UPDATE: In response to the outcry, the Vatican has removed the offending nativity scene. See: Vatican removes nativity display featuring baby Jesus lying on keffiyeh. I will leave it up to the reader to decide if the removal of the display remedies the fact that the pope abused his own religion in service of antisemitic propaganda in the first place. (Hat tip to Ian.)
Disclaimer: the views expressed here are solely those of the author, weekly Judean Rose columnist Varda Meyers Epstein.
Trust me on this, the Baby Jesus was not wrapped in a keffiyeh
at birth, and not at any other time either. Even Arabs wore turbans—not keffiyehs—until
at least the early
18th century. And Jesus was not an Arab but a Jew.
Why, then, is there a nativity scene in St. Peter’s Square
featuring a wooden Baby Jesus wrapped in a keffiyeh?
I thought someone had done this as a joke. It’s not a joke.
Pope Francis inaugurates nativity scene in Vatican showing ‘baby Jesus’ on a keffiyeh. pic.twitter.com/e1858jdOCB
One might put the anachronistic keffiyeh “swaddling” of the
Baby Jesus down to artistic license. But “Nativity of Bethlehem 2024” by Bethlehem
artists Johny Andonia and Faten Nastas Mitwasi, has nothing to do with art. The
crèche is merely antisemitic propaganda dressed up fancy in olive wood, mother-of-pearl,
stone, ceramic, glass, felt, and fabric.
At the unveiling of this “artwork,” the pope said its
presence is meant to remind us of those who “suffer the tragedy of war in the
Holy Land." But we know who he means. The pope means that ARABS are
suffering, because, oh look! Here is Baby Jesus in a keffiyeh.
This is, after all, the same pope who suggested a global
effort be made to determine whether Israel is guilty of committing genocide in
Gaza—the same pope who called Israel’s actions in Lebanon as going “beyond
morality.” The same Pope Francis who never
once mentioned Hamas by name.
This all calls to mind a boring dinner I attended last week during
which a fellow diner expounded at length in an annoying way as if only he were
knowledgeable enough to weigh in on that particular topic. I made my excuses, and
as I walked away, a word came to mind, pontificate. That’s what the
annoying fellow diner had been doing. Pontificating.
An interesting word, I thought, no doubt derived from the
word pontiff. The dictionary confirmed this for me, adding that the word
comes from the Latin pontifex, or high priest. I gasped a little when
I read that, though I’d long understood the significance of the ornate papal
garments. It still felt like a terrible affront—a “borrowing” of a core concept
in Judaism in service of an ideology proscribed by the Torah.
The artwork titled “Nativity of Bethlehem 2024” represents, in a similar vein,
a form of appropriation—an appropriation of Jesus to support a false narrative
that casts him not as a Jew, but as an Arab. The viewer is presented with a
distorted perspective, hearing nothing about the actual crucifixions of Jews on
October 7 or the ongoing plight of hostages. There’s no mention of how many
lives in Gaza could have been spared had the hostages been released, nor is
there a single word about Hamas. All of this is deliberately kept from public
scrutiny, seemingly with the blessing of the pope.
Disclaimer: the views expressed here are solely those of the author, weekly Judean Rose columnist Varda Meyers Epstein.
With the death of American hostage Omer Neutra now
confirmed, that leaves at most three American hostages in Gaza left alive. All
told, there are seven American hostages still held in Gaza; four of them,
including Neutra, are dead, their families denied even the right to bury their
dead and process their grief. Does it matter that come January 20th
a new, tough-talking sheriff in the form of President Elect Donald J. Trump is
coming to town?
It does and it doesn’t. The fact that someone in Israel’s
corner is moving into the Oval Office doesn’t change the fact that the American
hostages were betrayed by the most powerful nation on earth: America. It was
always a possibility because that’s the way it goes with American Jews.
American administrations come and go, some of them more and some of them less pro-Israel.
Some of them more and some of them less antisemitic.
Joe Biden, or whoever operates under his guise, doesn’t care
about some Jews who left America voluntarily to live in a state that is nothing
but a pain in the neck to Joe. A thorn in his side. (Those pesky Jews.)
President Trump will be far better, as was proven on Monday
afternoon following the news of IDF confirmation of Neutra’s death on October
7. Taking to Truth Social, President Trump issued a firm threat to Hamas:
Everybody is talking about the hostages who are being held
so violently, inhumanely, and against the will of the entire World, in the
Middle East - But it’s all talk and no action! Please let this TRUTH serve to
represent that if the hostages are not released prior to January 20, 2025, the
date that I proudly assume Office as President of the United States, there will
be ALL HELL TO PAY in the Middle East, and for those in charge who perpetrated
these atrocities against Humanity. Those responsible will be hit harder than
anybody has been hit in the long and storied History of the United States of
America. RELEASE THE HOSTAGES NOW!
This is my President! There must be serious consequences for holding any hostage but America needs to exact severe consequences for kidnapping and murdering AMERICAN hostages. https://t.co/Qh8dq78mUM
Netanyahu offered Israel’s heartfelt thanks to President
Trump for this strong show of support. Trump’s stern warning was exactly
what was needed but had been sorely lacking every day for the past 424 days.
The Biden administration, however, was focused only on restraining Israel while
appeasing Iran. Biden and his handlers just didn’t care about a handful of
American Jews who had chosen to leave the Land of Opportunity for a country
that everyone hates.
