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basicsofislam · 4 years ago

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ISLAM 101: Muslim Culture and Character: Morals And Manners: Hilm (Gentleness)

Hilm means being inclined to gentleness or mildness; this adjective describes a person who is quiet and peaceful, slow to anger, quick to forgive, and who is in control of their lower nature. It also encompasses good akhlaq because it embodies behavior like patience and tolerance in the face of unpleasant situations, keeping one’s cool when provoked, and remaining dignified, serious and calm in response to distressing or unkind treatment. Hilm, along with humility, is one of the charac- teristics that most pleases God. In fact, these two dispositions are the source and origin of all other good character traits.

In addition to dignity and calm, hilm also means to act with consciousness and without haste. The result is a good and moral manner which pleases God. Hilm is one of the basic elements of good morality. With hilm it is also possible to perfect the mind and to improve other aspects of one’s temperament. Just as knowledge can be gained through learning, so hilm can be attained by making an effort. In other words, it is possible to reachhilm by working.

Hilm is also closely related to controlling one’s negative re- sponses and reactions. It is much more difficult for those who can- not control or reign their temper to attain a state of hilm. Scholars consider the ability to act with hilm to be among the most virtu- ous practices.

Humans are distinguished and privileged among all creatures. God Almighty blessed people with lofty attributes that He en- dowed on no other creature, like intelligence, conscience, mercy, compassion, empathy, and the desire to help, respect, and honor. For this reason, the human being is the most valuable being in all creation.

As we can see, hilm indicates total gentleness, as well as behav- ior such as overlooking faults, forgiving others, and being open to everyone for the sake of dialogue.

THE HILM (GENTLENESS) OF THE PROPHET

Our Prophet, both before and after his prophethood, was the gen- tlest of people. This is a quality that he carried throughout his life. God Himself protected the Prophet from ever losing his hilm, and was pleased with the Prophet because of it. God spoke of this in the Qur’an: “It was by a mercy from God that (at the time of the set- back), you (O Messenger) were lenient with your followers. Had you been harsh and hard-hearted, they would surely have scattered away from about you” (Al Imran 3:159).

The Prophet never thought to avenge himself for wrongs done to his person. In addition, he was the hardest to anger, the easiest to please, and the most forgiving of all. When Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him, began his prophetic mission to teach people about God’s commands, the disbelievers in the Quraysh tribe leveled every kind of insult and indignity at him. They ridi- culed the Prophet, threatened to kill him, spread thorns on his path, threw excrement at him, and even threw a noose around his neck and tried to drag him by it. Not stopping at this, they called him a conjurer and sorcerer, and said he was possessed; they tried every- thing they could think of to anger him. But the Prophet endured everything they did to him without reacting.

No one, whoever they may be, would be able to refrain from becoming angry, and thus react and try to respond in kind when insulted or attacked in such a way by others. Yet the Prophet did none of these things. He was extremely calm, patient, and toler- ant. He strove to carry out the responsibility given to him by God. Perhaps this is why he did not respond to the torments he was subjected to.

Someone who heard the Prophet explaining Islam to people in the market place in Mecca related, “Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him, was declaring the Oneness of God, and that those who believe in the One God would be saved. Abu Jahl started throwing rocks at him, and shouting, ‘People, do not listen to this man! He is trying to get you to abandon your religion. He wants to separate you from our idols Lat and Uzza!’ The Prophet refused to acknowledge the instigation; he did not once turn to look at Abu Jahl. He simply continued his duty.”1

Another day, the Prophet was going to visit Sa’d ibn Ubada, one of the Companions who had fallen ill. On the way, he en- countered a gathering assembled by the ringleader of the unbeliev- ers, ‘Abdullah ibn Ubayy. The Prophet stopped for a while. Ibn Ubayy began to taunt the Prophet, saying arrogantly, “Careful you, your animal is making dust. Get out of here, your animal is bothering us!” The Prophet greeted the group and then began to speak of Islam. Ibn Ubayy, seeing that the people were listening to him, was beside himself. Saying, “If anyone wants to hear some- thing from you he will come to you! Do not talk to us of Islam!”,

he hurled curses at the Prophet. But the Prophet’s adab would not let him respond in kind; he simply continued his address. On see- ing this, the great poet ‘Abdullah ibn Rawaha was moved; he stood up and said, “O Messenger of God, come here more often, and speak to us; we love you greatly!” Then a disagreement began between the Muslims and the disbelievers. They started to argue. The Prophet, calm and gentle as always, calmed them down and then departed, continuing on his way.2

The Jewish tribes living in the Arabian Peninsula at that time were among the Prophet’s most relentless enemies. Some of them had a rancorous, jealous, greedy character. It should also be noted that these Jews took great pains to separate their own education, scholarship and literature from the Arabs, whom they believed to be inferior in these areas. As a result, they knew about the prophe- cies concerning the advent of a new Messenger, and were waiting for the coming of God’s Messenger. When Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him, first declared his prophetic mis- sion from God, many Jews who had thought that the Prophet would be from the Children of Israel did not believe him. These enemies created the most evil strategies against him and tried des- perately to get rid of him.

One of them cast a spell on the Prophet, who became ill and was confined to bed for several days. Finally Archangel Gabriel came and told him, “O Muhammad, one from among the Jewish people cast a spell on you by throwing a knotted string into (such and such a well). Send someone there and have him remove the string.” The Prophet sent Ali, who took out the knotted string and brought it to him. As soon as they untied the knot he was released from the illness and got well. Although he knew who had done this, the Prophet never confronted the perpetrator about it.3

However, there were, of course, good and righteous people among the People of the Book (those who had been blessed with previous Revelations; that is, the Jews and Christians); there were those who sought the truth. There were many signs and much knowledge in the earlier Scriptures regarding the unique characteris- tics and virtues of the coming Prophet, that is, Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him.

One of the most easily recognizable of the signs related in the Torah about the coming Prophet was his hilm. The Torah pro- claimed that the Prophet would be of gentle spirit and show great patience and tolerance in inviting the people to God’s way. The Jewish scholars saw with their own eyes that the Prophet had many qualities which the Torah had predicted. Some of them con- tinued to search and question, and when they saw all of the signs fulfilled in the Prophet they believed him.

One of these Jewish scholars, thinking, “I have seen in him ev- ery single sign and characteristic foretold in the Torah except hilm,” decided to test this last trait. “I went and lent the Prophet thirty di- nar for a specified time. Then I went to him one day before the payment date and said, ‘O Muhammad, pay me back. You sons of Abdul Muttalib never pay your debts on time.’” Hearing this, Umar retorted, “O foul Jew, by God, if we were not in the Messenger’s house, I would slap your face.” But the Messenger said to Umar, “O Umar, God forgive you. I expected better from you. You should have said that I would gladly pay what I owe him, and you should have said that you would assist him to collect it and acted courte- ously toward him.”

The Jewish man recounts, “The Messenger responded to my ignorant, harsh, rude manner only by increasing his own gentleness. He said to me, ‘O Jewish man, I will surely pay you back tomorrow morning.’ Then he told Umar, ‘O Umar, tomorrow morning take him to whichever date grove he wishes, and give him as much as he wishes. Then give him more than he asks for. If he is not pleased with the dates in that grove, take him to another one.’

“The following day Umar brought me to the date grove of my choice. He gave me as much as the Messenger had told him to, and added even more.” The Jewish man, after being repaid in this manner by the Prophet, declared the shahada, or testimony of faith, and became a Muslim. He explained his conversion to Umar as follows: “O Umar, do you know why I acted that way to the Messenger of God? I acted thus because I saw in him all of the characteristics and morals foretold in the writings of the Torah. The only ones I had not observed were hilm and kindness. Today I tried his patience, and he responded just as the Torah said he would. With you as my witness, I hereby donate these dates and half of all my possessions to the poor among the Muslims.” This one simple demonstration of the Prophet’s patience and gentleness brought many other people to belief.4

The Prophet responded to words and actions that were turned against him with maturity, compassion, and kindness. He exhibit- ed akhlaq to a level that others could never possibly reach. Abu Said al-Khudri narrates, “The Prophet was distributing the spoils from the Battle of Hunayn to the Companions who had fought.

He gave a bit more from the captured property to some of the Companions. Among them were Aqra ibn Habis and Uyayna ibn Hisn, who each received a hundred camels. When this happened Dhu al-Khuwaysira of the house of Tamim came to him and ob- jected, saying, ‘O Messenger of God! Do not swerve from equality and justice. By God, this distribution cannot be pleasing to God!’ The Prophet was saddened and answered, ‘Shame on you, if I do not act justly, who will? For if I do not carry out justice, I will earn a terrible punishment. May God’s mercy be on Moses, he was patient in the face of worse insults than this.’”5

Another time the Prophet was in the mosque with the Companions, sitting and talking with them. A Bedouin entered and prayed two rakats of salat, then opened his hands and prayed, “O God, have mercy on me and on Muhammad. Do not have mercy on anyone else.” When the Prophet heard him praying thus, he said, “You are limiting God’s great and wide mercy,” thus cor- recting the Bedouin’s mistake.

A little later, the Bedouin got up, went to a corner of the mosque, and urinated there. When the Companions saw what he was doing they jumped up to stop him. The Prophet, however, in- tervened and told them, “Leave him alone. Let him see what he has done. Later, go and wash it with a bucket of water, for you have been sent to make the way easier, not to complicate.” Then he called the Bedouin to his side and told him, “Mosques are not for reliev- ing ourselves or for any other kind of uncleanness. They are made for the remembrance of God, praying, and reading the Qur’an.”6

This incident happened in the mosque that our Prophet had helped build with his own hands for the purpose of worship; the man had made a very great error. But the Prophet knew that the Bedouin had not done so intentionally, but rather out of ignorance.

It is only when one is confronted with repulsive behavior that a display of understanding, tolerance and gentleness can be truly meaningful; it is at such times that being forgiving and forbearing are most difficult. Indeed, anyone can be patient and calm during normal situations. Just as he was in every other way, the Prophet was extraordinary in his hilm and gentleness. In fact he was utterly unique; it would be impossible to find his equal.

Anas ibn Malik tells of another example of the hilm and gen- tleness of the Prophet: “I was walking with the Prophet. He was wearing a garment made of rough Najran fabric. A Bedouin came running up behind the Prophet, grabbed his robe and yanked it back. His garment was torn and his neck rubbed raw by this roughness.” The man had yanked it so hard and the fabric was so rough that it left an angry welt on the Prophet’s neck. Then the man said, “O Muhammad! Load my camels with grain. For the possessions you hold do not belong to you nor to your father.”

The Bedouin’s behavior was rude and uncouth, and the Prophet was troubled. He turned to the man and said, “First apologize, for you have injured me.” The Bedouin retorted, “No, I will not apolo- gize.” The Prophet was trying to guide him in the way of courtesy, but the other man was unconcerned. The Prophet then turned to the Companions and, ignoring the man’s incivility, instructed them, “Load one of this man’s camels with barley, and the other with dates.” The man, satisfied, went away. The Companions were sur- prised by the Prophet’s kind treatment of this rude Bedouin.7

Likewise, our Prophet treated all those under his authority and in his service with the utmost gentleness; he did not get angry with them or hurt their feelings. Even if they were negligent in their duties or did not do what they said they would, he would only inquire with kindness and polite consideration.

Anas ibn Malik, who was in his service for many years, spoke of the akhlaq of the Prophet: “I served the Messenger for ten years. He never once showed impatience with me, never reproved me for neglecting to do something, nor ever asked me why I had done something I was not supposed to do.”8

Anas recalled one time when the Prophet had to admonish him for neglecting his duty, “The Messenger of God sent me out one day with a task. At first I said, ‘By God, I cannot go.’ But in wardly I felt compelled to go wherever he sent me. I went out, and then I came across some children playing on the street. I for- got myself and started playing with them. Then the Prophet came up behind me, and put his hand on my head. I looked at his face, and he was smiling. ‘Dear Anas, did you go where I sent you?’ he asked. ‘Yes, I am going, O Messenger of God,’ I said.”9

The Prophet’s wife Aisha said that the Prophet once advised her, “O Aisha, be gentle. For wherever gentleness is found, its pres- ence beautifies, but wherever gentleness is absent, its absence is ugly.”10

Our Prophet’s true courage and heroism was not in the physi- cal strength to overpower, but in the knowledge and ability to stay calm when something upset him and to act gently even when he was offended.

‘Abdullah ibn Mas’ud relates, “The Messenger of God said, ‘Who among you do you call a hero?’ We answered, ‘One whom the wrestlers cannot defeat; one who cannot be overcome.’ He re- plied, ‘No, that is not a hero. The hero is one who can control himself when offended, the one who always practices self-mastery and temperance.’”11

From this perspective, Prophet Muhammad, peace and bless- ings be upon him, was a hero in the true sense of the word. He could not be defeated by his enemies in this aspect as well; those who sought to defeat his self-control, to overwhelm his restraint, could not do so. Instead, God’s Messenger responded to wrongs done against his person with forbearance.

According to a narration of Jarir ibn ‘Abdullah, the Prophet said, “Without a doubt, God rewards gentleness and kindness, not harshness and roughness. And when God loves one of His ser- vants, He grants them the blessing of gentleness. A person or household bereft of this blessing is bereft of everything.”12

The “gentleness and kindness” referred to here means a mature morality which requires, on principle, that one never loses one’s temper. To get irritated and fly into a rage at any time is totally contrary to the nature of hilm, which entails a gentle and morally up- right character. Thus, disciplining oneself in this one area—by cool- ing a quick temper and avoiding irritability—can bring a great num- ber of positive effects and make great changes in one’s morality.

Abdur Rahman ibn Awf relates, “Once someone came to our Prophet and asked, ‘O Messenger of God! Teach me words with which I can attain comfort and peace. But let them be brief, so I won’t forget.’ The Prophet replied, ‘Don’t lose your temper!’”13

Our Beloved Prophet taught us that there is also a satanic side to anger, and gave a practical solution: “Anger is from Satan, and Satan is created from fire. Fire can only be put out with water. For this reason, when you become angry, make ablutions.”14 Another helpful solution from the Prophet is, “When one of you becomes angry, if he is standing, let him immediately sit down. If his anger passes, good; if it does not, let him lie down.”15

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jewish-privilege · 6 years ago

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...Ask any Ashkenazi American Jew about his family’s arrival in the United States, and you’re likely to hear a certain story. With minor variations, it goes something like this: “My great-grandfather was called Rogarshevsky, but when he arrived at Ellis Island, the immigration officer couldn’t understand his accent. So he just wrote down ‘Rogers,’ and that became my family’s name.”

Most American Jews accept such stories as fact. The truth, however, is that they’re fiction. Ellis Island, New York City’s historic immigrant-absorption center, processed up to 11,000 immigrants daily between 1892 and 1924. Yet despite this incessant flow of newcomers, the highest standards of professionalism were demanded of those who worked there. All inspectors—many of whom were themselves immigrants, or children of immigrants—were required to know at least two languages; many knew far more, and all at the native-speaker level. Add to that the hundreds of auxiliary interpreters, and together you’ve covered nearly every possible language one might hear at Ellis Island. Yiddish, Russian, and Polish, in this context, were a piece of cake.

Nor were inspections the brief interactions we associate with passport control in today’s airports. Generally they lasted twenty minutes or more, as inspectors sought to identify those at high risk of becoming wards of the state. But perhaps most significantly, Ellis Island officers never wrote down immigrants’ names. Instead, they worked from ships’ manifests, which were themselves compiled by local officials at the point of embarkation. Even overseas, passenger lists were likewise not generated simply by asking immigrants for their names. Rather, they were drawn from passports, exit visas, and other identification papers. The reason for this was simple: Errors cost the shipping company money. A mistake on a manifest, such as a name that was not corroborated by other documentation (whether legal or fraudulent), would result in the forced deportation of the person in question back to his point of departure—at the shipping company’s expense. Of course, many Jewish immigrants’ names were changed upon coming to America. Without exception, however, they changed their names themselves.

...[The] enduring popularity of the name-change story among otherwise rational American Jews is nothing short of astounding. They cling to it, stubbornly defending it, long after any of their ancestors who actually came through Ellis Island as adults has passed away. It has taken on a near-sacred status, passed from parent to child to grandchild along with more general stories of national identity, such as the Exodus narrative related at Passover.

Of course, this stance is understandable. For the Ellis Island name-change story is not so much a historical error as it is a legend. It expresses both the highest hopes and the deepest fears of American Jewry.

To be sure, the hopes and fears embedded in the Ellis Island myth are specific to the challenges of American life. But they are also tied inexorably to long Jewish traditions of diaspora life around the world. For thousands of years, Jews outside the Land of Israel have developed strategies for preserving their culture absent collective political autonomy—an absence that, almost invariably, resulted in persecution, assimilation, or both. Some of these strategies, such as the establishment of separate educational systems, are common to all diaspora Jewish communities. The creation of founding legends is another example. These legends attempted to ground each community’s legitimacy in Jewish terms, invariably by rooting it firmly in the grand Jewish-historical narrative. At the same time, they offered a tailored response to the specific challenges each Jewish community faced.

Seen in this context, the Ellis Island name-change story is simply one of many diaspora founding legends. We often consider the American Jewish community, with its tenacious belief in both the purity of its American identity and its ability to live a fully Jewish life, to be a bizarre exception to the rules of Jewish history...

...The ethnographer Haya Bar-Itzhak sees the two main elements of this legend—the carving of Jewish texts onto Polish trees and the Hebrew origins of the word “Poland”—as part of a larger pattern of Jewish settlement in a new land. For instance, she points out, there is a well-known Jewish tradition of midrashim in which the names of places are given etymological explanations that relate to the original Israelite arrival there. The Polish legend, then, is but one of many similar attempts to “explain” the obviously Slavic names of specific places as in truth being of Semitic origin. According to these stories, Bar-Itzhak writes, the name “is understood not as a random and arbitrary set of phonemes, but as a concatenation that conveys a meaning in a Jewish language—Hebrew and/or Yiddish. The name-midrash unveils this meaning, which allows the newcomers to identify with the place by Judaizing it.”

...It is here that one finds the community’s greatest aspirations and deepest fears folded into a single, nonsupernatural tale. One the one hand, the Jews yearned to turn a strange landscape into a home that physically expressed the most deeply held Jewish value, that of Torah scholarship; so, too, did they dream of Gentile neighbors who would not merely tolerate, but actually honor, their presence in the country. On the other hand, they lived in constant terror of persecution, and doubted their ability to uphold the chain of tradition embodied in other, more established Jewish societies. By casting itself into an unspecified past, one in which no facts can be verified, the founding legend of Poland’s Jewish community becomes as improbable as the Ellis Island story—and as compelling.

...If all founding myths share the hopes and fears that characterized the Jewish historical experience in exile, then each legend also served its own community’s particular needs.

Yet these founding myths are not only about adapting to the demands of a new country. They are also about creating continuity with a specific “old” country: the Nation of Israel. One important component of all these legends is their connection to classic Jewish writings and images. The Polish story is particularly vivid in this respect. The idea of texts being transmitted supernaturally—flying through the sky, for example—has numerous resonances in early sources. One recalls God commanding the prophet Ezekiel to ingest a scroll, or R. Hanina ben Tradyon’s assertion, when wrapped in the burning Torah scroll that results in his martyrdom, that “the parchment is burning, but the letters are flying free!” Texts hanging from trees remind us of Psalm 137, which describes the Jewish exiles in Babylonia hanging their harps on branches, unwilling to sing songs of Jerusalem while their captors taunt them. Furthermore, the image of Polish Jews studying in a cave calls to mind the story of R. Shimon Bar Yohai and his son studying Torah in a cave while hiding from Roman persecutors, and the legends of diaspora Jews who return to Jerusalem in the messianic age through underground caverns. Some legends of Jewish Poland even describe this same cave at Kawenczynek as containing an underground passage to Israel.

...Sociologically, there is no question that the Ellis Island myth serves the same purpose of previous diaspora founding legends: allowing the community to express its highest aspirations and to face its greatest fears. True, the story seems to emphasize the severance of American Jews from their past. But the repeated telling of the story, and the emphatic belief with which American Jews have been taught to accept it, is itself the enactment of that continuity that older legends established through means more suited to their time and place. And as with these earlier myths, one cannot fully appreciate their power or purpose without likewise understanding their non-Jewish, co-territorial contexts. For in America—a nation famous for its lack of loyalty to burdensome, Old World conventions, in which everyone may invent himself anew—the very act of repeating a family story over the course of generations is itself a kind of resistance to Americanization.

American culture’s uniqueness lies in the fact that it does not force, but rather invites, immigrants to “remake” themselves—that is, to shed their past identities and pursue the future of their dreams. The goal of independence from Europe and all that it signified—its history as well as its social, economic, and cultural norms—was, after all, the basis of the American Revolution. Indeed, the “American dream,” with its assumption of potential upward social mobility, is based not on mere capitalism, but rather on the more profound idea that “it doesn’t matter where you come from.” Jews, like all other immigrant groups, were drawn to America precisely by this promise of freedom and opportunity that no other country in their history had ever offered them. But for Jews whose identity depends on the ritualized, intergenerational process of remembrance, the American emphasis on dissociation posed an existential threat to the Jewish communal future.

Consider, then, the motivations of those Jewish immigrants to America who created the myth that their names were changed against their will. Deeply aware of the significance of Jewish names, yet determined to help both themselves and their descendants blend in with their non-Jewish neighbors, they ultimately shed their conspicuous links to an Eastern European past. But—and this is the clincher—this was not a choice they were proud of. And so, by inventing a story that depicts their name change as beyond their control, and transmitting this story to their descendants as historical fact, these immigrants and their offspring sent a powerful message to future generations: I did not shed my Jewish identity intentionally. And despite the values of the country in which we are living, I hope that you won’t, either. This, then, expresses both the greatest hope and the greatest fear of American Jews: that their descendants will preserve their Jewish identity in a culture whose open objective has long been to invite them to forget it.

An expression of this tension inherent in the American Jewish experience can be seen in one of the many jokes that spun off from the Ellis Island myth: A flustered Jewish immigrant is asked for his name and responds in Yiddish, “Sheyn fargesn” (“[I] forgot already”)—only to find himself permanently saddled with the Irish-sounding moniker “Sean Ferguson.” This joke, along with its many straight-faced equivalents, is precisely the type of “name midrash” that Haya Bar-Itzhak describes in her ethnography of Jewish Poland. It is, as she writes, a multi-lingual pun that interprets a proper noun in the co-territorial language “not as a random and arbitrary set of phonemes, but as a concatenation that conveys a meaning in a Jewish language,” and that “Judaizes” the name in the process. The “Sean Ferguson” joke is even more rooted in the challenge presented to Jews by American culture, since at its core is the idea of forgetting—and, more pointedly, the idea that forgetting is itself an act for which a Jew and his descendants are punished (the assumption being, of course, that a Jew saddled with an Irish name has been unambiguously cursed).

In truth, then, the Ellis Island name-change story, while ostensibly about the unmaking of Jewish identity, are just the opposite: they are a process of Judaizing Gentile names by attributing to them a Jewish linguistic history. Making a name like Rogers into one that, secretly, has its roots in Rogarshevsky recalls how the word Poland was “revealed” as a Hebrew phrase in disguise. And it is precisely here, in the experience of exchanging one world for another, that we find the Ellis Island name-change story’s profound links to ancient Jewish texts and the greater pattern of Jewish history.

...What matters, rather, is the sentiment that the midrash captures, and the way this sentiment was expressed in the lives of Jews for centuries thereafter. This includes hundreds of thousands of American Jews whose ancestors may have changed their names but whose lies taught their descendants what was really worth keeping.

“History,” Gerson Cohen points out in his discussion of the Four Captives story, “is always shown to conform to a pattern”—not because such a pattern exists, but because historians and storytellers impose such a pattern on the facts (or invent the facts, when necessary). Cohen makes it clear that “it is this very orderliness of history that Ibn Daud finds a source of consolation, a source of hope that history will yet vindicate the Jewish hope for redemption.” By placing the Ellis Island name-change story into the continuum of diaspora myth making, we are no doubt doing just what Ibn Daud did, and for the same reason. We are claiming, rightly or wrongly, that history conforms to a pattern, in an attempt to console those who fear that the American Jewish community is in fact an anomaly in the Jewish people’s millennia-long continuity...

[Please read Dara Horn’s full, ridiculously well-researched and sourced, piece at Azure Online. It adds necessary color and history of other founding myths of our diaspora communities and how it all ties together to form Jewish history.]

#jewish history #white supremacy #assimilation #long post #dara horn #jewish identity

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deborahdeshoftim5779 · 6 years ago

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In light of the hideous murder of a precious baby in Ofra yesterday, which has left me speechless, brokenhearted, and depressed, it is more necessary than ever to denounce the vicious anti-Israel lies that subvert right and wrong, innocent and guilty, justified and unjustified.

Tamika Mallory is a sanctimonious hypocrite, an anti-Semite, and a liar, as will be demonstrated below:

Quote: “ “It’s clear you (sic) needed a place to go — cool, we got that, I hear that,” Mallory said of the Jewish people in the wake of the Holocaust. “

Mallory demonstrates her ignorance of history. It is a grave error to claim the Holocaust was the reason for Israel’s creation. The Jews have intended to return to Israel ever since the Roman expulsion in 70 CE, and they did so, even within 50 years of that tumultuous event. Jewish communities have existed throughout the length and breadth of Israel, millennia before the Holocaust. The murder of 6 million Jews only strengthened the urgency of re-settling in a land where the Jews already existed. A further reason this comment is nonsensical is that it implicitly assumes mass migration of Jews from Europe only, ignoring the migration from the Middle East and North Africa, as well as other parts of the world. I suspect this is a deliberate attempt to portray the Jewish State, an indigenous Middle-Eastern nation as a “white European” entity, which is in line with what her hero Farrakhan claims. It’s quite interesting that Mallory’s wording for the aftermath of a tragedy is, “cool, we got that.” (Emphasis mine). Her lack of empathy could be heard in China.

Quote: “But you don’t show up to somebody’s home, needing a place to stay, and decide that you’re going to throw them out and hurt the people who are on that land.”

Pure fiction. The Jews did not “show up”: they were already there. They did not show up because they were “needing a place to stay”: this was their homeland in the first place, and had been for millennia. It was not “somebody’s home”: it was the Jewish homeland, as acknowledged even by the succession of foreign invaders who were so keen to erase Jewish identity from the land. This was acknowledged by the Arabs themselves for the early half of the 20th century. The Jews did not “decide” to throw out the inhabitants. Evidently, Mallory has not read the Balfour Declaration, which gave permission for the recreation of a Jewish homeland, stipulating that the civil and religious rights of the existing inhabitants be upheld, too. Israel has done her level best to do this ever since. The Palestinians, who do not uphold religious freedom, or protect citizens from discrimination, or enact justice through the courts, have not done so. Furthermore, increased Jewish immigration preceded the Holocaust, dating back to the 19th century. That undermines Mallory’s apparent belief that Jewish history began in 1945. Jews had been settling the land in increasing numbers, becoming a majority in Jerusalem in around 1860. These are easily-acquired facts. Most importantly, it was the existing Arabs who unified around throwing out the resident Jews, conspiring with the British Empire, who bent over backwards to appease their demands. Most of the land that was allocated to the Jews was given to the Arabs. The remaining land was to be partitioned, giving the Jews an even smaller slice. The Jews accepted, but the Arabs rejected. No sooner than Israel was re-established, FIVE NATIONS lined up on her border to obliterate the country. It was the resulting war that led to Arabs being made refugees or being forced to flee. For Mallory to skip over this crucial point of history, easily verified even by the Palestinian sources she claims are so reliable, shows her dishonesty and breathtaking ignorance.

Quote: “ “And to kill, steal, and do whatever it is you’re gonna do to take that land. That to me is unfair. It’s a human rights crime.”

If Mallory had simply said that there were groups of Zionists who committed vigilante violence and even terrorist attacks against several targets, like the British, then she would be correct. I do not condone acts by groups such as the Stern gang, for example. Instead, her comments come as part of an attempt to undermine the Jewish right to live in Israel, which predates the birth of 19th century Zionism. More insidiously, she implies a unified decision on the part of the Jews to overthrow the existing inhabitants, which falls exactly in line with her prophet, Louis Farrakhan, who attributes any evil in the world to collective Jewish action. As I have written above, she has ignored how the British Empire conceded more land to the Arabs than to the Jews, undermining her claim that the Jews did “whatever it is” to take the land. So her “moral” outrage renders itself farcical and hypocritical. These kinds of lies are not only swallowed by many non-Jews, but also Jews as well. The media and international organisations further underpin this view when they falsely label Israel as an “occupying” force in land that has belonged to the Jews before the Arabic nations declared war against Israel in 1948. Unfortunately, Mallory will only make herself and her anti-Semitic cronies in the “Women’s March” into a martyr over her comments, even though they are so egregiously false. She has turned right into wrong, innocent into guilty, and justified into unjustified, in order to support a fictitious narrative. Mallory and co have no business speaking on any justice, let alone Israel.

These lies kill Jews, as the horrific murder of a baby has demonstrated, along with the murder this year of Kim Levengrond Yehezkel, Ziv Hajbi, and Ari Fuld. Continued promotion of what amounts to blood libel makes Mallory and co responsible for spreading hatred, whilst claiming to support justice. This is one of the reasons why, despite being concerned for the just treatment of women and all society, I have nothing to do with these alleged social justice activists. Anyone who supports true justice, human rights, the rule of law, and the defence of the innocent should support Israel, a nation founded on restoring the ancestral and continued historic rights of an exiled and persecuted people in their own land. The alternative is to support terror, tyranny, lies, moral subversion, hatred, racism, and anti-Semitism.

I know where I stand.

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bougainvilea · 7 years ago

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I’m becoming more and more aware that people online don’t really know what it means to be Jewish, so I’m making a helpful list!

Under the cut, I deal with the following things:

the difference between Judaism and Christianity

the streams in Judaism and why they’re not denominations

Judaism as a culture

why Judaism is not an ethnicity (and why you can’t be half Jewish)

the word ‘goy’

historical antisemitism

Jewish rebellion

feel free to reblog, especially if you are not Jewish

To start off with, some definitions:

observant = the extent to which one considers themselves religiously Jewish as opposed to culturally/socially/historically/etc Jewish

to keep Shabbat = according to religious law, from Friday night to Saturday night you have to keep the sabbath holy, by following a bunch of rules like no starting a spark (which means no electricity or cars or anything), no picking up a pen, and a bunch of other things you can read about here.

It does not mean christianity without the new testament. We have our own traditions, laws, and an extra book known as the Mishnah. Our traditions center around different things, our sabbath day is different, our days start in the evenings.

On this note, I’ve seen a post going around saying that Judaism is inherently different to xtianity, and it is 100% accurate. By which I mean, our laws are debatable. Even if you are 10000% observant, you could differ in tradition to someone else who is equally observant. You might be in different streams (see next dot point), or different cultural groups. This is beacause the words are interpreted differently by different Rabbis, and consensus is not wanted or needed.

Judaism has streams. These are not similar to christian denominations. These streams are within similar communities and interact quite frequently. The difference between this and denominations is that Judaism is a culture (as I’ll get to later), which means that those who are “secular” (like me!) are not ‘just Jews not doing all the things they should be doing’ or ‘ignoring some of the laws’ - they have their own Judaism that is expressed through different practises and traditions, but they remain a community. Of course there are still people who consider themselves orthodox but only go to shul/synagogue on the High Holidays. But there are also communities of people who have interpreted Judaism’s multifaceted nature into their own unique brand of Judaism.

some examples are:

Ultra Orthodox - Usually what you see when you picture a Jewish person. Streimel (this hat so expensive), suit, study torah all day, pray very often, keeps Shabbat, etc. They are NOT NECESSARILY EUROPEAN.

Reform - usually centered around the idea of ‘tikkun olam’ - which means repairing the earth - this stream is known in the Australian Jewish community for singing prayers to unusual tunes - my personal favourite is Adon Olam to ‘I Want It That Way’ by the Backstreet Boys (0:52 is when it gets Jewish lmaoooo). They differ from ultra-orthodox and orthodox because they “emphasize the evolving nature of the faith, the superiority of its ethical aspects to the ceremonial ones, and a belief in a continuous revelation not centered on the theophany at Mount Sinai.”

Secular Humanist - that’s me! I am atheist, but I am a part of the Jewish people and identify with the history and people within it. I feel a connection to the Jewish people’s struggles, revolutions, and liberations throughout time. I believe that Jewish people can create change and that we can use Jewish values and traditions to better the world without a focus on god.

Judaism is a culture. This is the big one, and I feel that most people have heard this if nothing else. But let me specify; Judaism is also a religion. Judaism is associated with centurys worth of traditions and values and texts. And by texts I don’t just mean the Torah and the Mishnah - I mean every single Jewish philosopher or scholar or professor that has ever lived. Did you know that the famous 14th Century Spanish philosopher, Maimonedes, is known in the Jewish community as the Rambam (aka the Rabbi Moses ben Maimon = Rabbi Moses, son of Maimon) and wrote many a commentary on the holy books? Throughout the centuries, Judaism has gained an incredible collection of information and written arguments that have contributed to Jewish lives today. Synagogues, like churches, are great places of worship whilst also housing communities. Jewish people have stuck together throughout the years mostly out of necessity and safety and now have thriving communities of knowledge and culture!

Judaism is NOT an ethnicity. This post started as a response to a post I saw calling someone “half Jewish, half Irish”. I tagged that you “can’t be half Jewish” and two people asked my why. This is why;

Before I continue this point, I received an anonymous message from another Jewish person saying the following;

“we ARE an ethnicity (where do you think the curly jewish hair and aquiline nose on many jews - not all, but many - comes from?) but the reason we are considered 100% jewish if we are jewish at all is because we are a tribe and therefore if you are jewish you are considered 100% wholly part of the tribe to keep from any gatekeeping. but it is absolutely an ethnicity with an inherent religion, similar to native americans.”

this is a fair point, so maybe we are an ethnicity, but you can’t be “half Jewish” for the following reasons:

Part 1: Nuremberg Laws in Nazi Germany

Jews were outlawed from a lot of things in Nazi Germany, obviously. This started in 1933, but by 1935 the Nuremberg Laws passed. These (a) defined what it meant to be Jewish and (b) further separated them from society.

The image below defined a fully German person (a Deutschblütiger), a half Jew (a Mischling - “In German, the word has the general denotation of hybrid, mongrel, or half-breed.”), and a Jew (Jude). Essentially, if you were anywhere from 1/8 -1/4 Jewish, you could have Reich citizenship but still were at risk, whereas Jews (more than 1/4 Jewish) were obviously much more at risk.

this is still today used to distinguish a Jewish person, but not in an antisemitic context. It is in fact used by Israel, so that all those who were targeted by Nazis are welcome to seek refuge and live in the intended state for the Jewish people, Israel. Anyone with 1/8 or more Jewish descent can very easily get Israeli citizenship.

Part 2: Jewish Religious Law

according to Jewish Religious law, anyone with a Jewish mother is inherently Jewish. (also, anyone who converts - which is a 7 year process, by the way)

The reason these are relevant is because my point is that you can be ANY nationality, any ethnicity, and still be 100% Jewish.

There are Jews of all nationalities - German Jews, Polish Jews, Ethiopian Jews, Latinx Jews, Israeli Jews, American Jews, Indian Jews, and many more! There are Jews of all ethnicities too - Asian Jews, Ashkenazi Jews, Roman Jews, Black Jews, and many many more.

You cannot be “half Jewish, half Irish” because Irish people can and are Jews. Judaism isn’t a racial or ethnic or cultural group - it is a community that transcends all these things.

A Goy is not a derogatory term, and you shouldn’t be offended by it. Honestly, I don’t think it’s fair for any non Jew to be offended by a word that Jews call them (see the next point), but regardless, goy is a normal word that I use a lot to refer to non jews. See this post for more information. I know some Jews still don’t use it because they know it makes people uncomfortable, but it shouldn’t. (plural is goyim)

We do carry the weight of one fucked up history. There’s a classic joke told at most Jewish Holidays - “They tried to kill us, we survived, let’s eat!”. It tends to accurately represent Jewish history. I honestly don’t know how much goyim know about Jewish history. I’m sure you have at least heard abut the Holocaust, because it was so systemic and systematic, but there are many other instances. If not, please read some online articles. Antisemitism is sometimes referred to as “the oldest hatred”, so here are some examples: (I apologise, this is mostly Europe centric)

destruction of both the first and second temple in biblical times by the Romans and the Babylonians

the spanish inquisition and the explusion from spain in the 1400s

Pogroms (especially in Europe, check out Fiddler on the Roof for an excellent representation)

an insane history of being shut off in our own communities - the first ghetto was created in Venice in 1516 and was seen as a positive thing because Jews had never had their own land before (that’s fucked up????)

blame for Jesus’ death evolved into the idea of a Blood Libel, which was the rumour that Jews liked to kidnap christian children and drink their blood or used it for ritual purposes (?????????) resulting in many christians lynching Jewish people

blame for the Black Death in Europe (because Jewish tradition cites that they have to be clean for Shabbat, so every Friday they bathed and therefore didn’t catch the plague??)

on a non-European note, Ethiopian Jews were in such danger as recently as 1980 that Israel carried out a rescue mission which took 10,000 Ethiopian Jews through the desert of North Africa so they could live safely in Israel

We have never been quiet. Jewish revolution and rebellion has always existed. Examples are:

The literal story of Hanukkah

The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (led by young people from the youth movement I attend to! this! day!)

on this note: Jewish people have many youth movements made specifically for political purposes, and have historically always been very well educated and passionate. I won’t talk about Zionism here, though I want to. That’s for another post.

(note: Jewish bolshevism is antisemitic and just untrue)

refusing to convert to Christianity or any other religion the many, many times that we have been captured/the leadership in charge of us has changed (this is a big rebellious act in the spanish exile/the exile to babylon/etc)

the current head of the Jewish Agency (Natan Sharansky) was a rebel in the Soviet Union, fighting for freedom and democracy.

We were LITERALLY so sick of antisemitism that 18-25 year olds went to Palestine and built a nation based on the idea of a socially just society (and kibbutzim)????? how it went after is another story but you understand what I mean when I say that we did not sit silently in Europe.

So, there you have it - some Jewish facts and figures. I hope I taught you something new. If anyone has anything they’d like me to add, feel free to send me an ask!

#judaism tag #jewish things #jewish #jumblr

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the-record-columns · 5 years ago

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Jan. 29, 2020: Columns

Coke is it!

By KEN WELBORN

Record Editor

Early this week, when I stopped by Wilkes Steel and Recycling to check on my friend, Bert Hall, who would I find in the office but the long ago retired Frank Day.

As always, the subject of Coca-Cola comes up because of his connection with McNeil family, who, for many years, ran the local Coca-Cola bottling company.

And, anyone who collects anything is bound to have something with Coca-Cola on it.

They have the Coke name on everything from calendars to coo coo clocks. I mean, really: glasses, coolers, store signs of all descriptions, thermometers, trays, napkins, lunch boxes, hats, visors, fans, blotters, post cards, toy trucks and vans, mirrors, ice picks, bottle openers of all types and styles, knives, ashtrays, matches, cigarette lighters, radios, coasters, menu boards, door pulls/pushers, checkerboards, grocery carts, domino’s, Frisbees, jewelry, every possible article of clothing, aprons, watches, belts, coin purses, light fixtures, and clocks — just to begin the list.

And, of course, Coca-Cola has always “owned” Santa.

Well, while I have nothing that begins to approach the Coca-Cola collection of someone like Jerry Dameron, I do have a few good pieces, and, today I am going to talk about a few I have tripped and fallen into. As many of you who read this column know, from the early 1900’s till the 1980’s, we had our own Coca-Cola bottling company right here in North Wilkesboro, like I mentioned earlier, owned and operated by the McNeil family.

Well, a while back, a man came through and sold me a Coca-Cola crate for 24 bottles. An aside, the books that list Coca-Cola memorabilia refer to almost all holders of drinks as “crates,” however, to a kid from Hinshaw Street, they will always be “pop crates” to me. So, why would I buy this particular pop crate, knowing that in our Museum on Main one of most anything is sufficient. Well, this one has “North Wilkesboro, NC” stamped into the wood on each end and is painted to match.

I am sure there are more of these North Wilkesboro pop crates out there, but I have yet to see one. When I asked Dick McNeil, the man who ran the bottling company when I was working for Paul Cashion at WWWC Radio and later for myself at Thursday Magazine (predecessor to The Record), he said that the national Coca-Cola company had uncounted thousands of pop crates he could buy for next to nothing each. To get the North Wilkesboro name stamped and painted on some of them meant stopping the production line and doing this specialty item and therefore they cost much more — so these were never bought in great quantity. And, speaking of Dick, he was kind enough to let me have a beautiful Fresca sign from the 1960’s — I think — and it is a beauty.

And, lastly today, another pop crate.

Some time back, I went to Lynchburg, Va., to see my daughter, Jordan, and Jason Hammer. These trips are always a treat, and this one was no exception. In addition to seeing a great play, “Loan Me a Tenor,” we had the chance to scrounge around through a few antique haunts. Of the places we stopped, by far my favorite was Rick’s Antique Store in Forest, Va. That little town’s other claim to fame is being the site of Thomas Jefferson’s summer home.

However, Rick’s store, and Rick Lindsay himself, clearly trumped (no pun) Jefferson on this day. I cannot begin to tell you about the cool things Rick had on display, particularly impressive was the array of gas pumps and signs that were everywhere. The store itself was an old, white two-story clapboard affair that was older than Methuselah. Rick, who wasn’t that old, but had clearly been to the rodeo before was an absolute delight to speak with. Knowledgeable and friendly, you just wanted to stay all day.

And then there was the pop crate.

Yes, I have seen a gazillion of them — of every kind and description — I thought. But, there at Rick’s Antiques, nestled on a high shelf amongst the oil cans and porcelain signs, was a wooden, six-pack pop crate that held large glass bottles of Coca-Cola. By the time they came out with the large bottles, the only holders I can remember were red plastic. As I was standing there with my mouth hanging open, thinking I had never seen one of this kind of pop crate, Rick chimed in: “You know, I had never seen one of those, till I bought that one.”

Well, I bought it. Bottles and all. Wrapped it in towels for the trip home and have been showing it off ever since. And I know that one day, somebody is going to tell me where I can find all of these pop crates I could ever want — but they haven’t yet. Not a living breathing soul has laid claim to having ever seen one like this one — not even Bucky Luttrell.

Not even Jerry Dameron.

So there you go!

Truth, justice and the American way

By HEATHER DEAN

Record Reporter

(Editor’s note: This is in response to the reaction Heather Dean has received since the hearing prompted by the affidavit she filed challenging the legitimacy, due to misinformation about whether or not former Wilkes School Board candidate Marty Roberts was eligible to run. A hearing by Wilkes Board of Elections, held on Friday, Jan. 3, ruled that Roberts was not eligible to run for office. Roberts has since withdrawn his candidacy.)

The online harassment over taking on a non-citizen trying to run for office in Wilkes has died down a bit, which is nice, since I was called everything but "Christ the Savior."

There are a few rumors going around that I still have need to address personally with some people, but I was never called "wrong" either, so that's vindication enough for me. However, the perfect strangers walking up to me at other events, meetings, emails, messages, thanking me has not ceased. I came in Monday morning to find this in my inbox from a lady I don’t know, stating: "You're amazing! I might not have to leave this God-forsaken county after all. Going to take out one of those good ol' boys one at a time!"

Two weeks ago I had a bartender thank me for "standing up for Wilkes County, and running off that fake, that make the rest of our party look crazy" and many around me, also of the same party as the person I filed the affidavit against, concurred and I even got an "atta boy" slap on the back from an old farmer.

At three different events I covered last week, people I didn't know came up and told me they were proud of me for doing what was right, and wished more people would do so.

A person that was in attendance at the hearing said that I was a perfect example of “grace under pressure,” was impressed at how “professional, knowledgeable, prepared, and well spoken” I was as I testified, especially when the defendant’s lawyer started trying to intimidate me with his line of questioning, and I didn't “flinch.”

One who works closely with those in the legal professions told me I was brave to come in without legal counsel-not that it had been necessary, but not that I needed it either, because they had heard from others I did “as good job as any lawyer would have regardless.”

Several in the religious community have lamented to me this is why people are turning away from the church, because of the hypocrisy of a few.

Veterans have thanked me for going into "ground zero" and defending what they fought for.

I don't say these things to prove to the naysayers that I was right. I don't have to justify my want of defending the state constitution. I say this because it's the anonymous people that make the difference. I got lambasted on the stand because I wouldn't reveal my anonymous source. The truth is, I have no idea who the person is that came forward with the info.

Just like the others above, I don't know them personally, but they know me from my work in the community, and this person knew I could be trusted to do what was right. Also, as I stated in the hearing, this person was afraid to file it themselves because of the backlash they and their family would receive as they had ties with the defendant in the community.

The anonymous make the difference because you never know who is paying attention, and that's today's perspective on why we need to walk our talk, whether its our personal or religious beliefs, be kind and love everyone regardless of their differences, and above other things, stand up for justice, even if it’s just in a small little town where you think no one pays attention to you.

Just for the record, I love my hometown.

Profaning the holy sites

By AMBASSADOR EARL COX and KATHLEEN COX

Special to The Record

Peace in the Middle East has been historically elusive because Arab hatred of Israel and the Jews is as deep and wide as the universe itself. It’s almost on par with the maniacal hatred the Democrats and the liberal media have for U.S. President Donald Trump.

Earlier this month the world held its collective breath as the U.S. and Iran seemed on the brink of a major conflict. President Trump gave the green light for a targeted, deadly drone attack against an Iranian military commander who was a known terrorist mastermind. Iran threatened retaliation and promised the United States would pay a heavy price. In response, President Trump warned that if even one American, or American asset, were to suffer harm by Iran, then America would attack Iranian cultural sites. This sent the world into a rage. President Trump was tried and convicted in the court of public opinion of everything from violating international treaties to committing war crimes. Threatening to attack an Iranian cultural site was akin to setting off an atomic bomb yet Israel’s cultural and religious sites are physically attacked and desecrated almost daily. It’s a mystery that the world remains silent.

Such widespread hatred for the Jews can only be explained in a spiritual sense. Arabs and Jews are both descendants of Abraham. The Arabs are from Abraham’s son Ishmael born to him of a bondwoman (slave). The Jews came through Abraham’s promised son, Isaac, born of his wife Sarah. G-d separated to Himself both a land and a people. The land became known as Israel and the people, being from Judah, became known as Jews. G-d promised His blessings upon Isaac and his descendants but G-d also said He would make Ishmael into a great nation but added that he (Ishmael) would be “like a wild jackass, his hand against everyone and everyone’s hand against him, and he shall dwell over against all his kinsmen,” which includes the Jews.

The physical land known as Canaan became the land of Israel and it changed hands and boundary lines time and again over the course of history. Many of Israel’s cultural and religious sites are on land currently occupied and governed by the Palestinians.

In the city of Hebron, which today is located in Palestinian territory, is the cave Abraham purchased as a burial place for his wife, Sarah. Tradition holds that Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Rebekah and Leah are also buried in that cave.

Rachel’s Tomb lies on the northern outskirts of Bethlehem which is under Palestinian control. It is described in Hebrew writings as, “The building with the dome and olive tree.” This became a Jewish symbol, appearing in drawings, on postage stamps, photographs, artworks and depicted on the covers of Jewish holy books. However, today the little domed structure has been encased in a giant concrete block surrounded by gun positions and guard towers and covered with camouflage netting. Whoever visits the tomb today would find it hard to recognize as the place engraved on Jewish hearts and memories. It has been obscured and desecrated and is not a safe place. Jews can only reach it in bulletproof vehicles under military supervision.

Joseph’s Tomb in Nablus has been attacked on many occasions. It has been set ablaze and desecrated having been used as a trash dump and urinal but this sort of treatment is not unique to Joseph’s Tomb. Desecrating Jewish holy sites is a widespread Palestinian practice.

The historic “Shalom al Israel” synagogue in Jericho has also been attacked. Holy books and archeologically significant relics have been burned, and the synagogue’s ancient mosaic has been damaged.

Hundreds of incidents have been recorded (though not necessarily reported) in which Palestinians from Bethlehem and surrounding Palestinian camps and villages have thrown rocks and Molotov cocktails, and have even shot at Jewish worshippers, pilgrims and Israeli soldiers attempting to visit the synagogue and other Jewish holy sites located on Palestinian occupied land. Is this behavior not worthy to be condemned and punished?

Even today it is often dangerous for Jews to visit the graves of their loved ones buried in the cemetery on the Mount of Olives. Entire sections have been desecrated and the headstones of Jewish graves shattered. Some of the headstones have even been carried off and used by Arabs and Palestinians as paving stones or in construction of animal shelters or other dwellings.

The Palestinians use their real or fictitious religious interests to make political capital for their national campaign against Israel and the Jews and the world seems to nod in their favor. Plain and simple, this is wrong. Palestinians have not merely threatened to profane Jewish holy sites, they have physically done so in the most egregious of ways. All this, and more, and yet the world takes no notice. President Trump merely threatens to attack Iranian Muslim sites and suddenly he is a war criminal with a price tag on his head.

The Palestinians have proven that they cannot be trusted to preserve and protect Jewish cultural or religious sites. It makes no sense that the profane should be charged with safeguarding the holy. It’s not right but it is the modern way because the world has fallen too far to the left.

What’s in a Decade?

By CARL WHITE

Life in the Carolinas

It seems like there is a lot of noise in the world today.

We are in the beginnings of a new decade. We have never had a 2020 before. It has a nice ring to it; maybe that’s because Barbara Walters burned it into the minds of millions of Americans, including myself, on the ABC News Magazine show with the same name.

In 1978, the show’s rocky start smoothed out nicely when veteran newsman Hugh Downs joined the show as host.

Walters joined the show in 1979 and then in 1984 she became and remained the joint co-host with Downs for 15 years.

The thing that so many remember is how she would welcome viewers with, “I’m Barbara Walters and this is 2020.” If you were watching TV for New Year Celebrations 2020, clips of Barbara Walters and those impersonating her iconic delivery of “Welcome to 2020” were plentiful. It was clever and perfect for the moment.

We all have memory triggers. Whatever the reason, for me hearing those words repeated over and over on TV and on social media set into motion a flurry of memories and thoughts about the idea that we are starting not just a new year, but a new decade. After a few days of processing everything floating around in my head, I started to commit to paper these thoughts. Thinking about 12 months is one thing but thinking and planning for 120 months - Ten Years - is another thing all together.

Our TV show, Life In The Carolinas, has started its 11th year of broadcast. In December that seemed like a long time, but reflecting on it now, that’s just a little over a decade.

But then again, a decade can be significant. Take the Roaring 20’s.

They were roaring because they needed to be. Coming out of a world war was not an easy time and we, as the land of the free and home of the brave, needed to do something to bring about as much prosperity and happiness as possible. It was a time of Jazz music, automobiles, bathtub gin and bootleggers. It was a time of political and social change. There was not prosperity for everyone, but the opportunities to prosper were much greater than the decade before.

The big takeaway for me is that it needed to happen, and it did. Many may argue about what was or was not good about it, but at least there was something new to argue about.

It was a decade to remember for sure. Even to this day I enjoy my visits to the Jazz Room in Charlotte. I like to close my eyes, take in the moment and reflect on the people and music of our past that still stirs our emotions and thus our actions.

Bluegrass and Mountain music hits me the same way. It’s a celebration of evolving history.

And sometimes it’s not a specific decade that’s significant, but an event that occurs throughout, like the Carolinas tradition of the National Hollerin Contest in Spivey Corners.

It started in 1969 and the first titled champion was Leonard Emanuel. Every year after the first it was his standard that everyone strived to meet and beat. The contest received national and international attention and lasted for 47 years before the event was retired.

I will always remember that segment, I had my first and only hollerin lesson on camera, I decided to remain the storyteller and not join the competition. But for the people who participated for almost five decades it was the highlight of the year.

I’m not sure what decade thinkers are called but is seems as if I have joined the ranks. I’m starting to like it a lot.

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omgktlouchheim · 7 years ago

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Diary of Katie Louchheim

Below are thoughts and feelings of mine that have been brought forth by current events. My expressions below are solely my own, I do not claim these experiences to be anyone else’s or claim to speak for everyone with similar backgrounds or feelings.

Pretty much since the election I’ve been trying to gather my thoughts together. I feel like I’m being torn in a million directions. I wake up every day praying that this is an episode of The Twilight Zone, or a really fucked up dream I’m having and not reality. But I know it’s real. I’ve always known it was real. Growing up Jewish in Arizona was a constant reminder of my otherness while being within the Jewish community was a constant reminder of how much we’re hated solely based on that otherness. The weird thing about never knowing what it’s like to go to your place of worship or day school without security and metal detectors, or that when school gets cut because there was a bomb threat at the JCC or a swastika tagged on one of the synagogues in town, is that these things are not normal. And yet, by the time I was a young child they were completely normalized.

Maybe it didn’t seem so bad because I’ve had a complicated relationship with my Jewish identity so siding with people who were suspect felt easier. Or because that insecurity balanced out with my white privilege. When people didn’t know my heritage, I definitely benefitted, and still mostly benefit, from that. That’s the lie of assimilation, though. There’s something off-white about living in America while having a Jewish background. (Obviously, for Jews of color it’s a whole other ballgame). Once that part of my identity was known I became “nice for a Jew” and “pretty for a Jew” but I most certainly was not nice or pretty enough to make me human enough to open up the minds of those bestowing compliments to me with their backhand. It would be me; alone, trying to toe the line between making a good and diplomatic impression while also denying a part of myself and any emotional reactions to people and instead, making sure to accommodate their feelings. I didn’t realize how small I was making myself in these situations. And how much responsibility I was shouldering that wasn’t my business to shoulder at all.

One time in high school, a bunch of us choir buddies were asked to sing at one of our friend’s churches. We went, sang a song about Jesus, nailed it (sry, too soon?) and then were forced to listen to this preacher sermonize about how non-Christian people are going to hell. At which point I turned and looked at my friend (an Iranian Zoroastrian) and we both just rolled our eyes because we were so used to this treatment by people toward us. Fucking jaded as fuck from this shit by 17 years old. I think the girl who asked us to go apologized after. I really don’t remember. At this point, and honestly since the dawn of time, apologies are not enough.

Being nice is not enough. There are no “both sides” to this equation. It’s not ok to tell people being brutalized that they need to identify or compromise with their abusers. It is not my job to hold your people accountable. Or hold your hand through your discomfort. White Christian folk, it’s yours. If I had been at that service today, I would have just gotten up and walked out. I don’t have the tolerance my younger self had for bullshit and no one’s fuckery is entitled to my time and space. It is not my job to constantly try to prove my worth to people who already believe I’m worthless and taking up space that belong to them. All I know, without a doubt, is that my life is more important than White Christian Feelings™. The lives of my friends and family and all the various communities we are members of: POC communities, LGBTQ+, immigrant, Indigenous, Muslim, etc. are more important than White Christian Feelings™. If YOU have feelings it is YOUR job to go to a therapist and work on them and not culturally appropriate the use of tiki torches by using them to throw a tantrum while waving Confederate and Nazi flags, ramming your cars through crowds of people, and beating the shit out of peaceful protestors.

I try to be a good person. I know that majorities of people in this country are also trying to be good people. But, I’m going to level with you white Christian folks. I don’t trust you. I also have a lot of resentment toward you. If you’re hurt by me saying that, I don’t care. It’s taken me a very long time to admit this. It’s taken an incredible amount of work to unpack and uncondition myself to the idea that I’m a bad person for feeling this way and for not seeing the “many sides.” But, you don’t deserve my trust. You’re not entitled to anything from anybody. Once again, YOUR problem. Tough titties, bro.

When I started seeing images of the gathering of angry white men with torches on Friday night, I had a feeling I wasn’t going to be able to participate in the onslaught of coverage of what was happening in Charlottesville, VA. I was right. The moment I opened Facebook and saw image after image and article after article of the Pasty Wasps Boys parade screaming anti-Semitic slurs, racist drivel, and throwing their arms up in Sieg Heil to Fuhrer Trump I found my breath catch in my throat. Those images turned into the countless hours of footage of the Nazis and their methodical tactics to exterminate our families shown to us every year to make sure we never forgot. The shots of piles of dead bodies found and photographed by the liberators morphed in my head from unknown members of the tribe to my parents and my siblings. Lifeless forms hanging from trees became my friends who dare to be themselves; worship who they wish to worship, love who they love, celebrating being black as fuck (Talia, I am living for you and your InstaStories right now and forever and always). It took me almost a full twenty-four hours and a hiatus from social media to get the panic attacks to stop.

Never again. Our communities make a point to pass down the atrocities we faced so we can make sure these things never happen again to anyone. Why don’t you learn what has happened to us? How is it that our heritage, which is intertwined with yours, weighs so heavily on only our hearts?

Do you not have hearts?

What exactly is wrong with you.

Here’s a collection of other things that have been swirling around in my brainhole:

- Have we past the point of no return for democracy in this country? I’m afraid of staying in this country until it’s too late. I’m afraid of leaving this country that I love and have so much hope for and not knowing if I’ll have more confidence in my survival instincts at the end of it or live with feeling like a coward for the rest of my life. Then again, some of my family made it here in time. Others were murdered and dumped in a grave they were forced to dig themselves.

-I was in Israel with my family in June and I remember I had a moment while sitting on the roof of the hotel we were staying at in Jerusalem with my dad. I remember feeling very quiet and comfortable. I thought of a conversation I had had with my aunt a few weeks prior when she had said that when she went to Israel for the first time 30 some years ago it amazed her that she was in a place where everyone was Jewish. Then, it clicked. I realized that despite the fact that Jerusalem and much of Israel is religiously diverse and that there is still a hugely unsettling political environment present there, that I was in a place where Judaism was accepted. It was a norm. I was in a place where I didn’t have to explain myself to anyone no matter what my actual beliefs, practices or lack thereof are. That’s when I thought, “Wow. This is what it must feel like to be a White Christian back home.”

- I love this country. Maybe, more accurately, I love the concept of this country. I’m a 6th generation American. Which means that my lineage has been here almost as long as this country has been the United States of America. Which also means my lineage has been oppressed while actively engaging in and benefitting from the oppression of others. Immigrants were able to come and build a life for themselves as a result of the genocide of hundreds of millions of First Nations people. My five-times great grandfather fought in the Civil War against the Union. He was not allowed to fight with his fellow southerners and instead was in a separate infantry specifically for Jews. Everything about this sucks. I can only guess that this relative was doing what he felt was right, as way to assimilate, get closer to the American Dream, I’ll never know. Here’s what I do know: The Confederacy lost, as they should have. State’s rights my ass. And failure is a good thing. Failure means things have the potential to be better. It gives us a chance to sit back, deal with our filth, and clean it out. Something this country still hasn’t done.

#BlackLivesMatter

#StopDAPL

#NoBanNoWall

#LoveisLoveisLove

#TransisBeautiful

#WomensRightsAreHumanRights

#ImmigrantsWeGetThe Job Done

#DisabledandCute

#Resist

#feminism #life stories #justice #resist

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englishchinesetranslations · 5 years ago

Link

https://radicalcapitalist.org/2018/05/15/the-jewish-origins-of-communism/

Introduction

Communism, an ideology that killed 94 million people in the 20th century, is still far from dead. Despite the ghastly and bloody history of communism, many young people still hold to a white-washed, romanticized view of it. To them, communism was a morally commendable cause with noble intentions that just happened to go awry at the hands of unsuitable dictators. Recent headlines from the New York Times over the past year have served to legitimize this view. A common view among “moderates” and “normie” conservatives is that communism was “good in theory but failed in practice.” Despite the economic collapse of communism in the late 20th century and the accompanying mass bloodshed, both communist ideas and sympathies are alive and well. As such, it behooves one to understand the true roots of communism so that principled libertarians and other right-wing folk may combat it more effectively.

An inconvenient “hate-fact” expressed by paleoconservatives and alt-righters is that communism is an ideology with distinctly Jewish historical and ideological origins/overtones. That is not to say that all or even the majority of Jews are communists, but that Jews have been disproportionately represented in the leadership and funding of communist movements throughout history (for example in Russia, Hungary, Germany, and Austria between 1918 to 1923) (1), and that the communist ideology itself comports strongly with certain behavioral and ideological tendencies which have manifested themselves throughout Jewish history.

The Talmudic Nature of Marxism

To understand the Jewish connection to communism, it may be helpful to start at the beginning – with Karl Marx and his lesser known mentor, Moses Hess. Both were of Jewish ethnicity, although only Hess identified openly as a Jew while Marx attempted to distance himself from his Jewish identity and embraced atheism. From the work of these two men, one may trace a multitude of communist aspects that can be tied directly to Jewish philosophies, particularly those expressed in the Talmud – a collection of Rabbinic writings that constitute the authoritative text on Jewish theology and philosophy. While the Talmud covers a wide array of different topics, contempt for gentiles (particularly Christians) and a belief in Jewish supremacy are pervasive themes. This spirit of Jewish supremacy is decidedly materialistic and utopian, and it was precisely this attitude that characterized Marx’s thinking, even while Marx rejected the Zionism of his mentor. Nonetheless, as E. Michael Jones explains in his book “The Jewish Revolutionary Spirit,” Marx certainly inherited Hess’ Talmudic mindset and worldview (2):

The Talmud has led to revolution. You don’t have to be religious to be talmudic. Karl Marx was an atheist, but according to Bernard Lazare, he was also “a clear and lucid Talmudist,” and, therefore, “full of that old Hebrew materialism which ever dreams of a paradise on earth and always rejects the far-distant and problematical hope of a garden of Eden after death.” (p. 99). Marx was the quintessential Talmudist and the quintessential Jewish revolutionary, and as such he proposed one of the most influential false Messiahs in Jewish history: world communism. Baruch Levy, one of Marx’s correspondents, proposed another equally potent false Messiah, namely, the Jewish Race. According to Levy, the Jewish people taken collectively shall be its own Messiahs… In this new organization of humanity, the sons of Israel now scattered over the whole surface of the globe… shall everywhere become the ruling element without opposition…. The governments of the nations forming the Universal or World -Republic shall all thus pass, without any effort, into Jewish hands thanks to the victory of the proletariat…. Thus shall the promise of the Talmud be fulfilled, that, when the Messianic epoch shall have arrived, the Jews will control the wealth of all the nations of the earth.

So, it turns out that there was basis in Jewish history for what Mahathir Mohammed said, as well as ample evidence—the creation of the state of Israel, for instance—that world Jewry had advanced considerably toward its goal of world domination in the century and a half since Levy wrote to Karl Marx. The Jews, quite simply, could not shake themselves loose from the notion that they were God’s chosen people, not even after they stopped believing in God. By rejecting Christ, they condemned themselves to worship one false Messiah after another—most recently Communism and Zionism. In their book La Question du Messie, the Lemann brothers, both of whom converted from Judaism to Catholicism, and both of whom became priests, compared present day Jews to the Israelites at the foot of Mount Sinai: “having grown weary of waiting for the return of Moses… they feasted and danced around the golden calf.” Zionism and Communism are two of the most recent false Messiahs which the Jews have fallen down to worship. Having rejected the supernatural Messiah who died on the cross, the Jews condemned themselves to worship one false natural Messiah after another and repeat the cycle of enthusiasm leading to disillusionment over and over again throughout their history. Those illusions both found fulfillment in and lent themselves to the creation of the birth of the Jewish state. On January 6, 1948, the chief rabbi of Palestine announced that “Eventually it [Israel] will lead to the inauguration of the true union of the nations, through which will be fulfilled the eternal message to mankind of our immortal prophets.” In the history of Jewish messianism, fantasies of racial superiority alternate with contradictory fantasies of universal brotherhood. “The great ideal of Judaism,” The Jewish World announced on February 9,1883 “is that… the whole world shall be imbued with Jewish teaching and that in a Universal Brotherhood of Nations—a greater Judaism in fact— all the separate races and religions shall disappear.”

It was from this Talmudic materialism that Marxism (along with other Jewish revolutionary/globalist ideologies like Zionism) came about. The fact that the Bolshevik movement featured so many Jews in its leadership cannot be dismissed as a mere coincidence – for the global communist revolution it promised is exactly what the Jewish elite have always wanted, and still continue to fight for to this very day. The ultimate failure of communism in the Soviet Union takes nothing away from this point – as Jones points out, the Jews “condemned themselves to worship one false Messiah after another – most recently Communism and Zionism.” In other words, the Jewish pursual of communism was irrational, but nevertheless pursued out of their ethnic interest – out of a desire for ethnic liberation from the “oppression” they have historically suffered in European countries. Ethnic liberation via human effort and historical “progress” leading up to revolution (as seen in Marxist theory) is a theme in Jewish thought that predates even Marx.

Jones explains how the Kabbalah – an ancient Jewish mystical/esoteric school of thought – gave rise to this sort of utopian revolutionary spirit. Without getting into all the specific details of Kabbalahic doctrine (which you can find in Jones’ book), it can be summarized by the idea that the purpose of Jews on earth was to bring “tiqqun,” or healing into the world by re-igniting the “holy sparks” of divine understanding which had been scattered throughout the world and suppressed. The suppression of the sparks had political implications as well, being represented by social/political oppression. This was how the Jewish Diaspora was explained – to facilitate the discovery of these “holy sparks” by the Jews. The long-foretold Messiah, rather than bringing about “tiqqun” himself, was instead the result of “tiqqun” being achieved by the Jewish people. Cosmic redemption via “tiqqun” was also tied to the national redemption of Israel, and from this one can see the roots of the Zionist ideology that Hess embraced, as well as his communism which Marx would later inherit. Jones has this to say about the Kabbalahic connection (3):

The political implications of the Lurianic Kaballah seem clear enough. The Messiah must now wait upon man’s efforts. He can only come once the process of tiqqun or purification and healing has been accomplished by man, i.e., by the Jews here on earth, who act as the vanguard of redemption much as the communist party at a later date would function as the vanguard of the proletariat. Without tiqqun, “it is impossible that the messianic king come.” From here it is but a short leap of thought to the conclusion that Israel had become its own Messiah, or as Scholem says, “By transferring to Israel, the historical nation, much of the redemptive task formerly considered as the messiah’s, many of his distinctive personal traits, as drawn in apocalyptic literature, were now obliterated.”

As mentioned before, this aspect of Kabbalah was used as a means of explaining the Jewish diaspora. Jones also explains in the preceding paragraph how it emerged specifically as a result of the expulsion of the Jews from Spain, as a means of explaining how catastrophes like these fit into the grand scheme of Jewish redemption. Again we see the “Jewish revolutionary spirit” emerging in response to their expulsion from European societies. And again we see how Judaism operates as a “group evolutionary strategy,” adapting its philosophy and worldview in response to obstacles that stand in the way of the “redemption of Israel,” such as alleged “oppression” at the hands of European populations. The great Russian novelist Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s historical account “Two Hundred Years Together” (which will be looked at in more detail later) reveals that the Bolshevik Revolution was indeed perceived by Russian Jews as a means of ending the oppression they suffered under ethnic Russians and establishing Jewish hegemony in Russia, and eventually the world. The revolution was eagerly supported by many Jews, particularly Zionists. A Russian Jew named D.S. Pasmanik cited by Solzhenitsyn bemoaned the fact that many of his fellow Jews were so openly boasting about their role in the revolution, fearing that such a blatant display would forever ingrain anti-Semitism into the hearts of ethnic Russians (4).

D. S. Pasmanik evokes in 1924 “those Jews who proclaimed loudly and clearly the genetic link between Bolshevism and Judaism, who openly boasted about the sentiments of sympathy which the mass of the Jewish people nourished towards the power of the Commissioners.” At the same time, Pasmanik himself pointed out “the points which may at first be the foundation of a rapprochement between Bolshevism and Judaism… These are: the concern for happiness on earth and that of social justice… Judaism was the first to put forward these two great principles.”

As Pasmanik’s testimony indicates, the Marxist vision for global revolution to establish a classless egalitarian society would have had a natural appeal to the Talmudic, Kabbalahic Jew who wished to bring about “happiness on earth” and “social justice” for the ultimate goal of achieving “tiqqun.” Communism was both globalist and utopian, and as we shall see later, actually allowed Jews in practice to retain their Jewish ethnic identity while relegating the gentiles to a generic, deracinated, decultured mass. While Marx may have formally disavowed his Jewish religious traditions in favor of atheism, it was clear that the Talmudic influence of his mentor Hess likewise had a great impact on his own philosophy.

Moses Hess, the Communist Rabbi

Moses Hess served as the inspiration for many of Marx’s communist ideas, despite Marx himself later disagreeing with Hess on certain points of socialist ideology, namely in their evaluation of Zionism and Jewish identitarianism. In fact, Hess was sometimes referred to as the “communist rabbi” due to his connection with and influence on Marx. An article written in 1959 by British historian James Joll attests to this:

Although he can claim to have originated two of the major movements of our time, Communism and Zionism, and in spite of having streets named after him in Jerusalem and Tel- Aviv, Moses Hess is a disregarded figure, remembered mainly as a butt for Karl Marx’s attacks (The donkey, Moses Hess’), a comparatively unimportant member of the Young Hegelian circle from which the master sprang. Hess married a prostitute in order, as Professor Berlin tells us, ‘to redress the injustice perpetrated by society.’ The action was typical of his nature and beliefs; (it was typical too that the marriage should have turned out to be a happy one). Hess’s saintliness, his passionate belief in love and equality together with his belief in men’s capacity for co-operation and planned economic action made him a Communist before he met Marx in 1841. He differed from Marx in his belief that the end of the class struggle would not come about through violence, but as a result of a moral change, a spontaneous growth of solidarity and justice among men. What prevented him from becoming a Marxist was his belief, to quote Professor Berlin again, in ‘benevolence and love towards individual human beings and not just humanity at large’; but he also differed from Marx in his understanding of the ideals of nationality as expressed, for example, by Mazzini. It was this sense of the significance of nationality, and his own Jewish upbringing and experiences in Prussia and France, that turned him to the second great enthusiasm of his life— the advocacy of a national state for the Jews in Palestine and the undermining of the moral and intellectual position of those Jews who, as he himself had done when young, placed their hopes on assimilation into a liberal secular society.

With Hess’ thinking, we see a slightly different approach than Marx, but even despite their differing views on how a communist social order would be achieved and how they viewed their own Jewish identities, the overarching themes are the same. For all his disagreement with Marx’s vision of violent class struggle, his desire for a centrally planned communist economy was every bit as violent as Marx’s was (which should be obvious to libertarians who recognize that socialism in any form is institutionalized trespass and aggression). Hess, despite being a Jewish nationalist (i.e. Zionist), was decidedly a globalist in his thinking regarding the rest of the world, believing that communism could be achieved through feelings of “solidarity and justice” among “humanity at large.” Even more revealing is what Michael Hoffman explains in his book “Judaism Discovered” (5):

For Hess, the cardinal sin of the Judaic people was to abandon their heritage, while the cardinal objective of his Communism was to persuade all other people to abandon theirs…

Communism was the means for achieving Judaic supremacy over the gentiles. The gentiles were fated to be reduced to a faceless, deracinated mass. Capitalism was also capable of producing this effect, through free trade and the unfettered financialization of society, in which the management of money becomes a vast business in itself, and where the highest virtue, after obeisance to Judaism, is profit.

While Hoffman’s attribution of globalism to capitalism is misguided (as I have explained before in an earlier article) the salient point is that Communism was intended by Hess as a means to exert Jewish supremacy over the gentiles. In fact, Hess even viewed the French Revolution (in many ways a foreshadowing of the Bolshevik Revolution) as “Jewish revenge” upon their gentile “oppressors” (6):

The French Revolution was the beginning of the violent stage of the Judaic revenge. Hess set Communism in motion partly as ritual revenge on the goyim: ‘…you modern nations have denied these indefatigable workers and industrious merchants civil rights. What persecutions! What tears! What blood you children of Israel have shed in the last 1800 years! But you sons of Judea, in spite of all suffering are still here!…You have escaped destruction in your long dispersion, in spite of the terrible tax you have paid during eighteen centuries of persecution. But what is left of your nation is mighty enough to rebuild the gates of Jerusalem. This is your mission.

And unlike Marx his successor, Hess was far more open about the Talmudic influences on his thinking (which was likely the inspiration for his extreme hatred for the “goyim”) (7):

[Hess] was an unabashed, fanatical proponent of the Talmud…[ he] did not personally practice Judaism. Neither does Harvard Law Prof. Alan Dershowitz or Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan in our time. Observance of ritual is beside the point. Over the centuries, allegiance to the Oral Traditions is credited with having preserved the purity of the Judaic race and that’s what counts:

‘You who declare the teachings and ordinances of our sages to be foolish inventions, pray tell us what would have become of Judaism and the Jews if they had not, through the institutions of the Talmudic sages, thrown a protecting fence around their religion, so as to safeguard it for the coming days? Would they have continued to exist for 1800 years and have resisted the influence of the Christian and Mohammedan civilization? Would they not long ago have disappeared as a nation from the face of the earth…?’

Aside from the Talmudic nature of Marxist ideology, what else motivates this “Jewish revolutionary spirit” that we see in both Hess and Marx? The answer can be found in the investigative work of Kevin MacDonald, an evolutionary psychologist who has studied the political and intellectual activity of 20th century Jews in detail. As the main thesis in his work “Culture of Critique” argues, Judaism is ultimately a group evolutionary strategy. As such, the behavior of Jews in society and politics tends to be geared toward the advancement of their ethnic group interests. One might wonder, then, why Jews (who tend to be economically well-off in Western countries today) might be drawn to radical leftism, which would seem to be contrary to their economic interests. And indeed, while Eastern European Jews during the 19th and early 20th centuries (both in Europe and in America) were generally of low socioeconomic status (thus making their affinity for leftist politics more understandable), economics alone is insufficient to explain Jewish leftism in general. MacDonald argues instead that cultural and ethnic factors are the bigger issues here (8).

The suggestion is that in general Jewish political motivation is influenced by non-economic issues related to perceived Jewish group interests., the latter influenced by social identity processes. Similarly in the politically charged area of cultural attitudes, Silberman notes “American Jews are committed to cultural tolerance because of their belief – one firmly rooted in history – that Jews are safe only in a society acceptant of a wide range of attitudes and behaviors, as well as a diversity of religious and ethnic groups. It is this belief, for example, not approval of homosexuality, that leads an overwhelming majority of American Jews to endorse “gay rights” and to take a liberal stance on most other so-called “social” issues.” A perceived Jewish group interest in cultural pluralism transcends negative personal attitudes regarding the behavior in question.

Silberman’s comment that Jewish attitudes are “firmly rooted in history” is particularly relevant: A consistent tendency has been for Jews to be persecuted as a minority group within a culturally or ethnically homogeneous society…. The point here is that the perceived Jewish group interest in developing a pluralistic society is of far more importance than mere economic self-interest in determining Jewish political behavior.

One can immediately see, therefore, why communism, a universalistic, internationalist, egalitarian ideology would be perceived by many Jews as serving their ethnic interests. The destruction of gentile nations and cultures (which inevitably must occur under communism) would have given Jews protection from the anti-Semitism which, as MacDonald has pointed out in a passage that will be quoted later, has historically taken hold mostly in societies which are culturally and ethnically homogeneous and stable.

A complication here is the common claim that many Jewish leftists do not self-identify as Jews (a claim which is strongly contested elsewhere in MacDonald’s book as well as by Solzhenitsyn). MacDonald addresses this objection by pointing out that even supposedly “de-ethnicized Jews” (i.e. those who do not openly display their Jewish identities) are still over-represented in radical leftist movements and underrepresented in right-wing movements. (Neo-“conservatism” doesn’t count as right-wing, by the way – sorry Ben Shapiro!) Even if some of these right-wing movements are “anti-Semitic,” it should be irrelevant to such “de-ethnicized Jews” – if indeed they are completely de-ethnicized as is implied by the objection. MacDonald argues that Jewish group interests are formed by what he calls “social identity processes” – to which not even supposedly “de-ethnicized” Jews are immune.

In summary, he holds that radical Jewish political activism is the result of strong identification with a Jewish in-group, paired with “very negative and exaggerated conceptions of the wider gentile society, and particularly the most powerful elements of that society, as an out-group. As an example he cites the “New Left” movement of the 1960’s which was marked by “radical social criticism in which all elements that contributed to the cohesive social fabric of mid-century America were regarded as oppressive and in need of radical alteration” (9). One can see, therefore, how “social identity processes” would give a globalist and utopian ideology like Marxism a strong appeal to Jews, as it granted them a positive self identification with a supposedly moral cause (thus enhancing their sense of in-group identity) while simultaneously reinforcing their “negative evaluation of gentile power structures.” In addition, he points out (10):

Psychologists have found that a sense of moral rectitude is an important component of self-esteem, and self-esteem has been proposed as a motivating factor in social identity.

The Jewish revolutionary spirit makes more sense in light of MacDonald’s analysis of Judaism as a group evolutionary strategy. In summary, Jewish affinity for radical leftism is motivated primarily by a survivalist instinct that developed over the course of their history of being reviled and persecuted by their host European societies. The development of Jewish affinity for radical leftism was in turn reinforced by social identity processes which strengthened their positive in-group identity as well as their negative perception of the gentile out-group. As radical leftist – especially communist – social revolutions are extremely destabilizing to the majority culture and society, Jews see such social fragmentation as beneficial to their prospects for survival within Western society. When in-group preference within the majority population is strong and its social/civic institutions intact and stable, so-called “anti-Semitism” becomes a bigger threat. But when in-group preference has been eroded by multiculturalism and white guilt, and social/civic institutions (like the nuclear family) have been uprooted, then the host population can no longer offer meaningful resistance to the social/political agenda of Jews.

When one looks at the history of Jews in European countries, a common theme emerges. Jews have been expelled from a total of 109 different countries in the past. Did all 109 of these countries suffer from irrational bouts of anti-Semitism? Or was there a basis for all these expulsions? The clannish behavior of Jews combined with their economically and politically subversive behaviors eventually compelled the host populations of these countries to kick them out. This in turn led Jews to re-adjust their behaviors and seek out ways to gain economic and political dominance in their host countries without generating resistance from the host populations. The pursual of this strategy is the basis for Jewish support of multiculturalism, open borders, and cultural degeneracy in Western countries. Interestingly enough, many of these same Jews support precisely the opposite concepts and policies when it comes to Israel, or even in their own communities formed within Western countries.

The motive here is indisputable. Jews attempt to undermine the social and cultural cohesiveness of the host populations of Western countries to prevent “anti-Semitism” from becoming a threat to Jewish existence in these Western countries, and to eliminate any real resistance to Jewish economic and political hegemony. 20th century communism was part and parcel of this agenda, and modern-day communism/radical leftism is no different.

Jewish Bolshevism and Trotskyism

The great Russian novelist and historian Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (who experienced the horrors of the Soviet gulags himself) recalls the nature of the violent Bolshevik Revolution that plunged Russia into totalitarian communist rule for nearly a century in an interview with David Duke in 2002:

You must understand. The leading Bolsheviks who took over Russia were not Russians. They hated Russians. They hated Christians. Driven by ethnic hatred they tortured and slaughtered millions of Russians without a shred of human remorse. The October Revolution was not what you call in America the “Russian Revolution.” It was an invasion and conquest over the Russian people. More of my countrymen suffered horrific crimes at their bloodstained hands than any people or nation ever suffered in the entirety of human history. It cannot be overstated. Bolshevism was the greatest human slaughter of all time. The fact that most of the world is ignorant of this reality is proof that the global media itself is in the hands of the perpetrators.

The last line is revealing – just who are the people in control of the global media? It is undeniable that most of the mainstream media networks and publications are owned by Jews. Who, of course, have a strong motive to deny any connection between their ethnic group/interests and infamous historical atrocities like the Bolshevik Revolution. Solzhenitsyn’s historical account of the Revolution and the events leading up to it, titled “Two Hundred Years Together,” details the history of Jews and ethnic Russians in the Russian Empire. The first part, “Russian Jewish History,” is fairly innocuous – he describes the life of Jewish communities from the late 18th century up to the early 20th century just before the Russian Revolution. Those who are hypersensitive to “anti-Semitism” might take issue with Solzhenitsyn’s implication that Jews were no less oppressed in Tsarist Russia than average Russian peasants, but that’s about it. The second part, “Jews in the Soviet Union,” is the reason why the book has been blacklisted in most English-speaking countries. For it is in this section that the uncomfortable (and politically incorrect) truth is exposed: Bolshevism, the ideology that led to the deaths of millions of Russians, was indeed a Jewish-led movement. Solzhenitsyn continues (11):

Bolshevik Jews often had, in addition to their surname as underground revolutionaries, pseudonyms, or modified surnames. Example: in an obituary of 1928, the death of a Bolshevik of the first hour, Lev Mikhailovich Mikhailov, who was known to the Party as Politikus, in other words by a nickname; his real name, Elinson, he carried it to the grave. What prompted an Aron Rupelevich to take the Ukrainian surname of Taratut? Was Aronovitch Tarchis ashamed of his name or did he want to gain more weight by taking the name of Piatnitsky? And what about the Gontcharovs, Vassilenko, and others…? Were they considered in their own families as traitors or simply as cowards?

Observations made on the spot have remained. I. F. Najivin records the impressions he received at the very beginning of Soviet power: in the Kremlin, in the administration of the Sovnarkom, “reigns disorder and chaos. We see only Latvians and even more Latvians, Jews and even more Jews. I have never been an anti‐Semite, but there were so many it could not escape your attention, and each one was younger than the last.” Korolenko himself, as liberal and extremely tolerant as he was, he who was deeply sympathetic to the Jews who had been victims of the pogroms, noted in his Notebooks in the spring of 1919: “Among the Bolsheviks there are a great number of Jews, men and women. Their lack of tact, their assurance are striking and irritating,” “Bolshevism has already exhausted itself in Ukraine, the ‘Commune’ encounters only hatred on its way. One sees constantly emerge among the Bolsheviks—and especially the Cheka—Jewish physiognomies, and this exacerbates the traditional feelings, still very virulent, of Judæophobia.”

From the early years of Soviet rule, the Jews were not only superior in number in the upper echelons of the Party, but also, more remarkably and more sensitively for the population, to local administrations, provinces and townships, to inferior spheres, where the anonymous mass of the Streitbrecher had come to the rescue of the new and still fragile power which had consolidated it, saved it. The author of the Book of the Jews of Russia writes: “One cannot fail to evoke the action of the many Jewish Bolsheviks who worked in the localities as subordinate agents of the dictatorship and who caused innumerable ills to the population of the country”—and he adds: “including the Jewish population.”

The omnipresence of the Jews alongside the Bolsheviks had, during these terrible days and months, the most atrocious consequences. Among them is the assassination of the Imperial family, of which, today, everybody speaks, and where the Russians now exaggerate the share of the Jews, who find in this heart-wrenching thought an evil enjoyment. As it should, the most dynamic Jews (and they are many) were at the height of events and often at the command posts. Thus, for the assassination of the Tsar’s family: the guards (the assassins) were Latvians, Russians, and Magyars, but two [Jewish] characters played a decisive role: Philip Goloshchekin and Yakov Yurovsky (who had received baptism).

Thus, as Solzhenitsyn notes, Jews often took measures to conceal their Jewish identities as Bolshevik revolutionaries. This is because ethnic Russians were well aware of the relevance of the Jewish Question in their society even before the Revolution, as Solzhenitsyn describes in detail in the first part of the book. Yakov Yurovsky, as the last sentence in the above quote describes, even underwent a Christian baptism.

It is also worth noting the conflict which later arose between the Leninist-Trotskyist faction of the Communists, and the Stalinist faction. Lenin and Trotsky, both Jews, along with other Jews, enjoyed a very strong influence among the party leadership in the early years of the Soviet Union. Both were infected with the same kind of Talmudic idealism and globalism that characterized Marx’s thinking. Trotsky in particular advocated strongly for “permanent global revolution” to overthrow the bourgeoisie everywhere in the world and ultimately to establish a one-world state (which he denied would be a state, much like the “anarcho”-communists of today). One can see how if the comparatively more conservative and nationalistic Stalin had not purged the Trotskyites from the party, and Trotsky had gotten his way, the Soviet death toll would have far exceeded the 58 million that were killed historically. Countless more overseas would have been killed as well in Trotsky’s desired “global revolution.” Dan Michaels of the Occidental Observer explains, drawing from Andrei Burovsky’s book “Myths and the Truth about 1937: Stalin’s Counter-Revolution“:

The author refers to the war between the two devils as Stalin’s counter-revolution because, until Stalin undertook the great purge, the revolution and the Communist state had been overwhelmingly a Jewish enterprise with Lenin and Trotsky the leading lights. The goal of the Trotskyites, as demonstrated by the Comintern [Communist International], was to establish a permanent worldwide revolution “to fight by all available means, including armed force, for the overthrow of the international bourgeoisie and for the creation of an international Soviet Republic as a transition stage to the complete abolition of the state.”

By this definition, it was quite obvious that Trotsky and his cohorts were embarking upon a reckless and bloody adventure to establish a utopia based on nothing except their own fanciful dreams. To accomplish this, agents in every important country, usually citizens of those countries, either volunteered or were recruited to undermine the bourgeois government under which they currently lived and agitate for world revolution.

According to Burovsky, Stalin’s purge of the Trotskyites from the party leadership therefore represented the lesser of two evils. This is interesting because, as Michaels observes, Western historians tend to focus primarily on the crimes of Stalin while glossing over the atrocities committed by Lenin and Trotsky. Stalin, as Burovsky explains, was not necessarily less bloodthirsty or less committed to communist ideals than Lenin or Trotsky, but was decidedly less idealistic and much more calculating, preferring to establish and secure socialism in Russia first before embarking on “world revolution” as the Trotskyites were so eager to do. This relatively more conservative attitude with Stalin, therefore, is what made him the lesser evil compared to Lenin and Trotsky. Michaels goes on:

Burovsky notes that the end goal of both devils, Stalin and Trotsky, was the same — world communism, but the means chosen by Trotsky to achieve it would have caused worldwide mayhem and countless millions more deaths.

In addition, Michaels points out that although “Jews were prominent in both factions… Stalin insisted their loyalty be directed exclusively to his concept of a ‘socialist’ Soviet Union while their own interests and unrealistic goals be set aside. When, in his eyes, they did not comply, he had them killed.” Thus, we see that Stalin in some sense “de-Talmudized” the Soviet communists by partially forsaking the globalism and utopianism that had previously characterized its outlook under the more Jewish Leninist-Trotskyite leadership. This makes it all the more interesting, then, the fact that the crimes of Stalin are focused on to a much greater degree than those of Lenin and Trotsky. A coincidence? I think not.

Answering Some Objections

As the Jewish-Bolshevik connection is a politically incorrect “hate-fact,” much effort has been spent trying to deny its truth as an “anti-Semitic conspiracy theory.” While calling people anti-Semitic is not an argument, it may still be helpful to go through a few of the common objections to the “hate-facts” presented above.

First, the obvious one. Yes, we are all aware that communism was practiced in China, Vietnam, South America, Cuba, and various other mono-ethnic countries without significant Jewish populations. But the fact that some non-Jews have used communism as a means to achieve non-ethnospecific goals says nothing about the propensity for Jews to use the same means for their own ethnic interests in a different setting. As the subjective theory of value tells us, different actors can use the same means for varied ends. But nonetheless, the fact remains that communism has distinctly Jewish ideological roots, and was developed with Jewish ethnic interests in mind, as has already been shown. It is also a historical fact that the first real implementation of communism was by the actions of Jews during the Bolshevik Revolution. In light of these observations, the objection based on the existence of communism in settings that did not involve ethnic conflict is hardly an argument. Rather, it is a red herring meant to distract attention from the Jewish-Bolshevik connection.

Some will argue that the Jews suffered equally as much (if not more so) under Soviet communism as gentiles did – and therefore it cannot be said that Bolshevism was a Jewish movement. But neither the premise nor the conclusion drawn from it holds up under scrutiny. Solzhenitsyn recounts from his time in the gulag how many Jews actually had it much easier than their gentile gulag-mates. They were often assigned as “Idiots” (“an inmate slang term to denote other inmates who didn’t do common labor but managed to obtain positions with easy duties, usually pretending to be incapable of doing hard work because of poor health”) in a much higher proportion than ethnic Russians and also were shielded from disciplinary action by Jewish officers (who were also represented in higher proportion than ethnic Russian officers). These “free employees,” as Solzhenitsyn observes, demonstrated a much stronger degree of in-group preference toward the Jewish prisoners than Russian officers did toward Russian prisoners (p. 470-471). This testimony from Solzhenitsyn, corroborated by many of his personal sources who also suffered in the gulags, calls into question the popular narrative that it was the Jews who suffered the most. The reality was that because of the strong ethnic bonds between Jews that still existed even between boss and prisoner, and the fact that Jews were overrepresented among the “free bosses,” Jewish inmates ended up receiving better treatment from their overlords than did Russian inmates. Solzhenitsyn explains (12).

This particular Jewish national contract between free bosses and inmates is impossible to overlook. A free Jew was not so stupid to actually see an “Enemy of the People” or an evil character preying on “the people’s property” in an imprisoned Jew (unlike what a dumb-headed Russian saw in another Russian). He in the first place saw a suffering tribesman – and I praise them for this sobriety! Those who know about terrific Jewish mutual supportiveness (especially exacerbated by mass deaths of Jews under Hitler) would understand that a free Jewish boss simply could not indifferently watch Jewish prisoners flounder in starvation and die, and not help. But I am unable to imagine a free Russian employee who would save and promote his fellow Russian prisoners to the privileged positions only because of their nationality. Though we have lost 15 millions during collectivization, we are still numerous. You can’t care about everyone, and nobody would even think about it.

Is the in-group preference demonstrated by Jewish prisoners and the “free” guards by itself proof that Bolshevism was motivated by Jewish group interest? No, but it does cast doubt on the objection that Jewish suffering under communism disproves the existence of any connection between communism and Jewish group interest. Solzhenitsyn does not go into much detailed analysis regarding the ideological or sociological connections between Judaism and communism (he in fact denies that Judaism in general was responsible for the Bolshevik Revolution and argues that Jewish Bolsheviks were apostates from Jewish tradition rather than representatives of it), but the facts he presents in his historical work raise questions about these connections that other writers have since investigated with a more critical eye.

Kevin MacDonald has pointed out in a paper in The Occidental Quarterly that Jewish Bolshevism, in many ways, was actually a continuation of a common theme observed throughout the history of Jewish economic and political relations with their European neighbors in Western countries, with a slight twist.

This is the overarching generalization which one can make about Jewish economic behavior over the ages. Their role went far beyond performing tasks deemed inappropriate for the natives for religious reasons; rather they were often tasks at which natives would be relatively less ruthless in exploiting their fellows. This was especially the case in Eastern Europe, where economic arrangements such as tax farming, estate management, and monopolies on retail liquor distribution lasted far longer than in the West:

“In this way, the Jewish arendator became the master of life and death over the population of entire districts, and having nothing but a short-term and purely financial interest in the relationship, was faced with the irresistible temptation to pare his temporary subjects to the bone. On the noble estates he tended to put his relatives and co-religionists in charge of the flour-mill, the brewery, and in particular of the lord’s taverns where by custom the peasants were obliged to drink. On the church estates, he became the collector of all ecclesiastical dues, standing by the church door for his payment from tithe-payers, baptized infants, newly-weds, and mourners. On the [royal] estates…, he became in effect the Crown Agent, farming out the tolls, taxes, and courts, and adorning his oppressions with all the dignity of royal authority.”

Jewish involvement in the Communist elite of the USSR can be seen as a variation on an ancient theme in Jewish culture rather than a new one sprung from the special circumstances of the Bolshevik Revolution. Rather than being the willing agents of exploitative non-Jewish elites who were clearly separated from both the Jews and the people they ruled, Jews became an entrenched part of an exploitative and oppressive elite in which group boundaries were blurred. This blurring of boundaries was aided by four processes, all covered by Slezkine: shedding overt Jewish identities in favor of a veneer of international socialism in which Jewish identity and ethnic networking were relatively invisible; seeking lower-profile positions in order to de-emphasize Jewish preeminence (e.g., Trotsky); adopting Slavic names; and engaging in a limited amount of intermarriage with non-Jewish elites. Indeed, the “plethora of Jewish wives” among non-Jewish leaders doubtless heightened the Jewish atmosphere of the top levels of the Soviet government, given that everyone, especially Stalin, appears to have been quite conscious of ethnicity. For their part, anti-Semites have accused Jews of having “implanted those of their own category as wives and husbands for influential figures and officials.”

From MacDonald’s analysis, we see that the Bolshevik Revolution provided Jewish elites with an opportunity to expand their economic and political power over Russian society even further by abandoning their traditional “middleman” role and moving directly to the top of the hierarchy. All this was done while cleverly concealing their Jewish identities. Thus, contrary to Solzhenitsyn’s misguided claim, the revolution was in fact a continuation, not an abandonment, of the “Jewish revolutionary spirit” that has characterized Jewish activity in European societies even before the advent of communism.

Furthermore, MacDonald also points out that the advancement of Jewish group interests under Russian socialism as a whole was disguised by the claim that Marxism is a “universalist” or “internationalist” ideology that supposedly transcends ethnic and cultural boundaries (13). The apparently universalist nature of Marxism may be another reason why some have trouble seeing the connection between it and Jewish identity. Indeed, as MacDonald observes, Jews in Western societies both yesterday and today tend to campaign aggressively against nationalism for their host countries and populations in the name of universalist-sounding ideologies (ranging from individualism/liberalism to “tolerance and inclusivity” and appeals to the “universal brotherhood of man,” etc.) while at the same time embracing strong ethnic identitarianism for themselves. The Jew-dominated communist government that reigned in Soviet-era Poland is cited as a prominent example of this (14). Such a double standard, of course, cannot be pointed out in polite company for fear of being smeared as an “anti-Semite” (i.e. Literally Hitler™), which is precisely why so few have observed it.

Thus, far from being evidence against the presence of Jewish group interest in Bolshevism/communist revolutions, the universal nature of Marxism comports quite well with Jewish group interests. It simultaneously allows Jews to retain their own group identity while avoiding the scrutiny of gentiles, and subverts the national ties of gentile peoples for the universal cause of communist revolution.

Another objection to the Jewish-Bolshevik connection is that Bolshevism would have been antithetical to the economic interests of Jewish elites, especially those in the West who tended to be wealthy capitalists. However, MacDonald has demonstrated that Jewish political activity is driven more by sociological incentives rather than strictly economic ones (15). MacDonald also discusses how wealthy Jewish capitalists in Western countries supported the Bolshevik Revolution despite the apparent fact that communism was opposed to their economic interests (16).

The emphasis here on social identity processes is compatible with Jewish radicalism serving particular perceived Jewish group interests. Anti-Semitism and Jewish economic interests were undoubtedly important motivating factors for Jewish leftism in czarist Russia. Jewish leaders in Western societies, many for whom were wealthy capitalists, proudly acknowledged Jewish over-representation in the Russian revolutionary movement; they also provided financial and political support for these movements by, for example, attempting to influence US foreign policy. Representative of this attitude is financier Jacob Schiff’s statement that “the claim that among the ranks of those who in Russia are seeking to undermine governmental authority there are a considerable number of Jews may perhaps be true. In fact, it would be rather surprising if some of those terribly afflicted by persecution and exceptional laws should not at last have turned against their merciless oppressors.

In summary, the testimony of Solzhenitsyn, the social analysis of MacDonald, and the evidence of the open boasting of many Jews about their role in the Bolshevik revolution all serve to demonstrate that Bolshevism was indeed a Jewish movement. This truth, unfortunately, has often been obscured by political correctness. And as Solzhenitsyn said, the fact that the perpetrators of such a massive atrocity have not been unmasked and identified only goes to show that the global media is under their control. As it is sometimes said: to determine the true rulers of any society, all you must do is ask yourself this question – who is it that I am not permitted to criticize?

Even to this day, the perpetrators of the Bolshevik Revolution continue to exercise an insidious influence on world politics, but in a different form.

Internationalism, Zionism, and Neoconservatism

There is an interesting parallel between the radical leftism/communism that has characterized Jewish political activism in the past, and the Zionism/neoconservatism that many Jews embrace now. While neoconservatism is commonly associated with “right wing” politics, it is in fact only a variation of the globalist, internationalist ideology of communism. The fact that many of the founding neoconservative thinkers like Irving Kristol held Trotsky in very high regard (and in fact were influenced by his worldview) is a telling sign of this. Like Trotsky, neoconservatives support the idea of “global revolution,” albeit in slightly different form. They support military intervention by the US in countries all around the world to (in the words of Woodrow Wilson) “make the world safe for democracy.” That is, the neocon vision involves reconstructing the whole world into the “liberal democratic” image of the modern West – albeit inconsistently. This kind of global Messianism bears a striking resemblance to the globalist vision of Marxism – the only difference is that the false “Messiah” of the neocons is the American military carrying the torch of liberal democracy to the world, rather than working-class revolutionaries carrying the torch of communism.

Interestingly enough, while neoconservatives often make a show of condemning foreign dictators like Saddam Hussein, Muammar Gaddafi, Hosni Mubarak, Bashar al-Assad, and Vladimir Putin who supposedly are “serial violators of human rights,” they turn a conspicuous blind eye to other countries who are arguably even worse violators of human rights. Two prominent examples are Israel and Saudi Arabia – the former which has recently been in the news for its massacring of Palestinian civilians in Gaza and has been displacing many more Palestinians from their homelands over the past few decades, and the latter (also a close military ally of Israel, interestingly enough, despite the fact that the Saudis are Sunni Muslims who historically have hated Jews) which enforces an extremely strict regime of Sharia Law and has also been bombing and starving the country of Yemen to death over the past few years (with the help of American weapons and airplane fuel). Why does the US not bomb Israel or Saudi Arabia for these atrocities? Why does the US not push for regime change in these countries? Perhaps to answer this question we ought to wonder which countries actually benefit from the endless US military intervention in the Middle East (hint: not America).

I have written an article in the past exposing the pernicious Zionist influence over American foreign policy. I will not attempt to rehash all of the same points here. There is another article, however, titled “Whose War?”, written by Pat Buchanan at the start of the Iraq War in 2003 which goes into much more detail regarding the Jewish interest in American warmongering.

The War Party may have gotten its war. But it has also gotten something it did not bargain for. Its membership lists and associations have been exposed and its motives challenged. In a rare moment in U.S. journalism, Tim Russert put this question directly to Richard Perle: “Can you assure American viewers … that we’re in this situation against Saddam Hussein and his removal for American security interests? And what would be the link in terms of Israel?”

Suddenly, the Israeli connection is on the table, and the War Party is not amused. Finding themselves in an unanticipated firefight, our neoconservative friends are doing what comes naturally, seeking student deferments from political combat by claiming the status of a persecuted minority group. People who claim to be writing the foreign policy of the world superpower, one would think, would be a little more manly in the schoolyard of politics. Not so.

Former Wall Street Journal editor Max Boot kicked off the campaign. When these “Buchananites toss around ‘neoconservative’—and cite names like Wolfowitz and Cohen—it sometimes sounds as if what they really mean is ‘Jewish conservative.’” Yet Boot readily concedes that a passionate attachment to Israel is a “key tenet of neoconservatism.” He also claims that the National Security Strategy of President Bush “sounds as if it could have come straight out from the pages of Commentary magazine, the neocon bible.” (For the uninitiated, Commentary, the bible in which Boot seeks divine guidance, is the monthly of the American Jewish Committee.)

David Brooks of the Weekly Standard wails that attacks based on the Israel tie have put him through personal hell: “Now I get a steady stream of anti-Semitic screeds in my e-mail, my voicemail and in my mailbox. … Anti-Semitism is alive and thriving. It’s just that its epicenter is no longer on the Buchananite Right, but on the peace-movement left.”

Washington Post columnist Robert Kagan endures his own purgatory abroad: “In London … one finds Britain’s finest minds propounding, in sophisticated language and melodious Oxbridge accents, the conspiracy theories of Pat Buchanan concerning the ‘neoconservative’ (read: Jewish) hijacking of American foreign policy.”

Of course, this piece was received with howls of “anti-Semitism” from the neoconservatives in addition to all the “reasonable moderates” and pro-war leftists who were all beating the war drums in unison at the time. Quite telling, isn’t it? The neocons seem to be fully aware of their own ideology’s Jewish connection (as is especially apparent in Max Boot’s comments cited above) and yet were foaming at the mouth at the very suggestion from Buchanan and co. that the Iraq War for which they had vigorously campaigned had anything to do with Jewish interests! Buchanan goes on:

They charge us with anti-Semitism—i.e., a hatred of Jews for their faith, heritage, or ancestry. False. The truth is, those hurling these charges harbor a “passionate attachment” to a nation not our own that causes them to subordinate the interests of their own country and to act on an assumption that, somehow, what’s good for Israel is good for America.

What Buchanan and the rest of the paleoconservatives correctly recognized was that these neoconservatives (whom he observes in addition to being Jewish, were composed mostly of “ex-liberals, socialists, and Trotskyites, boat-people from the McGovern revolution”) were actively promoting an Israel First foreign policy for the American government. And we see here that the same Zionist-Bolshevik theme recurs: nationalism for the “chosen ones” and internationalism (this time in the form of perpetual war in the Middle East) for the goyim (read: Americans). Just as communism was meant to destroy the culture, tradition, and identity of gentile nations for the purpose of furthering Jewish hegemony, neoconservatism entails the destruction of the Middle East (making the Middle East “safe for Israel”) and the subordination of the American military to Zionist interests, all at the expense of American taxpayers. Communism and neoconservatism are two sides of the same globalist coin.

In addition, MacDonald’s “Culture of Critique” also discusses neoconservative views on immigration, in fact dedicating an entire lengthy chapter to the issue (which I would highly recommend reading in full). Many neoconservatives, in contrast to the more nationalistic paleoconservatives and alt-right, tend to voice (nominal) opposition to illegal immigration while supporting a theoretically unlimited amount of legal immigration. They also tend to vigorously counter-signal those “dissident” conservatives who take more principled anti-immigration stances, treating them essentially the same as the left treats them (i.e. calling them “racist,” “fascist,” etc. etc.). MacDonald gives some specific examples (17):

Because liberal immigration policies are vital Jewish interest, it is not surprising that support for liberal immigration policies spans the Jewish political spectrum. We have seen that Sidney Hook, who along with the other New York intellectuals may be viewed as an intellectual precursor of neoconservatism, identified democracy with the equality of differences and with the maximization of cultural diversity. Neoconservatives have been strong advocates of liberal immigration policies, and there has been a conflict between predominantly Jewish neoconservatives and predominantly gentile paleoconservatives over the issue of Third World immigration into the United States. Neoconservatives Norman Podhoretz and Richard John Neuhaus reacted very negatively to an article by a paleoconservative concerned that such immigration would eventually lead to the United States being dominated by such immigrants. Other examples are neoconservatives Julian Simon and Ben Wattenberg, both of whom advocate very high levels of immigration from all parts of the world, so that the United States will become what Wattenberg describes as the world’s first “Universal Nation.” Based on recent data, Fetzer reports that Jews remain far more favorable to immigration to the United States than any other ethnic group or religion.

MacDonald also explains the general history of Jewish involvement in US immigration policy here, reiterating a point made previously regarding Jewish Bolshevism. Like the Bolsheviks, modern Jewish open-borders advocates wish to dilute Gentile culture so as to create a more pluralistic society. The thinking goes that since Jewish persecution has historically taken place in more culturally and ethnically homogeneous societies (i.e. European countries) as opposed to more heterogeneous societies (i.e. America), the dilution of the native-born and predominantly white populations of Western countries will make them safer for Jews (although one might question the accuracy of this kind of thinking given the results of the Islamization of Europe taking place currently). Here is what MacDonald has to say (18):

The Jewish involvement in influencing immigration policy in the United States is especially noteworthy as an aspect of ethnic conflict. Jewish involvement in influencing immigration policy has had certain unique qualities that have distinguished Jewish interests from the interests of other groups favoring liberal immigration policies. Throughout much of the period from 1881 to 1965, one Jewish interest in liberal immigration policies stemmed from a desire to provide a sanctuary for Jews fleeing from anti-Semitic persecutions in Europe and elsewhere. Anti-Semitic persecutions have been a recurrent phenomenon in the modern world beginning with the Russian pogroms of 1881 and continuing into the post-World War II era in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. As a result, liberal immigration has been a Jewish interest because “survival often dictated that Jews seek refuge in other lands.” For a similar reason, Jews have consistently advocated an internationalist foreign policy because “an internationally-minded America was likely to be more sensitive to the problems of foreign Jewries.”

There is also evidence that Jews, much more than any other European-derived ethnic group in the United States, have viewed liberal immigration policies as a mechanism of ensuring that the United States would be a pluralistic rather than a unitary, homogeneous society. Pluralism serves both internal (within-group) and external (between-group) Jewish interests. Pluralism serves internal Jewish interests because it legitimates the internal Jewish interest in rationalizing and openly advocating an interest in overt rather than semi-cryptic Jewish group commitment and nonassimilation, what Howard Sachar terms its function in “legitimizing the preservation of a minority culture in the midst of a majority’s host society”…

Ethnic and religious pluralism also serves external Jewish interests because Jews become just one of many ethnic groups. This results in the diffusion of political and cultural influence among the various ethnic and religious groups, and it becomes difficult or impossible to develop unified, cohesive groups of gentiles united in their opposition to Judaism. Historically, major anti-Semitic movements have tended to erupt in societies that have been, apart from the Jews, religiously or ethnically homogeneous (see SAID). Conversely, one reason for the relative lack of anti-Semitism in the United States compared to Europe was that “Jews did not stand out as a solitary group of [religious] non-conformists.” Although ethnic and cultural pluralism are certainly not guaranteed to satisfy Jewish interest, it is nonetheless the case that ethnically and religiously pluralistic societies have been perceived by Jews as more likely to satisfy Jewish interests than are societies characterized by ethnic and religious homogeneity among gentiles.

Indeed, Jews have a vested interest in promoting the “invade the world, invite the world” agenda that has largely characterized American foreign policy and immigration policy over the past few decades. The Jewish neoconservative lobby has successfully co-opted the American military for the pursual of Zionist interests, while Jewish radical leftists (along with neoconservatives) have shaped an American immigration policy geared toward ensuring a pluralistic society safe for Jews. Neither of the items on this agenda are advantageous for the American majority host population (i.e. White people), and neither have ever been considered traditionally conservative positions (at least by the standards of the American Old Right).

Neoconservatism is not conservatism at all, but rather a Jewish ideology that has hijacked true conservatism. It has led to the co-opting of the American military for the purpose of advancing Israeli rather than American interests. And like communism, it has led to the mass killings of many innocent people. Neoconservatism, like the Zionist ideology with which it is often coupled, means supporting ethno-nationalism for the Jews of Israel while simultaneously pushing internationalism for everyone else. This is yet another parallel with the Jewish Bolshevism of the twentieth century – an ideology meant to deracinate and denationalize the gentiles while allowing Jews to retain a strong sense of their ethnic identity.

Eastern Europe may have survived the horrors of Jewish Bolshevism, but Jewish political subversion is alive and well in the West. Whether in the form of communism or neoconservatism, this subversion must be stopped before private property norms are completely subverted in the West, and before the entire Middle East is plunged into irreversible chaos.

References:

[1] MacDonald, Kevin. Culture of Critique. Bloomington: 1st Books Library, 2002. p. 80, 99.

[2] E. Michael Jones. The Jewish Revolutionary Spirit. South Bend: Fidelity Press, 2008. p. 1066.

[3] Ibid. p. 443.

[4] Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr. Two Hundred Years Together. Moscow: Vagrius, 2008. p. 297.

[5] Hoffman, Michael. Judaism Discovered: A Study of the Anti-Biblical Religion of Racism, Self-Worship, Superstition and Deceit. Coeur d’Alene: Independent History and Research, 2008. p. 865-866.

[6] Ibid. p. 864-865.

[7] Ibid. p. 863-864.

[8] Culture of Critique. p. 84-85.

[9] Ibid. p. 81.

[10] Ibid. p. 87.

[11] Two Hundred Years Together. p. 286-287.

[12] Ibid. p. 471.

[13] Culture of Critique. p. 89.

[14] Ibid. p. 63-65, 89

[15] Ibid. p. 84-85

[16] Ibid. p. 81.

[17] Ibid. p. 245.

[18] Ibid. p. 241-242.

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csrgood · 6 years ago

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Airbnb Abandons CSR Values By Acquiescing to Anti-Israel BDS Campaign

Airbnb executives acquiesced last week to pressure from the BDS (“Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions”) campaign by removing roughly 200 Jewish rental listings in the West Bank. While hundreds of companies are pressured by BDS activists, and some European companies have acquiesced and cut ties to Israel, this is the first time a US company has caved publicly to BDS pressure. Background information is essential to understanding the consequences of this misguided move, and to provide context for CSR professionals as they increasingly face pressure from the BDS campaign.

Israeli-Palestinian conflict is complex and two-sided

The extremely complex Israeli-Palestinian conflict involves centuries of history, global geo-political alliances, heart-wrenching atrocities, and compelling narratives from a range of perspectives. Any effort to frame the conflict in simplistic black and white terms, where one side is right and the other side is wrong, is at best ignorant and at worst politically biased and immoral.

Israel has been the homeland of the Jewish people for over 2,500 years. In 1947, the United Nations voted to partition the land into two states for two peoples: Israel and Palestine. While Jewish leaders accepted the UN partition and built the modern state of Israel, Arab leaders rejected the plan and instead supported the Arab League boycott to prevent the creation of a Jewish state in the region. War and conflict have persisted ever since. Despite the intractable conflict, many Jews and Arabs (Israelis and Palestinians) recognize that their futures are entwined, and that seeking peace and coexistence is the best path forward.

The BDS campaign does not promote coexistence and peace

The BDS campaign was launched by a handful of NGOs in 2001 and later adopted by a group of Palestinian civil society organizations. The ultimate goal of the BDS campaign is the elimination of the Jewish state, not peaceful coexistence for two peoples. Omar Barghouti, a BDS founder, has said “We oppose a Jewish state in any part of Palestine. No Palestinian, rational Palestinian, not a sell-out Palestinian, will ever accept a Jewish state in Palestine.”

The economic warfare tactics of the campaign include boycotts (i.e. consumer, academic, entertainment, sports), divestment by investors and corporations, and government sanctions in an effort to cripple Israel’s economy. The campaign explicitly seeks to compare Israel to apartheid South Africa. This analogy, like many other aspects of the BDS campaign, does not hold up under scrutiny. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a two-sided conflict where both sides have important claims and grievances. For this reason, BDS will never be effective and will only entrench the conflict. Most leaders in the US and around the world oppose BDS and consider it a discriminatory anti-Semitic movement.

Economic development lays the groundwork for peace

There are many inspiring examples of coexistence, but they are excluded from BDS materials. BDS activists reject any economic development or other interaction with Israel by individuals, organizations, and companies. Yet divestment from a conflict region in an attempt to punish one of the actors only leads to further economic instability, rather than help lay an economic groundwork for peace. It is tragic that the BDS campaign has framed the choice as either one of divestment or of violating human rights. The truly responsible choice for companies is to lay the economic groundwork for peace through sensitive and thoughtful impact investment and economic development in conflict regions.

Cisco is an interesting case study of a company that invested heavily in the Palestinian tech sector only to receive BDS pressure including multiple anti-Israel shareholder resolutions in recent years. The BDS campaign claims to be concerned with Palestinian rights, but aggressively undermines the development of the Palestinian economy, job creation, and coexistence with Jewish neighbors.

Consequences of Airbnb decision to acquiesce to BDS pressure

Airbnb’s statement on their decision is flawed. They admit they are “not the experts when it comes to the historical disputes in this region” and they spoke with “various experts” without listing those experts by name. They describe settlements as “the core of the dispute,” but while settlements are one of many issues to be resolved, the conflict existed long before the settlements were established. The decision is discriminatory as the company only de-listed properties in the West Bank that are Jewish-owned. Airbnb did not de-list Palestinian-owned properties despite the two-sided nature of the conflict, nor has Airbnb de-listed properties in any other conflict area or disputed territory in the world despite the broad nature of its newly announced policy.

Companies need to understand the financial and reputational implications of succumbing to BDS. From a revenue standpoint, the small number of Jewish listings located in the West Bank are a miniscule percentage of the company’s overall revenue. But from a reputation standpoint this choice has already proved a disaster as Airbnb traded one controversy for a much larger one.

Airbnb now faces multiple legal actions; it has quickly become embroiled in controversy in the many US states where it is illegal to support BDS; some city and municipal governments have already issued calls to boycott Airbnb for their decision; and the company has received significant negative press. Other vacation rental companies including Booking.com, under similar pressure by BDS, have refused to acquiesce.

Corporate Social Responsibility field should be wary of the BDS campaign

The CSR field has evolved significantly in recent years, buoyed by the growth in socially responsible investing and the importance of ethical business for investors, consumers and employees. In the 1980s, divestment/avoidance was the only option a company had when faced with a social challenge. Nowadays, business and investment capital has truly become a force for good, and corporate executives embrace policies that use corporate power to address social and environmental concerns.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a legitimate social concern. But BDS tactics only serve to further stoke the conflict. Rather than using business to lay the economic foundation for peace and coexistence, BDS promotes discrimination, attack campaigns, and threats. CSR executives must guard against being manipulated by a political agenda and instead seek to use the power of their company to advance progress and positive impact for people and planet.

Guidance for CSR Executives:

Understand how the BDS campaign co-opts the values of corporate social responsibility for a political agenda. The BDS campaign frequently couches its claims in benign-sounding human rights language to obscure the politicized nature of its ambitions.

Verify the facts and research you are provided, not just from the BDS campaign, but for all campaigns that attempt to influence corporate behavior. Understandably this has become increasingly challenging as the number of campaigns has increased dramatically, and the expertise required to assess a campaign is not easy to acquire. But it is a vital step.

Collect complete information before you make a decision in order to not trade one controversy for another. Speak with a variety of experts, all of whom should be willing to publicly disclose that you spoke with them. It has been speculated that Airbnb rushed to a decision after Human Rights Watch threatened to release a negative report.

Contact JLens. Our organization serves as a bridge between the Jewish community and the SRI/CSR movements. We engage with over 300 public companies owned in our Jewish Advocacy Strategy on a range of issues related to Jewish social and environmental values. We work collaboratively with CSR professionals and admire the critically important role they have inside corporations, and we don’t want to see another company fall victim to the discriminatory BDS campaign.

As socially responsible investors we share the same belief as CSR professionals: that business and investment capital can be a force for good. We all have worked too hard to gain credibility and influence for the SRI/CSR arena to be manipulated by biased campaigns with ulterior political motives.

