Thank You for Teaching Us We Needed Our Own Land
Let me start today with a couple statistics that, if you are a thinking person, (sorry Tucker) should make you truly wonder how the United States and the world fell into the false narrative that the New York Times was the paper of record in America.
In a book by Laurel Leff, called Buried in the Times, she summarizes these embarrassing numbers. Between 1939-1945 the paper of record published 11,500 stories about World War II (that’s 2 not 11). The paper had 30 foreign correspondents across Europe throughout the war. Meanwhile, the editors had on their desks information that was confirmed by the allies of the Final Solution to the Jewish question in December of 1942. Of the 1,200 stories they wrote about the holocaust they unforgivably ran a measly 26 of them on page one. In only 6 of those were Jews identified as the primary victims. Instead victims were routinely described as “refugee” or “persecuted minorities.” Worst of all, on the day the concentration camps were liberated, the paper did not lead with that story.
I once asked someone close to me who used to subscribe to this dishonest partisan rag full of lies, how can a Jew who has even a minimal slice of self-worth, ever think about giving these awful people any money? How much do you despise your own people that you would allow yourself to be terrorized by these blow hard self-important arrogant arbiters of “news”? That question has even more relevance today, but I think there are more important questions to be asked which leads us to our current situation. What will it take for Jews to stop participating in their own demise? How much longer will we bend our knees at the alter of progressive self-righteous snobbery? What else has to happen to your people for you to finally say enough is enough? Will the recent trash they published and subsequently defended about Jews training their dogs to rape Palestinians, be enough for you? Or are you waiting for even more ridiculous fabrications for them to print with again zero evidence to back up their claims for the sole purpose of slandering Israel and the Jewish people? Or will you continue to lend them credibility and blame Israel because…fill in the blank?
Picking up on the idea of Jews who feed the beast that continues to bite them, I did not watch the Netflix roast of Kevin Hart. However Mitch’s Substack did. Referencing host Shane Gillis, Mitch wrote this: “He said, speaking of Jewish comedian Chelsea Handler, who was also in attendance: “Chelsea is a Zionist. Not saying that’s a good or bad thing. Speaking of dead kids, she’s a big fan of abortions.” Handler, having been born to a Mormon mother, is actually NOT Jewish according to Jewish Law. In her response, Handler made sure she stayed in the good graces of her non-Jewish overlords with this ridiculously uneducated and stupid comment. “Shane, just so you know, Judaism and Zionism are two different things.”
Actually Chelsea, they are not. Zionism by definition is the right of the Jewish people to self-determination in their ancestral land. Not only is that an integral part of Judaism, but had she known anything about Judaism, she would know that when the Jewish people pray daily, they ask their Creator for exactly that.
“Return to Jerusalem Your City with mercy; dwell within it, as You declared. Speedily establish the throne of David, Your servant, within it; rebuild it soon in our lifetime as an eternal structure.”
“May our eyes behold Your return to Zion in mercy. Blessed are You, G-d, Who returns His Presence to Zion.”
Our return to Zion cannot be simply ignored or separated from our DNA. Two times each day in the Shema prayer Jews acknowledge the land which G-d has promised them. “I will give rain for your land at the proper time, the early rain and the late rain, and you will gather in your grain, your wine and your oil. And I will give grass in your fields for your cattle, and you will eat and be sated.” Additionally and most importantly, there are numerous Torah commandments that can only be done in the land of Israel and sovereignty assures us the freedoms to execute them and thereby serve our Creator.
“Take care lest your heart be lured away, and you turn astray and worship alien gods and bow down to them.” An argument can be made that Jews who are embarrassed of their people and feel the need to apologize for being a Zionist or even a Jew in order to placate The New York Times, or Hollywood is an act of worship to their alien gods.
But having Chelsea Handler speak about Judaism is like having Wilt Chamberlain speak about abstinence. My question is where was Handler rebuffing the accusation? Instead she blamed the Zionists as Mitch rightly points out. Zionists are different than Jews. In what is now tragically becoming commonplace for Jews and even those who pretend to be Jewish, we are allowing misinformation, even in comedy, to be taken as an established fact without any pushback? War is horrific. Israel is at war. If you don’t want one, don’t start one. As Mosab Hassan Yousef very intelligently points out, the entire premise of “Palestine” and being Palestinian today hinges on the destruction of the Jewish state. But the world can’t see or hear the actual often stated reality and goal of Hamas and the Palestinians that they have always wanted war instead of peace. Simply listen to their words. They don’t hide it, but the suckers in the west, Europe and even in diaspora temples full of Jews, refuse to listen. October 7th didn’t happen because the Palestinians were denied a state. It happened because they were given one.
