February 2008
Torah Riddles and Records
Language: English
Year of Publication: 2007
One book which is very popular is the “Guinness Book of Records” and updated editions of it are published each year. This subject of records fascinates many people and I am one of them. But why limit this sort of book to non-Jewish subjects. Let’s also make such a book on Torah subjects!
Thus in 1976, whilst I was in Liverpool, I decided to write a “Quiz on Torah records (for under-14s)”. The quiz comprised ten questions. Examples of the questions were: “Name one Beracha which is said only once a year? What is the latest time for the termination of Shabbat on Merseyside in 5736? Which single Sidra has the most verses? This quiz appeared in the “Liverpool Jewish Gazette” in March of that year.
Also whilst in Liverpool, I began to compile further questions on Torah records on the basis of subjects. An example was on “Amidot” – the longest, the shortest, the longest weekday, the shortest weekday, the longest Mussaf, the shortest Mussaf, the least Berachot and the most Berachot. After each question, I wrote the answer. I cannot recollect these ever being published. I also starting compiling statistics to enable me to determine records, such as how many verses there are in each Sidra and facts connected with the Jewish calendar. However, it seems that I did nothing further on this subject for more than twenty years – it just remained as my handwritten notes in an envelope in my cupboard!
About the year 2000 I returned to this subject and compiled about a dozen questions and answers on Torah riddles and records, and, for some of the questions, a very minimal explanation and references. About that time, I saw on the Internet under the title “Yiddle Riddle” a collection of riddles submitted by different people to Ohr Someyach Institutions in Jerusalem.
I decided at about that period that there was indeed an interest in this subject and I thus went on compiling such riddles and records. Fresh ones would suddenly come into my mind at all times of the day and night, and I soon realised that if I did not write them down immediately, I would forget them. When this occurred on Shabbat, I had to hope that I would not forget them before Havdalah!
Almost all the questions, were on Halachah, connected in some way with the Orach Chaim section of the Shulchan Aruch. Initially I put all these questions on my computer in groups of about a dozen, in the form of Q. (question) and A. (answer) and, in some cases, a minimal explanation, but in others, none. I reached about 250 such questions and decided that I would make a book of them I could have gone on almost indefinitely, but as I wrote at the end of the book, “One can go on and on composing questions such as these – but as with all things, one has to stop somewhere!”
In a subject such as this, where the questions have been thought out over a considerable period of time, one can easily have duplication of the same question. I therefore went over all the questions several times and indeed discovered that there had been a few cases of duplication, which I then eliminated. I also tried to phrase each question in such a way for there to be only one answer, but I could not exclude the possibility of alternative answers. To help avoid this possibility, I would sometimes include a few words in smaller print in brackets. An example would be: “When (not including Friday or Shabbat) does one not say “Avinu Malkeinu” at Minchah on Rosh Hashanah?”
To give the questions a “personal touch,” I would, when appropriate, try and phrase them incorporating the first name of a person, such as, “When did Yankel shave 2 days before Lag b’Omer?”
The questions consisted of “riddles” such as “When did Malachi make a point of not sleeping during the Rav’s derashah or shiur in the Shul?” and “records” such as “What is the shortest leining read during the year?” There were also a few “catch questions” such as “How many ‘Avinu Malkeinu’s are there?” Answer: One - Judaism is a monotheistic religion. The questions were not arranged by subjects but given in a completely random order.
I felt that an improvement could definitely be made if I were after each answer, add an explanation of more than just a few words and also always give the references in the Rabbinical literature for the information. I tried to keep the explanations to an average of about five lines, although in some cases it was necessary for it to be much longer.
