"Brit-Am Now"-16
Contents:
1. Patricia Wagner: Question on Tribal Ancestry
2. "Lost Isrealite Identity"
3. Kulling Regina: Support from Switzerland
4. Aram Paquin: Microwaves
5. Kosher Food
6. Johann Hari: Two cheers for colonialism
Date: 05/19/2002 2:06:48 AM Central
Daylight Time
1.
Question:
At 06:54 PM 5/16/2002 -0700, Patricia
Wagner wrote:
>Hi Yair,
>
>You've been sending me Bible studies
and news items for quite a while now.
>Thank you. I find many of your writings
very informative. I'm a friend of
>Israel and am also a Bible student.
In 1973 I toured Israel and had a great
>time!
>
>My ancestors came from the southern
central part of England. They were
>puritan farmers. Another set of ancestors
came from Germany.
>I live in the United States. Do you
have any idea what tribe I might be
>from?
>
>Also, in two of your writings you
came out strongly against Christianity.
>Since you want as many people as possible
to be interested in what you are
>writing about, why would you want
to alienate such a large contingent of
>possible supporters? I can understand
that as a Jew you don't accept
>Christianity, but you are reaching
out to Christians and you have stated
>that Christians are usually strong
supporters of Israel.
>
>You also stated that we should be
tolerant of one another, so why would you
>want to risk chasing so many of us
away?
>Have a great day!
>
>Pat
Answers:
You asked what tribe you may belong
to based on (a) where your ancestors
cam from and (b) where you now live.
You also queried my attitude to Christianity
(c).
a.The southern central part of England
was on the border of Ephraim and
Menasseh but dominated by
Ephraim. Puritans however were mainly
from Menasseh who separated out of
Ephraim, see our book, "Joseph". Israelites
who sojourned in Germany and
then moved to the USA belonged overwhelmingly
to Menasseh
but included those from Judah and other
Tribes.
b. The USA contains people from all
nations but is on the whole dominated
by Israelites
of all tribes and within Israel by
Joseph and within Joseph by Menasseh and
within Menasseh by Machir
and by those elements of Machir that
once dwelt east of the Jordan.
I cannot tell anyone what tribe they
belonged to but there do exist
clan-names, characteristics, etc by
which
tribal-identity can be determined.
Some of this evidence was published in
"The Tribes" which may be re-printed
very soon.
Also a series of articles dedicated
to each tribe may well go out in the
near future to the Brit-Am e-mail list.
c.
I do not want to chase anybody away.
In the past we may have made
misjudgments in how we expressed ourselves.
I understand Christianity to be a tool
of Providence to make non-Jews aware
of the Bible.
This also holds for the Lost Ten Tribes.
It was prophesied that the Lost
Ten Tribes would be Christians (see
our book "Ephraim").
Through Christianity they are enabled
to draw closer to their Hebrew Identity.
I do not want to antagonize anyone.
I try to tell the truth as I see it. As
you evolve so do I.
At first I understood my task to be
the revelation of Brit-Am Identity in
the context of religious truth.
I am now becoming more and more aware
that our task should be to reveal
Brit-Am Identity as completely, thoroughly,
and widely as we
can and all other matters should be
put aside as much as possible.
It should be a team effort in which
we all participate and do what we can.
In the same way as I must put my own
religious convictions to one side in
order to spread the Identity message
so too should Christians who agree
with the Brit-Am Identity message do
the same at least when dealing with
people like myself.
We have a task to accomplish and we
will all have to give an account to the
Almighty as to how we fulfill it.
Those who can support Brit-Am in any
way whatsoever should do so.
2.
In 1996 we published "Lost Isrealite
Identity". We put out 1500 books and
the book was sold out within about
a year.
I have only a very few copies left
for myself.
The book is quite good and is full
of valuable information. It contain
copious and detailed footnotes many
of which are articles in their own right.
To get an idea of the depth of the
book: I read fast. If I read "Ephraim"
all the way through it takes me maybe
two hours to finish it. If I read
"The Tribes"
all the way through it would take me
about a whole day. "Lost Israelite
Identity" would take a week.
The series of articles on "Various
Traditions" was mainly comprised of
excerpts of "Lost Israelite Identity".
"Lost Israelite Identity" will
probably NEVER be re-published as it was.
It will be broken down into one smaller
book and into adapted sections of
other books that we hope to publish
in the future.
Each copy of "Lost Isrealite
Identity" is a valuable collector's item as
well as a source of enlightenment in
its own right some parts of which are
extremely important.
