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deborahdeshoftim5779 · 3 years

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MYTH Human Rights Watch has proven Israel is an “apartheid” state. FACT In its longstanding campaign of demonization of Israel, Human Rights Watch (HRW) adopted a new tack in its latest report. Knowing the absurd and ineffective efforts of anti-Israel propagandists to compare Israel to Afrikaner South Africa, HRW decided to write a new definition of “apartheid” it could selectively apply to one state – the Jewish state. HRW relies on definitions that apply to the systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group. Neither Jews nor Palestinians are racial groups so HRW expands the definition to include groups – actually only Palestinians – that share descent, national or ethnic origin. As Professor Gerald Steinberg noted, “Beyond South Africa, no other regime or government has been deemed to meet the international definition of apartheid, not even murderous and oppressive regimes practicing separation based on race, religion, and gender such as Saudi Arabia and China” (Gerald Steinberg, “Human Rights Watch demonizes Israel via propaganda of apartheid,” Jerusalem Post, April 27, 2021). “The report mocks the history of apartheid by using its hateful memory to describe a grab bag of policies that HRW happens to disagree with, and in many cases are not in effect, or were never in effect. Apartheid is not just a term for policies one dislikes,” the Kohelet Policy Forum wrote in its response to the report (“HRW Crosses the Threshold into Falsehoods and Anti-Semitic Propaganda,” KPF, April 26, 2021). For its part, the Biden administration wasted no time rejecting HRW’s conclusion: “It is not the view of this administration that Israel’s actions constitute apartheid,” a State Department spokesperson said (“US disagrees that Israel carrying out ‘apartheid,’” France24,” April 28, 2021). Too often, however, truth does not matter. When a human rights organization, even one with a long history of anti-Israel bias, makes an inflammatory accusation it is assured of attracting media coverage, as was the case with HRW’s report. Journalists rarely factcheck the material before quoting the report and its authors in stories with incendiary headlines. By the time the information is evaluated by third parties, it is too late because the original, unverified story has been transmitted around the world to become fodder for Israel’s detractors. Graphic courtesy Elder of Zion Thus, you are unlikely to see any quotes about the report from Judge Richard Goldstone, who was appointed to the Constitutional Court of South Africa by Nelson Mandela, played an important role in that country’s transition to democracy, and was appointed by the UN Human Rights Council to investigate alleged crimes committed during Israel’s operation in Gaza in 2009. In a New York Times essay, “Israel and the Apartheid Slander,” Goldstone wrote, “In Israel there is no apartheid. Nothing there comes close to the definition of apartheid under the 1998 Rome Statute” used by HRW in an effort to get around the specious comparison to South Africa (New York Times, October 31, 2011). In a rebuke to the equally fallacious claims made in the recent B’Tselem report, Goldstone noted, “there is no intent to maintain ‘an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group.’ This is a critical distinction, even if Israel acts oppressively toward Palestinians there. South Africa’s enforced racial separation was intended to permanently benefit the white minority, to the detriment of other races. By contrast, Israel has agreed in concept to the existence of a Palestinian state in Gaza and almost all of the West Bank, and is calling for the Palestinians to negotiate the parameters.” Presciently anticipating the similarly misguided argument of John Brennan, Goldstone notes, “until there is a two-state peace, or at least as long as Israel’s citizens remain under threat of attacks from the West Bank and Gaza, Israel will see roadblocks and similar measures as necessary for self-defense, even as Palestinians feel oppressed.” Speaking to those who demonize Israel while claiming to be interested in peace, Goldstone concluded, “The charge that Israel is an apartheid state is a false and malicious one that precludes, rather than promotes, peace and harmony.” Hirsh Goodman, another native South African, said HRW “is blind to fact and reality.” He called the report, “a disgrace to the memory of the millions who suffered under that policy in South Africa” (Hirsh Goodman, “I left apartheid South Africa. Applying the term to Israel is disingenuous,” Forward, April 27, 2021). Goodman noted that HRW is an advocate of discrimination against Jews, supporting the anti-Semitic BDS movement, and that the report came out as an Israeli Arab, a member of an Arab party in the Knesset, and an Islamist no less, had the potential to determine who would be Israel’s next prime minister. In the previous election, a coalition of Arab parties was the third largest faction in the Knesset. This is discrimination? What about Palestinians who are not Israeli citizens? They have the opportunity to vote for their leaders in Palestinian elections, which were last held in 2006 (the one scheduled for May was just cancelled because the president, serving the 16th year of his four-year term, is afraid of losing). HRW apparently has no problem with the fact that a Jew cannot vote in a Palestinian election even though the outcome will affect Israel or that a Palestinian who has acquired Israeli citizenship also cannot vote in the Palestinian Authority (Elder of Ziyon, “Another Double Standard: Palestinian Law Excludes Israelis From Voting,” Algemeiner, March 26, 2021). HRW condemns Israel for treating Palestinians in the disputed territories and Israeli citizens differently, but Israel has no obligation to treat them the same. In the Oslo Accords, Israel agreed the Palestinians should be responsible for their own lives in virtually all areas except security; hence, about 98 percent of Palestinians are governed by the Palestinian Authority and Hamas. The fact that both deny their own people civil and human rights goes unmentioned by HRW. HRW also ignores reality while applying a standard that would make nearly every country, including the United States, guilty of apartheid. Take, for example, the report’s criticism of the Law of Return. Yes, it grants automatic citizenship to Jews, but non-Jews are also eligible to become citizens under naturalization procedures similar to those in other countries. More than two million non-Jews are Israeli citizens and 21% of the population are Arabs who enjoy equal rights under the law with Jewish citizens. Meanwhile, Ireland has a law allowing immigrants of “Irish descent or Irish associations” to be exempt from ordinary naturalization rules while Bulgaria, Croatia, Germany and a number of other democratic states also have policies similar to Israel’s Law of Return and yet are not labeled by HRW as apartheid. HRW apparently has no problem with Arab nations that have laws that facilitate the naturalization of foreign Arabs, with the exception of Palestinians, or with Jordan’s “law of return that provides citizenship to all former residents of Palestine – except Jews. Graphic courtesy Elder of Zion For HRW it is a crime for Israelis to want a Jewish majority in the Jewish state. Are Muslim states equally guilty for not accepting a non-Muslim majority? The report castigates Israel for placing restrictions on the movement of Palestinians, ignoring that checkpoints and the security fence were created to protect Israeli citizens – Jews and non-Jews from terrorists. It accuses Israel of “Judaization” of Jerusalem, the Galilee and the Negev, implying that Jews should not be allowed to live in parts of Israel where there are “significant Palestinian populations” (which is not the case in the Negev), including its capital. Israel is also condemned for not agreeing to commit suicide by allowing the 5.7 million Palestinians UNRWA calls “refugees” to live in Israel. To refute the charge that Israel is therefore discriminating against Palestinians simply refer to the thousands of Palestinians who left the country and were allowed to return and become citizens (“Israel Claims 184,000 Palestinian Refugees have Returned since 1948,” Al Bawaba, January 1, 2001). Israel has also repeatedly offered to accept a limited number of Palestinians as part of a peace agreement (Gene Currivan, “ISRAEL TO ACCEPT 100,000 REFUGEES; Offer, to Go Into Effect When Peace Comes, Is Delivered to Arabs at Lausanne,” New York Times, July 30, 1949). Summarizing the absurdity of HRW’s argument, one writer tweeted: “Israel: The only country that’s shrinks when it colonizes, grows the population it’s genociding, fattens the people it starves and consistently increases quality of life and freedoms on every metric for the people it apartheids” (@TheMossadIL, April 29, 2021). Contrast Israel’s behavior with that of the Arab states which deny Palestinians living within their borders, sometimes for decades, the right to become citizens. The Lebanese government goes even further by denying Palestinians a host of rights and placing limits on where they can live and work (Lisa Khoury, “Palestinians in Lebanon: ‘It’s like living in a prison,’” Al Jazeera, December 16, 2017). If you want to talk about discrimination, consider that it is a crime for a Palestinian to sell land to a Jew and a fatwa was issued by the preacher of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, Sheikh Ikrimah Sabri, saying it is permitted to kill the seller (“Khatib Al-Aqsa issues a Sharia fatwa regarding the diversion or sale of real estate to settlement associations,” Sama News Agency, April 8, 2021). Ironically, the author of the HRW report, Omar Shakir, was happy to live in Israel (imagine a black person choosing to live under the Afrikaner regime) until the Supreme Court revoked his residency permit. He is an advocate of the BDS campaign, which raises the question, Why would HRW choose someone who objects to Israel’s existence as the arbiter of its behavior (Ben-Dror Yemini, “A most dangerous and mendacious report,” Ynet, April 27, 2021)? Highlighting HRW’s hypocrisy, the Jerusalem Post reported that one of the organization’s board members runs a venture-capital fund that invests in Israeli start-ups (Lahav Harkov, “Human Rights Watch chairman invests in Israel as he calls it ‘apartheid,’” Jerusalem Post, May 2, 2021). It is also worth remembering that HRW uses its anti-Israel record as a fundraising tool, as we learned when Sarah Leah Whitson, the director of HRW’s Middle East and North Africa division, went to Saudi Arabia to raise money by highlighting the group’s demonization of Israel (David Bernstein, “Human Rights Watch Goes to Saudi Arabia,” Wall Street Journal, July 15, 2009). The founder of HRW, Robert Bernstein, said in 2009 the organization had become devoted to “helping those who wish to turn Israel into a pariah state.” Contrasting Israel with the countries HRW once focused on, he noted it had “at least 80 human rights organizations, a vibrant free press, a democratically elected government, a judiciary that frequently rules against the government, a politically active academia, multiple political parties and, judging by the amount of news coverage, probably more journalists per capita than any other country in the world.” Writing in the context of a biased HRW investigation into Israeli actions in Gaza, Bernstein lamented that “Israel, the repeated victim of aggression, faces the brunt of Human Rights Watch’s criticism” (Robert L. Bernstein, “Rights Watchdog, Lost in the Mideast,” New York Times, (October 19, 2009). Israel’s government is not immune to criticism and many of its policies are subject to vigorous debate and, in some cases, harsh condemnation by Israelis. What distinguishes Israel from the countries HRW should be investigating is the internal democratic processes that lead to self-examination, more enlightened policies and, where legally warranted, punishment for criminal activity. Nevertheless, Israel’s detractors and anti-Semites will use the report to reinforce their existing prejudices and try to convince the uninformed of HRW’s alternative reality. It also feeds into the BDS narrative by arguing it is not just the “occupation” that is bad; Israel itself “is intrinsically racist and evil” and therefore should be dismantled (Herb Keinon, “The HRW apartheid report: Does it matter?” Jerusalem Post, April 27, 2021).

Jewish Virtual Library refutes the odious myths perpetrated by “Human Rights Watch” (except Jewish rights) in their latest edition of “Myths versus Facts”.

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giftofshewbread · 3 years

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It’s Satan

By Daymond Duck Published on: August 1, 2021

The writer of this article was recently asked, “Why do the globalists who are supposed to be very intelligent make decisions that are so clearly wrong?”

Most don’t realize it, but Satan is behind their evil.

He has blinded them to the extent that they don’t believe the Bible is the Word of God.

They push a godless world government, world religion, same-sex marriage, tracking everyone, etc., because they are not Christians (even though some falsely claim to be good Catholics, etc.).

Many were appointed by like-minded people, not elected by voters or nations.

They wouldn’t dare have an election because they don’t believe they can get elected.

The globalists overlook what the Clintons and Bidens have done because they share similar views on the issues listed above.

Their puppets impeached Trump twice because he opposed their views.

Their prosecution of Trump supporters for what happened at the capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, while ignoring the rioting, looting, destruction of property, etc. by Antifa, Black Lives Matter, and others, should concern every conservative and Christian because when the globalists get the upper hand (and they will), they will destroy the U.S. Constitution, and persecute and destroy those that disagree with them.

When they give their Antichrist power, he will go forth conquering and to conquer (Rev. 6:1-2; 13:4-7).

The following events indicate that the latter years and latter days, globalism, global pandemics, food shortages, persecution, etc., are on the horizon.

One, concerning the Battle of Gog and Magog in the latter years and latter days: on July 20, 2021, Sen. Lindsey Graham said, “The Iranians are progressing (on their development of nuclear weapons) at a dangerous pace.”

“Israel may need to take pre-emptive military action against Iran.”

“I’ve never been more worried about Israel having to use military force to stop the program than I am right now.”

Two, also concerning the Battle of Gog and Magog: it was reported on July 21, 2021, that Israel’s military and foreign intelligence agency said Israel needs a variety of plans to sabotage, disrupt and delay Iran’s development of nuclear weapons, and they will probably be asking for the money and resources to do that.

Three, also concerning the Battle of Gog and Magog: Israeli Prime Min. Netanyahu and Russian Pres. Putin agreed that Israel would give Russia advance notice of Israeli attacks in some areas of Syria, and Russia would not intervene.

Israel jets recently fired several missiles at Iranian targets near Aleppo, Syria, and a Russian official said Syria used Russian-made anti-missile systems to shoot down all of Israel’s missiles.

On July 24, 2021, DEBKAfile, an Israeli intelligence and security news source group, reported that a Russian official confirmed that Russia has changed its policy on not intervening in Israeli attacks in some areas of Syria because Russia has received confirmation from the Biden White House that the U.S. does not condone the continuous Israeli raids.

Thus, while the Biden administration is publicly saying Israel has a right to defend itself, it is telling Russia that some of Israel’s efforts to do that are unacceptable.

The Bible clearly teaches that the merchants of Tarshish and all the young lions (perhaps includes the U.S.) will not help Israel during the Battle of Gog and Magog (Ezek. 38:13).

Corrupt world leaders, deceit, and lying are also signs of the end of the age.

Four, on July 27, 2021, i24NEWS reported that Israel has notified the Biden administration that Iran is on the verge of crossing the nuclear threshold, and it could happen at any moment.

Because Pres. Obama sent Iran a planeload of money during his administration and seems to be influencing events in the Biden administration, notifying Biden might be a waste of time.

This may help explain the belief that the U.S. will not help Israel during the Battle of Gog and Magog (Ezek. 38:13).

Five, concerning famine: it is common knowledge that the Covid-19 lockdowns disrupted the world’s food chains (farmers and farmhands were quarantined; stores ran out of toilet paper, some foods, etc.; food processors closed or cut back; some trucks stopped rolling, etc.).

On July 23, 2023, it was reported that there are still bare shelves in some food stores in the U.K., the food supply chains are “at risk of collapse,” millions of workers have been ordered to self-quarantine, the food industry is running out of workers to keep the stores supplied, and the U.K. could be just a few months away from a major crisis.

Under the guise of stopping the spread of Covid, the U.K. government may be creating “food shortages and mass famine.”

Note: It was recently reported that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell warned that there will be another lockdown in the U.S. if American citizens “don’t wise up and get vaccinated against Covid-19.”

Note: On July 28, 2021, in an interview on “Fox & Friends,” Stuart Varney said an important business group is predicting that supply shortages will last until 2023.

Some prophecy teachers believe that Covid-19 is a created crisis (a pretext, a set-up, perhaps an engineered cluster of catastrophes) that globalists are using to prepare the world for a world government.

According to the pro-liberty group, Brighteon, on July 22, 2021, “very few people are prepared to survive a multi-layered, engineered cluster of catastrophes that are unleashed on top of each other.”

God’s Seal, Trumpet, and Bowl judgments during the Tribulation Period will be multi-layered catastrophes (pandemics, famine, economic collapse, etc.) on top of each other, and very few will survive.

Note: This writer believes we could be watching the development (early stages) of those multi-layered judgments.

Six, concerning deceit: on July 20, 2021, Sen. Rand Paul said on Sean Hannity’s T.V. program, “I will be sending a letter to the Department of Justice asking for a criminal referral (of Dr. Anthony Fauci) because he has lied to Congress” (about the involvement of the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in the research at China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology).