I strived to give the references for the information from books which would readily be found in many Jewish households, such as a Chumash or a Mishnah Berurah. In some cases the source was perfectly obvious, such as “Siddur – Shacharit”, but I still put it in, so as to keep a uniform style throughout the book. There were a few cases where the answer was to be found in a less readily available book, such as the commentary to the Siddur of the Vilna Gaon, or additions to the Shulchan Aruch Harav, and anyone who wanted to study the source would very likely have to go to a Torah library; answers found in these books would be to questions such as why some people do not sing “Tzur Mishelo” at the Shabbat meals, or to the wearing of a Tallit at the Ma’ariv service after Yom Kippur.
As I have already said, I decided that there would be a random order to the questions. To ensure this, I went through the questions to ensure that there were no consecutive questions on the same subject, such as two questions on Shabbat or on Tefillah which followed one after the other.
I had a problem with the layout. I wanted that a particular question, together with its answer, explanation and source would be on the same page and not overlap on to the next page. Since different questions did not have the same length, I had to do a further juggling with the order of the questions to achieve this. There are between two to four questions on each page.
In the course of this book, I utilized well over 200 Hebrew expressions, such as “Eruv” or “Masechet” or Anglicised Yiddish expressions such as “Toiveling” or “Leining”. I had stated at the beginning of the book under the heading “Please read this first!” – (this expression is more inviting than “Introduction”!) - that this book was “intended for people of diverse ages, of diverse interests and of diverse background knowledge.” Thus I envisaged that some of the readers would easily understand these expressions, whilst others would be lost. In order not to be cumbersome and explain these expressions on the spot, I added a “glossary” at the end of the book and wrote at the bottom of each page of the book “Glossary of Hebrew terms at end of book.”
Naturally I intended that this book be used and not just stored in a bookcase gathering dust! I therefore made suggestions how one could use this book – namely, either as a quiz book to groups of pupils or adults, or as a self-testing book and to ensure that one does not “cheat”, by first covering up the answers!
I sent copies of this book to, in addition to a number of libraries, to English speaking Ba’alei Teshuvah Yeshivot and to “Torah Tidbits” of the OU. A copy can also be found on my website.
Israel’s Title to and the Legality of Jewish Settlement in Hebron
Language: English
Year of Publication: 2007
It was in March 2007 that I received an e-mail from the Jewish Community of Hebron under the heading “An international students’ competition – The Occupation of Hebron: Legal Aspects.” In this e-mail they enclosed a document which called for international competition dealing with “the Occupation of Hebron,” marking “the 40th anniversary of the Israeli occupation of the ‘palestinian’ territories.” The e-mail suggested that the recipients may wish to “enter the competition and write about the Arab occupation of Eretz Yisrael in general, and more specifically, Hebron.” They further suggested that the recipients write about the Muslims preventing Jews and Christians from entering the Cave of Machpelah for 700 years, the destruction of both the Jewish cemetery in Hebron and the Avraham Avinu Synagogue, and the 1929 massacre.
The enclosed document stated that this competition was sponsored by “the International Law Division at the Law School, the College of Management Academic Studies in Israel, in cooperation with the Association for Civil Rights in Israel and the International Review of the Red Cross.” This international competition was “open to all law students world-wide” and focused on “legal aspects of the 40 year old Israeli occupation of Hebron.” After a few lines of the well-known clichés of “500 settlers” residing in the “home to around 150,000 Palestinians” and the “Israeli policies” to “‘de-Palestinization’ of the area, ” the document concluded, “The (il)legality of theses policies is the broad subject of the competition.” [Brackets around (il) in the original].
I immediately decided to enter this competition. Initially I intended the call my article just “The Legality of Jewish Settlement in Hebron” but also include a large amount of background material. However, after I had written most of the draft of the paper, I decided that it would be more appropriate to entitle it “Israel’s Title to and the Legality of Jewish Settlement in Hebron.”
