By Rabbi Aryeh Spero, AMERICAN THINKER
No doubt, it’s hard for people to give up their lifelong attachments and identity. But there are moments in history when a turning point arrives, and those with eyes to see and ears to hear recognize it. Many Jews have made political liberalism their religion and personal identity and the Democrat Party their unexamined home and comfort zone. But everything changed early September.
Rarely do modern-day political conventions startle. The Democratic National Convention, however, was earthshaking and a warning to Jews to wake up. Democrat delegates decided to stick it to Israel. We no longer care, they roared, if Israel remains a Jewish state; flood her heartland with millions of so-called Palestinians whose goal is to make the state Islamic. We will not condemn Hamas for targeting Jewish population centers with rockets. Jerusalem is not Israel’s indivisible capital but should be divided, like Berlin was. Such was the undeniable sentiment of the delegates at the Convention.
After objections from outside the Convention, the chairman reinstated support for Jerusalem. But he was resoundingly booed. The world saw how those boos far outweighed the yeas. My fellow Jews, the boos were for you; those boos were for Israel, a successful Israel that sticks in the craw of a leftist, socialist mindset that sees Israel not as the beacon of freedom and accomplishment she is, but as something outside the leftist ideological orbit. Sure, they will take your contributions and your votes, but they don’t want your Israel, and they expect you to forgo distinctly Jewish needs on the altar of leftism. We saw not liberalism, but hardcore leftism, and we saw a home where the welcome mat is quite conditional and worn out.
The prophet Daniel saw the writing on the wall. All too often throughout our history, we Jews, and especially heads of major Jewish organizations, have failed to see the writing on the wall. We are afraid to see that which is a game-changer, and so we deny events we wish were not happening. After all, who wants to change the comfort zone?
It was a convention, like the last four years of the Obama administration, reveling in class warfare. Class warfare, like Occupy Wall Street and other scapegoating calls, has never been good for the Jews. We are often the scapegoat of those envious. Knowing this, Ahmadinejad scheduled a meeting with Occupy, a movement endorsed last year by many bigwigs in the Democratic Party and even President Obama himself. Jihadists and much of Islam want to delegitimize the concept of a Jewish state by tarnishing Jews as “those rich capitalists” unworthy of a state among the community of nations.
Too often, we Jews have been beguiled into believing that Jews in positions of power have our interests at heart. Debbie Wasserman Schultz is but the latest who would have us think she is “doing what is good for the Jews” when, in fact, she is doing and will continue to do what is good for Debbie and her power base. Similarly, the heads of the major Jewish organizations have been conspicuously silent — a silence that would not prevail if a Republican were doing the things to Israel Obama is doing.
Job openings are way down; 50% of college graduates, our children, can’t find jobs; and Mr. Obama will continue to weaken national security and thus the safety of our families…and continue to make it more difficult for Israel to survive. For many, all this is secondary and expendable for their more important agenda of abortion on demand and gay marriage. How frivolous; how irresponsible!
We can determine what truly is important to a person when he is forced to choose between two values. Since when is it a Jewish value to condemn Israel to misery just so one can be assured of abortion at any time, under any circumstance? Most of your grandparents would have chosen Israel over abortion and gay marriage. As our sages tell us: “The wages of immorality are further immorality.”
President Obama has time to meet with Muslim Brotherhood Morsi of Egypt, who has declared his intention to get rid Israel, but Mr. Obama has no time to meet with Israel’s Netanyahu, whose country is under imminent nuclear threat from Iran. Israel’s concern about a possible nuclear Holocaust is, for Mr. Obama, dismissed as mere noise, while his delegates at the U.N. on Sept. 24 are ordered to sit and listen to the vile noise of the Holocaust-denier and Iranian Jew-hater-in-chief. It is clear that Mr. Obama’s underlying sympathy is with the Muslim Brotherhood and its spread and influence around the world. He is coaxing us to accept Islamic attitudes and norms. This speaks volumes — to those willing to see the facts as they truly are.
