Train to Pakistan by Khushwant Singh 1956 181pg.

This is a novel that tries to show the social effect of partition of the average Indian. 18/11/24

movie of this book was released in 1998  

India before partition had a population of 400 million with an annual increase of 4 million.

Mano Majra, the fictional Indian village on the border of Pakistan, here people from all religions and sects once lived in harmony, but outside there are Moslem and Sikhs killing each other.

“Freedom is for the educated people who fought for it. We were slaves of the English, now we will be slaves of the educated Indians—or the Pakistanis” 

The District magistrate is a man in moral conflict who has probably used his power over the years with much corruption. He is washing himself like Pontius Pilate and drinking alcohol to flee guilt.  

 Iqbal is a Sikh a political agitator for workers rights but when it comes to action he does nothing. Jugga is described as a budmash, a bad man, by others but ultimately becomes a hero. 

1947 The cataclysmic events of the partition of India and creation of  Pakistan. This is a  social document on the upheaval, by a Punjabi whose family was uprooted.  Summer of 1947 was a long hot one. Riots broke out in  Calcutta and spread to Noakhali in East Bengal, Bihar and the Punjab. By the time the monsoons came a million people were dead. Rivers change their courses and moods without warning. The bridge has 18 enormous spans and a single track , express trains don't stop only the slow passenger  trains one in the morning from Lahore to Delhi and one in the evening to Lahore. The trains coming through set the times like prayers in the morning or  that of the evening meal.

Decoits killed the village money lender. Father and grandfather were decoits but they never robbed in their own village. With the monsoon Sutlej River is a grand and terrifying sight. No body in the villages knew of the British and the partition of Hindustan -Pakistan or about Gandhi or Jinna.

The police had heard of several young well to do men in peasant garb doing uplift work , some communist agents, all capable of making a lot of trouble. He claimed to be a social worker. He was asked why the English left. Everyone is welcome to his religion.

In Punjab the young men were all alike they wanted wives who were virgins' and women good at household chores. The match had to correspond to the horoscope. The press had an article on Indian ballet , movies and movie stars and  Tagore, Bengali poet, writer1861 to 1941. Rabindranath

In India the subject of sex always came up and you saw it on the billboards advertising aphrodisiacs' and cures for the bad effect of masturbation's, remedies and quacks against bareness, no people used some must incestuous  insults as here.

September things started going wrong trains were no longer punctual and ran through the night., the changed driver before going into Pakistan. A ghost train arrived from Pakistan nobody on the roof and a stench of death. People were kept away. The villages were paid for firewood and paraffin and the army burned the bodies.

Monsoon is another word for rain the Arabic means season. The winter is simple cold rain but the summer is proceeded by drought, hot and thirsty, rivers and everything dries up till the monsoon that lasts for 2 or more months is welcomes.

Hijras (Hermaphrodites')   are not Moslem or Hindu. They  were dancers singer and entertainers. Sikhs who objected to them heard their joke "Are you worried that you will stop having children because of our presence"

The Moslems were rounded up and put in a camp for their own protection but they asked "What have we got to do with Pakistan?" We have lived all our life in this village. Where on earth would a man's life depend on whether on not his foreskin was removed ?

India is constipated with a lot of Humbug. Take religion. For the  Hindu it means little besides cast and cow protection. For the Muslim circumcision's and kosher meat. Parsi  fire worship and feeding vultures. The ethics that should be the kernel of a religious code has been carefully removed.

When people go about with guns and spears you can only talk back with guns and spears.

Nooran was  pregnant with Jugga's daughter and his mother said what does a Moslem weavers daughter want with my  Sikh's peasant. son.   Malli's gang were let loose and took all goods left by the Moslems.

Now the topic of conversation was that the Sutlej river kept on going up and there were villages that had been flooded. Dead bodies were floating down that were not drowned but murdered.

With light they saw a ghost train that had arrived from Pakistan but there was no wood to burn and it was too wet. A bulldozer appeared and dug a trench that was filled with bodies. 

Do you know how many trainloads of Sikhs and Hindus have come over ?How many massacres' have taken place in Rawalpindi , Gujranwala and Sheikhupura. This young army officer organized that they kill the Moslems on the train to Pakistan and they must show that they are men

A rope had been put across the rail line on the bridge it would have been like a knife cutting people on to of the train.  The young tall man(Jugga ?) started cutting it and some one shot at him to stop him, just as the train arrived he cut though the last strand and fell down with the rope under the train.

Who by Fire by Matti Friedman 196 pg 2022

  How Leonard Cohens music developed as a result of his experience in the 1973 Yom Kippur War in Israel.   27/10/24

Leonard Cohen had played at the Wight Festival which  had an audience greater than that of Woodstock.  He was 39 and the press had reported news of his retirement as he saw himself as a has-been. He also saw himself as a great pacifist but his songs So Long Marianne and Suzanne were well known.

It is not necessary to know about Spain's civil war to know about Picasso's Guernica.  People don't realize that Beethoven 5th Symphony was composed amid the Napoleonic Wars. Leonard Cohen concert tour of Israel during the 1973 war left hardly any recordings, but has lived on in history by word of mouth.  That terrible month of October 1973 has become linked with Leonard Cohen. The war is sometimes referred to as the War Of Atonement.

Israel Airforce that was supposed to win the war was instead crippled by new Soviet missiles. There were 2,600 fatalities and Israel became a different country afterwards. The country became less confident , less united and more introspective after the war.  One of the oddest aspect about this tour was that Leonard never mentioned it afterwards. What made this tour exceptional was the audiences. He played for them knowing his music might be the last thing they heard. Most of the soldiers did not speak English but poetry can communicate before it is understood.

