“What starts with the Jews, never ends with the Jews”
If one is to call oneself Jewish, bearing witness to the Jewish condition, both past and current, is integral to Jewish identity. If you cannot, the Jewish tradition has a modicum of ‘rachmones’ for you. Suppose you were to purposely choose to ignore the sufferings of your people and simultaneously justify your oppressor. In that case, the Jewish tradition, along with the Passover Haggada has a message for you: Please refrain from beginning your sentences with the expression, “as a Jew.” It is simply obscene to do so.
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And now, a thought or two re ‘Screams Before Silence’ from the NYT Opinion today (No firewall)
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/30/opinion/screams-before-silence-sheryl-sandberg.html?unlocked_article_code=1.ok0.51hK.R8h5lsv6LAQJ&smid=url-share
Just in case one might be wondering why the army of the People of Israel is in Gaza — and seeks to eradicate the so-called filastin- hamas — here below is but one of the reasons and a fairly good indication of “why.”
If you can bear witness . . . . ‘Screams Before Silence’
Lest we, the Jewish People, either forget, or simply put this out of our minds: Please see Excerpts 1,2,&3 below and ‘click on link’ — that is, if you can bear ‘to bear witness’ to ongoing savagery directed against the Jewish people.
This email does not even begin to address the insult to injury coming from many college students and their advisors (internal and external) at American taxpayer-funded universities, all hiding behind youthful hubris along with, you know, . . . the right to free speech — all of which is nothing more than age-old Jewhate directed — against not just against Israel, but in truth, the Jewish People writ large.
Perhaps ‘‘Screams Before Silence’ ‘ should be required viewing for anyone entering tax-funded American institutions of higher learning . . .
- There is a scene in “Screams Before Silence,” the harrowing documentary about the rape and mutilation of Israeli women on Oct. 7, that I can’t get out of my head. It’s an interview that the former Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg, the documentary’s presenter, conducted with Ayelet Levy Sachar, the mother of 19-year-old Naama Levy, whose kidnapping that morning was filmed by Hamas. The sight of her pajama bottoms, drenched in blood at the back, was one of the earliest indications that sexual brutality was part of Hamas’s playbook.
- One is that the sexual violence appears to have been by design. Terrorists engaged in gigantic killing sprees usually don’t have time to strip and rape their victims. Morgues don’t typically find body after body arriving with bloodied underpants, butchered breasts, mutilated groins. On Oct. 7 and the days that followed, they did, and not just in a few isolated incidents. How did so many of the killers get the same idea?
- 3. The giant shrug with which the rape of Israeli women is being met suggests that time may be over. What starts with the Jews, as the saying goes, never ends with the Jews.
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From this week’s Haftara, the Prophet Amos speaks of a time coming.
May that time come soon . . . .
וְשַׁבְתִּי֮ אֶת־שְׁב֣וּת עַמִּ֣י יִשְׂרָאֵל֒ וּבָנ֞וּ עָרִ֤ים נְשַׁמּוֹת֙ וְיָשָׁ֔בוּ וְנָטְע֣וּ כְרָמִ֔ים וְשָׁת֖וּ אֶת־יֵינָ֑ם וְעָשׂ֣וּ גַנּ֔וֹת וְאָכְל֖וּ אֶת־פְּרִיהֶֽם׃
I will restore My people Israel.
They shall rebuild ruined cities and inhabit them;
They shall plant vineyards and drink their wine;
They shall till gardens and eat their fruits.
וּנְטַעְתִּ֖ים עַל־אַדְמָתָ֑ם וְלֹ֨א יִנָּתְשׁ֜וּ ע֗וֹד מֵעַ֤ל אַדְמָתָם֙ אֲשֶׁ֣ר נָתַ֣תִּי לָהֶ֔ם אָמַ֖ר יְהֹוָ֥ה אֱלֹהֶֽיךָ׃
And I will plant them upon their soil,
Nevermore to be uprooted
From the soil I have given them
—said the ETERNAL your God.
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Here, a small reminder of the state of the Jewish People in America . . . . and a dishonorable mention of Ilan Omer, may her soiled name herewith be erased. Links in “red tinted font.”
Is this just “young people,” or is this politics, or is this a blatant form of racism and bigotry directed against the Jewish People?
- Today in Washington, Jewish students from Northwestern will meet with legislators to discuss their experiences on campus in recent days, ahead of a House vote on the Antisemitism Awareness Act.
- The events on campus are raising concerns among congressional lawmakers. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) on Tuesday called on Columbia administrators to “bring order to their Manhattan campus” and compared the behavior of Columbia’s student protesters to the “brand of aggressive lawlessness” shown by “the student Nazis of Weimar Germany.”
- A day prior, a group of 21 pro-Israel House Democrats sent a letter blasting Columbia and accusing administrators of failing to break up the campus’ anti-Israel encampment. The legislators alleged that failing to do so constitutes a violation of Jewish students’ civil rights. The letter describes the encampment as “the breeding ground for antisemitic attacks on Jewish students, including hate speech, harassment, intimidation, and even threats of violence.”
- Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) is preparing a measure to censure Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) for her comments last week referring to Jewish students as either “pro-genocide or anti-genocide”; the Minnesota congresswoman made the comments while visiting Columbia University.
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