All victimologies fuel nationalism and all nationalisms contain the capacity for genocide.
As Maj. Kong noted: “Anti-Semitism is as natural to Western civilization as anti-Christianity is to Jewish civilization, Islamic civilization and Japanese civilization.”
Different groups have different interests. Much of the time, life is war over scarce resources. It’s rare that one group rises in power without other groups losing power and hence access to scarce resources.
“We were too busy and hungry to think about the British and their families,” one assassin told Bergman, recounting how he shot a British officer on a Jerusalem street in 1944. “I didn’t feel anything, not even a little twinge of guilt. We believed the more coffins that reached London, the closer the day of freedom would be.”
Many men who fought in the Zionist underground later became establishment figures in Israel, including Yitzhak Shamir and Menachem Begin; they imported guerrilla methods into the security apparatus they helped create. Assassinations offered a tactical method for a tiny country with rudimentary defenses. The Holocaust, Bergman writes, reinforced the sense that the country and its people would be “perpetually in danger of annihilation.”
Meir Dagan, the spymaster who led the Mossad from 2002 to 2011, kept a photograph in his office of a bearded man in a prayer shawl, kneeling in front of German troops. Whenever Mossad operatives were about to carry out a particularly sensitive mission, he would invite them to his office and explain that the man pictured was his grandfather, shortly before the Nazis murdered him. “Most of the Jews in the Holocaust died without fighting,” Dagan told Bergman. “We must never reach that situation again, kneeling, without the ability to fight for our lives.”
…Another wild card is a belligerent Ariel Sharon, who keeps turning up in this book — first as an army commander, then as minister of defense and eventually as prime minister. Bergman describes Sharon as a “pyromaniac,” and his obsession with killing Yasser Arafat, the chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization, as verging on monomaniacal. In his hunt for Arafat, Sharon almost had the Mossad shoot down a plane of 30 wounded Palestinian children by mistake; he even countenanced the downing of a commercial airliner if Arafat were on it. As Bergman bluntly states, this would have amounted to “an intentional war crime.”
But Sharon was just one man, and today there is a bigger institutional problem that Bergman traces, having to do with Israel’s security apparatus getting more technologically savvy and ruthlessly efficient. Instead of taking months or years to plan a single killing, the Mossad and its domestic counterpart, Shin Bet, are now capable of planning four or five “interceptions” a day. “You get used to killing. Human life becomes something plain, easy to dispose of. You spend a quarter of an hour, 20 minutes, on who to kill.” This quote is from Ami Ayalon, who as the head of Shin Bet in the late ’90s helped shepherd the organization into the digital age. He also told Bergman: “I call it the banality of evil.”
The irony of Ayalon’s inflammatory language — an echo of Hannah Arendt’s line about Nazi functionaries — is as pointed as it is jarring. This book is full of shocking moments, surprising disturbances in a narrative full of fateful twists and unintended consequences. As one naval commander says, “Listen, history plays strange games.”
Posted inIsrael, Nationalism|Comments Off on Rise and Kill First: The Secret History of Israel’s Targeted Assassinations
Joe* says: “Luke, just listened to your podcast on chronic fatigue. Amazing work, I myself have been a chronic pain sufferer for years, and can’t help but notice that amongst the redpilled, are the sick. Millenial woes suffers from terrible epilepsy (as did Dostoevsky). Nietszche and Spengler suffered from terrible trigeminal neuropathic pain, migraines etc… so, perhaps a question for your next podcast. “Why do pain and suffering seem to lead us to the truth?””
I think sick people, or those who’ve had serious illness, place more value on order and cohesion and thus are more viscerally threatened by diversity and chaos.
Based writes: “Fear and a sense of vulnerability generally makes people more ethnocentric, more risk averse, etc. — except when, perhaps, ’embracing diversity’ is seen as a survival strategy.”
During my 17-year struggle with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS), I’ve often felt as U.S. women’s soccer player Michelle Akers says in this movie — that she died on the day she got sick.
This is a superb documentary on CFS.
From IMDB.com: “In 1984-85, people at Lake Tahoe fell ill with flu symptoms, but they didn’t get better. Medical literature documents similar outbreaks: in 1934 at LA county hospital, in 1948-49 in Iceland, in 1956 in Punta Gorda, Florida. The malady now has a name, chronic fatigue syndrome, and filmmaker Kim Snyder, who suffered from the disease for several years, tells her story and talks to victims and their families, and to physicians and researchers: is it viral, it is psychosomatic, is it one disease or several (a syndrome) ; what’s the CDC doing about it; what’s it like to have a disease that’s not yet understood? Her inquiry takes her to Punta Gorda and to a high-school graduation.”
Roger Ebert writes in the Chicago Sun-Times: “Snyder is an investigative journalist who does her own detective work…a documentary which does what the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta shamefully failed to do: connect the dots.”
I wonder what happened to high school senior Stephen Paganetti, who was too sick to even feed himself. Few of his friends visited him once he got sick. (His mailing address is POBox 145 Durham, CT 06422-0145.)
Most of my friends my age ignored me once I got sick, or said that it was all in my head.
One of my strongest beliefs from my illness is that older people are more compassionate with illness than younger people. They are more likely to visit you and to help you.
I WROTE IN 2011:
Assignment: Write about a big lesson you’ve learned in life. Give the person you became an Indian name and give the lesson an Indian name.
Person I became: Broken Arrow
Lesson: Trying Too Hard
I fear that I did something wrong that precipitated my descent into Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS). I fear I made some bad choices in early 1988 and they led me out of normal health into chronic illness.
I was taking 22 units at Sierra Community College that Spring semester of 1988. I also worked a gardening job for about 20 hours a week.
The previous semester, I’d completed 21 units with straight As for the first time in my life.
I’d been accepted into UCLA as a pre-Economics major.
On the surface, everything seemed great. I was going from success to success. I had $25,000 in the bank from working construction. I could do 120 pull-ups and 1400 push-ups in an hour. I might’ve been stronger than any time previous.
But there were warning signs that something was wrong. I was getting up at 4 a.m. every day to study Calculus, my most difficult subject because my math background was so weak. The last time I ever cheated in a class was the previous semester in Trigonometry.
“If you have to work so hard at community college,” my mother said, “what will happen to you at university?”
My sister from Australia spent the Christmas break with me. She slept in my room. She said I cursed in my sleep.
I had been in peak physical shape when I started the fall 1987 semester but by November I regularly got severe colds and flus. I would fast to recover quicker, drink huge amounts of water, go to school sick, and at times lose up to 15 pounds before bouncing back.
The harder I tried, the more I compressed my neck, hunched my shoulders and collapsed my torso.
Also, I wasted time on such frivolity as “The Dating Game” which featured “Sierra’s Sexiest Men and Women.” I lost. I was still a virgin.
“I’ll break through or I’ll break down,” I kept saying to myself as I pressed through February 1988. “Either way, I’ll get love.”
Perhaps the first recorded outbreak of CFS was in Lake Tahoe between 1984-1987. Two physicians during that time diagnosed 259 patients with the disease.
Two hours drive from Lake Tahoe, I lived with my parents in zip code 95658.
I came down with mono in late January 1986 and it hobbled me for a couple of months. I’d never experienced any illness like it. All the others had gone away after a couple of weeks at most. This one dragged on. I could make it to class and to work but I felt wiped out all of the time.
When I finished the semester with a B average, I took a job in landscaping, trusting it would restore me to health. It did.
I enjoyed it so much, I dropped most of my classes in the fall so I could keep working outside.
It was miserable, however, working construction in the winter. I returned to full-time school in the Spring and worked full-time on the side to maintain my health.
My father — who got two PhDs in 18-months each by rising before 4 a.m. every day — repeatedly warned me that I was spending my health to get my wealth and that I would be better served by a more moderate schedule.
I wonder where it all went wrong? Was it the year I drove around with a leak in my gas tank, filling my VW Bug with noxious fumes whenever I turned a corner too sharply? Was it the dangerous pesticides I carried in the back seat to kill weeds? Was it the ditch water that gave me giardia? We lived in the country and our water came from ditches that traveled for miles. Like all the families around us, we chlorinated the water and boiled it. My parents drank it and they never got sick.
Who knows who murdered my life. All I know is that I got what felt like the flu in mid-February 1988. After a couple of days in bed, I struggled back to school and to work only to have a relapse a day later.
This became the pattern for the rest of my semester — a few days of work and school followed by relapse.
Nothing like this had hit me before. The mono was constant. Now I was getting mono-like attacks but they came and went depending on how much I physically exerted myself. Abundant rest left me feeling OK but broken. I knew my body engine had suddenly become weak and I had gone from the best of health to the worst of health overnight.
Frustrated by falling out of shape, I went for a three-mile run one Sunday afternoon in March, 1988. Within a couple of hours, I had a severe relapse.
It would be the last time in my life I’d complete such a jog. From here on, I lived as an invalid.
Though what I most needed was rest, I felt under pressure at work because I had over-ordered hundreds of dollars worth of plants which had to get in the ground.
The first doctor I saw was in March at Sierra College. He wondered if I had AIDS. I was still a virgin! I took the test and it was negative.
My parents accompanied me to the next doctor who wondered if I had Epstein Barr Virus, another trendy disease of the time. Again, negative.
My mother wrote a long letter of introduction for my doctors describing my problems: “Recurring viral symptoms–fever, sore throat, swollen lymph glands, hives, fatigue, malaise and headaches…. His dirty socks have always smelt terrible, as though something died.”