Even though we sold all the copies
of "Lost Isrealite Identity" that we had
a large number of copies may now be
available from another source.
We had sold a large number of books
to an overseas contact who
"disappeared" and has now "resurfaced".
Details will follow.
3.
From: Külling Regina
Subject: from Regina / Switzerland
Dear Ya'ir,
Just to tell you CHAG SAMEACH!
Tomorrow many believers will show their
support for Israel by standing with
banners and flags on a public place
in Basel. Just to let you know that
also many people in Switzerland are
praying for you in Eretz Israel.
Last week I could give one of your
book away to someone who is very much
interested in Juda and Ephraim.
Warm spring greetings from Switzerland
and may Hashem bless you and your
family with a joyous Shavuot.
Regina Külling
4.
From: Aram Paquin
Subject: Fw: Microwaves
Yair, I just received this. Not really
on the subject of LTT but, well, if
it can help some of us live longer
& healthier lives.....
Aram
Sent: Friday, May 17, 2002 4:39 PM
Subject: Microwaves
This seems like good information. It
certainly deserves to be checked out.
They just had a segment on TV about
this.
Dr. Edward Fujimoto from Castle Hospital
is the manager of
the Wellness Program at the hospital.
He talks about dioxins and how bad they are for us.
He said that we should not be heating
our food in the microwave
using plastic containers.
This applies to foods that contain fat.
He said that the combination of fat,
high heat, and plastics
releases dioxins into the food and
ultimately into the cells of
the body.
Dioxins are carcinogens and highly toxic
to the cells of our
bodies. Instead, he recommends using
glass, Corning Ware, or
ceramic containers for heating food.
You get the same results without the dioxins.
So such things as TV dinners, soups,
etc. should be removed from
the container and heated in something
else.
Paper isn't bad but you don't know what
is in the paper.
It's just safer to use tempered glass,
Corning Ware, etc.
He said we might remember when some
of the fast food restaurants
moved away from the foam containers
to paper.
The dioxin problem is one of the reasons.
5.
Kosher Food
The following was sent us and may be
of interest to some.
May 15, 2002
Dear <name withheld>,
Thank you for contacting Nestle. We
welcome questions and comments from our
consumers.
Kosher certification has no net effect
on the retail pricing of our
products. The extra volume in sales
generated by the presence of the kosher
symbols on these products increases
our economy of scale,
allowing the extra cost of rabbinical
inspections to be absorbed by lower
production costs per unit sold.
Products for which kosher certification
would necessitate a change in the
product ingredients or
processing are not certified.
Attached is more information - we hope
you find it helpful.
We appreciate your interest in our
products and hope you'll visit our
website often for latest
information on Nestl? products and
promotions.
Sincerely,
Wendy Elkins
Consumer Response Representative
Ref: 7828189
General Kosher Information
(History, Symbols, Pricing)
HISTORY
'Kashrut' is the Hebrew word that refers
to the Jewish dietary laws. It is
a variation of the word
'kosher' which means fit, proper, or
in accordance with the religious law.
Any food that satisfies the
requirements of Jewish law for being
fit to eat is kosher. These laws are
listed in Leviticus (Chapter
11) and Deuteronomy (Chapter 14:2-21).
Kosher also refers to preparation of
food according to
Jewish dietary laws.
KOSHER SYMBOLS
Kosher certification of commercial
food products is handled by a Rabbi who
inspects food production
facilities for adherence to Jewish
dietary laws. A food product which has
been certified as kosher
carries a kosher symbol on the label.
There are many organized groups of
Rabbis that grant kosher
certification to food processors. Some
are more recognized than others. The
most widely accepted
groups are the Union of Orthodox Jewish
Congregations of America (OU), and
the KOF-K (Kof is a
Hebrew letter).
Other kosher certifying groups are
also well recognized and do the Jewish
community a great service,
including the Triangle K and the Circle
K
If there is simply a 'K' on the label
this means that the product is
generically kosher but a certificate
for
the product is not held. The following
organizations are used by Nestl? USA
to certify products as
kosher:
SYMBOL& CERTIFYING GROUPS
OU (The letter U inside a circle)
Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations
of America
Rabbi Moshe Elefant (212-563-4000)
Circle K (The letter K inside a circle)
Organized Kashruth Laboritories
Rabbi Don Yoel Levy (718-756-7500)
CRESCENT K (A half moon shape with
letter K attached to its right)
Kosher Overseers Association of America
(Orthodox)
Rabbi Dr. Harold Sharfman (323-870-0011)
KOF-K (The letter K inside upper and
lower flags)
Rabbi H.Z. Senter (201) 837-0500
KO (The letters KO inside a box)
Registered trademark of Kosher Service
Amiel B. Novoseller, Rabbi
The symbols are trademarks of each organization
and their use on packaging
is subject to various
conditions and restrictions of the
certifying agency. One fundamental law
of Kashruth expressly
forbids combining of milk (or dairy)
and meat products. Separate equipment
must be used when
preparing these foods and they may
not be eaten together. Also, if a
product contains either meat or
dairy, the kosher symbol will be followed
by either an M or D,
respectively, as described below.
