Is it Any Wonder?

 

Reading this report by Jack Engelhard, as well as other coverage of the reactions sent to the New York Times (NYT) and those on social and other media, we can easily make a counter-argument for the existence not only of Israel as the Jewish State, but Israel as a very capable and powerful Jewish State which remains democratic with equal rights and protections for all her citizens, Jewish and not. The reported fact and observations that the majority saw no problem with the flagrantly anti-Semitic character of their editorial cartoon (unfortunately given further coverage as it is included below) and its insult to both Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu as well as President Trump is unconscionable. The fact that an identical cartoon could have appeared in the Nazi newspaper Der Stürmer simply by changing Churchill for Trump and it would have been seen as regular fare. But apparently this is the world where NYT readers appear to reside. This should be extremely unsettling to all who believe that the NYT really is the newspaper of record printing all the news that is fit to print. The display put out by the NYT to the world, in their international edition no less, is one of a despicable hatred of which the world had attempted, apparently in vain, to cleanse itself after the horrors of the death camps of Nazi Germany. Generals Bradley, Patton and Eisenhower together viewed the camps liberated by the United States forces and ordered that the horrors and tragedies witnessed be fully documented, photographed, filmed and recorded as they knew that unless there was uncontroversial evidence, then the history of these evils would be written over with time and the world would return and commit such transgressions against humanity yet again. Apparently, their foresight was all too valid and now we can only pray that the evidence they so painstakingly documented will be brought back to the light of day as their lesson appears to be required and the world warned once again how bestial we can sink when hatred becomes our daily fare.

 

New York Times anti-Semitism on Full Display for the World

 

The fact that, as Jack estimated, “90 percent thought the cartoon was not despicable, not at all, but wholly appropriate,” is so far beyond shocking that words are insufficient. There is a lesson which can be gleaned from this entire embarrassing debacle, and that there is a paramount reason for the State of Israel. If this view of the world situation is anything as inferred from the NYT cartoon and the reaction to an article critical of the cartoon written by a NYT editorialist eliciting a scorched earth response fully backing the properness and appropriateness of the cartoon, then the Jews of the world may not be safe anywhere else. Such an overwhelmingly negative response to his claiming that the cartoon was far too similar to anti-Semitic tropes from throughout history being questioned and even denied is proof that the World War II generals were quite correct in their assessment that the world would soon forget and return to their hateful ways. We like to believe that as a society the world has progressed and learned lessons from its previous failures. This entire episode is proof that as human beings we have not progressed all that far except that our toys are bigger, faster and gleam brighter than centuries past but our hatreds and prejudices really are no different. Apparently, the human race is about as base, vulgar, hateful, vile and as dehumanizing as they ever have been. One can only wonder how much it would take before we reintroduced gladiatorial games at an arena for our recreation. The anti-Semitism today appears to be just as acceptable and permeating society very much as existed during Roman times. They also could not suffer to permit a Jewish State, then known as Judea, to be independent. The Roman hate simmered in Europe for centuries before it finally reached its pinnacle with the Nazi intent to rid the world of the Jew. Have we really returned to such a state where blatant anti-Semitic representations are now acceptable and even defended in America? This episode thus far appears to state that such is so.

 

The rising anti-Semitism apparent in society has not gone unnoticed here but we had believed that better minds and souls would rule the day and such hatred be opposed by the general public. Such a reaction in support of an obviously defaming cartoon with such anti-Semitic overtones shakes any hope for that theory to survive. To represent the Prime Minister of Israel as “the Jewish dog having him leading a blind American President” Trump and people defending such as acceptable and even appropriate is beyond disgusting. Adding this to the anti-Semitic tropes spewed by Ilhan Omar, then defended by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, followed by the Democrat leadership of the House of Representatives fall timidly away refusing to call her out for her blatant anti-Semitism makes one wonder, as we wrote recently, My America Where Have You Gone? Could it be that the world is honestly heading to another crisis where the Jews are once more singled out as the bane of all that is holy and made to be the universal scapegoats upon which all may heap their most evil and vile emotions? The most unfortunate signs are that is exactly where we are heading. What is of little if any consolation is that this time the Jews will not be alone as the next conflagration will include Christianity either with or immediately after the Jews. Trust us, this is of absolutely no actual comfort and is more disturbing than anything else. Adding to their shame, the NYT has published another cartoon of questionable taste and also infringing on areas of anti-Semitism (see below). Had this second cartoon not come immediately on the heels of the first cartoon controversy, then an argument might be made for its use, but this quickly simply proves that the NYT is not serious with their apologies and has taken the corner into anti-Semitism.

