So once again we turn on the TV or open the paper and what do we see? Yet another shooting, more murder, more terrorism, more vicious anti Semitism. A person goes to a meeting about free speech and gets shot for his troubles. A man serves as a guard at his synagogue so a bar mitzvah celebration can take place - and he is killed, shot dead and why? Because he is a Jew standing guard over his synagogue. What is next? A modern day version of Kristallnacht?
Netanyahu tells the Jews of Europe that they always have a home, Israel, and are welcome there. But that is not the point. Jews, as should all other people, should be free to live wherever they wish as long as they mean no harm. They are not the ones who shoot and kill. They are not the ones who threaten mayhem and murder when yet another filthy cartoon gets posted in a paper, yet they are the ones who are killed.
And the world? Oh, they mutter and mouth platitudes for a while, but then settle down. Do they actually call it like it is? Do they say this is anti Semitism and must be stopped? Do they take actual steps to actually DO something? Do they call what happened what it really is - and no, not just terrorism but Islamic terrorism, Moslem extremist terrorism, whatever, but the two should be connected. And yet, and yet - they do not.
Even the Prime Minister of France who spoke passionately re the attack at the kosher supermarket and anti Semitism (and it is available on you tube), even he did not come up with practical solutions, only that it must be acknowledged and something done about it. Well, fine, but WHAT and WHEN?
Even our "esteemed" President, Obama, does not speak the truth. Never does he use the term Islamic or Moslem extremism, terrorism or anything similar. Our papers call these terrorists whether they be blowing up a bus in Israel or shooting up a synagogue elsewhere, militants!Really? Obama talks of the evils of the Crusades as excuses for terrorism or violent actions now. Really, again? Most Crusaders never even got to the Holy Land or Jerusalem but used their might and murderous intent on closer victims - the Jews of Europe who were slaughtered, tortured, raped, forcibly converted and it was the VERY RARE noble who stood up for the Jews of his territory.
Today we have people vigorously pursuing the "new" anti Semitism. Oh, we love Jews. Our best friends are Jews. Uh huh! But what we are against is Zionism, they say. Well, go suck an egg, for these are one and the same. There is one country in the world that will always welcome Jews, that takes them in, gives them a home and these refugees or immigrants are absorbed into the very fabric of the country. How many hundreds of thousands of poor, frightened refugees did the newborn State Of Israel absorb in its early years - Holocaust survivors, broken and torn, Jews from Arab lands who fled for their lives and they were not kept as showdogs for a world to go tsk, tsk and say, "how terrible". No, they were housed and eventually they and their children became a vital part of the country.
And it continued with the Jews from European countries who decided they needed to blame Jews for their troubles and so to Israel they fled, be they from Poland, Hungary or the Soviet Union. The Jews of Yemen came over on the biblically prophesized "wings of an eagle" which turned out to be the Israeli planes sent over to get them. The Jews of Ethiopia, Burma, etc. to this day, were and are being rescued and absorbed.
Sure, things are not perfect, but there is open debate and no one is killed to make a point. Yet when this one lonely country in the world opens its doors, indeed, keeps them open permanently, and remember, Israel took in Vietnam boat refugees when no one else did, the world screams when they defend themselves. Even people from Sudan and Somalia, Moslem countries, run to Israel, illegally, knowing that that is a safer country than their homelands.
For over 2,000 years Jews kept the hope of returning to their homeland en masse and there was ALWAYS a Jewish presence in the land. Even in the concentration camps this hope was kept alive. In a secret synagogue in Terezin the Hebrew phrase that states that "Our eyes will look forward to the time of our return to Zion, with your mercy", was beautifully painted."
Do not think that we are safe here because it is the USA. Do not think that because you are not openly seen as a Jew, or do not practice, or practice differently, or of mixed heritage, that the bell does not toll for thee as well. When irrational hatred raises its ugly head there are no safe refuges to be found - except in one place. And that is the land that terrorists wish to destroy. Think about it and then weep about the fact that this hatred, this ugliness is still here, alive and well and growing - and being excused - today, in 2015.
When is enough enough?
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