The Unkindest Cut of All Part III --On Jews and other enablers of Hamas with a lookback 75 years

 

The Unkindest Cut of All-Part III 

On Jews and other enablers of Hamas with a lookback 75 years

 

This last Thursday and Friday November 8th and 9th marked 85 years since the dreaded Kristallnacht or as it is often translated into English,The Night of Broken Glass. I don't need to belabor details as to what it signified. I do have in my own family records a note that my grandmother in Vienna was among those attacked at that time and then shortly afterwards my grandparents were able to escape to Switzerland and my father and uncle headed off to Czechoslovakia.

It has been 85 years since ,and I know that we Jews around the world had felt much more safe and secure since the rise of the state of Israel. We had been accustomed to saving Jews in the middle of the hijacking to in Entebbe or the airlifting of Jews to safety throughout the Middle East and Africa in the intervening years. After the Six Day War and the Yom Kippur War, and more recently, with the potential alliances with various Arab countries, we could allow ourselves into a dream of security.

None of us could have imagined the horror of something worse than a Kristallnacht or  something worse than the worst pogroms of the past but, that did happen on October 7. We have marked the shloshim the 30 days of mourning for those who are dead yet we know that our mourning,  both in Israel, and out, is not ended.

Last week, I allowed myself to vent on those who tried to pin the blame on Israel, or create some kind of equivalency, whether by international authorities or even local media.

I turn now to my central gripe: history repeats itself, or, déjà vu all over again.

 I have been  in the midst of looking for material from my father’s documents for a special exhibit to be opened in December in Frankfurt, Germany, on the 75th anniversary of the re-establishing of the Jewish community after the Holocaust. As you may know, my father, Rabbi Dr William Weinberg, served as the first State Rabbi of Hesse, but before that, he worked with the DP camps in Austria.I published a book about his years up through Soviet exile and, I hope, one day, to follow up with an account of the years helping survivors rebuild their lives. In the process I found three articles of his, from the very first years after the Holocaust, to be eerily relevant to what we are seeing today,

 First, you can hear, very loudly, the justification that the Palestinians are, after all, suffering at the hands of Jews, qua Zionists, for 56, then 75, and, yes 100 years. We should not be surprised if they raped, beheaded, tortured, and kidnapped. It’s “ distributive justice.”

Student groups at Harvard decried Israel as “entirely responsible” for Hamas’ attack; groups at the University of Virginia went a step further in saying that “colonized people can resist occupation of their land by whatever means they deem necessary”; and groups at Tufts took the cake by praising Hamas’ ingenious creativity.

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/community/articles/hamas-slaughtered-wokeness

Now, Jewish students are being physically attacked on campuses at Tulane and elsewhere.

Sadly, for us, the protests by the pro-Palestinian camp are very rough and aggressive, and a local Jewish pro-Israel protestor , Paul Kessler, was knocked to the ground and killed by a pro-Palestinian protestor just this past Sunday. Violence by the pro-Palestinian side is not knew—we saw similar attacks on Jews here just two years ago by the “fellow travelers” and “useful idiots” of Hamas.

 

All of this anger, against Israel, and by extension, against Jews, has been , as we have seen, “justified” by apologists for murder. As I said, déjà vu, just this “ blame the victim” tactic was used against Jews even while we were still mourning our dead and licking our wounds after the greatest and almost completely successful attempt at erasing us physically from this planet.

So here is how the same apologists for murder blamed us after the Holocaust in the same tones:

 

Not mine, but your fault! Dec 1946, in a German journal, Der Neue Weg.

Now the silence is broken, and people are speaking lately also to non-Jews about what had happened to us in the Hitler era. It is therefore not without interest for us to note that what the Austrian accomplices have to say about the causes . The final sentences of this article by a. D. Hornbostel: “Anti-Semitism and Jewish problem" are significant for us.

We quote the same verbatim:

“Another prerequisite for a peaceful and prosperous coexistence with the Jewish elements in Europe is of course the determination of the Jews themselves to get rid of all the fatal mistakes and weaknesses that anti-Semitism wants to attack and incited him to such brutal activity as we have unfortunately had to witness in the recent past.”

 In other words, you Jews deserved it!

Thus, my father summed up the implication:

 “The murder of 6 million Jews in Europe and their plundering were ultimately the expression of the righteous people's anger. At least that's what it must sound like to the ears of the average anti-Semitic reader.”…

“If we're talking about mistakes, why not talk about your own mistakes at the same time! Is this the Austrian way of looking for the splinter in your neighbor's eye and overlooking the beam in your own? …

Were Hitler, Seyss-Inquart, Kaltenbrunner, and countless of their accomplices notAustrian? “

 

Hence, the opposite of a Catholic confession: I have not sinned, rather, you have sinned.!

