Our Passover Haggdah reminds us: "In every generation they arise to destroy us!" Our ancestors in Europe experienced horrific violence annually on this Good Friday/ Easter weekend.
"Why Good Friday was dangerous for the Jews in the Middle Ages"
This (deicide) language about Jews in the medieval Good Friday liturgy often carried over into physical violence toward local Jewish communities.
It was common for Jewish houses to be attacked with stones. Often these attacks were led by the clergy. David Nirenberg, a scholar of medieval Jewish-Christian relations, argues that this violence reenacted the violence of Jesus’ suffering and death.
Another scholar of this history, Lester Little, argues that the attack on the Jewish community was meant to be a revenge for the death of Jesus and a ritual act that reinforced the boundary between Jews and Christians.
Local clergy who encouraged and participated in the violence against Jews were in violation of the rules of their own church. Church law sought to protect Jews and required them to stay inside on Good Friday. Historically, the western church took responsibility for the safeguarding of Jewish communities because they viewed Jews as preservers of the Old Testament, and thus of the prophecies concerning Jesus. Official positions were, however, often ignored locally as many Christians sought to assert their power over the Jewish community.
Civil authorities protected Jews by setting up armed guards and not permitting Christians under 16 years to throw stones. But this could not always prevent bloodshed and violence.
The B.L.M.-led pogrom through Jewish L.A. streets were enabled by the Democrat city and state officials, several of whom have moved up and on to the Biden/Harris Democrat regime. This administration's pro-Palestine and pro-China/Iran steps and appointees indicate a rough four-years for Jewish-Americans and Zionistic-Americans (including Christians).
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| Jew-hate graffiti on Los Angeles temple was followed by a Leftist pogrom the next month April 7, 2020 (Photo credit: Twitter/ADL The Times of Israel) |
When Obama sets-up Israel to pre-empt or lash-back against emboldened Iran's proxies in Syria, Hezbollah, and Gaza, liberal, lapdog press smear Israel. This increases public hostility towards diaspora Jews. The Biden/Harris Democratic regime has already demonstrated support for a nuclear Iran, and expecting Israel to cede 1967 territory (Auschwitz borders) to an Islamist state of Palestine. It's necessary that the Jewish community have watchdogs that are willing and able to take-on Leftist and Democratic Party anti-Israelism/anti-Semitism.
"Left-Wing anti-Semitism Is Insidious, Therefore Dangerous"
by Karen Lehrman Bloch in the Jewish Journal (4/16/20):
Ruth Wisse, author of the 1992 classic “If I Am Not for Myself: The Liberal Betrayal of the Jews,” gave a provocative digital lecture titled “Can Liberals Confront Anti-Semitism?”In Caroline Glick's "The Threats American Jewry Refuses to Face," she addresses:
When I first saw the title, I thought that she meant (illiberal) leftists. But Wisse does mean Liberals. In fact, she offered a cogent explanation of liberalism’s descent into leftism.
. . . Good people are not easily seduced by the anti-Jewish Right, but they have always been susceptible to the anti-Jewish Left that speaks in the name of a higher morality. One sees liberals not just caving in the face of anti-Jewish aggression but degenerating into socialist and leftist illiberalism. Is that what inevitably happens? I don’t know. But it is certainly happening in America right now. In the mind of a socialist, there is nothing more reactionary than this self-regulating people (Am Yisrael) with its historical roots in divinely ordained religion,” Wisse said.
“Essentially,” she continued, “liberal assumptions about human nature and progress have underestimated the power of evil. There is ‘healthy liberalism’ (America at its best) and ‘illiberal liberalism/leftism’ (Western democracy at its worst), and anti-Zionism is the virus that turns one into the other.”
"... why much of the communal response to both rising anti-Semitism and rising assimilation has been ineffective and even counterproductive.
Take the Anti-Defamation League, for instance. With an annual budget of around $100 million, the ADL is supposed to be the community’s first line of defense against anti-Semitism.
But with leadership comprised of dedicated foot soldiers of the progressive revolution, who rather than fight the TV networks proliferating anti-Semitic conspiracy theories and libels, or the BDS brownshirts on campuses terrorizing Jewish students, the ADL has devoted its resources to fighting “white supremacy.” To be sure, as the Pittsburgh and San Diego synagogue shootings made clear, white supremacists are a threat.
But unlike the progressive Jew-haters, white supremacists have no foothold in the mass media, in politics, in academia or in popular culture.
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| ZOA's Mort Klein has criticized Mark Hetfeld renaming the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society to "HIAS" to import foreign Muslims from anti-Semitic cultures into America (photo: Crescent City Jewish News) |
Among examples, the ZOA chief alleges Mr. Greenblatt's ADL:
- Opposed
Judge Kavanaugh immediately after he was nominated, and said ADL would
be giving questions to the Committee to be used to oppose Kavanaugh.
- Distributes
educational materials that encourage students to participate in “Black
Lives Matter” demonstrations (which have been anti-Israel hate-fests).
ADL’s divisive materials speak of “white privilege” and at first ignored
and then downplayed adjudications of police innocence – while reciting
the accusations.
