American Progressive Jews remind me of black people who were thrilled if they could pass for white. I understand that desire. Black people were not welcome in the white world. To get ahead, to get anywhere, it was easier if one could “pass.”
It appears to me that too many Jews in America, today, feel the need to “pass,” to hide in plain sight, in order to be accepted in the Progressive New World. Perhaps because they are too comfortable in America, in Galut (exile), and do not want to move to Israel to be safe, so they cozy up to Jew haters, to blend in.
There was another time when Jews hid in plain sight. They too were comfortable, well-off, educated, sophisticated: Progressive. They were not at all like the other Jews; you know, the one’s from the shtetl. Interesting bit of history. In the end Hitler did not care because all over the world, from time immemorial, a Jew is a Jew is a Jew. This same attitude of us and them is happening in America. Liberal, Progressive Reform Jews said nothing when New York Governor Cuomo scapegoated Orthodox Jews, those Jews, for spreading Covid, when he said nothing about BLM protests or Shia Muslim gatherings for Ashura.
What is it, dear misguided, Progressive Jews, that frightens you about being Jewish in America that you align yourselves with the “other” Progressive groups who attack Jews and Israel? I watch as you bend the knee to the antisemitic gods of diversity, Black Lives Matter, and critical race theory.
It never goes well for Am Yisrael when Jews, trying to “pass” stand with those who attack us.
What we are witnessing now is far from the first time that Jews in America tried to diminish the assault on Am Yisrael-the Jewish people, in order to feel comfortable in America.
In 1918, liberated Jews in America said there was no need for the Balfour Declaration, calling for the formation of a Jewish state in Israel. Why bother.
On July 4, 1918, the Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR), the national organization of Reform rabbis shared a resolution arguing against the Declaration’s premise that the Jews were a people without a country, when in fact they were “and of right ought to be at home in all lands.”
And then came the Nazis. What a way to learn a lesson.
During WWII when FDR was asked, well begged, to take in the Jews from the St. Louis, fleeing the gas chambers, this beloved Democrat President said, no.
It was Reform Rabbi Steven Wise, the founder of the Jewish Institute of Religion to train rabbis in Reform Judaism which later merged into the Hebrew Union College, who during WWII decided to pass on pushing FDR to take in Jews. In 2008 David Ellenson was one in a list of prominent American Jewish leaders who censured the Jewish leadership of the 1940s. He wrote:
“In the 1930s, it was Wise who led the rallies against Hitler, so why did he fail so horribly in the 1940s? Part of the explanation lies in Wise’s “absolute and complete love” for president Franklin D. Roosevelt, as well as his antipathy toward the Zionist leader Ze’ev Jabotinsky, and toward the Bergson Group, whose leaders were followers of Jabotinsky, something that “helped blind him” to the need for more activism.
Ellenson said concerns of provoking an anti-Semitic backlash should not have thwarted the American Jewish leadership from actively working to prevent the extermination of six million Jews. “Jewish leaders have an obligation to be sufficiently flexible and imaginative to deal with unprecedented situations,” he said. He said he hoped that today’s leaders would respond more effectively to contemporary dangers facing the Jewish people, such as the Iranian nuclear threat.
Wyman Institute director Dr. Rafael Medoff said,
“Stephen Wise spent too much time trying to protect FDR from criticism, and not enough time focusing on how to convince Roosevelt to help rescue Jews from Europe.”
Seems today’s liberal Rabbis/Clergy (169) are taking after Wise; protecting the Democrat Party. The Jewish Democratic Council of America had circulated a letter asking “Rabbis, Cantors, and other Jewish faith leaders” to “reject attempts to divide the Black and Jewish communities” by “spreading falsehoods about a candidate for US Senate, Rev. Raphael Warnock,” and they responded. They protected him; a putrid Jew-hater, running for the Senate from Georgia. Well, it seems they fear a break between Jews and Blacks more than innate, systemic, endemic Jew hatred in America. Do Blacks fear a break between Blacks and Jews? Let me answer that for you. No. BLM care not a bit about the Jews.
These “Jewish” clergy are standing with a man, Rev. Raphael Warnock, who in 2018, delivered a hate-filled rant against Israel and the Trump administration on the occasion of moving the American embassy to Jerusalem.
He repeated the lie about Israel taking away water from the PA Arabs, and accused the Jewish State of shooting “unarmed Palestinian sisters and brothers like birds of prey. And I don’t care who does it, it is wrong. It is wrong to shoot down God’s children like they don’t matter at all. And it’s no more anti-Semitic for me to say that than it is anti-white for me to say that black lives matter. Palestinian lives matter.” He considers Israel to be an apartheid state.
Ten years earlier, in 2008, Warnock defended President Obama’s antisemitic preacher, Jeremiah Wright, on Fox News, saying, “We celebrate Rev. Wright in the same way that we celebrate the truth-telling tradition of the black church, which when preachers tell the truth, very often it makes people uncomfortable.”
I assume these 169 members of the clergy and their congregation also stand with Democrat representative, Hank Johnson (who defends Warnock) who compared Jewish Israeli settlers to termites. Do you know who else compared Jews to termites? Hitler. And more recently, Louis Farrakhan, leader of the Nation of Islam, supporter of the Democrat Party and friend of Barack Obama.
Speaking of Obama; he pushed Israel under a bus by refusing to veto UN Res 2334 which declared Jerusalem and Judea/ Samaria as Muslim and then gave billions of dollars in small bills to Iran. Did he think the money was going to the people? It went to pay for terrorism against Israel and America. This man, Obama, kept his friendship with Louis Farrakhan, the leader of the Nation of Islam, a rabid Jew hating organization, a secret.
These Progressive Jews seem to be unaware of the attacks on their children at university. What kind of parents allows a student to be threatened at school? What kind of parent turns a blind eye to hate against their own children?
“Over the last several years, incidents of anti-Semitism in American higher education have dramatically increased, and anti-Semitic attacks remain the most common religiously motivated hate crime in the United States.”
They remain quiet when: the Students for Justice in Palestine chapter at the University of Florida posts a Der Stürmer cartoon; the Jews stand by the Palestine Solidarity Committee at Harvard broadcasting an image also featured on David Duke’s official website; a speaker who called Jews “Sleazy Thieves” is invited to offer an expert opinion on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
If you are deaf to what is going on at university, surely you are aware of calls by AOC and Rashid Tlaib to boycott and eliminate Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East.
Throughout Jewish history, our communities’ leaders have had a terrible habit of ignoring threats to Jewish safety in exchange for promises of acceptance—until it becomes too late. I fear that what we are seeing now is no exception.
Long ago when the Jewish people turned against the Covenant, with idolatry and corruption, the prophet Jeremiah called out to them to come back to our roots, to our ethic, to our people, and we didn’t. We were sent into Galut; exile, twice. We have no Jeremiah to call out to us as we once again turn away from God, from our Covenant with Him, from our call to protect and defend Am Yisrael, no matter where we live.
Dear Jews, do not fear. Do not cower. Do not cling to your enemies.
Hiding in plain sight, “passing” will not save us.
Three thousand years of history have taught us that a Jew is a Jew is a Jew. How much longer before you learn that lesson?
We must repair ourselves before it is too late for our children and grandchildren.
Please open this link. A Jew is a Jew is a Jew.
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.”
