Biggest Family Feud Ever Recorded Affecting Entire World

Nadene Goldfoot

                                                

Abraham and his niece who he married, Sarah,  had a son named Isaac. Abraham and Sarah were living in Beersheba in the land of Canaan when Isaac was born. 

The biblical account states that Abraham settled in Beersheba after returning from the land of the Philistines, and it was there that Isaac was born to him and Sarah. The Torah was hand-written for centuries, copied so carefully that with one error the papyrus or  paper was thrown away, destroyed and re-started.  AI says:  The Torah was not "published" in a single event, but was compiled over centuries, with the final version believed to have been completed around the Babylonian exile (c. 539 BCE). The oldest surviving complete Torah scroll dates to the 11th or 12th century. 

Isaac was almost sacrificed by his father as according to the custom of the day, but, as the story goes, G-d intervened this time with this family who did this on Mt. Moriah.  Abraham was unique as people went because he then saw that such a custom was no good and he started to believe that there was only one (1) G-d in the world and not many as those around him believed.  He then took his family and moved.                                  

Now Isaac had a half brother named Ishmael. Again, Ishmael happened to be Abraham's 1st son by another woman, Sarah's handmaid, Hagar, That is said that he went through the marriage ritual with her.  This sounds like a soap, and is as complicated as today's series.  Ishmael was about 13 years old when Isaac was born, and was jealous of him.  Ishmael didn't treat the new baby kindly, then or later, and it got so bad that Sarah  told Abraham that they had to leave, and they did.               

    Hagar and Ishmael lived in the town of Paran in Negev, land Israelites had gone through after leaving Mt. Sinai.  I hope it had some oasis in it at that time;  pretty sad looking now.  

 They lived in Paran.  However, when Abraham died, Ishmael joined his brother Isaac in burying him.  The Wilderness of Paran was a large desert region in biblical times located in the central Sinai Peninsula, between the Sinai desert and Palestine, and west of the Arabah valley. It's shown on Bible maps in the area of modern-day Egypt and Israel. The region was significant as the desert where Ishmael lived and later as a stop during the Israelites' exodus from Egypt. 

Ishmael had a daughter who married  Esau.  It is this man, Ishmael, who traditionally is called the ancestor of the Arab peoples. 

Arabs are a Semitic people like the Jews, of course.  The lived on the Arabian peninsula and regions close by but after Mohammad was born (570-632) and was known for his creation of Islam by conquering the greater part of the "civilized" world.  

What are Semites?  We both come from SHEM, one of the 3 sons of Noah.  Abraham came from this line.  So do we.  We speak languages similar to Hebrew, so we have some similar words in Arabic and Hebrew, enough to show we have a connection!    

 
       Twins were born in the family of Issac and Rebekah.  They were named  Jacob and  Esau.  This was recorded by Moses who was born in 1391BCE and died in 1271BCE and wrote this after he was 80 years old, so that must have been about 1310 BCE while on the Exodus.  He had a chance to speak to all the elders of each tribe then, and take down all the events of his people.  Eventually this was all placed in 5 books that start off our Torah, or Old Testament as many others call it, called THE FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES.

Now Issac was fond of  his 1st born, Esau, but Rebekah liked Isaac much more, and helped him receive Isaac's blessing, which deprived Esau and many things.  They parted, when Esau was ready to kill Issac causing him to flee to the city of Haran.  But he returned to his family 20 some years later and tried to make up with Esau, but it didn't work. Jacob went through some tests of G-d, and his name changes to Israel.  The story is written to symbolize back then the relationship between the 2 nations, and how they developed this lifelong hostility.                          

Moses was literate. This took place 3,335 years ago.   His history was of being a Prince of Egypt son of a daughter of the Pharaoh (unnamed) who was educated along with the other princes of Egypt in reading and writing, and evidently geography as well.  He also learned what a prince must know about an army.     

This sounds impossible, doesn't it, but scientist say that we, homo sapiens (mankind) , have been around for the past 200,000 to 300,000 years, so Isaac's family were quite the modern one for his day.  

Think of Thanksgiving and the Pilgrims.  The  USA was created in 1776; 249 years ago and they looked and were quite different from  us today in several ways.  249 years ago was a long time ago. 

This split between Jews and Arabs has been going on ever since.  Yet they were said to be related to each other.

Scientists tell us that the men are from the same branch. 

The Abrahamic Accords are trying to bring all of them together.  

Please send this onto any Hamas member you know.  

 The most common Y-chromosome haplogroup among Arabs is Haplogroup J1, which is particularly dominant in the Arabian Peninsula and its subclades are widespread in other Arab populations. Other haplogroups, such as J2, are also common, especially among Arabs from the Levant. 

