Thanksgiving was reportedly first celebrated in November 1621 by William Bradford, the leader of the “Mayflower” and the Governor of the Plymouth Colony.
He enhanced his appreciation of the Bible — and especially the Five Books of Moses — in Leiden, Holland, where he found refuge from religious persecution in England. While there, he heavily interacted with the Jewish community.
Bradford and the other Mayflower passengers perceived the 66-day-voyage as a reenactment of the Biblical exodus, and the departure from “the Modern Day Egypt,” to “the Modern Day Promised Land.”
As a governor in this new land, Bradford announced the celebration of Thanksgiving by citing Psalm 107, which constitutes the foundation of the Jewish concept of Thanksgiving, thanking God for ancient and modern time deliverance.
The epitaph on Bradford’s tombstone in the old cemetery in Plymouth, Massachusetts, begins with a Hebrew phrase — “God is the succor of my life” (יהוה עזר חיי) — as befits the person who brought Hebrew to America. He aimed to make Hebrew an official language, suggesting that reading the Bible in the original language yields more benefits.
The Hebrew word for Thanksgiving’s central dish, turkey, is “Tarnegol Hodoo” (תרנגול הודו), which means “a chicken from India,” but also “a chicken of gratitude/Thanksgiving.”
Progressive causes and Protestantism in the U.S. frequently went hand-in-hand, from Prohibition to expanded public education, as the 19th century became the 20th. Indeed, the Social Gospel movement, the inspiration for many of the reforms of the Progressive Era, was led in its early years by Congregationalist minister Washington Gladden. In his book, Rothman quotes George McKenna, author of The Puritan Origins of American Patriotism, on the art of the overlapping Gilded Age and early Progressive Era: “The Puritans’ ethic of self-discipline and austerity was reflected in the numerous paintings and sculptures of Puritans that appeared during this period.” If this seems somewhat paradoxical—the cultural exultation of sober self-reliance alongside the excesses of the robber barons—consider that the progenitor of the New Deal was the blue-blooded FDR, himself the son of a cradle Congregationalist.
Rothman has a theory behind what he sees as a shift, from the late-20th-century paradigm of conservative Republicans as the “Just Say No” party fearful that “someone, somewhere, may be happy,” to progressive “New Puritans,” who, he writes in his book, “are draining life of its spontaneity, authenticity and fun.” Contending in his book that while the Democratic Party had broadened its tent by the 1990s to include upholders of the ’60s’ revolutionary legacy, by contrast, in 2016, Republicans were nominating a three-time divorced Howard Stern Show regular. “Conservatives didn’t so much lose the culture wars as much as they simply fled the field,” he writes.
Of course, the actual spiritual descendants of the New England Puritans, who began as radicals in their native England, are Congregationalists like the United Church of Christ, who are themselves fairly progressive on social issues. And when the idealistic utopianism of the Transcendentalist movement arose in the 19th century, with a focus on the primacy of the self and individual personal experience, it did so in the old Puritan stronghold of New England. Among its most prominent spokesmen was Ralph Waldo Emerson, the son of a Unitarian (itself an outgrowth of Congregationalism) minister at the First Church of Boston, which had been founded by the Puritan John Winthrop of “City Upon a Hill“ fame. In his landmark address, Winthrop warned his fellow New England Puritans that the eyes of the world were upon them, and as such, righteous living was essential. The reward, he wrote, would be a New England that was “a praise and glory that men shall say of succeeding plantations, ‘the Lord make it like that of New England.’”
“Today,” Rothman said in his message to Tablet, “as the left gravitates away from liberalism and toward progressivism, they are assuming many of progressivism’s conceits—chief among them, a messianic utopianism that views everything, even life’s most banal pleasures, through the prism of political activism.”
But contradiction is something the Puritans accepted as a fact of life. “Work out your salvation with fear and trembling,” wrote the Apostle Paul to the young church at Philippi, and the Puritans took this charge seriously. “The [P]uritan life,” Winship writes, was “much more likely to involve protracted struggle with fear and doubt than it would a steady sense of God’s love.” They were a people ill-at-ease: with themselves, with each other, and with the wider world. That we perennially recast each other and ourselves in the New England Puritans’ story may suggest that the real mark that they left on the American character is something altogether more ambiguous than the saccharine annual depictions at Thanksgiving suggest.
Mark Twain wrote in his book Innocents Abroad about how desolate Palestine was when he visited in 1867, before the indigenous Jewish pilgrims and pioneers returned and made the desert bloom.
The success of Israeli agricultural innovation in feeding the people here, as well as in the Third World, is certainly worth celebrating. Israel’s successful hi-tech economy can be revered, as well as its unprecedented success in water conservation that would have made the environmentally conscious Native Americans proud.
Zionist visionary Theodor Herzl wrote in his 1902 book Altneuland that the Jewish state could transport water great distances. His vision and the success of the pioneers who implemented it could be celebrated on Thanksgiving in Israel.
Former diplomat Yoram Ettinger pointed out this week that William Bradford, the leader of the Mayflower and the Governor of the Plymouth Colony, interacted with the Jewish community and enhanced his appreciation of the Five Books of Moses in Holland before initiating the voyage.
“Governor Bradford announced the celebration of Thanksgiving by citing Psalm 107, which constitutes the foundation of the Jewish concept of Thanksgiving, thanking God for ancient and modern time deliverance,” Ettinger wrote. “Bradford was also inspired by the Jewish holidays of Pentecost (Shavuot in Hebrew) and Tabernacles (Sukkot in Hebrew), which highlight the importance of gratitude, and commemorating Thanksgiving for the harvest.”
Proper gratitude for the Land of Israel can be shown by eating turkey, whose Hebrew name, as Ettinger wrote, means both “a chicken from India,” but also “a chicken of gratitude/Thanksgiving.”
Thanksgiving falls this year on Rosh Chodesh, the celebration of the new Jewish month, when Jews say the Hallel prayer and its signature line Hodu LaHashem Ki Tov, which can be translated as “Give thanks to the Lord for He is good,” or “have turkey for God because it’s good.”
The final reason for celebrating Thanksgiving in the Jewish State is to remind the world and the often hostile international media that we – the People of Israel – are here in the Land of Israel, we belong here and we will always be here, even if we get bad press.
Lincoln, the Pilgrims and most of the Wampanoag are long gone, mostly due to tragic events that became part of history.
We the People of Israel have overcome countless tragedies, and yet we endure, which is clearly an excellent reason for us to be thankful.
As I browse through old newspapers looking for interesting things to blog, I came across a story of a January 1916 banquet in Mexico, Missouri. One participant jokingly complained that he didn't get the chance to dance the "kosher turkey-trot."
Was that a real thing?
At first, I thought not. It seems to have been a lyric to a novelty song from 1912 called "At the Yiddisher Ball."
The lyrics:
In our neighborhood we have, what you call,
Once a year a sociable ball,
What a time, there's everything you wish
Ev'ry one is dressed from soup to fish;
You take Rifky, she looks pretty nifty,
Don't you mind to bring the lunch, it only costs you fifty;
There'll be wine and ev'ry thing that's fine
At the yiddish sociable ball.
CHORUS:
At the ball, at the ball, at the yiddisher ball,/
There'll only be class, or there'll be nothing at all,
And when that orchestra plays/ Yiddish kazotskys and Bombershays,
At the ball, at the ball, and the yiddisher ball
We'll make monkey doodles 'round the hall,
Out upon the floor I'll be Jakey on the spot,
Doing the kosher turkey trot,
At that first class yiddisher sociable,
(Remember, fifty cents admits the ladies and the gents)
At that first class yiddisher sociable ball.
VERSE 2:
I have tickets here I don't want to keep,
Say you'll come, I'll give you them cheap;
I'll sing there if you will surely come,
I'll knock them from the seats singing Chill-i-bom-bom;
A theatre won't be half so good
Don't stay away treat yourself just like you should,
Once a year, you know, you should appear
At the yiddish sociable ball.
I didn't think it was likely that this was turned into a real dance, but, apparently, it was ...at least once.
Columbia pinned her faith on two performers, and they certainly were top-notchers! Sengstaken, at the piano, made that instrument do everything but talk, and to make up for that deficiency, "monologued" at the same time he played. Then Barrett sang two "Yiddisher" songs in true East Side style, and incidentally danced the "Kosher turkey-trot."
Columbia came in last place, behind Rutgers The New York chapter performed in blackface.
Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!
Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.
Washington, November 24 - The distant progeny of seventh-century invaders of the Levant from the Arabian Peninsula and of later immigrants from around the region voiced puzzlement today that the White people who colonized and eventually took over the New World have not followed the same playbook they themselves did, namely to insist that they were there since the dawn of time and therefore the only legitimate people with collective political rights in the area.
Pro-Palestinian activists and political figures wondered Thursday what might explain Europeans' collective neglect of a powerful tool in the rhetorical repertoire, namely claiming that one's people occupy the same territory since time began, and that others who make claims on that territory have no historical validity to do so - despite that claim flying in the face of all the evidence indicating that one's ancestors in fact came much later.
"It works well for us, and I can't imagine why Westerners don't do that same thing," stated Nour Erakat, a commentator and political activist. "It would be so much easier for the US, for example, to dismiss 'Indian' claims by calling those claims lies, as we do with Jewish claims to our land. My clan in particular came to Palestine in the nineteenth century, but that doesn't stop us from insisting we're the original inhabitants going back to prehistory. And that we always identified as 'Palestinian,' even though no native group ever referred to itself as such. It would be so much less complicated that the current mess those New World governments have to deal with, what with the treaties, reservations, and other hassles. Just get rid of those other people and say you were always there. What's the big deal?"
"I understand the Western reluctance to abandon the factual realm entirely," acknowledged James Zogby. "Without an anchor in documented history, the Western mind can't make coherent sense of the world. But with time, we can teach them to create narratives that do not rely on such a flimsy basis as 'facts' and 'evidence' - and that will free them to do as we have done, to deny the legitimacy of indigenous peoples restoring their political nationhood, by denying the historicity of any such nationhood."
"Also, if Muslims can claim pre-Islamic and Biblical figures as Muslim," he added, "why all the fuss over anachronism? Just call the Lenape New Yorkers and Seminole Floridians and be done with it. It works for Al-Khalil, Al-Quds, the Haram al-Sharif, and Al-Aqsa."
Attacks that are carried out by lone attackers are usually more difficult to thwart. They can be perpetrated by people who wake up one morning and decide to try and kill some Jews without any prior warning. An attack like the one that took place on Wednesday is something else.
This was an attack that required the involvement of a number of people – to assemble the bombs and obtain the necessary ingredients, smuggle the bombs into Israel and plant them next to their targets.
This is already what is called “terrorist infrastructure,” the kind that likely is affiliated with a known organization, which should have been on the Israeli intelligence community’s watch list.
What this also shows is the need to focus now on establishing a government. The sooner there is a stable government in Jerusalem the sooner Israel will be able to create a clear strategy for how to stop the terrorist wave that is not going away.
Fights about ministries and portfolios
Fights about ministries and portfolios might interest the politicians who are supposed to occupy those offices, but they are not of real interest to Israelis, who want to see safe streets and to know that their children – like Shechopek – are safe when they stand at a bus stop waiting to go to school.
Comments like the one made by an Army Radio reporter on Wednesday – that the attack was connected to the pending appointment of Itamar Ben-Gvir as the next public security minister – do not do any good. Neither are appearances at the scene soon after the crime by Ben-Gvir, who promised as presumptive internal security minister to wield an iron fist against terrorism.
After 75 years of statehood that has been marred by wars and terrorist attacks, we do not need to look for excuses for why Arab terrorists want to try and kill Israeli Jews. This has been part of the Israeli story since it was created as an independent state and will, sadly, likely continue as long as some of our neighbors refuse to come to terms with our existence here.
There was terrorism when there were left-wing governments in power and there was terrorism when there were right-wing governments. Israelis have not forgotten, for example, how Benjamin Netanyahu promised to topple Hamas in the Gaza Strip during an election campaign in 2009 and how through 12 consecutive years as prime minister he refrained from ordering the IDF to do so.
Netanyahu was quick to respond to Wednesday’s attack, saying his administration would once again make the country safe. What Israelis need right now is security, not boasting of how the incoming government is going to do things differently. Let’s hope they can put their actions where their mouths are.
The United Nations favourite sport – Jew bashing - was on full display this past week at the 77th Session of the United Nations Fourth Committee (Special Political and Decolonization) - which approved six draft resolutions - all highly critical of Israel.
One of these draft resolutions - approved by 98 voting in favour to 17 against, with 52 abstentions - was titled “Israeli practices affecting the human rights of the Palestinian people in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem” (document A/C.4/77/L.12/Rev.1).
By its terms, the UN General Assembly would demand that Israel cease:
all measures that violate the human rights of the Palestinian people, including the killing and injuring of civilians, the arbitrary detention and imprisonment of civilians,
the forced displacement of civilians
the transfer of its own population into the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem”
and that: “the General Assembly should request the International Court of Justice to render urgently an advisory opinion on the legal consequences arising from the ongoing violation by Israel of the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination, from its prolonged occupation, settlement and annexation of the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967”.
Vituperative verbal attacks on the Jewish State made by Bangladesh, Venezuela, South Africa, Iran, Libya, Niger, Türkiye, Algeria, Brunei Darussalam, Namibia, Indonesia, Kuwait, Japan, Qatar, Lebanon, Sudan, Malaysia and Yemen, all bastions of civil liberties, ensured Jew-bashing would continue at the United Nations whilst the 100 years-old Arab-Jewish conflict remains unresolved.
THE HISTORICAL, political and legal issues are extremely complex. An Israeli take on them was set out in convincing detail in a recent study by Professor Abraham Sion, which he called, “To whom was the promised land promised?” Sion is a former deputy state attorney of Israel and is a professor emeritus of law at Ariel University. If the world were governed by reason, logic and conscientious adherence to the rule of law, Sion’s book would be a game changer.
He submitted the entire legal process leading to the establishment of Israel to meticulous forensic examination and he demonstrates beyond any doubt that judicial rulings from the UN, the EU, the ICJ and elsewhere have often been at odds with a scrupulous interpretation of their legal basis. Over the past few decades, international bodies have reached a consensus that the West Bank and eastern Jerusalem are Palestinian territories, and that Israeli towns and cities in Judea and Samaria are illegal. Sion uncovers the solid legal building blocks that have been ignored or overlooked and that prove different.
In short, he demonstrates with chapter and verse that the almost universally accepted consensus on Israel’s legal position regarding the West Bank, settlements and Jerusalem is legally flawed.
In undertaking his scrupulous legal analysis, Sion’s original purpose was to ascertain who owned the legal right to the territory of Mandatory Palestine under international law. He identified the two competitors as the Arab nation on the one hand and the Jewish people on the other. Concerned solely with the legal position and not with political or related issues, he set out to establish the legal rights under the international law of both parties.
Sion demonstrates that in concluding that Israel is illegally occupying territory, international bodies never refer to the treaties that shaped the legal structure of the Middle East. He shows that the rights derived from those binding international commitments were still valid when Israel occupied the West Bank.
Sion is not alone in reaching conclusions like these, but of course, they have never been tested openly in any international judicial forum. If in due course the UN General Assembly asks the ICJ for an opinion, how could the court possibly render a valid legal determination without having the issues raised by Sion and many others argued before it?
On the very day that the UN committee voted to appeal to the ICJ for an opinion – November 11 – the ICJ began public hearings in The Hague in a long-running dispute between Venezuela and the former British colony of Guyana on the issue of the border between them. Each party is presenting its case to the court in preliminary hearings scheduled to last until November 22. The proceedings are not only open to the public but they are being videoed and publicized widely on social media.
The United Arab Emirates is taking major steps to combat a regional culture of Holocaust denial in the wake of the 2020 Abraham Accords that normalized its relations with Israel.
Once entirely absent from the learning materials of children in the UAE — which also blacked out Israel from world maps and globes — the Holocaust is now set to be fully included in the curriculum, as the Gulf country moves to position itself as a regional peacemaker.
Emirates Leaks published this news with the headline "the new shame of normalization." It got picked up by Iraqi and Iranian Arabic media as well.
If teaching the Holocaust is considered a shameful act of normalization with Israel, then it follows that Holocaust denial is merely "anti-Zionism."
As always, there is no distinction between anti-Zionism and antisemitism. And the Western anti-Zionists never, ever denounce the antisemitism in the Arab world.
Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!
Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.
Often, when Israel-haters accuse Israel of some crime, they use terminology that they have given a completely different definition than it has in any other context.
This is quite deliberate. They first choose the crime they want to accuse Israel of, and then change the definition of the crime to fit (or pretend to fit) Israel.
Related is how the word "refugee" means something different for Palestinians than it does for everyone else.
These are all words with precise, legal meanings, whose very definitions are different when Israel is involved.
There are other, less precise words, that are also misused by the haters in ways that are not obvious unless one knows what to listen for. They include "justice" - no one is against justice, but only one side is allowed to seek it. Also "peace activists," "human rights activists" and "pro-Palestinian activists" that really mean "anti-Israel activists" (cf. the Mavi Marmara.)
These are the terms that have made it to the mainstream, despite their clear inaccuracies.
Palestinians themselves have plenty more absurd words they use and are trying to spread to be as mainstream as the others. They are just waiting for these terms to be used by first the far Left and eventually "human rights" organizations and mainstream media. These include "cultural genocide," "legitimate resistance," "holocausts," "peace activists," "storming," "Talmudic rituals," "settlers" (referring to any Jew in Israel,) "civilian," "child," "open air prison," "concentration camp," "Judaization," "indigenous," "struggle," "defense," "surrounded," "martyrs..." the list is really endless, and Orwell himself couldn't have come up with some of these.
Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!
Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.
Then Goldstone went and changed his mind and all hell broke loose. It took him a year and a half, but very publicly, in the Washington Post he retracted everything. “Civilians,” he wrote, “were not intentionally targeted as a matter of policy.” To everyone it came as a shock, to some a shock and a blow. They would not admit that Goldstone had changed his mind. Goldstone, on the other hand, could not have made himself clearer:
“I had hoped,” he said, “that our inquiry into all aspects of the Gaza conflict would begin a new era of even-handedness at the U.N. Human Rights Council, whose history of bias against Israel cannot be doubted.” (Washington Post, 1 April, 2011)
The credo, however, withstood the shock, as it had done after the hoax massacre. Amnesty would not settle for anything less than a crime. In Jenin its globe trotter wandered around looking for the corpses that Israel “hid.” Now a respected Jewish lawyer had gone and spoilt the plot. He particularly upset the resident expert at the UN Human Rights Council. Professor John Dugard took the position Amnesty had taken in Jenin: Israel can’t ever be innocent.
“He (Goldstone) could not possibly have meant that Israel did not “intentionally target civilians as a matter of policy” in the legal sense of intention. That Israel’s assault was conducted in an indiscriminate manner with full knowledge that its consequences would be the killing and wounding of civilians is a matter of public record fully substantiated by the Goldstone report and other, equally credible findings.” (The New Statesman, 6 April 2011)
The statement is interesting. Dugard is angry with captain Goldstone for saying that Israel was not guilty. Israel had not targeted civilians. Goldstone, he insists, could not possibly have meant that. Israel has to be guilty. And Dugard hits upon the oddest reason – Israel is guilty in the “legal sense.” It targeted civilians, in the “legal sense.” He could be speaking nonsense; Dugard won’t elaborate what that means. The burden of proof, in his law volumes, only requires that Israel can’t ever be innocent. Forget burden of proof, he thinks, look at the public record. For sure look – Eh, what is the public record, and where can it be found, “fully substantiated?” Retorts Dugard, ‘Where? Where else than in the report Goldstone signed, sealed and delivered. Ha, but captain Goldstone had second thoughts: no proof that Israel had done the deed. In plain English the verdict, said the captain of the crew, was mistaken. He retracts completely.
He can do what he likes, retorts Dugard. The captain did not sign the report alone. There were other signatories, not to mention “other, equally credible findings.”
The credo, ‘Israel can’t ever be innocent,’ seems to reduce the brains of a professor to pulp. Dugard the law professor is piqued into making a statement that would amuse his undergrad class. A report of an unsubstantiated crime, rubbished by a Jewish legal brain, must be treated as credible evidence of wrongdoing. Did not Amnesty declare similarly? Corpses not found are credible proof of a Jewish crime.
“In all of mankind’s history, there has never been more damage done than by people who ‘thought they were doing the right thing’.” Who said that? Lucy said it, when her pal Charlie Brown admits he took away small Linus’s blanket comforter. With that remark “Peanuts” cartoon strip creator, Charley Schulz, hit upon the dodgy ideologue and bigot that employs human rights for an excuse never to let Israel be innocent.
The Committee to Protect Journalists has documented 13 reporters killed by the American military in Iraq. One example: In 2003, Tareq Ayyoub, a Jordanian working for Al Jazeera, was killed when an American missile struck the station’s Baghdad bureau. U.S. Central Command said that American forces were responding to enemy fire and that Ayyoub was caught in the crossfire. Al-Jazeera denied that any fire came from its building.
More recently, the United States has declined to cooperate with investigations by the International Criminal Court involving American troops and CIA officers accused of war crimes in Afghanistan. Neither the United States nor Israel recognizes the authority of the ICC.
So, why go after Israel? According to Axios, both the White House and the State Department have told the Israeli government that “they were not behind the FBI decision.”
Who was? Sen. Van Hollen has been adamant that the United States must distrust Israel. “There are a number of us that are not going to allow this to be swept under the rug,” he said at an August Senate sub-panel hearing that was intended to focus on China.
In September, he called on the United States to determine whether the IDF had “committed a gross violation of human rights” and should be denied further American military assistance as punishment.
Van Hollen even disputed the IDF’s claim—and the conclusion of the American three-star general—that Israeli soldiers were “returning fire” at militants, insisting that there is no evidence of “such firing at the time.” Perhaps he thinks Abu Akleh was in Jenin to cover peace talks?
He also might consider the root cause of this tragedy. Last week, two people were killed in Poland by what was likely a surface-to-air missile misfired by Ukrainians attempting to defend themselves from Russian missiles. Rep. Adam Smith, Democratic Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, observed that blame for the tragedy should fall on Russia for “invading and attacking Ukraine.”
As noted above, terrorists from the West Bank—members of Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and other groups funded and directed by the Islamic Republic of Iran—have for months been infiltrating into Israel and murdering Israelis.
Why is Sen. Van Hollen giving them a pass? Could it be related to the fact that Israel is the world’s only Jewish-majority state? Does he believe that some lives matter less than others?
Final question: Did no one from the FBI or the Justice Department think to have a discussion with the White House or State Department before proceeding with a probe sure to damage America’s relations with its closest Middle Eastern ally?
The least bad—and perhaps most likely—end to this episode: The FBI takes one more look at the evidence, finds nothing new or surprising, and then quietly closes the case, confirming the conclusions of the USSC and the IDF.
Some of us, however, will continue to wonder: Why were Sen. Van Hollen and his colleagues so determined to sic the FBI on the IDF?
Such biased thinking against the Jewish state will now be greatly enhanced through the recent appointment of the Reverend Dr. Jerry Pillay to become the general secretary of the World Council of Churches.[xxxii] A Presbyterian minister and academic dean at the University of Pretoria in South Africa, Dr. Pillay is on record supporting movements to boycott Israel and comparing what he calls ‘the exclusionary and violent character of the Israeli Zionist project’ to South Africa’s racial apartheid regime. Indeed, following a visit to ‘the Holy Land,’ in which he confesses he found nothing ‘holy,’ he reports that he and his fellow black South Africans discovered a situation there that was ‘worse than they had seen or experienced in South Africa.’ He has accused Israel of subjugating ‘the indigenous people of the land’ and urged Christians to ‘resist the empirical ambition of Israeli Jews.’ Other comments of his about Jews and Israel are in line with these, including that ‘Jewish leadership’ [helped] ‘influence European nationalism and colonization with a common desire to establish the state of Israel on the land of Palestine.’[xxxiii]
The World Council of Churches is a large organization representing an estimated 500 million Christians around the world. Never an Israel-friendly body, it is likely to become even less so under the Reverend Dr. Pillay’s leadership.
CONCLUSION
I began by referring to the defacement of a Holocaust Museum in Florida with swastikas and the words, ‘The Jews Are Guilty.’ The list of sins for which Jews are said to be guilty is long and growing. Also growing are the hostile passions that trigger heated accusations of Jewish malevolence. These passions are today widespread and intense and provoke a growing number of attacks on individual Jews, Jewish communal institutions, and Israel. In his early book on antisemitism, Jean Paul Sartre recognized the aims of such hatred: ‘What the antisemite wishes for, and prepares for,’ he wrote, ‘is the death of the Jew.’[xxxiv] We can add, ‘What the anti-Zionist wishes for, and prepares for, is the death of the Jewish State.’
To lend religious sanction to such wishes is obscene, but such obscenities, sometimes on open display, at other times dressed up in the language of religious piety, are now regularly and brutally directed at Jews and Israel. They are dangerous and must be vigorously and effectively opposed.
When Kanye (Ye) West finally managed to out himself as an
antisemite, the response was predictable. Demand an apology. Demand that the
offender’s lucrative business deals be canceled. This is the pattern we’ve seen
over the past several years, as antisemitism grows, even in America, the
Goldene Medina. But is it working?
It certainly didn’t work with West. The rapper only doubled
down and refused to apologize, even after several very profitable business contracts
were canceled, as a result.
Kanye (Ye) West
The following exchange took place during an
interview with Piers Morgan:
Piers Morgan: “Do you now regret saying ‘death con 3 on
Jewish people’… Are you sorry you said that?”
Kanye: “No… Absolutely not.”
Bottom of the barrel. Kanye West goes on Piers Morgan’s show, presumably because that’s the only show that would have him on, and offers most ridiculous half-assed apology ever. pic.twitter.com/HzOSvLAwA7
In other words, despite the fact that Ye lost out on
billions of dollars in potential earnings, he has shown little to no contrition
for the hateful things he said about the Jewish people.
Yet Morgan persisted until he at last managed to eke out a
semblance of an apology from West:
“I will say I’m sorry for the people that I hurt with the ‘Death Con’ — the
confusion that I caused. I feel like I caused hurt and confusion. And I’m sorry for the families of the people
that had nothing to do with the trauma that I have been through, and that I
used my platform, where you say hurt people hurt people, and I was hurt.”
Some media outlets referred to Kanye’s non-apology as an
apology.
(Yahoo)
(The Wrap)
Others were more honest.
(TMZ)
(Daily Beast)
Once allowed back on Twitter after a six-week ban, Ye collectively mocked the Jewish people by tweeting a single word, “Shalom.” As if to say, “You Jews exploited me and stole my money as you always do, but I refused to bow my head.”
The same irritating pattern was repeated with athlete Kyrie
Irving. There was a tweet with hateful content, this time in the form of a link
to an antisemitic movie: "Hebrews to Negroes: Wake Up Black America."
The ADL put pressure on a sports shoe company—Nike—with West it was Adidas—and
an apology was demanded but not received. Irving was also suspended from his
position as a guard for the Brooklyn Nets.
Sources: Nets have delivered Kyrie Irving six items he must complete to return to team:
- Apologize/condemn movie - $500K donation to anti-hate causes - Sensitivity training - Antisemitic training - Meet with ADL, Jewish leaders - Meet with Joe Tsai to demonstrate understanding
But Irving was smarter than Ye, or at least saner. He figured
out that he stood to lose a LOT of money if he didn’t apologize to those damned
Jews. So after he tried to get away with not apologizing, followed by a non-apology
that everyone knew was a non-apology, he finally made an actual apology—or at
least said the words—whether he meant them is anyone’s guess (and I’m guessing
not).
“I don’t have hate in my heart for the Jewish people or
anyone that identifies as a Jew . . . The difficult aspect is just processing
all this, understanding the power of my voice, the influence I have. I am no
one’s idol, but I am a human being that wants to make [an] impact and change.”
“I really want to
focus on the hurt that I caused. I just want to apologize deeply for all my
actions throughout the time that it’s been since the post was first put up. I’ve
had a lot of time to think,” said Irving.
Having at last issued an apology—whether heartfelt or not—Kyrie
was reinstated by the Nets.
Nick Cannon
The antisemitism of Kyrie and Ye are lately in the news. But
we’ve seen this show before. There was Nick
Cannon’s 2020 podcast with Richard “Professor Griff” Griffin. From the
transcript:
Nick Cannon: Right. So let’s dive into it. Who are they?
When we speak up, because this is where it truly is. And we talk about the six
corporations, when we go as deep as the Rothschilds, centralized banking, the
13 families, the bloodlines that control everything even outside of America.
When we talk about the people who, if we were truly the children of Israel, and
we’re defining who the Jewish people are, because I feel like if we actually
can understand that construct, then we can see that there is no hate involved.
When we talk about the lies, the deceit, how the fake dollar controls all of
this, then maybe we can get to the reason why they wanted to silence you, why
they want to silence Minister Farrakhan, and they want to throw that we are
having hate speech when it’s never hate speech, when it’s not. You can’t be
anti-Semitic when we are the Semitic people, when we are the same people that
who they want to be, that’s our birthright.
Richard “Professor Griff” Griffin: It’s our birthright.
Nick Cannon: So if that’s truly our birthright, there’s no
hate involved.
Richard “Professor Griff” Griffin: It’s not.
Nick Cannon: How did this message gets so misconstrued?
Richard “Professor Griff” Griffin: When we came back to
claim it. When we woke up and we came back to claim … If you steal my bicycle,
when we were six years old, and you riding around the hood with my bike, now
I’m 12, and I understand …
Nick Cannon: I want my bike back.
Richard “Professor Griff” Griffin: I want my bike back, man.
Now you’re going to kick up dust.
Nick Cannon: Right, right. Right.
Richard “Professor Griff” Griffin: You understand what I’m
saying?
Nick Cannon: And I’m
baller enough to get my bike back. . .
Richard “Professor Griff” Griffin: You understand what I’m
saying? That’s showing and proving that that’s my bike, and I’m here to claim
it, man. You got, you have to give it back. So when you start hearing songs
like Michael Jackson “hike me, kike me” and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, nah,
you can’t say that.
Nick Cannon: You can’t say that. That’s hate speech.
Richard “Professor Griff” Griffin: When you see Puffy
talking about “I’m getting paid like the Hebrew,” you know what I’m saying?
Nick Cannon: Right, right. They want to mute the Hebrew.
