The world is tuned in to Qatar to watch soccer during the 2022 World Cup. Being so focused on its favorite sport, the world has ignored local tragedies.
Start with the estimated 6,500 migrant workers who died in Qatar since the small Islamist country won the rights to host the games ten years ago. Approximately 37 deaths were connected to the building of the stadiums, while the others passed in the harsh working environment that is Qatar.
There was no backlash against Qatar.
During the games itself, three journalists died reporting on the matches. Khalid al-Misslam (Qatar), Roger Pearce (UK) and Grant Wahl (USA) died in three separate locations at three different times. It was an extraordinary loss of journalists during a short span.
Despite the highly unusual number of deaths, there would be no claim of murder or poisoning, and no investigation of Qatar.
According to UNESCO, 117 journalists were murdered between 2020 and 2021. This was actually the lowest tally since it began reporting on the situation. The Latin America region had the highest number of murders (38%), followed by the APAC region (32%). In an interesting trend, UNESCO noted that “the percentage of journalist killings in countries not experiencing armed conflict has been increasing since 2016.”
UNESCO claims to have sent letters to 65 countries to understand the status of judicial review of 1,284 killings from 2006 to 2021. Nearly 84% of those cases remain “unresolved.”
Meanwhile, in November 2022, in a highly unusual move, the U.S. Department of Justice launched an investigation into the death of Qatar’s Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh during a firefight in Jenin in May 2022. In the same NOVEMBER week, the Biden Administration decided that Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman, should be granted immunity in ordering the brutal slaughter and dismemberment of Washington Post journalist, Jamal Khashoggi.
Journalists are dying and being murdered in non-conflict zones and there are virtually no investigations into the cases. The Biden Administration is even handing out free passes to his favorite Arab leaders and countries.
Yet at the same time, Biden is investigating Israel for a journalist killed in the middle of a firefight, a double-standard celebrated by those who enjoy demonizing the Jewish State.
J Street is a far-left wing extremist group which markets itself as “pro-Israel, pro-peace” to confuse the uninformed that it is something bipartisan and mainstream. It has never been anything of the sort as it made plainly clear again.
The RJC also doesn’t advocate for Israel’s strongest ally to take action against the Jewish State.
On December 1, 2022, J Street issued a statement right before its annual policy conference, called “POLICY STATEMENT: US MUST ACT NOW TO COUNTER EXTREMIST ISRAELI OFFICIALS & POLICY MOVES.” The declaration was made in the hopes of drilling into its supporters and U.S. politicians who joined the rally, that Israel is extremist and Americans must act against the Israeli government in formation.
Over-and-again, the desired “policy statement” called the yet-to-be-formed Israeli government “extremist,” “right-wing,” “radical” and “vicious.” It stated that “we are at the precipice of a crisis in Israel’s relationship with not just the United States but with democratic norms, international law and Diaspora Jews,” and urged “the United States government must not delay in making clear its views on the threats posed by these moves — and take steps to counter them.”
J Street then issued a call for the Biden Administration to reiterate policies it falsely labeled “bi-partisan.” For J Street, that includes the demand that Jews be banned from praying at their holiest location on the Jewish Temple Mount, a plainly anti-Semitic policy.
The alt-left group then called for the United States to take six “concrete steps” against Israel. It included this gem:
“Stating that while Jerusalem is the capital of Israel, parts of the city will also one day be the capital of a Palestinian state and that the contours of the city remain a matter for negotiation and are not “off the table,” as former President Donald Trump claimed;”
If the borders of Israel and a potential Palestinian state are to be negotiated between the parties, it is asinine and counter-productive to declare what the outcome of such discussions will be.
Meanwhile J Street actively supports the Palestinian Authority which demands a Jew-free country, and has a law calling for capital punishment for any Arab who sells land to a Jew. It supports building a seaport in Gaza, so that terrorist groups like Hamas have access to better weapons to attack Israel. It wants Hamas to be part of the Palestinian political process, essentially assuring that Israelis will never be safe if a Palestinian state is created.
Attendees at the 2022 J Street Policy Conference
J Street’s CEO and comrade-laureate, Jeremy Ben-Ami, addressed the audience to demand that members of the group stop theoretically supporting Israel. As reported by the viciously anti-Zionist site Mondoweiss, Ben-Ami said:
“We believe our community for its own sake – even more than for Israel’s sake – must root its identity in a commitment not to a flag or a piece of land but to a set of principles and values. My friends, if we don’t do this, we will see large swaths of our community walk away. Not only will they walk away from engagement with Israel– that’s already happening. They’ll walk away from the Jewish community itself…. Those in the establishment of our community who insist that Jewish America must stand united and unquestioningly loyal to Israel no matter what are doing a deep, deep, disservice to the health of the Jewish community.“
Mondoweiss cheered the Ben-Ami speech and concluded “This is an important speech, as it signals open warfare inside the Israel lobby and the wider Jewish community.” It is a little late to this story, as far-left secular Jews had abandoned Israel and huge sections of the religious Jewish community several years ago to openly embrace progressivism as its true religion.
Anti-Israel activists got it right when they said that J Street has declared “open warfare inside the Israel lobby and the wider Jewish community.” Like the zealots of 2,000 years ago who burned supplies while Jews fought the Roman army assaulting Jerusalem, alt-left Jewry is out to destroy American – and Jewish – support for the reestablished Jewish state.
Most people likely start their history at their birthday. Others might consider the important impact of parents or grandparents, and therefore mark those births or perhaps a significant milestone in their lives like moving to a country, as the symbolic beginning of personal history.
For individuals who strongly associate with a collective, whether as citizens of a country or members of a tribe, the origin story varies.
In Art in Mexico Diego Rivera (Dream of a Sunday Afternoon in Alameda Park)
Diego Rivera (December 8, 1886 – November 24, 1957) is one of Mexico’s most famous artists. His murals of Mexicans and Mexican history adorn the walls of government buildings, famous hotels and business headquarters. One of his wives, Frida Khalo (married to her twice, 1929-1939 and 1940-1954) was also a famous painter who shared (and surpassed) his passion for Marxism, which often infused both of their art.
Rivera was a descendant of conversos, Jews who were forced to convert to Catholicism under penalty of expulsion or death by the Inquisition. While his Mexican heritage dominates most of his work, he did share in 1935 that “Jewishness is the dominant element of my life,” and it can be seen in one of his famous murals.
