide sometimes referred to as Baal
Shem Tov (Master of the Name), abbreviated as Besht.

Israel ben Eliezer's fame as a healer and spiritual teacher grew and
spread. His charisma and power as a communicator put him in the role
as leader of a new era in Jewish mysticism. He taught that service to
God did not consist solely of religious scholarship but a sincere love of
God and the willingness to devote your life to him.

He taught them that the purpose of man is to make his life holy
—every aspect of his life: eating, drinking, praying sleeping.
Gods is everywhere, he told them, and if it seems at times that
He is hidden from us, it is only because we have not yet learned
to seek him correctly.

This put Hasidic Jews, as the followers of ben Eliezer’s teachers would
eventually be called, at odds with the Rabbinical establishment. Some
were opposed to a sect that put emotion and passion before Jewish
rites; others were opposed to what they saw as a departure from
reason and scholarship. Others found more fundamental problems with
Hasidic beliefs. For example: Doesn’t the belief that God is in all things
contradict the principle of faith that God is not physical, and make such
a belief heretical? Jews had been excommunicated and exiled from the
Jewish faith for similar beliefs.

This split away from orthodoxy is not unlike the evangelical movement
in Christianity in the 20th century. While to outside eyes, Hasidic Jews
may seem even more conservative than their Non-Hasidic, Ultra-
Orthodox Jewish neighbors--this is only partially true. In reality their
beliefs are founded on passion, and Hasidic life and worship can
consist of drinking, dance, and song in ways that defy the stereotype
of the ultra-religious.

Upon Israel ben Eliezer’s death, his core circle of followers decided to
split Eastern Europe, each moving to a different area to spread Hasidic
belief. Over the next century, Hasidic dynastic courts were
consolidated across Europe, with each one being named after the
shtetl of its origin. Leadership of each court was passed down the
family line. One of the most significant innovations Hasidism was the
doctrine of the Tzaddik. Known to his followers as Rebbe "Master" to

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distinguish him from orthodox Rabbis, the Tzaddik was revered by his
followers, almost to the point of worship

Each Hasidic community had its own tzaddik, and his people
would go to him with all their problems, and he would give them
advice. They followed these leaders blindly. The Hasidim
believed that the tzaddik was a superhuman link between
themselves and God. Every act of his and every word he spoke
was holy. Even the food he touched became holy.

Hasidism declined throughout the 19th century, struggling against a

world where progressive social ideas often conflicted with the Hasidic
way of life. The majority of Hasidic Jews in America today are from
courts that arrived in America shortly following the devastation of
World War II.

Satmar Hasids at the funeral of Rabbi Teitelbaum

Most of the approximately 165,000 Hasidim in the New York City area
live in three neighborhoods in Brooklyn: Williamsburg, Crown Heights,
and Boro Park. Each of the three neighborhoods is home to Hasidim of
different courts, although there is overlap and movement between
them. There are approximately forty-five thousand Satmar Hasidim in
Williamsburg, over fifty thousand Bobover Hasidim in Boro Park, and at
least fifteen thousand Lubavitch in Crown Heights. The population of
each of these groups has increased dramatically since the first
American Hasidic communities were formed in the late 1940s and
1950s, with especially rapid growth in the last two decades.

A gathering of Satmar Hasids for a wedding celebration

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The Lubavitch court is considered the most open because their
members actively try to convert other Jews to Hasidism. Consequently,
they have a significant online presence. If you’d like to take a crash
course in Jewish history as written by the Lubavitchers, go here:
(http://www.aish.com/jl/h/cc/)

The image of Hasidic Jews, striking and stark against the colorful
backdrop of New York City, draws the attention of photographers--
professional and otherwise--here.
(http://fiveprime.org/hivemind/Tags/brooklyn,hasidic)

Satmar Hasids watch the funeral procession of Rabbi Teitelbaum

An “Observer of the Commandments”

Daniel stared at his father. His eyes were wet…Reb Saunders looked at
him. “You will remain an observer of the commandments?” he
asked softly. Daniel nodded again.
Chaim Potok, THE CHOSEN

When the term “observer of the commandments” is used in the novel

and the play adaptation of THE CHOSEN, it refers to the 613 mitzvot
(commandments) to which Jews are expected to adhere. The entire
body of rules and practices that Jews are bound to follow--including
biblical commandments, commandments instituted by the rabbis, and

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binding customs—is called Halakah, which literally means “the path
that one walks”.

These 613 commandments are listed and annotated here, separated

into categories based on their concerns. There is no single definitive
list of the commandments.

According to Rabbi Mendel Weinbach, 248 of these mitzvoth are

positive commands and 365 are negative ones. The positive mitzvot
equal the number of parts of the body and the negative mitzvot
correspond to the number of days in the solar year. Because of this
—“613” is considered to be a magic number for Torah scholarship and
Jewish living. Weinbach’s explanation of the 613 commandments and
his chart outlining Maimonides' Division of the Mitzvot can be viewed
online, here. (http://ohr.edu/judaism/articles/taryag.pdf)

Things get a little more complicated when we look at the relationship

between non-Jews and these commandments. According to
traditional Judaism, God gave Noah and his family seven
commandments to observe when he saved them from the flood.
These commandments, referred to as the Noahic
commandments, come from Genesis Chapter 9, and are as
follows: 1) to establish courts of justice; 2) not to commit
blasphemy; 3) not to commit idolatry; 4) not to commit incest
and adultery; 5) not to commit bloodshed; 6) not to commit
robbery; and 7) not to eat flesh cut from a living animal. These
commandments are fairly simple and straightforward, and most
of them are recognized by most of the world as sound moral
principles. Again--according to Observant Jewish beliefs—these
seven commandments are binding to all people, Jews and Non-
Jews alike, because all are descended from Noah and his family.
The 613 mitzvot of the Torah, on the other hand, are only
binding to the descendants of those who accepted the
commandments at Sinai (those of Jewish decent) and to those
who have chosen to convert to Judaism.

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All About Yiddish (Or, You Want We Should Talk About
Yiddish?)

I was an apikoros to Danny Saunders, despite my belief in God and

Torah, because I did not have side curls and was attending a parochial
school where too many English subjects were offered and where Jewish
subjects were taught in Hebrew instead of Yiddish…”
Chaim Potok, THE CHOSEN

Adapted from THE JEWS: THEIR RELIGION AND CULTURE: Yiddish Literature, by Yudel
Mark and THE OXFORD DICTION ARY OF THE JEWISH RELIGION (Werblowsky and
Wigoder)

The Roots of Yiddish

Language is one of the main elements that distinguishes the
Ashkenazic Jews (a term that originally applied to all Jews whose
religious and cultural traditions had their origins among German Jews,
now a term generally used to refer to all Jews of the Western tradition)
from the Sephardic Jews (an identifier for Jews whose roots
originated in Spain, which now refers to Jews of Eastern countries who
follow the Spanish tradition). The language of the Ashkenazim is
Yiddish; that of the Sephardim, Judesmo (Ladino). Prior to World War II
more than 10,000,000 persons--about two-thirds of all the Jews in the
world--spoke or at least understood Yiddish.