I want to thank President Trump for his strong statement yesterday about the need for Hamas to release the hostages, the responsibility of Hamas, and this adds another force to our continued effort to release all the hostages.
The betrayal by America of its hostages in Gaza is real, and
it should be food for thought for American Jews who have not yet been bit by
the Aliyah “bug.” It’s a fact: American Jews cannot count on their government
to protect them or help them in their time of need. The Biden Administration
proves the point. Some presidents may indeed help American Jews when they are
in trouble, but others won’t, and it won’t matter if said American Jews are
held in Gaza, slashed in the face on a street in Brooklyn, or harassed and
violently abused on an American university campus. Some administrations won’t
care enough to come down hard enough on the perpetrators to put the fear of God
into them.
Jews with American citizenship are, in the end, still less
worthy of protection than other Americans. Witness the Biden administration’s
lack of will to do much of anything at all for American citizens being held and
brutalized in Gaza because they are Jews. Trump coming into office will change
this dynamic for a while, and we can hope it will last a good long time, but
for the sake of self-preservation, American Jews would be well advised to
accept that America is not a place they can count on. When push comes to shove,
American Jews may or may not receive the help they deserve at the time it is
needed most.
Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!
Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.
Disclaimer: the views expressed here are solely those of
the author, weekly Judean Rose columnist Varda Meyers Epstein.
When Donald Trump won the election, there was great relief
in Israel, something like a collective sigh. There was also anxiety. It’s a
long time until January, and we don’t know how much longer the hostages can
hang on. But there was, and is, a further cause for anxiety, and that concerns
Trump’s cabinet picks, which here in Israel we can’t help but think: are these
anointed ones good or bad for the Jews and for Israel?
Matt Gaetz
We might as well begin our examination with Matt Gaetz,
Trump’s pick for attorney general, a bad choice by all accounts. Gaetz has what
we call in Hebrew, “panim doresh steerot,” a face that needs slapping. There is
a lot of noise about his sexual peccadilloes, corruption, and illicit drug use.
We remember how Gaetz forced Kevin McCarthy out of his role as House speaker. It’s
not as if Gaetz didn’t have plenty of support for the ousting of McCarthy.
Nonethless, McCarthy insisted that Gaetz had led the charge against him specifically
to wiggle
out of an ethics investigation:
“I’ll give you the truth why I’m not speaker. Because one person, a member of
Congress, wanted me to stop an ethics complaint because he slept with a 17-year-old,
an ethics complaint that started before I ever became speaker. And that’s
illegal and I’m not gonna get in the middle of it.
“Now, did he do it or not? I don’t know. But ethics was
looking at it. There’s other people in jail because of it. And he wanted me to
influence it.”
Indeed there are plenty of reasons to dislike Gaetz, but
from the standpoint of the Jewish people, the main issue should be his horrid
antisemitsm. Gaetz
voted against the Antisemitism Awareness Act, saying that International
Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism would hold
the bible itself as antisemitic because, Gaetz claimed, Christian scripture
dictates that the Jews are responsible for Jesus’s death.
Um no. That would be the Romans. Which makes Gaetz a
horrible person for pinning this death on the Jews. It’s that kind of slander
that leads and has always led, to the letting of Jewish blood. There can be no
benign reason for an educated person to say such things. Matt Gaetz hates Jews.
“This evening, I will vote AGAINST the ridiculous hate
speech bill called the ‘Antisemitism Awareness Act,’” said Gaetz prior to the
vote. “Antisemitism is wrong, but this legislation is written without regard
for the Constitution, common sense, or even the common understanding of the
meaning of words. The Gospel itself would meet the definition of antisemitism
under the terms of this bill!”
Matt Gaetz, in addition to blaming the Jews for what the
Romans did, invited Charles Johnson, a Holocaust denier and white nationalist,
to be his guest at a 2018 State of the Union address. Gaetz claimed he hadn’t
know these things about Johnson, then subsequently defended him, and denied the
accusations. Johnson, said Gaetz, is “not a Holocaust denier. He’s not a white
supremacist.” But Johnson is both.
When crazy Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene compared COVID public
safety measures to the Holocaust, Gaetz defended her. “[Greene] defends Israel
and attacks Democrats. Media falsely slams [Greene] as antisemitic. Some
Republicans take the bait, sadly,” said Gaetz.
Our attorney general-to-be has been known to hire staff
members who hang with white nationalists, and say white nationalist things. He called
the ADL “racist” when that body called for Tucker Carlson to be fired from Fox News
on account of Carlson pushing the Great Replacement theory. Matt Gaetz said
that Carlson is “CORRECT about Replacement Theory.”
The Great Replacement
theory, as described by the ADL, “claims there is an intentional effort, led by
Jews, to promote mass non-white immigration, inter-racial marriage, and other efforts
that would lead to the ‘extinction of whites.’”
RFK Jr.
Moving along, we come to RFK Jr., Trump’s pick for secretary
of the Department of Health and Human Services. RFK Jr. is another one for
conspiracy theories. While dining with journalists, Bobby Kennedy Jr. aired a
nutty conspiracy theory positing that COVID was designed to spare Ashkenazi
Jews and Chinese people.
“COVID-19. There is an argument that it is ethnically
targeted. COVID-19 attacks certain races disproportionately. COVID-19 is
targeted to attack Caucasians and black people. The people who are most immune are
Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese.
“We don’t know whether it was deliberately targeted or not
but there are papers out there that show the racial or ethnic differential and
impact,” said Kennedy, who also claimed that vaccine mandates made people less
free than Anne Frank under Nazi rule.