Rivera had already painted many of his great works when he was commissioned to paint a mural for the Del Prado Hotel in Mexico City in 1946. At 60 years old, he spent a year painting Dream of a Sunday Afternoon in Alameda Park, a famous park in central Mexico City, frequented by high society.
Diego Rivera’s Dream of a Sunday Afternoon in Alameda Park (1946-7)
The mural was enormous, measuring 51 feet long by 15 feet wide. It told the story of the history of Mexico City chronologically, from the earliest period at the far left, to the modern city on the right.
Rivera placed himself in the painting, slightly left of center, even though he clearly did not belong there chronologically. He held an umbrella in one hand and the other grasped the hand of the “dapper skeleton.” Frida Khalo rested one hand on his shoulder while the other held an orb.
Diego Rivera, Frida Khalo and La Calavera Catrina, “the dapper skeleton”, in Dream of a Sunday Afternoon in Alameda Park
Curiously, Rivera portrayed himself as a young boy, begging us to consider the various messages he was conveying.
The dapper skeleton was originally conceived by Jose Guadalupe Posada, a lithographer who mocked upper class Latin women for dressing in French clothing and whitening their skin, seemingly ashamed of their native origins. Rivera painted himself looking up at the skeleton, acknowledging that despite his strong nativist roots, perhaps he too was pulled into that worldview, as he was celebrated by high society around the world.
But that is just part of the message.
Rivera was a foot taller, three times the weight and twenty years older than Khalo. Yet here, Khalo acts as a mother figure, protecting a young Rivera. Why does Rivera have Khalo towering over himself and from what does he need protection?
Khalo holds a yin yang, a Chinese philosophical concept that binds opposite and interconnected forces. She too had become famous in western society and dined at the finest establishments. Perhaps part of the message was that Khalo was keeping the couple grounded in their populist Mexican roots, even as they enjoyed high society.
There is more.
Rivera’s tenth birthday coincided with the 300th anniversary of the execution of the Carvajal family in Mexico City, on December 8, 1596.
The Carvajal Conversos
The Carvajal family were Hispano-Portuguese conversos. The patriarch of the family, Luis de Carvajal the Elder (1539-1591) was a sincere convert to Catholicism who won the favor of King Phillip II of Spain, while many in his family kept their Jewish faith hidden from the Spanish Inquisition.
The king granted Luis the Elder a governorship in the northern parts of New Spain (today’s Mexico to Texas), and in 1579, authorized Carvajal to bring 100 people with him to the new world. Most significantly, the king’s royal charter included the anomalous provision that such individuals need not be subject to the investigation of ancestry, with which the crown typically tried to keep New Christians out of its colonies, as the king had brought the Inquisition to Mexico in 1571. Luis the Elder, knowing of his family’s hidden crypto-Judaism, likely thought that his career could advance, and his family would be safe in the new world.
It would not protect them for long.
In 1589, the viceroy of New Spain arrested Luis the Elder for a commercial matter, and in the investigation, it came out that Luis knew of, but did not report on his family’s secret Jewish faith. He was thereby transferred from the royal prison to the prisons of the Inquisition.
The whole family became implicated, including Luis the Younger (1566-1596), his sister Isabel and mother Francesca. At the auto da fé on February 25, 1590, inquisitors sentenced the entire family to various penances and wearing of sambenito, penitential garb. Not long after, Luis the Younger, his mother and sisters resumed their forbidden practices in hiding. They were caught again after a friend gave them up in February 1595. This time, they did not get off. Francisca, Isabel, Leonor, Catalina, and Luis the Younger were all burned at the stake at the auto da fé of December 8, 1596, as relapsos, or recidivist Judaizing heretics. This history was detailed in the diary of Luis the Younger, an important document in the history of Mexico.
Rivera chose to mark this slaughter of the Carvajal family as the beginning of the history of Mexico City.
Torture and burning at the stake of the Carvajal family in Rivera’s Dream of a Sunday Afternoon in Alameda Park
Four members of the Carvajal family can be seen in the background with pointy hats tied to the stake with flames around them. The mother, Francesca, with head shaven, is before them being lashed by one Inquisitor while a member of the church sticks a cross in her face.
Rivera was deeply impacted by this story. In another section of the mural, he painted Ignacio Ramirez, a Mexican politician, holding a sign that read “God does not exist.” Catholic officials viewing the mural were offended by the line and asked Rivera to remove the text. He refused to do so and the painting was covered for nine years until he relented.
The Carvajal story elucidates the reason Rivera painted himself as a young boy.
While the history of Mexico City did not start in 1596, his personal history of the city began then due to his connection to conversos in the past. His tenth birthday was likely marked with the 300-year commemoration of the burning of the famous Jews at the stake. It impacted him deeply and he became sickened by religion. Painting about history in the shadow of the European Holocaust in 1946-7, demanded particular attention.
In the mural, Rivera is comforted by his non-Jewish wife who protected him both from the Inquisition as well as from capitalism and high society. While he was a product of many worlds, Jewish-Catholic-agnostic and socialist-capitalist, he relied on his spouse to secure him. On his own, he was left holding a folded umbrella, even while others around him held fancy canes, as he continued to fear various storms. He stood emotionally vulnerable in the nativist past, as he felt the pull of the modern bourgeois.
Rivera could have painted himself as a grown man, just as he could have started the city’s history when the Spanish came in 1521 or with the indigenous people who lived there for centuries. But that would have undermined his message that he was deeply insecure, and his personal view of the beginning of the city’s history.
In Schools in America European (1776) and African Slavery (1619)
Proud Americans have historically viewed the beginning of their history at the Declaration of Independence in 1776. They appreciate the country’s founding fathers pulling away from England and establishing a new system of government with the Federalist Papers (1788) and the U.S. Constitution (1789). The native Americans and the first Europeans who started the colonies 150 years earlier are glossed over in favor of the first American citizens.
A new approach towards the beginning of American history is being fostered among Black Americans. The “1619 Project” has cast America as founded on slavery, a system of prejudice which Blacks continue to experience to this day. They see the start of history as African-Americans as beginning at that time, which directly feeds their orientation as Americans today.
School systems in California and elsewhere are no longer solely teaching the European view of history and are including coursework like the 1619 Project. They want all Americans to understand the various beginnings of the citizens of these United States.