Yiddish emerged about a thousand years ago, when emigrants from

northern France who spoke a version of old French settled in a number
of cities on the Rhine and adopted the German dialects of the area. In
taking on these dialects, they adapted a new language to their old
speech patterns and created a unique mixture of German dialects. In
addition, Hebrew had an influence on the hybrid language from the
start, because it (together with Aramaic) was the language of religion
and scholarship. As a result, lexical, syntactical, and even
morphological elements of Hebrew-Aramaic were also absorbed by
Yiddish. Later, the Slavic languages (Czech, Polish, Ukrainian, Russian)
influenced Yiddish as well. Thus Yiddish is considered the result of a
fusion of the many above-mentioned linguistic elements. It developed
its unique characteristics due to the cultural isolation of the Jews.

Yiddish suffered a huge blow with the holocaust--when six million Jews,
nearly all native speakers of the language, perished. However, Yiddish
continues to thrive among Hasidic groups. In addition, there are groups
of nonreligious adherents of the language who pursue it as a spoken
language and as a focus of literary, cultural, linguistic and/or scholarly
activity.

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Yiddish Literature
Yiddish Literature is only slightly younger than the Yiddish language. It
traveled along with the Ashkenazic Jewry as they moved around the
world. When Ashakenazic Jews arrived in sixteenth-century Italy it
became, for a short time, a center of Yiddish literary work. When an
Ashkenazic community flourished in seventeenth-century Amsterdam,
it became a hub for the printing of Jewish books; it was also in
Amsterdam that Yiddish Theatre was developed and the first Yiddish
newspaper founded. When the focus of Jewish life shifted to the Slavic
countries, they in turn became centers for Yiddish literature. Yiddish
literature came to the United States with the East European immigrant
masses, and the same is true in the Argentine, South Africa, and
Australia.

Yiddish Today
In April 2010 online magazine Tablet reported on a New York Times
article which named Yiddish as one of the tongues that the City University
Graduate Center would include in its new endangered-languages program. Tablet
writers were quick to point out that while Yiddish is like many of the other
featured languages in that it is spoken more in New York City than in
its historic areas—central and eastern Europe, and Russia—it is
dissimilar from the obscure Istro-Romanian language of Vlashki or
Chamorro of the Mariana Islands because Yiddish is actually thriving in
New York City, and elsewhere—primarily because of the ultra-Orthodox
communities. CUNY Professor David Kaufman explained “It used to be
a language of literature, but now it’s being kept alive by the Hasidic
community—which views literature as competition to Torah.”

From More Information:

Search for Yiddish on the MLA Languages map here.
(http://arcgis.mla.org/mla/default.aspx)

Maybe you know Yiddish! Check out this site, which defines the Yiddish
words most incorporated into American English. Have you ever
shleped a load of luggage? Called your annoying neighbor a nudnik?
See—you know Yiddish! (http://yiddishacademy.com/schtick-yiddish-
culture/yiddish-slang/)

Enjoy traditional Yiddish songs, presented here with their Yiddish lyrics
and translations, along with commentaries from their
contributors. (http://yiddishsong.wordpress.com/)

“The Yiddish Radio Project” from NPR. Click on the speaker icons or the
word to hear actor David Rogow and Pearl Sapoznik (mother of series

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producer Henry Sapoznik) define and pronounce selected Yiddish
words, and use them in the correct context, here.
http://www.npr.org/programs/atc/features/2002/yiddish/words.html

A History of Williamsburg, Brooklyn

(adapted from The Brooklyn Public Library, “Our Brooklyn” site)

The sidewalks of Williamsburg were cracked squares of cement, the

streets paved with asphalt that softened in the stifling summers
and broke apart into potholes in the bitter winters. Many of the
houses were brownstones, set tightly together, none taller than
three or four stories. In these houses lived Jews, Irish, Germans,
and some Spanish Civil War refugee families.
Chaim Potok, THE CHOSEN
In 1792 real estate speculator Richard M. Woodhull purchased land
surrounding North 2nd Street, Brooklyn, had it surveyed and then
divided into city lots. His aim was to attract urban New Yorkers to what
was then “the suburbs”. He established a horse ferry from the foot of
North 2nd Street to Grand Street in Manhattan, and opened a tavern.
In 1800, he named the area Williamsburgh.

As it turned out, Woodhull's business tactics were ahead of his time

and in 1811 he suffered financial failure. Subsequent ventures by other
developers also failed until roads were built in the early 1800s that
connected the coast to the interior. Commuting became much easier,
and interest in living and working in Williamsburgh increased.

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By 1827, Williamsburgh was incorporated as a village. A real estate
crash in 1837 slowed development, but little by little infrastructure was
put in place to make Williamsburgh a city in its own right. On January
1, 1852, Williamsburgh received a city charter, but three years later it
was consolidated into the City of Brooklyn. At the time of consolidation
the "h" was dropped from the neighborhood's name.

During the 1830s, Irish, German and Austrian capitalists established

their businesses and homes in Williamsburgh. It became a fashionable
resort that attracted such notables as Commodore Vanderbilt, Williams
Whitney and railroad magnate James Fisk.

Some of the largest industrial firms in the nation grew here, such as
Pfizer Pharmaceuticals (1849), Astral Oil (later Standard Oil), Brooklyn
Flint Glass (later Corning Ware) and the Havemeyer and Elder sugar
refinery (later Amstar and Domino). Breweries such as Schaefer,
Rheingold and Schlitz, docks, shipyards, refineries, mills and foundries
opened along the waterfront. In 1851, the Williamsburgh Savings Bank,
the Williamsburgh Dispensary, the Division Avenue ferry and three new
churches were established.

With the building of the Williamsburg Bridge in 1903, thousands of

Lower East Side Jews crossed the river to make their homes in
Williamsburg. Between 1900 and 1920, Williamsburg's population
doubled. Immigrants arrived from Eastern Europe, including Lithuania,
Poland and Russia. A large number of Italian immigrants settled in the
Northside.

Williamsburg, Brooklyn: Circa 1910

By 1917, the neighborhood had some of the most densely populated
blocks in all of New York City. A single block between South 2nd and
South 3rd Streets housed over 5,000 persons. In the 1930s, large
numbers of European Jews escaping Nazism fled to Williamsburg and
established an Hasidic enclave.