PAREVE (pronounced 'Parv') - The food
is pareve, or "neutral," if it is
kosher but contains neither
dairy or meat ingredients. Pareve foods
may be eaten with either dairy or
meat foods, and bear the
regular symbol without the M or D following
it.
DAIRY - The presence of a D in addition
to the kosher symbol on a Nestl?
label signifies that the
product contains dairy ingredients
(such as milk, cheese, yogurt, etc.) or
that equipment used in
production came in contact with dairy
items. For example, a chocolate bar
containing no dairy
ingredients would be certified as Kosher-Dairy
if it was produced with the
same equipment used for a
milk chocolate bar.
MEAT - The presence of an M after the
kosher symbol signifies that the
product contains meat
ingredients. Currently, no Nestle products
bear the kosher-M symbol.
KOSHER FOR PASSOVER - In addition to
year-round kosher laws, during
Passover the kosher
requirements are even stricter. Products
that are kosher year round are not
necessarily Kosher for
Passover. The prohibited foods during
Passover would include food
containing leavening. Nestl? does
not have any special certification
for Kosher for Passover products at this
time.
We cannot disclose the terms of our
contracts with kosher-certifying
agencies, but the costs are
primarily related to covering the expenses
of the rabbis who visit the
factories. If a product qualifies to
be kosher based on its ingredients,
then we feel it adds to our ability to
attract consumers and we
voluntarily seek kosher certification.
A rabbi visits the factory to ensure
that the ingredients are indeed
consistent with kosher rules and guidelines,
and this allows us to place
the kosher symbol on the label.
There is a demand for kosher items in
the marketplace and in the interest
of free enterprise, we supply
those goods when it is possible without
a concomitant increase in unit
price. We do have non-Jewish
customers who buy certified kosher
foods because they see the symbol as a
mark of quality.
Vegetarians and Seventh Day Adventists
also look for kosher pareve or dairy
information to assure
them that the product does not contain
meat.
6.
Extracts:
Origin Forum <origin@yahoogroups.com>
Some interesting points raised in this
article.
http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.jsp?a=14&o=3085
Two cheers for colonialism
Johann Hari
10 May 2002
CONTROVERSIAL, conservative Indian
scholar Dinesh D'Souza argues that
against its intentions the West brought
things to the colonies that have
immeasurably enriched the lives of
the descendants of colonialism.
Colonialism has gotten a bad name in
recent decades. Anti-colonialism
was one of the dominant political currents
of the 20th century as dozens
of European colonies in Asia and Africa
became free. Today we are still
living with the aftermath of colonialism.
The assault against colonialism and
its legacy has many dimensions, but
at its core it is a theory of oppression
that relies on three premises.
First, colonialism and imperialism
are distinctively Western evils that
were inflicted on the non-Western world.
Second, as a consequence of colonialism,
the West became rich and the
colonies became impoverished; in short,
the West succeeded at the
expense of the colonies.
Third, the descendants of colonialism
are worse off than they would be
had colonialism never occurred.
There is nothing uniquely Western about
colonialism. My native country
of India, for example, was ruled by
the British for more than two
centuries and many of my fellow Indians
are still smarting about that.
What they often forget, however, is
that before the British came the
Indians had been invaded and conquered
by the Persians, the Afghans,
Alexander the Great, the Mongols, the
Arabs and the Turks. Depending on
how you count, the British were preceded
by at least six colonial powers
that invaded and occupied India since
ancient times. Indeed, ancient
India was itself settled by the Aryan
people, who came from the north
and subjugated the dark-skinned indigenous
people.
Those who identify colonialism and
empire only with the West either have
no sense of history or have forgotten
about the Egyptian empire, the
Persian empire, the Macedonian empire,
the Islamic empire, the Mongol
empire, the Chinese empire, and the
Aztec and Inca empires in the
Americas.
The West did not become rich and powerful
through colonial oppression.
It makes no sense to claim that the
West grew rich and strong by
conquering other countries and taking
their stuff.
How did the West manage to do that?
