Showing posts with label Arab culture. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Arab culture. Show all posts

Wednesday, January 17, 2024



Disclaimer: the views expressed here are solely those of the author, weekly Judean Rose columnist Varda Meyers Epstein.

“Never trust an Arab—even when he is dead!” So said Abu Musa to my husband some 40-plus years ago. Abu Musa was a shyster contractor who knew how to overcharge his Jewish customers and get away with it. Dov was a student in the yeshiva under the tutelage of the man who was currently being ripped off by Abu Musa. Sometimes Dov, not long in Israel, would chat up Abu Musa to learn a bit of Arabic, and something about Arab culture, too.   

Well, Dov learned something, all right. He learned from an Arab, never to trust an Arab.

It’s a difficult lesson for people who grew up like me and my husband; that we dare not trust a certain, specific people. We were raised to believe that this is wrong. Our parents taught us to judge people on the content of their character and to be polite and respectful to people no matter what they look like or believe.

For example, there was a home for disabled children located not far from my childhood home. Sometimes, a caregiver would take two or three children for a walk in the neighborhood. My mother taught me that if we passed them on the street, not to stare, and to smile and be polite the same as with any other passersby. These children had obvious, moderately severe disabilities. So my mother was preparing me for a shock, at the same time telling me not to show the shock because it would be rude and hurtful to do so.

The first lesson happened in real time. My mother explained things to me quietly, as we were about to pass by some of the children with their caregiver. There was no need for a second lesson. The next time we saw a group of kids and their caregiver up ahead, my mother didn’t say a word. She gave my hand a subtle squeeze and that was a sufficient reminder and review of what—and what not—to do. Lesson learned.

There were other lessons I learned from my parents. My late father loved to quote Dale Carnegie, “Don’t criticize, condemn, or complain.”

But most of these lessons were taught without words. My parents treated the few black people they knew, the same as everybody else. No one had to brief me on the subject, or nod at me when we were about to encounter someone with skin a different color, or eyes a different shape from my own. I learned by example that someone’s appearance is not a reason to hate.

This is what I was taught it meant to be a nice person. To understand that people come in all shapes, sizes, and colors, and to refrain from judging them on these things. To treat everyone as you would want to be treated, with respect.

That is how I was raised as a Jewish American from a middle class home. I know that my peers, and certainly my husband, from a remarkably similar background, were raised the same way. And still, here I am, someone who doesn’t trust an entire people, specifically the Arab people. It’s not about their ethnicity, or their color, but the fact that the Arab people have earned our mistrust. Too many times, it was that nice Arab worker who came back to rape and murder their employer.


I don’t trust Arabs and it’s not only about October 7. I didn’t trust Arabs long before that black day. I know of too many examples of trusted Arabs who proved to be terrorist monsters and of too many horrendous examples of Arab terror.

I no longer have to explain this to friends who once said, “I can’t be friends with anyone who says they ‘hate’ Arabs.”


It is sad really, how many of us Israelis feel sad that when it comes to Arabs, we are not able to apply what we learned in our homes about being nice people. We distrust Arabs, even if we don’t know them as individuals and there are no outward signs of anything amiss. With good reason. October 7 being the turning point for many good people.


The Arabs give us no choice. It’s a matter of life or death, this lack of trust. At the same time, not every Arab is untrustworthy. The problem is, there’s no way to know. And if you want to stay alive, it’s better to be safe and mistrust, than trust and be dead.


I have exactly two Arab friends. Or “had.” One of the two is now dead, and still I trust him more than most living people, despite Abu Musa. He found a way to prove his loyalty to me and my people. The other Arab friend is thankfully alive, and has proven his loyalty to the Jewish State a thousand times over (as did his father before him).

The others? In some cases, “trust, but verify” works.