VIDEO:
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. claims coronavirus was an "ethnically targeted" bioweapon designed to be more deadly for caucasians and blacks — and spare Jews and Chinese https://t.co/xfAdovs0sYpic.twitter.com/og4xHdKs7x
After the footage was leaked, Kennedy went into damage
control mode, claiming that he never EVER suggested the virus was designed to
spare Jews.
“I have never, ever suggested that the COVID-19 virus was
targeted to spare Jews,” wrote Kennedy. “I accurately pointed out — during an
off-the-record conversation — that the US and other governments are developing
ethnically targeted bioweapons and that a 2021 study of the COVID-19 virus
shows that COVID-19 appears to disproportionately affect certain races since
the furin cleave docking site is most compatible with Blacks and Caucasians and
least compatible with ethnic Chinese, Finns and Ashkenazi Jews.”
RFK Jr.’s friendship with Nation of Islam leader Louis
Farrakhan was cemented through just such views as these. Bobby Jr. in fact, called
Farrakhan a “truly great partner” for helping him spread the idea that vaccines
cause autism. Andrew Wakefield, now disgraced, concocted this “theory” in 1998
and was subsequently exposed as a fraud. When COVID hit, Farrakhan urged his
congregants to "follow Robert Kennedy," claiming that scientists
developed the coronavirus vaccine in order to "depopulate the Earth."
If RFK Jr. and Farrakhan agree on these nutty conspiracy
theories, what other views might they share in common?
Of course, RFK Jr. was wise to quickly disavow his affinity
for Farrakhan the antisemite at the outset of his presidential campaign. When
asked about the relationship between during his campaign, Kennedy said he is an
“opponent” of Farrakhan and "never endorsed anything that Louis Farrakhan
has said," which of course, is a lie.
Should Jews look the other way on RFK Jr.? Perhaps. Bobby Jr., speaking to Reuters,
expressed support for Israel’s fight against Hamas in Gaza, and for the return
of the hostages. Asked if he was in favor of a temporary Gaza ceasefire,
Kennedy said, "I don't even know what that means right now,"
commenting that every previous ceasefire was “used by Hamas to rearm, to
rebuild and then launch another surprise attack. So what would be different
this time?
"Any other nation that was adjacent to a neighboring
nation that was bombing it with rockets, sending commandos over to murder its
citizens, pledging itself to murder every person in that nation and annihilate
it, would go and level it with aerial bombardment," said Kennedy.
"But Israel is a moral nation. So it didn't do that.
Instead, it built an iron dome to protect itself so it would not have to go
into Gaza," he added.
Nutty conspiracy theories notwithstanding, so far Bobby Jr.
sounds okay on Israel. Perhaps he inherited his views from his father? Bobby
Sr. spent time in Pre-State Israel, reporting for the Boston
Post and was kindly disposed toward the Jews, and supported their
efforts at statehood. Unfortunately, he was murdered because of this support.
Tulsi Gabbard
We come next to Tulsi Gabbard, who is to be national
intelligence secretary. It’s hard to dislike Gabbard. She’s a serious person,
and is unafraid to change her mind when changing her mind is called for. But
she backed the Iran deal, and that’s a huge problem. Gabbard also voted against
a House resolution to condemn the U.N. Security Council resolution regarding
Israeli settlements in Judea and Samaria, saying, "While I remain
concerned about aspects of the U.N. resolution, I share the Obama
administration's reservation about the harmful impact Israeli settlement
activity has on the prospects for peace."
Seriously?? Jews building homes has a harmful impact on
“prospects for peace?” That’s just reprehensibly antisemitic, and I don’t care
how popular it has become to repeat the canard that Jewish families building
homes, threaten peace. It’s a disgusting and stupid thing to say no matter how
many people say it and no matter how often it is said. It’s just, pardon my
French, total crap.
I hope that Gabbard will now be able to take a step back and
examine the issue from a more commonsense position with good people to take her
through it. Maybe now, as part of the Trump cabinet, she’ll educate herself on
Israel. In her past, however, she has taken some problematic positions.
Gabbard
defended Ilhan Omar, for example, when Omar tweeted that US support for
Israel is “all about the Benjamins.” Speaking to CNN, Gabbard said, "There
are people who have expressed their offense at these statements. I think that
what Congresswoman Omar was trying to get at was a deeper issue related to our
foreign policy, and I think there's an important discussion that we have to be
able to have openly, even though we may end up disagreeing at the end of it,
but we've got to have that openness to have the conversation."
Gabbard also voted for House Resolution 246, which expressed
House opposition to the BDS movement and affirmed support for a two-state
solution. When asked to explain her vote, Gabbard said she supported "a
two-state solution that provides for the rights of both Israel and Palestine to
exist, and for their people to live in peace, with security, in their homes. I
don't believe the BDS movement is the only or best way to accomplish that.
However, I will continue to defend those who choose to exercise their right to
free speech without threat of legal action."
The two-state solution is a naïve and unworkable concept,
and always was. Neither of the parties want it. So why do pols continue to push
the two-state solution down the throats of people who do not want it, and do
not see it as the solution it is touted to be? Why does Tulsi Gabbard, who is
clearly a clear-thinking person, think the two-state solution makes any sense
at all?
There can only be two reasons for supporting the two-state
solution: 1) Anti-Jewish prejudice, that is to say, a desire to take land away
from the Jews and give it to the people who want to kill them, and 2) Ignorance
on the part of people who have never actually studied the matter. “Two-state
solution” is just something people say. Endlessly. Meaninglessly. One would
hope that Tulsi would know better.