 This after the Holocaust. This same tone was sounded by political and academic figures here, after the murder, rape, torture and kidnapping of 2023!

Democratic Rep. Rashida Tlaib: after a full day of silence, finally said:

"I grieve the Palestinian and Israeli lives lost yesterday, today, and every day," "As long as our country provides billions in unconditional funding to support the apartheid government, this heartbreaking cycle of violence will continue."

Yes, she cries, but it all Israel’s fault ( with US backing, of course).She also had her original interpretation of “ From the River to the Sea”, saying it was merely “aspirational.” So was Endlösung der Judenfrage-The final solution of the Jewish problem, merely “asprational”.

Now, we have had actual physical attacks on Jews on campuses at Tulane and , closer to home, a UC Davis professor tweeting a call to violence: 

Read more at: https://www.sacbee.com/opinion/op-ed/article280938278.html#storylink=cpy

 So, Non Mea—its not my fault- its your fault, déjà vu!

 Then, we have those among our Jews, who are very complacent, living lives of comparative luxury and privilege, who would disconnect from the entire Jewish affair. Just so in December of 1945, when the rubbles of war had finally settled in Vienna :

Wir Sind Quitt: We are even! Are we really!( Der Neue Weg)

Here is a summary of the verbal fight as it appeared in a journal of Austrian literature (Friedrich Torberg und Hans Weigel — Zwei Jüdische Schriftsteller im Nachkriegsösterreich :Evelyn Adunka,Modern Austrian Literature, Vol. 27, No. 3/4, Special Issue: The Jewish Presence in Contemporary Austrian Literature (1994), pp. 213-237 (25 pages) “ Two Jewish writers in post-War Austria”.)

Hans Weigel was a noted Austrian Jewish playwright and theater critic, who survived the Holocaust in relative comfort in Switzerland.

 

In October 1945 Weigel wrote in an article in the American-published Wiener Kurier:

 "We have nothing to blame each other. No one can bring his dead alive.

With you many are dead and with us too. But we're even! We don't think too much about yesterday."

             Wilhelm Weinberg, the later chief rabbi of Frankfurt am Main, commented on               this     article in the Vienna Jewish Der Neue Weg magazine:

  "Perhaps Mr. Weigel is even - we, the majority of Jews around the world and here too, Not." Weinberg's disgust was joined by a second one: Imagine the indignation when Weigel ,"in the exuberance of "Joy of reunion", was not content with "receipts of over six and a half million dead," but "also to differentiate those Jews who do not want to return home," with the equally problematic sentence: "Because no one is ever forced to return home, only those who come here will come back, who are the most 'Austrian' elements.”

 

My father went on to contrast this Jewish writer, who had lived comfortably in Switzerland, and was only too happy to return to Austria, with the greatest modern German writer, Thomas Mann, who made the US his new home.

 

Of the same ilk, as some of you may recall, a Jewish Chancellor of Austria, Bruno Kreisky,  in the 1970’s, of the same stripe as this writer, who turned the Socialist movements against Israel, said:

 Wenn die Juden ein Volk sind, so ist es ein mieses Volk.« Quoted by his press secretary:

If Jews are indeed a people, then they are a “mieses volk”, an ugly people!

( Der Spiegel, https://www.spiegel.de/politik/kreisky-die-juden-ein-mieses-volk-a-4c081012-0002-0001-0000-000041376698)

 Surely, though, the most painful of all , has been the rush to blame Israel by our very own, the very heirs to a Bruno Kreisky, or a Hans Wiegel, or their intellectual ancestor, the very great antisemite, the intellectual father of all anti-semitism, Karl Marx.

 Here too, we have the case of those who, in the Talmudic statement, “ act like Zimri ( who betrayed Israel in the Sinai) “but demand the reward of Zimri”, who saved the Israelites from Zimri’s sin.

 We might prefer to  use a line from Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar”, about Brutus, his closest friend, who stabbed Caesar

“ For Brutus, as you know, was Caesar's angel:
Judge, O you gods, how dearly Caesar loved him!
This was the most unkindest cut of all”.

 This is a summary of key points in my father’s essay, “Regarding the Problem of Jewish Quislings”. It was published in a special edition of the journal, “ Mosty and Opinin”, in May of 1947 ,as the Jewish communities in Austria and Germany were trying to organize themselves while still in pain from the wounds of Nazi murder.

  

(The full translation and the text can be found here:

http://www.courageofspirit.com/2023/11/regarding-problem-of-jewish-quislings.html)

“In all European states that had the misfortune to experience the bloody rule of the Germans, the concept of Quislings is known, those people who are criminally inclined, by fear or opportunism, or political immaturity, or for money, without dignity, or for the sake of supposed national interests, in the moral sense or factual sense, to have made themselves accomplices of the Nazi tyrants.

