True Identity
by: Schvach Yid

Ellen W. Horowitz has just posted an article on the Arutz 7 (Israel National News) web site. It can be accessed here:
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/8403


Forget about the evangelical propaganda. Just read the books by Rev. John Hagee, so beloved by the AIPAC crowd and other Jewish hopefuls. I’ve had my own experiences.

Years ago, on one of my innumerable health care jobs, I happened to pass the hospital pharmacy. There, perched atop a filing cabinet situated next to the entrance, stood a bottle of Kaopectate that bore an absolutely conspicuous (for me) label in Hebrew.

I stopped in my tracks to read it. A pharmacist seated near the door announced in a rather
proud tone that he had picked up the ditty while visiting Israel. He grinned – oh how pleased he seemed with himself. So I very nonchalantly proceeded to recite my free translation of the Hebrew label.

Wham! Quick like a bunny he grabbed the phone on his desk, punched in some numbers, and proceeded to complain about me (I was a very well-known item there, as well as in every workplace of mine down here in America’s Bible Belt). If this fellow had any conceptions of being ‘pro-Jewish’ or ‘pro-Israel’, then he managed to very competently blow his cover. Some supporter of a Jewish Israel! Perhaps the dolt didn’t understand that Israel is the Jewish State, and will remain so, and perhaps he thought that we Jews shouldn’t get around, as in make our homes in his precious Bible Belt. Perhaps he thought we Jews shouldn’t possess a knowledge of our religion’s language. (And yes, my supervisior gave me a mouthpiece about my erudition with 'foreign' languages.)

I hold no hope for a meaningful Jewish-Christian ‘dialogue’; not with the evangelists of America’s Bible Belt, not with the Vatican under the current serving pope, not at all.

And not with Islam.

Some absolutely fundamental changes in the values and teachings of Christianity and Islam will first have to be instituted before we Jews get to live in peace, at the behest of those two other religions, and those changes mean revisions in their respective claims of fundamental revelation, and that, Jadies and Jents, will never happen.

Good luck to us.

Uch!
by: Schvach Yid


I’ve always disliked Country Western music, and here’s a good example of why:



My thanks to Arlene Peck for this.
http://www.arlenepeck.com/

The Bestiality of Islam Continues
by: Schvach Yid

Islam announces itself as ‘the religion of peace’. Cat Stevens aka Yusuf Islam once asserted that Islam is ‘the perfect religion’. My foot (but please, don’t hack it off)!

Chabad being the Jewish community that teaches and extols Ahavas Yisroel, with its emphasis and commitment to menschlichkeit, has yet to express a sentiment of hatred concerning the ongoing slaughter in Mumbai in which Chabad Rabbi and Rebbitzin Gavriel and Rivka Holtzberg, along with 3 others, have lost their lives in the Chabad House in Mumbai, India.

Others say it far better than I can, so here are three links:

http://rutimizrachi.blogspot.com/2008/11/may-we-sing-for-joy-at-your-salvation.html

http://bogieworks.blogs.com/treppenwitz/2008/11/no-raised-eyebr.html#comments

http://www.chabad.org/news/article_cdo/aid/773691/jewish/Mumbai-Jewish-Family-Killed.htm


Zichronam Livracha - may their memories be for a blessing.

Denmark Too
by: Schvach Yid


Talk about bandwagons, Demark has been reported as considering a bill that would ban circumcision in males under 15 years of age.

It sounds as though that Nordic country is vying for a honcho position at the UN.

I’ve never met an adolescent male who has wanted his possession to be so dispossessed.
Besides, the Aybischter never said 15 years of age.

Perhaps Denmark should take a lesson from my father’s observations during his service in the US Army. There, he served as a field hospital medic. Among his comrades were those between the ages of seventeen and their early twenties who fell under the surgeon’s knife, requiring a bit of modification to their cherished possession. Such an item of a late adolescent or early adult male is a bit heftier than that of an eight day old, and as such requires post-ceremonial sutures. In the early hours of each morning them dang stitchures would make their presence known to the patient in a most disagreeable way, often requiring a journey back to the O.R. for some patchwork. Mine was done post-partum (and I mean just), thank G-d.

