CATHOLICS IN A SMALL DADE COUNTY parish are rightfully upset because vandals lopped the head off a statue of their man-god, Jesus.
The congregants are calling this decapitation a “hate crime.”
Some thoughts.
What’s in a name?
The tv reporter said the vandalized statue was of “Jesus Christ.”
When did “Christ” — I’m told the word is Greek for משיח — become a surname?
By almost all accounts — excepting those by the PLO/PFLP in occupied Israel — Jesus was a Jew. In Jesus’s time, his name would have been Jesus ben Joseph, the man who assumed the role of Jesus’ father.
Jesus’ followers will insist God was his father, but “Jesus ben God” is hard to accept.
If his followers want to believe the Jesus was the messiah, the “christ,” then they should identify him as “Jesus OUR Christ.” After all, he is not the messiah for the Jews, the Muslims, the Buddhists, the Hindus, and a host of others.
But he doesn’t LOOK Jewish
Curious. If Jesus was a Jew — or “Palestinian,” albeit Islam and “Palestine” were unknown at the time — how come Jesus looks like a European?
Some images give Jesus a light tan while Mary, his mother, always is as pale as snow.
True, Jews in modern Israel come in all shades (thanks to wars, conversions, and intermarriages), but while ancient Israel had been overrun by numerous armies, including Roman and Greek, the Jews of Josephus’ time probably did NOT look like Europeans.
Heady subject
The miscreant(s) who lopped off the head of the plaster image in Dade County were following in the well-worn footsteps of Islam.
The Romans set up busts of their gods along the coast of Israel.
When they eventually were driven out, the Jews, obeying the Bible commandment forbidding “graven images” (לֹא-תַעֲשֶׂה לְךָ פֶסֶל, וְכָל-תְּמוּנָה ) — Exodus 20.4 שמות — punched out the eyes of all the busts.
Then the Muslims came along and — as in South Florida — lopped off the heads.
The Muslims still destroy other people’s statues.1
Can lopping off the head of a plaster statue be a hate crime on the level of the
“Holy” Inquisition
Holocaust
Fahud
Pogroms
Expulsions
Blood libels
not to mention quotas for schools, professions, and trades?
Just asking.
Was David Jewish?
Anyone who has seen Michelangelo's David might question: Is this “David” Jewish. In other words, did David have a brit?
From the looks of images the statue, it would seem that David was not circumcised.
However, according to several sources, including one by an opponent of circumcision,2, the statue is of a circumcised David.
According to Trisha Casey's blog for 10 January 2019, back in David’s day, a brit was not as “thorough” as it is today. The change came, she posits, Tainan devised a more thorough kind of circumcision which involved fully amputating the foreskin in order to prevent foreskin restoration when the boy grew older“ in response to Jews trying to reverse the operation to be like the invaders du jour.
While Ms. Casey seems to have done her homework, she fails to cite any sources, making — for me — the whole thing “suspicious.”
Even lacking citations, her effort is interesting.
Jews of many hues
Recently there have been remarks, primarily by the Fool Farrakhan, claiming that blacks are the “true Jews.”
This scrivener knows observant Jews who are black.
In the U.S.A. and in Israel.
I also know Jews who are brown. Again, both in the U.S.A. and in Israel.
NONE are followers of the fool or his sycophants.
Indeed, most of the black Jews I know are politically somewhat to the right of center.
Unlike the fool’s fake Jews, these Jews observe the commandments to a greater or lesser extant. They raise their children as Jews.
The fact that too many Euro-Jews reject them simply because they are black is disgraceful, but then that’s typically the Euro-Jews’ response to anyone who is a little (Sefardim) or a lot (black) different from them.
I realize I’m tarring the Euro-Jews with a broad brush and it is unfair, but ...
Remembering
Blacks in America in 2020 are demanding reparations for their ancestors’ slavery. They remember the bad ol’ days.
Jews also remember our ancestors’ slavery in Egypt. Every Pesach (Passover) we recite : We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt עבדים חיינו לפרעה במצרים
“In each generation, each person is obligated to see himself or herself as though he or she personally came forth from Egypt.”
We remember, but we got over it. True, modern Israel has fought several wars with modern Egypt, BUT Egypt’s Anwar Sadat and Israel’s Menachem Begin made a peace agreement that (ב”ה) still holds today.
The Jews who suffered at the hands of the nazis and their followers throughout Europe and the Middle East received reparations from the Germans (not the Hungarians or Poles or …) for the people who suffered or their immediate next of kin. The reparations are not extended to the children of the people who received reparations.
The blacks in the U.S. — like the “Palestinians” in UN camps — are demanding reparations for their ancestors” condition.
Never mind that
* The American Colonization Society (ACS) was created to deal with the “problem” of the growing number of free blacks in the United States by resettling them in Africa. The resulting state of Liberia would become the second (after Haiti) black republic in the world at that time.3 Liberia in 2020 4 Haiti in 2020 5
* President Truman integrated the U.S. armed forces and blacks have risen to top positions; Gen. Colin Powell was Chairman of the JCS and Secretary of Defense
* President Lyndon Johnson created the “Great Society” to open the doors to education and jobs for all Americans in 1964.
* LBJ appointed the first black cabinet member in 1966.
The bottom line is that blacks can achieve management and executive positions if they make the effort. Many have, many more could.
It takes an effort to make the song We shall overcome a reality.
Sources
1. Muslims & statues: https://tinyurl.com/yacl5z98
2. Trish Causey: https://tinyurl.com/y8zrg2sd
3. Liberia & Haiti: https://tinyurl.com/qdujv8n
4. Liberia: https://tinyurl.com/y86oqg2u
5. Haiti: https://tinyurl.com/y7f2twah
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