But we have all watched Tulsi Gabbard evolve in her
politics. We watched her leave the Democratic Party, become an Independent, and
finally, become a staunch, pro-Trump Republican. Perhaps Tulsi’s views will
evolve on Israel and antisemitism.
There is reason to be optimistic about Gabbard. Tulsi
Gabbard criticized Biden and Harris for not joining a solidarity March for
Israel as the Jewish State fights the war forced on it by Hamas. She is clear
in that she supports a strong U.S.-Israel relationship. When Gabbard was still
a Democrat, in 2015, unlike 58 other Dems, she did not boycott Netanyahu’s
address to Congress, stating that “It’s unfortunate that an issue as important
as preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons has been muddled by partisan
politics. This is an extremely serious issue, at a critical juncture, that
should not be used as a political football.”
Gabbard also said that it was important to “rise above the
political fray, as America continues to stand with Israel as her strongest
ally.”
Nice words and a real show of support for Israel.
Mike Huckabee and Pete Hegseth
Now we come to Mike Huckabee and Pete
Hegseth. I know what you’re going to say. Why are they included in this list of
potentially problematic Trump candidate members? Both are staunch friends of
Israel. They don’t fall prey to propaganda, don’t use terms like “Palestinian”
or “West Bank.” They don’t have a problem with Jewish sovereignty, or Jews
building homes in their indigenous territory.
Take for example Mike Huckabee, who is slated to become the
next ambassador to Israel. Asked
whether he would stop using the terms “Judea and Samaria” to describe what
most of the world now calls the “West Bank,” Huckabee said, “I can’t be what
I’m not. I can’t say something I don’t believe. As you well know, I’ve never
been willing to use the term ‘West Bank’. There is no such thing. I speak of
Judea and Samaria. I tell people there is no ‘occupation.’ It is a land that is
‘occupied’ by the people who have had a rightful deed to the place for 3,500
years, since the time of Abraham.
“A lot of the terms that maybe the media would use, even the
people who are against Israel would use, are not terms that I employ, because I
want to use terms that live from time immemorial, and those are the terms like
‘Promised Land’ and ‘Judea and Samaria’. These are biblical terms, and those
are important to me, and so I will continue to follow that nomenclature unless
I’m instructed otherwise, but I don’t think that’ll happen.”
Huckabee has also said plainly that there is “no
such thing as a ‘Palestinian.’” Being that there was never an Arab state
called “Palestine,” that makes perfect sense. As Huckabee rightly stated during
his 2008 failed presidential campaign, the assertion of the existence of a
“Palestinian” identity, is only “a political tool to try and force land away
from Israel.”
So far, there is not one thing here with which this writer
disagrees.
Of the moronic idea known as the “two-state solution,”
Huckabee commented in a 2015 interview on Israeli TV, that it is “irrational
and unworkable,” and also said that “there’s plenty of land” outside of Israel
in the “rest of the world” for a Palestinian state.
All true.
Pete Hegseth, picked for secretary of defense, says all the
right things when it comes to Israel. At a 2018 Israel National News
conference Hegseth spoke of the right of the Jewish people to claim their
indigenous territory for themselves, and themselves alone.
"I, and others, had a chance to go see the Western
Wall, the Temple Mount, the Western Wall Tunnels, and so much of the Old
City," said Hegseth. "When you stand there, you cannot help but
behold the miracle before you."
"It got me thinking about another miracle I hope all of
you don't see as too far away. 1917 was a miracle, 1948 was a miracle, 1967 was
a miracle, 2017, the declaration of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel was a
miracle, and there's
no reason why the miracle of the reestablishment of the Temple on the Temple
Mount is not possible. I don't know how it would happen, you don't know how
it would happen, but I know that it could happen, that's all I know," he
said.
"A step in that process is the recognition that facts
and activities on the ground truly matter. That's why going to visit Judea and
Samaria, understanding that the very sovereignty over Israeli soil, cities,
locations, is a critical next step to showing the world that this is the land
for Jews, and the land of Israel," concluded Hegseth.
So why are Mike Huckabee and Pete Hegseth included in an
article on Trump cabinet picks who might not be good for the Jews/Israel? Both
men are respectful of Jewish beliefs and rights. That respect springs out of
their Christian
faith, which is fine. What would not be fine is if either the two men or
Israeli officials began to speak about “shared values” or “Judeo-Christian
values,” as if that were a thing.
Judaism stands alone. We Jews have our own faith, our own
laws, and a religious narrative we do not share with Christians or those of
other faiths. We should not want Christians telling us they are like us, and we
should not want Israeli leaders to do so, either. That should be and must be a
red line that is respected on both sides.
We can see the good in these two men without searching for
nonexistent religious common ground. It is hoped that Huckabee and Hegseth
understand these sensitivities and will remain as respectful to the Jewish
people as ever. On the other hand, will official Israel be able to control
itself—to refrain from slobbering over these men? It’s a problem.
It is so rare for Israel to have staunch friends, people who
understand us, and believe in our right to our rights. Their sincere friendship
makes us Jews feel like we actually belong to the family of man—at last there
is someone who sees us.
Within this warm circle of cozy coexistence lies a temptation—the temptation to assert that we are alike. But we are not, and it is wrong to say otherwise. Hegseth, despite the allegations against him in the media, seems like a nice person. Huckabee, too. And that’s where the similarities start and end.
Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!
Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.
Sirens throughout the day, but not here. It was a
beautiful Saturday (November 16th) and we were trying to enjoy the wonderful
weather, lovely people, interesting things – although we knew that others were
not.
I was hearing the sirens and interceptions in the distance. Israelis closer to
the border with Lebanon were hearing sirens and rockets exploding. Huddled,
waiting to see if the rockets would hit them. Or the shrapnel. Waiting for the
bombing to end.
I was waiting for the bombing to begin. Eventually, it would come to Haifa too.
And in the evening, it came. Sirens. Down to the
shelter.
Explosions, so loud they shook the house.
Not just interceptions. Impact too.
But where?
We got videos of the impact site on our phones.
Something was on fire. A different neighborhood in Haifa, about a 10 minute
drive away.
A cousin lives there. We called to ask if he was ok –
he wasn’t at home but was worried about his dog. Neighbors had called him to
say that his house was damaged. We promised to go to see what had happened
until he could arrive.
Getting into our car, we could smell the fire.
When we got to the neighborhood the police had already closed off the section
of the street where the missile hit. It smashed the beautiful Templar-period
building used as the neighborhood synagogue – directly across the street from his
house.
Firefighters were there, dealing with the fire.
Ambulances were evacuating people. I hoped that no one was injured too badly.
The Electric Company was there too. I didn’t know if the darkness was because
the trees that had fallen in the blast pulled down lines or because the
electricity needed to be turned off to keep people safe. Or both.
Instead of going through the crowd – people who lived
there, rescue workers, media both foreign and local, and the curious – we
approached the apartment from the back.
We walked through the darkness, the only lights from
the rescue teams. Glass from the windows that had blown out of the houses
crunching on under our feet. The sound of water pouring down from the roofs.
Water tanks had been destroyed by the explosion… thank goodness the electricity
was off for the area.
We got to our cousin’s house a moment before the Home
Front Command rescue workers broke down his door. Their job is to go door to
door, make sure no one is trapped inside, and help evacuate people. If they
knock and there is no answer and they can’t contact the owner, they break down
the door.
We told them that he wasn’t home and no one else was
inside, that he was on the way. They marked the apartment as cleared and went
on to check the rest of the building.
Neighbors who had been out came to check their apartment. As they surveyed the
damage one of them broke down from the shock, crying, “Everything is broken.
The walls, my paintings, my piano, I don’t have anything left.”
The blast broke the windows of their apartments and
flung large pieces of shrapnel inside. There were holes in the walls, even in
the piano. It was hard to see the full extent of the damage in the dark.
Everything was covered in dust, smelled of the fire outside, and felt like the
end of the world.
Objectively, not everything was damaged. A lot of
cleaning up needed to be done. Windows and holes need to be fixed. Original
artwork cannot be replaced but we told him over and over until he could breathe
again: “It’s just property damage. Thank God you weren’t home when it
happened.”
He nodded in understanding but still had a hard time
shaking the hysteria. There’s something deeply shattering in having your
sanctuary smashed. You have to pull yourself together, grit your teeth, and
begin an uphill battle to put the pieces of your life back together. It’s hard
to even know where to start…
Our cousin arrived. We were all relieved to see that
the dog had taken shelter under the bed so she wasn’t hurt when the windows
blew out. She came out shaking but wagging her tail.
We made a quick survey of the damage and helped him
pack some things. It would take at least a few days to make the place livable
again.
As we left the building, we saw others leaving. An
exodus of people carrying small bags with some things, their cats and dogs.
In the morning it would be possible to come back,
understand the true extent of the damage, and begin repairs. Thank God it was
“just” property damage.
Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!
Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.
Disclaimer: the views expressed here are solely those of
the author, weekly Judean Rose columnist Varda Meyers Epstein.
Kamala Harris didn’t actually call Trump a Nazi, but she
might as well have. Echoing allegations by disgruntled
Former White House Chief of Staff John
Kelly, she declared that Donald Trump wants a military that will be "loyal
to him personally" and "obey his orders even when he tells them to
break the law or abandon their oath to the constitution of the United
States."
Vice President Kamala Harris continued on, saying, "It
is deeply troubling and incredibly dangerous that Donald Trump would invoke
Adolf Hitler, the man who is responsible for the deaths of six million Jews and
hundreds of thousands of Americans. All of this is further evidence for the
American people of who Donald Trump really is."
And there it is, Godwin’s
Law. The longer the election dragged on, the more inevitable it had been that
someone would bring in the Holocaust. Not in the sort of, “We must never forget
the Holocaust,” kind of way, but in the sort of, “He’s the author of the Final
Solution, Adolf Hitler himself,” kind of way.
Harris running mate Tim Walz was happy to run with it, remarking
that Trump’s alleged comment regarding Hitler’s generals “makes me sick as
hell.”
“Folks, the guardrails are gone. Trump is descending into
this madness — a former president of the United States and the candidate for
president of the United States says he wants generals like Adolf Hitler had,”
said Walz, who has lied
about his military service.
Walz said he was a retired command sergeant major, but he
wasn’t. He claimed he carried weapons “in war,” but never saw combat. In truth,
he skipped out on his battalion only months before they were deployed to Iraq.
J.D. Vance, among many others, condemned these falsehoods as “stolen valor.”
