First the Attackers Were Radical Islamic Extremists

Posted on August 6, 2019 by First.One.Through

First the attackers were radical Islamic extremists, and people protected them – because they were also Muslims.

Then the attackers were radical black preachers, and people protected them – because they were also black.

Then the attackers were alt-right white supremacists, and people protected them – because they were also white.

Then the attackers were progressive Antifa extremists, and people protected them – because they were also progressives.

And each of them came for the Jew – because each of the attackers was breast-fed antisemitism from birth and nurtured by the United Nations which singles out the Jewish State for demonization every day.

The United Nations in New York City

Martin Niemoller wrote his poem focused on victims and on remaining silent because the victims were the “other.” He didn’t realize his complicity in the crime until he suffered the same fate.

The updated version of the poem above is focused on the haters who come from a variety of groups, with each silently shielding its own radicals.

Except for the Jews. While all of the haters come for the Jews and the Jewish State, radical progressive Jews are at the front line calling for the world to attack the most moderate nation in the entire Middle East. In reaction, the right-wing Jews yell at the alt-left Jews to stop the vilification. And the remaining Jews in the middle stay silent, hoping that not engaging in the bilestorm will provide its own haven.

The Jews have always been everyone’s “other.” Today, they are also “others” to themselves. It is a story that played out 2,000 years ago to a tragic end.

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Beyond Judaism’s IPO

Posted on July 24, 2019 by First.One.Through

Beyond Meat

The hottest food and initial public stock offering these days is a proud fake.

“Beyond Meat” advertises “imagine your favorite meaty dishes like burgers and tacos delivering the juicy, delicious taste you know and love, while being better for you and the planet. That’s the future we’re working to build. Click below to learn more about each of our products and discover The Future of Protein today.”

Imagine… get what you love – all that yummy flavor – but it’s better for both you AND the planet. Sounds too good to be true. Why would you ever want the real thing again?

The BM site continues “The world’s first plant-based burger that looks, cooks, and satisfies like beef without GMOs, soy, or gluten.”

It looks and satisfies like the real thing, but doesn’t have any “issues” that might be found in the real thing or the current wave of fakes with which you might be familiar (soy). BM finally found the perfect blend of more good with none of the bad. It doesn’t just simulate without sin, it perfects.

Beyond Judaism

Just as the animal proteins came in a variety of cuts and flavors (sirloin, chops, bar-b-que, smoked) Judaism has had a variety of orientations over thousands of years. The most famous tug-of-war in the Jewish community was 2,000+ years ago. The Sadducees and Karites sought to limit their Judaism to just the written word of the bible, as they did not believe in the accompanying “oral law” which others believed was passed down through tradition from Moses. Meanwhile, the Pharisees championed the combined use of oral law together with the written bible. That was the form of Judaism that prevailed after the destruction of the Second Temple and the creation of Christianity.

While each were different, they all believed in the authenticity of the bible as the work of God.

That began to change 200 years ago, with the introduction of the Reform and Conservative movements. Their push towards modernity and greater integration into society included the shedding of various mitzvot, Jewish laws, such as keeping kosher. They were able to comfortably make the transition by reducing the bible to a work written by people who were divinely-inspired. Free of the constraints of being a work of God and therefore timeless, it became a document written around 2,700 years ago which needed refreshing for modern consumption and life. The groups maintained its connection with Judaism by still referencing the bible, and because Jews are a people in addition to being a religion.

American Judaism continued to morph with newer movements like Reconstructionist and Jewish Renewal (JR). These movements – and JR in particular – moved beyond mitzvot to the notion of “values” and “spiritual experience.” The Hebrew bible became a framework from which to create an experience; a concept but not a source. Not surprisingly, the values and spiritual experience are very similar to what someone might find in a church of any religion with a similar political and worldly outlook.

And that was their point.

Stripped of being tied to a divine document which contained some non-progressive language such as the condemnation of homosexual acts as an abomination, the movements took only the parts of the bible they liked. Judaism became a universal value system and not a distinct religion.

Like Beyond Meat, these new “Jewish” approaches market themselves as giving people the sense that they are enjoying and participating the real thing, but improving upon it immensely by being better for both the individual and society.

On one side, one can see Orthodox Jews devouring smoked brisket in a kosher restaurant and risking heart disease with fellow Jews, and on the other, see Jews and non-Jews at a Jewish Renewal event grilling plant-based foods.

Can both groups of Jews coexist? Sure, they can be friendly. But one group truly believes that the “originalists” are unhealthy, contribute to animal cruelty and brainwash their children, while the other believes that the “progressives” are deluding themselves that they are practicing anything remotely Jewish and having a prayer at a future in the Jewish world.