I had in the past written a number of papers and booklets from where I could extract information and sources. The main one was a paper I had written and had had published in the early 1970s. It was on the International Legal status of Judea and Samaria (popularly called by the world the “West Bank”) and Gaza. I carefully went over this paper of mine, rechecking all the references, removing those which came from just newspapers and making some corrections. Some of the references were only secondary sources and I went to the Jewish National Library in Jerusalem to look up the primary sources. After locating some further primary material, including some judgments from the International Court of Justice, which had been scanned on to the Internet, I was able to write the first part of my paper. This dealt with the international legal status of Judea, Samaria and Gaza, and showed that Israel had a greater right to these areas than any other country in the world and furthermore, that the entire country of (Trans)jordan is to this very day, of doubtful legality.
I should stress that throughout preparing this paper, I made it an important aim to do the maximum to locate the primary sources and not rely on secondary ones. Many of the primary sources were from debates and resolutions of the United Nations General Assembly and Security Council and also of the League of Nations. On the balcony of the General Reading Room at the Jewish National Library, they have all these in bound volumes and, there is also a room adjoining this Reading Room with additional material. I found a lot of the primary material that I required for this paper in these volumes, which I accordingly photocopied. I also found a lot of scanned material on United Nations debates and resolutions on the Internet.
It has almost reached the state where every school boy will tell you that “Resolution 242” states that Israel must withdraw to the pre Six Day War lines. The only problem is that this is incorrect and I devoted several pages in my paper showing this distortion of Resolution 242. To do this, I quoted numerous authoritative sources, which included the statements of those who phrased this resolution. I furthermore brought the opinions of experts and international law rulings to resolve the apparent contradiction in this resolution between the decisive English text and the translated French text,; it is not imaginable the trouble that this little French word “des” caused! The meaning of the words “secure and recognized boundaries” in this Resolution also merited a detailed discussion. For an actual map of “secure” borders, I quoted from the memorandum (marked “secret” and later disclosed by the “Wall Street Journal”) of the Chairman of the American Joint Chiefs of Staff, Earle Wheeler, which gave the “minimum territory needed by Israel for defensive purposes” and this included most of Judea and Samaria. Every President of the United States needs to be shown this map by the Israeli government, but I doubt if an Israeli Prime Minister ever will!
Someone recently wrote that one of the “Seven Wonders of the Modern World” was how the Arabs had over the course of just a few years created a history of a “Palestinian people” which extended back for thousands of years! One section of my paper was to show using various sources including a British Government handbook, the Esco Report and the statements of several prominent Arabs, that all this was a complete fabrication.
One of these Arab sources was an interview given in the Dutch paper “Trouw” by an Arab spokesman where he freely admitted that the existence of a separate “Palestinian identity is there only for tactical reasons”. Someone had scanned the original article in Dutch and put it on the Internet. I managed to download it and in a footnote in my paper, quoted in the original Dutch, the appropriate part of the text. Unfortunately, a few of the letters in the Dutch text were not to clear and not knowing any Dutch was not sure whether I had transcribed them accurately. However in the Jewish National Library there is a Dutch-English dictionary and going over the text word by word I was able to make any necessary corrections.
I discovered that two Arab professors in their evidence before the “Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry” held in 1946 had testified that “there is no such thing as Palestine in history, absolutely not”. I saw from the Jewish National Library catalogue that they had on microfiche the evidence given before this Committee. I ordered it from their depositary and went through all the microfiches but I could not find the evidence of these two professors. Further research led me to learn that they had given their evidence in Washington, but the microfiches only contained the evidence taken in Jerusalem. However I remembered that many years before, (when researching a completely different subject), I had found the transcripts of the evidence given to this Committee in Washington, at the Central Zionist Archives. I therefore went there and with no difficult found what I required.
One should always do one’s best and try and verify that what one reads in a secondary source is in fact accurate. I had an example of this regarding an article I had read, in which it claimed that an Arab giving evidence before the Peel Commission in 1936 had said “There is no such country as Palestine.” However I went through his evidence carefully several times and could find no evidence of such a statement. In fact from the content of his evidence, I could see no possibility of this Arab saying this.
