Opuscula Mideast politics Are very strange

AS MORE AND MORE OF ISRAEL’S ARAB neighbors recognize Israel or at least the reality of Israel, Abu Mazen and the PA are telling everyone the PA will no longer recognize Israel. (http://tinyurl.com/yaw2ckye ) Hamas – another story altogether.

Image above: Sports Minister Miri Regev listens as HaTikvah is played honoring Sagi Muki following his victory in the under-81 kg category at Abu Dhabi international competition. IJForg photo

In the UAE, Israeli judo wrestlers won two firsts in two events and, in a first, Israel’s national anthem was played as they stood on the podium. (http://tinyurl.com/y996kr4g )

On the same day, an Israeli gymnastics delegation was in Qatar for the beginning of the world championships being held in Doha.

Now, Oman calls for recognition of Israel. (http://tinyurl.com/y9c53nkj )

On Monday (10/29) Communications Minister Ayoub Kara was to travel to Dubai to represent Israel at an international internet security conference.

Out of the closet

Israel has for many years had quiet commercial relations with a number of its Arab neighbors.

At one point, Israeli made two-way radios were assembled in Iran and a Farsi label attached to the finished product.

Pragmatic Saudis installed air conditioners made in Israel, ignoring the manufacturer’s label.

But to hear HaTikvah played in any Muslim country other than Egypt or Jordan – never . . . until Abu Dabi.

When Israelis won medals at the Abu Dhabi last year, the Israeli stood on the podium, sans Israeli badge and HaTikvah was not heard.

To be fair, credit must go to the International Judo Federation which warned UAE organizers the competition would be canceled unless all athletes were allowed to participate on an equal footing.

Israelis are welcomed as visitors to a few Muslim countries, notably Morocco Yet there are so far no direct flights between Lod and Rabat, Casa Blanca or Marrakech on either El Al, Arkia, or Royal Air Maroc.

While Israel and its neighbors are “normalizing” relations, the PA’s Abu Mazen decided on Monday to end all commitments in the agreements the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) has signed with Israel, to end security coordination and to revoke the Paris Economic Protocols which govern the economic cooperation with Israel.

Such moves mean the end of all peace protocols with Israel.

The Palestinian Central Council (PCC) alleged that “in view of Israel’s continued denial of the signed agreements,” it again recommends eliminating end all of the PLO and PA’s commitments under their agreements with Israel, as well as suspending their recognition of the state of Israel until it recognizes the state of Palestine on the June 1967 borders with the eastern portion of Jerusalem as its capital.

Although there has been cooperation in some areas, most formal agreements were abrogated by Abu Mazen and the PA before the ink was dry; the “Oslo Accords” signed by a Labor government as an example.

The PA is increasingly ignored by other Muslim countries and may find itself an island in a sea of Arab states and Israel. As far as Hamas is concerned, no one WANTS Gaza; Israel could eliminate Hamas at any time, but its absence would leave a political vacuum that could be disastrous for the people in the Strip.

With the exceptions of Iran, Hezbollah's Lebanon, and perhaps Syria, HaTikvah soon may be heard throughout the Arab world.

Nes gadol.

PLAGIARISM is the act of appropriating the literary composition of another, or parts or passages of his writings, or the ideas or language of the same, and passing them off as the product of one’s own mind.

Truth is an absolute defense to defamation. Defamation is a false statement of fact. If the statement was accurate, then by definition it wasn’t defamatory.

Comments on HaTikvah

Opuscula Love is ok, but Defense is better To stay alive

THIS MORNING I OPENED AN EMAIL from Chabad that asked me What is the remedy to such senseless hatred?! What can we possibly do to eradicate it?

The answer: The Lubavitcher Rebbe, of righteous memory, answered this a number of times, with clarity and conviction:

Boundless love.

The rebbe za”l was a wise man, a great man and he did wondrous things for Judaism, fanning a failing spark in some who forgot – or never knew – anything about who they are.

But this time I think the rebbe, עה”ש, is wrong.

Love did nothing to prevent the shoah.

Love did nothing to prevent the slaughter in Pittsburgh.

What is needed, I believe, is more JDL than ADL.

JDL – the Jewish Defense League, http://www.jdl.org/ – takes a different stance.