 

Second NYT Cartoon

 

This is not something the world has not already ignored as one-third of the world’s landmasses have been made very close to Judenrein and has succeeded or come very close to expunging their countries of their Christian populations. Below is a map of the Christian world of 500A.D. Christianity was one of the dominant religions and societies of the world and was continuing to spread. Christianity was the dominant religion replacing idolatry. Granted, these may not have been the best of times for Jews, but trust us, it was also not the worst of times (our apologies to Charles Dickens). The future appeared to present the world as ripe fruit waiting for Christianity to spread throughout the remainder of the world. But this was not to be the case as history teaches. There was a new force soon to erupt out of the Arabian Peninsula pushing Christianity back into Europe and pinning it there until the age of colonization by the European powers in the fifteenth through seventeenth centuries.

 

Christian World 500AD

 

There remained Christian communities after the explosion of Islamic conquest largely during the seventh and eighth centuries. The lands conquered are largely those which make up the modern Islamic World making them one of the largest and longest surviving conquests. They were taken under European rule after World War I but in the period after World War II with the end of the European colonization in the world, these lands returned to Islamic rule. These lands have become known largely as MENA, Middle East and North Africa, also called the Arab World. Islam has spread into parts of Asia as well but is still predominantly equated with the Arab World. The MENA states largely purged their Jews after taking their wealth in the decade following the founding of Israel. Nearly eight-hundred-fifty-thousand Jews were absorbed by Israel, with not a single person being turned into a refugee. Israel incorporated these Jews directly into their meager economy of the time without any question or doubt, they were our brothers and sisters and we treated them as the family they continue to be. This left only the Christian minorities as the main non-Muslims residing throughout the MENA countries. The map below provides some idea of the relative levels of anti-Christian persecution in these nations. Bear in mind, this is a comparison of the level of persecution, not a measure of whether they are treated with favor or scorn, scorn would be the default.

 

 

With the broad acceptance of the NYT anti-Semitic filled editorial cartoons and the seeming acceptance by many Congressional Democrats and a fair number of Republicans of Ilhan Omar’s anti-Semitic screeds, we surely have reached another tipping point in societal history. Should the world continue on its current course where in France if one murders a Jew and is Islamic, they are considered to have acted under “extenuating circumstances,” making the killer “criminally irresponsible,” and thus incapable of facing a trial. The article we are quoting by Giulio Meotti is well worth the time it takes to read. The world, the Islamic and the leftist progressive Secular Humanist, are heading in a direction from which there is no escape for humanity. The hate reflected by the cartoons and the apparent general approval given it by the majority, a seemingly overwhelming majority, is reason for deep and serious concern by all those who believe in a world free from hatreds of all varieties. These incidents and the others we covered and numerous more too expansive to even try to include are signs that society is backsliding to places from its past which would have been best left to slide graciously into history. This appears not to be the case with the all too probable forecast, prophesy even, is one where mankind turns upon itself once more in an effort to purify the populace from those who are considered to be less human than the rest. One can only wonder if humanity will ever reach a point where acceptance of one another as brother and sisters will ever become the norm or will humanity continue to try and extinguish those considered as the other until we succeed in forcing our own extinction. Should things continue on the current path, that is exactly the eventuality which will be attained. When and if such should come to pass, we can only hope some record of how we hated ourselves to oblivion survives such that whatever life-form becomes the next greatest evolved creature can discern our faults and possibly they will learn the lessons we apparently are incapable of digesting.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Freedom of Speech has Died in America

 