Many Israelis at the time, if asked where are your parents from replied the "holocaust."

The work of the poetess Rachel of the old pioneers of the 1920 and died of tuberculosis. Her poetry was much loved even though it was sad and cynical.

Yom Kippur fell on October 5th in 1973 on that day a prayer  is said "who by water and who by fire" The symbolism is violent and memorable and we remember the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in 70 CE. Nobody  heard the Naila service of the story of Jonah that concluded the service as if it lasted for another 3 weeks.

At Sharm el Sheik there were reports that the radar station and its soldiers had been captured by Egyptian commandoes. The Egyptians had rocketed the base but no enemy soldiers had arrived only Israeli soldiers sent to recapture it had fought with Israeli's there till they realized. Nobody talked about this for the next 30 years.

  Aged 13 Leonard a Cohen had his barmitvah under the Hebrew name of the priest Eliezer. (in Hebrew = God Helps)

 Leonard Cohen had been living on the island of Hydra. He had learned Greek and had written a novel there. He had escaped Montreal the London. He had be busy escaping and was attracted to the cheap living and warm weather and had a girlfriend Suzanne and his first kid a son Adam. Another  Suzanne was a dancer in Montreal. He had spent years in a Buddist Monestary at Mt Baldy in California.  "He though that the only culture worth anything came from loyalty to a language , group , place. Only Nationalism produces art" 

 When the war broke out it was not easy to reach Israel as many Israelis were trying to get home to their reserve units. There were priority list to serve in tanks and hospitals.  Leonard had thought he would volunteer to work on a kibbutz where help was needed. Many volunteers had done so in 1967 when soldiers were called to the front.

He considered Israel his myth home and arrived in Tel Aviv a small Mediterranean City founded in 1909. Almost everybody over 30 had escaped Europe or the Arab world. Writers and artist hung out at the Cafes Casit , California or Pinati. 

1972  he had played in Israel after a troubled touring year and it hadn't gone well for him.

Now in Tel Aviv he met Matti Kaspi considered one of Israel's best musicians at the time who wanted him to come and sing to the troops but Leonard felt his songs were too melancholy and would get soldiers depressed.

The music in Israel at the time was accordion heave and the 1973 war killed that genre. In 1948 Shoshana Damari's "Last Battle" was a hit it was about the Faluja Pocket and was the last battle for 7 soldiers who were killed.

The airforce was hemorrhaging planes and pilots at a shocking rate and this was hidden from the public.  None of the artists knew how bad things were and what they were getting themselves into.

Israeli songs had come from the same source as her weapons. So when weapons came from the Czechs the inspiration of communist and Russian tunes came. Later all the artist that mattered were visiting Paris and Piaf and Moustaki songs came while Israel got French Mirages. The French chose the Arabs over the Jews and weapons started coming from America with Rock and Roll.Chocolate Menta , Mastic was a 3 women group in very prominent at this time.

"I asked my father to change my name"  Leonard just wrote this song and was trying it out on an audience, many of whom had changed Jewish names associated with the Diaspora and helplessness to new Hebrew ones.  Matti Caspi's father from Serbia's name was Agrentero (silver) "Lover lover lover come back to me"  is more like a prayer or in Song of Songs. "And Shield against the enemy" is also like a prayer invoking a shield is what a Cohen does.

Leonard's mother was a native Russian speaker, and must have sung to him some Russian songs.

A year of 2 later when this song was released the words were changed and the part identifying with Israel was gone. On stage he would tell the audience that the song was for both sides.

 In the Vietnam war the songs the  American troops loved were about loneliness and yearning.  Johnny Cash and his wife were in Vietnam in 1969 even though the war was so unpopular.

Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach was attracting  Jews to Judaism in the 70s from hippy, drug  taking types. Was Leonard coming back to his tribe?

Troops were being taken to the Sinai on DC 3 Dakotas and the entertainers went with them. Where even though the public had not been informed of the army's failure it was clear from here. None of Leonard's notes indicate if he knew where he was, just "the dessert".  Raising  morale to soldiers that had seen true and awful things about the world.

The song Susanne was played the most as  everyone  knew it, as it was circulating in Hebrew by Gidi Koren, but later on the Hebrew version was forgotten. That Leonard slept on the floor and ate  combat rations with everyone else meant a lot to the troops.

Some soldiers after the war felt a sort of emptiness went back to old time religion including Uri Zohar a very famous actor, singer , comedian. Yom Kippur day is the only day of the year that Israel roads are empty and it allowed the army to deploy quickly.

Leonard said I sing serious songs on stage because I couldn't do it any other way. Now a serious person who has seen war.  

In 1948 at Israel's birth when soldiers fought they thought there would  be one war only  and that's it. Soldiers in war don't want to hear songs about war or battle anthem. Leonard's songs were precisely what was called for under the circumstances, and it came across in a language they didn't understand. Soldiers aren't mental patients but sometimes are not far from that. Sleep is the only way to block out what is going on.

Danny Kaye and the French Jewish singer Enrico Marcias were far more famous than Leonard.

Father and son's were both fighting. Some who fought in 1948 were still fighting. They crossed the Suez into Africa and were near a base called Fa'id.  Yaffa Yarkoni famous for ballads from 1948 was there on the front line.

