Here’s the thing. I’ve been thinking about poor Helen Thomas, who I believe was probably just saying what everyone thinks and has therefore been made a scapegoat. Not that I really care, because we ought to share the scapegoat status once in a while. It’s the least we can do to dispel the stereotype that we are stingy, us irritating Jews.
Irritating enough, apparently – like the too-talented and bossy fame-hog Rachel Berry (Lea Michele) on Fox’s Glee – in our discovery of the written word, monotheism, modern physics, psychology, vaccinations, and the film industry, that every country that has ever “hosted” us has found it necessary to tell us to get the hell out, like Thomas did. (Ironically, the aforementioned Jewish character Rachel, in a particularly annoying moment in one episode, was told by classmates to move to Israel. I doubt the writers coordinated this telling joke – Jews do equal Israel in the eyes of the world, sorry J Street - with the State Department.)
Anywho. Helen, you know why we were in Germany and much of Eastern Europe in the first place? (And by the way, if I follow your advice, do you think the nice old ladies who got my grandmothers’ large houses and farms from the Nazis in what was once Czechoslovakia will kick the property back two generations? That would be cool because I’d love a vineyard and an agricultural estate.)
…We were in Germany and Hungary and Czechoslovakia and Russia (where we were regularly just plain killed by Cossacks), and also, for many centuries, Poland (ditto), cuz we were told to get the hell out of England, France, and Spain. (Or, you know, just plain killed by handsome and heroic fairytale knights.)
And you know why we were in Western Europe to begin with? Cuz we were told by the Greeks and the Romans – wait for it – to get the hell out of “Palestine,” where we had been living since the beginning of recorded history.
We also ended up in Babylonia (Iraq) and other Middle Eastern and North African countries, where we stayed as second class citizens for hundreds and hundreds of years, till the Arab world finally caught up with the pagans and the Christians in their hatred of the Jews. Amazing how the student has now far surpassed the teacher. But I digress.
(By the way, I am aware that the Arab narrative has us Ashkenazi Jews as descendants of the Khazars, but the actual facts have it different. See this new DNA study linking European Jews with their Middle Eastern counterparts, all stemming from one original population of Holy Land Jews predating Roman times. Never mind our own texts that say the same thing; I know they are inadmissible in the international courts of the mind.)
In any event, there is no way around it: Jews being asked (usually not by old ladies on the White House lawn) to get the hell out of anywhere and everywhere is just the way it goes.
So it came to pass that about 200 years BCE the Macabees got sick of it and established a Jewish state in Palestine, within the Roman Empire, which lasted till about the time of Jesus (another Pesky Jew) and the destruction of the Second Temple.
And it also came to pass that Jewish settlers began arriving in Ottoman Palestine in the late 1800′s, after the Russians and the Poles made it clear that Jews were persona non grata in Eastern Europe. Palestine was as good a place as any to escape to, since it was the last place, about 2000 years before, that the Jews had a sovereign state (see above). Never mind Jewish liturgy and texts pining for Jerusalem, since I know these, too, are inadmissible in the international courts of the mind.
Anyway, nowhere else wanted European Jews any more than Russia did, not even America really, where there were very strict quotas, although the Americans, again politely, refrained from all the messy European killing, which was apparently in vogue until after Hitler. Besides, those Ottoman Turks, as now, were known around the world for their amazing human rights activism and the Jews were excited to see it first hand. (No, not really. But anyway…they were better than the Polish peasants. Unless you were Armenian.)
It is true that there were people in Palestine before the Jews arrived en masse (for there was always a handful of Jews that remained here….), not *A People*, but rather a group of assorted regional Arabs (think Native American tribes in North America…who by the way were treated much worse by the Colonialists…) who had settled the area with not much agricultural success and had endured various rulers over the millennia.
But when the *Jews* came back, it was suddenly necessary, once again, to tell them to get the hell out. There was no living side by side, even though that was an express Jewish desire right up until 1947/8, when the Partition Plan was summarily rejected by the Arab League, who started the war that Israel won. If keeping land you win in a war others provoke (when you wanted to make peace) is called occupation, Helen, the world’s axis of furious justice has a lot bigger fish to fry than shitty little Israel.
The Arab desire to kick the Jews the hell out of Palestine did not begin in 1967, and not in 1948. It began the moment the initial groups of Jews arrived and started to make the land flower and produce crops. That’s when the attacks on Jews began, and when the Arab world decided a new Jewish presence in the land would not do, back when there were about half a million Arabs and just under 100,000 Jews in the Holy Land, in the early 1900′s. 20% was too much, apparently, to bear. (The Hebron Massacre of 1929, where marauding Arabs killed nearly 70 Jews and wounded countless others, took place long before a single house was built over the Green Line.) I can only imagine how awful it was – probably for both the Arabs and the British – when it became clear we were here to stay and grow to much further percentages. We are that annoying, what with trying to get rid of malaria and tuberculosis and everything.
At any rate, it seems that every time a Jewish minority starts to make a society too successful – so annoying!!!! – the indigenous people start to feel very uncomfortable, and tells them one way or another to get the hell out.
But now, alas, there is nowhere left for us to go, except the eternal place Ahmadinejad wants us to go, and Haniyeh and Nasralla, and Hitler before them, and Chemilniki before him, and Haman before him, and so on. And, I suspect, in her heart of hearts, perhaps Thomas and the likes of her, who, the pesky Jew Freud may have observed, seriously let her slip show.
Let me make it clear: I know that Israel has made mistakes over its 62 years, some clumsy and inept (was there no intelligence regarding the terrorists aboard the Mavi Marmara?!?), and some borderline immoral. But none worse than every other democracy on earth has also done, and most much better than the large majority of the UN rogue nations which condemn Israel daily have done…daily. There is MUCH to improve in the way we govern, I will be the first to say it. I will also be the first to say that various Jews of the Bernie Madoff and Greed-is-Good-Goldman-Sachs ilk make me want to crawl under a rock. I know that the world is only waiting for these guys to emerge in order to pin their crimes on all of us, even though everything they do is in direct contradiction of actual Jewish values.
But let’s be honest: the international community’s human rights crusades on behalf of the Palestinians are just the latest Crusades, and the ones who REALLY suffer are not the Jews or the Israelis but the poor occupants of the Third World who are ignored while the enlightened First World castigates the Jews… and yes, of course, the Palestinians, who are kept in misery *by their own leadership* in order to provide the polite Jew haters with a media club to beat them with.
So here’s the thing: We are not going anywhere this time, Helen. We totally get it: Ya’ll pretty much hate us. It’s just the way it is, like a natural law. Nothing we can do – not giving away pieces of Palestine / Israel (witness our evacuation of Gaza in 2005, and handing over the keys to army bases and greenhouses- a new economy! Food for the children! – which were summarily torched as property of the infidels); not donating billions annually to global charity, nor discovering a cure for Polio or the Theory of Relativity, or writing revered legal and religious texts, or co-founding Google, or manufacturing the microprocessor in the majority of laptops that spew Jew hatred to the Internet, or founding Christianity itself, or championing women’s rights and gay rights in the US and helping to bring about a *human rights revolution* in America in the 60′s, …None of those things will absolve us of our real sin: Existing and overcoming.
I’m really sorry they told you to get the hell out of the White House, Helen. It really wasn’t your fault that you thought you could say what you said. It’s not like it’s a secret: That’s what people think.
But this time, seriously. Getting the hell out is not in the cards. We’re just sick of moving all the time.
I know. Irritating.
Editorial Note: Despite the expulsion of the Jews after the suppression of the Bar Kochba revolt, there was never a time when Jews did not live in Israel. Also, prior to the Zionist influenced immigrations, there were a number of smaller religiously motivated waves of immigration to Israel.
Loushon
6/8/2010
My God, I wish I could rant so well. I am going to post this link everywhere I possibly can.
RGC
6/8/2010
This was amazing. Made me laugh and cry. Made me proud to be a Jew and also resolved to continue my support of Israel.
Tythene
6/8/2010
Helen, I thought this bout of bile spewing was a result of growing very old and alone. However it seems to have been a long festering problem for you. Well, you’ll always have that smiling picture of you and BO to enlarge and frame – maybe he will sign it too.What a sad note to go out on – I think your career was already over. Not to worry – there will be lots of festive Washington hostesses that will clammer for your presence.
JD Adler
6/8/2010
I do believe I’m in love. (My mom will be so happy when she hears its a Jewish girl… the internet stalking thing may put her off a bit.. you never can please mom)
themiddle
6/8/2010
JD, Sarke’s mom and husband might also be somewhat put off…
Yankel
6/8/2010
I could not have said it better. Excellent!!
froylein
6/8/2010
Actually, German Jewish communities (i.e. communities on now-German soil) are the oldest known in Central and Northern Europe with trade connections with Trier going as far back as 4,000 years. Just thought I’d throw that bit of patriotism in.
sarke
6/9/2010
um…tx guys! and yeah, what themiddle said. but really -so nice 2 hear ppl can be moved by words.
jd adler
6/9/2010
okay, well, I’m guessing that themiddle knew I was just kidding and playing along… but the fact you know she has a husband is a little weird. I’m just saying.
anyway, good writing, was all I meant.
themiddle
6/9/2010
JD, I know she has a husband because she has written about her family on this here blog, Jewlicious.com, before.
Richard
6/9/2010
Absolutely fabulous sarke. I think this is probably the best single piece I’ve read on the issue yet, and I’ve read a hellofalot. Great job girl!
Yehonatan Chipman
6/9/2010
Kol ha-kavod; excellent column. But one small comment about a major error / omission: since when were the Maccabees the founders of the first Jewish state in Land of Israel/Palestine? What about the monarchy Saul and David and Solomon et al ca. 1040 bce on, and the somewaht anarchic and decentralized presence in the days of Joshua and the judges and Samuel (ca. 1300 bce)?
sarke
6/9/2010
YC – tx – u r correct of course. But I tried to stay away from the very ancient / Biblical – I believe it, but I didnt even need it. I wanted this to work on a semi-broad, semi-secular level – not as God’s ancient chosen people who were promised / given the land, but as people who repeatedly needed it – and earned it through sweat and tears (and, as you and I might say, God’s help. But go sell that.)
Marc
6/9/2010
Wow. Balanced and well-honed. I get so tired of people assuming that if one defends Israel, one defends all that Israel or any one Jew has ever done wrong and has no feelings at all for the Palestinian people. You nailed it Loushon…I wish I could rant like this. (non-Jew, friend of Israel)
Karen
6/9/2010
Thank you, thank you, thank you for saying it so perfectly.
lauren
6/9/2010
Absolutely fabulous! To be laughing out loud alone in my apartment while nodding my head (and quite aware that both could be signs of insanity if viewed through my window), you said exactly what I think but oh so much better! Thank you for your insight, your humor, your passion, and your writing!
helene
6/9/2010
Thank you very much for such wonderfull
story. This is the best I’ve read so far.
Ronit
6/9/2010
BRAVO!!! Thanks for the very best rant I ever read!!!
Frederic
6/9/2010
Wonderful, wonderful writing! Thank you for this piece.
MEDIA EYE UK
6/9/2010
Excellent article – Kol Hakovod
So well said it is a shame our so called PR (Hasbara) outfits in the UK don’t have the ability to produce such material!!
Rav Dovid
6/9/2010
Emes.
Tom Morrissey
6/9/2010
To claim that Helen Thomas merely spoke what everyone else thinks is truly pathetic, beyond asinine.
You really should try spending more time with the goyim. Believe me, we won’t spit or bite or ship you to Oswiecim or anything, promise.
Aliza Bulow
6/9/2010
‘shkoiach! Ali v’hatzlichi!
Emily
6/9/2010
You left out the part about being confined to the pale in Russia, with a exceptions for musicians (among a few others.)
The Pesky Jews then proceeded to produce generations of terrific musicians.
Didn’t you know you were supposed to bask in your bitterness? When you are told to go away and die, you are supposed to do that, not produce geniuses.
Sheesh.
Yechezkel
6/9/2010
Thank you for telling it like it is.
The best rant I have seen in years.
More strength to you and your team.
sarke
6/9/2010
Tom: Deal. Given your generous attitude, when we hang out I promise not to drain your blood for matzas.
In all seriousness, of course i realize it’s not EVERYONE. It’s just enuf people that I needed to write it.
themiddle
6/9/2010
Interesting response to your piece, Sarke, you seem to have hit a vein of supporters.
Tom Morrissey
6/9/2010
OK, deal, and I’ll have you sign my Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
Shmuel Shimshoni
6/9/2010
Great job of explanation.
If I really had to return to where my ancesters came from I’d have to go th the Land of Cannan. Hey, that’s where i am. how do you like that?
barbara
6/9/2010
FABULOUS!!!!!succinct and to the point.
Shmuel Shimshoni
6/9/2010
How do you like that? My ancesters came from the Land of Cannan. And here I am back home.
miriam
6/9/2010
THANK YOU!!!!!!!!
Lea
6/9/2010
GREAT piece of writing. You expressed everything going on in my head that I, and probably many others are unable to put into words.
max rom
6/9/2010
can you send me this article by email so that I can post it to all my friends?
Nicole Kelso
6/9/2010
Truly one of the best rebuttals of troll-faced Helen’s outrageous remarks. There are plenty of us Goyim who stand with Israel and the Jews and find it appalling and sickening that people even think that way about another race of people.
Sadly, as you mentioned in your last comment reply, there are more than enough people who have that mindset and it seems to be growing daily. Jerusalem (Israel) truly is becoming the burdensome stone spoken of in Zechariah 12:3 and her people, unfortunately, are bearing the brunt of it.
