Philosophical, Historical & Political articles

Countdown to UK general election 2009

2009-11-17T09:11:00.001-08:00

Ladino and Spanish-Sephardi Judaism: the languages, customs, culture and history

2009-05-06T12:19:00.000-07:00

THE PROVERBS AT THE END OF THIS POSTING ARE INTENDED TO INFORM AND AMUSE, NOT OFFEND AND I APOLOGISE FOR ANY THAT MAY BE CAUSED. I ALSO DO NOT AGREE WITH ALL OF THEM

Ladino is the Sephardi equivalent of Yiddish: a Jewish dialect with local influences. Like Yiddish it had a rich culture that was largely destroyed in the Holocaust but has not been revived to such a great extent as it’s European counterpart. A simplified explanation of Ladino is 60-70% Medieval Spanish with the influences of Hebrew, Turkish, Arabic, Greek and some French. A good way to look at Ladino is to imagine a conversation between a Shakespearean actor and a modern Englishman. They would be able to keep up with each other but have to concentrate on what is being said to extract the meaning. That is how a Ladino speaker would appear to be when communicating with a modern Spaniard. In this article there will be a more detailed explanation of Ladino culture and history starting with the Spanish Inquisition and finishing with just after the Holocaust.

In 1391, there was a major turning point in Jewish history. The era of anusim (forced converts) had begun. In the summer of that year, anti-Semitic riots swept across the various Christian communities (by now all of Spain had been taken from the Muslims except Granada in the south-east) affecting the cities of Leon, Majorca, Toledo, Alicante and Valencia. The violence spread throughout the Iberian peninsular but was non-existent in Navarra and Portugal.

In February 1413 the disputation of Tortosa began. The disputation was a theological debate between Jewish and Spanish-Catholic scholars on matters such as Messianic philosophy, errors and blasphemies in the Talmud and Jesus. Over the next seventy years the Spanish Jews became more and more persecuted. In January 1483 the Jews of Andalusia were expelled and later that year in October, Thomas Torquemada was made Inquisitor General of the whole of Catholic Spain. Ironically, Torquemada was of Jewish descent and had hundreds of thousands of his kinsmen killed, tortured or expelled from their homes.

On January 2nd 1492 the last Muslim stronghold in Spain: Granada fell to King Ferdinand and Isobella. Now they controlled the whole of Spain. The expulsion of the Jews went like clockwork over the next eight months. On March 2nd Torquemada presented to the King a plan to expel the Jews. On April 29th the edict was formally published and in August the last Jews left, roughly at the same time as Columbus set sail on his first voyage to America. Just before the expulsion, a book was published called Alboraique. The term Alboraique referred to Marranos Jews or “New Christians”. They were illustrated in the book as Mohammed the Prophet’s beast called Borak, a monstrosity that was neither horse or donkey. The message was that the Marranos weren’t Jew or Christian and had no place in Spanish society being disloyal lazy heretics who were not fit to work, pray or fight.

The Spanish Jews went mainly eastwards to the Ottoman empire. Here, the majority settled in Istanbul and Salonika/Thessaloniki but many others went to Athens, Rhodes, Kos, Bosnia and Macedonia. There they spoke Spanish with some Hebrew that had been previously integrated into the language but gradually, the indigenous languages worked there way into the Judeo-Spanish. This would be known as Ladino.

In the event that a Macedonian and Turkish Ladino speaker got together then their respective ways of speaking the language would be slightly different as the indigenous languages of where they came from weren’t the same but they would still be able to communicate clearly. Later, some Jews of Spanish origin went further East to Arab lands such as Iraq and North Africa. There they thrived, until the declaration of the State of Israel. Whole communities emigrated there en-masse when the law of return of declared (this entitled any Jew to come and live in Israel without a visa or official documentation) in July 1950. Some Iraqi Jews (most notably the Sassoon family) went to India where minor but successful communities were established. Some Turkish Jews also to Israel after 1516 when Emperor Selim I took the Holy Land, particularly the mystical city of Safed (Tzvat). In 1555 the Shulchan Aruch (a definitive code to Jewish law) was published after being written by Rabbi Joseph Caro. Strangely, both Sephardi and Ashkenazic communities accept the Shulchan Aruch as with most laws, they disagree on something. From the late 16th Century to early 20th, the Jews of the Ottoman Empire flourished.

There has been evidence of Jewish communities in the United Kingdom (after they were expelled in 1290) since 1494. These Jews were almost certainly Marranos who fled from Spain. Clandestine Jewish communities lived mostly in London where they were largely successful although in 1594, Queen Elizabeth I’s doctor, Rodrigo Lopez was executed on charges of treason and conspiracy to murder the monarch. Although officially he wasn’t executed for being Jewish, English society at the time was highly anti-Semitic (strong evidence can be found in William Shakespeare’s play The Merchant of Venice) and xenophobic. When Lopez was executed England was at war with Phillip II of Spain and the public opinion was that any Spaniard was a traitor who should be put to death. Spanish and Portuguese Jews remained the dominant community in British Jewry until the late 19th century when Eastern Europe was being racked with violent pogroms against the Jewish communities. Many went westwards to England and America, where they from the predominant communities.