The most common Jewish Y haplogroups are Haplogroup J (including J1 and J2) and Haplogroup R (particularly R1b and R1a). Haplogroup J is prevalent in the Middle East, while R is common in Europe, suggesting both Middle Eastern origins and a European component in Jewish populations. The specific frequency of each haplogroup can vary between different Jewish communities, such as Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews.                                   

Women have mt haplogroup and are harder to follow.  The maternal gene pool of Arab populations is diverse and varies by region due to different migration patterns and historical gene flows. The common mitochondrial (mtDNA) haplogroups among Arab females include a diverse mix of West Eurasian and African lineages, with R0a (specifically pre-HV1/R0a1) being the most prevalent in the Arabian Peninsula, followed by various subclades of J, H, and U.

• R0a (pre-HV1/R0a1): This is the most frequent and diverse haplogroup found in Saudi Arabia and the Arabian Peninsula, accounting for a substantial percentage of maternal lineages (e.g., 18% in one Saudi study). Its presence predates the Neolithic period in the region. In summary, no single mtDNA haplogroup defines all Arab women due to a complex genetic history involving ancient migrations and continuous gene flow. Instead, several haplogroups of West Eurasian and African origin are commonly found, with R0a often being the most prominent in the Arabian core region. 
• Jewish women tell a different history.  The most common mitochondrial (mt) haplogroup for Jewish females is Haplogroup K, particularly within the Ashkenazi Jewish population. About 33% of Ashkenazi Jews belong to Haplogroup K, with specific subclades like K1a1b1a and K1a9 being especially common, representing a significant portion of this group. 12 most prevalent mtDNA haplogroups in Ashkenazi Jews, i.e., K1, K2, U (non-K), H, V, J1, J2, T, N1b, I, X, W
• Update: 11/7/25 at 5:09am
• Resource:
• https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2386827/
• https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1810519/#:~:text=A%20study%20of%20115%20Yemeni,based%20on%20255%20HVSI%20sequences.

 

 

 

  

We Argued With G-d

 Nadene Goldfoot                                                 

                    Abraham and Lot, his nephew
      Remember the story of Lot's wife being turned into a pillar of salt?  The story of Lot’s wife being turned into a pillar of salt is found in the Old Testament book of Genesis, specifically in Genesis 19. To understand why this happened, we need to explore the context of the events leading up to this incident, the significance of salt in biblical symbolism, and the lessons that can be drawn from this narrative.  

• The victorious coalition of four kings from the East captured Lot and looted the city of Sodom, where Lot lived. The four kings were Amraphel of Shinar, Arioch of Ellasar, Chedorlaomer of Elam, and Tidal of Goiim.

Abraham (b: c.1948 BCE)  had a brother, Haran and Lot was his son.  He went with Abraham from Aram-Naharaim to Canaan.  While on the trek, their shepherds argued with each other over pasture land, and they all separated.  Lot settled in Sodom (you know, Sodom and Gemmora?) He was captured by 5 kings but was rescued by Abraham. The defeated coalition of five kings included the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah, who had previously rebelled against Chedorlaomer. 

Lot had his escape from Sodom, and was warned not to look back.  Lot's wife did, anyway, and she was turned into a pillar of salt.  

• Abraham arguing for Sodom: In the Book of Genesis, Abraham directly challenges God's plan to destroy the city of Sodom. He bargains with God, asking if he would spare the city for the sake of 50, then 45, then 40, then 30, then 20, and finally 10 righteous people.

The bargaining between God and Abraham for Sodom is found in Genesis 18:16-33. It was Abraham, not Lot, who pleaded with God, arguing that the city should not be destroyed if there were righteous people within it. The dialogue starts with Abraham asking if God will spare the city for 50 righteous people and, through his bargaining, reduces the number to 10, which is the final number mentioned in the negotiation.  . 

• The conduct of the people of Sodom was terrible and more than justified the Divine judgment of its corruption.  Lot had showed that his years with Abraham had ennobled him so much that although Sodom had made a mark on him, he had remained righteous, even heroically so.  Despite the mortal danger of being hospitable to visitors in the cruel environment of Sodom, Lot took the "men" into his home.  There they said they wanted to KNOW them, meaning they wanted to sodomize them.  (Rashi, Ibn Ezra)
  
      Where tribes turned into kingdoms; Ammon and Moab

Lot also had something terrible happen to him.  Evidently he and his daughters , then grown-up were in an isolated place for a long stretch and the girls gave up hope of ever meeting a man and having children.  They decided their father would have to father their possible children, so they got him drunk and the inevitable happened.  Two sons were the result;  Ammon and Moab.  This happened a good 4,000 +years ago. They became our distant cousins; now no longer in existence. 

