Fourth of July 2024 and a Return to America’s Foundations

 

Fourth of July   2024 and a Return to America’s Foundations

 

This was an exceptional nation!

Certainly, at the beginning of our history, we were seen as such by not only ourselves, but by foreign observers. This was a nation different, not because it was a democracy (there had been others before) but because it differed greatly from the commonly accepted concept of a  nation, an entity created by one king or emperor forcing other ethnic groups by conquest into his domain, or an entity composed of people of some common language, religion, blood and long standing history of a land.  This would be a nation created out of a common set of laws, by the people, for the people, of the people.  

For us, as Jews, this was an exceptional nation, as never before seen in history.

It would take many years, tears  and bloodshed to enlarge this vision to  erase the shame of slavery and to include the descendants of the  African slaves as well as the  native American Indians. Germans, Irish, Italians, Chinese, Japanese, Latin Americans, all seen in their day as aliens who would never be absorbed, became part and parcel of the fabric of this nation. It is a work in progress.

 

It should be very disturbing to us, then, that for many young people today, they are being told that Jews are legitimate targets to blame for a myriad of ills:

 

https://thefulcrum.us/bridging-common-ground/college-campus-protests-12389064

“A Columbia student and self-proclaimed leader of the pro-Palestinian movement there, Khymani James, was finally suspended for saying that “Zionists don’t deserve to live.”

“I think that taking someone’s life in certain case scenarios is necessary and better for the overall world,” he said matter of factly. “Be glad, be grateful that I’m not just going out and murdering Zionists…. So yes, I feel very comfortable calling for those people to die.” It only took four months to suspend James — “temporarily” — after he posted the disgusting video publicly.”

At George Washington University protesters held signs advocating for a “FINAL SOLUTION” — a grotesque callback to Hitler’s plan for exterminating Jews.

And on campuses all over the country protesters have been spotted wearing Hamas headbands, calling for “Intifada,” proudly flying Hezbollah terror flags, and shouting “We are Hamas!” and “Go back to Poland!”

 

In response to the violent attack on  synagogue attendees at Adas  Torah on Pico this past Sunday, one videographer defended the attackers:

https://variety.com/2024/politics/news/jake-tapper-cnn-hollywood-synagogue-pro-palestine-protests-1236047856/

The story, a repost of a message written by Vishal P. Singh, a videographer who works on Netflix documentaries, illustrates the stark difference in perspectives on the Israel-Gaza conflict.

“Think about what happened today in Los Angeles. A real estate event to sell stolen Palestinian land cannot be protested or fascists will try to kill you,” Singh wrote. “LAPD threatening to execute pro-Palestine protestors at gun point. Zionists getting away with terrorist violence with impunity. We are in a cold civil war that is heating up rapidly. Prepare accordingly. Take a stop the bleed class. Learn how to use weapons safely. Save up for bullet proof armor. The genocide is not far away. It’s here. The heart of the empire is here. It’s our duty to fight and stop it by any means necessary.”

CAIR, which is supposed to combat Islamophobia, defended the attack:

Hussam Ayloush, director of the Los Angeles office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, defended the protest, which was organized by the Palestinian Youth Movement. “The demonstration in front of the Adas Torah synagogue over the weekend was in response to the blatant violations of both international law and human rights from [real estate] agencies that seek to make a profit selling brutally stolen Palestinian land as the Israeli government continues its eight-month-long genocidal campaign and ethnic cleansing in Gaza,” he said.

Both groups were promoting a lie. The Real Estate event advertising said nothing about real estate on stolen land. Except that for CAIR, Code Pink, and all the other groups involved, the very existence of Israel is on stolen land, and Israel must be destroyed, its Jews sent back to Poland!

We can’t even defend ourselves in the public forum: https://www.cnn.com/2024/06/19/media/wikipedia-adl/index.html

 

Wikipedia’s editors declared that the Anti-Defamation League cannot be trusted to give reliable information on the Israel-Palestine conflict, and they overwhelmingly said the ADL is an unreliable source on antisemitism. It’s a stunning rebuke to one of the world’s preeminent authorities on anti-Jewish hate and a significant advocate for the rights and causes of American Jews.

The editors, a group of volunteer moderators for one of the world’s most popular information websites, voted last week to label the ADL as a “generally unreliable” source on the Israel-Palestine conflict. That means that the ADL should usually not be cited in Wikipedia articles on that topic except for extraordinary circumstances. Other generally unreliable sources, according to Wikipedia editors, include Russian state media, Fox News’ political coverage and Amazon reviews.

