Crook vs. racist?

Back in the day, there was an election in Louisiana between two candidates for a governor (or a senator, I am not sure and am too lazy to look up). Much of the intelligentsia supported one of the candidates. The slogan of the intelligentsia was: “Better a crook than a racist” (this just shows you the realities of politics in Louisiana; as well as the realities of any politics, for that matter).

I was just thinking while reading this (I don’t know anything about this blog; it’s just the first source of that speech I found while googling) that I suppose people voting for the current president did not think in the same terms (not that McCain was a crook; I mean whatever flaw people who voted for Obama found in McCain was obviously worse that the flaws of Obama). I actually know a 22-year-old who was quite proud of the fact that her first act of political activism (nothing to be proud of ever, but never mind that) was to vote for Obama. I think it’s quite sad, to be honest.

 Like Obama, I am a graduate of Harvard Law School. I too have Muslims in my family. I am black, and I was once a leftist Democrat. Since our backgrounds are somewhat similar, I perceive something in Obama's policy toward Israel which people without that background may not see. All my life I have witnessed a strain of anti-Semitism in the black community. It has been fueled by the rise of the Nation of Islam and Louis Farrakhan, but it predates that organization.

We heard it in Jesse Jackson's "HYMIE town" remark years ago during his presidential campaign. We heard it most recently in Jeremiah Wright's remark about "them Jews" not allowing Obama to speak with him. I hear it from my own Muslim family members who see the problem in the Middle East as a "Jew" problem.

Growing up in a small, predominantly black urban community in Pennsylvania, I heard the comments about Jewish shop owners. They were "greedy cheaters" who could not be trusted, according to my family and others in the neighborhood. I was too young to understand what it means to be Jewish, or know that I was hearing anti-Semitism. These people seemed nice enough to me, but others said they were "evil". Sadly, this bigotry has yet to be eradicated from the black community.

In Chicago, the anti-Jewish sentiment among black people is even more pronounced because of the direct influence of Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam. Most African Americans are not followers of "The Nation", but many have a quiet respect for its leader because, they say, "he speaks the truth" and "stands up for the black man". What they mean of course is that he viciously attacks the perceived "enemies" of the black community – white people and Jews. Even some self-described Christians buy into his demagoguery.

The question is whether Obama, given his Muslim roots and experience in Farrakhan's Chicago, shares this antipathy for Israel and Jewish people. Is there any evidence that he does. First, the President was taught for twenty years by a virulent anti-Semite, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright. In the black community it is called "sitting under". You don't merely attend a church, you "sit under" a Pastor to be taught and mentored by him. Obama "sat under" Wright for a very long time. He was comfortable enough with Farrakhan – Wright's friend – to attend and help organize his "Million Man March". I was on C-Span the morning of the march arguing that we must never legitimize a racist and anti-Semite, no matter what "good" he claims to be doing. Yet a future President was in the crowd giving Farrakhan his enthusiastic support. [read on] 

But — hooray for the free dental insurance. (Well, I personally don’t have it, but I am happy for those that do.)

Also, this caught my attention: “Growing up in a small, predominantly black urban community in Pennsylvania, I heard the comments about Jewish shop owners. They were ‘greedy cheaters’ who could not be trusted, according to my family and others in the neighborhood.”

But, which shop owners (or worse yet, factory owners, CEOs, etc.) are not “greedy cheaters who cannot be trusted”? You hear from many very intelligent, educated people with good character traits that they “don’t like capitalism”. Of course, they like being able to buy bananas while living in a northern state more than once a year. And pizza (which may be made locally, but most of the things to make it, including the ingredients and the tools, were brought from other states by those huge trucks or even from overseas). And they like to be able to afford to make use of air (or bus, or taxi) travel. And of the 99% of their life that would be impossible without capitalism. And yet, the people who provide them with the goods and services are not to be trusted and the system of free exchange of goods and services is bad.

Also, recently I heard from a family member that “there shouldn’t be business-type relations within a family”. I asked her: “Do you mean that if I own a business — or, let’s make it less evil, a lab — and your husband is a specialist, and I need exactly that kind of specialist, it is bad for me to hire him and allow him to provide for his family, while I get in return his service?” She said: “Well, no, of course not. I mean relations of a simpler lomd”. So, I said: “You mean, if I need a babysitter for my kids, and my niece is looking for a summer job, it’s better for me to hire a complete stranger, and my niece to go working for complete strangers than for us to help each other out with what each one is looking for?” She didn’t think that was too evil either. Whatever example I was providing was not evil. In the end, it seemed, some kind of business-like relations in a family are fine. As long as children don’t “borrow” two dollars from their parents and then demand those back. Well, yeah, that’s just a bit stupid.

