Amazing Chanukah Photo

A colleague at work showed me this photo: front and back. 

In it, the Chanukah candles in the window defy the evil Nazi banner in front of their headquarters in Germany and foretelling of the impending Jewish genocide and world war.

On the back on the photo is written:

"Chanukah 5692 [1931]. Judea dies says the banner. Judea will live forever responds the lights."

As we are once again living in a time of brutal terrorist violence and a moral black hole in civilization, we must again turn to Hashem and the Menorah to light up the darkness of our times. 

May G-d have mercy on His people and bless them in peace. ;-)

Amazing Chanukah Photo

Silence In the Face of Ongoing Terror And Murder

In the recent wave of terror attacks in Israel, in less than 3 months (Oct 1- Nov 23), there have been:

- 21 Murdered 

- 184 Wounded (20 critically)

Through:

- 74 Stabbings

- 10 Shootings

- 11 Car Rammings

The murdered include Ezra Schwartz, an 18-year old American citizen from Massachusetts. 

Despite the terrorism and the death of an American citizen along with so many other innocent Jews, the superpower country of the world is silent--not calling it reprehensible or deplorable or condemning it or demanding the terrorism stop immediately. 

- Silence, despite about the murder of Jews and even its own U.S. citizen in Israel on November 19.

- Silence, yet signing nuke deals with "Axis Of Evil" Iran--the #1 state sponsor of terrorism (undiminished in 2015) and top abuser of human rights.

- Silence in the face of terror attacks against Jews elsewhere abroad, like the Jewish teacher stabbed and killed in Paris last week by three assailants shouting anti-Semitic insults? 

- Silence through a "no-show" at the Solidarity Rally in Paris with 40 other heads of state in January to denounce the terror attack on Charlie Hebdo and on the Jewish grocery store that killed 17 innocent people. 

Could this perhaps be payback time to one of it's closest friends and allies for: 

- Continuing settlements for an expanding Israeli population who are surrounded by hostile neighbors that want to throw them into the Mediterranean Sea. 

- For a peace deal with the Palestinians that didn't materialize without a peace parter that would recognize the Jews States' right to even exist.

- For Netanyahu's objection to the Iranian nuke deal that put's Israel in the crosshairs of a sprouting nuclear regime that threatens annihilation against it. 

Regardless of why, it is abundantly clear that the killing of Jews in Israel and abroad is tacitly being given the green light to continue--and so it's an open field day for terror and murder of Jews!

Even the generally harsh critic of Israel, Amnesty International, has come out calling the terror against Israel "reprehensible and unjustified" and "a clear contempt for human life."

The appalling indifference to the murder of Jews by top administration officials, just 70-years after the Holocaust, is being heard loud and clear around the world.   

- It is a sanctioning of terrorism and murder, period. 

- It is reprehensible, period. 

- It is cementing a legacy of blind hatred and blatant discrimination and anti-Semitism that will go down in history, period. 

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Silence In the Face of Ongoing Terror And Murder

Am Yisrael Chai!

"For in every generation there rose up those to destroy our people.

In antiquity, we faced destruction from the ancient empires of Babylon and Rome.

In the Middle Ages, we faced inquisition and expulsion.

And in modern times, we faced the pogroms and Holocaust.

Yet the Jewish people persevered.

And now another regime has arisen swearing to destroy Israel.

That regime would be wise to consider this.

I stand here today representing Israel a country 67 years young, but the nation state of a people nearly 4,000 years old.

Yet, the empires of Babylon and Rome are not represented in this hall of nations.

Neither is the thousand year Reich.

Those seemingly invincible empires are long gone.

But Israel lives.

The people of Israel live.

Am Israel Chai!"

- Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
  United Nations, 2015

Am Yisrael Chai!

Erase Me Not

So in the war between good and evil, the battlefield has become a war of words as much as that of guns and bombs. 

If you can't exterminate a people physically, then why not try to do it historically? 

With despots like former Iranian president Ahmadinejad as a exemplar for Holocaust denial, history revisionists now make fair game of rewriting the past, so that it plays their way.

How convenient--if you don't like how something turns out, simply change it in the history books so it never even happened. 

I was surprised recently to see how far this method of verbal warfare has gone, when I happened to look up some information online about the Jewish Exodus from slavery in Egypt and trek to the Promised Land of Israel, only to find that in Wikipedia, this has now been deemed a "Charter Myth."

I wondered how both the thousands year old Jewish Torah and the Christian Old Testament that records my people's hundreds of years of slavery and redemption in the Biblical book of Exodus was now just recorded in the most prominent online encyclopedia on the web as a false belief!

