Sunday, August 3, 2014

The return of 1938!


I have a friend who before she puts up anything on Facebook, that has to do with Israel or the Jewish people, states, “It is 1938.” That is the night of broken glass, Kristallnacht, the night in Germany when many synagogues and Jewish businesses were destroyed.  And she is right. The problem is the stories are multiplying so fast and in so many ways that one hardly knows what to write.
The Jewish people are being harassed all over the world. Many are leaving France because of the recent rise in anti-Semitic acts which include violence.  The truth is the attacks on Jewish people, including attempts at burning their Synagogues and businesses and turning away the sick from proper care[1], are coming from both militant Islamic emigrants and the old guard, the peoples of Western and Eastern Europe who still cling to their fascist past.[2]

And South America has several countries, supposedly socialist, they are more in the fascist tradition, who are involved in the harassment of Jews. One South American country, Bolivia, has declared Israel a terrorist state while others have pulled their ambassadors.[3]

The stark reality of all of this really hit me several days ago, because of a threatened attack on an Arab undoubtedly by other Arabs! Several weeks ago I put up a posting about two web sites. One web site was meant to show where the rockets hitting Israel were coming from. One of the creators was Jewish living in Israel, and the other was a Moroccan Arab living in the Netherlands. They were working together and were friends. Now the Arab young man has had his life threatened because he worked on the project and worked with a Jew. He has fled the Netherlands. The story is here: The Story of a Fucked Logic.

A lot of the real news isn’t showing up on the regular media and when I look at the Israel/Palestine Mission Network’s site, both their news and their tweets, I get all of the leftist and fascist’s alternative news. One story about the violence in Europe was just an opinion piece by a far left Jew explaining that the Jews in Europe were basically getting what they deserved. That was a link on the IPMN twitter page. I can’t find it now, I presume they took it down, which was a good idea.

 One good report by an American newspaper was in the Los Angeles Times, they were reporting about Hamas’ tunnels. “Gaza tunnel network threat leaves Israelis shaken “gives must of the details of the tunnels and the trauma this gives to Israeli citizens. It at least helps the reader to understand some of the reasons Israel has felt the need to go to war. And it also is a clue to how badly Hamas treats its own people, since the cement and other material used in the tunnels would have built schools and hospitals in Gaza.

To return to my original thought that it is 1938; this evening I read a piece in PJ Media, by Roger L. Simon entitled, “Welcome to the 1930s.” He writes of a return to the 1930s that is worse than the 1930s. After writing about one of his favorite persons from his childhood, a nurse who bore on her arm the tattooed numbers the Nazis gave her, she lost all of her family in Nazi concentration camps, Simon writes:

Now more than ever in my life I am haunted by Mrs. Mindus. The tattooed numbers spook me, not because I expect to see friends and family being carted off to the camps, but because I see a world of anti-Semitism metastasizing so quickly across the globe there might not be time for that. From Paris to Caracas, from Brussels to Bangkok we hear chants of Jew-hating as loud, ugly and perhaps even more wide-spread than we did in the 1930s. Paris has even had a new Kristallnacht. And in dear old Blighty, “Hamas! Hamas! Jews to the gas!” goes the cry on the London streets with Jewish Labor Party leader Ed Miliband for all intents and purposes leading the band himself!

I am a Christian who holds dear my Jewish friends. This is all so maddening; that the Jewish people and those who befriend them, such as the Arab who helped to build a page to show where rockets which are aimed at Israel are coming from, should suffer threats and violence is historically unthinkable. How could this all return? And those who hate Jews, also hate, as usual, Christ and his people. If the root is delegitimized, the tree will be easily pushed aside and used for firewood.

picture: Ruined Ohel Yaakov shul in Munich taken after Kristallnacht. From Wikipedia, private collection


[1]Belgian physician refuses to treat Jewish patient over Gaza op  http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/jewish-world-news/1.608220
[2] Exodus: Why Europe's Jews Are Fleeing Once Again, http://www.newsweek.com/2014/08/08/exodus-why-europes-jews-are-fleeing-once-again-261854.html
[3] See, http://www.christianpost.com/news/bolivia-declares-israel-a-terrorist-state-over-gaza-conflict-south-american-countries-pull-ambassadors-124111/ “Bolivia Declares Israel a 'Terrorist State' for Defending Itself; South American Countries Pull Ambassadors”

4 comments:

William Morrow said...

And what are your brothers and sisters in Israel/Palestine saying? I consider their insights and judgment more helpful in terms of what Jesus described 'as the ways which make for peace'.

Viola Larson said...

William, hopefully they are saying that not attempting to burn synagogues and attack Jewish people in Germany and France or threaten the Arab I wrote of is part of the ways that make for peace, which is what I was writing about.

Anonymous said...

I think what you are saying is that the Western World should be shutting out Arab Muslims. This Anti-Semitism that you are showing is an import. Not so prevalent among Western Christians. Strongly prevalent among Arab Muslims. I've even heard it in muted terms from Arab Muslim colleagues - naturalized Americans - who worry about the Jews in management, locking them out. Not being able to get ahead in the corporate world because it is run by Jews. Self fulfilling prophesy in a way, but on closer inspection, not even true. Just an Anti-Semitic assumption that those in power are Jews - because they are in power. More than anti-Semitic or Racist, it's an insidious Cosmology.

But still, I remember once being denied service in a dinner in Pennsylvania because I was with my obviously Brooklyn born Jewish boss. That was weird. The waitress just would not come over and take our order.

And I was denied service in a restaurant in Argentina the same way, because I was with my nephew who for wonderfully mysterious reasons looks the archetypal Jew. And we were approached by a lonely Jew who assumed the same, and who was just looking for somebody to be with, and talk to. Weird putting on those shoes.

I can say that I have been wonderfully blessed by the Jewish mentors I have had over the years. Teachers, professors, bosses, colleagues, ... its a mystery to me why they have been hated so much and by so many over the centuries. But the Rabbinical school of thinking embraces my innate argumentative nature. The fact that I question everything is often seen as an annoyance by my Christian teachers and colleagues, but a virtue by my Jewish ones.

But we do live in different times. For example I am grateful that we live in an era when Christianity can sit, and learn from the Rabbis, the Jewish context of our Scriptures. It opens up a whole new dimension of Biblical interpretation we don't even realize is there, and then it's as obvious as the nose on our face. It's a time when we can learn from them without trying to either convert or kill them.

Temper that comment with the fact that they are quick to remind me that, on the average, over the centuries, they have been much safer and flourished better under Muslim rule than Christian.

Ouch.

In other words, in spite of the present circumstance, we have some humble catching up to do.

Jodie Gallo
Los Angeles, CA

Viola Larson said...

Jodie, no I am not saying that the western world should be shutting out Arab Muslims, but I am saying that Arab Muslims need to let go of their anti-Semitism. And I am also saying that there are many westerners who are still clinging to the old Nazi ideas about Jews. They are now resurfacing. That is scary.

I like the rest of your comments. Interesting stories. Thank you for sharing.