Tonya Pinkins-Helmed BROADWAY SUPPORTS BLACK LIVES MATTER Concert Cancelled at Feinstein's/54 Below — Page 3

qolbinau said: "I have been 'taught' that Israel has essentially stolen Palestinian land and continues to do so. Can someone link me to some information to inform me about this issue? Assuming it doesn't have religious propaganda that they have some god given right to the land, which is obviously false because there is no God."

Ignoring the dripping condescension and outright sneering in your question and the deliberate malice you use in choosing the word "steal," let me ask you what, if anything, you were taught about the 1.2 million Jews who were forced out of their homes in the Arab nations and Iran? Homes that were occupied by those Jews for hundreds, sometimes for a thousand years.

Were those homes and property "stolen" as well? Or was forcing Jews out and taking their property somehow okay because, well, "stealing" from Jews is not really "stealing" at all, according to these people who taught you to sneer on BroadwayWorld?

And ask those people who taught you what would happen to those 1.2 million displaced Middle Eastern Jews (and their children and grandchildren) if the State of Israel were suddenly to be dismantled. Would those homes and businesses in Algiers and Baghdad and Cairo and Beirut be given back to them? Or do the people who taught you even care? Or do they even know how complex the problems of displacement truly are? I know you're intelligent enough to see different sides of a bad situation. But I worry about that nasty streak you obviously learned from them.

Between 1948 and 1972, approximately 600,000 Palestinians were displaced from the West Bank and Gaza Strip, some by choice, others by war, while 1.2 million Jews were displaced from the Arab countries and Iran. And as I said, they had lived in some of those countries for over one thousand years. Here is a map of where they came from. By any and all manner of human expectation, they can never go home .

Updated On: 9/9/16 at 10:17 PM

I used the word 'taught' as an intentional reference to South Pacific and acknowledgement that the information I have may be wrong. Although I am unashamedly dismissive of religious beliefs. A Dawkins disciple I am.

Updated On: 9/10/16 at 02:54 AM

Update: http://www.playbill.com/article/the-meeting-will-host-black-lives-matter-benefit-at-joes-pub

OK so why not any place else but Israel?



In the late 19th century, the rise of anti-semitisim led to a resurgence of pogroms in Russia and Eastern Europe, shattering promises of equality and tolerance. This stimulated Jewishimmigration to Palestine from Europe.

Simultaneously, a wave of Jews immigrated to Palestine from Yemen, Morocco, Iraq and Turkey. These Jews were unaware of Theodor-Hertzl's political Zionizim or of European pogroms. They were motivated by the centuries-old dream of the “Return to Zion” and a fear of intolerance. Upon hearing that the gates of Palestine were open, they braved the hardships of travel and went to the Land of Israel.

The Zionist ideal of a return to Israel has profound religious roots. Many Jewish prayers speak of Jerusalem, Zion and the Land of Israel. The injunction not to forget Jerusalem, the site of the Temple, is a major tenet of Judaism. The Hebrew language, the Torah, laws in the Talmud, the Jewish Calendar and Jewish holidays and festivals all originated in Israel and revolve around its seasons and conditions. Jews pray toward Jerusalem and recite the words “next year in Jerusalem” every Passover. Jewish religion, culture and history make clear that it is only in the land of Israel that the Jewish commonwealth can be built.

In 1897, Jewish leaders formally organized the Zionist political movement, calling for the restoration of the Jewish national home in Palestine, where Jews could find sanctuary and self-determination, and work for the renascence of their civilization and culture.


At the time, no one could foresee the financial (oil) element (and thus the power) the Arab states would acquire. Micheal Chambon wrote a alt history fantasy about a time the Jews were given Alaska to settle after the war. Until they weren't.

Eretz Yisoroel was the only place a Jew could truly ever think of as "home", the only place we are historically connected to, the only place worth fighting and dying for.