I think your response was 100% right on. Job very well done!
alisa
6/9/2010
you have to understand poor helen; at such an advanced age she does not know anymore what she is saying: in fact, what she really meant is “tell the jews to get the hell out….” from anywhere!! from the planet! point blank
Mal
6/9/2010
Excellent, a superb and eloquent response to a not so elegant despot such as Helen Thomas, the more the Obama new world order and his leftist nuts collude with islam in the efforts to negate the state of Israel and the Jewish people, the more it has forced me to identify myself for who and what I am, I am a Jew, I am not so kosher, non synagogue attending libertarian Canadian as well but I am a Jew before all else, I am proud of my ancestral heritage, “and I will stand with the Jews should the political winds shift in an ugly direction” and fight like a Macabee, but we are definitely not going away this time.
j p maher
6/9/2010
Excellent, but few may be aware that Germany had enough Zyklon-B, after finishing off the Jews, for 20 million more — Poles and Russians. See Amazon.com reviews by non-anti-semite Jan Peczkis. Gas was not used at all in Europe’s cruelest death-camp, Jasenovac, in Hitler-satellite Croatia. It was face-to-face murder there by club, axe, burning alive (as opposed to cremation of corpses). Overlooked too is that not only Ashkenaz Jews immigrated to Israel, but also Syrian, Jordanian and Egyptian Arab Muslims, to take jobs created by Jewish entrepreneurs… In WW II Croatia, too, Muhammed Amin al-Husseini (Yassir Arafat’s uncle) raised two Waffen-SS divisions of Bosnian Muslims for Himmler. Besides Jews, Gypsies and Serbs were the main victims. Yet in the 1990s Balkan wars, WJC, JADL, JPost, not to speak of Bill Clinton, repeated the PR lies (now aimed at Israel) in behalf of re-born Nazi-Croatia & Muslim Bosnia against the first victims of the current jihad, the Serbs. Wahabis from ex-Yugoslavia were aboard the Mavi Maramara. Kaffirs Unite!
Bernice
6/9/2010
The best I’ve heard or read. Helen—why don’t you return to Lebanon??
I’m certain you’d fit right in. What have you every contributed to the American way of life? We’d like to see out of our way of life. Thanks
Bern
Neal Rothner
6/9/2010
WOW!! You know just how to say what we all feel!! Neal
Cameron
6/9/2010
Witty and to the point. tip of the hat to Naomi Ragen for the link to find you. I will continue to learn from your pen! I wish we could get you on American TV to share you.
Andy Plotkin
6/9/2010
This is a terrific rebuttal! However, to the person responding who refers to the Jews as a race, please do not do that, as that is how genocide is justified, and it is grossly incorrect, since many races make up the religion of Judaism: Black, White, and Asian are among the racial composition of the Jewish religion.
Larry M
6/9/2010
Doesnt Helen Thomas remind you of the ugly witch in “The wizard of Oz?” In the end we all know what happened to her. I guess it comes down to the old saying “NEVER AGAIN” We all know what the world thinks of us, but I for one will never back down to any one when it comes to my heritage. Naomi Ragen says what we all really feel. Keep it up……..Thanks
froylein
6/9/2010
I’m seriously concerned by various equally racist and bigoted comments on Thomas and (Muslim) Arabs this thread has triggered. If you want to show a person you’re out of their league, don’t step down into theirs.
JacquelineEsther BenzakenLevisohn
6/9/2010
Such a fantastic article !!! Her ignorance of the history made her make this “oups”….so she actually should go back to Lebanon !!! Or best found her way to Saudia ! But actually she couldnt really make a GOOD CARREER in Hollywood!!! Yes !!! As the best and real “MEHASHEFA” witch !!!
Nicole Kelso
6/9/2010
Andy, my apologies, it definitely wasn’t intentional at all. In hindsight I realize I should have used group instead of race.
Arnold- Canada
6/9/2010
I am happy that someone was able to put into words all the feelings I have. Thank you Sarke
SB
6/9/2010
Seriously a fantastic piece that should be shared with as many people as possible. Thanks for writing this. I will be forwarding this to everyone I know.
Scott
6/9/2010
The only issue I take with what was said above is that y’all is not spelled ya’ll. Kudos to the author for so angrily saying what I’ve been feeling the last week.
Sal
6/9/2010
By the way, Helen never seems to mention the fact that 3 million Israeli-Arabs live better in Israel then they do than their so called “brothers” in the rest of Arabia. I’ve been to Israel many times and I’ve driven into the Arab villages. Just ask the people of Abu Ghosh what they think of their life in Israel. Ask the Arabs in Yafo and the Bedouins in the Negev. Perhaps the thousands of Ethiopians that were air lifted to Israel have something to say too about their high quality of life in Israel? Assholes like Helen Thomas are simply jealous that her own people can’t even treat themselves as good as their enemy does. Helen is a sad and pathetic excuse for a rotten old bigot! Good riddance to this garbage!
norm t
6/9/2010
Very well written and very clever.
(I was wondering if se knows mel gibson.)
sarke
6/9/2010
froylein: agree.
Steve Wenick
6/9/2010
This rant will be printed and put on my refrigerator door, yes it’s that good!
geri schwartz
6/9/2010
This is the best rant I’ve ever seen about how others feel about us Jews and I could not have said what you have any better. I’ve been thinking about this and felt frustrated that I couldn’t express my anger at what the world issaying about Israel and our people. Thanks so much for your rant. I will send it to every one I know. Unfortunately, it will fall on the lefty, liberal, palestinian -loving jewish people’s deaf ears and they will continue on in ignorance. I know a few of these folks and it makes me sad and mad how stuck they are with their lopsided incorrect views of jews.
R. Rabstein
6/9/2010
Don’t sweat the houses and the property in Czechoslovakia, anyone who got confiscated property from the Nazis lost it to the Czechs,Slovaks or Slovenians, who then lost it to the state.
And that confiscated property, especially in what was Sudetenland, has been available for reclamation and development or restitution for years from the current governments. Still is. But getting it back involves going back. So if your Grandma lost one and you’d love an Agricultural estate int he Czech republic. Go get it.
jan tenaj
6/9/2010
This isn’t the first anti Israel comment from Thomas.These comments come from being an arab, her parents were Lebanese, maybe she, herself, should go back to Lebanon, instead of making nasty ignorant, racist comments.Bitterness will finish her.
Harriet
6/9/2010
Totally right on! I agree 100 percent!
I am a Catholic & I pray for & support Israel!
Legol
6/9/2010
I really loved what Sarke wrote.-
She said exactly what I always knew and felt.-
mr
6/9/2010
may be she had a stroke when she said what she said!
Barry V Levine
6/9/2010
In 1943, My father (may he rest in peace) informed me that Hitler had given the world 24 hours to get out. Being only 7 years old, I tearfully asked my father where we can go. My father replied, “You’re right. I guess Hitler will have to go!” Good riddance to Helen Thomas. Soon, hopefully, we shall say good riddance to the rest of the anti-Semties!
Rina
6/9/2010
Wish I had a talent like that.
Thank you for what you wrote. Too funny .
You have a way with words and are beautiful too.
Hope Helen Thomas will read it with her hateful narrow mind.
Proud to be a Jew.
Am Yisrael Chai.
KSUtay
6/9/2010
How refreshing! Information instead of name-calling! THANK YOU.
Doreen Nayman
6/9/2010
Brilliant!
William Lane
6/9/2010
From a Southern Baptist who likes our common roots–nicely done!
Cheri
6/9/2010
You did a good job ranting and raving. But you forgot to mention that after the Holocaust, the loss of 80% of the Jewish european population…..the United States limited our immigration to this country.
Peter Whitmore
6/9/2010
Dear Sarke;
You hit the nail right on the head, I loved every word you wrote. And I like your style of writing.
Where have you been all that time? We must hear more from you!
Peter Whitmore (Pinchas)
Saba
6/9/2010
You said it right.Those people who didn’t understand the big picture in the Middle East can see how desperate the Israeli position remains…and how the world perceives us
Steve Acre
6/9/2010
Hi,
I was so incensed by Helen Thomas’ remarks. I was born in the Middle East and was kicked out of there with some NINE hundred thousands Jewish people and they confiscated everything we had. Should we go back to Baghdad; Damascus; Cairo, etc..
People forget that apart from the historical facts that we had a country called Israel in that region before Christ appeared, it was the United Nations that in November 1947 gave us back the land…Period
We are there to stay forever,
Amen
Rand
6/9/2010
While we’re at it…did you see the poor starving Palestinians homes in Amman, near the American Embassy? $5 million mansions with gates and private guards. Six Mercedes’ in the driveways. Man, are these people suffering!
For all the antisemites who just don’t get it, I refer them to The New York Times’ “The Tel Aviv Cluster” and “The Israel Test.” We soon find areas you touched on in your wonderful bulls-eye essay. The world loves the useless, corrupt, the banal, the common, the unredeemable, and the stupidly excessive; and hates the creative, inventive, resourceful and the good. It’s always been that way and it always will be that way. Antisemitism can be almost summed up in a single word: ENVY – or two words: Self Hate.
Neata
6/9/2010
Brilliant…so well said and with humor to boot! Thank you and God Bless You
Marvin
6/9/2010
Hello Helen Thomas,
There is a great upside to your remarks; the world Jewry was able to see you humiliated and vanquished before you die. Oh, and by the way if you need a chat room buddy you can contact Mel Gibson. I’m sure he would be thrilled to hear from another celebrity like you.
Jeremy
6/9/2010
Sarke…
First and foremost, well done and well written, the world needs more people like you.
Another good point is that there exists archeological evidence (which the Arabs have tried to hide/destroy) that the Jewish Empire did in fact exist and have a king by the name of David, so it’s not just the Tanach anymore
Yet another good point is that, while the Islamic peoples claim that Jerusalem is one of their ‘holy sights’, it is not mentioned a single time in their holiest of books, the Koran, and is mentioned many times in ours (…so if I were to suddenly claim that Washington DC was a holy city for my new religion, does that mean they’d have to hand it over to me? I think not!)
I am annoyed (yet not at all surprised) that the world dislikes us. After all, its the basic school hierarchy, extort the nerd and then beat him up and send him packing, but when I see people like you defending our right to be in our homeland (and yes, I agree that defending Israel does not mean defending every single little action the state, or any Jew for that matter, has made).
Another interesting thought is that even if Israelis did provoke the 6 Day War (which a lot of people claim they did), the good old US of A provoke both the Mexican-American War and the Spanish-American War, yet we don’t hear anyone demanding that the US gives back California, Texas, Arizona, Utah, etc. to the Mexicans, nor has anyone forced the US to return Guam or Puerto Rico to the Spanish (and certainly nobody complained about the injustice of the US annexing Hawaii)…so why pick on us?
Thanks again for eloquently expressing what needed to be said!
Jeremy (Avraham Meir)
Nik
6/9/2010
Excellent.
FYI, I found you via a link from DailyKos:
dailykos.com/s...
Shana
6/9/2010
The reality as to WHY the USA has supported Israel is simply these two facts
1) The country is located in the middle of all the oil – it is Westernized and serves us as a base to keep our eyes on the oil
2) The GOYIM believe that the Jews MUST BE in Israel for YOSHKY ( jesus) to return for the second coming.
IF the oil of the middle east was not there – and the Goyim did not believe that JEWS need to be in THAT PLACE on earth for their fake son of G-d to return……Israel and most all of us Jews woulr have already been TOAST
Dvora Fairfield
6/9/2010
B”H
Tx, Sarke. You have spoken well for Israel and the Jews.
A regular word-weaver. I am B’nei Noach, a gentile that lives by Torah (the 7 Laws). I am honored to have Jews and Israel as my teachers and friends. And I long to live in Jerusalem as a “ger-toshav”. Isaiah 2/ Zechariah 8
and “Oseh shalom bim’romav, Hu ya’aseh shalom ALEINU V’AL
KOL YISRAEL – V’IMRU….AMEN!!!”
Marvin, “Mel and Helen sittin’ in a tree, K-I-……
“bye, bye, Helen. I guess you “got-the-hell-out-of” the White House, now, HUH!?
JDL
6/9/2010
Kol Hakavod dear sister, I couldn’t of said it better. This is something Rabbi Kahane would have postulated as well. Keep up the good fight. You don’t have to always be nice and respectable to tell it like it is. That’s our problem always wanting to be nice and respected. Well we can see how well that theory works …Let’s mount up and head for home: Eretz Israel!!!
themiddle
6/9/2010
The author is Sarke. Leave Kahane out of it.
yael
6/9/2010
Well done. I am descendant of those pesky Jews who came to Israel in the late 1800′s, my husband’s pesky family came in early 1700′s, and do you know why we came here & not USA, South Africa, Uganda, etc. because honestly, this was our chosen land where our history evoloved. because the Bible, world’s best selling book is “our” book.
If anyone doubts our history, go see the arch of Titus in Rome where relief sculptures of the Jewish capitves from Judea carrying the temple treasures are there for all to see & not deny.
Anyway, thanks for a great response, just thought i’d add my 2 bits.
k . salkinder
6/10/2010
American jews should learn from the previous generations not to take sides! Too much leaning left and another side sooner or later will kick you out!!
Yael
6/10/2010
I love Helen Thomas. Does she know what she did for Aliyah? Bet not!
Jenni Strous
6/10/2010
Brilliant – from Sout Africa. There were also quotas in South Afrrica!
Gaby BAREL
6/10/2010
I feel sorry for the lady from the White House. I assume that she or her ancestors came to the U.S. because of the difficult situation in Europe and hope for a better life and free the country of unlimited possibilities. The difference between us (Israelis) is that we preferred to return to our deserted country and build it. I invite her to read the travel diary of Mark Twain Israel, in the 19th century, to learn about the wilderness that existed here before the arrival of Jews.
Ruth Anne
6/10/2010
so right on and brilliant! thanks!
C. Grosy Josse
6/10/2010
Great writing! Both funny and poignant..and nicely sums up Jewish History and many achievements. Only, Sarke, don’t forget the many Gentiles who like me love the Jewish people, uphold their God-given right to the land of Israel, are thankful for all their achievements and, last of all, conscious that their own brand of religion, Christianity, would not exist without its Jewish founder, roots and sacred texts. Don’t forget also the sad reality of the many Jews who do not support Israel, particularly in the US and the UK. The “demarcation” line no longer runs between Jews and Gentiles when Zionism and support for Israel is concerned.
Shalom
Nancy N
6/10/2010
Written with class and delivered with elegance. Unlike anything that has ever emitted from Thomas.
As a Texan and serious supporter of Israel, and regular Naomi Ragen reader, I think Sarke has executed the festering carbunkle that is Helen Thomas without having to get near the stench.
Sarke is William Tell with words in her quiver, and a master marksman!!!
Rafi
6/10/2010
Ani modeh lach!! The problem is our liberal Jewish friends won’t read it and if they do they will not understand it. Apparently, a person can have only one religion at a time and liberalism is a very jealous lover, and the Jewish left sadly has a new “Mosiach.” Ideas and ideals need more than Jewish stars painted on them to be Jewish.
Keep up the Good Work
Rafi
Peter Hood
6/10/2010
When are the Jews going to sit down and discuss amongst themselves why they are universally disliked? Is it possibly the fact that they are obnoxious and insulting too often? I have a small number of Jewish friends and we get along very well but every once in awhile they can be disagreeable. I wonder why.
themiddle
6/10/2010
I found Peter’s comment insulting and obnoxious.
norm t
6/10/2010
Peter…..A bunch of us just got together and decided, in addition to being insulting and obnoxious, you’re an idiot.
