Despite repeated assurances of safety and security for their citizens made by the politicians, it appears that the insurance underwriters know how to determine risk. This is what happens when you are denied the legal rights and tools to protect yourself and your loved ones.
On Passover 1945, U.S. Troops liberated Ohrdurf, a sub-camp of Buchenwald. Among those soldiers was the future great-uncle to President Barack Obama.
Here (originally from 2010) is an Op Ed describing the event and some interesting back-story on the liberation of the camps.
One of my wishes this Passover, is that the President review these events in light of his current policies, their probable outcomes, and his well-established interest in his legacy.
May the chains be broken and the barbed wire torn down.
L’shana Haba’ah B’Yerushalayim
Constitutional carry in Kansas!
The new law, which kicks in July 1, makes Kansas the sixth state to allow “constitutional carry.” It will allow Kansans 21 and older to carry concealed firearms regardless of whether they have obtained a permit.
Training still will be required for anyone who wants to carry a concealed gun in the 36 states that accept Kansas permits.
Progress.
We just got word yesterday that New Jersey governor Chris Christie has finally signed a pardon for Shaneen Allen, who was arrested in October 2013 for carrying her legally-owned pistol from Pennsylvania to New Jersey.
All we have to say is, “what took him so long?”
Allen says she wasn’t aware that her legally-purchased, legally-concealed firearm was not legal to carry in New Jersey. During a routine traffic stop, she dutifully informed the officer that she had what she thought was a legally-carried pistol in her car.
She was then arrested and charged with unlawful possession of a weapon and hollow-point bullets which were in the gun – a second-degree felony in New Jersey, which holds a minimum sentence of three-years in prison.
Make no mistake. This young, single mother was punished for being honest, and doing what she felt was the right thing. “The judge tried to tell me that telling the truth messed me up, my life up and the cop said the same thing. Me opening my mouth and speaking out he said I’m one out of ten people that spoke up and was honest and that got me in trouble.”
Initially, the prosecutor in the case was going to throw the book at this young lady. Then – after a considerable amount of blowback, which included a comparison to the slap on the wrist received by NFL’s Ray Rice for cold-cocking his now-wife in an elevator in Atlantic City – the prosecutor decided to revisit his decision.
Through all of this Christie stayed silent. It’s well known the porcine tyrant supports the state’s absurd gun control laws, and now that he’s thinking about advancing his political career and implanting his corpulent fourth point of contact in the White House, it sure wouldn’t look good for him to stand idly by while the appointed prosecutorial swine raked a woman over the coals for a victimless crime.
Good for Ms. Allen! I’m glad she was cleared of both the gun possession charge and the related ammunition charge.
At the same time, that cynical part of me wants to flip Christie that international body language sign that tells him what I really think of this opportunistic move! He’s responsible for what I’m fairly sure was a year and a half of Allen’s life spent stressing over whether or not she would go to prison, whether or not she would wind up with a criminal record, whether or not she would be forever branded as a felon and have her life ruined!
He could have done this a long time ago, but hey… aren’t elections coming up soon?
Quite a few TZP posts since the first of the year have looked at bigotry against Jews. It’s dangerous. It’s growing. And unfortunately it’s no surprise.
But there’s one good thing about hatred of Jews: decent, educated human beings in the Western world know how wrong and deadly it is.
There are other kinds of bigotry, on the other hand, that are becoming acceptable. Worse, they’re becoming especially acceptable to the very people who ought to know better: young, well-educated Americans.
Take, for example, Ms Andrea Grimes. Earlier this month this lefty ‘zine editor and prolific social media user advocated taking firearms away from all white men.
Her long-term goal is to take away everybody’s guns (I invite you, Ms Grimes, to come to my house and try it). But for now, just white males.
She envisions all the white guys weeping as they line up to turn in their weapons. (Apparently a desire to make men cry is somewhat of a meme among feminists. And apparently Ms Grimes has no freakin’ clue as to who’d end up crying — and bleeding — in the future she envisions.)