It is a stance that most Conservative, Reform, and other non-observant Jews – read liberals – will refuse to even consider.

(That is not entirely fair. I know of at least one Conservative congregation where a few congregants are armed – and proficient with their weapons.)

JDL’s position is anathema to the liberals, be they Jewish or not. To quote from the JDL’s home page:

Image above JDL logo from JDL home page

There is a war being waged against Jews on all fronts.

The JDL is committed to stemming this tide and combating it with every legal tool available to us.

Therefore we are urging all Jews to become legal firearm owners.

Meet at your local synagogues, Jewish community centers, and places of gathering.

Practice gun safety, form gun range groups, apply for legal firearms permits.

Study Torah and the actions of our historic leaders who stood up to the anti-semitism of their times.

The battle is not new. It has been continuing for centuries.

The JDL is NOT suggesting Jews go on the hunt for Jew haters.

The JDL is NOT suggesting Jews become aggressors.

The JDL is NOT suggesting Jews become “quick draw cowboys” or that we should bring back the old west as portrayed by Hollywood.

What the JDL IS suggesting – no, what the JDL is telling Jews – is that we must take responsibility for ourselves.

My First Born is a policemen. He tells me that that there simply are too few police to be everywhere or even to respond within a minute or two. This is in the U.S. Things are worse in Israel vis-a-vis police to population ratio.

I think the LESSON of the JDL is appropriate: DEFENSE.

Defense and vigilance. Better, vigilance and defense.

Defense in proportion to the threat.

The Torah clearly states לא תרצח ¹ – don’t murder. (There is a different Hebrew word for “kill.”)

The Talmud, on the other hand, states clearly: If a man comes to kill you, kill him first.”

Basically, the Talmud is approving self-defense, even to the point of a “presumptive strike” if there is no question about the attacker’s intent, e.g., entering a synagogue with a rifle and pistols shouting that he “wanted to kill Jews”² is sufficient, at least in this scrivener’s mind, to establish the intruder’s intent.

The murderer published numerous posts about HIAS³ on the Gab social network, and appeared to ascribe to the anti-Semitic conspiracy theory that Jews were financially supporting an invasion of immigrants into the U.S. In particular, he frequently ranted about the caravan of Honduran migrants heading to the U.S.-Mexico border. He posted a list of HIAS’s partners on Gab, including Dor Hadash.

Congregation Dor Hadash is a member-led congregation in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, an affiliate of the Jewish Reconstructionist Communities.⁴ Its members had been holding services in the Tree of Life synagogue.

The murderer had posted his feelings on the Gab blog site, a site that eventually banned him and, allegedly, informed the FBI of the man’s posts. WHEN the FBI was warned remains a question. (Did the FBI fail to prevent yet another massacre?)

HIAS, the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, was founded as the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society in 1881 to assist Jews fleeing pogroms in Russia and Eastern Europe, HIAS has touched the life of nearly every Jewish family in America and now welcomes all who have fled persecution. ⁵

BLAME IT ON TRUMP

Aljazeera reports that Jewish leaders in Pittsburgh, including the former president of the Tree of Life synagogue, said US President Donald Trump is not welcome in the city because of his rhetoric against minorities.

Above image from Bend The Arc "Who are we" web page

A letter published by Behind the Arc*, which describes itself as a movement for progressive Jews, said Trump would not be welcome until he distanced himself from white supremacists.

"For the past three years your words and your policies have emboldened a growing white nationalist movement," the letter read, addressing the US leader directly.

“Yesterday’s massacre is not the first act of terror you incited against a minority group in our country.”⁶

At the same time, NBC News⁷ reports that Jeffrey Myers, rabbi of the Conservative Tree of Life congregation, said he would welcome President Trump if he chose to come to Pittsburgh, while the synagogue's former leader, Lynette Lederman, said she felt strongly that he should not come. She said "He’s the purveyor of hate speech. The hypocritical words that come from him tell me nothing," Lederman continued. "We have people who stand by us who believe in values, not just Jewish values, but believe in values, and those are the not the values of this president, and I do not welcome him to Pittsburgh." It must be noted that Ms. Lederman was a lay leader and not a rabbi or authority on Jewish law.