This new bill is reputed by its sponsors to be a natural outgrowth of Denmark’s ban against female ‘circumcision’. I’ve written this before, so I’ll write this again. Females have nothing to circumcise. If the Danes can discern the difference between a Dane and a danish, then certainly they can differentiate between male and female genitals.

Circumcise means to cut in a circle. Females have no circles. I don’t know what that shape is called, but by the diamond boys on West 47th Street I think it’s called ‘marquis’; I’ve never referred to it as ‘marquis’.

Here’s the link:
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3625859,00.html

Chag Sigd Sameach!
by: Schvach Yid

Today is the 29th of Cheshvan. For us Ashkinasi Yiddin, it’s no biggy, but for the
Jews of Ethiopia and of Ethiopian descent, today is their national religious hoiday, Sigd.

So here are a few links to web sites that explain the significance of this festival:

http://www.pbase.com/yalop/sigd

http://www.jafi.org.il/education/festivls/sigd.html

http://www.ynet.co.il/english/articles/0,7340,L-3562939,00.html

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/116126

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/125100

I haven’t seen anything mentioned on the mainstream on-line Jewish news sites.
Perhaps a commenter or two can explain why.

Addendum: Oops, here's one -
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1227702351737&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

Tali Farkash is Back
by: Schvach Yid


Well, sort of. Here’s the link:
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3628962,00.html

Tali is Satmar, and evidently makes a hobby of questioning (?) some of the practices of the haredim.

The Holocaust, the Jewish Blame Game, and the Sin
of Sinat Chinam

by: Schvach Yid


Tomorrow night marks the seventieth anniversary of Kristallnacht, the night-long rampage by the Nazis against the Jews of Germany and Austria. My father and his family went through this delight of the Jew haters in Bremerhaven; my mother and her family in Vienna. All the prodromal speeches and misdeeds hadn’t sufficed to convince my immediate family members to flee their respective homes. The single act of the night of November 9, 1938, and those of the following day, November 10, 1938, had.

The members of both sides of my family were booted out of their homes on November 10th. My
paternal grandfather was taken into custody and shipped off to the concentration camp in
Sachsenhausen.

Baruch haShem, other family members and friends saw the ‘handwriting on the wall’ years before and had already left Germany and Austria to establish themselves in the United States.
These very same persons did what so many American Jews failed to do for their fellow Jews – they put their personal and business finances on the line by sponsoring affidavits for my family members stranded in Europe, so that they could obtain entry visas to the United States, thus sparing them from certain annihilation.

Some woke up too late but were spared nonetheless;
others never got the message at all and perished.

Seventy years later we Jews are fond of indulging in the blame game. It goes something like this: ‘the Jews of Germany are responsible for the Holocaust’.

I vehemently disagree, both as a Yeke and as a person who usually bothers to think before I speak or write.

This version of the aveira of sinat chinam is nothing new. In the late 1980’s or early 1990’s, a Jewish newspaper ran two articles, each in a separate edition, in which the respective authors stated their cases in support of this accusation, that the Jews of Germany did nothing to stop our genocide.

During this past Yom Kippur, as we congregants milled about for two hours between the end of Mussaf and the start of Mincha, I had the utter displeasure of hearing an Israeli ‘pontificate’ about almost every subject imaginable (actually, he was fishing for the right ‘button’, like a child who pushes every button in an elevator) – two hours worth, non-stop, including his assertion that ‘German Jews are more German than the Germans’. His logic was faulty, to say the least. German Jews could not be more German than the Germans; German Jews are German. The Nazis drew the same distinction as did he, and to top it off, that little Israeli sent his son to the University of Tübingen to attend college. Smart!

I’ve heard it too many times, and irrate doesn’t rate as an adequate description of my reaction, so I’ll state the matter plainly: the Jews of Germany are not responsible for the Holocaust!