In Middle East Propaganda Palestinians (Canaanites) and Jews (Balfour 1917)
The Arab-Israeli Conflict has been ongoing for a century. Palestinian Arabs consider themselves as the indigenous people of the region and the Jews as new European interlopers. They tell themselves and the world that they are the only rightful claimants to the land based on a false spin of history.
Regarding Jews, Arabs negate the 3,300-year history of Jews in the land and the centrality of the land in Judaism. Palestinians falsely claim that today’s Jews have nothing to do with the Israelites in the Bible and are merely converts from Khazar. The Arabs absurdly assert that even the Jewish Temples in Jerusalem were located somewhere else. They lie that it was the British who launched the Jewish presence in Palestine with the Balfour Declaration in 1917.
Unsatisfied with only negating Jewish history to bolster their supposed higher claim to the land (or nervous that the anti-Semitic smears are too obviously false), the Palestinian Arabs have also changed their own history. Rather than admit that Arabs first came to the holy land en masse with the Islamic invasions of the 7th and 8th centuries, they claim that they are descendants of Canaanites and Jebusites mentioned in the Jewish Bible. Some college professors have even spun the idea of “Palestinian Hebrews”, completely stealing Jewish history and identity.
The Arab propaganda battle is very much about the beginning of their own history and of their perceived enemies, the Jews. It is an instrumental tool in their view of themselves and their position today, and an enormous obstacle to coexisting with the truly indigenous Jews.
In Meals in Religion The Passover Seder for Jews
Jews have a unique approach towards infusing the beginning of their collective history.
While some Jews look to their forefathers of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as the founders of monotheism and Judaism, the view of the start of Jewish history is the exodus from slavery in Egypt. It was at that time that they emerged as a nation and received the Torah, the laws to live by.
To cement the story in collective consciousness, Jews have a feast every Passover to mark that specific time in history. They have a seder, which revolves around telling the story of leaving Egypt, accompanied by a Haggadah which has been used for centuries. The meal is geared towards the children at the table, to instill a common past which ensures a uniting bond in the present.
Memory and History Personal and Communal
Melissa Fay Greene authored a piece in April 2021 called “You Won’t Remember the Pandemic the Way You Think You Will.” She made several observations about memory including the strength of the “primacy effect”, remembering firsts, and the “narrative effect,” being able to recall dramatic events. She quoted Robyn Fivush, a psychology professor at Emory University who said “we use our memory in part to create a continuous sense of self, she [Fivush] told me, “a ‘narrative identity’ through all of life’s ups and downs: I am a person whose life has meaning and purpose. I’m more than the subject of brute forces. There’s a Story of Me.”
Greene also quoted Richard McNally of Harvard in discussing memory. “Trauma gouges deeply into our minds, engraving painful and long-lasting memories. “Whether they are rape victims, combat veterans, or earthquake survivors, people exposed to terrifying trauma typically retain vivid memories of the most central aspects of such experiences, often for the rest of their lives.”
On top of firsts, stories and trauma as means to retain memories, Greene discussed the idea of “collective memory,” an idea advanced by the 20th-century French sociologist Maurice Halbwachs. “We don’t shelve a pristine first edition of an experience in a dust-free inner sanctum; we sloppily pass the memory around, inviting comment. The consolidated edition, with other people’s fingerprints all over it, is what we put on the shelf of long-term memory, unaware that we’ve done so.”
The idea that our best recalled personal memories are tainted by outside influences can be set against what that does to the view of a collective event, such as the terrorist attacks of 9/11. “To tell it [a collective event] is to become part of the community, to share the moment, to work together to understand an event that’s difficult to grasp. If we recall and talk about something often enough, it will become a ‘cultural narrative.’… Narrative-memory experts call this “the social construction of autobiographical memory.” While a personal memory has the fingerprints of others, a collective memory is an amalgamation which we accept as truth to fit into the community.
Consider extending Greene’s view of personal and collective memory towards history.
A person cannot remember the beginning of their history; it predates their ability to have memories. However, the way they conceive of themselves in the present – personally and as part of community – identifies the story in the past which made them who they are today.
Diego Rivera took a traumatic event in Mexico’s history as an important early influence on his life. Black Americans have a collective narrative of racism in America and see the slave trade as the start of their persecution. Palestinians are actively constructing an autobiographical memory to understand their lack of a state while the most persecuted people in the world which was almost wiped from the planet in recent memory, managed to create a leading first world liberal society in their backyard.
Collective history is not collective memory. The latter includes a first-person account of an event, unknowingly reformulated with the contribution of peers. It twists a reality without a person realizing that their memory includes various external inputs.
But everyone readily understands that collective history they discuss is imperfect, relying on stories told through the generations. People use their lived experiences – their successes and failures – to identify when that path was set, and simultaneously choose what history is part of their tribal worldview.
Many Americans of European descent object to the 1619 Project as undermining the remarkable accomplishments of America’s founders. While not denying the history of slavery, the slave ships do not anchor the beginning of their history. They strongly object to it being taught in public schools as destroying common heritage. Black Americans cannot fathom that objection if people acknowledge the history of slavery. Conversely, Arabs understand that if they acknowledge that Jews predate them in the holy land, the basis for demanding a country free of invaders is revealed as outrageously anti-Semitic.
Everyone tries to impart collective history to young people. The Passover seder has Jewish children engaged in questions to cement memory and history together. American and Palestinian schools teach revised histories to impart a preferred collective history. And Diego Rivera made clear that his understanding of the beginning of his city’s history was determined when he heard of a horrific story that touched him personally as a child, a trauma he considered as he learned more stories of the European Holocaust as an adult.
Communities seek to build foundations in the youth with the beginning of their histories. The narratives are crafted in schools, family dinners and what kids see in society.
Certainly our past set our current reality, but we choose our origin story based on how we define ourselves today. When our history begins is both about a point in time and our collective memory adapting the story of our collective history.
On December 5, 2022, 126 members of Congress sent a letter to President Joe Biden urging a comprehensive government response to the scourge of anti-Semitism. Many people did not sign the letter despite historic comments that they strongly support Jews, such as Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX).
Other names missing from the letter were not surprising.
Consider the nine members of Congress who voted against supplying Israel with funding for its defensive Iron Dome system against Palestinian rockets: Cori Bush (D-MO), Andre Carson (D-IN), Chuy Garcia (D-IL), Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ), Thomas Massie (R-KY), Marie Newman (D-IL), Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI). None of them signed the letter.
