Jewish Man Praises Christian America

Link

Posted April 8, 2009

Newsweek magazine’s cover proclaims The Decline and Fall of Christian America, while the article inside the cover proclaims The End of Christian America. The substance of the article doesn’t really prove the headline, but the goal of whichever editor wrote the headline is clear: The undeniably Christian nature of this country is coming to an end, and that’s a good thing.

The Newsweek headlines are consistent with the pervasive hostility of the liberal media, legal, artistic and entertainment elites towards Christianity in general, and any concept of this country being a “Christian Nation.” Mocking Christianity and the Christian foundation of this country is not just acceptable, it is a path to fame. Mock Islam, and you may get killed; mock Judaism, and you will be criticized; but mock Christianity, and you will get a show at an art gallery, an award from a civil liberties union, and bragging rights at a DailyKos convention.

Camille Paglia sums it up as only she can:

“Yes, something very ugly has surfaced in contemporary American liberalism, as evidenced by the irrational and sometimes infantile abuse directed toward anyone who strays from a strict party line. Liberalism, like second-wave feminism, seems to have become a new religion for those who profess contempt for religion.”

A second, and parallel, theme also emerged during Barack Obama’s tour of Europe. Not only is the United States not a Christian Nation, it is not exceptional. We are at best just one equal nation among many, and our sins are so great that we, and we alone, must apologize to others. And if this apology requires that the President bow down to a monarch whose country does have a state religion, so be it.

The emergence and strength of these two themes, the disdain of Christianity and the denigration of American exceptionalism, are dangerous. As a Jew, I am glad that I live in this exceptional Christian Nation. Outside of Israel, there is no place where Jews are more accepted. A Jew need not fear wearing a keepa (yarmulka) in public as one must in virtually every major European city, from London to Paris to Brussels.

While I do not underestimate the depth of anti-semitism which resides in some individuals, groups or institutions, this is not a nation which has known pogroms or nights of broken glass. To the contrary, this nation from its founding has welcomed its Jewish citizens. Reading George Washington’s Letter to the Touro Synagogue of Newport, Rhode Island, in 1790, brings tears to my eyes:

“May the children of the Stock of Abraham, who dwell in this land, continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other Inhabitants; while every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and figtree, and there shall be none to make him afraid. May the father of all mercies scatter light and not darkness in our paths, and make us all in our several vocations useful here, and in his own due time and way everlastingly happy.”

No country in the world has accepted Jews into its arms as has this Christian Nation. Although you wouldn’t know it from listening to the liberal intelligentsia which dominates so much of the dialog, hatred of Jews is not a threat in America. To the contrary, the only true threat is that Christian Americans love us so much. Intermarriage, not hate, is the single biggest threat to Jewish life in America, which says a lot about how much Jews have become interwoven with the fabric of this exceptional country.
When I think of the exceptional nature of this country, I also think of the rows upon rows of white crosses in cemetaries above the beaches of Normandy, of thousands of mostly Christian soldiers floating on the shores of islands in the Pacific, and the mostly Christian American soldiers who liberated numerous concentration camps.

I think of Christian Americans like Vernon Tott of Iowa who not only liberated concentration camps, but took the time thereafter to bear witness to what he saw (and decades later to reunite with one of the prisoners he liberated):

“I was a radio operator in the Infantry and on April 10, 1945, we were going to attack Hanover, Germany. Early that morning I was sitting in my radio jeep with Capt. Reed, at a crossroad, west of Hannover. After the sun came up we could see down a dirt road that someone was waving to us. Capt. Reed thought these people might be American POW’s so he told me to drive down to them. A couple truckloads of riflemen came with us. When we got there we could see that it was a Jewish slave labor camp (Ahlem). What we saw inside of the camp was Hell on Earth.”My memory of what we saw when we first entered the camp was the pile of dead bodies. The men alive were in ragged clothing and they were just skin and bones. They came towards us with smiles on their faces. They knew their horrible nightmare was finally coming to an end.

And of the black Christian American soldiers who, though facing discrimination at home, helped liberate the camps:
I also think of the Harry Truman, the Christian American President who made the United States the first nation to recognize the State of Israel in 1948, and Richard Nixon, the Christian American President who saved the State of Israel with an emergency airlift of military supplies in 1973. Whatever personal sentiments these two men harbored regarding Jews, they stood with the Jews when it counted. And Christian American President after President has stood with Israel at the U.N. almost alone in the face of the world’s tyrants.

Tonight is the first night of Passover, which commemorates the exodus of the Jews from Egypt, and celebrates freedom. One of the key sections from the Passover Haggadah warns of the dangers in the world:

For not just one alone has risen against us to destroy us, but in every generation they rise against us to destroy us; and the Holy One, blessed be He, saves us from their hand!

Nothing has changed in thousands of years. They still rise up in every generation to destroy us, but this time the names are not Haman or Adolf, but Mahmoud and Osama. And on this earth, it will be Christian Americans almost alone who will stand with us.

I’m reminded of the bumper sticker from the 1960’s: “If you hate cops, next time you are in trouble call a hippie. ” Jews, of all people, should not wish too hard for The End of Christian America. There is no one else to call.

So particularly at this Passover time, we should not wish too hard for the End of Christian America. We might just get it.