That the head, Jonathan Greenblat, was a special assistant to President Obama does not make him Kosher enough for the geniuses at Wikipedia. Wikipedia is repeating Stalin’s historic erasure of people standing next to him on official photographs!

 NO MORE DONATIONS ON THE DONATE BUTTON!

 

 

It is exceptionally bitter for us, as Jews, because America’s Muslims, just as with any other religious minority, have civil rights that were earned by Jews who struggled to demand it from the time of the first colonies!

So, On this Fourth of July, I want to get back to the spirit of this country that shaped the world’s ideals of freedom and democracy.

Here are some select readings to motivate you this 4th:

 **************************

George Washington wrote these words to the Jewish community of Newport, Rhode Island in 1790, when Freedom of Religion was still  a new concept entered into the Constitution:

It is now no more that toleration is spoken of as if it were the indulgence of one class of people that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights, for, happily, the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.

May the children of the stock of Abraham who dwell in this land continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other inhabitants—while everyone shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree and there shall be none to make him afraid.

May the father of all mercies scatter light, and not darkness, upon our paths, and make us all in our several vocations useful here, and in His own due time and way everlastingly happy.

— G. Washington

 

It still took decades of struggle to guarantee Jews the right to sit in government positions and be protected against executive orders that singled us out.

 ********************************

 A  foreigner looks at us: Johann Wolfgang Goethe (1749–1832), one of the greatest creative minds of German civilization:

(Amerika du hast es besser)

America, you are better off
Than our ancient continent.
You have no tumbledown castles
And no basalt deposits.
Your inner lives are not disturbed by
Useless memories and vain strife.
Use your time with confidence!
And if your children write poetry,
May a kindly fate guard them from writing
Stories of knights, robbers and ghosts.

A  century later and Europe would be torn apart in two world wars inspired by ancient myths of knights, robbers and ghosts. Are we now being contaminated by people bringing their robbers and ghosts into American civil society?

 ********************************

 A Nation’ Strength    Ralph Waldo Emerson

What makes a nation’s pillars high
And its foundations strong?
What makes it mighty to defy
The foes that round it throng?

It is not gold. Its kingdoms grand
Go down in battle shock;
Its shafts are laid on sinking sand,
Not on abiding rock.
Is it the sword? Ask the red dust
Of empires passed away;
The blood has turned their stones to rust,
Their glory to decay.

And is it pride? Ah, that bright crown
Has seemed to nations sweet;
But God has struck its luster down
In ashes at his feet.

Not gold but only men can make
A people great and strong;
Men who for truth and honor’s sake
Stand fast and suffer long.

Brave men who work while others sleep,
Who dare while others fly...
They build a nation’s pillars deep    And lift them to the sky.

Are we still a nation of brave innovators who dare to fly?

*****************************

I Hear America Singing     Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass 1867

I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear;
Those of mechanics—each one singing his, as it should be, blithe and strong;
The carpenter singing his, as he measures his plank or beam,
The mason singing his, as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work;
The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat—the deckhand singing on the steamboat deck;
The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench—the hatter singing as he stands;
The wood-cutter’s song—the ploughboy’s, on his way in the morning, or at the noon intermission, or at sundown;
The delicious singing of the mother—or of the young wife at work—or of the girl sewing or washing—
Each singing what belongs to her, and to none else;
The day what belongs to the day—
At night, the party of young fellows, robust, friendly,
Singing, with open mouths, their strong melodious songs.

Only a few years after the terrible and bloody Civil War tore this nation apart, Walt Whitman could dream of a nation varied and at singing each his or her own song. Are we now teaching our youth that the system is out to oppress them? Can we still give voice to that hope and expectation?

 

 *****************************************

 

Rev Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.    I Have a Dream  1963

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal." . . .

I have a dream today! . . .

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight; "and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together."2

This is our hope, and this is the faith that I go back to the South with.

With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith, we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

And this will be the day -- this will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with new meaning:

My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing.

Land where my fathers died, land of the Pilgrim's pride,

From every mountainside, let freedom ring!

And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true.

And so let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire.

Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York.

Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania.

Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado.

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California.

But not only that:

Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia.

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee.

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi.

From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

And when this happens, and when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual:

                Free at last! Free at last!

                Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!