Once upon a time I had an acquaintance, my senior by only a few years, who was born in a displaced persons camp in Austria, circa 1946, to Polish concentration camp survivors. He was one of several individuals who pointedly informed me of their subscription to this diatribe against the Jews of Germany. Today, he languishes (I’ve been told) in an assisted living facility, physically limited by the progression of multiple sclerosis.

Forgive me rabbis, far and wide, but in my opinion the Aybischter is certain to punish us for committing the sin of sinat chinam.

It serves no purpose whatsoever, this pastime of blame, not to mention the fact that it is factually wrong. The Jews of Germany were that Austrian madman’s first victims, not his sponsors. Blame is a call to accountability; victims are not accountable for their victimization.

Once upon a time I was invited to lunch on Shabbos following schul. The parents of the young lady of the house were in attendance. My invitation had been ‘arranged’ by one of the rabbis of the schul (Chabad). We sat down at the ‘tisch’, recited brochas, and ‘fressed’.

The time arrived to tell stories. ‘So, what’s your story?’ ‘Where’s your family from?’

I responded, ‘Oh, my father’s from Germany; my mother’s from Austria’.

A storm brewed on the face of the mother. ‘What happened to your parents during the war?’

‘Oh’, I responded, ‘they got out’.

Wham! The mother hostess now had me locked into her sights. A mudslide of accusation ensued in a panicked, machine gun-like cadence.
‘How did they get out?’
‘They must have had Capitol visas’.
‘How did they get the money for that?’
‘They must have been rich’.

As it turned out, both she (who was German) and her husband (who was Polish) had been ‘gathered’ and sent to concentration camps. She was aghast that my parents, grandparents, and other members of my family had managed to ‘get out’. Her husband, who had had a stroke, sat speechless but nonetheless seethed at me.

(One of my Biochemistry professors in graduate school, a concentration camp survivor from Poland, expressed a similar sentiment to me when he demanded to know ‘what business did your parents have getting out when I had to go though that’. He had a Ph.D in Biochemistry, not a doctorate in decency.)

I have to brag, I was cool in my response at that Shabbos meal. I simply stated that my family had had friends and family in the States who were sufficiently concerned and generous to provide the necessary papers required for immigration.

More expressions of indignation followed.

It obviously never occurred to these two to express a positive sentiment, something like ‘thank G-d your family didn’t suffer like we and so many others did’. This sort of kind thought evidently escaped their thinking, nor did they notice my refrain from rebutting with an accusation equal to their animus, something like ‘how did the two of you manage to survive when so many millions of others perished in the camps?’ Accusation is easy, after all, but the Aybischter hears, sees, and knows all, so watch it!

Some things are self-evident jadies and jents, and I do know when to keep my mouth shut (even though I’m freer with a keyboard).

By the way, the mother of my hostess worked as a nurse – you know, that profession of caring and kindness. I know all about nurses and Nursing - I used to work as a nurse.

And so, in response to the Jewish blame game artists, I can only respond with this – shut up you idiots! You’re not so smart after all, and sinat chinam is a sin – it’s in the machzor for Yom Kippur: ‘…v’al chet shechatanu lefanecha b’sinat chinam…’

The anniversary of Kristallnacht is a day of personal mourning for me and my family. My family went through it. They had been betrayed by their countrymen. That night, and all that followed for the next seven years or so, not only defines me, but in a most paradoxical way is responsible for my very existence, for without that era’s Jew hatred my family would have never fled Europe and come to America, my parents presumably would have never met, and I therefore would have never come into existence.

And no, I feel neither guilt nor remorse. No one has paid for my life with his own, and no, the Jews of Germany did not ‘abandon their brethren to the ovens of Auschwitz’ as one self-indulgent and intellectually gifted dolt once wrote (‘gift’, by the way, is the German word for poison).

Whoever coined the notion that ‘we are alone in the world’ got it right.

Knock it off already you banal shit heads!!!

Shavua tov!