Shalom Greater Philadelphia ZOA Members, Friends and Supporters of Israel,

We at Greater Philadelphia ZOA are as concerned and disturbed about BDS as each of you are, and we want to take steps that will have a long-term impact on countering and defeating this evil movement. In addition to our ongoing activities to combat this latest scourge meant to harm Israelis and the Jewish people, we want to have a series of positive, pro-active events to take on each element of BDS: promoting buying rather than boycotts; investing rather than divesting; supporting rather than sanctioning. The first of these events is scheduled for December 4: A “Buy Israel” Israel Food, Crafts and Judaica Festival that will encourage the purchasing of goods made or grown in Israel on that day and as a permanent practice for everyone who cares about Israel. While the event is nearly two months away, we need your help now to make the event the great success that it needs to be. If you have time to do Web research and make calls in the next week, please call our Office at 610-660-9466.

Meanwhile: If you came to and enjoyed the recent Greater Philadelphia ZOA Gala (video of the award-presentations ceremony is on You Tube – see information below as well as the link to peruse our Gala Tribute Book & Ad Journal), you will also enjoy and benefit from National ZOA’s Justice Louis D. Brandeis Award Dinner. Join many Zionists from the Greater Philadelphia area who attend this event every year at the Brandeis Dinner this year. See details on the honorees and speakers below. There are a limited number of deep discounts for ZOA members from our area, as well as for students and young professionals – but you must act quickly to get these special rates. Call our Office for details.

Get the New Year Off to a Good Start:
Join ZOA, Renew Your Membership or Introduce a Friend or Relative to ZOA

If you are already a member, please make sure your annual dues are up-to-date. If you are not sure, contact us and we will check and let you know. It may be time to renew your membership.

You can also invite your friends or relatives to join Philadelphia ZOA, and additionally, you can purchase a gift membership for a loved one.

You can join or renew online by clicking the donate/join tab above. Or you can call us at: 610-660-9466.

We value each and every member!

 

 

 

 

Buy Your Tickets Today:

Coming Up:

Save the Date! Help Out Now!

 

 

Watch the Greater Philadelphia ZOA Gala award presentations, speeches, prayers and songs on You Tube. If you were there, enjoy this great evening again. If you were not there, here is an opportunity learn from and be inspired by those who participated in this great event!

Direct link: YouTube: https://youtu.be/Che3AHND_1w

Greater Philadelphia ZOA’s 2016 Gala Tribute Book & Ad Journal Is Now Available on the Web!

Our 2016 Gala Tribute Book and Ad Journal is now available on-line. It includes bios of our honorees, messages from ZOA leadership, letters of support from elected officials, heartfelt notices congratulating those who received awards, and advertisements from a variety of local and national businesses, service-providers, professionals and organizations.

Please check out this souvenir from our most significant event of the year. Just click the copy of the front cover.

Also: Please patronize the businesses, service-providers and professionals who support us — and when you do, be sure to let them know that you saw their ad in our book.

Thank you!

If you would like to include your business or service in our 2017 book, please call us at 610-660-9466.

https://www.scribd.com/document/326559062/Gala-2016-Book-for-Internet

Also of Interest:

Greater Philadelphia ZOA Board Members To Be Honored

Our friends at Aish  Philadelphia are honoring Greater Philadelphia ZOA Board Members Jonathan and Bonnie Pontell and two other couples at their annual gala on Nov. 22. The Pontells are richly deserving of this recognition. There are opportunities to support the honoring of the Pontells by attending the Aish Gala or by purchasing an ad in the tribute book. For details, click the link below

 

 

Aish Gala: http://www.aishphila.com/2011/event.php?id=360

 

 

Greater Philadelphia ZOA needs volunteers to do research and/or make calls. These tasks can be done from your home or office. If you have some time you can lend us, please call our Office: 610-660-9466. Thank you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Shalom ZOA Members, Friends and Supporters of Israel,

We are still delighting in the universally positive comments and feedback we have been receiving in the aftermath of our annual Gala, which took place last week. Thank you all for your kind compliments.

For those of you who were not able to attend the event, we are truly sorry you could not make it there for whatever reason. We hope you will be able to attend next year’s Gala.

