Antisemitism - 2014

This is not my post but I felt the need to share it. It's rather long but it needs to be read.

Blake Ezra
Blake Ezra is a London based writer on Middle Eastern Politics and the Jewish World
Dear world, I’m writing to you from a place of despair and confusion. When I say ‘world’, I don’t simply mean the planet upon which we all live but I address personally whoever is reading this. As a Jewish person, I have a question for you. It’s a genuine question to which I can’t find a suitable answer through my own thoughts… What do you want from us?
I’m writing from London, where only yesterday a black Islamic flag was flown from an estate in Tower Hamlets, and a passer-by was shouted at by a group of Muslim youths, “Fuck off Jew, you’re not welcome here.” In the past month, in the supposedly liberated and forward thinking capital of England, a Swastika has been daubed onto a Jewish home, protestors have carried placards with slogans such as ‘Hitler Was Right’, and an independent arts venue has imposed sanctions upon an apolitical Jewish Film Festival.
In Scotland, a property sales consultant called Richard Ladd, a professional suit-wearing gentleman who deals with the public each day, tweeted “Shut up you ugly Jewish c***. If only Hitler was still around to sort you out” to a Jewish footballer. In France, rioters have looted and burned Jewish shops, and attacked synagogues. In Germany, two Jewish people were attacked only for being Jewish, and an Imam in Berlin told his congregants, “Count the Jews and kill them to the very last one.” In Belgium, a café has displayed a sign banning Jews from entering, and four people were indiscriminately murdered on the street outside the Jewish Museum in Brussels. Flags of Hamas and Hezbollah, both of whom call for death to Jews, have been flown in cities including Sydney and Vancouver. The cover of Newsweek Magazine recently featured the headline ‘Why Europe’s Jews Are Fleeing Once Again’. World, shockingly I really could go on for much longer, but hopefully you get the picture…
I don’t feel safe as a Jewish person in my own city at this moment in time, and this is a sentiment shared by many of my co-religionists, regardless of their levels of religious observance or political affiliations – it is solely due to the religion into which they were born. It is truly difficult to believe I’m writing such a post, condemning the most vicious forms of racism with masses of people in numerous countries genuinely calling for death to Jews, whilst using a military situation in the Middle East as their excuse to make these ferocious desires appear somewhat justifiable. Perhaps Lord Rabbi Sacks, a respected thinker and former Chief Rabbi of the UK, summed it up better than I could in the British House of Lords last week: “My Lords forgive me, if I say that I did not expect 120 years after the Dreyfus Case and 70 year after the Holocaust, that the cry of ‘Death to the Jews’ would be heard again in the streets of France and Germany.”
World, what do you want from us? I’m not asking in order to be prosaic, in order to write for writing’s sake. I’m asking because I genuinely don’t know. Trust me, as I sit here fearing for what my city may become in the next five or ten years, I’m really trying to answer the question, but I can’t. There is a passage in the Passover service read by Jewish people every year; it lists the gifts that God has given to us. After each one we say “Dayenu”, which in modern vernacular means, “This would have been enough for us.” World, it seems like whatever Jewish people do, whatever contributions we make to the societies in which we live, however much we keep our heads down and try to contribute only positives without making a fuss, it is never enough to stem the hatred, it is never enough for you.
The Jewish people have never constituted a large proportion of the population of this planet, yet have given humanity so much. Jewish people who have helped shape our world include Gabriel Lippmann, Nobel Prize Winner for Physics in 1908 for inventing colour photography, Albert Einstein with his theory of relativity, and Jonas Salk who invented the first vaccine for polio. What about Levi Strauss, who’s probably creditable for the trousers you’re wearing right now, Ephraim Hertzano who invented the game of Rummikub, or Nat Rothschild and Moses Montefiore who helped Britain become ‘Great’. What about any of the 193 Jewish Nobel Prize winners across the fields of Medicine, Economics, Literature and Peace?
World, do the Jewish people not deserve some respect for giving you Emile Berliner, who invented the gramophone, Louis B. Mayer, who first came up with the idea of the ‘Oscars’, or Erich Weisz, better known as Harry Houdini the founder of modern magic? Surely the cultural contributions of, to mention a very selective few, Jerry Seinfeld, Dustin Hoffman, Sacha Baron Cohen, Barbara Streisand, Larry David, Harvey Keitel, Drake, Dame Vivien Duffield, Felix Mendelssohn, Gene Simmons, Graucho Marx, Adam Sandler, Mark Zuckerberg, Pink, Yehudi Menuhin and Steven Spielberg warrant some level of recognition that, as a people, we do not deserve death threats in almost every country on earth? World, this list of achievements is in no way claiming that Jewish people are superior to others, we are not, I just believe that surely we’ve given enough to society in order not to deserve Muslim youths in East London declaring their neighborhood a ‘Jew Free Zone’.