 

No need to say more than, “Amen.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

Curioser and Curioser: Hamas and Evil Disguised as Righteousness, Redoux

 

Curioser and Curioser: Hamas and Evil Disguised as Righteousness, Redoux

View video discussion ( starts at 1:57) 

https://www.youtube.com/live/HCyJ_n8hReg?si=2i0UDIo9YJVbuDQL&t=6997

 

Let’s start with the good news:

The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures opens its permanent Exhibit on the role of Jews in founding Hollywood and fighting antisemitism at the same time. I was one of the first to reach out to the curator, Dara Jaffe, and share our information about HTBE and the founders of the industry:

 

Introduction to the exhibit:

https://www.facebook.com/htbel/posts/pfbid02BwefULsNYqHfb13QbgChwtEd6Tfc24wtHHMLwiU2vjv4QWEUotFvnqXbxKJWgYdil

Entrance to exhibit:

https://www.facebook.com/reel/995230445447525

A time line 3D display on Hollywood and the growth of the industry:

https://fb.watch/s7l9gHRmHG/

The exhibit opens officially opens May 19 at the Museum at Wilshire and Fairfax.

Then, Edan Golan returned home in triumph from Eurovision:

https://youtu.be/lJYn09tuPw4?t=143

Eden Golan took 5^th place at the Eurovision Festival, even though some judges refused to vote for her. She was number 2 in the popular vote.

 

Then,the bad news,  there is the sad thought, that this was the saddest Yom Hazikaron, Memorial Day, and the least celebrated Yom HaAztamaut, Israel Independence Day, since the rise of the State of Israel/

[Note: LA Times and other media focused entirely on the Palestinian Nakba, ignoring the Jews expelled completely from Gaza and the West Bank, including the ancient Jewish community of the old city of Jerusalem, while many Arabs were able to stay inside the new Jewish State, and ignoring completely, the creation of a Jew-clean ( Judenrein) Arab middle east, an indigenous population going back 2,500 years ago]

 Just when you thought things couldn’t get messier:

We have gone through college students throwing temper tantrums at graduations,

 Eurovision judges tearing their figurative hair out and actively boycotting her in their votes because Israel’s Eden Golan was among the finalists and placed fifth because the European public voted her in,

 The UN and even the Hamas Ministry of Health admit that their count of those killed in Gaza is off by 1/3^rd  but the numbers are pooh-poohed by the media because:  a)     they have 10,000 unidentified bodies or b)     they have 10,000 that disappeared under the rubble- but they don’t know how they know that,

 Egypt closes food shipments to Gaza because it is miffed that Israel cut off Hamas’ access from Sinai into Gaza,( and Egypt stands to lose billions in illicit arms dealing across the tunnels network),

Hamas rockets the Israeli crossing, causing a blockage at that end,

 and world organizations then blame Israel for the blockage, preaching that mass starvation is immanent- as they preached in 2010 and again in December, and January, and February, and March, and April, and so forth.,”

 “Curiouser and curiouser!” Cried Alice

 So, what else is new?!

 

                        In this mood, I wish to bring to mind a popular song, some years, that went: to everything, turn, turn, for every season, turn turn, For everything, a time and place, under heaven.

            It then went on with a litany: A time to be born , a time to die, a time to laugh a time to cry.

            As we listened to the song, we recognized, of course, that the singers had taken the verses of Ecclesiastes, the third chapter and set it to music.

            La kol, zman va et , lachol hefetz tachat hashamayim.

            A season is set for everything, a time for every experience under heaven.

            A time for being born, and a time for dying and so forth

            The end of the litany is

            “A time for war and a time for peace."

            The wise man. Koheleth told us, knows not to make sweeping generalizations. Vague platitudes, broad sweet sounding phrases or blanket condemnations can not be applied to all situations.         There is a time for weeping and there is a time for laughing.

            How many times have we seen a time for laughing, only to have it overturned in the blink of an eye.

If we want contemporary analogies-maybe we are living in the movie, Groundhog Day, or in some philosopher’s Eternal Return, doomed to repeat the same events, over and over again .

 

I can’t forget the lyrics of an Israeli song, from the 1973 Yom Kippur War:

Ani mavtiach lach, yaldah sheli ketanah, she zot tihyeh hamilchamah ha acharonah-

I guarantee, my dear little child, that this will be the LAST war.

