By Ron Jager, AMERICAN THINKER
In the United States, the two groups that most ardently support Israel are Jews and evangelical Christians. Jewish support is easy to explain, but why should certain Christians, most of them politically quite conservative, be so devoted to Israel? There is a second puzzle: despite their support for a Jewish state, evangelical and fundamentalist Christians are disliked by many American Jews.
The evidence about evangelical attitudes is clear. In 2006, a Pew survey found that evangelical Christians were more favorable toward Israel than the average American was—and much more sympathetic than either mainline Protestants or secularists. In another survey, evangelical Christians proved much likelier than Catholics, Protestants, or secular types to back Israeli control of Jerusalem, endorse Israeli settlements on the West Bank, and take Israel’s side in a Middle Eastern dispute. Among every religious group, those who are most traditional are most supportive of Israel.
Evangelical Christians have a high opinion not just of the Jewish state but of Jews as people. That Jewish voters are overwhelmingly liberal doesn’t seem to bother evangelicals, despite their own conservative politics. Yet Jews don’t return the favor: in one Pew survey, 42 percent of Jewish respondents expressed hostility towards evangelicals and fundamentalists. In comparison, in a study of religious attitudes on a national scale, two scholars from Baruch College have shown, a much smaller fraction—about 16 percent—of the American public has similarly antagonistic feelings toward Christian fundamentalists.
So what is it about Christians and their support for Israel that makes some Jews at times uneasy? I can even imagine what makes Jews – especially liberal Jews – nervous about this huge group of Israel lovers: their conservative values, an uncompromising stance on the Middle East peace process and support for Israel; the theological slant of their support for Israel.
Christians love to love Israel unconditionally, and express love for Jews unconditionally. There is something almost non-Jewish about it. Jews usually do not talk about unconditional love. It’s not something that usually turns us on. We are more into debate, questioning, challenging and rattling the cage. Christians love to love. Jews love to kvetch.
So why do we find so little expression of unconditional love among Jews? Is it because we Jews confuse love with supporting official policy? That is, if we disagree with Israel’s policies, do we find it difficult – even impossible – to express unconditional love for Israel? Moreover, how many Israel supporters who disagree with Israel’s policies can honestly say that their love for Israel is, in fact, unconditional?
When one considers the worldwide movement in recent years to de-legitimize the State of Israel, that is, the enemies of Israel are not looking for a debate. Their aim is not to engage or interact but to undermine and demonize. Their opposition is not open to reason or good will. In short, their hatred is unconditional. This being the current geo-strategic reality challenging Israel, than why should some Jews be uneasy by Christians’ unconditional love toward Israel?
How better to fight unconditional hatred than with unconditional love? What better weapon against the forces working to delegitimize Israel than a force that unequivocally expresses love of Israel? Of course, we Jews should never stop doing what we do best: argue, debate, challenge and unconditionally “Kvetch”. However, this must be conducted within a common consensus meaning that Israel must remain the national homeland of the Jewish people.
But we can’t love the process more than we love Israel itself. For Israel supporters, unconditional love is the emotion that ought to trump all others; the emotion that fuels and gives meaning to our actions. I can challenge my child and rebuke him, but I can never forget to show him unconditional love. Many of our debates about Israel have become coarse and divisive. One reason is that in our zeal to express tough, critical love, we have forgotten about pure love, unconditional love so common among our Christian supporters throughout the United States.
Two weeks ago, on the final day of the yearly Christians United For Israel (CUFI) Washington Summit, thousands of CUFI activists took to The Hill to lobby their congressman to stand with Israel and to support the Taylor Force Act ending funding to the Palestinian Authority who have for years been making monthly stipends to convicted and imprisoned terrorists and their families. A kind of social security payment for Palestinian mass murderers of innocent children, Israeli’s, and tourists. These Christian supporters of Israel made their voices heard on Capitol Hill, showing that America stands with Israel.
We have much to learn from our Christian supporters and how they express unconditional love for Israel. It is this unconditional love that can bind us together, Christians and Jews in our undivided support for the State of Israel and send a strong message of deterrence to Israel’s enemies.
The writer, a 25-year veteran of the I.D.F., served as a field mental health officer. Prior to retiring in 2005, served as the Commander of the Central Psychiatric Military Clinic for Reserve Soldiers at Tel-Hashomer. Since retiring from active duty, he provides consultancy services to NGO’s implementing Psycho trauma and Psycho education programs to communities in the North and South of Israel. Today, Ron is a strategic advisor to the at the Office of the Chief Foreign Envoy of Judea and Samaria. To contact: medconf@netvision.net.il
@ Sebastien Zorn:
You DID have to respond… didn’t you…..!!
@ Edgar G.:
OK, I will let you have the last word.
@ Sebastien Zorn:
Thank you for telling me that H. Rider Haggard is his full name. I didn’t know. I began collecting his books only about 65 years ago, so please excuse me.
There was another once well known Haggard…”William Haggard” who wrote a very fine, often humourous “History of Medicine”, although I can’t find him on the internet. I haven’t the skills. But I have the book.. I recall him castigating the Chamberlen Brothers and descendants, There was also a line where he mentioned an 18th cent. physician equally expert at taking a pulse with one hand whilst holding out the other for the fee….. Well worth reading Sebastien-if you can find it.
As for giving orders, I was not giving orders I was making an abject plea; I make it again……..PLEASE DON”T RESPOND….
