Here are a couple of songs to clean your rifle to:
As Winter’s Storms Approach
All posts by Y.B. ben Avraham
Har Nof (updated)
Yesterday, two men disguised as worshipers entered a synagogue in the western Jerusalem neighborhood of Har Nof, with knives, axes, guns, and most importantly, evil in their hearts. At an opportune moment they started slashing, chopping and shooting the Jews praying therein.
For eleven minutes, before police arrived, they wantonly slaughtered. Five were killed, and over thirty severely injured. The dead include Rabbi Moshe Twersky, hy”d, ‘Rosh Kollel’ for the ‘Torat Moshe’ yeshiva; Rabbi Kalman Levine, hy”d; Aryeh Kupinsky, hy”d, and Avraham Shmuel Goldberg, hy”d. A policeman who engaged them early on was severely wounded. Savaged victims and their blood was everywhere. People with half their faces slashed off ran out of the building.
Many in the firearms community cite Israel as some sort of bastion of firearms freedoms. That is an error. While it is true that one sees young people, fresh from graduating high school, with select-fire rifles slung on their backs, and in Judea and Samaria it is a bit easier to obtain a community weapon or permit, in reality, the “freedoms” look much more like Chicago or NYC than say, Arizona. Everything is by permission, and licensure, and the restrictions have been getting much more restrictive and onerous, in practice, especially in the large metropolitan areas.
Worse, although they face the spectre of violent death, from within and without, every day, from gunmen, human bombs, missiles, and even cars maniacally driven into three-month-old babies in strollers, the average Israeli has an aversion to guns, typical of the entrenched Ghetto Mentality. Thus, the government of modern Israel, aptly described as a “Schizophrenic State”, is the odd admixture of Anglophilic Fabian Socialism, Western Modernity, and Eternal Judaism, has sought to emulate the worst of American and European self-defense laws.
And, today, for the thousandth – maybe the ten thousandth – time, just in modern history, we see the results. Butchery… And a too-late, but valiant, response by the police.
Well… at long last, in the wake of this outrage, there is movement in the right direction. Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovich has announced the “easing” of restrictions on obtaining firearms permits. Ah, but the new “easing” only applies to those already possessing “ a license to carry a gun, such as private security guards and off-duty army officers”. Pardon my language, but BFD.
Remember just what licensure really is. The government takes an otherwise peaceful and consensual act and tells you that if you do it they will respond by stealing your money, enslaving you, caging you, or, if need be, killing you outright. On the other hand, sometimes, for their convenience, the government might waive some of that threat. They do so conditionally, in exchange for money, vexation, and especially your formal acceptance of the rectitude and justice of their power over you. That is a license or permit.
Ahronovitch, the political toady, and his associates, have these peoples blood on THEIR hands. In a just society, THEY should be held to account as accessories to countless murders and maimings.
UPDATE. The officer noted above, Mr. Zidan Seyf, age 27, has died of his wounds, bringing the death toll to five. Officer Seyf was from from the northern Israel town of Yanuh-Jat, near Akko. He leaves behind a wife, a four-month-old baby, parents and five brothers.
Getting Closer to the Mass Raids
As readers of this weblog may already know, despite Elephantine high-fiving, several influential pro-victim disarmament politicians were retained in office and a very wide-ranging firearm transfer/registration scheme was passed in the State of Washington.
Using the pretext of various tragic, yet fortuitously timed shootings, several states now have turned thousands of peace-loving average people into armed felons. The State of New York is even now going to surviving spouses of firearm permit holders to seize those guns.
For many years, freedom oriented groups have warned the police that if their pinstriped masters continue on this path, that THEY, the police, would be forced to be the “point of the spear”; the guys who knock on the thousands of armed everyman’s doors. And wonder if they get to go home again. That time may have come.
The response of the law-enforcement community has been very interesting. All but the upper echelons are quite unhappy. Some county sheriffs are openly stating they will not cooperate. The politicos are furiously handling their tar-baby. Still, elitist ideologues like Bloomberg, Cuomo, Malloy, Hickenlooper, and Gates are proceeding apace.
~~~
On November 16th 1940 the Nazi’s closed off the “Jüdischer Wohnbezirk in Warschau” from the outside world. Once sealed with brick and mortar, the Nazis evacuated 113,000 Gentile Poles and filled it back with 138,000 doomed Jews.