Give me your children and I’ll change society in ten years. Please assist us, as despite most of us remember hearing this phrase or one very close, none of us could even venture a guess to who, what, when or where. Suffice it to say that something similar to this was said by somebody notable enough for us to remember having read, heard or dreamt it. In the United States, the children in question are school age and especially university age children where in all too many of these institutes of higher education there are safe spaces and speech codes where to even be accused of transgression is a guilty verdict. Where you have speech codes, you lack free speech, and it is that simple. The actual basis of the concept behind free speech is the guarantee that everybody, and it means everybody, can say what is on their mind about anything free of fear that saying so will result in criminal charges and the only possible repercussion would be possible loss of friends and a tainted reputation. That is free speech. It is not free speech if all you ever need hear are opinions with which you agree, or worse, you only get to hear what others have defined as acceptable speech, especially if these are also the same people who hold your future in their hands and within their gradebooks. Unfortunately, for all too many of American university students, the entirety of the above sentence is their reality day in and day out. Numerous of the leading and most prestigious universities such as many of the California University System, all too many Ivy League Colleges and too many other all too well known and sought after universities, there are speech codes, safe spaces and other politically stifling inventions which are being used by the leftist administrators and professors to control the environment while programming the minds of mush sent them presumably to be educated to think, not programmed what to think. The combination of speech codes, safe spaces and unipolar faculty all supporting a singular political bend and the end result is so easily predictable.

 

When speech codes are designed to support such concepts as global climate change (global warming) is fact, Palestinian Arabs dispossession, anti-capitalism, racism in American society, transgender rights, sexism and other leftist viewpoints and suppress any counter viewpoints combined with reinforcement from curriculum and safe spaces to turn to to escape any transgressions of the speech code or anything which might upset a student’s sensitive psyche and you end up with a host of programmed leftist social justice warriors turned loose each year on society and eventually they will change their world. And just in case you might be wondering, that is exactly the intent of the combination of programming tools being implemented at too many American universities. They take a variety of inexperienced, young students whose minds have yet to experience the realities of life in the real world and place them in an environment where everything is arranged such that only leftist, socialist, progressive political concepts are permitted and provided as accepted truth without allowing for any opposing viewpoints and after four to ten years of such programming send out little leftist, Marxist mind-numb robots all set to correct the world and repair all inequities using the knowledge given them.

 

Amongst the forty-five declared goals for the Communist takeover of America is to, “Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers’ associations. Put the party line in textbooks.” They can check this one off their list as the leftists have all but taken complete control of the textbook industry and the teaching institutions and teaching curriculum. The only viewpoint which, in the United States, is challenging the pure leftist agenda has been the Arabist Islamist viewpoint with an intensified curriculum of anti-Israel, anti-Zionist and soon to follow on, anti-Semitic viewpoint. On many campuses, the leftist and anti-Israel, anti-Zionist viewpoint and instruction have merged so seamlessly that in politics as a whole, the two have become partners in trade for numerous leftist groups to adopt anti-Israel, anti-Zionist views as a natural extension of their political viewpoints. In order to make such an environment and assure that the little mushballs entrusted to them in many universities, they have implemented the concept of speech codes which completely support the curriculum such that none ever have to hear a discouraging, or contradictory, phrase. In the classroom, the students quickly learn that to disagree with a professor’s political views risks failure or more critical grading at the least making receiving honor level grades a student adopts the professor’s political views as their default thought process. After a number of years, the higher the degree, the longer the years and the deeper the indoctrination and the longer a student adopts the leftist viewpoint, the more rote repetition of the specific political points held within, the higher the likelihood that the student adopts these views as their own out of habit and repetition. Of course, that is the intended result the professors are seeking from these general soft-sciences and social sciences curriculum as the textbooks and teaching staffs bear witness.

 

So, what does this hold for the United States and the future? Well, presuming that nothing is going to change, then the United States will continue sliding further and further left until some future President Obama will be the conservative candidate. Before somebody screams that, there will be a corrective slide which would prevent such, let us say that we can only hope that they are correct. The problem we have is after over a half-century of observing the world political stage, and the United States in particular, since the mid-Twentieth Century, there has been a steady and continuous with an occasional lurching back to the right which was all but immediately erased by the next leftist to be elected. As so many have attempted to point out, President John F. Kennedy in the 2000 elections would have run as a Republican with his agenda of lower taxes and building the military. Of course, what these exclamations ignore is that from the 1960 election to 2000, candidate John F. Kennedy would have endured forty years of the Washington Post, New York Times, mainstream broadcast television and all too many other leftist pressures that he very well might have been an entirely different President elected at the turn of the century and would not have run a campaign the equivalence of George W. Bush in 2000, he would have been a more electable version of Al Gore. But fear not, if social media and the uproar caused by the election of President Trump, no true history of conservatism, by an overwhelming number of youthful political enthusiasts, the educational programming is working efficiently and producing an enthusiastic force within American society. What will the future hold? That will not be difficult to tell.