Nowadays in Britain, Spanish and Portuguese Jewry is dwindling. The main London communities, Bevis Marks; Lauderdale Road, Holland Park and Wembley are surrounded by property that first-time young buyers are unable to afford so when they were old enough, they moved to areas of the city where there were large Jewish communities and cheaper property. The remaining members of the community are often elderly and not especially religious, often driving to Synagogue on a Saturday morning as very few of them live close enough to walk there. The Spanish and Portuguese Jews who moved out from the main communities are so scattered and few that there aren’t enough to make a minyan (quorum of Jewish males over 13 required to hold a full Jewish service) where prayers can be recited to their own rites.

The culture of Ladino is as rich as Yiddish but more obscure. It has a wonderful sense of humour, mainly focusing on mothers in laws, domineering wives and women somewhat lacking in the intelligence of men.

To end this posting I have included some Ladino proverbs that I and my father enjoy and find amusing. I also think that they reflect Ladino culture particularly well.

He goes up to take a friend but down to take a wife
A silent donkey can pass as a knowledgeable person
Who listens to his wife is stupid, who doesn’t is crazy
Long hair-short brain (a generic term for women)
You will not be able to take your fortune to the grave
The mouth does, the mouth undoes
Youth happens only once-a person who doesn’t enjoy it is crazy
The woman builds, the woman destroys
The woman and the wine make a man go crazy
A good women is one who speaks little
I love you very much but stay away from my wallet
It is never too late to do good
A good son-in-law is one who sees his mother-in-laws on fire and saves her
Some are born with good luck and fortune, others with bad luck and a hernia
Crazy the mother-crazy the daughter

Yiddish: the language, customs, culture & history

2009-04-13T08:09:00.000-07:00

Cultural Judaism is permanently evolving. The customs, philosophies and languages have the most. The Jews have constantly been on the move for the past 2000 years of diaspora. In 70AD when the Second Temple was destroyed the Jews went into a diaspora that would last for many millennia. The majority spread around the Mediterranean and in Babylon in modern-day Iraq (this is where they flourished for almost 500 years in what is known as the Talmudic period). Here they exhaustively annotated and studied the oral-Torah (Mishnah) until it became the Talmud which is recognised as the definitive code of Jewish law. Many Jews were enslaved and sold around the Empire however, the rest of the free Jews went to main-land Italy and Rome itself. Here, they were largely merchants and eventually spread out across the Empire. Their main language was Aramaic which had evolved before "Modern Jewish-History". The Jews were taken too Babylon after the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians in August 586BC. With them, they took their language of Ancient Hebrew which gradually mixed with Babylonian too form Amaraic (This is the language of the Talmud). Aramaic is probably one of the longest surviving religions in the world due to the extensive study of the Talmud. Every day, especially in Israel millions of Jews open an un-translated Talmud and study it. They need too translate it to their respective languages and require a basic knowledge of vocabulary, grammar and structural elements of the language. Although it is not spoken, many people can still understand Aramaic. In addition, numerous "Talmud dictionaries" have been published. In essence they are dictionaries containing high-frequency Aramaic words that regularly come up in the Talmud. This was used by the first group of Babylonian* Jews until what is known as "The Return to Zion" in 538 when the Persian emperor Cyrus adopted a policy allowing his peoples to practice their respective religions. This allowed the Jews to return too Jerusalem which most did over a course of time. The Jews largely succeeded in Babylon but they weren't there long enough to really achieve anything great however,this was the period when Emperor Xerxes (who most famously attempted to attempt Greece & was defeated at Salamis by the Greek navy) was saved from assassination by Mordechai and Haman attempted to have all of Babylon's Jews executed. He narrowly succeeded but was stopped by Esther, one of Xerxes' Jewish wives who was also Mordechai's niece. To celebrate ousting Haman the Jewish festival of Purim came about.

After the fall of the Second Temple the Babylonian Jews further developed Aramaic. After around 500 years they gradually left Babylon to areas around the Western Roman Empire (which had already fallen in 476AD-the Eastern or Byzantine Empire would last another 1000, its' capital being modern day Istanbul that was taken in 1453 by the Ottomans): mainly Spain, France, the Alsace region (the term for someone who originated in Alsace is Alsatian) and Italy. From there they spread out over a period of 600 years to where most Jews lived before the Holocaust.

