The Death of “Never Again”

 

After the Shoah, the Holocaust, the Jewish People made a promise to one another of, “Never Again.” The world echoed the call, “Never Again.” Most notably, Europe and particularly Germany echoed the call, “Never Again.” Now the world stands at the brink which they will break their promise of, “Never Again.” One need merely search the news to see the ever-increasing rate of attacks upon Jews simply because they are Jews. European leaders speak of their increased efforts to address anti-Semitism after each attack. France has placed military personnel to guard Jewish daycares, preschools, education centers, Synagogues and events throughout France. Britain and Germany have declared they are taking steps to fight against anti-Semitism with Germany appointing Dr. Felix Klein to take charge of the efforts at education and other means of fighting anti-Semitism. Dr. Klein will take his position sometime this month. There have been warnings sent initially through delicate warnings requesting that Jews not affix Mezuzahs on their doors as such identifiers upon their homes could make them targets. This proved to be insufficient; so then, they made the next demand less delicately advising Jews to stop wearing their Kippahs. For some Jews, that proved a demand too far as they refused to uncover their heads. This meant that they had to limit their lives by remaining only in what they thought to be “safe areas,” some of which proved not to be sufficiently safe.

 

 

For Jews these events, though difficult, are not something new to the Jewish People as we can look back across our history and find all too numerous similarities with which to compare these events. During the Spanish Inquisition the Jews were forced to convert to Christianity, but some refused to forsake their traditional religion and practiced Judaism in silence and well-concealed in order to avoid detection and a tortured and horrible end. These Jews were to become known as Marranos. Throughout the world, there are instances where the Jews were forced to profess faith in other religions while conforming to their Judaism privately and in complete secrecy. Sometimes these Jews would form groups with ten men so they could have a minyan making their prayers more complete as some prayers require ten men in order to perform and reading of Torah also requires a minyan. This would obviously cause these members to be more readily caught by the authorities but they believed that on certain holy days the risk was worth the reward they would receive from being able to perform a complete service with a Torah reading making it all the more satisfying. These conditions of forced conversions and secretive practice of their Judaism were more universal than many historians have recorded both in Christian and Islamic world and before either when the Jews resided under foreign exile or occupation including the Roman, Greek, Persian and Babylonian to name a few. \

 

“Never Again” was intended to mean that the Jewish People were never to be made embarrassed, harassed or intimidated into hiding their Judaism as a requirement for their safety. Never Again was supposed to provide a conscience in the world such that after thirty-five-hundred-years Jews would finally be safe within the world. Israel took in the approximate million Jews who were forced from the Arab and Muslim world providing them with assured safety from the anti-Semitism which has never been purged from the Islamic world or from the Quran and the preaching of Imams. Now there is rising anti-Semitism, both from Islamic refugees, extreme right wing anti-Semitism and leftist anti-Semitism are combining making the roughly one and a half million Jews of Europe becoming endangered. They have a refuge they can take in Israel and increasing numbers have begun to do exactly that. There are also troubling signs across the Atlantic Ocean in the United States and Canada which are also at the very leading edge of increasing anti-Semitism. The problem is far from as obvious as it is in Europe, but it has become troubling to those who follow such trends as they are witnessing the same numbers as were present in Europe starting about three decades past.

 

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has released a worldwide survey of the state of anti-Semitism in 2014 with a partial update showing anti-Semitism in 2015 in easily seen maps and tables. There is even a page where one can compare nation to nation using it to see where your country stands compared to others or any other comparison one would care to see. The one problem with the ADL surveys are they have rapidly become dated as a measure where Europe and even the United States and Canada are concerned, as the increases in these areas of the developed world have been quite distressing. Of course, we cannot expect that the ADL will be performing another survey in the near future, though we would love for them to do so for 2020 and make it as easily accessed as their 2014 and 2015 versions have been made. The ADL might refrain from doing such as they likely would be hesitant to actually recognize exactly how sad the situation is becoming. What is really sad is how fast Germany and the nations which were willing, or somewhat less than willingly, under the rule of the Third Reich have fallen back so severely despite their joining in the concept of “Never Again” and have permitted the pernicious hatred that is anti-Semitism returning in such strength, especially with the youth of today. Where did the leadership go wrong and divert from the path returning to their old hatreds and habits including anti-Semitism. Perhaps we should try and suggest some reasons.