 

United States National Debt 1940 to 2007

 

One quick measure might be the above graph of the national debt by year. Up until 1960, the debt grows very slowly and then takes off with a short respite in the late 1990’s before continuing upward. This has been due to ever increased social spending brought on by both main parties with the sole respite coming when the Republican Congress forced a government shutdown under the leadership of Newt Gingrich and his Contract with America where the budget was briefly balanced. Still, even then, it was but a brief respite brought on by a conservative correction, something that was not managed even under President Reagan. The ever-increased debt has resulted not only from the initial Great Society initiated by President Johnson but the ever-added amounts and increased numbers of programs which have pushed the debt ever higher. The final number in 2007 was around nine-trillion and now a mere ten years later at the end or 2017 and the debt is now at twenty-one trillion dollars, a doubling and then some in a mere decade. Should the United States debt continue to climb as such and it will clear one-hundred-trillion by mid century assuming things are not brought under control and the ever-continuous slide towards socialism turned back. Does it appear that this might be the case? Well, in all honesty we fear the United States will spend itself into oblivion before it learns its lesson as every other attempt at socialism has resulted in the same end. That is a truly frightful realization and one can only hope that the United States is scared from failing while it might still be possible to produce their way back to solvency. It will take an extended effort and the electorate changing direction aiming to bring government under control, spending back within limits and fiscal discipline which has not been seen in over half a century. What the United States needs is four or five President Andrew Jacksons in a row as he was the last President to ever pay off the national debt completely, and he only managed to do so for a few months.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Israel in Need of an Internal Revolution

 

There are some who believe that Israel should form a committee to draft a Constitution which then should be voted upon by the citizenry. There are those who call for a simple change in how appointments are made to positions such as Judges, Attorney General, Police Commanders, Military Commanders and other political and justice and enforcement positions. There are many who are calling for Israel to annex all or parts of Judea and Samaria. Some are demanding that the Palestinian Authority be dissolved and its leadership and most of the security forces be deported. There are some calling for the office of Prime Minister to be determined by direct elections instead of by whichever political party receives the most number of seats and forms the coalition as they claim this results in granting excessive power to the Prime Minister as his party also controls the parliament and can prevent legislation from being considered at his whim. There are those demanding that the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) be more religious soldier friendly touting the infractions being imposed upon far too many religious soldiers which force them to choose between a good performance review and their religious ethics as often their training or activities present conditions which break Halachic Laws, and the military command is fully aware of these difficulties and are using them to drive religious soldiers from the ranks of the military and particularly from the officer corps. When religious officers reach the rank of Major they often face opposition and malice intended to drive them from the service and they face selected distrust which robs them of any possibility for further promotions as the Central Command seeks to retain their secular purity. All of these disparate forms of revolutions are simply pieces of the problems which could all be remedied through the efforts of one group of people from within the Israeli population; the Rabbinate.

 