Unfortunately, she’s not just part of some uninfluential fringe. Everywhere on the left, bigotry against some group or another is being not only excused but justified. The respected “progressive” journal, The Daily Kos is one of many that has twisted reality to “prove” that only whites can be racist. A prominent Georgetown University professor teaches the same bilge
In this thinking (if I may call it thinking at all), if a black or Hispanic or Asian person hates whites, it’s somehow okay. Or at least not as bad. (Never mind that every form of racial hatred can be deadly.) The idea is that only powerful people can be racist, and somehow all whites (even blue-collar bottom-of-the-heapers) are powerful, while all chosen minorities (even professors, lawyers, lobbyists, and journalists) are powerless. Basically, the whole notion boils down to “if any designated minority has hateful thoughts, white people, especially white males, caused it.”
Of course, this very broad brush of bigotry against white people or white males also encompasses most Jewish people and most Jewish males. But the real problem isn’t which group it’s “okay” to hate and who is included in the target group.
The problem is the mainstreaming of bigotry — and more scarily, the mainstreaming of bigotry in influential media and in the academic world.
People are so willfully short-sighted! When they want to smear a particular group — whether it be blacks or males or Jews or women or redheads or whatever — they choose not to see that the very act of hating people just because they belong to some group by birth or culture is wrong. It’s wrong no matter what group you choose to revile.
Justifying your own bigotry on the grounds that someone else was bigoted first just perpetuates the vicious cycle. And educated people should know this.
Once you’ve said “group hatred is okay” you’ve declared on principle that bigotry is acceptable. That discrimination is okay.* That depriving entire classes of people of their rights is just fine. You have, in short, opened the gates of hell — and you’d better not be surprised at what comes pouring through.
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* This was really a terrible word choice on my part and has led some readers to believe that I’m against freedom of association. For the record, it’s obvious to me that in a free society individuals and individual businesses have every right to discriminate in any way they wish and others have a right to respond. I’m upset that this one ill-written, ill-thought sentence appears to have demolished the real points I was attempting to make in this post.
On the surface, it’s been a little quiet at The Zelman Partisans this week. Behind the scenes — not so! The gnomes of TZP (led by the amazing Jo Ann Alpert of the Missouri Bullet Company, one of our founders) have been busy prepping for our next advance.
‘Til now, we’ve been just a blog. Our next steps turn us into a “real” organization. To some, the updates we’re soon to unveil may seem minor. But trust me, as a step toward our long-term plan of carrying out the legacy of Aaron Zelman, they are huge.
Among other things, we’re developing TZP merchandise to help fund future projects and operations. We’ll start small, but with your help, we’ll build.
With that in mind, I’m asking: What types of merchandise would you like to see (and more important, what would you purchase)? Targets? Posters? Bumper stickers? Reader-friendly booklets? Wearables? Knives? Toss your ideas into comments. How much we’ll be able to do, and how soon, will depend on a lot of factors. But YOU can help point our thinking in the right direction. So have at it!
We’re already working on one cool item suggested by a reader. Then this week we received the delightful suggestion of TZP-logo kippot (yarmulkes) — an idea that would have brought a smile to Aaron’s face. Can you imagine the conversations those might start in Jewish communities?
Heck, personally I’m neither Jewish nor male (and who else has use for a kippah?), but if those became available, I’d buy one. Just because. 🙂
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Oh. And as I was writing this The Amazing Jo Ann already intro’d a couple of our new features. Take a look over there on the right, below the banners for our friends and supporters, Dragon Leatherworks and the Missouri Bullet Company. Check out our Queensboro store, which specializes in high-quality wearables with our nicely embroidered logo. Then visit our CafePress store, where you can get logo-printed items for yourself and even your best friend. (A store of our own is yet to come.)
Now back to our regularly scheduled blog post …
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The same person who suggested TZP kippot — a business owner and long-time JPFO supporter — also expressed mild concern about us. Or specifically, our identity. He wrote:
It’s really a loss that JPFO went the way it did — the name told you everything you needed to know about the organization. Unfortunately, as important as it is to honor Aaron Zelman’s work and memory, “Zelman Partisans” requires explanation when talking to people who don’t know about JPFO’s (former) mission. I’m not sure what you can do, or what you’d even want to do, about the branding…
I agree that the Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership was a wonderfully descriptive name. It was also so clunky that hardly anybody ever used it. One time when the freedomista columnist Vin Suprynowicz did use it, he was accused (seriously!) of being an anti-Semite for “making up” such a “ridiculous” group.