“In antiquity we had our Josephus Flavius, who abandoned his comrades in arms in the most difficult hour of our people and went over to the throne, and who, while his comrades were dragged behind the triumphant’ s chariot, enjoyed himself at the court of the same triumphant by writing hymns in his honor. In the same tragic epoch …Tiberius Alexander( nephew of the great 1st Jewish philosopher) , …governor in Judea, and later as governor in Egypt, who let his legions of blood-hungry and rapacious soldiers, like wild animals and beasts, loose on the quarters of the Jews in Alexandria , and then took part     under Titus in the conquest of Jerusalem as the actual head …”

“As is well known, history repeats itself. During Hitler's time, many Jews helped in the enslavement and deportation of the Jews to the labor concentration and extermination camps. Many have committed guilt in their capacity as Judenrate( Jewish council member) by compiling and signing lists of those destined for destruction or by assisting in the confiscation of Jewish assets for the benefit of the Germans; many have committed guilt in their capacity as Jupos (Jewish police) by enlisting Jews for destruction or deportation ; some took part directly in the atrocities and devilries of the Germans as kapos.”

“Times of emergency are known to be the best ground for political adventurers and our time of need is not yet over. While most Jews returned home wandering, lost, groping, grieving, disappointed, uprooted, desperate and tired of life, our Quislings looked in a good mood, were impeccably dressed and stood out from all the others because of their well-fed nature.”

Such people have forfeited, according to all written and unwritten laws in all liberated countries, the right to play any leading role in social life, …

“Where they still try to push themselves into the foreground, it is the inevitable duty of every Jew to push them into the background.”

 

Now, after the knowledge of the horrid pillage, rape, torture, murder, infanticide, and kidnapping, I reserve my greatest revulsion, after the officers and soldiers of Hamas, who carried it out, next onto those of our own, who thought it was “cool” or “hip” or “progressive” to take over the Capital Rotunda ywo weeks ago and Grand Central Station this week, in the name of Jewish Voices For Peace, threatening to shut down the emblem of American democracy, all the while draped in Talit and kippah.They repeated the grand-standing a week later in Grand Central Station.

Here is a group of younger Jews who use this as a flag of distinction, something possible only for children of privileged Jewish elites.

Here is their shameless proclamation:

“We converged in historic numbers in D.C. with unprecedented heart, power, and ferocity, to say: Ceasefire now. Not in our names, not with our money.

This was the largest Jewish protest in solidarity with Palestinians ever.

A staggering 5,000 people from around the country descended on the National Mall in a “Jews against Genocide” rally — with only a couple days notice, in the middle of a Wednesday workday. We were proud to be joined by Representatives Rashida Tlaib and Cori Bush, as well as author and activist Naomi Klein and actor Mo Amer, as well as our friends at IfNotNow, who had led us in an impressive shut-down of all 13 entrances of the White House on Monday.

Then two dozen rabbis led almost 500 Jews in a sit-in in the rotunda of a key Capitol building. As rabbis blew shofars and shared testimonials from Palestinians in Gaza, the thousands outside the building chanted “Ceasefire now!” and “Let Gaza live!” We shut down the street outside the offices of members of congress for three hours, elected officials and staffers watching from their windows as capitol police arrested the hundreds inside the building.

https://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/2023/10/19/thousands-of-jews-and-allies-shut-down-capitol-hill/

 

This happened as the organization accepted, like all other progressive groups, the Hamas ministry lie of the hospital bombing.The blood of the massacred of October 7 was still wet on the ground and these Quislings mourned the murderers. It is the” most unkindest cut of all”, as it is so convenient, for enemies of the Jews to trot out their token Jew, and use it against us. Jewish students have been harrassed and physically attacked on campus across the country, in part, due to such protestations.

I will now apply my father’s recommendations about the Jewish Quislings and suggest that the Jewish community close out jobs for these fellow travelers. I know that I am being ungenerous, but when the Middle East has been taken over by the dogs of Khomeini, the Hezbollahs, the Hamases, the Houthis, there is no room for generosity of spirit. These are the fellow travelers of Al Qaeda and ISIS. 

Remember that the Communists, too, were split into Stalinists and Trotskyites ,Maoists and Viet-Kongists- often, deadly enemies, yet united in the same goal of ideological domination.

Think carefully when posing for the under trodden.There was one Jew who rose to the highest pinnacle of success in the fight for revolutionary Justice, “the genius of the revolution”, the founder of the Red Army , and the proponent of perpetual revolution, Leon Trotsky:

This is what he received from his colleague and comrade in arms when he was getting his hair cut in Mexico City, exiled from his country, an axe to the head:

 One last thought of warning

 The Jew was the canary in the coal mine in World War II. The Jew, as Israeli, or Zionist, is still the canary in the coal mine. It's not my words, it is , as the Arabs themselves have said” First the Saturday people, then the Sunday people.”