I dropped down to 15 units, halved the number of hours I worked, and got through the semester with As in every class but Calculus (a B). That summer, I worked moderately and took two classes (As).
As I increased my studies over the last week of summer school, I felt my body run down and another relapse wash over me.
My parents urged me to stay home from UCLA but I drove away anyway one Monday afternoon at the end of August.
I napped at a couple of stops along I-5 before cresting the mountains leading to southern California at around 2 a.m. I saw all the lights and felt excited that this would be the place where I’d recover my health and make it big.
Over the next four weeks at the UCLA campus in Westwood, I slept in the bushes beside the girls’ softball field for I didn’t want to spend the money to get better accommodations. My diet largely consisted of peanuts, raisins and oatmeal.
I had two health reasons for risking southern California. One, perhaps there was something in my environment at home that made me sick. Two, my parents knew an eccentric practicioner of Hormone Replacement Therapy, Norman Beals, who had successfully treated my stepmother’s Premenstrual Syndrome (PMS).
I drove to see Dr. Beals in Santa Ana and he ran tests of my endocrine system that showed low thyroid and testosterone levels. He pumped me full of testosterone, thyroid, gamma globbulin, Vitamins C, B-6 and B-complex.
Immediately feeling better, I plunged into work, taking jobs at the Periodicals Desk of the UCLA’s University Research Library and as a gardener at a private home in Westwood. Towards the end of September, 1988, I moved into the UCLA dormitory Rieber Hall. I stayed on a special Quiet Floor for serious students. It was filled with Asians and Jews.
Within a few weeks, I was breaking down into relapses and had to drop my jobs and all of my classes but one.
My dorm mates at Rieber Hall speculated that my health problems were all in my head.
My parent’s medical insurance coverage for me ran out, so I dropped Dr. Beals and began going to Student Health at the UCLA Medical Center, but they weren’t able to figure out what was wrong with me.
I rested at home with my parents in Newcastle — 40 minutes drive north of Sacramento — during the three week Christmas break, worked on an autobiographical novel that descended into pornography, and studied economics and calculus a few hours a day. It was too much for my system. I relapsed shortly before returning to UCLA in early January to begin the winter quarter.
I hoped that by not working I’d be strong enough for my schedule. Wrong. Two-thirds through the quarter I again dropped all of my classes but one.
My dormmates whispered amongst themselves that my problems were all in my head. I had a CAT scan of my pituitary gland, but like the rest of my medical tests at Student Health, the results were normal.
Too sick to shoulder a full academic load, I hung on at UCLA because I believed that this elite university was where I belonged. Despite my poor health, I impressed several of my professors. For minutes and occasionally hours at a time, I emerged from my illness with sustained bursts of clear thinking. But then I relapsed.
Occasionally on weekends, I’d play 20-30 minutes of aggressive basketball. For a few moments on the court, as I knocked around my little Asian friends and scored many baskets, I felt like a man again. Then I would stumble back to my dorm bed.
At times, I could get it up to making some great moves under the covers as well. During those frenzies with my girlfriend, I felt good again, but they rarely lasted more than five minutes.
In March, my uncle in Brisbane, Australia, not a physician, sent me an article from a local newspaper about Chronic Fatigue Syndrome aka myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME). It described my symptoms exactly.
I took it to my UCLA doctor and said, this is what I have.
She agreed.
Steadily I felt the noose of chronic illness close in around me and I knew I’d have to drop out of school.
I despaired about ever getting well and in June returned home to my parents’ lonely home in Newcastle.
I wondered if there was something in my environment that was making me sick. Perhaps California was not good for me?
My sister in Brisbane, Australia, asked me to return home. She said her housekeeper from China was skilled in acupuncture.
I returned down under in September 1989 for eight months. Shortly before Christmas, I decided to convert to Judaism.
I became a religious extremist, abstaining from sex and masturbation. When my UCLA girlfriend came to visit me in June 1990, I let her ride clothed on top of me while we made out but no further. She would moan in such frustration but I was living 100% for God now.
Living 100% for God and finding meaning in the personal transformation that I believed was occurring through my suffering and adoption of Judaism, I felt less frantic about my inability to accomplish anything. My job now was to make it through each day, to do as much walking as possible (on average a mile a day), and as much reading as possible (about an hour a day before my headaches became too severe).
When I could do nothing, I’d lie back and listen to classical music or I’d sit in the park next door and watch life go by.
I once saw some kids my age playing and one of them wore a UCLA t-shirt. I got excited and told him, “I went there!” He couldn’t care less.
“I will return,” I said to myself almost every day. “I will return one day to UCLA in triumph. The place where they said it was all in my head, I will return one day and show them what I’m capable of.”
In the park, I started conversations with strangers. One, Maurice Yang, was doing his PhD in music at the University of Queensland. He later wrote to me that one day he hoped to go into a bookstore and find a book in there by me.
In many ways, my life was easier than ever. I had no responsibilities. I required no special treatment and I made few complaints.
“Did I drive myself to this infantile state?” I worried. “There’s nothing I consciously want more than to be healthy and busy again, but I know how suicidally I drove myself before illness. I deliberately ran into a brick wall. I guess some mistakes you can’t take back and for which there are no repair. My dad was right. Moderation is the best policy. His constitution can handle extreme strain, but mine can’t. I guess I made my sick bed and now I must lie in it.”
My time in Australia made no difference to my health. I moved back to my parent’s home and was treated for free by Dr. Zane Kime, a family friend.
Nothing helped. When Dr. Kime died in a climbing accident in 1992, I moved on to other doctors and tried various medications without much help.
I became convinced in 1992 that the answers to my problems were out in the world and I just needed to reach the right people. So I started placing and answering singles ads and talking to people regularly on the phone and occasionally they’d make the drive to see me in person.
I feared that as long as I stayed home, I would never get well. In August 1993, I moved to Orlando to live with a woman eleven years my senior who was also chronically ill.
She took me to see her psychiatrist Dr. Daniel Golwyn, who prescribed nardil aka phenelzine.
According to Wikipedia: “Phenelzine is used primarily in the treatment of major depressive disorder (MDD). Patients with depressive symptomology characterized as “atypical”, “nonendogenous”, and/or “neurotic”, have been reported to respond particularly well to phenelzine. The medication has also been found to be useful in patients who do not respond favorably to first and second-line treatments for depression, or are said to be “treatment-resistant”. In addition to being a recognized treatment for major depressive disorder, phenelzine has been found in studies to be effective in treating dysthymia, bipolar depression (BD), panic disorder (PD), social anxiety disorder (SAD), bulimia, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).”
Over the course of several months, nardil restored me to about two-thirds of normal health and I resumed what looked to outsiders as a normal life.
After six years, I went off nardil without ill effect. I’ve tried many things since for my health, including acupuncture and homeopathy, without lasting benefit.
Now I’m in the process of graduating from a three-year Alexander Technique teaching program. I am doing better and I want to pass on the benefits of the Technique to my students.
I’m still a broken arrow. I did not become the world transformer I dreamed about as a kid. I never graduated from college let alone got PhDs like my dad. I never made much money and I never married. On the bright side, I live and move in tranquility. I might even be capable of love.
From the live Youtube chat Jan. 31, 2018:
Don’t fear the TruthChronic fatigue can be due to low MSH, (melaconyte stimulating hormone)
J. SmithWhich kind of psychotherapy specifically was the one that you attended?
Sho shanazevtyler you are a disgrace
Sho shanaI know someone with cfs who was very bright she took on too much sadly her mom had to bathe her sadly
Sho shanaan honourable life that is beautiful
Zev TylerWhen Luke mentions tiredness
Zev Tylerhe is also referencing the verse that Esau was tired
Zev Tylerin book of Genesis, Luke has read the whole bible
Killer CrossYoga and meditation and/or weed, those work best for me to get a deep sleep. I like it simple. lol
Killer CrossCorrect, I also teach yoga. Best to have some instruction first.
SkyEarprintsHi Luke, just tuned in so don’t know if you answered this but do you think the 12 steps can help heal chronic illnesses? I’ve been treating Lyme Disease for almost 9 years with little success.
Killer Crossdull pain good, sharp pain bad lol
Sho shanathank you Luke is cfs autoimmune
Zev Tylerwho is your favorite hero of the Rabbinical Torah (figures in Gemara and other works associated with that era)
Zev TylerLuke
SkyEarprintsThank you Luke! Can Skype sessions suffice or only in person? (A bit hard to attend in person).
SkyEarprintsI was thinking Emotions Anonymous
SkyEarprintsFear is a huge issue with me.
SkyEarprintsAnxiety, Depression, that sort of thing
SkyEarprintsThank You Luke ☺
Sho shanaI get anxious
Zev TylerLuke have you never played warcraft or world of warcraft?
Sho shanatrying to find bf online so difficult
Zev TylerWhat video games did you use to play, Luke?
Posted inCFS|Comments Off on Defeating Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
Sid emails: “On Tuesday evening, February 6, YICC (Young Israel of Century City) will host Xavier Becerra, Attorney General of California, an outspoken advocate for obstructing the enforcement of federal immigration law. Every law-abiding Jew should protest loudly at this egregious flouting of our nation’s laws, and this brazen slap in the face of President Trump.”