My friends, get off the train, now. The track is pointing in a very dangerous direction. You will not prevail over the trend; on the contrary, you will become part of the trend. As an elder clergyman, I’m horrified as I watch many Jews — young and old — slowly evolve into proponents of positions unwholesome, dangerous, and destined toward spiritual and physical suicide.
True, you will be forced to stop your demonizing of Republicans. You may have to vote for Romney, a candidate singular in his passion and love for Israel as a living concept, an indivisible Jerusalem, and for Israelis and Jews as Jews. You will have to wipe away the gruesome fantasies you have concocted about Republicans and conservative Americans. That’s OK. In fact, it is a nice thing to do and is good for the soul.
Rabbi Aryeh Spero is author of Push Back: Reclaiming our American Judeo-Christian Spirit. (212) 252-6861; www.caucusforamerica.com
@ yamit82:
How ‘valuable’ my time is is utterly irrelevant; the point is that, valuable or not, my time is very definitely LIMITED.
If so, then only YOU know which clicks, and which not.
Because, as a matter of fact, before posting my last comment I DID try googling (for a few moments) as you suggested. Didn’t find anything of significance right away — and I realized then & there that I just didn’t have the time to hunt around. When they close the place here, I’m out of here; that’s just the way it is.
It will surely take less of your time to pull it up the damning details than it will of mine.
Frankly, what I’ve seen & heard ABOUT and FROM Lapin — I’ve spoken directly with him many times — tells me that he is none of the things you called him.
I also know that you have in the past shown a curious tolerance for & proclivity toward character assassination (a matter which we’ve discussed at length on SEVERAL occasions).
So if you think I’m mistaken about Rabbi Lapin, show me.
Typically infantile.
It’s not about chicken.
It’s about fish.
I’m just not going fishing.
If it’s important, show it to me.
If you won’t, then don’t.
And your accusations will remain just that
— and ONLY that.
@ Alan:
Although I consider myself a centrist (independent), I share a number of values from the rt and the left.
This being said, the mass media have deliberately shielded Pr. O from ANY inquiry about his goals for our country.
Pr. O produced is own narrative. The mass media brushed aside many “un-American ” Obama ideas/values and refused to allow anyone to verify his narrative (where is “the trust but verify” imposed by the left on everyone but the left????).
Now the left wants to impose vociferously its own Romney’s narrative
Did the left disqualify Gore and or Kerry for being to rich and not in touch with the ……… POOR? Being from the left, they must have been in touch with the poor. Oh YES!!!
The duplicity of the mass media is an American tragedy.
Political correctness is a vicious attempt by the left to suppress the freedom of speech. This is a communist-made concept. Probably 99.9% of American don’t even know IT!
As far as capitalism is concerned, as off today, it remains the least ineffective system created by humans to produce knowledge and wealth. It needs significant tweaking to reduce the excesses on both extremities (for the rich and for the poor).
Another significant issue that the left refuses to define is the notion of social justice. What are their criteria?
@ dweller:
I didn’t say I wanted you to see my posts, just that I have posted comments on the subject and where you could find them. If you can take your very, very, very valuable time to Google my quotes to ascertain the authors then you can if you are curious Google up my references to Lapin.
Then again I don’t care what you do. You are as usual, wrong about Lapin and the proof is only a few clicks away. Chicken!
@ Alan:
So a good Jew in your opinion is any Jew against Obama? You must really hate those 60% of Christian Americans who like him regardless of his policies and ideology or in most cases because of his policies and ideology.
Unlike you I don’t define my Jewishness based upon support for Obama, BB or anyone else. I think they are all corrupt shits, all are populist shills who will do anything and say anything to get your or a majority of votes.
Democracy brings you down to the lowest common denominator and in America that common denominator is exceedingly low. “The most costly of all follies is to believe passionately in the palpably not true”. “Giving every man a vote has no more made men wise and free than Christianity has made them good.” ‘Democracy is a form of worship. It is the worship of Jackals by Jackasses” Hmmm
@ yamit82:
“Don’t know enough about Spero to speak about him, yea or nay. But I do know enough about LAPIN to comment — and HE is neither Kapo Jew nor court Jew.”