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From the mid-1930s to the 1960s, public housing projects replaced
thousands of decaying buildings. In 1957, the building of the Brooklyn-
Queens Expressway cut through the Williamsburg (as well as Red Hook
and Greenpoint) community, destroying huge numbers of low-income,
single and two-family homes.

Williamsburg Bridge, 1937

With the 1960s came thousands of Puerto Ricans, drawn by the many
factory jobs. Through the 1980s the Hispanic community grew to
include Dominicans and other Latin Americans. In 1961 Williamsburg
had 93,000 manufacturing jobs; by the 1990s, the number had
decreased to less than 12,000. The decline in manufacturing left
thousands of Hispanics unemployed.

In the Southside of Williamsburg, the Hasidic community continued to

grow. Tensions increased between the Hispanic and Hasidic
communities over government money and housing. In recent years,
there have been some improvements in relations between these two
groups.

Since the early 1990s Williamsburg has become home to a new set of
"immigrants", which has altered the face of the neighborhood. Many
artists, writers and performers were attracted to the (comparatively)
low rents and large light-filled lofts of Williamsburg’s former factories,
and they moved into the area. Galleries, restaurants and shops opened
which catered to these new residents and made it a destination spot
for many 20 and 30-somethings with a distinct sense of style—earning
it the nickname “hipster heaven”—for better or for worse. The
landscape of today’s Williamsburg, Brooklyn is very different from the
one in which Danny Saunders and Reuven Malter lived—but it is
precisely this juxtaposition that continues to make it a place that is at
once vital and new, and simultaneously seeped in tradition and history.

Danny's block was heavily populated by the followers of his father,

Russian Hasidic Jews in somber garb, whose habits and frames of
reference were born on the soil of the land they had abandoned. They
drank tea from samovars, sipping it slowly through cubes of sugar held

19
between their teeth; they ate the food of their homeland, talked
loudly, occasionally in Russian, most often in a Russian Yiddish, and
were fierce in their loyalty to Danny's father.
Chaim Potok, THE CHOSEN

Irving Herzberg (1915-1992) documented the neighborhoods, subways

and boardwalks of Brooklyn beginning in the early 1950s until his
death at the age of 77, when he bequeathed his life's work-about
2,300 photographs, negatives and slides-to Brooklyn Public Library's
Brooklyn Collection. Herzberg, who lived in Brighton Beach for thirty
years, was drawn to Hasidic Williamsburg after a chance visit to the
neighborhood in the early 1960s. During a decade of Sunday visits he
became a familiar figure, at first photographing street scenes but
gradually gaining entry to businesses, schools and the inner life of the
community.

http://www.brooklynpubliclibrary.org/ourbrooklyn/williamsburg/herzber
g-photo.jsp#id=herzberg&num=1

Williamsburg, Brooklyn and the Jewish Community

Adapted from the Steppenwolf Theatre’s study guide for THE CHOSEN
"Long ago, in The Chosen, I set out to draw a map of a New York world
through which I once journeyed. It was to be a map not only of broken
streets, menacing alleys, concrete- surfaced backyards, neighborhood
schools and stores… a map not only of the physical elements of my
early life, but of the spiritual ones as well.”
-Chaim Potok

Williamsburg Brooklyn in the 1940s

Reuven and Danny grow up within five blocks of each other in the
Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York during the 1940s.
The boys' lives center on the blocks near Lee Avenue, where the
population was primarily Jewish immigrants from Poland and Russia.

The first synagogues in Williamsburg were built in the nineteenth

century, but the

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Jewish population did not become large until 1903, when the
completion of the
Williamsburg Bridge linked the neighborhood to Manhattan's Lower
East Side. Prior to the opening of the bridge, most of Williamsburg's
residents were second and third generation German and Irish
immigrants, but the bridge brought many poor and working class Jews,
drawn to the neighborhood’s low rents. The influx was so notable that
the bridge was often referred to as "The Jews’ Highway"; the
newcomers soon dominated the neighborhood. After World War II, the
Hasidic population of Williamsburg grew abruptly as survivors of the
Holocaust came to the United States seeking a place to rebuild their
decimated communities. Today, most of the Hasidim in the U.S. live in
Brooklyn.

Walking through Williamsburg today, you can see many signs of the
Hasidic community. There are men in hats and dark suits speaking
Yiddish on the street and dishes on the counters at shops to allow
merchants and customers to exchange money without touching hands
-- Hasidic Jews do not touch people of the opposite sex except for their
spouses.

There are many adaptations in the neighborhood to accommodate the

restrictions of Shabbat. The Torah forbids carrying objects outside the
home on Shabbat, so many of the buildings in the area have
combination locks so that observant Jews can come and go without
keys. Some areas are enclosed by an eiruv, a symbolic fence which
extends the area of "home" so that carrying is permitted. Some tall
buildings have "Shabbas elevators" which stop automatically at all
floors on Saturday.

Williamsburg has always been an ethnically mixed area, and the

various groups living there have often clashed. Until recently, the
major tension has been between Hasidic Jews, who are the majority of
the population, and immigrants from Latin America. In recent years,
however, many artists and "hipsters" have begun moving to
Williamsburg, attracted by its low rents and proximity to Manhattan. A
vibrant art scene is flourishing in the neighborhood, with new galleries,
restaurants, and shops. Because these newcomers tend to have more
money than the established residents, rents have been climbing, an
issue of especial concern to the Hasidim, whose closed community
tends to keep them earning little money and who often have large
families. Since Hasidim must be able to walk to their shuls on Shabbat,
they cannot move to another, cheaper neighborhood unless the entire
congregation goes as a group. In January 2004, a small rally was held
in Williamsburg to protest the influx of new residents, and organizers

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distributed a printed prayer entitled "For the Protection of Our City of
Williamsburg From the Plague of the Artists".

The Study of Talmud

(Adapted from the Steppenwolf Theatre study guide for THE CHOSEN.
The Oxford Dictionary of the Jewish Religion, and www.aish.com)

A page of Talmud

The Talmud is known as the "Oral Torah." God taught the Oral Torah to
Moses, and it was passed down through the generations. For centuries
rabbis resisted recording the Oral Torah, because they believed that
teaching the law orally would help to maintain Jewish tradition. The
Great Revolt in 66 CE and the Bar Kokhba Revolt in 132 CE resulted in
the death of over a million Jews and the destruction of the leading
yeshiva.

Rabbi Judah haNasi felt that with the decline in knowledgeable Jews,
the Oral Torah must be written down. In the second century, the oral
law was compiled and written down by learned rabbis.