Jonathan Greenblatt replaced Rabbi
Abe Foxman to lead the ADL - ADL has opposed anti-BDS laws in several states and on the federal level and in articles.
- ADL
repeatedly signed joint letters with extreme anti-Israel groups (such
as CAIR), thereby giving them credibility. For instance, ADL signed 29
joint letters opposing an Act for America event, to mayors of 29 cities,
together with virulent Israel-hating organizations, including:
letter-contact MPAC (which called Israelis “the worst terrorists in the
world,” has said Israel should not exist, defends Hezbollah, and says
that Israel should be suspected for perpetrating 9/11); 4 JVP groups;
CAIR; the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA, which like CAIR, is
also an unindicted conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation trial,
involved in funneling money to Hamas); the National Iranian American
Council (NIAC, an arm of and lobbyist for the genocidal Iranian regime);
Bend the Arc; and BDS promoters American Friends Service Committee and
PC(USA).
- ADL
extensively advocates (including by filing numerous Amicus briefs) to
bring immigrants into the U.S. from certain Muslim majority nations
where they cannot be properly vetted.
- ADL’s “Homegrown Threat” report downplays radical Islamist attacks, using various extensive manipulations, including limiting periods covered, omitting Islamist attacks with spurious excuses (such as false claims that they were “hate crimes” or that the plot wasn’t connected to a specific designated Islamist terrorist organization, and by omitting other major Islamist plots and attacks without giving any reason for doing so. ADL’s report then misleadingly claimed that plots by “individuals motivated by right-wing extremism” exceeded plots motivated by Islamist extremism.
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| Dr. Charles Jacobs |
FrontPage Magazine initially published video remarks of Charles Jacobs describing his call to replace Jonathan Greenblatt leading the Anti-Defamation League ("ADL"). Dr. Jacobs describes, as one example of the weak leadership, an example of where the New England branch he summoned to assist in rectifying what he construed as anti-Semitism in Boston-area school curriculum - he feels unreasonably copped-out for liberal political reasons. The ADL later "slayed the messenger" of the Boston "Jewish Advocate" weekly newspaper because of the newspaper's objective coverage of the matter by discontinuing their longtime advertising, which contributed to the newspaper's insolvency.
Dr. Jacobs questions whether liberal Jews in positions of community management have let their tribalist loyalty to the Democratic Party (accompanied by enmity towards "Trump'ers" and conservatism) to paralyze them from defending Clal Yisrael against leftist anti-Semitism? This is especially dismaying in view of the fact that nowadays, in addition to religious and ethnic rivals scapegoating Jews, the leftist-dominated, neo-Democratic administration has mainstreamed marginalizing Jews through critical-race theory.
Pres. Bill Clinton greets Rev. Louis Farrakhan who
incited Muslims to stone "Satan" Greenblatt
"They (liberal Jews in protection agencies) think they're being kind (because they should be kind - they should stand for human rights - and they do stand for human rights) and there are black groups today who will go around and teach the black community what the Jews did for the blacks during the civil rights movement. Important black groups. And they should and they do.
But they also thought there would be some reciprocity. Today the Jewish establishment still believes that there will be reciprocity and there isn't much. I mean if you can't get the Democratic Party to say that we're not going to hang out with Louis Farrakhan and if you can't get Bill Clinton not to sit next to Louis Farrakhan at Aretha Franklin's funeral . . .
We're on the left we have led the left with our brains, we've supported the left with our dollars and with our spirit, and now the left is spitting at us! And the Jewish establishment is trapped. Cornered. Doesn't know what to do. Flummoxed. We need new leaders!"
The ZOA criticized Mr. Greenblatt's publishing an article in Foreign Policy echoing the Obama administration's sharp criticism of Prime Minister Netanyahu for a labeled "ethnic cleansing" video.
Charles Jacobs, president of Americans for Peace and Tolerance in Boston objects to Jewish protection agencies avoiding challenging leftist black and Islamic Jew-haters, such as the Nation of Islam, whose member, Noah Green, 25, rammed a car into two, US Capitol Policemen only days ago, killing one and wounding the other.Journalist, Jonathan Tobin wrote: “Greenblatt's decision to side with the Obama administration against the government of Israel is telling. For Greenblatt to re-position ADL from its former centrist position as a mainstream address for pro-Israel activism to one that is now in open opposition to the democratically-elected government of Israel is a sea change of enormous importance. From now on, ADL must be viewed as an ally of J Street and others on the left who make no secret of their partisanship in the context of both Israeli politics and the tense relations between Israel and the United States. This is a betrayal of ADL's long and honorable legacy as a group that sought to speak for the interests of the Jewish community as a whole and respected the right of Israel's people and their leaders to make their own decisions about security.”
Columnist, Isi Liebler wrote: “It would seem that in the post-Abe Foxman era, the ADL board has knowingly empowered an individual whose outlook is not only liberal but effectively represents an echo chamber of left-wing Democratic politics. In fact, despite Greenblatt's protestations of love for Israel and reiteration that the US Israel nexus is strong, especially after finalization of the defense agreement, the ADL's approach to Israel is similar to that of J Street, having no hesitation in telling Israelis that it knows better than they do - what is good for them.”
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