Over time the population of this “Warsaw Ghetto” was increased to about 400,000. From this warehouse of human beings, the Nazis extracted slave laborers for their war effort and carefully arranged for the extermination of the rest at Treblinka.
By 1942 the Nazi’s plans were so clear and conditions were so dire that resistance groups began spring up both within the Ghetto and in the concentration camps themselves. From this came many revolts in the Ghettos and Camps and, most notably, the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, itself, of April 19th 1943.
By late 1943, a few survivors of the European abattoir had fled some fifteen hundred miles away, to their ancient homeland, trying to rebuild their lives. They were members of The Zionist youth organization, HeHalutz ~ The Pioneer and Hashomer Hatzair ~ The Youth Guard. Mordechai Anielowicz, head of the Żydowska Organizacja Bojowa ~ Jewish Fighting Organization has been a member of Hashomer Hatzair back in Warsaw.
Members of HeHalutz had established an agricultural kibbutz in 1926 in British Mandatory Palestine (Israel) at Ramat Hakovesh , which translates to the Heights of the Conqueror.
Since the 1929 Arab riots and the Hebron Masacre, attacks, with the tacit support of the British, were growing more frequent and more vicious. Anything resembling effective defense against attack was vigorously supressed by the British.
Disgusted, the Palmach had stopped cooperating with the British the year before. But, Allied Polish soldiers had been quietly arming the Jews in these remote settlements for some time.
Claiming to be searching for deserters of the Polish Army, the British soldiers, and Polish MP’s raided Ramat Hakovesh on November 16th 1940. What they actually were after were those hidden stockpiles of guns and ammunition. They tore the place apart; ripped houses down, arrested dozens, and, in their zeal, killed a man named Shmuel Velinitz. No deserters were found, of course. But lots of guns and ammunition were found, and seized.
Two years later the British tried again, this time with the aid of the Haganah. They were soundly rebuffed, and the area was declared a “No Go Zone” for British military units. These, and similar raids, often held with the aid of allied Jewish forces, consistently eroded public support for Mandatory civil institutions. With each passing year, fewer sat on the fence. More, quietly joined the resistance, or turned a blind eye to it.
Eventually, the British were so hated that they withdrew into barbed-wire surrounded encampments, laughingly called Bevingrads, after British Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin, the point-man on refusing the Jewish refugees’ entry into Israel.
The raids and arrests also yielded the growth of organizations such as Ha-Irgun Ha-Tzvai Ha-Leumi be-Eretz Yisrael ~ The National Military Organization in the Land of Israel (popularly known as ETZEL or the Irgun), and Lohamei Herut Israel – Lehi ~ Fighters for the Freedom of Israel – Lehi (derisively known as “The Stern Gang”).
Highly controversial, these groups indisputably aided in the protection of Jewish lives, and the liberation of the Land of Israel from British Military occupation.
Of Shattered Glass, Floods, and Covenants
Many of our readers may be aware that November 9th-10th is the anniversary of the 1938 pogrom known as the Kristallnacht.
Germany was under the leadership of Adolph Hitler and his National Socialist German Worker’s Party. His long-time associate, Ernst Röhm, was head of the StürmAbteilung (SA); the notorious “Brown Shirts”.
That night, the paramilitary branch of the SA, with the willing assistance of many German civilians, conducted a series of planned and coordinated violent attacks upon Jews’ homes, property, businesses, and synagogues throughout Germany and Austria. They used fire, fists, boots, sledgehammers and bullets. The hapless victims were beaten, often to unrecognizability, skulls smashed, faces destroyed.
Over thirty thousand people were rounded up and sent to concentration camps. Over one thousand synagogues were destroyed. and seven thousand businesses were attacked. Many hundreds of Jews were murdered, and several hundred, in utter despair, committed suicide that night. The Sicherheitsdienst (SD) took claim of the remaining spoils.
Police and other authorities generally refused to intervene. Indeed, the government, acting upon the pretextual killing of Ernst vom Rath, assessed the savaged Jews of Germany a collective fine of a Billion Reichsmarks, and levied a seizure of 20% of their property forfeit to the State, as compensation for harm done by the Jews to the German People.
Persecution of Jews had been growing in Germany since the 1920’s. But, Kristallnacht, and its aftermath was the schwerpunkt about which pivoted the movement toward genocide. The Final Solution to the “Jewish Problem” was ultimately set to paper by the bloodless Wannsee Conference four years later.