The writing of the Talmud was completed in the fifth century. It

contains the Misnah (The Laws) followed by the Gemara (The
Commentaries). The Talmud also includes into ethical guidance,
medical advice, historical information, and Jewish folklore. Observant
Jews often take the practice of studying a page of Talmud every day.

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Among Orthodox Jews, accomplished Talmudic scholars are regarded
with awe and respect.

What is the Mishnah?

Religion Jews believe that at Mount Sinai the Jewish people received
the Written Torah and the Oral Torah. The Oral Torah was the oral
explanation of how the written laws should be executed and followed.

The Oral Torah passed from generation to generation and was never
written down. Why? Because the Oral Torah was meant to be fluid. The
principles stayed the same, but the application of those principles was
meant to be adapted to all types of new circumstances.
This worked exceptionally well as long as the central authority ― the
Sanhedrin ― remained intact, and the chain of transmission was not
interrupted. (But in the days since the destruction of the Temple, the
Sanhedrin had been repeatedly uprooted and teachers had to go into
hiding.

Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi realized that things might not get better any
time soon. He saw that the Temple would not be rebuilt in his
generation and possibly in many generations to come. To make sure
that the chain of transmission would never be broken, he decided that
the time had come to write down the Oral Torah.

This was a mammoth undertaking. Although much of the work may

have already been done by previous generations of rabbis, the
monumental task of editing, explaining and organizing this vast
amount of material was left to Rabbi Yehudah. The end result of this
massive undertaking was a definitive, yet cryptic (the basic principles
were all there yet a teacher was still required to elucidate the material)
version of the entire Oral Law called the Mishnah. (Incidentally, the

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word Mishnah means "repetition" because it was studied by
repeating; Mishnah then, by extension, means "learning.")
Maimonides, in his introduction to his Mishnah Torah, explains it as
follows:

He gathered together all the traditions, enactments, and

interpretations and expositions of every position of the Torah, that
either come down from Moses, out teacher, or had been deduced by
the courts in successive generations. All this material he redacted in
the Mishnah, which was diligently taught in public, and thus became
universally known among the Jewish people. Copies of it were made
and widely disseminated, so that the Oral Law might not be forgotten
in Israel.

Six Categories of Jewish Law

The Mishnah, which is written in Hebrew, is divided into six basic
segments or "orders" and further subdivided into 63 tractates with a
total of 525 chapters. These 6 segments dealing with six basic areas of
Jewish law:
• Zeraim, literally "seeds," covering all agricultural rules and laws
for foods as well as all blessings
• Moed, literally, "holiday," dealing with the rituals of Shabbat and
other Jewish holidays
• Nashim, literally "women," examining all the issues between men
and women such as marriage, divorce, etc.
• Nezikin, literally "damages," covering civil and criminal law
• Kodshim, literally "holy things," concerning laws of the Temple
• Taharot, literally "pure things," concerning laws of spiritual purity
and impurity

Not long after the death of Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi, the period known as
the era of the Tannaim came to a close. The term Tanna, is derived
from the Aramaic word "to teach" and covered a period of 200 years
from ca.10 B.C.E. to 200 C.E. beginning with Rabbi Shimon the son of
Hillel the Elder and ending with Rabbi Yossi ben Yehuda.

Writing The Talmud

During the centuries following the completion of the Mishnah, the
chain of transmission of the Oral law was further weakened by a
number of factors: Economic hardship and increased persecution of the
Jewish community in Israel caused many Jews, including many rabbis,
to flee the country. Many of these rabbis emigrated to Babylon in the
Persian Empire. The role of the rabbis of Israel as the sole central
authority of the Jewish people was coming to an end.

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This decentralization of Torah authority and lack of consensus among
the rabbis led to further weakening of the transmission process. It
became clear to the sages of this period that the Mishnah alone was no
longer clear enough to fully explain the Oral Law. It was written in
shorthand fashion and in places was cryptic. This is because it was
very concise, written on the assumption that the person reading it was
already well-acquainted with the subject matter. They began to have
discussions about it and to write down the substance of these
discussions. Since at this time a significant portion of the Jewish
population was living in Babylon, which was outside the bounds of the
Roman Empire, the rabbis there put together their discussions, the end
product of which was called Talmud Bavli or the Babylonian Talmud.

The Babylonian Empire

Even before this process had begun in Babylon, in the land of Israel,
another set of discussions took place and the end result was Talmud
Yerushalmi or the Jerusalem Talmud. (Incidentally, the Jerusalem
Talmud was not written in Jerusalem; it was written in Tiberias, the last
place where the Sanhedrin sat, but was called the Jerusalem Talmud in
deference to the Sanhedrin's rightful home.)

Due to persecution of the Jewish community in Israel the Jerusalem

Talmud, completed in the mid 4th century C.E., was never completed
or fully edited. The Jerusalem Talmud is much shorter (it contains only
four of the six sections of the Mishnah and is more cryptic and harder
to understand than the Babylonian Talmud. The situation of the Jews in
Babylon was much more stable and the rabbis in Babylon had
considerably more time to edit and explain the subject matter.

Although there are two Talmuds, they are not really separate. The
Rabbis of Babylon had access to the Jerusalem Talmud while they were
working on their text. But if there is dispute between the two Talmuds,
the Babylonian Talmud is followed. Both because Babylonian Talmud is
considered more authoritative and the Jerusalem Talmud is more
difficult to study, Jewish students pouring over the Talmud in yeshiva
are using chiefly the Babylonian Talmud.

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The Talmud also contains a lot of agadata ― these are stories that are
meant to illustrate important points in the Jewish worldview. These
stories contain a wealth of information on a wide range of topics.

This information was vital to the Jewish people because Jewish law was
never applied by reading a sentence in the Torah and executing it to
the letter. Take for example, "eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth." It was
never Jewish law that if someone blinded you, that you should go and
blind him. What is the good of having two blind people? It was always
understood on two levels: 1) that justice must be proportional (it's not
a life for an eye) and 2) that it means the value of an eye for the value
of the eye, referring to monetary damages. Thus, the Talmud
presented the written and oral tradition together.

To read the Talmud is to read a lot of arguments. On every page it

seems that the rabbis are arguing. This kind of argument ― the
purpose of which was to arrive at the kernel of truth ― is called pilpul.
This word has a negative connotation outside the yeshiva world, as
people read these arguments and it seems to the uneducated eye that
the rabbis are merely splitting hairs, and that some of the arguments
have absolutely no basis in everyday life. But this is not so.

The reason why the rabbis argued about things that may not have any
application to everyday life was to try to get to truth in an abstract way
– to understand the logic and to extract the principle. Another
important point is that much of the discussion and dispute is focused
on relatively minor points while the larger issues are generally not
disputed. You don't see a single argument as to whether or not you eat
pork, or whether or not you can light a fire on the Sabbath. These
things were a given, they were totally agreed upon. Only small points
were subject to discussion.