Since the subject of this competition was on (in the sponsors own words) “occupied Hebron” and on Jewish settlement there, I wanted to show that Jewish settlement there did not begin in 1967, but extended back many thousands of years, and what is more, well before there were any Moslems in the world. I found the Hebrew book “Sefer Hevron” very valuable for this and I even brought down something found in the Cairo Genizah that even during part of the period when the Crusaders ruled over Eretz Yisrael and there were barely any Jews there, there were indeed some Jews living in Hebron.
I also required sources which specifically spoke of the buildings in Hebron which had been built by Jews and lived in by them till the massacres of 1929. On this, in addition to “Sefer Hevron” and the “Encyclopedia Judaica”, I found two sources. One was a book originally written in Russian by a young Russian immigrant, Yehuda Novoselsky, who had lived in Kiryat Arba. Sadly, he died soon afterwards. Later this book was translated into English. The other source, I found on the Internet, had been put out by the International Sephardic Leadership Council.
For the legality of Jewish settlement in Hebron (and indeed anywhere else in Judea and Samaria) I used three tracks, two of which I discussed in detail. The first was disproving the oft repeated and thus accepted statement that such Jewish settlement contravened the Fourth Geneva Convention. For this, I found a lot of information on the Internet. In addition to the text of this Geneva Convention, there was the official commentary on it by the International Committee of the Red Cross. This commentary gives sources for its information, but these sources do not appear on the Internet. However what I did find on the Internet was that a Sue Zago who worked in a University Law Library in Boston had several years earlier put in a request on the Internet for someone to supply these sources. I telephoned Sue Zago and she said that she now had the document I required and I should send her an e-mail requesting the particular part I required. She answered that she had only had the French text – everything the Red Cross writes is in both English and French – and she sent me by post what I requested, together with a note “I do hope that this proves to be helpful.” Unfortunately, however I found that it did not add any information for my research.
The second track was, that Jews still had the right under the terms of the Palestine Mandate to settle anywhere in Judea and Samaria. The main proponent putting forward this had been the former American Assistant Under-Secretary of State, Professor Eugene Rostow. In August 1991, which was the time when the then President George Bush had tried to link loan guarantees to not settling Russian Olim in Judea and Samaria, I had written a “Letter to the Editor” which had appeared in the “Jerusalem Post”, quoting Rostow, and thus what Bush was doing was illegal and he should therefore be brought on trial!
The third track which I only briefly mentioned was the general one, in which excluding any specific group from settling in a particular place in the world was apartheid and contravened an international convention.
After carefully re-checking all the references, I wrote up my paper and prepared to send it up for this competition. The rules gave an upper limit of 10,000 words for the paper. I realised that I was getting close to this number. Fortunately one can from the computer get a word count and I kept referring to it. It was not clear whether this upper limit was with or without the footnotes. I conveniently took the view that the count could be made without the footnotes!
The competition was open to “all law students world wide”. It did not say that they had to be registered at a Law School. Despite this, I did not want to give any false impression of my status and so on 17 June 2007, I sent an accompanying letter in which I clearly wrote “I wish to point out that I am not a ‘law student’ at any Law School or University. However, I consider myself a ‘law student’ in the sense that I study various branches of law, in particular Jewish Religious Law, privately and not for any examination or qualification, and have written and published a fair number of papers on the subject.”
At the same time, I sent by e-mail a copy to David Wilder, the English spokesman for the Hebron Jewish Community, who had originally suggested that we submit a paper for this competition. Together with my paper I sent him a letter, “As suggested in your e-mail of 14 March, I have researched and written a paper for the competition on ‘40 years occupation of Hebron’. If you wish to use it in its ENTIRETY, you are welcome to do so. If however you wish to use extracts or make any changes, please be in contact with me first.” I made this proviso, since I know from experience that extracts or changes made without the knowledge of the author can alter the whole meaning and objective of any paper. I also sent a copy of the paper to the lawyer and former Knesset member Elyakim Haetzni, who I know is very interested in this subject.
