Potentially, Israel faces a Second Holocaust.
Indeed, many Europeans continue Hitler’s war against the Jews by supporting fifty seven Islamic apartheid nation states against the single Jewish democratic state.
The worldwide media has become totally “Palestinianized” and Stalinized. Palestinians—even the haters, terrorists, and torturers, are naught but noble, innocent victims. Israel has literally become Orwell’s 1984 “Goldstein,” whom propagandized mobs are taught to scapegoat for their every conceivable sorrow.
The ideological assault against Israel has escalated. Daily, hourly, in every language, the media repeats Big Lies. Israel is the “Nazi, apartheid” state, the “colonial” aggressor. What a neat trick. Bloody Muslim imperialism and Islamic religious and gender apartheid are thus denied and projected onto Israel.
Israel is essentially, existentially, “evil.”
In 2005, Ahmadinejad said that Israel must be “wiped off the map.” In 2006, he said that the Middle East would be better off “without the existence of the Zionist regime” and that Israel would “soon be wiped out.”
President Ahmadinejad denies the Holocaust, but really, he feels Hitler did not go far enough. Thus, he is taking up where Hitler left off—Ahmadinejad’s intention is a clearly stated genocidal one.
No one is stopping him.
We—the world’s civilians—are now all Israelis. The same world which refused to stop the airplane hijackings and human bombs which blew up countless Israeli civilians has now inherited this whirlwind. As they say: It starts with the Jews but it never ends there.
Recently, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair said that: “To delegitimize Israel is an affront not only to Israelis but to those everywhere, in every part of humanity, who share the values of a free and independent spirit.” However, while his speech, delivered in Israel, was a very warm one, Blair also seemed to suggest that Israel’s best approach to combat the “delegitimization efforts” was to “always be a staunch and unremitting advocate and actor for peace.”
In other words, Israel, alone among nations, must earn the right to exist by being “good.” If we applied this standard to Iran, Sudan, Pakistan, or Saudi Arabia, they would have ceased to exist long ago.
October 4, 2010
Obama trying to force agreement on Israel
Lieberman: Israel must not be tempted to adopt US President Barack Obama's
suggestion to declare a two-month settlement construction moratorium, as it
may lead to a forced (peace) agreement with the Palestinians and a return to
the 1967 borders, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said Sunday.
During closed-door discussions with fellow members of his Yisrael Beiteinu
party, Lieberman said, "The pressure won’t work. We are not leaving the
coalition in order to bolster the majority in government, which is against
continuing the settlement construction moratorium."
According to the foreign minister, five, maybe even six Likud ministers -
Moshe Yaalon, Yossi Peled, Silvan Shalom, Yuli Edelstein and possibly Gilad
Erdan - would vote against Obama's proposal.
"During my recent visit to the US I learned that Washington is planning to
force a permanent agreement on Israel – two states for two peoples along the
1967 borders, plus-minus 3 or 4% of the territory exchanged," Lieberman
said. "This is the objective of a continued freeze – to give the US and the
international community two months to come up with a solution that will be
forced on Israel."
According to the FM, in two months' time "The US, along with the Quartet,
the Arab League and the Palestinians will tell Israel, 'This is the
solution, take it or leave it. If you don't, there is a price – a
confrontation with the international community'. Therefore, we must not quit
the coalition. It's the only way to solidify a majority against the freeze,
which is a decoy."
Lieberman told the Yisrael Beiteinu members that President Shimon Peres
promised Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu he would get Shas spiritual
leader Rabbi Ovadia Yosef's approval for a two-month moratorium, but added
that Shas was being pressured by its supporters in the West Bank, mainly in
Beitar and Emanuel, "who are not willing to hear of another freeze."
The FM said Defense Minister Ehud Barak's support for another moratorium
stems from his fear that "in two months his friends from Labor will force
him to leave the coalition and lose his portfolio."
Lieberman said Netanyahu's fellow Likud members are also angry with him for
"not responding to what Barak is doing."
The FM also spoke of his controversial speech before the UN General
Assembly. "Arthur J. Finkelstein told me not to deliver the speech, but I
decided otherwise. I decided that I had to speak from the heart, and tell
the world the truth as I see it."
suggestion to declare a two-month settlement construction moratorium, as it
may lead to a forced (peace) agreement with the Palestinians and a return to
the 1967 borders, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said Sunday.
During closed-door discussions with fellow members of his Yisrael Beiteinu
party, Lieberman said, "The pressure won’t work. We are not leaving the
coalition in order to bolster the majority in government, which is against
continuing the settlement construction moratorium."
According to the foreign minister, five, maybe even six Likud ministers -
Moshe Yaalon, Yossi Peled, Silvan Shalom, Yuli Edelstein and possibly Gilad
Erdan - would vote against Obama's proposal.
"During my recent visit to the US I learned that Washington is planning to
force a permanent agreement on Israel – two states for two peoples along the
1967 borders, plus-minus 3 or 4% of the territory exchanged," Lieberman
said. "This is the objective of a continued freeze – to give the US and the
international community two months to come up with a solution that will be
forced on Israel."
According to the FM, in two months' time "The US, along with the Quartet,
the Arab League and the Palestinians will tell Israel, 'This is the
solution, take it or leave it. If you don't, there is a price – a
confrontation with the international community'. Therefore, we must not quit
the coalition. It's the only way to solidify a majority against the freeze,
which is a decoy."
Lieberman told the Yisrael Beiteinu members that President Shimon Peres
promised Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu he would get Shas spiritual
leader Rabbi Ovadia Yosef's approval for a two-month moratorium, but added
that Shas was being pressured by its supporters in the West Bank, mainly in
Beitar and Emanuel, "who are not willing to hear of another freeze."
The FM said Defense Minister Ehud Barak's support for another moratorium
stems from his fear that "in two months his friends from Labor will force
him to leave the coalition and lose his portfolio."
Lieberman said Netanyahu's fellow Likud members are also angry with him for
"not responding to what Barak is doing."
The FM also spoke of his controversial speech before the UN General
Assembly. "Arthur J. Finkelstein told me not to deliver the speech, but I
decided otherwise. I decided that I had to speak from the heart, and tell
the world the truth as I see it."
September 29, 2010
Bibi's Speech at the UN General Assembly
Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen,
Nearly 62 years ago, the United Nations recognized the right of the Jews, an ancient people 3,500 years-old, to a state of their own in their ancestral homeland.
I stand here today as the Prime Minister of Israel, the Jewish state, and I speak to you on behalf of my country and my people.
The United Nations was founded after the carnage of World War II and the horrors of the Holocaust. It was charged with preventing the recurrence of such horrendous events.
Nothing has undermined that central mission more than the systematic assault on the truth. Yesterday the President of Iran stood at this very podium, spewing his latest anti-Semitic rants. Just a few days earlier, he again claimed that the Holocaust is a lie.
Last month, I went to a villa in a suburb of Berlin called Wannsee. There, on January 20, 1942 , after a hearty meal, senior Nazi officials met and decided how to exterminate the Jewish people. The detailed minutes of that meeting have been preserved by successive German governments. Here is a copy of those minutes, in which the Nazis issued precise instructions on how to carry out the extermination of the Jews. Is this a lie?
A day before I was in Wannsee, I was given in Berlin the original construction plans for the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. Those plans are signed by Hitler's deputy, Heinrich Himmler himself. Here is a copy of the plans for Auschwitz-Birkenau, where one million Jews were murdered. Is this too a lie?
This June, President Obama visited the Buchenwald concentration camp. Did President Obama pay tribute to a lie?
And what of the Auschwitz survivors whose arms still bear the tattooed numbers branded on them by the Nazis? Are those tattoos a lie? One-third of all Jews perished in the conflagration. Nearly every Jewish family was affected, including my own. My wife's grandparents, her father's two sisters and three brothers, and all the aunts, uncles and cousins were all murdered by the Nazis. Is that also a lie?
Yesterday, the man who calls the Holocaust a lie spoke from this podium. To those who refused to come here and to those who left this room in protest, I commend you. You stood up for moral clarity and you brought honor to your countries.
But to those who gave this Holocaust-denier a hearing, I say on behalf of my people, the Jewish people, and decent people everywhere: Have you no shame? Have you no decency?
A mere six decades after the Holocaust, you give legitimacy to a man who denies that the murder of six million Jews took place and pledges to wipe out the Jewish state.
What a disgrace! What a mockery of the charter of the United Nations! Perhaps some of you think that this man and his odious regime threaten only the Jews. You're wrong.
History has shown us time and again that what starts with attacks on the Jews eventually ends up engulfing many others.
This Iranian regime is fueled by an extreme fundamentalism that burst onto the world scene three decades ago after lying dormant for centuries. In the past thirty years, this fanaticism has swept the globe with a murderous violence and cold-blooded impartiality in its choice of victims. It has callously slaughtered Muslims and Christians, Jews and Hindus, and many others. Though it is comprised of different offshoots, the adherents of this unforgiving creed seek to return humanity to medieval times.
Wherever they can, they impose a backward regimented society where women, minorities, gays or anyone not deemed to be a true believer is brutally subjugated. The struggle against this fanaticism does not pit faith against faith nor civilization against civilization.
It pits civilization against barbarism, the 21st century against the 9th century, those who sanctify life against those who glorify death.
The primitivism of the 9th century ought to be no match for the progress of the 21st century. The allure of freedom, the power of technology, the reach of communications should surely win the day. Ultimately, the past cannot triumph over the future. And the future offers all nations magnificent bounties of hope. The pace of progress is growing exponentially.
It took us centuries to get from the printing press to the telephone, decades to get from the telephone to the personal computer, and only a few years to get from the personal computer to the Internet.
What seemed impossible a few years ago is already outdated, and we can scarcely fathom the changes that are yet to come. We will crack the genetic code. We will cure the incurable. We will lengthen our lives. We will find a cheap alternative to fossil fuels and clean up the planet.