 

Perhaps the greatest mishandling of the problem has been the selling of the concept of “Never Again” as the answer to prevent the singular event of the Shoah, the Holocaust, of ever reoccurring. “Never Again” is not an answer to just the Shoah but to every attempt through the ages to kill off the Jewish People. These attempts began in Egypt over thirty-five-hundred-years ago and continued through with, but not limited to, the Persians, Greeks, Romans, Spanish Inquisition, the Caliphate and the Nazis. They have not taught that the Jewish People and their rules and codes became some of the founding principles of the current European and modern world governance. Much of human rights are based on the Judeo-Christian ethics which are all based in Jewish thought. Continued Jewish thought and culture continued to add to the humanity of man and to the sciences, culture, society and every aspect of human existence. There has been almost no mention of how much poorer humanity would be without what the Jews have contributed to all aspects of human existence. Even boxing would have been lees the art it has become in sports without the contribution of a Jewish man called Daniel Mendoza. He was credited with introducing the scientific art of boxing. Then there are the somewhat more famous and well-known Jews such as Sigmund Freud, Niels Bohr, Baruch de Spinoza, Albert Einstein, Sandy Koufax, Groucho Marx, Gene Simmons, Franz Kafka, Peter Sellers, Joan Rivers, Marc Chagall, George Gershwin, Jonas Salk, Albert Sabin, Hank Greenberg, Max Baer, Benny Leonard, Lyle Alzado, Jerry Lewis, Danny Kaye and Dr. Ruth Westheimer. We could continue with a long list of scientists, entertainers, musicians, artists, philosophers, comediennes and religious scholars.

 

Gene Simmons

 

Perhaps a lesson in middle school where the contributions of Jews throughout history to virtually every field of endeavor would make an impression, especially with lists of Jews in such fields as music, sports, entertainment and other fields with which Jews are not always associated. Also showcasing the contributions throughout history where they often made contributions which are not well known today such as Haym Salomon who was a Polish-born American Jewish businessman and personally backed loans from France to finance the American Revolution from which he ended up bankrupt. And, of course, there is the reality that without Judaism there would be no Christianity or Islam as both trace back to Judaism as their roots and being Abrahamic faiths. These ideas would not eradicate anti-Semitism, but perhaps a realization that the Jewish People have contributed quite a great deal to humanity throughout the ages in virtually every field of endeavor might give some pause to reconsider their opinion of Jews. Anti-Semitism will never completely disappear, as there are records of anti-Semitism existing in towns, villages and even cities where people have never met a Jew and some where no Jew has ever been recorded to have lived. But if we can change some people’s thoughts on the Jewish People and as much of anti-Semitism is handed down within families, neighborhoods, societal norms and other means, every person turned from anti-Semitism could have an ever-widening effect over time. If nothing is done, what will the world be like once every nation has rid themselves of their Jews and Jews only reside in Israel? Oddly enough, even then the world will have its share of anti-Semitism and there will be efforts to destroy Israel if only to be rid of the imagined effect the Jews have on life around the globe. How can we know this? Well, because anti-Semitism has existed in places around the world before the Jewish People had been spread around the world by conquering empires with the best known being the Roman dispersion intended to wipe out Judaism from the world as punishment for revolting against Roman rule just a little too efficiently. It is that exile which the Jewish People are finally returning home to Israel after almost two-thousand-years.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Ten Democrat Senators Send Warnings to Netanyahu

 

There were four Jews amongst the ten Senators from the United States who decided that it was their responsibility to instruct the Israeli Prime Minister, Benyamin Netanyahu, exactly what he is permitted and what he must never do. The ten Senators, beginning with the four Jews, were Senators Barbara Feinstein of California, Bernie Sanders of Vermont, Al Franken of Minnesota, Brian Schatz of Hawaii along with Patrick Leahy of Vermont, Dick Durbin of Illinois, Tom Carper of Delaware, Martin Heinrich of New Mexico, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Jeff Merkley of Oregon. Really, what is wrong, demeaning President Trump getting a little tiresome and boring so you’ve decided to run the world starting, where else, with Israel. Well, not much of a surprise all things considered. You probably believe that with President Obama out of office it has fallen to you to be the conscience of the world and the ultimate advisors of what will be acceptable and correct and that which will not. Allow me to thank you for your thoughtful, kingly and wonderful advice for Prime Minister Netanyahu as he has proven far too weak when facing American leftists when they decide to instruct Israelis on how they must act, what they must accept, those things they are required to accept, what the proper course of action is and of the things the world demands of Israel. Please understand that perhaps you should turn your attention to the small deficits of your own country which managed in the past decade to triple its national debt from a mere seven-trillion dollars to closing in on and soon to surpass twenty-one-trillion dollars. Perhaps you might desire working on the divisions in your society and let us address the divisions in ours. Considering the track record of the United States while under the ruinous control of your political party over most of the last decade, perhaps we would be best advised to take a diametrically opposite path to anyone you might recommend.

