“America is unique. It’s defined by its values more than its borders.” – Joseph Lieberman
A Rebbe worth following once taught, “אם אין אני לי, מי לי? וכשאני לעצמי, מה אני? ואם לא עכשיו, אימתי?”
I’m sure that Jamie Raskin, Adam Schiff, and Chuck Schumer (plus, others less known these days!) would all agree with Joseph Lieberman’s statement above. But, *all* of them that, unfortunately, naively believe in a mythical version of the United States, have not *learned* from actual USA history.
They are, indeed, correct that the United States is exactly this quote, “defined by its values.” But, for it’s inherent Constitutional white supremacist slave-owning Capitalistic values, that have truly defined it from its founding to this very present day! I really hate to disappoint and to disagree with wishful thinking, but if we are ever to be more than just “only for myself,” we *must* examine history more honestly! Elsewise, we are complicit in systemic immorality.
What is this mythic United States that too many “American” Jews within the United States have been taught to believe that they live in? A few years back, in 2015, Joseph Lieberman described this mythic version of the USA to students of Yeshiva University. His devoted and loyal patriotic words to the future Jewish influencers and leaders within this nation. Let’s summarize what he shared in his speech:
“Discussing the role Torah[?] has played in American history, Lieberman said, “America is unique. It’s defined by its values more than its borders.” According to Lieberman, those values come from the Torah as much as from anywhere else: he referenced the book On Two Wings: Humble Faith and Common Sense at the American Founding by Michael Novak in describing how the American eagle “took flight with two wings: one wing from the enlightenment, and one wing from the Hebrew Bible.” He compared the United States to the Jewish people, both of which became nations upon receiving their defining values.
Lieberman described how the first words uttered by Reverend William Brewster, the first person to leave the Mayflower, were from the psalm ”Mizmor L’Todah,” and offered several examples of evidence of Torah influence over early Americans, including the fact that many pilgrims described their harrowing journeys as similar to the travels of the Jewish people across the desert.
He also came to admire others who shared similar views: “JFK held the same revolutionary beliefs—that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state but from the hands of God.”” (1)
As an *indigenous Jew* (a Jew who is insular and rejects colonization!) with considerable world history knowledge, it distresses my heart that “American” Jews are so bought into a version of the United States that has *never* actually existed. And, worse, expects the entire world to live by it, *including Israel*! The sad factual reality is that the citizens of the United States cannot make the United States a better place for *all* citizens, until we stop believing in a mythical United States and openly address and *teach* the actual history of the United States of (what Europeans named) “America”!
So let’s compare these dream-like idealistic beliefs about the United States, that is taught with fervor by those with societal privilege, with actual historical facts about the United States, shall we? First, we should mention the Wampanoag people, an actual Indigenous People – aka, “native,” who lament *every year* in memoralized regret that they helped the Pilgrims through their first winter, in what European’s named “America.”
The United States itself was founded by Christians (not Jews, but Christians, who took and never gave back Jewish money in order to fund this new nation). Colonials, who decided that it was in *their* best interest to wage an armed and militarized insurrection against their ruling government (the “American Revolution”) over having to pay taxes. (Sound familiar, peasants?!) Why should white prosperous landowners of a stolen land have to pay taxes?!
The United States was founded upon lands stolen from the Indigenous Peoples by Christian Europeans who believed that their Christ god had given them this new continent as a new “Zion.” Never ever have Jews thought of *other peoples’* lands as our Zion! Only our ancestral land, historic Judea-Samaria, which we’ve always fought for. But, now, as an indigenous Jew, I digress….
This newly founded USA nation was founded in preserving the egregious sin of Chattel slavery. You know, the kidnapping of human beings (Torah prohibited!) from Africa, all to enslave and breed them as working subhumans to build the white man’s nation?! The U.S. Constitution that was established for this new nation was colorblind! Not once did it recognize in writing that there is even the possibility that “all men” could include the skin color of non-whites. For this would mean the end of slavery, the very economy of this white Capitalistic United States!
Capitalism is the rule of an elite few white families with invested generational wealth over a nation that is composed of primarily the “working class” – *regardless* of skin color! Depending upon your skin color or determined racial class, you may or may not experience a bit of the mythic “meritocracy” privileges that should befall you for being loyal and hardworking citizens. But, as lottery style designed, good luck to you – especially if your not white! This *is* the United States of “America”!