I am proud that my country Israel is at the forefront of these advances - by leading innovations in science and technology, medicine and biology, agriculture and water, energy and the environment. These innovations the world over offer humanity a sunlit future of unimagined promise.
But if the most primitive fanaticism can acquire the most deadly weapons, the march of history could be reversed for a time. And like the belated victory over the Nazis, the forces of progress and freedom will prevail only after an horrific toll of blood and fortune has been exacted from mankind. That is why the greatest threat facing the world today is the marriage between religious fanaticism and the weapons of mass destruction.
The most urgent challenge facing this body is to prevent the tyrants of Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Are the member states of the United Nations up to that challenge? Will the international community confront a despotism that terrorizes its own people as they bravely stand up for freedom?
Will it take action against the dictators who stole an election in broad daylight and gunned down Iranian protesters who died in the streets choking in their own blood? Will the international community thwart the world's most pernicious sponsors and practitioners of terrorism?
Above all, will the international community stop the terrorist regime of Iran from developing atomic weapons, thereby endangering the peace of the entire world?
The people of Iran are courageously standing up to this regime. People of goodwill around the world stand with them, as do the thousands who have been protesting outside this hall. Will the United Nations stand by their side?
Ladies and Gentlemen,
The jury is still out on the United Nations, and recent signs are not encouraging. Rather than condemning the terrorists and their Iranian patrons, some here have condemned their victims. That is exactly what a recent UN report on Gaza did, falsely equating the terrorists with those they targeted.
For eight long years, Hamas fired from Gaza thousands of missiles, mortars and rockets on nearby Israeli cities. Year after year, as these missiles were deliberately hurled at our civilians, not a single UN resolution was passed condemning those criminal attacks. We heard nothing - absolutely nothing - from the UN Human Rights Council, a misnamed institution if there ever was one.
In 2005, hoping to advance peace, Israel unilaterally withdrew from every inch of Gaza . It dismantled 21 settlements and uprooted over 8,000 Israelis. We didn't get peace. Instead we got an Iranian backed terror base fifty miles from Tel Aviv. Life in Israeli towns and cities next to Gaza became a nightmare. You see, the Hamas rocket attacks not only continued, they increased tenfold. Again, the UN was silent.
Finally, after eight years of this unremitting assault, Israel was finally forced to respond. But how should we have responded? Well, there is only one example in history of thousands of rockets being fired on a country's civilian population. It happened when the Nazis rocketed British cities during World War II. During that war, the allies leveled German cities, causing hundreds of thousands of casualties. Israel chose to respond differently. Faced with an enemy committing a double war crime of firing on civilians while hiding behind civilians - Israel sought to conduct surgical strikes against the rocket launchers.
That was no easy task because the terrorists were firing missiles from homes and schools, using mosques as weapons depots and ferreting explosives in ambulances. Israel , by contrast, tried to minimize casualties by urging Palestinian civilians to vacate the targeted areas.
We dropped countless fliers over their homes, sent thousands of text messages and called thousands of cell phones asking people to leave. Never has a country gone to such extraordinary lengths to remove the enemy's civilian population from harm's way.
Yet faced with such a clear case of aggressor and victim, who did the UN Human Rights Council decide to condemn? Israel . A democracy legitimately defending itself against terror is morally hanged, drawn and quartered, and given an unfair trial to boot.
By these twisted standards, the UN Human Rights Council would have dragged Roosevelt and Churchill to the dock as war criminals. What a perversion of truth. What a perversion of justice.
Delegates of the United Nations,
Will you accept this farce?
Because if you do, the United Nations would revert to its darkest days, when the worst violators of human rights sat in judgment against the law-abiding democracies, when Zionism was equated with racism and when an automatic majority could declare that the earth is flat.
If this body does not reject this report, it would send a message to terrorists everywhere: Terror pays; if you launch your attacks from densely populated areas, you will win immunity. And in condemning Israel , this body would also deal a mortal blow to peace. Here's why.
When Israel left Gaza , many hoped that the missile attacks would stop. Others believed that at the very least, Israel would have international legitimacy to exercise its right of self-defense. What legitimacy? What self-defense?
The same UN that cheered Israel as it left Gaza and promised to back our right of self-defense now accuses us -my people, my country - of war crimes? And for what? For acting responsibly in self-defense. What a travesty!
Israeljustly defended itself against terror. This biased and unjust report is a clear-cut test for all governments. Will you stand with Israel or will you stand with the terrorists?
We must know the answer to that question now. Now and not later. Because if Israel is again asked to take more risks for peace, we must know today that you will stand with us tomorrow. Only if we have the confidence that we can defend ourselves can we take further risks for peace.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
All of Israel wants peace.
Any time an Arab leader genuinely wanted peace with us, we made peace. We made peace with Egypt led by Anwar Sadat. We made peace with Jordan led by King Hussein. And if the Palestinians truly want peace, I and my government, and the people of Israel , will make peace. But we want a genuine peace, a defensible peace, a permanent peace. In 1947, this body voted to establish two states for two peoples - a Jewish state and an Arab state. The Jews accepted that resolution. The Arabs rejected it.
We ask the Palestinians to finally do what they have refused to do for 62 years: Say yes to a Jewish state. Just as we are asked to recognize a nation-state for the Palestinian people, the Palestinians must be asked to recognize the nation state of the Jewish people. The Jewish people are not foreign conquerors in the Land of Israel . This is the land of our forefathers.
Inscribed on the walls outside this building is the great Biblical vision of peace: "Nation shall not lift up sword against nation. They shall learn war no more." These words were spoken by the Jewish prophet Isaiah 2,800 years ago as he walked in my country, in my city, in the hills of Judea and in the streets of Jerusalem .
We are not strangers to this land. It is our homeland. As deeply connected as we are to this land, we recognize that the Palestinians also live there and want a home of their own. We want to live side by side with them, two free peoples living in peace, prosperity and dignity.
But we must have security. The Palestinians should have all the powers to govern themselves except those handful of powers that could endanger Israel .
That is why a Palestinian state must be effectively demilitarized. We don't want another Gaza , another Iranian backed terror base abutting Jerusalem and perched on the hills a few kilometers from Tel Aviv.
We want peace.
I believe such a peace can be achieved. But only if we roll back the forces of terror, led by Iran , that seek to destroy peace, eliminate Israel and overthrow the world order. The question facing the international community is whether it is prepared to confront those forces or accommodate them.
Over seventy years ago, Winston Churchill lamented what he called the "confirmed unteachability of mankind," the unfortunate habit of civilized societies to sleep until danger nearly overtakes them.
Churchill bemoaned what he called the "want of foresight, the unwillingness to act when action will be simple and effective, the lack of clear thinking, the confusion of counsel until emergency comes, until self-preservation strikes its jarring gong."
I speak here today in the hope that Churchill's assessment of the "unteachability of mankind" is for once proven wrong.
I speak here today in the hope that we can learn from history -- that we can prevent danger in time.
In the spirit of the timeless words spoken to Joshua over 3,000 years ago, let us be strong and of good courage. Let us confront this peril, secure our future and, God willing, forge an enduring peace for generations to come.
September 28, 2010
Cargo of armed UN mines sparks El Al security alert in Canada
Drama at Toronto airport over anonymous shipment of primed explosives - later revealed to be destined for the UN in Sinai.
By Yossi Melman Tags: Israel news An explosive cargo sparked a security alert at a Toronto airport on Sunday before it emerged that a consignment of deadly landmines was bound for United Nations troops in Sinai - and was not part of a terror plot.
The cargo was destined to reach the Multinational Force and Observers in the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt, and consisted mainly of training equipment.
But UN officials had apparently neglected to inform El Al, Israel's national carrier, about the transfer of the consignment copntaining military landmines, some of them primed to detonate, toToronto's Pearson International Airport,
The anonymous weapons shipment sparked a high alert and El Al refused to allow the containers aboard its Tel Aviv-bound plan, handing them to Canadian forces for examination.
El Al refused to comment directly on the incident, but in an official statement emphasized that all cargo carried by the company undergoes meticulous security checks.
No El Al flights were delayed as a result of the incident.
The cargo was destined to reach the Multinational Force and Observers in the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt, and consisted mainly of training equipment.
But UN officials had apparently neglected to inform El Al, Israel's national carrier, about the transfer of the consignment copntaining military landmines, some of them primed to detonate, toToronto's Pearson International Airport,
The anonymous weapons shipment sparked a high alert and El Al refused to allow the containers aboard its Tel Aviv-bound plan, handing them to Canadian forces for examination.
El Al refused to comment directly on the incident, but in an official statement emphasized that all cargo carried by the company undergoes meticulous security checks.
No El Al flights were delayed as a result of the incident.
Sermon of The Century
EHR KUMT
First Day of Rosh Hashanah 2010
Sermon delivered by Rabbi Schlomo Lewis of Atlanta
I thought long and I thought hard on whether to deliver the sermon I am
about to share. We all wish to bounce happily out of shul on the High
Holidays, filled with warm fuzzies, ready to gobble up our brisket, our
honey cakes and our kugel. We want to be shaken and stirred – but not too
much. We want to be guilt-schlepped – but not too much. We want to be
provoked but not too much. We want to be transformed but not too much.
I get it, but as a rabbi I have a compelling obligation, a responsibility
to
articulate what is in my heart and what I passionately believe must be said
and must be heard. And so, I am guided not by what is easy to say but by
what is painful to express. I am guided not by the frivolous but by the
serious. I am guided not by delicacy but by urgency.
We are at war. We are at war with an enemy as savage, as voracious, as
heartless as the Nazis but one wouldn’t know it from our behavior. During
WWII we didn’t refer to storm troopers as freedom fighters. We didn’t call
the Gestapo, militants. We didn’t see the attacks on our Merchant Marine
as acts by rogue sailors. We did not justify the Nazis rise to power as
our
fault. We did not grovel before the Nazis, thumping our hearts and
confessing to abusing and mistreating and humiliating the German people.
