Now, Korach, a Levite, along with two sons of Eliab, decided to rise up against Moses with the support of 250 community leaders. They combined against Moses and Aaron, saying “You’ve gone too far. Why do you raise yourself up above us?”“You have gone too far, sons of Levi. Is it not enough that God has set you apart from the community of Israel by having you perform the duties of the Lord’s Dwelling Place? Will you seek priesthood too? Truly, you rebel against God.”At the entrance to the Tent of Appointed Meeting, Moses and Aaron gathered in front of those rebelling and the rest of the community.God then had Moses say to the community, “Get away from Korach and the sons of Eliab. Move away from these wicked men and touch nothing that belongs to them, lest you be wiped out for all their sins.” So the people moved away from them.When Moses finished speaking the ground under Korach, the sons of Eliab and their followers split, and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them and their houses and all of their property. They and their belongings went down into the grave alive and the earth closed over them and they vanished.

More than fourteen thousand died because of the Korach rebellion.

 

What happened to Never Again? Never Forget?

Dear Israel:You have forgotten the 3500 years of Jew hatred – from the four corners-persecutions, prosecutions, pogroms, auto de fe, expulsions, inquisitions, Jews shot in the back and tossed into trenches- too often alive and covered in dirt, Jews taken to crematoria via a modern day military industrial system. And now, in 2022 we have the highest levels of Jew hatred on record.

You have forgotten that these Jew haters care not if you are secular or religious. Why?

Because a Jew is a Jew is a Jew.

Every Jew has a right to be honoured in Israel.

You forgot.

Look at you.

Have you already forgotten about the  20 Israelis  murdered and 100 more who were wounded at the Dolphinarium nightclub in Tel Aviv in June 2001? For the crime of being Jewish? Because a Jew is a Jew is a Jew?

Because, here we are 22 years later, and look at the Jews in Tel Aviv-the Miami Beach of Israel.

I never thought I would live to see the day when JEWS in Israel would fight against Jews moving into the neighbourhood. Jews in Tel Aviv accused the city of plotting to force a “far-right yeshiva” into a largely secular neighborhood. They don’t want those ORTHODOX Jews near them. They don’t want “those” Jews moving in? Those Jews? You mean the ones that were put in the camps first and then burned. Or shot in the back and pushed into pits? Mind you, your secular counterparts landed there as well. Because to Jew haters, a Jew is a Jew is a Jew. You sound like the people who had signs:  No Jews Allowed. The elites who didn’t want Jews in THEIR neighbourhoods. NIMBY! Could ruin the neighbourhood.

How’s this?

 

I have a suggestion for these Jews. Move to America. You’ll fit right in with the millions there who don’t want Jews in their neighborhoods, either. Make sure you tell them you are a Democrat. That’s important because the Democrat Party, today, is the most antisemitic in history – and considering that Roosevelt refused to take in the Jews from the St Louis, that’s saying a lot. And the Democrats proudly support the Hamas squad. They, for sure, don’t want Jews living near them.

And look at, and I mean really look at TV host and model Galit Gutman who called ultra-Orthodox Israeli Jews “bloodsuckers” during a panel discussion about the government’s upcoming budget.

“How much burden can be placed on a third of this country in order to support all of these Haredi bloodsuckers, all these people who suck our blood?” she said on the Channel 12 morning news show.

Jews as BLOODSUCKERS?????? A “famous” antisemitic trope through the ages.

Her parents must be really proud!

I’m all for free speech. But this is dangerous speech – words one hears from “celebrities” like Roger Waters.

Yair Lapid blasted the government’s proposed government resolution prioritizing “the values of Zionism” as racist and discriminatory, especially against Israel’s Druze community. Really? Attacking the values of Zionism?

 “The values of Zionism, as they are expressed in Basic Law: Nation-State of the Jewish People, will be the leading and decisive values in setting public policy, domestic and foreign policy, legislation and actions of the government and all of its units and institutions.”

Adding a little more insult to injury Lapid stated:

“It wouldn’t do any harm if artificial intelligence could replace your entire government.”

Not done yet, Yair Lapid (Yesh Atid) went to America and encouraged left-wing Jewish organizations to stand against the Israeli government. And they did! How proud Lapid must be!

How did the proposal of keeping Israel Jewish, body and soul, lead to a Jew, an Ambassador to Denmark saying,

“The ultra-Orthodox and Religious Zionist politicians are the Jewish jihad, they are an existential and certain threat to the State of Israel.”

And former head of Shin Bet, Carmi Gilon, castigated Israeli politicians who are religiously observant. And then we have  former Shin Bet chief Yuval Diskin saying that the current coalition “is not a fully right-wing government, it is a fully terrorist government.”

How about that Avigdor Liberman? Liberman has a long history of making comments hostile to ultra-Orthodox Jews, including saying in 2021 that the religious parties should be “carted off to the garbage dump, along with Netanyahu, in wheelbarrows.” And now saying that Netanyahu should be eternally damned for allocating funds to ultra-Orthodox schools that don’t teach the core academic curriculum.

This is how Jews in Israel talks about one another when the world is against Israel? And then wonder why there is so much hate towards Jews and Israel?

Dear Jews:

By the grace and hand of God, you are alive and well and thriving in the only Jewish state in the world. Jewish.  Not secular like America. Jewish. Home to all the Jews. Not just your type of Jew.

Perhaps Jews against Jews in Israel need to go into exile for 40 years. And relearn the meaning of freedom and the teachings of Torah.

Or is it possible these Jews are suffering from cognitive dissonance? “Who am I?” Perhaps you are too comfortable in Israel? Too assimilated? Too acculturated? Too American?

Have too many Jews in Israel lost faith? Does that explain the lack of courage to stand up for the Jewish People in the only Jewish nation in the world?

You are like Korach.  A Shanda to the Jewish people and to the JEWISH state of Israel – a nation, not a country.

Israel, the Jewish people, are a nation; a community of people formed on the basis of common history, language, laws, culture, ethnicity and territory. We are more than a country, like America, which is a physical territory with a government, a geographic region associated with sets of previously independent or differently associated people.

As Rabbi Sacks wrote in Covenant and Conversation:

We are a people who struggled with God and man and yet survived.”

We must never bend the knee to false gods. We must never be ambivalent about who and what we are.  We must not fall to other ideologies that are anathema to Torah and Tanach, especially now, 75 years after we fought for and gained our Independence,  a renewal of the Jewish state in our legal and historical land, the land where the Jewish people began to develop its distinctive religion, laws, customs, rituals, culture  and the ethic of freedom, 4,000 years ago.

We were chosen to be the LIGHT UNTO THE NATIONS:to co-create with God, not destroy.

When will we ever learn?

 

From the Ethics of the Fathers: “Rabbi Tarfon used to say, it is not incumbent upon you to complete the task, but you are not exempt from undertaking it.”