An Egyptian plane was shot down and the pilot was handed over to the interrogators and the parachute was take to be used as a tent. The band was now flown across to Africa in a helicopter. Nobody remember that he arrived but he was just there. The guitar case had chalked on it Matti as it was Matti Caspi's. Leonard never arrived in Israel without a guitar.

Israel was feeling isolated as Europe would not allow over flights of weapons. Leonard arrived in Sharm el Sheik on 20 Oct mentioned in a postcard sent by Ruti.

 Lu Yehi (would that it were)by Noami Shemer an anthem and loved song of the war , almost a prayer. This song gave people the right to cry. It was based on Let it be a song by Paul Mc Carthey.

Leonard Cohens song were an acquired taste in America almost to the end of his life however in France they were popular.

Once the fighting ended and the politicians took over Leonard said "I'm out" and he rarely mentioned the war afterwards. Attitudes to Israel were changing. Winning which Israel had done at great cost makes people less sympathetic. A year later Leonard  had a 2nd son with Suzanne name Lorca.

Nathan Cohen fought in the Great War and was one of the first Jews to become an officer he died when his son Leonard was 9

After  1973 Israel's music seen went in Leonard's direction away from the collective to the individual soul.  Leonard wrote other albums inspired by his experience in 1974  New Skin for old Ceremomy. Later Halaluyah became one of the most widely song songs. The Yom Kippur War is a turning point and a major event in the life of Leonard Cohen.

2009 Leonard found that his manager had stolen his saving and did a tour where he found he had reached fame and filled stadiums around the world. By then Israel had abandoned the kibbutz and collective ideal and were more like Cohen. They had always considered him a kind of Israeli. Tickets for his show in Tel Aviv were sold out on line in minutes and the stadium of 50, 000 was filled. To be politically correct he announced a concert in Ramallah but this fell away when there were calls to boycott it.

This concert went down as one of the best ever held. Many of the audience remembered him from the war. In the encore he raised his hands parted his finger and said the 15 words in Hebrew of Birkat ha Cohanim. (A prayer that only Cohens "priests" say)

Today sometimes the prayer "Who by Water" is sang in synagogues to Leonard's Tune.

1934 to 2016. Died aged 82 and was buried with his family in Montreal. In retrospect he was considered a writer of Religious songs.

The Siege: by Ben Macintyre 2024 379pg

A six- Day hostage Crisis and the Daring Special Forces operation that shocked the world.  30/10/24

The Iranian Embassy is a building on Princess Gate, Kensington. London overlooking Hyde Park build in 1849. former residents include Joseph Chamberlain and Field Marshal Douglas Haig.

1979 with the Islamic Revolution and the Pahlavi Dynasty was replaced by Khomeini. So Ambassador Radji followed the king into exile and Dr Gholam Ali Afrouz took over. He made the Embassy Islamic austere, no parties, no alcohol, the Rolls was replaced by a ordinary vehicle etc. 

1980 May  PC Lock  a armed policeman stood outside the Iranian embassy but had just moved in to drink his coffee. Thinking it was an middle eastern student till he saw the rifle. He pressed his emergency button and Scotland Yard was alerted.  31 people were in the embassy. Afrouz jumped out the window was badly hurt and the gunmen pulled him back in.

 Rebecca West the famous author aged 88 lived opposite and was watching and started making notes on what was happening. Later was evacuated till the siege was over. In the end she wrote an article on her birds eye view of what she saw and this was the last article she published before she died in 1983.

The Khomeini's regime had taken 91 Arabs in Iranian Arabstan prisoners  and this  Martyr Muhylddin Al Nassar group had taken the Embassy to get them released. The British  police didn't understand the issue. To them there was the pro Shah or pro Khomeini protesters.

1925 Resa Shah Palavi took power with British backing tried replacing  Persian in the minority areas of Arabic, Turkic and other languages. This province was Arabstan or Ahwas but was renamed Khuzestan the Persian term. Independent it could have been a gulf state like Kuwait or Qatar and it posseted most of Iran's oil. Arabs thought that the end of the Shah and the Khomeini's promise would get Arabstan it rights.  Many from Arabstan fled to Iraq where they were trained to undermine the Khomeini regime. The Islamic State ignored the 4,500,000 Arabs.

1975  Ramirez Sanchez or Carlos the Jackal led a group of pro- Palestinians militants in an assault on the OPED meeting in Vienna. With a large ransom for the Palestinian cause were flown out to Libya. Carlos organized this London attack but did not take part in it.

General Abdul Razzaq al-Naif who was the former Iraqi PM  and was deposed by Saddam Hussein. He was assassinated  in London as he left the Intercontinental Hotel in 1978.

1979 In Teheran the US embassy was taken hostage and this gave President Carter a problem. The American attempt with Delta Force to liberate these hostages had failed as 3 of the 8 helicopter were crippled before reaching the rendezvous.

In 1972 the Black September had seized the Israeli athletes in Munich and a disaster followed resulting in all the hostages and most of the terrorists killed. This resulted in the  British SAS training on how to deal with this type of thing.

With the siege the police now put a negotiator to help try gather information of the personalities motivation and intention as well as weapons' hopes and fear of the hostage takers. 3 Iranian captives were press officers and 2 British journalist as well. The terrorist wanted recognition of free Arabstan. Though they claimed to be suicidal fanatics they had invested in expensive watches and bracelets and that contradicted this.

Douglas Hurd was foreign minister. Thatcher had left little to  negotiate with. Professor John Gunn of forensic psychiatry was an expert on criminal behavior.

The Ayatollah government in Iran had declared that the Iranian diplomats were prepared to become martyrs for the Islamic State cause.