Some of the French and Alsatian Jews moved east into Germany where they prospered for over 1000 years. Until then they had spoken Hebrew but German words were gradually added to it until a new language formed-Yiddish. Yiddish is not just part of Jewish culture-it has one of its' own. Yiddish was originally medieval German with elements of Hebrew. A Yiddish-speaker can understand and communicate with a German. In the Holocaust, many people could survive as they understand the orders barked at them in German requesting skilled workers for example as they grew up speaking Yiddish. When the German Jews began moving further east into Russia, Poland, Lithuania and Ukraine Yiddish picked up some Slavic elements as well. Yiddish was the language mainly spoken by the religious east-European Jews in the Schtetls and ghettos. When the pogroms began in the 1880s they immigrated too America and the UK. They bought Yiddish there as well. Yiddish has made little impact on English but much on American. As a result schlep, kvetch and insults such as schmuck and putz have proliferated there way into American language. The British Jews mainly went too the East End of London where culture blossomed. There were Yiddish theatres, bookshops and libraries. Even community posters were written in it. The East End was severely damaged during the Blitz and many of the Jews moved north to Edgware, Hendon, Golders Green, Mill Hill and later Borehamwood. When they moved away from the East End (where many had lived in poverty) the became richer and soon lost many of their older traditions including Yiddish however, in some extremely Orthodox schools pupils are taught Yiddish to a conversational level and give Torah speeches in it.

In Jerusalem there is a radical Chasidic group called Neturei Karta. They are
ultra-orthodox and believe that the state of Israel should not exist until the Messiah arrives. They acknowledge that our Israel is the Holy Land but their "Palestine" shouldn't be the Jewish state. Another of their beliefs that ties directly to this article is they regard Hebrew as being too holy a language to speak on an every-day basis (excluding prayer and study) so they use Yiddish instead. Yiddish can be heard spoken wherever there is a Neturei Karta community whether in Manchester, New York or Jerusalem. Incidentally, the UK head of Neturei Karta; Rabbi Ahron Cohen (who at the time that this articles was written lived in Manchester) attended a Holocaust denial conference in Tehran where he was photographed embracing the Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, a known anti-Semite. For this he was ex-communiicated from British Jewry.

*Babylon was conquered by the Persians in 539BC but Jews who lived there are still "Babylonian"

Why do we feel for others?

2009-04-13T08:08:00.000-07:00

I recently saw a clip from Steven Spielberg’s masterpiece-Schindler’s List when the Ghetto was being cleared. The violence was realistic and graphic. It was well filmed and edited. The emotions on screen were excellently acted and conveyed too the audience. I have seen all of these qualities in other films that were in colour so therefore more “real” such as Blood Diamond and 21 Hours To Munich but none of the above disturbed me as much as Schindler’s List. I began to ask myself why this was the case. Surely a black and white film is less real than one that was made in colour?

This question led me to consider the title of this essay-why do we feel for others? I have based my essay on the ideas of two major philosophers: Hobbes and Rousseau. Many people believe that you cannot follow two different ideas but I disagree. Hobbes’ main idea was that humans are little more than animals who have slightly evolved beyond the stage of savagery. “The life of man is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short” (Thomas Hobbes, The Leviathan). According to Hobbes, we had only evolved from animals to the extent that mankind could very easily slip back into savagery* and that “humanity” was only a thin layer that could be very easily abandoned. Humans only exist for themselves, and not others. This could be aptly proved by a story from Nazi concentration camps where guards were bribed too provide much-needed medicine for prisoners. Did they provide the medicine because of their consciences? Of course not. Because they wanted the extra money. A counter-argument could be that they accepted the money to make life easier and more pleasant for the people that they loved (?).

On the other hand, Rousseau believed that we had evolved to the point where we are completely “tamed” too the extent that we exist to help others, not ourselves. We are driven by empathy and the pain of seeing other humans in discomfort. In other words; the group before the individual.

I believe that we have evolved too the extent where on the whole, we put others before ourselves (an example being the family unit) but under extreme circumstances we revert back to self-preservation. Clear evidence for this is a horrifying story from the Holocaust that there was regrettably repeated. A trainfull of Jews arrive at a station. They have been transported there in
Cattle-trucks, crammed in like sardines. The elderly and less able are helped out buy the young and strong. They are assembled in a yard and informed that they are to be transported “to the East” but need to shower and be disinfected first. The weak are helped to undress and get into the “shower-room”. All this way they less able are assisted by those who could. They are standing in a shower waiting for the water to come down on them when the lights go off and gas comes out of the ceilings. They realise that will soon die and in an effort to save themselves all of them run too the door. That’s up to 2000 people all rushing towards a small doorway. As the gas begins to take effect they only think of themselves, all trying to get out. They fight, clawing at each other in an effort to survive. Within a few minutes all of them are dead and most are piled up by the door in bloody pyramid from having fought to the death in an effort to get out. From this, we can see how rapid the transformation from the group to individual is. We are obsessed with living. The want for life is a very basic flaw in humanity, we value life too highly. Ultimately, the end of life is nothing. Our body has shut down and we can’t feel, do or acknowledge anything. It should be nothing to us but throughout history religious ideology has “hyped-up” how valuable life is. Over the course of time it has been hard-wired into our systems that life is good.