Breindel
6/10/2010
Truly a good/great piece!. It’s too bad it won’t appear on the front page of the NY Times which is where is belongs!
ARNIE
6/10/2010
Sarke hit the nail right on the head about Helen Thomas and (others like her). Too bad that this will never make the front pages of our newspapers or television newscasts.
Mal
6/10/2010
I think Jews get that way every time Peter is in the hood, the only commonality seems to be Peter the Hood
Frannk Adam
6/10/2010
The laugh the other side of Helen’s face aspect, is her parents were Lebanese(Christians?)- and the Moslem World is so hospitable !
Lori Motola Hoffman
6/10/2010
You are right, it is what everyone thinks…..see what the rabbi who filmed her remarks has to say:
foxnews.com/po...
Lori
Curtis9
6/10/2010
Great rebuttal on a serious subject delivered in a really witty and effective if somewhat cynical style. You obviously have thought and researched much on this subject, Sarke. In your opinion, what is it that promotes the historical and ongoing anti-semitism in so much of the world? Is it “existing and overcoming” as you surmise? Not that there is a simple answer, but I would be interested in your opinion and elaboration. Thanks!
Marilyn Kessler
6/10/2010
My son who made aliyah 20 years ago forwarded this to me. Thanks for an excellent rebuke of another anti-Semite. Keep up the good work!
understand
6/10/2010
Surprise, there is no bloc of goyim who all agree on this. I personally find anti-semitism alarming and perhaps over idealistically in my naive American way, am shocked and perplexed at resurgences of it, it should be a long gone nasty anachronism by now. But unfortunately it is clearly still revivable.
And, yes, I could not begin to tally all the very good and amazing personal and impersonal effects that Jewish people have made on even just my life in the US.
There are many good hearted people of all kinds who don’t like to see any country making a bad situation worse with bullying, death and destruction, and obfuscation. Particularly if they are helping to pay for it. I feel responsible for what was my money, is paying for. I don’t want to lie and kill with my money. I can’t help but think we help to fuel the fire. We Americans have enough to deal with halting our own country doing the wrong thing.
I can’t imagine how stressful it would be to live in such a beleaguered mental state at all times, but the ‘ends justifies the means’ mentality apparently is not working anywhere there is strife. Don’t know the answer to protecting Israel and Palestinian rights and peace, but definitely appears to have been some wrongheaded and stupid moves on the part of Israel, they must fix. I don’t support my own govt. unconditionally, neither would I any other govt..
Aggression with your literal next-door neighbor doesn’t work, if goal is peaceful and productive living, why would it work on a larger scale? I would say this to haters of any kind who would listen and want to understand.
As an American of multiple ancestry background (some of whom would have had traditional enmity against one another), as I would have to be torn into tiny pieces in order to be sent back to where ever I came from (which may appeal to some readers of this), and as a child of divorce, I ask you to examine “US and THEM” thinking, it is more complex than that. Most important what you have in common, need to get you some of that security that comes from peace..
Ahmed
6/10/2010
I disagree completely, what a unnecessary piece of Israeli propaganda. But in this free society how about stop killing poor and defenceless citizens?
Rabbi Yonah
6/10/2010
Ahmed – poor defenseless Hamas! Oh those poor well armed and trained para military force with missiles that hit tel aviv, night vision gear, advanced communication systems. Boo Hoo!
Poor 50,000 armed police of Fatah!
msbhavens
6/10/2010
I have truly loved many Jewish friends over the years. I also have a great respect for the religion being it’s the beginning of mine (Christianity). I know you realize that there are many non-jews who support you and pray for Isreal and it’s people. AND, blessed you… you’re G-d’s chosen people which puts you on the radar of His enemies everywhere. Just wanted to remind you that Many Many are supportive of you and believe Isreal is yours.~Shalom~
Mal
6/10/2010
Ahmed – we are not asking you to agree, we don’t expect you to agree, but that does not make anything you say have any value or truth in it at all, you are part of the problem and have no real intention of ever being part of the solution, good luck to you and may the blessings that mohamed has brought upon upon the nations of islam be especially on you.
msbhavens
6/10/2010
PS – ooops (sp) Israel
Esther
6/10/2010
Very well put!!!! I especially like the last paragraph:
“But this time, seriously. Getting the hell out is not in the cards. We’re just sick of moving all the time.
I know. Irritating.”
Very well said indeed. Kudos!!!!
Joshua Fishman
6/10/2010
If only the State Department and Obama could read and absorb such a beautifully concise history of Israel and the Jewish People.
I am in awe of this post and it should be widely distributed.
Zev Lewinson
6/10/2010
So impressed with your post! Your knowledge and passion just poured out of your pen! You are not just a pretty face! You are an amazingly talented scholar! I would only add that the main point you made about it being a natural law (that they hate us), is actually in the Talmud itself. “Esau soneh Yaakov.” Plain and simple. The Goyim hate the Jews. It reminds me of a famous story that took place when a handful of European Jews found four cubits on Earth (in Shanghai of all places) where they could practice their religion. As the Chinese official sat across from the Ultra-Orthodox Hasidic Rabbi (who was requesting permission to take refuge from the Nazis (may they rot for eternity), he asked him … “but why do the Nazis hate you so much?” The Rabbi stared back right into the eyes of the Chinaman (you can’t imagine a more diverse culture clash) and answered … “They think we look Chinese.” Yes, my dear … they hate us, torture us (Catholic Church), expel us, gas us, deny our history (Iranian denial of the Holocaust) … even as we give them endless gifts of medicine, invention, entertainment, freedom, and even as we teach them not to hate. But we will never change. We will always be a light unto the nations.
Thanks for the awesome post! Be well my daughter.
froylein
6/10/2010
The Goyim hate the Jews.
and even as we teach them not to hate.
We will always be a light unto the nations.
Not with dialectics like these, I’m afraid…
Karen Nolan
6/10/2010
Let’s not forget to mention that Judaism existed at least since 1,800 BCE when Abraham founded the Jewish religion. Jews established an independent Jewish kingdom in Israel around 1050 BCE. Jews were already living in Palestine/Canaan/Israel before any mention of Palestinians as a people/ethnic group occurred in the writings of Greek historian, Herodotus, in the 5th BCE. Who occupied whom?
Yosef
6/10/2010
Everything in this article is accurate. Finally the article ends: “Getting the hell out is not in the cards. We’re just sick of moving all the time.”
- what’s the alternative – why do we never hear what we SHOULD do?
I believe that Meir Kahane was correct and
the consistent demonization of Israel by surrounding Arab countries and the Arab 5th column with and that in Israel is directly due to our allowing the Arab enemy to remain in Israel.
They must be resettled outside of Israel if we are to survive with Gods help.
baby huey
6/10/2010
not all of us gentiles hate Israel.
froylein
6/10/2010
Baby huey, I know, and I feel sorry for several of the sentiments displayed on here.
Charles Laquidara
6/10/2010
..and the beat goes on- with Jews and Palestinians cancelling each other’s hopes and dreams with logic that stymies the most brilliant minds.
truthdig.com/r...
MMendel
6/10/2010
To Ms. Sarke, from a grateful Israeli (b., Philly)! May you go from “strength to strength”. I look forward to reading any of your future musings (certainly not to be characterized as a “rant”–you are saying exactly what needed to be said and in the perfect way). This essay deserves to be forwarded to my kids, family and friends.
Jeremy
6/10/2010
Baby Huey, you are quite correct and I appreciate all the support Israel gets.
Being racist and claiming that all non-Jews hate Israel is not the answer, but then again rolling over and playing dead is also not an option…what’s a Jew to do?
Israel has the unconditional right to defend all of her citizens, yet because of the UN Israel is never allowed to deal the final blow. (Imagine if the UN during WWII was like the modern UN, Germany would have managed to develop the Atomic Bomb and freedom and Jews would have been history).
I happened to have been in Israel for most of the Gaza War (it was a three week trip with the war being declared the day before my flight and the ceasefire occurring while I was flying back). As it so happened, just about every single person I encountered was in favor of helping their brothers and sisters under fire from Hamas rockets, even those who would normally lean towards the left. A good majority of the speakers my group and I went to see were in favor of the war, or at least in favor of stopping the missiles from launching (much to the annoyance of my liberal Jewish friend).
Having been in the country during a conflict, the security around my group was strict, and there were certain areas we were forbidden to tour. During one trip to the City of David, we had to be evacuated due to nearby ‘protests’.
My points? First, whenever Israel tries to defend herself, both the Arab-Israelis and the media (and soon after the good ol’ UN) can be counted on to protest Israel’s actions. (I imagine that if Canada was to fire missiles into the US, the US army would be storming Canada within moments and nobody would object…)
Second, Israelis look out for each other, the main reason is because since it is such a small country everyone has a connection to everyone else in the country somehow.
Third, a newsflash for some, the fact that more Gazans died in that conflict than Israelis was because the Israelis had a good plan of attack, and Hamas uses human shields…who’s oppressing whom now? Israel tries over and over again to avoid civilian deaths, and time and again it’s not enough for the rest of the hypocritical world, and yet we can’t just ignore the rest of the world (much as I’d like to sometimes…)
In spite of everything, we shall persevere, and that is quite possibly what has made us odious to the other nations of the world…
(It should be duly noted, once again, that by ‘the rest of the world’ I mean the UN, and not literally every single non-Jew, and by ‘other nations’ I mean only those who’ve tried to kill us, deport us, convert us, etc.)
Jeremy (Avraham Meir)
MMendel
6/10/2010
As they say in Hebrew: im k’var, az k’var (in for a penny in for a pound> After praising your article, Sarke, you should be a bit more careful in choosing your imagery: When you say that the horrible acts of people like Madoff make you want to “crawl under a rock”. YOu know, of course, of the verses in the Koran that tell of that day in the future when the very “rocks will call out–there is a Jew hiding under me, come and destroy him” (I am not making this up!).
jose carp
6/10/2010
Dear Helen, you have become even more famous on account of your infamous remarks respecting Jews. You might be interested to know that, we Jews, generally have long noses (similar to yours), on account of our long past in the Middle Eastern deserts, similarly to other semite tribes. Throughout thousand of years, nature has done things gracefully and has given us long noses as a protection against breathing desert sands. Circumcision, also practiced by Muslims, has the same origin for the same health reasons. Dear Helen, you will probably appreciate the ryme, ‘those men called Moses, if you can’t tell them by their names, you can tell them by their noses’…
Nomij
6/10/2010
This is really fabulous! ; However, I believe all tbose of us who are reading it are quite familiar with these facts, as eloquent and precise as they are. It is the others who need to learn and read it. They are not reading or learning anything. Just hating.
Ricky Jackson
6/10/2010
Great article!! This will be Helen’s legacy, just like the guy in the pointy hat on Purim. You just don’t mess with the apple of HaShem’s eye!
Yifat
6/10/2010
It remind me a lot of “Open letter for the world” by Rabbi Kahana.
Great piece, great writing.
Sherry
6/10/2010
In reference to Peter Hood’s remark, you are the epitome of obnoxious, offensive and
insulting. Frankly, you are equally ignorant just like Helen Thomas and probably just
as ugly!
JoeSettler
6/10/2010
Not to nitpick, but members of my extended family survived the Hebron massacre. The family’s ownership of their homes and lands in Hebron goes pretty far back. They definitely weren’t new immigrants.
It’s unfortunately a little known fact that there has always been a Jewish presence in Israel since the Exile. The Mishna and Jerusalem Talmud were written there years after the exile (and we’re talking hundred of years after the exile already). We have numerous records of Arabs wiping out various Jewish communities over the centuries (so nothing new there either).
So when I asked my extended family where Helen Thomas wants them to go home to, they say they can’t go… because Arabs are currently living in their former homes.
norm t
6/10/2010
Peter Hood……Now you can tell us the truth. You and Helen are a couple.
creativebob
6/10/2010
Eloquent! Sarke, you tell it like it is. I’m sending it to everyone on my lists. Some will get it three times. I hope some will read the comments in addition to the essay. Bless you. I’m looking forward to more.
Christine Faith
6/10/2010
I think your rebuttal to Helen Thomas’s comments are GREAT! You have said what all Jews have wanted to say, and what many non Jews wish they could have said.
Having grown up a WASP (Bible toting, holy rolling Baptist to be exact) in an almost totally Jewish neighborhood, and attending a nearly all black Baptist church, I couldn’t afford to be racist or predjudiced, because I was the minority. My school friends were all Jewish, in fact my best friend, Rachael, was the daughter of the Rabbi. I was so unaware of the differences between myself, my friends, and my church “family”, that when a member of the church I attended put his hand next to mine, and asked me what differences I saw, I told him his hand was bigger than mine, had black hairs on his knuckles, and his fingernails were bitten. I didn’t even think to say that his hand was black and mine white. When Rachael’s father, the Rabbi would see me, he always would teach me about Jewish traditions, festivals and beliefs, and I was an avid student. One day, he laughingly said he would make a nice Jewish girl out of me, I thought about it, and told him that I wouldn’t look good with black hair and my mother wouldn’t be happy if he dyed my hair. He broke into laughter and asked me if that was the only difference I saw, and I told him yes. Ahhh, the innocence of small children brought up to accept all of G-d’s people. I pray daily for protection for Israel and the Jewish people especially in these days where Bible prophesy is being fulfilled at a fast increasing rate. The Bible tells us that any nation that doesn’t support G-d’s people, will be destroyed, so I’m horrified when I read about some of our nation’s leaders advocating the division of Jerusalem. G-d save us all from these idiots. Shalom
LesbianNeoCon
6/10/2010
That was an amazing post! Very healing and refreshing. Of course not all non-Jews hate Jews, or want to ship them off somewhere, but there are far too many who share Helen Thomas’ views. Your post needed to be written and needs to read by as many people as possible. No more woe-is-me-victim crap, that some Jews seem can’t to let go of. Someone takes a swing at us, they better be prepared for whatever comes down upon them in return.
jeff freund
6/10/2010
you article is great. but your putting Goldman Sachs and Bernie Madoff in the same category is ignorant and unfair. you dont begin to understand the facts and yet comment. But that is just a -1 out of a phenomenal article. take care
Shilah
6/10/2010
I’m posting with the name my dear rabbi gave me — though I am Irish he said I have a Jewish heart. Brava, Sarke !!! From your keyboard to God’s ….eyes !