The stark reality of a liberal Jewish Londoner, in 2014, listing the positive contributions made by his ancestors to society-at-large whilst questioning why we face almost unprecedented amounts of vitriol and threats, is in itself an outrageous indictment of how far society has failed to progress when it comes to the hatred of Jews. Blogs like this shouldn’t have to exist; we shouldn’t have to grovel. My grandfather was English enough to have put his life on the line and fight in the British Army, yet my great grandmother’s tombstone in Manchester is Jewish enough to have been desecrated last month by local youths. We are prepared to give our lives for the countries in which we live; yet we are disrespected in death.
World, what do you want from us? Jewish people have never insisted that whichever country they inhabit becomes kosher, Jewish people have never insisted that their fellow non-Jewish citizens keep the laws of the Jewish Sabbath, Jewish people have never insisted that their Synagogues dominate the skyline of towns across the diaspora. We mean no harm, we come in peace, please stop threatening to kill us.
Legendary Jewish comedian Jackie Mason puts his own slightly politically incorrect spin on it, by saying “Jews aren’t threatening people. I’ve never seen a group of black guys walk down the road and say to themselves ‘Shit, we better cross to the other side, there’s a group of Jews heading this way!’”
World, of course Jewish people do not have a monopoly on suffering, indeed many peoples are suffering as I write, from Yazidis to Kurds to Palestinians, but we have certainly become accustomed to it, from the Roman invasion of Jerusalem in 70CE, to the Spanish inquisition in 1492, the pogroms in Russia in the late 1800s, and many other atrocities in between. Yet, we are still scarred by the Holocaust, which stands alone as the most inhumane chapter of humanity. On a timeline of world history, we remain within touching distance of this horrendous suffering at the hands of the Nazis, indeed many survivors are still alive to this day. It is not part of our past, it remains part of our present. Six million of my ancestors were brutally murdered in what can only be described as a systematic genocide. Having listed some contributions Jewish people have made to society, I wonder how much more humanity could have benefitted from the descendants of those murdered and their potential contributions to our world. It is clear that the Holocaust proved correct the assertions of Theodor Herzl, an irreligious man seen as the founding father of modern Zionism, as it became apparent to him as a European Jew that the Jewish people, however much we gave and however much we attempted to emancipate, would never truly be accepted in Europe. There would always be a threat, people would always find a reason to hate. World, these atrocities against Jews all came before the existence of the State of Israel, which is why it is so difficult for Jewish people to believe that the hatred being indiscriminately hurled in our direction today, at this very moment, is a direct response to any military action in the Middle East… it is not.
The State of Israel became a reality, established with international approval as one country on earth that would always provide a safe haven for Jewish people facing the threat of discrimination in the countries they call home. However, this young country has now become a stick with which to legitimately beat the Jewish people of the diaspora. Before Israel existed, people claimed to hate Jews because they were the root of an economic downturn in Germany, because they were responsible for killing Jesus Christ, or because they were plotting to overthrow the world. In fact, there have been hundreds of excuses used by whichever hate-mob of the time, to justify this inherent revulsion. Luckily now for those who despise Jews, there is Israel, doing its best to survive but an easy target for criticism. No more outrageous conspiracy theories needed, just disproportionate and vitriolic criticism of Israel mixed in with a few death threats to Jews, occasionally disguised purely as support for Hamas.
Jewish people have even been hated for being supposedly intelligent. In fact many haters claim Jewish people are so intelligent that they have masterminded the atrocities against themselves as a method of gaining sympathy. I have even read that fanatical Islamist terror group ISIS, responsible for so many murders in this past month across the Middle East, are not Muslims at all, they’re Jews dressed up as Muslims. World, you couldn’t make it up, although clearly somebody has.