 

The Unkindest Cut -Part II My peeve with an LA Times editor

 

The Unkindest Cut -Part II

My peeve with an LA Times editor

I want to share with you an example of the fight we have in the trenches all the time.

The editor of the Letters section of the LA Times sends a regular summary of key topics in the news. His last newsletter was a way of apologizing for the media admittedly believing Hamas’ story about Israel intentionally targeting a hospital and killing 500. But even in explaining that it was a rush to judgement, he had one snide remark, a back-handed compliment of the worst kind.

This was part of his opening:

The subject line on an email from the New York Times on Tuesday morning wasshocking: “Breaking news: Israeli strike on hospital kills hundreds, Palestinianofficials say.”

Horrified as I was at the thought of 500 Palestinians killed while seeking care andrefuge inside a Gaza Strip hospital, I was also skeptical. The source of the Israeliair strike claim was Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip. . .. 

I’ll reserve judgment as to whether news organizations messed up on this.Reporters and editors covering this war operate under immense pressure, andthis week should remind us to be more circumspect about passing off any government’s statements as fact. 

So far so good. 

This is his text that ticked me off:

Yes, Israel has despicably lied about past atrocities, but that’s no reason to dismiss credible evidence that it might not have murdered hundreds of civilians this time, especially when something so incendiary can lead to antisemitic violence elsewhere.

The words" despicably lied" were underlined in his email. That underlining is intended to open to his source for the phrase, Al Jezeera! Link to Al Jazeera article being referenced

 Here is my reply to him. I am still awaiting a response:

Dear Mr. Thornton,

 I appreciate that you are calling on media to reserve judgement until facts are in. I found the blood libel of the claim of Israel’s targeting of the hospital in Gaza such a classic example, of a kind with the blood libel about the massacre in Jenin some 20 years ago, widely reported as truth, even though no massacre took place.

 However, I resent what is a snide explanation about the rush to judgment being a consequence of “despicable lies” by Israel. That statement is marked by a link to the source, an opinion piece from nothing less than Al Jazeera, a wholly owned subsidiary of Qatar, headquarters to Hamas and associated with the Muslim Brotherhood. The editorial leads with the phrase “despicable lies” but refers directly only to the tragic death of Al Jazeera reporter, Abu Akleh. Here, Israel did eventually accept responsibility for an accidental, not intentional, killing, an admission, the likes of which was never done by the other side.

 If you wish the Times, like the other major media, to retain a smidgeon of journalistic integrity , you must avoid snide insinuations. Your colleagues must also acknowledge that the rush to judgement is has resulted in additional violence,  around the world, to the Jewish community and salt on the wound for both sides. 

******

The Unkindest Cut of All- Part 1

 The Unkindest Cut of All --On Jews and other enablers of Hamas with a lookback 75 years

Part I

The video of my discussion

https://youtu.be/RKaumCALthw?si=baaIqpay1YtNRUtn

(This is my discussion on the Torah, in which I draw a parallel between the cruelty of the Sodomites and today's Hamas. I also go into a digression on the origin and  purpose of the term Palestine, from Eretz Pilishtim-Land of the Invaders. 

https://youtu.be/TSkmj2KZvDI?si=GBYUw_zfOhVp9Ejs )

 

It is bizarre to be a Jew in a world which denies you the right to defend yourself, which says “tsk, tsk” and rushes to judgement for every wrong doing, even if it turn out to be right. Thus, we have the Secretary General of the UN explaining away the actions of Hamas because :

”The Palestinian people have been subjected to 56 years of suffocating occupation.”

Note the 56 years ( since the Six Day War). This  been used repeatedly in propaganda that has come out to cover up for Hamas “dirty deeds.”

Why not 75 years? From 1948:

“During the 20 years the Gaza Strip was under Egyptian control (1948–67), it remained little more than a reservation. Egyptian rule was generally repressive( https://www.britannica.com/place/Palestine/Palestine-and-the-Palestinians-1948-67) .  

Nevertheless, they found the energy to launch fedayeen attacks from Gaza in those years of “ no occupation”.

 

Why not 100 years, since the British took over, and the Arabs massacred Jews and erased entire communities in Gaza and Hebron with no Israeli occupation.

Why not the several centuries before, when the territory that would become the British mandate of Palestine was under the Ottoman Turks, was mis-administered and neglected, was fought over many times in the Napoleonic wars and later, between Egypt and the Turks, and yet again, between the many mini-states and warlords in the region that warred on each other then.

We could also turn the clock around, going forward.

The economic growth rate from 1967 to 1982 averaged roughly 9.7 percent per annum, due in good part to expanded income from work opportunities inside Israel. In other words, the beginning of that 56 year period of “ suffocating occupation” was the first time the Palestinians could support themselves by themselves!