Being held hostage can cause or exacerbate and number of health issues.

The police set up in the School of Needlework a museum where to protect the object smoking is forbidden . It is  difficult to control a siege with fidgety, nicotine deprived people nipping out for a smoke, so they moved to the Montessori Centre. They now had to obtain recent photos and build up a file of the terrorists as well as the hostages.  By chance this embassy was the most defensible building in London as it had been given bullet proof glass and had been reinforced..

M16 and the Foreign Office had concluded correctly that Saddam Hussein was behind this attack and openly supported the Arab Liberation Movement in Iran. The weapons smuggled in to kill General Abdu Razzag wl Naif in 1978 had come in under diplomatic cover. Hussein thugs with Palestinian Allies. The terrorists demand was that 91 Arab political  prisoners in Iran's jails be released.

One death of a hostage leave room for a relatively peaceful solution 2 shows a dangerous trend.

Margret Thatcher stated that if things go horribly wrong then she  would take the blame and not the soldiers.

300 Khomeini supporter protested in London, shouting " Death to President Carter"

The Iranian government declared that their London  embassy staff were prepared to die as martyr and go directly to heaven for Iran and would not negotiate with the terrorists.  Martyrdom is central to Shia Islam. Kurt Waldheim was secretary general of UN and called for restraint.  

The SAS had been based in Ireland and had fought the IRA there and Lord Louis Mountbatten the Queens cousin was assassinated  there in 1979 in the period of troubles 1968 to 1998.

 Stockholm Syndrome where the hostages empathize with their captors and goals. Lima Syndrome where the abductors form warm feeling for those they have captured and begun to question their own aims. The gunmen wanted to write slogans on the walls of the rooms and it led to an argument with the Embassy staff. This siege was a proxy war between Iraq and Iran and no Arab countries wanted to get embroiled in it.

Under the Khomeini Regime the embassy women had to wear scarves by now they had removed them.

The police thought that if women police were used they could get a better deal if they had to drive  the terrorist ta an airport, women have a softer and gentler approach.  Women had not been used since WW2 under Churchills Special Operations that deployed women in Nazi occupied Europe.

1970  El Al flight Leila Khaled tried to highjack was arrested on landing in London and put in jail but released in a hostage  exchange.

Planes flying to Heathrow were rerouted over this Kensington embassy so that the could drill listening devises into the walls during the noise. Before they attacked the SAS had plans of the embassy building and almost knew  where each hostage  and the terrorists were. BBC kept reporting that a diplomatic solution was still being sought. Some of the terrorists' were keen to give up as they had made their point and if nobody was killed were told they would hardly spend time in jail. 

1980 Josip Broz Tito   the President of Yugoslavia died while this was on.

This saw the largest gathering of news reporters since the Queens coronation in 1953

Three TV stations viewed what looked like a catastrophe unfolding. The building was rocked by an explosion. The first breaking news event broadcast alive on every British TV channel.  After the hostages arrived at the back it was unclear how many survived some were injured. 2 hostages had died. One killed by the terrorists. The SAS operation had been a complete and dramatic success and Margaret Thatcher breathed a sign of relief. William Whitelaw realized that Margaret had taken on an immense burden and responsibility. Operation Nimrod had lasted just 11 minutes. Named after the biblical warlike hunter.

The embassy siege changed the way the world saw the SAS , Margaret Thatcher and terrorism. She was iron willed , uncompromising and decisive and had sent a signal every where that they could not expect deals. This was a crime committed on British soil.  The SAS moved away behind the building and were taken away in a closed vehicle and not interviewed by the press. The 19mm parabellum bullet comes from the Latin saying Si vis pacem para bellum." If you seek peace prepare for war". Some of the soldiers, paratroopers had seen service in Cyprus , Borneo, Libya, Malta and Middle East.

1982 The Argentine junta invaded the Falklands.  The SAS was now part of  Mrs. Thatcher's Army  and sent to fight against Argentina.

The Iranian Government thanked Britain for liberating its diplomats but refused to release the American hostages, in Teheran. The attack on the embassy was an attempt by Sandam Hussein to destabilize Iran and the Iran, Iraq war erupted in Sept 1980.

1982 one of Abu Nidal group attempted to assassinator Israeli Ambassador Shlomo  Argov and this led to the Israeli invasion of Lebanon to root out PLO terrorists.

My 15 Grandmothers by Genie Milgrom: 2012 149pg.

  A journey of my soul from the Spanish Inquisition to the  present.13/10/24

1955 Born in Miramar or El Vedado neighborhoods of Havana, Cuba under the Batista regime, they were a wealthy merchant family with servants. At the expensive private Catholic school she went to Che Guevara would come to collect his daughter who was in her class. Her paternal grandfather came from Costa Rica and his parents were French, because they were multilingual they had a great advantage in business.

1959 Jan 1st Castro took power. After that the family only spoke English so that the servants would not know what was said. At school the Catholic education was replaced by the Communist manifesto of Marx and Engels.

The new regime took over the family business to and expected the family to stay and the regime would reap the profits. They got 2 Fidel Castro dolls and filled them with gold and jewelers. The peso had now become worthless.

1960 they were one of thousands of Cuban families to arrive in Miami .

Her grandfather immediately started setting up a new business as he knew there was no return to Cuba. Because the Kennedy government had turned their backs on the Cuban people, so Cuban Americans slanted to  vote Republican.

In 1962 they remember the flatbeds taking missiles to Key West on the roads through Florida, and practicing the air raid drills.