This is something to keep in mind when weighing the credibility of those Walz “orange
Hitler”-style slurs. But it gets worse with Walz. Much worse, in this Jewish
writer’s opinion.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the Democratic vice
presidential nominee, compared former President Trump’s Sunday rally at New
York’s Madison Square Garden in to a 1939 pro-Nazi event.
“Donald Trump’s got this big rally going at Madison
Square Garden,” Walz said at an event in Henderson, Nev.
“There’s a direct parallel to a big rally that happened in the mid-1930s at
Madison Square Garden.”
An American Nazi Party held a rally at Madison
Square Garden in February 1939 that lured 20,000 supporters to the iconic New
York City landmark.
“And don’t think that he doesn’t know for one second exactly what they’re doing there,” Walz said.
When Walz speaks, he draws a picture. We can see that pro-Hitler
rally in our minds. It hits you right in the kishkes.
Up next is Hillary Clinton. The former (failed) 2016 presidential
candidate picked off where Walz left off, continuing on with the same “Trump is
a Nazi” narrative, claiming that Trump with this rally was reenacting the
infamous Nazi rally, held in that very same space. “Trump [is] actually re-enacting the Madison Square Garden
rally in 1939,” said Clinton to CNN’s Kaitlin Collins.
“President Franklin Roosevelt was appalled that neo-Nazis,
fascists in America were lining up to essentially pledge their support for the
kind of government that they were seeing in Germany,” said Former President
Clinton’s wife never-to-be-president Clinton.
"It is clear from John Kelly's words that Donald Trump
is someone who I quote 'certainly falls into the general definition of
fascist.' Who in fact, vowed to be a dictator on day one, and vowed to use the
military as his personal militia to carry out his personal and political vendetta,'" said Clinton.
Harris, meanwhile, is not better than Walz or Clinton, only more boring—she doesn't believe her own rhetoric but is determined to get to the top
with her gleaming eyes and maniacal laugh. She’s not even original. In fact,
she’s a yawn. And frankly, unintelligent.
“I invite you to listen and go online to listen to John
Kelly … who has told us Donald Trump said, why — essentially, ‘Why aren’t my
generals like those of Hitler’s, like Hitler.'
“The American people
deserve to have a president who encourages healthy debate … and certainly not
comparing oneself in a clearly admiring way to Hitler.
“This is a serious, serious issue. And we know who he is. He
admires dictators.
“The American people deserve to have a president who
encourages healthy debate, works across the aisle, not afraid of good ideas
wherever they come from, but also maintains certain standards about how we
think about the role and the responsibility, and certainly not comparing
oneself in a clearly admiring way to Hitler.”
Asked if Trump were a fascist, Harris' bluffed right on through. “Yes,
I do,” she said. “Yes, I do.”
There was something in her smile. Something sly in it for that tiny split second.
Well, what else could Kamala Harris, famous for her word
salads, do to win at this point but smear her opponent? She wants to be
president, but has done so little to articulate her policies. Or rather, she’s
articulated many words that go good with Thousand Island dressing.
As November 5 draws nearer, Harris seems to have stopped even
trying to outline what it is she intends to do if elected president. Instead, she has begun this slow crescendo of hateful tropes, each day ranting and raving about
Donald Trump ever more vigorously, insistently and repeatedly telling us that
Trump is a very bad person.
There is a name for this. It’s called negative campaigning.
Whether or not smearing one’s opponent is an effective strategy is up for
debate, but it certainly seems the coward’s way out of articulating an actual
policy. Something Harris can’t and hasn’t done.
We have seen Kamala Harris a lot these past weeks, Tim Walz,
less so. I think they hide him. He’s scary. He has crazy eyes. And I did not
like the look of hatred that flashed on his face, that downturn of the mouth
when Walz was asked by a reporter about the hostages in Gaza—it was so quick I
had to watch the exchange a few times to confirm it. Then the mask came down
and Walz was Mister Friendly Guy once more—all smiley like he didn’t hear the
reporter’s question. But we all saw it. I saw it. I saw Mr. Evil Man rear his
ugly head for that little almost undetectable blip in time.
I dread the thought of Walz in a position of influence.
Kamala is a power-hungry puppet who will not be kind to Israel should she win,
but she is too stupid to craft or carry out policy, and that’s where others
come in.
Will Walz distinguish himself as an advisor? Will he have a
voice? More likely Walz is a signal to Israel-hating voters: Here is someone in
Kamala’s corner.
Someone who hates the Jews.
Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!
Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.
Disclaimer: the views expressed here are solely those of
the author, weekly Judean Rose columnist Varda Meyers Epstein.
Donald Trump has many times reiterated the claim that what happened
on October 7 in Israel would not have happened had he won the 2020 election. I
completely agree. Which is why, to a degree, I blame Donald Trump for what
happened on and in the wake of October 7.
If Trump hadn’t been such a rude bully, perhaps Joe Biden
would not now be pretending to be executive in chief with Kamala Harris waiting
in the wings while contemplating the great significance of the passage of time (why
Joe wasn’t pushed down a flight of stairs and said to be dead from COVID long
ago, I have no idea).
You don’t need me to tell you that Trump is (in)famous for
his ad hominem attacks on his opponents. Trump delights in inventing creative attack
nicknames for his competitors, among them:
·Little Marco
·Lyin’ Ted
·Crooked Hillary
·Ron DeSanctimonious
·Low Energy Jeb
·Pocahontas
·Crazy Joe Biden
·Sleepy Joe
·Comrade Kamala
·Tampon Tim
The mean nicknames no doubt delight many Trump voters. For
them, it’s all a part of Donald Trump’s charm. But what about those who take
offense at the name-calling? They also vote. If Donald Trump really cares about
America, shouldn’t he want their votes, too?