Related LINKS

www.jlensnetwork.org

source: http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/41577-Airbnb-Abandons-CSR-Values-By-Acquiescing-to-Anti-Israel-BDS-Campaign?tracking_source=rss

#CSR #corporate social responsibility #social good #philanthropy #employee engagement #workplace givi

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fall2017ugc111 · 7 years ago

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Rome- Republic vs Empire notes

- 509 BCE to 100CE. - Key themes: Roman ID -> special to them and importance of republic. - Participating in Roman ID (esp. for women) + looking at diversity and agency outside of political sphere. - Roman republic -> empire -> living in the empire. - Republic: representative democracy -> elect officials to represent you. Usually homogenous group of ppl. -> eg. Same lang and culture. - Empire: Absolute authority for 1 individual. Usually formed via conquest (sometimes by alliance). Usually takes up large amt of territory. - 509 BCE to 44 BCE: The republic: - Transition to empire is gradual. - Rome started as a small city of Latin ppl abt 750 BCE. - Abt same time Assyrian conquered Israel and China is in warring state. - Ruled by foreign power initially called Etruscan kings, ruling from 650 to 509 BCE. - Ruled via kingship. - Abt 509 BCE, romans overthrew the last king and transitioned to Republic. - This became the heart and soul of Roman ID. - Key value: balance of power. - 2 forms: btw 2 major classes in their society -> patricians (3 part names) and plebeians (2 part names). - Roman classes based on bloodline. - Patrician -> can be senate and have political rep. Usually men. Can be wealthy or not. - Abt 400 BCE, plebeians get rep politically. - Ideal -> all involved in governance. - Maintained the senate and assembly for over 400 yrs. - Ppl of rome can be elected to the assembly. - Collective physiology -> deeply afraid of possibility of kingship. - They started conquering others almost immediately after overthrowing old kings -> always at war. - Not typical for republics. - Conquered majority of places before considering themselves as an empire. - But why conquer? - 1) “Defensive Conquest” -> conquer others before they conquer them. - Tied to military -> to serve in military, you must own land coz if you do you have a stake and you will fight well. - But commoners did not own much land. - So, they suggest giving land -> recruit ppl by promising land. - Created a feedback loop -> recruit ppl -> need more land -> conquest -> new boarders -> recruit ppl. - As Rome expanded, they needed ppl to look after the land so created provincial governors. - Provincial governors -> like kings in own territories. - Easy to gain personal loyalty from soldiers -> no need to listen to republic. - Infamous generals who did that: Marius, Sulla and Caesar -> turned around and conquered their own city. - Julius Caesar -> last nail in the coffin for the republic -> 100 to 44 BCE. - His actions and appointment as dictator for life -> resulted in his assassination. - Previously called Octavian but changed his name. - Augustus -> baby on leg considered a genie (divine right and inspiration to rule). - Means “the great one”. - Was in power mostly coz of Caesar’s will. - Caesar’s will was read in public and his wealth was divided as ifts to public, also to his soldiers. - In his death, controlled 17 legions of army vs Senate which had 12. - Proclaimed that he was the first citizen of the state -> gets to speak first in senate meetings. - Usually given to senior and older senates members. - Put under the guise of republic while Augustus actually holds great power. - Romans are deeply religious ppl. - THE HISTORIES (LIVY): - Themes: praise, condemnations, Rome as a city/state is described as? Possible perceptions? - City founded by slaves, outlaws and men so there was no women in the foundation of Rome. - When Rome was ruled by foreign kings -> considered a golden age by historians as they engaged in trade and was stable and wealthy. - Last few kings were very unstable and horrible. - Romans however, consider this a darker day of their history. - Initially took place in variety of city state. - In the city of Alba, near Rome. - Livy praises: - Para 3: As they were twins and no claim to precedence could be based on seniority, they decided to consult the tutelary deities of the place by means of augury as to who was to give his name to the new city, and who was to rule it after it had been founded. - Praised the idea of finding divine judgement instead of own choice. - Also praised collective equality. - 4: Praise self-reliance and independence. - 9: Shows what self-reliance and divine help can get you. - 7: Praise citizen’s support of Romulus by giving personal resources -> duty as a citizen. - 3: praises humble beginnings -> started from the bottom and ended up great idea. - Livy condemns: - 13 and 14: Gives perspective of pelsavines NOT romans. - Roman’s actions were condemned. - Also for condemning of intermarriage btw romans and neighbours by neighbours-> seems insulted by this. - 3: Also condemned kingship by foreign king -> “cruelty”. - Threatened by children and also romans perception of king. - Roles of fate and the gods: - Thinks Rome is great coz of divine help. - God and fate is related. - Not a go to god for everything -> deities seem to be more distant. - Fate = divine. - Similar to Chinese and their ancestors -> augury -> read via animal entrails vs bones for Chinese. - Courage and self-reliance seem to go with divine intervention all the time -> tied together. - Rome created by both ppl and gods. - Seems that ppl who are self-reliant and have courage earns divine intervention. - Bad things -> more of human failure. - Good things -> they did well even as humans so earned divine favour. - Rome (city and state) is described as and perceived as…?: - Describes the city as great and powerful with neighbours being amazed by them too for their rapid growth. - Despite fact that this was used to cheat their neighbours later. - Makes neighbours seem less impressive. - Why are women at peace after abduction? - Livy thinks the attractive argument -> honourable wedlock, property, civil rights and ability of mothers to free men and promise of affection from their husbands. - Also, Roman’s highly value relationships btw husbands and wives. - Livy believes that would led to females being appeased. - But rmb, Livy is a guy trying to look at a girl’s point of view. - For romans these are valuable things. - Best way to move from our gut reaction and better understand this text? - Acknowledge your own beliefs and see what Roman’s thought and believed -> balance the two out. - Look past action of Romans and see the intention (betterment of society). - Look at text as a whole. - Note: Empire is where trade happens. - Next reading: Pliny is a new governor and don’t know what to do with Christians. - Asked the emperor what to do and later condemned Christians for political reasons. - Other reading: Clement of Alexandria -> same as Hellenistic world lecture. - Is a religious leader. - Just after a period of persecution of Christians. - Can be a response to persecution. - Romulus and Remus: Fractricide, a cruel king, barbarism, omens and gods. - Cincinnatus -> Roman senator that became dictator to fight a war, previously a farmer and was half naked, other senators convince him to go to war and in 14 days he saves the city. - Best part: as soon as his work was done, he gives up his power. - Horatius at the bridge: he and his troops stay at the bridge that is the only access to the city, Horatius fought well, managed to escape and had the help of gods. - Is a legend and a myth. - Point of both: self-sacrifice for Rome. - Livy tells these stories to connect to readers and this was done during Rome’s transition to empire. - Living in Roman Empire as a young girl or as a woman? - Tells abt nurturing, childhood, daily life and family structure. - Married fairly early- shorter lifespan and not educated. - 15yo married = good wife coz have children. - Romans love women with domestic abilities – ie. Worked well with wool. - Sources not official for women -> headstone and graffiti. - City of Pompey -> much graffiti abt who slept with who. - But sources not often written by women themselves. - Roles depend on class and age -> women’s roles. - Upper class -> educated but not expected to work, lower class = occupation bt not educated. - Women worked as midwives -> shown by inscriptions showing women in birthing chair. - But unsanitary and midwives with birthing chair and helper considered well to do. - Sitting position -> gravity helps women give birth better. - Midwives -> must be literate, soft hands, good memory, charge fairly, etc. - As orators -> women speaking in public. - Hortensia -> daughter of famous Roman politician. - She stormed the Roman capital to give a piece of her mind to the increase in taxes. - Says that they have to pay taxes but were not given power, fame or anything else in compensation. - Only possible for women in higher class like she is. - *** - A Christian in the Roman Empire: - Christianity development in Roman empire. - Context: Roman empire (primary), Judaism and Hellenistic world. - Note: Hellenistic world still playing a role but not explicitly. - Roman empire: - Like Persia -> practices religious tolerance ( as long as you offer sacrifices to the emperor) -> but Jews allowed to pay taxes instead coz they practice monotheism. - Like Greece -> appreciate spread of knowledge and are intellectual ppl. - Distinct to Rome: Citizenship rights as a reward for good behaviour -> offer full citizenship rights to anyone who plays well into the empire. Eg. If they conquer you and you do not fight back, you can be a citizen -> can run for political positions, full legal rights and protection under laws, etc. - Jewish ppl do not get citizenship coz Judea was a pain in the butt for the Romans. - Jewish hated being conquered and it took abt 100 years before they were fully conquered. - There was periodic revolts and was ultimately unsuccessful. - Romans became really hard on Jews as a result. - Jews are angry over being occupied but Romans did bring great things to the places they conquer -> eg Education, wine, medication, water supply, etc. - Jesus -> is a Jewish teacher/ rabbi who was concerned with the 600+ laws, born in Judea, is concerned with proper worship and rituals and how to perform them. Also has multiple accounts of miracles and died in 20 CE by Roman crucification. - Was considered a political threat to the Roman empire -> seen as a charismatic leader. - After his death: stories that he is resurrected circulated initially by female followers only, they met in secret, had secret meetings, sacred meals -> as Jesus still considered political prisoners. - Took up tendencies of Hellenistic world more than Jews. - Romans see religion as civic or private. - See religion as having 2 pieces -> public facing and private facing. - Christians only do private facing -> so Romans very worried. - Vs Judaism was organized and the Jewish leaders had worked it out well with the Romans via bargains. - Even Jews had a public (civic) face but Christians did not. - Plus, Christians were not big enough (or old enough) to do bargaining. Not as organized as well. - Most ppl are polythetic so one more “god” does not matter but Christians are monotheistic so they do not do sacrifices. - No sacrifice = wishing the emperor is dead/ ill. - For civic: - pietas - reverence for things that deserve reverence -> roman word that applies to civic religion -> apply to emperor, participation in public faces. - Sacrifices to the Emperor - Attendance of public feasts & religious festivals - Roman Religion: Private - Hellenistic Mystery Cults - Secret, ceremonial, gradual initiation - Most popular: Mithras. Originally an Indian deity and is a sun god. - Followers are baptised into a cult and also had a resurrection story. - Romans had great issues with Christianity. - Due to… romans being suspicious about mystery cults in general. - Early sources of Christians was that they were participating in incestuous orgies and eating babies. - Also feared rebellion in Judea due to previous conflicts. - Primary issue: did not want to sacrifice to empire -> seen as political rebellion. - Resulted in sporadic persecutions until 313 CE -> Romans never went about to wipe out Christians. - Tacitus -> Text: Germania. - He roughly concurrent with Pliny and Alexandria. - Grew up in roman empire as a whole but not in Rome (travelled there though). - Took up almost all political positions available. - Also, friend of Pliny the younger. - Text was in his midlife and Rome has not conquered the territory he talks about. - Tries to make sense of who these ppl are -> ethnographic piece. Who they are and how they fit to Rome. - A technical writer -> interesting details in text. - Pliny: - Concerns? -> abt rate of spread of Christianity and the future impact (temples are abandoned). - Also, of the undermining of traditional roman religion. - Seems confused on what to do with them and slightly sympathetic (gives reason for torture). - Expected something worse but just found superstitions he did not agree to. - Avoid condemning them wholeheartedly. - Also describes as a Christianity as a contagion (disease) -> looks down on Christianity. - Methods of judgement in terms of fairness? -> Seems so, just give a sacrifice and you are spared. - But can be hypocritic since Christians are monotheistic -> but must sacrifice instead of give money and considering Romans are supposed to be okay with religion, religious tolerance does not seem to exist. - Follows good roman procedures in general. - Also, unsure if he should take anonymous tips -> but was told not to or false accusations can happen. - Pliny acts with Roman tendencies and persecutes minorities legally. - What are some of the ways we overlook persecution in the modern day, even id it is legal? - Alexandria: - Similar to letters Paul wrote to church. - Paul is famous for writing letters of advice in earlier times of 1st century. - Similarity and differences -> tone is the same, period of uncertainty so there was an idea of comfort/ reassurance in the letters. - Alexandria has a godly figure in his letters -> god will take care of everything and text is orientated towards god. - Bhagavad-Gītā -> does orient towards divinity too. - Basically, let go of everything for the faith you belief in. - Genesis and Alexandria -> both faced persecution but in G. the rewards are explicit but Alexandria talks about reactions instead. - Epictetus and Clement was around the same time as each other. - Alexandria -> promises more abstract and very vague (delayed gratification), ask a lot more than other religion -> VS other religions with explicit rewards that are almost always immediate. - Clement advises his readers to lay low -> don’t call attention yourself during persecution. - Gives practical advise on how to avoid persecution by Romans. - *** - Christianity later became a major religion in Rome and in the tribes that caused the fall of rome. - Conversion of Constantine: - Roman emperor that ruled later converted to Christianity. - Was a gradual acceptance as his mother and advisors became Christians. - Legend battle of the Milvian bridge -> forces are out numbered and goes to sleep in desperation and despair, later wakes and finds under this sign you will conquer (a cross) and he did. - 313 CE. - His convergence meant Christians were accepted and made official in the empire. - But also raises qns of exact beliefs and codes -> need to codify way of thought and doing. - These debates continued for a long time. - Paul -> first Christian to move out of Judaism and tried to include gentiles (outsiders) in the mix. - Some issues -> they are not circumcised, etc. - Reached peak in 323 CE in counsel of Nicaea -> what are the correct beliefs for Christianity. - Constantine was heavily involved as he was the emperor. - Major concern: orthodoxy (means right beliefs) -> major difference -> prioritizes beliefs over actions (compared to other religions). - Prioritizes your internal life and your beliefs -> are they right? - What to do with Jesus? - He is divine in some way but what does it mean for him to be god? - Debates if he is fully god, fully human or both. - Later decided he was both. - He was fully god but incarnated into fully human. - After defining right beliefs define wrong beliefs -> Heresies. - Some disagreements like… - Arians -> He is not as fully god as the father, Headed north and went to Germania. - Monophysites -> he is more god. - Gnostics -> he is more a spirit. - Were all kicked out of the church. - But they don’t think they are wrong, they still belief they are right. - Also developed the trinity -> three persons, one god. Three persons inherent in this one god -> the father, the son and the holy spirit. - Religion that makes them comfortable with mystery in their belief -> philosophical vs beliefs -> similar to Daodejing. - These heresies had a life outside Rome and headed to other countries. Later returned. - 313 BCE -> primary religion of Rome is Christianity. - Became the major religion in successor states after Rome fell. - Key: idea of continuity and change. - Rome fell -> but in some ways, it also transformed. - Germanic tribes took over western rome. - Divisions in Rome -> 1st is btw 2 political hubs of empire. - Roman emperor believes that the empire is too large to rule over so he divided it into 2. - Both parts stayed majority Christians. - Eastern roman empire vs Western roman empire. - Govern by different political centres. - Took different trajectories and collapse at different times. - Eastern side fell at 1453 CE, much late than the other half. - Eastern half -> benefited from trade routes and was a lot wealthier. - Western half had to delegate trade to them. - The wealth allowed them to pay the Germanic tribes to not attack them. - Some Germanic tribes remain unconquered by Rome. - Division btw Western and Eastern Church: - W. Rome: Pope, homoisios, called themselves the catholic church (universal church). - E. Rome: Patriarch, homousios, called themselves the orthodox church (right belief church). - Arians -> went and seek converts in German territories. Became very successful and most of the tribes converted. - Fall of Rome: last roman emperor Romulus Augustus (nickname: little Augustus). - 476 CE Germanic tribes took over the city and kicked him out of the city and he went on to live with the Eastern roman empire. - Warlord: Odoacer -> named changed as he thinks himself as Roman. - Romans have no clue who the Germanic tribes are. - Just name them as eastern and western goths. Ie. Visigoths and Ostrogoths. - Can recognize a common structure of their leadership -> a comitatus (war band) -> primarily, the leader/ chief is the one to divide the spoils of war while the warriors have to act as advisors and loyal supporters. - Germans look at webs of loyalty or enmity -> blood feuds in Germanic tribes for several generations is possible. Tribes/ families are at war with each other. - Similarly, alliance is very strong btw families and personal ties matter a lot -> will run on for several generations. - Roman boarders with Germans will always be very unstable -> conquered Germans are paid well and have some rights and benefits, they are official allies. - They serve as border guards against other German tribes -> motivated by money. - Readings: - Thomas -> Germans hold up the leadership of Rome and that created medieval Iraq. - Is a francisian firar -> an insider and a member of the religious order. - Written same year that Francisis is made a saint. - Is very literal, not all crazy (although he talks to animals). - Very dedicated to his religion. - Establish a new form of monastic life -> life of a monk. - He transformed it from a secluded thing to a urban thing. - Mendicant order = strict vows of poverty, often on the move, primarily urban.

#notes

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factoronto · 8 years ago

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MEET THE ARTISTS FAC 2017: mia susan amir

mia susan amir is a writer, interdisciplinary performer, curator, and educator. Born in Israel/Occupied Palestine, mia is an anti-Zionist Jew of Sephardic and Ashkenazi descent. She has lived most of her life in Vancouver, BC, unceded and occupied territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, sḵwx̱wú7mesh, and Tsleil-Waututh. mia is the creative director of The Story We Be, a Vancouver-based community-writing institute that centres the role of story in transformative political change, and collective healing. There she teaches creative writing, interdisciplinary performance, and embodied creative-political praxis. An instructor in Continuing Education at both Langara College, and the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, mia teaches creative nonfiction and memoir. mia is the Associate Dramaturg at the Playwrights Theatre Centre. She holds an MFA from Mills College, Oakland, CA, Traditional Ohlone Territories, and is a student of somatics and trauma. Her writing has appeared on SpiderWebShow, Lemon Hound, and Digging Through the Fat. mia has performed and taught across so-called Canada and the United States, and is currently at work on a memoir entitled, A Memory of Sand and Silence.

In your artist statement, you describe your creative practice as a hybrid form where prose, poetry, theory, ritual and orality coexist on the page and within performance. How does this hybridity enable and shape your creation of narratives? Additionally, how do you view the function of storytelling within the community?

I think I have to start my answer by explaining why hybridity is so integral to my creative practice. My relationship to story is very much informed by the ways in which intergenerational trauma shaped the maternal side of my family. The survivors of war, geographic displacement, and attempted genocide, which then became gendered violence, addictions, mental health, and disability, means that I received story—and lived story—in shards and echoes, in mannerisms and dispositions, in emotions and expressions, in terrifying silences, which often seemed too big and too hungry for the contexts in which they were expressed; because much like Judith Herman writes in Trauma and Recovery, “too often […] the story of the traumatic event surfaces not as verbal narrative but as symptom.” I also experienced and lived those stories through tone, and vibrato, meter, and rests: the very visceral language of my mother’s music. She was a violinist. And so story regularly appears to me first as sensation, image, melody, as single words that catch on the air. This is, I think, story’s natural form: heterogeneous, elemental. And all of this informs my relationship to my craft as a storyteller.

In Across the Salty Waters, which I will be performing at FAC, I ask the question: “What happens to a person with no words or instruments to transmute the violence of memory?” In another performative ritual entitled Transmissions: Bodies/Echoes/Ash, I ask: what happens to a “[...] story that belongs to the world, but was separated from it, by will, or circumstance, or system. A story left to make sense of itself as though it were the origin and the answer, left to tremble in a lonely anxious yearning, because somewhere, at its heart, it knows that it belongs to something greater […]?” These questions speak to the underlying impulse that guides my work; I am desperate to generate emotional, embodied, and narrative coherence out of the fragments of story and silence that I inherited, and to create/find/reclaim artistic vehicles with and through which to assemble that coherence.

My aim is to help the stories that shaped my family, which are an extension of those stories that shape our current socio-political, economic, ecological, and cultural realities, to return home. By this I mean, to reattach them to the contexts that produced them; to undermine ahistoricity; to reveal the underlying structures that facilitated their fracturing and erasure in the first place; to illuminate the way in which those structures depend on the preservation of narrative fractures and erasures to sustain larger political projects that simultaneously render and normalize violence on people, and the earth.

To approach it from another angle, these fragmented narratives and silences are a form of haunting. I want to enable the spectres of the past, which we find alive and well in our bodies, and language systems, and relationships, and institutions, because we have not given them their proper rites—because we couldn’t, or didn’t know how, or were not allowed to, or refused our responsibility—to be released. So in service of this, through my creative work, I am learning to talk to ghosts, to behave like them, to find artistic form that allow me to approach and interpret their voices, to feel and to grieve and to digest that which keeps them locked to human place and time.

My belief is that supporting the transmutation of these ghosts/helping the stories to return home, can engender some form of transformation; where the narrative fragments and silences lose the sharpness of their edges and we can no longer use them as weapons against one another or ourselves; where we are able to undermine the ways in which those who carry dislocated stories, in dislocated bodies are pathologized; to invite/demand a restoration of our relationship to, and/or implication in (and often it’s both) supporting the conditions that allow/ed these stories—our stories—to be fragmented and silenced in the first place.

Transmissions: Bodies/Echoes/Ash

Much like poet Matthew Shenoda writes, “If you do not know where a thing comes from, what its purpose is, how it came to be, then it simply becomes a thing. You may like it, dislike it, but whatever the case it’s easy to be apathetic towards that thing. On the converse, when you know the history of something, understand its story and journey, you have a larger context for engagement to invest in the larger ideas of betterment.” Ultimately, in re-cohering the past, I want to generate access to more choice in regards to how we assess and interpret the current conditions of our personal and collective humanity; what we can do, and make with what we have been handed; to not accept the fragments and silences as whole (or as the whole story); to not disregard or discard the fragments and silences because they are not immediately legible to us.

Because I start with shards of story that are not easily retrievable, and bodies of silence that are difficult to crack, my process is very much about excavation, and leaning into the unknown, allowing it to be the guide. I rely on listening, intuition, memory, the imagination, and the soma, just as much as I utilize oral history, folklore, theory, and the archive, to reveal the complex webbing that each fragment of story widens into. Because the search is by necessity so interdisciplinary, it becomes very difficult, and sometimes impossible to restrict my work into a single language system or form (words/music/movement/visuals/fiction/nonfiction/performance/ritual), while also remaining authentic to what the story itself wants to tell, and how. So I yield and layer. Writing for me is an embodied and aural act, music composition a narrative act, movement a theoretical act, and on. Ultimately, combined, my work is a form of applied spiritual practice (but that’s maybe for a separate conversation). My approach to narrative development also regularly involves juxtaposition and polyvocality. As much as I’m trying to widen the fragments out, I don’t force them into “wholeness.” I don’t endeavour to recapture the “full story.” I don’t actually think that’s possible, and I don’t think it’s necessary for the creation of restorative work. Juxtaposition and polyvocality then allow story to cohere in a much more organic way, through the echoes that live between. Furthermore, interpreting the silences and fragments through multiple forms allows their wholeness to become perceivable; makes the brokenness more tolerable; less fixed; more malleable.

What I have learned about story is that each form of telling invites and enters us in a unique way. Each form lays a different kind of bridge down between the story, the teller, the witness, the space/place/geography, the body, time, history, the ether, and the narratives that witnesses bring to the telling. In audience-immersive, interdisciplinary pieces like Across the Salty Waters, I incorporate visual projection, props, improvisational embodiment, verbal narrative, soundscapes, and audience participation (by consent). Hybrid form enables me to explore the dynamic bridges in tandem. At any given moment, a witness may be riding one, many, or all of the elements of the performance: the story may be intersecting with their skin, or heart, or the mind, or that which lives in them, beyond language. The interaction between the performative elements generates a porousness where witnesses are encouraged to not simply absorb the performance or the story being told, but to rather apply their own meanings onto it, rooted in/emergent from the sensations, feelings, memories, truths, questions, rejections that are stirred up within them. In this way, multiple narratives coexist and become entwined. Multiple ways of knowing are affirmed. I see this as a practice of democratized, relational, narrative construction. The aim is to generate empathy, connectivity, and reciprocity. To fundamentally undermine the idea that any one story can be ours alone, which then opens up questions about responsibility.

Through hybrid form, my hope is that for even just a moment we can arrive to “a liminal space, a space where you are not this or that […] but where you are in a kind of transition […] in the midst of transformation,” together, as Gloria Anzaldúa writes of the Nahuatl word, and concept, Nepantla. My desire is that in that space, “Our knowing of each other comes/From mirrors hung around our organs,” as Nadia Chaney writes. What I mean is that, in that space, we practice towards widening our capacity to experience and enact radical intimacy, which demands trusting the unknown, welcoming discomfort, seeing and being seen.

Finally, Linda Hogan’s description of the purpose of ceremony summarizes in a beautiful way what I’m endeavoring to say about my hybrid creative practice, and in particular, my work in interdisciplinary performative ritual: “[… it] is a part of a healing and restoration. It is the mending of a broken connection between us and the rest. The intention of a ceremony is to put a person back together by restructuring the human mind. This reorganization is accomplished by a kind of inner map, a geography of the human spirit and the rest of the world. We make whole our broken-off pieces of self and world. Within ourselves we bring together the fragments of our lives in a sacred act of renewal, and we reestablish our connection with others.”

What is the premise of your work Across the Salty Waters—which will be performed at the upcoming Feminist Art Conference 2017 this January—and what role does the element of water play within it?

The piece is about various forms of displacement as the result of various, interrelated, forms of violence. It is about home, and longing for home, a home that never existed; it is about memory, and loss, and hauntings. It is about the condition of “foreignness.”

Across the Salty Waters is also, very specifically, a call to action on the current refugee crisis. The waters are those of the oceans of the world, being traversed, right now, everyday, in great peril, by people forced from their homes due to the climate crisis, the US war of terror, and attending proxy-wars; those forced to look towards endless horizons that promise uncertainty at best, and endless silence at worst. It is a call to action to redefine how we understand what the “crisis” in the refugee crisis is itself: to refocus responsibility on those states and communities producing the conditions of the crisis itself, and then refusing to provide refugees with safe passage and safe landing. The piece engages this question by writer Maaza Mengiste, “[…] in the deliberate decision to look away, where is there to settle a gaze when turning away feels like forgetting?” But all of this is latent within the piece.

The piece was born of a true story about my mother, which I have embellished and fictionalized. As such it is very personal, and very wide.

I would describe the form of the piece as watery in that it invites witnesses to swim between various aspects of narrative and sensory experiences.

Where can we find your work online?

SpiderWebShow, Lemon Hound and Digging Through the Fat. Some of my audio recordings—all in scratch form—can be found here.

—

Interview and edits by Valérie Frappier, FAC Blogger

#mia susan amir #fac2017 #feminist artist #hybridity #performance #feminist art conference #across the salty waters #storytelling

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kick-a-long · 9 months ago

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I think I agree. When one side is excusing/celebrating rape, beheading, saying it should be done again with no consequences or qualifications, that Jews are only indigenous to hell, and using every 500 year old conspiracy theory in the book,

There’s not a lot of ground to build from. There’s no start to a conversation about what is a reasonable place to start building equity.

The question for American Jews isn’t “ how to stop the war?” It’s, “I’m fucking scared. How do I talk people down from mass murder? How do I avoid getting caught up in this? How do I keep my job when so many people hate Jews bar non?”

Feeling sympathy or horror that Palestinians and Hamas doesn’t even make sense since they invaded and killed more than a thousand and kidnapped men women and kids who they sexually mollested, and people cheered before Israel even responded or had time to morn. 🍉have ALL the sympathy. Jews are getting killed, and we are hated for it even though we don’t have consensus about what our relationship to Israel even is. Excuse us for seeing the writing on the wall.

"these jewish bloggers keep saying it's possible to talk about gaza without being antisemitic but keep saying everything i say is antisemitic so clearly they just don't want us talking about gaza"

it's actually really easy to talk about gaza without being antisemitic if you're not antisemitic, and really hard if you are antisemitic. hope this helps

#jumblr #when you have beliefs like 'all jews are collectively responsible for the state of israel's actions'#and 'antisemitism isn't real'#and 'jews are whiny and deceptive and untrustworthy'#and 'jews are even whiter than white people'#and 'jews always have an ulterior motive and are trying to take advantage of you'#those beliefs are gonna come through in your speech and posts #and they'll come through consistently #so yeah... if you keep being called out for antisemitism it's probably because you're antisemitic #but who am i kidding i know you didn't post that in good faith bc you don't think antisemitism is real #leftist antisemitism

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the-record-columns · 6 years ago

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April 24, 2019: Columns

Call your mother...

Cary Welborn

By KEN WELBORN

Record Publisher

Just three short weeks ago I wrote about the death of my father, Rev. C. S. Welborn, in March of 1995.

This Friday, April 26, will be the anniversary of the death of my mother, Cary. She was a widow but 30 days.

About two weeks after my dad died, mother told me and my brother, T. A., that she was going to "...go be with your daddy." In the 10 or 15 years prior to that, she wouldn't have changed brand of dish detergent without first running it by T. A.

This was different.

She was clear, she was sure, and she assured us of two things in that conversation—first that we would be fine—she had raised us well and it was natural to bury your parents. Then she ended the conversation with her second comment—her oft noted thankfulness that she never had to bury a child—that, in her words, was "...unnatural" or "...out of order."

About two weeks later, she went to sleep surrounded by her family on the evening of April 25, after listening to a series of hymns sung by an amazingly kind soul named Floranna Williams. She died peacefully in the early morning hours that followed.

It never changes for me.

It still seems like a blink of the eye, though 24 years have passed. I still feel like I am 8 years old picking blackberries for my mother with Mark Goodman for the cobbler we would shortly devour. I am at my birthday party when I was 7 where even my crabby first grade teacher showed up. Her name was Minnie Horton and she had literally struck terror in the hearts of Hinshaw Street’s "Great Unwashed." And, speaking of teachers, I had Miss Elizabeth Finley in the second grade—literally going from the frying pan into the fire.

But, in fairness, I must quote my once feared but now revered elementary school principal, Conrad Shaw, that "...none of us were any worse for the wear."

I have heard my mother say it is all right to spoil a child if you spoil him with love, and she practiced what she preached. I often remind all that I was my mother, Cary's, baby boy, but the truth is we were all blessed with a kind and caring mother who went far beyond being a wonderful cook and homemaker.

She taught us to live by the simple rule of treating everyone as we would like to be treated, assuring us that helping others would always be reward enough in itself. I will never forget the last meal my mother fixed for me in August of 1994—for my birthday. As I sat eating myself under the table, she sat smiling, saying little but with eyes that spoke volumes about this slight, frail woman who wanted nothing more than to see her baby boy happy.

I know my mother overdid it that day. Once again she had put the welfare or happiness of someone else ahead of her own, a trait for which she is often remembered.

During the time when my father was beginning to fade away, what I didn't know was that she would not let him go by himself. Or, perhaps more to the point, that he would be waiting—impatiently—for her to arrive.

So.

Twenty four years have gone by. Now, more than ever, I treasure the memories of my mother, I treasure the lessons I learned at her feet, I treasure the kindness she showed me and everyone she met, and, perhaps most of all, I have come to truly appreciate what unconditional love is.

Clearly, to know my mother, Cary, was to love her, but to love her like I loved her is also to miss her terribly. No one could ever put things better that the late Lewis Grizzard who once wrote, "Call your mother—I sure wish I could."

Oh, how I wish I could.

Cary Potts Welborn

April 13, 1916-April 26, 1995

Rest in Peace

“It’s the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine”

By HEATHER DEAN

Record Reporter

If you’re reading this, congratulations!

You have survived the rapture!

Last week I read an article where Fox news reported that prominent “Christian Numerologist” David Meade predicted the Rapture for April 23 according to Biblical prophecy. (For those of you unfamiliar with the belief, some Christians think they will rise in the sky and meet Jesus at the end of the world.)

My immediate thought went straight to the compassion of Christ. Most rapture days are random numbers thrown into a regularly mundane week. Not this time. It’s two days after Easter, so not only are we all rising within days of when Christ did, but we got time to digest Easter dinner and all the candy. Can I get an Amen?

Back to the theory: Based on Revelation 12:1–2, Meade says our time marker is the alignment the moon appearing under the feet of the Constellation Virgo, the sun appearing to “clothe” Virgo, the nine stars of Leo, and the three planetary alignments of Mercury, Venus and Mars –combine to make a count of 12 stars on the head of Virgo, represent a unique once-in-a-century sign exactly as depicted in the verses, which all happen on April 23.

Of course, Meade also says that Nibiru (planet x) is responsible for this alignment will appear above the sky causing volcanic eruptions, tsunamis and earthquakes. Never mind that NASA has repeatedly pointed out that planet is a hoax, and put out a statement saying, “No giant, rogue planet has been found in the outer solar system to play the role of Nibiru.” But that doesn’t stop it from popping up in forecasts of doom.

That being said, if the rapture happens there will inadvertently be some of us left. Hopefully you have a plan B for the post-rapture world. I hope there will be more dance numbers, special effects and background music in everyday life.

However, if you don’t have a plan, allow me to suggest a few things:

Practice cursive handwriting- it’s becoming quite a lost art and I’m tired of trying to translate chicken scratch. In fact, work on penmanship all together.

Increase your vocabulary. If you find yourself running pell mell down the sidewalk after assuming you’d be taken, use ratiocination and coddiwomple to the closet library. There’s nothing that your favorite book and a nice cup of tea can’t fix.

Try to be a good human. It never fails to amaze me that the most hateful people wonder “why me” when they get hit by a fruit truck.

Saturday people followed by Sunday people

By EARL COX

Special to The Record

Today, the United States and other democracies around the world face the most insidious ideological threat in history. What I’m referring to is the political, religious, secular and legal doctrine and system known as Sharia which governs the Islamic world.

There are more than fifty Muslim majority countries on earth with close to two billion adherents of the Islamic faith. This figure represents more than 22 percent of the world’s population. If their philosophy were to “live and let live,” there would be no rising threat. However, their goal is not peaceful coexistence but rather the domination and annihilation of all who do not worship Allah and they will settle for nothing less. The best tool against the global ambitions of militant Islamists is to have an educated and well-informed populace. Burying our heads in the sand and remaining ignorant of the evil forces at play in the world around us will only allow this danger to grow.

Israel is on the frontlines of the world’s war on terror and the fight against the cancerous spread of radical Islam. We’ve all heard the saying, “Know your enemy.” Well, Israel is under no false illusions. She knows that Islamic terror groups such as Hamas, Hezbollah, Fatah, Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade, Muslim Brotherhood, ISIS, Al-Shabaab, and Boko Haram, to name only a few, have their sights laser focused on the destruction of Israel.

According to Islamic teaching, there is no room in this world for infidels which, when translated, means Jews and Christians must be killed. That, my friends, means you and me.

Sadly, many Christians today are fairly uninformed about the ever-growing threats facing Israel from her Arab neighbors. Imagine Iran with nuclear weapons whose brand of Islamic militancy knows no bounds. Israel fully recognizes that, “if your enemy says they are going to kill you, believe them.” Here in the United States we’ve been a bit slower at learning this lesson in favor of political correctness and appeasement. Remember, Islam is determined to destroy the Saturday people followed by the Sunday people. We must believe them or suffer the consequences. How did it happen that those counted among America’s enemies have offices in the Congress of the United States?

“We the People” no longer collectively embrace the same values and beliefs upon which our great country was founded. We’ve pushed God out of our schools and other institutions and opened the door for Allah. Are we still a Christian nation? In Europe, less than 50% of the population claims to be Christian. On the other hand, Israel is holding fast and firm to her Jewishness and her right to exist as a Jewish state. No matter the peace deal placed on the table, for Israel this is nonnegotiable. Those of us in America who still love God and embrace the fundamental values upon which our country was founded, must stand up and be counted and we must stand with Israel, our only true friend and ally in the Middle East.

Whiskey, Cornbread and a guest from Denmark

By CARL WHITE

Life in the Carolinas

It was a nice week.

Spring was showing off her fresh colors and the pollen count was high; but then it rained, and the wind blew much of the beautiful misery away.

Saturday was stable enough for the Copper Barrel Distillery annual event, Shinetopia; an outdoor benefit concert, cook-off and car show around the heritage of moonshine.

Everyone seemed to be having a great time. The Moon Runners Food Truck’s meatloaf on a stick was a huge hit. Cameraman Tim said the delightful meatloaf, snugly wrapped with bacon and glazed with a BBQ moonshine sauce, was a treat fit for Nordic nobility. Shiners Stash Jerky was another big hit, with their sample of moonshine infused jerky with various flavor profiles.

Listing to story-teller Dub Harris recount tales of moonshiners from his youth, it was not hard to imagine them in the woods making a fresh batch of whiskey and chewing on some jerky to fuel the long hours of work.

And then I met Ila Dean Hayes who had two submissions for the corn bread cook off. She is a charming lady with children and grandchildren who unconditionally love her rendition of traditional corn bread.

“It’s important that it’s made in a cast iron skillet that has a slight outward slop,” she said.

With such a glowing review, pride in her culinary mastery and endorsements by so many who love her, I naturally ask for the recipe.

My request was somewhat fulfilled in that she did share the simple list of ingredients; however, she did not share the amounts because she has never used exact measurements. For Ila, it’s a feeling about how much is right. She just knows how much to use and that’s the way it is.

She did share that for many years she has only used the fresh ground cornmeal from Linneys Mill. “It’s fresh and it taste good,” she said.

Ila knows how to carry on a good conversation. I was honored to get to know her and I was pleased to see at the end of the day that with steep completion, Ila received two mentions for her traditional cornbread submissions; An honorable mention for one and second place for another; however there is no doubt in my mind that for those who love Ila, she always comes in first place.

A few days later I visited with Jan Kronsell from Denmark.

Over the past 19 years, he has taken vacation in the United States and 14 of the 19 years he has visited the Carolinas. He often stays in a bed and breakfast because he feels as if he gets to know the local area better. We had a great visit and made plans to visit again when Jan and his family return to the U.S. for summer travels. Jan is one of the many who have become captivated by Tom Dooley’s story. It’s interesting that a person form Denmark would take on the task of learning so much about our legendary Tom Dooley, so much so that Jan recently released a novella on the subject titled, “The Doctor’s Secret.” Another book is in the works as well.

The Carolinas have many fascinations that spark the curious nature of those not from here. It’s a nice thing to take a moment and get to know those who visit. In doing so, we make new friends who will often visit again.

Carl White is the Executive Producer and Host of the award-winning syndicated TV show Carl White’s Life In The Carolinas. The weekly show is now in its 10th year of syndication and can be seen in the Charlotte market on WJZY Fox 46 Saturday’s at noon and My 12. The show also streams on Amazon Prime. For more information visit www.lifeinthecarolinas.com. You can email Carl at [email protected]

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