Gemara
When you look at the page of the Babylonian Talmud today, you will
find the Hebrew text of the Mishnah is featured in the middle of the
page. Interspersed between the Hebrew of the Mishnah are
explanations in both Hebrew and Aramaic which are called the
Gemara.
The Aramaic word Gemara means "tradition." In Hebrew, the word
Gemara means "completion." Indeed, the Gemara is a compilation of
the various rabbinic discussions on the Mishnah, and as such
completes the understanding of the Mishnah.

The texts of the Mishnah and Gemara are then surrounded by other
layers of text and commentaries from a later period.

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The text of the Mishnah is quoting rabbis who lived from about 100
BCE to 200 CE. These rabbi are called the Tanaim, "teachers." In this
group are included such greats as Rabbi Yochanan Ben Zakkai, Rabbi
Shimon Bar Yochai, Rabbi Akiva, and of course Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi.
(In the Gemara, they usually have the title Rebbe before their first
name although there are many exceptions such as the names: Hillel,
Shamai, Ben Azai and Ben Zoma.)

The text of the Gemara is quoting the rabbis who lived from about 200
CE to about 500 CE. These rabbis are called, Amoraim, "explainers" or
"interpreters." In this group are included Rav Ashi, Reb Yochanan, etc.
(Names of the Babylonian Amoraim usually are preceeded by the title
Rav as opposed to the Amoraim of Israel who continued to use the title
Rabbi/Rebbe. This is because the authentic institution of smicha –
rabbinic ordination ― was only done in the Land of Israel.)

The surrounding text of today's Talmud also quotes Rishonim, literally

"the first ones," rabbinic authorities (from c. 1,000 C.E. until 1,500 C.E.)
who predated Rabbi Joseph Caro, the 16th century author of the code
of Jewish law known as the Shulchan Aruch. Among the most
prominent Rishonim are Rashi, his students and descendants who were
the chief authors of the Tosafos, Maimonides and Nachmanides.

Talmudic Humor (Ha!)

After months of negotiation with the authorities, a Talmudist from
Odessa was finally granted permission to visit Moscow.

He boarded the train and found an empty seat. At the next stop, a
young man got on and sat next to him. The scholar looked at the
young man and he thought: This fellow doesn't look like a peasant, so
if he is no peasant he probably comes from this district. If he comes
from this district, then he must be Jewish because this is, after all, a
Jewish district.
But on the other hand, since he is a Jew, where could he be going? I'm
the only Jew in our district who has permission to travel to Moscow.

Ahh, wait! Just outside Moscow there is a little village called Samvet,
and Jews don't need special permission to go to Samvet But why would
he travel to Samvet? He is surely going to visit one of the Jewish
families there. But how many Jewish families are there in Samvet? Aha,
only two -- the Bernsteins and the Steinbergs. But since the Bernsteins
are a terrible family, so such a nice looking fellow like him, he must be
visiting the Steinbergs. But why is he going to the Steinbergs in
Samvet? The Steinbergs have only daughters, two of them, so maybe
he's their son-in-law. But if he is, then which daughter did he marry?
They say that Sarah Steinberg married a nice lawyer from Budapest,

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and Esther married a businessman from Zhitomer, so it must be
Sarah's husband. Which means that his name is Alexander Cohen, if
I'm not mistaken.

But if he came from Budapest, with all the anti-Semitism they have
there, he must have changed his name. What's the Hungarian
equivalent of Cohen? It is Kovacs. But since they allowed him to
change his name, he must have special status to change it. What could
it be? Must be a doctorate from the University. Nothing less would do.

At this point, therefore, the Talmudic scholar turns to the young man
and says, "Excuse me. Do you mind if I open the window, Dr. Kovacs?"

"Not at all," answered the startled co-passenger. "But how is it that you
know my name?"

"Ahhh," replied the Talmudist, "It was obvious."

Israel and Zionism

A Timeline: A History of Israel and the Palestinian Territories

We’ve adapted this timeline from the BBC News Article: A History of Conflict,
and from multiple other sources. Creating a comprehensive timeline that
encompasses the history of this much-contested land is no easy task--here,
even a timeline becomes a political statement. We’ve attempted to report
the events as neutrally as possible, and to take into consideration the
viewpoint of each group of people for whom this part of the world remains an
indelible part of their history.

The land that now encompasses Israel and the Palestinian territories has
been conquered and re-conquered throughout history. Details of the ancient
Israelite states are derived for the most part from the first books of the Bible
and classical history.

Some of the key events include:

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A map of the recorded land of Canaan
Biblical times
• 1250 BC: Israelites began to conquer and settle the land of Canaan on
the eastern Mediterranean coast.

• 961-922 BC: Reign of King Solomon and construction of the Temple in

Jerusalem. Solomon's reign was followed by the division of the land
into two kingdoms.

• 586 BC: The southern kingdom, Judah, was conquered by the

Babylonians, who drove its people, the Jews, into exile and destroyed
Solomon's Temple. After 70 years the Jews began to return and
Jerusalem and the temple were gradually rebuilt.

A mosaic depicting Alexander the Great

Classical period
• 333 BC: Alexander the Great's conquest brought the area under Greek
rule.

• 165 BC: A revolt in Judea established the last independent Jewish state
of ancient times.

• 63 BC: The Jewish state, Judea, was incorporated into the Roman
province of Palestine

• 70 AD: A revolt against Roman rule was put down by the Emperor Titus
and the Second Temple was destroyed. This marks the beginning of
the Jewish Diaspora, or dispersion.

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 • 118-138 AD: During the Roman Emperor Hadrian's rule, Jews were
initially allowed to return to Jerusalem, but - after another Jewish revolt
in 133 - the city was completely destroyed and its people banished and
sold into slavery.

• 351 AD: Jewish revolt to end foreign rule; Roman Empire adopts
Christianity

Ottoman Palestine
Middle Ages
• 638 AD: Conquest by Arab Muslims ended Byzantine rule (the
successor to Roman rule in the East). The second caliph of Islam,
Omar, built a mosque at the site of what is now the al-Aqsa Mosque in
Jerusalem in the early years of the 8th Century. Apart from the age of
the Crusaders (1099-1187), the region remained under Muslim rule
until the fall of the Ottoman Empire in the 20th Century.

• 1517 AD: Following the Ottoman conquest in 1517, the Land was
divided into four districts, attached administratively to the province of
Damascus and ruled from Istanbul. At the outset of the Ottoman era,
some 1,000 Jewish families lived in the country. The community was
comprised of descendants of native Jews, as well as immigrants from
North Africa and Europe. Orderly government, until the death of Sultan
Suleiman the Magnificent, brought improvements and stimulated
Jewish immigration. Some newcomers settled in Jerusalem, but the
majority went to Safed where, by the mid-16th century, the Jewish
population had risen to about 10,000. The town had become a thriving
textile center as well as the focus of intense intellectual activity.