Ah, maybe those pyramids in Giza just showed up one day--and my people didn't build them with straw, mortar, and dead Jewish slave bodies.

Forget about how convenient calling this a myth is to the terrorists who don't want to acknowledge that the Land of Israel was given by G-d to the Jewish people and instead want to believe in Jihad against all "infidels."

My daughter asked me on a recent walk why they hate us? 

And I answered and said, if another people--i.e. the existence of the Jews and their homeland, Israel--is a refutation of their hate-filled "religious" beliefs, then maybe we can understand why they want to get rid of us, the inconvenient evidence.

This same story is playing out in the fighting between Israel and Hamas, where despite incredible destruction to Hamas in Gaza, they are claiming victory on social media. 

The Jewish people are small in numbers, and if millions of religious militants wants to write us off in the history books and on the web, they can certainly try. 

But what Jewish people do that is smarter than trying to erase something bad from history is that we force ourselves to remember it--to learn lessons from it and become better despite what happened. 

That is why we celebrate Passover to remember the Exodus from many thousands of years ago. The same with Yom Hashoah to memorialize the murder of six million Jews in the Holocaust, and Tisha B'Av to remember the destruction of the two Jewish temples. 

Even we the commandment to blot of the remembrance of the evil that Amalek did in attacking the our infirm and elderly among us in the dessert in Exodus, we remember this annually!

The Jews are a people of the book--we remember, we study, we learn, we grow. 

In the Bible, there are plenty of people that did bad things, but we would never think to rewrite it or any portion of it. It is sacred and most valuable to learn from--the good and the bad. 

While damning the memory of someone bad is not uncommon among all cultures, it is really more a remembrance of what they did bad, rather than forgetting they ever did it. 

It is far more courageous to remember history and learn from it, then try fledglingly to rewrite the parts that you don't like or are inconvenient to you. 

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Erase Me Not

From Holocaust To Nation State

This is a really beautiful representation of the historical developments of the Jewish nation.

Where the Jewish people went from the fiery depths of the Holocaust to the rise of a modern democratic nation state of Israel. 

We are the same sons and daughters of Israel, but no longer exiled from the Holy Land and paraded like sheep to the slaughter from the hate mongers de jour. 

On the right are represented generations, who with the rise of every crazy demagogue that needed to blame their religious, political, social, and economic problems on a scapegoat, the Jewish people suffered at their bloody hands, discriminatory expropriation and expulsion, tax and torture, rape, pogrom, and slaughter.

On the left are shown the Jews from a free democratic State of Israel who are proud to seek a life of peace and security from persecution and who can chart their own course for their people and be a light unto nations for doing what is right and moral and contributing to the world in every significant development and advance of humankind. 

As the Jews went from slavery to freedom many thousands of years ago with the Exodus from Egypt and settlement of the land of Israel, so too today, we can count on the miraculous transition from exile to promised homeland and from persecution to self-determination. ;-)

(Source Photo: here with attribution to Eliyokim Cohen)

From Holocaust To Nation State

Not Bias, Just Plain Old Hatred

I read a book review in the Wall Street Journal on Profiles in Denial by William Storr about David Irving the notorious Holocaust denier. 

He is a "'revisionist' of all things World War II," but apparently is particularly keen on Holocaust denial, as someone who according to Wikipedia is an "anti-semite, and racist who...promotes neo-Nazism."

The Holocaust denial goes deep for Irving and even upon visiting Majdanek concentration camp, he tells his group "This is a mock-up of a gas chamber. Those cylinders are carbon dioxide not carbon monoxide...There are handles on the inside of these doors," so the prisoners could let themselves out. 

Actually, the door was locked with huge bolts right on the outside and was sealed airtight, but to Irving it's as if these didn't exist. 

The book discusses how cognitive biases such as confirmation biases help people "find confirming evidence for our beliefs, ignoring or rationalizing away all discriminating evidence."

But I think this is really beyond the point with someone like Irving, who according to The Guardian is a discredited British historian and Nazi apologist" and was actually jailed for a "three-year prison sentence in Vienna for denying the Holocaust and the gas chambers of Auschwitz."

The State Prosecutor said of Irving "He's not a historian, he's a falsifier of history...this is about abuse of freedom of speech."

Judge Peter Liebtreau called Irving "a racist, an anti-semite, and a liar."

So this is no simple bias or mind game for Irving, but apparently a convenient way for him to pursue his hatreds under the guise that everything was and is really okay. 

So rather than "Never forget," is is far more beneficial for those that would wish it to happen again that they lull people to believe that it never even was to begin with. 

Interesting that another famous Holocaust denier is no less than Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who claimed the Holocaust, in which six million Jews were murdered, was a "myth" (Washington Post). 