 

Then, in 1994, with the Oslo accords, Gaza was handed over to its own people, the Palestinian Liberation Organization; there was no longer an occupation, but their terror attacks did not stop. Then, in 2005, Israel withdrew fully, Hamas was voted in 2 years later, and the terror attacks continued, without any occupation.

If anyone has been forcibly evacuated in that period, it was Israelis, who were uprooted from a beautiful town they had built in the Sinai, Yamit, whose inhabitants were removed by force by Israel in order to make possible the peace agreement with Egypt, and then Gush Katif, 17 settlements whose inhabitants were removed by force by the Israeli army, with the illusion that it would lead the Gazans to make their peace with Israel.

Yes, this is described often as a “ concentration camp”, but on with a relatively high life expectancy for the Arab world:

US 80 ; Lebanon 77;  United Arab Emirates 77; Morocco 77 ; Libya 76 ; West Bank 76 ; Tunisia 76; Oman 75 ; Saudi Arabia 75; Gaza Strip 75;  Jordan 74 ; Egypt 73 ;Turkey 73; Iraq 71;  Iran 71; Russia 70.

This is a 2014 statistic, but it is telling, that after 56 years of “ Oppression”, “occupation”, “genocide”, that the Gazans did better than Jordan, Egypt, Turkey ( an economic powerhouse in many ways) or nuclear and space power, Russia!

I would like to know what life expectancy was in Buchenwald?!

The TV is filled, yes, with images of destroyed buildings in northern Gaza, and babies being pulled out of the rubble. Yes, it is horrible, but unlike the surprise attack against Israel by Hamas, Israel gave the people of northern Gaza plenty of time to move south, and many did, just as Israel has evacuated hundreds of thousands of its own citizens away from the battle lines. International organizations have seen fit to condemn Israel for urging people to leave the battle field, even though that is the rule of inernational law in military conflict!

 

 If there are civilians there, they have been kept there by Hamas, but it’s Israel’s fault,  and, as we could see, if Hamas or Jihadi rockets are fired towards Israel, but land, at a rate of some 20 to 50% of the time, on civilians, that is immediately blamed on Israel, especially if it lands on a hospital.

Yes, we will see harsh images, such as this:

Gaza? No!

The Syrian city of Aleppo, destroyed under Assad, 230,000 civilians dead at the hands of their own brothers.

Or this?

Gaza? No!

The Syrian City of Raqqah, after the war against Isis. 1600 civilians killed there 10,000 civilians in Mosul alone, by US and allied forces to free the Middle East from ISIS. Again, by their brothers.

Or this?

Gaza?No!

Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, after Russian missile attack.

120,000 dead, between military and civilian. This is what Russia did to Ukraine, their “little brother”!

Where were the massive marches of protest? Did people take to the streets ? Did anyone take over the Capitoll Rotunda or Grand Central Station for them?

Just a month ago, an entire independent state of Ngorno-Karrabach was eliminated, and its entire population exiled to Armenia. Did any one, other than Armenians, shed a tear? Or is it that Christians expelled by Muslims is a non- issue, or that they were not attacked by a Jewish state makes it a non-issue?

The so-called peace organization Code Pink obstructed a Senate hearing for support for Israel. Never once did Code Pink protest against any tyranny or horror., unless it was blamed on the US or Israel. Typically, such organizations as Code Pink support the dictatorship in Venezuela, will never protest China's actions, but do protest US aid for Ukraine.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_Pink#Political_positions_and_activism

At the end, you will see who I am addressing.

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

Shabbat of Solidarity with Israel October 14 2023

 

For a link to the ceremony and my comments:

https://www.youtube.com/live/PbBe0AfTXZk?si=HQDAGJfhhqBsEz5E 

We opened with this song, a duet by two Israelis, one a Jew, Boaz Sharabi, andone an Arab, Valerie Hamaty:

https://youtu.be/o1zvFPThV5Q?si=O_pQfdhJV8ljyGOl

Halevai--If only

يا ريت من السماء يمطر علينا الخير הלוואי מהשמיים יירד עלינו הטוב يا ريت يغيب الحرب ويجمعنا الحب سوى הלוואי שתיפסק המלחמה והאהבה תאחד אותנו يا ريت من شرق وغرب يضوي نجم اليل הלוואי שכוכב הליל יאיר על כולנו ממזרח עד מערב

If only-from the heavens will descend upon us the good

If only- would the wars cease and love unite us

If only- the star of the night would shine upon us all from east to west

  Opening:

Star Spangled Banner p 824 

 Thank you to President Biden for deeply moving words of support and for giving Israel military supplies and international backing.