On 26 June, I received an e-mail from the organizers of this competition. “Without any reference to the title or content of the paper which you have submitted to our review, I'm afraid I have to inform you that it will not be possible to accept your application for participation in our international competition as is. Submissions to the competition are accepted on condition that we are informed of the name of the academic institution in which the student is conducting her/his studies, and at which stage of their studies they are currently in. This information needs to be supported with corresponding documentation. In order for your submission to eligible (sic), we need you to provide us with a certification from a University in which you are currently a student (also stating the program of your studies) … Scholars and other people who do not qualify as Law Students and therefore are not able to participate in our competition are kindly suggested to turn their suggested papers to other legal publications.”
I must admit that I was not surprised at this answer. As I have already said. I behaved completely honestly and did not want to say who I was not, or to be the “ghost-writer” for some law student. However it would have been interesting for them to have received a paper such as this from a student at an acceptable “academic institution”!
The Secular Zionist Agenda for a Jewish State
Language: English
Date of Publication: 2007
It was several decades ago that I purchased the book “The Holocaust Victims Accuse” written by Reb Moshe Shonfeld. This book related, citing many references, how the secular Zionists did next to nothing during the Second World War to save Jews from the Holocaust. They had their own agenda at the time.
In July 2004, an article appeared in the English edition of Yated Ne’eman entitled “Collaboration Between the Chareidim and the Zionists During the Holocaust” (which showed there wasn’t!) It referred to a book in Hebrew by Rabbi Tzvi Weinman entitled “VeDa Ma Shetoshiv” (Know How to Answer). This book was only obtainable directly from the author. I suggested that the local library in Kiryat Arba purchase it and I would collect it for them. I accordingly went to Weinman’s office (he is a Rabbinical pleader) in Rehov Ben Yehudah in Jerusalem and purchased a copy of this book for the local library. A section of this book deals with the subject discussed by Moshe Shonfeld.
I also found in the Jewish National Library and Kiryat Arba Municipal Library, further books and articles on this subject, such as Abraham Fuchs’ “The Unheeded Cry”, a paper by Aryeh Morgenstern on the “Rescue Committee”, a paper by Arik Kochbi and some books by David Kranzler.
Such material was of course only secondary or even tertiary sources of the statements made by the secular Zionist leaders. Furthermore, it was rare for these books to give a facsimile of an original source.
I therefore I decided to write a paper on this subject. The novelty would be that I would only quote the statements of a secular Zionist leader if I had a photocopy of the original document in my possession, and in addition, I would give a facsimile of the relevant part of the original source. If I did not have such a document, I would omit such a source completely. As we shall see, this meant that many important alleged statements made by secular Zionists did not appear in my paper.
An example of this is the letter written by Nathan Schwalb, who was the Jewish Agency’s representative in Switzerland, in which he stated “And so it would be foolish and even impertinent on our side to ask the nations whose blood is being spilled for permission to send their money to the land of their enemies in order to protect our own blood. Because only through blood [of the Jews of the Diaspora] will the land be ours, As to yourselves – [members of his group] – you will get out and for this purpose I am providing you with black money by this courier.” This letter was in Hebrew but written with English characters. We know of its contents since Rabbi Michael Ber Weissmandel saw it and recorded its contents from memory in his book. However the original letter has disappeared – possibly it was intentionally destroyed. The archives of Schwalb which are at the Labour Movement Archives in Tel Aviv were until recently closed to the public. However, they have now been opened and I started to investigate how to travel to these Archives.
This letter is referred to by Abraham Fuchs in his book “The Unheeded Cry.” In December 2004, I contacted him and he said that he had searched for this letter in these archives but could not find it, and that neither could others who had searched. He added that should I every come across this letter, I should let him know. Fuchs felt that that one could not blame Schwalb too much for this letter. He was only about 30 years old at the time and was carrying out the policy of the Jewish Agency.