She went to school at the finest Catholic Convent and only had English speaking friends forcing her to integrate. Her parents had taught her that to question is to learn. However with the Bible stories and religious dogma she kept asking questions and in 4th grade was taken to the Monsignor. Who told her she must have blind faith in the elders who have knowledge. Her questions remained unanswered and she lost respect for the upper echelons of the Church. They sent her to learn Latin in her break, which helped her language skill to this day. 

At the summer day camp she met Rachel who told her she was Jewish and who brought her own food from home. She said the whole Torah was true because G-d wrote it. For some unexplained reason she connected with Jews she came across.

1962 to 1965 The Vatican 11 council  (Nostra aetate; Latin: “In Our Era”) is a landmark document that rejected the traditional accusation that the Jews killed Christ, recognized the legitimacy of Judaism, and condemned anti-Semitism. The altar, for example, was turned around to face the people. Mass was changed to be in the vernacular, no longer in Latin. Aged only 14 she now felt that Catholicism was less spiritual. Women no longer had to wear veils or cover their hair

Aged 16 she went to collage and decided to study theology. Aged 17 she married a Cuban American man after 3 years of collage she became a full time mom and helped run the family business. Had 2 children 11 years apart. She started reading every book she could find on Judaism and finally took a plunge and went to an Orthodox synagogue. Was helped to study Hebrew and Jewish prayers. Bonny invited her to Friday night dinners and underwent Orthodox conversion. She later met Michael an orthodox Jew  who she married. He took her to Israel to meet his family.

My maternal grandparents came from Fermoselle, Spain on the Duero River border to Portugal. They now lived in Miami and she was close to them. In early December her grandmother always made periquillos. You always swept the room to the centre and away from the door that had a mezuzah. Her grandmother knew she had converted to Judaism. When the grandmother died she had to be buried the next day this was unusual with Catholics. She was left by the grandmother a box with a Hamsa and star of David. This indicated that the family were Converso Jews. She needed to trace her matrilineal line back to the inquisition as Judaism passes to you via you mother.

1545 The Council of Trent decrees on self-reform, helping to revitalize the Roman Catholic Church in the face of Protestant expansion. It  decreed that all Catholic churches must now keep records of all baptisms, marriages and deaths. It was to standardize a non existent system and so she could follow the line of her ancestors Crypto Jews were known to secretly change names to avoid the Inquisition. In records several babies had been baptized at home and not at church by the midwife 

There was a lot of contraband trade between Mogadouro Portugal and Fermoselle Spain. A lot of population moved to Portugal from here.

It was found that in Converso families many married 2nd cousins and this vast number of cousin intermarriage made it difficult to register on the computer. The term Marrano also means pig in Spanish. The Church used the term New Christian for Conversos. Old Christian was the term used referring to people with pure Christian blood and to get government positions . Old Christian families would be vigilant not to intermarry with those who had been Jews.. There were several priests on her family tree so they helped Conversos to avoid rituals that were not acceptable to Judaism and arranged special permission for forbidden marriages of 2nd cousins and helped them fill in documents.. Bnei Anusim is the Hebrew term where people were forced to convert.

Nobody had ever researched the genealogy of conversion from  Fermoselle. In the town Belmonte people had later made their way back to Judaism, but there weren't such records in other villages. Currently most people in the town were old and none of them knew of any Jewish history in it.

There were Inquisition records with a total of 16 Inquisition tribunals in Spain. 

 1488 to 1834 that  is 346 years,  the Inquisition officially lasted,  The documents were in old Spanish which was very difficult to read. For generations no body in the family left the village, in fact her grandfather was the first to leave and the first marriage outside the family.  The Church of Santa Colombo  was in another part of town and she discovered that that neighborhood never mixed with mainstream Fermoselle. There was a house here that tradition had it had once been an synagogue

The El Humilladero (to humiliates) a sight that today has a statue to the civil war. People from Mogadouro Portugal  would annually make a pilgrimage to it and leave a pebble on it, in memory of the dead. A typically Jewish custom.

She sent photos of the finding of the synagogues and mikva's as well as the carving on the doors of a church used by conversos that was meant to send a message to others. However she discovered that she was a pioneer in this  unexplored field..

In Portugal the information was digitalized and mostly on internet from the Achieves at Torrro de Tombo dating back to the 9th century. Her hypothesis was that her family had migrated to Portugal and back to Spain.

She discovered that she was related to the family of Luis de Carvajal the governor of the Nuevo Reino de Leon part of Mexico today.  He and his nieces died in the Inquisition  jails in Mexico.  New Christians were not allowed to live in Nuevo Spain or found guilty of reverting to Judaism.

Well known Spanish names like Ramos , Montana or Flores Diez , Guerra , Castro and Serrano are typical Marrano names. The fact that the Spanish kings wanted known for eternity who had been a Jew had allowed her to find actual notarial records from her family 500 years ago.

Abroad in Japan by Chris Broad 2023 298pg Ten years in the land of the Rising Sun.

The Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) Program   10/10/24

When Englishman Chris Broad landed in a rural village in northern Japan  to be the most quickly fired English teacher in Japan's history? Spanning ten years and all forty-seven prefectures, 

 1987 Japan launched an initiative to place native English speakers in schools to improve English language proficiency.  JET became the largest exchange teaching in the world.

When Chris applied he knew not to ask for Tokyo as that would be a mark against him. From Heathrow to Tokyo Narita airport take about 12 hours. Narita is 70 km east of Tokyo He was 22 years old and fresh out of university. He just happened to hear about this program on a plane to France.