An early Jewish settlement

Modern Era
• 1799: Napoleon conquers Palestine, but is then defeated at Acre

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 • 1858: Ottoman land reform creates a landowning, urban leadership
that supplants tribal leadership and ushers in the modern era in
Palestine.

• 1878: The first Zionist colony is founded near Jaffa. Thirty Zionist
colonies would be founded by 1914. At that time the Jewish population
reached 80,000. Zionism, the national liberation movement of the
Jewish people, derives its name from the word "Zion", the traditional
synonym for Jerusalem and the Land of Israel. The idea of Zionism - the
redemption of the Jewish people in its ancestral homeland - is rooted in
a deep attachment to the Land of Israel.

• 1882: First Aliyah (wave of Jewish Immigration to the region)

• 1903: Second Aliyah: Russian and Eastern European Jews flee pogroms

• 1908: The Palestinian journal Al-Karmil is founded in Haifa to oppose

Zionist developments

• 1909: Founding of the city of Tel Aviv

• 1908-1914: Friction grows between Istanbul and Arab Provinces as the

government espouses Turkish nationalism. Arabs, including many
Palestinians, form the Arab Nationalist movement to seek autonomy.

Shifting sands
• 1914 August: World War I begins. At the time of World War I the area
was ruled by the Turkish Ottoman empire. Turkish control ended when
Arab forces backed by Britain drove out the Ottomans. Britain occupied
the region at the end of the war in 1918 and was assigned as the
mandatory power by the League of Nations on April 25, 1920.
During this period of change, three key pledges were made:
o In 1916 the British Commissioner in Egypt promised the Arab
leadership post-war independence for former Ottoman Arab
provinces.
o However, at the same time, the secret Sykes-Picot Agreement
between war victors, Britain and France, divided the region
under their joint control.
o Then in 1917, the British Foreign Minister Arthur Balfour
committed Britain to work towards "the establishment in

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 Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people", in a letter to
leading Zionist Lord Rothschild. It became known as the Balfour
Declaration. The Balfour Declaration promises a national home
for the Jews in Palestine and protection of the civil and religious
rights of the non-Jewish inhabitants.

Babies born on a kibbutz in the 1920s

Arab discontent
• 1922: a British census showed the Jewish population had risen to about
11% of Palestine's 750,000 inhabitants. More than 300,000 immigrants
arrived in the next 15 years. Some 35,000 who came between 1919
and 1923, mainly from Russia, strongly influenced the community's
character and organization. These immigrants laid the foundations of a
comprehensive social and economic infrastructure, developed
agriculture, established unique cooperative forms of rural settlement -
the kibbutz and moshav - and provided the labor force for building
houses and roads.

• 1929: Jewish-Arab antagonism boiled over into violent clashes in

August 1929 when 133 Jews were killed by Palestinians and 110
Palestinians died at the hands of the British police.

• 1936: Arab discontent again exploded into widespread civil

disobedience during a general strike in 1936. By this time, the Zionist
group Irgun Zvai Leumi was targeting Palestinian and British sites with
the aim of liberating Palestine and Transjordan (modern-day Jordan) by
force.

• July 1937: Britain, in a Royal Commission headed by former Secretary

of State for India, Lord Peel, recommended partitioning the land into a
Jewish state (about a third of British Mandate Palestine, including
Galilee and the coastal plain) and an Arab one. Palestinian and Arab
representatives rejected this and demanded an end to immigration.
Violent opposition continued until 1938 when it was put down with
reinforcements from the UK.

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A map of the proposed partition of Palestine
UN partition of Palestine
• 1947: Britain handed over responsibility for solving the Zionist-Arab
situation to the United Nations in 1947. The territory was plagued with
chronic unrest pitting the Arab population against the Jewish
immigrants (who now made up about a third of the population). The
situation had become more critical with the displacement of hundreds
of thousands of Jews fleeing Nazi persecution in Europe. The UN
recommended splitting the territory into separate Jewish and
Palestinian states. Palestinian representatives, known as the Arab
Higher Committee, rejected the proposal; their counterparts in the
Jewish Agency accepted it. The partition plan gave 56.47% of Palestine
to the Jewish state and 43.53% to the Arab state, with an international
enclave around Jerusalem. In November 1947, 33 countries of the UN
General Assembly voted for partition, 13 voted against and 10
abstained. The plan, which was rejected by the Palestinians, was never
implemented.

• 1948: Britain announced its intention to terminate its Palestine

mandate on May 15, 1948 but hostilities broke out before the date
arrived. Both Arab and Jewish sides prepared for the coming
confrontation by mobilizing forces.

Declaration of the State of Israel

Establishment of Israel

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 • May 1948: The State of Israel was proclaimed at 16:00 on May 14,
1948 in Tel Aviv. The declaration came into effect the following day as
the last British troops withdrew. Palestinians refer to May 15 as "al-
Nakba", or the Catastrophe; Israelis generally refer to the day as the
beginning of the Israeli War of Independence. The year had begun with
Jewish and Arab armies each staging attacks on territory held by the
other side. Jewish forces, backed by the Irgun and Lehi militant groups
made more progress, seizing areas allotted to the Jewish state but also
conquering territories allocated for the Palestinian one. Underground
Zionist groups attacked the village of Deir Yassin near Jerusalem on
April 9. Word spread among Palestinians and hundreds of thousands
fled to Lebanon, Egypt and the area now known as the West Bank. The
day after the state of Israel was declared Arab armies from Jordan,
Egypt, Lebanon, Syria and Iraq invaded Israel but were repulsed, and
the Israeli army crushed pockets of resistance. Armistices established
Israel's borders on the frontier of most of the earlier British Mandate
Palestine. Egypt kept the Gaza Strip while Jordan annexed the area
around East Jerusalem and the land now known as the West Bank.

PLO leader Yasser Arafat addressing Palestinian children

Formation of the PLO
• Post-1948: After 1948 there was fierce competition between
neighboring states to lead an Arab response to the creation of Israel.

• January 1964: Arab governments - wanting to create a Palestinian

organization that would remain essentially under their control - voted
to create a body called the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). But
the Palestinians wanted a genuinely independent body. This was the
goal of Yasser Arafat, who took over the chairmanship of the PLO in
1969. His Fatah organization was gaining notoriety with its armed
operations against Israel. Fatah fighters inflicted heavy casualties on
Israeli troops at Karameh in Jordan in 1968.