Where the illusion of the United States being a representative *”democracy”* comes from, this began in the 1960’s, y’all! Black folks were so tired of not being “human” and deserving equal citizen rights in the United States that they willing to put their lives – *yet again* – on the authoritarian white ruled line to *force* white “America” to give them some meager kind of fundamental Civil Rights, from which to build from. But, despite the forced acquiescence of ruling white men of the United States to, at least, *some kind* of voting rights and governmental representation, how much has actually changed within the United States?
Honestly?! How many white people of power *today* are *truly* willing to share governmental power with non-whites in the 21st century United States?! Their former slaving owning ancestors know what is at stake: “What kind of *real* Civil Rights will be enacted the moment the United States becomes an *actual* representative “democracy”?” And they want to proudly represent their ancestors. Let’s get to *actual* Jewish Torah, shall we?!
The Torah *demands* that there be “one law” for all within Israel. The Torah *demands* that the rich do *their part* to *ensure* that the poor live like human beings in this world! No one is left behind in the land. Enough to where debts must be cancelled and restoration of lands returned every seven years, to ensure this!
The United States of “America” is NOT even closely based on the *defining values* of the Jewish people! Any USA Jew who disagrees, you are *our* Yehudicano version of First Nations’ experience with Mexicanos. (You know, the likes of insurrectionist Senator Ted “Cancun” Cruz, who thinks he’s white, LOL!).
(1) – https://blogs.yu.edu/news/torah-halacha-and-american-politics/
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There are 25 Christian Churches in Colleyville Texas. Aafia Siddiqui was prosecuted and convicted by Christian land colonizers. Why did this Muslim terrorist choose the *only* Jewish synagogue in town to take hostages? Because, *the very reason for Islam anti-Jewish racism in this world is Christianity anti-Jewish racism*!
No peace unless all is Arab Muslim, no peace unless all is European-ish Christian. We Jews have been stuck as pawns of a three way Holy War between Christianity, Islam, and Marxism for ruling Colonizer possession of the entire planet, ever since we chased the British and anti-Jewish Arabs off of our ancestral land in the 1940s. And we Jews have been the targeted victims of the supremacist Christian and Muslim societies for over 1,500 years longer!
Want to be a real ally of the Jewish people? Then *put your religion aside*, and be a staunch supporter for Indigenous Peoples’ survival and right to peaceful self-sovereignty within this world!
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“In fact, on Saturday night, at least one hour after the hostage crisis was public, the chief rabbi of Israel delivered his weekly Saturday night class … without mentioning a word about the hostages, without offering a prayer for their safety, without even noting how halacha, Jewish law, gives top priority to pidyon shvuim (the redeeming of hostages)….
The chief rabbinate and the right wing of the religious Zionist community, which (falsely) claim to follow the traditions of Israel’s first chief rabbi, Abraham HaCohen Kook, have turned Rabbi Kook’s poetry into poison, and his ahavat chinam – love without judgment – into animosity.
It would behoove all Jews to stop trying to delegitimize each other. We have enough challenges from without. If our enemies seek to destroy us from without, let us not make their work easier by destroying each other.”
– Rabbi Seth Farber, PhD, Founder and Director of ITIM and a Founder and Director of Giyur K’Halacha
https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/where-was-the-chief-rabbinate-definitely-not-in-colleyville/
Where was the Chief Rabbinate?!
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In the last 11 years, there have been 9,457 antisemitic (anti-Jewish racist) harassments, attacks, and murders in the USA. The overwhelming *majority* of these targeted incidents were from European Christians! Jews make up 0.017 (less than 2) percent of the entire population of the Christian dominated United States – 5.8 million Jews out of 329.5 million citizens (by comparison, African Americans are 12% of the population, at 42 million)!
We fool ourselves as the Jewish people if we think that Christianity is now friendly and write these increasing incidents off as “individuals and groups.” Nazism started out as “individuals or groups” and that Christian religion backed movement almost accomplished its worldwide genocide of Jews.
If we Jews ignore or white-wash the behaviors of the few, then we who do this are complicit in their hateful and violent behaviors, and are complicit in setting the stage for another attempted genocide of our people. How many genocides do we as a minority people in this world have to go through to learn this lesson within every able body of our people?