 The euphoria of the Egypt-Israel peace treaty was swept away by the First Lebanon War;

The euphoria of the PLO_-Israel  accords in 1993 gave way to a series of bloody massive murder of Israelis by bombs on buses and cafes;

 The last chance for an agreement between Arafat and Barak was soon upended by the brutal 2^nd Intifada;

The voluntary withdrawal  from the Gaza strip by Israel in 2005, with money invested from abroad, the chance for open borders, open harbors and an infrastructure for agriculture given by Israel—upended again and again by Hamas.

And up till last October, there was a sense that Hamas had moderated, and Gazans were being allowed into Israel to work, and more monies from Israel were being pumped into Gaza,  and, in one fell swoop, on one day in October, this balloon too was burst.

.           There is a time for loving and a time for hating, a time for peace and a time for war.

            The stance of the moralist calling for Israel to cease-fire unconditionally is inherently immoral for it allows free reign to the human capacity to evil without check. It is one thing to avoid war, it is one thing to pursue peace with an enemy in the hopes of turning an enemy to a friend. But it is another thing to face an enemy that hides it weapons underground and puts it civilians on roof-tops in the line of fire , an enemy that has been seen to hide its headquarters in a  hospital and its rockets in a school building.

                        It is true that the Palestinian Authority, in the West Bank, what we historically call Judea and Samaria, have made their accommodation with Israel, a begrudging accommodation. So ,too, for sure, have the Egyptians and Jordanians and even the Saudis, who fear the Islamicist or Salafist jihadi movements, such as the Moslem Brotherhood, but even more so the Islamist Regime of Iran, which has sponsored bloodshed in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen. The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

            Israel, for these entities, is for now, the enemy of my enemy.

            At the core of October 7 is not the anger of Palestinians of Gaza towards Israelis because they are occupying them. Israel stopped occupying Gaza almost 2  decades ago.

Gaza is very much so in the hands of such Salafists, known by the abbreviations in Arabic, Hamas, "Islamic Resistance Movement"). (Ḥarakat al-Muqāwamah al-ʾIslāmiyyah) and Hamas has tremendous influence, not just in Gaza, but also in the West Bank.

            We need to know what they think about Israel and about Jews, even though they officially pronounce that they are tolerant of Jews. That is what they say to the Western public. Diplomats like to speak glibly of “ even –handedness” , also provide a cover up. Hamas has even produced a modern polished version of its founding charter in 2018.

However, in their official pronouncements inside Gaza, they take the words of their founding platform of 1988 platform very seriously and never officially repealed it. Here are just some of the comments about Jews:

“. . . the Islamic Resistance Movement aspires to the realization of Allah's promise, no matter how long that should take. The Prophet, Allah bless him and grant him salvation, has said:

"The Day of Judgment will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.  . . .”

 

. . .Initiatives, and so-called peaceful solutions and international conferences, are in contradiction to the principles of the Islamic Resistance Movement. There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors.

"I swear by the holder of Mohammed's soul that I would like to invade and be killed for the sake of Allah, then invade and be killed, and then invade again and be killed." (As related by al-Bukhari and Moslem). . . .

“With their money, they [that is, Jews] stirred revolutions in various parts of the world with the purpose of achieving their interests and reaping the fruit therein. They were behind the French Revolution, the Communist revolution and most of the revolutions we heard and hear about, here and there. With their money they formed secret societies, such as Freemasons, Rotary Clubs, the Lions and others in different parts of the world for the purpose of sabotaging societies and achieving Zionist interests. With their money they were able to control imperialistic countries and instigate them to colonize many countries in order to enable them to exploit their resources and spread corruption there.”

“There is no war going on anywhere, without having their finger in it.”

“. . . They aim at undermining societies, destroying values, corrupting consciences, deteriorating character and annihilating Islam. It is behind the drug trade and alcoholism in all its kinds so as to facilitate its control and expansion. Israel, Judaism and Jews challenge Islam and the Moslem people. "May the cowards never sleep." (http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/hamas.asp )

If any of you have ever read the text of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion or Hitler’s Mein Kampf, you see that Hamas is all of these ideas supercharged on steroids.

Do our wise college students not understand what years and years of teaching hatred against Jews has led to?

      We know that diplomats believe these words can be dismissed as mere puffery. They take at face value the statements made by Hamas leaders of their respect for Jews at face value. However, founding documents mean what they state. When Nazi Germany began World War II, Hitler put aside his avowed hatred of the Soviet Union and authorized the notorious Ribbentrop- Molotov Treaty. That same profession of  peace was swiftly put aside in the blitzkrieg that swept across to Stalingrad the moment Hitler saw his chance.