The Mandelbaum Gate separated East and West Jerusalem

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The 1967 War
• June 1967: Mounting tensions between Israel and its Arab neighbors
culminated in six days of hostilities starting on June 5, 1967 and ending
on June 11 - six days which changed the face of the Middle East
conflict. Israel seized Gaza and the Sinai from Egypt in the south and
the Golan Heights from Syria in the north. It also pushed Jordanian
forces out of the West Bank and East Jerusalem. The Mandelbaum gate
was the main passage between West Jerusalem (belonging to Israel)
and East Jerusalem (belonging to Jordan). The gate was torn down by
Israeli forces, thus reuniting Jerusalem. Borders were thus reopened;
those who had been previously exiled were allowed to return to see
their homeland.

• November 1967: The UN Security Council issued resolution 242,

stressing "the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war and
the need to work for a just and lasting peace in which every State in
the area can live in security". According to the UN, the six-day war
displaced 500,000 Palestinians who fled to Egypt, Syria, Lebanon and
Jordan.

Eleven Israeli athletes were killed at the Olympics in 1972

The 1970s: Continued Tensions
• 1972: Under Yasser Arafat's leadership, PLO factions and other militant
Palestinian groups launched a series of attacks on Israeli and other
targets. One such attack took place at the Munich Olympics in 1972 in
which 11 Israeli athletes were killed. But while the PLO pursued the
armed struggle to "liberate all of Palestine", in 1974, Arafat made a
dramatic first appearance at the United Nations mooting a peaceful
solution. He condemned the Zionist project, but concluded: "Today I
have come bearing an olive branch and a freedom fighter's gun. Do
not let the olive branch fall from my hand."

An Israeli soldier leads blindfolded Egyptian prisoners-of-war in the Sinai

Desert during the Yom Kippur War.
The Yom Kippur War

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 • 1973: Unable to regain the territory they had lost in 1967 by
diplomatic means, Egypt and Syria launched major offensives against
Israel on the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur. The clashes are also known
as the Ramadan war. Initially, Egypt and Syria made advances in Sinai
and the Golan Heights. These were reversed after three weeks of
fighting. Israel eventually made gains beyond the 1967 ceasefire lines.
Israeli forces pushed on into Syria beyond the Golan Heights, though
they later gave up some of these gains. In Egypt, Israeli forces
regained territory and advanced to the western side of the Suez Canal.
The United States, the Soviet Union and the United Nations all made
diplomatic interventions to bring about ceasefire agreements. Egypt
and Syria jointly lost an estimated 8,500 soldiers in the fighting, while
Israel lost about 6,000. Soon after the war, Saudi Arabia led a
petroleum embargo against states that supported Israel. The embargo,
which caused a steep rises in gas prices and fuel shortages lasted until
March 1974. In October 1973 the UN Security Council passed
resolution 338 which called for the combatants "to cease all firing and
terminate all military activity immediately... [and start] negotiations
between the parties concerned under appropriate auspices aimed at
establishing a just and durable peace in the Middle East".

• 1977: Egyptian President Anwar Sadat stunned the world by flying to

the Jewish state and making a speech to the Israeli parliament in
Jerusalem in November 1977. Sadat became the first Arab leader to
recognize Israel, only four years after launching the October 1973 war.
Egypt and Israel signed the Camp David accords in September 1978
outlining "the framework for peace in the Middle East" which included
partial autonomy for Palestinians. A bilateral Egyptian-Israeli peace
treaty was signed by Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin
in March 1979. The Sinai Peninsula was returned to Egypt. Arab states
boycotted Egypt for breaking ranks and negotiating a separate treaty
with Israel. Sadat was assassinated in 1981 by Islamist elements in the
Egyptian army, who opposed peace with Israel, during national
celebrations to mark the anniversary of the October war.

The intifada was meant to send a message to both the PLO and Israel
The First Intifada
• 1987: A mass uprising - or intifada - against the Israeli occupation
began in Gaza and quickly spread to the West Bank. Protest took the
form of civil disobedience, general strikes, boycotts, graffiti, and
barricades, but it was the stone-throwing demonstrations against the
heavily-armed occupation troops that captured international attention.

36
 The Israeli Defense Forces responded and there was heavy loss of life.
More than 1,000 died in clashes which lasted until 1993.

The famous handshake between the then PLO leader,

Yasser Arafat, and Yitzhak Rabin, the then Israeli prime minister,
at the Clinton White House in 1993.
The Oslo Peace Talks
• January 1993: The election of the left-wing Labour government in June
1992, led by Yitzhak Rabin, triggered a period of Israeli-Arab
peacemaking in the mid-1990s. The government - including the "iron-
fisted" Rabin and doves Shimon Peres and Yossi Beilin - was uniquely
placed to talk seriously about peace with the Palestinians. The PLO,
meanwhile, wanted to make peace talks work because of the weakness
of its position due to the Gulf War. The secret "Oslo track" - opened on
20 January 1993 in the Norwegian town of Sarpsborg - made
unprecedented progress. The Palestinians consented to recognize
Israel in return for the beginning of phased dismantling of Israel's
occupation. Negotiations culminated in the Declaration of Principles,
signed on the White House lawn and sealed with a historic first
handshake between Rabin and Yasser Arafat watched by 400 million
people around the world.

• May 1994: Israel and the PLO reached an agreement in Cairo on the
initial implementation of the 1993 Declaration of Principles. This
specified Israel's military withdrawal from most of the Gaza Strip,
excluding Jewish settlements, and from the Palestinian town of Jericho
in the West Bank. Negotiations were almost derailed on February 25
when a Jewish settler in the West Bank town of Hebron fired on praying
Muslims, killing 29 people. The agreement itself contained potential
pitfalls. It outlined further withdrawals during a five-year interim period
during which solutions to more challenging issues were to be
negotiated - such as the establishment of a Palestinian state, the
status of Jerusalem, Jewish settlements in the Occupied Territories and
the fate of more than 3.5 million Palestinian refugees from the 1948
and 1967 upheavals. Many critics of the peace process were silenced
on July 1 as jubilant crowds lined the streets of Gaza to cheer Yasser
Arafat on his triumphal return to Palestinian territory. The returning
Palestinian Liberation Army deployed in areas vacated by Israeli troops
and Arafat became head of the new Palestinian National Authority (PA)
in the autonomous areas. He was elected president of the Authority in
January 1996.