And may there be plenty more chutzpah where that came from. This is what the Arabs & other non-appreciators of Jews need to hear. No more pleading !!!! No more begging to be permitted to live ! no more apologising for the myriad gifts you’ve given to the world !!! No more ! Sunflowers love light, cockroaches hate it — keep on being a light anyway. And may the G-d of Israel (who knows each one by name) bless you, multiply you, protect you and make you so happy you forget all the sorrows.
Yosef
6/11/2010
So what is a Jew to do?
Time to transfer the Arabs out of Israel.
If not what do YOOU suggest?
themiddle
6/11/2010
Yosef, transfer yourself out of Israel.
jose carp
6/11/2010
Dear Helen,
If you travel to Israel you will notice that most Jews are dark skinned as opposed to fair. This on account of some descendants of the original Jewish tribes having remained in Israel throughout history, and others, which were expelled from Arab countries, imigrated to Israel.
Sarah
6/11/2010
The Jewish presence was significant in Israel before that, of course. The Morishkas (Mostarbim) were the Jewish community indigenous to the country, descended from the Jews who weren’t captured and exiled at the end of the Second Temple period. (They later merged into the Sephardic community) somewhere around the 1800s.
Sephardic Jews and Jews from Arabic countries always were trickling into Israel, since they didn’t have as far to go, and (under the Mamluks, Ottomans, etc.) had freedom of travel to get there. Rabbi Moshe ben Nachman’s (Ramban’s) move to the country is well documented, and that was in the 1200s!
The Sephardic community grew dramatically from the 1400s straight on through, especially in Jerusalem and in Tzfat (Safed) — for example, Rabbi Yosef Karo, the Ari, and the Alshich. The increase in population owed a lot to the Spanish and Portuguese explusions of Jews, and later to the persecutions of the Inquisition.
It was the Ashkenazi population that wasn’t well-represented until the late 1700s and early 1800s. Any Ashkenazim who came to Israel before 1800 integrated themselves into the existing Sephardic community.
Jewish continuity in Israel is very well documented historically. It’s just that there is a great incentive for certain people to try and re-write history right now. But it’s all out there and accepted by all historians.
Thanks for writing a great article which expresses how so many of us are feeling right now.
Maggie
6/11/2010
Thank you so much for such a great piece.
Really nailed it!
Maggie
Dan
6/11/2010
You’re “True Grit” darlink!! Pour it on, I say.
AC
6/11/2010
I am disappointed. I wish instead of taking a defensive position, you have taken offensive stance and go after them arguing along their lines:
– to get out of Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, Libya, Filistine, Iraq, Iran, France, Malmo, etc, stop calling themselves Lebanesse, Syrian, Egyptian, Filistine, French and Swedish and let native people of that concurred or almost concerned lands speak their own language and practice their own religions. Well perhaps except for extinct philistinians. To transfer arabians to their native Arabia.
– to get our of Byzantine cities, like Constantinople and let Kurdes self rule
– to get out of Jerusalem and Israel where they do not belong, back to their native arabian lands of Saudi Arabiam, Yemen and Kuwait.
James
6/11/2010
Jealousy is the ugliest and usually the most violent of emotions. When Jewish industrious Jewish people join together and create a prosperous society within the boundaries of another country people get jealous. Sure, there are annoying things about Jewish people and there’s always some truth behind stereotypes. The “chosen people” thing is old and really annoying, but for me that’s just because I’m an atheist and the Bible is just a book of stories. So when the Bible talks about the Jews as God’s chosen people, well to me that’s just more of the same nonsense as God created the universe, etc. It’s just silly. But that’s another discussion/argument for another time. No one is perfect and mistakes have been made across the board regarding the formation and support of Israel. But the bottom line is that Israel has a right to exist and there is more resistance from everyone else to get along, based on annoyances real and imagined, than the Jews. But then religion of all kinds is pretty much the reason this world is so screwed up anyway. Imagine if there was no God for Jews, Muslims, and Christians to squabble about. Then they would just be fighting over land and stuff which can be negotiated. It’s easier to offer one material thing for another than it is to change someone’s beliefs.
Yosef
6/11/2010
AC, you’re right its a problem that we have. We are good at pointing out how wrong others are for telling us to leave Israel and telling us not to ‘oppress’ those who attempt to kill us – how Israel always was the Jewish people’s…
But to offer a solution that makes sense so that the “oppressed ‘Palestinians’” should not be ‘oppressed’ and that we should not have to be forced to give Israel to an enemy… for a solution we hear NOT a PEEP!
My alternative is to remove the ‘oppressed Arab Palestinians’ from Israel and let them live in peace and comfort in one of their 22 Arab countries. We should ‘oppress’ them no longer!
Yosef
6/11/2010
James, Keep in mind that Mau killed 25 million, stalin a similar amount, Hitler may God blot out his name millions
- I’m not sure that history bears out that land and other stuff is as negotiable as you may think (all the European wars, Japan and China …)
j
6/11/2010
Student has far surpassed the teacher? Last time I checked, it was still Europeans who murdered 6 million Jews, NOT Arabs. Get your shit straight.
Diane
6/11/2010
Will pass this on to everyone I know. You skipped the opportunity to tell dear decrepit Helen to go back to Lebanon! HA! Thanks for saying what I could never put together. Have also been wondering of late if the U.S. should just give Texas back to Mexico…
Mal
6/11/2010
I think that if anything California should be ceded to Mexico, in that way half the illegal alien population in the USA get instantly repatriated back to the lands that they hold as occupied territory stolen from indigenous first nations, and here is the bonus, we rid the nation of half the brain dead demcrap stinking up the place without anyone ever even having to move, now that’s what I call a plan.
Paul Schueller
6/11/2010
Beautifully written! As a refugee of Hitler’s Germany and a student of history, Sarke deserves the Nobel prize for her article.
sol
6/11/2010
Yeh — the goyim are pissed. They’re unhappy that we think it’s no longer fashionable for Jews to simply go away and die.
Mal
6/11/2010
j get your shit straight, Arabs and islam have been killing incalculably amounts of Jews for thousands of years, percentage wise more devastating than the nazi’s, as far as the nazi’s go, the whole shit hole of Europe is as guilty of the holocaust as the nazi’s, three quarters of them were nazi collaborators and nazi sympathises, even one of the richest Jews in the world, that scumbag Sorros, made his money off of the holocaust and the plundering of Jewish estates, if ever there was a scumbag that deserves a bullet in the head its that piece of shit, it would be justice served as he is an out and out war criminal.
froylein
6/11/2010
I’m embarrassed by and about the racism displayed on this thread, the dubious if not downright non-existent historicity of several claims made aside. It would serve the majority of commenters much better to grow up beyond the retaliatory level of toddlers in a sandbox quarrelling over a shovel.
themiddle
6/11/2010
I’m also embarrassed by the bigotry that has surfaced here.
Folks, if you want to take offense at what Thomas said, at least have the decency not to repeat the error of her ways by being just as offensive.
Having pride in Jewish history and achievements is fine, but it does not have to involve put-downs of others. We all know that many Arabs and Muslims have a problem with Jews, but just as you wouldn’t want to be nothing more than a negative Jewish stereotype, surely you can do better than stereotyping all members of other groups, whether they are Christian, Muslim or Martian. Those of you who are expressing this hatred are actually undermining Sarke’s effective rebuttal to Thomas.
Mal
6/11/2010
froylein – Why is it the the PC police always cry foul when they don’t like the truth, do you honestly believe by negating the facts you can recreate history and an alternate reality, be embarrassed about the fact that you seem to know very little and what you think you do know seems to be erroneous at best. Heil froylein!
froylein
6/11/2010
Mal, for one, I’d not confuse a call for not applying double standards with “political correctness”. Secondly, I suppose you’re new to this blog or you’d know that I’m savvy enough on Jewish history to spot the fallacies among many claims here. To give you the benefit of the doubt, seeing the various mistakes in your comments, I’ll assume the English language is foreign to you, so you probably didn’t get the nuances of my above comment.
Yosef
6/11/2010
I always find it interesting how people on the conservative side in general argue with facts and history whereas the liberal leftists use personal attacks, name-calling, put downs and putting words in others mouths in order to shut down reasoned arguments.
A few examples:
froylein: “I’ll assume the English language is foreign to you, …”
personal put down
themiddle: “Yosef, transfer yourself out of Israel.”
themiddle: “surely you can do better than stereotyping all members of other groups”
personal put down and strawman (nobody stereotyped ALL Arabs) in order to put the other commenter down
So Mal and others don’t pay them much attention – you keep discussing the facts and let them use their method.
themiddle
6/11/2010
I meant it, Yosef, anybody who advocates transfer and ethnic cleansing – and be clear that what you are proposing is not even close to what Lieberman has proposed – should live far away from Israel. You will feel at home in Sudan, maybe.
Mal
6/11/2010
Froylein – If you are so jacked up on Jewish history please do point out the fallacies, but don’t be a history revisionist and or spout BS PC talking points as they just don’t cut it, as for my English language skills, don’t be a naive dipshit in confusing them with my lousy typing skills, as for your pathetic attempt at nuances, its time to call a spade a spade, Jews everywhere are under serious threat, whether you like it or not we are being confronted in every single country on earth and we are loosing the battle, you need to get your head out of your ass and understand that in twenty years it will be a thousand times worse than it is now, its not double standards its simply unadulterated fact.
froylein
6/11/2010
Yosef, you’ve failed at addressing the insults being hurled about by those you agree with.
Mal, if you scroll up, you will find a sample of a correction I’d made on a point that anybody educated in Jewish history on a basic level should have been able to spot as false right away. Nobody’s perfect, such things can happen, but it should have been noticed by more people even if they haven’t spent endless hours delving into hundreds of books on European Jewish history and medieval documents in preparation of university classes on the various waves of the persecution of Jews in Europe during the Middle Ages.
Lousy typing is one thing, poor syntax, vocabulary and dialects quite another. Usually, I exercise the discreet courteousy of fixing commenters’ typos in the admin section if I spot them first, but in this case, I’ll practise restraint.
P.S.: Both TheMiddle and I have been frequent (in his case) respectively regular (in my case) contributors to this blog for several years.
jd adler
6/11/2010
“All of Jewish Law boils down to ‘Do not do to others what you would not have them do to you.’ The rest is commentary” Rabbi Hillel (translation)
perhaps some of my fellow Jewish commenters on this site might want to think on that for awhile.
lMalrvin Wiss
6/12/2010
Well stated! After finishing reading “LThe Brothers Ashkenazi” (English ltranslated from Yiddish) lat midnight last night to find RANT on my screen was a mahchiah!
Mal
6/12/2010
Then Rabbi Hillel has it very far wrong as that is only a part of it, unfortunately for those liberal minded we have tremendous obligations and burdens to meet to our creator and each other within the Jewish nation, a lot of it very arduous and often distasteful, but compulsory according to all three legs that make up what is required of us in defense of our beliefs and the lives of our nation, sacrifice of even one life in compromise to any cause outside of Judaism is a violation of G-ds law, G-g does not compromise, we are required by our law to if required destroy any and all threats against the Jewish people even if it means destroying a million to save just one, that one may just be the messiah, the difference between ours and any other philosophy is we are only to act in self defense, anything less is compromise that G-d tells us He wont accept.
froylein
6/12/2010
Mal, something tells me you don’t know who Hillel was…
Mr Biker, let me start by saying that I appreciate that good style matters to you and that you dare not to be “put into line”, so to speak, by a majority of commenters that appears to disagree with you.
As Middle has already pointed out, we don’t have editors and we also don’t get paid, so it’s acually rather flattering that you used to consider Jewlicious to be fairly professional. (As far as I know, the only professional writers among our bloggers are Lori, Sharon and Rafi, who work as staff writers for a different newspaper each.)
I hope that you will still be able to find enjoyable posts on Jewlicious on future visits.
P.S.: You’ve got no idea how glad I am to finally see a commenter who gets their pragraphs right as commenters used to complain on an off comment threads that I divided my posts and comments up into “too many paragraphs”.
BSG
6/12/2010
Excellent retort. Too bad it’s only us, Jews,(mostly) who read and enjoy it this stuff.
My other general comment is about Helen Thomas’ amazing ignorance and utter lack of any knowledge of history and this is the Leading White House correspondent! wow! O, tempora, o, mores!
Mr. Biker
6/12/2010
First of all, I have to divulge that I am Jewish. Why do I say that up-front? Because here comes a little criticism along with some praise, and I don’t want anyone thinking it’s anti-Semitic.
The content is excellent, assuming the facts are correct. For the sake of argument, I’ll assume the facts are correct.
PLEASE; Buy a style guide. Stunk and White, the AP Style Guide, Elements of Style, ANYTHING.
This was a difficult read, not because of the myriad facts, but because of the lack of good style skills and well-developed thought. What am I talking about?
There are sentences with six (not 6) commas. If you need six commas, you need to rethink your sentence structure.
You should never start a sentence OR a paragraph with parenthesis. Unless you’re Cormac McCarthy.
It’s not Pesky Jew, it’s pesky Jew. Unless you know someone named Pesky Jew.
Final punctuation always goes outside the closing paren.
And because I’m not going to critique the whole thing (and it really needs it), here’s my last glaring annoyance; You digress, point it out with “But I digress” and then continue to digress instead of getting back to the point. Plus, you do it by parenthesizing the entire paragraph.
I’m sure the “I think she’s too cute for words” crowd and the sympathetic Jews will say it’s not the point and they’ll jump all over my case. I understand but I still disagree. Good writing is good writing. Including your picture in hopes of having people overlook the content because you’re cute is not going to cut it in the professional world. Previously, I have considered Jewlicious to be fairly professional.
History is littered (in a good way) with Jews who created some of the finest writing the world has ever seen. Just look to your own article to find some of the names. Not to aspire to those examples is shameful.
You want to be blown away by a fine Jewish writer? Read the writings of Louis Brandeis. The first time I read some of his stuff I almost cried. It’s beautiful. And he’s not even a “writer.”
themiddle
6/12/2010
Mr. Biker, please, it was fine writing. This is blogging, not newspaper reporting or book authoring. We write fast and loosely – nobody is paying us – without an editor or a publisher.
Judy
6/12/2010
Brilliant. Style and grammatical errors and all – actually refreshing to read a view of Jewish history NOT written like a text book or edited newspaper report. It’s alive and breathing and human. Just perfect. I too will send out the link to everyone I know here in Australia!
ck
6/12/2010
Mr. Biker: I so do love a good grammar rant! As has been mentioned, Jewlicious is not in fact remotely professional. A style guide would be great but I can’t even get writers to add tags, images and thumbnails on a regular basis! For instance, you will find delicious chick pea paste spelled hummus, chummus, humus, houmous etc. on Jewlicious. You will find the Shiite terrorist organization based in South Lebanon spelled Hizballah, Hezbollah, shit heads etc. on Jewlicious. I’m afraid a style guide and more active editorial supervision is beyond the capabilities of our non-existent budget.