California AG: ‘We Will Prosecute’ Employers Who Cooperate with Federal Immigration Officials
California Attorney General Xavier Becerra (D) says his office “will prosecute” employers who cooperate with federal immigration officials to deport criminal illegal aliens from the United States.
In a press conference on Thursday, the pro-open borders attorney general warned California employers of new state laws that barred businesses from providing information on illegal aliens to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency that would aid in deportations.
Becerra said, according to NTK Network:
There are new laws in place in California now in 2018 with the advent of 2018. I mentioned two of them specifically, AB 450 and SB 54. AB 450 in particular deals with the workplace in particular and how we go about treating the information about the workplace and employees at the workplace by employers.What we’re trying to make sure is that employers are aware that in 2018, there is a new law in place.
We will prosecute those who violate [California] law.
Under AB 450, employers are banned from having to reverify an employees’ immigration status that is not required by federal immigration law. Likewise, the law bans employers from “providing voluntary consent to an immigration enforcement agent to enter nonpublic areas of a place of labor unless the agent provides a judicial warrant, except as specified.”
Under SB 54, as Breitbart News reported, California is a “sanctuary state,” which bans public officials and employers from turning over criminal illegal aliens to federal immigration officials.
The announcement by Becerra comes as ICE has reportedly planned a large-scale arrest, detainment, and deportation effort in northern California’s San Francisco Bay Area in the next month.
I am glad they don’t condemn Israel for this. I applaud Israel for this. I just want the United States to behave the same way towards the people who infiltrate it.
Every major Jewish organization supports immigration amnesty for illegal aliens, including the Republican Jewish Coalition. I consider these organizations and their supporters traitors. They want to destroy my country. They have organized to replace the historic American people with Mexicans. They have allied to destroy white people in America no less than true-believing communists allied to support the dominion of the Soviet Union.
Here is the position of Agudath Israel: “Finally, in the area of immigration, Agudath Israel urges that American borders continue to be open to Jewish and other refugees who seek to come to the United States after escaping from oppressive political environments. The United States is a nation of immigrants and has long been distinguished by its generosity toward refugees from all across the globe. It is essential that such generosity continue to be maintained in today’s era of international volatility. Agudath Israel accordingly opposes any efforts to impose caps or quotas on refugees seeking safe haven in the United States. Agudath Israel further supports the provision of welfare benefits to needy non-citizen immigrants.”
In my book, the Orthodox Union, Agudath Israel, and every major Jewish organization and those who support them are the moral equivalents of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. They are plotting to overthrow the United States of America. They don’t speak for me and they don’t speak for many of the Jews I know well.
I suspect most American Jews loathe the idea of giving amnesty to low-IQ Mexicans who came here illegally but the organizations who speak in their name are committed to treason.
If they were consistent, they would support the same policies for Jews that they push on America. They would promote amnesty for every person who makes it into Israel and wants to stay. They would support amnesty for every person who wants to declare himself a Jew even though he isn’t according to Jewish law and he has no intention of following Judaism nor acting in the interests of Jews, rather it is just a designation he wants to use to his own group’s advantage. The moral equivalence for Jews of America’s proposed immigration amnesty is that they have to accept non-Jews as full-fledged members of their community, synagogues and schools and these goyim must receive all the honors and rewards of those born Jewish and of those who have sacrificed over the course of a lifetime for the benefit of Jews. Let all who are hungry come in and eat!
Allen Fagin leads the Orthodox Union, having succeeded Steven Weil earlier this year.
We should know the names of the people who are plotting to destroy our country.
When Israel builds a massive security wall, imprisons its infiltrators and then repatriates them back to Africa (all policies I support and want emulated in the United States), none of these Orthodox and traditional Jewish organizations say a peep.
When it comes to immigrating into the Jewish people, aka conversion to Judaism, the Orthodox Union and Agudath Yisrael support the strictest standards so that only the finest and most disciplined and most dedicated people can join. But when it comes to the United States, all major Jewish organizations want to give amnesty to the low IQ mestizo Mexicans who infiltrated the country illegally and on current trends, thanks to their criminal behavior, they will become the majority of the United States population by 2060.
In effect, these Jewish organizations stand for ethnocentrism for us, multiculturalism for you.
When it comes to these Jewish organizations, the following seems to fit a disturbing amount of the time:
– If their lips move, they’re lying
– If quiet: they’re stealing
– If marching: it’s in a parade of gays
– If in court: it’s to bear false witness
– If with immigration: it’s to open our borders
– If with the NAACP: it’s to exploit the emotions of black people
– If with the SPLC: it’s the same thing
– If with the ACLU: Same thing, again
Chaim Amalek says: “Your next step is to contact each of these Jewish orgianizations and ask them what they are doing to increase Israeli acceptance of African refugees from violence, poverty, and social injustice.”
Report: These Jewish organizations all demanded amnesty for undocumented immigrants in the United States, invoking the language of the Torah about our obligation to do kindness to the stranger in our midst. They have largely remained silent, however, in the face of Israel’s rounding up and forcible deportation of African asylum seekers. They should all be held to account for their hypocrisy – especially because the Torah was referring to how we treat non-Jews in Israel, not the United States.
National Organizations
American Forum of Russian Jewry (AFRJ)
American Jewish Committee
Anti‐Defamation League
Bend the Arc: A Jewish Partnership for Justice
B’nai B’rith International
Bukharian Jewish Congress of the USA and Canada
HIAS (Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society)
Jewish Council on Public Affairs
Jewish Federations of North America
Keshet
National Council of Jewish Women
Orthodox Union
Rabbinical Assembly
Reconstructionist Rabbinical College
Tikkun Olam Commission of the Jewish Reconstructionist Movement
T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights
Union for Reform Judaism
Uri L’Tzedek
Women of Reform Judaism
Local Organizations
AJC Cincinnati
AJC Cleveland
AJC Houston
AJC Los Angeles
AJC New York
AJC Philadelphia/Southern New Jersey
Anti‐Defamation League of Eastern PA and Southern NJ
Congregation Meor Hachaim of Luna Park (New York, NY)
FEGS Health & Human Services (New York, NY)
Greater Philadelphia Jewish Coalition on Immigration
HIAS Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, PA)
Indianapolis Jewish Community Relations Council
Jewish Alliance for Law and Social Action (Boston, MA)
Jewish Community Action (St. Paul, MN)
Jewish Community Center at Starrett City (New York, NY)
Jewish Community Relations Council of Philadelphia
Jewish Council on Urban Affairs (Chicago, IL)
Jewish Family & Career Services (Atlanta, GA)
Jewish Family & Children’s Service (Pittsburgh, PA)
Jewish Family & Children’s Services of the East Bay (Berkeley, CA)
Jewish Family Service of Buffalo & Erie County New York
Jewish Family Service of Western Massachusetts, Inc.
Jewish Family Services (Ann Arbor, MI)
Jewish Labor Committee Western Region (Los Angeles, CA)
Jewish Social Policy Action Network (Philadelphia, PA)
Jewish Vocational Service of MetroWest (East Orange, NJ)
Jews for Racial & Economic Justice (New York, NY)
Massachusetts Board of Rabbis (Newton, MA)
National Council of Jewish Women ‐ Greater Philadelphia
National Council of Jewish Women Texas State Policy Advocates
UJA‐Federation of New York
Women of Vision (Philadelphia, PA)
Rabbi Elazar Muskin along with other leading Modern Orthodox rabbis signed off on a public dressing down of Trump on March 18, 2016: LINK:
The Orthodox Community Responds to Donald Trump at AIPAC
March 18, 2016
Dear Mr. Trump:
We are writing to you as you prepare to address the largest pro-Israel gathering in North America. We care deeply not only about America’s relationship with Israel, but the values and character of this special land. We hope you will use this occasion to articulate the values that friends of Israel hold so dear.
To begin, you should use this opportunity to categorically repudiate racism. There is simply no place for it in our shared discourse. As the only democracy in the Middle East, Israel enshrined in law its commitment to protect the rights all of its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex. When the Jewish people returned to Israel after centuries of persecution and exile, they chose to pursue a path of inclusivity. Rather than perpetuate a culture of prejudice, they chose instead to create a culture of tolerance. Freedom of worship is sacrosanct in the Holy Land and upon its founding, Israel’s government vowed to safeguard the holy places of all religions. You should declare in no uncertain terms that bigotry is as dangerous as it is wrong.
We also call upon you to denounce the language of hatred and xenophobia. There is no mitzvah in the Torah repeated more often than the embrace of the stranger. The Jewish story is itself the history of exiles seeking shelter; of refugees seeking asylum. And since it became a sovereign nation, Israel has proudly stood by and supported peoples of all backgrounds in their times of need: From Haiti to Taiwan; from Sudan to Nepal. Jewish tradition demands that we look past what separates us and instead keep our eyes trained on our shared humanity.
Finally, you need to reassure our community that you understand that there can be no moral equivalency between a sovereign government acting in self-defense on the one hand and a terrorist organization committed to genocide on the other. The pro-Israel community is starving for peace. The notion of shalom represents one of our greatest aspirations – one for which we pray daily. But a lasting peace will only come with the help of a political ally who recognizes Israel’s right to self-determination. Let your listeners know that you would never strong-arm Israel into negotiating a peace deal when Israel has no partner for peace.
Mr. Trump: In these fraught times, make it clear to the pro-Israel community that you stand not only with Israel’s people, but with Israel’s principles. We cannot abide a discourse that inflames intolerance and foments fanaticism. The future of our people is too important.
Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstein
Rabbi Herschel Billet
Rabbi Yisroel Ciner
Rabbi Daniel Cohen
Rabbi Mark Dratch
Rabbi Yitzchok Feldman
Rabbi Joel Finkelstein
Rabbi Barry Gelman
Rabbi Yaakov Gibber
Rabbi Yaakov Glasser
Rabbi Efrem Goldberg
Rabbi Zev Goldberg
Rabbi Moshe Grussgott
Rabbi Kenneth Hain
Rabbi Shmuel Herzfeld
Rabbi Joshua Hess
Rabbi Daniel Korobkin
Rabbi Simcha Krauss
Rabbi Joel Landau
Rabbi Philip Lefkowitz
Rabbi Yosie Levine
Rabbi Marc Mandel
Rabbi Adam Mintz
Rabbi Jonathan Muskat
Rabbi Elazar Muskin
Rabbi Ariel Rackovsky
Rabbi Zev Reichman
Rabbi Shaul Robinson
Rabbi Zvi Romm
Rabbi Allen Schwartz
Rabbi Ronald Schwarzberg
Rabbi Mordechai Sevy
Rabbi Adam Starr
Rabbi Josh Strulowitz
Rabbi Mayer Waxman
Rabbi Jay Weinstein
Rabbi Neil N. Winkler
Rabbi Alan J. Yuter
Rabbi Dovid Zirkind
Where to begin in rebutting this foolishness?
It’s Trump now or Hitler later. These rabbis will not settle for anything less than Hitler.
Are these guys aware of Israel’s restrictive immigration policy? Do they think Muslims can immigrate to Israel? Because I want the US to have the same restrictive immigration policy and the same type of walls that Israel has and I would hate to think that Modern Orthodox rabbis deem it normal to have one standard of acceptable behavior for themselves, and a totally different standard for the goy.
This duplicitous nonsense seems like an example of Orthodox rabbis fearing liberals more than God.
I have no objection to dual morality systems (where you have one ethic for how you treat members of your in-group and another ethic for how you treat outsiders). Most peoples have this, but it is a bit rich for exponents of a dual morality system such as Orthodox Judaism to lecture outsiders on the evils of racism, discrimination and bigotry.
A friend: “The rabbinate has not gotten the memo that the rest of the world is on to them and this is a perilous course for them to follow.”
My first response to these rabbis is that their letter is not, thank God, from the Orthodox Jewish community. It is a letter from a handful of Modern Orthodox rabbis who esteem themselves as representing Orthodox Judaism.
Come November, most Orthodox Jews will vote for Donald Trump, whether or not he does any of the things the rabbis urge in this letter. Fighting racism is not much of a concern to the traditional Orthodox Jew. He doesn’t usually recognize “racism” as a sin, rather, it is more like commonsense.
Rabbis: “To begin, you should use this opportunity to categorically repudiate racism.”
What is racism? There is nothing in Torah condemning racism. There is no such sin as “racism” in Torah. This is an entirely made-up moral offense. The term did not even exist prior to the 20th Century.
I’ve never heard a traditional Orthodox rabbi give a sermon against racism in America, against bigotry in America, against intolerance in America, unless he’s referring to Jews as victims of such. The more traditional the Jew, the less he’s concerned with gentiles.
What gadol (great rabbi) has ever written a book against racism? Short answer: None. What gadol has ever written a book about the “values and character of this special land [America]”? Short answer: None.
That no great rabbi has ever written a book on these themes reveals that the claims of this rabbinic letter are a lie. These rabbis are just posing. Their every word drips with deceit.
What gadol has ever written a book propounding beauty of the following: “Israel enshrined in law its commitment to protect the rights all of its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex.” Short answer: none.
How has Israel’s tolerant attitude to its Arab citizens served it? Not very well. The Jewish state has about a third of its population who hate it and who routinely stab and murder Jews. Is the Jewish state stronger and safer because of its tolerant attitude towards its Arabs who hate it? No. Diversity kills.
Contrary to this rabbinic letter, Torah contains many negative statements about blacks (just as the black tradition contains many negative statements about Jews). Here is Rashi’s commentary on Genesis 12:11: “I have known for a long time that you are of beautiful appearance, but now we are coming among black and repulsive people who are brothers of the Kushim (Ethiopians) and are unaccustomed to seeing a beautiful woman.”
I’m not ashamed of what Rashi wrote. I do not think he sinned because I do not believe there is any such sin as racism. It is normal, natural and healthy for members of one group to be less than thrilled with outsiders, and blacks from a white perspective, are outsiders.
I look forward to hearing that these Orthodox rabbis had the courage of their convictions and stood up in front of their congregations and denounced Torah for its bigotry, racism and xenophobia. Let them be consistent and start tearing out pages of Torah that do not comport with modern morality. Let them stand tall for what they believe by having bonfires filled with bigoted sections of Torah. Perhaps they should start with the injunction that non-Jews who steal from Jews should be put to death and as Torah is the property of Jews, goyim who study it should likewise be executed (this has never been practiced in Jewish history, but hey, it’s the principle of the matter).
The controversy surrounding journalist Max Blumenthal continues in the wake of the release of his video of intoxicated American Jews in Jerusalem insulting President Barack Obama, but he rejects the claims that the footage fuels anti-Semitism.
The video shows young American Jews, who are apparently very drunk, criticizing Obama for his Mideast policies and describing him in derogatory terms. It has also had more than 400,000 hits on YouTube.
“I have received death threats from people, mainly ones calling me a self-hating Jew. I am self-hating, but my self-hatred has nothing to do with me being Jewish,” Blumenthal told Haaretz this week.
Blumenthal says the ad hominem attacks against him and co-producer and cameraman Joseph Dana are being used to obscure the message of the video, and to ignore the statements made by young Jews who could be the relatives of any of us.
From a black website: “Dov Lior, a popular chief rabbi in Israel, recently called Obama a Kushi, which is Israel’s equivalent to nig*er. Most Americans are completely unaware of the general contempt that many Jewish people have towards blacks, as Max Blumenthal found out when he interviewed dozens of young people in Israel who reiterated the Rabbi’s sentiments about Obama. Blumenthal’s video titled Feeling the Hate in Israel was removed from YouTube, Vimeo, and the Huffington Post shortly after going viral.”
If you could do a secret poll of Orthodox Jews in America and ask them would the country be better or worse off without Muslims, what do you think the result would be? The overwhelming majority of American Orthodox Jews would prefer that America be free of Muslims and of blacks. They also would prefer that Israel be free of Muslims. Most Israelis wish in their hearts that all Palestinians would disappear and I suspect that most Israelis also wish that blacks in Israelwould leave.
Rabbis: “There is simply no place for it in our shared discourse.”
If the rabbis believe this, then they are saying there is no place for Torah in America as the Torah tradition contains many statements that would be widely considered racist. Orthodox Jews, more than any other Jewish group, are likely to say things the conventional morality will condemn as bigoted.
Rabbis: “As the only democracy in the Middle East, Israel enshrined in law its commitment to protect the rights all of its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex. When the Jewish people returned to Israel after centuries of persecution and exile, they chose to pursue a path of inclusivity. Rather than perpetuate a culture of prejudice, they chose instead to create a culture of tolerance. Freedom of worship is sacrosanct in the Holy Land and upon its founding, Israel’s government vowed to safeguard the holy places of all religions. You should declare in no uncertain terms that bigotry is as dangerous as it is wrong.”
Israel is the Jewish state run primarily for the benefit of Jews. Non-Jewish citizens of Israel are keenly aware of being outsiders in the Jewish state, much more so than non-whites and non-Christians feel like outsiders in America. I am glad Israel is the Jewish state, and I think it is ludicrous to argue that the Jewish state has pursued “a path of inclusivity” and “a culture of tolerance.” Israelis routinely chant “Death to the Arabs.” Nothing like that goes on at Donald Trump rallies.
I don’t blame Israelis for wishing death to the Arabs, just as I don’t blame Arabs for wishing death to the Jews. Both groups are fighting over scarce resources. It makes rational sense that they would hate each other.
For all its inclusivity and tolerance, Israel is widely hated around the world. Such inclusivity and tolerance has not helped Israel’s safety and well-being. Should America wish to be as hated and vulnerable as Israel? The more tolerant and nice Israel gets, the more vulnerable it becomes.
Rabbis: “We care deeply not only about America’s relationship with Israel, but the values and character of this special land.”
Is anyone not revolted by this oily language? Rabbis do not care about America’s relationship with Israel except to the extent it redounds to the benefit of the Jewish state and the Jewish people. Judaism does not have much to say about how Jews should try to shape the values and character of gentile lands. Judaism’s focus is on how Jews should perform its commandments, preferably in the Jewish state.
When minorities talk about American values, they’re usually looking to manipulate the majority into giving them more rights. You never find a large number of Jews fighting on the side of gentile majorities against minority rights, instead you usually find in the diaspora a disproportion of Jews fighting to expand minority rights at the expense of the majority. When it comes to the Jewish state, however, the Torah is clear. There is no room for non-Jewish citizenship and no non-Jewish should ever be in charge of a Jew, not even in charge of water carriers.
The values and character of America that these rabbis are fighting for are whatever they think is best for the Jews such as multiculturalism and mass immigration, things that are bad for America’s white majority. Different groups have different interests. Jews aren’t being un-American or perfidious in pursuing their group interests over the interests of other groups. They are following a biological necessity, without such self-interest groups die out. Every group seeks to maximize its own interests with little regard for other groups.
