The Truth About The Jews
Up until this morning, I thought I'd heard it all in regard to anti-Semitic rhetoric and lies. Increasingly, hate for Jews is on both the right and the left, and this means people will scapegoat Jews for every wrong in the world from poverty to politics to cultural changes to global warming. The last one would be funny, except that it was stated by a politician in Washington, DC and he really did blame the Rothschilds for an unexpected snow storm in the nation's capitol recently.
When Tamika Mallory of the Women's March National organization recently praised Minister Louis Farrakhan, the leader of the National of Islam and a virulent anti-Semite as the "GOAT", many progressive Jews had had enough. When I explained to people on my state's Women's March page when what Ms. Mallory did was hurtful and not representative of a truly intersectional women's movement, very liberal women told me that Jews were "money mongering", that being Jewish was a "trick", that Jews complain too much, and that Hitler was right. With friends like these, who needs enemies, right? To dispel some of the more prominent lies, let me say that not all Jews are white (we can be anything from the darkest African to the palest European), most Jews are not rich, most Jews are not powerful. If George Soros is sending out checks for activism, I have yet to receive one. If the Rothschilds are running the world and have so much money (and they're not omnipotent or super rich, this lie is easily debunked), they've failed to mail me a dividend check for the past forty-some years. "The Bankers", "The Media", "Hollywood", "Global Elites", and "New World Order Brokers" are not the people you think they are, if you believe that they're predominantly Jews. But seriously, today I ran into Susan. In other worlds, we might align our interests. We both care about the environment and are concerned about government over-reach of power. We probably have anarchist or radical friends in common or maybe have only a degree or two of separation.
Okay, Susan. Let's discuss your completely ahistorical as fuck view that the Old Testament somehow came *after* the New Testament. It didn't. There's no way that it could. Jesus, the brown-skinned Jew living in the area of the Middle-East that touches the Mediterranean Sea and that was ruled by the Romans during his lifetime, very clearly was responding to parts of Judaism that he felt needed reform. He's turning over the money-changers' tables in the Temple, for example. Now, I can make a strong argument that his intent wasn't to start a whole new religion based on his crucifixion. My guess is that he merely wanted to address aspects of the Jewish faith that offended him.
Point being, there's no Christianity without Jesus, and there's no Jesus without him wanting to reform Judaism.
When I counter her, she begins to deflect. She's right that Palestinians are Semites, as are Jews from the region. She's wrong in thinking all Jews are Eastern European, and it's absurd for her to try to deny that anti-Semitism is a catch-all term for prejudice and hatred against all Jews. The term should also rightly apply to prejudice and hatred that Palestinian Arabs face, but it typically doesn't. If I had to guess, none of those in leadership on either "side" want to highlight the fact that their dispute is one between family members, cousins if not siblings.
Susan believes that Jews originated in Eastern Europe, which is false by any metric. There is zero historical, archaeological, or scriptural evidence to support her assertion. Then Susan pulls the "this Jewish person says" card, which is akin to a white person saying, "Well, Malcolm X said" <<insert some racist bullshit here>> and calling that a definitive argument. Mr. Freedman can say plenty of things about Eastern European Jews. If he wishes to say that calling their negative experiences in Eastern Europe anti-Semitic is "fraudulent" because they're not in the Middle-East, that's fine and dandy, but that doesn't allow him or anyone else the ability to deny the horrible persecution Jews in Europe faced. Again, the historical record is explicitly clear on the deep prejudices that Jews faced in predominantly Christian Europe. Also, not all Jews in Europe were Eastern European (Ashkenazi). Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews also lived in Europe. Finally, she jumps the shark with her post about Revelations. Had she not immediately blocked me after she posted that comment, I would have told her that translations from original texts lose their meaning over time and that biases held by translators can also influence texts. Meaning, Revelations as originally written in Aramaic or Greek and then translated into Latin and then translated into French and the translated into English...you get my point. In addition, it is completely illogical that Jews somehow planted themselves in Europe simply to live there for over a thousand years under the harshest of conditions only because of some master plot to come back and take over "Palestine." And to say that they are "fake Jews" while also knowing that they were persecuted for so long for being Jewish is laughable and absurd, if it weren't so infuriating. I don't know about you, but if I pretended to be another group for some nebulous master plan that wasn't going to happen for thousands of years later, I'd pretend to be a popular group, not a reviled one. Just sayin'. As for Zionist Jews and the situation between Israel and Palestine, all I can say is that the lust for power makes strange bedfellows. The fact that the Israeli government is being propped up by Christian Dominionists in the United States is bizarre, especially when you understand that the Christians are merely supporting Israel to herd all the Jews there, have Armageddon, and then the Christians will apparently ascend to Heaven or whatever it is that they believe that I swear to you, Jesus Christ never believed. My point is that I can't help the Israeli government see how short-sighted and stupid their machinations are, just like I can't help Christian Dominionists understand how dangerous it is to literally attempt to blow up the world just because a holy book with multiple translations watered down over time tells them that they'll go to Heaven. I can tell you that it's easy to hate what you fear or don't understand. Before you listen to rhetoric that calls another human being an "animal" or a "monster" or a "blood sucker" or a "thug" or a "super predator" or "worthless" or "roaches" or any number of names and phrases that get thrown out by the powerful against the powerless, go talk to the Jew, the Muslim, the Palestinian, the Syrian, the Aboriginal, the Filipino, the Mexican, the Bangladeshi, the Indian, the Ethiopian, the Nigerian, the Haitian, and find out what their story is first. I can guarantee you that they are probably more like *you* than you expect.