The rabbi who was presiding over services at a Pittsburgh synagogue when 11 people were gunned down said Monday condemning hate isn't enough — those in power need to lead by example.

When asked what message he would like to send to President Donald Trump, Myers said, "We turn to the leaders of our country, and we’ve gotta stop hate."

"And it can’t just be to say we need to stop hate. We need to do, we need to act to tone down rhetoric," he said.

“Nationalist”

President Trump made a PC mistake when he described himself as a “nationalist.”

The leftist immediately decided he meant he was a “white nationalist.”

That is not what he said and clearly, at least clearly to anyone who listens to what he says and watches what he does, "white nationalist" is not what he meant.

He is a “nationalist” in that he is for the nation; another way of phrasing his campaign hat: Make America Great Again (MAGA).

According to CNN⁸, the president told a crowd that globalist is someone who "wants the globe to do well" at the expense of the country, Trump made it clear he's not one of those.

"You know what I am, I'm a nationalist. Use that word," he roared, as the crowd erupted in cheers of "USA! USA!"

According to Merriam-Webster⁹, when Trump said he was a “nationalist” he was claiming loyalty and devotion to a nation especially : a sense of national consciousness exalting one nation above all others and placing primary emphasis on promotion of its culture and interests as opposed to those of other nations or supranational groups

If anyone sees the word “white” or any other racial, cultural, or religious attribute there, their vision is different that mine.

---

Sources

* The organization is BEND THE ARC, not BEHIND THE ARC. Behind the Arc is a Facebook basketball site (https://www.facebook.com/behindthearcmag/) One more thing Aljazeera got wrong.

1. Exodus 20:13;

2. http://tinyurl.com/y8qh7hrl

3. Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society

4. http://dorhadash.net/

5. https://www.hias.org/history

6. http://tinyurl.com/ybxu7tnn

7. http://tinyurl.com/ycunselr

8. http://tinyurl.com/y7l25pt2

9. http://tinyurl.com/yagvawpv

PLAGIARISM is the act of appropriating the literary composition of another, or parts or passages of his writings, or the ideas or language of the same, and passing them off as the product of one’s own mind.

Truth is an absolute defense to defamation. Defamation is a false statement of fact. If the statement was accurate, then by definition it wasn’t defamatory.

Comments on JDL

Dear Liberal Democrats Apartheid? PA, not Israel Is prime example

LIBERAL DEMOCRATS AND MANY NON-OBSERVANT JEWS scream that Israel is an “apartheid” country.

Never mind that there are Arabs in government, on the Supreme Court, in the police; basically everywhere in Israeli society. Druze and Bedouins have been part of the IDF since the state’s founding.¹

Arabs can live anyplace. As with most people, many Arabs prefer to live in areas with predominately Arab populations. Human nature.

HOWEVER, THE LIBERALS don’t have to go far to see a REAL “apartheid” government. Just travel to the Palestinian Authority territories.

There is it against the law to sell property to a Jew.

According to World Israel News², obviously a lying Israeli mouthpiece,
Israel’s security forces earlier this week arrested two Palestinian officials in connection with the kidnapping of an Arab who was charged with the offense of helping to sell an Arab-owned house to Jews, a capital offense in the Palestinian Authority (PA).

In court, Adnan Jit, the PA governor of the Jerusalem area, expressed support for the PA prescribed death penalty for Arabs who sell lands to Jews. His lawyer claimed that he was only quoting a Fatwa, an Islamic decree, on the matter.

On the other hand, ynet news³,headlined on 7 December 2010, that 50 municipal rabbis: Don't rent flats to Arabs According to the rabbis, Leasing land to non-Jews is blasphemous, anyone violating ban may be ostracized, rabbis say.

The difference is the the PA government considers selling land to a Jew a crime punishable by execution; while a Jew who leases land to an Arab faces only herem (censure and shunning) by the rabbis. There is no threat of criminal prosecution by the State.

Dictionary.com⁴ defies “apartheid” as any system or practice that separates people according to color, ethnicity, caste, etc. Neither it nor Merriam-Webster⁵ restrict it to government, although comparing Arabs in Israel to Jews in the PA, it is obvious to all but the most close-minded that it is the PA, not Israel, that has the apartheid government.

