Winston Churchill - A Good Friend of Jews and Zionism?

by Dr. Daniel Mandel
Published May 2009 Jewish Political Studies Review 21:1-2 (Spring 2009)

Churchill and the Jews, by Michael J. Cohen, London & Portland: Frank Cass, 1985, second revised edition, 2003, 421 pp.
Churchill and the Jews: A Lifelong Friendship, by Martin Gilbert, New York: Henry Holt & Co., 2007, 359 pp.
Churchill's Promised Land, by Alan Makovsky, New Haven & London: New Republic Books/Yale University Press, 2007, 341 pp.
Reviewed by Daniel Mandel

The Tortosa Debate 1413/14
In 1413/14 a second debate, this time between a group of Jewish Rabbis and Geronimo de Santa Fe', a converted Jew, was organized in the town of Tortosa, by the Catholic Church and Ferdinand the First, King of the Kingdom of Aragon. 5 Rabbis, were chosen to confront Santa Fe', a converted Jew: - Zarchia Halevy, Astrik Halevi, Joseph Albo, Nissim Ferrer, and Matityahu Yitzhari.

According to the ideology of the Catholic Church, G-d despised the Jews and transferred the status of the Chosen People to the Christians. The Catholic Church wanted Jewish conversion to Christianity as proof that G-d had transferred the elected status to the Christians. The way to persuade Jews to convert was to impose restrictive laws designed to humiliate them and isolate them from Christian society.

The first wave of Jewish conversion to Christianity began as a result of a pogrom against the Jews of Sivilia that started a wave of pogroms around the counrty in 1391. The Jews were forced to choose between conversion and death. About 100,000 Jews converted, while others were killed and their women were raped.

The Arabs conquered the Land of Israel between 632 - 640 A.D from the Byzantine Empire. They occupied the country from 640 until 1099, when the Crusaders coquered the country.During those years the country became a battle field between Arab families, and suffered from invasions of Bedouin tribes who robbed and murdered the population, and the Byzantines and others who wished to occupy the country. The wars destroyed the economy and the country was deserted by some of its old population: Christians, Jews and Samaritans.

Prof.Moshe Baver of the Geography Faculty in Tel Aviv University, who is a world-renowned geographer, based his study, titled "Immigration as a factor in the Growth of the Arab village in Israel"(Economic Review, 1975) on a Mandate Government Survey of Arabic Villages which he participated in and which included interviews with village Mukhtars(leaders) conducded during the Mndate period.

unveils new findings about the lives of the Marranos in the New World. The remarkable steadfastness which the converted Jews displayed to their original faith attests to the vitality of the Jewish people

Many of the scientific, financial and practical aspects of the discovery of America had a Jewish angle to them, and Columbus himself may have had Jewish roots

First settled during the First Temple Period; Fortified during the Great Revolt against the Romans; A rich Jewish existence that continued unbroken to the 17th century.

Today, Kafar Canna is an Arabic village. There were 260 Arabic families living there in 1945, growing to 600 in 1961. Today it is inhabited by 14,000 residents, most of whom are Muslim, with a Christian minority. There are 3 churches in the village: St. Bartholomew’s Church, a Greek-Orthodox Church, and a Catholic Church dedicated to the wedding miracle Christ performed by turning water into wine (John II, 1-11).

Christ’s city was Jewish until the 4th century A.D according to the historian Epiphanes. But, in fact, It lasted until the 7th century.

Nazareth nowadays is an Arabic city situated in the Lower Galilee, with a population of 70,000. Two thirds are Muslim and only a third are Christian: 14,000 Greek Orthodox, 9,000 Greek Catholic, and 1,000 Maronite Christians from Lebanon. Other Christians belong to the Coptic, Anglican, Baptist, and Armenian Churches. The process by which Nazareth has been transformed from a Christian city to a Muslim one began during the British Mandate period and accelerated since the establishment of the State of Israel.

Are the East-European Jews descendants of the people of Khazaria who converted to Judaism?

Some historians believe that during the Middle Ages there were no more than 25,000 - 35,000 Jews in Western Europe.
They find it hard to agree with other historians whose studies show that by the 17th century there were hundreds of thousands of Jews in Eastern Europe,who were descendants of the Jews who had been expelled from Wetern and central Europe during the Middle Ages.

Dr. Rivka Shpak Lissak

According to the Arabic- Palestinian propaganda, the Palestinians are the indigenous people of the country called Judea in the past, then Palestina under the British Mandte.

This article and others in the future will prove this propaganda is an attempt to rewrite history in order to eliminate the Jewish state.

Ma’ayan Hess-Ashkenazi researched the Arabic immigration to the Sharon, and this is what he found: