By Diane Bederman 5.3.23
During Roman times Jews made up 10% of the population of the Roman Empire. Today, there should be 200 million Jews. There are only 15 million in a world of 8 billion: There are 2 billion Muslims, 2 billion Christians and Catholics.
Why is that?
Could it be innate, systemic endemic Jew hatred?
Look around- Nazis to the left of me; Muslims to the right of me: here I am, the Jew, stuck in the middle, again.
What we saw happen in Nazi Germany is happening in America. The Vanishing Jew. Not that America hasn’t been down that road, before. Instead of calling for the erasure of Jews because of “race,” it is now about diversity. Does it matter what the reason? The end result is the same.
A review.
On February 20, 1939, the German American Bund held an “Americanization” rally in New York’s Madison Square Garden, denouncing conspiracies, President Roosevelt, and others. Banners at the rally had messages like “Stop Jewish Domination of Christian Americans” and “Wake Up America. Smash Jewish Communism. We, with American ideals, demand that our government shall be returned to the American people who founded it…If you ask what we are actively fighting for under our charter: First, a socially just, white, Gentile-ruled United States. Second, Gentile-controlled labor unions, free from Jewish Moscow-directed domination.”
Not to be outdone, in 2022, February 25, 2023, almost 80 years after the Holocaust, and the German American Bund party, the Goyim Defense League (Goyim is the Jewish word for non-Jews) called for a National Day of Hate against the Jews. Thankfully, it didn’t pan out – but not for lack of trying. Can you imagine a day of hate against Black people? Gay people, Muslims? No? Neither can I.
More on that later.
Did you know the Nazis and Muslims had a mutual admiration society? The Nazis admired the Muslims. And the feeling was mutual.
During WWII, Muslims in the Middle East called out:
“In Heaven, Allah is your ruler. On Earth, it is Adolf Hitler.”
By the time hitler began spreading his own antisemitism, the Muslims had already subjected the Jews under their rule to more than a thousand years of dhimmitude. The Arab Higher Committee, broadcast nightly incendiary hate messages beginning with words “Oh Muslims,” and told to undertake all things calculated to advance a German victory, which promised an Arab state in Palestine and a disappeared Jewish population.
An Arab state on Jewish land built around the Holy Temple.
The Temple in Jerusalem, built by King Solomon in 957 BCE, with its forty-five foot coffered ceiling had reached up into the blue velvet sky over the sacred city of Jerusalem. It was an extraordinary piece of architecture, an elegant and awesome home, to hold the place of glory for the Lord. It had taken King Solomon, son of David, seven years to complete on Mount Moriah, the place of the Akedah, the binding of Isaac, where Abraham had brought his only son to sacrifice to God.
In the last months of the war while hitler hid in his bunker he lamented that the Third Reich’s efforts to mobilize the Muslim world had not been strong enough. “All Islam vibrated at the news of our victories,” and Muslims had been “ready to rise in revolt.”
But hitler need not have feared. Haj Amin al-Husseini worked to unite the Arabs with the Nazis, economically and ideologically, in an anti-Jewish Islamic movement across India to Central Europe and on to the Middle East.
“We the Palestinian nation, our fate from Allah is to be the vanguard in the war against the Jews until the resurrection of the dead, as the prophet Muhammad said: ‘The resurrection of the dead will not arrive until you will fight the Jews and kill them… ’ We the Palestinians are the vanguard in this undertaking and in this campaign, whether or not we want this…
“Oh, our Arab brethren… Oh, our Muslim brethren… Don’t leave the Palestinians alone in the war against the Jews…even if it has been decreed upon us to be the vanguard… Jerusalem, Palestine and Al Aksa (The Temple Mount), the land that Allah blessed and its surrounding areas will remain at the center of the struggle between Truth and Falsehood, between the Jews and the non-Jews on this sacred land, regardless of how many agreements are signed, regardless of how many treaties and covenants are ratified. For the Truth is in the Koran, as verified by the words of the prophet Muhammad that the decisive battle will be in Jerusalem and its environs: ‘The resurrection of the dead will not occur until you make war on the Jews…’
“The battle with the Jews will surely come… the decisive Muslim victory is coming without a doubt, and the prophet spoke about in more than one Hadith and the Day of Resurrection will not come without the victory of the believers the Muslims over the descendants of the monkeys and pigs the Jews and with their annihilation.”
“Oh Allah, accept our martyrs in the highest heavens…
Oh Allah, show the Jews a black day…
Oh Allah, annihilate the Jews and their supporters…
Oh Allah, raise the flag of Jihad across the land.”“Our battle with World Jewry … is a question of life and death. It is a battle between two conflicting faiths, each of which can exist only on the ruins of the other.”
“When the Jews are wiped out…the sun of peace would begin to rise on the entire world.”
But wait…there’s more.
Nazis to the left of me; Muslims to the right of me: here I am, the Jew, stuck in the middle, again
Jew hatred has been promoted in the Black community.
Louis Farrakhan, the American leader of the Nation of Islam. Here was someone echoing the familiar. Bringing the horrors of the past into the present. No antisemite was he. Oh no, he was anti-termite. And friends with Obama.
He preached as leader of the Nation of Islam in America.
“Hitler is a very great man.”
“And don’t you forget, when it’s God who puts you in the ovens, it’s forever!”
“Satanic Jews have infected the whole world with poison and deceit.”