The Muslim Massacre of the Jews of Hebron

http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/027388.php

In 1929 Jews in Hebron were living on land they had “occupied” for 3,000 years. “Remembering the Hebron Massacre: Until 1929, Jews had lived in the city for three millennia,” by Jerold S. Auerbach in the Wall Street Journal, August 27 (thanks to Dan):

[...] On Aug. 23-24, 1929, the Jewish community of Hebron was exiled following a horrific pogrom. The tragedy is known as Tarpat, an acronym for its date in the Hebrew calendar.Until 1929, Jews had lived in Hebron for three millennia. There, according to Jewish tradition, Abraham purchased the cave of Machpelah to bury Sarah. It was the first parcel of land owned by the Jewish people in their promised land. Ever since, religious Jews revered Hebron as the burial site of their matriarchs and patriarchs. Conquered, massacred and expelled over the centuries, Jews always returned to this sacred place.

After 1267, under Muslim rule, no Jews were permitted to pray inside the magnificent enclosure, built by King Herod in the 1st century, that still surrounds the burial caves. But following the expulsion of Jews from Spain at the end of the 15th century, a small group of religious Jews rebuilt a community of study and prayer in Hebron.

In August 1929, that community was suddenly and brutally attacked. Incited by the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem—who claimed that Jews were endangering Muslim holy sites on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem—Arab rioters swept through Palestine. In Hebron, the carnage was horrendous.

It began on Friday afternoon when Arabs attacked Jews with clubs and murdered a yeshiva student. The next morning, joined by local villagers, Arabs swarmed through Hebron screaming “Kill the Jews.” They broke into the home of Eliezer Dan Slonim, where many Jews had gathered for safety. There they wielded knives and axes to murder 22 innocents. In the Anglo-Palestine Bank, where 23 corpses were discovered, blood covered the tile floor. That day, three children under the age of five were murdered. Teenage girls, their mothers and grandmothers were raped and killed. Rabbis and their students were castrated before they were slain. A surviving yeshiva student recounted that he “had seen greater horrors than Dante in hell.”

When the slaughter finally subsided, 67 Jews had been murdered. Three days later, British soldiers evacuated 484 survivors, including 153 children, to Jerusalem. The butchery in Hebron, Zionist and religious officials alleged, was “without equal in the history of the country since the destruction of the Temple.” Sir Walter Shaw, chairman of an exhaustive British royal investigation, concluded that “unspeakable atrocities” had occurred. [...]

Hebron Jews are relentlessly vilified as fanatics who illegally occupy someone else’s land. As religious Zionists, they are the militant Jewish settlers whom legions of Jewish and non-Jewish critics love to hate. It is seldom noticed that their most serious transgression—settlement in the biblical land of Israel—is the definition of Zionism: the return of Jews to their historic homeland.

250 Rabbis to Obama: Jerusalem is Jewish

by sheikyermami on July 22, 2009

What are our ‘peace-partners’ saying?

“Peace for us means the destruction of Israel.  We are preparing for all-out war, a war which will last for generations.” - Yasser Arafat, former leader of the PLO.

“We plan to eliminate the state of Israel and establish a purely Palestinian state.  We will make life unbearable for Jews by psychological warfare and population explosion.  We Palestinians will take over everything, including all of Jerusalem.” - Yasser Arafat, former leader of the PLO.

“If the Jews all gather is Israel, it will save us the trouble of going after them worldwide” - Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, Secretary General of Hezbollah.

(Foto taken from JerusalemShots.com)

• Christian lobby in Washington cautions Congress against Obama’s pro-Islamist administration, policies
• The ‘then maybe they will’ doctrine

Tammuz 29, 5769, 21 July 09

by Gil Ronen/IsraelNationalNews.com

(Israelnationalnews.com) Heads of the Pikuach Nefesh rabbinical committee have begun collecting the signatures of rabbis in Israel on a letter to United States President Barack Obama. The letter demands that Obama cease talking about ending Jewish construction in Jerusalem and stop pressuring Israel in that direction.

In a reference to the upcoming “nine days” which culminate in Tisha B’Av, the rabbis tell Obama that “during these days, in which the Jewish people mourns the destruction of Jerusalem and marks the disgraceful memory of its destroyers, we are certain that you, Mr. Barack Obama, do not want to enter that disreputable list of those who raise their hand to strike Jerusalem and those who live in it.”

We are certain that you, Mr. Barack Obama, do not want to enter that disreputable list of those who raise their hand to strike Jerusalem and those who live in it.

The rabbis note that during his visit to the Middle East, Obama showed “impressive erudition” in the Koran. “As one who is familiar with the Koran, you surely know that the city of Jerusalem is not even mentioned in it once,” they said.

Jews pray towards one place

“The Arab and Muslim world never recognized Jerusalem as belonging to it,” the letter went on. “On the other hand, all of the world’s nations knew for thousands of years that the Jews pray towards one place only – the holy city of Jerusalem.”

The rabbis added that even putting aside the city’s enormous sanctity and importance for the Jewish people, there is no realpolitik logic behind any concession to the PA. “Since Israel began negotiations, withdrawals and concessions to the Palestinians, the entire world is witness to the justice of the Jewish Law (Halacha) which determines that any such concession will entail another round of bloodshed and deepen mistrust and dangers,” they agreed.

The rabbinical letter ends with a clear request: “If you, Mr. Obama. Wish to leave any chance at all for peace and quiet in the Middle East, take your hands off the Holy City of Jerusalem right now!” %ad%

Two hundred and fifty rabbis have signed the appeal, and efforts are being made to collect the signatures of almost every single rabbi in Israel before the letter is sent to Washington.

How to Boycott Israel and the Jews