By the way, Ahmadinejad also said "9/11 was an inside job."

People like Irving and Ahmadinejad are not about confirmation bias, but rather about distortion of truth to further their own evil destructive aims.

In the case of Ahmadinejad, it's that he wishes to see Israel be "wiped off the map" (New York Times).

And in the case of Irving, he has said, "there will...probably be another holocaust in the next thirty years...oh, and if the Jews are lucky, there will be a David Irving or Adolf Hitler [may their names be obliterated] to protect them" (The Independent).

Oh, G-d forbid! 

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Not Bias, Just Plain Old Hatred

Jewish History At A Glance

I really like this poster graphic outlining Jewish history and key figures from Genesis until modern times. 

While there is already a lot of information on here such major events in Jewish history, world events, Jewish historical figures, Jewish literature and Jewish population, I would suggest adding major Jewish contributions to the world from Einstein to Freud, from Columbis to Salk. 

Also, I found that 23% of all Nobel Prizes (or 193 people) between 1901 and 2013 were awarded to people of Jewish descent--and the awards were across the fields of chemistry, economics, literature, peace, physics, and medicine. 

We are not a very large people--just .2%--in terms of population, but we have a very rich history--a mixture of persecution and contribution. 

Thank you Minna Blumenthal for sending me the link to this!

(Source Photo: here with attribution to Odyeda)

Jewish History At A Glance

If I Forget Thee O Jerusalem

So here is Israel on the map in the red.

You can barely see it, right?

It is surrounded by 22 Arab countries. 

Israel is 1/16 of 1% of the surrounding Arab countries.

After the Holocaust, where 6 million Jews were murdered (1 of every 3 Jews in the entire world), Israel has been attacked again and again by invading Arab countries calling for their utter annihilation. 

By the grace of G-d, the determination of the Israel Defense Forces, and help from righteous countries like the United States, Israel has been able to survive. 

But now, Israel is under a new threat--coming from the the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement.

The new tactic of Israel's enemies is that if they cannot defeat Israel easily on the battlefield, then they will try to conquer them by a campaign of eroding economic and political pressure and sanctions on Israel. 

For millennia, Israel and the Jewish people have been the minority and have repeatedly faced destruction, murder, expulsion, inquisition, crusades, forcible conversion, Holocaust, and more.

The BDS movement is another attempt to conquer this tiny country and add it to the trove of the surrounding Arab nations and "throw the Jews into the sea."

Thankfully, America and other friends and allies see that Israel seeks to live in peace and security, and not the oppression of anyone.

Hopefully, Congress, in their wisdom, will propose and enact appropriate legislation to stop the destructive action of the BDS movement, and will call for and mandate the boycott, divestment, and sanctions of any country or entity that does this to Israel.

As it says in Psalms 137:5 -6--"If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its skills! Let my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth, if I do not remember you, if I do not set Jerusalem above my highest joy!"

(Source Photo: here with attribution to ScaryIsrael.com)

If I Forget Thee O Jerusalem

The Iranian Gambit

Important developments going on with Iranian Nuclear Crisis...

According to the Jerusalem Post, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu is asking for a deal that dismantles Iran's ability to prepare fissile material, the core of a nuclear bomb--which Iran has threatened to use to annihilate the State of Israel.  

This is in stark contrast to a mere suspension of enrichment activity or reduction of stockpiles that still leaves this dangerous nuclear capability in the hands of the radical Islamic Republic. 

After coming out of the Holocaust Museum, Yad Vashem, in Jerusalem with French President Hollande, Netanyahu said to Hollande:

"You said when you came out that the experience of the Holocaust places a very special responsibility on all of us. Francios, I want to tell you the burden it places on me. It is my duty to prevent anyone who credibly threatens to execute another Holocaust against the Jewish people. That is my obligation, but our common obligation for mankind and for our common future."

Further, Prime Minister Netanyahu stated:

"We live here. We know something about this region. We know a great deal about Iran and its plans. Its worthwhile to pay attention to what we say."

Less than 70 year after the Holocaust of six million Jews at the sadistic hands of the Nazi murders, there is no room for error with the Mullahs in Iran. 

It seems like we are coming to a conclusion on this soon, as the Jewish people have learned it is better to live by taking your best shot, than die by going like sheep to the slaughter. 

(Source Photo: here with attribution to marsmet546)

The Iranian Gambit

12 Years A Slave, But Not Anybody's Property

I saw the movie "12 Years A Slave."

I have seen other movies on slavery, such as Amistad and Glory, but none were as potent and realistic as this was. 