 Hatikvah p 827 joined by Holocaust survivor and veteran of Israel Defense Forces, Barbara Drotow

 ************

  Opening Psalm--

Ps 83

שִׁ֖יר מִזְמ֣וֹר לְאָסָֽף׃

אֱלֹהִ֥ים אַל־דֳּמִי־לָ֑ךְ אַל־תֶּחֱרַ֖שׁ וְאַל־תִּשְׁקֹ֣ט אֵֽל׃

כִּֽי־הִנֵּ֣ה א֭וֹיְבֶיךָ יֶהֱמָי֑וּן וּ֝מְשַׂנְאֶ֗יךָ נָ֣שְׂאוּ רֹֽאשׁ׃

עַֽל־עַ֭מְּךָ יַעֲרִ֣ימוּ ס֑וֹד וְ֝יִתְיָעֲצ֗וּ עַל־צְפוּנֶֽיךָ׃

אָמְר֗וּ לְ֭כוּ וְנַכְחִידֵ֣ם מִגּ֑וֹי וְלֹֽא־יִזָּכֵ֖ר שֵֽׁם־יִשְׂרָאֵ֣ל עֽוֹד׃

 Read together

A song, a psalm of Asaph.

O God, do not be silent; do not hold aloof;
do not be quiet, O God!  For Your enemies rage,
Your foes assert themselves. They plot craftily against Your people,
take counsel against Your treasured ones.

They say, “Let us wipe them out as a nation; Israel’s name will be mentioned no more.”...

May they be frustrated and terrified, disgraced and doomed forever.

May they know that Your name, Yours alone, is the LORD,
supreme over all the earth.

 

Reading:

Chaim Nachman Bialik

Ir HaHaregah-The City of Slaughter( after the Kishinev pogrom, 1904) H.N. Bialik, "The City of Slaughter" in Complete Poetic Works of Hayyim Nahman Bialik, Israel Efros, ed. (New York, 1948): 129-43 (Vol. I)

The pogrom of Kishinev , Easter Day, 1903 -  49 Jews were killed, 92 were gravely injured, a number of Jewish women were raped. That number stunned and shocked the world. It spurred Bialik to write this elegy and spurred on the drive to establish a Jewish state.

קוּם לֵךְ לְךָ אֶל עִיר הַהֲרֵגָה וּבָאתָ אֶל-הַחֲצֵרוֹת,

וּבְעֵינֶיךָ תִרְאֶה וּבְיָדְךָ תְמַשֵּׁשׁ עַל-הַגְּדֵרוֹת

וְעַל הָעֵצִים וְעַל הָאֲבָנִים וְעַל-גַּבֵּי טִיחַ הַכְּתָלִים

אֶת-הַדָּם הַקָּרוּשׁ וְאֶת-הַמֹּחַ הַנִּקְשֶׁה שֶׁל-הַחֲלָלִים.

ARISE and go now to the city of slaughter;
Into its courtyard wind thy way;
There with thine own hand touch, and with the eyes of
 thine head,
Behold on tree, on stone, on fence, on mural clay,
The spattered blood and dried brains of the dead.

מַעֲשֶׂה בְּבֶטֶן רֻטָּשָה שֶׁמִּלּאוּהָ נוֹצוֹת,

מַעֲשֶׂה בִּנְחִירַיִם וּמַסְמֵרוֹת, בְּגֻלְגָּלוֹת וּפַטִּישִׁים,

מַעֲשֶׂה בִּבְנֵי אָדָם שְׁחוּטִים שֶׁנִּתְלוּ בְּמָרִישִׁים,

וּמַעֲשֶׂה בְּתִינוֹק שֶׁנִּמְצָא בְּצַד אִמּוֹ הַמְדֻקָּרָה

כְּשֶׁהוּא יָשֵׁן וּבְפִיו פִּטְמַת שָׁדָהּ הַקָּרָה;

וּמַעֲשֶׂה בְּיֶלֶד שֶׁנִּקְרַע וְיָצְאָה נִשְׁמָתוֹ בְּ“אִמִּי!” –

וְהִנֵּה גַם עֵינָיו פֹּה שׁוֹאֲלוֹת חֶשְׁבּוֹן מֵעִמִּי.

A tale of cloven belly, feather-filled;
Of nostrils nailed, of skull-bones bashed and spilled;
Of murdered men who from the beams were hung,
And of a babe beside its mother flung,
Its mother speared, the poor chick finding rest
Upon its mother's cold and milkless breast;
Of how a dagger halved an infant's word,
Its “ma” was heard, its “mama” never heard.
O, even now its eyes from me demand accounting.

 

What would Bialik write now, with a Jewish State, and with 1200 murdered in their homes, over a hundred kidnapped. He bemoaned that in his day, the descendants of the heroic Maccabees cowered in fear—today, we have our Maccabees- yet they fell before rag-tag amateurs, in a pogrom far, far worse.