If Israel forced Arabs into ghettos and limited their mobility, THEN there might be a basis to claim that Israel is an apartheid state. That is not the case.

The ONLY people who claim Israel is an apartheid state are those who have zero first hand experience in Israel; who make up their minds based on tales of anti-Semites, people who hate Israel just because “it is.”

Love for “Palestinians?” Unlikely.

The “Palestinians” are the liberals cause célèbre du jour. Tomorrow who knows under what banner they will march.

Sources

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sword_Battalion

2: http://tinyurl.com/y9rp2yxr

3. http://tinyurl.com/y9ytma4g

4. https://www.dictionary.com/browse/apartheid

5: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/apartheid

PLAGIARISM is the act of appropriating the literary composition of another, or parts or passages of his writings, or the ideas or language of the same, and passing them off as the product of one’s own mind.

Truth is an absolute defense to defamation. Defamation is a false statement of fact. If the statement was accurate, then by definition it wasn’t defamatory.

Comments on Apartheid

Opuscula Yitzhak Rabin Remembered

THE OTHER DAY IN ISRAEL there was the annual “Remember Yitzhak Rabin” Day.
It remembers the State’s shame of having a former prime minister slain.

But it also eulogizes a man whose past is bloody.

I REMEMBER YITZHAK RABIN as the man who ordered Ben Gurion’s Haganah to open fire on fellow Jews bringing personnel and weapons to fight for Israel’s survival. Rabin was the “on the shore” commander pledged to do what his self-important boss told him. Ben Gurion hated – and that is not too strong a word – Menachem Begin, a leader of Lehi and political foe of Ben Gurion.

Lest anyone forget, Ben Gurion ordered Rabin to take troops to the shore and to confiscate all weapons Begin’s people had acquired in Europe. Begin had agreed to share the weapons with Ben Gurion’s Haganah. The boat was the Altalena¹.

Image from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altalena_Affair

Then there was Oslo, a one-sided agreement with Yassar Arafat. Israel lost, the PLO gained – and never, to this day, has the PLO lived up to the agreement.

Meanwhile, Rabin received the Nobel Peace Prize along with his own Minister of Foreign Affairs Shimon Peres and the PLO’s leader Yasser Arafat.

It was the agreement that caused Rabin’s assassination by Yigal Amir, a Jewish Israeli student in 1995 in Tel Aviv.

On the positive side, Israel now has peace agreements with former enemies Jordan and Egypt.

Did Rabin arrange the peace agreement with Egypt?

No, it was Began – vilified by Rabin’s mentor Ben Gurion, and Anwar Sadat.

Rabin was Prime Minister at the signing of the Israel-Jordan agreement.²

Assassinating political leaders is all to common around the world, and more than a few were murdered in ancient Israel. However, killing a prime minster in Israel was a shock and brought shame to the country, no matter what justification Amir believed he had for the murder.

At the most recent Rabin memorial event, his relatives broke with the tradition of trying to heal differences and excoriated members of the current government.

In other words, they behaved like American leftists after losing an election.

According to the Jerusalem Post³,
Slain prime minister Yitzhak Rabin’s grandchildren blasted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during services marking the 23rd anniversary of Rabin’s assassination on Sunday, in one case falsely accusing Netanyahu’s spokesperson of a tweet referring to Rabin as a traitor. 

Noa Rotman, speaking at a ceremony on Mount Herzl, harshly criticized the country’s political leadership and said that people in positions of authority were taking part in incitement.

“If you don’t stop the journey of incitement, blood will be spilled here,” she said, as Netanyahu sat in the front row alongside President Reuven Rivlin.

At the Knesset two hours later, Netanyahu referenced Rotman’s statement, and said he was “astonished” by the accusation, and that it was completely baseless. The tweet in question was posted by Caroline Glick of a satirical poster before Yom Kippur showing pictures of various left-wing figures and organizations under terms used in the traditional confession Jews say on Yom Kippur. 

Over a picture of Rabin shaking Yasser Arafat’s hands on the White House lawn was the caption, “we sinned.”  

“I was shocked, because I did not believe for a minute that someone in the Prime Minister’s Office did such a thing,” Netanyahu said. “But I immediately asked to look into it – and it turned out that it really did not exist. This is a tweet from a journalist who has nothing to do with the Prime Minister’s Office.”