We
did not apologize for Dresden, nor for The Battle of the Bulge, nor for El
Alamein, nor for D-Day.
Evil – ultimate, irreconcilable, evil threatened us and Roosevelt and
Churchill had moral clarity and an exquisite understanding of what was at
stake. It was not just the Sudetenland, not just Tubruk, not just Vienna,
not just Casablanca. It was the entire planet. Read history and be
shocked
at how frighteningly close Hitler came to creating a Pax Germana on every
continent.
Not all Germans were Nazis – most were decent, most were revolted by the
Third Reich, most were good citizens hoisting a beer, earning a living and
tucking in their children at night. But, too many looked away, too many
cried out in lame defense – I didn’t know.” Too many were silent. Guilt
absolutely falls upon those who committed the atrocities, but
responsibility
and guilt falls upon those who did nothing as well. Fault was not just
with
the goose steppers but with those who pulled the curtains shut, said and
did
nothing.
In WWII we won because we got it. We understood who the enemy was and we
knew that the end had to be unconditional and absolute. We did not stumble
around worrying about offending the Nazis. We did not measure every word
so
as not to upset our foe. We built planes and tanks and battleships and
went
to war to win….. to rid the world of malevolence.
We are at war… yet too many stubbornly and foolishly don’t put the pieces
together and refuse to identify the evil doers. We are circumspect and
disgracefully politically correct.
Let me mince no words in saying that from Fort Hood to Bali, from Times
Square to London, from Madrid to Mumbai, from 9/11 to Gaza, the murderers,
the barbarians are radical Islamists.
To camouflage their identity is sedition. To excuse their deeds is
contemptible. To mask their intentions is unconscionable.
A few years ago I visited Lithuania on a Jewish genealogical tour. It was
a
stunning journey and a very personal, spiritual pilgrimage. When we
visited
Kovno we davened Maariv at the only remaining shul in the city. Before the
war there were thirty-seven shuls for 38,000 Jews. Now only one, a
shrinking, gray congregation. We made minyon for the handful of aged
worshippers in the Choral Synagogue, a once majestic, jewel in Kovno.
After my return home I visited Cherry Hill for Shabbos. At the oneg an
elderly family friend, Joe Magun, came over to me.
“Shalom,” he said. “Your abba told me you just came back from Lithuania.”
“Yes,” I replied. “It was quite a powerful experience.” “Did you visit
the
Choral Synagogue in Kovno? The one with the big arch in the courtyard?”
“Yes, I did. In fact, we helped them make minyon.” His eyes opened wide
in
joy at our shared memory. For a moment he gazed into the distance and
then,
he returned. “Shalom, I grew up only a few feet away from the arch. The
Choral Synagogue was where I davened as a child.”
He paused for a moment and once again was lost in the past. His smile
faded. Pain filled his wrinkled face. “I remember one Shabbos in 1938
when
Vladimir Jabotinsky came to the shul” (Jabotinsky was Menachim Begin’s
mentor – he was a fiery orator, an unflinching Zionist radical, whose
politics were to the far right.) Joe continued “When Jabotinsky came, he
delivered the drash on Shabbos morning and I can still hear his words
burning in my ears. He climbed up to the shtender, stared at us from the
bima, glared at us with eyes full of fire and cried out. ‘EHR KUMT. YIDN
FARLAWST AYER SHTETL – He’s coming. Jews abandon your city.’ ”
We thought we were safe in Lithuania from the Nazis, from Hitler. We had
lived there, thrived for a thousand years but Jabotinsky was right -- his
warning prophetic. We got out but most did not.”
We are not in Lithuania. It is not the 1930s. There is no Luftwaffe
overhead. No U-boats off the coast of long Island. No Panzer divisions on
our borders. But make no mistake; we are under attack – our values, our
tolerance, our freedom, our virtue, our land.
Now before some folks roll their eyes and glance at their watches let me
state emphatically, unmistakably – I have no pathology of hate, nor am I a
manic Paul Revere, galloping through the countryside. I am not a
pessimist,
nor prone to panic attacks. I am a lover of humanity, all humanity.
Whether they worship in a synagogue, a church, a mosque, a temple or don’t
worship at all. I have no bone of bigotry in my body, but what I do have
is
hatred for those who hate, intolerance for those who are intolerant, and a
guiltless, unstoppable obsession to see evil eradicated.
Today the enemy is radical Islam but it must be said sadly and reluctantly
that there are unwitting, co-conspirators who strengthen the hands of the
evil doers. Let me state that the overwhelming number of Muslims are good
Muslims, fine human beings who want nothing more than a Jeep Cherokee in
their driveway, a flat screen TV on their wall and a good education for
their children, but these good Muslims have an obligation to destiny, to
decency that thus far for the most part they have avoided. The Kulturkampf
is not only external but internal as well. The good Muslims must sponsor
rallies in Times Square, in Trafalgar Square, in the UN Plaza, on the
Champs
Elysee, in Mecca condemning terrorism, denouncing unequivocally the
slaughter of the innocent. Thus far, they have not. The good Muslims must
place ads in the NY Times. They must buy time on network TV, on cable
stations, in the Jerusalem Post, in Le Monde, in Al Watan, on Al Jazeena
condemning terrorism, denouncing unequivocally the slaughter of the
innocent
– thus far, they have not. Their silence allows the vicious to tarnish
Islam and define it.
Brutal acts of commission and yawning acts of omission both strengthen the
hand of the devil.
I recall a conversation with my father shortly before he died that helped
me
understand how perilous and how broken is our world; that we are living on
the narrow seam of civilization and moral oblivion. Knowing he had little
time left he shared the following – “Shal. I am ready to leave this earth.
Sure I’d like to live a little longer, see a few more sunrises, but
truthfully, I’ve had it. I’m done. Finished. I hope the Good Lord takes
me soon because I am unable to live in this world knowing what it has
become.”
This startling admission of moral exhaustion from a man who witnessed and
lived through the Depression, the Holocaust, WWII, Communist Triumphalism,
McCarthyism, Strontium 90 and polio. – Yet his twilight observation was –
“The worst is yet to come.” And he wanted out.
I share my father’s angst and fear that too many do not see the authentic,
existential threat we face nor confront the source of our peril. We must
wake up and smell the hookah.
“Lighten up, Lewis. Take a chill pill, some of you are quietly thinking.
You’re sounding like Glen Beck. It’s not that bad. It’s not that real.”
But I am here to tell you – “It is.” Ask the member of our shul whose
sister was vaporized in the Twin Towers and identified finally by her
charred teeth, if this is real or not. Ask the members of our shul who
fled
a bus in downtown Paris, fearing for their safety from a gang of Muslim
thugs, if this is an exaggeration. Ask the member of our shul whose son
tracks Arab terrorist infiltrators who target – pizza parlors, nursery
schools, Pesach seders, city buses and play grounds, if this is dramatic,
paranoid hyperbole.
Ask them, ask all of them – ask the American GI’s we sit next to on planes
who are here for a brief respite while we fly off on our Delta vacation
package. Ask them if it’s bad. Ask them if it’s real.
Did anyone imagine in the 1920’s what Europe would look like in the 1940’s.
Did anyone presume to know in the coffee houses of Berlin or in the opera
halls of Vienna that genocide would soon become the celebrated culture?
Did
anyone think that a goofy-looking painter named Shickelgruber would go from
the beer halls of Munich and jail, to the Reichstag as Feuhrer in less than
a decade? Did Jews pack their bags and leave Warsaw, Vilna, Athens, Paris,
Bialystok, Minsk, knowing that soon their new address would be Treblinka,
Sobibor, Dachau and Auschwitz?
The sages teach – “Aizehu chacham – haroeh et hanolad – Who is a wise
person
– he who sees into the future.” We dare not wallow in complacency, in a
misguided tolerance and naïve sense of security.
We must be diligent students of history and not sit in ash cloth at the
waters of Babylon weeping. We cannot be hypnotized by eloquent-sounding
rhetoric that soothes our heart but endangers our soul. We cannot be
lulled
into inaction for fear of offending the offenders. Radical Islam is the
scourge and this must be cried out from every mountain top. From sea to
shining sea, we must stand tall, prideful of our stunning decency and moral
resilience. Immediately after 9/11 how many mosques were destroyed in
America? None. After 9/11, how many Muslims were killed in America?
None. After 9/11, how many anti-Muslim rallies were held in America?
None. And yet, we apologize. We grovel. We beg forgiveness.
The mystifying litany of our foolishness continues. Should there be a shul
in Hebron on the site where Baruch Goldstein gunned down twenty-seven Arabs
at noonday prayers? Should there be a museum praising the U.S. Calvary on
the site of Wounded Knee? Should there be a German cultural center in
Auschwitz? Should a church be built in the Syrian town of Ma’arra where
Crusaders slaughtered over 100,000 Muslims? Should there be a thirteen
story mosque and Islamic Center only a few steps from Ground Zero?
Despite all the rhetoric, the essence of the matter can be distilled quite
easily. The Muslim community has the absolute, constitutional right to
build their building wherever they wish. I don’t buy the argument – “When
we can build a church or a synagogue in Mecca they can build a mosque
here.” America is greater than Saudi Arabia. And New York is greater than
Mecca. Democracy and freedom must prevail.
Can they build? Certainly. May they build? Certainly. But should they
build at that site? No -- but that decision must come from them, not from
us. Sensitivity, compassion cannot be measured in feet or yards or in
blocks. One either feels the pain of others and cares, or does not.
If those behind this project are good, peace-loving, sincere, tolerant
Muslims, as they claim, then they should know better, rip up the zoning
permits and build elsewhere.
Believe it or not, I am a dues-paying, card carrying member of the ACLU,
yet
from start of finish, I find this sorry episode disturbing to say the
least.
William Burroughs, the novelist and poet, in a wry moment wrote – “After
one
look at this planet, any visitor from outer space would say – “I want to
see
the manager.”