For most people a certain sight can evoke the desire for the well-being of others. It could be the sight of a mother feeding her baby or anyone enjoying themselves over something as simple as a meal or game of cards. Personally, the sight of pleasure being envoked can make my day. Anyone can have pleasure from the simplest of things. People with troubled pasts (I have noticed this particularly in survivors of the Holocaust), seem to exist to please others. They live wth their memories and whenever they see someone enjoying themselves, the pleasure is almost theirs.

We feel for others as somewhere in our brains is an area of compassion. Everyone has this and in turn loves someone. For example, the Nazi Einsatzgruppen who roamed Eastern Europe for Jews to kill and were some of if not the most evil people in history loved someone, possibly a woman or child. They would have mourned the death of that person with all of their heart. Anyone can have pity but not always for anybody.

Did Bloody Mary deserve her reputation?

2009-03-13T09:01:00.000-07:00

Did Bloody Mary deserve her reputation? It is a question that has been repeatedly by historians. My personal verdict is no. She gained her reputation because she burned so many Protestants but I think that it was no fault of her own. Her father, Henry VIII became rabidly anti-Catholic after the Reformation of the English Churches. Mary was also the daughter of a women that he had divorced and hated. Henry, as the head of the Church that said that his marriage with Catherine of Aragon wasn't legally binding making Mary illegitimate. As a result he mistreated her which heightened her dislike of Protestants.During her reign she was under high mental pressure and stress. Her husband, Phillip II of Spain, the one man that she really loved abandoned her causing to sink into periods of sever depression. She also suffered from numerous phantom pregnancies and became for a child that she could never have. As a result she was highly unstable and couldn't be held responsible for her actions.

Villains-humans as well

2009-02-15T08:16:00.000-08:00

Villains-they come in the form of drug dealers, murderers, rapists, sadists, Mafia bosses and money-hungry businessman. The stereotype of a villain is a greedy male, usually with some sort of madness for money and women. They are also typically sadists, gaining pleasure from making others suffer but when there own life is threatened, they are terrified, begging for forgiveness. Ernst Stavro Blofeld of the James Bond books and films falls neatly into this category. He is an international criminal who runs a network of terrorism, counter-intelligence and extortion, very willing to order the murders of fellow human beings but in the film For Your Eyes Only, he squeals for mercy as 007 tips him down a giant chimney-stack. The reality is different. The film Scarface portrays gangsters as being romantic figures and the various Mafia syndicates in America and Italy have encouraged this. In Mario Puzo's epic book The Godfather, a Mafia don: Corleone has been shown as a compassionate, kindly man with a ruthless streak who will order the beating or killing of anyone who has offended him or his friends.

Villains love and are loved. No matter how much they have degraded themselves by committing horrendous crimes such as killing a fellow man, they are still one themselves. They have a mother and father. Possibly siblings. In the book Class A by Robert Muchamore, the villain is a cocaine dealer on a massive scale. He has children and takes them and one of their friends on expensive holidays to Miami. He treats the friend as one of his own, paying for his purchases in a shopping centre, having a burping contest in the corridor of a upper-class hotel. Generally being "Dad".

Every villain has someone who loves them and that they love. The film Downfall shows Hitler's last few days leading up to his suicide and the relationships between him, his girlfriend, his secretaries, generals and subordinates. Towards the end at the climax he discusses suicide with a few of the people he kept close to him and eventually gives them cyanide capsules when requested for. As he places one in his closest secretary's hand he says "I wish that I could've given you a better gift". This shows that even one of History's most manic, evil, tyrannical and twisted individuals had at least some shreds of humanity.

Freedom or liberty?

2009-02-15T08:08:00.000-08:00

Two major political and philosophical principles are freedom and liberty. To the casual observer, the are identical but in reality they are extremely different ideas. Freedom is where an individual is able to do whatever they like whenever they like. This would lead to total anarchy. For example: a man who is poorly paid but particularly wants a certain laptop-computer and cannot afford it either robs a bank to get the money or steals it off the shop’s shelf. If the whole of society had total freedom then chaos would ensue. Grudges would be solved by a murder. Racists would go into areas of towns where minorities lived and assault them or destroy property. To put it concisely society would break down and order dissolve. The politicians would have no power and violent crime would be rife.