This shows me that if Lot could argue with G-d, then so can we under certain circumstances;  like standing up for  the Jewish people who lived in Skogie, Illinois when the Nazis came and berated them with their presence. However, I'm sure that many Holocaust victims did this as well, asking G-d for their lives or the lives of their family, and G-d didn't reply.  One must remember that Abraham asked;  not Lot. Even G-d knows when to bend his own rules once in a while.  We are not robots only able to follow what directions are fed into us.  We had minds.   

Now, since the Holocaust, we are asking again to save our people.  Let us hope we will be and are worthy enough as a human to be heard.      

Resource:

The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia

The Bible (Tanach)-the Stone Edition, ArtScroll Series by Me'sorah Publications, Ltd.  

 

Why Hebron Is So Important to Jews

by Nadene Goldfoot

In the West Bank lies the town of Hebron, where about 500 Jewish settlers live among 160,000 Palestinians today. Just recently Peace Now Israelis of about 200 protesters were there. Even they may not know of the importance of this town to those who chose to live there.

Our ancestor, Abraham, bought a plot of land which had the Cave of Machpelah so that he could bury his wife, Sarah. This came to be called Hebron. Joshua assigned Hebron to Caleb, and it became a levitical city and a city of refuge. King David reigned there for seven and a half years before moving the capital to Jerusalem.

In 1100 CE the crusaders captured the city and expelled the Jews.
By 1260 through 1517 the Mamluks, who were Muslims, expelled the Crusaders from Palestine and made Hebron their capital, and the Jewish settlement was once again restored. Relations with the Muslims were not great. For instance, they decreed that Jews could not enter Me’arat Hamachpelah and could only go up the first seven steps outside. This was strictly enforced until the liberation of Hebron in 1967. Jews had been treated as Dhimmi , a lower caste group of people who were treated badly.

A Jewish community continued in Hebron in the Byzantine Period and under Arab rule. The modern city is situated somewhat to the east of the historical location and was one of the Jews' four sacred towns. The other towns were Jerusalem, Tiberias and Safed where I have lived. By 1890 there were 1,500 people living there who had a yeshivot and other religious schools. The great Lithuanian yeshivah of Slobodka was transferred to Hebron in 1925.

On the 24th of August, 1929, the Arabs massacred sixty-nine of the 700 Jews living in the town and the survivors fled. It was a brutal massacre. Included in the dead were yeshivah students from New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Memphis, Canada and Lithuania as well is Israeli born people. About 35 Jewish families returned in 1931. They were threatened by the Arabs and the British showed their dissatisfaction.

Jews heard on the day before the massacre rumors of anticipated riots, but they believed nothing bad would happen to them. They thought they were friends of the Arabs based on the fact that they had years of friendship and shared experiences. Besides that, the Arab governor of Hebron, Abdullah Kardos, had promised the Jews that they would not be harmed. The members of the yishuv actually thought that the British would protect them, also. The leaders of the Jewish community decided to bring in Jews on the outlying community closer to the city center for protection just to be on the safe side.

At 2:30 that Friday afternoon a young Arab on a bicycle, returning from Jerusalem, called out to his fellow Arabs that Jews were murdering thousands of Arabs in Jerusalem. Other Arabs then followed him in cars and also shouted that Jews were attacking Arabs.. What had been happening was that the Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al Husseini, who later would offer help to Hitler, had been preaching strongly against the Jews. The massacre began. Arab mobs with axes, knives and iron bars screamed, "Kill the Jews!"

Then Arab riots occurred again in 1936 which caused all the Jews to leave again.
It’s population in 1967 was 38,310. After the Six-Day War of 1967, a number of Jews again settled in Hebron, establishing the Kiryat Arba quarter east of the city. There were 3,700 people there in 1988.

There have been other attacks on the Jews. One of many was in 1993. A father and son were murdered in a drive-by shooting, the first victims of terror following the signing of the Oslo accords.
The Jews who live in Hebron have a reverence of the Judea-Samaria (West Bank area) and especially the town of Hebron, loving the area for it’s historical significance. Jews were there before the Muslims. They don’t like the way their ancestors were forced out of the area by massacres and intend to stay there, though it has been a dangerous area. They are reclaiming this land and reminding people that it is a part of Israel now. They have a right to live there.

The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
The Story of Hebron: by Toby Greenwald (75 years from Tarpat in commemoration of the Hebron Massacre of 1929.

Oregonian Newspaper 6/6/2007 page A9