Purim in the year 2018. In the short video 4:47 long, you can have a cliff notes version of Purim if you want to watch it.
So the wicked Haman’s plan was to eliminate the Jews, once and for all, the “final solution”. In case you didn’t know this, Haman is a descendant of Amalek, yep, the one I talked about recently. Some people think that Hitler’s holocaust was the first attempt. Hardly. But an Alaskan congress critter recently seemed to have stirred up a kerfluffle recently when he stated
A congressman from Alaska suggested that Jews were “put in the ovens” by Nazis during World War II because they did not have guns.
This is arguable? I guess, by some. But it’s a Demoncrat who wants to run against him
The head of the Anti-Defamation League has called the claim a “distortion of history.”
With all due respect to the ADL…and really, that’s not much respect.
Let’s take just a brief look at a well known time and place in history for illustration. The Warsaw Ghetto. The Jews in the Warsaw ghetto held out longer than the country of Poland. How did that happen?
Cue dreamy sequence, you know, mist, clouds, soft music swirly colors…..
Mordecai Anielewicz: “Ok, the nazis are going to come down this street here. Sarah, when they pass your position you fling your pink hat with pointy ears into their path that should totally disorient them and shame them for at least five minutes. Then Dovid, you and Yigal grab your rolled up copies of the New York Slimes and Haaretz and attack from the rear while they are still immobilized from shame. Then Shannon and Whoopie can run by bravely showing off the safety pins on their jackets all the while screaming “HASHTAG SAFE SPACE, HASHTAG SAFE SPACE”. As the nazis begin to retreat in fear of hearing “HASHTAG ME TOO” Michael, Rachel, Leah and Josef can march with the “gun free zone” signs and hit them with those. If we are successful, we should have the nazis cleared out in about thirty minutes! Then we will hang our new nazi Free Zone sign at the entrance!”
Pretty good spiel, huh?
Two Jewish underground organisations fought in the Warsaw Uprising: the left wing Żydowska Organizacja Bojowa (ŻOB) founded in July 1942 by Zionist Jewish youth groups within the Warsaw Ghetto;and the right wing Żydowski Związek Wojskowy (ŻZW), or Jewish Military Union, a national organization founded in 1939 by former Polish military officers of Jewish background which had strong ties to the Polish Home Army, and cells in almost every major town across Poland. However both organisations were officially incorporated into the Polish Home Army and its command structure in exchange for weapons and training.
Marek Edelman, who was the only surviving uprising commander from the left-wing ŻOB, stated that the ŻOB had 220 fighters and each was armed with a handgun, grenades, and Molotov cocktails. His organization had three rifles in each area, as well as two land mines and one submachine gun. Due to its socialist leanings, the Soviets promoted the actions of ŻOB as the dominant or only party in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, a view often adopted by secondary sources in the West.
The right-wing faction ŻZW which was founded by former Polish officers, was larger, more established and had closer ties with the Polish resistance, making it better equipped. Zimmerman describes the arm supplies for the uprising as “limited but real”. Specifically, Jewish fighters of the ŻZW received from the Polish Home Army: 2 heavy machine guns, 4 light machine guns, 21 submachine guns, 30 rifles, 50 pistols, and over 400 grenades for the uprising. During the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, ŻZW is reported to have had about 400 well-armed fighters grouped in 11 units, with 4 units including fighters from the Polish Home Army. Due to the ŻZW’s anti-socialist stand and close ties with the Polish Home Army (which was subsequently outlawed by the Soviets), the Soviets suppressed publication of books and articles on ŻZW after the war and downplayed its role in the uprising, in favour of the more socialist ŻOB.
More weapons were supplied throughout the uprising, and some were captured from the Germans. Some weapons were handmade by the resistance; sometimes such weapons worked, other times they jammed repeatedly.
Shortly before the uprising, Polish-Jewish historian Emanuel Ringelblum (who managed to escape from the Warsaw Ghetto, but was later discovered and executed in 1944) visited a ŻZW armoury hidden in the basement at 7 Muranowska Street. In his notes, which form part of Oneg Shabbat archives, he reported:
They were armed with revolvers stuck in their belts. Different kinds of weapons were hung in the large rooms: light machine guns, rifles, revolvers of different kinds, hand grenades, bags of ammunition, German uniforms, etc., all of which were utilized to the full in the April “action”. (…) While I was there, a purchase of arms was made from a former Polish Army officer, amounting to a quarter of a million złoty; a sum of 50,000 złoty was paid on account. Two machine guns were bought at 40,000 złoty each, and a large amount of hand grenades and bombs.
If the ADL is right, then history is wrong and the Jews in the ghetto should never have died, right? Why were they trying so hard to get their hands on more weapons? What good would they have done? Right ADL?
Poland is currently attempting to rewrite their own history by criminalizing speech. You can’t say certain things anywhere (according to Poland) without fear of incurring their wrath and a lawsuit. Yes, the death camps were a Nazi invention. But the Pole’s had plenty of their own antisemitism. And plenty of it was on display after WWII, after the nazis were beaten.