Their hollow inheritance

Nolo putes pravos hominess peccata lucrari;
Temporibus peccata latent, sed tempore parent.

— Marcus Porcius Cato Uticensis

I am translating from a Russian translation of a Polish text. Therefore, it will most likely not do any kind of justice to the original. Plus, I am not sure I will translate the names of the locales correctly. If you have suggestions, please comment. An excerpt from Andrzej Sapkowski’s Lux Perpetua:

— My people, — she suddenly said after long silence, — come from Nadrein, under Ksanten. Almost everyone in the family was murdered in 1106. A crusade! Deus lo volt! The knights Emich and Gottshalk heard Pope Urban II’s call, and with enthusiasm turned it into life. They began the fight for Christ’s Coffin from butchering Nadrein Jews. In Ksanten, only one boy survived, Yehuda, probably because he converted.

Under the name of Guido Fonseca he settled in Italy, where he returned to the faith of the ancestors; in other words, as you people say it, he returned to judaica perfidia. His descendants, Jews again, were expelled from Naples in 1288. They spread throughout the world. Some of the family settled in Bern. In 1294, a child disappeared there. Without a trace, under unknown circumstances. A clear case: a ritual murder; the Jews must have kidnapped the kid and made a matza out of him. For this all Jews were expelled from Bern. My ancestor, a rabbi, carrying then the name of Mevorach ben Kalonimos, settled in Franconia, in Weinheim.

In 1298, in Franconian settlement of Rottingen someone apparently desecrated something. Poor knight Rindfleisch saw this as a sign of G-d. “The blasphemy was done by Jews” said the sign. Kill the Jews, you who has faith in the Lord. The faithful ones turned out en masse; Rindfleisch became the head of the murderers, with whom he started working on the Divine Plan. After the communities in Rottenburg, Vuzeburg and Bamberg were exterminated to the last person, came the turn of Weinheim. On September 20th, Rindflesch and his friends entered the ghetto. Rabbi Mevorach and his family, all Jews, women and children, were pushed into the synagogue and burned alive together with it. Only seventy five people. Not so many, considering that in Franconia and Schwabbia alone, Rindfleisch killed five thousand.

Some of them, using more creative methods than burning.

With the rest of relatives in the diaspora — same classical cases. Converted great-grandfather, Paolo Fonseca, was killed in 1319 in France, during the rebellion of Pastoureaux, the little shepherds. Pastoureaux killed, as a rule, the nobility, monks and priests, but the Jews and converts were taken care of with especial passion, oftentimes with the help of local population. Knowing what Pastoureaux did with women and children locked in the cellar of Verden-on-Haronne, great-grandfather Paolo with his hands smothered the great-grandmother and two children.

Grandfather Yitzchak Iohanon, who settled in Elzas, lost almost all of his family in 1338, during some of the famous massacres done by the peasant bands who called themselves as Judenschledger. One of my great-grandmothers, whom nobody was merciful enough to kill, was gang-raped many times. So, perhaps since those times I have some mix of Christian blood. You are not happy about it? I, imagine, am not either.

Riksa grew silent. Reinevan coughed.

— What was... next?

— 1349.

— The Black Death.

— Of course. The ones whose fault was in the starting and spreading of the disease were naturally Jews. It was a Jewish plan to kill all Christians. The rabbi of Toledo, Peirat, about whom you must have heard, sent emissaries throughout Europe to poison wells, springs and fountains. Then the good Christians began to punish the poisoners. On a large scale.

Many of my relatives were amongst the six thousand burnt alive in Meintz, two thousand in Strasburg, among the victims of massacres in Berne, Basel, Freiburg, Spire, Fulde, Rehensburg, Pfortzheim, Erfulte, Mahdenburg, and Leiptzig, and among some others, some three hundred destroyed communities of those times. My family was among those killed in Basel and in Prague, as well as in Niece, Bjegu, Gura, Olesnitsa, and Wrotzelav. I forgot to tell you that most of my family lived at that time in Silesia and Poland. It was supposed to be better there. Safer.

— Was it?

— In general, yes. But later, when the epidemic started receding. One pogrom in Wrotzelav in 1360. There was a fire, the Jews were blamed, killed and drowned. Thirty or fourty people. From my family — only two. More serious case was in Krakow, in 1407, the Tuesday after Passover. A killed Christian baby was found. He was killed of course for the blood for matza. Those at fault are, of course, Jews, were preaching the priests. Masses, moved by the speeches, ran for vengeance. Several hundred were murdered; several hundred were converted. In two years I was born a Christian, a daughter of converts.