For example, the nice, normal Arab clerk at the desk in dermatology at Hadassah. She’s wearing a hijab, which could be a sign of extremism, but we’re only going to have limited interaction, so I can be “normal” with her. It’s a question, I guess, of good faith. She’s being polite and professional, and deserves to be treated like a normal human being. Sure, she could self-detonate and kill herself and every Jew in the waiting room at any given moment, but me being rude to her probably wouldn’t change her mind.

Two months after October 7, with all of us more suspicious of Arabs, an Arab woman knocked into my husband and made him spill hot coffee on himself. He brushed off his clothes and muttered something under his breath and that would probably have been that. Except that the woman ran after us to apologize profusely, rummaging through her handbag and offering up a package of wet wipes. (I can still see the package in my mind’s eyes, it was an Arab brand of wet wipes we don’t see in our stores. They were lemon-scented.) She was really sorry and she was kind. And she, too, was wearing a hijab.

We would never have seen her again. She didn’t have to run up to us and apologize a gazillion times and try to give Dov her wet wipes. The possibility occurs that in the wake of October 7, she was trying to tell us, “Not all of us support terror. Not all of us are filled with hate and trying to kill you/rape you/torture you/kidnap you/shoot missiles at you/,” and etc.

Or maybe she just wanted everyone in the vicinity to see that, “Oh, look. Here’s a good Arab. They still exist.”

How can I know? How can I possibly know? The answer is I can’t, and that answer comes straight from the lips of a shyster Arab contractor, “Never trust an Arab. Even when he is dead.”  

For all I know Abu Musa himself, is dead. But take his advice to heart. Be he live or be he dead, he’s not to be trusted if you value your life.



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Friday, December 02, 2022



Some nice news for a change.

JIMENA, Jews Indigenous to the Middle East and North Africa, published a video of a portion of a Jewish wedding ceremony celebrating the bridegroom according to Syrian Jewish tradition that occurred in New York City.


I'm not familiar with this responsive chant, but apparently this part  is nearly identical to a traditional Syrian Muslim wedding ceremony (with mentions of "Mohammed" replaced with "Moses"). 

According to STEP News, Syrians have been sharing this video, amazed that Syrian Jews have kept these traditions: "The video sparked a wide interaction among the Syrians, who expressed their admiration for them and their preservation of the heritage, as one of the commentators said: 'It is unfortunate how our country lost them as it lost us.'"

Syrians congratulated the couple on Twitter.





Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

Read all about it here!

 

 

Tuesday, November 22, 2022

Cairo24 reports that Dr. Alaa Abdel-Hadi, head of the Egyptian Writers Union, stressed the union's firm position rejecting normalization with Israel, warning of the danger of this entity penetrating Arab culture. 

What exactly does that mean? How can Israel "penetrate Arab culture?"

Perhaps we can get a hint of what this means from the steps being taken to expel three members of the union for the heinous crime of "normalization" with the "Zionist entity."

Alaa Al-Aswany, a prominent Egyptian writer, gave an interview to an Israeli radio station.

Youssef Ziedan, a scholar and writer of over 50 books, had said that he would like to visit Israel and lecture there. 

Mona Prince, a lecturer in English literature at Suez University, had a photo taken with Israel's ambassador to Egypt.

All of these are bizarrely seen as threats to Arab culture. 

 If mere speaking to Israelis is a danger to Arab culture, then it sounds like Arab culture is not very strong. 





Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

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Monday, October 24, 2022



Egypt's El Balad and Jordan's Ammon News describe an Israeli TV report that some 12,000 Israelis visited Jordan during the Jewish holidays over the past month, as many Israelis felt that it was less expensive than going overseas. Most of these visitors went to Aqaba as a cheaper alternative to Eilat. 

That's a fairly significant number of visitors, and Jordan's tourism sector no doubt benefited a great deal.

But when the TV station wanted to interview a representative of Jordan's Ministry of Tourism, a fairly innocuous request to get some generic quotes, the Jordanian government didn't grant the request.