@ Edgar G.:
H. Rider Haggard is his full name and the reference I was asking for. I see that many of his books are available as ebooks, many for free, on Amazon KIndle, Google Playbooks and Gutenberg Project, Did I mention that I loathe physical books and only read them as a last resort? Never heard of him. Thanks for the reference. Don’t give orders. I don’t take orders.
@ Sebastien Zorn:
The title of what………. DON’T ANSWER THIS……He wrote dozens of books. By the way, earlier I think I mentioned Isaacs as the founder of Port Elizabeth in Natal, Sth. Africa’s second largest city. That was a typo I mean, of course Durban, which is in Natal, Originally the whole of Natal was deeded to Isaacs by Chaka. I think Francis Fynn was also a co-founder of the city.
I don’t know Haggard. I asked for the title and author.
@ Sebastien Zorn:
Reference for What…??
I told you that I’m going through Haggard’s stories in Gutenberg, one at a time; recently in “Nada the Lily” (which closely depicts Chaka and Dingaan, based on Isaacs “Travels etc”). Now I’m at “People of the Mist”. The only one I haven’t been able to read is “The Pearl Maiden”. Purportedly about a Christian group beginning in the year 44, in the last year of Herod Agrippa, long before there were Christians, description of Agrippa as a cruel Roman, when he was the very opposite, and heavily fictionised account of his death, of bishops etc. who wouldn’t come on the scene for over 200 years, and the various Christian practices which never became standard until at least after the Council of Nicea, which was 300 years later. This is his worst written and researched book, very heavily and poorly anachronised. You might say that the 4 gospels, themselves only appearing about 100 years later, were used as a “text book” rather than history, and THEY were mangled.
Haggard’s historical pieces are usually so close to known fact that I was surprised.
It was too much for me.
@ Edgar G.:
Haggard? Reference, please.
@ Sebastien Zorn:
Not exactly. The Vendyl Jones thing was only a single mention in a mass of information about the movie on the internet, and amongst the suggested templates for the character-totally against ALL the creator has said about it- one was T.E. Lawrence, which is how I came to mention him. As I was on the subject of magic and myths etc, I included Lawrence as a partly made up character, in fact greatly made up by Lowell Thomas. I gave my reasons for accepting Haggard’s stories which mentioned Zulu magic here and there, and I mentioned thatI’d checked back on Nathaniel Isaacs from birth to death because of the Isaacs connection on St Helena of my in-laws. To conclude, nearly all we know about the Zulu early kingdoms is because of Isaacs who wrote a journal, or travel chronicle, can’t recall the name exactly. And later writers took their descriptions and characters from his work. He was granted the whole of Natal by Chaka, and founded what later became Port Elizabeth, now Sth. Africa’s second largest city. and so on and so on…
To con-conclude, I dispute your assertion that Vendyl Jones was the inspiration for Indiana Jones. The inventor was quite cleat, and the little vignette as to how the name arose, “Indiana” being the name of his dog, and Spielberg objecting to “Smith” and the inventor suggesting “Jones”, being purely incidental, is quite compelling.
@ Edgar G.:
No, I read that about Isaacs and the Zulus but I don’t know what it has to do with the topic at hand. The question under discussion was knee-jerk mistrust of Christians. I gave an example of Vendyl Jones, and that, incidentally, he was probably, at least in part, the template for the very popular Indiana Jones character and you launched into a whole thing about that challenging the authenticity of T.E. Lawrence for good measure.
Thank you for introducing me to Isaacs, though. I wasn’t aware of any Jewish African explorers. Exciting find.
Incidentally, the deleted comment about the Pianist includes the discovery that the memoir on which the movie is based talks about how his families lives were saved by fellow musicians who were working for the Nazis as “police” looking for Jews, and how the German officer who saved him was actually a rescuer of Jews, generally, who disappeared into the Soviet gulag and he couldn’t get him out despite his friendship with the head of the Polish secret police after the war.
The movie is more cynical. He calls him, “Jew.” Not in the book.
@ Sebastien Zorn:
The reason you have no idea as to why I mentioned Isaacs who had deep connections with The Zulus and their king Chaka is because you didn’t read the last line of my post where I actually said that there is no connection between Lawrence and Isaacs, but there is a connection between Isaacs and Chaka and the Zulus. Isaacs was the founder of Port Elizabeth. I mentioned that I had been reading all about Chaka and the Zulus in Rider Haggard’s vbooks just 2 posts before.
I mentioned “speed reading” because I believed that you had not read my post to the end, else you would no have told us all that there was no connection between Lawrence and Isaacs, basically using my words. Because I’d already acknowledged, this and further, gave the reason what I mentioned Isaacs. I still can’t understand why you mentioned what I’d already iterated, as if I’d committed a faux pas.
I’m logical not mystical.
@ Sebastien Zorn:
Son of Hamas is now available with an all-new chapter about events since the book’s release such as the revelation of Mosab’s Israeli intelligence handler’s true identity, and Homeland Security’s effort to deport the author.