Anti-Jewish violence in Poland, 1944–1946
Anti-Jewish violence in Central and Eastern Europe, 1944–46
A Zehut member, the brilliant Lisa Liel writes in a column A lesson from the Megillah
Why did Esther want the Jews to be able to defend themselves on the 14th, when that decree was no longer in force?
Which brings us to the second thing she asked for. She wanted the dead bodies of Haman’s 10 sons, the heroes of the anti-Jewish forces, strung up on the gallows that their father had been hanged on. Not to kill them, because they were already dead. But as a symbolic gesture, letting the anti-Jewish forces know that they weren’t just beaten for the day, but that they were done.
Esther wasn’t stupid, though. She knew what the reaction would be when the Jew-haters woke up the next morning and saw Haman’s sons twisting in the wind. And that is why she asked for special dispensation to fight and kill any enemies who rose up against them. Because she intended to provoke them into it.
So why do it? Why provoke them and then ask for permission to protect her people from the results of her provocation? And here’s where we can learn something from Queen Esther.
Peace with those who want to murder you for who you are is not obtained through treaties or compromise. Nations that have economic differences or other policy differences can end wars with a compromise. But when one side is dedicated to the destruction of the other, compromise is suicidal. The aggressor must be dealt with decisively. Beaten soundly and made to feel that they have absolutely lost. Otherwise, they’ll just come back and try again.
This whole column is really good and worth the reading.
It is much the same with those who promote defenselessness as a good strategy for survival. Of course they have their guards, their walls and their security methods, but for the unwashed masses in general, no, no, we’re much safer without guns amongst us. So they tell us, repeatedly. They just keep coming back and at us from different directions to try to mandate us into a state of defenselessness. They try again and again. Some are useful idiots, they’ve been brought up to believe it, they watch cnn #FakeNews and msnbc #FakeNews and believe them. The NY Slimes, they believe. Some are not useful idiots, they know very well people will be left virtually helpless to stop attacks. But they want to keep themselves safe from us! Which always raises the question for me “What do they want to do, that they can not do if people like me are armed and prepared?” Well modern day Haman? What’s the answer?
And Persia, has Persia changed much from the Persia of old? Iran official threatens Israel: ‘We’ll level Tel Aviv to the ground’ Um, not so much, no.
In the Purim story it took a brave Jewish Queen, Ester, her cousin Mordecai and a decree to allow the Jews to defend themselves.
How’s about we learn from history and quit asking or letting our legislators legislate us into defenselessness. Because that just never works out well for the law abiding innocent citizen.
Purim is a holiday of joy and victory. They tried to kill us, we won, let’s eat!
And because it is Purim, and I love Purim, I have a little movie for you. YES, it does have a horse in it! A real one! It is a parody of the video What Does The Fox Say, but this one is pretty cool.
חג פורים שמח Chag Purim Samach, Happy Purim!
Sheila,
As I was reading this, I was imagining that the anti gun people wanted us cowering down, hoping that someone would protect us. The picture jumped into my head of a frightened, abandoned dog, that had been rescued and was hiding in the corner at the animal shelter, shaking, awaiting it’s fate in fear, not knowing if it would live or die. And then, it occurred to me, that is just what those anti gun people want, for us to be completely beholden to the hand that feeds us, and decides our fate, and for us to be completely without a say in our own life.
Now, it strikes me that they would be happy for that to befall us, but not themselves, for they are the chosen ones. If the state is the director of the animal shelter, then the leftists are the workers there, who will be charged with keeping the dogs on the right in line, and underfoot.
I guess I wasn’t aware that the Jews in the Warsaw ghetto had as much firepower as they actually did. No wonder they were able to hold out as long as they did. Not to make light of their courage and faith, but without enough weapons, the most faithful and courageous would soon fall under the weapons of the faithless.
Yup, my guns pose a danger to me – that’s why they are carefully handled. But there is only one of me that can screw up and have a negligent discharge injuring myself. On the other hand, there are far more people who may pose a danger to me . I did the math. I’m safer with guns than without.
The lesson I learned from Nazi Germany is that 10 or so years earlier, there was no better place to be a Jew. Integrated into the culture, making something around 10% of the ‘professional’ class (lawyer, doctors, finance). Rabbis were complaining about the high rate of intermarriage. And in a blink of an eye ….
There will always be someone thats wants us dead, no matter how good we have it now. And if it doesnt happen in my lifetime, thank God, and I train my children well because guns are a dangerous tool.
Bingo gentlemen! Pigpen, that is a perfect analogy. I wouldn’t have thought of it, and helpless people kind of create the same kind of feelings in me as does a cowering animal. I hate to see almost, almost, anything or anyone trembling in fear. And I most certainly agree that the left thinks they will escape such a fate. After all, if they are on the winning side as a useful idiot….or they are one of the elitist hypocrites.
DML, yes, Germany was thought to be the epitome of civilization and that was why many Jews thought that they had lived in safety with their neighbors for years. Joseph Gerbils (I know, but I like writing it that way) had a very effective campaign dehumanizing the Jews, after which is was much easier to demonize them. Yes, train your children!! Train them well!