Even for those of you who attended, from your seats you likely were not able to see the details of each of the awards that we presented. The collage below displays each special award that is a token of our appreciation to each of our special honorees.

We hope that by next Friday, video of the Gala awards presentations and acceptance speeches, and the songs, other remarks and prayers that were part of this grand evening will be available on our Youtube channel.

Out & About:

Greater Philadelphia ZOA Executive Director Steve Feldman will be discussing “Effective Strategic Advocacy” at brunch sponsored by the Men’s Club of Congregation Beth El Ner Tamid this Sunday at 9:30 a.m. at the synagogue, 715 Paxon Hollow Rd, Broomall. For tickets and reservations, contact the synagogue at [email protected] or (610) 356-8700.

Upcoming Events:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Brandeis Dinner takes place at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Manhattan.

Special rates for students, young professionals and Philadelphia-area ZOA Members. Call 610-660-9466.

Exhibitors and merchants wanted. Call 610-660-9466.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Shalom ZOA Members, Friends and Supporters of Israel,

Whatever the weather was outside yesterday evening, inside the Hilton Philadelphia City Avenue there was great warmth; whatever amount of electricity flowed through the circuits throughout the hotel, it was surpassed by the electricity that flowed through the air inside two ballrooms there as we held our 2016 Gala, honoring Andrew C. McCarthy, Rabbi Steven Saks, Amy and Eric Clayman and Congressman Mike Fitzpatrick.

It truly was as billed: an evening of uplifting and enlightening speeches and great Patriotism, Zionism, and an outpouring of love for America and Israel from our honorees, and other Gala participants Morton Klein, Dom Giordano, Allen L. Rothenberg and Cantor Adam Gilbert, plus Rabbi Aaron Krupnick and Rabbi Isaac Entin, and Lee Bender and Kevin Ross.

Enjoy some photos below courtesy of Richard Chaitt below. In about a week we hope to have video of the award presentations and acceptance speeches available, as well as more photos.

We are extremely grateful to the businesses, professionals and service-providers, and foundations, families and individuals who supported the Gala and our organization via our Tribute Book and Ad Journal, and to all who purchased tickets and attended the Gala. Please patronize our advertisers. We will email and have on our Web site shortly a copy of the Gala Tribute Book and Ad Journal.

Special thanks are in order to those who were an integral part of the event: Office staff Linda Rosen and Beth-Ellen Kroope, lay leaders Lee Bender, Heather Berman, Howard Katzoff and Len Getz, and the many, many volunteers who worked diligently in the months and weeks leading up the Gala, and throughout the day yesterday.

Coming Up Soon: Greater Philadelphia ZOA’s Next Event:

Save the Date:

We Never Left: The Jews’ Continuous Presence in the Land of Israel

By Lee S. Bender and Jerome R. Verlin

Early in his first term, President Obama told the whole world in his speech from Cairo: “It is easy to point fingers — for Palestinians to point to the displacement brought by Israel’s founding.”

 

This was gravely misleading.

 

Israel was not “created and founded,” artificially and out-of-the-blue, in 1948 — but rather, Israel re-attained its independence that year as the natural fruition into statehood of the once-sovereign homeland of the Jewish people, who — over almost two millennia of continuous foreign invader and empire rule — never deserted that home, despite all attempts to eradicate them.

 

And that is the case we must make.

 

The argument for Israel is typically made on the legal side — the Balfour Declaration, the San Remo Conference of 1920, the Palestine Mandate, UN Security Council Resolution 242. These are critical, yes, but not enough to counter the pervasive, but wholly false, sentiment that Jews stole Arab land.

 

Many Americans, both hostile and friendly to the Jewish homeland, wrongly believe that “the Romans exiled the Jews.” This shows how deep-seated and widespread this vast misperception of an almost-2,000-year separation of Jews from the land of Israel is among the American public.

 

For example, former President Carter in the “Historical Chronology” of his book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, writes: “135 [CE]: Romans suppress a Jewish revolt, killing or forcing almost all Jews of Judaea into exile.” President Carter’s introductory “Palestine Historical Chronology” doesn’t mention Jews again until 1917, suggesting a Jewish absence of 1,782 years.

Read the remainder of the article at: https://www.algemeiner.com/2016/09/11/we-never-left-the-jews-continuous-presence-in-the-land-of-israel/