If you know whatever it is you want me to see
— then you pull it up, and I’ll have look at it.
@ yamit82:
And I would accept her over you too, for in the year or so I’ve read your posts I am convinced you are nothing more than a pro-Obama blowhard. Who by the way is not fit to shine the shoes of a Rabbi Spero or any of the other good Jews you besmirch while being stone silent about the mentally challenged JINOS who support Obama.
CASE CLOSED.
@ Alan:
I would accept her over you.
btw my opinion of those Kapo rabbis is not mutually exclusive from any opinion I hold re: others you mentioned and more. I don’t feel a need to vent against them because we have you and a few others doing such a superb job of it.
@ dweller:
You know bupkis, Google Lapin, Yamit Israpndit about four years ago I wrote extensively on him with references.
@ Alan:
@ Alan:
Alan, some Jews still think it’s the ’60’s when liberals stood up against Anti-Semitic hate. They refuse to believe that today’s liberals are now themselves the Ant-Semites. This is because liberals like to feel warm and fuzzy protecting those who can’t protect themselves. They loved Jews whom they pictured as shrugging, shuffling, apologetic,victims with shit-eatin’ grins on our faces and “kick Me’signs pinned to our backsides. Israel destroyed this stereotype. Here the liberal sees a strong, tall unapolgetic victor who can take care of himself, fight his own battles and win his wars. This makes the liberals feel unneeded and thus betrayed, and turns into hate. But unfortunately some Jews just don’t get it and if that disgusting display of Anti-Semtism at the Democratic Convention hasn’t woken them up, nothing will.
@ yamit82:
Don’t know enough about Spero to speak about him, yea or nay.
But I do know enough about LAPIN to comment
— and HE is neither Kapo Jew nor court Jew.
@ yamit82:
And there he goes again…firing on his own allies. Gotta hand to Yamit, he’s consistent…in supporting Israel’s enemy.
Boychik, Boychik, Boychik …spare your venom for the clueless bimbos like Natalie Portman and Scarlett Johanssen; spare the artillery fire for the so-called “Jewish Council for Education and Research” a Soros-funded group of Jews – NOT – for Hitler; spare it for the real Kapos and Judenrat like Emanuel, Axelrod, Jackie Lew, Dan Shapiro, Wexler, Wasserman-Shultz, So-low, Pritizker who kiss Obama’s ass and tell us he’s Kosher – when a pig cannot be.
And btw – Yamit, I’d sooner accept the elderly Evangelical Christian at my local Antique Mall who has been in Israel, loves the country and the Jewish people, is supporting a Chaver – Romney, over the pretty but brain vacant jackass gal stepping out of the “Jewish-Americans for Obama” stickered car at my local Kever Avot service. The former imho is a BETTER JEW than this stupid REFORM little girl who supposedly was born into our faith yet knows nothing – especially about Obama’s vicious anti-Semitism.
MODERATION AGAIN!!!!! WE NEED TO KNOW WHAT TRIGGERS THIS DAMN MODERATION. WHAT TO AVOID.
@ Jan T. Steinberg:
Jan, I think your right about Eva hitting the nail on the head.
Listen, anti-Semitism is alive and well and it needs to be eradicated.
Jews have to stand together and let the world know it.
American Jews have to let their representatives in congress they will only elect those who support Israel and having said that, I mean not as a step child but rather as a partner.
You don’t tell your friends what to do but rather “How can we be of any help”.
Israel is our only true friend and trusted ally in the ME.
Notice how silent the liberal left media is as the rockets from Hamas rain in on Israel (almost over 250 since January), the silence is deafening. Also notice how world opinion has been outspoken about it.
Remember there is only one state, the Sovereign Jewish Nation of Israel with it’s capital in the undivided city of Jerusalem.
And don’t let the Arab world tell you any different.
IMO.. Rabbi Aryeh Spero is at worst a Kapo Jew and at best a typical court jew.
His positions are anti Judaic, He is an apologist for and pro Christian evangelicals. A past defender and apologist of Pat Buchanan and Mel Gibson and his movie the ‘Passion’ .