Groups such as Jews, latinos, blacks, white, Muslims are in constant conflict over scarce resources. Rarely does one group surge ahead without negatively affecting other groups. When Jews rise in power in America, for instance, other groups lose power. The United States used to be ruled by the Protestant ethic. Jews overcame that and now Jews compose much of America’s ruling elite and more than any other group they determine the Overton Window.
Rabbis: “When the Jewish people returned to Israel after centuries of persecution and exile, they chose to pursue a path of inclusivity.”
What gadol has written a book on this theme? Short answer: None. When thousands of books are produced each year by Orthodox rabbis and none of them see fit to write about the themes in this rabbinic letter, you can be sure that this rabbinic letter is a fraud and that all of its signers are paid liars willing to peddle the most outrageous deceit for an advantage.
Rabbis: “Freedom of worship is sacrosanct in the Holy Land…”
Which gadol has written a book on this theme? Short answer: None. Torah makes no provision for and grants no sanction to non-Jewish forms of religious expression in Israel. In a Jewish state run by Torah, there won’t be any churches and mosques.
Rabbis: “You should declare in no uncertain terms that bigotry is as dangerous as it is wrong.”
What gadol has written a book against bigotry? Short answer: None.
Rabbis: “We also call upon you to denounce the language of hatred and xenophobia.”
Because hatred is unknown in Torah? That’s nonsense. Torah is filled with hatred. I am not ashamed of that. If you love something, such as God, you must hate those who are the enemies of God. If you love your family, you hate those who threaten your family. If you love your people, you hate those who threaten your people. Hatred is simply the flip side of love.
What gadol has written a sefer (book) against xenophobia? Short answer: None.
Onkelos son of Kolonikos … went and raised Titus from the dead by magical arts, and asked him; ‘Who is most in repute in the [other] world? He replied: Israel. What then, he said, about joining them? He said: Their observances are burdensome and you will not be able to carry them out. Go and attack them in that world and you will be at the top as it is written, Her adversaries are become the head etc.; whoever harasses Israel becomes head. He asked him: What is your punishment [in the other world]? He replied: What I decreed for myself. Every day my ashes are collected and sentence is passed on me and I am burnt and my ashes are scattered over the seven seas. He then went and raised Balaam by incantations. He asked him: Who is in repute in the other world? He replied: Israel. What then, he said, about joining them? He replied: Thou shalt not seek their peace nor their prosperity all thy days for ever. He then asked: What is your punishment? He replied: With boiling hot semen. He then went and raised by incantations Jesus [in Vilna edition: “the sinners of Israel”; “Jesus” appears in Munich 95 and Vatican 140 manuscripts and “he went and brought up Jesus the Nazarene” (Editions or MSs: Vatican 130)]. He asked them: Who is in repute in the other world? They replied: Israel. What about joining them? They replied: Seek their welfare, seek not their harm. Whoever touches them touches the apple of his eye. He said: What is your punishment? They replied: With boiling hot excrement, since a Master has said: Whoever mocks at the words of the Sages is punished with boiling hot excrement. Observe the difference between the sinners of Israel and the prophets of the other nations who worship idols. It has been taught: Note from this incident how serious a thing it is to put a man to shame, for God espoused the cause of Bar Kamza and destroyed His House and burnt His Temple.
— Babylonian Talmud, Gittin 56b-57a
So when the Talmud pictures Jesus — the god of the goyim — suffering for eternity in boiling hot excrement, is that hate speech? Asking for a friend.
I’m not arguing that Jews and Judaism are bad or nasty or bigoted. I’m just arguing that it is normal, natural and healthy for all strongly identifying in-groups such as Jews and Muslims and blacks to have suspicion and negative feelings towards out-groups.
There are six things that the Torah commands us to remember. Optimally, these verses should be recited out loud each day and their meanings should be considered…
3. Amalek’s Evil Attack Remember what Amalek did to you on the journey when you left Egypt. They met you on the way and ambushed those who were lagging behind. You were tired and exhausted, but they did not fear God. Therefore, when Hashem your God relieves you from your enemies in the land that He will give you to possess, you must erase the memory of Amalek from beneath heaven. Do not forget. (Devarim 25:17-19) Amalek is different from other nations that attacked Israel in that we are commanded to eradicate them. Why should they be punished more harshly than Egypt, which oppressed the Jews for hundreds of years? One reason is because Amalek “did not fear God.” They dared to make war not just with the Jews, but with God Himself!
Is that hate speech?
I have no moral objection to hatred. I just want it properly directed. I have no moral objection to Torah, I just want to point out that there is no widely-used definition of hate speech that would not include much of Torah.
“Jewish tradition demands that we look past what separates us and instead keep our eyes trained on our shared humanity.”
Jewish tradition does not focus on training Jews to look past what separates us and to instead keep our eyes trained on our shared humanity. For instance, in the Havdalah prayer, we thank God for separating Israel from the nations. One of the commonly accepted arguments among Orthodox Jews for keeping kosher is that it separate you from non-Jews. This separation is a taken for granted virtue in Orthodox Judaism (and other insular traditional ways of life).
If rabbis keep lying like this, the nations are going to want to increasingly separate themselves from both the people of Israel and the nation of Israel.
Jewish elites can’t pursue their group interest through any means necessary while denying the same privilege to the goyim. If nationalism is good for Jews, it is also good for gentiles. If separation is good for Jews, then it is also good for gentiles. If Jews want to have sacred spaces reserved for Jews, gentiles should be allowed their own hotels and restaurants and clubs free from Jews (if the goyim wish).
Strong Group Identity Always Brings With It Group Contempt For Outsiders
I’ve been arguing with Orthodox Jewish friends who want an Orthodox Judaism that does not have contempt for non-Jews.
It’s not possible, I tell them. Sure, you can have individual Orthodox Jews who are strong in their Jewish identity and non-contemptuous to non-Jews, but as a group, Orthodox Jews are always going to feel varying degrees of contempt for non-Orthodox Jews and non-Jews. It’s inherent in group identity. If you believe that you are living God’s will, that your group is the best, by definition all other groups are not the best and not living out God’s plan as much as you are.
To have a strong group identity and to not feel contempt for outsiders requires a high IQ. It’s a unique combination of traits akin to juggling balls and discussing philosophy at the same time. Not many people can do it.
I grew up a Seventh-Day Adventist with a strong Adventist identity. Accompanying my strong group identity was the feeling and belief that outsiders were lost. Sure, some of them might still inherit the Kingdom of Heaven, but they weren’t among God’s elect, God’s Chosen. That was reserved for Seventh-Day Adventists.
There’s never been a strong group identity that did not carry with it general group contempt for outsiders. When Germans were strong in being German, they had varying degrees of fear, loathing and contempt for outsiders such as Jews and slavs and the French, etc. When the French felt strongly about being French, they had, as a group, a tendency towards contempt for the non-French. When the Commanches were strong in being Commanche, they had, as a group, contempt for outsiders.
When Jews say things like the following, it’s never a compliment for non-Jews:
* He’s thinking like a goy.
* That’s goyisha kup (Gentile thinking).
* What a goy!
The stronger a Jew feels about being Jewish, the more a Christian feels in Christ, the more a Muslim feels Islamic, the more contempt he is likely to feel for outsiders.
I have an Orthodox Jewish friend who decided to start wearing colored shirts on Sabbath. Normally, Orthodox Jewish men wear white shirts on the Sabbath. My friend was sick of the contempt he’s seen displayed towards non-Jews by Orthodox Jews and so he wants to make a statement that he is not like those contemptuous white-shirted Orthodox Jews. By dropping the uniform to express his universal tolerance, he’s reducing his group identity and has taken a step towards assimilation.
Uniforms are a kin component of group solidarity. Imagine how much weaker the KKK would be if they stopped wearing their uniforms. Imagine how much weaker the SS would have been if they dropped their uniforms. Imagine how much weaker Islamic identity would be without distinctive Islamic garb.
Liberal Jews omit the following lines from the Aleinu prayer: “For they worship vanity and emptiness, and pray to a god who cannot save.” Traditional Jews say the lines just as they were written hundreds of years ago. These lines express contempt for the prayers of non-Jews. Now, if I were doing Jewish apologetics, I’d say that these lines were composed with pagans in mind, not the righteous non-Jews of today, but between you and me, we know that this still expresses Jewish contempt for non-Jewish religions, just as non-Jewish religions express contempt in varying ways for religions different from their own.
Christians, Muslims and Jews have always, on average, had some negative feelings about each other (in addition to some positive feelings).
Bigotry, racism, prejudice and anti-Semitism are not useful concepts. You will think more clearly when you replace such nonsense with the idea that different groups have different interests. Germans who loved being German prior to WWII saw that they had to get rid of the Jews if they wanted a truly Aryan state. Arabs and Muslims around Israel see that they have to get rid of the Jewish state for as long as Jews are around them and living free, they will excel them and that’s humiliating. As long as Jews were free in Germany in large numbers, they were going to affect society in ways that Aryan Germans would not like.
Organized Jewish life in the United States (including the Orthodox Union and Agudas Yisrael) has pushed for immigration amnesty because they see it (unconsciously in many cases) in the Jews’ interest for the white goyim to lose control of the United States. Organized Jewish life pushed for the removal of prayer in public schools in America because this was thought to be in the Jewish interest. Jews have been at the forefront (through the Frankfurt school etc) of claiming that there is no meaning to race. Jews have been at the forefront of denouncing nationalism because this is thought to make life easier for the Jews (who often retain their own nationalism and Zionism).