In the late Middle Ages, say 1500,
the West was by no means the world's
most affluent or most powerful
civilisation. Indeed, those of China
and of the Arab-Islamic world
exceeded the West in wealth, in knowledge,
in exploration, in learning
and in military power. So how did the
West gain so rapidly in economic,
political and military power that,
by the 19th century, it was able to
conquer virtually all of the other
civilisations? That question demands
to be answered and the oppression theorists
have never provided an
adequate explanation.
Moreover, the West could not have reached
its current stage of wealth
and influence by stealing from other
cultures for the simple reason that
there wasn't very much to take. "Oh
yes there was," the retort often
comes. "The Europeans stole the raw
material to build their
civilisation. They took rubber from
Malaya, cocoa from West Africa, and
tea from India."
But, as the economic historian PT Bauer
points out, before British rule
there were no rubber trees in Malaya,
no cocoa trees in West Africa, no
tea in India. The British brought the
rubber tree to Malaya from South
America. They brought tea to India
from China. And they taught the
Africans to grow cocoa, a crop the
native people had never heard of.
None of this is to deny that when the
colonialists could exploit native
resources, they did. But that larceny
cannot possibly account for the
enormous gap in economic, political
and military power that opened up
between the West and the rest of the
world.
What, then, is the source of that power?
The reason the West became so
affluent and dominant in the modern
era is that it invented three
institutions: science, democracy and
capitalism. All those institutions
are based on universal impulses and
aspirations, but those aspirations
were given a unique expression in Western
civilisation.
Consider science. It is based on a
shared human trait: the desire to
know. People in every culture have
tried to learn about the world. Thus
the Chinese recorded the eclipses,
the Mayans developed a calendar, the
Hindus discovered the number zero,
and so on. But science - which
requires experiments, laboratories,
induction, verification and what one
scholar has called "the invention of
invention," the scientific method -
that is a Western institution.
Similarly, tribal participation is
universal, but democracy - which
involves free elections, peaceful transitions
of power and separation of
powers - is a Western idea. Finally,
the impulse to trade is universal,
and there is nothing Western about
the use of money, but capitalism -
which requires property rights, contracts,
courts to enforce them,
limited-liability corporations, stock
exchanges, patents, insurance,
double-entry bookkeeping this ensemble
of practices was developed in
the West.
It is the dynamic interaction among
these three Western institutions -
science, democracy and capitalism -
that has produced the great wealth,
strength and success of Western civilisation.
An example of this
interaction is technology, which arises
out of the marriage between
science and capitalism. Science provides
the knowledge that leads to
invention, and capitalism supplies
the mechanism by which the invention
is transmitted to the larger society,
as well as the economic incentive
for inventors to continue to make new
things.
Now we can understand better why the
West was able, between the 16th and
19th centuries, to subdue the rest
of the world and bend it to its will.
Indian elephants and Zulu spears were
no match for British rifles and
cannonballs. Colonialism and imperialism
are not the cause of the West's
success; they are the result of that
success. The wealth and power of
European nations made them arrogant
and stimulated their appetite for
global conquest. Colonial possessions
added to the prestige, and to a
much lesser degree the wealth, of Europe.
But the primary cause of Western affluence
and power is internal
the institutions of science, democracy
and capitalism acting together.
Consequently, it is simply wrong to
maintain that the rest of the world
is poor because the West is rich, or
that the West grew rich off stolen
goods from Asia, Africa, and Latin
America. The West created its own
wealth, and still does.
The descendants of colonialism are
better off than they would be if
colonialism had never happened. I would
like to illustrate this point
through a personal example.
While I was a young boy growing up
in India I noticed that my
grandfather, who had lived under British
colonialism, was instinctively
and habitually anti-white. He wasn't
just against the English; he was
generally against white people. I realised
that I did not share his
anti-white animus. That puzzled me:
why did he and I feel so
differently?
Only years later, after a great deal
of reflection and a fair amount of
study, did the answer finally hit me.
The reason for our difference of
perception was that colonialism had
been pretty bad for him, but pretty
good for me. Another way to put it
was that colonialism had injured
those who lived under it, but paradoxically
it proved beneficial to
their descendants. Much as it chagrins
me to admit it - and much as it
will outrage many Third World intellectuals
for me to say it - my life
would have been much worse had the
British never ruled India.
How is that possible? Virtually everything
that I am, what I do and my
deepest beliefs, all are the product
of a world view that was brought to
India by colonialism. I am a writer,
and I write in English. My ability
to do this, and to reach a broad market,
is entirely thanks to the
British.