Note: This writer does not know how to verify it but has seen reports that Fauci owns stock in one or more of the companies that have been approved to sell the Covid-19 vaccine (If true, he is likely profiting off forcing people to be vaccinated and opposing the use of Hydroxychloroquine and Ivermectin).

Second Note: It has been reported that Fauci could spend up to 5 years in prison, but it is the opinion of this writer that the globalists (also called the Shadow Government, Deep State, super-wealthy elitists, etc.) will protect him because they are pro-vaccination. They want him to keep using his ever-changing fake science.

Seven, concerning world government and open borders: on July 21, 2021, it was reported that keeping the U.S. border with Mexico open is costing about 3 million dollars a day in suspension and termination payments to contractors to guard steel, concrete, and other materials they have in the desert.

Eight, militant Muslims say Jews should not be allowed on the Temple Mount because the entire Temple Mount is an Islamic site and none of it belongs to Israel.

For this reason, Jewish officials have allowed Jews to visit the Temple Mount at certain times, but they have not been allowed to pray on the Temple Mount.

On July 17, 2021, the eve of Tisha B’ Av (a holiday for remembering the destruction of the first 2 Jewish Temples; July 17-18 in 2021), it was reported that Jews were praying (and some were teaching Torah, a name for the Scriptures in the first 5 books of the Bible) on the Temple Mount.

On July 20, 2021, Prime Min. Bennett came out in support of freedom of worship for Jews on the Temple Mount.

This may lead to more violence, but it is worth noting that the Jews have gone from not being allowed to pray on the Temple Mount to praying and teaching on the Temple Mount, and Israel’s new Prime Min. supports it.

According to the Bible, the Jews will eventually get permission to rebuild the Temple.

Update: On July 25, 2021, it was reported that the temporary truce between Israel and the Palestinians is fragile, may be coming unraveled, and another war could be on the horizon.

Nine, concerning pestilence: on July 22, 2021, Israeli Prime Min. Bennett said as of Aug. 8, 2021, Israeli citizens will not be allowed to enter synagogues and other facilities without a vaccine certificate or proof of a negative Covid-19 test.

U.S. citizens are not having to prove that they have been vaccinated to attend places of worship, but some companies are requiring it.

Ten, concerning natural disasters: on July 26, 2021, it was reported that June in North America was “the hottest in recorded history.”

Record high temperatures were broken in several western states.

On June 28, 2021, the temperature was 117 degrees in Salem, OR; 110 in Redmond OR; 110 in Quillayute, WA; 110 in Olympia, WA etc.

The southwest U.S. is experiencing the worst drought in 122 years.

It covers almost 90% of the southwest, and much of that is classified as severe to exceptional drought.

Reservoirs and rivers are drying up, fish are dying, wildlife is suffering, farmers and ranchers are hurting, crop and cattle production is down, some ranchers and dairy farmers are going out of business, water rationing is beginning to kick in, and more than 60 million people are impacted.

Lake Mead, a 112-mile-long water reservoir, is at its lowest level since it was built 85 years ago (It is now only 35% full).

Utah’s Great Salt Lake has reached a record low.

86 wildfires are burning in 12 states, drought conditions have made them worse, two major wildfires have merged, and more than 10,000 houses are in danger.

The long-range forecast is for the high temperatures to continue through the fall.

Call it what you want; some officials are already blaming it on global warming because it fits their globalist agenda. But natural disasters will be like birth pains (increase in frequency and intensity) at the end of the age, and this record-breaking event seems to qualify.

As I close, understand that as bad as things are right now, Satan and the Antichrist are limited or partly restrained (II Thess. 2:7-9).

But the time will come (the Tribulation Period) when Satan and the Antichrist will no longer be restrained, and the events will be worse than anything that has ever happened or ever will happen (Matt. 24:22).

Finally, are you Rapture Ready?

If you want to be rapture ready and go to heaven, you must be born again (John 3:3). God loves you, and if you have not done so, sincerely admit that you are a sinner; believe that Jesus is the virgin-born, sinless Son of God who died for the sins of the world, was buried, and raised from the dead; ask Him to forgive your sins, cleanse you, come into your heart and be your Saviour; then tell someone that you have done this.

#tumblr #tic tok #facebook #anime #memes #twitter #water #wildfires #farmers #ranchers #famine #drought #crops #cattle #forecast #news #lockdown #the #great #reset #NWO #globalist #evil #agenda

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randomlut · 3 years

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I agree with you on palestine! The reason I don't do much on social media about it is because of similar reasons as you talked and also I don't think instagram and twittee have any space for nuance! I support palestine should not become "Israel should not exist it wasn't there before 1940s" because Israel was made as reparations for centuries of mistreatment and killing and discrimination of jews, also there are many many countries that formed recently. The leadership of Israel is crazy and violent and shouldn't be in power, but that does not mean we should say Israel is not a country".

But unfortunately many pro palestine people are just talking like Israel should not exist seriously. And they are not looking for reasonable discussion so I feel for me it us better to donate privately to help Palestinians than fight online.

Also a lot of people seem to take criticism of hamas as anti palestine stance as if you cannot be pro palestine and at the same timw recognize that some of the powerful people there are also bad. That still means Palestinians deserve better than having a neighbor who keeps killing them and a powerful organization for leadership that has its own fucked up agenda.

From what i see, this issue is complicated mostly for westerner, because of the shared history of colonialism. The reason why Israel exist in the first place is, as you said, caused as retribution and it feels like the world have to pay them. I can understand this point of view. (due to my limitation of writing essay in english, it will sound (or read) as very simplified)

But you also have to consider another point of view, from the others who have history of being colonized and enslaved also for centuries in their own land, they just can’t relate with that reason. it’s not complicated for them. Why should Palestine be the one who pay the price? Especially when west countries are who mostly at fault. This way of thinking is not perfect, but i hope you consider this pov.

If we’re talking about how Jerusalem is the holy land for Jews, well it also a holy land for Muslim and Christian. beside Islam is the 2nd largest religion in Israel, and Palestinian jew exist. if we’re talking about mistreatment, Islam also have history of mistreatment so i refuse to discuss this under religion persective. it’s all about faith and who am i to argue about that?

However, we can argue about history until the end of time and it will lead to nowhere. like, no matter how hard we try, racism will always happen from both side, the opressed can always be the opressor under difference circumtances but what happen right now is already totally out of line. I don’t need to mention the casualities in this answer because i bet you already know

This is not me saying country like Israel shouldn’t exist. As you said, the concept of Israel itself is valid, but right now, it’s chaos. The opressed are totally becoming the oppresor. I don’t know what concrete solution that can bring total satisfaction for both sides but right now, Palestine people are literally dying with Israel goverment keep destroying bulding like hospital, media office, covid lab ect. It’s no longer self defence and if you’re still pro israel goverment somehow, well, f*ck you then (sorry).

I feel that social media is really important right now because now the world can really see what happened in Palestine and voice support. Western media is no longer becoming the centre of information, and finally support for Palestine can be something major thus giving more power for country like mine, to force negotiation. I said, keep posting on social media, but only when you feel like you can make difference, no matter how small it is. Even when you can inform 1 person who personally have no idea. If your country already support palestine, then you're good.

I really believe you can voice support for Palestine without being anti semite, this is why i prefer Tumblr. Because of more diverse opinion, i can take some step back and revaluate my opinion. I don’t have to agree, i already Pro Palestine since 2014, but i can start trying to understand.

#pro palestine #anti israel goverment #due to my limitation in english and language in general this may looks off #very simplified with very messy grammar #sorry about that but i just need to write whatever it is on my chest #editing come later i guess

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mikhalsarah · 3 years

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RIP Open Orthodoxy, eaten alive by parasitic “Wokeness”...

There are already three streams of Judaism where women can be rabbis (Conservative/Masorti, Reform, and Reconstructionist), I should know, I belong to one of them. I’ve never entirely understood the Orthodox commitment to sidelining women in this day and age, but the simple fact is, people who are unhappy with Orthodox halakhah in this area have other places to pray, and the stubborn refusal to pray in any of “those places”, yet fighting tooth and nail to make their own shuls become just like them, smack of a weird sort of snobbish attachment to the word “orthodoxy”....even though the rest of Orthodox is but a hair’s breadth from considering them a treif liberal “fake” Judaism like the rest of us already.

As difficult, but possible, as the issue of female rabbis would be to bring about, (seeing as it is a rabbinic prohibition based largely on cultural attitudes no longer in play in western society), the issue of getting the Orthodox to accept gay couples is another matter. Again, not an insurmountable issue, Centrist Orthodox Rabbi Schmuley Boteach has written quite openly about the need to find a place in Orthodox shuls for gay and lesbian Jews. However Orthodox culture is never going to let them hold hands during service or kiddush, for the simple reason that public displays of sexual/romantic affection, even between heterosexual married couples, are frowned upon everywhere from the sanctuary to the grocery store, due to the strong feeling that sexuality should be put aside, or sublimated, when encountering certain kinds of holiness (engaging in prayer etc). Of course, that does not mean that in Judaism sex is the opposite of holiness in some way, or else it would be forbidden to have sex on Shabbat. Since marital sex is a mitzvah (commandment, meritorious act) on Shabbat, better to understand it as a different kind of holiness, one that is not compatible with some other mitzvot (like prayer) or with public life in general. Sexuality itself is a sort of holiness surrounded by taboos and necessitating the utmost privacy in Judaism, so this is ironically probably the hill Orthodoxy would die on, not figuring out how to tolerate the gays.

I heartily agree that it’s time to stop being racist to the Palestinians. Strange though that a “Woke” rabbi still can’t bring himself to call them what they call themselves, and in typical Israeli/Zionist fashion emphasizes their Arab otheness, rather than their indigenousness...thus making it seem rather like a favour being granted to them out of the goodness of his Woke heart, rather than an acknowledgement of their intrinsic belongingness. (This kind of stuff is typical for Woke social justice, which consistently cares far more about virtue-signalling and screaming at “white people”, or whomever else is deemed an Oppressor in the situation, than listening and paying attention to those who are actually oppressed.)

I spent decades of my life as a vegetarian, years of that as a vegan. Even though for medical reasons I had to adopt a diet which relies on meat for sufficient protein, I still try to limit my meat consumption. I am very pleased that so many people are seeing the value of vegetarian and vegan diets, and that even regular omnivore folk are adopting “meatless Mondays” and so forth. I’d be even better pleased with governments helping to encourage it by working to make it less expensive if/where possible. I’d nod my head approvingly if rabbis suggested meat-eating be reserved for Shabbat, if one didn’t feel able to give it up entirely. However, even when I didn’t practice (Judaism) and was secular it would never have occurred to me to ban it wholesale. I’m just not Puritan enough for banning things, I prefer the Quakerly ways of “convincement”. The Woke, on the other hand, are full-bore Puritan, convert-the-heathen-masses.

This is perhaps the strangest part of entire essay. This newly minted “rabbi” is publicly expressing the desire to not just overhaul a big chunk of halakhah in order to make Judaism less restrictive and bring it further into line with the mores of the gentile world... a process that has been going on forever, whether excessively quickly (Reform) or excruciatingly slowly (Haredi)... but is calling to make Judaism more restrictive in other ways, by banning things permitted by halakhah which happens never or so infrequently that I can’t recall an instance offhand. And he’s willing to use secular governments to achieve it by force.

I recall hearing conservatives decades ago saying “Inside the heart of every liberal is a fascist screaming to get out” and laughing derisively at how they could think that. I laugh no more, though I contend that it is a particular species of illiberal liberal, known as the progressive activist, that is to blame rather than liberals in general. Still...there it is, and the regular liberals are generally no help opposing their own extremists because deep down they harbour that intrinsic liberal guilt that they are never doing enough or being enough to be truly authentic and useful. For authenticity and “real change” they look ever to the fringes, on the assumption that the more wildly opposed to society in general an ideology is, the better it is, if only they weren’t too cowardly and comfortable to join up and suffer like the “real” activists.

I have to add here, how nice it is despite not having set foot in any shul in over a year, to still have something of the religious Jewish mindset, which makes impressive demands on your time, money, and moral fastidiousness, but at the same time reminds you constantly that you’ll never be perfect and will never accomplish everything you want or that God asks of you and God already accepts that as a given. “It is not yours to complete the task (of repairing the world), but neither are you free to desist from it.” -Pirkei Avot 2:21. Despite the reputation Judaism has for being guilt-inducing, at least we are free from the overwhelming and psychologically destructive levels of guilt induced by secular liberalism, which now has decided, via Wokeness, that merely existing in a society that is imperfect is a damnable offense, even if it is, on balance, one of the least imperfect societies around. This is how Jews like me know that Wokeness is not just a new religion, it’s an offshoot of Christianity, where just being born damns you to a state of perpetual sin.

This authenticity-of-the-extremists mindset blinds them to the fact that while the fringes are the birthplace of some excellent critiques and paradigm-changing ideas that have been of great benefit, those benefits most often only come when those ideas are tempered by counter-critiques and more pragmatic people who can tolerate the loss of ideological purity required to make them work in practice. Also invisible to the liberal mind are those historical moments when progressives have backed ideas that were...well, the term “clusterfucks” springs to mind.

Progressives less than a century ago were enamoured with ideas ranging from Eugenics to Italian Fascism (less so with Naziism, but even that had its adherents until the war and the atrocities of the camps coming home to roost). They backed Communism to such a degree that it took Kronstadt to shake most of them loose, and they still idolize Che Guevara, the gay-hating, probably racist, illiberal who put people to death without trial and “really liked killing” (his words) and can’t hear a word against Communist China (”That’s racist to the Chinese!”) or Islamic extremists (”That’s Islamophobic!), despite the fact that Communist China is “re-indoctrinating” the Muslim Uighers and using them as slave labour (in part for the profits and in part because keeping the men and women separated prevents them breeding more Muslim Uighers), and despite the fact that the Islamists throw gay men off roofs in public executions. When you do get a left-liberal to admit something on the Left has gone wrong at all, they immediately shift to rationalizing it as somehow really being the fault of conservatives all along...even in a case like Eugenics where religious and other conservatives were fighting it tooth and nail.

(NB: This is not an endorsement of conservatives, who have their own sets of problems but who, when they finally do change their mind on an issue, don’t try to rationalize their former wrongheadedness by claiming it was really the fault of left-liberals that they ever believed such things in the first place)

And that brings us back to Zionism and the Woke. The Woke cannot for the life of them admit that it was secular, and often quite far left, Jews that birthed Zionism directly out of the leftist “liberation” traditions of the day (albeit with a healthy side of pro-Western colonialism-admiring fervour for being “an outpost of the West” shining the light of rationality on the barbaric, backward, religiosity of the Middle East). They don’t want to see it. It disturbs their comfortably simple narrative, which prefers to maintain that it was the “whiteness” of the original Zionist Jews and their early followers that was the problem, not their politics.

But Zionism is merely the predictable result of what happens when you take an oppressed people and tell them that their oppression entitles them to do whatever they need to in order to end their oppression and that violence is not violence when perpetrated by the oppressed. That the world owes them, and their descendants, something in perpetuity for having oppressed them, some sort of special treatment, and that it must never withdraw that special dispensation because that itself would be oppressing them again. The fact that what the Jews would feel like they needed to do was ethnically-cleanse their former homeland of people who had once shared it with them (both Jews and Palestinians can be traced to a shared ancestry in the region going back about 50,000 years) and necessitating a whole new liberation movement to free them was an unintended consequence of th\e liberation movement, but a consequence nonetheless.

The Woke cannot admit that Zionism is, in large part, a direct consequence of the leftist liberation project, and Woke Jews (who are almost invariably “white”) can’t admit that the rest of the Woke movement hates them. They truly deserve each other.