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I See Dead People

Posted on July 19, 2019 by First.One.Through

When I watch the marchers in Charlottesville, VA chant “Jews will not replace us,” I see the marches of Nazi Germany in the 1930’s.
When I hear the president of the United States say “you didn’t build that“, I see the words of Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf debasing Jews that they are manipulators who profit off the work of others.
When I watch the United Nations pass resolutions with America’s approval, that Jews living in the eastern part of their homeland is illegal, I think of the ghettos limiting where Jews were allowed to live.
When I hear of countries in Europe pushing to ban kosher meat and circumcision, I think of the Greek-Syrian laws in the Jewish holy land 2200 years ago, pressuring to destroy the spirit and religious practices of the Jewish people.
When the world cannot utter a word about Palestinian laws calling for the death penalty for any Arab selling land to a Jew and about the leadership which calls for a Jew-free state, I think of the pogroms throughout the centuries in Russia and Europe, and the concealed mass Jewish graves which fill the forest floors.
When I watch universities in the United States passing resolutions targeting a boycott, divestment and sanction (BDS) of the only Jewish State, I think of the Nazis boycotting Jewish stores.

An den Fenstern j¸discher Gesch‰fte werden von Nationalsozialisten Plakate mit der Aufforderung “Deutsche, wehrt euch, kauft nicht bei Juden” angebracht.
When I watch European and United Nations leaders encouraging Hamas and trying to merge it into a Palestinian unity government, I think of British leader Neville Chamberlain meeting with Hitler in 1938.
When I hear members of the U.S. Congress say that Jews are buying off politicians because they support Israel more than they care about America, I think about leading industrialist Henry Ford republishing the forgery Protocols of the Elders of Zion to foment widespread Jew-hatred.
When I see European countries labeling products made in Israel and Israeli territories, I see Nazis forcing Jews to wear yellow Jewish stars on their clothing.
When I see the United Nations stand by as terrorists use their schools to store and launch rockets into Israel, I think of the U.N. pulling its troops out of the Sinai in 1967 as Israelis dug mass graves in the center of Jerusalem as they prepared to be attacked.
When I read about Jewish groups actively lobbying to dismantle U.S. support for Israel, I think of the zealots of 2,000 years ago who helped destroy the Second Jewish Temple.
When I hear the Democratic candidates for president embrace vile anti-Semites like Linda Sarsour and Louis Farrakhan, I think about the Ku Klux Klan’s David Duke’s run for the presidency.
When I see “intellectuals” addressing the United Nations that Jews are trying to take over the entire “Muslim” Middle East, I am reminded of Christian blood libels.
When I read the leading liberal paper of the United States demonize Israel as racist and deserving of Arab ire, I think about Joseph G oebells and his Nazi propaganda machine.
When I hear the leader of the United Nations say that Palestinian reaction to the occupation is “natural,” I see the five faces of the Fogel family, slaughtered in their sleep.
When I hear the president of the United States call for a member of congress to go back where she came from and then watch as a crowd chants “send her back” to her country which is in shambles, I think of leading White House reporter Helen Thomas telling Jews to “get the hell out of Palestine” to return to the countries which had slaughtered them.
When the United States turns away refugees and asylum seekers, and the press will not discuss the British White Paper which cost over 100,000 European Jews their lives, I note the press’s preference that only certain havens are considered acceptable, and the Jewish homeland isn’t an appropriate one for Jews.
When I watch 58 members of the United States Congress walk out on the address of the Israeli Prime Minister who was alarmed at the advancement of a deal which would enable a country which had called for its destruction to have a legal pathway to nuclear weapons, I see something frighteningly new: I see the active arming of terrorists with weapons of mass destruction by the Israel’s closest ally.
When I hear the echoes of hatred as loud and as clear as the original voices, I see dead people.

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Muslim Women Debate Anti-Semitism

Posted on July 16, 2019 by First.One.Through

Ayaan Hirsi Ali wrote an article in The Wall Street Journal on July 12, 2019 called “Can Ilhan Omar Overcome Her Prejudice.” It was an article written by a black Muslim woman refugee from Somalia who fled to the Netherlands to enter politics as a converted Christian, about another black Muslim woman refugee from Somalia who fled to the United States to enter politics as a Muslim.

Hirsi Ali’s comments were stark. And bleak. And frightening.

She wrote about how anti-Semitism is instilled into the Somalian community from the youngest age, and how hating Jews is as natural as breathing air. This, despite the fact that almost no Somalian ever encountered a Jew in their lives. Hirsi Ali wrote how she had to unlearn her prejudice, and she wonders whether Ilhan Omar (and presumably all people from Somalia) will ever be able to unlearn the deep Jew-hatred endemic in that society.