Monday, this year, is also the 17th day of the Jewish month of Cheshvan. According to tradition, in the 1656th year after Creation (2105 BCE) the rain began which culminated in the Great Flood. Noach is well known as the builder of the biblical Ark, within which the paired animals and his immediate family survived the destruction of every living thing.
Noach is described as a righteous man “in his time”. The critic would note that “his time” was so corrupt that G-d himself determined it best to wipe the slate clean. Indeed, although Noach had devoted one hundred twenty years in constructing the Ark, that he, nonetheless would not board until the flood waters had risen to his knees. G-d wanted him to be a leader, to influence people to do Good. The world desperately needed leaders, to guide people on the upright path. But, Noach was no leader.
Upon the end of the year-long flood, and the drying of the land, Noach emerged, built an altar, and brought offerings to G-d. In response, G-d blessed Noach and his family, vowing that never again would He seek to utterly destroy his creation. From Noach’s line grew seventy families, with seventy paths, but one universal standard for all; built upon G-d’s relationship with Adam and Chava, the Sheva Mitzvot B’nei Noach or Seven Noachide Laws. They are:
Avodah Zarah: Prohibits idolatry in all its forms.
Birchat Hashem: Blessing of the Name of G-d, and conversely, prohibits blasphemy.
Shefichat Damim: Prohibits murder (the unjust taking of a human life)
Gezel: Prohibits robbery and theft.
Gilui Arayot: Prohibits immorality and forbidden sexual relations.
Ever Min HaChay: Prohibits removing and eating a limb from a live animal (animal cruelty)
Dinim: Requirement to establish justice systems and courts of law.
So long as human beings follow these basic principles they acts righteously and please G-d.
Contrary to the desperate hopes and frenzied declarations of many, that Kristallnacht, and in fact the entire Nazi era, was a historical aberration; a confluence of factors unlikely ever to be repeated, I say, this was, and is the true face of man, as Killer Ape, once given the indulgence of sin and the opportunity to let loose their passions without cost. History is rife with examples.
As Sheila Stokes-Begley has so aptly pointed out, once we accept that the “other” is less than worthy of fundamental rights, and equal protection of law, it is an easy and short step to demonizing them as “sub-human”. So common is this practice today, especially in popular media, that author, Mike Vanderboegh bestows upon the offenders the Julius Streicher Memorial Award
Each of us must redouble our efforts not just to avoid Evil, not to just be righteous “in our time”, but to run to do Good. Moreover, we should strive to be leaders. The fate of the world hangs in the balance.
Listening to Approaching Thunder
I hate the term ‘anti-semitism’. As you may know, it was coined and popularized by the German agitator and writer, Wilhelm Marr, in 1879. He did so as a way to put a more genteel face on the venerated practice of Jew-hatred, in order that it might gain wider acceptance. It worked marvelously.
The issue I have with the term is its very greasiness and breadth. It encompasses everything from the off-color joke or the social snub, to bashing the brains of a child out on a block wall, or the mass graves of Babi Yar, and everything in between.
Jew hatred is as old as Jews, themselves. It has been seen nearly everywhere where Jews have lived, and strangely even in places where they are not.
Thankfully, since the Jacob Frank trial, REAL Jew-hatred, has been pretty rare in America. Even in Europe, after the overreach of the Nordic Supermen, and their supportive clergy, the worst of it had been tamped down… for a while.
Still, since the Holocaust, Jewish organizations have complained loudly about what, outside of the Mideast, has been fairly mild insult. Decades of complaint and fund-raising has been made on the thinnest of excuses. So much so, that they risk self-parody.
Today things are rapidly changing. But, for the worse.
A subset of the adherents of Islam is pursuing their plans with renewed fervor. They increasingly have the means and motivation to strike anywhere in the world.
Governments and their crony-capitalist sponsors, mortified at the impending collapse of their Ponzi Schemes, are becoming far more intrusive, brazen, and violent.
The victims of the latter group, impoverished, or worse, are seeing that the ‘civics class’ version of prospering through hard work and following the rules is leading to a dead-end.
All free, peace-loving men and women are today in increasing, and very real, peril.
The acceptance of the claim that Jews are conspiratorial malefactors is gaining traction again. The ‘Buford Furrows’, ‘Khmelnitsky’s’, and ‘Nosairs’ have always been among us, but they are breeding, now. Metaphorically, and actually. As always, the Jew is the natural scapegoat. It’s a tradition.