‘Cause everybody knows that all Jews loathe guns. Ptooey! And that is precisely the perception Aaron wanted to change — and so do we. He wanted to change that perception among Jews and Gentiles alike — and so do we.
The name “Zelman Partisans” does need explanation. But that gives us all the opportunity to open conversations. (“What? Why are there rifles crossed on that Star of David?”) Opening conversations can open eyes.
Besides, aside from honoring Aaron, I hope the name draws us together. Jews and friends of Jews, if we all understand that firearms are genocide-prevention tools and we’re willing to stand to protect gun rights as lifesaving civil rights, then we truly are partisans in the fighting sense of the word.
We are together in this. Outnumbered but undaunted. Outsiders united.
Powerful forces oppose us. Our resources are miniscule compared with those of our enemies. As partisans we come from diverse backgrounds and are driven together by need. We find each other in hardship. We join together in times that are increasingly perilous for Jews — and for freedom. We may not enjoy comfort and ease. But, always, the bold outlaw spirit of the partisan prevails.
A few days ago I received a fundraising letter from JPFO signed by someone named Kasey Goodman, who is apparently the organization’s “senior operations manager.”
I am a lifetime member of JPFO, and prior to having been a writer for the organization, I was an ardent supporter of its mission as “America’s most aggressive defender of firearms ownership.”
I stopped writing for JPFO in October. This was in large part due to time constraints. I have a full time job, as well as a part time job, and coming up with a column every week was difficult, especially with all the business travel I do.
At the same time, I wanted to see what course my beloved organization would take under the leadership of the Second Amendment Foundation. I had been through the sale of a Second Amendment rights group to SAF previously when Founder and Executive Director Angel Shamaya sold KeepandBearArms.com to Alan Gottlieb. And while I continued working for KABA for a while after the sale, my last Army deployment ended my work there.
No one can deny that KABA is a mere shell of what it was under the dynamic, passionate leadership of Angel Shamaya. There’s no original content. A number of groups, organizations, and individuals are no longer allowed a voice through even a simple link on KABA’s Newslinks section. No featured author has written a piece for KABA in years. There’s no advocacy. There’s no KABA voice. It’s a gun rights news aggregator and little else, and it’s a damn shame.
I had hoped the same thing would not happen to JPFO. There were numerous writers who put their hearts and souls into the organization. We wrote passionately, boldly, and lovingly about our rights. We loved this organization. We loved Aaron Zelman and his vision. We were committed to providing original intense, impassioned content to help preserve our fundamental rights.
And now…
The Great Claire Wolfe left after exposing the backroom dealings of the sale of JPFO to SAF.
I left a couple of months after that.
Sheila Stokes-Begley and Brad Alpert also departed JPFO, and the beautiful, passionate, and eloquent Ilana Mercer is no longer part of that organization either.
Longtime gun rights activist and writer David Codrea is the most recent casualty of the slow transformation of JPFO into an empty husk.
I look at JPFO’s content, and see all the passion gone. Most of the writers have resigned. Its latest alerts run the gamut from links to Breitbart reporting to a badly written JPFO position note responding to a months-old letter from a European Rabbi. SAF ostensibly has the resources to at least redo the JPFO website, which was the bane of all of our existences! Loud colors, bad navigation and layout… they could have at least fixed that. But no…
This post is not about JPFO, however. It’s about the Zelman Partisans. We created this organization to carry on Aaron Zelman’s legacy, his vision, and his commitment. Every post you see on this site is original writing by such greats as Claire, Ilana, Sheila, and Y.B. ben Avraham. We censor no one. We are not afraid of criticism from other groups. We allow all points of view.
And we are dedicated to one single mission: to carry on Aaron Zelman’s vision of defending our natural rights.