Fanatics mean what they say.

It is with this gang that our enlightened students are storming the barricades, asking for the dismantling of the Jewish state, surrounded by 22 Arab States, 23 Islamic states, surrendering the Jewish people carte blanche to the same fate that has befallen the people of Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, Algeria, Sudan? Deaths in the hundreds of thousands!!!

            So what can be the recourse of the people of Israel?

           The same book of Ecclesiastes says:

            Al tehe Tzadik harbe ve alterasha. Do not be overly righteous and do not be evil.

            The first part is al Tehey Zadik Harbeh-- Do not be overly righteous, or you will be dumbfounded. Do not let the wicked get a way. Do not allow the perpetrators of evil to be rewarded for their deeds. You will pay a horrible price for it in the long run.

            The second half is also significant. It also says V’ Al terashah .Do not be wicked, lamah tamut belo itcha Why should you die before your time. Do not let the need for justice become an excuse for wickedness, for it , too can only be your undoing.

            The recourse of the people of Israel is that which was clear to our sages--It is not to roll over and give the perpetrators of evil what they want, for appeasement can only breed further evil.

            It is also not to descend to the level of the perpetrators, for that, too, is the path of destruction. And yes, there are useful idiots on the Israeli side , as well, who destroy food trucks on the way to Gaza, and provide free propaganda for those who hate us. I must say the same about the people who attacked the UCLA pro-Pali encampment a few weeks ago—LA Times and CNN made much of the melee, blaming Jewish extremists, and ignoring the much greater violence that has taken place by the pro-Palestinians on many campuses.

The extremists do not speak for Israel.

 Many, many Israeli soldiers have been killed, like our grand-nephew Nadav, because the Israel Defense Forces did not mow down entire towns, as did and still do the Russians in Ukraine, without any protest, and no Court at the Hague saying a word. Instead, they tried to focus on getting at the Hamas fighters who use their underground Metro system for defense, while leaving their people defenseless.

            The people of Israel now face the difficult challenge of “The Day After” and finding a solution to the unsolvable morass of Gaza.

            I don’t see any alternative for Israel, for its survival, as the only one homeland for the Jewish people , other than to grind down an enemy who is willing to fight to the last drop of someone else’s blood,  and defang this gang of Nazis of its rockets and its tunnels. Perhaps then, the people who care more for their children than for their hatred will be ready to lead to a new world and a new future.

            We know that the people of Israel have no other recourse. Colonizers, like the French in Algeria, could always go home when defeated. The Jews, rightful historic heirs to the Land of Israel, not colonizers, have no home to go to other than Israel.

            Therefore, to Hamas we must quote the verse from the Quran that recognizes the promise of the Land of Israel to the Jews:

            And thereafter We [Allah] said to the Children of Israel: 'Dwell securely in the Promised Land. And when the last warning will come to pass, we will gather you together in a mingled crowd.'" [Qur'an 17:104] (http://www.templemount.org/quranland.html by Shaykh Prof. Abdul Hadi Palazzi, head of the Italian Muslim Assembly).

            For the people of Israel we have are the words that we say at the end of a book of the Torah:

Chazak, Chazak, V nitchazek.Be strong, be strong, and may we be strengthened!

 

                                   

 

THE JEW REFUSES TO BE THE HOUSE SLAVE -AND THE WORLD IS SHAKING

Video of discussion:

https://youtu.be/lqcTyQLCqs8

THE JEW REFUSES TO BE THE HOUSE SLAVE -AND THE WORLD IS SHAKING

 

One of the pioneering movies of the early film industry was called the Birth of a Nation by DW Griffith. In it ,the African Americans ,who had been subject to horrible slavery for centuries and had finally been freed, were now depicted as the evil ones, and the former slaveholders of the South who rose up against these now freed slaves are depicted as the heroes of the awakening American nation.

Talk about successfully turning heroes into villains and villains into heroes!

It gives me a sense of what is happening to us as Jews today. I read the image that is being broadcast to the world, by violent riots of pro-Palestinian groups and what is being spread on tic toc and the like, and I see that we Jews, who have been history’s victims , now are being portrayed as history’s villains.

 

Blaming Jews for one’s own failings is nothing new in history, but we are just watching a particularly malicious variant unfolding in our own times.