As the proverbial “Canary in the Coal Mine”, there is today, an increasing risk of physical harm to obvious Jews, and to synagogues and Jewish social facilities.
In Manhattan, the Met, in an operatic production of “The Death of Klinghoffer”,celebrates the violent hijacking of the cruise ship Achille Lauro, and the terrorists’ murder an old Jew in a wheelchair, throwing him and his chair into the Mediterranean . Invoking “art”, the Met’s General Manager, Peter Gelb intones moral equivalence between the old Jew and his killers, while sequestering all protestors far away in a media-free “Free Speech Zone” ghetto. Incitement grows.
In Europe, Jewish leadership advises keeping a low profile. No kippot. No “Jewish” jewelry. No pro-Israel sentiments on cars, homes. Slip in to shul the back way. Go to the grocery store in groups. Otherwise gangs of violent “Asians” will beat the snot out of you, or worse. Their governments beg the public to clamp their eyes shut and deny the growing reality.
Recently, in a south Florida residential area, an old chossid walked to shul on a Saturday morning, and was gunned down. The police claimed it must be a pan-handling robbery gone wrong. The family pointed out that observant Jews do not carry wallets and money on Shabbat, and that it was common knowledge to the non-Jews in the area, from prior pan-handling approaches. No, he was killed because… well… you know.
Over the past few years many rabbis have communicated with their counterparts in foreign lands around the globe and, for once, see the problems for what they are. They have watched their counterparts murdered, their community members attacked, and worse.
All indications are that the thin veneer of society may be peeling up in a neighborhood near you.
So, I take great joy in a recent, yet still very much underground, trend: discretely armed Jews, skilled in weapons and tactics, in synagogues and community centers!
Not only is this happening without objection from the rabbis; they are taking the lead. They are seeking out certain people, (often Israeli or American veterans) and are now BLUNTLY ASKING them for help.
Moreover, to avoid carrying on Shabbat, etc., they even are arranging for guns (even shotguns!) to be readily at hand in their facilities.
Paralleling this change, I am seeing a move away from relying on police and their delayed/lackadaisical response, clipboards, and chalk outlines. As the saying goes; when seconds count, they are only minutes away.
Compared to the attitude held by these same synagogues, and their leadership, only a few years ago, this change in attitude is a huge, healthy, and most welcome development.
It is my hope that this same trend is quietly, but quickly, growing in other religious and social communities, especially in the urban areas. If it is not, it is not too late to encourage it. But, if you wait, it may soon be.
Helping RCA/OU back “on the Derech” on Self Defense.
Many years ago I decided to attend a “Preparedness Show” put on at a metropolitan convention center. It was an eclectic mix of presentations by, and vendors of, survival, armed self-defense, politics, home medicine, alternate currency, and literature. I had been there several hours, watched a few presentations and, circumnavigated the hall maybe three times.
Working my way towards the exit, a reporter buttonholed me; attracted, it turns out, by my beard and kippah. Why, he needed to know, would “I” want to attend such an event? Didn’t I know that the local head of the ADL – B’nai B’rith had roundly condemned it as den of NeoNazi’s and other social deviants? Especially since the “Turner Diaries”, he said, was on sale there?
Now, this was not long after the tragic travails of the Weaver family, and the mass murders at Waco, Texas. An Ozark Mafia bag man was POTUS and Janet “Recreational Vehicle” Reno was the A.G. (yeah… given the Patriot Act, Barack Hussein Ebola, etc., I’m a bit wistful now, too.) The future was looking a bit dim for liberty-minded folks. But, after my afternoon in the convention hall, the only person who had given my “antennae” the slightest quiver was this reporter and, by implication, the baleboss at the ADL. Everyone else had been very nice to me. Everyone.
I started to laugh. At him. At his question. At the ADL. At the whole crazy thing. Yes, I had noticed “The Turner Diaries” in one of my circuits through the vendor tables. Woweeee. One solitary copy, on one table, in the whole huge room. Nothing of the same nature anywhere else.
I responded,” Well, since the ADL is one of the most anti-semitic organizations I know of, I really cannot put much stock in their concerns.” He was taken aback. I pressed the point, saying:
“ADL – B’nai B’rith, like many major Jewish organizations, unabashedly advocates public policies that facilitate genocide. The ADL advocates gun control. Given that Jews always seem to be on the ‘short list’ in such times I consider that far more serious than being denied a country club membership or being treated badly by a Jew -hating merchant. What could be more anti-Semitic than being subjected to enslavement or murder?”