Since he was a small boy, Mosab Hassan Yousef has had an inside view of the deadly terrorist group Hamas. The oldest son of Sheikh Hassan Yousef, a founding member of Hamas and its most popular leader, young Mosab assisted his father for years in his political activities while being groomed to assume his legacy, politics, status . . . and power. But everything changed when Mosab turned away from terror and violence, and embraced instead the teachings of another famous Middle East leader. In Son of Hamas, Mosab reveals new information about the world’s most dangerous terrorist organization and unveils the truth about his own role, his agonizing separation from family and homeland, the dangerous decision to make his newfound faith public, and his belief that the Christian mandate to “love your enemies” is the only way to peace in the Middle East” Amazon has it
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosab_Hassan_Yousef
and
Ashraf Marwan
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ashraf Marwan
Ashraf Marwan.jpg
Born Ashraf Marwan
2 February 1944
Cairo, Egypt
Died 27 June 2007 (aged 63)
London, United Kingdom
Occupation Businessman
Known for Possible Egyptian or Israeli Spy
Spouse(s) Mona Gamal Abdel Nasser
Children Gamal Marwan, Ahmed Marwan
Ashraf Marwan (Arabic: ???? ?????) (2 February 1944 – 27 June 2007) was an Egyptian billionaire and the husband of Mona Gamal Abdel Nasser, daughter of former Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser. Since 1969 Marwan served in the Presidential Office, first under Nasser and, then as a close aide to his successor, President Anwar Sadat. In 2002 it became known that, during the period leading up to the October 1973 Yom Kippur War, Marwan spied for Israel (under the Mossad code-name “The Angel”), disclosing some of Egypt’s best-kept secrets.[citation needed] His warning on 5 October 1973 that “war will start tomorrow”, triggered an emergency Israeli military mobilization and prevented a complete surprise on 6 October and the complete occupation of the Golan Heights by the Syrian Army a day later.[citation needed] Marwan died under mysterious circumstances in June 2007, falling from the balcony of his expensive London house.
Maj. Gen. (ret.) Zvi Zamir, the Mossad Chief who was one of Marwan’s handlers, describes him as “the best source we have ever had.[1]”Simon Parkin, a British journalist who investigated the case, regards him as the “20th century’s greatest spy.[2]” Others claim that Marwan was a “double-spy” who worked for Sadat and deceived the Israelis. Recent evidence[3] has questioned this claim.[4]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashraf_Marwan
We have friends and enemies everywhere, sometimes open and sometimes hidden. People usually say what they mean. Let’s not stereotype individuals without reason. Let’s not bite the open hand extended to us.
That does not include Sadat, obviously, his hand was never open, we just chose to ignore it. See Eidelberg “Sadat’s Strategy” or Arafat who boasted in Arabic on the radio that Oslo was like the treaty of Hubadaiya the night before he signed it.
@ Edgar G.:
Ate my edit. Once again.
Your comment reminded me of this because the beginning of the book has a scene omitted in the movie in which he and some friends are sitting on somebody’s bed and a bomb destroys the other half of the bed and kills everybody sitting on that side.
The movie actually is a distorted and truncated account of the book combined with some of Polanski’s own memories and general cynicism.
Life and people are more complicated than that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pianist_(memoir)
Amazon has the book and the movie in both paper and kindle, dvd and instant
@ Edgar G.:
I was taking a course on the Holocaust and film at one point and had to write papers on films about the Holocaust. Polanski’s “The Pianist” came out around this time and the autobiography on which it was based of the same title was sold at the a big Record store that isn’t there anymore in the classical music section.
The film distorts certain things mostly through omission. Before his family is murdered by Nazis, which is how the film begins, he and his family are allowed to pass through a detail of Polish “police” looking for Jews because they recognize him as a fellow musician. The German officer who hides and protects him because he likes his piano playing but calls him “Jew” instead of by his name, in real life, was an officer in military intelligence for the artillery, or something battle related, who brought shoes, clothing and food to Jewish children and helped Jews escape in his part time, even before. He doesn’t call him, “Jew” in the book. He’s a warm guy. He was later arrested by the Soviets for his military role in intelligence, and died in a Gulag. The pianist couldn’t get him out, despite his friendship after the war with the head of the Polish KGB.
Ever hear of him: He wrote a famous autobiography:
“Jerusalem Post Annual Conference
‘SON OF HAMAS’ TELLS JERUSALEM POST CONFERENCE: ISLAM IS THE PROBLEM
> ‘Son of Hamas’: Taking down Hamas is a necessity
> ‘Green Prince’ to speak at Jerusalem Post Conference in NY
BYARIEL BEN SOLOMON MAY 22, 2016 21:17
Yousef mentioned that he first became acquainted with the ‘Post’ when he was in an Israeli prison 20 years ago.
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“Green Prince” at Jerusalem Post Conference.
“Green Prince” at Jerusalem Post Conference.
Play Video
“Green Prince” at Jerusalem Post Conference.
Mosab Hassan Yousef – the “Green Prince” – who worked as an Israeli spy, said “the Jewish nation is dear to me and when I see nations fighting against the Jewish people it hurts me.”
http://www.jpost.com/Annual-Conference/Son-of-Hamas-tells-JPost-conference-Islam-is-the-problem-454703
@ Edgar G.:
I excerpted the stuff about Pope Paul that was about how he was friends with Jews in his youth, he rescued Jews during the Shoah, and he twice refused to allow Jewish babies to be baptised, and he worked for them to be re-united with their Jewish relatives. He explicitly condemned raising Jewish babies as Christians.
I have no idea why you mentioned Isaacs.
Lawrence was both Arabist and Zionist and was instrumental in arranging the Feisal-Weizman Agreement, the basis for this conference, for which he was the interpreter.
The “magic” of the first installment of the Indiana Jones series is not magic at all —
except to a philosophical materialist — but mainstream mysticism in Judaism.
I don’t understand the speed-reading comment. You post a lot and I read it. I didn’t post a huge amount. If you don’t read it, what can we talk about?