37 million people live in greater Tokyo. Here they all did a 3 day course about their duties. He and a few ventured to the Shinjuku gritty red light district. The y were warned to stay away from the Kabukicho gambling as tourist were lured by the local crime syndicates.

He flew an hour to Yamagata the location has a population of 500,000 people and is famous for its high cherry yield, it has the highest snowfall on the planet from December to March when it get a wind from Siberia. 

Of the 11 native teachers he had to work with one had lived abroad linger than 3 months. 3 could not speak or comprehend English. Typical American English was taught in Japan. 

The town was Sakata which meant sake rice field. The area had had a lucrative safflower  plant and the flower were also used for  cloth dye. 

2010 Japans population had peaked at 128 million when he came in 2012 it had already declined by almost a million. Rural Japans biggest problem is rapid depopulation. Sakata's high school had 1200 students and 120 teachers. There are racks to put your shoes and where you keep you slippers as you don't bring in out door shoes.  There were a number of teachers who taught other subjects and could speak English but did not want to show off their skills.

With so few foreigners he was a unwilling celebrity. In this area of 100,000 people there were less the 10 Westerners. In a conservatives area there was an abrasive hentai artwork.

You have to commit to memory everyone names and the don't refer to them as you which is almost rude.

Japan is the most seismically active country on earth, it is a big geothermal wonderland with thousands of registered hot springs. When you go into the public bath you go in naked. First thing master the kanji for male and female so you know which side to go to. Some do have blue for male and red for female.

School classes involved far less debate and discussion as the emphasis is on group dynamics over the individual. Schools churned out model citizens who followed the rules and rarely questioned authority. Some teachers he ended up teaching more than the students as they had written exams and no practical speaking ability .

He had arrived in Japan with an indebted credit card and a mountain of student debt. Most JET teacher just stayed a year.  Roy a New Zealander  had passed the Kanji Kentel by memorizing 3000 kanji characters.

In Japan it is considered almost rude to tip. Undertaking paid side jobs is forbidden  with JET but if he volunteered to teach adults in the local community he was invited to the occasional dinner parties.

English was far more popular with girls than boys and seen as a soft girly subject . Why learn a foreign language, only 40% of students learned it and was regarded and difficult and useless. Many of the adults he taught had travelled frequently abroad. The English textbooks were an atrocity and carried a strong anti war message and had numerous mistakes in them. JET teachers inability to speak Japanese pressured the kids to speak English, this worked in many ways.  Kids were scared to put up hands as they might make as a mistake.. Learning to speak a language need making mistakes. It can take a Japanese student 9 years to master reading their mother tongue.

There was an unspoken rules that JETs were forbidden from dating Japanese teachers. Some teacher saw JET foreigners as a pointless expense, others were not sure how to put them to good  use.

AS a kid of 7 Chris was given a camera to record a wedding that his grandfather couldn't travel to so he had master photography. So he set up making Utubes on Japan. 

If you drink too much you don't get a taxi but a dalkou that drives you home in your own can and he doesn't need a Taxi license so its cheaper.

In winter the unemployed farmers are enlisted to drive the snow ploughs to keep the roads open.

The British helped the Japanese build the railways and infra structure so you drive on the left.

Japanese society minds it Ps and Qs but once people have had a few drinks together all this bottled up information comes out. In sake drinking you are not supposed to pour your own drink. Karaoke has never taken off in the West like in Japan. In 1961  the song Sukyaki by Sakamoto Kyu topped the Billboard Hot 100 so he was able to sing it in karaoki. Kyu died in 1985 when Japan Airline flight 123 Boeing 747 from Tokyo to Osaka had mechanical failure 520 passengers lost their lives.

When he didn't finish all the rice in his lunch pack he was criticized for wasting food. Either eat it or don't order it. People remember the post war poverty.

In the US 33% of the population is obese, the UK 28% while Japan only 3.3%. In Japan people walk 2000 paces more than Americans and food portions are smaller. Less processed food or snacking.

1982 The Blade Runner by Ridley Scott the 1989 Black Rain put Osaka on the map.

1995 As a result of the sarin gas  attack in Osaka trash bins are not available in the streets but people keep clean never the less.

There are 37,000 Love Hotels for young couples to escape crowded multigeneration homes with paper walls. The soap and shampoo are unscented so as not to give away unfaithful  partners.

When he tried renting a flat, he was turned down as the landlord didn't want a foreigner. Things are changing with the tourist boom.

The school year ends in March and teachers are often moved between school, cities and even regions. The public avoid foreigners. 

Mount Fuji was considered so sacred that until 1868 women were banned from climbing it. It is a stratovolcano in an almost perfect conical shape. At the height of 3776 meter some people experienced altitude sickness. The last time it was active was in 1707.   

It is considered good manners to wear a face mask in public  in Japan. when you are ill. In winter it is a preventative issue. Like earphones it gives a message stay away from me. National Health covers 70% of your health bill its up to you to pay the last 30% so its a bargain. Drips are very popular for a first treatment then you get a prescription.

Dating couples agree early on that they are an item.

Culture Day foreign residents run stands showcasing the culture and food of their home countries. There were Chinese , Korean and Filipino residents but he was the only Brit asked to attend.

In Japan you are asked about your work to determine upfront you position in the relative hierarchy. Age is often a determining factor, the virtue of being older. People in positions of power act humbly in the presents of their elders.