Let us understand that the radical Islamist assaults all over the globe are
but skirmishes, fire fights, and vicious decoys. Christ and the
anti-Christ. Gog U’Magog. The Sons of Light and the Sons of Darkness; the
bloody collision between civilization and depravity is on the border
between
Lebanon and Israel. It is on the Gaza Coast and in the Judean Hills of the
West Bank. It is on the sandy beaches of Tel Aviv and on the cobblestoned
mall of Ben Yehuda Street. It is in the underground schools of Sderot and
on the bullet-proofed inner-city buses. It is in every school yard,
hospital, nursery, classroom, park, theater – in every place of innocence
and purity.
Israel is the laboratory – the test market. Every death, every explosion,
every grisly encounter is not a random, bloody orgy. It is a calculated,
strategic probe into the heart, guts and soul of the West.
In the Six Day War, Israel was the proxy of Western values and strategy
while the Arab alliance was the proxy of Eastern, Soviet values and
strategy. Today too, it is a confrontation of proxies, but the stakes are
greater than East Jerusalem and the West Bank. Israel in her struggle
represents the civilized world, while Hamas, Hezbollah, Al Queda, Iran,
Islamic Jihad, represent the world of psychopathic, loathesome evil.
As Israel, imperfect as she is, resists the onslaught, many in the Western
World have lost their way displaying not admiration, not sympathy, not
understanding, for Israel’s galling plight, but downright hostility and
contempt. Without moral clarity, we are doomed because Israel’s galling
plight ultimately will be ours. Hanna Arendt in her classic Origins of
Totalitarianism accurately portrays the first target of tyranny as the Jew.
We are the trial balloon. The canary in the coal mine. If the Jew/Israel
is permitted to bleed with nary a protest from “good guys” then tyranny
snickers and pushes forward with its agenda.
Moral confusion is a deadly weakness and it has reached epic proportions in
the West; from the Oval Office to the UN, from the BBC to Reuters to MSNBC,
from the New York Times to Le Monde, from university campuses to British
teachers unions, from the International Red Cross to Amnesty International,
from Goldstone to Elvis Costello, from the Presbyterian Church to the
Archbishop of Canterbury.
There is a message sent and consequences when our president visits Turkey
and Egypt and Saudi Arabia, and not Israel.
There is a message sent and consequences when free speech on campus is only
for those championing Palestinian rights.
There is a message sent and consequences when the media deliberately
doctors
and edits film clips to demonize Israel.
There is a message sent and consequences when the UN blasts Israel
relentlessly, effectively ignoring Iran, Sudan, Venezuela, North Korea,
China and other noxious states.
There is a message sent and consequences when liberal churches are
motivated
by Liberation Theology, not historical accuracy.
There is a message sent and consequences when murderers and terrorists are
defended by the obscenely transparent “one man’s terrorist is another man’s
freedom fighter.”
John Milton warned, “Hypocrisy is the only evil that walks invisible.”
A few days after the Gaza blockade incident in the spring, a congregant
happened past my office, glanced in and asked in a friendly tone –
“Rabbi. How’re y’ doing?”
I looked up, sort of smiled and replied – “I’ve had better days.”
“What’s the matter? Is there anything I can do to cheer you up?” he
inquired.
“Thank you for the offer but I’m just bummed out today and I showed him a
newspaper article I was reading.
“Madrid gay pride parade bans Israeli group over Gaza Ship Raid.” I
explained to my visitor – “The Israeli gay pride contingent from Tel Aviv
was not allowed to participate in the Spanish gay pride parade because the
mayor of Tel Aviv did not apologize for the raid by the Israeli military.”
The only country in the entire Middle East where gay rights exist, is
Israel. The only country in the entire Middle East where there is a gay
pride parade, is Israel. The only country in the Middle East that has gay
neighborhoods and gay bars, is Israel.
Gays in the Gaza would be strung up, executed by Hamas if they came out and
yet Israel is vilified and ostracized. Disinvited to the parade.
Looking for logic?
Looking for reason?
Looking for sanity?
Kafka on his darkest, gloomiest day could not keep up with this bizarre
spectacle and we “useful idiots” pander and fawn over cutthroats, sinking
deeper and deeper into moral decay, as the enemy laughs all the way to the
West Bank and beyond.
It is exhausting and dispiriting. We live in an age that is redefining
righteousness where those with moral clarity are an endangered, beleaguered
specie.
Isaiah warned us thousands of years ago – “Oye Lehem Sheh-Korim Layome,
Laila v’Laila, yome – Woe to them who call the day, night and the night,
day.” We live on a planet that is both Chelm and Sodom. It is a
frightening and maddening place to be.
How do we convince the world and many of our own, that this is not just
anti-Semitism, that this is not just anti-Zionism but a full throttled
attack by unholy, radical Islamists on everything that is morally precious
to us?
How do we convince the world and many of our own that conciliation is not
an
option, that compromise is not a choice?
Everything we are. Everything we believe. Everything we treasure, is at
risk.
The threat is so unbelievably clear and the enemy so unbelievably ruthless
how anyone in their right mind doesn’t get it is baffling. Let’s try an
analogy. If someone contracted a life-threatening infection and we not
only
scolded them for using antibiotics but insisted that the bacteria had a
right to infect their body and that perhaps, if we gave the invading
infection an arm and a few toes, the bacteria would be satisfied and stop
spreading
Anyone buy that medical advice? Well, folks, that’s our approach to the
radical Islamist bacteria. It is amoral, has no conscience and will spread
unless it is eradicated. – There is no negotiating. Appeasement is death.
I was no great fan of George Bush – didn’t vote for him. (By the way, I’m
still a registered Democrat.) I disagreed with many of his policies but
one
thing he had right. His moral clarity was flawless when it came to the War
on Terror, the War on Radical Islamist Terror. There was no middle ground
–
either you were friend or foe. There was no place in Bush’s world for a
Switzerland. He knew that this competition was not Toyota against G.M.,
not
the Iphone against the Droid, not the Braves against the Phillies, but a
deadly serious war, winner take all. Blink and you lose. Underestimate,
and you get crushed.
I know that there are those sitting here today who have turned me off. But
I also know that many turned off their rabbis seventy five years ago in
Warsaw, Riga, Berlin, Amsterdam, Cracow, Vilna. I get no satisfaction from
that knowledge, only a bitter sense that there is nothing new under the
sun.
Enough rhetoric – how about a little “show and tell?” A few weeks ago on
the cover of Time magazine was a horrific picture with a horrific story.
The photo was of an eighteen year old Afghani woman, Bibi Aisha, who fled
her abusive husband and his abusive family. Days later the Taliban found
her and dragged her to a mountain clearing where she was found guilty of
violating Sharia Law. Her punishment was immediate. She was pinned to the
ground by four men while her husband sliced off her ears, and then he cut
off her nose.
That is the enemy (show enlarged copy of magazine cover.)
If nothing else stirs us. If nothing else convinces us, let Bibi Aisha’s
mutilated face be the face of Islamic radicalism. Let her face shake up
even the most complacent and naïve among us. In the holy crusade against
this ultimate evil, pictures of Bibi Aisha’s disfigurement should be
displayed on billboards, along every highway from Route 66 to the Autobahn,
to the Transarabian Highway. Her picture should be posted on every lobby
wall from Tokyo to Stockholm to Rio. On every network, at every commercial
break, Bibi Aisha’s face should appear with the caption – “Radical Islamic
savages did this.” And underneath – “This ad was approved by Hamas, by
Hezbollah, by Taliban, by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, by Islamic
Jihad,
by Fatah al Islam, by Magar Nodal Hassan, by Richard Reid, by Ahmanijad, by
Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, by Osama bin Laden, by Edward Said, by The Muslim
Brotherhood, by Al Queda, by CAIR.”
“The moral sentiment is the drop that balances the sea” said Ralph Waldo
Emerson. Today, my friends, the sea is woefully out of balance and we
could
easily drown in our moral myopia and worship of political correctness.
We peer up into the heavens sending probes to distant galaxies. We peer
down
into quarks discovering particles that would astonish Einstein. We
create
computers that rival the mind, technologies that surpass science fiction.
What we imagine, with astounding rapidity, becomes real. If we dream it,
it
does, indeed, come. And yet, we are at a critical point in the history of
this planet that could send us back into the cave, to a culture that would
make the Neanderthal blush with shame.
Our parents and grandparents saw the swastika and recoiled, understood the
threat and destroyed the Nazis. We see the banner of Radical Islam and can
do no less.
A rabbi was once asked by his students….
“Rebbi. Why are your sermons so stern?” Replied the rabbi, “If a house is
on fire and we chose not to wake up our children, for fear of disturbing
their sleep, would that be love? Kinderlach, ‘di hoyz brent.’ Children
our
house is on fire and I must arouse you from your slumber.”
During WWII and the Holocaust was it business as usual for priests,
ministers, rabbis? Did they deliver benign homilies and lovely sermons as
Europe fell, as the Pacific fell, as North Africa fell, as the Mideast and
South America tottered, as England bled? Did they ignore the demonic
juggernaut and the foul breath of evil? They did not. There was clarity,
courage, vision, determination, sacrifice, and we were victorious. Today
it
must be our finest hour as well. We dare not retreat into the banality of
our routines, glance at headlines and presume that the good guys will
prevail.
Democracies don’t always win.
Tyrannies don’t always lose.
My friends – the world is on fire and we must awake from our slumber. “EHR
KUMT.”
First Day of Rosh Hashanah 2010
Sermon delivered by Rabbi Schlomo Lewis of Atlanta
I thought long and I thought hard on whether to deliver the sermon I am
about to share. We all wish to bounce happily out of shul on the High
Holidays, filled with warm fuzzies, ready to gobble up our brisket, our
honey cakes and our kugel. We want to be shaken and stirred – but not too
much. We want to be guilt-schlepped – but not too much. We want to be
provoked but not too much. We want to be transformed but not too much.
