New Embassy, Who Dis?

An American president finally kept a campaign promise and moved the US Embassy to Jerusalem, and it had to be Trump. Nixon opened up diplomacy with Red China when he was president. Some argue it was one of a few good things to come from his corrupt presidency. I wonder how history will view this decision by Trump.

Of course there was immediate reaction from the Arabs living in Gaza. There are protests at the border and many people have been wounded or killed. The loss of human life is always regrettable, especially when it could be avoided. There are multiple generations of young men sent to their graves by old men making poor choices based on hate that was passed down to them. When troubles like these happen I am always reminded of a quote attributed to Golda Meir, "Peace will come when the Arabs will love their children more than they hate us."

Apart from the bloodshed at the border, what this week will again show us, as Jews, is that we are not truly welcome by either side of the American political spectrum. It is an ugly truth I have seen time and time again just in my lifetime, not to mention historically.

The Liberal Left do not want a strong Israel, if any Israel at all. The current trend on the Left is to cast Israel as the oppressor and take the side of the poor, down trodden Palestinians. Regardless of the historical reality of the situation and the 22 Arab states that surround Israel and would happily wipe Israel off the map. The Left is quick to ignore the Palestinian rockets coming from Gaza and only focus on the Israeli response to those rockets.

The Religious Right fully supports a strong Israel but deep down doesn't want the Jews. For them a strong Israel is another step in the return of their messiah. While some on the Right see the advantage of having a friendly democracy in the Middle East, many others are guided by their faith and messianic dreams. Once their messiah comes back the Jews will either convert or be cast into Hell with the Muslims and other non-believers.

Where does that leave Israel? In order to secure its borders and survive as a nation Israel takes support where it can get it. At the moment that means taking it from the American Right. That means overlooking the American Right's big tent full of Religious fundamentalist, White Supremacists, and End Timers. If Israel was to turn down this support, how long could Israel last as an island of democracy? Where would there be any other help?

More and more anti-Israeli outbursts in Europe are shown to actually be anti-Jew. Their are Nazis marching in American streets. Jews are afraid to identify as Jewish around the world. And through it all we survive, but for how long?

On top of it all we have to worry about Jews hating Jews. "You're not the right kind of Jew" or "You're not actually Jewish." Religious Jews arguing amongst themselves, secular Jews allowing their leftist ideas get in the way of supporting Israel. Maybe we need the Arab threat to keep us from fighting each other. Maybe we need the anti-Semitic threats around the world to remind us that without a strong, sovereign Israel we have no safe place to live long-term.

This is a long, rambling post today. I should have taken more time to research, spell check, and outline a draft. This was just raw feelings put to a page. 

Haters Gonna Hate

Of course, me being me, I choose to become more outwardly Jewish at the same time anti-Semites are choosing to become more public with their hate. I mean, why should being Jewish be easy, right?

When the FBI released its annual report on hate crime statistics for 2016, it showed that 54% of religiously motivated hate crimes were aimed at Jews. We're obviously not alone on the list and sadly, coming in at second, Muslims are victims of over 24% of reported hate crimes with the dubious distinction of increasing by 19% from the last report.

It always stuns me that there is so much hate for us when we barely make up less than 2% of the United States' population and 0.2% of the world's population. The total population of Jews on planet Earth has not yet reached its pre-Holocaust number.

Sometimes it's as if remembering that we Jews are still here and hated makes the mainstream uncomfortable. When the Nazis marched in the streets of Charlottesville there was far more emphasis on the anti-Black hate than the fact torch-bearing Nazis marched down US streets chanting "Jews will not replace us." Please don't take that as me trying to diminish Nazi hatred of African Americans, it appears Nazis have enough hate to go around. But it seems that anti-Jewish hate, for the most part, takes a back seat despite the hate crime statistics that show we are not forgotten by the haters.

The media has noticed a few instances of politicians with their passive anti-Semitism. From disgraced former judge in Alabama, Roy Moore, whose wife basically went with the old-time favorite of some of our best friends are Jews when she proclaimed at a political rally, "One of our attorneys is a Jew. We have very close friends that are Jewish." Granted it was later revealed the "Jew" she referred to was actually a messianic Jew, so there's that.

More recently, District of Columbia Councilman Trayon White made a stir. First, by claiming the Rothschilds control the weather after a surprise snow flurry in mid-March, and again a month later while visiting the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and making some questionable comments. The story seems to be in progress as some are claiming his comments came from a place of honest ignorance and a desire to learn that were manipulated into a "gotcha" moment by a Washington Post reporter.  While that may be the case in the second event, it doesn't explain his recent donation to Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam for an event where Farrakhan made his own recent anti-Semitic remarks. Granted, it should come as a surprise to no one that the Minister Farrakhan holds anti-Semitic views, considering his track record on the subject.

My hope is that Councilman White's disturbing comments come from his honestly not understanding anti-Semitism, but if that's the case it's troubling for other reasons. A recent survey revealed that two thirds of millennials didn't know what Auschwitz is, and 22% said they hadn't heard of the Holocaust or weren't sure if they had.  Those are disturbing numbers but explain why so many young people, like Mr. White, don't understand why this is such a big deal.

I get it if it's an honest moment of "I didn't know that" but my gravest fear is that it become, "I didn't know that and I still don't believe it."

The FBI hate crime statistics referenced at the beginning of this post were for calendar year 2016 and were released in November 2017. It will be interesting to see the numbers for calendar year 2017 when they are released this November. 2017 was the first full year of the Trump administration being in office. Sadly I expect the bad numbers to go up for everyone.