I was washed over by the waters of baptism and named Anna, after a saint, whose church was in 1407 burnt by inertia by the enraged peasants of Krakow. Fortunately, I was Anna not for long, because in 1410, my family fled Poland to Silesia, to Stshegom, returning to judaica perfidia, to the faith of Moses. In Stshegom some of our relatives resided, and overall, one hundred forty people of our faith. Seventy three of them, including my father Samuel ben Gershom, lost their lives during the pogrom of 1410. The reason? The sounds of shofar on Rosh-ha-Shana were interpreted as a call for attack on Christians. My mother with the father’s sisters and me, one-year-old baby, fled to Javor. There, at the age of eleven, I saw the second pogrom with my own eyes. Trust me, it is an unforgettable sight.

— I believe you.

— I do not complain, — she raised her head sharply. — Take it into account. I don’t cry over myself, over those of my tribe. Over Jerusalem, over the Temple. Uwene Jeruszalaim ir hakodesz bimhera wejameinu! I know the words, but their meaning is lost on me. I am not going to sit and weep in front of Babylon’s rivers. I am not looking for sympathy of others, not even mentioning tolerance. But, you asked me whether it had an effect. Of course it did. Some things are better not to handle if you are paralyzed by fear of consequences, of what can happen. I am not afraid. I accumulated bravery for generations... No, not bravery. Immunity to fear. No, not immunity. Insensitivity.

— I understand.

— I doubt it. Better go to sleep. If your concoction works, we shall leave at dawn. If not, we shall leave at dawn anyway.

Regarding Rubashkins

Interesting post from TRS blog.

Coverage of Mumbai terrorist attacks — Western media in all its glory

Oh, I am sorry, not “terrorist”. Militant. Freedom-fighter.

From PowerLine blog:

The New York Daily News profiles the American/Israeli rabbi and wife whose fate at the Chabad House in Mumbai was left hanging overnight. CNN reports that the bodies of five hostages have been found at the Chabad House. CNN describes the perpetrators as "militants." This morning FOX News was holding out the possibility that the perpetrators of the Mumbai attacks are Hindu extremists. The willful blindness involved in the reportage is as striking as the news is tragic.

JOHN adds: Hindu "mujahadeen"? That would be a first.

UPDATE: Barry Shaw writes from Israel:

As the Indian terror event reaches it tragic end with reports of the killing of all the Jewish hostages in the Chabad House (Nariman House) there are important points that must be made. The marathon terror campaign was horrible and deadly. Despite in-depth coverage, its presentation in the Western world raises serious questions.

From the start British and American coverage concentrated on the hotels with stress of the targeting of British and Americans. The Jewish target was ignored until day two and day three. The two luxury hotels were selected by the terrorists because they are occupied by tourists. People who escaped from the hotels claimed that the terrorists asked for British and Americans. However, they were selected because they were foreigners.

Nariman House was selected by the terrorists because the Chabad building was a specific Jewish target that also included Israelis. Let me make this clear. Chabad House was the only target chosen by the terrorists in Mumbai because of its specific character - Jewish and Israeli. Hostages in Chabad House were killed because they were Jewish and Israeli.

Yet this terror venue was largely ignored by most of the Western media until the final day. We, in Israel, were able to follow events there because of the involvement of the Israeli Foreign Ministry and the Israeli media. Information from these and other sources was essential for me to relay reports to many people in Britain and the States who were unaware that Jews or Israelis were deliberate terror targets in Mumbai. When revealed, the final story of Chabad House will be tragic yet not properly covered by the world's media.

Shaw's message explicitly makes the points I left implicit in this post.

Sorry for the double-quote. Couldn’t help but include the whole post.

Am I surprised? Not at all.

See also this about a suspected gunman, holding a gun in his hands.

Disease

A disease looks different when it occurs in each individual: obviously, its appearance depends not only on the etiology (the pathogen, the mutation, the poison, the chemical imbalance, the injury), but also on the individual’s body and its environment. Yet we are able to classify diseases, because for the most part, two cases of schizophrenia, although differing in details, will follow similar course and have similar symptoms.

It is interesting how antisemitism manifests itself through very similar symptoms every time. One of them is blaming Jews and Judaism for things like Communism. Tzemach Atlas’s antisemitism seems to have progressed to this stage. Yet he started from going slightly off the derech (it all starts when you give up the structure — more about this later). Which makes me wonder: can we trace active antisemitism¹ to a deeper level of self-hatred and frustration? (If so, later Christian Bible authors seem to have been suffering from it.)
_____________
¹ As opposed to passive one. Active antisemitism is a deeper, more intellectual (kivyachol) form. People who rationalize their antisemitism with pseudo-intellectual historical or social hypotheses are active antisemites. Passive ones, on the other hand, hate Jews simply because they are different: speak different language, wear different clothes, live together and don’t mix with others (or are richer and successful). Usually, they don’t know anything about Jews and would equally hate other nationalities were they in the Jews’ position.    ddd