Now, the State of Israel is providing mass swathes of populations across the world with a new tool, a new excuse, a new method with which to be cruel to Jews. Friends, let’s be clear, being critical of any government policy, including Israel’s, is acceptable within the realms of freedom of speech, but much of what we see nowadays is the inherent and abject hatred of Jews, thinly veiled as ‘anti-Zionism’ as a means of justifying this vile phenomenon. Shouting “Hamas, Hamas, Jews to the Gas” is not simply criticism of the State of Israel, it calls for the murder of Jews. Today a protest against military action in Gaza has been planned to be held outside a small Synagogue in Cambridge, on the Jewish Sabbath; this extends far beyond the realms of anti-Zionism and punishes Jews on their sacred day of rest.
So, world, you’ve given us a country where we can feel safe and secure as Jews, yet when that country faces threats to its own existence and attempts to defend itself, you are up in arms on a disproportionate level reserved exclusively for the Jewish State. In 2013, there were 22 UN Resolutions that singled out Israel, and 4 that singled out countries in the rest of the world combined. That so many murderous regimes go unpunished or unnoticed is a tragedy, as much of the world turns their back on these atrocities as they look towards Israel like a coiled spring, ready to ignore whichever terror group are violently plotting a downfall of the Jewish State and condemn, condemn, condemn. This is bringing anti-Semitism, or more accurately ‘Jew hatred’ into the realms of officialdom and diplomacy. It is the respectable face of hatred towards Jews.
Executive Director of UN Watch Hillel Neuer summarizes the disproportionate condemnation like this, “If in the past year you didn’t cry out when thousands of protestors were killed and injured by Turkey, Egypt and Libya, when more victims than ever were hanged by Iran, women and children in Afghanistan were bombed, whole communities were massacred in South Sudan, 1800 Palestinians were starved and murdered by Assad in Syria, hundreds in Pakistan were killed by jihadist terror attacks, 10,000 Iraqis were killed by terrorists, villagers were slaughtered in Nigeria, but you only cry out for Gaza, then you are not pro-Human Rights, you are only Anti-Israel.” As Ali A. Rivzi wrote in his much-read piece ‘7 Things to Consider Before Choosing Sides in the Middle East Conflict’ on the Huffington Post, “If I were Assad or ISIS right now, I’d be thanking God I’m not Jewish.”
Whilst the Jewish State is being diplomatically pilloried, Jews around the world face increased vitriol and threats in their own high-streets, prompting them to show even more support for the State of Israel as it becomes increasingly apparent that one day we may need it more than we ever expected, simply in order to stay alive. Upon noticing our increased support for the only country we may be able to call home, you punish us even further for doing so, with your Hitler placards and burning of Jewish shops, with your Jewish Film Festival boycotts and shootings in Belgium. This, in turn, makes Jewish people even more resolute in their backing of the Jewish state. It is a vicious cycle that is gaining momentum, being fuelled by nothing less than the hatred of Jews amongst the masses, and the ambivalence of many. Clearly not every individual on earth harbours a deep detestation for Jews, but remember all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.
Sometimes, world, I wonder if your plan is to make Jewish people feel so uncomfortable in the countries they inhabit that they all move to Israel, all the Jews in one place would certainly make it easier for a fanatical group to wipe us all out in one fell swoop. Are you really working towards this mass International ghettoization?
World, I’m still desperately trying to decipher what we could have done differently, in order to avoid this deep-seated hatred that is seemingly coming to the fore this year. Last week on facebook I read a comment by a man called Andy Burns, it said, “The Jew is being exposed for what it is. Maybe its time to rethink what drove the decent people of Germany to take such drastic action to rid themselves of the Jew.” On a long and busy thread of comments, only one person questioned this abomination. Meanwhile in Somalia, Al-Shabaab proclaim, “The Jews are spread out throughout the world, and the Jews’ properties are spread everywhere. In light of this, the Muslims must attack the Jews and their properties in every place, and they must pray for their brothers in Gaza”.
World, I’m at a loss. Throughout my entire life I have encouraged tolerance, involved myself in inter-faith activity, raised money for charities and always tried to do the right thing according to both Jewish and universal values. As we sing “Dayenu” at our Passover service next year, I’ll also ask the question, can we EVER do enough to be accepted by you? World, I ask you in the hope that one day I’ll understand… What do you want from us?