I get it, but as a rabbi I have a compelling obligation, a responsibility
to
articulate what is in my heart and what I passionately believe must be said
and must be heard. And so, I am guided not by what is easy to say but by
what is painful to express. I am guided not by the frivolous but by the
serious. I am guided not by delicacy but by urgency.
We are at war. We are at war with an enemy as savage, as voracious, as
heartless as the Nazis but one wouldn’t know it from our behavior. During
WWII we didn’t refer to storm troopers as freedom fighters. We didn’t call
the Gestapo, militants. We didn’t see the attacks on our Merchant Marine
as acts by rogue sailors. We did not justify the Nazis rise to power as
our
fault. We did not grovel before the Nazis, thumping our hearts and
confessing to abusing and mistreating and humiliating the German people.
We
did not apologize for Dresden, nor for The Battle of the Bulge, nor for El
Alamein, nor for D-Day.
Evil – ultimate, irreconcilable, evil threatened us and Roosevelt and
Churchill had moral clarity and an exquisite understanding of what was at
stake. It was not just the Sudetenland, not just Tubruk, not just Vienna,
not just Casablanca. It was the entire planet. Read history and be
shocked
at how frighteningly close Hitler came to creating a Pax Germana on every
continent.
Not all Germans were Nazis – most were decent, most were revolted by the
Third Reich, most were good citizens hoisting a beer, earning a living and
tucking in their children at night. But, too many looked away, too many
cried out in lame defense – I didn’t know.” Too many were silent. Guilt
absolutely falls upon those who committed the atrocities, but
responsibility
and guilt falls upon those who did nothing as well. Fault was not just
with
the goose steppers but with those who pulled the curtains shut, said and
did
nothing.
In WWII we won because we got it. We understood who the enemy was and we
knew that the end had to be unconditional and absolute. We did not stumble
around worrying about offending the Nazis. We did not measure every word
so
as not to upset our foe. We built planes and tanks and battleships and
went
to war to win….. to rid the world of malevolence.
We are at war… yet too many stubbornly and foolishly don’t put the pieces
together and refuse to identify the evil doers. We are circumspect and
disgracefully politically correct.
Let me mince no words in saying that from Fort Hood to Bali, from Times
Square to London, from Madrid to Mumbai, from 9/11 to Gaza, the murderers,
the barbarians are radical Islamists.
To camouflage their identity is sedition. To excuse their deeds is
contemptible. To mask their intentions is unconscionable.
A few years ago I visited Lithuania on a Jewish genealogical tour. It was
a
stunning journey and a very personal, spiritual pilgrimage. When we
visited
Kovno we davened Maariv at the only remaining shul in the city. Before the
war there were thirty-seven shuls for 38,000 Jews. Now only one, a
shrinking, gray congregation. We made minyon for the handful of aged
worshippers in the Choral Synagogue, a once majestic, jewel in Kovno.
After my return home I visited Cherry Hill for Shabbos. At the oneg an
elderly family friend, Joe Magun, came over to me.
“Shalom,” he said. “Your abba told me you just came back from Lithuania.”
“Yes,” I replied. “It was quite a powerful experience.” “Did you visit
the
Choral Synagogue in Kovno? The one with the big arch in the courtyard?”
“Yes, I did. In fact, we helped them make minyon.” His eyes opened wide
in
joy at our shared memory. For a moment he gazed into the distance and
then,
he returned. “Shalom, I grew up only a few feet away from the arch. The
Choral Synagogue was where I davened as a child.”
He paused for a moment and once again was lost in the past. His smile
faded. Pain filled his wrinkled face. “I remember one Shabbos in 1938
when
Vladimir Jabotinsky came to the shul” (Jabotinsky was Menachim Begin’s
mentor – he was a fiery orator, an unflinching Zionist radical, whose
politics were to the far right.) Joe continued “When Jabotinsky came, he
delivered the drash on Shabbos morning and I can still hear his words
burning in my ears. He climbed up to the shtender, stared at us from the
bima, glared at us with eyes full of fire and cried out. ‘EHR KUMT. YIDN
FARLAWST AYER SHTETL – He’s coming. Jews abandon your city.’ ”
We thought we were safe in Lithuania from the Nazis, from Hitler. We had
lived there, thrived for a thousand years but Jabotinsky was right -- his
warning prophetic. We got out but most did not.”
We are not in Lithuania. It is not the 1930s. There is no Luftwaffe
overhead. No U-boats off the coast of long Island. No Panzer divisions on
our borders. But make no mistake; we are under attack – our values, our
tolerance, our freedom, our virtue, our land.
Now before some folks roll their eyes and glance at their watches let me
state emphatically, unmistakably – I have no pathology of hate, nor am I a
manic Paul Revere, galloping through the countryside. I am not a
pessimist,
nor prone to panic attacks. I am a lover of humanity, all humanity.
Whether they worship in a synagogue, a church, a mosque, a temple or don’t
worship at all. I have no bone of bigotry in my body, but what I do have
is
hatred for those who hate, intolerance for those who are intolerant, and a
guiltless, unstoppable obsession to see evil eradicated.
Today the enemy is radical Islam but it must be said sadly and reluctantly
that there are unwitting, co-conspirators who strengthen the hands of the
evil doers. Let me state that the overwhelming number of Muslims are good
Muslims, fine human beings who want nothing more than a Jeep Cherokee in
their driveway, a flat screen TV on their wall and a good education for
their children, but these good Muslims have an obligation to destiny, to
decency that thus far for the most part they have avoided. The Kulturkampf
is not only external but internal as well. The good Muslims must sponsor
rallies in Times Square, in Trafalgar Square, in the UN Plaza, on the
Champs
Elysee, in Mecca condemning terrorism, denouncing unequivocally the
slaughter of the innocent. Thus far, they have not. The good Muslims must
place ads in the NY Times. They must buy time on network TV, on cable
stations, in the Jerusalem Post, in Le Monde, in Al Watan, on Al Jazeena
condemning terrorism, denouncing unequivocally the slaughter of the
innocent
– thus far, they have not. Their silence allows the vicious to tarnish
Islam and define it.
Brutal acts of commission and yawning acts of omission both strengthen the
hand of the devil.
I recall a conversation with my father shortly before he died that helped
me
understand how perilous and how broken is our world; that we are living on
the narrow seam of civilization and moral oblivion. Knowing he had little
time left he shared the following – “Shal. I am ready to leave this earth.
Sure I’d like to live a little longer, see a few more sunrises, but
truthfully, I’ve had it. I’m done. Finished. I hope the Good Lord takes
me soon because I am unable to live in this world knowing what it has
become.”
This startling admission of moral exhaustion from a man who witnessed and
lived through the Depression, the Holocaust, WWII, Communist Triumphalism,
McCarthyism, Strontium 90 and polio. – Yet his twilight observation was –
“The worst is yet to come.” And he wanted out.
I share my father’s angst and fear that too many do not see the authentic,
existential threat we face nor confront the source of our peril. We must
wake up and smell the hookah.
“Lighten up, Lewis. Take a chill pill, some of you are quietly thinking.
You’re sounding like Glen Beck. It’s not that bad. It’s not that real.”
But I am here to tell you – “It is.” Ask the member of our shul whose
sister was vaporized in the Twin Towers and identified finally by her
charred teeth, if this is real or not. Ask the members of our shul who
fled
a bus in downtown Paris, fearing for their safety from a gang of Muslim
thugs, if this is an exaggeration. Ask the member of our shul whose son
tracks Arab terrorist infiltrators who target – pizza parlors, nursery
schools, Pesach seders, city buses and play grounds, if this is dramatic,
paranoid hyperbole.
Ask them, ask all of them – ask the American GI’s we sit next to on planes
who are here for a brief respite while we fly off on our Delta vacation
package. Ask them if it’s bad. Ask them if it’s real.
Did anyone imagine in the 1920’s what Europe would look like in the 1940’s.
Did anyone presume to know in the coffee houses of Berlin or in the opera
halls of Vienna that genocide would soon become the celebrated culture?
Did
anyone think that a goofy-looking painter named Shickelgruber would go from
the beer halls of Munich and jail, to the Reichstag as Feuhrer in less than
a decade? Did Jews pack their bags and leave Warsaw, Vilna, Athens, Paris,
Bialystok, Minsk, knowing that soon their new address would be Treblinka,
Sobibor, Dachau and Auschwitz?
The sages teach – “Aizehu chacham – haroeh et hanolad – Who is a wise
person
– he who sees into the future.” We dare not wallow in complacency, in a
misguided tolerance and naïve sense of security.
We must be diligent students of history and not sit in ash cloth at the
waters of Babylon weeping. We cannot be hypnotized by eloquent-sounding
rhetoric that soothes our heart but endangers our soul. We cannot be
lulled
into inaction for fear of offending the offenders. Radical Islam is the
scourge and this must be cried out from every mountain top. From sea to
shining sea, we must stand tall, prideful of our stunning decency and moral
resilience. Immediately after 9/11 how many mosques were destroyed in
America? None. After 9/11, how many Muslims were killed in America?
None. After 9/11, how many anti-Muslim rallies were held in America?
None. And yet, we apologize. We grovel. We beg forgiveness.
The mystifying litany of our foolishness continues. Should there be a shul
in Hebron on the site where Baruch Goldstein gunned down twenty-seven Arabs
at noonday prayers? Should there be a museum praising the U.S. Calvary on
the site of Wounded Knee? Should there be a German cultural center in
Auschwitz? Should a church be built in the Syrian town of Ma’arra where
Crusaders slaughtered over 100,000 Muslims? Should there be a thirteen
story mosque and Islamic Center only a few steps from Ground Zero?
Despite all the rhetoric, the essence of the matter can be distilled quite
easily. The Muslim community has the absolute, constitutional right to
build their building wherever they wish. I don’t buy the argument – “When
we can build a church or a synagogue in Mecca they can build a mosque
here.” America is greater than Saudi Arabia. And New York is greater than
Mecca. Democracy and freedom must prevail.