Richard “Professor Griff” Griffin: They want to mute that.
You understand what I’m saying?
Nick Cannon: Even we the true Hebrews.
Richard “Professor Griff” Griffin: Exactly. So we can’t even
tell the truth now.
Nick Cannon: Right.
Richard “Professor Griff” Griffin: Not on record, not on
television shows, not on YouTube. . . .
Nick Cannon: Because we’re not saying anything hateful, and
that’s the thing when they want to put that on the Minister Farrakhan, was
saying, even the term “white devils” or just devils in general …
Richard “Professor Griff” Griffin: Right, right, right.
Nick Cannon: … when he was really speaking about the people
who devalue our communities and themselves, and that’s really where the word
“devil” comes from and how he’s speaking it. But they want to take the sound
bites and say, “This is antisemitic.” And so how does that occur? And why does
that occur? Is that great? Is that spiritual warfare or is that just truly just
us just silencing each other?
Richard “Professor Griff” Griffin: That’s the psychological
covert, meaning hidden, war on the higher, infinite power healing our people.
Further on in the podcast is this exchange:
Nick Cannon: So ultimately are we saying that there’s a
certain group of people that maybe they’re scared of the truth?
Richard “Professor Griff” Griffin: I think there’s Jewish
people, but I just think there’s a group of Jewish people inside of that. You
could call them Zionists. You can call them whatever.
Nick Cannon: Let’s dig into that for a second because that’s
where I, and even sometimes I find myself wanting to debate this idea, and it
gets real wishy-washy and unclear for me when we give so much power to the
“they,” and then the theys then turn into the Illuminati, the Zionists, the
Rothschilds …
Richard “Professor Griff” Griffin: The Freemasons.
Nick Cannon: The Bilderberg group, the Freemason. And as a
community I feel, and I’ve done this myself, I want to blame others for the
position that I’m currently in. And that often becomes when you say the
privileged white girlfriend comes into the room or the apologists or these
people come in and say, “Why aren’t you guys over slavery already?” or “Why are
you always complaining? And why don’t you do for yourself? Pull yourself up by
your own bootstraps. And my people were also oppressed.”
But as was the case for Kyrie Irving, money talks, nobody walks. After ViacomCBS dropped Cannon like a hot potato, he found himself (shocker!) ready to apologize.
That’s the pattern: demand an apology—and it doesn’t seem to
matter whether or not it is sincere—and hit the hater in the wallet. Perhaps it’s
time to question the wisdom of this method. Do the antisemitic beliefs
evaporate once the apology is issued? Do the apologies matter at all? And doesn’t
placing financial pressure on antisemitic offenders only reinforce classic
tropes about Jews, money, and power?
Ye’s claim that Jared Kushner’s actions between Israel and
Arab nations was driven by his desire for financial gain corroborates
long-standing antisemitic tropes about alleged Jewish control of money and
financial institutions. His vague suggestion that a prominent Jewish holiday is
associated with “financial engineering” also reinforces this stereotype.
Overall, Ye's suggestions about Jewish people, holidays and the monetary
implications of the two lends credence to the baseless idea that Jews can
leverage their power for insidious purposes because of the stronghold they have
on financial institutions.
Claims about Jewish
Control of Media and Government
In many of his recent interviews, Ye repeatedly referenced
purported Jewish control over various industries — he used the phrase “Jewish
media” over twenty times on “Drink Champs” alone. Ye also spoke about “Jewish
Zionists” and “Zionist media handlers.” He made multiple references to
prominent Jewish individuals, including George Soros — the Hungarian
Jewish billionaire, philanthropist and Holocaust survivor who is a frequent
bogeyman for both avowed antisemites and the political right — and Jared
Kushner, as supposed examples of Jewish power.
Ye’s insinuations about Jewish control perpetuate the longstanding
antisemitic trope that Jews wield an inordinate amount of power and exert
control over global systems as part of a quest for world domination. These
views are regularly promoted by extremists and antisemites of a wide variety of
ideologies, from white supremacists and extremist Black nationalist groups to
conspiracy theorists and Holocaust deniers.
·“Jared Kushner is an example of how the Jewish
people have their hand on every single business that controls the world.” (Ye
on “Drink Champs,” 10/16/22)
·“We’re not going to be owned by the Jewish media
anymore…Every celebrity has Jewish people in their contract…And these people,
if you say anything out of the line with the agenda, then your career can be
over.” (Ye on “Cuomo,” 10/17/22)
·“Kim [Kardashian, Ye’s ex-wife] has Zionist
media handlers surrounding her.” (Ye on “Piers Morgan Uncensored,” 10/19/22)
·“I said the Jewish people because, by the way,
it’s a barrage…George Soros knows, like, ‘wow, this guy is like a younger guy
that’s looking at what I did and looking at how I control the world silently
and he’s calling it out’…That’s what George Soros sees, right, when he’s
dealing with me.” (Ye on the “Lex Fridman Podcast,” 10/24/22)
Claims that Jews
Exploit Black Artists for Financial Gain
Antisemitic tropes about alleged Jewish power and greed intersect
in Ye’s comments about purported Jewish control of the music industry and exploitation
of Black artists. This trope has been present in the discourse of other Black
performers and activists in the past and is a common talking point within more
extremist groups. Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, for example, frequently makes
this accusation.