Aside from the rude and childish name-calling, there was his
mockery of the way the now-deceased John McCain used his hands. Love or hate Donald
Trump, you have to admit that making fun of the disabled is repugnant, pure and
simple. But it’s even worse when that disabled person is a former prisoner of
war and war hero, whose disability is the result of maltreatment and torture. Is
someone who mocks the disabled, someone who behaves in this fashion, worthy of
being elected to the highest office in the land—a land that John McCain defended
with his body?
My dad was an American hero. An icon. A patriot that will be remembered throughout history. I cannot buy a bagel without someone approaching me about how much they loved and miss him.
Trump is a piece of shit, election denying, huckster whose own wife won't campaign with him. https://t.co/f3RlWLqT9B
The name-calling, crude references to manhood/menstruation,
and public mimicry of the disabled are all problematic and, it must be acknowledged,
at least in part to blame for Trump’s loss to Biden in 2020. Many are now
warning Trump that here too in 2024, he stands to lose voters because of his coarse
behavior. And then we’re really in trouble, because God forbid, we’d end up
with two YUGE antisemites running the show, Kamala Harris and Tim
Walz.
As Victor Davis Hanson explains it, there is only a short
window for Donald Trump to define himself for the voters. When Trump calls
Harris “stupid” without saying why, he only looks churlish. It’s a missed
opportunity to present his case at a time when time is running out, or as
Hanson put it, “No time for invective.”
Despite his at times unpresidential behavior, Trump was a damned
good president according to just about every measure this author can think of.
Think back to what your grocery cart looked like then compared to now, under the
Bidenomics of which Kamala is so proud. Picture the signing of the Abraham
Accords, and then see in your mind’s eye how Biden, instead of fostering peace,
gave Iran the wherewithal to finance Hamas brutality while staying Israel’s
hand from its own defense:
“I will end every single international crisis that the
current administration has created, including the horrible war with Russia and
Ukraine — which would have never happened if I was president — and the war
caused by the attack on Israel, which would have never happened if I was
president,” said Trump at the RNC.
“Iran was broke. Iran had no money. Now Iran has $250
billion. They made it all over the last two and a half years,” he adds, saying
the Biden administration has provided Tehran sanctions relief.
“I told China and other countries if you buy from Iran, we
will not let you do any business in this country.”
These are not empty boasts. I believe Trump when he says
these things. And he’s right; Hamas would not have attacked Israel on October 7
had he been in office. They wouldn’t have dared; and now they remember all too
well how things were when Trump was in office—and tremble. As they
should.
Trump starved Iran of money, making it impossible for the
Ayatollah to support his proxies, including the one in Gaza, Hamas. Joe Biden,
on the other hand, has fed Iran a constant diet of cash, even as he stays Israel’s
hand from obliterating this cruel enemy. There’s no reason to think this policy
of emboldening those who murder, rape, and brutalize Jews won’t continue under
a Kamala Harris presidency. And by now we must acknowledge that Joe cannot
possibly be running the show. The unseen handler of Joe is likely to become the
handler of Kamala Harris as well, if Trump fails to make his case.
Here in Israel, we feel the terrible strain of the hostage situation.
We pray for the best, but anticipate the worst, and it is unbearable. That
makes me—and I’d venture a lot of other Israeli Jews—feel kind of desperate about
the American presidential election. We are desperate for Donald Trump to win.
And angry that this might all have been avoided, had Trump behaved a little
better in the run up to the last election. Who knows how many lives would have
been saved had Trump kept a civil tongue in his mouth? It makes me ache to
think of it. A good president who won’t behave, and people died.
And still, it is a pragmatic fact that Trump must win,
because he is the president who will act decisively, and extract a price from
Hamas for what it did and continues to do to Americans and American allies both
dead and alive in Gaza. In spite of his rough behavior, it’s obvious that Trump
has a strong sense of right and wrong. He feels the disgrace of what it means
for Biden to have allowed this state of affairs to continue even as Joe helps
it along—helps the terrorists along. Trump also feels the disgrace of
America throwing an ally, Israel, under the bus.
Kamala, on the other hand, will be worse than Joe. She has
expressed sympathy for supporters of Hamas and Hezbollah, again and again.
So we watch and worry. We worry that Trump will say more
nasty, childish thing and that this will affect his chances at the polls. What
will be of our hostages if Trump can’t shut his mouth and restrain himself. “Save
it for Putin!” we want to shout.
Yet we know that in spite of any mean-spirited behavior to
the contrary, in the bigger scheme of things, Trump has more morality in his
little finger than there is in the entire Biden White House.
Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!
Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.
Disclaimer: the views expressed here are solely those of the author, weekly Judean Rose columnist Varda Meyers Epstein.
Jessica
Tarlov is the snotty token Democrat on the Fox News political talk show, “The
Five.” The petulant downturn to her mouth is annoying, as are her righteously
angry rhetoric and whiny voice. But in some ways, Tarlov’s most important
quality is that she always comes armed with facts with which to debate the far
more numerous conservatives weighing in on the discussion. Tarlov interprets
that data from her liberal perch and bias, but at least the Democratic
Party political strategist is using facts.
Or so I thought.
In a discussion regarding the anti-Israel protesters and
their new nickname for Kamala Harris, “Killer Kamala,” Tarlov remarked that “The
majority of American Jews, and also Israelis, favor a peaceful two-state
solution.”