I came out with my head full of feelings of pain and injustice, as if I had just lived through those 12 years as a slave myself. 

I literally felt sick to my stomach and the room felt as if it was spinning and I could hardly breathe. 

My wife said to me, "You wouldn't be human if you didn't feel bad."

And I responded to her, "I feel bad that they (the slave owners and traders) weren't human."

I cannot tell the story of Solomon Northup or of the horrors of slavery any better than the movie in fact did. 

But what I can convey is my shear disgust for how anybody could enslave and mistreat others the way the Black people and others throughout history were. 

As a Jewish person, my own people have a history of 400 years of slavery in Egypt, and this took on a whole new meaning. 

As great actors as Charlton Heston and Yul Brynner were, The movie, The Ten Commandments, did not show the depths of Hell of slavery as much as the breadth of Heaven of redemption. 

And while the Pyramids of Egypt were built not with massively powered Caterpillar earth movers and construction equipment, but with the flesh and blood of my people under the whip of servitude 3,500 years ago, similarly the Capitol of the United States and The White House were built with Black people in chains and hung by the noose. 

In the movie today, the plantation owners said they could do what they wanted to the slaves and without fear of retribution or sin, because the slaves were their property. 

What is unbelievable is that anyone can believe that anybody can be the property of anyone other than G-d, the Master of the Universe, him/herself. 

The slave trader in the movie, tearing apart a family and selling the mother and her children separately, when questioned on his ability to commit such atrocity, says matter-of-factly,"my sentimentality extends the length of a coin."

For a buck, what will a person not do?

In history, we have seen individuals and whole societies cheat, steal, rape, enslave, torture, murder, and commit every treachery and treason...for a buck or even just because they could. 

What is the lesson for all of us?

People can do great good in this world, but unfettered by faith, conscience, reason, or fear of justice, they can do great, great evil--and for that we can never let our guard down.

12 Years A Slave, But Not Anybody's Property

Academic Assignments In Hate

According to the New York Times (12 April 2013) a high school English teacher in Albany, New York on Monday asked students to write a persuasive essay on why Jews are evil and the source of our problems. 

The assignment stated: "You do not have a choice in your position: you must argue that Jews are evil, and...convince me of your loyalty to the Third Reich!"

This assignment echoed a similar assignment given to students in Georgia and New York City earlier this year instructing students to calculate math problems by using number of slave whippings and killings. 

Yes, these school assignments--to our children--are shocking and appalling. 

Although they call these teachers giving these assignments, these are not real educators, but rather bigots given a classroom pulpit.

Marguerite Vanden Wyngaard, the school district superintendent, said: "Obviously, we have a severe lack of judgement and a horrible level of insensitivity."

But this "apology" does not go far enough--in fact, there is no apology--just excuses and calls for sensitivity training. 

Wyngaard should've called this behavior for what it is--discrimination, anti-Semitism, bigotry, and hatred, and announced the firing of the teacher--who shouldn't be teaching anyone, anything!

With the Holocaust Remembrance Day this past Monday, April 8--this teacher added insult to injury in making such an assignment.

While teaching students how to write persuasively and argue different points of view can mean that sometimes you have to argue "the other side"; it crosses the line to assign students to write about why a whole race of people are evil, and on top of it to force them all to take that position.

According to CNews, a third of the students stood up and refused to complete the assignment--thankfully, there are some good and decent people left in this world.

Excuses are not apologies. Sensitivity training is not removal of a hateful bigot. And this school superintendent should've had the ethical backbone and courage to join the students who stood against this wrong. 

These "teachers" and school superintendent have at least six million reasons to do better, much better.

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Academic Assignments In Hate

First They Came For...

This was a short film/music video that my daughter brought to my attention. 

It reminded me of the famous quote about how anyone can be targeted and if we do not speak out, who will be there to speak for us. 

"First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left
to speak out for me."

- Martin Niemoller

Warning: Graphic images--nudity and violence.

First They Came For...

The Moses Bridge, A Design Inspired By G-d

Really love the design for this "Moses Bridge" located in Holland.

The bridge is stretched out across a moat to reach a historic fortress built in the 17th century to protect against French and Spanish invasion.

It allows people to cross the parted water and reminds me of when the Jewish people left Egypt and crossed the Red Sea parted by G-d through the hands of Moshe.

The amazing design makes it hard to spot from a distance making it part of the fort's defensive camouflage.

I am not sure how they prevent the water flooding in over the walls when the water rises and drowning the proverbial evil Egyptian armies of yesteryear.

I think the greatest designs are inspired by the hand of G-d and this is one of them.

Source Photo 1: here and Photo 2: here

The Moses Bridge, A Design Inspired By G-d