This nascent effort is the heart of JPFO. We left because we knew and understood that JPFO would never be the same. And we created the Zelman Partisans as the only organization with the vision and the dedication to defend your rights – through the lens of Jewish history, so that atrocities against any people, be they Jewish, Christian, atheist, Pagan, black, brown, plaid, or striped, are never allowed to happen again.
This requires a certain amount of courage, and the Zelman Partisans have it.
No, we will not ban certain Second Amendment voices for personal or political reasons. As a matter of fact, we have done the opposite, and have issued an open invitation to Alan Gottlieb – the head of SAF – to post his views here.
Yes, we dedicate our efforts to this organization – to educate and disseminate the message about the threat to your rights.
Yes, we will carry on JPFO’s mission – Aaron Zelman’s mission – unaltered, untarnished, and with all our hearts and souls.
In the next few weeks, we will open a Zelman Partisans store, where you will be able to purchase all kinds of fantastic stuff designed by the very people who have created this organization. There will be memberships you can purchase, certificates you will receive, plus all kinds of merchandise that will make you proud to be a charter member of this organization.
While we set up shop, please do hit the “DONATE” button in the upper right portion of the site and give us some support!
We promise we will not let you down.
My colleague Y.B. has nailed it. Again.
There are those that see what is happening around them and see the pattern, and see it for what it is, they recognize that pattern. Then there are those that see the pattern and because it is ugly they tell themselves they can’t possibly be seeing exactly what they are seeing and pull the covers back over their head and top it off with a pillow. Then there are those that see the pattern, look at it for two seconds and ask what time “American Idol” comes on that night. Ok, if it were National Finals Rodeo I could maybe understand a little, maybe, but sure not much. That is sad, very sad. Then there are those that see the pattern, know exactly what it is, and in fact maybe helping to contribute to it but deny that it is a pattern and vilify those that point it out. They spend their resources assuring the nervous that all is well, it’s just fine,nothing to see here, move along.
A few random things, a NY city Council man David Greenfield went on a trip to Israel, while there he went to Ramallah. While there, after a visit with the American Consul-General in Jerusalem at his Ramallah office he and the group prepared to go back to their transportation. He was asked to remove his Kippah. He refused.
“I walked into Ramallah with my yarmulke on, of course,” he said. “I was pulled aside by security personnel and was told that I should not wear my yarmulke when I was leaving the building.” The surprised Greenfield asked why he was being told this, and the answer was that “there was a security situation on the ground” and that it was not safe.”I specifically asked them if it was unsafe for me or for the group – they said it was definitely not an issue for the group but they could not guarantee my personal safety. I explained for them that for me it’s a very significant issue and that quite frankly, had I been told this in advance, I never would have agreed to come to Ramallah.”I was told that the US government was providing security and as an official, I expected them to keep up their end of the deal,” he said, adding that the request to have him remove the kippah had come from the Palestinian hosts.
Councilman Greenfield certainly gets it. This is a response he presented at a meeting. He gets it very well.
Then there is this speech by the French Prime Minister.
He gets it.
Then we have those that have walked the streets of Europe wearing a Kippah, to show reactions.
And in Paris for ten hours, but this one just loops, it’s not really that long.
We have the 51 Democrats that are Anti-Semitic and Anti-Israel. They whined that they didn’t like how John Bohner invited Prime Minister Netanyahu to give the speech. Well, I don’t like Bohner. But I suspect he was correct, if he went through the White House aka the House of Hussein, there would be no speech. I’m pretty confident that if Iran develops a nuclear weapon it will affect the US as well as Israel. But barry is too busy trying to be buddies with the people that want to kill US than to allow mere facts to interfere with his enjoyment of his rainbow stew. This link has the speech embedded in the web site. Nancy Pelosi showed she could edge 20 steps closer to Prozac and a padded room when she called the speech “Insulting and condescending.” It would seem Democrats are far more invested in towing the barry boat than living in reality. They do not get it, and they also attempt to mislead the uninformed that vote for them. There is a very real threat.