Gaza was theirs.
No occupation.
No settlers.
No Jews at all.
Just them, ruling themselves.
And what did they do?
Prepare for war.
The world ignores this willingly simply to demonize the Jewish people. Why? Because that is what they have always done.
1660 Seville Jews Burned Alive
1663 Cracow Public Torture &. Execution
1664 Lemberg Mob Attack
1669 Oran (North Africa) Expulsion
1670 Vienna Expulsion
1671 Minsk Mob Attacks
1681 Vilna Mob Attacks
1682 Cracow Mob Attacks
1687 Posen Mob Attacks
1712 Sandomir Expulsion
1727 Russia Expulsion
1738 Wurtemburg Expulsion
1740 Liule Russia Expulsion
1744 Bohemia Expulsion
1744 Livonia Expulsion
1745 Moravia Expulsion
1753 Kovad (Lithuania) Expulsion
1757 Kamenetz Talmud Burning
1761 Bordeaux Expulsion
1768 Kiev 3,000 Jews Slaughtered
1772 Russia Expulsion
1775 Warsaw Expulsion
1789 Alsace Expulsion
1801 Bucharest Mob Attack
1804 Russian Villages Expulsion
1808 Russian Countryside Expulsion
1815 Lubeck & Bremen Expulsion
1820 Bremes Expulsion
1843 Austria & Prussia Expulsion
1850 New York City 500 People, Led by Police, Attacked & Wrecked Jewish Synagogue
1862 Area under General Grant’s Jurisdiction in the United States Expulsion
1866 Galatz (Romania) Expulsion
1871 Odena Mob Attack
1887 Slovakia Mob Attacks
1897 Kantakuzenka (Russia) Mob Attacks
1898 Rennes (France) Mob Attack
1899 Nicholayev Mob Attack
1900 Konitz (Prussia) Mob Attack
1902 Poland Widespread Pogroms
1904 Manchuria, Kiev & Volhynia Widespread Pogroms
1905 Zhitomir (Yolhynia) Mob Attacks
1919 Bavaria Expulsion
1915 Georgia (USA) Leo Frank Lynched
1919 Prague Wide Spread Pogroms
1920 Munich & Breslau Mob Attacks
1922 Boston, MA Lawrence Lowell, President of Harvard, calls for Quota Restrictions on Jewish Admission
1926 Uzbekistan Pogrom
1928 Hungary Widespread Anti-Semitic Riots on University Campuses
1929 Lemberg (Poland) Mob Attacks
1930 Berlin Mob Attack 1933 C.E. Bucharest Mob Attacks
1938-45 Europe Holocaust
I could have started BCE and had a list longer than the state of Israel. I could have started with the year 250 of the common era with our expulsion from Carthage or 325 with our explosion from Jerusalem. However, for brevity I chose a random date in the 1600’s and please note that this list above ignores our mistreatment at the hands of Islam. Not one of these tragedies listed above were at the hands of the Muslims. There is a whole separate list for that beginning in 622 with ethnic cleansing of Jews from Mecca and Medina and it’s extensive as well. Forget the lie you hear about how well we had it under muslim rule. Whoever is telling you that has no idea what they’re talking about. All you need to do is listen to what the world is saying about us today to understand not much has changed at all. The world’s rhetoric and actions just as it was 100 years ago, leaves us essentially alone again and sitting ducks for all the arrows being flung our way. Attacks on synagogues, marches in Jewish neighborhoods and major roadways the world over which began on October 7th and have only gotten worse, random violence against and the killings of Jews around the world and bile being spilled out of the mouths of both the ignorant and also pure evil people and yet no one blinks an eye. Not to mention there’s barely a whisper in the halls of power. All we get is “yeah, but Israel” as if antisemitism never existed before the Jewish state did. There has never been a better argument for the need for a Jewish State than our own than history living outside of one. Ever. The absolute best witnesses the Jews can call on to make their case for them are the governments and citizens of the world both alive and dead. Our response to all of those who claim we do not have a right to our own state and instead should be left as eventual victims in countries that have proven to be our oppressors, Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir said it best. “If we have to have a choice between being dead and pitied, and being alive with a bad image, we’d rather be alive and have the bad image.”