The writer of this post, Sarke, is actually a professional writer. This post however, was written in the passion of the moment and did not undergo her usually punctilious grammatical and stylistic review. What it lacks in strict adherence to the rules of grammar, it more than makes up for in the power and sincerity of its sentiment. As you can see, many people found it quite resonant.
Finally, the photo used above is not of the author but rather of Lea Michele who plays the character Rachel Berry in the popular television show “Glee.” Perhaps a caption would have been in order for the pop-culture-challenged amongst us.
Please do feel free to stop by again and begin a discussion on the substance of this post. Our writer “froylein” is already your fan!
froylein
6/13/2010
CK, I don’t become a fan of people but a fan of ideas. If people come up with original ideas, you might colloquially say that I am a fan of theirs, but content matters to me most. At that, good style and good grammar haven’t been out of fashion for millennia – just consider the beautiful imagery of the Song of Solomon, the captivating epos of the Odyssey, the political rants by Cato or the plain-style, easily readable factbooks by Cicero, Chaucer’s and Shakespeare’s ability to play with poetry and the vernacular of different social standings, the powerful language of Goethe during his Sturm-und-Drang years, Heine’s and Tucholsky’s subtle political criticism and parody, …
Analogously to Dürrenmatt’s claim that readability is the politeness of handwriting, I can therefore concede that good style (which does not exclusively mean high-brow, non-fictional literature) is the politeness of all writing.
Mal
6/13/2010
Froylein – there you go again getting your head stuck up your ass over nothing again. Just because I don’t agree with all that the great Hillel, whom I consider a progressive for his time, does not mean I don”t know who he was. The fact that he is regarded as a brilliant sage his viewpoints are still opinions based on his time. If we are going to pay homage to his quotes, a far more poignant one and one that would be in direct relation to the point at hand, would be “If I am not for myself, who will be for me? And when I am for myself, what am I” which is precisely what I have been stating all along but have been attempting to projecting it in the plural for all of us as a people.
Of this my understanding in relation to this thread is that we need to understand very clearly who we are, we are the Jewish nation, if we don’t collectively take maters in to our own hands soon and stand up for ourselves as a united nation, then no one else will and we are in a nutshell screwed. now don’t go off over analyzing this, its a point of view, its the reason the thread is here, to provide us the opportunity to exchange notions and ideas and hopefully get those that will not see, to get a clearer picture of just how ever increasingly dangerous our environment has and is becoming.
froylein
6/13/2010
Mal, please suit yourself. I need not take your verbal abuse about something you apparently didn’t get, namely the premise of Hillel’s take on Jewish morale and morality in general (including the interaction with non-Jews) as opposed to his take on the specific point of taking on respectively shedding responsibilities for one’s actions with regards to religious duties and their merit.
I know you looked up Hillel on Wiki, hence the version of the quotation you used. Please compare with the following versions:
“If I am not for myself, who will be for me? But if I am only for myself, who am I? If not now, when?” (aish.com)
“If I am not for myself, who will be for me? And if I am only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?” (answerbag.com)
“If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am not for others, what am I? And if not now, when?” (thinkexist.com)
“If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am only for myself, what am I? If not now, when?” mikesilverman.com)
The above are just a few examples of how the focus can shift with (lack of) accuracy of the translation. The line is taken from Pirkei Avot (1:14), which literally means “Chapters of our fathers”; it’s on communal ethics and the application of religious law.
Of you and all like-minded people, I’d like to ask the following: do you seriously think that if a predominantly non-Jewish world were so hostile against Jews as you paint it to be, you’d stand any chance at all at existing? And if you feel so, why does the majority of you not live in Israel?
Mal
6/13/2010
Froylein – Not wikki, numerous discussions with my son at the Yeshiva in Bnei Brak, and its not meant as verbal abuse, the point is you simply refuse to see the world for where it is, you so flatly refuse to envision yourself to the facts facing us, the prophets themselves tell us that this will happen, that the whole world will hate the nation of Israel, every threat against the Jewish people comes from people who hold the position that we live in a predominantly fair and balanced world, this could not be further from reality, it is the most verily hostile environment imaginable. Humanity has not evolved, it has simply become selective and self preservationist nothing more. You are micro focusing to appease your liberal moral senses when in reality we are on the precipice of great human tragedy. We are closer to the destruction of mankind than we have ever been before and you are just not open to seeing this. Its uncanny that someone of your intelligence cant see the trees for the forest.
froylein
6/13/2010
Mal, the line you quoted is literally – including the awkward, interpretative wording – the same as on Wikipedia.
What yeshiva does your son attend in Bnei Brak if I may ask? Several of my friends there are yeshiva rabbis.
Please don’t think that I do not acknowledge the recent rise in numbers of anti-Semitically motivated assaults and the pseudo-progressive media bias Israel is frequently subjected to, but I also understand that the world has changed in so far as that it is not in general d’accord with genocide. There has been a shift of focus from Jews as the target to other targeted groups – think Sudan – but for all I can tell there’s been a rising sensitivity for the understanding that lasting peace is a global cause. Alas, it’s the extremists of all kinds that draw most media attention, not decent people. – When was the last time you read good news in your newspaper?
GentileEd
6/13/2010
May the God of Israel bless you: HE has, and will fully, give you the land – which is why everone wants you to ‘get-the-hell-out-of-it’. He has begun to restore you physically and will restore you spiritually. Please consider again HIS true Messiah – Yeshua.
Rafi
6/13/2010
On Sun, Jun 13, 2010 at 4:19 PM, wrote:
I do not think all non Jews are hostile. Some of my family members were saved during the Holocaust by non Jews who did so at the risk of their own lives and the lives of their families. Before any Jew makes pejorative
comments about non Jews, he or she should ask themselves how brave and principled they would be in similar circumstances.
That being said, I firmly believe that ultimately we have survived because it is God’s will that we survived. Our task is to spend out lives discovering the purpose, both individually and collectively, of the miracle of our survival. Some of that purpose is universal – some of it is parochial, all of it must be approached with balance, sensitivity and yes, without question, force when necessary.
Many of my left wing Jewish friends suffer from a Jewish form of the battered wife syndrome. Whenever we get beaten they try to figure out how and why we are responsible for the beatings we receive. When we constantly look
and feel guilty we embolden out enemies and bring on more beatings.
Like the battered wife, some of these people should seek therapy and a way out of the cycle of their own irrational guilt and destructive relationships with other members of the left they are constantly trying to please. Surely
we are not perfect but who is? We must remember that during the Holocaust,our “crime” was nothing less than our existence.
Rafi
Yosef
6/13/2010
themiddle,
It doesn’t matter one iota to me that you ‘meant’ your personal insult.
The point is that I and others talk facts and I presented an alternative to Israel’s destruction.
You and left-wing liberal like yourself rarely respond to facts because you have no response and no alternative.
I do understand therefore why you must use personal insults – its the last refuge of non-thinkers.
So let me present the facts.
Fact: the PA, the moderate Abbas,not just the Hamas say that Israel should be destroyed as a Jewish state. Their maps have NO ISRAEL.
Fact: Mein Kamph translated into Arabic is a best-seller in the Jewish territories.
Fact: The Arab Knesset members voted ‘democratically’ supported the flotilla and 5 of them took concrete actions in its support.
Fact: Abbas denied that 6 million of out brethren were killed in the Holocaust.
Question: What do we do with such a 5th column enemy whose stated goal is to destroy us?
I say let them live in any one of their 22 Arab countries but not in Israel where they threaten our ONE country. Lets put our heads together and try to figure out how to best do it. If possible by monetary incentives if not then without money.
What do YOU say to the question above?? Something to the point not personal attacks!
themiddle
6/13/2010
I wasn’t resorting to personal insults, they were front and center, Yosef.
Why don’t you put the word “endgame” into the search box on your top right and read some of my essays.
Mr. Biker
6/13/2010
Hey, CK; Thanks.
To Froylein, who said “good style (which does not exclusively mean high-brow, non-fictional literature) is the politeness of all writing.”
Here, here. I hope I stressed enough in the my original post how much I liked sarke’s rant. Today, I even used some of her facts in a conversation I had!
My point is, if sarke took the time, she could have turned a great rant into a great read. When the prose takes you out of the article, much like when a theatrical trick takes you out of a movie, you’re busy thinking about the style and not the substance.
Please heed CK you Jewlicious people (writers) and practice writing so it comes out of your word processor with only a few corrections necessary.
As for the cultural ignorance of not knowing the woman from Glee, I’m guilty for two reasons. I refuse to spend my time watching TV as I believe it’s now used to keep our mind off of what’s really happening in the world. Look at the state of broadcast journalism. It’s disgusting. Cat up a tree and house on fire stories. That’s in between 5 weather casts over the course of 30 minutes. Now they broadcast stories about upcoming shows on their network. It’s a joke. So aside from movies and stuff I’ve DVR’ed, I have better things to do.
The second reason I wouldn’t know about Glee is because I do nothing that helps Rupert Murdoch. He’s an evil man who’s destroying America for his gain. No Fox, no Wall Street Journal, no anything Murdoch. I have principles.
Lastly, I notice the writing improved dramatically after my rant. You folks wrote some very intelligent stuff. I don’t know if I caused it but good job to everyone that wrote cogently. There’s some excellent responses in there.
Yosef
6/13/2010
Aha
Let me ask others – since leftist ‘themiddle’ can’t:
What SHOULD Israel do about a 5th column Arab population sworn to destroy Israel?
themiddle
6/14/2010
Yosef, let me just state for the record that if the Jewish state ever becomes an undemocratic state that doesn’t treat its citizens equally, then it does not deserve to exist as the Jewish state. Regarding the Arab minority, the first thing you should be trying with them is mandatory national service which they have to spend among the general population doing national service. In other words, let them become a part of Israel instead of excluded from the mainstream. This means that both sides have to make an effort to integrate with each other. I know, opposite side of the spectrum from what you propose.
Jeremy
6/13/2010
Yosef, as a namesake of Meir Kahane, I can agree that the simplest solution would be to ‘relocate’ the 5th column into one of their 22 countries, as non violently as possible.
However, you and I both know the 5th column would not go peacefully, and that would result in disastrous consequences…so on second thought, perhaps ‘relocation’ is not the simplest solution after all.
That said, it is never a good idea to keep enemies within your borders, especially ones that tend to get violent over small things, like, say, a Jew trying to pray on the Temple Mount. (I have already made clear my opinion when it comes to the Islamic claim to Jerusalem as a holy city in an above post).
On the one hand, keeping the 5th column where it is is a bad idea because they are sworn to destroy Israel.
On the other hand, it would be impossible to relocate the 5th column (even with monetary incentive), without resorting to violence.
The main problem here is not Israel, but rather the 22 Arab/Islamic nations that have refused to allow their brethren into their countries and, instead, choose to exploit their fabricated plight to the rest of the world.
Who’s claiming ‘woe-is-me’ now?
Jeremy (Avraham Meir)
froylein
6/13/2010
Yosef, you claimed you and like-minded commenters were arguing with facts. Please obtain an introduction on Jewish history and double-check the claims made in the post as well as in the comments. There might be a few surprises for you in store.
Talking about facts, Hitler’s book is titled “Mein Kampf”. A little fact-checking would have gone a long way to give your comments more credibility.
As you, and others, obviously didn’t notice the severe mistakes in the post above (regarding the migration patterns of Jews in Europe in this context), it would be a moot point to draw analogies between the editoral and receptive history of “Mein Kampf”, “The Protocols of the Learnt Elders of Zion” and other pieces of ant-Semitic filth literature. It would as much have been a moot point to explain that any claim of historicity of Jewish counter-facts, so to speak, would need to undergo extraordinarily diligent fact-checking in order not to diminish their value in arguments in post-Enlightment societies.
You also claimed that Middle and I had resorted to insults; I’d appreciate if you applied your make-shift rules across the board, perception permitting, as bigoted, hateful and fascistoid languange are not to be found all that quickly in Middle’s and my comments.
Mr Biker, I heard you loud and clearly.
I was replying to CK with that line, who’s got an idea much different from mine of what makes a post good. I will refrain from quoting the short conversation he and I had on that issue as it might be offensive to certain people.
I’d like to add that I also had not idea what “Glee” was. Looking the show up, I figured it hadn’t exactly been a loss of cultural knowledge to not have wasted time on watching yet another piece of stultification.
Still, I’d like to repeat that good style does matter in order to engage a readership, and the examples of authors and their works I provided should sufficiently demonstrate that style isn’t solely determined by the author’s ability to produce written language but to fit the way of expression to the type of text. A political rant requires a different kind of style than a satire, a pamphlet, an essay, an epos etc.
Yosef
6/14/2010
Froylein,
Wow, that was a long post – I’m not sure completely what you are saying.
You wrote: “double-check the claims made in the post…”
You are challenging the facts in the post?
YOU challenge them! More innuendo with no facts?
Fact: Mein Kampf is a best seller amongst the Arabs in Judea and Samaria.
mfa.gov.il/MFA...
See I backed my words up.
Now why not answer the question?
Its a toughy, I know.
What SHOULD Israel do about a 5th column Arab population sworn to destroy Israel?
Mal
6/14/2010
As I had rather a busy weekend I had little time to read and respond too much of what was written over the weekend. It’s interesting to note however that Froylein is still attempting to give unsolicited English lessons to all that she is trying out debate and rebut, but as I have this morning read a few more of her posts I have noticed that she is just as fallible as the rest of us and in her efforts to obliterate any and all that she considers right wing extremity she too has made a few typo’s. But as I do not consider that an evil of any kind I it really does not matter or detract from the thread, but I can’t help but notice the leftist ideology of go nowhere politics emanating from the Obamabots on this thread and although the Whitehouse trash pile has not as yet been mentioned here one can’t help noticing his base trolling this site. I do however have a new set of four questions to put to them,
a) Do they believe in a two state solution and or the possibility of it bringing piece?
B) Do they accept the division of Jerusalem as part of this proposal?
c) Does anyone honestly believe that there will ever be a peaceful solution between the Jews and the mohammedans?
d) Do they believe in the final conflict philosophy as prophesied by Ezekiel for the coming of a messiah?