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“Satan knows more scripture than anybody else!” – Michael Eric Dyson
White citizens invoke yearly now the words of Martin Luther King Jr (MLK), that white citizens must “not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”
But, this is what Martin Luther King Jr has to say *to this very day* to this white supremacist United States of America:
“Whites, it must frankly be said, are not putting in a … mass effort to re-educate themselves out of their racial ignorance. It is an aspect of their sense of superiority that the white people of America believe they have so little to learn.”
“For the good of America, it is necessary to refute the idea that the dominant ideology in our country even today is freedom and equality while racism is just an occasional departure from the norm on the part of a few bigoted extremists.”
“I think the tragedy is that we have a Congress with a Senate that has a minority of misguided senators who will use the filibuster to keep the majority of people from even voting.”
“I had seen police brutality with my own eyes and watched Negroes receive the most tragic injustice in the court. All of these things had done something to my growing personality.”
“Something is wrong with capitalism. Maybe America must move toward a democratic socialism. We must develop programs that will drive the nation to the realization of the need for a guaranteed annual income.”
The United States is a “society that has done something special against the Negro for hundreds of years” and “must now do something special for him, in order to equip him to compete on a just and equal basis.”
“This country has socialism for the rich, rugged individualism for the poor.” … “All we say to America is: be true to what you said on paper.”
For once, white citizens of the United States, the USA: Stop fearing your white children “feeling bad” about themselves in school, and teach the *historical truths* about this white Christian nation – a nation that is born in the egregious *sin* of Chattel slavery on stolen First Nation lands, through an *insurrection* by wealthy landowners/slaveowners against their ruling British government (the American revolution)!
The myth that the United States is a representative “democracy” is, still yet, just this! Until we understand this, we cannot legislate justice and equality for all citizens of this nation, regardless of “race” or “religion” or lack their of.
https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/commentary/2022/01/16/leonard-pitts-did-you/
Did you know that Martin Luther King said some other things, too? – Leonard Pitts
#MLK #MLKDay #colorblindness *is* racism!
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Why do so many Jews seek to judge and divide Jews, rather than support Jews – especially *after* a terror incident? Who says this Rabbi needs to invoke ha’Shem, to publicly thank “God” afterwards for surviving? We, the Jewish people, do not need to be seeing miracles from on high in every human social event!
Bava Metzia 59b:5
“Rabbi Yehoshua stood on his feet and said: It is written: “It is not in heaven” (Deuteronomy 30:12) … we do not regard a Divine Voice”
This Reform rabbi (loose with the rules, and whatever his personal beliefs) was *right* to thank his fellow Jews for their fulfilled mitzvot during this terrorist attack, and humankind in general responding with compassion. He had no halachic requirement to do as Christians do.
Which is the mitzvah? Giving credit where credit is due, and generating good relations? Or doing as Christians do by invoking “God” in everything? The rabbi did shomer halacha in this case. He saved his Jewish people, for the sake of ha’Shem! The chillul ha’Shem is upon Jews that see fit to criticize details, rather than being tzadik and supporting in this time of recovery.
As the Jewish people, we are supposed to be teaching by example to the world, not following and doing as the world does. It is *human* responsibility to address hatred and end terrorism inflicted by fellow humans, not “God’s”! To do this b’simcha, so we prevent further preventable tragedies.
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Did you know? The largest USA “Native American” reservation, the Navajo Nation Reservation, is 17.5445 million acres (71,000 km2; 27,413 sq mi), and occupies portions of northeastern Arizona, northwestern New Mexico and a smaller portion covering southeastern Utah, in the United States. The Navajo Nation Reservation is similar in size to West Virginia.
Did you know? The size of the nation-State of Israel is only 5.472 million acres (22,145 km2; 8,630 sq. mi). The largest “Native American” reservation, the Navajo Nation Reservation, is about 2.8 times larger than the nation-State of Israel. Israel is approximately the size of the USA State of New Jersey, and New Jersey is about 3.2 times smaller than the Navajo Nation Reservation.
Israel has a population of over 10 million citizens, less than 7 million being Jews, the indigenous population of historic Judea-Samaria. The Navajo Nation Reservation has a population of 399,494 registered members, with 187,762 living inside the reservation land, with 143,818 living in State controlled areas adjacent to reservation land, and 67,914 that live well outside in other places (187,762 members on 27,413 sq mi).
Israel (10 million+ on just 8,630 sq. mi) would *love* to have ample space between neighbors, too! Peace might be achievable, even, considering that an additional 7 million non-citizens are *also* squatting on portions of our ancestral land.
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