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The funeral of Yitzhak Rabin
Oslo II and Rabin’s Assassination
• 1995: The first year of Palestinian self-rule in Gaza and Jericho was
dogged by difficulties. Bomb attacks by Palestinian militants killed
dozens of Israelis, while Israel blockaded the autonomous areas and
assassinated militants. Settlement activity continued. The Palestinian
Authority quelled unrest by mass detentions. Opposition to the peace
process grew among right-wingers and religious nationalists in Israel.
Against this background, peace talks were laborious and fell behind
schedule. But on September 24 the so-called Oslo II agreement was
signed in Taba in Egypt, and countersigned four days later in
Washington. The agreement divided the West Bank into three zones,
with 7% going to full Palestinian control; 21% under joint Israeli-
Palestinian control; and the remaining territory staying in Israeli hands.
Oslo II was greeted with little enthusiasm by Palestinians, while Israel's
religious right was furious at the "surrender of Jewish land". Amid an
incitement campaign against Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, a
Jewish religious extremist assassinated him on November 4, sending
shock waves around the world. The dovish Shimon Peres, architect of
the faltering peace process, became prime minister.
• 1996: Conflict returns with a series of devastating suicide bombings.
• 1999: Ehud Barak, who pledges to "end the 100-year conflict" between
Israel and the Arabs within one year, wins the Israeli election.

A scene from the Second Intifada

The Second Intifada
• 2000: Initial optimism about the peacemaking prospects of a
government led by Ehud Barak proved unfounded. Barak concentrated
on peace with Syria - also unsuccessfully. But he did succeed in
fulfilling a campaign pledge to end Israel's 21-year entanglement in
Lebanon. After the withdrawal from Lebanon in May 2000, attention
turned back to Yasser Arafat, who was under pressure from Barak and
Bill Clinton to launch an all-out push for a final settlement at Camp
David. Two weeks of talks failed to come up with acceptable solutions

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 to the status of Jerusalem and the right of return of Palestinian
refugees. In the uncertainty of the ensuing impasse, Ariel Sharon, the
veteran right-winger who succeeded Binyamin Netanyahu as Likud
leader, toured the al-Aqsa/Temple Mount complex in Jerusalem on
September 28. Sharon's critics saw it as a highly provocative move.
Palestinian demonstrations followed, quickly developing into what
became known as the al-Aqsa intifada, or uprising.

Gaza withdrawal
• 2005: By now, the former general Ariel Sharon was Israeli prime
minister. In 2005 he abandoned the policy he had followed all his life--
that of holding onto the West Bank and Gaza at all costs. Instead, he
announced that Israel would leave the Gaza Strip and would build a
wall and fence to defend itself against suicide bombers and separate
the Palestinian territories from Israel. The withdrawal went ahead, but
Gaza later became the scene of a power struggle between the
Palestinian Authority, representing the old guard of the secular PLO,
and the newer Islamic-inspired forces of Hamas. Hamas prevailed. The
Oslo accord all but disappeared. At the end of 2005 Sharon suffered a
massive stroke and went into a coma; he remains in this condition
even today.

Israelis lay flowers on the grave of a fallen soldier in April 2007

Lebanon War
• 2006: Eight Israeli soldiers were killed and two captured by the
Lebanese group Hezbollah. Israel and Hezbollah engaged in a 33-day
war in which Hezbollah fired a hail of rockets into Israel and the Israelis
bombed Lebanese towns and infrastructure but made little headway in
ground operations. The war ended inconclusively but with Hezbollah
largely intact.

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The Zionist Movement
Adapted from Zionism by Prof. Binyamin Neuberger; and Ultra-
Orthodox & Anti-Zionist by Dr. Aviezer Ravitzky

The idea of Zionism is based on the connection between the Jewish

people and its land, a link which began almost 4,000 years ago when
Abraham settled in Canaan, later known as the Land of Israel. Central
to Zionist thought is the concept of the Land of Israel as the historical
birthplace of the Jewish people and the belief that Jewish life elsewhere
is a life of exile. Over centuries in the Diaspora (scattered communities
of Jews outside of Israel) Jews maintained a relationship with their
historical homeland, manifesting this connection through rituals and
literature.

Modern Zionism in part owes its success as an active national

movement to anti-Semitism and persecution. Over the centuries, Jews
were expelled from almost every European country--a cumulative
experience that had a profound impact, birthing influential Jewish
leaders who turned to Zionism as a result of the anti-Semitism in their
respective societies. Thus Moses Hess, shaken by the blood libel of
Damascus (1844), founded Zionist socialism; Leon Pinsker, shocked by
the pogroms (1881–1882) which followed the assassination of Czar
Alexander II, lead the Hibbat Zion movement; and Theodor Herzl, who
experienced the venomous anti-Semitic campaign of the Dreyfus case
in Paris (1896), organized Zionism into a political movement.

Rise of Political Zionism

Political Zionism emerged in the 19th Century within the context of the
liberal nationalism then sweeping through Europe. Although Zionism
was basically a political movement aspiring to a return to the Jewish
homeland, it also promoted a reassertion of Jewish culture. An
important element in this reawakening was the revival of Hebrew, long
restricted to liturgy and literature, as a living national language.

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Most of the founders of Zionism knew that Palestine had an Arab
population (though some spoke naively of “a land without a people for
a people without a land”). Still, only a few regarded the Arab presence
as a real obstacle to the fulfillment of Zionism. Many Zionist leaders
believed that since the local community was relatively small, friction
between it and the returning Jews could be avoided. However, these
hopes were not fulfilled.

During the years 1936–1947, the struggle over the Land of Israel grew
intense. Arab opposition became more extreme with the increased
growth of the Jewish community. At the same time, the Zionist
movement felt it necessary to increase immigration and develop the
country’s economic infrastructure in efforts to save as many Jews as
possible from Nazi-dominated Europe.
The clash between the Jews and the Arabs brought the UN to
recommend, on November 29, 1947, the establishment of two states in
the area west of the Jordan River—one Jewish and one Arab. The Jews
accepted the resolution; Arabs rejected it. On May 14, 1948, in
accordance with the UN resolution of November 1947, the State of
Israel was established.

Orthodox Opposition to the State of Israel

Many Ultra-Orthodox Jews are anti-Zionist because they believe that
the redemption of the Jews must come through the agency of the
Messiah rather than through any actions of the Jews, and more so, that
it cannot come about as a result of a secular (non-religious) political
organization such as Zionism. Therefore, these groups perceive the
establishment of the State of Israel as an anti-messianic act. In the
words of the Midrash, the Jewish people were adjured not to return
collectively to the Land of Israel by the exertion of physical force, nor
to “rebel against the nations of the world,” nor to “hasten the End;”
rather they were required to wait for the heavenly, complete, and
miraculous redemption that is distinct from the realm of human
endeavor. According to this logic, any Jewish state prior to the
messianic age undermines and denies the Torah and takes a stand
against halakhah (Jewish law).

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Anti-Zionist, Ultra Orthodox Jews march in support of the Palestinians

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