Unsubstantiated comments amount to little more than “he said, she said.” Nothing, but unsupported opinion, in other words. There is such a thing as objective truth, even if it’s sometimes difficult to determine.
There is no justification for being prejudiced for or against people just for being Christians. That’s what we are talking about here. These are examples of Christians who have been philo-semites and anti-semites. That’s the point.
Also, the coincidence with Vendyl Jones is very close. He wasn’t a swashbuckler but he was inspired by the Qumran excerpt which lists artifacts to discover sacred Jewish artifacts. He did in fact, discover 900 pounds of incense from the Temple.
Note the scene, in which the Nazi sponsored archaelogist dressed as a Kohen, after reciting a Hebrew prayer, has the Ark opened and finds the Tablets have become as fine as dust ( or incense) which then comes to life and destroys him and the other Nazis.
It’s like Vendyl Jones meets Edgar Rice.
@ Sebastien Zorn:
Perhaps you’re a speed reader….. I specifically pointed ouf that there was no connection between Lawrence and Isaacs, but that there was with Natal and Zulus. I’ll elucidate. In my previous post I wrote that I was reading through Haggard, who often mentions (Zulu) magic,but explained why I could accept this and disdain Raiders of the whatever. I never fell for a single one of Goebbel’s stuff during the War and ignore the Raiders stuff just as easily. But it’s irksome.
I
‘ve known about Sugihara for years. And I apologise for not reading the thrilling account of Pope Paul’s youth and years. The first few lines only. And I knew about the Nazi “Altar Boy” Bumpf. Gosh Sebastien, any moderately read person who lived through or close to that period would know all these things.
Two of My most vivid memories of the War.(apart from being blown across the room in a bed full of glass shards, when a Nazi plane unloaded some bombs).are… Another bomb across the st. blew the shochet’s house into rubble. 7 family members all dug out without a scratch.
My Dear Father, Olov HaSholom, always listened to the radio for the 9.p.m BBC news. It was like Torah for us all. We all gathered ’round.
Being partially deaf, and often lots of static , my father would be leaning right over, ear close to the radio -eyes closed.. One stormy night, a large flash leaped from the radio. The radio aerial was attached to a 40 ft. pole at the bottom of the garden. A bolt must have caught it.. My father was not hurt, never even saw it,.
To me a miracle. I’m too parochial maybe. The culled torrents of other peoples ideas..Keep then for better targets…..Pleeeese.
@ Edgar G.:
Nathaniel Isaacs was unrelated as far as I can see.
He and T.E. Lawrence were real people.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T._E._Lawrence
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathaniel_Isaacs
T.E. Lawrence was the interpreter for the 1918 Feisal-Weizman Agreement
http://www.israeldiaries.com/the-feisal-weizmann-agreement-is-not-what-it-appears/
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/418688/lawrence-arabia-was-zionist-benjamin-weinthal
@ Edgar G.:
Chiune Sugihara, known as the “Japanese Schindler” who saved possibly as many as 10,000 Lithuainian Jews in defiance of his government, was a Greek Orthodox Christian.
http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Israel-honors-Japans-Schindler-who-saved-thousands-of-Jews-in-WWII-456199
Hitler and HImmler were altar boys.
Pope Paul II
“…As a boy, Wojty?a was athletic, often playing football as goalkeeper.[22] During his childhood, Wojty?a had contact with Wadowice’s large Jewish community.[23] School football games were often organised between teams of Jews and Catholics, and Wojty?a often played on the Jewish side.[18][22] “I remember that at least a third of my classmates at elementary school in Wadowice were Jews. At elementary school there were fewer. With some I was on very friendly terms. And what struck me about some of them was their Polish patriotism.”[24] It was around this time that the young Karol had his first serious relationship with a girl. He became close to a girl called Ginka Beer, described as “a Jewish beauty, with stupendous eyes and jet black hair, slender, a superb actress.”[25]”
“…On the night of 17 January 1945, the Germans fled the city, and the students reclaimed the ruined seminary. Wojty?a and another seminarian volunteered for the task of clearing away piles of frozen excrement from the toilets.[34] Wojty?a also helped a 14-year-old Jewish refugee girl named Edith Zierer,[35] who had escaped from a Nazi labour camp in Cz?stochowa.[35] Edith had collapsed on a railway platform, so Wojty?a carried her to a train and stayed with her throughout the journey to Kraków. Edith credits Wojty?a with saving her life that day.[36][37][38] B’nai B’rith and other authorities have said that Wojty?a helped protect many other Polish Jews from the Nazis. During the Nazi occupation of Poland, a Jewish family sent its son, Stanley Berger, to be hidden by a Gentile Polish family. Berger’s biological Jewish parents died during the Holocaust, and after the war Berger’s new Christian parents asked a young Polish priest named Karol Wojty?a, the future Pope John Paul II, to baptise the boy. The future pope refused, claiming that the child should be raised in the Jewish faith of his birth parents and nation, not as a Catholic.[39] In September 2003, Emmanuelle Pacifici, the head of Italy’s Jewish community, proposed that John Paul II receive the medal of a Righteous Among the Nations for saving a two-year-old Jewish boy by giving him to a Gentile Polish family to be hidden in 1942, when Karol Wojty?a was just a seminarian. After the war, this boy’s Christian adopted parents asked the future Pope John Paul II to baptise the boy, yet once again he refused, as with Berger. After the war, Karol Wojty?a did everything he could to ensure that this Jewish boy he saved leave Poland to be raised by his Jewish relatives in the United States.[40] In April 2005, shortly after John Paul II’s death, the Israeli government created a commission to honour the legacy of John Paul II. One of the proposed ways of honouring him was to give him the medal of the Righteous Among the Nations.[41] In Wojty?a’s last book, Memory and Identity, he described the 12 years of the Nazi régime as “bestiality”,[42] quoting from the Polish theologian and philosopher Konstanty Michalski…[43]”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_John_Paul_II
Goering had a Jewish stepfather and a brother who used his position as Goering’ brother to rescue Jews.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_G%C3%B6ring
http://www.auschwitz.dk/albert.htm
People want to have their cake and eat it too. They will use the same texts to justify opposite positions.