Ah, well, at least this “woke” rabbi isn’t trying to qualify for the cognitive dissonance finals by being Woke and a Zionist at the same time like the current rabbi of my (rapidly sinking) former synagogue. We’ve had rabbis that horrified the congregation by being too right-wing (mostly on halakhic issues rather than politics), and we’ve had rabbis that horrified (the older portion of) the congregation by being too left-wing and running off to march in Selma. Thanks to this rabbi haranguing the congregation daily about LGBTQ issues to the point that even the LGBTQ Jews got tired of hearing him (our sexuality is NOT our whole fucking existence...no pun intended) and marching around the Sanctuary with the Israeli flag on Shabbat (an honour reserved for the Torah even by the most fervently Zionist among us, none of whom are yours truly) we now have the dubious distinction of being a congregation horrified by a rabbi being both too left-wing and too right-wing simultaneously.

Apropos of nothing, there is now a “For Sale” sign on the front lawn of my former synagogue and the membership at the Orthodox synagogue has grown with astonishing rapidity. We can extrapolate from this that in 4 years time, should the U.S. Republicans run any candidate remotely sane, they will sweep the election.

#judaism #woke #wokeism #zionism #sjw nonsense #sjws ruin everything #open orthodoxy #militant vegans #woke is a religion #puritan #vs #quaker

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jewish-privilege · 6 years

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@skystonedclouds replied (a lot) to this post:

Well I’m female... So you’re off to a bad start. There also multiple Talmuds. The old one is different. I was referring to the Babylonian Talmud (written after Jesus). Not the old Talmud written long ago.

We do “follow” the Talmud (when Jews say Talmud, they’re referring to the Babylonian Talmud/Talmud Bavli). Jews who believe the Torah to be divinely inspired also believe the Talmud to be divinely inspired. The Talmud explains the Torah. It’s not “basically just random people making up guides for the heck of it.”

You need to stop learning about Judaism from white and Christian supremacists and separatists. All Jewish people read the Babylonian Talmud, so I guess we’re all Satanic Christ killers who want to cover up how we killed Jesus.

And they were both finalized after Jesus; they both contain teachings that JESUS IS LITERALLY QUOTED IN YOUR BIBLE AS SAYING. The Mishnah is part of both Talmuds. Jesus was teaching the Mishnah (only one version! Same ole Mishnah in both! Although neither covers the entire Mishnah because, you know, Romans wouldn’t let us practice our culture!). Both of them are the recordings of debates amongst rabbis over Torah since, oh, around 550 BCE if not earlier.

The Talmud Yerushalmi/Jerusalem Talmud (you know it was “the old Talmud written long ago”) was finalized in the 4th century (because Theodosius II decided that Jews couldn’t learn Judaism anymore). Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m pretty sure that’s after the crucifixion.

As an aside, do you know why the Talmuds exist? The Temple had been destroyed (again), the Jews were expelled (again), and the rabbis knew they had to change Judaism because centering it on the Temple and in Judea/Samaria/Jerusalem was now impossible. The rabbis had to write down all of their discussions and teachings. All of them, both the normative and non-normative opinions. So, even you saying that Jews follow the “old” Talmud shows you don’t really understand what the Talmud is. We study the Talmud (which is made up of the Mishnah and the Gemara) to understand the Torah because we can't just go ask one of the rabbis roaming around Jerusalem any more. A diaspora in 2018 is different than a small, concentrated tribal group in 1st century Judea. You’d start to write shit down too if you realized you no longer had one central place to argue, study, and teach because it had been razed to the ground.

The reason there are two is that after the destruction of the Temple and the exile of Jews from Jerusalem, the two remaining academic centers of Judaism were Mesopotamia (Talmud Bavli/Babylonian Talmud) and Syria Palaestina (Talmud Yerushalmi/Jerusalem Talmud/Palestinian Talmud). (As an aside, the Talmud Yerushalmi doesn't have the Gemara because Theodosius II decided that Jews couldn’t learn Judaism anymore. It ends rather abruptly.)

The God of the Torah the one true God who had a son. He died for me to take my place so I do not have to die. He is merciful 💖🙏 amazing grace and love for sure 💕Psalm 145:2 Every day will I bless thee; and I will praise thy name for ever and ever. Yes the God of the Torah who broke a son to die in my place. I may live now ever praising the one true God 💖🙏 Psalm 145:2 Every day will I bless thee; and I will praise thy name for ever and ever.

Do you not know any other tehillim or...?

The G!D of the Torah is indivisible and cannot become incarnate. Explain how Jesus works with that fundamental definition.

I think it’s a Christian responsibility to protect Jewish people and their nation. I don’t agree with you in rejecting the messiah. It doesn’t mean Israel is not chosen. I’m so glad my great aunt protected Jewish people from Holocaust. A lot of the Christians I talk to want to protect Israel. I know Israel is under a of attack. Let us unite in that we both love God of the Torah. I was made aware maybe I don’t understand Jewish culture (I’m not sure). I like that day ”the feast of trumpets”.

We’re not children; you don’t have to protect us like we are. And anyway, what precisely are you protecting us from? Those who would not allow us to be Jewish and practice our culture and religion? Let me know who precisely the Christians are protecting us from if not from you them.

What, precisely do you like about “that day ‘the feast of the trumpets’”? The connection to the resurrection? The idea that the second coming will occur with a trumpet? Because I hate to break it to you, that’s all Evangelical Protestant nonsense shoehorning Jesus symbolism where it doesn’t make sense. Do you know what we actually do on Rosh Hashana?

You said it was the Catholics. They are not filled with the Holy Spirit.

Oh. You’re one of those Protestants. Soteriological exclusivity is quite the drug.

It’s actually pretty tragic. The Catholics did a lot of bad things even to your family 💔. They sinned against your family.

Sure. Just the Catholics. Protestants never did anything sinful against Jews. Nice emoji use. It’s not at all contemptuous.

Not gatekeeping just seeing a pattern. Whenever I use christian apologetics on the flaws of other religions people cry for my execution (metaphorically). To Muslims I’m islamophobic if I find flaws in the Quran. To the Jewish people I’m antisemetic if i find flaws in the Babylonian Talmud which they don’t even use. Apparently finding flaws in a belief system makes people think I must not like them. Meanwhile Christians never yell Christianphobia when the religion is examined find potential flaws

Maybe it’s because you’re cherry-picking passages, taking them out of context, and outright misquoting them.

It’s news to me, an actual Jew, that we don’t use the Babylonian Talmud. Where’d you get that pearl of wisdom? When Jews talk of the Talmud, we’re talking about the Babylonian Talmud.

But hey that’s comes with the contract of following a leader who was crucified. He was crucified for finding flaws in the Pharisees who taught well but were kinda hypocritical (didn’t do the commands themselves).

Again I say: Cool antisemitism bro. Modern Jews are Pharisees. If you don’t want to be called an antisemite, don’t be antisemitic.

One person did want tell me to die so yeah the ill wishes only came from one side. I always knew I’d be crucified one day. I welcome to share in the death of the saviour🙏✝️

People pointing out to you that you’re misquoting their exegetical texts isn’t being crucified. That’s an amazing level of hubris.

Also the crucifixion of Christ is s historical fact and biblical core truths. You just admitted someone believing the bible is offensive.

Nope, @rose-in-a-fisted-glove said “... Did you seriously just try to claim to not be antisemitic while crying deicide in literally the next breath? That's just, wow.“

The Romans killed Jesus the same way they killed all other political criminals. Crucifixion was the Roman punishment for political crimes/crimes against the state. You claimed Jesus was crucified because the Pharisees (again, modern Jews are Pharisees) were upset he “found flaws” in them. That’s... do you know HOW MANY Jews found fault with the teachings of other Jews during the 1st CE in Judea? In the first centuries of the common era the main sects of Judaism were the Pharisees, Essenes, and Sadducees. They all argued with themselves and each other. Jesus, I’m sorry, wasn’t unique in that.

Like you mean Nazis tried to find flaws in Judaism too ? They didn’t stop there though they wanted to dehumanized people. I’m just doing apologetics. I’m mentioning how there was a cover up over the crucifixion of Christ. I even mentioned that the text has other outrageous claims. It ties back to the point that it’s unreliable and not many follow it. Now I can assume this might be a point of insecurity. Do you think only Nazis see flaws? Everyone can see a flaw in beliefs.

Nazis didn’t try to find flaws in Judaism; Nazis believed (and continue to believe) that Jews are racially inferior and impure. Do you really think the Holocaust was due to theological differences?

I still really want to know who taught you that Jews don’t “follow” the Babylonian Talmud. You should ask for your money back.

Of course Nazis will point our flaws. I one time crashed my friends course on genocide. I know the warning signs of genocide. It’s dehumanization. It’s silencing. It’s treating as second class.

Oh. One time. Cool. Well, then you’re a bonafide expert on dehumanization and genocide. So much so that you seem to believe that the Nazis dehumanized Jews by finding “flaws in Judaism” and not, you know, phrenology and racial pseudo-science.

I took Astronomy 101 in college; I guess that makes me Neil deGrasse Tyson.

There’s a difference between criticism and debating and being a nazi who wants to dehumanize. In seminars people debate flaws of beliefs. In apologetic posts people mention flaws they see from their perspective. So if people can mention flaws in beliefs no one gets anywhere. Why do muslims day I’m islamophobic when I point out dangerous passages about killing jewish people ? I say ”Woah there Muslim this passage says to kill jewish people! You think that’s cool ?!”. They say ”Islamophobic !”.

And you’re doing neither. And again, they’re probably calling you Islamophobic because you’re taking the passages in isolation and out of context.

Okay if some are made up lemme know which ones. But I know at least the ones about Christ are true. I can understand maybe it could be exaggerated in translation or maybe some invented. I don’t need false flaws or anything since that’s just a waste of time. And if something was made up just by Nazis I’m sorry about that part that would be made up.

What are “false flaws”?

We actually don’t know definitively if they’re about your Jesus or not. Yehoshua (of which Yeshu is a derivation) was and is an incredibly common Jewish name. Different scholars have different ideas of what and to whom those passages refer.

But assuming they (Sanhedrin 43a, Sotah 47a, Shabbat 104b, Gittin 57a) are all about Jesus? The historical context of these passages (which make up an unusually small part of the totality Talmud)?

“By the time the Talmud was coming into final form, Christianity was the dominant religion of the Mediterranean world and beyond. Negative expressions in such writings reflect negative experiences in the time of their creation. Quoting such texts without explaining these contextual influences can grossly distort one’s understanding of how Jewish tradition views Jesus.” - Jesus in Rabbinic Tradition, Burton L. Visotzky from Amy-Jill Levine’s The Jewish Annotated New Testament.

Christians were legislatively prohibiting Jews from practicing our religion or, you know, killing us with impunity. That’s the context of those passages, not abject, irrelevant Jesus hate. And on top of that, you quoted them incorrectly.

In Jewish tradition (from the Satanic Talmud) “he” and servant in Isaiah 34:11 refers to Israel the people. You know, the Jewish people in total. Not Jesus.

This is the graphic you used in this post. It literally says “Become Jew-Wise and learn more at www.national-liberation.org”

For all your talk that “Jew” is the n-word for Jewish people (it’s not), you use a graphic that says that? And that “Killing and Enslaving Whites is OK”? That didn’t scream Nazi to you?

Well Catholics aren’t Christian (they believe works salvation). I’ll let that pass for now. Christians are oppressed. Statistics show Christians are the most persecuted religion in the world stated by huffington post. We are being killed India by Hindus, in Turk ube Muslims, in North Korea. 6000+ Christians were killed in Nigeria this year alone. 1/12 Christians are persecuted violently stated by daily mail. Independent uk states the estimate is that 11 Christians die every hour of every day.

Catholics are Christian. The Protestant Reformation didn’t de-Christianize them. Sorry.

Are you a Christian in any of those countries? You seem to be an American Protestant Christian living in the United States. You are not oppressed.

You also don’t know anything about Judaism and should stop pretending you do.

#long post #no seriously #very long #and yet #somehow also barebones #just scratching the surface #skystonedclouds

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miss-paxi · 5 years

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Replying to this ask ^^^

I’m probably one of the worst people to ask because I am extremely anti-Zionist, I don’t recognize Israel as anything more than a temporary occupier and colonizer, but I’ll try to provide an unbiased view.

Zionism isn’t a brand new idea, but the movement began in the late 1800s. The idea is that Jews are not just a religion, but an ethnic group, and that they need their own state. That’s not very bad or wrong, but the land that they think they deserve is a populated one that they haven’t lived in since the year 66... Because it’s the reality now that doesn’t seem very weird, but it is.

Palestine at the time was under Ottoman rule, and Jews didn’t necessarily want to live under Ottomans, and the idea just wasn’t very popular. Then, after WW1 the Ottoman Empire broke up and the territory was split between France and England. Except instead of maintaining the divisions between different communities like the Ottomans, they chose to split up the region by resource value, despite knowing they would be ungovernable, because chaos suited their goals better anyway.

Palestine came under control of England. It was a religiously diverse place with a Muslim majority and a sizable Christian minority and a small Jewish minority (some immigrants, most not). At this point more Jews started moving to Palestine, and they always had an ally in the USA. The USA government even bullied the League of Nations (baby failed UN) into passing a resolution stating support for, verbatim “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people”. That isn’t very insidious.

If you’re American, this similar example may help that make more sense: In the beginning of your country’s history, the state of Pennsylvania was made a home for the Quakers. The state was a safe place for Quakers to live. There weren’t only Quakers there, they didn’t stop outsiders from settling, and they had no plans to take over the other colonies because their small place was enough for them. That is how the plan for Israel began; a home within Palestine.

But as more Jews moved in from Europe, the Palestinians began associating this Jewish movement with British rule, and some sporadic violence from both sides began. The British began banning Jewish migration to Israel because they were just creating too many issues and this obviously upset many of them and they began waging violence both against Palestinians and English in Palestine.

Then WWII.....

Two years after the Holocaust began, and the stated intent from Zionists was “that Palestine be established as a Jewish Commonwealth”. Imagine if the Quaker’s suddenly wanted to rule the entire USA..... That’s a big difference. They didn’t want a place within Palestine, they wanted Palestine for themselves. And that’s what they got. But it wasn’t all peaceful and sad like the world thinks it is. The English did not want the Jews in Israel, I imagine because they just wanted to suck up oil in peace. The Jews turned to violence and terrorism, the same exact sort of acts they turn the world against Palestinians for doing. They blew up a hotel that was a headquarters for the British and killed 91 people, for one example. At that point the British realized the situation was completely hopeless and they gave up.

Enter the 1948 war where Israel went to war with...everyone. The situation as it is presented by Israeli propaganda is that they were just so big and bad that of course they won, or that they were underdogs who earned Israel, depending on the needed propaganda of the day. The truth is that while the Arabs fought Israel they also fought each other and ultimately their selfishness and deal making/bribery with the Israelis lost them the war (and for the Egyptian king his life, as he was assassinated for the humiliation when he begged like a dog for Sinai back later). At this point 700,000 Palestians were violently removed from their homes.

There have been subsequent wars, subsequent conflicts with neighbors, but you can read about those if you want.

So what about the US?

The US supports Israel because they’re a strong lobbying force. That’s what President Truman said 70 years ago and it’s still true today. What do they do? For one, the US promises to utterly obliterate anyone who touches Israel. They also give them money, help train their military and share intelligence. They do all kinds of things to prop up the Israeli economy. The US is filled with lobbyist groups about supporting Israel that spread pro Israel propaganda. They’re Israel’s bitch attack dog, and everyone can see what a hilariously one sided and stupid deal this is...except for the propaganda fed Americans. It’s so hard to choose a favorite example of cognitive dissonance, but one may be that American evangelicals support Israel for....biblical reasons...and yet Israel bans Palestinian Christians access to Bethlehem and largely keeps Bethlehem from being a sacred and properly protected and venerated place. The McJesus story is also very telling I think.