Liberty is the idea of being bound by certain rules but having the flexibility to do more or less whatever you want within legal reason. A lack of freedom doesn’t mean a complete restriction on the activities of the individual. Instead they have to follow laws for the greater good. The law of having to drive on the right or left side of the road is so that transportation is safe. Murder and violent crime is illegal so that civil stability is theoretically insured. Drugs are banned so that the side-effects put less people in danger. A cannabis user has the potential to become so paranoid that if they get stoned and start to do stupid things in public, they could assault someone that looks at them in the wrong way.

Freedom has been taken away from society so that they can get the most benefits out of liberty. Another excellent example is the principle of free marketing. The idea of the Free Market is the unrestricted trade of any legal product such as bananas, steel, paper, and plastic. The freedom has been taken away from the individual by banning the trade of certain products such as drugs, weaponry and certain chemicals but the liberty is the opportunity to buy or sell as much of the legal products as you can.

Most people would say freedom if you asked them what they would prefer but they don’t realise how dangerous it could be. Politicians frequently talk about freedom but rarely liberty. In the English language we say that you free prisoners but liberate the unjustly prosecuted. My opinion on this is that a prisoner has been restricted in what they can do, so when they are freed and for example choose to get a random bus too an unknown destination they feel that their activities are unrestricted. A school pupil who has been isolated for bad behaviour will feel that everything is open to them when they leave the room that they have been confined to for a few hours.

With liberation, you feel that you can do much but aren’t entirely unrestricted. When American and British tanks rolled across Iraqi cities to liberate the locals from the tyrannical regime of Saddam Hussein, many felt as if under the dictator, they had been carrying a pack-load of bricks (the suppression of political beliefs and persecution of anyone who dared to speak out against the regime) but when the Americans and British arrived a large weight had been lifted but they were still not completely able to live normal and free lives. For example, they have to carry ID cards and are subjected to curfews yet they generally live better lives under the Americans and British than Saddam Hussein.

Another interesting thought I picked up on after this was first posted was that freedom has been taken away by incarcerating them without trial but they still have the liberty of life.
(Thanks to Alexander Brodkin for this idea)

Was the battle of the Somme a sucess or failure?

2008-11-30T06:09:00.000-08:00

In British language “Somme” has become a byword for military disaster, the incompetence of Generals such as Douglas Haig, the Head of General Staff in the British army and ultimately death on an enormous scale. A frequently asked question that I shall be answering, from both perspectives in this essay is whether the Battle of the Somme was a success or failure? On the first day of the battle alone there were 60,000 casualties of which 19,240 were deaths. The old British regimental system was based on counties and every regiment was made up of battalions of 1000. “Pals” battalions were soon formed of men from a certain street, district of town, school or profession. There were artists battalions consisting of painters, authors, poets, composers and actors. There was a Londoner sportsman’s battalion which absorbed footballers from Arsenal, Chelsea, Tottenham Hotspurs and numerous cricketers who played at Lords. About 4 of these battalions were formed into divisions that were then sent into battle. The men in the Pals battalions were brave, but generally under-trained and lacked battle experience as oftenly they were killed by making simple mistakes such as sticking their heads over the trench tops. German snipers picked them off in their hundreds. Many of these battalions were used on the Somme, making up the bulk of the army used and on the first day they made up the bulk of fatalities. Whole districts of towns and cities were decimated and dragged into mourning in the week after the first day of the Somme.

The battle was a result of the German offensive at Verdun in February 1916. In the earlier Franco-Prussian war of the 1870s the city of Verdun had held out against the might of the Prussian army in siege warfare and therefore had enormous significance as a symbol of national pride, particularly that of the army. The German high command realised the high sentimental status of Verdun and that the French would have to defend it at all costs. At that time, German casualties outnumbered the French ones, effectively meaning that the French were winning the war. Erich Von Ludendorf and Paul Hindenberg, the two most important men in the hierarchy of the German army decided to use attritional tactics, gradually wearing the French army down at a minimum casualty rate for themselves. By late spring the French were in desperate need for men and begged the British for assistance in some form. Douglas Haig proposed a British offensive on the Somme, with some French assistance in the Picardy region of northern France. The river Somme meanders through northern France and over millions of years, carved a valley out of the chalky soil. This valley was the chosen location for the battle.