Just as Jews on the left have adopted liberalism as their neo-Judaism, Spero has adopted Christian conservatism as his neo-Judaism, except he wraps his views in a false cloak of traditional Judaism. Stupid ignorant Jews who don’t know any better accept what he claims.
He and Danial Lapin mirror each other.
@ Alan:
FIFY
@ Martin:
A Jew who places foreign (non-Jewish) interests above other Jews Lives is worse than any anti-Semite or radical Muslim.
As long s Jews were convinced that the interests of America and Israel were one and the same you could maintain the fiction of being both loyal Americans and Loyal Jews.
Well you can’t unless you lie to yourself and others.
The interests of America and Israel are not the same or even in some vital ways compatible.
It seems to me that our creator is historically manipulating a situation where you will have to choose or have your choices made for you by circumstances. Either way your days as they say are numbered or your kids and grandchildren but it’s coming whether you like it or not or agree to it or not.
America is not the guarantor of our existence, if anything; the opposite is true.
@ EVA:
Eva, much as I hate cliches, you hit the nail on the head. The reason so many Jews feel they have to be liberal Democrats is because they feel that way they are being good to others. And what have we gotten in return from these “others”? Anti-Semitism. It’s about time we Jews expunge this guilt trip and start standing up for ourselves. The conventiion showed us that the Democratic Party is full of Anti-Semites. We Jews should never support a party like that regardless of what else they advocate.
@ dweller:
And he always lies through his teeth about his record of beefing up Israel’s security, just as he is blatantly lied about everything else. I read somewhere that Gates, a RINO of the James Baker variety who obviously would be well at home with Obama, held up one crucial delivery on Obama’s orders until they were assured Bibi wasn’t going to strike at Iran then and there. Some friend Obama has been…If he were white and a RINO like Gates’ buddy Baker the JINO Dems would be howling with rage – but because he’s Obama, because he’s a Democrat, and because he’s “Black” – they’ll always give him a pass, never mind that he’s a vicious anti-Semite of long standing.
Personally I wish Obama would go to hell…but I guess even the devil doesn’t want him. We already know he is persona non grata with the God he and his fellow Democraps rejected, along with Jerusalem (guess Marty didn’t hear that one…)
@ Alan:
He refused for his entire first 16 months in the Oval Office to approve any needed, significant Israeli arms purchases or upgrades
— as well as suspended delivery of previously-approved purchases:
effectively imposing, until then, an unstated, but very real, embargo
— while America racked up a hefty profit from the $10 billion in sales of massive quantities of offensive armament that His Wonderfulness did indeed see fit to approve for Arab League states in that same, identical period.
@ dweller:
@Dweller,
Very well said. Martin is an ignoramus (sorry, Ted – if you don’t like it, but its the truth). You cannot whitewash 20 years of sitting in Jeremiah Wright’s pew of Black Hitlerism, all the associations with scum like Ayers, Khalidi, Said, Samantha Power, Rob Malley and so many other anti-Semites, and you definitely cannot whitewash the past four years of sucking up to Islamofascist regimes and cursing and belittling Israel and its leader – and say you provided Israel with weapons so I am such a good friend.
(to begin with, those weapons were arranged during the Bush years, and secondly, if Obama did cut them off – as he temporarily did not too long ago when it looked like Bibi was ready for a pre-empt on Iran, even a lot of JINOs like Marty would wake up…then again, maybe not).
Facts are facts. Obama is a louse on Israel and lousy to this country as well despite Martin’s delusional behavior (he probably thinks Debbie Wasserman Schultz is a beauty queen too – lol).
@ Martin:
Martin – you cannot be a Jew, pro-Israel and pro-Obama at the same time. Doesn’t work, he hates Israel and truly committed Jews (not the “red diaper” or ham on Yom Kippur variety) and you know it, boychik.
A Strong America will be one headed by a Mitt Romney who does NOT disarm our armed forces, doesn’t kowtow to the Russkies, the Iranians and the Chinese, and doesn’t throw our allies under the bus. Since you love Obama, care to prove otherwise, buddy?