Sorry this was shoddy and biased. I don’t recognize Israel as a legitimate state and frankly won’t shed a single tear should they be forced to leave someday, Inshallah.

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pope-francis-quotes · 5 years

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25th December >> (@zenitenglish) #PopeFrancis #Pope Francis #Pope’s ‘Urbi et Orbi’ Blessing (Full Text) ‘May the little Child whom we contemplate today in the manger, in the cold of the night, watch over all the children of the world, and every frail, vulnerable and discarded person’.

Pope Francis’ ‘Urbi et Orbi’ Blessing

‘May the little Child whom we contemplate today in the manger, in the cold of the night, watch over all the children of the world, and every frail, vulnerable and discarded person. May all of us receive peace and consolation from the birth of the Savior and, in the knowledge that we are loved by the one heavenly Father, realize anew that we are brothers and sisters and come to live as such!’

At noon today from the central loggia of St. Peter’s Basilica, Pope Francis addressed the following Christmas Message to the faithful gathered in St. Peter’s Square.

—

Dear Brothers and Sisters, Happy Christmas!

To you, the faithful of Rome, to you, the pilgrims, and to all who are linked to us from every part of the world, I renew the joyous proclamation of Bethlehem: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those whom he favours” (Lk 2:14).

Like the shepherds who first went with haste to the stable, let us halt in wonder before the sign that God has given us: “A baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger” (Lk 2:12). In silence, let us fall to our knees and worship.

What does that Child, born for us of the Virgin Mary, have to tell us? What is the universal message of Christmas? It is that God is a good Father and we are all brothers and sisters.

This truth is the basis of the Christian vision of humanity. Without the fraternity that Jesus Christ has bestowed on us, our efforts for a more just world fall short, and even our best plans and projects risk being soulless and empty.

For this reason, my wish for a happy Christmas is a wish for fraternity.

Fraternity among individuals of every nation and culture.

Fraternity among people with different ideas, yet capable of respecting and listening to one another.

Fraternity among persons of different religions. Jesus came to reveal the face of God to all those who seek him.

The face of God has been revealed in a human face. It did not appear in an angel, but in one man, born in a specific time and place. By his incarnation, the Son of God tells us that salvation comes through love, acceptance, respect for this poor humanity of ours, which we all share in a great variety of races, languages, and cultures. Yet all of us are brothers and sisters in humanity!

Our differences, then, are not a detriment or a danger; they are a source of richness. As when an artist is about to make a mosaic: it is better to have tiles of many colours available, rather than just a few!

The experience of families teaches us this: as brothers and sisters, we are all different from each other. We do not always agree, but there is an unbreakable bond uniting us, and the love of our parents helps us to love one another. The same is true for the larger human family, but here, God is our “parent”, the foundation and strength of our fraternity.

May this Christmas help us to rediscover the bonds of fraternity linking us together as individuals and joining all peoples. May it enable Israelis and Palestinians to resume dialogue and undertake a journey of peace that can put an end to a conflict that for over seventy years has rent the land chosen by the Lord to show his face of love.

May the Child Jesus allow the beloved and beleaguered country of Syria once again to find fraternity after these long years of war. May the international community work decisively for a political solution that can put aside divisions and partisan interests, so that the Syrian people, especially all those who were forced to leave their own lands and seek refuge elsewhere, can return to live in peace in their own country.

My thoughts turn to Yemen, in the hope that the truce brokered by the international community may finally bring relief to all those children and people exhausted by war and famine.

I think too of Africa, where millions of persons are refugees or displaced and in need of humanitarian assistance and food security. May the Holy Child, the King of Peace, silence the clash of arms and allow a new dawn of fraternity to rise over the entire continent, blessing the efforts of all those who work to promote paths of reconciliation in political and social life.

May Christmas consolidate the bonds of fraternity uniting the Korean peninsula and help the path of rapprochement recently undertaken to continue and to reach agreed solutions capable of ensuring the development and well-being of all.

May this blessed season allow Venezuela once more to recover social harmony and enable all the members of society to work fraternally for the country’s development and to aid the most vulnerable sectors of the population.

May the Newborn Lord bring relief to the beloved land of Ukraine, yearning to regain a lasting peace that is slow to come. Only with a peace respectful of the rights of every nation can the country recover from the sufferings it has endured and restore dignified living conditions for its citizens. I am close to the Christian communities of the region, and I pray that they may develop relationships of fraternity and friendship.

Before the Child Jesus, may the inhabitants of beloved Nicaragua see themselves once more as brothers and sisters, so that divisions and discord will not prevail, but all may work to promote reconciliation and to build together the future of the country.

I want to mention, too, all those peoples that experience ideological, cultural and economic forms of colonization and see their freedom and identity compromised, as well as those suffering from hunger and the lack of educational and health care services.

A particular thought goes to our brothers and sisters who celebrate the Birth of the Lord in difficult, if not hostile situations, especially where the Christian community is a minority, often vulnerable or not taken into account. May the Lord grant that they, and all minorities, may live in peace and see their rights recognized, especially the right to religious freedom.

May the little Child whom we contemplate today in the manger, in the cold of the night, watch over all the children of the world, and every frail, vulnerable and discarded person. May all of us receive peace and consolation from the birth of the Savior and, in the knowledge that we are loved by the one heavenly Father, realize anew that we are brothers and sisters and come to live as such!

[Vatican-provided text]DECEMBER 25, 2018 12:35

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nathaniel-galadima · 3 years

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MADE BY THE SOCIETY

A society could be a cluster of people concerned in persistent social interaction, or an oversized grouping sharing an equivalent spatial or social territory, subject to an equivalent political or religious authority and dominant cultural expectations. Patterns of relationships (social relations) characterize societies between people, sharing a particular culture and institutions. Societies construct patterns of behavior by deeming bound actions or speech as acceptable or unacceptable. These patterns of behavior inside a society are referred to as social norms. Societies, and their norms, bear gradual and perpetual changes. The Wiktionary definitions of society are as follows: - A long-standing group of people sharing cultural aspects such as language, dress, norms of behavior and artistic forms. 2. A group of people who meet from time to time to engage in a common interest; an association or organization. 3. The sum total of all voluntary interrelations between individuals. 4. The people of one’s country or community taken as a whole. 5. High society. 6. A number of people joined by mutual consent to deliberate, determine, and act toward a common goal. And I base this article on the definition 1, 2, 4, and 6.

DOES A SOCIETY HAVE INFLUENCE ON MAN?

Many people argue the effect of influence on man. They say that they are what or who they are today as a result of their choices; they deny the fact that what and who they are today was gradually informed and influenced by someone else's actions and societal factors. But this is not wholly true. I don't deny the role of one's choice in becoming what and who they are today—because one has to choose to be what and who they want to be—but one's choice only happens from the storehouse of the vast options one has, and these options are nothing but influences or incentivized by influential factors; one cannot choose out of nothing. Choosing to become someone, good or evil, is influenced by someone's actions, good or evil, a historical figure or someone you know or you heard of, who their way of life appals you and you regard them as your model. This could even be your parent. Donald J. Trump once stated: "When you live in a society where the firefighters are heroes, little kids want to be firefighters. When you live in a society where athletes and movie stars are heroes, little kids want to be athletes and movie stars. In Palestinian society, the heroes are those who murder Jews." The above-mentioned is a categorical fact, depicting that our societies play a pivotal role in engineering our individuality. Our societies have influences on us. I would like you to note that this article focuses on your country, your Province or State in your country, your local area in your State or Province, the city, town or village you live in, your religion or belief as regard to atheism, your family, your ethnicity, your peer group, your religious group denomination, etc., as your societies. And when you read further, we will realize that these aforementioned societies and many others (irrespective of how insubstantial they are), have impacts on various areas of our lives. And sometimes, those impacts are irresistible.

1. SOCIETIES INFLUENCE OUR CONDUCTS

No man is born wicked (evil) or good. Every man is born with a mind that is almost like a plain paper, any information written into it, produces who the man is today. And this starts from the family (society), the closest people around them, such as mother, father, or siblings. A child begins to signalize insult with fingers at a person even before the child can speak and reason because they see an adult, a member of their family do likewise. A child is not born with hate for a person from a different race; they are not born with hate for black, white, or any colored person, they grow up to see people around them being racists, and they just incorporate the racism into their life. Etc. Beyond the family circle is the neighborhood. As the child grows in the neighborhood, every day or recurrently being exposed to the doings of the other people in the neighborhood, the child gets accustomed to them, and they could be bad doings. Other than the neighborhood, it could be campus. In campuses, people learn a lot of things they see others do. And these things could be bad things. Some became gays and lesbians, occultists, armed robbers, and many more evil identities. And also we have peer groups, religious groups, and many other groups of people by which some people become what and who they are today. In fact, there are examples of groups that stand as societies in the context of this article that almost seem exhaustible to be listed. In any of the societies you find yourself, from your family to any other category, you acculturate or the society ingrains or inculcates into your life either of the two classes of conduct, good or bad. And afterwards, people describe you with the one you chose to make part and parcel of your life. Like here in my country, Nigeria, children that live in barracks, especially military barracks, are known by some common conducts or behaviors however their temperamental dispositions: Be it sanguine, melancholy, phlegmatic, or choleric. These common conducts they are known by are ingrained into their lives by the society they live in, the barracks. Whatever societal information we allow ourselves to be informed by is what is going to make us and our conducts. Have you ever heard some parents or some persons say "this or that is not a good place to raise children"? They are simply saying that the society has bad impact on children. Jesus told a parable. He said: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared. The owner’s servants came to him and said, ‘Sir, didn’t you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?’ ‘An enemy did this,’ he replied...." (Mathew 13:24-28 NIV). Though the above parable is talking about the Kingdom of God, in relation to the context of this article, it can be used to refer to the nature of the mind of a man newly born into the world as it's, like I said earlier, like a plain paper, every information written into it, produces what the person is today. The tares in this parable stand as the bad impacts of a society on a man's good conduct. If, for instance, a man cultivated and ingrained good conducts into their life, and later changes a society to a society that has a herd of unscrupulous elements that are steadily venting out bad conducts on that good conduct or the person with the good conduct, such a person, if they aren’t careful, they may be influenced by that social factors to incorporate the bad conducts into their good conducts; their conducts may be adulterated with the bad conducts. And that's why today a person that was known to be very good in conducts, when they change environment or society, they become very naughty in their conducts. And you will hear people saying "he or she was not known to be this bad." The tares are the bad impacts of societies on man. The impact, especially bad one, of a society is just like a smoke of fire, especially fire made with woods. When you perpetually make the fire on a particular side of the wall of a building, in no distant time the wall will begin to turn black.

2. SOCIETIES INFLUENCE OUR MINDSETS

Mindset is simply a mentality: A way of thinking; an attitude or opinion, especially a habitual one. Or In decision theory and general systems theory, it is defined as a set of assumptions, methods, or notions held by one or more people or groups of people. A mindset may be so firmly established that it creates a powerful incentive within people or groups of people to continue to adopt or accept prior behaviors, choices, or tools.

SUPERIORITY COMPLEX AND INFERIORITY COMPLEX

A superiority complex is a behavior suggesting that a person believes he/she somehow is superior to others. People with superiority complex often have exaggerated opinions of themselves. They may believe their abilities and achievements surpass those of others. They often have boastful attitudes to people around them. But these are only a way to cover up feelings of failure or shortcomings. An inferiority complex is an intense personal feeling of inadequacy, often resulting in the belief that one is in some way deficient or inferior to others. Either of these two beliefs or opinions is ingrained into one's mind or made into one's mentality by the kind of society one's grows or lives in. For instance, when someone has an inferiority complex in their mindset, it might be because they are being consistently compared unfavorably to others; being treated unfavorably by one's peers due to belonging to a different race, economic background, or gender. In consequence, this situation causes feelings of physical and mental limitations, or experiences of lower social status in a person. And today because of an inferiority complex, some people however how good and adept they are at doing something, they lack self-confidence; they hold onto the opinion they still can't do it better than the others they hold with high esteem. It could be people of different religion, age, race, tribe, class, etc. As a result, we see some countries only consume products of other countries even when they themselves can manufacture those same products. Or even when some capable individuals manufacture the products, the locals may refuse to patronize them because their mindset is wired to think that their fellow compatriots cannot manufacture standard products, only substandard, and such a situation prompted Jesus Christ to say “A prophet is not without honor except in his own town, among his relatives and in his own home.” (Mark 6:4 NIV). And because of superiority complex, others take themselves high above others as though God. No matter their shortcomings, no matter how dumb they are, they still feel they are better than others; they still hold others with contempt and underestimation. All these are caused by the societies we were brought up in. Today in some societies, once a man says to a lady that he loves her, even before they are married, the lady tends to put all her responsibilities on the man even while she is still under her parents. While in other societies this is otherwise. This is nothing but a mindset. The mindset with which others are parenting is not the same as others, the same thing with running a family as a husband or wife. Etc. In all these, societies play fundamental roles in creating our different mindsets.

3. SOCIETIES INFLUENCE OUR BELIEF SYSTEM

A belief system is an ideology or set of principles that helps us to interpret our everyday reality. This could be in the form of religion, political affiliation, philosophy, or spirituality, among many other things. These beliefs are shaped and influenced by a number of different factors. Our knowledge on a certain topic, the way we were raised, and even peer pressure from others can help to create and even change our belief systems. The convictions that come from these systems are a way for us to make sense of the world around us and to define our role within it. We have several religions in the world. These religions vary by, especially population, mode of worship or piety, belief in God or god. The population of a religion in a particular country differs from the population of the same religion in a different country. And even in a particular country that has more than one religion, maybe having one religion more prevalent than the others or other, or having both religions sharing the same number of population, competing in predominance, you will figure out that the population of the religion or religions differ in the local areas or regions of the country. The perfect example of this is Nigeria. In Nigeria, it's common to see Christianity more predominant than Islam in some States, while Islam predominant than Christianity in some other States. And these States where Christianity is predominant, you may find out that in some local government areas of the States, Islam is predominant than Christianity. While in these States where Islam is predominant, you may find out that in some of the local government areas of the States, Christianity is predominant than Islam. While in Nigeria as a country, the two major religions, Christianity and Islam, share almost equal number of population; it's absolutely impossible for one to say "Christianity is populated than Islam or Islam is populated than Christianity in Nigeria." Sometimes ago, I was fond of criticizing and condemning some Muslims, especially the extremists for their barbaric and cruel way of life with regard to how the extremists take pleasure in bloodbath, killing innocent people just for not believing in Islam as a religion. But my wife said something to my hearing that put a stop to my recurrent criticism of the Muslims. She said that "we should thank God that we were born in Christian homes or by Christian parents not Muslim homes or parents, otherwise we would have been as barbaric as they are; we would have been doing the same irritating and abhorrent acts they are doing thinking it's the right things to do." This is nothing but the truth. After all, no one chose before their conception, by which home or parents they would come to this world; we didn't choose to come to this world through Christian or Muslim parents or home, we only see ourselves in either of them, though we still retain the liberty to make a choice; to choose to either continue being a Muslim or Christian or to either convert to become a Christian or Muslim. This phenomenon is influenced by the society. In a society where Islam is predominant, of course, you know the parents are Muslims and as they give birth to children; the children become automatically Muslims. And also in a society where Christianity is predominant, the parents will be Christians and as they give birth to children, the children become automatically Christians. This is the same with any society having a certain predominant religion or as with regard to atheism. Morality is also a part of our belief system. Morality is a recognition of the distinction between good and evil or between right and wrong; respect for and obedience to the rules of right conduct; the mental disposition or characteristic of behaving in a manner intended to produce morally good results. Or is a set of social rules, customs, traditions, beliefs, or practices which specify proper, acceptable forms of conduct. Or is a set of personal guiding principles for conduct or a general notion of how to behave, whether or not respectable. There is discrepancy in what is morally acceptable or unacceptable, or morally good or morally wrong irrespective of the moral-objectivism of the act. And this is caused by the differences between our societies that impact our belief system. The acts you regard today as evil or morally wrong that were ingrained into your belief system by the society you were brought up in, religious, family, or any other society, people may consider it acceptable acts. In fact, killing innocent person who is from different religion is considered by others from certain religions as acceptable act; as a good act required by their god. The same with some habits like sexual immorality, smoking, drunkenness, etc.