The Bible already hints at the problem of our being a minority in a foreign land. In the case of Jospeh, Potiphar’s wife harps on the tune of “Hebrew who plays with us” and Pharaoh claims: “They have become numerous and too powerful, they will join with the enemy against us (and leave us!).

Just like D W Griffith, ancient Egyptian writers also tried blame the Israelite slaves for trying to take over Egypt!

Much of the elements of anti-Semitism predate even the start of Christianity.

Thus, Blood libel was first propagated by Antiochus’ supporters against Jews, that Jews capture a Greek for sacrifice.

The theological and political foundation for the continued enslavement and denigration of Jews gets its start under the Romans and takes root with the rise of “Successor” to Judaism, Christianity.

What was an internal conflict among Jews, between the small Jesus community and the majority of Jews, evolves into a race to put as much distance between as possible. This is especially so when the Roman Empire turns full force against Jews in the wars of 70 and 135. The early Christians wanted to avoid, like the plague, any association with Jews in the Empire. Therefore, the early Christian texts were re-edited, to shift the blame, on Jesus’ crucifixion, from the Romans to the Jews. Thus, Matthew 27:25 All the people answered, “His blood be on us and on our children!” 

The Jew is then endowed with demonic attributes:

John 8:44^: You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies. “

 Deicide (God-killer) and the Jew condemned to eternal wandering become the regnant motif of western civilization.

The conflict is flamed by the early church thinkers. Church Fathers, such as John Chrysostom, went further in their condemnation: Against the Jews.  Homily 1

: (6) Although such beasts are unfit for work, they are fit for killing. And this is what happened to the Jews: while they were making themselves unfit for work, they grew fit for slaughter.

The split is grounded in Roman law-Theodosius code: In 404, Jews were excluded from certain governmental posts. In 418, they were barred from the civil service, and from all military positions. In 425, they were excluded from all remaining public offices, both civilian and military—a prohibition which Justinian I reinforced.

Continued in 1215 in the Lateran Council as Jews are forced to wear distinct clothes (yellow badge, borrowed from Islam)

This subjugation of the Jews, suffered only to be preserved in order to bear witness to Christianity, continued until the early modern times. So, no one less than the father of the Protestant Reformation, the man who single-handedly broke the power of the Catholic Church and ushered in the modern era with the idea of the centrality of individual conscience, Martin Luther, was himself the author of a miserable work, On the Jews and Their Lies, a work that was republished many times under the Third Reich.

Therefore, be on your guard against the Jews, knowing that wherever they have their synagogues, nothing is found but a den of devils in which sheer self-glory, conceit, lies, blasphemy, and defaming of God and men are practiced most maliciously and vehemently with his eyes on them.

Jews were tolerated in Europe because they were useful to the rulers. The Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, as legal successor to Titus claimed the rights of possession and protection over all the Jews in the former Roman empire.

Jews  had the status of Servi camerae regis (Latin) "servants of the royal chamber”, or slave. Similarly, in England, under the Norman conquerors, the Jews were brought in as Property of the King,” Chattels”.

As the King’s property, they could not be harmed by the mobs (although they were) but also, as property, they could be disposed of, as trash, when no longer useful. 

At best, the Jew could live as a bird in a gilded cage--gilded, but still a cage—and when the Jew became too useful for the Royalty, and the crowds were aroused, the Jew was dispatched.

The Jew, like Joseph Suess Oppenheimer, could only go so far, until he is hung in that gilded cage.

As we entered the modern era of the west, our status as free and equal citizens was given slowly, and grudgingly, and often taken back!

Modern antisemitism in Europe gave the world’s oldest hatred a new intellectual veneer. Thus, it was given a leftist-class basis, under Karl Marx, who wrote “On the Jewish Question, “Zur den Judenfrage”, before he wrote his “Das Kapital.”

“In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism. . What, in itself, was the basis of the Jewish religion? Practical need, egoism…. The monotheism of the Jew, therefore, is in reality the polytheism of the many needs, a polytheism which makes even the lavatory an object of divine law. …The social emancipation of the Jew is the emancipation of society from Judaism.”

There was the modern, rightist, race and nation based variant on the theme, and, appropriately, it was termed, in answer  to Marx,” Endloesung zur Judenfrage”—The Final solution for the Jewish Question.

It is vital to note--Modern Christians have changed greatly in their preaching, especially the Catholic Church, as well as the major Protestant denominations, many openly Zionist .It is rare, indeed, to find an antisemite of religious conviction in the Christian world. But Christianity, as it is in Europe, for example, is a fading force.