In another vote, several members of Congress voted against supplying Israel with American made weapons in May 2021, as Israel fought against terrorists in Gaza. Co-sponsors included Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Mark Pocan (D-WI), Betty McCollum (D-IL) and Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) in addition to Cori Bush, Ayanna Pressley and Ilhan Omar. None of them signed the call to combat anti-Semitism letter.
In February 2020, members of Congress voted to send money to the terrorist enclave of Gaza. In addition to Pocan and Debbie Dingell (D-MI), signers to the letter included Don Beyer, Earl Blumenauer, Suzanne Bonamici, André Carson, Judy Chu, Danny K. Davis, Peter A. Defazio, Mark DeSaulnier, Ruben Gallego, Jesús G. “Chuy” García, Raúl Grijalva, Deb Haaland, Jared Huffman, Pramila Jayapal, Eddie Bernice Johnson, Henry C. “Hank” Johnson, Jr., Dan Kildee, Barbara Lee, Betty McCollum, James P. McGovern, Gwen S. Moore, Ilhan Omar, Chellie Pingree, Donald M. Payne Jr., David E. Price, Bobby L. Rush, Jan Schakowsky, Jackie Speier, Rashida Tlaib, Paul Tonko, and Peter Welch. Of this list, the only signers to the letter to fight anti-Semitism were Bonamici, Dingell, Lee and Schakowsky. All of the others did not sign the letter to fight Jew hatred.
While many New York members of Congress signed the fight-anti-Semitism letter including Sen. Kirtsen Gillibrand, Rep. Ritchie Torres, Rep. Grace Meng, Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, Rep. Lee Zeldin, Rep. Thomas Suozzi, Rep. Carolyn Maloney, Rep. Jerry Nadler and Rep. Mondaire Jones, several in the tri-state area did not.
Jamaal Bowman, who rejected the Abraham Accords and declined speaking to an American Jewish Committee electoral event, did not sign the letter. Hakeem Jeffries, who is slated to replace Rep. Nancy Pelosi as leader of House Democrats also declined to sign. Other anti-Israel New Yorkers like AOC and Paul Tonko also did not sign. Click on the links above to write them voicing your displeasure.
During the 2022 election campaign, J Street, a pro-Palestinian lobbying group which markets itself as “pro-Israel”, wrote checks to 138 members of Congress. Very few of those recipients signed the letter to combat anti-Semitism. Omissions included: Rep. Andy Levin (D-MI), Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-NJ), Rep. Josh Harder (D-CA) and many others including those voting for anti-Israel measures listed above, such as Bowman, Newman, McCollum, Tonko, Jayapal, Pocan, Garcia, Carson, Chu and Davis.
Members of the anti-Israel squad all declined to sign the letter urging President Biden to address anti-Semitism
When so many anti-Israel members of Congress also refuse to join decent voices in Congress to combat the scourge of anti-Semitism, it offers another response to the question of whether anti-Semitism and Anti-Zionism are one and the same.
Tor Wennesland, the poorly-named United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Process, who is in fact just a Palestinian promoter, took to the stage to report about the Arab-Israeli Conflict on November 28, 2022.
He once again lied straight to the UN Security Council.
As reported in the UN Press report, Wennesland said that the “two-State solution… still garners considerable support among Palestinians and Israelis.” In fact, the Palestinians poll themselves every three months and have NEVER had a majority supporting a two-state solution.
The PCPSR October 2022 poll showed that Palestinian Arab support for two-states stood at 37%. Three months earlier it was 28%. That’s quite a bit lower than Palestinians who support full blown terrorism, now at 48%, a bit lower than 55% supporting killing Jews three months earlier.
More specifically, according to Palestinians themselves, “Support for the concept of the two-state solution stands at 37% and opposition stands at 60%.” Further, “a majority of 68% opposes and 24% support an unconditional resumption of Palestinian-Israeli negotiations.“
The simple reality is that a majority of Palestinians oppose the two-state solution and negotiations, and support killing Jewish Israeli civilians. Yet the United Nations deliberately lies and misdirects to maintain its position in the conflict, an insidious vanity project which has contributed to the deaths of thousands and misery of millions.
Tor Wennesland, the poorly-named United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Process
The beginning of the world as told in the Jewish Bible is a remarkable story. It is a world that seemingly is infused both with the natural and super-natural, where God and man interact regularly: the world was built and then destroyed in a flood, save for Noah and his family, whom God directed to build an ark; Abraham pleads with God to save corrupt cities which are nevertheless pummeled with fire and brimstone.
In the middle of the physical interfacing between God and mankind as well as family drama, the Bible pauses for a few sentence to relay a mundane story. Jacob has a dream.
וַיֵּצֵ֥א יַעֲקֹ֖ב מִבְּאֵ֣ר שָׁ֑בַע וַיֵּ֖לֶךְ חָרָֽנָה׃ וַיִּפְגַּ֨ע בַּמָּק֜וֹם וַיָּ֤לֶן שָׁם֙ כִּי־בָ֣א הַשֶּׁ֔מֶשׁ וַיִּקַּח֙ מֵאַבְנֵ֣י הַמָּק֔וֹם וַיָּ֖שֶׂם מְרַֽאֲשֹׁתָ֑יו וַיִּשְׁכַּ֖ב בַּמָּק֥וֹם הַהֽוּא׃ וַֽיַּחֲלֹ֗ם וְהִנֵּ֤ה סֻלָּם֙ מֻצָּ֣ב אַ֔רְצָה וְרֹאשׁ֖וֹ מַגִּ֣יעַ הַשָּׁמָ֑יְמָה וְהִנֵּה֙ מַלְאֲכֵ֣י אֱלֹהִ֔ים עֹלִ֥ים וְיֹרְדִ֖ים בּֽוֹ׃ וְהִנֵּ֨ה יְהֹוָ֜ה נִצָּ֣ב עָלָיו֮ וַיֹּאמַר֒ אֲנִ֣י יְהֹוָ֗ה אֱלֹהֵי֙ אַבְרָהָ֣ם אָבִ֔יךָ וֵאלֹהֵ֖י יִצְחָ֑ק הָאָ֗רֶץ אֲשֶׁ֤ר אַתָּה֙ שֹׁכֵ֣ב עָלֶ֔יהָ לְךָ֥ אֶתְּנֶ֖נָּה וּלְזַרְעֶֽךָ׃…Jacob left Beer-sheba, and set out for Haran. He came upon a certain place and stopped there for the night, for the sun had set. Taking one of the stones of that place, he put it under his head and lay down in that place. He had a dream; a stairway was set on the ground and its top reached to the sky, and messengers of God were going up and down on it. And standing beside him was יהוה, who said, “I am יהוה, the God of your father Abraham’s [house] and the God of Isaac’s [house]: the ground on which you are lying I will assign to you and to your offspring… (Genesis 28: 10-13)
God had already directly given such promise to Abraham while he was awake. It is peculiar that God would choose an elaborate dream with angels on a ladder to convey the same message to Jacob in his sleep.