See you soon, soul sister

Sunday, August 4th 2013 was a very sad day for me. It is the day I had to say goodbye to one of my best friends on line, in fact she was one of my soul sisters. Her name was Courtney Elizabeth McCall, and I will miss her terribly. She was reunited with her beloved dog Sadie Lou at the Rainbow Bridge in early July 2013. At the memorial, there was some laughter and many tears. She touched so many lives. It was a wonderful opportunity to meet her family, though I wish it had been under happier circumstances. As we say in my religion, may her memory forever be for a blessing. Believe me, it will. When it is time for me to cross over (which I hope will not be for some time) She will be one of the greeters, and she will be wearing that beautiful smile she wore while here. It isn't just our memories that keep her alive. There is more to this bag of bones. I firmly believe in the permanence of the soul. During everyone's tributes, a single solitary butterfly flew among the crowd. It was not seen again. I think it was her, telling us that she was free and that she loved us. A little later in the afternoon, we released some helium filled balloons that we wrote on, as a tribute to Courtney. As my wife Vanessa released it, I said, fly and be free. Be at peace my darling soul sister, till the creator of life reunites us.



Sign for Carrier Park Rotary Centennial Pavilion



Floral arrangement, candles and photo of Courtney



One of the balloons released.



Sign at Carrier Park entrance.

Are President Obama's pants on fire right now?

Are President Obama's pants on fire right now?

I think so. While this is just a proposal that he sent to the Congress, if the Republicans approve it, which is likely, they will hurt millions of seniors, veterans and disabled people: the very people he promised he would never make cuts to Social Security and Medicare. To borrow from "The Who": "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss". The man went on TV and lied to the American people. Bald-faced lied. Stood there with a straight face and lied. Can we ever believe anything he ever says again till he's out of office?

Wanna fix this country? It's easy as pie.

1) cut the military budget (specifically, the exorbitant money given to military contractors).
2) Cut the salaries of every Congressperson and Senator
3) Raise taxes on the rich
4) end Corporate campaign funds (it is clear they have far too big an influence on politicians.
5) Tax to the bejeezus belt, any company who outsources to foreign countries and who hide their money in offshore accounts.
6) TAX THE LIVING FUCK out of any church, synagogue, mosque, or other religious organization that has the audacity to stick its nose into American politics. PERIOD.

any politician, be they Representative or Senator, that does not agree to the above, should be removed from office immediately, arrested, then tried and convicted for treason.

My thoughts on Newtown, CT

It's time to discuss my feelings regarding the shooting in Newtown Connecticut. I am angry at a lot of things, but especially the situation that caused this heinous tragedy. Those children committed no crime, they did not deserve this. They were innocent victims of a very sick individual.