Sounds a great deal like the Democrats claims about the U.S. president.

The Times of Israel⁴ reports that
Yonatan Ben-Artzi, Rabin’s grandson, used his speech on the Hebrew anniversary of the murder to attack Netanyahu for dividing the country, arguing it would lead to Israel’s destruction.

“A leadership that encourages division and violent attacks on other opinions. He who drives and incites against anyone who thinks differently from him as a sourpuss or a leftist will lead to the destruction of the next Temple,” charged Ben-Artzi.

“The citizens of the state are entitled to a leadership that cares for their needs and is not bored with them and their requirements,” he said. “A leadership that mocks and disparages those that feel distress is the source of that evil, and it will deepen the rift, division and internal conflict.”

That is reminiscent of the Israeli Labor party politician who told an American woman who dared raise an issue to “Go back to America.”

The Rabin memorial event has, in the past, been nothing less than a paean to the slain former leader; it was not, until this year, used as a bully pulpit to castigate political opponents.

The only thing the Rabin descendants have accomplished by their vitriol is to send people to their history sources to learn about Rabin before he became a murdered “hero.”

The Altalena proved that both Ben Gurion and Rabin had feet of clay.

Rabin’s memorial should be noted as a moment in modern Israel’s history when the rule of law was superseded by a religious zealot.

---

Sources

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altalena_Affair

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel%E2%80%93Jordan_peace_treaty#History

3. http://tinyurl.com/ybqoonno

4. http://tinyurl.com/yat259t7

PLAGIARISM is the act of appropriating the literary composition of another, or parts or passages of his writings, or the ideas or language of the same, and passing them off as the product of one’s own mind.

Truth is an absolute defense to defamation. Defamation is a false statement of fact. If the statement was accurate, then by definition it wasn’t defamatory.

Comments on Rabin

Opuscula Halloween’s Pagan past Not for Jews

HALLOWEEN, ALWAYS ON THE LAST DAY OF OCTOBER (albeit sometimes moved to the nearest Friday or Saturday)

* Is NEITHER a national holiday nor a Jewish holiday.

* Is NOT a non-Jews variation of Purim; the only similarity is wearing costumes.

To be fair, some non-Jews have special religious services on the day after Halloween, what is termed “All Saints Day.”

A little Halloween history

There are many articles^{1, 2, 3, 4} on the Internet that claim to tell the origin of the event. All of the articles come to the same conclusion: Halloween started off as a pagan holiday.

CBN², borrowing from Encyclopaedia Britannica concludes that (I)n ancient Britain and Ireland, the Celtic Festival of Samhain was observed on October 31, at the end of summer…. The souls of the dead were supposed to revisit their homes on this day and the autumnal festival acquired sinister significance, with ghosts, witches, goblins, black cats, fairies and demons of all kinds said to be roaming about. It was the time to placate the supernatural powers controlling the processes of nature. In addition, Halloween was thought to be the most favorable time for divinations concerning marriage, luck, health, and death. It was the only day on which the help of the devil was invoked for such purposes.

Why on the last day in October?

Take a look at sunset times in late October/early November.

Will the sun ever return?

The Celts are not the only people to have a “Day of the Dead.”

Mexico is famous for its Day of the Dead. According to The Travel Leaf ⁵, The day before Dia de los Muertos, October 31 is a preparation for the upcoming celebration and also a Halloween celebration. Halloween is not the same thing as The Day of the Dead though.

November 1st is the day that’s when “Angelitos” or little angels returns to the earth. It’s also called Día de los Angelitos (Day of the Little Angels). These are the souls of all babies and children who have died at the young age.

The next day on November 2nd all the adult souls visit their loved ones here on the earth. Spirits are welcomed with a joyful celebration, specially built altars and the their favorite meal from back when they were alive. It’s common belief that the spirit arrives mighty hungry and thirsty after having to travel from the spirit world back to the living world.

U.S. News³ contends that Halloween coincides with Christian celebrations honoring the dead. In the autumn, Christians celebrate All Saints' Day – a day to honor martyrs who died for their faith and saints. They also celebrate All Souls' Day – a day to remember the dead and to pray for souls more generally.