4. SOCIETIES INFLUENCE OUR DESTINIES

Many may disagree with me because many believe that destiny is that to which any person or thing is destined; a predetermined state; a condition predestined by the Divine. And this implicitly means anything that happens to an individual, good or evil, is their destiny. I agree that is a condition predestined by the Divine (God) but I don't wholly agree that when evil happens to someone is still their destiny. Some believe that destiny is unchanged because it's believed to have been predestined by God, but I believe one still retains the power to alter their destiny. God says "For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future" (Jeremiah 29:11 NIV). This is God or Divine predetermined destiny for man. But do you think when you live in a thuggery-oriented society, where young people do drugs, smoke weed, cigarettes, get drunk, do prostitution, robbery, cultism and any other kind of vice, and you become one of them, participating in one or more of the vices, like robbery or cultism, or drug, and you later get killed, will be said that, that is your destiny predetermined by God? No. God’s destiny or plan for you is a good one but along the path, if you allow your society to negatively have impact on you, the God good plan for you may be altered. And therefore, we will say that your society influences your Destiny. Another example is, if your destiny is to become, one day, the President of your country and you are born and brought in a society that is devoid of the opportunity to acquire formal education which unchangeably stands as the credential demanded for being a President, and you do nothing to get formal education, will it be said that it's God's will that you do not become the president? No, but rather will be that it's you or your society that alters your destiny.

5. SOCIETIES INFLUENCE OUR WELL-BEING

A society that is very careless in keeping its environment clean will have a very adverse effect on the well-being of the people living in it. And as a result, when there is an outbreak of a disease like cholera, the people are most vulnerable to it. A society that is careless in its choice of food, it negatively influences the well-being of its people. And also that's why some countries have a higher number of people with some certain sicknesses, like cancer, than other countries.

CONCLUSION

Therefore, having read about some of the areas our societies have influences on, you now know that a society can either make you or mar you because 80-90% of who and what you are today are influenced by the society you live in; the kinds of society I discuss in the context of this article like family. When you live in a moral society, it will have a good influence in some areas of your life. When you live in a corrupt society, it will have a bad influence on some areas of your life, and especially that of your children. Accordingly, choose a better society. Read the full article

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dfroza · 3 years

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“The good news of the coming kingdom of God must be delivered first in every land and every language.”

A line from Today’s reading of the Scriptures that points to the True significance of translation and sharing the spiritual truth of rebirth in Light of the Son amidst a world of many differing religions and paths, yet leaving us only a single path that leads the heart “Home”

[Mark 13]

As Jesus left the temple later that day, one of the disciples noticed the grandeur of Herod’s temple.

Disciple: Teacher, I can’t believe the size of these stones! Look at these magnificent buildings!

Jesus: Look closely at these magnificent buildings. Someday there won’t be one of these great stones left on another. Everything will be thrown down.

They took a seat on the Mount of Olives, across the valley from the temple; and Peter, James, John, and Andrew asked Jesus to explain His statement to them privately.

Peter, James, John, and Andrew: Don’t keep us in the dark. When will the temple be destroyed? What sign will let us know that it’s about to happen?

Jesus: Take care that no one deceives you. Many will come claiming to be Mine, saying, “I am the One,” and they will fool lots of people. You will hear of wars, or that war is coming, but don’t lose heart. These things will have to happen, although it won’t mean the end yet. Tribe will rise up against tribe, nation against nation, and there will be earthquakes in place after place and famines. These are a prelude to “labor pains” that precede the temple’s fall.

Be careful, because you will be delivered to trial and beaten in the places of worship. Kings and governors will stand in judgment over you as you speak in My name. The good news of the coming kingdom of God must be delivered first in every land and every language. When people bring you up on charges and it is your time to defend yourself, don’t worry about what message you’ll deliver. Whatever comes to your mind, speak it, because the Holy Spirit will inspire it.

But it will get worse. Brothers will betray each other to death, and fathers will betray their children. Children will turn against their parents and cause them to be executed. Everyone will hate you because of your allegiance to Me. But if you’re faithful until the end, you will be rescued.

You will see that which desecrates our most holy place [described by Daniel the prophet] out of place.

Let the one who reads and hears understand.

Jesus: On the day you see it, whoever is in Judea should flee for the mountains. The person on the rooftop shouldn’t reenter the house to get anything, and the person working in the field shouldn’t turn back to grab his coat. It will be horrible for women who are pregnant or who are nursing their children when those days come. And pray that you don’t have to run for your lives in the winter. When those days come, there will be suffering like nobody has seen from the beginning of the world that God created until now, and it never will be like this again. And if the Lord didn’t shorten those days for the sake of the ones He has chosen, then nobody would survive them.

If anyone tells you in those days, “Look, there is the Anointed One!” or “Hey, that must be Him!” don’t believe them. False liberators and prophets will pop up like weeds, and they will work signs and perform miracles that would entice even God’s chosen people, if that were possible. So be alert, and remember how I have warned you.

As Isaiah said in the days after that great suffering,

The sun will refuse to shine

and the moon will hold back its light.

The stars in heaven will fall,

and the powers in the heavens will be shaken.

Then you will see (as Daniel predicted) “the Son of Man coming in the clouds,” clothed in power and majesty. And He will send out His heavenly messengers and gather together to Himself those He has chosen from the four corners of the world, from every direction and every land.

Jesus: Learn this lesson from the fig tree: When its branch is new and tender and begins to put forth leaves, you know that summer must be near. In the same way, when you see and hear the things I’ve described to you taking place, you’ll know the time is drawing near. It’s true—this generation will not pass away before all these things have happened. Heaven and earth may pass away, but these words of Mine will never pass away.

Take heed: no one knows the day or hour when the end is coming. The messengers in heaven don’t know, nor does the Son. Only the Father knows.

So be alert. Watch for it [and pray,] for you never know when that time might approach.

This situation is like a man who went on a journey; when he departed, he left his servants in charge of the house. Each of them had his own job to do; and the man left the porter to stand at the door, watching. So stay awake, because no one knows when the master of the house is coming back. It could be in the evening or at midnight or when the rooster crows or in the morning. Stay awake; be alert so that when he suddenly returns, the master won’t find you sleeping.

The teaching I am giving the four of you now is for everyone who will follow Me: stay awake, and keep your eyes open.

The Book of Mark, Chapter 13 (The Voice)

Today’s paired chapter of the Testaments is the 5th chapter of the book of Job that continues with Eliphaz addressing Job’s condition:

[Don’t Blame Fate When Things Go Wrong]

“Call for help, Job, if you think anyone will answer!

To which of the holy angels will you turn?

The hot temper of a fool eventually kills him,

the jealous anger of an idiot does her in.

I’ve seen it myself—seen fools putting down roots,

and then, suddenly, their houses are cursed.

Their children out in the cold, abused and exploited,

with no one to stick up for them.

Hungry people off the street plunder their harvests,

cleaning them out completely, taking thorns and all,

insatiable for everything they have.

Don’t blame fate when things go wrong—

trouble doesn’t come from nowhere.

It’s human! Mortals are born and bred for trouble,

as certainly as sparks fly upward.

[What a Blessing When God Corrects You!]

“If I were in your shoes, I’d go straight to God,

I’d throw myself on the mercy of God.

After all, he’s famous for great and unexpected acts;

there’s no end to his surprises.

He gives rain, for instance, across the wide earth,

sends water to irrigate the fields.

He raises up the down-and-out,

gives firm footing to those sinking in grief.

He aborts the schemes of conniving crooks,

so that none of their plots come to term.

He catches the know-it-alls in their conspiracies—

all that intricate intrigue swept out with the trash!

Suddenly they’re disoriented, plunged into darkness;

they can’t see to put one foot in front of the other.

But the downtrodden are saved by God,

saved from the murderous plots, saved from the iron fist.

And so the poor continue to hope,

while injustice is bound and gagged.

“So, what a blessing when God steps in and corrects you!

Mind you, don’t despise the discipline of Almighty God!

True, he wounds, but he also dresses the wound;

the same hand that hurts you, heals you.

From one disaster after another he delivers you;

no matter what the calamity, the evil can’t touch you—

“In famine, he’ll keep you from starving,

in war, from being gutted by the sword.

You’ll be protected from vicious gossip

and live fearless through any catastrophe.

You’ll shrug off disaster and famine,

and stroll fearlessly among wild animals.

You’ll be on good terms with rocks and mountains;

wild animals will become your good friends.

You’ll know that your place on earth is safe,

you’ll look over your goods and find nothing amiss.

You’ll see your children grow up,

your family lovely and graceful as orchard grass.

You’ll arrive at your grave ripe with many good years,

like sheaves of golden grain at harvest.

“Yes, this is the way things are—my word of honor!

Take it to heart and you won’t go wrong.”

The Book of Job, Chapter 5 (The Message)

my personal reading of the Scriptures for monday, April 12 of 2021 with a paired chapter from each Testament of the Bible, along with Today’s Psalms and Proverbs

A post by John Parsons about the significance of Israel:

After the Jewish people had suffered for nearly 2,000 years of exile as clearly foretold by Moses (see Lev. 26:38, 44; Deut. 28:64-64) and the other Hebrew prophets (Isa. 43:5-6; Jer. 30:11; Joel 3:2; Ezek. 36:8-10; Hos. 9:1-10, etc.), Israel was miraculously reborn as a nation in their ancient homeland on May 14, 1948 (Iyyar 5, 5708). Today Jews across the world celebrate Iyyar 5 as Israeli Independence Day (this year we observe it earlier to so it will not fall on the Sabbath).

Israel’s Independence Day is called Yom Ha'atzma'ut (יום העצמאות), the “day of independence.” In Hebrew, the word independence (atzma’ut) comes from atzmi - “my bones” (i.e., etzem: עֶצֶם), so the name itself alludes to God’s glorious promise to revive the “dry bones” (עֲצָמוֹת) of Israel by bringing the Jewish people back from their long exile during the End of Days (Ezek. 37:1-6). “Son of man, can these bones live?”

But why should Christians care about ethnic Israel? After all, many Christian denominations advocate some version of “Replacement Theology” and regard the promises God made to the Jewish people as belonging exclusively to their church... The existence of the modern State of Israel therefore evokes little thanks to God from these groups, and some of their ranks even regard Israel’s revived presence on the world stage as an embarrassment to their typically “liberal” theology. Hence we see the (remarkably bad) phenomena of so-called “Christian” church denominations that express anti-Israel sentiment, even asking their followers to divest investments in Israel on behalf of the “Palestinians,” etc.

The title "Christ" refers to the anointed King of Israel, the Mashiach (מָשִׁיחַ)... To say "Jesus Christ" is therefore to affirm that Yeshua is none other than the Messiah, the rightful King of Israel (מֶלֶךְ יִשְׂרָאֵל). Followers of Jesus, the One born "King of the Jews" (Matt. 2:2), should therefore care deeply about Israel because the existence of Jewish people - and of the nation of Israel in particular - demonstrates that the LORD (יהוה) is completely faithful to the covenant promises He made to our patriarchs (e.g., Gen. 15:9-21). Indeed, the Scriptures teach that the Name of God is forever designated as אלהי אברהם אלהי יצחק ואלהי יעקב - "the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob" (Exod. 3:15), just as it is also the “LORD God of Israel” (יְהוָה אֱלהֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל). The perpetuity of the Jewish people - despite so much satanic hatred over the millennia - is an awesome testimony of God’s loyal love (Jer. 31:35-37). עַם יִשְׂרָאֵל חַי / am Yisrael chai: "The people of Israel live!" Israel is a sign of the “sure mercies of David” (חַסְדֵי דָוִד הַנֶּאֱמָנִים) that are revealed in Yeshua, the Jewish Messiah (Isa. 55:1-6). Moreover, the New Covenant itself, as foretold by the prophet Jeremiah, explicitly promises the perpetuity of the Jewish people throughout the ages:

"Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD (יהוה), when I will make a new covenant (בְּרִית חֲדָשָׁה) with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the LORD. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will put my Torah (תּוֹרָה) within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, 'Know the LORD,' for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.

Thus says the LORD, who gives the sun for light by day and the fixed order of the moon and the stars for light by night, who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar: יהוה צבאות שׁמו - the LORD of hosts is his Name: “If this fixed order departs from before me, declares the LORD, then shall the offspring of Israel (זֶרַע יִשְׂרָאֵל) cease from being a nation before me forever.” Thus says the LORD: “If the heavens above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth below can be explored, then I will cast off all the offspring of Israel for all that they have done, declares the LORD." (Jer. 31:31-37).

According to this theologically critical passage, if you saw the sun shine today or the stars in the night sky, you can be assured that God’s promise to preserve the “offspring of Israel” -- (i.e., zera Yisrael: זֶרַע יִשְׂרָאֵל) -- is in effect. Indeed, in the world to come, heavenly Jerusalem will have the names of the twelve tribes of Israel engraved upon its gates (Rev. 21:12). Note well that this is the only occurrence in the entire Tanakh (i.e., “Old Testament”) that the New Covenant (בְּרִית חֲדָשָׁה) is explicitly mentioned... It is a foundational passage of Scripture for those who claim to be followers of the Jewish Messiah.

The spiritual blessings Christians enjoy come from the root of God's covenants with Israel... Yeshua our Savior was born the King of the Jews, and he plainly said הַיְשׁוּעָה מֵאֵת הַיְּהוּדִים הִיא- “salvation is from the Jews” (Matt. 2:2; 27:11; John 4:22). The Apostle Paul clearly warned those who think the church has "replaced" Israel: "Remember it is not you who support the root, but the root that supports you" (Rom. 11:18). This doctrine is so foundational that it may be rightly said that how you think about Israel will affect every other area of your theology. Indeed, the nation of Israel is God's "super sign" that He is faithful to His covenant promises (Jer. 31:35-37). Celebrating Israel's existence acknowledges God's loyal love for us all! For more on this subject, see the article, “Is Christianity Anti-Jewish?” on the H4C website [Hebrew for Christians]

4.12.21 • Facebook

Today’s message from the Institute for Creation Research

April 12, 2021

Bible Authority

“Every word of God is pure: he is a shield unto them that put their trust in him. Add thou not unto his words, lest he reprove thee, and thou be found a liar.” (Proverbs 30:5-6)

The Bible is unique among all books. Not only is it different in its form, structure, and history, but it takes the position of supernatural superiority to all other communication. It insists on total accuracy for its content and absolute obedience to its commands. No other book is so demanding. The whole of the Bible abounds with the teaching that it has “given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness” (2 Peter 1:3).

It is the word of God the Father. Jesus made it clear: “I have not spoken of myself; but the Father which sent me, he gave me a commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak. And I know that his commandment is life everlasting: whatsoever I speak therefore, even as the Father said unto me, so I speak” (John 12:49).

It was confirmed by the Holy Spirit. “For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost” (2 Peter 1:21).

It is the source of faith and salvation. “Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever” (1 Peter 1:23).

It is not to be changed. “Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish ought from it, that ye may keep the commandments of the LORD your God which I command you” (Deuteronomy 4:2).