Doesn’t Judaism say people aren’t born good or evil but have an angel on either shoulder and the power to choose, which is why we need the law so we can choose properly?
But interpretations vary, even among those who cite the law.
That’s why for me this line from the Tao Te Ching resonates:
“Chapter One
“Tao (The Way) that can be spoken of is not the Constant Tao’
The name that can be named is not a Constant Name.
Nameless, is the origin of Heaven and Earth;
The named is the Mother of all things.
Thus, the constant void enables one to observe the true essence.
The constant being enables one to see the outward manifestations.
These two come paired from the same origin.
But when the essence is manifested,
It has a different name.
This same origin is called “The Profound Mystery.”
As profound the mystery as It can be,
It is the Gate to the essence of all life. ”
http://www.with.org/tao_te_ching_en.pdf
@ Edgar G.:
What about it? There are Goyim who love us and Goyim who hate us. They are generally pretty clear on where they stand on that, regardless of what texts –whether sacred or profane — they use as pretexts. I posted this in Comments not long ago:
Edgar G. Said:
@ Edgar G.:
skip if reverent
Raiders of the Lost Ark – Opening of the Ark Ceremony
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raiders_of_the_Lost_Ark
from Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) – IMDb
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082971/
[in this scene, the Nazis try to harness the power of the Ark by re-enacting the ritual of the High Priests at prayer and as the tied up Indiana Jones says to the female heroine, “cover your eyes”, the angels destroy the Nazis.
https://youtu.be/m83JcNoNQ-4
@ Edgar G.:
My concept of the Ark is the one like George Washington\’s original guaranteed genuine axe that he chopped down the cherry tree with. It’s had 2 new heads and 4 new handles but apart from that it’s the original axe.
@ Sebastien Zorn:
Sebastien..I know ALL about Lawrence, Thomas Edward, from his birth until his death on the motor bike. He was a psychotic nut who couldn’t stand himself, I made a study of him years ago. As was aptly said of him “…he had a talent for backing slowly into the limelight…”.
As for seeing any of the Indiana Jones movies , really….REALLY….. I’m grown up and wouldn’t waste my time on a film that involves “magic”. You might think that the same sort of thing is in many of the Haggard books, but.he’s an enthralling writer, and often closely historically correct. Besides, I relive my youth through reading these books.
I stopped going to movies many years ago. Knowing that they were just actors cavorting around, quoting learned lines, spoiled it all for me, although as you know I was an avid movie goer in my younger days.
As for The Ark of the Covenant, the REAL one, it must have been destroyed and rebuilt several times due to the various conquests of Jerusalem. Believing it potent, they wouldn’t hide it until too late. They’d carry it to War even in an extremity of peril. You only have to read Whistons translation of “Antiquities” or “Wars” (Antiquities is better) to know how cunning the priests were, then …as now..
I even traced Nathaniel Isaacs from birth to death, as my South African wife had a grandfather named Isaacs from St Helena.. Nothing to do with Lawrence but all to do with Natal and Zululand.
@ Edgar G.:
Seems like too much of a coincidence even though Jones denied it himself. Obviously, it’s merged with the swashbuckling, jungle adventurer and cowboy genres you mentioned. Also, I’m sure you realize Lawrence was a real person even if his image was hype. But it was such good hype it led to the British installing the Hashemites in Eastern Palestine as a reward.
I don’t know if you have seen any of the Indiana Jones movies, but he discovers artifacts with magical powers that the evil rivals are destroyed by when they possess. In one, he fights the Nazis for possession of the Ark of the Covenant.
Sebastien Zorn Said:
Edgar G. Said:
I had casually overlooked your comment, but just now revisited it. I looked up “Indiana Jones” on the internet, and there is a huge mass of information about “him”… ( I had assumed he was fictitious, because of the fantastic movies I’d read about (never saw any).
He was a fictional character created by George Lucas in likeness of the 1930s serial movies and Pulp Magazine heros. (I used to buy the pulps and saw many serials..In Dublin they were known as “folleyer-uppers”)…… The character’s original name was “Indiana Smith”, … “Indiana” being the name of a dog Lucas owned. Spielberg didn’t like “Smith” and Lucas “casually mentioned -Jones”.. And thus was the hero named.
Of very many suggested (by critics, writers and fans) models upon which the character might have been fashioned were a sample lot of 16, the last being your suggestion, Vendyl Jones.
There is no other mention of V.J in the article. So I fail to see why you throw away Occam’s Rasor that elsewhere you strongly support, (excuse the “s”… original spelling I recollect seeing) and hit immediately on Vendyl Jones, There are a few similarities, but nothing which would make him stand out from probably 50-100 others many with palpably as good or better qualifications although many themselves were fictitious characters. So for me, 2+2 just add up to 4 …. not 22. (I have no imagination…??).