How childish can they be? They are afraid of being seen, or quoted, on TV along with Israelis in any context. They'll take money from Israeli "settlers" (as the articles described all the tourists) but they won't deign to speak to Israeli TV.

Do they think they are going to destroy Israel through microaggressions? Because that sometimes seems to be the prevailing mentality.

The microaggressions don't end there. 

Both articles headline the fact that Jordan refused to speak to the Israeli news crew, even as they eagerly covered what the news channel had to say about Jordan. They seem to want to give the impression to their readers that they are so strong and mighty that they can refuse a request from the all-powerful Jews. 

It's sort of pathetic.

The news producers didn't lose a minute of sleep over the snub. The story ran without any problems. The mighty Jordanian decision to boycott Israeli TV was taken as par for the course by the Israelis.

Also, neither one of the news outlets deign to mention which Israeli TV station it was that tried to get the interview. As if mentioning a specific channel is a sign of weakness.

And that is the point. Their attempts to appear consequential by refusing to answer a couple of softball questions makes them look even weaker.  

They are utterly clueless.

This immaturity is accepted as part of Arab culture by the world. But nothing will change until people ask - what is wrong with these guys?




Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

Read all about it here!

 

 

Thursday, January 27, 2022



The Cairo International Book Fair is starting. And as it has in the past, it is pushing antisemitic themes.

One of its featured books on the website is a translation of an 1889 work by Gustave Le Bon, his chapters on Jewish civilization in his  "Les premières civilisations." 

For the most part, Le Bon is not impressed with Jewish civilization, and his first paragraph is translated in this Arabic article:

The Jews possessed neither arts, nor sciences, nor industry, nor anything that constitutes a civilization. They have never made the smallest contribution to the building of human knowledge. They never went beyond this state of semi-barbarism of peoples who have no history. If they ended by possessing towns, it was because the conditions of existence, in the midst of neighbors arrived at a higher stage of evolution, made it a necessity for them; but their cities, their temples, their palaces, the Jews were profoundly incapable of raising them themselves; and, at the time of their greatest power, under the reign of Solomon, it was from abroad that they were obliged to bring in the architects, the workmen, the artists, of whom no emulator then existed within Israel.
The description of the book goes on to say that "the goal of the book is based in particular on explaining the failure of the Jews to share in the history of civilization. And on the ethnic disadvantages of the Jews,  and on the fact that the Jews are an unfit people that came to Palestine."

Le Bon's chapters on the Jews are indeed very critical, only praising Jewish literature and poetry. He repeats a variant of that first sentence several times. 

Clearly the only reason that this section of a large book was translated into Arabic is because it is one of the few works of history of the past 150 years outside Nazi Germany and the Arab world that is so critical of Jews. In other words, translating a racist 19th century French intellectual who is best known for his theories of crowd psychology and who believed that cranial size determines intelligence doesn't reveal anything about Jews. It reveals a lot about a culture that goes out of its way to find a history of Jewish civilization that hates Jews almost as much as the culture surrounding the Cairo Book Festival does. 







Friday, February 01, 2019

I reported yesterday that the Israeli ambassador to Egypt visited the Cairo International Book Fair. Although when Egyptians found out about it after the fact they were upset, he praised the fair.

The US embassy had a pavilion there, too.

Over at Hall 1, Booth A38, is the Dar Al Kitab Al Arabi Publishing Company, which goes every year to the Book Fair.

Every year that company sells antisemitic books there.

Here is a large number of Mein Kampfs ("My Struggle"), with Hitler on the cover just in case you weren't sure what you were buying. (Mein Kampf was also featured in their front display.)



And here's The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, in the upper left corner of the Bestsellers section:

Detail from an advertising poster for this edition of the Protocols:


This antisemitic publisher was not in some small, dark corner in the back. No, these books were the first things one sees when entering the hall (at least one entrance).

This happens every year, and the US keeps going back.

(h/t WC)



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