It is the instrument by which “a young man [can] cleanse his way...by taking heed thereto according to thy word” (Psalm 119:9). It is to be reverenced and obeyed, “for thou hast magnified thy word above all thy name” (Psalm 138:2). “Yea, let God be true, but every man a liar” (Romans 3:4). HMM III

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therealmanishtana-blog · 7 years

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This Wednesday, the March for Racial Justice released a statement apologizing yet remaining steadfast about their decision to hold the event on September 30th this year, a date which happens to coincide with Yom Kippur. It was an eloquent, sensitive, and vulnerable apology. It is also one that should never have had to be written.

Did *you* know that September 30 is the anniversary of the Elaine Massacre of 1919 in Elaine, Arkansas, during which more than 200 Black men and women—many WWI veterans--were killed in cold blood by a mob of white citizens and law enforcement in what was the largest state-sanctioned massacre of black people in US history? Because *I* didn’t. And I’m *Black*. This isn’t like North Carolina Pride which was scheduled on Yom Kippur simply for the arbitrary reason of it always having being held on the last Saturday of September.

And if you are among those who weren’t aware of the significance of Sept 30 to a march specifically inspired by over-policing of Black and Brown minorities, then how is your lack of awareness so different from the lack of Jewish sensitivity that you’re caterwauling about that you should feel so self-righteously outraged?

Also, while we’re on the topic, kindly explain how the choice of Sept 30, without checking for Yom Kippur, for a Black and Brown justice march about anti-minority police violence, is an attack of Jewish liberals or the left “erasing” Jews? And no, don’t *now* pull the “but Jews of Color” card out of your back pocket.

Because we’re convenient talking points for you or as political weapons to expose the failings of intersectionality, but you don’t much want to hear from us when we’re actually in the room. *Don’t* pull out the “Jews of Color” card, because us Black and Brown Jews get stripped of our Jewishness in social movements, and “Jewish involvement” only begins once white Jews arrive. If you’ve ever talked about “Jewish involvement” in BLM, as if one of the very *founders* of BLM wasn’t Jewish herself (ie, Alicia Garza), then have several seats. *Don’t* pull out the “Jews of Color” card, because we’re also part of Black and Brown communities, and active in them, and we’re perfectly capable of talking to and coming for our own. We don’t need you cloaking your upset at having your hurt white feelings denied centering in Black and Brown-led decisions and activism as you “talking for” us. And if you’re so beholden to the idea of white policing of Black/Brown activism, of not allowing Black/Brown decisions to stand without white protest, then don’t “wonder why” the Jewish/Af-Am alliance of the Civil Rights Movement fell apart. Because you’re just repeating the same mistakes.

(And before somebody gets into *that*: Do. Not. Talk. To. Me. About. Jews. During. Civil. Rights. If your most significant proof of social engagement and moral uprightness is an event from *three* generations ago, then that is a problem, and you need to figure out why, just as much as Republicans having to reach 150 years back to claim Lincoln to prove support for minority rights).

So here’s the ugly truth: The [white] Jewish community has not only failed to lead the modern movement for racial justice, it also has not been at its forefront. It has been lethargic to the table at all the formative moments. And this is how things like this happen. There is no strong “pro-Israel” in, say, BLM, because by the time pro-Israel Jews decided to stick their toes in the water, pro-Palestinian and anti-Occupation groups were already in the pool because they answered the call when it was given. There aren’t many Jewishly observant-minded events or gatherings because observant Jews largely don’t come to the table. If you want sensitivity and inclusion and intersectionality, you kinda have to show up *before* the dust clears and do the work of building the table and your seat at it. Jews are not *owed* a seat at any table just by dint of resting on wilted 60-year old laurels of romanticized involvement in the Civil Rights Movement.

And yes, “romanticized”.

The Civil Rights Movement was a predominantly Black one, and its heavy lifting was done by ordinary Black folk. Yes, [white] Jews had a disproportionate amount of involvement, but only in relation to *white* populations, not Black ones. And that involvement speaks nothing to the apathy of Southern Jewry as a whole, or to the reluctance and even opposition of American Jewry on average. The demand for [white] Jews to see themselves depicted in every aspect of the CRM, all the time, is also what partially led to the alliance’s disintegration and its tepid state today. Case in point, the outrage at Heschel's lack of inclusion in Duvernay’s “Selma”. Yet no such uproar from those same folks committed to historical fidelity when the far more pivotal Fredrick Douglass was omitted from Spielberg’s “Lincoln” two years earlier.

But back to today, you can’t sit on the sidelines and offer minimal or implied support, but then get in a tizzy when scheduling leaves you out. This march began its planning on June 16. No Jewish groups thought to come to the table until the date was announced *last week*? C’mon now. And then, when given the rationale for the date, you patronizingly acknowledge its significance to Black history, then summarily dismiss it as not mattering because *you* have to be in shul? Also, by whose terms must Black/Brown-led activism conform to religious practice? Especially when it comes to Jewish practice?

After all, there are Jewish organizations that *specifically* plan actions, marches, and protests on Jewish holidays for the added gravitas. Furthermore, Judaism is the only religion which contains any kind of denomination or observance that restricts travel, carrying, etc. Why would the organizers think that Jews *wouldn’t* be able to just…walk? Even myself, as an observant, Orthodox Jew, there is nothing inherently keeping me from participating in the march during the break between Musaf/Mincah and Neilah except perhaps lack of blood sugar.

Is there anti-Semitism on the left? Yep. Is there an erasure of Jews in general? For sure.

But this march is not an example of either. If we want to be represented, we need to show up. And not after the fact.

And now, after all this righteous indignation and outrage, there had better be an outpouring of Jewish attendance on October 1st—from individual Facebook Jews all the way up to the Mayim Bialiks of the world—to justify all of this belly-aching.

Otherwise this was just all sound and fury to justify something that was never a priority in the first place.

(And, as always, feel free to share.)

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klinejack · 7 years

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clarz

replied to your post

“hi divvy! i know you are MAD right now, so don't answer this until you...”

thanks so much for answering this! tbh i love the fact that you're religious and that you clearly love it so much. i went to a very catholic college, so that kind of thoughtful and deep connection with religion and tradition is important to me, and i love seeing it in other people. it's an important part of who you are! and part of the reason i asked is because you mentioned disliking the performance thing in your initial post, and i really connect with that. when i was growing up, the church i went to was pretty plain and traditional (despite very liberal politics and interpretations of scripture.) most of the other people i knew who went to church were evangelical and/or southern baptist, and i always disliked that their churches had like, full rock bands at services, and poppy contemporary melodies to "hymns." i understand that they're trying to make church fun, but it always made me suspicious and felt disingenuous. i don't think religious services should be a chore, certainly, but i also don't think that they should be "fun" in that way. that's not the purpose of religion. i don't think religion should become more like entertainment or performance, because it's supposed to be a space that's completely different from the rest of the world. it makes it feel less holy to me. so i definitely relate to how you feel there. also, how did you end up feeling about the service in the moment? (and i'd love to hear about the ma'apilim sometime)

SORRY I DIDN’T ANSWER THESE BEFORE CUZ I REALLY WANTED TO BUT PROCRASTINATION IS MY MIDDLE NAME (jk it’s tzviya but try saying that ten times fast. or just one time. slow.)

HERE WE GO:

1- i love finding other people who feel close to their religion, no matter what it is. i remember in teacher’s college i just naturally gravitated to the only catholic girls in my classes i guess simply because i enjoyed talking to them? we weren’t there learning to teach religion, but i’m always fascinated by what other people feel about it. i’ve found myself thinking on more than one occasion that i feel more comfortable with people who have that side to themselves, like me, rather than people who don’t interact/think about/believe in any of that kinda stuff. (im being purposefully vague because it’s a huge generalization, but nonetheless true-ish for me, i often find myself sharing much more common ground with palestinian muslims, for example, than a french canadian montrealer). i guess especially because religion is not something i consider a defining trait of mine, and im just in constant evolution with respect to that. judaism is so much more than just a belief in god or a practice of the rituals and commandments.

2- how fascinating to find someone in my age bracket who feels the same way about music in prayer. my problem has always been that i LOVE music, and its so personal and emotional that i DO see it fitting seamlessly with prayer but... it’s the setting that has always bothered me. it just never felt right for me in a synagogue. like you said, it’s just a different space. i don’t know about church and ‘making it fun’ but i definitely can imagine plenty of religions use music to draw in otherwise disinterested people who find prayer “boring” or pointless. music is awesome! i just wish people could feel the music in their soul as a separate entity from external music, like from an instrument. idk i guess i just really love singing XD and i wish it wasn’t always a performance or a competition of voices, because i think prayer should be personal. even if it’s between a community, its still voices connecting to each other. i’m reminded of Hannah’s prayer, in the book of Samuel (the prophet- his mother), she’s at the temple on one of the annual pilgrimages with her family and she’s depressed because she doesn’t have any children and her husband’s other wife just keeps popping out babies left and right. so she goes to be alone somewhere in the temple, and she’s weeping and praying to god for a child. Eli, the high priest, comes in and sees her shaking and moving her lips real fast so he goes, “hey, you shouldn’t be drinking in here” and she’s like “im not drunk, i’m praying”. so that’s the first place we read about a person actually praying, and not out loud. this was like a huge revelation to the priest cuz clearly he’d never seen that before, and now the tradition has become to pray like hannah. (as an aside, if u ever see the propaganda videos made by the nazis, they use footage of synagogues to show how loony tunes those jews are with their muttering and their rocking back and forth). cuz like, prayer is supposed to be out loud? ahaha anyway i forgot where i was going with this but... oh ya, okay, so prayer didn’t really exist (as we know it, in judaism- and therefore christianity/islam/western monotheism) until that point- it was all about the sacrifices. and the temple ritual was replete with music and instruments like the shofar, timbrels, lutes, blabla other ancient instruments. but since then, we’ve been meant to use our voices alone. so says tradition, i guess.

3- so i did go to services on yom kippur (kol nidre) but not at my shul. i went with my sister to the chabad house near my parents, and it was....not great. but it was compounded by a lot of factors- i got a wicked cold the day or two before, so my nose was running a marathon and i was coughing like a 90yr old with emphysema. i got my period that morning so i was on an extra steep emotional rollercoaster that i just somehow could barely control. so we sat on the other side of the mechitzah (the separation barrier between men and women), the rabbi/cantor stood at the head in the middle so we could all see, and we all prayed out loud, no hush on the women’s side or anything (pretty typical from what i remember of camp/school prayer services). but of course the tunes were not quite what i’m used to, and there was a bit of annoying stuff that just irks me as a perfectionist (like they use a lot of yiddish pronunciation of the hebrew words, injecting a bunch of oy oy oys and ahoyhoyhoys in random places, in fact i leaned over to my sister at one point and was like ‘did ned flanders write this nigun (tune)?’), but altogether i guess it was better than watching an orchestra perform the prayer? idk it was pretty bad, on an emotional level, but not in hindsight. im very good at ruining things for myself through sheer stubbornness. i must have embarrassed my sister just by existing next to her, poor girl, she really wanted me to like it. i’m glad it’s over, and hopefully by next year ill be back in nyc or some other city so i wont have to worry about it.

4- MA’APILIM!!!!! okay so this was my absolute favoritest thing as a kid and i can’t wait to describe it to you. one night in camp, every summer, the counselors and cits would wake us up at like 3am by barging into our cabins chanting (screaming, really) “MA’APILIM, MA’APILIM BEH-MASSAD, BEH-MASSAD. MATCHIL HALAYLA MATCHIL HALAYLA BEH-MASSAD, BEH-MASSAD.” which translates to : “ma’apilim at massad (the name of my camp) starts tonight.” i’m singing it in my head as i type XD. so they’d be screaming and we’d be tumbling bleary eyed out of bed to grab our socks and sweatshirts and run over to the flagpole (keep in mind i was 8 when i first experienced this, and we’ve had kids as young as 6 at camp). once we had all gathered in line with our bunkmates, the counselors and cits put on a little “skit”.

basically they acted like they were nazis and jews, and did a little skit of some basic bad holocaust stuff (don’t ask me to remember the exact details we’re talkin at least 20 years since i last did this) to scare the pants off of us. kids would always cry already at this point from the shouting. we’d all kinda follow into this “play” (sorry idk what else to call it), and marched over to the gym where we watched a fake hanging on the stage. they literally. hanged someone. in front of us. a fake noose, of course, duh, i remember my counselor showing it to me, but traumatizing to say the least (i still remember the name of the counselor they “hanged”- not sure this ever happened more than once but ill never forget it).

then we’d all hustle down to the waterfront, again “playing” the role of holocaust victims/survivors after these little “skits” had sort of put us in the headspace, and we play along, imagining we’d just experienced these things and were now running from it. it was terrifying and exhilarating as a small child, and an even more unbelievably emotional thrill ride as i got older and became pseudo-obsessed with holocaust lit and facts in general in my life (it never did go away but everything changes with age). ANYWAYS so down at the waterfront we got a speech from another counselor playing a member of the haganah (the main jewish defense force in palestine leading up to independence, which ben gurion later turned into the IDF). sidebar for a little history: in the 40s the yishuv (jewish agency) and the haganah began a mission called aliyah bet, “the second immigration,” an illegal smuggling operation to bring refugees from the holocaust into palestine under the noses of the british, since almost all countries in the world had barred their doors to jewish immigration from europe (a high level member of the canadian government is famously recorded as having answered, when asked how many jews they should let in, that “none is too many”). volunteer seamen from the US and canada and other countries crossed the ocean on cargo ships hastily refurbished to fit hundreds of people, picking up thousands of refugees in europe to smuggle them onto the beaches of haifa and tel aviv. paul newman has a lovely half nekid scene of this in the movie Exodus when he jumps off the ship in the middle of the night and swims up onto the beach- one of my fave movies ever and pretty much the story of aliyah bet (albeit with tremendous hollywood embellishment and only mild accuracy). these refugees who became illegal immigrants (caught or not) were known as “ma’apilim”- the root of the word is to “climb” or to “rise up”, and is found in the bible referring to the israelites who were still eager to enter the land even after the negative report of the spies.

okay so basically this was the idea. we were “playing” these illegal immigrants who had just escaped the holocaust, and were now facing another threat in the form of the british who were doing their best to keep them out of palestine. k so we’re down at the waterfront. all the kids get divided into small groups of about 10 or so, with one or two counselors at the helm to be our “haganah operatives” and guides to the end. what end, you say? so the camp is spread out into 2 areas, the main camp where the younger kids cabins were, and the dining hall and the gym and the waterfront, etc. then there’s a road in the middle of the camp, and beyond it a hill leading up to the senior cabins and some sports fields at the top. the goal was for each group to make it through camp to the top of the hill without getting caught by the “british,” played by the cits who were roaming around camp.

idk if i have to describe camp further for people who don’t know the concept, but basically we’re all in the middle of the damn woods with nothing around us for miles except the lake and the camps on the other side of it or down the road. ill never forget my first ma’apilim (tbh most of my description is from then, which is why its so fuzzy cuz these memories are 20+ years old), i was so lucky to get the tripper as our group leader (the tripper is the “nature dude” in camp, the survivalist ;). he immediately led us underneath the gym (which of course was just insane to my small mind... UNDER the gym??) to plan our route and give us instructions. we organized a roll call and signals, we practiced walking in a single file line silently and dropping to the ground on his signal. we smeared dirt on our faces for camo in the woods. it was *mason voice* intense. k so then as you can guess, we snuck our way up the hill through the woods. sometimes we’d encounter other groups, once in awhile i remember getting caught by a cit, and they’d take all or some of us to the “jail” on the basketball court” where we’d have to wait for a jailbreak (idk how that worked but it did, i remember it happening but not in any detail). a famous prison break that DID happen was at acre prison in 1947 when the irgun (another paramilitary jewish group) blew up the prison and broke out 28 of their members and 214 arab prisoners. if im not mistaken they briefly refer to it in exodus by recreating a prison break. exciting times. ANYWAYS fuck im such a tangential bitch sorry XD, by the end of the night we’d all make it to the top- “jerusalem”- and we’d have hot chocolate and say morning prayers as the sun rose over the hill.

i feel like my description is a little lacking, but hopefully u get the basic picture. ma’apilim wasn;t even the heaviest part of camp- that was tisha b’av- the fast day when we commemorate the destruction of the temple and every other traumatic destructive event the jewish people have gone thru. that night they’d prepare the camp with candles in sand filled paper bags lining all the paths. after dinner we’d walk with our bunks on the path and watch little skits in different parts of camp- scenes from these moments in jewish history, like the holocaust, pogroms in europe, the spanish inquisition, terror attacks in israel, etc. after walking the path we’d all convene back at the waterfront, where they’d set out a small reconstructed “temple” on a makeshift raft in the lake, and a banner on the beach that said “yizkor”- remember. then they’d light both on fire and we’d sit and watch them burn while singing appropriately somber songs like eli eli, by hannah senesz. after that we’d go back to the gym and lie on the floor in small groups huddled around candles. we’d listen as some people chanted the book of eicha (lamentations), and would slowly fall asleep (depending on our age, of course). anyone that was still up after that was over got to stay in the gym if they wanted to watch exodus- a 4 hour movie. the next day we’d fast all day (only those who wanted- 13 y/o +) and treated it basically like shabbat- no regular activities.