I have a very sweet lady in a class I take and we had a conversation about guns. She told me she and her husband absolutely respect the Second Amendment, but they belong to the Brady campaign and they just think that all guns need to be registered to stop crime. Class was over and we were all leaving, but I suggested she do a quick internet search for the “Nuremberg Laws”. I pointed out that Hitler could easily keep Jews from owning weapons to protect themselves because they already had a list of who owned what. So when Hitler decided Jews could have nothing to do with firearms, or own them, they knew where the were, duck soup, round up. She doesn’t get it, at all. But she said she still loved me, and I still think she is a lovely lady. An easy target, but a lovely lady. That “Nuremberg Laws article is pretty interesting by the way. Some compare and contrast in it.
So knowledge and interpretation certainly play a role in what you see, and how you see it. But another aspect is your attitude about it. I recently had a very brief discussion with a Rabbi. It involved my wish that Moshe Feiglin would have been returning to the Knesset. He seemed to think that wasn’t such a great thing. I said I just think Jews should be allowed to pray on the Temple Mount, and I do, and I mean right now yesterday. His comment was “When the Messiah comes back”. Really. Because this attitude of accepting little scraps of freedom, the little bits of the Jewish identity people are allowed to retain, the areas where it is safe to walk or as Y.B. pointed out, worship should all be determined by others? The Southern Cowgirl in me rears up and says “OH HELL NO”!
Because when you see attacks on a persons religion, on their ethnicity on their belief system when it harms no one else, you can just about bet the farm that not long after follow the physical attacks. WHY does it need to get to that point?
There are people who see what is happening, they see what is coming. And while the current regime uses government agencies to go after those that speak out, they still must.
1 The word of the Lord came to me: 2 “Son of man, speak to your people and sayto them, If I bring the sword upon a land, and the people of the land take a manfrom among them, and make him their watchman, 3 and if he sees the sword comingupon the land and blows the trumpet and warns the people, 4 then if anyone whohears the sound of the trumpet does not take warning, and the sword comes andtakes him away, his blood shall be upon his own head. 5 He heard the sound ofthe trumpet and did not take warning; his blood shall be upon himself. But if hehad taken warning, he would have saved his life. 6 But if the watchman sees thesword coming and does not blow the trumpet, so that the people are not warned,and the sword comes and takes any one of them, that person is taken away in hisiniquity, but his blood I will require at the watchman’s hand.~~Ezekiel 33: 1-6
These people are called Watchmen.
There is a name for those that attempt to mislead people into thinking everything is fine too, or should agree to things that have been disastrous in the past and would be again. And this song keeps going through my mind when I think about them. Yesh lanu tayis.
Keep your eyes open, and choose carefully who you listen to.
When it comes to the subject of Jews in today’s Europe, I am pretty jaded. Yes, I forward articles and commentary to family and friends. The news so percolates with these stories I know I am a Johnny-One-Note. Still, the Atlantic article Claire blogged about made me very sad, because, despite all the possibilities, they seem so… doomed. And, sooner rather than later.
There is no small amount of pride involved in their staying. As the article mentions, most French Jews are from North Africa. They kind of skip quickly over it, but while the world “knows” all about the displaced Muslim Arabs in the wake of the 1948 war, remarkably few know of the Jews who lived in Muslim lands. They had lived the degrading sting of being the “Dhimmi” all of their lives.
When the Jews of Israel were NOT driven into the sea by victorious Muslim armies in 1948, 1956, 1967, 1973, etc. Eight Hundred Fifty Thousand Jews of the Muslim countries, some of whom had resided there for nearly two thousand years, were unceremoniously stripped of their citizenship, homes, businesses and possessions and driven out. From Morocco to Iran. Running for their lives.
No wonder they are hardened to being driven out, especially by Muslim thugs, or their Jew-Hating native European soul-mates. It is insulting in the extreme. A very raw nerve.
Many settled in France and became instant assets. A huge population of Persian Jews lives in Los Angeles, bringing traditions of hard work, deep-rooted ethics, and firm loyalty to their new homes. This is the way of the Jews in the Diaspora. And many of these Jews settled in Israel and became instant assets there too.
And, to blow that “Note” (a blowing a shofar, if you will) again… A story closer to home:
My son and his family also live here in the USA, in a modern, economically stable metropolis. They live in the “nice” part of town. This is not a town known for Jews. A local rabbi in the neighborhood runs a very small orthodox congregation out of his house.