Can they build? Certainly. May they build? Certainly. But should they
build at that site? No -- but that decision must come from them, not from
us. Sensitivity, compassion cannot be measured in feet or yards or in
blocks. One either feels the pain of others and cares, or does not.
If those behind this project are good, peace-loving, sincere, tolerant
Muslims, as they claim, then they should know better, rip up the zoning
permits and build elsewhere.
Believe it or not, I am a dues-paying, card carrying member of the ACLU,
yet
from start of finish, I find this sorry episode disturbing to say the
least.
William Burroughs, the novelist and poet, in a wry moment wrote – “After
one
look at this planet, any visitor from outer space would say – “I want to
see
the manager.”
Let us understand that the radical Islamist assaults all over the globe are
but skirmishes, fire fights, and vicious decoys. Christ and the
anti-Christ. Gog U’Magog. The Sons of Light and the Sons of Darkness; the
bloody collision between civilization and depravity is on the border
between
Lebanon and Israel. It is on the Gaza Coast and in the Judean Hills of the
West Bank. It is on the sandy beaches of Tel Aviv and on the cobblestoned
mall of Ben Yehuda Street. It is in the underground schools of Sderot and
on the bullet-proofed inner-city buses. It is in every school yard,
hospital, nursery, classroom, park, theater – in every place of innocence
and purity.
Israel is the laboratory – the test market. Every death, every explosion,
every grisly encounter is not a random, bloody orgy. It is a calculated,
strategic probe into the heart, guts and soul of the West.
In the Six Day War, Israel was the proxy of Western values and strategy
while the Arab alliance was the proxy of Eastern, Soviet values and
strategy. Today too, it is a confrontation of proxies, but the stakes are
greater than East Jerusalem and the West Bank. Israel in her struggle
represents the civilized world, while Hamas, Hezbollah, Al Queda, Iran,
Islamic Jihad, represent the world of psychopathic, loathesome evil.
As Israel, imperfect as she is, resists the onslaught, many in the Western
World have lost their way displaying not admiration, not sympathy, not
understanding, for Israel’s galling plight, but downright hostility and
contempt. Without moral clarity, we are doomed because Israel’s galling
plight ultimately will be ours. Hanna Arendt in her classic Origins of
Totalitarianism accurately portrays the first target of tyranny as the Jew.
We are the trial balloon. The canary in the coal mine. If the Jew/Israel
is permitted to bleed with nary a protest from “good guys” then tyranny
snickers and pushes forward with its agenda.
Moral confusion is a deadly weakness and it has reached epic proportions in
the West; from the Oval Office to the UN, from the BBC to Reuters to MSNBC,
from the New York Times to Le Monde, from university campuses to British
teachers unions, from the International Red Cross to Amnesty International,
from Goldstone to Elvis Costello, from the Presbyterian Church to the
Archbishop of Canterbury.
There is a message sent and consequences when our president visits Turkey
and Egypt and Saudi Arabia, and not Israel.
There is a message sent and consequences when free speech on campus is only
for those championing Palestinian rights.
There is a message sent and consequences when the media deliberately
doctors
and edits film clips to demonize Israel.
There is a message sent and consequences when the UN blasts Israel
relentlessly, effectively ignoring Iran, Sudan, Venezuela, North Korea,
China and other noxious states.
There is a message sent and consequences when liberal churches are
motivated
by Liberation Theology, not historical accuracy.
There is a message sent and consequences when murderers and terrorists are
defended by the obscenely transparent “one man’s terrorist is another man’s
freedom fighter.”
John Milton warned, “Hypocrisy is the only evil that walks invisible.”
A few days after the Gaza blockade incident in the spring, a congregant
happened past my office, glanced in and asked in a friendly tone –
“Rabbi. How’re y’ doing?”
I looked up, sort of smiled and replied – “I’ve had better days.”
“What’s the matter? Is there anything I can do to cheer you up?” he
inquired.
“Thank you for the offer but I’m just bummed out today and I showed him a
newspaper article I was reading.
“Madrid gay pride parade bans Israeli group over Gaza Ship Raid.” I
explained to my visitor – “The Israeli gay pride contingent from Tel Aviv
was not allowed to participate in the Spanish gay pride parade because the
mayor of Tel Aviv did not apologize for the raid by the Israeli military.”
The only country in the entire Middle East where gay rights exist, is
Israel. The only country in the entire Middle East where there is a gay
pride parade, is Israel. The only country in the Middle East that has gay
neighborhoods and gay bars, is Israel.
Gays in the Gaza would be strung up, executed by Hamas if they came out and
yet Israel is vilified and ostracized. Disinvited to the parade.
Looking for logic?
Looking for reason?
Looking for sanity?
Kafka on his darkest, gloomiest day could not keep up with this bizarre
spectacle and we “useful idiots” pander and fawn over cutthroats, sinking
deeper and deeper into moral decay, as the enemy laughs all the way to the
West Bank and beyond.
It is exhausting and dispiriting. We live in an age that is redefining
righteousness where those with moral clarity are an endangered, beleaguered
specie.
Isaiah warned us thousands of years ago – “Oye Lehem Sheh-Korim Layome,
Laila v’Laila, yome – Woe to them who call the day, night and the night,
day.” We live on a planet that is both Chelm and Sodom. It is a
frightening and maddening place to be.
How do we convince the world and many of our own, that this is not just
anti-Semitism, that this is not just anti-Zionism but a full throttled
attack by unholy, radical Islamists on everything that is morally precious
to us?
How do we convince the world and many of our own that conciliation is not
an
option, that compromise is not a choice?
Everything we are. Everything we believe. Everything we treasure, is at
risk.
The threat is so unbelievably clear and the enemy so unbelievably ruthless
how anyone in their right mind doesn’t get it is baffling. Let’s try an
analogy. If someone contracted a life-threatening infection and we not
only
scolded them for using antibiotics but insisted that the bacteria had a
right to infect their body and that perhaps, if we gave the invading
infection an arm and a few toes, the bacteria would be satisfied and stop
spreading
Anyone buy that medical advice? Well, folks, that’s our approach to the
radical Islamist bacteria. It is amoral, has no conscience and will spread
unless it is eradicated. – There is no negotiating. Appeasement is death.
I was no great fan of George Bush – didn’t vote for him. (By the way, I’m
still a registered Democrat.) I disagreed with many of his policies but
one
thing he had right. His moral clarity was flawless when it came to the War
on Terror, the War on Radical Islamist Terror. There was no middle ground
–
either you were friend or foe. There was no place in Bush’s world for a
Switzerland. He knew that this competition was not Toyota against G.M.,
not
the Iphone against the Droid, not the Braves against the Phillies, but a
deadly serious war, winner take all. Blink and you lose. Underestimate,
and you get crushed.
I know that there are those sitting here today who have turned me off. But
I also know that many turned off their rabbis seventy five years ago in
Warsaw, Riga, Berlin, Amsterdam, Cracow, Vilna. I get no satisfaction from
that knowledge, only a bitter sense that there is nothing new under the
sun.
Enough rhetoric – how about a little “show and tell?” A few weeks ago on
the cover of Time magazine was a horrific picture with a horrific story.
The photo was of an eighteen year old Afghani woman, Bibi Aisha, who fled
her abusive husband and his abusive family. Days later the Taliban found
her and dragged her to a mountain clearing where she was found guilty of
violating Sharia Law. Her punishment was immediate. She was pinned to the
ground by four men while her husband sliced off her ears, and then he cut
off her nose.
That is the enemy (show enlarged copy of magazine cover.)
If nothing else stirs us. If nothing else convinces us, let Bibi Aisha’s
mutilated face be the face of Islamic radicalism. Let her face shake up
even the most complacent and naïve among us. In the holy crusade against
this ultimate evil, pictures of Bibi Aisha’s disfigurement should be
displayed on billboards, along every highway from Route 66 to the Autobahn,
to the Transarabian Highway. Her picture should be posted on every lobby
wall from Tokyo to Stockholm to Rio. On every network, at every commercial
break, Bibi Aisha’s face should appear with the caption – “Radical Islamic
savages did this.” And underneath – “This ad was approved by Hamas, by
Hezbollah, by Taliban, by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, by Islamic
Jihad,
by Fatah al Islam, by Magar Nodal Hassan, by Richard Reid, by Ahmanijad, by
Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, by Osama bin Laden, by Edward Said, by The Muslim
Brotherhood, by Al Queda, by CAIR.”
“The moral sentiment is the drop that balances the sea” said Ralph Waldo
Emerson. Today, my friends, the sea is woefully out of balance and we
could
easily drown in our moral myopia and worship of political correctness.
We peer up into the heavens sending probes to distant galaxies. We peer
down
into quarks discovering particles that would astonish Einstein. We
create
computers that rival the mind, technologies that surpass science fiction.
What we imagine, with astounding rapidity, becomes real. If we dream it,
it
does, indeed, come. And yet, we are at a critical point in the history of
this planet that could send us back into the cave, to a culture that would
make the Neanderthal blush with shame.
Our parents and grandparents saw the swastika and recoiled, understood the
threat and destroyed the Nazis. We see the banner of Radical Islam and can
do no less.
A rabbi was once asked by his students….
“Rebbi. Why are your sermons so stern?” Replied the rabbi, “If a house is
on fire and we chose not to wake up our children, for fear of disturbing
their sleep, would that be love? Kinderlach, ‘di hoyz brent.’ Children
our
house is on fire and I must arouse you from your slumber.”
During WWII and the Holocaust was it business as usual for priests,
ministers, rabbis? Did they deliver benign homilies and lovely sermons as
Europe fell, as the Pacific fell, as North Africa fell, as the Mideast and
South America tottered, as England bled? Did they ignore the demonic
juggernaut and the foul breath of evil? They did not. There was clarity,
courage, vision, determination, sacrifice, and we were victorious. Today
it
must be our finest hour as well. We dare not retreat into the banality of
our routines, glance at headlines and presume that the good guys will
prevail.