Clearly, he needed mental health help, maybe even should have been institutionalized. Who is to blame for all this? What leads a disturbed child down the path of a mass murderer? Was it his mom, stockpiling guns and food, planning for some coming apocalypse? Was she abusive? It's possible but it's also possible there are other reasons. A sane person in control of their emotions and either using medications to keep them on an even keel, or someone mentally healthy and balanced, would more than likely ignore all the outside negative stimuli that we are continuously bombarded with. Someone like this murderer (I will not honor him by saying his name) clearly had no such control. Did mommy teach him hate? We will never know. It's also possible that the media is partly to blame, as all they are wont to report is negative stories, constantly. Was it the injustice of Wall Street, getting away with all their thievery? Was it Congress fighting the president on issues that were important to the American people? Clearly there is an imbalance of justice in this country, and that has to turn around. Now there is even talk of President Obama waffling in regards to cuts in Social Security and Medicare, when everyone knows damn well that the deficit is caused my money mismanagement; spending cuts and fair taxes on the rich are necessary. These people see the wrongs being done on a grand scale, yet no one is punished. Maybe some of them just snap. It's also possible I'm talking out of my ass, but I don't think so.

WTF?

What is going on in this world? Especially in America? Have people become so intolerant? It has been said that "there are four boxes in the pursuit of liberty. The Soap Box, the Ballot Box, the Jury Box and the ammo Box. Use them in that order." It would appear people are not only intolerant of other belief systems here in America but these insane people are going straight to the ammo box.

In the last month (as of early August 2012) there has been, a shooting in a movie theater (Aurora, Colorado), a shooting inside a Sikh religious center (Oak Creek, Wisconsin), and just this weekend, the burning down of a mosque in Joplin, Missouri.

Have people just lost faith in the system, and if so, is it justified?

Many of us, myself included, are blaming several factors for this society's apparent breakdown: 1) intolerance taught by clergy (hate mongers if you ask me, not people of G*d) and Conservatives in both houses of Congress. These Conservatives are trying to take this country back to a time when freedom for the majority was only a dream, including people of color, and women.

If we don't stop this now, this country won't last.

People out there have the right and responsibility to impeach any elected official, especially if said official is not representing the people. Let us not wait till November, because the Conservatives in Congress can destroy us all by November. They are the consummate bullies, preying on the elderly and disabled.

The Republicans have admitted to having an agenda of getting Barack Obama out office by any means necessary, including not guaranteeing jobs to be created to put people back to work. Is that representing America? I think not. Get them out and get them out now.

Oy what a week.

What a week. A week of great triumph, great pain and disappointment, and me questioning whether I should remain on the Internet. Heavy I know. I apologize in advance for those who might be offended by this but I need to get this off my chest.

First, the triumph. My wonderful wife, Vanessa finally had weight loss surgery. She had Roux-en-Y and is healing quite nicely thank you very much.

Now for the disappointment. For me, other than the joy over Vanessa's surgery, it was a very bad week. I had seen videos and reports that the type of surgery she had would cure my diabetes. Despite the fact that the surgery could have been nixed due to my kidney issues, there was still the possibility. However, as it turns out, I'm likely ineligible for it because I had laproscopic surgery back in 1999 to fix a hiatal hernia, because the stomach had to be altered slightly. Guess I have to lose weight the old fashioned way. damn :)

Now for the real devastating part of the week. Some of you might be aware that an evil spirited amendment to the North Carolina constitution was proposed and put on the ballot on May 8th 2012. The amendment essentially allows discrimination and hatred towards certain people, to be the law of the land. It defines marriage, which is supposed to be the affirmation of love between 2 people, as only considered acceptable between a man and a woman. Despite the efforts of decent people everywhere, this amendment passed. The thing that hurt the most was all the so called Christian organizations that were so vehemently in favor of the passage of this amendment. Unfortunately, this should have come as no surprise to me, as so-called Christians throughout their history have used the name of Jesus Christ to do their evil against people not like them, for example the Jews, and for that matter, most indigenous people of whatever land they wished to conquer. Their treatment of the Jews is somewhat ironic since Yeshuah of Nazareth, the one they refer to as Jesus Christ, was not only a Jew but a rabbi. I call them so called Christians, or as I call them CINO's (Christians In Name Only) because even though I am a proud Jew, I don't believe Jesus would have found this type of hatred and exclusionary behavior acceptable.