Jacob’s Ladder by Frans Francken II the Younger (1581-1642)
It is also a curiosity that people today are so fascinated by the story, even more than God talking directly to man. Perhaps it is because God no longer talks directly to people today, even as many of us dream, so we can relate to the story.
Or perhaps it is because Jacob’s dream is the foreshadowing of the life of the biggest character of Genesis, his son Joseph.
Three “Places”, Four Conditions
When the Bible writes about about Jacob’s dream, it repeats the Hebrew word מָּק֥וֹם three times in a single sentence, an oddity. While it can mean “place” it can also mean “God”. It is as though the narrator is telling us that something significant is about to happen, and it is location and God.
The dream is definitely dramatic. While the builders of the Tower of Babel tried to reach the heavens, Jacob actually got to “see” it. While man labored unsuccessfully for years to ascend, angels effortlessly went up and down.
And alongside the ladder was God himself. No one, not even his father and grandfather, had seem Him, but only heard His voice. Now Jacob had a new medium for his connection with God and he chose to concretize the event while awake.
וַיַּשְׁכֵּ֨ם יַעֲקֹ֜ב בַּבֹּ֗קֶר וַיִּקַּ֤ח אֶת־הָאֶ֙בֶן֙ אֲשֶׁר־שָׂ֣ם מְרַֽאֲשֹׁתָ֔יו וַיָּ֥שֶׂם אֹתָ֖הּ מַצֵּבָ֑ה וַיִּצֹ֥ק שֶׁ֖מֶן עַל־רֹאשָֽׁהּ׃ וַיִּקְרָ֛א אֶת־שֵֽׁם־הַמָּק֥וֹם הַה֖וּא בֵּֽית־אֵ֑ל וְאוּלָ֛ם ל֥וּז שֵׁם־הָעִ֖יר לָרִאשֹׁנָֽה׃ וַיִּדַּ֥ר יַעֲקֹ֖ב נֶ֣דֶר לֵאמֹ֑ר אִם־יִהְיֶ֨ה אֱלֹהִ֜ים עִמָּדִ֗י וּשְׁמָרַ֙נִי֙ בַּדֶּ֤רֶךְ הַזֶּה֙ אֲשֶׁ֣ר אָנֹכִ֣י הוֹלֵ֔ךְ וְנָֽתַן־לִ֥י לֶ֛חֶם לֶאֱכֹ֖ל וּבֶ֥גֶד לִלְבֹּֽשׁ׃ וְשַׁבְתִּ֥י בְשָׁל֖וֹם אֶל־בֵּ֣ית אָבִ֑י וְהָיָ֧ה יְהֹוָ֛ה לִ֖י לֵאלֹהִֽים׃…Early in the morning, Jacob took the stone that he had put under his head and set it up as a pillar and poured oil on the top of it. He named that site Bethel; but previously the name of the city had been Luz. Jacob then made a vow, saying, “If God remains with me, protecting me on this journey that I am making, and giving me bread to eat and clothing to wear, and I return safe to my father’s house— יהוה shall be my God. And this stone, which I have set up as a pillar, shall be God’s abode; and of all that You give me, I will set aside a tithe for You.”…(Genesis 28:18-21)
Jacob was awestruck by the event and anointed the rock-pillow he slept on during the dream, but then conditioned his faith in the real world. He asked God for four things to prove Himself before he would accept Him as his God, and then seemingly for God to truly establish his promise of the land for his inheritance.
These four requests set the tone for the remainder of Genesis.
Three Pairs of Dreams
Jacob, the first dreamer, would be followed by his son Joseph. While Jacob dreamed only once and doubted the veracity of what he saw, Joseph seemingly was confident about his two dreams.
Genesis 37:5-11 relays Joseph having a dream which he told his brothers about their sheaves bowing down to his, and then a second dream which he told his brothers and Jacob, of eleven stars, moon and sun bowing to him. While the brothers hated Joseph for the dream, Jacob considered it, as he knew about dreams himself but continued to be unsure whether to embrace a message told in such fashion.
וַיְקַנְאוּ־ב֖וֹ אֶחָ֑יו וְאָבִ֖יו שָׁמַ֥ר אֶת־הַדָּבָֽר׃ So his brothers were wrought up at him, and his father kept the matter in mind. (Genesis 37:11)
The second pair of dreams (Genesis 40) happened in Egypt, as Joseph listened to the dreams of two fellow prisoners, a cupbearer and a baker. This time, Joseph interpreted their dreams which accurately predicted the fates of the two men.
The third pair of dreams happened to Pharaoh (Genesis 41), which Joseph was brought in to interpret. While they had not proven accurate, they rang true to Pharaoh who immediately sought to take action based on Joseph’s interpretation. This is the first time – after seven dreams told by the Bible – that anyone took dreams to be an omen that must be addressed immediately. Perhaps it was because Pharaoh viewed himself like a God who could take complementary action to God’s will. Either way, it was in sharp contrast to the first dream of Jacob in which he conditioned accepting God’s word.
Jacob’s Four Conditions
While Jacob asked God to stay with him and protect him from harm, it was Joseph who really faced numerous life-or-death situations, and survived. From his brothers trying to kill him, sell him into slavery and being cast into an Egyptian dungeon, God stayed with Joseph and protected him from the spiral of events that started from Joseph’s sharing his first pair of dreams.
Jacob’s second condition was about food. That foreshadowed the baker and winemaker who relayed the second pair of dreams in the prison cells of Egypt.
Jacob’s third condition was clothing. After Joseph interpreted Pharaoh’s dream and gave him a plan for addressing the famine that was to come, Pharaoh put him in charge of all the land of Egypt and dressed him in the finest fashion.