@ Martin:
Obama to you means a “strong” America?
What parallel universe do you inhabit?
It’s obvious you’ve been snortin’ the wrong white powder, boychik.
That Dutch Cleanser stuff is shorting out your synapses something fierce.
While it is true that I am a Jew, I am also an American and I vote what is best for America: Obama and the Democrats. Without a strong America to befriend Israel, you can be sure that our native ancestral homeland would cease to exist, and if that should come to pass, all of the Jews who misguidedly voted to weaken our country would once more be saying “Never again.”
I can’t see how anyone who calls himself Jewish can vote for this Muslim but the Jews In Name Only (JINOs) will still vote DemocRAT and continue to march in lockstep (goose steps) with every leftist cause even when that cause is anti Jewish. Thank G-d the religious Jews will not vote for that Jew hating Obama and see liberalism as diametrically opposed to Judaism.
The DemocRATs are running scared of losing the Jewish vote and money which they don’t deserve in the first place.
I have been trying to figure out why “our people” seem to be blind to Obama and his anti American and Israel policies. It occurred to me that we as Jews have been conditioned over centuries to be good and caring and do for others, but were never tought how to have self preservation instincts. We were never told that loving yourself first is not only OK but nessesary. We still think like victims, maybe if we stand with and love our enemy they won’t kill us? That kind of mentality didn’t stop Hitler and won’t stop Obama. He obviously and viscerally dislikes Israel and views it as obstruction to peace. If only they didn’t exist, there would be peace? Wake up my friends. We are in big trouble. This Arab “spring” Obama unleashed is bad for us and the world.
Most American Jews do not concern themselves with Israel. Their brand of Judaism is more and more remote and disconnected from the main and historic land. They belong to the neo-pagans (left and far left) otherwise called democrats. Their extreme position on an issue like abortion is very telling (ex: abortion at or > 40 weeks).
@ GVIROL:
Yes, he is extraordinarily “DANGEROUS”! He is a man that lives by ‘the means justifies the end’….muslim ideology through and through. ONLY G-D can change the hearts of America and in relationship to this article the hearts of our Jewish brethern…during these trying times try to memorize Isaiah 26:3,4
Rabbi Spero,
You are so RIGHT!!! But upwards to 50-70% of “our people” will continue to be so STUPIDLY WRONG.
Can’t say “why?” anymore. While we might be a “Chosen People” – we are also lemmings when it comes to our own survival instincts. Witness the cute and pretty – yet so stupid woman in the miniskirt stepping out of the “Jewish-Americans for Obama” stickered car last Sunday morning at Kever Avot services I attended.
And witness six hours later the older Christian woman at the Antique Mall expressing HER LOVE FOR ISRAEL AND THE JEWISH PEOPLE. If we do survive, it’ll be because of her, not the ham sandwich on Yom Kippur so-called “Juden” – who despite a fairly obvious and open record of anti-Semitism and animus towards Israel on the part of that piece o’ crap occupying Lincoln’s home, they still flock to vote for the jerk.
By now most American Jews are two or three generations away from any Yiddishkeit whatsoever, except perhaps from the lox and bagel brunch at the secular and assimilationist oriented so called Jewish Community Center. To them Israel has become just another foreign country, for which they have no special affinity nor identification. And worse, their Democratic Party and their leader Barack Obama see Israel as a problem. Since they were raised by secular and liberal parents , their main concern are domestic American problems, not Judaism nor Israel, and their main focus is the election of Barack Obama. Most American Jews, especially the younger ones, have never even been inside a Reform Temple much less any type of Jewish house of worship, haven’t got a clue what Kashrut is, and laugh at prayer and a belief in G-d. I only hope that this soulless, anti religious, and indifferent to Israel generation of American Jews will raise a generation which will find their Jewish souls and their belief and faith in the G-d of Israel.
Thank you, thank you Rabbi Spero. You said it all. It is about time liberal Jews open their eyes and ears about Obama. This man is dangerous for the Jews. Another 4 years will bring a catastrophy