An infamous quote that many books attribute to Yitzchak Gruenbaum is that “One cow in Palestine is worth more than all the Jews of Palestine.” However, those bringing this quote don’t state a source, or, if they do, the quote does not appear in such a source. I therefore decided to ask a question on the Wikipedia Reference desk for the source of this quote. One person answered said he had searched via “Google Book Search” and had found a very similar quote in the book “Three Cities” by the Yiddish novelist Sholem Asch. He then added that “it’s possible that Greenbaum (sic) was quoting from the book.” As yet, I myself have found no evidence of Gruenbaum making that statement.
I found in a paper that Chaim Weizmann had, on the day following Kristallnacht, said that although one must do everything to save the Jews of Germany, it must not be at the expense of the main objective, namely Eretz Yisrael. This paper stated that this statement appeared in the newspaper “Davar” on 11 November 1938. I searched the microfilm of “Davar” in the Jewish National Library but could not find this quote. I accordingly wrote to the Weizmann Archives in February 2005, asking them “whether this quote is authentic and if so, where the original may be found.” They replied “I could not find the exact quotation, but it sound (sic) as Chaim Weizmann said it.”
Sometimes the reference for a quote was incorrectly given. An example was for the statement made by Ben-Gurion that “Our political future is more important than saving 2,900 Jews.” Several sources reported that it was to be found in Moshe Shertok’s (Sharett) diary entry for 18 November 1939. I first looked up this date in the printed edition of his diary, but this quote was not there; however there were dots in this entry, indicating an omission in the printed version. I therefore ordered the handwritten edition, which is now on a microfilm in the Central Zionist Archives – but again no luck. It then crossed my mind that maybe it appeared in Ben-Gurion’s diary for that date. However, I decided to check the diary entries for Shertok on the days before and after the 18 November and, lo and behold, I found it in the entry for 13 November! I therefore again ordered the microfilm of the diary and had the appropriate page photocopied.
Almost without exception, the various archives where the material I required was to be found, were cooperative and sent me copies of their material. On one occasion the archives asked if they could fax it to me. However there was a defect in the faxed copy and I asked them to post me a photocopy, which they did. The only case of a refusal was with an individual who had in his possession a copy of one document which I wanted. When I answered him what I wanted it for, he replied that he would not supply me with any document since I was in competition with him!
In Moshe Shonfeld’s book, he reproduced the first and last page of a letter which Henry Montor, the Executive Vice-Chairman of the United Jewish Appeal for Refugees, had sent Rabbi Baruch Rabinowitz on selective immigration to Eretz Yisrael, including the rejection of the Aliyah of old people. Unfortunately the page regarding this rejection was not reproduced.
I therefore, at the end of July 2004, began a search to locate a copy of this letter. I contacted his community in Hagerstown in Maryland where Rabinowitz had been the Rabbi. All they could give me was a telephone number in Israel. However this turned out to be an office in Kfar Saba, which had no connection whatsoever with my search! Somehow (I don’t remember how) I then received an e-mail from the Jewish Museum of Maryland which put me in touch with the “David Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies” where the “Baruch Rabinowitz Papers” are located. It would seem that from an obituary of Baruch written by this Institute, I discovered that Malka Robbins (Rabinowitz), the widow of Baruch, had lived in Elon Moreh. I therefore contacted Benny Katzover, a former Mayor of the Shomron Regional Council, who lives in Elon Moreh and he gave me her daughter’s telephone number, and using that, I finally succeeded in obtaining Malka’s telephone number, which was in Nokdim, a settlement of Gush Etzion. At the time she was abroad and only in November 2004 did I manage to speak to her. She said that she thought she had a copy of the Montor letter and she would look for it. However, she was unable to do so since soon after she broke her hand but she then informed me that she thinks that the original of that letter in the Jabotinsky Archives and I accordingly contacted them.