וַיָּ֨סַר פַּרְעֹ֤ה אֶת־טַבַּעְתּוֹ֙ מֵעַ֣ל יָד֔וֹ וַיִּתֵּ֥ן אֹתָ֖הּ עַל־יַ֣ד יוֹסֵ֑ף וַיַּלְבֵּ֤שׁ אֹתוֹ֙ בִּגְדֵי־שֵׁ֔שׁ וַיָּ֛שֶׂם רְבִ֥ד הַזָּהָ֖ב עַל־צַוָּארֽוֹ׃ And removing his signet ring from his hand, Pharaoh put it on Joseph’s hand; and he had him dressed in robes of fine linen, and put a gold chain about his neck. (Genesis 41:42)
The three sets of dream correlate to Jacob’s first three conditions to internalizing God’s message in his dream. They represent a life for Jacob without Joseph present, as if his favorite son had become a dream. Jacob did not know whether Joseph was alive or dead, much like he wasn’t sure about the dream’s veracity. The three pairs of dreams were divinely inspired as alluded to at the very beginning of Jacob’s dream with the word מָּק֥וֹם appearing three times in one sentence.
Ultimately, the fourth condition, to “return safe to my father’s house,” was the reunion between Jacob and Joseph. When Jacob heard that Joseph was alive his spirit was awakened, as if from a deep sleep (Genesis 45:27). It was then that God reappeared to Jacob – at night again – to go to Egypt to reunite with his son and that God would return him to the promised land. (Genesis 46:1-4)
That action brought the entire family together, and had Jacob – now Israel – believe in God’s promise, setting the future for the children of Israel.
The first dreamer was awe-struck but doubted the dream’s authenticity, setting conditions to accept God. That action set in motion the life of Joseph and the history of the Jewish people.
On December 1, 2001, two frustrated Palestinian Arabs from Abu Dis, just east of Jerusalem, could not stand seeing so many Jews walking around on a Saturday night in a popular Jerusalem pedestrian mall. Osama Bahar, age 25, and Nabil Abu Habaliya, age 24, took explosives which were supplied by the terrorist group Hamas and blew themselves up amongst the young Israelis strolling on Ben Yehuda Street. A short time later, another terrorist blew up a car nearby.
The eleven dead included: Assaf Avitan, 15, of Jerusalem; Michael Moshe Dahan, 21, of Jerusalem; Israel Ya’akov Danino, 17, of Jerusalem; Yosef El-Ezra, 18, of Jerusalem; Sgt. Nir Haftzadi, 19, of Jerusalem; Yuri (Yoni) Korganov, 20, of Ma’alei Adumim; Golan Turgeman, 15, of Jerusalem; Guy Vaknin, 19, of Jerusalem; Adam Weinstein, 14, of Givon Hahadasha; Moshe Yedid-Levy, 19, of Jerusalem; and Ido Cohen, 17, of Jerusalem. Roughly 180 others were injured, 17 seriously.
Israeli victims of Palestinian terrorism at a popular pedestrian mall on Saturday night December 1, 2001
The Martyr Izz ad-Deen al-Qassam Brigades – Information office described how angry the Arabs were with the Jews, stating:
“As part of our retaliation to [Israeli Prime Minister Ariel] Sharon’s madness and with the success granted by Allah and His protection, the two fighting martyr brothers, Osama Bahar and Nabil Abu Habaliya, have carried out on Saturday evening, 12/1/2001, the night of Ramadan 17, their bold and painful attack in one of the enemy’s dens in occupied west Jerusalem as a revenge for the blood of our martyrs and a punishment to all the reckless leaders in the enemy’s army and ministry.
“We do not only do this in self-protection or in retaliation of a future killing, but we also do this as part of our absolute right to react towards the continual aggression and usurpation of our country for more than 50 years. We also wish to emphasize our right of resistance and our right to die as martyrs [istishhad], which is the pinnacle of resistance – that is to say, to sacrifice one’s self, spirit and blood is an absolute right, despite the aggressive attack by the enemy and some liars, meant to rob us of this right.“
Saudi Arabia funded the families of these terrorists in cooperation with the Arab Bank as part of the Saudi Committee for the Support of the Intifada al Quds. As the support for terrorism was too blatant (or to keep the funds flowing after the end of the intifada), the committee changed its name in 2004 to the Saudi Committee for the Relief of the Palestinian People. The Saudis also cannot stand Jews enjoying a Saturday night in Jerusalem.
Two frustrated Palestinian Arabs had to contend with Jews walking the streets of Jerusalem for their whole lives. The Saudis well understood their frustration and supported their “right of resistance to die as martyrs.” All had internalized that the Muslim world can have no dignity as long as Jews walk the streets of Jerusalem with impunity.
On November 29, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) condemned the sudden appearance of a “man-made cavity underneath the grounds of an UNRWA school in Gaza.” The agency “protested strongly to the relevant authorities in Gaza to express outrage and condemnation of the presence of such a structure underneath one of its installations.“
For the uninformed, the “man-made cavity” was a tunnel dug by the political-terrorist group HAMAS to store weapons and move their soldiers to attack and abduct Israelis. The “relevant authorities in Gaza” is the leadership of HAMAS.
But the words “Palestinian”, “Hamas”, “tunnels” or “terrorist” were completely absent in the otherwise strongly worded statement. It was as if UNRWA was only worried that a sinkhole might damage the structural integrity of their building.
UNRWA pretends that it is a neutral party to the conflict like the Red Cross, simply providing shelter, education and healthcare services inside the camps that it runs. The UNRWA statement made the point in closing with “UNRWA reiterates its demand that all parties respect the neutrality and inviolability of United Nations premises at all times. Such flagrant breaches of neutrality are serious violations of the Agency’s privileges and immunities, and they jeopardize the ability of UNRWA to provide support and protection to the 1.4 million Palestine refugees in need in Gaza.“
The reality is that UNRWA is not neutral. It frequently leaves its jurisdiction to investigate Israel. It specifically calls out Israel by name, while not doing so for Palestinians.
A recent example was UNRWA’s condemnation of Israel evicting Arab squatters in Israeli-owned homes in the Sheik Jarrah section of Jerusalem. That neighborhood lies outside UNRWA’s jurisdiction and purview.