Speculation ranged from Allan Quatermain (whom I’ve been meeting whilst re-reading all Haggard’s stories -presently on “Nada the Lily”.) and Professor Challenger to T.E. Lawrence. Mind you Lawrence was also a sort of fictitious character, mainly created by Lowell Thomas. (I have “The Revolt” still, a barmitzvah present) …..
Why not just take the words of Lucas and Spielberg themselves.
@ Sebastien Zorn:
It’s also an earlier Scarlet Pimpernel which, in turn, preceded Batman as the hero is always masked and leads a double life. I wonder if it’s the earliest of the genre, even if really was written in the 19th century and not the 17th as a book from 2013 alleged, see article. A recent drama merges the genre with that of “Yentl” (Barbara Streisand. 1983)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yentl_(film)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sungkyunkwan_Scandal
https://www.dramafever.com/drama/790/Sungkyunkwan_Scandal/
https://www.viki.com/tv/1205c-sungkyunkwan-scandal?locale=en
https://www.viki.com/tv/35480c-bad-thief-good-thief?locale=en
@ Edgar G.:
Well, the article mentions the copper scroll at Qumran that inspired Jones, but my Korean drama reference was to the fact that it says that the scroll lists hidden national treasures.
“Bad Thief, Good Thief” is about the grandchildren of Korean resistance fighters and Japanese collaborators who are competing to recover a hidden map in three parts that lists the Korean national treasures that were stolen by the Japanese and re-stolen and hidden by the Korean resistance in 1933. The story starts in the 1990s when the main protagonists are children whose lives become coincidentally tangled, and continues into the present. It’s also in the Robin Hood Genre, which is really popular in Korea. They have their own Robin Hood legend “Hong Gil Dong” based on a popular novel which came out around 1700 which in turn was based on a composite of two individuals who lived in the 16th century.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong_Gildong_jeon
@ Edgar G.:
also this one: put them next to your machine and follow the steps like a recipe until it’s second nature.
Select text
https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Select-text-5ae24034-1c93-4805-bc2d-00aaf6235c97
@ Edgar G.:
You tell me. You said, of Christians,
“You know…”Respect but suspect”….That was me…still is, although they may be quite sincere and working to pile up heavenly points.”
Please read, bookmark and print out this short article:
@ Sebastien Zorn:
I suppose you’re talking about John Allegro’s Copper Scroll. I was very actively interested in that, at the time, being a collector of his books, but it was-then- more expectation than fulfillment.
@ Sebastien Zorn:
Do I suspect her of what….??
I wish I had your facility with a computer, especially the “copy and paste” part. I can’t even find them on my machine. You copy and paste reams and reams of marginally relevant info, and I have no come-back.
@ Edgar G.:
Do you suspect Chloe Valdary?
TO THE STUDENTS FOR JUSTICE IN PALESTINE, A LETTER FROM AN ANGRY BLACK WOMAN
‘You do not have the right to invoke my people’s struggle for your shoddy purposes’
By Chloe Valdary
July 28, 2014 • 12:00 AM
“The student organization Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) is prominent on many college campuses, preaching a mantra of “Freeing Palestine.” It masquerades as though it were a civil rights group when it is not. Indeed, as an African-American, I am highly insulted that my people’s legacy is being pilfered for such a repugnant agenda. It is thus high time to expose its agenda and lay bare some of the fallacies they peddle.
• If you seek to promulgate the legacy of early Islamic colonialists who raped and pillaged the Middle East, subjugated the indigenous peoples living in the region, and foisted upon them a life of persecution and degradation—you do not get to claim the title of “Freedom Fighter.”
• If you support a racist doctrine of Arab supremacism and wish (as a corollary of that doctrine) to destroy the Jewish state, you do not get to claim that the prejudices you peddle are forms of legitimate “resistance.”
• If your heroes are clerics who sit in Gaza plotting the genocide of a people; who place their children on rooftops in the hopes they will get blown to bits; who heap praises upon their fellow gang members when they succeed in murdering Jewish school boys and bombing places of activity where Jews congregate—you do not get to claim that you are some Apollonian advocate of human virtue. You are not.
• If your activities include grieving over the woefully incompetent performance by Hamas rocketeers and the subsequent millions of Jewish souls who are still alive—whose children were not murdered by their rockets; whose limbs were not torn from them; and whose disembowelment did not come into fruition—you do not get to claim that you stand for justice. You profess to be irreproachable. You are categorically not.
• If your idea of a righteous cause entails targeting and intimidating Jewish students on campus, arrogating their history of exile-and-return and fashioning it in your own likeness you do not get to claim that you do so in the name of civil liberty and freedom of expression.
• You do not get to champion regimes that murder, torture, and persecute their own people, deliberately keep them impoverished, and embezzle billions of dollar from them—and claim you are “pro-Arab.” You are not.
• You do not get to champion a system wherein Jews are barred from purchasing land, traveling in certain areas, and living out such an existence merely because they are Jews—and claim that you are promoting equality for all. You do not get to enable that system by pushing a boycott of Jewish owned businesses, shops, and entities—and then claim that you are “against apartheid.” That is evil.
• You do not get to justify the calculated and deliberate bombings, beatings, and lynchings of Jewish men, women, and children by referring to such heinous occurrences as part of a noble “uprising” of the oppressed—that is racism. It is evil.