Finally I managed to receive copies of this letter from a number of the sources I had contacted. It was fortunate that I did, since I needed a copy as perfect as possible because I intended to reproduce it in my booklet. One of the copies I received had underlining’s under the passage I wanted. In another it was poorly photocopied particularly at that passage, and only one of the photocopies I received was satisfactory for my use.
Another chapter of my paper concerned Rabbi Dr. Solomon Schonfeld. He was involved with fights with the British secular Zionists who sabotaged his attempts to find refuge for Jews under Nazi occupation. There were several books which spoke about this fight, and the archives for his papers are in Southampton University. One particular document that I wanted was a telegram sent by the South African Zionists asking why there were visas to send refugee Rabbis to Mauritius and not Palestine – (due to the war and political situation it was Mauritius or nowhere!). Southampton University photocopied for me at no charge their catalogue of the Schonfeld papers. It was over one hundred pages long and included the names of thousands of children who were in the Kindertransports. They obviously realised that this catalogue might not be of much help for my research, since in an accompanying note they wrote, “I fear there may not be a great deal of relevance for you in this material, but enclose the section of the catalogue for your information.” They also sent me an order form which stated the conditions appertaining to obtaining photocopies from them. After going through this catalogue, I was able to inform them where I thought they would find this telegram. Unfortunately despite many letters and telephone calls between us, on and off for a period of two years, they could not locate it. I also on the off chance searched for it in the files of the South African Zionists at the Central Zionist Archives, but again, without success.
From various archives in Israel, I assembled a number of photocopies of relevant primary documents. I also, from the Jewish National Library newspaper microfilms and files assembled further material.
I was then in a position to write up my paper. The subjects included how the secular Zionists used their own priorities to issue the limited available immigration certificates to Eretz Yisrael; how their agenda took precedence over saving Jewish lives; how they tried to sabotage the Evian Conference which, if successful, would have given Jews a refuge in a number of countries to the endangered Jews of Europe; the refusal to give Zionist funds to rescue Jews; and how the British Secular Zionists also tried to sabotage rescue activities. I would, throughout this paper, show the contrast with Torah Jewry, who did their utmost to rescue all Jews at that period, irrespective of their political orientation or religiosity.
As I said above, the novelty of this paper was to show facsimiles of the relevant sections of the primary documents containing the letters and speeches of the Secular Zionists. In doing this, I utilized the heading and the relevant portions of the documents. In the case of a letter I would also include the signature of the writer. An asterisk after the number of the footnote informed the reader that a facsimile of the section of the document containing this quote would be found after the text part of the paper.
In the photocopy of the microfilm of Shertok’s diary, there was a line through the words I wanted to illustrate. However this was not a crossing out! This line appeared on every frame of the microfilm. Shertok himself had made a handwritten copy of this part of his diary and a printed copy has been published. Needless to say that in these two items, there is no line and I therefore also reproduced the relevant part of them in my paper.
Naturally, every file in the Central Zionist Archives has its “call number”. I noticed however, that with the files dealing with “rescue”, the same “call number” had been given for two different files, or a particular file had a different “call number” than had been quoted in various books and articles! On enquiry, I was told that the Central Zionist Archives had in the past changed the numbering of these files. However, I must say that I found this very confusing in my research and I am sure that other researchers will feel likewise.
My booklet was published in August 2007 and amongst those I sent copies to were some libraries, Malka Robbins, Tzvi Weinman and Abraham Fuchs. A copy of the text (without the facsimiles of the documents, due to limitations in the memory of my website) was put on to my site on the Internet.
In January 2008, I received by post from Eire, a booklet. A copy of my paper had been sent by Philip Power to Alan Shatter. (Via the Internet, I discovered Shatter was a member of the Dail Eireann, the lower house of the Irish Parliament.) Most of the front page of this booklet was a photograph of Shatter and this was followed by my entire paper, properly attributed to me. Power had written in a letter to Shatter, “I ... wondered if you would be so kind as to read the enclosed and give me your opinion.” As yet, I have heard nothing further on this.