“And you do with me as is written, but remember that I have warned you that Allah will punish you. You are wicked deceivers of the American people. You have sucked their blood. You are not real Jews, those of you that are not real Jews. You are the synagogue of Satan, and you have wrapped your tentacles around the U.S. government, and you are deceiving and sending this nation to hell. But I warn you in the name of Allah, you would be wise to leave me alone. But if you choose to crucify me, know that Allah will crucify you.”
“The false Jew will lead you to filth and indecency.”
“I know they stoned Jesus. I know they’ve killed the prophets of God there.”
And Feb.26, 2023 in Chicago,the day after the declared Day of Rage against the Jews Farrakhan raged on with a relentless stream of antisemitic commentary accusing Jews of controlling world governments, the media, and financial institutions. He promoted the false idea that Jews seek to manipulate and exploit Black people, deceive and destroy America, and engage in other nefarious or illicit activities.
Throughout his speech, Farrakhan spoke about the “Synagogue of Satan,” a phrase from the Bible that the Nation of Islam and other antisemites often use to refer to Jews in a derogatory manner. Much of the speech read like a laundry list of age-old antisemitic tropes and conspiracies about alleged Jewish power as Farrakhan decried the nature and activities of this so-called Synagogue of Satan. “The Synagogue of Satan has destroyed the country,” he said.
Farrakhan commented that Jewish people “have control of so much that shapes thinking and the human mind” and added that “these demons, at every door that leads to power, they have a sentinel on watch.
What was frightening was the appreciation of the audience for this hateful spewing.
And, today, we see members of the Black community cowardly attacking Jews on the street.
Nazis to the left of me; Muslims to the right of me: here I am, the Jew, stuck in the middle, again
Not to be outdone, back to Florida. Same Nazi talk. Jew hatred in Florida;same attacks as Nazis. The call for a National Day of Hate.
Look at these people in their colourful summer attire.
Listen to them. Go back to Israel! No, go back to Europe!
I read that there are some who believe this was a false flag. That those in government who want to paint the right as evil created this event. Does it matter? False flag or not, there was a call to attack Jews. No shame. No fear of reprisal.
Seems we have been there before. But now we have social media to spread the hate. Where are all those Progressives who promote diversity, inclusion and equity? Guess there is no room for Jews.
When will we ever learn? When will we ever learn?
(Excerpts from The Serpent and The Red Thread:The Definitive Biography of Evil appear in this article. The book is part of the collection at Yad Vashem Library in Jerusalem and the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.C.)
From the Ethics of the Fathers: “Rabbi Tarfon used to say, it is not incumbent upon you to complete the task, but you are not exempt from undertaking it.”
@Arthur Wellesley
Case in point:
https://youtu.be/9_OIs49m56E
@Raphael I get no respect.
@Sebastian Zorn
Where can I catch your show?
@Raphael Tell me about it? When I was a smoker, all the time, I used to get, “Hey, buddy, got a light?” Badda Bing Badda boom. 😀
It took me a long time, almost a lifetime, to understand that “Jews” are different. All peoples, of course, have their own national or ethnic identities, but Jews are fundamentally different. This is because they were chosen and set apart by Ha Shem. B’midbar says,
“… I see a people who live apart and do not consider themselves one of the nations.”
As such, mingling is not good for them, nor for the goyim. Still, as Yeshayahu says, they are to be a light to the goyim.
@dreuveni Since when are non-Jews children of Israel? “A Jew is the child of a Jewish mother or a convert.”
In a way Farrakhan (he changed his name from for business reasons) has a point. In any large city, you will often see many homeless, unwashed Jews slouched in the subway system, or lying drunk and drugged in the gutters.
@Chana: Many thanks for your entry. However, the Lord is calling for the children of Israel to return to the land of Israel, not just the Jews.
According to many reports, there are many Arabs of Jewish descent, not to speak of Europeans and even the Nazis amongst them. We need to be careful what we wish for.
@Chanah You left off the next and best part: ”
When will we learn? Yes, when will diaspora Jews learn that Hashem has called Jews to return to Israel, our real home? When will they learn that the antisemites are the hunters from Jeremiah 16:16? “Behold, I am going to send for many fishermen,” declares the LORD, “and they will fish for them; and afterwards I will send for many hunters, and they will hunt them from every mountain and every hill and from the clefts of the rocks.
Tell me about it. (sigh.)
“In the 1930s, a dark joke was told about a rabbi in Germany who was reading the Nazi paper called Der Stürmer. A congregant came up to him, astonished, and said, “Rabbi, how can you be reading that Nazi rag, filled with libels of the worst kind. Are you some kind of masochist, or, God forbid, a self-hating Jew?”
“On the contrary,” the rabbi responded, “When I used to read the Jewish papers, all I learned about were pogroms, riots in Palestine, and assimilation in America. But now that I read Der Stürmer, I see that the Jews control all the banks, we pull all the strings in the art world and cinema, and that we’re on the verge of taking over the entire world. You know – it makes me feel a whole lot better!””
In a way, Farrakhan (formally a singer called ‘Calypso Gene’ who further changed his name from Louis Eugene Walcott for business reasons) has a point. In New York, for instance, it’s very common to see shabby homeless unwashed Jews lending a peculiar odour to the subway cars in which they sleep. Additionally it’s almost invariably Jews whom one sees passed out through drink or drugs, lying in gutters. Or for that matter, staggering around the inner city streets in brightly- coloured clothing, screaming nonsense and mugging passers-by, while playing Hasidic rap music at ear-splitting volume. But we have to cut them some slack because they have been persecuted for quite a while and have problems with literacy and numeracy due to a prejudiced school system.