Democracies don’t always win.
Tyrannies don’t always lose.
My friends – the world is on fire and we must awake from our slumber. “EHR
KUMT.”
September 26, 2010
Freeze....Defrosted!
The freeze is over!
Time to build and expel the horrible Arab Nazi Muslims!!!
Avi
Time to build and expel the horrible Arab Nazi Muslims!!!
Avi
Taqiyya
The practice of concealing one’s faith in dangerous circumstances originates in the Qur’an itself, which deems blameless those who disguise their beliefs in such cases. The practice of taqiyya in difficult circumstances is considered legitimate by Muslims of various persuasions. Sunni and Shi’i commentators alike observe that Q 16:106 in particular refers to the case of ‘Ammar b. Yasir, who was forced to renounce his beliefs under physical duress and torture.
Similarly, Q 3:28 enjoins believers not to take the company of doubters unless as a means of safeguarding themselves. “Let not the believers take those who deny the truth for their allies in preference to the believers – since he who does this cuts himself off from God in everything – unless it be to protect yourself against them in this way…” Regarding 3:28, Ibn Kathir, a prominent authority writes, "Whoever at any time or place fears their [infidels'] evil may protect himself through outward show." As proof of this, he quotes Muhammad's companion, al-Hassan, who said, “taqiyya is acceptable till the Day of Judgment [i.e., in perpetuity].”
Muslims...All Muslims are the enemy of the entire world and they all must be defeated! There is no alternative.
The end of days have clearly begun....be ready...
Chag Sameach!!
Avi
Similarly, Q 3:28 enjoins believers not to take the company of doubters unless as a means of safeguarding themselves. “Let not the believers take those who deny the truth for their allies in preference to the believers – since he who does this cuts himself off from God in everything – unless it be to protect yourself against them in this way…” Regarding 3:28, Ibn Kathir, a prominent authority writes, "Whoever at any time or place fears their [infidels'] evil may protect himself through outward show." As proof of this, he quotes Muhammad's companion, al-Hassan, who said, “taqiyya is acceptable till the Day of Judgment [i.e., in perpetuity].”
Muslims...All Muslims are the enemy of the entire world and they all must be defeated! There is no alternative.
The end of days have clearly begun....be ready...
Chag Sameach!!
Avi
Muslim "Extremist"
1. In 1968 Bobby Kennedy was shot and killed by:
a. Superman
b. Jay Leno
c. Harry Potter
d. A Muslim male extremist between the ages of 17 and 40
2. In 1972 at the Munich Olympics athletes were kidnapped and massacred by:
a. Olga Corbett
b. Sitting Bull
c. Arnold Schwarzenegger
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40
3. In 1979 the US Embassy in Iran was taken over by:
a. Lost Norwegians
b. Elvis
c. A tour bus full of 80-year-old women
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40
4. During the 1980's a number of Americans were kidnapped in Lebanon by:
a. John Dillinger
b. The King of Sweden
c. The Boy Scouts
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40
5. In 1983 the US Marine barracks in Beirut was blown up by:
a. A pizza delivery boy
b. Pee Wee Herman
c. Geraldo Rivera
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40
6. In 1985 the cruise ship Achille Lauro was hijacked and a 70 year old American passenger was murdered and thrown overboard in his wheelchair by:
a. The Smurfs
b. Davey Jones
c. The Little Mermaid
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40
7. In 1985 TWA flight 847 was hijacked at Athens, and a US Navy diver trying to rescue passengers was murdered by:
a. Captain Kidd
b. Charles Lindberg
c. Mother Teresa
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40
8. In 1988 Pan Am Flight 103 was bombed by:
a. Scooby Doo
b. The Tooth Fairy
c. The Sundance Kid
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40
9. In 1993 the World Trade Center was bombed the first time by:
a. Richard Simmons
b. Grandma Moses
c. Michael Jordan
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40
10. In 1998 the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were bombed by:
a. Mr. Rogers
b. Hillary Clinton, to distract attention from Wild Bill's women problems
c. The World Wrestling Federation
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40
11. On 9/11/01 four airliners were hijacked; two were used as missiles to take out the World Trade Centers, and of the remaining two, one crashed into the US Pentagon, and the other was diverted and crashed by the passengers. Thousands of people were killed by:
a. Bugs Bunny, Wiley E. Coyote, Daffy Duck and Elmer Fudd
b. The Supreme Court of Florida
c. Mr. Bean
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40
12. In 2002 the United States began fighting a war in Afghanistan against:
a. Enron
b. The Lutheran Church
c. The NFL
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40
13. In 2002 reporter Daniel Pearl was kidnapped and murdered by:
a. Bonnie and Clyde
b. Captain Kangaroo
c. Billy Graham
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40
14. And now we can add: In 2009, 31 people were wounded and 13 American Soldiers murdered on base at Fort Hood by a Major that was known as...
a. You guessed it! - A Muslim male extremist between the age of 17 and 40.
Muslims are Terrorists...
Period.
Avi
a. Superman
b. Jay Leno
c. Harry Potter
d. A Muslim male extremist between the ages of 17 and 40
2. In 1972 at the Munich Olympics athletes were kidnapped and massacred by:
a. Olga Corbett
b. Sitting Bull
c. Arnold Schwarzenegger
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40
3. In 1979 the US Embassy in Iran was taken over by:
a. Lost Norwegians
b. Elvis
c. A tour bus full of 80-year-old women
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40
4. During the 1980's a number of Americans were kidnapped in Lebanon by:
a. John Dillinger
b. The King of Sweden
c. The Boy Scouts
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40
5. In 1983 the US Marine barracks in Beirut was blown up by:
a. A pizza delivery boy
b. Pee Wee Herman
c. Geraldo Rivera
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40
6. In 1985 the cruise ship Achille Lauro was hijacked and a 70 year old American passenger was murdered and thrown overboard in his wheelchair by:
a. The Smurfs
b. Davey Jones
c. The Little Mermaid
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40
7. In 1985 TWA flight 847 was hijacked at Athens, and a US Navy diver trying to rescue passengers was murdered by:
a. Captain Kidd
b. Charles Lindberg
c. Mother Teresa
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40
8. In 1988 Pan Am Flight 103 was bombed by:
a. Scooby Doo
b. The Tooth Fairy
c. The Sundance Kid
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40
9. In 1993 the World Trade Center was bombed the first time by:
a. Richard Simmons
b. Grandma Moses
c. Michael Jordan
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40
10. In 1998 the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were bombed by:
a. Mr. Rogers
b. Hillary Clinton, to distract attention from Wild Bill's women problems
c. The World Wrestling Federation
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40
11. On 9/11/01 four airliners were hijacked; two were used as missiles to take out the World Trade Centers, and of the remaining two, one crashed into the US Pentagon, and the other was diverted and crashed by the passengers. Thousands of people were killed by:
a. Bugs Bunny, Wiley E. Coyote, Daffy Duck and Elmer Fudd
b. The Supreme Court of Florida
c. Mr. Bean
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40
12. In 2002 the United States began fighting a war in Afghanistan against:
a. Enron
b. The Lutheran Church
c. The NFL
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40
13. In 2002 reporter Daniel Pearl was kidnapped and murdered by:
a. Bonnie and Clyde
b. Captain Kangaroo
c. Billy Graham
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40
14. And now we can add: In 2009, 31 people were wounded and 13 American Soldiers murdered on base at Fort Hood by a Major that was known as...
a. You guessed it! - A Muslim male extremist between the age of 17 and 40.
Muslims are Terrorists...
Period.
Avi
September 24, 2010
Afraid of Freedom: By Moshe Feiglin
11 Tishrei, 5771
Sept. 19, '10
Translated from the NRG website.
Nobody has to worry about the allegiance of the religious officers and soldiers who are crowding the ranks of the IDF today. IDF documents made public after the expulsion from Gush Katif show that statistically, it was actually the soldiers who were not connected to a religious framework who refused to obey orders - and that phenomenon was negligible.
There is a different phenomenon though, that should be worrying those people who view freedom of thought, freedom of choice and freedom of conscience as a threat to their hegemony.
Polls and in-depth studies unequivocally prove that Israeli society is rediscovering its Judaism. The fascinating aspect of this phenomenon is that the younger generation of Israelis is actually closer to traditional Judaism than their parents. This Yom Kippur, more young people fasted than their adult counterparts. In the past, the opposite was true. The synagogues and community leaders were relegated to the "old generation," while the youngsters wanted nothing to do with "religion". But now, Israeli society is becoming more and more faith-based, with the younger generation blazing the trail.
Israeli society is becoming more faith-based - not more "religious." The phenomenon that we are experiencing is much broader than the "repentance movement" in its strictly religious parameters.
In the days of entertainer-turned-rabbi Uri Zohar, to "repent" meant to turn from a "secular Jew" into a "religious" or "haredi" Jew. But these definitions do not reflect reality. The question that actually defines the status of a given Jew on the faith continuum is: Is G-d present in your life or not? There are Jews who observe the commandments, but have left G-d out of the picture. There are even "progressive" movements that excel at that. On the other hand, there are Jews who still have not connected to Jewish law in its entirety, but experience G-d as very much present in their lives.
On this fundamental level, all of us are returning to G-d all the time. This ongoing experience is not a move from one end of the social spectrum to the other, but a gradual cohesion of the two extremes- together with G-d.
Only a person who fears G-d benefits from true liberty:
"And the midwives feared G-d and did not do what the king of Egypt told them, and they let the children live." (Exodus 1)
Two Hebrew women whose lives were worth no more than dust in the Egyptian gulag refuse to obey the orders of the greatest king in the ancient world - the Egyptian Pharaoh - and don't throw the Jewish baby boys into the Nile River. Their fear of G-d preserved their liberty.