 

But, just as Christianity has shifted away from the Judeophobic roots, relinquished its secessionist outlook and lost its power as well, the Moslem world , in part in reaction to modernism, has doubled down on Jews. This status of the Jew as the Devil reared its ugly head even before the context of Israel and Zionism in the Middle East.

It has long been claimed that Jews fared better under Islam than under Christianity. While the claim has merit, it, of course, is only relative, not absolute.

Mohammed rose to power with Jewish allies, and then, when they fail to back him, he turned on them. What starts because of a political power struggle became magnified into a fight between Islam and Judaism.

Say: “People of the Book, …” Whomsoever God has cursed, and with whom He is wroth, and made some of them apes and swine, and worshippers of idols — they are worse situated, and have gone further astray from the right way. (5:64-65)

And He brought down those of the People of the Book who supported them from their fortresses and cast terror in their hearts; some you slew, some you made captive. And He bequeathed upon you their lands, their habitations, and their possessions, and a land you never trod. God is powerful over everything. (33:26)

What may have been said by Mohammed in his fight for supremacy over the Arabian tribes lent itself only too easily to actual demonization of the Jews.

It also became a basis to justify lying about the intentions of the Oslo accords by Arafat:

This was from the  secret speech by Yasser Arafat, Johannesburg: "This agreement, I am not considering it more than the agreement which had been signed between our Prophet Muhammad and Quraish, and you remember the Caliph Omar had refused this agreement and considered it "Sulha Dania" [a despicable truce]. But Muhammad had accepted it, and we are accepting now this [Oslo] peace accord." Private recording  | May 10, 1994, https://youtu.be/37xnaqF-6B4?si=nQHjPFYzQc8_9yg1

 

 As explained by those who know Islam, that treaty, the Hudaybiyyah peace treaty, which called for a 10-year truce was broken by Muhammad in two years. Arafat hinted to his followers that these accords, too, were destined to be broken.

The original restrictions which Mohammed placed on the Jewish tribes he conquered were reinforced and increased in the Hadith(Oral traditions)-Especially of Al Bukhari, who is considered the authority behind most Islamic militants today. This statement is part of the charter of Hamas, for example.

The Day of Judgement will not come about until Muslims fight the Jews, when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Muslims, O Abdullah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, (the Boxthorn tree) would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews. (related by al-Bukhari and Muslim).Sahih Muslim, 41:6985,

Even with Islamic so-called tolerance there were limits.

From Robert Wistrich, Muslim Anti-Semitism: p 6ff

 

… their existence from Morocco to Iran was punctuated by misery, humiliation, and popular violence… the greatest of medieval Jewish philosophers, Maimonides, to refer bitterly to the “nation of Ishmael, who persecute us severely, and who devise ways to harm us and debase us.”

 

The legal status of Jews and Christians …that of dhimmis (“protected peoples”), whose religions were officially recognized by the authorities. On payment of a poll tax (jîzya), they could freely practice their faiths, enjoy a certain degree of personal security, and have their own communal organizations. But the protection afforded to the “peoples of the Book” (ahl al-kitab) was combined with subjugation; the “tolerance” they benefited from existed within a social framework of discrimination and disabilities that constantly emphasized the superiority of Muslims to both Jews and Christians.

 

Jews could not, for example, bear arms; they could not ride horses; they were required to wear distinctive clothing (the yellow badge had its origins in Baghdad, not in medieval Europe); and they were forbidden to build new places of worship. Their dhimmi status, as elaborated by Muslim jurists from the inception of Islam until the early twentieth century, has been succinctly summarized as follows:

 

Dhimmis were often considered impure(najes) and had to be segregated from the Muslim community. Entry into holy Muslim towns, mosques, public baths, as well as certain streets was forbidden them. Their turbans—when they were permitted to wear them —their costumes, belts, shoes, the appearance of their wives and their servants had to be different from those of Muslims in order to distinguish and humiliate them; for the dhimmis could never be allowed to forget that they were inferior beings.

 

Even in Golden Age of Spain, there were periods pogroms in Cordoba and Granada, of forced conversion and expulsion, as under the Almohades. Jews were exiled from capital of Yemen, Sana-Galut Mauza 1600’s. those in walled towns had to live outside the wall, exposed to enemy attack. In Iran, there were harsh laws restricting Jews, with forced conversion in Isfahan 1600’s, and Mashad in the 1800’s.