The poor infrastructure of the area needed to improve to accommodate the hundreds of thousands of troops who would be marching through the area. Roads needed to be constructed and locations for the soldiers to billet to needed to be organised. Also, a huge amount of heavy and light artillery would be needed to support the operation. All this was done and in the week leading up to the battle over 100,000 British and French troops were marched into the area. On the 24th June the British artillery started a week-long bombardment of the German barbed wire. The Germans had a well constructed defence system. First, there was a thick strip of barbed wire at least 5 metres thick then a shallow trench which was frequently flooded to hinder the enemies approach. Next there was another trench, much deeper that the first with shell-proof bunkers to protect the men against bombardments and finally, a pair of heavy machine-guns with wide interlocking fields of fire. Any men who walked into the field of fire would be ripped to pieces. Douglas Haig was a cavalry officer from a different age, not being able to differentiate the correct use of weapons during the First World War and those of his time, some 30 years previously. He believed in a long, pounding bombardment with the artillery followed by a mass charge with bayonets or cavalry. He once wrote “I believe the machine-gun is an over-rated weapon. Two per battalion is ample.” The British machine-gun was the Vickers that fired powerful .303 (roughly 7.62mm or a third of an inch) bullets at an extremely high speed causing horrific wounds. It was also an extremely reliable weapon. Despite this the British failed to fully include it into its arsenal. By the beginning of the war there were less than 400 in the entire army. A machine-gun Sergeant once asked the Lieutenant-Colonel commanding his battalion “what should I do with the machine-gun today sir?” The answer which perfectly reflected the attitude of the British military towards machine-guns was “take the damn thing to the flank and make sure it’s out of everyone’s sight.” The French has similar attitudes and had adopted a mechanically unreliable Hotchkiss. On the other hand, the Germans recognised it’s potential and fully integrated it into their armies. As early as 1901 entire regiments devoted to using and servicing machine-guns existed. Technical developments were made and in 1908 the MG ’08 was perfected. It was the best machine-gun in the world at the time, being reliable, relatively light and having a high rate of fire. Every battalion of 1000 men had at least 6 machine guns. By 1914 more that 12,000 machine-guns were in use. The MG ’08 came with a thick wooden block which provided a highly accurate platform to shoot from. It also folded to a size that allowed made it easy way to manoeuvre and had handles that allowed it to be dragged like a stretcher. On the Somme, these guns were put to deadly effect. But back to Haig. He wasn’t a bad General but simply had no regard for human life. If a village had to be taken then under Haig, it would be but at an enormous cost of life.

When the artillery bombardment began the Germans simply went down into their bunkers and waited. By the fifth day they realised a large offensive was about to begin. The older, more seasoned soldiers just waited it out, playing cards and behaving normally but younger conscripts suffered badly, particularly from post-traumatic stress disorder and frequently had to be tied up to prevent them from committing suicide with their own rifles. At 6:00 am on 1st July British troops began assembling and by 7:00 were packed into the front-line trenches like sardines. At 07:20 the artillery stopped and several enormous mines were exploded to provoke the Germans. To give you a perspective of the amount of high-explosive used, a surviving crater could easily fit a dozen houses stacked on top of each other, with room to spare. For the Germans, this was the final warning that the attack was imminent they ran up from their bunkers with mortars and machine-guns, set them up and waited.

For the first time in a week, the British soldiers heard a bird sing. Then the officer’s whistles blew and they went over the top. The run-up and first few minutes of the battle is fantastically portrayed in the massively under-rated film: The Trench. As the men go over the top they are instantly under the fire of heavy machine-guns. Many of them are thrown back into the trenches, killed within seconds. The men who survived that were caught up in a bottle-neck of barbed wire, metres away from the German trench-line and shredded by intense rifle and machine-gun fire. Until mid afternoon wave after wave after wave repeated this process. It was in this way that just under 20,000 young men; an entire generation were killed in a single day. On the 2nd July Douglas Haig wrote in his diary “a day of ups and downs!” The only probable ups were the incorrect reports of British progress that were still being sent to him.

From the perspective of the British and French high-commands, the battle was a success. Two infantry divisions and 60 pieces of heavy artillery were sent from Verdun the resist the Allied offensive. In October the German army was sending division after division into that mincer-of-men, the Somme from Verdun to be spat out after a week as a shadow of their former selves. Eventually enough German troops were withdrawn from the Verdun front so that the French were able to drive them out of the area. That was what the reason for the battle but from the civilian perspective, it was a disaster. It had lasted until mid November and by that time had caused almost a million casualties on both sides, of which half were fatalities. Entire villages were deprived of young men, innumerable families lost a husband, son or brother. The objective of the battle was to actually take the insignificant town of Bapaume, which was simply the garrison of many German soldiers. It was very small, almost irrelevant to the war effort. The only real purpose was to kill more Germans, assist the French with their troubles at Verdun.

I personally think that the battle of the Somme was a success. Although the casualty lists were immense, it managed to divert German man-power from Verdun. As that was happening, the French counter-attacked, killing Germans in their hundreds of thousands. Some say that this changed the outcome of the war. And I agree. The German army had lost a large percentage of men, and that was Douglas Haig’s real objective had been.