70% of American Jews vote for the Democrats and I believe
that number will be the same come November 5th. I don’t think any of this is
going to make a substantial difference, but I think Joe Biden and Kamala Harris
have firmly stood with Israel. They have given all the arms Netanyahu has asked
for. He has said multiple times that he thanks the administration for it.
If people think Donald Trump is going to be better for
Israel, they have another think coming. Because guess what? The majority of
American Jews, and also Israelis, favor a peaceful two-state solution and
Donald Trump doesn’t care about that at all.
Now, I listen to The Five on my phone with half an ear as I
do everything I play on Youtube to keep me company as I prepare lunch or cook
for Shabbos. But when I heard that last bit about the two-state solution, my
ears perked up. “That’s not true,” I said to myself, mentally making a note to
check the numbers on Google.
It was conceivable to think that a majority of American Jews
would be in favor of a two-state solution, but I didn’t know this absolutely.
Since she was wrong about the Israelis, I thought, maybe she’s wrong about the
Americans, too. Even if the majority of Israelis were in favor of a “peaceful
two-state solution” whatever that means—it’s an oxymoron if I ever heard one—they
sure aren’t in favor of it now, after October 7. That ship has sailed.
Gallup did a survey
of Israelis between Oct. 17 and Dec. 3, in the weeks and months following
October 7. What they found is that “Israelis no longer support a two-state solution”:
One in four Israeli adults currently support the existence of an independent Palestinian state, while most (65%) oppose it. This is almost a complete reversal of where they stood on the issue a decade ago, when twice as many Israeli adults supported an independent Palestinian state (61%) as opposed one (30%).
So there you have it. A
majority of Israeli Jews do not want a two-state solution. And if that were true it meant that Tarlov was wrong—or at least using way outdated figures. That’s
if we are to give Tarlov the benefit of the doubt and assume that she made an
innocent mistake as opposed to telling an out-and-out lie. The truth is, it
makes no difference. Tarlov’s recitation of false facts robs her of
credibility.
Fact-checking Tarlov’s claim that the majority of American
Jews favor a two-solution, brought mixed results. A March Pew Research Center survey
found that 46% of Jewish Americans think a two-state solution is the best
possible outcome, while 22% support a one-state option, preferring all the
land to be one country under Israeli rule. 46% of anything, by definition,
cannot be a majority—a plurality, yes—but not a majority. That’s an important
distinction. 46% of American Jewry does not represent even half of that sector.
A May survey by the Jerusalem
Center for Public Affairs (JCPA), on the other hand, does indeed find
that a majority of American Jews, 60%, support a two-state solution. I consider
the JCPA to be an absolutely credible organization, whose august panel of
experts includes Dr. Dan Diker, Khaled
Abu Toameh, and Amb. Alan Baker. The survey offers a snapshot of “the
viewpoints of 511 American Jews regarding the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict.”
“Conducted between May 9-11, 2024, the survey provides
critical insights into the attitudes and concerns within the American Jewish
community during this turbulent period. The survey has a margin of error of ±4%
and includes a balanced representation by gender and age.”
Of course, the Pew survey had a sample of nearly four times
that size, with 1,941 Jewish American respondents weighing in. And I really
doubt that the progressive-leaning Jessica Tarlov went digging around on the ‘net,
like I did, and stumbling on the JCPA survey, decided to use it as a statistic more
to her liking than the one from Pew. Why the suspicion? Aside from the JCPA
luminaries already mentioned above is Jason Greenblatt, Trump’s advisor on none
other than . . . drumroll please. . .
Israel.
It is difficult to believe that Jessica Tarlov would cite,
unless by accident, the results of a survey published by a think-tank with a
Trump appointee as its senior director of Arab-Israeli diplomacy. More likely,
Jessica Tarlov was thinking of the March Pew survey. In which case, we really need
to wonder at the conflation of “majority” with “plurality.”
Not that anyone did at “The Five.” No one among full-time
cohosts Greg Gutfeld, Dana Perino, Jesse Watters, and Jeanine Pirro said a
thing in response to Tarlov’s erroneous statistics about Jews and the two-state
solution. They must have figured that yet again, they, the non-Jews have been caught
flatfooted, undercut by actual Jews when non-Jews try to speak up for them. They
certainly wouldn’t have been splitting semantic hairs over “majority” and “plurality.”
At any rate, there wouldn’t have been a way for the cohosts to
verify Tarlov’s claims on the spot, while they were live on air, even if some
unseen guy were feeding them facts through some gewgaw in their ears. I, on the
other hand, had the luxury of time and a laptop to actually investigate Tarlov’s
wide-of-the-mark assessment of Jewish attitudes in regard to the stupidest,
most unworkable concept on earth: the two-state solution.
The main thing for me, at any rate, was that I learned a
lesson, or at least had one reinforced by the exercise. Don’t easily accept
stats, especially when it comes to Israel and the Jews. Always question further,
even when the one citing those stats seems like a serious person, even if you
do disagree with them. Which was how I’d seen Tarlov until now, someone I
respected, even if I disagreed with her. Now, even the respect is gone.
Tarlov may be snappy with the stats, but she isn’t being
either careful or accurate, playing fast and loose with the numbers as she
apparently does. In my eyes, going forward, Tarlov is forever tarnished, and by
extension, so is everyone else.
I’ve lost trust.
Can you blame me?
Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!
Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.
This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For 20 years and 40,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going.
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