It is true that these laws applied also to Christians—however, as Europe became increasingly powerful, especially after the Reconquista- the local Christians could count on protection from their European protectors. Jews had no protectors!

 

 

Even into the beginnings of the modern era, one can find the enforcement of the orphan’s law, as in Yemen- every baby is born a Muslim, and it is only his parents who misguide the baby. Therefore, when a child becomes and orphan, he or she now belongs to the local ruler and is taken form the family and raised as a Muslim. The only exception was for those already married, and therefore, in Yemen, it was common to arrange for child-marriages in order to prevent the child from being kidnapped.

 

Even till today, Islam allows for a negotiated settlement between families of the murderer and the murdered, in lieu of death penalty. However, the settlement price for a Jew is far less than the price for either a Christian or a Muslim, and that was the law in Iran till this century.

 

Now, as we enter the modern period, the Islamic world is influenced by trends, for good, and for bad, from Europe—and, regarding Jews, the worst of both left and right. The idea of

Nationalist anti-Semitism, for example. The term anti-Semite is invented by William Barr to describe his new movement, an attack on Jews as an alien race, but never meant as an attack on Arabs, who were seen as a nobler race.

The Jew as a distinct and permanently alien nation has no place inside the host nation. Theodore Herzl understood this very well.

It is no wonder that the Mufti of Jerusalem could feel comfortable at a tete a tete with Adolph Hitler and lead the Bosnian SS during WWII.

What was a distinctly European form found fertile soil in the rising Arab nationalism, which begins to see the Jew as alien. Riots break out against Jews, not just in pre-State Palestine, but around the Arab world, such as the Farhood in Baghdad.

Thus, there is the denial of rights to Jews in the newly freed colonies of North Africa.

Albert Memmi-great ideologist of Tunisian independence, colleague of Franz Fanon:

 “We would have liked to be Arab Jews. If we abandoned the idea, it is because over the centuries the Moslem Arabs systematically prevented its realization by their contempt and cruelty. It is now too late for us to become Arab Jews. Not only were the homes of Jews in Germany and Poland torn down, scattered to the four winds, demolished, but our homes as well. . .. Never, I repeat, never - with the possible exception of two or three very specific intervals such as the Andalusian, and not even then - did the Jews in Arab lands live in other than a humiliated state, vulnerable and periodically mistreated and murdered, so that they should clearly remember their place. [https://www.jimena.org/who-is-an-arab-jew/].”

So, like Jud Suess in Germany, Jews in Arab lands, at best, were in a gilded cage, and at a whim, could be eliminated.

Public hanging of Jews in Baghdad, 1969. The same happened to the leader of the Jewish community in Iran when Khomeini took charge.

 

I look at the historic response to the Jewish desire to return to the land of Israel. Set aside the claim that to do so meant the displacement of the existing Arabs of the land that was designated as Palestine. That land was itself underpopulated and neglected after centuries of Ottoman rule. When Jews came in, prosperity came with it, and the Arab population increased in tandem.

Why then was there so much vehemence to an autonomous Jewish territory in the midst of what would be the Great Arab Awakening, which would have benefitted so much from the influx of a skilled and educated population.

The only comparison that I can think of is the vehement reaction of the Southern whites to the newly freed slaves. I go back to the DW Griffith movie, Birth of a Nation, Suddenly, the very people upon whom the white masters stepped on so easily in the ante-bellum South, could be free, and independent, and raised the hackles of the former slave-holders, who had indulged themselves in their sense of superiority. The rise of the Ku Klux Klan in its day was seen as defense of white supremacy, and the newly freed black was soon put back in his place, by force of law of “Jim Crow”.

I can only see the response of the Arab world, in the early years of the Zionist movement, acting in the same way as the early white supremacists—here were the Jews, the former dhimmi, the former lowly, inferior Jews, acting like equals.  It is no wonder that the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hassan al Banna, was vehemently a Jew-hater, or that the Mufti of Jerusalem could be at home with Adolf Hitler.

The horrors unleashed on the Israelis on October 7 can only be understood in the light of a visceral reaction of the once superior Arabs now having to deal with their upstart and uppity former slaves. I can understand the depth of anger the former master holds against his newly liberated slave. What I can’t understand, is why intelligent, enlightened people, the product of western liberalism, would side with the masters of the Middle East and not with the newly freed and emancipated Jew. It’s like siding with the KKK in the Birth of a Nation movie.

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