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These have been harrowing days for us, even as we sit here, hoping we are safe in this country. But even so, many of us have real skin in the game, through family and friends in Israel.

Our grandson, Eitan, is now in Israel; he was starting on a college program, and was full of excitement. Now, his dreams are in abeyance, and the family is struggling to find him a flight back home before the real war starts.

Our nephew, with his daughter, and friends, was at the Rave festival just the evening before, and, by chance, they had to go back home. They returned the next day, only to here the sound of shooting , and turned back before it was too late.

We have family and friends, and I am sure many of you do who live within shooting distance of Gaza. We have children of our nephews and nieces now on the front lines, in combat fatigues, awaiting orders to move forward. It is very scary.

While we are encouraged by the strong support from our President and from the leaders of the European nations, we are, frankly scared by the announcement that a Hamas leader declared this Friday “a day of Global Jihad” and another spokesman stated” the entire planet will be under our law: there will be no more Jews or Christians”.

We are dismayed, that in addition to the usual white- supremacists, skin-heads, and Nazis cheering Hamas now, professors, academic departments, and numerous student organizations, have been cheering Hamas, without a single tear being shed ! Your Starbucks Barrista will now serve you Hamas flavored coffee, by instructions of the union!

This Shabbat, we began our reading of the Torah cycle from the Beginning- from Bereshit—it is striking how primordial themes still echo with us today.  

Rashi asks an unusual question, and gives us an unusual answer:

Since the Hebrew word for “ In the Beginning”, Bereshit”  does not mean in”In the Beginning”, why does the Torah start with a grammatically awkward for, “ B-Reshit”- “In  the Beginning of”--of  what? of Something? Of Nothing? Of Everything?

Rashi , a thousand years ago, looking at an unusual phrase, now looks at what is happening in the world—Christians fighting Muslims for the control of the Land of Israel , and quotes a R. Yitzhak ( possibly his own father):

For should the peoples of the world say to Israel, “You are robbers, because you took by force the lands of the seven nations of Canaan”, Israel may reply to them, “All the earth belongs to the Holy One, blessed be He; He created it and gave it to whom He pleased. When He willed He gave it to them, and when He willed He took it from them and gave it to us” .

The accusation of Jews as stealing the land of Israel is as ancient as the hills!

We barely get out of the Garden of Eden, when one son of Adam and Eve, that is Cain, murders the other son, Abel. Brother against brother. (Bereshit Rabbah 22:7)

About what were they quarreling?

They said: ‘Let us divide the world between us.”…

Here is one part of our quarrel: who gets the land of Israel.

This one said: ‘The Temple shall be built in my domain,’ and that one said: ‘The Temple shall be built in my domain,’

Here is the second part of our quarrel: who gets the Temple Mount in Jerusalem

They were quarreling over [who would wed] the first Eve.

In other words, sex was the motive.

What did Hamas do? As their did  their counterparts , ISIS, in Syria, and Boko Haram in Nigeria, they too, raped their captives.

So much for brotherly love.

Our portion ends : the earth was filled with violence- the Hebrew word for violence is “Hamas”.

It is the cognate for the Arabic word for “zeal.” I can’t help but make the connection,  because Islamic Resistance Movemen ,Ḥarakah al-Muqāwamah al-ʾIslāmiyyah ,which creates the initials: Hamas, which the movement chose precisely because it indicated their “zeal”.

Tragically, we are in a violent neighborhood.

The anti Zionists are defending Hamas, saying that the Palestinians  have been occupied for 75 years, and have acted up out of desperation. But the violence against Jews did not start with any occupation.

My great-great-grand-father and mother were murdered in their home in Zfat in1896, long before the Zionist invasion.

The ancient Jewish community of Hebron, dating back many centuries, was attacked in 1929, nearly 70 killed, and the community expelled. The excuse was that Jews were planning to take over the Temple Mount- the exact same excuse made by Hamas to justify its attack.

Gaza City had an ancient Jewish community, with many notable figures. Yet in 1929, they were forced to leave the area due to violent riots against them by the Arabs. Following these riots, and the death of nearly 135 Jews in all, the British prohibited Jews from living in Gaza to quell tension and appease the Arabs. Again, this was long before the “occupation and Oppression” by the Zionist settler colonialist.

From 1948 till 1967, Gaza, The “All Palestine Protectorate” was under their brothers, the Egyptians. Their terrorists then, Fedayeen, killed some 400 over the years 1950 to 1955 and prompted the Suez War.

In 1993, we had the Oslo accords, and the establishment of a quasi-independent territory under the Palestine Liberation Organization. That did not stop the terror attacks. In 2005, Israel pulled out unconditionally from Gaza strip, but that did not stop the attacks. They merely become more intense and more sophisticated.