• You do not get to pretend as though you and Rosa Parks would have been great buddies in the 1960s. Rosa Parks was a real Freedom Fighter. Rosa Parks was a Zionist.
Coretta Scott King was a Zionist.
A. Phillip Randolph was a Zionist.
Bayard Rustin was a Zionist.
Count Basie was a Zionist.
Dr. Martin Luther King Sr. was a Zionist.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was a Zionist.
Indeed, they and many more men and women signed a letter in 1975 that stated: “We condemn the anti-Jewish blacklist. We have fought too long and too hard to root out discrimination from our land to sit idly while foreign interests import bigotry to America. Having suffered so greatly from such prejudice, we consider most repugnant the efforts by Arab states to use the economic power of their newly-acquired oil wealth to boycott business firms that deal with Israel or that have Jewish owners, directors, or executives, and to impose anti-Jewish preconditions for investments in this country.”
You see, my people have always been Zionists because my people have always stood for the freedom of the oppressed. So, you most certainly do not get to culturally appropriate my people’s history for your own. You do not have the right to invoke my people’s struggle for your shoddy purposes and you do not get to feign victimhood in our name. You do not have the right to slander my people’s good name and link your cause to that of Dr. King’s. Our two causes are diametrically opposed to each other.
Your cause is the antithesis of freedom. It has cost hundreds of thousands of lives of both Arabs and Jews. It has separated these peoples, and has fomented animosity between them. It has led to heartache, torment, death and destruction.
It is of course your prerogative to continue to utilize platitudes for your cause. You are entirely within your rights to chant words like “equality” “justice” and “freedom fighter.”
You can keep using those words for as long as you like. But I do not think you know what they mean.”
http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/180382/students-justice-palestine
http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/author/chloe-valdary/
http://www.cameraoncampus.org/blog/tag/chloe-valdary/
@ Edgar G.:
@ ebyjeeby:
I learned the punchline as “what’s the difference?” but other than sounding more Jewish, what’ s the difference, right? I’m just saying.
@ Edgar G.:
“The Odd Couple: My Strife in Court (#3.19)” (1973)
Felix Unger: [to woman on witness stand] Ah… you *assumed*. My dear, you should never *assume*. You see, when you *assume*
[writes the word “assume” on a blackboard, then circles each element as he says:]
Felix Unger: , you make an *ass*… out of *you*… and *me*.
Odd Couple TV Series 1970-75
“The Odd Couple – Assume”
https://youtu.be/LfvTwv5o1Qs
@ Edgar G.:
Occam’s Razor:
“Among competing hypotheses, the one with the fewest assumptions should be selected.”/strong>
Evangelicals are about as different from Catholics as the ZOA is from J Street. Although he didn’t use the term ‘unconditional love’ it seems to me that the Lubavitcher Rebbe practiced this with everyone, especially Jews. I’m currently reading Telushkin’s biography of the Rebbe. Great read about an amazing man.
@ Sebastien Zorn:
Another point is that to Jews who are really, through genetic experience I suppose, very aware of the style of others and regard the Evangelical Christians as a bit unreal, you know unctuous and “up to something”…….I’ve always found them to be rather oily myself, no matter how sincere they sounded. I felt they were rather like “poor actors playing a part”..
You know…”Respect but suspect”….That was me…still is, although they may be quite sincere and working to pile up heavenly points.
@ Edgar G.:
@ Edgar G.:
And the rebirth of Israel will never mitigate the tragedy of the Shoah. But, could anything like this happen now in Israel or anywhere in the West? Is such an unlikely possibility strong enough to turn away the only strong allies we’ve got? So, let them preach? Have we so little self-confidence?
Next time a Christian fundamentalist says to you, “Jesus is coming,” ask, “Does he need a room?”
Muslims are dangerous because they have no sense of humor. And because, well, they’re dangerous. Time was Christians were too. Still are in parts of places like Poland and LIthuania. Go Putin!
@ Edgar G.:
And what about the case of Menachem Mendel Beilis , the famous 1912 Blood Libel case…whixh took some time to become famous and international…in NINETEEN HUNDRED AND TWELVE MIND YOU…. MODERN TIMES…………..
Does anyone thing that the world has suddenly turned around 180 degrees against these abhorrent beliefs and practices…… NO…all they’ve done is substituted Political Correctness to hide behind.
@ Sebastien Zorn:
It wasn’t a happy ending for the Mortara family. As I recall, the illiterate nursemaid made her confession when dying becuase she was afraid that her soul would be punished in afterlife. This of course might have been literary bumpf, but has the ring of truth. The pathos and open contumely resulting from the matter becoming public might have damaged thr Church, which was all for good, but didn’t help the Mortaras. I seem to recall that the boy was made into a Catholic priest, where he lived his life out in obscurity. All because Jews has little or no rights certainly against the Church, one of the most hateful organisations which ever existed, which brought most of the problems that faced Jews throughout the ages.
@ Edgar G.:
The real “Indiana Jones” was a Noahide.
I wonder if it inspired the plot of good thief bad thief
http://dr-myri-blog.blogspot.com/2017/05/bad-thief-good-thief-episode-1-kimjicap.html
Edgar G. Said:
There are actual Noahide organizations. Somehow, I don’t think they permit trying to convert Jews to Christianity, even if they believe in the divinity of Jesus of Nazareth, anyway, or I doubt Kahane or Chabad would endorse them [I could be wrong, I’m not an expert.]