A few weeks ago, UNRWA joined with several other UN agencies to go to Beit Iksa in Area B of the West Bank, near the Israeli town of Mevaseret Zion. It joined Palestinian farmers in an olive harvest – again, nothing to do with its mission and far outside of so-called “refugee camps.”
Meanwhile, when Palestinian children lost their lives in Syria from playing with dormant bombs lying on the ground from the civil war, UNRWA bemoaned the loss of life but only mentioned that the children were victims of the generic “conflict” without blaming the government of Syria.
Yet when a Palestinian man was hit by an Israeli army truck in a small town southeast of Hebron, no where near an UNRWA facility, UNRWA “condemned” Israel saying it showed “evident disregard for their responsibilities vis-à-vis internal law and standards.“
Supporters of Hamas in the Jabalia refugee camp in Gaza, gather to express their solidarity with the Jenin refugee camp, against the Israeli operation in Jenin to root out Palestinian terrorists who killed three civilians in Tel Aviv on April 10, 2022. A few weeks later, the head of UNRWA went to Jenin to show his support for Palestinian Arabs in Jenin. (Photo by MOHAMMED ABED / AFP)
When UNRWA lambasts Israel far from its field of operations but refuses to clearly condemn Hamas and its terrorist tunnels abutting its facilities, it further underscores that the agency is not neutral and therefore deserves neither privileges nor immunities.
The New York Times remarkably parroted Palestinian propaganda on its pages as it wrote about Palestinian militants taking an Israeli teenager off of life support in a hospital, to hold his dead body as a bargaining chip.
In ten different sections of the article “Palestinians Join Forces with Israelis, Bringing Peace to a Teen’s Family,” the Times wrote that Israel holds the dead bodies of Palestinian terrorists in the hopes of dissuading future attacks. That narrative echoed throughout, seemingly giving an excuse for Palestinian Arabs deciding to do the same to Israelis.
Palestinians “hoped to exchange it for the corpses of dozens of Palestinians that have been held by Israel for years without burial.“
“… shifted rare attention on the Israeli practice of holding onto the bodies of slain Palestinians accused of terrorism.“
“the militants hoped to exchange Tiran for the bodies of dozens of Palestinians kept in Israeli mortuaries since 2016. Israel houses the unburied bodies of 111 Palestinians, 16 of them from Jenin, according to detailed records shared with the Times by the Jerusalem Legal Aid and Human Rights Center, an independent Palestinian rights watchdog.”
“Israeli officials believe that Palestinians were all killed while committing violence, and that holding on to their bodies may help deter future attacks.”
“The militants actions also felt unethical to many Palestinians. While there is widespread Palestinian anger at Israel’s own practice of withholding Palestinian corpses, many felt the gunmen had picked the wrong target, particularly after it became clear that Tiran was a schoolboy, not a soldier.”
“‘It wasn’t a moral thing to do,’ said Muhammad Sabbagh, the head of a leadership council in the Jenin Camp. ‘From the beginning, the entire camp wanted to return the body.’“
“‘I immediately realized that a big mistake had been made,’ General Rajoub said in a phone interview. ‘We immediately planned how we would get the body back to the family.’“
“… a leading opponent of the Israeli occupation and a longtime critic of the Israeli policy of holding Palestinian corpses.“
“… the rare collaboration should not obscure wider Palestinian anger at Israel’s policy of withholding the bodies of dead Palestinians.”
“Dozens of ‘Palestinians families are waiting for their beloved sons,’ Dr. Tibi said. ‘For their corpses seized and captured by the Israeli occupation.'”
That’s a lot of time saying the same line over and again while NEVER mentioning that Israel only started holding the bodies of Arab terrorists after Palestinians refused to hand over the bodies of two Israelis killed in Gaza in 2014, Oron Shaul and Hadar Goldin. Instead, the Times said that Israel carried out the practice as a form of punishment, seemingly introducing the horrific action in the conflict.
The biased article made the militants seem remorseful for their action because the dead person “was a schoolboy, not a soldier.” That’s outrageous. Palestinians routinely celebrate the murder of Jewish children as confirmed in their own polls, such as the one which showed 80% of Gazans and 50% of West Bank Arabs supporting the killing of a 17-year old girl on a nature hike. Just days before, the region’s Islamic terrorists celebrated the murder of a 16 year old Jewish boy on his way to school.
The obvious reason for returning the body of this boy was because he was Druze and not an Israeli Jew. The obvious Arab anti-Semitism was omitted and redirected by The Times. #AbsolutionViaRedirection
What’s more, the Times quoted the “Jerusalem Legal Aid and Human Rights Center, an independent Palestinian rights watchdog,” which is NOT independent. It is an anti-Israel European-funded organization that has been vilifying Israel for years, as reported by NGO Monitor.
This week, Palestinian terrorists killed a young Israeli boy and kidnapped his body from a hospital, an action they have been using for many years, however, they decided to return the body after they realized the Israeli wasn’t a Jew. Readers of The New York Times were spun a different story. The anti-Israel propaganda piece penned over-and-again that Israel has been unilaterally keeping dozens of Palestinians corpses for many years, angering Palestinians waiting to bury their sons, which caused some militants to take a similar action, which they immediately regretted as immoral.
That’s Absolution via Inversion, a favorite of the anti-Israel media which falsifies that Israeli racism and brutality are the root cause of the conflict, not the refusal of Arabs to accept Jews living in their homeland.
There are many popular conspiracy theories. Some are innocuous, like the belief in Big Foot or the Loch Ness monster. Others are more elaborate, such as the notion that the government is engaged in a cover up of UFOs or faked the moon landing. The ideas have followings in the fringe, and do not, for the most part, change a person’s interaction with society.
However, there are some conspiracy theories that get mainstreamed and hurt people.
Alex Jones is perhaps the best known conspiracy theorist with (or used to have) a large platform. He’s said that the terrorist attacks on 9/11/01 by Muslim jihadists were actually an inside job; that the Boston Marathon bombing by two Muslim radicals in 2013 was the work of the FBI; and that the shooting at the Sandy Hook elementary school in 2012 by a deranged man was a hoax. Just last month, the courts ordered Jones to pay $965 million in damages because of a suit brought by parents of the murdered Sandy Hook children.