Disclaimer: I apologize in advance for any and all typo’s and or any misconstrued as offensive or erroneous offensive that I have but honestly just don’t give a damn.
froylein
6/14/2010
Yosef, why don’t you answer my question first, and then I’ll ask you to specify whether by “Arab” you mean the Muslim Arab, Christian Arab, Jewish Arab, Muslim Palestinian or Christian Palestinian people living in Israel / Israel and the territories.
Also, I’m not sure whether you got me when I said that you should double-check the claims made in the post (which is the blog entry or article) and the comments (which are the replies – all of them). You referred to Hitler’s book as “Mein Kamph“, not me. This is not “innuendo with no facts”; actually, I thought I could expect people that feel confident enough to comment on the content of this post to be a bit more knowledgeable in Jewish history.
I’ve got work to do, so I’ll just copy-and-paste a concise bibliography of reference works (which I used in the past preparing a university lecture on blood libel, blood miracles and the Rintfleisch and Armleder pogroms) that prove several claims of the post wrong:
Bätz, Kurt. Judentum. Wege und Stationen seiner Geschichte. Stuttgart 1984
Beinart, Haim. Geschichte der Juden. Atlas der Verfolgung und Vertreibung im Mittelalter. Augsburg 1998
von Braun, Christina. Viertes Bild: »Blut und Blutschande«. Zur Bedeutung des Blutes in der antisemitischen Denkwelt, in: Schoeps, Julius H. & Schlör, Joachim (Eds). Bilder der Judenfeindschaft. Antisemitismus Vorurteile und Mythen. Augsburg 1999
Eckert, Wilehad Paul. Das Verhältnis von Christen und Juden im Mittelalter und Humanismus. Ein Beitrag zur Geistes- und Kulturgeschichte, in: Schilling, Konrad (Ed.). Monumenta Judaica. 2000 Jahre Geschichte und Kultur der Juden am Rhein. Cologne 1963
Erb, Rainer. Drittes Bild: Der »Ritualmord«, in: Schoeps, Julius H. & Schlör, Joachim (Eds). Bilder der Judenfeindschaft. Antisemitismus Vorurteile und Mythen. Augsburg 1999
Graetz, Heinrich. Geschichte der Juden. Von den ältesten Zeiten bis zur Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts. Berlin N.N.
Graetz, Heinrich. Volkstümliche Geschichte der Juden in zwei Bänden. Von der jüdisch-spanischen Zeitepoche bis zur Epoche der Wiedergeburt. Volume II. Cologne 2000
Grossmann, A. Die Juden in Byzanz und im mittelalterlichen Europa, in: Kedourie, Elie (Ed.) . Die Jüdische Welt. Offenbarung, Prophetie und Geschichte. Munich 2002
Haverkamp, Alfred. „Concivilitas“ von Christen und Juden in Ashkenas im Mittelalter, in: Jütte, Robert & Kustermann, Abraham, P. (Ed.) Jüdische Gemeinden und Organisationsformen von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart. Wiesbaden 1998
Heine, Heinrich. Der Rabbi von Bacharach, in: Prinzessin Sabbat. Über Juden und Judentum. Bodenheim 1997
Hsia, R. Po-Chia. Trient 1475. Geschichte eines Ritualmordprozesses. Frankfurt 1997
de Lange, Nicholas. Atlas of the Jewish World. Oxford 1992
Limor, Ora. Das verworfene Volk, in: Nicholas de Lange (Ed.). Illustrierte Geschichte des Judentums. Frankfurt 2000
Lotter, Friedrich. Bildfrevellegende, in: Schoeps, Julius H. (Ed.). Neues Lexikon des Judentums. Gütersloh 2000
Lotter, Friedrich. Brunnenvergiftungslegende, in: Schoeps, Julius H. (Ed.). Neues Lexikon des Judentums. Gütersloh 2000
Lotter, Friedrich. Hostienfrevellegende, in: Schoeps, Julius H. (Ed.). Neues Lexikon des Judentums. Gütersloh 2000
Lotter, Friedrich: Hostienfrevelvorwurf und Blutwunderfälschung bei den Judenverfolgungen von 1298 („Rintfleisch“) und 1336-1338 („Armleder“), in: Monumenta Germania Historica (Ed.). Fälschungen im Mittelalter. Teil V. Fingierte Briefe Frömmigkeit und Fälschung Realienfälschungen. Hannover 1988
Lotter, Friedrich. Ritualmordvorwurf, in: Schoeps, Julius H. (Ed.). Neues Lexikon des Judentums. Gütersloh 2000
Wurmbrand, Max & Roth, Cecil. Das Volk der Juden. Eine Universalgeschichte. Frechen N.N.
Mal, for one, I’ve never claimed that I don’t make typos; I usually fix them if I spot them later on (just as I usually fix commenters’ typos as we haven’t got an edit function for those), but that is not a necessity. I wasn’t giving English lessons to anybody but merely replying to another commenter. How you can deduce my political stance from my posts is beyond me, particularly since the very few posts of political nature from way back that include my personal perspective tend to lean to the European conservative side, which is centre-right. That makes me assume that you haven’t actually read any of my posts.
Mal
6/14/2010
Froylein I dont agree with you, I believe you are pretty left wing, just as you think I am a right wing extremist when in actual fact I am pure libertarian.
Now for all the Froylein like minded leftist individuals – Your concept of peace is total and absolute ideological misconceived lunacy based on and supported by absolutely no facts in play at all. Islams numbers are exponentially increasing at rates that should terrify any reasonable and logically thinking person.
Having been around for over fifty years and having fought in three regional conflicts, for the first time in my life I face a world that I believe has very little future in store for it.
According to Wiki and a number of Jewish groups there are less than thirteen and a half million Jews in the world and in comparison with all other world nations it a drop in an ocean of an extremely hostile anti-Judaic environment wherever you look.
To claim that there has been a shift in focus of targeted groups away from Jews is pure fantasy period. The reason it appears that way is because the rest of the world just don’t give and honest to G-d damn about what goes on in Africa, we saw that test of this during the Rwandan genocide, and we are seeing it in every islam dominated society in Africa today as islam wipes out all that oppose its tidal wave onslaught. But if one were to look a little closer at each and every islamic invasion or dominance campaign taking place throughout the world you see a very clear and decisive operational plan of resettlement re-education and islamic viral indoctrination for the marketing of this vile product to all from children to adults.
The only reason that the same type of onslaught is currently not being carried out against Jews is the fact that we are better organized than most and they have lost so many battles against us since the establishment of modern day Israel an alternative became necessary to deal with Jews. There was a time when we used to be able to out market them but through sustained losses against Israel and overall international Jewish solidarity that gave us victory in earlier times, they have learned and adapted to fighting us in the same decisive way. The fact that world Jewry is now so fragmented and disjointed in ideology with one another, it has destroyed our resolve and solidarity and has left the front gates to the kingdom wide open for our natural enemies to enter and destroy all that we have built.
As for that rising sense or understanding that everlasting peace is a global cause, you are suffering from the Neville Chamberlain syndrome of peace in our time. When islam is done conquering the nations and territories, that no one gives a hoot to fight about or for, they will be coming for the rest. Your descendants will pay the price of your leftist ideology and PC correct feel good politics, your daughters and granddaughters will feel the evil of islam of this you must have no doubt.
froylein
6/14/2010
Mal, I neither think nor have said that you’re right-wing as nothing in your comments suggests that you are. Fascistoid, racist thinking appears across all political spheres (Stalin, for instance, was a left-wing fascist), but I haven’t even referred to you as that but labelled an unspecified number of comments by unspecified commenters such.
You might not be aware of the history of Islam in Europe and the many different facets there are to it, but suffice it to say that history has shown us that by far the largest number of Jews suffered at the hands of atheist governments, so should we call for a fight against atheists?
sheela
6/14/2010
I know I’m late to the party but Sarke, I just wanted to add my appreciation and gratitude for this brilliant piece.
I’ve already forwarded this post to friends & family, and I get the feeling it will be widely circulated over the Internet.
Mazel Tov and Gd bless!
Mal
6/14/2010
Froylein – I do hope that when the time comes to deal with reality that you are as tenacious with an assault rifle as you are here, but I am concerned about your wonderful ability to duck and avoid the difficult questions that have been asked of you by myself and others, you are well versed on historical fact, and you are aptly able to quote ideals and conceptualism in a perfect world, the problem is that is not where we live, so please answerer all the questions that have been asked of you, we have all heard and been publicly told to return to the ovens of Auschwitz and the like or to lands that inherently never belonged to us but for now on this thread we all would like to know where you stand.
The middle – All that I have learned in life as a Jew proves to me beyond a reasonable doubt that the koran is a book of pure unadulterated evil and was scribed by one that is of greater evil than even Lucifer himself was, as such my understanding is that we are not supposed to share or inhabit the same lands as they that are of such evil, compromise and or diversity of this is without question a modern interpretation of what was G-ds intentions, why else are we warned by the prophets of the final conflicts between these forces and the people of Israel, are our books all wrong or are we now just going to keep putting a leftist spin on it.
Mal
6/14/2010
Its time for the Idealouges to get there heads out of their asses and to see islam for the evil that it is, crush it or it will crush us!
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
StatsCan: Hate crimes against the Jewish community up 42%, B’nai Brith calls for concerted action
TORONTO, June 14, 2010 – B’nai Brith Canada has called for intensified action against antisemitism in light of a new Statistics Canada report based on police records that shows a 42% increase in the number of hate crimes directed against the Jewish community over just a one year period (2007-2008). According to the report, hate crimes driven by antisemitism accounted for nearly two-thirds of incidents motivated by religion in 2008.
“We see once again from the Statistics Canada report that antisemitism is a serious and ongoing problem here in Canada,” said Frank Dimant, Executive Vice President of B’nai Brith Canada. “These statistics support the findings of B’nai Brith Canada’s Audit of Antisemitic Incidents which has drawn attention to this issue through its annual investigation of patterns of prejudice in this country.
froylein
6/14/2010
Mal, answer my question first:
If the world were as hostile towards Jews as you paint it to be, would you really stand a chance at existing?
Mal
6/14/2010
That would depend on the current anti Semitic climate which tends to swing like a giant pendulum throughout history. Until ten years ago world guilt from the Nazi genocide had managed to keep the ever hungry for blood anti Semitic hounds of hell at bay as the pendulum of guilt was ending its swing arc in our favour. Terrorism was still seen for what it was and was internationally and officially stamped as evil and the state of Israel was commended and respected for its resilience and ability to thwart its enemies from being able to again reign terror down on Jewish heads, you messed with Jews no matter where you were in the world Mossad, JDL, or some like Jewish group would come for you.
This is no longer the case, islamic terror strategy has changed. It has achieved moral equivalency with leftist ideology. They no longer fear reprisals from us but welcome them as propaganda tools to use against us. They are winning the geopolitical as well as the war of popular opinion, it’s how all past anti Semitic tyrants have always succeeded in bringing about their dreams of a JudinFrey world, one that progressive Jews such as those that lived in Europe and the USA prior to WW11 aided and abetted these evil monsters in gaining power and bringing to fruition the terrible injustices brought against the Jewish nation.
That pendulum is again swinging out of favour for us, and progressive Jewry is again aiding and abetting the anti Jewish onslaught coming our way, and just as all the times before the progressive and enlightened Jews are going out of their way to convince us compromise is good and all is well in the world, “it could never happen again”. Only this time the enemy is a billion times more in its numbers, its anger, its hatred and its desire to rid this world of the Jew.
Just as in Rwanda in 1994, a mere sixteen years ago, it has begun, its pace is slowly picking up, but when it brakes free it will be ten times worse than the Nazis, wiki interprets the Talmud as saying “when the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him, And the Redeemer shall come to Zion” I have to believe that our destiny is laid out in prophesy as a warning, G-d will provide us the tools and the means to use them to defend ourselves, but it will be up to us to actually get up and fulfill the word, as before we will be the ones that choose whether to stand by idly doing nothing as was done before in Europe, or whether we fight back this time. The book of Joshua teaches us that G-d will deliver us that victory, but to bring down those walls we will have to march and do our bit.
You ask me “If the world were as hostile towards Jews as I paint it to be, would we really stand a chance at existing” The answer is yes, if we stand and fight as we should have done in Europe in WW11, I believe that G-d himself will provide us with the Messiah, a redeemer whom will lead us to the fulfillment of all that is promised us.
froylein
6/14/2010
I’m getting ready for work now, but I just wanted to point out that the genocide in Rwanda does in so much not compare to the Holocaust as that the target of the killings were (assumed) members of the suppressive, officially upper class. (The German federal state I live in is a sister state of Rwanda’s, so naturally, Rwanda appears on the curricula here and most schools and various public services run projects in support of the people in Rwanda).
I still believe it’s counter-productive to paint all non-Jews with one, broad brush as it happened on this thread. That was rather insulting to individual non-Jewish commenters, who came to leave their message of support. In addition to that, it’s bad manners. I still believe that the world Jewry is in a much safer place now than it used to be up to the 1970s. The greatest risk is that the demagogues on either side will gain popularity.
Also, please don’t believe the myth that Jews were standing idly by in Europe during WW2. As a matter of fact, the largest share of resistance fighters was Jewish. This is well-documtented; a nice, comprehensive introduction on the topic I’d suggest to read is Zum Kampf auf Leben und Tod. Das Buch vom Widerstand der Juden 1933-1945. by Arno Lustiger.
Jeremy
6/15/2010
while I agree that it is counterproductive and insulting to paint all non-Jews with the same brush, I’m not so sure the same can be said for Muslims…not that all Muslims want to destroy us (some may only want to kill us a little), but the more moderate Muslims have nullified their existence by being silent and coercive.
As a reference I’ll enclose an explanation by a Holocaust survivor from a book by Dr. Emanuel Tanay, who is himself a Holocaust survivor and psychiatrist.
“A Holocaust Survivor’s View on Islam
A man, whose family was German aristocracy prior to World War II, owned a number of large industries and estates. When asked how many German people were true Nazis, the answer he gave can guide our attitude toward fanaticism. ‘Very few people were true Nazis,’ he said, ‘but many enjoyed the return of German pride, and many more were too busy to care. I was one of those who just thought the Nazis were a bunch of fools. So, the majority just sat back and let it all happen. Then, before we knew it, they owned us, and we had lost control, and the end of the world had come. My family lost everything. I ended up in a concentration camp and the Allies destroyed my factories.’
We are told again and again by ‘experts’ and ‘talking heads’ that Islam is the religion of peace and that the vast majority of Muslims just want to live in peace. Although this unqualified assertion may be true, it is entirely irrelevant. It is meaningless fluff, meant to make us feel better, and meant to somehow diminish the specter of fanatics rampaging across the globe in the name of Islam.