Foot Ball at The Battle Of The Somme-Copied & pasted from http://www.homesoffootball.co.uk/blog/2007/07/01/battle-somme-july-1-1916/

2008-11-11T08:48:00.001-08:00

In Maricourt, take the first road north to Montauban immediately beyond Péronne Road Cemetery. After 750m the road crosses the start-line for the 18th and 30th Divisions’ attack on 1 July 1916. About 1km to the west of the road Captain Wilfred ‘Billie’ Nevill kicked his football across no man’s land before he was killed close to the German barbed wire.
The 18th Division of which Nevill was part had been in the Somme for nearly a year. In May 1916 Nevill, made a Captain, went home to England on leave. He and his fellow officers concerned themselves about how their men would behave when finally called on to go ‘over the top’.
To provide his soldiers with a reassuringly familiar symbol, Nevill bought four footballs and took them back with him to France. His team would boot then dribble their way through the German ranks and into Montauban.
‘Over the top’ soon came…
At 07.27 on 1 July 1916, when the French artillery bombardment lifted, Nevill, along with another officer duly kicked two of the balls into no man’s land – and followed in pursuit. Captain Nev had promised a prize for the first ‘goal scored’ in crossing enemy lines.
Approaching the German barbed wire defence, the concerted attacking-line hesitated – yet Nevill dashed forward to dribble some more to move the attack on – and was killed instantly.
In total 60,000 British died in the first 90 minutes of battle.
The 18th Division was supported by the 30th Division, made up of four battalions each of Liverpool Pals, Manchester Pals and Regular battalions with the French allies in reserve… the attack was stepped up… Montauban was captured three hours after the advance had begun (although heavy fighting continued throughout the day).
A monument is there today in commemoration of the Pals. In total 420,000 British perished in the Somme in the 8 mile push that lasted 4 months. This figure made up nearly half the British casualties for the entire War.
That day in Montauban, two of the dribbled footballs were found and were hailed before the surviving members of the victorious Regiments reassembling the other side of the Montauban Trench which had been their goal. Immediately the story of these football-dribbling Brits was reported worldwide in the press. In Britain it stood for courage and strength of character. In Germany it was seen as a clear example of British madness.

I thought that this article was really interesting & inspirational. Captain Wilfred Nevill has been wrongly remembered by history as a sporting buffoon but in reality he was trying to divert his men from the mortal danger that they were facing, so that they would be more at ease.

The men weren't to chase after the balls but if they came across them then they were to kick it as far as possible in the general direction of the German trenches.

The impact of the Holocaust on the Jews

2008-11-11T08:45:00.000-08:00

The Holocaust was a genocide against the Jews from 1933-1945 by Nazi Germany that destroyed much of Chasidic (orthodox Jewish) culture. Before millions of Jews lived in Eastern Europe; Poland, Russia, Lithuania and Ukraine. The majority were very religious and followed Chasidic traditions. They dressed extremely modestly, had large families, lived in small houses, were almost totally isolated from the non-Jewish communities, devoted their spare time learning the laws of Judaism and kept to a rigid routine completely governed by tradition. For example: on weekdays and Sundays the men and boys woke up early, before six in the morning to pray for an hour then go to schools which exclusively taught religious studies called cheder, or work then break for lunch and afternoon prayer at about two, work some more, be back home by six, eat supper as a family, learn and clarify the intricacies of Jewish law, say the evening prayers and go to bed. Boys had an intensive Jewish education from around the age of three when they gradually learned to read Hebrew, study from basic Jewish texts, eventually moving onto more complex ones and then stopping education at thirteen when they’d learn a trade or become an apprentice. Secular education was very basic and elementary and basic, if given at all. The women and girls had a very limited education; only really of Jewish laws such as dietary requirements and family purity. Even then, that was taught by their mothers. The communities were frequently very poor but still managed to keep a dignified, clean and orderly home. On Fridays the men would be back by early afternoon to spiritually prepare for the Sabbath. Women and girls would prepare traditional food such as chicken soup, minced fish known as gefilte and roast poultry. By sunset the entire family would be bathed and ready. The men and boys would go off to synagogue for an extended service with special songs known as zemirot then come home and the family would eat a long, leisurely supper then go to bed. In the morning the entire family would go to synagogue for another extended service that would be followed by a Kiddush, a benediction over a cup of wine that was sometimes followed by a reception consisting of biscuits and drinks. Afterwards, the family would go home for another meal that was followed by a schloof, a prolonged siesta. There would then be another meal, more zemirot and the Sabbath would end an hour after sunset. These small communities were known as schtetls and all of them, without exception spoke a common language: Yiddish. Yiddish was as much a part of Chasidic-Jewish culture as afternoon tea, cricket and skinheads are to the British. Much of this in the Holocaust.

