August 2005

Dear Friend,

We welcome you to another edition of the Israel Connection, brought to you by THE ASSOCIATED: Jewish Community Federation of Baltimore and the Baltimore Jewish Council. This e-newsletter will now include such items as: news updates about Israel and the Middle East , Action Alerts, and upcoming programming. Our goal is to provide you with relevant information that you can use in your advocacy efforts and to express your support and solidarity with the people of Israel . We welcome your feedback - please email us at lkatzen@baltjc.org or call Lynn Katzen at the Baltimore Jewish Council at 410-542-4850 with your comments.

Sincerely,

Judge Chaya Friedman
Chair, Israel Awareness and Advocacy Committee		 Beth Mayers
Chair, Israel Connection

In the aftermath of Israel's withdrawal from Gaza, we would like to provide you with this poignant article written by Michael Oren reflecting on his reserve duty in the IDF during last week’s disengagement. The article was featured in the Wall Street Journal on August 23, 2005. Oren is a senior fellow at the Shalem Center in Jerusalem and is the author of Six Days of War: June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East.

A Soldier's Story
By Michael B. Oren – The Wall Street Journal - 8/23/05
Together with thousands of Jews, I sat on the flagstones before the Western Wall in Jerusalem. The time was midnight on the ninth day of the Hebrew month of Av, the day on which, according to tradition, invaders twice overwhelmed the city's defenders, destroying their Temple and crushing Jewish independence in Israel. Two thousand years later, a new Jewish state with a powerful army has arisen, yet Jews continue to lament on that day, and rarely as fervidly as now. For the first time in history -- ancient or modern -- that state would send its army not to protect Jews from foreign attack, but to evict them from what many regarded as their God-given land, in Gaza.…read more

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Send an email with your comments to Lynn Katzen at lkatzen@baltjc.org.