All of these agendas pushed by the Jewish community (not by every individual Jew) have sometimes been contrary to the interests of ordinary Americans. White Americans and black Americans and Mexican-Americans and Jewish-Americans have competing interests and this inevitably leads to conflict.
Over the past 600 years, Ashkenazi Jews in Europe have, on average, lived better than their non-Jewish neighbors (most have been in white collar jobs) because they had higher IQs and superior group solidarity.
Goy Philosopher emails:
I agree with almost everything you say here, and it’s terrible that only a few people are saying it. Yes, these statements are transparently dishonest and “oily”. Disgusting. At least, I find it impossible to believe that these guys really believe in the ‘inclusive’ or ‘anti-racist’ principles with which they try to confuse and manipulate gentiles. It seems insulting that they expect us to believe it. Here they are, practicing this blatantly ethnocentric (and arguably ‘racist’) religion, insisting on an openly alien national identity and openly divided loyalties — but at the same time they have the chutzpah to spew forth all this mush about open-ness and egalitarianism and universality, etc. Do they think the rest of us are really too stupid to notice the inconsistencies? Or is it a compliance test: will the goyim prove their subjugation by going along with obvious lies and double-talk? Or maybe they’re trying to humiliate us (or Trump) — not proving their power but just enjoying it, toying with us? I don’t know but I just can’t believe that they are really so dumb or unreflective that they really believe their own bullshit. As you said: it’s as if they will settle for nothing less than Hitler.
There are two places where I may disagree with your views. One has to do with ‘racism’. I wouldn’t use the word, but I do think that some very strong forms of ethnocentrism or double morality are morally wrong. Judaism, or some forms of Judaism, may be examples — e.g., the attitude that it’s fine to lie or cheat or steal from those not in the group, or that those outside the group have no real moral standing, don’t matter, etc. I think everyone has some basic moral importance and deserves some basic form of respect. Or almost everyone, at least. So rather than saying it’s okay for Jews to be that way but also okay for others to be that way, which seems at times to be your attitude (?), I’d say it’s unacceptable for any group to behave that way. And it’s especially wrong in the case of organized Jewry, since Jews are a lot smarter and more self-aware and more philosophical than many other groups; they really should know better, and probably do. So I don’t accept that we can regard conflicts between human groups as merely some kind of amoral struggle for survival. (Just as we can’t regard one individual murdering or exploiting another in that way.)
Another possible point of disagreement, relating to that last one: I take the passage you cited from the Talmud to reflect _very_ badly on Judaism, if that’s what Jewish authorities really think. Obviously Jesus was a very impressive and special person, and something must be very wrong with people who who try to demonize or ridicule him. Also, it seems pathetic and childish to imagine your enemies boiling in shit, let alone to write this down as part of some putative religio-philosophical commentary. It’s base and stupid. I would never be able to take seriously as a religious or moral authority someone who wrote about Jesus, or any other obviously superior person, in that kind of way. If most Jews are aware of this kind of thing but aren’t turned off by it, that makes me wonder about their character. I’m not aware of any important or canonical Christian texts that direct such base and stupid slander against Jews or Jewish heroes, etc. So rather than saying it’s only normal and perfectly fine for groups to think about the beliefs or character of outsiders in this way, as you seem to be saying, I’d hold everyone to a far higher standard.
“There are no good Nazis and no good members of the [Ku Klux] Klan,” the Republican Jewish Coalition said in a statement.
“We join with our political and religious brethren in calling upon President Trump to provide greater moral clarity in rejecting racism, bigotry, and antisemitism,” the statement said…
“No one, whether Republican, independent or a Democrat … wants to see the Klan or Nazis parading down the streets of the United States, as if they’re taking over,” said Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder and dean of Los Angeles’ Simon Wiesenthal Center, named after the famed Nazi hunter, and its Museum of Tolerance.
“No one could ever compare neo-Nazis, the Klan and white supremacists to demonstrators that are demonstrating against them,” said Hier, who delivered one of several prayers at Trump’s inauguration. “To equate the two sides,” he went on, “is preposterous.”
The leading organization of Orthodox rabbis also weighed in with a statement condemning the president’s comparing white supremacist marchers to counter-demonstrators in Charlottesville.
“There is no moral comparison,” said Rabbi Elazar Muskin, president of the Rabbinical Council of America. “Failure to unequivocally reject hatred and bias is a failing of moral leadership and fans the flames of intolerance and chauvinism.”
The statement, issued Wednesday, was the second by the organization and was aimed directly at the president, a contrast with an initial response that more generally criticized “violence and bigotry” in Charlottesville without mentioning Trump.
Rabbi Mark Dratch, the group’s executive vice president, said the council was moved to offer its more pointed statement after the president fell back Tuesday on his position that “both sides” shared blame for the violence around the white nationalist rally.
“We feel that, really, instead of putting an end to the criticism and the troubles that his statements were causing, it further fanned them,” Dratch said.
The statement was particularly notable given Trump’s support among Orthodox Jews, who, unlike more secular Jews, supported the president in large numbers. (Jews constitute about 3% of the electorate.)
This is what Jews need now!
“Jews for Consistency” compares the proclamations of Jewish groups with Jewish behavior, Jewish text and Jewish history.
In life, victory doesn’t always go to the upright, but peoples and organizations that continually operate in deceit usually come a cropper. Such behavior is not in line with Torah.
“Do what is right and good in the LORD’s sight, so all will go well with you. Then you will enter and occupy the good land that the LORD swore to give your ancestors.” (Deut. 6:18)
“Do not let kindness and truth leave you; bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart. So you will find favor and good repute in the sight of God and man.” (Proverbs 3:3-4)
Vice President Joe Biden spoke at length Tuesday night about the influence of Judaism on the United States, dating back to the country’s founding and to the present day as Jews helped shape views on gay rights.
“The truth is that Jewish heritage, Jewish culture, Jewish values are such an essential part of who we are that it’s fair to say that Jewish heritage is American heritage,” he said. “The Jewish people have contributed greatly to America. No group has had such an outsized influence per capita as all of you standing before you, and all of those who went before me and all of those who went before you.”
“You make up 11 percent of the seats in the United States Congress. You make up one-third of all Nobel laureates,” he said. “So many notions that are embraced by this nation that particularly emanate from over 5,000 years of Jewish history, tradition and culture: independence, individualism, fairness, decency, justice, charity. These are all as you say, as I learned early on as a Catholic being educated by my friends, this tzedakah.”
“The embrace of immigration” is part of that, as is the involvement of Jews in social justice movements.
“You can’t talk about the civil rights movement in this country without talking about Jewish freedom riders and Jack Greenberg,” he said, telling a story about seeing a group of Jewish activists at a segregated movie theater in Delaware. “You can’t talk about the women’s movement without talking about Betty Friedan” or American advances in science and technology without mentioning Einstein and Carl Sagan, or music and Gershwin, Bob Dylan and “so, so, so many other people.”
“I believe what affects the movements in America, what affects our attitudes in America are as much the culture and the arts as anything else,” he said. That’s why he spoke out on gay marriage “apparently a little ahead of time.”
“It wasn’t anything we legislatively did. It was ‘Will and Grace,’ it was the social media. Literally. That’s what changed peoples’ attitudes. That’s why I was so certain that the vast majority of people would embrace and rapidly embrace” gay marriage,” Biden said.
“Think behind of all that, I bet you 85 percent of those changes, whether it’s in Hollywood or social media are a consequence of Jewish leaders in the industry. The influence is immense, the influence is immense. And, I might add, it is all to the good,” he said.
Jews have also been key to the evolution of American jurisprudence, he continued, namedropping Brandeis, Fortas, Frankfurter, Cardozo, Ginsberg, Breyer, Kagan. “You literally can’t. You can’t talk about the recognition of … rights in the Constitution without looking at these incredible jurists that we’ve had.”
“Jewish heritage has shaped who we are – all of us, us, me – as much or more than any other factor in the last 223 years. And that’s a fact,” he said.
“We talk about it in terms of the incredible accomplishments and contributions” of Jews in America,” Biden added, “but it’s deeper “because the values, the values are so deep and so engrained in American culture, in our Constitution.”
“So I think you, as usual, underestimate the impact of Jewish heritage. I really mean that. I think you vastly underestimate the impact you’ve had on the development of this nation. We owe you, we owe generations who came before you,” he said.
Thirteen Jewish groups, among them organizations representing the Reform, Reconstructionist and Conservative streams, were among the 25 joining the amicus brief the ADL filed in Obergefell v. Hodges.
The preeminence of Jewish groups among those backing the litigants was not a surprise. In recent decades, much of the Jewish establishment has embraced gay marriage as a right equivalent to the others it has advocated, including racial equality, religious freedoms and rights for women.
Multiple groups, in their statements, cited the passage in Genesis that states humans were created “in the image of God,” which has for decades been used by Jewish civil rights groups to explain their activism.
“Jewish tradition reminds us that we were all created equally, b’tzelem Elohim, in the ‘image of God’ (Genesis 1:27), and also shows us that marriage is a sacred responsibility, not only between the partners, but also between the couple and the larger community,” the Conservative movement’s Rabbinical Assembly said in a statement.