The shame of it is Handler is not alone. The number of Jews who still grovel at the feet of their non-Jewish masters seemingly grows larger by the day. The alien gods have taken hold and we continue to beg them to not think of us as Jews or worse yet, Zionists. What else can you call As a Jew, Jews who want so much to be loved by the world they reject their own people to placate their alien gods who demand submission. Jewish podcasters complain about their Hebrew school teachers who lied to them about Israel and Jewish history, academics who argue against their people in the face of overwhelming evidence, TV and movie stars who gripe about what they wish they would have known, keep piling on without shame all in the hope that their alien god non-Jew clubs and parties will still include them.
The truth is but for a few exceptions, the one thing all these people have in common is their lack of Jewish education and understanding of who they are and where they come from. They point to their torturous three hours a week Hebrew schooling they spent in their youth until they could run away from Judaism after their bar/bat mitzvah day and candle-lighting ceremony. Speaking of which, when did this ridiculous thing start? Who was it that thought in lieu of an actual Jewish education, we can replace it with some church like activity to make people feel better about a Judaism of which they know nothing about and will soon rid themselves of, possibly for good? Who thought this was a good idea? Who believed this was the key to Jewish survival? That’s probably a different subject for a different day, but it all sort of ties in to the sad state of our situation.
We have left our future generations empty of basic knowledge of their own history and had them exchange that knowledge for snippets of false narratives they see on TikTok and Instagram. When we have made silly irrelevant ceremonies which have no connection to Torah, G-d, and Judaism, the goal of their Jewish experience, what did we expect? When we bought into the notion that the Jewish people do not have a shared destiny how is anyone surprised? When rabbinic leadership sacrifices actual mitzvot on the alter of secular humanism and then have the audacity to claim those ideas are Jewish values, can we actually be shocked our children are marching against their own people? When so called rabbinical schools protest against the presence of the president of our one and only Jewish state, we have forgotten who we are and why we are here.
What should we be teaching our children instead? Teach them that there is only One on Whom we can rely. Our Father in Heaven Who created this entire world for you and you alone. “Bishvili Nivra Ha’Olam” as the Talmud (Sanhedrin 37a) teaches every person is obligated to say this, as it emphasizes that each individual is unique and has a personal mission to fulfill in the world. According to Rabbi Noach Weinberg, the purpose of creation is that the entire world exists to provide you the necessary environment for you to develop your potential, and you must take responsibility for it. THAT is what it means to be a Jew. Our children should be taught to choose life and run far away from anything or anyone that glorifies death no matter the circumstance. Our children should be taught that if we were meant to be selfish or live alone we would have been born in our own little box. Instead, G-d created us to live amongst people and therefore it is incumbent upon us to chase peace and make this world a better place than how we found it. But more than anything else we must teach our children to never apologize for being a Jew. To never beg to be loved by a world that has proven throughout the centuries the love they offer everyone else is, and will forever be, elusive to them. To always remember they are part of something far greater than themselves, a part of an unbroken chain from when they stood at Sinai until today. That they belong to a people who, even though they have been persecuted and despised regardless of where they have lived, have nevertheless seen all their tormentors come and go and they can find them on the trash heap of history.
“I have declared, and I have saved…Therefore you are My witnesses, says the L-RD, and I am G-d.” (Isaiah 43:12)
Hashem has kept us and saved us to testify to all who wonder how we are still here, how we have survived all the death and destruction and even now when we are attacked by those who assure us of our coming demise (CV), it is G-d in Whom we have a total and complete faith. It is G-d Who has done so because we are to be His witnesses. Teach your children not just on passover, but every day, that indeed He has saved us to testify to His Awesomeness and love. So when your children hear fools like Tucker Carlson say idiotic things such as “if America’s support were to go away, Israel would have 2 choices. It would either suffer elimination or would use nuclear weapons….Israel has no capacity to defend itself, period,” he embarrasses himself with his ignorance. For we here in Israel and the Jewish people the world over know “for the L-RD your G-d is He that goes with you, to fight for you against your enemies, to save you” (Deuteronomy 20:4). Yeah, thanks Tucker, but I’m gonna rely on G-d’s word instead of yours. Please be offended. But on the bright side? At least Megyn will still believe you.
“You are my G-d, and I will thank you, my L-rd and I will praise you. Give thanks to G-d for He is good, his kindness is everlasting.” (Psalm 118) As we get ready here in Israel to celebrate our sovereignty over a unified Jerusalem, it is my sincere hope that our enemies are painfully distraught as they watch us rejoice in our own land, in the heart of Zion, and do so with happiness and joy. I look forward to The New York Times opinion piece about it soon enough decrying our colonialism…in our own homeland…yeah, that makes total sense.
Try harder, losers.