Over the years one holdout in this masochistic pathology has been the “Orthodox” Jewish world in America. Especially in the urban areas of the Eastern Seaboard and Upper Midwest, Jews are subject to absorbing secular liberal cant and labeling it “Jewish”. The legal constraints of possession and carry by mere peasants in their cities and states have masked the issue. But, the past few years have brought significant reversals in the law. Opportunities for firearms possession in one’s home and concealed carry on one’s person expand with every case and every legislative session. Not everyone is pleased with this. But, by and large, the orthodox community has kept out of the lime-light.
So, with great frustration and sadness I noted that this past summer the Rabbinical Council of America / Orthodox Union passed and publicized a resolution on victim disarmament. It is titled “2014 Resolution: Gun Violence in America”. Described as having been obtained by a “direct vote of the RCA membership,” (over one thousand RCA members), conducted by an e-mail inquiry, it appears only ninety voted for it, sixty-two voted against. Nearly ninety percent of their members did not vote at all.
The Resolution, rife with platitudes, distortions and half-truths (directed to the ignorant), was blind to the import of the policy positions taken. The obsequious undertone (directed to their political masters) can be likened to the pleadings of an African American servant ‘with porch privileges’ declaring his loyalty to the plantation owner.
Great. Where is this heading? A plea to “Give (them) our children”? Is this “King Chaim” whispering in their ear?
Thankfully, last month, there arose a loud, clear response by ten prominent congregational Rabbis and a large, multi-state gun club. In an open letter to the RCA / OU these community leaders proceeded to make a concise, compassionate, and no-nonsense case in direct opposition to the RCA / OU “Resolution”. Their letter concluded:
“Like the RCA, we look forward to a day of universal peace, when “the law will go forth from Zion, and the word of the L-rd from Jerusalem,” when G-d “will judge between the nations,” and weapons will no longer be required to defend ourselves against our enemies. But we pray for such a future with open eyes, conscious of centuries of Jewish helplessness and of the growing number of attacks on Jews today. The assumption that an era of peace and brotherhood will dawn if we disarm ourselves, limit our access to firearms, or vitiate our right of self-defense, has no support in Jewish history, the teachings of the Torah, or present reality. www.gunssavelives.net Plowshares and pruning hooks will not defend Jews against enemies equipped with swords, spears, and deadlier weapons. Pretending otherwise will only undermine the preservation of the Jewish people – and the security of all Americans.”
This letter was signed by Rabbi Sol Appleman (Syosset, NY), Rabbi David Bendory (Livingston, NJ) Rabbi Mordechai Cohen (Milwaukee, WI), Rabbi Dov Fischer (Irvine, CA), Rabbi Philip Lefkowitz (Chicago, IL) Rabbi Reuven Mann (Phoenix, AZ), Rabbi Gary Moskowitz (Queens, NY), Rabbi Steven Pruzansky (Teaneck, NJ), Rabbi Mordechai Scher (Santa Fe, NM), Rabbi Jay Shoulson (Long Island City, NY), Rabbi Ephraim Simon (Teaneck, NJ), Rabbi Ephraim Slepoy (Passaic, NJ), and by The Golani Rifle & Pistol Club (NJ & PA).
In subsequent interviews the authors noted that, in contrast to the RCA/OU “Resolution”, outside of their small group, no effort was made to garner signatures from the RCA/OU general membership. Furthermore, although they only claim to speak for themselves, their numbers include RCA/OU members, a Young Israel rabbi, and even a Chabad Lubovitch (chasidic) shaliach.
Baruch Hashem that ‘some’ Jewish community leaders see the dangers to human life and liberty in victim disarmament, for their fellow Jews and for all of G-d’s children, and are willing to speak up. Standing on the firm foundation of authentic Torah principles, leading by example, bringing light where there is darkness. May these leaders go ‘from Strength to Strength’ !
A Small Gift…
for our new friend Herr Divebomber, and his treasured associates in the Stormfront forums:
The Ghetto Mentality
Major Jewish communal organizations have a long history of backing Victim Disarmament. We are often our own worst enemies. Aaron Zelman’s forming of JPFO was partially driven as a response to this sad fact. I contend this powerful, self-destructive tendency is part of a larger issue.