Some might ask, “are you gay, is that why you support these people?” No I am Pansexual. Not many are familiar with the term. It essentially means that you can fall in love with and love anyone, be they male, female or transsexual. Vanessa is a Transsexual. To the ones who call us “gay”, you don't have a clue. You see, to me, it does not matter one iota what a person has between their legs. It's what's between their ears (mind) and shoulders (heart) that truly matters. It is said the the eyes are the windows to the soul. Well I looked into her beautiful blue eyes and saw the woman I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. We had a Jewish wedding and have a Jewish marriage license. The puritanical theocracy of the US may not recognize it, but in my belief and in the belief of people who matter, G*D brought us together and we married in His sight.

Getting back to the amendment. There is no way the politicians who thought up this foolishness were being anything but hurtful when they proposed it. Their attitude had to be, “These people are different than we are, We must fear them. We must make it so that they don't have an equal right to what we enjoy. They are less than human. Our blood is redder than theirs.” To these politicians I say: Bullshit! Worse, when decent people tried to dissuade them, they pull out their favorite biblical weapon, Leviticus. Unfortunately, in this case they are Cafeteria Christians, because they pick an obscure part of Leviticus, a greatly misinterpreted section of Leviticus at that, and use it to spread their hatred. They ignore everything else in their bible. They seem like they can't get wrapped around the concept that G*D and Jesus just do not hate like humans do (are you listening, Fred Phelps?). G*D does not discriminate. G*D made all of us, not just white Conservative Republican Christians.

One thing the passage of this amendment did, was make me partly lose my sense that North Carolina was “home”. You may infer from all this that I despise gentiles. That is far from the truth. The people I despise are haters. People who cling to the old ideal that their belief system is the only one that can possibly be valid. People who will hate you just because you are different. Those are the ones that I despise. They are the ones who are not true Christians anyway.

The rare true Christians - know the true word of G*D. Love and respect for all different people. Let me give you an example of what I mean: One of those true Christians was Miep Gies. Don't know her? She hid several Jewish families including Anne Frank before they were betrayed by a neighbor (as I recall the story). Raoul Wallenberg was another great humanitarian. So was Oskar Schindler (yes, THAT Schindler, as in the movie). Another example of true Christians is the people of the town of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon in France that helped many Jews survive the Holocaust.

Now, here is the reason I almost left the Internet. I was offering my opinion on the Asheville Citizen Times, expressing my anger and disappointment with what happened. This one person suggests I should read the KJV. I told him in no uncertain terms to mind his own business. Then he says he will pray for me. That is one of the most irritating statements by one of these “born-again” people, totally disrespecting my belief system. Then he announces to me and anyone else listening that I am outright going to hell because I am not Christian. At that point I was done. Other than ignoring this type of person, what else can one do?

Kill Amendment One in North Carolina

This post will appear on my wall several times till May 8th 2012. It is aimed at friends and family from North Carolina and friends who have family and/or friends in North Carolina. The link below describes something on the North Carolina Ballot that should never have been put on it to begin with, but now that it's on there it needs to be resoundingly defeated by the general populace.

http://www.ballotpedia.org/wiki/index.php/North_Carolina_Same-Sex_Marriage_Amendment_(2012)

This measure can only be considered evil because it represents the smallness of a small group of people, most of them conservative Republicans. They are of the opinion that their blood is somehow redder than those of the ones they wish to hurt with this amendment. What they are trying to do is alter the North Carolina constitution, to restrict marriage to be between a man an a woman, which doesn't just hurt the LGBT community but it hurts all those people in loving relationships that do not fit into the mold of a man and woman being married. It is wrong, wrong, wrong, to want to put into a state constitution a restriction on personal freedoms. If they do, it is a slippery slope. What's to stop them from banning Jews from North Carolina Or Muslims, or Buddhists? Where would the line be drawn once this happens if it's allowed to be passed. Below is a link to an organization that is trying to et the word out, to kill this amendment.

http://www.protectncfamilies.org/

Thank you for listening.