The first step needed would be the unification of the position of Chief Rabbi. I am far from the sole Israeli Jew who has one parent who is Ashkenazi and the other who is Sephardi. With such a divide, while leaving the rule that my Father automatically is used as the determinative factor, despite in my case that my Mother was more involved in my religious education; such individuals will often have a clash if they marry opposite their father, be he Ashkenazi or Sephardi, with a wife knowledgeable of the opposite set of rules. An example comes next week during Pesach concerning whether or not one may have rice, for example. Still, with the number of intermarriage between Ashkenazi and Sephardi youth, the number of Jews who will not look at Judaism as much as being bipolar as Ashkenazi and Sephardi. Making such an alteration will require unifying Judaism such that there is a single prayerbook, a single set service, a single Kashrut standard which is accepted by all the now disparate Rabbinate factions. This will require many of our leading and most respected Rabbis to come together and reach an agreement which will make all of them relatively and equally uncomfortable with the final set of rules, prayers, prayer services, Hebrew language and a merging of Jewish history such that the story of all the branches are interwoven into a single story. This will leave everybody upset with the results and pointing to some fact here or there bemoaning that such an important event which occurred in Kutná Hora in what is now the Czech Republic or el Kharga Oasis in Ancient Egypt has been omitted from the combined histories. Yes, we picked these locations completely at random and any similarities to events or descriptions are purely coincidental. If the numbers of complaints are relatively equal from all angles, then the stories and other merging events are likely being performed correctly and with careful considerations. These are events which will be happening behind the scenes except for the merging of the positions of Chief Rabbinates into one office covering every Jew making a giant step towards the unification of Judaism at least within Israel.

 

Kutná Hora in the Czech Republic
or el Kharga Oasis in Ancient Egypt

 

All of these steps are in preparation for making a change in Israel which will take a great effort from the entire Rabbinate, each and every member from every faction working often in conjunction with one another for a maximum effect. Israel is in need of a spiritual awakening. She has been becoming a more religious nation with a greater percentage of the population attending daily services and living Torah observant lives. There are those who are returning into the Torah observance whose lives sometimes slip but are making strides. Meanwhile others are becoming Torah observant for the first time in their lives or the first time in years after leaving such a lifestyle either while in the military, university, workforce or simply having left their parents’ house. The challenge for such individuals vary with some facing having to learn for the first time a wholly new way of living and sometimes struggling in the process. These people and the secular Jewish population require more assistance than most with encouragements and gentle assistances. They will require education and reinforcement until the religious life becomes almost, if not completely natural. The greatest challenge will be introducing the secular Jewish population to a religious life in a natural and unthreatening way. What such efforts would require, you ask. It would need for the Rabbinate, every Rabbi, to spend time being more public in their lives and leading a life which invites people to follow their examples and piques their interests. They also will be required to be approachable and open to people and affable such that people will feel comfortable seeking them out for information and guidance. This will also require Torah observant practices to be instituted as to what would be considered appropriate and inappropriate activities, actions, practices and situations for members of the general Rabbinate to engage in. Many in the Rabbinate will require further education on the acceptable and preferred means for approaching people and guiding them back to their faith. Some in the Rabbinate may be found inarticulate or otherwise unable to perform adequately and will need assignments in other areas perhaps teaching or administrative. The entire Rabbinate will need be brought under a single administrative effort.

 

Temple Institute concept for what building the Third Temple in modern day Jerusalem would appear like from a distance with modern buildings of Jerusalem in the background. May their vision and this concept figure become fact and fulfill our desires for unity and a single Temple and House for Hashem in our midst. May this dream be fulfilled before the next Ninth of Av so our lament will be lessened.

 

There will also be a need that the Oral Law be reinstituted as an Oral Code which will be written but also updated, altered and mediated periodically with the Rabbinate choosing from amongst their ranks those they consider best suited to make wise and meaningful changes at set intervals, perhaps every three of five years. Once all these programs are in place and everything arranged neatly and actually functioning, then the people of Israel can consider returning to life as intended by Torah with the adjustments and changes initiated under the new Oral Law. There are things which will require large alterations such as the sacrifices as Israel is no longer a sleepy little agrarian society as it was three millennia ago. Instead of a King we will likely maintain an elected democratic and possibly even Parliamentary form of governance but with the single alteration that there will be a higher office than Prime Minister or President, that of the Cohen Gadol (Heb.כהן גדול), the head priest. Once these changes have been accomplished there will be one last item which will have become unavoidable by this point, the rebuilding of the Temple, the Beit HaMikdash (Hebrew: בֵּית־הַמִּקְדָּשׁ‎) in Jerusalem. Long before we complete these changes the annexation of all of Judea and Samaria will have long been settled and completed and the world will have come to accept it as fait accompli. Should this transformation take place and Israel return to being the central home of the Israelite Jewish People living a Torah observant lifestyle, by and large, this will solve many of the problems currently faced by Israel and odd as it may at first appear, it will also make the world a better place with time.

 

Beyond the Cusp