Groups also were looking to next steps in advancing LGBT rights, including in the workplace.
“You can now legally marry in all 50 states and put your wedding on your desk and be fired and have no recourse in the federal courts,” Rabbi Jonah Pesner, who directs the Reform movement’s Religious Action Center, told JTA in an interview.
“We hope this will energize and inspire a bipartisan effort to end discrimination in the work place,” he said, specifying the “T” in LGBT – the transgendered. “People should not be discriminated in the workplace because of expression of gender.”
If same-sex marriage is such a Jewish value, how come it was unknown in Jewish life prior to the 1990s? How come the Jewish state of Israel does not celebrate gay marriage? If being transgendered is cool, how come the Torah prohibits a man from wearing a woman’s clothing?
If Jewish elites can convince much of the Western world to celebrate same-sex marriage, then is there nothing they can’t do in subverting traditional moral values.
I don’t think these Jewish elites really care that much about gay rights, tranny rights, blacks rights except for their instrumental value in protecting Jews. It wouldn’t be human to care more about outsiders than about your own group. Jewish elites simply think that a more tolerant and cosmopolitan West is more user-friendly for Jews.
I have no problem with Jews putting Jewish interests first (and for other groups to put their own kind first). I am a Jewish nationalist. I support organization and cohesion for all groups (whites, blacks, Gentiles, Jews, Japanese, Cubans, Croats, Tibetans, etc). I want all peoples to work out their national destiny free of outside domination. I never seek anything for my group (Jews) that I would not want for all groups to enjoy (except in zero-sum cases where I side with my group in my actions while striving to remain objective in my thinking). I do object, however, when I find groups operating with deceit. As a convert to Orthodox Judaism, I speak out when Jewish groups disregard the Torah and wreak havoc on the goyim and thereby increase the likelihood that Jews will once again be thrown into a pit of death.
Life is often a vicious struggle for scarce resources such as land and water and power. Different groups, different individuals, always have different interests, which is why all relationships have stress. No two people and no two groups are exactly alike and no two countries have identical interests. As one tweet put it: “The world isn’t a party where everyone gets along. We can associate with whomever we wish & can exclude you even if it hurts your feelings.”
Groups that enjoy cohesion usually have an advantage over groups that are more individualist. If radical Jewish groups such as the ADL and the SWC can convince the goyim that nationalism is bad while Jews and other tribes enjoy that very cohesion, then the tribes get an unfair advantage until the goyim catch on and retaliate.
Now, if Jewish organizations such as the ADL and the SPLC will be honest and say that they are ethnic advocacy groups, then we’ll pay them no mind. What’s obnoxious is when certain Jewish groups push a diversity agenda on non-Jews while reserving the benefits of exclusion for Jews.
If Jews get to have safe spaces free of gentile influence, then gentiles should be allowed safe spaces free of Jewish influence. Jews have strict dietary laws (kashurt) limiting their social interactions with gentiles, why should not gentiles be allowed clubs without Jews?
If Jewish organizations such as AIPAC want to lobby for Israel, we’ll ask if these policies are in America’s interests. Every group has a right to protect its interests, and if goyim won’t stand up for themselves, Jews will have to. Perhaps Israel is the best tool we have. We can say to the world, Live like Zionists! Put your own interests first.
If Jews want to call anti-Semitism a mental illness, we’ll ask that they apply the same label to Jews who hate Gentiles.
If Jewish organizations want to make Holocaust revisionism a crime, we’ll ask that they also support criminalizing other revisions of the conventional wisdom (the crucifixion of Jesus, etc). Why should Jewish suffering be any more sacred to the world at large than the suffering of other peoples? If Jewish organizations want to push for Holocaust education in public schools, we’ll ask that this education be proportionate to the number of deaths in genocides, so that most attention goes to the genocides under communists, which were sometimes carried out by Jews (the Ukrainian famine, etc).
If it is illegal for whites to have free association and to have exclusively white businesses, white schools, and white neighborhoods, it should be similarly illegal for Jews to have free association. As a gesture of good faith, these Jewish organizations pushing for more Muslim and non-white immigration should ask Jews to experience the vibrancy of racial diversity in their own homes.
Jews have done wonderful things, and Jewish organizations understandably trumpet Jewish accomplishments, but it is obnoxious if we do not admit the negative things that Jews have done such as to promote communism, feminism, same-sex marriage, gangster rap and pornography.
In Genesis 22:18, God says to Abraham: “In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice.”
It’s worth monitoring the effect Jews have on the world. Jewish intellectual Paul Gottfried told me April 14, 2014: “The one indispensable element for Western civilization are the white Christians. Once they go, everything goes. Jews aren’t going to save anything except Jewish self-interest, which is often viewed as incompatible with the preservation of a Western Christian civilization. Jews typically tend to weaken that. I agree with Kevin MacDonald on this entirely. …[If] you look at Jews in today’s world, they do very much play the role Kevin MacDonaldsays they do.”
“To say that Orthodox Jews are less of a threat to civilization does not mean that they are an appealing alternative. They’re not as dangerous as the more assimilated Jews. It doesn’t make them the good guys. It doesn’t make them a model you want to imitate if you are interested in preserving Western civilization.”
Luke: “The Jewish response to [Kevin MacDonald] is to throw slurs rather than to rebut.”
Paul: “Yes, of course. What else do you expect? He’s questioning the nobility and high-mindedness of Jewish leftists. I wouldn’t expect any other kind of response. I don’t think the very Orthodox Jews care one way or the other.”
“I was listening to this guy Alan Dershowitz on a television program and he was asked if the Ten Commandments are good and he said, oh no, they’re awful. They were written for primitive people. And they have nothing to do with us. Now why would a Jew be attacking the Ten Commandments? Because he doesn’t want the Gentiles to have it. He doesn’t want them to have any religion except left-liberalism. He hates the goyim. If you read his book Chutzpah, it is even more obvious that he hates Gentiles. I’ve never seen Jewish liberalism as anything other than an attempt to neutralize a group that Jews fear and hate.”
“The neoconservatives identify America with global democracy, human rights, Jewish interests, Zionism, the struggle against German Nazism in two world wars, the victory of the Civil Rights movement. They have their own myth of America and it differs only slightly from Obama’s view of America, that America is good because it has progressed, overcome prejudice, it is universal and it is based on human rights. Other Jews on the left are more radical because they are still afraid of Christian influence. However radical Americans have become, Jews are even more radical with gay rights and things like that. Jews often play a pivotal influence in introducing new phases of radicalism.”
“Neoconservatives are selectively for academic freedom when it advances what they see as Jewish interests. They’ll say it’s everybody’s interests.”
“The Jewish positive [intellectual] tendencies are seen in science and business. Most of the Jewish cultural [and political] influence in America is very bad. I just don’t see the good cultural influence of Jews.”
Luke: “Have Jews collectively been more of a blessing or a curse to the United States?”
Paul: “I think it is mixed.”
Luke: “What do you think about the accusation that American Jews have dual loyalties [to America and to Israel]?”
Paul: “I could say what the late Joseph Sobran said, ‘What’s so dual about it? Is there any country but Israel for them?’ That’s partly true. Theoretically, they love Israel as a Jewish land but they are not going to go there to live. It’s some distant country they admire. In traditional Jewish circles [outside the haredim], anything for Israel is good. But they’re not going to leave the United States. They have a physical and financial and residential attachment to the United States.”
The philo-Semitic blog Gates of Vienna contained this challenging comment about Jews:
But they are never over-represented in organisations or movements that represent the interests of the ethnic majority, only those that weaken that majority. That is why they’ve been expelled from so many very different countries over so many centuries. Yet with the possible exception of Albert Lindemann (Esau’s Tears) they never want to know the reasons why they’ve been so disliked in order to prevent more tragedies in the future. Instead they dismiss all anti-Semitism as scapegoating…
If they are over-represented in the intelligentsia then they had disproportionate influence in the direction the intelligentsia took. Many Russian intellectuals were Slavo-philes. Before Jews could access the most important U.S. universities the old WASP intelligentsia in the U.S. was much more traditionalist.
Torah wants Jews within the Torah Corral. It’s when they leave it and start pushing radical politics that I get nervous.
Ashkenazi Jews have the highest average IQ of any people (somewhere between 105 and 120). As the journal Social Psychology Quarterly reported in 2010:
More intelligent people are significantly more likely to exhibit social values and religious and political preferences that are novel to the human species in evolutionary history. Specifically, liberalism and atheism…
The theory suggests that more intelligent people are more likely than less intelligent people to adopt evolutionarily novel preferences and values, but intelligence does not correlate with preferences and values that are old enough to have been shaped by evolution over millions of years.”
…Kanazawa argues that humans are evolutionarily designed to be conservative, caring mostly about their family and friends, and being liberal, caring about an indefinite number of genetically unrelated strangers they never meet or interact with, is evolutionarily novel. So more intelligent children may be more likely to grow up to be liberals.
As one goy wrote to Steve Sailer: “Having a separate–racially or culturally or simply in identity–elite group is very, very bad for a nation as the American experience with the Jews has shown. (I think basically it’s turned out to be fatal. Though in fairness a good part of that is that the white package of traits–cooperation, altruism, high-trust–which makes *closed* white nations so pleasant, is also easily exploitable by hostiles.) I have about as much desire to be lectured to and bossed about by Ivy educated Chews like Amy Chua’s kids–or the insane “mattress girl”–as i do by the Jews themselves–i.e. zero. Asians *may* integrate and see themselves as just “Americans”, better than the Jews–not having a 2000+ year tradition of explicit religiously mandated majority hostility. But … who knows? Bringing more and more of them over here, to purge smart white guys from tech jobs is unnecessary, dangerous and wrong.”