In the first half of the Twentieth Century thousands of Jews lived in the East End Of London where Yiddish was an essential part of everyday life. There was a thriving Yiddish theatre and it was an integral part of Anglo-Jewish culture. To briefly touch on the History of British Jewry, when Jews were driven out of Tsarist Russia thousands of Russian and Polish Jews went to either America or the UK. The majority of the latter settled in the East End of London in areas such as Whitechapel, Brick Lane, Shoreditch and Petticoat Lane. There they flourished until the blitz, when the East End was hit particularly badly. They then moved out to Northern London and are concentrated in Golders Green, Hendon, Stamford Hill and Edgware.

The use of Yiddish has now more or less died out in the UK with the exception of some Chasidic communities who use it as a second language. Yiddish is also widely spoken in Israel by orthodox-Jews who believe that Hebrew (the language of Israel, the bible and prayer) was far to holy to be spoken as an everyday language. It was only acceptable to pray and to study Jewish law in Hebrew.

The Nazi persecution of Jews was a gradual process. When Hitler came to power in 1933 the government soon failed to persecute anti-Semitic violence and boycotts of Jewish shops were organised. Hitler’s private army of brown-shirted thugs, the Stormtroopers made life misery for Jews by committing atrocities such as beating them up in the street, smashing shop windows and handing out anti-Semitic propaganda. In 1935 the Nuremberg laws came into effect. These were a code of racist laws against the Jews banning them from serving in any of the armed forces, marrying “pure” Germans and restricting their businesses. On the Germans November 9th 1938 the Nazis incited a vicious pogrom against the Jews to known as Kristallnacht. The official purpose was to retaliate for the assassination of a German diplomat in Paris by a young Jew called Hershel Grynszpan, but really it was just an excuse to discriminate against the Jews. What caused Grynszpan to kill the diplomat was that on September 1939 German Jews of Polish origin were stripped of their citizenship and in late October dumped in a buffer zone between the two countries. His parents were one of the thousands displaced. On Kristallnacht throughout Germany, occupied Austria and Czechoslovakia synagogues were burned, Jewish property was vandalised and many Jews were sent to concentration camps. Kristallnacht means night of broken glass because of all the smashed windows in Jewish homes.

When Hitler invaded Poland in September 1939 Jews were not instantly rounded up, deported to death camps and gassed but gradually persecuted. For example property would be seized, men were beaten up, religious Jews were forced to spit on religious articles or eat forbidden foods such as ham and occasionally Jews were put into synagogues that were then set on fire. The survivors were shot as they tried to escape. By 1940 on a small scale, Jews were rounded up then shot in deserted forests. Soon Jewish areas of towns known as ghettos were created and Jews were segregated into them. The largest was in Warsaw and any Jews found outside of it were shot. Soon they were deported to extermination centres such as Auschwitz, Majdanek, Treblinka, Sobibor, Chelmno and Belzec to be gassed. About two million were murdered this way. Before then members of Hitler’s private army of bodyguards; the SS were roaming through Eastern Europe in mobile units rounding up Jews, forcing them to dig pits then shooting them into them. Around three and a half million Jews were killed in this way (not including the disabled, homosexuals, political prisoners & gypsies who were murdered in the Holocaust). When the tide of the war began to turn against the Germans and the Russians advanced westwards the Nazis destroyed the centres of Extermination and deported the Jews to infamous horror camps such as Bergen-Belsen and Buchenwald.

When these were liberated in early 1945 hundreds of thousands of Jews of different nationalities were made stateless. Hungarian, Polish, Russian, German, French and Dutch were just some of the nationalities that could be found in the recently liberated camps. These Jews’ memories were frequently to horrific for them to return to their motherlands so many of them migrated. The majority went to Britain and America whilst some went to Australia or South America. Later many went to Israel when it was formed as an independent state.

The impact of the Holocaust on world Jewry was immense. Physically, many Jews who went into the camps during the early stages of puberty failed to develop properly, being shorter that average or having badly proportioned bodies. Physiologically the majority, if not all survivors suffer some form of post-traumatic stress disorder. They cannot bare the sound of spoken German, standing in ques, seeing smoke rising, trains, large dogs such as Alsatians, Rottweilers and Doberman Pinschers because of their experiences. They will wolf down their meals as if someone will try to take it from them at any moment. The sight of families will also highly distress them as it reminds them of how their family was before it was abruptly separated without a chance to properly say good-bye. They may also feel unable to visit the countries where the lived as it brings back so many horrific memories. The cultural affect is huge. As a result many Jews are now extremely sensitive to jokes about anti-Semitism or Hitler and the Nazis. Many Jews have become more religious as a result, realising what the victims of the Nazis would’ve thought if they could see the disregard of Jewish law nowadays. On the other hand many survivors have disregarded the whole idea of Judaism as to them it seemed that if there was really a god, then he would’ve saved them and their families from death and destruction.

My conclusion is that the Holocaust had a huge impact on the whole of the Jewish world in all areas of life and that we must never forget it.