These are not the acts of a desperate people, but of a people with an ideological conviction , that even as they grind their own people into suffering and misery, they are carrying out Allah’s will and bringing on the final conquest by Islam. This was declared in their original  Hamas Covenant of 1988:

“Our struggle against the Jews is very great and very serious.”

“The Prophet, Allah bless him and grant him salvation, has said:"The Day of Judgement 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. Only the Gharkad tree, (evidently a certain kind of tree) would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews."

In 2017, they “ sanitized” their covenant for western consumption: Where it said Jews, it now says “ Zionists” and it claims that persecution of Jews was solely a European problem.

Now, Zionists are used were the old “ Elders of Zion” used Jews:

“ The Zionist project does not target the Palestinian people alone; it is the enemy of the Arab and Islamic Ummah posing a grave threat to its security and interests. It is also hostile to the Ummah’s aspirations for unity, renaissance and liberation and has been the major source of its troubles. The Zionist project also poses a danger to international security and peace and to mankind and its interests and stability.”

The new covenant is simply larded with all the catch phrases that liberationists and the anti-colonialists of the west love:   colonialism, occupation, discrimination, oppression and aggression in the world. All of those lovely words were proven false in the actions of the ruthless terrorists who killed and slaughtered, maimed, raped and kidnapped men , women, and children, the elderly and the newborn.

 All of those lovely words were proven false in the actions of the ruthless terrorists who killed and slaughtered, maimed, raped and kidnapped men , women, and children, the elderly and the newborn.

( For a background on the connection between Nazi ideology and the Islamist Supremacist teachings of the Muslim  Brotherhood and Al-Qaeda ( and by historic connection, Hamas, ISIS , and the Khoeminist regome of Iran,  follow this link: https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/history/articles/the-nazi-roots-of-islamist-hate. The slaughter of innocents, even of one's own people, is a key tactic of radical movements of left and right.)

Yes, this is the brave new world of Hamas.

I am personally comforted  by the display of national unity that Israelis have been showing. I have received videos from family showing Israelis , secular, religious, and yes, the Charedi, ultra Orthodox, delivering food  and supplies to the vulnerable communities on the battle front. There is now a government of national unity, and former political enemies, who had said, “ Never”, now  talk with each other. 

Oh, God, please don’t make us get together when there is a disaster. Make us get together when there is peace.

 

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 Please take one electric tea candle and place it on the table in front, in memory of the 1300 innocent men, women, and children, Israelis, both Jews and Arabs, murdered in cold blood.:

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Please join us in this prayer, shared with us by our Southern California Board of Rabbis:

Prayer in Time of War in Israel Composed and offered by the Steering Committee for the Board of Rabbis of Southern California Eloheinu V’Elohei Avoteinu V’Imoteinu, Our God and God of our ancestors. You know that the Jewish people are one nation with one heart, and today that heart is broken. With the grim news of so many of our sisters and brothers in Israel killed, wounded, and kidnapped, we turn to You. Harofeh Lishvuray Lev, the healer of broken hearts, be with our brothers and sisters who have been taken captive and with the families of the victims. Watch over the hostages, break their bonds, redeem the captives and bring them out from darkness to light. Comfort the families of all those murdered and bring them under the shelter of Your wings. Bring complete healing, healing of body and healing of spirit, to all of those who are wounded, those wounded in body and those wounded in spirit. To the entire Jewish people who were terrorized, bind up our wounds and may Your divine presence bring us healing. Tzur Yisrael, Rock and Redeemer of the people of Israel, Bless the State of Israel during this time of war and tragedy. Guide its leaders and advisors with Your light and Your truth, and help them with Your good counsel. Shield it with Your love and spread over it the shelter of Your peace.  Shomer Yisrael, Guardian of Israel, strengthen and bless the soldiers of the Israel Defense Forces and the security forces, who stand guard over our land: on the land, in the air, and on the sea. Deliver them and crown their efforts with triumph. May God cause the enemies who rise up against them to be struck down before them. May the Holy Blessed One, preserve and rescue our soldiers from every trouble and distress and send blessing and success in their every endeavor.  In the face of war, God, protect and preserve us, and restore peace and wholeness to our hearts. Oseh Shalom Bimromav Hu Ya’aseh Shalom, Aleinu Ve’Al Kol Yisrael. And let us say: Amen.

Scroll images of hostages

Misheberach for IDF

https://youtu.be/Lq7H-xVx_s0?si=wV2VtXkPdQkqHxpc

Scroll names of fallen Israelis

El maleh for the victims ( from Yom  Hazikaron)

https://youtu.be/U2xOPDmrISE?si=i8hCAsdqXaS3DKB0

Agnon’ s introduction top of p  524.The Mourner’s Kaddish lead by Holocaust survivor, 101 year old Joe Alexnder.

 Conclude Am Yisrael Chai