 

The audacity of you and the European Union in condemning the demolition of illegal Arab structures while also demanding we demolish legally built Jewish ones is beyond all measure of presumptuous pompousness. You are the Emperor dressed in his new sheer garments parading around proudly until the child points out the truth, that you are naked in your arguments and accusations and are like said Emperor giving others apparel advice. Your own mistreatment of those who make the near fatal mistake of disagreeing with your world-view makes your instructions to our Prime Minister for what they are, opinionated blowhard blustering containing nothing but accusations of crossing lines you draw at random simply to accuse others of daring to cross over and not dance to the piper whose tunes you write and we actually refuse to perform the dance you demand. Well, excuse us if we dance to the beat of a different drummer and ignore your piper and the sweet tune frosted with the leftist ideology which demands that everything resulting from Judeo-Christian ethics and history must now be destructed, torn down and replaced with the new barbarism which you expound. So sorry, but we will keep the tablets and the Ten Commandments written there by Hashem and while we are at it we will also keep the traditions of Torah and follow the commandment to live in all the lands that Hashem has given us. We understand that to you Torah is but equal to Grimm’s Fairy Tales and Chaucer’s tales, just more boring and even older and because they are old, they are no longer applicable in your brave new world. In your world everything from before that fateful year of 1984 must be discarded and the new definitions of gender, or lack thereof, new definitions of race and racism, the new definitions of everything which you and your ilk have devised for the perfect society, we must choose a different and far more tried and tested path which Hashem commanded of us.

 

Five beautiful, glorious and holy Torah Scrolls which carry near infinite wisdom and are the foundation of all Judaism and their culture and the Jewish civilization is built around the Torah and the teaching of Torah

 

You have your egalitarian society where all are created equal by acts of Congress because unless the laws of the land force people to love one another and treat everyone by the same rules, they will act as barbarians; well, we have a different way of instructing the interactions between people and they are far older than your nation and were commanded by a force far superior to your new world symphony which your piper plays and according to you the world must dance the proper dance as choreographed in your leftist confabs. We will dance to the source of freedom and liberty of the spirit and the basis upon which Western society was based before your redefining of the moral fibers of the world you envision. A gender neutral society where one may, if they are struck by such a whim, choose to be male, female or genderless, where one may marry whomever, or even whatever, they choose even to include a mannequin (see image below). You have invented names for so many new and varied genders that the Biblical simplicity of only two, well, we can understand that in your new definition world that two would simply be boring and not permit sufficient diversity. That is the driving force behind everything in this perfect world construct, the diversity quotient. The greater the diversity, the better, provided the diversity be defined by the exacting rules which you and your fellow Democrats and the rest of the leftist culture have derived for all of us. We understand that Israel must be simply the America under your terms in the Middle East because we must live and act as defined and instructed by our New Leftist masters. We understand that if we refuse to follow your wise council then we will be defined as deviants and possibly lumped in with the worst of the worst, conservatives, or even worse, Trump supporters. You are aware that he has gained a following here in Israel and we find him thusfar to be a welcome relief after President Obama and his ruinous policies in the Middle East.

