Antisemite to English translation of Tucker (Y”Sh)

I wrote this for a friend who didn’t understand what the interview with Amb. Huckabee was talking about. Truth be told, Amb. Huckabee was confused, because it’s crazy. It also under-girds the entire “Palestinian narrative”, so, I decided to publish this for a wider audience, G-d willing.

Tucker Carlson (Y”Sh = yemach shmo = “May his name be erased” like Hitler, Haman, et. al.), in his interview with Mike Huckabee – who should live and be well – used a key antisemitic trope, which unfortunately Huckabee knew nothing about and was therefore unprepared to answer.

In the 700s, a real kingdom called Khazaria, which contained the city of Kyiv (Kiev) officially converted to Judaism. At least the ruling class did. The discussion preceding it was fictionalized as a platform to discuss Jewish philosophy in the classic book “The Kuzari”, read heavily by Jews until today.

Christians and Muslims have a glaring problem. The Bible (our half) promises the Land of Israel to those we now call the people of Israel, the descendants of Jacob. The Quran, to the Muslims’ chagrin, says the same thing. Historically, Christians “spiritualized” the promises of the land – meaning “a heavenly Jerusalem” was promised to the Church (meaning all Christians). That has become frayed at the edges when the physical offspring showed up and succeeded in reestablishing a state on the physical land.

Some Protestants, particularly in the US, adopted a religious philosophy called Dispensationalism, which allows for the physical fulfillment of the biblical promises to the physical Jews. These are the Christian Zionists (like Huckabee) who are Zionist *because of* their theology. Tucker Carlson (Y”Sh) said he hates these people more than anyone.

At the opposite extreme are those who want to see Israel destroyed, but they have a problem: “How can I curse whom G-d has not cursed?” as Balaam says in Numbers 23:8. Their (historically new) solution is to claim the Jews aren’t the Jews. They “find” the story of the Khazars and claim, “The Jews of today are not the descendants of Jacob, but Khazars!” When Tucker (Y”Sh) “just asks the question” in the interview “Who are his [Abraham’s] descendants now, and how do we know?” He is referring to this “theory”.

This “theory” is also advanced by every “Palestinian” leader that has existed. They are almost invariably Muslim and they don’t want to deny their own scripture, but if the Jews are impostors, then everything is permitted. Therefore, they have to say we’re not the real Jews.

On the flip side, the Abraham Accords are named that, in part, because the Muslim signers are admitting they know we’re the real Jews.

1) We’ve been known as “Jews” since around the destruction of the First Temple, hundreds of years before Christianity was born. It is mentioned in our bible – Esther 2:5 states: “Now in Shushan the palace there was a certain Jew, whose name was Mordechai, the son of Yair, the son of Shimei, the son of Kish, a Benjaminite”. Even though he’s from the tribe of Benjamin, he’s known as a Jew. To think that ancient Israelites are different from modern Jews because of a name change is contradicted by the Bible itself.

2) Carlson quotes the land being given to Abraham, but the rest of the Bible makes clear it is given to Jacob, who is a grandson of Abraham. A small point, but part of his straw man. No one had a reason to keep track of the non-Jewish descendants of Abraham, so we have no idea who they are. Unlike the descendants of Jacob, who are we.

3) We have lost a lot of Jews along the way, and there are certainly people out there who would have a right to live here, but we don’t know about them or have no proof. The Jews in Israel today are almost all from those we didn’t lose track of. They are from an unbroken line of Jews who lived in countries which wanted to keep Jews separate and from a Jewish people that refused to convert and assimilate.

4) We have every right to admit new Jews through conversion. Just as Islam and Christianity get to determine who is a Christian and who is a Muslim, so too Judaism. The Bible itself says that Ruth converted and was allowed to live and marry in Israel. Therefore, even if all of us were Khazars – which is in no way possible historically – it would still be our land as promised by G-d.

5) Lastly, no one wondered who the Jews were for all the bad things in history?! During every decree and every pogrom and every expulsion in the Muslim and Christian worlds, no one stopped to ask, “Well, maybe they’re not the real Jews anyway?”