About eighteen years ago I was in Mordor on the Potomac. A small group of friends were talking in the hotel when I was asked by one, a very prominent attorney, just why Jews were so often not just politically statist, but rabidly so, especially in the area of Victim Disarmament. At the time, just as now, Jews were among the leaders in this arena.
My theory was that the inclination stemmed from a powerful force; the Ghetto Mentality:
People forget that Hebrew slaves, upon leaving Egypt, were forged by G-d, through Moses, into a powerful guerilla military force. They repeatedly defeated established and skilled armies and conquered the land of Israel. For generations, steeled by their belief, they fought off incursions and carved out their homeland. A Nation of Princes.
Subsequent, progressive, abandonment of the ‘terms’ of the Covenant brought harsh lessons from G’d in the form of civil war, invasion, conquest, the fall of the Holy Temple, and exile to Babylon (and back to Egypt). Lessons learned, the people returned to the Land, only to fail again. Facing a People once again corroded with spiritual debasement, the Romans finished the job. They conquered Israel, sacked Jerusalem, destroyed the Temple, and drove the people into exile.
Jews’ experience in Europe constantly found them pinched between the Church and the Nobility. The nobility required the endorsement of the Church (as the elect of G-d) to lower the cost of retaining power. The Church required the nobility to provide the threat of violence when persuasion and hellfire fell short.
The Church’s vexation with the Jews’ refusal to convert spawned lurid tales of ritual child-murder and “desecration of the host”, just in case deicide was not enough to dehumanize them in the eyes of the people. When the peasants were whipped up into violence in frustration with their lot, the Jew was offered by the Church a natural target.
On the other hand, the nobility tended to like the Jews as they were peaceful, intelligent, hardworking, and kept to themselves. Even better, not constrained by tortured logic on the biblical meaning of Usury, Jews, as a community, were a source of always scarce money, for the constantly broke nobility.
Having few options, when threatened with death at a hands of Church inspired mobs, Jews ran to the nobility for protection. Over time, Jews concluded that working behind the scenes and currying favor with secular power was the only workable survival strategy.
But the time of powerful nobles was coming to an end. So too, the constraints on Jewish access to secular education, to land-ownership, to work in the guilds, and to legal protection by the secular courts were weakening.
Gradually setting aside their fundamental belief in Torah, and longing for Geula, many Jews focused on secular, social action, to satisfy their ingrained drive for Tikkun Olam. After many, many centuries of exile, poverty, suffering, and death, many thought the Enlightenment (and the Jewish variant; the Haskalah) was the correct path. Perhaps, they thought, ‘this’ was the way to bring about the coming of Moshiach?
The first Jewish immigrants to America found that they were once again a minority, but that much (but not all) of the religious antipathy’s vigor had stayed in Europe. Largely of German background, many had been favorably disposed to assimilation via the Reform movement. Intermarriage was very common within two generations. As a guarantee of safety the habit of ingratiating themselves with political power seemed a wise course.
A second wave of Jews came to America in the late 1800’s. These new immigrants had experienced the weakening of the Church and the ascendency of the secular state. They had suffered Pogroms and forced military service. The secular reforms of Western Europe were far slower in coming to the East. Still, they were far more traditionally religious (Today we would call them Orthodox, although that is a better description of congregational affiliation than of people) than those Jews who came in the 1700’s.
This second wave was a profound embarrassment to the established order. Poor, uncultured (in the secular sense), and worst of all, religiously observant, they threatened to remind the Gentile that the first wave immigrants were still Jews. These new (largely Polish, Russian, Baltic, and Slavic) immigrant Jews thus were pressured both from within and without to blend in, and damned fast.
Settling mostly in the large urban centers they naively concluded that American political power was less malignant and dangerous than in the Old World. In a sense they were correct; American politicians were happy to sucker people with little regard to race, creed, color, etc. The Jew responded by the time-proven method of ingratiation.
The aforementioned assimilation was quick in coming. The State became the new focus of worship. Social action in union organizing and Progressive and Socialist politics the new path. For many Jews America was the new Zion, the democratic State was the new Temple, and Social Action was the new Torah. Guns were for gentile hunters, policemen, and soldiers.
The Jewish Poet-Warrior, forged at the foot of Sinai, was all but forgotten. A new day dawned.