He was approached to take part in an annual public speaking competition of 15 minutes, In his half baked Japanese he spoke half of it,  and forgot the words and had to read the 2nd half. From that failure he resolved to take part again the following year when he won it.

He was approach to teach for a third year by which time he had mastered the language and felt he could now achieve more. You get brownie point in Japan if you get to the office early and leave late.

Bullying is a big problem in Japan and that is the reason kids are not keen to stand out and offer to answer questions you don't want to be a know it all nerd. Avoid standing out. Adhere to group conformity and  collectivism. Join the bullies so as not to go against the grain. The first day of the new year a student jumped out of a 4th floor window. but survived with every bone broken after being a victim of bullies.

Brits came to Japan to learn the art of sword making , build a craft gin distillery and become a sake sommelier.

1974 Kentucky Fried Chicken marketed Christmas in Japan to fill the void and so 3.6 million  Japanese families have this tradition of eating KFC on Christmas day. Commercialization of Christmas.

He had a Japanese girlfriend whose parents were terrified of meeting him, had never met a foreigner before.

After 2 years he had conversational Japanese fluent with a busy schedule was integrating into the local community.

Students had never been incentivized to learn conversational English. His Utube Abroad in Japan was the most watched on learning kanji. 700,000 views. Just 23 % of Japanese have a passport. Buckwheat pillows are one of Japans worst inventions.

Regional favorites Kobe wagyu beef, Hokkaido snow crab and juicy mutton barbeque, Sendal it is cow tongue, this was a cheap item that was made into something in demand.

Japan allows a no foreigner policy causing many foreigners to leave the country.  For 265 years under the Edo there was an Isolationist policy, Soduko had closed Japan off to the world till 1868.

His abroad In Japan with 100,000 was making him about 500 pounds a month. His Mc Donald chocolate fry had become a hit overnight as American TV debated the pros and cons of this dish.

Japan is a Cat Nation its 8.9 million cats overtook that of dogs population.  Cat Cafes are for poor soles who love cats but can't keep one at home. The food he ate there was full of cat hairs. One company allows staff to bring their cats to work mostly women.  

In Japan wild animals include bears, wild boars, giant hornets and mischievous macaques rolling in the snow.

Mobile phones were emitting a terrifying loud alert. . He thought this was earthquake alert. He opened the window and an air raid siren announced North Korea something. In the 70s north Korea had abducted Japanese citizens on a rural beach and taken them to teach Japanese. The North Korean missile passed over Japan into the Pacific Ocean. He recorded himself in bed telling about this on Utube and this was taken up by every media outlet imaginable and 20 million viewers saw it and was the only footage of this. Now in Japan his Utubes began to draw attention for promoting the new J-Alert and was given a prize and Japanese knew his face.

2011 March a 9.1 earthquake unleashed destruction across the country. On the coast Tsunami sirens screeched in Miyagi and Fukushima to tell people to move to higher ground. hitting 250km of coast. The nuclear plant was damaged when it water pumps stopped causing the biggest nuclear accident since Chernobyl. 19,759  dead. On Utube he documented this. 300,000 had to be evacuated as a result of radiation. Rice field could no longer be used and were converted into solar energy farms.

He documented his bicycle ride of 46 days and 2000kilometers across Japan building a Utube travel channel. Journey across Japan went on to be the most watched Japanese travel series.

Japan is changing in 2000 , 4 million tourist came to Japan. By 2016 31 million arrived. This resulted in restriction on where you could smoke cigarettes.

2019 the successful Rugby World Cup was in Japan and in 2020 Japan closed to deal with Covid, There is no country better equipped to handle this as they have the worlds lowest obesity , wear masks and Covid related deaths were a third of the US figure.

In the Edo 1603 - 1868 period property was taxed according to the street frontage so homes were extended backwards.  These old home are not comfortable by todays standards and what was left after WW2 are disappearing.

Japans Meteorological agency developed an earthquake alarm just moments before the main event. Standard procedure during an earthquake is to get under a table or in a doorway.

There is always one more wild discovery waiting for you in the land of the Rising Sun.

Pumpkin flowers by Matti Friedman: A soldiers story of a forgotten Lebanon war. 2017 272pg

 

5/10/24 Reading this exactly at the time we had to run down to our air raid shelter in central Israel because the Israeli Airforce wiped out Nasrallah and most of the Hezbollah leadership. Iran sent 180 rockets into Israel  on 2/10/24 but nobody was hurt. 2 of our  window panes were shattered.

The hill, in Lebanon, was called the Pumpkin; flowers was the military code word for “casualties.” foreshadow the unwinnable conflicts the United States would soon confront in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere. Oleander are the code for dead soldiers. Pumpkin was 3 miles north of Beaufort a Crusader castle turned into an army base.

 The group he was in was called the Fighting Pioneer Youth who understood combat was necessary but not concepts of "death before dishonor" or " no surrender" but rather "Lets get through with this "

Basic training  is like marriage, inside its unforgiving intimacy and you can't hide who you are for long. Friendship is created in a platoon under great pressure,  armies plan it this way knowing that this bond will keep men together is the lawless underworld of war, and will not run from enemy fire but go into it. Sargent's had them 18 hours on their feet and 6 hours in sleeping bag and again the next day. It was 1994 in the bushes of Lebanon  but he armies clock was still 1973.

  1977 and 1979 the Shah of Iran was overthrown and Kumauni brought the Islamic Revolution.

1980 to 1988 Iran / Iraq war.

1992 Nasrallah take over running Hezbollah in Lebanon, after Abbas al-Musawi, was assassinated by an Israeli airstrike in 1992.