A few years ago a neighbor alleged that having those Jews there, all in one place, for a couple of hours every Saturday, and on their weird holidays, was driving down the property values. He sued. It cost the congregation monies they did not have to spare, and shoved off plans for a more permanent home for the congregation. The neighbor lost (but, not really, right?).
Then the Homeowner’s Association alleged much the same thing and also sued. More money picked from a little shul too small and too poor to even rent a building to pray in. The building fund depleted with legal fees, the plans pushed off again. The HOA lost (but, not really, right?).
Recently, the City itself decided to joint the party and sued the little shul, too.
The other day a SWASTIKA was found painted on a car near the little shul-in-a-house.
How soon until people start getting beaten up walking to synagogue? How soon until a mason jar of jellied gasoline crashes through a front window during the Passover Seder? Opening the door and calling for the Prophet Elijah in one breath and screaming as your family burns alive in the next?
In the end, there is only ONE place where a Jew belongs. If enough landsmen “Make Aliyah” (literally, To Ascend) to their own home, they may face enemies near and far, but they will have more security to live their lives and fulfill their destiny than anywhere else on earth. http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/706162/jewish/Translation.htm
So I will sound that one “Note” again.
Jew. Shma! Have you packed your bags?
This topic is more Y.B.’s beat than mine. Perhaps he’ll have more to say. But this Atlantic article on the current predicament of Jews in Europe disturbed me as much as anything I’ve read about the fatal squeeze being put on Europe’s Jewish remnant.
Muslims (who outnumber Jews in Europe now by an order of magnitude) may provide the “muscle” these days when it comes to harming Jews. But the traditional prejudice of Christian and secular Europeans makes it easy for long-time Europeans to turn a blind eye, mutter in secret agreement, or otherwise support the barbarity.
The bottom line lesson is one we all know: Self defense can’t be delegated. Europe’s Jews will ultimately have to protect themselves. But how? Without an honored right to bear arms, they’re caught between being bankrupted by hiring security or fleeing to Israel — a nation that will welcome them right into the most dangerous region of the world.
Europe’s governments may promise to protect them and may even make token efforts in that direction. But seriously? You think “I’m from the government and I’m here to help you” is going to work magic for the safety of Europe’s Jews?
An excerpt from the article:
France’s 475,000 Jews represent less than 1 percent of the country’s population. Yet last year, according to the French Interior Ministry, 51 percent of all racist attacks targeted Jews. The statistics in other countries, including Great Britain, are similarly dismal. In 2014, Jews in Europe were murdered, raped, beaten, stalked, chased, harassed, spat on, and insulted for being Jewish. Sale Juif—“dirty Jew”—rang in the streets, as did “Death to the Jews,” and “Jews to the gas.”
The epithet dirty Jew, Zola wrote in “J’Accuse …!,” was the “scourge of our time.” “J’Accuse …!” was published in 1898.
The resurgence of anti-Semitism in Europe is not — or should not be — a surprise. One of the least surprising phenomena in the history of civilization, in fact, is the persistence of anti-Semitism in Europe, which has been the wellspring of Judeophobia for 1,000 years. The Church itself functioned as the centrifuge of anti-Semitism from the time it rebelled against its mother religion until the middle of the 20th century. As Jonathan Sacks, the former chief rabbi of Great Britain, has observed, Europe has added to the global lexicon of bigotry such terms as Inquisition, blood libel, auto‑da‑fé, ghetto, pogrom, and Holocaust. Europe has blamed the Jews for an encyclopedia of sins. The Church blamed the Jews for killing Jesus; Voltaire blamed the Jews for inventing Christianity. In the febrile minds of anti-Semites, Jews were usurers and well-poisoners and spreaders of disease. Jews were the creators of both communism and capitalism; they were clannish but also cosmopolitan; cowardly and warmongering; self-righteous moralists and defilers of culture. Ideologues and demagogues of many permutations have understood the Jews to be a singularly malevolent force standing between the world and its perfection.
Shades of Adolf Hitler. New century, different uniforms. Same deadly peril.