Another goy tells Sailer: “I’ve grown to really hate my country, America. So many self-interested traitors seeking immigrant votes, cheap labor, or social status. Anti-whites control and run everything. Nobody will dare espouse explicitly pro-white views in mainstream discourse, but many will preach with smug self-righteousness about how it is a moral imperative for whites to be replaced and for the world to become a non-white planet. California girls used to be regarded as some of the most beautiful women in the world, but today that state is overrun by endless waves of brown masses. There’s just no resistance to the rape and defilement of America. Even Jeff Sessions will only talk about immigration in economic terms. No mainstream figure will take a stand for white people.”
Reacting to the growing anti-Israel sentiment on America’s college campuses, a goy wrote in 2016: “Dear Jew, So, spending the last half century suppressing identity politics among White males, while simultaneously promoting identity politics among everyone else, isn’t working out like you had hoped? Man, I really feel bad about that. Who could have foreseen that there might be drawbacks?”
The greatest threat to Jews from Euros in the 20th century was being identified as an alien elite tribe.
Chaim Amalek: “The greatest threat to Jews from Euros in the 20th century was being machine gunned into a ravine, enslaved and starved to death, or being rounded up and stuffed into a gas chamber.”
Luke: Exactly. Once the Jew was understood as a hostile, alien elite harming tribal interests, he was removed from power in a way that made sure the removal of power was permanent. Jews are right to fear being identified as a hostile alien elite. Bad things happen during bad times.
Can a Jew be a German first? A Pole first? A regular citizen of a European nation-state? Some can, but the averaging identifying Jew is a often Jew first in his identity and thus primarily loyal to his fellow Jews. It’s a tribal mentality, which is different from the mentality of the white non-Jewish citizen of Germany, France, Poland, Ukraine, Sweden, Norway, England, America, etc.
The Jewish response to The Jewish Question (JQ) was to render the question moot.
If there is no such thing as race or tribe from a DNA perspective, then the JQ is silly.
We do have the problem that certain tribes are obviously different and that’s why terror is needed and propaganda to deny reality. That’s why we must restrict speech to protect the elite, to protect the construct that race means nothing, that national borders mean nothing, that multiculturalism and diversity are good for Gentile nations (though not good for the Jewish state, where the minority Arab population is a curse).
The reason anyone who notices racial differences is called a Nazi is not because they are one or have anything in common with one per se, but rather, because Jews fear recognizing racial differences will inevitably lead to them being outed as an alien elite.
Jews are a people who dwell apart, just as the Torah says.
Chaim Amalek: “But why do so many WASPS internalize that world view (they do have agency in this matter)?”
Luke: Left-wing Ashkenazi Jews pull a sleight of hand and pull and twist the WASP’s natural rugged individualism to radical individualism. It is nowhere the WASP would go on his own, but once women are politically empowered (they are always more prone to the needs of the individual), they are particularly vulnerable to the radical Ashkenazi Jew’s machinations on this issue. Hasidic Jews, by contrast, leave the wider goy society alone and don’t push radical social engineering like communism, feminism, multiculturalism, open borders, etc. They stay within the Torah Corral. Jews who live within the Torah Corral don’t try to reconstruct Gentile society.
You can have social democracy or you can have multiculturalism.
Social democracy is inherently more vulnerable than capitalism.
But even a heterogenous population is not necessarily a safe place for social democracy, as we learn from Israel.
You can have social democracy, or you can have haredim.
You can still have some social democracy with haredim, but not social welfare. Anything with a nipple on it will have 12 heimeshes sucking on one tit, and 12 tichels sucking on the other.
The most natural thing for an animal — any animal, insects too — to ask when their environment begins to change is, “Is there something that is f***ing up my s***?”
Some Jews think they are pre-empting this question being asked by bringing in a whole host of outsiders and eventually curtailing free speech through Hate Speech laws. But none of this will matter.
The white nationalists (WNs) already understand who is changing their environment, who is changing their society and when the economy and/or grid collapse, the opium quickly wears off.
A better bet would have been to avoid bad times, and to work towards the betterment of the majority population, which is a risible idea both to WNs and to the major Jewish organizations. Ultimately, on the current path, Organized Jewry is fighting a war it cannot win. This is the real source of WN disdain.
Some Jews, as result of their people living for centuries in an atmosphere of mutual loathing with the gentiles of Eastern Europe, have a tribal addiction to hating the goyim. As I posted November 17, 2015:
Third-generation Holocaust survivors have suffered terribly. You’ll notice them up in arms on Facebook today demanding that America take in more Muslim refugees. They are full-bore pro-refugee, even more so after the recent terror in Paris.
Some of these Jews are neo-cons, some are Republicans, but most of them are on the left. They desperately want attention, they want to provoke the goyim.
As I predicted in my two previousTaki’s columns, the Trump administration offered to Democrats an extremely moderate and generous compromise immigration package. Trump proposed a path to citizenship for 1.8 million illegal aliens in return for three sensible reforms of the immigration system: a wall, an end to chain migration (or, as it should more accurately be called, clan migration), and the elimination of Teddy Kennedy’s nitwit diversity lottery.
In response, the respectable have, predictably, gone nuts spewing racist hate. For instance, House minority leader Nancy Pelosi asserted that Trump’s compromise framework was part of his sinister plan to “make America white again.” Likewise, Jennifer Rubin of The Washington Post explained “How to fight Trump’s plan to whiten our immigration system.” The new conventional wisdom is that it would be racist for the American people to have any say in how much immigration they must endure.
David Brooks of The New York Times at least offers an argument for why he supports ethnic swamping besides just the usual “White Americans, I hate you”:
Every few years I try to write a column staking out a reasonable middle ground on immigration…. The case for restricting immigration seems superficially plausible.
For example, there are 7 billion non-Americans in the world. So if America didn’t restrict immigration, over one hundred million immigrants would quickly pour into our country. They’d keep coming until life in America became about as cruddy as in their home countries.
But that doesn’t occur to Brooks. Much as he tries, David just can’t find any good reason to restrict immigration:
And every few years I fail. That’s because when you wade into the evidence you find that the case for restricting immigration is pathetically weak.
As proof, David recommends you drive through economically depressed parts of America:
If you start in rural New England and drive down into Appalachia or across into the Upper Midwest you will be driving through county after county with few immigrants. These rural places are often 95 percent white…. They are often marked by economic stagnation, social isolation, family breakdown and high opioid addiction.
* How many pundits have made this same argument as Brooks? I know William Kristol has. It betrays a shocking lack of empathy for the less fortunate, but only if they are white. Do they write about the impact of low-skilled immigrants on black wages and unemployment?
Let’s face it: what we see here is the lingering anti-Gentilism of a few highly-influential Ashkenazi Americans, which is deeply rooted in ancestral memories (false memories when it comes to Anglo-Protestant Americans) of anti-Semitism in the Old-World.
The fact that their upper-middle-class children and grandchildren are not threatened by — indeed benefit very handsomely from — free mobility of labor and capital in an economically lopsided world, needs to also be taken into account. Or do they imagine themselves immune from ordinary human self-interest as well as suppressed feelings of resentment and a schadenfreudish spirit of revenge?
One last question: will attitudes change when they realize that anti-Semitism is rife in these new immigrant groups, Hispanic and Asian alike, whose demographic explosion may undermine American popular support for the state of Israel? Probably not, but other, wiser and more prudent of their co-ethnics may rise in their stead, of which Stephen Miller is a harbinger. Let us hope this is true.
* Also daily reminder that the man who says ‘ethnostates don’t work’ has a son who served in the Israeli army and exactly zero serving in the highly diverse US army who seem to do the lions share of the fighting in the wars he endlessly proposes.
* Interestingly, a lot of his commenters — who aren’t exactly iSteve types — immediately noticed that Brooks’ column can be read as an unstated but implied attack on black Americans.
* When Brooks started comparing immigrants to native-born Americans, my iSteve training immediately led me to ask the question (unaddressed by Brooks, naturally): “What’s hidden in that general population term ‘native Americans’?”
The answer, which John Derbyshire has shown in other contexts (notably America’s international ranking in student test scores) is that when you disaggregate the general set of natives into particular racial/ethnic groups, you see a very different picture. Brooks certainly knows this; he’s not a stupid writer, nor ignorant of the arguments advanced by Steve and Derb, among others.
One rationale for his having written such an idiotic column is that Brooks is indeed making a coded (and therefore cowardly) disavowal of American blacks, the way Charles Murray’s recent book (which he pointedly sites) was a veiled critique of black social dysfunction (with its implication that if disorder is this bad among lower class whites, imagine how much worse it must be among blacks).
On the other hand, that’s probably too generous an assessment of the column. The truth is, in the circle he now frequents, any realist subtext will go unnoticed, the PC pretext will be applauded, and it’s just another payday for Brooks. He can rest in the certainty that he’ll never, ever be asked to justify himself in public on these matters.
"This guy knows all the gossip, the ins and outs, the lashon hara of the Orthodox world. He’s an [expert] in... all the inner workings of the Orthodox world." (Rabbi Aaron Rakeffet-Rothkoff)