 

Senji Nakajima and Mannequin Wife Saori

 

You made clear your demands of Israel while President Obama held the White House and we rejected it then; what makes you believe it would have any greater weight now? We understand that when we hold our next election you will send Democrat Party campaign managers, media experts, and a bevy of ground workers all in an effort to make Israel into what you demand of it by electing those who will obey your every demand. You attempted that last election and the one previous and it did not succeed. Granted, in 1999 you succeeded in electing Ehud Barak and defeating Bibi Netanyahu, well those days are done and if we may quote a famous saying, “Never Again.” Were we to actually follow your demands we would very rapidly find ourselves in just the situation which Never Again, as a driving force, is meant to prevent. We understand that as long as we do what you insist that you are willing to accept any result including a second Shoah and the death of Israel. Of course, you probably believe if only you destroy Israel that the Middle East will break out in flower power and have a summer of love. You are dead wrong and we do not wish to join you and end up dead wrong because if we are dead wrong we are dead. That is why we will not be listening to your demands or your advice. We will ignore the mean articles and editorials which will follow in your media. You have to understand that we are not trying to have a democracy which happens to have a Jewish flavor, we are building the Jewish Homeland which for now will have a democratic flavor. If having a democracy should preclude being the Jewish Homeland, then we will simply have to dump democracy and continue being the Jewish Homeland. You have misjudged that which is most important to us in Israel and until you understand Zionism as the dream and the answer, the solution, of three thousand years of Jewish homelessness, then you will continue to give us misguided advice which is of absolutely no use, so please be quiet until you actually understand Israel because thusfar you are proving how completely ignorant you are.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Future Trip as a European Goes to Jerusalem

 

Somewhere down the road, we will imagine that the Palestinian Authority has acceded to accepting the 1949 Armistice Lines, the Green Line, as their border as the final agreements are ironed out setting the border inch by ever painful inch, or centimeter by ever painful centimeter. The borders will loom important for this Easter trip of a Church group from somewhere in leftist pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel, anti-Zionist but professing to love Jews and declare they should have their nation with safe and secure borders not too far from city center Tel Aviv and are supporting the Peace Process French denizens. The flight of this fifty younger Christians who are members of Christians for Palestine from the river to, well, some of the sea arrived on schedule at Ben Gurion International Airport. Of course their flight on an A 320 Airbus landed in Greece from which their group was broken up between two smaller and agile prop driven aircraft which once crossing from the Mediterranean to land flew just barely over the rooftops avoiding a couple of skyscrapers newly built with modern anti-missile technology built into the structure of the building. The ends of the rail-guns were evident on the east and southern faces of these new buildings. One of the members on the larger plane gave a summary of the technology, speed of the small but deadly projectile used and the radar that guided each shot. The secret to this weapon was the projective speed at close to ten times the speed of sound which meant that almost no calculations for trajectory were necessary as the ‘bullet’ reached its target within millionths of a second.

 

Many on that flight nodded almost in unison as if that would give it more of a feeling that they actually understood the need and all that went into requiring these buildings be so equipped. The truth is that at least two of these towers are being erected across Israel and are called the sentinel towers and each city has building restrictions for height no taller than twenty-five floors east of these towers and each is building a minimum of one tower per half million residents and workforce numbers combined. Their landing was more abrupt than the frequent flyers who did not fly into Ben Gurion are used to, as the aircraft no sooner landed than it sped towards the terminals and the protective wall erected east of the airport and reaching skyward almost a quarter of a mile, blocking any view of the Judean hilltops from the airfield, and the airfield from said hilltops.

 

Our imaginary group breezed through customs as their group had been all but tucked into bed by security before they even boarded their flight back in France. They met at the prearranged hotel where a lavish kosher lunch was served and all rested but were talking about how anxious they were to visit the holy sited in Jerusalem. Their Arab waiter advised them that they should be more careful and never refer to Jerusalem as it had an older and more venerated name of al-Quds. Their leader thanked the waiter for his unsolicited advice and after he had left the table continued discussing Jerusalem as the western part of the city would be the Israeli capital while the easternmost parts the Arab capital. Originally the religious areas such as the Temple Mount were protected for free access by baby-blue helmeted United Nations troops from Brazil and Peru, but they had fled after their first firefight with Palestinian Security forces who now ruled these areas where Israelis were only allowed limited access, usually to escort tourists on tours and even then were restricted to using only the Arab and Islamic names for the sites as listed by UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) in their list of World Heritage Sites. After lunch the French group boarded their two chartered buses and on each bus at least one person in complete puzzlement being unable to operate the windows yelled out in frustration, “How in the name of all the Saints do these widows open?” to which the bus driver calmly responded, “They don’t open, they’re bullet proof glass.” The French tourist just shook his head mumbling something about overly paranoid Jews. The trip out of Tel Aviv was pleasant and they started to climb the long ride cutting through the passes and canyons towards Jerusalem. The French tourists had settled down, run out of songs to half-heartedly sing along and were watching the trees pass by.

