Brit-Am Historical Reports (6 September 2015, 22 Elul 5775)
 Contents:
1. Amnon Goldberg: Napoleon and the Rabbis
2. Philistines Introduced Sycamore, Cumin And Opium Poppy Into Israel During The Iron Age
3. Descendants of Unknown Jews in Ireland
Eire Anusim: The Tale of the Spanish Jews 'Lost' in Ireland
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1. Amnon Goldberg: Napoleon and the Rabbis
"I have a feeling that one day someone born on the little island of Corsica will astonish the world" portended the philosopher Rousseau, seven years before Napoleon's birth. Rebbe Nachman of Breslov met Napoleon in Tiberias in 1799 and he sorely wanted the rebbe to become his spiritual adviser, which he refused, considering Napoleon to have been a lofty gilgul who had become a temurah - a changeling.
Napoleon issued a proclamation to world Jewry to rally to his standard, to wear the tricolor cockade, to return "as the rightful heirs to Palestine", and even offered to assist them in rebuilding the Beis Hamikdash, stating on hearing their Tisha B'Av wailings that "any people who can mourn like this after so long, deserve to have their Temple rebuilt".
That decree that Napoleon would be defeated in Russia was sealed after he attempted to level the Jewish cemetery in Vilna, which included the sacred bones of the Vilna Gaon, as a garrison area for French troops. When the Baal HaTanya heard the French invaders playing the joyous "Napoleon March" he exclaimed "that is a victory march, and it must be elevated from out of the possession of the Klippos", Chabad Chassidim still singing the march every motzei Yom Kippur! "Whenever I ride I see the Blond Jew always railed against me (the Baal HaTanya was fair haired)" pained Napoleon, and R.Shneur Zalman narrowly escaped capture in Liozna by the Emperor himself. With his evil eye, haughty mind and proud spirit, Napoleon was a true "Talmid of Bilom", as can also be seen by his desperate desire to place a hex on any personal item belonging to the Baal HaTanya, and from his work on kishuf and auguries, "Napoleon's Oraculum".
During his retreat Napoleon gave the Lelover Rebbe his velvet cloak in acknowledgment that the rebbe's prediction of his defeat in Russia had proven true, the cloak subsequently becoming the paroches in the Lelov yeshiva in Jerusalem.
Less than a century after Napoleon's death, in the trenches of 1916, another 27 year old "Little Corporal" vowed that when he came to power and conquered Paris, he would pay homage at Napoleon's tomb - his name: Corporal Adolf Hitler, Iron Cross 1st Class! At the time of the advent of the Goel Tzedek (whom the Baal HaTanya himself stated will be a Misnaged!), Chazal refer to a terrifying individual who will arise to provide the ultimate opposition to kedushah: the Ish Haloshon, Armilus, who will be an embodiment of all the "calibre" reshoyim of past history - may Hashem spare us!
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 2. Philistines Introduced Sycamore, Cumin And Opium Poppy Into Israel During The Iron Age
Bar-Ilan University
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/08/150828112741.htm
Extracts:
One of the most pressing issues in modern biological conservation is "invasion biology". Due to unprecedented contacts between peoples and culture in today's "global village" certain animal and plant species are spreading widely throughout the world, often causing enormous damage to local species.
Recent studies have shown that alien species have had a substantial impact not only in recent times but also in antiquity. This is exemplified in a study published in the August 25th issue of Scientific Reports by a team led by archaeologists from Bar-Ilan University's Martin (Szusz) Department of Land of Israel Studies and Archaeology (Suembikya (Sue) Frumin, Prof. Ehud Weiss and Prof. Aren Maeir) and the Hebrew University (Dr. Liora Kolska Horwitz), describing the bio-archaeological remains of the
Philistine culture during the Iron Age (12th century to 7th century BCE). The team compiled a database of plant remains extracted from Bronze and Iron Ages sites in the southern Levant, both Philistine and non-Philistine. By analyzing this database, the researchers concluded that the Philistines brought to Israel not just themselves but also their plants.
The species they brought are all cultivars that had not been seen in Israel previously. This includes edible parts of the opium poppy (Papaver somniferum) which originates in western Europe; the sycamore tree (Ficus sycomorus), whose fruits are known to be cultivated in the eastern Mediterranean, especially Egypt, and whose presence in Israel as a locally grown tree is first attested to in the Iron Age by the presence of its fruit; and finally, cumin (Cuminum cyminum), a spice originating in the Eastern Mediterranean. Sue Frumin, a PhD student at Prof. Ehud Weiss's archaeobotanical lab, Bar-Ilan University, explains that "the edible parts of these species - opium poppy, sycamore, and cumin - were not identified in the archaeobotanical record of Israel prior to the Iron Age, when the Philistine culture first appeared in the region. None of these plants grows wild in Israel today, but instead grows only as cultivated plants."
In addition to the translocation of exotic plants from other regions, the Philistines were the first community to exploit over 70 species of synanthropic plants (species which benefit from living in the vicinity of man) that were locally available in Israel, such as Purslane, Wild Radish, Saltwort, Henbane and Vigna. These plant species were not found in archaeological sites pre-dating the Iron Age, or in Iron Age archaeological sites recognized as belonging to non-Philistine cultures - Canaanite, Israelite, Judahite, and Phoenician. The "agricultural revolution" that accompanied the Philistine culture reflects a different agrarian regime and dietary preferences to that of their contemporaries.
The fact that the three exotic plants introduced by the Philistines originate from different regions accords well with the diverse geographic origin of these people. The Philistines - one of the so called Sea Peoples, and mentioned in the Bible and other ancient sources - were a multi-ethnic community with origins in the Aegean, Turkey, Cyprus and other regions in the Eastern Mediterranean who settled on the southern coastal plain of Israel in the early Iron Age (12th century BCE), and integrated with Canaanite and other local populations, finally to disappear at the end of the Iron Age (ca. 600 BCE).
The Philistines also left their mark on the local fauna. In a previous study also published in Scientific Reports in which two of the present authors (Maeir and Kolska Horwitz) participated, DNA extracted from ancient pig bones from Philistine and non-Philistine sites in Israel demonstrated that European pigs were introduced by the Philistines into Israel and slowly swamped the local pig populations through inter-breeding. As a consequence, modern wild boar in Israel today bears a European haplotype rather than a local, Near Eastern one.
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3. Descendants of Unknown Jews in Ireland
Eire Anusim: The Tale of the Spanish Jews 'Lost' in Ireland
September 4, 2015September 5, 2015 by jobeduu
https://benjamindunnwriter.wordpress.com/2015/09/04/eire-anousim-the-tale-of-the-spanish-jews-who-became-lost-in-ireland/
Extracts:
If you have family or ancestors from Western Ireland like Galway, Donegal, Sligo, Mayo or Southern Ireland like Cork, or even Derry in the North and elsewhere (pretty much anywhere in Ireland now I guess!!!)- and your surname is Rogers, Rodgers, Cousen or Casson, Cashman, Ferdinand, Francis, Ennis, Ames, Donlevy, Elvy, O�Sullivan, Sullivan, Perry, Parry or Labatt amongst others...
In the many years of this ladies Anusim research, since about 1978, a great many families have made the same kind of remark as this:
'As I dig and find the links back to probable Jewish ancestry, I'm reminded that my father always claimed lineage from what he called the 'Black Irish', who he claimed were Iberian migrants to the south coast  (of Ireland) - oddly nobody else in my immediate family recalls his talking about this, and his generation have long passed on, so I'm not likely to ever know if it was a widely-held belief, Bill, NSW, Australia.
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