As part of my sentence for "sedition" against the Oslo Accords government, I did community service in a state nursing home. One of the old gentlemen there told me his own story about a different gulag:
"When I went to first grade in the Stalin-era public school in Russia, I made sure never to ask permission from my teacher to let me use the bathroom. It was very important to me to be sure that when I would need to ask permission to go to the bathroom, she would believe me and let me leave the classroom. I knew that I would need to use this escape route when the state nurse would come to check the personal hygiene of the students. If she would find the tzitzit (ritual fringes) that I had under my shirt, she would report me to the authorities and my father would be sent to his death in Siberia."
My friend in the nursing home told this story very matter-of-factly. But it gave me the goose bumps. I was in awe of the father who would risk his life for his faith and the little boy whose fear of Heaven made him truly free at the ripe old age of six.
The wave of return to G-d that Israeli society is now experiencing will necessarily lead to liberty for our Land as well. That is what the people in the ivory towers have to watch out for - not for the religious soldiers.
Sept. 19, '10
Translated from the NRG website.
Nobody has to worry about the allegiance of the religious officers and soldiers who are crowding the ranks of the IDF today. IDF documents made public after the expulsion from Gush Katif show that statistically, it was actually the soldiers who were not connected to a religious framework who refused to obey orders - and that phenomenon was negligible.
There is a different phenomenon though, that should be worrying those people who view freedom of thought, freedom of choice and freedom of conscience as a threat to their hegemony.
Polls and in-depth studies unequivocally prove that Israeli society is rediscovering its Judaism. The fascinating aspect of this phenomenon is that the younger generation of Israelis is actually closer to traditional Judaism than their parents. This Yom Kippur, more young people fasted than their adult counterparts. In the past, the opposite was true. The synagogues and community leaders were relegated to the "old generation," while the youngsters wanted nothing to do with "religion". But now, Israeli society is becoming more and more faith-based, with the younger generation blazing the trail.
Israeli society is becoming more faith-based - not more "religious." The phenomenon that we are experiencing is much broader than the "repentance movement" in its strictly religious parameters.
In the days of entertainer-turned-rabbi Uri Zohar, to "repent" meant to turn from a "secular Jew" into a "religious" or "haredi" Jew. But these definitions do not reflect reality. The question that actually defines the status of a given Jew on the faith continuum is: Is G-d present in your life or not? There are Jews who observe the commandments, but have left G-d out of the picture. There are even "progressive" movements that excel at that. On the other hand, there are Jews who still have not connected to Jewish law in its entirety, but experience G-d as very much present in their lives.
On this fundamental level, all of us are returning to G-d all the time. This ongoing experience is not a move from one end of the social spectrum to the other, but a gradual cohesion of the two extremes- together with G-d.
Only a person who fears G-d benefits from true liberty:
"And the midwives feared G-d and did not do what the king of Egypt told them, and they let the children live." (Exodus 1)
Two Hebrew women whose lives were worth no more than dust in the Egyptian gulag refuse to obey the orders of the greatest king in the ancient world - the Egyptian Pharaoh - and don't throw the Jewish baby boys into the Nile River. Their fear of G-d preserved their liberty.
As part of my sentence for "sedition" against the Oslo Accords government, I did community service in a state nursing home. One of the old gentlemen there told me his own story about a different gulag:
"When I went to first grade in the Stalin-era public school in Russia, I made sure never to ask permission from my teacher to let me use the bathroom. It was very important to me to be sure that when I would need to ask permission to go to the bathroom, she would believe me and let me leave the classroom. I knew that I would need to use this escape route when the state nurse would come to check the personal hygiene of the students. If she would find the tzitzit (ritual fringes) that I had under my shirt, she would report me to the authorities and my father would be sent to his death in Siberia."
My friend in the nursing home told this story very matter-of-factly. But it gave me the goose bumps. I was in awe of the father who would risk his life for his faith and the little boy whose fear of Heaven made him truly free at the ripe old age of six.
The wave of return to G-d that Israeli society is now experiencing will necessarily lead to liberty for our Land as well. That is what the people in the ivory towers have to watch out for - not for the religious soldiers.
Purim in the 21 century
The Esther Scroll is, in a sense, the most relevant biblical book today.
It is about assimilated Jews and written for them.
The Greek version of the Esther contains profuse prayers, but the Jewish
canonical version lacks any reference to God. It is as secular as Woody
Allen’s movies. Perhaps for that reason Esther is the only canonical book
absent from the Dead Sea Scrolls. Religious people simply were not interested in
secular romance.
The Esther was written for intelligent people. Judean peasants could believe
that Joshua parted the River Jordan and the flowing water kept forming a wall
into the skies; Rambam warned that these miracles were not to be taken
literally. Educated Babylonian Jews wouldn’t buy that. In the Esther, miracles
are of a different order: they represent improbable rather than physically
impossible events. To educated Jews, God performs miracles by adjusting
probabilities rather than by violating the laws of nature.
Mordechai Bilshan was a typical assimilated Jew, much like any ADL functionary
today. Just as Jews of today are called Paul, after our Christian nemesis, he
took the name of Marduk Bel Shunu, [god] Marduk Our Lord. Not unlike the modern
court Jews, Mordechai was extremely ill-mannered, as he refused to show basic
respect to viceroy. The entire Jewish community was endangered because of
Mordechai’s frankly unethical behavior; did you think, “Polish tax
farmers?”
Rabbis surmise that Mordechai behaved brutishly because he was certain of
eventual deliverance. Such a hypothesis does not square with the fact that
Mordechai rent his closes and was otherwise shocked upon hearing of Haman’s
reaction—extermination of all Jews.
Mordechai was a scheming Jew at that. Upon overhearing putschists, he quickly
ratted on them to the king. By doing so, Mordechai kept alive the very ruler who
would order the annihilation of all Jews. The narrator missed no opportunity to
hint to his readers that assimilated Jews are guilty, and deserving of their
fate.
Mordechai was only happy to introduce Esther, his cousin, to a pagan king for a
marriage which would likely have amounted to a one-time concubinage. Esther,
too, had no trouble understanding that she should keep her Jewishness from the
king. She abandoned Judaism in favor of pagan religious ceremonies.
At the time of the crisis, both assimilated personages changed. When Esther
initially refused to plead with the king for the Jews, Mordechai clearly hinted
to her that she could not expect that her own Jewishness would remain hidden
from the king. Pressed against the wall, Esther sprung into action, and with
much cunning and strong nerve overcame Haman, her husband’s favorite.
Esther was not your liberal Jew. After she managed to reverse the edict, Jews
were allowed to slaughter those who hated them. After five hundred alleged
anti-Semites were murdered in the capital, the shocked king turned to Esther to
ask if, perhaps, she wished for something else. Pretending not to understand
him, Esther answered that indeed, she had a wish—for one more day of killings.
So the Jews murdered another three hundred residents the next day.
Among other things, the Esther Scroll reminds American Jews to gather their
last shreds of Jewishness and support the expulsion of the Arabs as the least
criminal measure according to our religious precepts.
By
Obadiah Shoher.
It is about assimilated Jews and written for them.
The Greek version of the Esther contains profuse prayers, but the Jewish
canonical version lacks any reference to God. It is as secular as Woody
Allen’s movies. Perhaps for that reason Esther is the only canonical book
absent from the Dead Sea Scrolls. Religious people simply were not interested in
secular romance.
The Esther was written for intelligent people. Judean peasants could believe
that Joshua parted the River Jordan and the flowing water kept forming a wall
into the skies; Rambam warned that these miracles were not to be taken
literally. Educated Babylonian Jews wouldn’t buy that. In the Esther, miracles
are of a different order: they represent improbable rather than physically
impossible events. To educated Jews, God performs miracles by adjusting
probabilities rather than by violating the laws of nature.
Mordechai Bilshan was a typical assimilated Jew, much like any ADL functionary
today. Just as Jews of today are called Paul, after our Christian nemesis, he
took the name of Marduk Bel Shunu, [god] Marduk Our Lord. Not unlike the modern
court Jews, Mordechai was extremely ill-mannered, as he refused to show basic
respect to viceroy. The entire Jewish community was endangered because of
Mordechai’s frankly unethical behavior; did you think, “Polish tax
farmers?”
Rabbis surmise that Mordechai behaved brutishly because he was certain of
eventual deliverance. Such a hypothesis does not square with the fact that
Mordechai rent his closes and was otherwise shocked upon hearing of Haman’s
reaction—extermination of all Jews.
Mordechai was a scheming Jew at that. Upon overhearing putschists, he quickly
ratted on them to the king. By doing so, Mordechai kept alive the very ruler who
would order the annihilation of all Jews. The narrator missed no opportunity to
hint to his readers that assimilated Jews are guilty, and deserving of their
fate.
Mordechai was only happy to introduce Esther, his cousin, to a pagan king for a
marriage which would likely have amounted to a one-time concubinage. Esther,
too, had no trouble understanding that she should keep her Jewishness from the
king. She abandoned Judaism in favor of pagan religious ceremonies.
At the time of the crisis, both assimilated personages changed. When Esther
initially refused to plead with the king for the Jews, Mordechai clearly hinted
to her that she could not expect that her own Jewishness would remain hidden
from the king. Pressed against the wall, Esther sprung into action, and with
much cunning and strong nerve overcame Haman, her husband’s favorite.
Esther was not your liberal Jew. After she managed to reverse the edict, Jews
were allowed to slaughter those who hated them. After five hundred alleged
anti-Semites were murdered in the capital, the shocked king turned to Esther to
ask if, perhaps, she wished for something else. Pretending not to understand
him, Esther answered that indeed, she had a wish—for one more day of killings.
So the Jews murdered another three hundred residents the next day.
Among other things, the Esther Scroll reminds American Jews to gather their
last shreds of Jewishness and support the expulsion of the Arabs as the least
criminal measure according to our religious precepts.
By
Obadiah Shoher.
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