Despite his crazy and hateful ideas, according to an August 2022 poll by The Economist / YouGov, 9% of Americans think that Jones is trustworthy. An astonishing 21% of people who consider themselves very conservative believe his bile, compared to just 6% of liberals. As to the Sandy Hook massacre itself, 18% of Americans think it was a hoax.
That’s no longer a small segment of society. That’s an alarming percentage who have bought in to the “disinformation.”
In the era of losing trust in mainstream media and government, we have collectively taken to believing pop cultural liars. These individuals have social media platforms that reach millions of people around the world with the ability to spread either old conspiracy theories or new ones.
Some old conspiracy theories gain new twists. The same Economist / YouGov poll found that 20% of Americans believe that COVID-19 vaccines are being used to microchip Americans. It’s a spin on the popular control-themed conspiracy theory with a current event. A number of world leaders have taken to combining that control conspiracy theory with anti-Semitism – such as the leaders in Bulgaria, Turkey and Iran – that Jews engineered the coronavirus for profit to control the world.
Conspiracy theories are alive and unwell.
Conspiracy Theories of “Power” and “Control”
The biggest conspiracy of all – typically tied to extreme Jew hatred – is that the world is controlled by a shadow government. A whopping 58% of Republicans polled hold such belief as well as 26% of Democrats. Some believe that this shadow government is the “Illumanti“, while others contend it is the Jews.
Kanye West / Ye recently came out with a broad conspiracy theory about Jews controlling Black people. He said “They can control Shaq. They can control Charles Barkley. They can control LeBron James. They can control Jay-Z and Beyoncé. But they can’t control me. You see it ain’t no name I won’t name. It’s up.” He then suggested that “Hollywood” deliberately kills family members of Black stars. “Michael Jordan, what about him? His daddy, right? Bill Cosby, his son. Dr. Dre, his son. Out in Hollywood, a lot of people come up missing. It feels like it might be a lot of that, in order to control, traumatize.“
Followers of KanYe West point to companies like Adidas pulling their commercial deals from the musician after threating to go “death con 3 on Jewish people” as evidence of Jewish power. Comedian Dave Chapelle talked about KanYe and Jewish power on Saturday Night Live and ended his monologue “I hope they don’t take anything away from me. Whoever they are,” with the last sentence said in a deep conspiracy-oriented undertone.
Politicians like Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) and Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) both have called out Jewish control with outrageous smears like Omar’s “Israel has hypnotized the world, may Allah awaken the people and help them see the evil doings of Israel,” and Tlaib’s comment that Jews “do it from Gaza to Detroit, and it’s a way to control people, to oppress people… designed by those who exploit the rest of us, for their own profit.“
The media echoes the sentiment of Jewish power, whether at The New York Times or CNN, with the Times sometimes using language right out of Hitler’s Mein Kampf. It’s curious that the left-wing media does it so frequently, as Republicans are twice as likely to believe the conspiracy theory of a shadow government.
Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) taking to the extremist left-wing group Democratic Socialists of America, that Jews are controlling Black and Brown people for profit.
The concept of “Jewish power” was covered in several of the Anti-Defamation League’s polling questions about anti-Semitism around the world. The poll asked eleven questions about Jews, of which five were specifically about Jewish power – over the business world, financial markets, global affairs, the U.S. government and the global media. It was in those five areas, that almost every country scored higher (meaning more believed the trope) than other questions such as being more loyal to Israel than their own country, or talk too much about the Holocaust.
In the most recent limited European 2019 poll, Poland and Ukraine were the most anti-Semitic (Muslim countries are the most anti-Semitic, as covered in the global 2014 poll). The conspiracy theories about Jews having power topped the concerns of Poles and Ukrainians.
56% and 72% of Poles and Ukrainians, respectively, felt that Jews had too much power in the business world
56% of Poles and 68% of Ukrainians felt that Jews had too much control over the financial markets
40% and 56% believe that Jews control global affairs
41% and 33% believing they control the United States government
39% and 45% believe that Jews control the global media
The scores for the six non-control questions were much lower, meaning that the driver of anti-Semitism is the Jewish power conspiracy theory, not other items like “Jews think they’re better than other people.”
Clear and Present Danger
The widespread libels are not a curiosity but a clear and present danger. The notion of Jewish power directly influences people to take harmful actions against Jews.
Consider that a radical Muslim man flew from England to Texas, where he took Jewish hostages in a synagogue, and then placed a call to a rabbi in New York, to help free a jihadi extremist in custody. Why would anyone believe that a rabbi could possibly influence the FBI to release a terrorist, other than believing that Jews have some crazy power.
English terrorist, Malik Faisal Akram, flew to Texas to try to release terrorist Aafia Siddiqui, serving an 86-year sentence for attempting to kill U.S. soldiers, by taking Jews hostage.
A deranged white man who believed that Jews are importing Hispanics to destroy “White America” shot Jews in a synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018, saying that the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, “HIAS likes to bring invaders in that kill our people. I can’t sit by and watch my people get slaughtered. Screw your optics, I’m going in.“
Two African-American “Black Israelites” shot up a kosher grocery store in Jersey City, NJ in 2019, killing a number of people because these Black people felt there was an invasion and “insidious onslaught to African American life” as “Black homeowners were threatened… by brutes of the jewish community.” How does a couple of Jews moving into a predominantly Black neighborhood constitute an “insidious onslaught” worthy of killing people, unless these Black people have been led to believe that the Jews will overpower them?
The vile anti-Semitic conspiracy theories and violence are no longer fringe held in one corner of America. It is mainstreamed in many communities, including Muslim, Black, alt-right and alt-left.
And this is very much about communities, not organized hate groups.
According to the ADL, the sharp rise in anti-Semitic attacks in the United States are NOT from hate groups, but individuals who have become radicalized, an incredible 87% from “lone wolves.” These are people who have been spoon-fed hate-filled lies that Jews are coming to get them, both directly and indirectly.
Conspiracy theories about Jewish power and control are widespread on college campuses, mainstream and social media platforms, and from the mouths of politicians. It is broadcast from the extreme right, the left, Islamic radicals and Black influencers. The drip of noxious anti-Semitic lies is now a steady stream, coupled with calls to “punch up” and dismantle the visible and invisible power structures hurting the common person and preferred community.
It’s the same narrative that brought Nazis to power to annihilate Jews in the 1930s, and despite knowing history, society is seemingly incapable or unwilling to stop the torrent.
First One Through 