June 1982 Israel fought a misguided war to support the Lebanese Christians and successfully drove  the PLO out of Lebanon hoping to set up a friendly government. However the local Shiites set themselves up as the Party of God. Israel with drew to a buffer zone in Lebanon to protect her northern border.  

1994 the Pumpkin Incident, Hezbollah terrorist ambushed and killed   Israeli soldiers and had a cameraman filming it. The first of the "jihadi selfies" in this buffer zone. This took place at the same time as the Israel PM visited the Moroccan King.

1996 The Falcon Incident this is an unrecorded event at Pumpkin in which his friend died.  The term Improvised Explosive Devises started here against conveys bringing and returning soldiers to their bases. The result was that they started flying them there at night by Helicopter. 

1997 2 helicopters over Kibbutz Dafna  soon after taking off, crashed killing 73  Israeli crew and  soldiers. The soldiers in the unit that had been in the Falcon incident and the Helicopter crash had lost a third of number in 9 months and now knew this was a real war.  

In Jerusalem on the mount of Olives is covered with graves of 150,000Jews buried over the millennia to be close to the Temple Mount . In a Jerusalem suburb is a mass grave of surrounded by rosemary bushes of Indian soldiers including fighter from Hong Kong and Singapore who died while fighting for the British against the Turks.

 The kibbutz Ashdod Ya'akov had been one of the most successful agricultural communes before the 1950s but then there was a feud between the Stalinist and the moderate socialist and this tore the society apart and into split into 2 with a fence between them. Years later the next generation never understood what the feud was about.

Bruria from here was one of 4 mothers who protested to get the soldiers out of Lebanon. The subject of the buffer zone had never been debated, but once the loss of the 2 helicopters and 73 boys the price was too high. If nobody could make a decision Bruria would end the war. The war had never even been given a name. 

Living in Pumpkin the author say he never knew any other surrounding so well where day or night they never took their boots off and it s view remains imprinted on the retinas of his eyes years later. They looked at the town Nabatieh with the monastery of St Antony the Cal-Tex gas station the al Ghoudour hospital and mosques and abandoned homes . The population was both Shiite and Christian.

In the army no matter where you were the  religious soldiers would risk their lives to come  to make the place Kosher for Pessach. Matza and other Pessach food would arrive and a seder was help with dinner for those not on guard duty.

1998 The most important event then was the World Cup in France and the few who like him were unfamiliar with the game took guard while the other watched the favorite team which was Brazil. Even Nabatieh was draped with flags of the teams playing. When Zidane a non practicing Muslim from Algeria scored they celebrated.  

The outpost Red Pepper was manned by the South Lebanon Army a Christian militia allied with Israel. They had Soviet bloc material seized from the PLO fighters in the 1982 invasion. They allied themselves to Israel for protection against the Palestinians but by the nineties some lower ranks  were Druze and Shiites who did it  for the salary Israel paid in US dollars.

1999 A new left wing government promised to make peace with Palestinians and Syrians and to get out of Lebanon, even right supporters wanted this. The mothers protesting didn't talk of soldiers but children. Everyones children. A soldiers death is considered more tragic than that of a civilian. The army Education Corp warned that you must not let your political beliefs interfere with  your duty.

Everyone knew the 4 mother by now and Hezbollah could fire rockets over the out post from deeper in Lebanon to hit Israel. The Palestinians had long gone but Hezbollah was supported by Iran and Syria. Iran wanted us inside Lebanon where they could hit us with their pawns. On the hill was a very  wholesome life with not serious drinking or drug taking. There was a guitar and free books passed around. Instead of soldiers in trenches looking out you had TV screen with joysticks. 

Trucks arrived bringing hundreds of disc mines that were safe until live detonators were  added. They saw around them outposts Basil and Beaufort blow up. Hezbollah started firing at Pumpkin which was empty by now, tried to make a last  effort against us before Pumpkin blew up.

The finger of the Galilee was clogged with armored vehicles coming south out of the security zone. Christian militiamen and their families were escaping to Israel.

2007 The movie Beaufort was made by Joseph Cedar on the abandoning of a outpost, unlike what  the movie portrayal they functioned till the end. 

He was thinking about travel after his discharge India and the far East where most Israeli  youngster go after their 3 years in the army. Instead he studied at the Jerusalem University. Middle East and Arabic studies. He met others from the other outpost and they came to the conclusion that this was an error  a decade of chronic pain that shaped us all.  He now was not  interested in politics but progressing in his own life

Israel then had a period of suicide bombing which was eventually dealt with and brought under control. Hezbollah wrote that what happened in Lebanon could happen in Palestine. This was when Iran started pouring money, weapons and advise to her proxies in the middle East. Any ideas of a compromise were shattered and amongst the Israel politicians.

2001   you had 9/11 and the American were at war in Afghanistan.

A Canadian friend visited him after a tour of Lebanon. With a clean Canadian passport he flew from Toronto  to Beirut and was waved in with not problem. Beirut is a cosmopolitan city.  He went to see the areas that he could view from Pumpkin and was driven around by friendly taxi drivers.

 He enters into Lebanon as a Canadian tourist and had to hide throughout his visit 1) his Jewish identity; 2) his Israeli citizenship; and 3) his service to the IDF. The most powerful part is when he was on his way to the Pumpkin (the outpost where he was stationed in the 90s) in southern Lebanon, and remarks that he "had traveled 12,000 miles (from Toronto) to arrive 20 miles from" where his family's home was.