My understanding of technology, which
allows me, like so many Indians,
to function successfully in the modern
world, was largely the product of
a Western education that came to India
as a result of the British. So
also my beliefs in freedom of expression,
in self-government, in
equality of rights under the law and
in the universal principle of human
dignity - they are all the products
of Western civilisation.
I am not suggesting that it was the
intention of the colonialists to
give all those wonderful gifts to the
Indians. Colonialism was not based
on philanthropy; it was a form of conquest
and rule. The British came to
India to govern and they were not primarily
interested in the
development of the natives, whom they
viewed as picturesque savages.
It is impossible to measure, or overlook,
the pain and humiliation that
the British inflicted during their
long period of occupation.
Understandably, the Indians chafed
under that yoke.
Toward the end of the British reign
in India, Mahatma Gandhi was asked,
"What do you think of Western civilisation?"
He replied, "I think it
would be a good idea."
Despite their suspect motives and bad
behaviour, however, the British
needed a certain amount of infrastructure
to effectively govern India.
So they built roads, shipping docks,
railway tracks, irrigation systems
and government buildings.
Then they realised that they needed
courts of law to adjudicate disputes
that went beyond local systems of dispensing
justice. And so the British
legal system was introduced, with all
its procedural novelties, like
"innocent until proven guilty". The
British also had to educate the
Indians in order to communicate with
them and to train them to be civil
servants in the empire.
Thus Indian children were exposed to
Shakespeare, Dickens, Hobbes and
Locke. In that way the Indians began
to encounter words and ideas that
were unmentioned in their ancestral
culture: "liberty", "sovereignty",
"rights" and so on.
That brings me to the greatest benefit
that the British provided to the
Indians: they taught them the language
of freedom. Once again, it was
not the objective of the colonial rulers
to encourage rebellion. But by
exposing Indians to the ideas of the
West, they did. The Indian leaders
were the product of Western civilisation.
My conclusion is that against their
intentions the colonialists brought
things to India that have immeasurably
enriched the lives of the
descendants of colonialism. It is doubtful
that non-Western countries
would have acquired those good things
by themselves.
It was the British who, applying a
universal notion of human rights, in
the early 19th century abolished the
ancient Indian institution of
suttee - the custom of tossing widows
on their husbands' funeral pyres.
There is no reason to believe that
the Indians, who had practiced suttee
for centuries, would have reached such
a conclusion on their own.
Imagine an African or Indian king encountering
the works of Locke or
Madison and saying, "You know, I think
those fellows have a good point.
I should relinquish my power and let
my people decide whether they want
me or someone else to rule." Somehow,
I don't see that as likely.
Colonialism was the transmission belt
that brought to Asia, Africa and
South America the blessings of Western
civilisation. Many of those
cultures continue to have serious problems
of tyranny, tribal and
religious conflict, poverty and underdevelopment,
but that is not due to
an excess of Western influence; rather,
it is due to the fact that those
countries are insufficiently Westernised.
Sub-Saharan Africa, which is probably
in the worst position, has been
described by United Nations Secretary
General Kofi Annan as "a cocktail
of disasters". That is not because
colonialism in Africa lasted so long,
but because it lasted a mere half-century.
It was too short a time to
permit Western institutions to take
firm root.
Consequently, after their independence,
most African nations have
retreated into a kind of tribal barbarism
that can be remedied only with
more Western influence, not less. Africa
needs more Western capital,
more technology, more rule of law and
more individual freedom.
The academy needs to shed its irrational
prejudice against colonialism.
By providing a more balanced perspective
scholars can help to show the
foolishness of policies like reparations
as well as justifications of
terrorism that are based on anti-colonial
myths.
None of this is to say that colonialism
by itself was a good thing, only
that bad institutions sometimes produce
good results.
Colonialism, I freely acknowledge,
was a harsh regime for those who
lived under it. My grandfather would
have a hard time giving even one
cheer for colonialism. As for me, I
cannot manage three, but I am quite
willing to grant two. So here they
are: two cheers for colonialism!
Maybe you will now see why I am not
going to be sending an invoice for
reparations to British Prime Minister
Tony Blair.
Dinesh D'Souza is a fellow at the Hoover
Institution at Stanford
University and the author of What's
So Great About America, to be
published this month by Regnery...
Comment by Brit-Am: Out of all the colonialist
powers, in my opinion, ONLY
the British, Americans (Philippines),
French, and Dutch were usually
overwhelmingly beneficial
towards those they ruled.
PLEASE SEND THIS MESSAGE ON TO OTHERS
http://www.britam.org/
http://www.geocities.com/hiberi