Jews of Yemen

Friday Photos: True Hollywood Confessions

October 5, 2018 by Robert J. Avrech 4 Comments

“Famous people feel that they must perpetually be on the crest of the wave, not realizing that it is against all the rules of life. You can’t be on top all the time; it isn’t natural.“
—Olivia de Havilland

Ofra Haza: Israel’s Greatest and Most Tragic Star

August 29, 2018 by Robert J. Avrech 3 Comments

By Jake Novak

Scene 1: Munich, Germany July 1983

Music has always been an integral part of the State of Israel. It seems like every year, every war, and every major event in the tiny nation’s history has produced its own special song.

That’s one reason why the annual Eurovision song contest has meant so much to the Israeli people. The annual competition allows dozens of countries to enter a short song, performed by native singers before a panel of judges. Winning is always a longshot given the crowded competition, but Israel achieved its stunning first win in the contest in 1978 followed by an equally stunning victory the following year.

Four years after that repeat victory, the competition was set in the emotionally charged city of Munich where eleven members of the Israeli Olympic team had been murdered by Palestinian terrorists just 11 years earlier.

Friday Photos: True Hollywood Confessions

December 29, 2017 by Robert J. Avrech 8 Comments

“The best thing to hold onto in life is each other.” —Audrey Hepburn

Alaska’s Role in the Rescue of 50,000 Jews

August 26, 2013 by Robert J. Avrech 4 Comments

From 1948 to 1950, Operation Magic Carpet rescued 50,000 Yemenite Jews. Alaska Airlines were prominent in this heroic effort to save a community being strangled and starved by the Muslim majority. — From 1948 to 1950, Operation Magic Carpet rescued 50,000 Yemenite Jews. Alaska Airlines played a heroic role in the effort to save a community from being strangled and starved to death by the intolerant Muslim majority and their British appeasers.

Last week, forty-seven Lebanese Muslims were murdered by other Muslims in twin bombings. In Syria, Muslims murdered Muslims with chemical weapons. Egypt is on the brink of civil war. The military, taking a page out of the French colonial playbook, has divided Cairo into neat quadrants, closed off all intersections, and then cracked down on the MB in ways that even the French in Algeria would never contemplate. In Tunisia and Libya, a rash of political assassinations points to a further erosion of those already dysfunctional countries. Sunni jihadists are oozing into Iraq to fight Shia gangs controlled by Iran. The fragile kingdom of Jordan is flooded with hundreds of thousands of refugees, many intent on overthrowing the Hashemites. And everywhere in the Arab Muslim world, Christian churches are torched, and Christians are murdered because they are—y’know—Christians.

With all this going on, Iran continues its march to nuclear power, with the anti-Semitic New York Times as an enabler.

Seraphic Secret has just returned to L.A. from the East Coast, where we celebrated the brit milah of our grandson, Ariel Chaim, and spent a joyous and raucous Shabbat with family and friends.

In shul, on the morning of the brit milah, a man told us that he reads Seraphic Secret every single day even though we’re “a bit too left-wing.”

He was kidding.

Anyhoo.

As you can imagine, we are in a pretty good mood, and frankly we’d like to stay that way for a bit longer.

So rather than dwell on the fiscal madness of Obamacare or the murderous swamp of the Arab Muslim world, we thought we’d draw your attention to an uplifting story about the imperiled Jews of Yemen and the righteous men and women of Alaska Airlines who rescued them from genocide.