The fact is that the fanatics rule Islam at this moment in history. It is the fanatics who march… It is the fanatics who wage any one of 50 shooting wars worldwide. It is the fanatics who systematically slaughter Christian or tribal groups throughout Africa and are gradually taking over the entire continent in an Islamic wave. It is the fanatics who bomb, behead, murder, or honor-kill. It is the fanatics who take over mosque after mosque. It is the fanatics who zealously spread the stoning and hanging of rape victims and homosexuals. It is the fanatics who teach their young to kill and to become suicide bombers.
The hard, quantifiable fact is that the peaceful majority, the ‘silent majority,’ is cowed and extraneous.
Communist Russia was comprised of Russians who just wanted to live in peace, yet the Russian Communists were responsible for the murder of about 20 million people. The peaceful majority were irrelevant. China’s huge population was peaceful as well, but Chinese Communists managed to kill a staggering 70 million people.
The average Japanese individual prior to World War II was not a warmongering sadist. Yet, Japan murdered and slaughtered its way across South East Asia in an orgy of killing that included the systematic murder of 12 million Chinese civilians; most killed by sword, shovel, and bayonet.
And who can forget Rwanda , which collapsed into butchery. Could it not be said that the majority of Rwandans were ‘peace loving’?
History lessons are often incredibly simple and blunt, yet for all our powers of reason, we often miss the most basic and uncomplicated of points:
Peace-loving Muslims have been made irrelevant by their silence.
Peace-loving Muslims will become our enemy if they don’t speak up, because like my friend from Germany , they will awaken one day and find that the fanatics own them, and the end of their world will have begun.
Peace-loving Germans, Japanese, Chinese, Russians, Rwandans, Serbs, Afghans, Iraqis, Palestinians, Somalis, Nigerians, Algerians, and many others have died because the peaceful majority did not speak up until it was too late. As for us who watch it all unfold, we must pay attention to the only group that counts — the fanatics who threaten our way of life.
Lastly, anyone who doubts that the issue is serious and just deletes this email without sending it on is contributing to the passiveness that allows the problems to expand. So, extend yourself a bit and send this on and on and on! Let us hope that thousands, world-wide, read this and think about it, and send it on – before it’s too late.”
Interpret this as you will…I happen to think the message is relatively self explanatory.
Also I agree with Mal’s pendulum theory, and (as I began to peruse through one of themiddle’s articles) I also see one of the problems being assimilation and detachment from Judaism as the cause for Jewish anti-Semitism…liberal views don’t help much either.
I have a very good friend who is a left-wing self proclaimed socialist. He is anti violation of human rights, and yet he says that under no circumstances (even in self defense) should a human being endanger the rights of other human beings. As a good example, he’s against blockades as a whole, whether or not the justification for said blockades is credible.
In other words, in his opinion Israel should let up on its blockade of Gaza despite the fact that this would result in several thousand [more] rockets being able to be smuggled into Gaza and, in turn, launched at Israel, namely its defenseless civilians.
May I ask you, if the true value to be upheld here is human rights, does this not seem a little contradictory?
When confronted about his beliefs in a heated debate last year (during a Poli-Sci class nonetheless, my friend admitted that his beliefs all stemmed from an ideal society. When further questioned he claimed the the world in which we live is far from ideal, but we should still act as though the world was ideal in the hopes that our light would influence all others to behave like civilized human beings.
To me, and maybe I’m wrong once again, this seems like a sure path towards suicide and self-destruction for the Jewish people. That said, were we to be living in an ideal world, I’d completely agree with my self proclaimed socialist friend.
Acknowledging that we are not living in an ideal world is one thing. Doing something about it is quite another, and Political Correctness is not helping either…
Standing around doing nothing never helped, and certainly giving aid to our enemies is, indeed, commendable beyond a shadow of a doubt (and yet despite all the aid given to Gaza by Israel the world still manages to find fault with us), but enough is enough. When Iraq was going to go nuclear Israel launched a surprise attack and destroyed the facilities. At the time, the world really didn’t like that, but eventually they came around.
Now Iran is on the verge of going nuclear, but Israel is too tied up in ‘red tape’ and ‘political correctness’ to be able to do anything about it…
Anyways I think I’ve rambled enough. The bottom line I’m trying to get across here is that the world is not ideal, live with it and be prepared to adapt your lifestyle or prepare for extermination, and even if a majority of the people don’t want to utterly destroy you, they become irrelevant if they don’t do anything about it. Do you think the Allies asked each Nazi they confronted whether or not they actually had a vendetta against the Jews or were just following orders? I think not!
SarKE
6/15/2010
I have stayed out of this discussion, mostly because I’ve been busy fielding comments on my own blog, which have taken the shape of a summer course in the rhetorical folk history of the Middle East; because I am still looking for my Chicago Manual of Style, which may actually be the thing propping up my desk on one side, and as such, is at least the basis for something; and also because this monstrous page no longer loads on my main laptop (IE8 / 128-bit…FYI, CK.)
However, I have been lurking. A substantive post on the many assorted and highly flavored opinions in any fresh pack of Jews is in the works. In the meantime, let me say that if the opinions here were arranged in a row, and were I to jump in, I’d probably land in the middle. Not ON themiddle, though, because that might hurt him, and also, be kind of awkward.
I chose to pop into the discussion right here because I love what Jeremy wrote about the silent majority – especially in the Muslim world – finally being asked to take some responsibility.
Indeed, the opinions here show that the majority of Jews are forever internally investigating where they can change themselves and their world; this extends to Israel on a national, policy level as well. We feel, as a whole, responsible and accountable and confident in our ability to change and grow. I see no reason why this type of soul-searching should not be a universal standard for all people. Let’s begin with equality there – in what we demand of people – and not only in what we feel we must give them. I feel like the conversation needs to change in that direction.
Yosef
6/15/2010
Sarke,
Thanks for your article. You are right that the discussion has to change and those who attack us have to bear responsibility.
The unfortunate issue that we have with certain commenters is the doubt they are casting on the veracity of what you wrote – but without being specific.
I always find that troubling.
froylein
6/15/2010
Yosef, I’ve given the specifics as well as reputable sources. Now I suggest you grab a few books of the list and do some reading. I always find it troubling when newbie-commenters try to tell any of us what the blog should be about. I find it even more troubling when assumptions are elevated to facts.
Yosef
6/15/2010
themiddle,
You suggest mandatory national service for the Arab minority. Problem is that they refuse to and Israel nw has no juristiction over those in the territories since they gave them autonomy. Those in the ‘green line’ cannot be forced.
You make it as if Israel does not try and has not tried to do this in the past. The reason that Israel does not allow Arabs in the army is because they want Isreal destroyed and would use arms against Jews. They don’t trust them.
Are you suggesting that what I just said is wrong and that they would do national service and/or that the Arab minority (quite a large minority now) does not want Israel to cease from being a Jewish state?
If you feel that way I will endeavor to bring you strong evidence to what I am saying and much of what others have said.
Yosef
6/15/2010
Froylein,
Aha…
Don’t give bibliographies and and say ‘read books’ so then us ‘dummies’ will ‘figure it out’.
If you have an answer then explain it in simple terms – just as themiddle did in his last post. Now I can respond point to point on what he wrote and maybe we can get somewhere.
Figure out how to be concise and to the point.
I’ll answer your question simply:
By Arab I mean anyone living in Israel who desires Israel to cease as a Jewish State.
At this point it is the Arabs mainly Muslim who are asking for that. It it be others then it includes them too.
Now again for my question:
What SHOULD Israel do about a 5th column Arab population sworn to destroy Israel?
(At this point I am not holding my breath for a concise and to the point response.)
froylein
6/15/2010
At this point, I can hardly take you serious anymore if you downright refuse to learn (i.e. from reputable sources) about Jewish history. I’ve pointed out two issues extremely briefly, yet you didn’t address them.
So, if I understand your definition of “Arab” correctly, it’s neither about ethnicity, provenance nor religion but merely a political category (and also includes a large share of Chasidim). Here’s my concise reply, if guerilla forces engage in violent acts against a democratic state – be it its civilians or its military -, that state should reserve the right for itself to respond within what international law provides, which can go as far as execution without trial. A state’s responsibility in first line is to take care of its citizens.
Now, if you’re talking about spreading inciting propaganda, there are certain measures that can be taken (which states like Germany also take BTW) ranging from restraining orders to a loss / limitation of civil rights, imprisonment and (not in Germany because of the NS-past but in other states) expatriation. All of this provided though that all walks and groups within society are granted the same level and possibilities of political participation.
Civil servants over here, BTW, can lose their tenure positions, pension and social benefits if they spread views that are not constitutional. To enforce that, you need to take an oath on the constitution as soon as you get into civil service (I already did that way back when I was made the assistant of one of my profs).
ck
6/15/2010
I dunno Yosef. I was recently in the village of Abu Gosh near Jerusalem and the Arab Israelis there sure don’t seem to have a problem with the existence of the State of Israel. The same can be said for the many Bedouins and Druze who send their kids to fight in the IDF. Assuming someone is sworn to destroy Israel by mere dint of their ethnicity is a tad prejudicial don’t you think? I mean I know Jews who are opposed to the State as well – for instance Haredim who refuse to support the country and don’t celebrate Israel Independence Day and don’t stand still on Yom Hashoah etc. They’ll tell you straight up that they are anti-Zionist. If you find yourself in certain parts of Meah Shearim with a knitted kippah or a flag of Israel sown onto your backpack, you face the risk of getting assaulted. Similarly there are extreme right-wing Jews who are opposed to territorial compromise of any kind with the Palestinians and consider any government that would do so (basically every government in the past 10 years) as traitorous and worthy of being overthrown. So what about those 5th columns? Finally, my entire family speaks Arabic. We listen to Arabic music, eat Arabic food, wear traditional Arabic costumes – in short, we’re Arabs any way you dice it. Your view of ethnicity is as simple minded as your perception of our society here.
Simple minded? Yes – for I can perceive your notion of 5th columnists and how to deal with them as dangerously undemocratic and thus a threat to the continued viability of the State of Israel. If implemented, your views will inevitably require the destruction of the State of Israel as it currently exists. By your rationale, I ought to come to your house and send you and your family packing.
See what i mean bucko?
Mal
6/15/2010
Froylein – At no point have I broad brushed non Jews as anti Semitic at all, I have no fight with Arab Israelis, Bedouins and Druze. I am however focused on a particular threat to the Jewish people coming from the mohammedans, but I am also well aware that they have far reaching liberal support from far and wide that is influencing the depth and determination of their anti Semitic cause. I am also very cognizant of the WW 11 resistance as I had family who were members of the WW11 resistance, I have family that fought in both the war of independence and the Six day war, none of the survivors believe in your ideology, none of them would give up a single inch of gained territory or political philosophy in favor of islam or any other of the leftist causes.
Not a single one had even the remotest of left wing ideology, all they ever say is thank G-d they were able to fight back and do some damage. Don’t for a moment begin to think you know what it’s like to face down an enemy combatant on a battlefield that just despises who you are for what he perceives you to be.
Jews owe this world and its people nothing, not a single grain of dirt, not a single drop of water and not a single ounce of remorse. For thousands of years we have been the contention of every vile “civilization” that has come to power on this planet. We have been fed to loins, we have been murdered, disemboweled, shot gassed and burned in ovens by the millions, and we owe nobody anything, not even an explanation for what we do. Even the most basic of creationism’s life forms fights to the death for survival, why are our rights denied.
It bothers me what the mohammedans do but it bothers me much more what the collaborators do, people who champion their cause bother me a great deal more. We so easily vilify the Nazis for their atrocities against the Jews and mankind, but it was the enablers before the war who are to blame for not stopping them before it got to that point, it was the enablers whom allowed themselves to be herded first into ghettos and then into cattle cars that allowed the atrocity to fully develop, it’s the enlightened and leadership of their time who did nothing and refused to even lift a finger to help themselves that hold a huge responsibility in the holocaust, the nazi’s may have been the architects but the enables allowed them to flourish, it’s that same act of enabling that is taking place today.
At this point your slant against everyone that does not agree with you personal concept and responsibility of the way Jewish life should be and on how we need to conduct ourselves is heavily biased in favor of our enemies. To this point other than trying to weasel out of answers to questions put to you, you do nothing but reference further revisionist articles on Jewish history that do nothing but negate all responsibility from Israel or Jewish detractors.
This is bothering me greatly and I am beginning to draw the conclusion that there is a strong possibility you are not Jewish, that your only interest is anti Israel talking points, and that you are here gauging the temperament of bloggers. I asked you earlier the four most important questions facing Israel and the Jewish people today and you simply don’t have the balls to answer them. You are either a coward or a liar but either way if you will not answer those four basic questions then the rest of your point of view becomes mute.
Jeremy – A brilliant piece, it is the most accurate depiction of truth on this blog and should purely on its merits, be the lead of a new blog discussion.
Mal
6/15/2010
Froylein – RE: your “at this point “ response to Yosef
This is exactly what is wrong with the world today, way too much state and not near enough true free choice. You stated earlier that you are not a left wing nut job and yet this response is a 100% Statist and is pretty much out of the Che / Castro handbook of how to control the population.
It poses limits on freedom of speech, freedom of expression, and no state or country must ever have the right to carry out summary executions of any one. Every part of this is a violation of humanities G-d given rights to life and free choice. I want to hear the subversives speak out, I want to hear the racist rants, in this way I will know who these scum bags are. The left have become way to dependant on state control of all aspects of life, the philosophy of big brother know what is best for you.
A states responsibility is to serve the people and nothing more, not rule them, not limit their freedoms, not to be the guardians of moral authority or standards, not to regulate the flow and movement of people, not to control and manipulate the education of people, and never under any circumstances to socially engineer the thinking of anyone. Anything other than service to the people is pure oppression even in its mildest forms.
As for modern forms of democracy it is the most unfair manipulation of statist ideology in existence, it’s the epitome of the patients running the sanatorium.
The leftist ruling classes love nothing better than to mobilize and control the largely ignorant moronic masses to maintain control of the flow of finance and redistribution of wealth, it’s a policy that violates the diligence of enterprise and entrepreneurship and it creates a culture of mediocrity and negates personal responsibility. It’s the reason Africa is in the state it is in today, it’s the reason Venezuela and Cuba are the domestic shitholes that they are, it’s the reason Greece is bankrupt and Europe will soon follow. It’s the reason the Whitehouse is now the outhouse.
