Another Baltimore Petira

As has been well chronicled in the media, the recently murdered Ben-Yosef Livnat was the nephew of Minister Limor Livnat. Less known is the fact that his mother, Eva Blumberg Livnat, is a Baltimorean, a graduate of Bais Yaakov. An uncle of the deceased, Raphael Blumberg, is a friend, colleague in the field of translation, and fellow TA graduate. I reviewed his biography of R. Boruch Milikowsky here. The deceased's grandfather was Prof. Arnold Blumberg, who taught history and Jewish studies at Towson University for over 4 decades. Here's his Baltimore Sun obit. And here's his Where-What-When obit. I hope that these institutions and publications have the decency to acknowledge this senseless murder.

Among his other works, Professor Blumberg wrote a textbook on the History of Israel and another work on the "prehistory" of Zionism. His grandson has now become part of a tragic chapter of that history.

Long-time readers of this blog have an inkling of my politics and know that I certainly cannot be neatly categorized as right-wing. But there is no doubt at all that there will never be peace in this land until a Jew can go and pray unimpeded and unmolested at a venerated Jewish site. Aside from the fact that it is specifically mandated in the Oslo accords, as Yisrael has noted, peace will only come when each side acknowledges the other's attachment to the land; that acknowledgement is all but absent from the Palestinian narrative. Perhaps, in her capacity as Minister of Culture, Limor Livnat will now add Joseph's Tomb to the list of national heritage sites. Not that it will lessen the pain of her family and the Blumberg family.