·“Jewish people have owned the Black voice…The
Jewish community, especially in the music industry, in the entertainment [industry]
period, they’ll take one of us, the brightest of us, right, that can really
feed a whole village, and they’ll take us and milk us till we die.” (Ye on
“Drink Champs,” 10/16/22)
·“There’s so many Black musicians signed to
Jewish record labels and those Jewish records labels take ownership not only of
the publishing…but also ownership of the culture itself…It’s like a modern-day
slavery.” (Ye on “Cuomo,” 10/17/22)
·“I’ve been wronged so many times by Jewish
businessmen…They’re taking money out of my children’s mouths and putting it
into their children’s mouths!” (Ye on “Piers Morgan Uncensored,” 10/19/22)
·“90% of Black people in entertainment — from
sports, to music, to acting — are in some way tied into Jewish
businesspeople…Like if Rahm [Emanuel] is sitting next to [President] Obama or
Jared [Kushner] sitting next to [President] Trump, there’s a Jewish person
right there controlling the country, the Jewish people controlling who gets the
best video or not, controlling what the media says about me.” (Ye on the “Lex
Fridman Podcast,” 10/24/22)
So let’s see, Jonathan Greenblatt, after pressuring
Adidas (of the Nazi
past) to break its very generous contract with Ye, educates us on classic
Jewish tropes relating to money and power. Isn’t this a contradiction in terms?
Of course it is. And a lot of Jews think the ADL has outlived its usefulness,
and in fact, causes more harm than good.
The Dassler shoe factory--where Adidas and Puma were born--in Herzogenaurach, Germany circa 1930s. Source: Wikimedia Commons
Which of these two individuals do you find more problematic?
Kyrie Irving, a kooky basketball player who believes that
the Earth is flat, that JFK was shot by bankers, that the COVID vaccines were
secretly a plot to connect all Black people to a supercomputer, and that Jews
worship Satan and launched the slave trade?
Or Jonathan Greenblatt, the head of the Anti-Defamation
League, who accepted $500,000 from Irving last week without even meeting or
even talking to the all-star—and who was then forced to give back the donation
when Irving blatantly refused to apologize?
Let’s think about it for a minute. One of these guys is a
weirdo with dumb opinions he may or may not actually believe. The other is
running a soulless racket which just made it clear that you can say whatever
you want about the Jews and buy your indulgences at a discount price.
Don’t get me wrong: I absolutely believe that Irving’s
endorsement of a Black nationalist documentary based on an obscure Jew-hating
book, to say nothing of Kanye West’s meltdown, will most likely contribute to a
surge in antisemitism in America, particularly in the Black community. But we
Jews don’t control Kyrie Irving; in theory, we do control the ADL, and we shouldn’t
want our chief defense group to behave in a way that advances antisemitic
conspiracy theories about shadowy Jews trafficking in money and influence for
fun and profit.
As for the pro forma apologies, not everyone is so eager to accept
them. Meghan
McCain, for instance, who, remarking on Nick Cannon’s apology said that
antisemitism remains “the last form of passable bigotry in America.”
Meghan McCain at the No Fear: A Rally in Solidarity with the Jewish People, July 11, 2021, (Ted Eytan, Wikipedia.)
“This isn’t just about Nick Cannon,” said McCain. “It’s why
we, as Americans, seem to find more forgiveness in our heart for antisemitism
than we do of racism of any other kind.”
“I think my concern is, for some reason, antisemitism is
something we let people forgive a lot easier than any other forms of bigotry
and racism.” McCain noted that “we’re having conversations about canceling Dr.
Seuss,” but we say nothing about works by other authors which contain “deeply
antisemitic characters.”
“I find that people who say antisemitic things are forgiven
a lot easier than anything else,” said McCain, “And I think that’s something we
really need to examine as a society.”
McCain is right. We are too forgiving, and the pattern of
demanding apologies and forcing companies to cancel big name antisemites just
isn’t working. If it were working, we’d
see less antisemitism, rather than more, as in our current situation, with both
Ye and Irving coming out of the (antisemitic) closet, so to speak.
Raoul Wallenberg
The problem perhaps, is that the demands and pressures are
coming from the Jews, when it would be preferable to have non-Jews fight this
battle for us. But we have learned an unfortunate lesson from our tragic Jewish
history. People like McCain, and even more so, righteous gentiles like Raoul
Wallenberg who saved thousands of Jews during the Holocaust, are rare birds. For
the most part, no one sticks up for the Jews, except for the Jews themselves.
Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!
Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.
The Palestinian Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs announced that over 50,000 Palestinian children were detained by Israel since 1967.
Where did they get this number from? They made it up.
Oddly, the number seems to have gone down. In April, the very same commission announced that Israel had arrested (not just detained!) more than 53,000 Palestinian children since 1967.
A different group, Military Court Watch, sent a report to the UN claiming that 95,000 Palestinian children were incarcerated (not merely arrested or detained!) since 1967. And that report was in 2015!
Given that there are never more than a couple hundred prisoners under 18 at one time, that is a neat trick.
This is similar to the "750,000" or "million Palestinians" supposedly imprisoned by Israel since 1967, another totally made up number that I thoroughly debunked here.
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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