The history of how these dates came to coincide is worth noting: It suggests ways in which the pagan holiday may have been absorbed into Christian observance. Starting around the seventh century AD., Christians celebrated All Saints Day on May 13. In the mid-eighth century, however, Pope Gregory III moved All Saint's Day from May 13 to Nov. 1, so that it coincided with the date of Celt’s Samhain.

In the United States – and elsewhere – those who died for their countries have a day set aside for remembrance. Sadly, most Americans ignore the reason for the day. Israel, in addition, has Yom HaShoah.

Some differences between Halloween and Purim

Purim, despite its pranks, costumes, and general silliness still is a religious holiday.

Jews are commanded – not in the Torah or Talmuds, but in the Book of Esther --to remember that happened on 13 Adar, 357 Before the Current Era (BCE).

To that end,

* Jews fast on the 13th of Adar (Fast of Esther) and feast on Purim day (14 Adar).

Pur, as everyone knows, means the casting of lots, which Haman did to determine the date to exterminate all the Jews of the world. (Sound familiar?)

* Jewish men are obliged to hear the story (the whole megillah) twice; once at night and once on the following morning. Women also are obliged to hear the megillah twice, but most women only attend the night reading.⁶

* Unlike non-Jews who go door-to-door demanding a trick or a treat from the resident (or perhaps “give us a treat or we’ll “trick” you – damage your property). Jews, often children, go from Jewish home to Jewish home with gifts, meshloach manot with at least two food items.⁷ Details of what to send and to whom to send (including sending to the home of a mourner) are provided by Aish.com.⁸

* Jews give “tzdaka,” incorrectly translated as “charity.” The OU⁶ reminds that there is a prophetic precept to give at least two gifts to two poor people on Purim; that is, one gift to each. And even a poor person who himself has to ask for Charity, is required to do so. This obligation is fulfilled through any type of gift; whether of money, of food or drink, or even of clothing. One should, however, try to give a substantial gift. For if one gives a gift of money it should be sufficient for the recipient to buy bread weighing at least three eggs. At the very least, however, one must give a pruta or its equivalent value to each of two poor persons.

A few words on lo yadah (לא ידע) .

“Rava said: It is one’s duty levasumei, to make oneself fragrant [with wine] on Purim until one cannot tell the difference between ‘arur Haman‘ (cursed be Haman) and ‘barukh Mordekhai’ (blessed be Mordecai)” (Babylonian Talmud, Megillah 7b). ⁹

Rabbenu Ephraim ibn Avi Alragan, an 11th-century North African halachist, rejects the statement of Rava, and it is wrong to act in such a way ”to become so inebriated that we murder someone as in the story of Rabbah getting up and slaughtering R. Zeira."

Rambam, however, rules that one should eat meat and prepare as nice a meal as one can afford and drink wine until one becomes drunk and falls asleep from drunkenness. (Laws of Megillah 2:15).

After a big meal and hearing the whole megillah, taking a small amount of potent potable at home might just be enough to meet Rambam’s requirement to fall asleep.

Sources

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halloween

2. http://www1.cbn.com/the-pagan-roots-of-halloween

3. US NEWS: http://tinyurl.com/y7z8yh7y

4. Jehovah’s Witnesses: http://tinyurl.com/yaq29tjs

5. Travel Leaf: http://tinyurl.com/ycnve46y

6. https://www.ou.org/holidays/purim/purim_mitzvot/

7. Chabad: http://tinyurl.com/ydbwxj4c

8. http://www.aish.com/h/pur/m/48968806.html

9. https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/drinking-on-purim/

PLAGIARISM is the act of appropriating the literary composition of another, or parts or passages of his writings, or the ideas or language of the same, and passing them off as the product of one’s own mind.

Truth is an absolute defense to defamation. Defamation is a false statement of fact. If the statement was accurate, then by definition it wasn’t defamatory.