Democracy is the biggest left wing mind fuck ever created. Democracy is why innocent soldiers die while the assassination of their political assholes leadership is a crime, democracy is the biggest violation of human rights ever devised, and it’s the Saul Alinsky version on how to socially engineer and screw up a nation. Its socialism in its purest form and it does not and never will work.
It is Judaism’s most catastrophic invention and is responsible for more loss of life out of the barrel of a Kalashnikov 47 than any other cause ever; it makes the holocaust look like a Sunday school picnic in comparison.
froylein
6/15/2010
Mal, I’m not quite sure how you read all of that into my reply, but a few things:
I haven’t told anybody on this thread how Jewish life should be. I merely stated that certain assumptions about Jewish history reiterated on here are plainly not true. If somebody told me over and over again that they rode to work on a pink elephant every day and I could verify that wasn’t the case (which in the case of Jewish history is done by referring to quality reference works), and I asked that person to take a look at what their bottom is seated on on their way to work, and said person refused to do so, I don’t think any exchange on that matter is going anywhere.
Random executions are not limited to left-wing dictatorships but have taken place across the board in pretty much all fascist societies (“fascist” literally refers to taking the liberty to randomly decide on another person’s life or death). Still, I’m not quite sure what you were talking about here. International law provides for certain treatments of guerilla, i.e. terrorists and terrorist supporters; all I stated is that Israel should be given the same options other states also reserve for themselves. If somebody claims repeatedly and openly that the state of Israel shouldn’t exist and demand it must be destroyed, I don’t see why those people should enjoy social benefits paid for with the taxes of those they aim to destroy.
Please be aware that a person’s freedom ends at the point it invades the comfort zone of another person. That’s why democratic states also establish and enforce rules, to preserve their people’s comfort zones within which they enjoy a lot of liberties. If those rules are not established and enforced, chaos wil inevitably ensue; socio-political chaos, or anarchy if you wish, has so far always paved the way for tyrannies. The people is the sovereign in a democracy; it doesn’t get more liberal than that.
Democracy is a Greek invention. Democracy has always been the state form in which societies as a whole could flourish in many ways. You claim it makes for mediocrity, but please consider that every monarchy up to WW2 and every dictatorship so far have not exactly been the breeding ground of excellence for the masses – those that excelled commonly belonged to a tiny splinter group of society considered up class. Democracy is as libertarian as it gets as it ensures that theoretically, everyone will get the same chances at excelling (whether they do or not is a different matter altogether). Mediocrity happens when “chance” is confused with “entitlement”.
The reason why most developing countries are in the state they are today is that imperialism and colonialism first bled them dry and then left them in a state of chaos, which, as pointed out above, is a breeding ground for dictatorships.
Greece is bankrupt, because it a) overspent, and b) received huge credits off the books from an American bank and kept spending. However, most states of the Euro-zone abide by the strict “quality standards” required, so there’s no prospect of Europe going down anytime soon. Little do most people know that it’s state regulations in the US, namely safe-trade zones and the artificial limiting of inflation by restricting the circulation of cash that currently aim to save the country from an economic disaster. Whether this’ll work or not remains to be seen, but this just to point out that state intervention in society happens all over, even in presumably more liberitarian societies.
Also, please note that it’s “Muslims”, not “Mohammedans”. Jews wouldn’t rightfully be called “worshippers of Ezekiel (or any other prophet)” either.
Do Jews owe this world? Hmmm, yes, that’s theologically what being “the chosen people” is all about. Many understand this to connote “the entitled people”, but if you look at Exodus and the conditions to which settlement in “the Promised Land” are tied and the understanding that Jews should be “a light onto the nations”, it quickly becomes clear that theologically, Jews are meant to owe a lot to this world. That does not mean that the rights for and of Jews should be limited in any way, mind you, but it is apparent that from its early days on, Judaism has had an understanding of its responsibilities towards creation as a whole.
Also, I’ve answered the question directed at me by Yosef and asked you (the generic you) to do the same. I haven’t weaseld out of anything. Anything you need to know has sufficiently been addressed in my replies. If you don’t like my replies, fine, your choice, but your replies keep containing insinuations of what I said and what I am, which either are not true or which you can know nothing about.
And please don’t give me that you’re-not-Jewish-if-you-don’t-feel-like-I-do nonsense; if you wish to belong to a religious group that forces people into line, may I suggest one of the cults that have emerged more recently?
As far as I can tell from the lack of reference to it, there’s little interest on this thread to try to match Israeli / Jewish policies with Jewish theology or at least conduct a discussion in that light. The only real reference to religion in any way so far that resulted in any exchange has been that one line by Hillel, which you took out of context and provided a specific version of, and I put it back into context and demonstrated by showing different versions that the bulk of interprative translations had a decidedly different undertone to them than what you had concluded from the version you chose.
I’ve tried to include a theological aspect in this comment a few paragraphs above. I hope taking a more wholistic approach than handpicking lines from instructive / prophetic religious sources and trying to read something into them that is not in there is something people can relate to. If it take a brick out of a wall and throw it at somebody or use it as a paperweight, that does not change its original purpose of being part of a wall. To elaborate on the image, Exodus says, “If you take these specific materials and build a wall, it’ll last.” Sages like Hillel elaborated on that by saying, “If we do proper maintenance and also make see to that the statics of the wall are kept intact, it’ll last even if other people start building around it.” Now, if you take just one or three or a dozen bricks out of the wall to use in different ways than originally meant, the wall becomes instable.
If you try to argue based on religion, you cannot be cherry-picking. With a religion as rich in interpretation and commentary as Judaism, it is important to consider the “hierarchy of mandatoriness”, so to speak, which puts the Torah above the scriptures, the commentaries, the teachings, and the customs.
The articles and books I referenced on Jewish history are not revisionist by any means. Several of them are standard works compiled by some of the big names in Jewish historical research that you likely had come across at some point had you entertained yourself with the study of Jewish history (popular history / folklore as well). Please refrain from making such as allegations as you did. If you don’t know some of the biggest names in Jewish historical research (most of the authors are Jewish BTW) and history writing, don’t go about and call their highly substantial and well-researched works revisionist. I’m not familiar with many aspects of physics but that doesn’t qualify me either to label the likes of Hawking or Newton scientific quacks.
MOLLY!!
6/15/2010
A damn good article. Sassy and articulate!
The only comment I would make is that in his book “Saving Israel: How the Jews Can Win a War that May Never End” Daniel Gordis makes the observation that the “evacuation of Gaza” could also be referred to as a “population transfer” which is advantageous as it builds the rhetorical linkage between the Jews leaving Palestinian lands and potential Palestinians leaving Jewish lands. The high birthrate of Arab-Israelis may pose a future threat to the state’s Jewish majority.
Otherwise brilliant.
Yosef
6/15/2010
CK,
I don’t know what you mean – so you wear Arab garb enjoy.
Its not by “dint of their ethnicity” I see you build a straw man and blow it down. Its by dint of their actions. See below and quit this nonsense of your visiting Abu Gosh – below I give the ‘moderate’ PA words.
Yosef
6/15/2010
froylein,
“Reputable sources” ??
Below I give the most reputable sources you can find the Arabs themselves.
See below in another post to you and ck.
I refer to action of violence and the fact that they will advocate for and vote to change Israel from a Jewish state and cahnge the Hitikvah and make Israel Judenrein as they have done and demand be done in all areas under Arab dominion.
‘political category’ did I say that? Again leftists build straw men and then attack it.
froylein
6/15/2010
If your definition of Arab isn’t political, then what is it? And I haven’t attacked anything. What I did was paraphrasing what I understood you meant to say to see if you agree. Your definition of “Arab” was a political one, a category Neturei Karta would fall into as well.
And you, also, have got no indications as to what my political leanings are. You’d be hard-pressed to find sentiments by me that you won’t find among any party of the centre political sphere (not among the far-wing right or left though).
And yes, there is such a thing as reputable sources. I know the sources you listed and I don’t doubt them. The sources I listed were in reference to a wrong notion (more than one actually) on Medieval European Jewry.
Yosef
6/15/2010
Molly,
You are very right – the very real threat posed to Israel as a Jewish state by Arab-Israelis must be dealt with.
themiddle
6/16/2010
Yosef, you have proven nothing. ck and I have posted numerous times about the intentions of the Palestinians, their charters, their propensity to enjoy the Protocols and Mein Kampf, etc. So what? This has nothing to do with your wish to physically remove Israeli citizens who are Arab non-Jews from their homes and from Israel entirely by pushing them out. ck has already schooled you about the mistake you are making regarding basing your bias on ethnicity and I have explained to you that before you talk about a people as the enemy, you could at least try to integrate them (your lame excuse, that they don’t want to is a joke since a government can make laws, just as they conscript plenty of soldiers who would rather not spend 3 years of their lives in the army) or find other ways of making peace. You could, at least, make a proposal like Lieberman’s, where at least he doesn’t evict them from their homes, just cuts a parcel of land and attaches it to the new Palestinian state. That is challenging enough to accept, but you are talking about ethnic cleansing.
Yosef
6/15/2010
To all those following the discussion:
Here are some nice links and facts:
jewishactivist...
There are links with direct articles and with clarity point by point.
-Mufti of Jerusalem with Hitler in the 1940′s and before
-Arafat a Nazi sympathizer
-Picture of today’s ‘Palestinian’ salute click
-Abbas, the ‘moderate’ PA leader is a holocaust denier
-Mein Kampf – a best seller in the Arab territories click
-Israel does not exist on PA maps
-Palestinian Authority’s current charter, adopted in 1968, states: The term ‘Palestinian’ is a temporary facade and a means to an end. They are in reality part of the ‘Arab Nation’ [Articles 12-15].
-Israel must be destroyed and replaced with an Arab state [Articles 21-23].
-Arabs left Israel in 1948 at the request of their Arab brethren in order to allow the invading armies to attack Israel
Notice the difference between the historical facts I and others present vs the rhetoric devoid of facts by the leftist liberal commenters who chastise us for not having ‘reputable sources’ – in the meantime i have given those and they have talked up a storm with no substance presented.
Jeremy
6/15/2010
oh, regarding the line “treat others as you would like to be treated yourself” (or, going back to Kedoshim from which this line is taken, “love your neighbor like yourself”), I’d like to do a little mathematical inversion if I might.
Given: One must treat others in a manner that they themselves would like to be treated.
Question: Is turnabout fair play?
Solution: If all people are supposed to treat other people in a manner that they would like to be treated, then it ought to be perfectly acceptable to treat that person in the same way s/he treats you. Ergo, if person A launches a rocket at person B, it can be implied by the given statement that person A is treating person B in the manner that person A would like to be treated. Thus person B can launch a rocket at person B…
Inversion: It is permissible to treat others as they treat you.
Conclusion: Turnabout is indeed fair play
…whew that’s a lotta math.
froylein
6/15/2010
Jeremy, the problem is the gauge. “An eye for an eye”, means “the punishment shouldn’t be more severe than the crime”. Israel frequently gets accused of “disproportionate” responses, but nobody on the world stage ever says what a proportionate response would be as the often-suggested alternative option appears to be negatively disproportionate.
Mal
6/15/2010
Froylein – And I have absolutely no idea what prevented you from understanding the simplicity of what I said that led to your great rambling drivel, I had thought of going into your response in detail but have come to realize that it would be a pointless and redundant cause. From being a historian and geo political scientist to world economics wizard you just simply have all the answers and can’t go wrong, you are the ultimate rabonim who has all of life’s solutions, with people like you around I just simply can’t understand why we aren’t the most admired and endeared nation on the planet, but then again as I have come to the conclusion that you are without a doubt the most pigheaded, self indulgent, arrogant and disingenuous twat I have ever interacted with that I might not be alone with this thought.
I have only one question left, When do you walk on water?
froylein
6/15/2010
Mal, I’ve never claimed I can’t go wrong. I’ve also never insisted on that people must not disagree with me.
Your (hardly coherent) comments contained untrue bits of information and accusations that I felt right to respond to. If telling the truth and backing my opinion and resisting downright lies makes me the most pigheaded, self indulgent, arrogant and disingenuous twat [you] have ever interacted with, I’m ok with that. At least you’ve shown sufficiently that you’re a potty-mouthed person to who honesty and facts don’t matter. Bravo. You’ve done yourself a great favour. Now don’t blame me for catching you lying.
Mal
6/15/2010
Jeremy you are a breath of fresh air, but should it not be that as we are first and foremost morally bound to preserve Jewish lives that:
a) preemptive strikes are perfectly and morally legitimate and acceptable to prevent an attack on home soil
b) and that in the event of an attack on home soil and the need for retaliatory strikes arises, these strikes should be effective enough so as to permanently eliminate any future threat.
With this in mind and as all super powers collect as a deterrent nuclear muscles with which to protect the citizenry that the theory of disproportionate response is nothing more than an islamic and international whipping stick to limit Israels right of retaliation.
No country other than Israel is subjected to these hypocritical rules. It may at this point be better for Israel to declare its nuclear arsenal and to begin to use it as a warning of what lengths will be gone to to protect the state, I believe with oddball in the white-house they may soon be forced to anyway.
Jeremy
6/15/2010
Froylein, if you think about it though, “an eye for an eye” is the ideal governing system. It may not be the most ‘enlightened’ system, but it certainly required everyone to take responsibilities for their actions.
In my opinion, people would be a lot less likely to kill someone if they knew that the punishment was to be killed themselves. Letting people off with anything less is like justifying or belittling their crime.
As for the whole gauge system, that’s just international bullshit used to pick on Israel. “Disproportionate responses” cannot occur if for every 1 rocket launched at Israel, Israel launches 1 rocket at the organization responsible. Thus in its purist form, “an eye for an eye” neither makes the world go blind, nor causes so-called “disproportionate responses”
Jeremy
6/16/2010
Mal, I agree that the current situation causes the effects you were describing, and that is perfectly justifiable in this instance. (This is another instance of reacting to living in a realistic world as opposed to an ideal one).
That said, taking a lesson from history, the only reason the Cold War didn’t get ‘Hot’ was because everyone was afraid of retaliation, i.e. if the USSR launched nukes, the USA would launch nukes and vice versa. This is a clear demonstration of how effective the “eye for an eye” system would actually be.
Mal
6/16/2010
Agreed but a declared nuclear arsenal would be a strong deterrent against any further precursory attacks, as long as there is an element of doubt they will continue to provoke. At this juncture I have grave concerns about the huge armaments build up an all three Israeli fronts, knowing Hezbollah’s and Hamas’s history and the proven treachery of the Syrians, this is becoming a very alarming situation with a very real probability of a major conflict braking out this summer.