MAN did i get some wild shit imprinted on me from camp!! but i don’t regret one second. i only wish other people could have the experience i did, but i dont even know if they still do that there. they probably do, but this old lady has no excuses to step foot in a summer camp anymore :(

as a completely coincidental aside and not at all as a self promo, idk if u knew this but i’ve been working on a documentary for over a year now and this whole thing is a major part of the plot. i interviewed a lady who was a passenger on the exodus, and about 4 or 5 people who were volunteers from montreal/new york/new jersey/toronto that picked up and smuggled the refugees. the stories are incredible. i just hope the rest of the world will get to hear it from their mouths one day. all we need is 100k to finish the film XD

#clarz #OMG I FORGOT TO POST THIS #i thought i would add to it but this is a fucking essay so ima leave it at that #PLEASE ASK ME MORE QUESTIONS IF U WANT #ANYBODY #i love talking about this shit and i have nobody to do it with :))))#personal #jewish stuff #judaism #holocaust mention #death mention cw #hanging mention cw #nazi mention cw

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stretchjournalemerson · 5 years

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Everything is Politics: The Role of the Essay and the Democratization of Media

By Eitan Miller and Kathleen Grillo Hilton Als, author of The Best American Essays, opens up a conversation about stories from magazines, journals, and websites. In his introduction he says, “But the essays of the future start with questions, generally political in nature, and if you don’t think so, think again” (Als xxviii). The term “political” is a broad one. While obviously some essays discuss overtly political issues, we believe that Als is describing a greater phenomenon. “Politics” shape a person’s life and the questions they ask. Als writes that essays are “generally political,” but beyond that, all essays have some basis in politics.

Apart from the simple partisanship of left vs. right, politics is the basis for life in any society. The way that society is governed and its freedoms or restrictions create individuals’ identity and shape their being. The political background of a given country shapes the writing an individual can create. In her essay From Silence to Words, Min-Zhan Lu describes her complex relationship with writing, language, and identity given her experiences in communist China and learning English. Lu directly analyzes how the politics of her country shaped her writing and thinking. She uses language, a key factor in anyone’s life, to exemplify the split world she lived in. The politics of the world she grew up in directly affected her everyday life as a child and what she wrote as an adult. This revelation affects all of us, not just those who grew up in communist China. American “democracy” shapes our lives in more ways than we could possibly know and creates the foundation on which our writing stands.

Hilton Als’s essay was possible solely because of the politics surrounding his life. As Als grew, he utilized experiences from his childhood when writing books that started a conversation about societal issues such as gender, race, sexuality, and identity. This essentially made his books contact zones where he brought issues to light in order to educate and inform those unaware of their position within those issues. As Pratt defines it, a contact zone is a “social space[ ] where cultures meet, clash, and grapple” (Pratt 34). The politics of Als’ life, defined as the way his mind was formed by the governmental structures and influences he grew up with, shaped what he wrote. As with Lu, who talked about language, a large part of what she thought about language came from the politics of her country. Als was born into a country that shunned him for his race, his sexuality, and his size. And so, the essays Als wrote focused on these issues. All writers, whether they write academically or personally, touch on subjects that matter to them and that they have encountered at some point in their life. Where they grow up, who they grow up with, and what ideals they grow up with shape what writers want to speak about. Famous essayist Joan Didion is known for her narrative memoir-style essays and novels. She wrote about various topics that impacted her life, as all authors do. Her life, as described in Goodbye to All That, includes moving halfway across the world by herself to becoming one of the top journalists in her field. This is undoubtedly linked to the politics of her society. Although implicitly, Didion wrote about feminism as Lu wrote about language and Als wrote about racism. They grew up in different circumstances, different times and places, and this is reflected in their essays. The politics of their life, whatever they may look like, continued to influence their work well into adulthood.

Like the other authors, Noam Chomsky was greatly influenced by the politics of his life. In a biography, Christian Garland describes Chomsky: “Chomsky continues to be an unapologetic critic of both American foreign policy and its ambitions for geopolitical hegemony and the neoliberal turn of global capitalism, which he identifies in terms of class warfare waged from above against the needs and interests of the great majority” (Garland). However, Chomsky’s primary work is as a linguist. Furthermore, his essay Prospects for Survival describes the limited chance that the human race will survive for an extended period of time. On the surface, this is a scientific and logical argument given the history of other species, but Chomsky describes the role of politics in the imminent destruction of the human race. He writes about nuclear war and climate change, both political issues, as shaping the human experience or eventually lack thereof. His experiences, as shaped by US politics and the political linguistic dominance of the English language, shaped his ideas, prompting his various essays.

Clearly, essays, while diverse in content, all ask questions and are based in politics. But, there are many ways that discussion can be staged. A relatively recent development is the “video essay,” a form where the creator can present an amalgamation of pictures and videos with a narrated analysis that is generally targeted towards a YouTube audience. This medium is particularly effective when discussing visual matters such as TV and movies because the viewer can witness the pertinent content. In the TED Talk below, a YouTuber who goes by the alias of “Nerdwriter” describes how video essays impacted the genre of the modern essay. Watch specifically from 5:05 to 7:26, though the entire talk is fascinating.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ald6Lc5TSk8

Evan Puschak (Nerdwriter) touches on the fact that video essays, in addition to being a convenient method of intertwining various types of media, are far more democratic than “traditional” forms of the essay. Platforms like YouTube allow users to reward and share good content, making information and analysis accessible to all people with Internet access. This democratization of the essay in its various forms is an important development, arguably the most important development of the modern essay. Even other forms of digitally shared essays share this democratization, taking power away from a “moderator” and putting it in the hands of the people. Accessibility is key to any successful essay because essays are meant to be read.

In his book The Best American Essays, Als writes, “Of course [the essays will] be made up of many things including questions, images, and gestures” (Als xxviii). The essay itself is hard to define. From the point of view of a high schooler taking AP courses, the essay consists of five straightforward paragraphs. However, the essay has many different forms. Academic essays written by the authors of this piece include How the Korean Wave Is Crashing Over America by Kathleen Grillo to Alternative Oppression: A Look at the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict by Eitan Miller. These works look at a variety of social and political issues such as race and religion through the lens of media, and are very clearly “political.” On the other hand, essays like those styled after the works of Joan Didion and the authors of this piece have a more narrative style. It may appear that these “essays” are contrary to the definition provided by Als. Didion, as well as our essays styled after her, is not outrightly political. However, they both still find a basis in politics. Didion’s works bring in issues of feminism and the effects a particular geographic location has on a person. Issues of equality and how society is constructed are based in the politics behind the author's life. Would Didion’s essays be the same if she grew up in a communist country? The essays we wrote in her style, though independent, both describe the transition from high school to college. For each of us, we find ourselves thriving in college more than high school. And although not directly stated in either essay, it asks the questions: Why are colleges, especially high tuition institutions, better for individual growth than high school? What is the effect of education on a person’s life? How do money and the government play into the education a person receives?

Clearly, politics shape society, society shapes the self, and the self expresses ideas through writing. Logically, essays have to be based in politics. Authors are raised with implicit biases that come from the people that surround them, including the politics of the world they grow up in. And when authors write, they carry those biases within their writing. Even if they’re not choosing a side overtly, what they choose to write about is a bias in itself. Als used the stereotypes and prejudices he faced growing up in his writing. Lu struggled with a family life and country that was split, and reflected her struggles through language. Didion discussed the challenges she met as a woman moving from home and back. All authors were born into a certain political circumstance. And, while politics is most commonly viewed in direct relation to the government of a country, the power of politics is so broad that it seeps into everything. Even our most basic thoughts are founded with a certain political ideology. Because of this, it is impossible to say that essays are not based in politics. So what is written, no matter who writes it, when they write it, or where they write it, all comes down to politics.

Works Cited

Als, Hilton. The Best American Essays 2018. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2018.

Brockes, Emma. “Hilton Als: 'I Had This Terrible Need to Confess, and I Still Do It. It's a Bid to Be Loved'.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 2 Feb. 2018,

Chomsky, Noam. “Prospects for Survival.” The Massachusetts Review, 2017, pp. 621-634. www.massreview.org/sites/default/files/06_58.4Chomsky.pdf.

Didion, Joan. Slouching towards Bethlehem: Essays. Picador Modern Classics, 2017.

Garland, Christian. “Noam Chomsky.” The Decline of the Democratic Ideal, chomsky.info/2009____-2/.

Grillo, Kathleen. How the Korean Wave Is Crashing Over America, Intro to College Writing WR-101-13, Emerson College, 21 Nov. 2018.

Lu, Min-Zhan. "From Silence to Words: Writing as Struggle." 1987. College English 49(4): 437-448.

Miller, Eitan. Alternative Oppression: A Look at the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict, Intro to CollegeWriting WR-101-13, Emerson College, 21 Nov. 2018.

Pratt, Mary Louise. “Arts of the Contact Zone.” Profession 1991. New York: Modern Language Association P, 1991: 33-40.

Puschak, Evan. “How YouTube Changed the Essay.” TEDxTalks, uploaded 9 Jun. 2016, www.youtube.com/watch?v=ald6Lc5TSk8.

#politics #art #multimedia #language #essay #eitan miller #kathleen grillo #stretch2019

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neras-kirneh-blog · 7 years

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Israel and Zionism, pt. 2

@angrybell Okay, I’m continuing the discussion here.

It’s a label that applies to a region. It does not denote a nationality. It does not denote an ethnicity. It does not denote a race. Its simply a label applied to a region of land by some people.

Doesn’t excuse the Nakba.

I. The term “Palestine” has never applied to any independent state, kingdom, or other national entity in the region.

Doesn’t excuse the Nakba. Palestine would have become a state after the end of the British Mandate if not for the Zionists - just like Jordan, Egypt, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon all became states right after the British and the French left.

As far as what it was called by the various factions which have controlled the territory in question, that’s pretty well established. The place called Palestine is Israel.

No, it was always called Palestine prior to the Nakba.

II. There Is No Historic Boundaries For An Entity Known as “Palestine”.

Yes, there are: Mandatory Palestine; borders were the Mediterranean to the west and the Jordan River to the east, and the Galilee in the north and Eilat in the south. Those are the borders.

Funny how none of these maps match what the PLO/Fatah, Hamas, or any of the other groups seeking to destroy Israel and establish a “Palestine” claim.

Because none of them are relevant today. The only map that has been relevant since 1948 is that of Mandatory Palestine, because that is the area that has been hit by Zionist settler-colonialism and ethnic cleansing of its indigenous population for nearly 70 years.

In fact, 75% of the area painted green in the map was actually public land, unowned by any individual.

That does not change the fact that prior to 1948, Palestinians still lived on that land. That area had a majority-Palestinian population back then; but now the area has been ethnically cleansed of most of them by Israel. Because they are not Jewish. It is not possible to have a “Jewish state” in a place where most people are not Jewish, after all. All of the prominent Zionists, including Theodor Herzl, understood this very well.

III. The Only Historic Palestinians In What Is Now Israel Have Been Jews and Not Arabs.

Wrong: they have been Jews and Muslims and Christians - but they were nearly all Arabs; specifically, Palestinians. (There was, however, also a minority of Ladino-speaking Sephardic Jews and Ashkenazi Hasidic Jews prior to the onset of Zionism, of course.)

“Arab” denotes the language you speak, “Jew” denotes the religion you practice. That these two identities are somehow mutually exclusive is a ridiculous Zionist fabrication, nothing more. I have already explained that Jews who historically lived in Arab countries and spoke Arabic were objectively Arabs themselves.

The people who claim to be “Palestinians” claim that they have an ancient claim to the land. In some cases, they claim to trace their ancestry back to the Canaanites. The reality is much different.

For example, Saeb Erekat has claimed that he is descended of Canaanites. However, his family is from the Howeitat region (an area shared by Jordan and Saudi Arabia). His family on emigrated, at the earliest, in the 7th Century CE when the Arabs overran the Byzantine controlled region.

Wow! The 7th century, you say? So they have at least 1,200-1,300 years on most of the Israelis, in other words...

Also, it doesn’t excuse the Nakba.

However, who was there before? That would be the Jews and other non Muslim, non Arab communities that survived in the region.

All of whom were also Palestinians. Their descendants today are mostly Palestinians.

Arabs in the region, prior to the 1960s, typically identified themselves as Syrians. It was only when the PLO and other terrorist groups began creating the idea of an Arab “Palestinian” as part of their effort to destroy Israel.

The difference is that Arabs living in what we know today as Syria had not been ethnically cleansed by the Zionists, but Arabs living in what we know today as Israel had.

Starting in 1948, there has been a determined effort erase the existence of Jews in the land in favor of a myth of an Arab-only land of “Palestine”.

That has never been the goal of the Palestinian resistance. They have made it very clear, abundantly clear, that their struggle is only against the State of Israel and its political ideology of Zionism - not against Jewish people, and certainly not against the Jewish religion. Period.

Starting in 1948, the Jordanians especially began destroying ancient Jewish synagogues. Graveyards, most significantly the Jewish graveyard at the Mount of Olives, were destroyed and Jewish headstones were used for building projects. Much of the cemetery on the Mount of Olives was cleared to build a new hotel by the Jordanians. Jews were forcibly expelled by the Arab Legion from their homes and businesses in Jerusalem.

Glass houses, angrybell:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Arab_towns_and_villages_depopulated_during_the_1948_Palestinian_exodus

It was not only the Jews who suffered under Arab rule in the post-1948 era. Determined to completely Islamicize Judea and Samaria, Jordan placed restrictions on land ownership and enforced school curriculum that would indoctrinate minorities into the Islamic faith.

And now, Israel is repressing the religious freedoms of Muslim and Christian Palestinians, both in the West Bank and inside the Green Line. They even banned the Muslim call to prayer from three Jerusalem mosques recently!

Between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese there are no differences.

Yes, there are.

There is no other answer I can possibly give to a statement that rhetorical and devoid of anything backing it up. But, hey! Kudos to you for writing “Palestinians” without quotation marks for once! :)

An Arab “Palestinian” people furthermore lack any of the attributes usually ascribed to a national group. They have no distinct culture from other Arab groups other than their resistance to Israel.

Linguistically, they were and are Syrian in their dialect of Arabic.

There are no spiritual ties to the land, other than those which were fabricated once Jews in the region began to prosper. There is no distinct, common ancestry with the region.

Wrong, wrong and wrong again. They do have distinct customs, a distinct accent of Arabic, a distinct history, etc. Susan Abulhawa talked about this in her debate with Alan Dershowitz seven years back.

Conversely, the Jews do meet the criteria as “Palestinian” if they chose to use that title.