 

That was when their education on the realities of peace in the Middle East started as they heard the patter of objects striking the roof and sides of the bus. A number of the French got nervous and asked the driver, “That isn’t what I think it is, is it?” He queried back asking, “What do you think it is?” Frenchman, “Bullets?” Driver, you got it, now sit down and pray it remains only bullets, we can absorb them.” The French tourist was obviously unsettled about the implications of vulnerability but was unsure from what they need fear and was too horrified to even contemplate asking. That was when they turned a corner and at the side of the road was a bus that looked very much like the ones in which they road except the top was torn open as if by a large hunting knife skinning a large rodent and the insides were burned to ashes. One horrified French tourist asked, “When did, what did, are we safe?” The bus driver’s brow began to show beads of sweat and he went unnervingly quiet ignoring their questions and often surveying the hills and crags which overlooked the highway and rail line adjacent to the roadway.

 

Suddenly the road next to the second bus exploded into shrapnel, flames and chunks of road surface. The bus sped up painfully slowly as a second explosion rocked the first bus but it continued its struggle to speed faster along the road. Over the next mile five or six explosions struck, the closest right between the two buses. The roadway was littered with over a dozen burnt out shells of buses and near countless cars. Once through the stretch of road, the hills dropped away and there was a respite where the land was less stark. There ahead was an area of roadway with a huge cement wall on either side of the road with dirt piled for over a couple hundred yards on the sides of the walls away from the roadway. The road median widened and there was a rest stop where the two buses pulled in and announced there would be a fifteen minute stop and warned that they not go outside the safe areas and to never cross into the red striped areas or beyond as such was unsafe. The frightened almost out of their minds tourists numbly went through the motions of a normal rest stop except nobody talked and each group clung to each other as if safety could be found in sheer numbers.

 

The remainder of the drive to Jerusalem was uneventful and the tourists learned to accept the patter of bullets on the side and roof as being as normal as raindrops in a thunderstorm. One can never know if the experience changed their outlooks and shaped new thoughts though one’s best bet is within a few weeks the entirety of the bus rides to and from Jerusalem will have faded and they will join in the pro-Palestinian anti Jew rallies with their friends and never will the emotional and traumatic trip through the gauntlet between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem be mentioned or given a second thought. After all, was not Israel building a new highway and train track almost five-hundred yards underground linking Tel Aviv and Jerusalem making the trip as normal as possible. It was even planned to us fiber optic cables to project the scene as if one was driving on the surface making the trip more normal and exactly like the trip above without the bullets and RPGs (rocket propelled grenades aka anti-tank weapons). All will seem safe and secure as those Israelis manage to survive and even thrive no matter what danger is imposed by a hateful world, and isn’t survival what it is all about. So what if Israel needs to be on a war setting, they will cope and if they don’t, then the world will be rid of Israel and the Jews dispersed and roaming the world from one exile to the next always living at the kindness of their betters as it has always been and should be.

 

 

Eretz Yisroel from back in the time immediately after Exodus and before the additional conquest by King David and King Solomon with the original division of the lands between the Tribes covering both sides of the Jordan River. The Israelis and Jews in general could attempt to demand that Eretz Yisroel, the Land of Israel be made whole as was First Apportioned by Hashem.

 

 

As a Zionist and a Jew there is an answer to that last sentiment, Never Again! Israel will live, will never come to the situation as depicted aboveno matter how badly the United Nations, European Union or nations of the world desire her destruction and the chopping pieces off every fifty years or so, no, Never Again. Israel has been reborn, Israel lives and Israel will continue to live and face the entire world if necessary to make it so. Hashem gave us this land and Hashem will guard us in this land providing we take on that task first. The waters did not part until one Israelite jumped in and walked straight across allowing the water to reach his nostrils and as he submerged the waters parted. We must walk into the water until it reaches our nostrils and must take back our lands as described in the Torah and let the world do as they please. We are on a mission from Hashem and nobody should stand in the way of Hashem and the children of Israel. Am Yisroel Chai.

 

Beyond the Cusp