@ Edgar G.:
Read this nuanced account of the Jewish children adopted by the Catholic Church during the war who the church refused to return by Yad Vashem. Some (myself among them) say that the worst tragedy is that they were willing to accept so few Jewish children when their lives were endangered. Of those taken in before the war, and there were very few, The Germans made the church return them to the Jewish community.
http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/pdf-drupal/nachum_bogner.pdf
Another evil thing that could never have happened if there had been a Jewish state.
Like the refusal of the U.S. Government to make the same threat of gassing Germany on behalf of the Jews, that FDR made on behalf of the Chinese and the Soviets on the ground that, NOT HAVING A STATE, the Jews were not an ally.
Pressing at the Limits:
The Challenge of the Hebrew Committee
Of National Liberation to Chemical Warfare Policy
by John Ellis van Courtland Moon
http://motlc.wiesenthal.com/site/pp.asp?c=gvKVLcMVIuG&b=395011
@ Edgar G.:
Is a repeat likely? 20th anniversary this year of the publication of a famous book about it. [Which I just discovered; thank you for the reference, I didn’t know about it. About ten years after the infamous Damascus Blood Libel Case which also led to international political Jewish solidarity leading to political Zionism as a movement. Look at the happy ending:
@ Sebastien Zorn:
If you think about it…please do… you’ll observe that Christian Evangelists today are actually obeying the Noachide Laws, “Hasheva Mitzvot B’nei Noach” is what is would, be called in Hebrew…if I’m guessing right.
The thing is that the Mortara Case, about which I briefly mentioned is still in our memories. It was shameful and could only have happened to a people who were as abused and degraded as Jews were. It is not all too long ago. I knew about it as a kid, and I’m sure others know about it today.
It might be instructive to look it up, The Edgardo Mortara Case..You will be shocked and appalled, and think that this couldn’t happen today. Well it could and did. It happened all throughout the war and there are thousands of young Jewish children given to Christian neighbours for safety unto the end of the war who were NOT GIVEN BACK…Thousands of them who today don’t know their Jewish families, and if they do they repudiate them for their Christian ones.
As long as they don’t turn on us — like Martin Luther –when they realize that they can’t convert most of us — I think we should embrace our allies wherever we find them; this is a war, not a weekend social gathering. Or as me sainted father used to say about President Nixon, “who cares if he’s a crook, the question is, is he our crook?” or Lincoln of Grant, “All I care about is the fact that he wins battles. Alchoholic? find out what brand of whiskey he drinks and send a case to each of my generals.”
I wonder if anybody has thought of trying to retaliate — in an equally friendly spirit (no pun intended, or “spirits” which would make it a double pun — double your pleasure, double your pun) — by trying to convert Christians to Noahidism in the same way.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noahidism
While most American Jews may say they love Israel, this is simply not true. Most are utterly indifferent to Israel. The main stream Jewish organizations support the USGs demands for unilateral Israeli concessions to the terrorist aggressors. And they threaten Israel with BDS over their absurd sectarian demands for equal status with Orthodoxy–without any consideration for the fact that Orthodox Jews are a very large constituency in Israel, which the israeli government cannot ignore, while the heterodox sects have only a tiny number of adherents within Israel. Few American Jews make aliya although they all could. More than half have never visited Israel, although it is easy for them to do so.As the ad says, that’s not love.
Previous comments said it all. Let evangelicals unconditionally love Chinese…oh, they do 🙂
The answer is easy and probably obvious by most standards. The Evangelical Christians are not merely conservative, but probably are the most politcal and psychologically normal normal of all identifiable American population subsets.
In ugly and bitter contrast are the American Jews, who, as a general group, have, ever since their forbearers arrived on these shores, have done just about all things possible in not just making their Jewish heritage fade away, but in all but running away from it.
As a result, people such as I count myself, as hard-core Jewish nationalists who offer no apologies whatsoever for Israel and no interest whatsoever in engaging in useless searches for signs of peaceful relations inolving Israel on one side and the thoroughly Moslem civilization on the other side, represent a tiny fraction of Jewish America.
The truth is, I am more comfortable in the company of those CUFI Christians than I am with liberal Jews of any kind.
And do I find it necessary to apologize for any of the above?
Hell no. Otherwise I would be spitting in the eye of my untarnished memories of the Rav Meir Kahane.
Arnold Harris, Outspeaker
The No.1 reason that many Jews fear and suspect the Christian Unconditional Love, is that up to now, it has had conditions, hidden of course, but resulting in subtle evangelisation, often leading to eventual attempts at conversion. Seducing children away from their homes, rigging up pseudo-Jewish groups which always have Jesus hidden in the background somewhere. The Mortara case is still fresh in many minds, and the fact the the Popes and other Christian dignitaries refused to hand back Jewish children deposited with them during the war for safe keeping, and who are now fervent Catholics or Christians of some sort who reject their own families.
The list is long, and often gruesome, and Jews have learned that there is always a price to pay , which most often aims at detaching Jews from their birth religion. The fact that the “Mission” to “go out and evangelise”, is deeply engraven in the minds of many otherwise good Christian Fundamentalists, is always hovering around somewhere and Jews have good cause to fear it. And HATE it. Messianic “Jews” set up “synagogues” and other quasi-religious establishments right beside genuine Jewish institutions for the enticement of Jews into thr wrong door.
If the TRUE Unconditional Love Christians would declare war outright against these charlatans and thieves-in-the-night, it would go a long way towards loosening the Jewish antipathy and fear of Christian Evangelistic Unconditional Love….