No, they do not. Most of them had no presence on that land prior to the 1940s. No familial history, no provable ancestral history, nothing. They came there through immigration, period.

They have a spiritual connection to the land as evidenced by the Torah and independently confirmed by contemporary third party sources.

Muslims and Christians also have a spiritual connection to the land. Not that it matters, because God is not a real estate agent. (You still haven’t responded to me pointing out the fact that Theodor Herzl, Ze’ev Jabotinsky, David Ben-Gurion etc. all were atheists, by the way.)

They occupied and continued to occupy the land in the face of ethnic cleansing, repression, and conquest.

No, now you are describing the Palestinians, not the Israelis.

The Jews had and have a distinct culture and language, different from the general Arab culture.

Okay, now this is just straight-up fucking bullshit. A distinct culture and language? Not even in Israel do all Jews have the exact same culture and language!

Jews originate from many countries, including but not limited to: Russia, Poland, Ukraine, Germany, Lithuania, Iraq, Morocco, Algeria, Yemen, Syria, Palestine, Iran and Ethiopia; and they historically spoke many different languages, including but not limited to: Yiddish, Ladino, Judeo-Arabic, Judeo-Tat, Bukhori, Russian, Polish, German, French, Spanish, Farsi and Amharic.

Not only that, but they wildly vary in terms of race, physical appearance, clothing style, culture, cuisine, values, etc. Jews are not a cohesive ethnic or national group, like Zionism likes to pretend they are.

You called me a racist.

Because that’s what you are.

Now, you make the claim that Arabs are simply a conglomeration of people who were previously conquered by the Arabs.

Not exclusively, perhaps; but yeah, pretty much.

Now, I am not going to deny that intermarriage or conversions happened.

Good! Then you are one step closer to realizing how things actually are.

However, your statement is false because the Arabs made sure that those other groups, like the Jews, were governed by a separate set of law that rendered them inferior in the eyes of the Muslim state.

And?! That doesn’t change anything about what they were! Why do you keep on fucking insisting that Jews should define themselves based on how antisemites view them?!

Zionists have a lot more in common with antisemites than you’d like to admit...

As I noted above, it ignores that most clans which make up the “Palestinians” do not originate from the region. Many originate from Arabia. Simply because they intermarried does not mean that everyone becomes an Arab.

No, they do originate from the region, and yes, people who the Arabs conquered and intermarried with did become Arabs. Again: being an Arab only means that you are someone who speaks Arabic, and the language you speak does not determine your ethnic background or ancestral origin. Do you get me now?

You can be Muslim, Christian or Jewish and still be an Arab, and not every Arab originates exclusively from the Arabian Peninsula.

Your attempt to make a false equivalence using American Indians as an example fails. Native Americans have a their own language which they use for their purposes, but they also speak the lingua fraca which in this case means English. This does not mean that they lose their ethnic identity.

Right - and the fact that Palestinians speak Arabic doesn’t mean that they lose their ethnic identity!

And white people have made a concerted effort to kill Native American languages, so many of them now do speak English as their first language.

Just like the fact that the Jews spoke Arabic, among other languages, does not mean that they lost their Jewishness either in their own eyes or in the eyes of the Muslim overlords.

Someone who speaks Arabic is an Arab.

Consider this, and I know you wont because it contradicts your secular religious beliefs, Gaza could be a prosperous region today.

What are “secular religious beliefs”?

And no, Gaza could never be a prosperous region. Israel wants it to be an impoverished ghetto, and so it is.

Hamas decided it would prioritize the destruction of Israel over the building of a prosperous state. Why? Because if people are prosperous, they don’t like to die in war. They have too much to live for.

Hamas decided that it would fight for the rights of the Palestinian people. Most Palestinians in Gaza are not from Gaza; they are refugees from the southern parts of Israel. Israel is one giant refugee camp, as well as the world’s biggest open-air prison. How could such a place ever hope to be “prosperous”?

There is no other logical conclusion for Hamas’ decision to initiate hostilities against Israel.

Really? Literally no other logical conclusion?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1948_Palestinian_exodus

It must be nice to live in a world where everything is the Jews’ fault.

Where did I say that? Quote, please.

Also: stop equating Israel with Jews and Zionism with Judaism. Most religious Jews in the early days of Zionism hated Zionism. As did most other Jews. To this day there are still Jews who despise Zionism. Most Jews still do not live in Israel.

I do think that everything when it comes to Palestine is Israel’s fault. I do not think that everything in the world is ”the Jews’“ fault.

You seem to ignore that your argument that everything is the Jews/Israelis fault (depending on the time period) is predicated on one thing: the existence of Jews in their ancestral home.

The ancestral home of Russian Jews is Russia, the ancestral home of Polish Jews is Poland, the ancestral home of Moroccan Jews is Morocco, and the ancestral home of Yemeni Jews is Yemen. Prior to Zionism, all of those Jews would have resented anyone saying that Palestine was their “ancestral home”.

Anyway, here’s etrogim to explain why that is not the problem:

http://etrogim.tumblr.com/post/153839028927/why-do-you-think-jews-arent-indigenous-to-israel

When did the Jews begin to arm themselves? After the Arabs started massacring Jewish settlements.

Zionists massacred far more Palestinian Arab villages and towns in 1948.

Why were the Arabs killing the Jews? Because they bought land to farm.

No, because they knew they intended to colonize their land. Reminder: the violence didn’t start until after the Balfour declaration.

As happened in Hebron.

Ah, yes... Let’s talk about Hebron!

This is the account of Rabbi and eminent Jewish scholar Baruk Kaplan present at the yeshiva during the 1929 Hebron massacre. Rabbi Kaplan eventually became the principal of Beis Yaakov, one of the finest Jewish girl's religious schools in New York and is regarded within the Jewish community as an academic authority beyond reproach or accusations of misrepresentation. The following is a translation of his recorded interview made in Yiddish in 1980:

I would like to describe the error that is spread in Jewish communities. A horrible error that accuses the Arabs in Hebron of being killers who attacked the Jews simply because the Arabs were bad people. In order to correct the record this error must be corrected. The Arabs were very friendly people and the Jews in Hebron lived very well with them and had very friendly relations with them. To take just one example I used to have the habit of walking a mile or two out of town all by myself to visit a tree which is believed to be the tree where our patriarch Abraham met the three angels as described in Genesis. I especially enjoyed visiting the tree in the summer time. Along the way I would talk to the Arabs using mostly my hands because I spoke no Arabic. Interestingly enough no one in the yeshiva every told me it was dangerous to go by myself among the Arabs. We just lived with them and got along very fine.

I have also seen a letter by the Grand Rabbi of the Ghera Hasidim at that time Rabbi Abram Martray elder who has memory of Poland regarding his trip to the Holy Land during the days when people were talking about emigrating to Palestine. He wanted to find out what kind of people the Palestinians were in order to be able to advise people whether to move there or not. He wrote in his letter that the Arabs were a very fine and friendly people. Therefore it is necessary to set the record straight about the accusation that the Palestinians were terrible people who liked attacking Jews. This was never the situation at all. Today’s wicked Zionists are just like their predecessors who are responsible for causing terrible suffering in Palestine with their wars against the Arabs. May G-d have mercy.

At the time in 1929 the Zionists had a slogan arguing that the western wall was a Jewish national symbol. Of course the Arabs disagreed with this idea considering that they had enjoyed control over the location for over one thousand one hundred years. However the Zionist mobs were yelling 'the wall is ours'. It's hard to understand why they felt that way considering to have no connection to the Jewish holy places whatsoever. An argument errupted in the Jewish newspapers about establishing a permanent prayer area for Jews at the wall.

This provoked the Arabs and the Rabbi of Jerusalem at the time Chaim Josef Sonnenfeld begged them to stop and be appreciative to the Arabs for allowing Jews to pray at the wall for so many centuries undisturbed however the Zionists wanted a permanent set up under their control. This began the conflict at the time between the Zionists and the Arabs.

After we were studying at the yeshiva in Hebron and saw a bunch of boys in short pants carrying weapons on bicycles and motorcycles running around the streets of Hebron. We were very worried about this. What were they up to? In brief our Rabbi the supervisor of our religious academy Moshe Hetreps called them for a meeting but they refused. He was forced to go over to them and ask them what they were up to. He accused them of wanting to provoke the Arabs. They responded that they were coming to protect us. We cried out ‘woe are us, G-d have mercy.’ They didn’t want to leave town until it was too late. These arrogant cowards only ran away when the local Arab leaders called for a mass meeting of the people from the surrounding Arab villages but it was too late. The Arabs got organised and the Mufti called upon his people to be ready Friday night when the yeshiva would be attending prayers.

At this point the Yeshiva was alone against the Zionists but the Arabs didn’t know to distinguish between us and the Zionists. Sadly they attacked and killed some of our people including the great scholar Joshua Rosenhaus. The next morning we heard the excitement in town and even worse we heard the crying and shouting. I and a friend lived in an apartment that was a part of a three storey building leased by a Jew from an Arab. We could hear all the noise from our apartment on the third floor. We were terrified to let the Arabs in because we knew how angry they had become but a while later things calmed down. In total some sixty five people were killed.

On the other side of town however the Jews were spared. Why am I telling you about this story? It’s because I want to expose how the wicked Zionists both today and in those days were the cause of our suffering. They cooperated with the Nazis, Our religion teaches us that a person who causes someone to sin is worse than the sinner who kills.

A state (of affairs) that killed the Judaism of the Yemenite and Moroccan Jews of many other Sephardic Jews. This is the work of these thugs and gangsters. Everyone must know that the anger of the Arabs against us is only caused by the Zionists. The Arabs were a friendly people to us and I am a witness to it. We lived very well with them in Hebron and I will attest to this as well. It is the accursed Zionists who caused them to hate us. The Zionists dared to use their power to expel the Arabs and even today in the Lebanon they kill and butcher Arabs. They wipe out whole villages with their aeroplanes, Everyone should know who the murderers are. The Zionists are the biggest murderers in the world who refuse to let the Jews live in peace either spiritually or physically.

So, yeah...seems pretty clear-cut to me whose fault that particular tragedy was...

Apparently, you’ve never been through US naturalization. You are required to swear an oath of allegiance. If Lieberman wants to make “Palestinian” Arabs sign it, it would be no different because they are not citizens like Arab Israelis are.

People who are not white and Christian don’t have to swear an oath of allegiance that say the US is a white Christian country and that they don’t have as much value as white Christians.

Also, “naturalization”? The Palestinians have lived there for generations! Centuries! Millennia! Lieberman has lived there since 1978! He wasn’t even born there!

You use it because its an easy way to slander Jews.

Nope, I use it because that’s what it is, and stop equating the State of Israel with “Jews”.

Now you claim I use the fact that the “Palestinians” are an invented nationality/ethnic group to justify ethnic cleansing. I never made that claim. Arabs were displaced as a result of military operations, both those conducted by the Arabs and Israel. However, ethnic cleansing did not occur.

Yeah, it did. It did occur. Demonstrably so. That’s what Plan Dalet was: a plan to cleanse the land of all its Jews in order to create an artificial Jewish majority.

No citation is needed for my statement about the use of Jewish status to confer immunity from charges of antisemitism. These quisilings, or commonly referred to as “asajews” have been the bane of our communal existence for centuries. It was they that would provide the testimony needed by the Christians and Muslims to convict the Jewish people of blood libels by stating that we use Christian blood in our ceremonies. (And because I have to with you, I categorically state that we have never used blood sacrifice in our religion).

It seems to me like you are the one here who’s anti-Jewish. You are literally saying that any Jew who does not support the racist settler state of Israel is not a real Jew. Few statements could be as antisemitic as that one.

Anti-Zionist Jews are not any less nor any more Jewish than Zionist ones, and that is a fact.

I’ve provided you with a link to one of those anti-Zionist Jewish Tumblr users. You can go check out any of the others at any point. Why don’t you at least try to talk to them? (Maybe don’t tell them that you think they should be executed by firing squad, though.)

And no, you do not fucking have to tell me that you have used blood sacrifice in your religion. I’m an anti-Zionist, not an anti-Semite. I hate oppression and racism, I do not hate Jews.

You can actually just go to any of your quisling friends and look at how they treat their advocacy for the terrorist entities of Gaza and the PA and how they treat their Jewish heritage.

I already have. Now you.

You also suffer from a fundamental misunderstanding of Zionism. It is about Jews taking control of their own safety and stopping being victims.

https://neras-kirneh.tumblr.com/post/162091864390/anarchamarxistdrowfeminism-ruthyless

Now we want to make sure that no one does it to us again.

Well, you don’t get to brutalize an entire other people in order to do that, sorry.

We have learned that the world categorically would rather see a dead Jew than a successful, proud one.

Yes, and that is bullshit - but it doesn’t justify the Nakba.

At the core of Judaism has always been a belief that we are meant to live in the land chosen for us by G-d. That land is Eretz Israel.

I have heard many Jews claim otherwise. Jews lived in other parts of the world for thousands of years before the Zionist movement started. Only a small percentage of the world’s Jews ever permanently lived in Palestine, and even today, Israeli Jews are a minority among the world’s Jews.

Seems to me like if that was at the core of Judaism, these things would not be the case.

On our holiest day, we say “L’Shana Haba'ah B'Yerushalayim”. It translates to: Next year in Jerusalem. At our most important holiday, Passover, we say the same phrase. We have said those phrases for more than 2000 years.

And yet the Zionist colonization of Palestine has only gone on for about 120 years.

Yes, Spiritual Zionism has existed ever since the Jews got banished by God. It is a spiritual journey - not a physical one - in which adherents strive to regain the grace and favour of God and be recalled to Zion - not to travel there and conquer it. This concept is known as divine redemption and political Zionism is repugnant to it.

It is heresey by way of defying God's banishement and seeking to regain a land by force which is strictly prohibited by the faith of the Torah. Zionism is indeed a European cult and was condemned by Jews worldwide and most especially by the Palestinian Mizrahi and Sephardi Jews of the “Old Yishuv”, who despised Zionists. In response, they were murdered and silenced by the Zionists.

Zionism is not a local liberation movement lead by Palestinian Mizrahi and Sephardi Jews. It was a regime forced on them (and on their Muslim and Christian countrymen) violently when they opposed it peacefully almost to a man.

Also, God is - once again - not a real estate agent. You don’t get to use (or in this case, misuse) your religious faith in order to justify ethnic cleansing, apartheid, war crimes and genocide.

To be a part of the Jewish community, as opposed to someone who has been cursed with the wrong lineage, means a belief that the Jewish people will have a home of their own in Eretz Israel.

Seems to me like most Jews are happy to have “a home of their own” in the US, France, Canada, the UK, Argentina, Russia, Germany, Belgium, Australia and the rest of the world...

So its read that while he is urging a stern line be taken, its not because he wants to destroy all the Arabs. Its because compromising at that the time of the state (1923), it would hurt the Jews. He was hopeful that an agreement could worked out, but believed it would only come in the future.

What conditions did he think were necessary for that to happen? The Arabs would have to abandon their dream of expelling all the Jews from the region.

Jabotinsky was a fascist who was praised by Mussolini. He was also a racist, so I can see why you would like him.

Look at that, your supposed bogey man actually had a plan that would have achieved what Israel eventually chose to do: have a state where Jews and Arabs had equal rights. Which is what Israel has done, contrary to your unfounded claims.

No, it is not. Palestinians with Israeli citizenship are not treated equally under Israeli law.

Everything in the original Zionist plan was built around doing things by purchasing private property. They would encourage Arabs to leave, but they would not force them to do so. If someone refused to sell, they would just bypass them and leave them to their own life, unmolested.

If by “bypass them and leave them to their own life unmolested” you mean “brutally ethnically cleanse them according to Plan Dalet”, then yes, you’d be correct.

Anyway...looking forward to your next piece of apologia for ethnic cleansing and settler-colonialism...

#jews #israel

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