And then, a very harsh decree came from the Heavenly Court… An odd little Austrian guy with an amazing gift for oratory started stirring up crowds in beer halls.
Look closely at those who seek to lead us
Greetings!
My name is Y.B. ben Avraham. I am honored to have been asked by the inestimable Claire Wolfe to join this new venture; the Zelman Partisans.
~~~
Nearly twenty-six hundred years ago the once-great land of Israel was a shambles. After generations of internal strife, the mighty army of Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II had utterly defeated Judah, sacked Jerusalem, and destroyed the focal point of the Jewish People; the Holy Temple. Their last King, Zedekiah, was blinded and led into exile. The wealthy, industrious, and educated were marched towards Babylonia, stopping briefly at an encampment at Riblah, wherein the majority of these exiles were simply slaughtered. Most of what remained was a scattering of dispirited farmers & shepherds.
Hoping to rebuild his new colony, the Babylonian king appointed one Gedaliah ben Ahikam as territorial Governor. Gedaliah’s father had saved the life of the prophet Jeremiah. When given the option of staying, or accompanying the remaining exiles to Babylonia, Jeremiah stayed and helped Gedaliah govern from Mizpah. Their intent was to rebuild from scratch, and in following Torah, fulfill the Covenant with G-d.
So successful was this effort that many Jews, having fled the war to neighboring lands, began to return and rebuild. One Ishmael ben Netanya was among the refugees. A descendant of Zedekiah’s household, he was also a close ally of the King of Ammon. Intensely jealous of Gedaliah’s successes, ben Netanya plotted to kill Gedaliah and with the help of Ammon, gain power over the colony.
The plot was discovered and reported to Gedaliah, but such was his nature, that he refused urgings that the plot be ended by the capture and killing of Ishmael ben Netanya and his men. Instead, Gedaliah accepted Ismael’s request to attend the Rosh Hashanah feast at Mizpah. Gedaliah arrived with ten men, and when opportune, Ishmael and his men killed the garrison, murdered Gedaliah, and taking hostages, fled towards Ammon.
Terrified that Nebuchadnezzar, in revenge at the murder of his appointed governor, Gedaliah, would order the wholesale slaughter the rest of the Jews, the people fled, in a stunning reversal of the events which forged their Covenant some nine hundred years before, towards Egypt.
At the urging of the prophet Jeremiah they stopped at Beit Lechem for his advice. Jeremiah prayed to G-d for ten days and obtained a divine message. G-d told the people that if they remained in the land he would rebuild them and that Babylonia would not destroy them, but that if they fled to Egypt their misfortunes would follow and they would suffer the very fate they feared.
The people abjectly refused. Furthermore, they accused Jeremiah of plotting to turn them over to Nebbuchadnezzar’s Chaldean Guard himself, and forced Jeremiah to accompany them. At the border, he tried again, and they refused again. The people settled in Egypt, abandoning faith in G-d and descending once again to the practices of the Egyptians.
A few years later the Egyptian Pharaoh Hophra was assassinated and Nebuchadnezzar seized to opportunity. He invaded and destroyed the land, and most of the Jewish exiles died in the invasion and war. Jeremiah’s prophesy had been tragically fulfilled.
~~~
Several lessons might be learned from this tragedy. First and foremost (for those so disposed) is that faith in G-d and obeying his will is the only truly successful path. Second, is that civil war carries horrific, long-term consequences, often worse than war in general, and should be strenuously avoided.
Also, strangely, is the lesson that sometimes collaborators can be good and nationalist rebels can be bad. Gedaliah was unquestionably a collaborator; an appointee of a savage invader, protected by their garrison. Ishmael ben Netanya was from the royal family. He sought an alliance with Ammon to kill a puppet governor, defeat the garrison, and drive out the Babylonian invaders from his ancestral lands.
And yet, what was Gedaliah’s true goal? It was to slowly, yet inexorably, restore the people, the land, and the Covenant. So firm was his conviction and his love, that he risked his own death in seeking the noble goal. On the other hand, Ishmael’s true heart was revealed as he fled to the protection of Ammon and faded into history. His goal was merely glory and power over others.
As this nation slides again towards probable civil war, we should look very closely at those who seek to lead us, influence us, or speak for us. While standing on principle is crucial, it is very easy to be both manipulated by others and to fall victim to passion, fear, and rash judgement.