Comments on Halloween is not a Jewish Holiday

Opuscula Politics before Judaism for American Jews

THERE WAS AN INTERESTING ARTICLE on Chabad.org titled Henry Ford Sr. and My Renewed Sense of Jewish Pride (http://tinyurl.com/ybj76z4q)

The author, Peter Himmelman, posits that what Henry Ford, sponsor if not the author of The International Jew, failed to understand about Jews is ”what we Jews know as ‘Ahavat Yisrael,’ the innate love a Jew has for a fellow Jew.“

HIMMELMAN ASKS “WHAT IS THE GLUE THAT BINDS ONE JEW TO ANOTHER? Is it a cultural or culinary connection like a love for the stories of Isaac Bashevis Singer or gefilte fish? Or is it a shared language—Yiddish or Ladino, for example?“ (How about Hebrew, Mr. Himmelman? THAT is the language of Jews all around the globe.)

His answer to himself: “What I have come to understand is that the Torah itself is at the root of the deep, almost mystical affinity of one Jew for another.”

He adds that “with all our differences, whether political, religious, or cultural, when the Torah is removed from the ark on the holiday of Simchat Torah, the day we celebrate having been given this precious and unifying document, we will rush as one to kiss it, to embrace it, and to dance with it—as if the Torah were a beautiful child.”

Unfortunately, I think that is fiction.

Judaism, at last in the United States, is badly fragmented on both philosophical and political lines.

I have acquaintances who are

  Totally non-observant

  Reform

  Conservative

  Shomer Shabat and kashrut

I correspond with a man who was born a Jew and now rejects everything Jewish; he is a Barney Sanders liberal. University educated, author of a small book,

Nice guy. Even volunteered in Israel for a spell. I dated his sister back in junior high school, lo those many years past.

It seems to me that liberal Jews are liberals first and Jews second – if at all.

Observant Jews, on the other hand – even if they are only Jews at haggim, when, with the exception of Yom Kippur, they come for the food – are politically conservative.

In the minyan I attend, most are politically conservative. Many are Israelis which, in itself means nothing as Israelis, like Americans, come in all political stripes.

If you look at pro-Palestinian/anti-Israel organizations, you will find liberal Jews among the leaders, just as they were leaders within the NAACP until the blacks decided they didn’t need the Jews anymore.

Look at a staunchly pro-Israel organization and you will find observant Jews on the board.

I contend that, at least in the United States, politics prevents us from being “Am Ehad.” Fewer and fewer American Jews, particularly on the left, think of themselves a Jewish Americans. They are Americans who happen to have been born to a Jewish mother. Jewishness is “an accident of birth.”

It is not a matter of knowing the words to HaTikvah, it is not a matter of making a Birthright trip to Israel; these things are not important to today’s modern liberal Jews. There is no “Jewish connection.”

Not even Chabad’s Mitzvahmobiles and its other outreach programs can inspire a feeling of oneness with other Jews. Birthright opponents challenge young Jews to abandon a trip to Israel and their challenge always results in a few deciding that seeing life in Israel first hand, rather than hearing about it second or third hand from the liberal media, is a waste of their precious time.

These same Americans who “happen” to be Jewish attack every thing President Trump says or does – even when they have no clue what was said or done, again getting everything second or third hand. They worship at the alter of Sanders, Feinstein, and Boxer and, albeit they are not Jewish, Pelosi and Hillary Clinton, latter day FDRs and JFKs.

For most Jews, as with most Americans in 2018, their way is the only way; they lack the capability of even listening to different opinions.

It would be wonderful if Himmelman was correct that “Jews who’d never met one another, Jews who didn’t share a common language or a cultural heritage, could be so immediately at home with one another.”

Unfortunately, in the U.S. while many of us may SAY “Am Israel Hai,” the concept of “Am Ehad” is non-existent.

It is unfortunate that “when the Torah is removed from the ark on the holiday of Simchat Torah,” far too many Jews will be otherwise occupied. (Granted, two-day holidays -- save for Rosh HaShana-- are only rabbinically ordained.)

We are one only if the “one” includes our politics first.

We’ve always had our political and religious differences, but it seems to me never with such acrimony as we have today.

My way or the highway; the song is the same from the left and the right.

PLAGIARISM is the act of appropriating the literary composition of another, or parts or passages of his writings, or the ideas or language of the same, and passing them off as the product of one’s own mind.
Truth is an absolute defense to defamation. Defamation is a false statement of fact. If the statement was accurate, then by definition it wasn’t defamatory.

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