“White Jews”

Linda Sarsour, a Palestinian-American Muslim woman came to Omar’s defense on the charge of antisemitism and said that “white Jews” tried to characterize Omar as an anti-Semite just because she’s a black Muslim woman – inverting the charge to white Jews being the racists. Sarsour contended that Jews think that Muslims are anti-Semites by default, “guilty until proven innocent.” Sarsour seemed to skip the uncomfortable fact that Omar made anti-Semitic statements again and again and again (let alone black non-Jews like Hirsi Ali pointing out Omar’s antisemitism).

As to Sarsour’s contention that “white Jews” think all Muslims are anti-Semites, she must be referring to the Anti Defamation League poll done in 2014 of countries around the world. There were 25 Muslim-majority countries reviewed, which showed that an average of 69% of the people in those countries were antisemitic. That compares to an average of 24% anti-Semites in non-Muslim majority countries, almost three times the rate of hate.

According to the ADL, once a country passes the 95% Muslim population threshold, almost every single man and woman hates Jews. In countries like Somalia (homeland for Omar and Hirsi Ali which was not polled by ADL which is 98% Muslim) including Yemen, Iraq, Algeria and Libya, the percentage of antisemitic adults in those countries are 89%, 92%, 87% and 89%, respectively. Sarsour’s Palestinian territories are 92% antisemitic.

For Sarsour, a Jewish organization which shows the antisemitism in Muslim societies must itself be racist, as well as those who read and believe the poll’s findings.

Israeli Jews of Color

Omar, Sarsour and fellow Muslim woman Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) are proud anti-Zionists who attack Israel with “apartheid” charges, perhaps failing to realize that the “white Jews” who descended from Europe and Russia are a minority in Israel, while the majority of Jews are from Arab, Muslim and African countries, Jews of color. They fully engage in the most liberal country of the entire MENA (Middle East and North Africa) region, making a new life in the Jewish State after they and their families were expelled and forced to flee Muslim lands.

White Jewish Men

By constantly calling themselves “Muslim women of color”, combining every minority element in the U.S., these women are directing their bile not just at non-Muslim white people, but men in particular.

Interestingly, the ADL polls of 2014 and 2015 show that in almost every single country and for every question, men are indeed more likely than women to be antisemitic. However, in a few instances, such as in the United States and the United Kingdom, women are more likely than men to believe that: Jews are hated for the way they behave; don’t care about anyone but fellow Jews; are more loyal to Israel than their country; and that they talk about the Holocaust too much. These antisemitic attitudes are in contrast to men who are more focused on perceived Jewish “control” over the financial markets, the media and US government. Like most antisemitic women, Omar, Tlaib and Sarsour clearly don’t think much about Holocaust appropriation, and are seemingly leaning in to cover all manner of antisemitic tropes as well.

X-Muslims

And for a moment of clarity, it is worth noting that Hirsi Ali’s conversion from Islam to Christianity is not simply an affront to Muslims, but an act of apostasy that is illegal throughout the Muslim world. In some societies – like Sarsour’s and Tlaib’s Palestinian Arab community – the majority of people believe that apostates should be subject to the death penalty. It seems that for these intersectional women, there is nothing worse than breaking from the narrow wisdom breast-fed since birth.

With such orientation, it makes the discussion of antisemitism between Muslim women and a former-Muslim woman that much more interesting. Did Hirsi Ali need to leave Islam to purge her prejudice? One data point does not make for a compelling argument for 1.8 billion Muslims worldwide.

Muslim women calling “white Jews” in America and Jews of color in Israel “racists” does not make any of the Jews racists; it simply adds to the long list of antisemitic smears from a handful of anti-Semites who should be given no air. And it leads one to unfortunately conclude that many leading American Muslim women may never unlearn their antisemitism, as much as a leading Dutch apostate might desire.

Related First.One.Through articles:

As Ilhan Omar Clearly Demonstrates, Not Every “First” is Jackie Robinson

Examining Ilhan Omar’s Point About Muslim Antisemitism

Ilhan Omar Isn’t Debating Israeli Policy, She is Attacking Americans

Rep. Ilhan Omar and The 2001 Durban Racism Conference

The Insidious Jihad in America

Linda Sarsour as Pontius Pilate

The Mourabitat Women of Congress

Apostasy

Republican Scrutiny and Democratic Empowerment of Muslims in Minnesota

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The Insidious Jihad in America

Posted on July 8, 2019 by First.One.Through

Yesterday’s post called “Linda Sarsour as Pontius Pilate” got quite a bit of pushback. People wanted to know what was the point of attacking a Muslim woman who wasn’t even elected to office. They asked why there wasn’t an article written about President Trump and other calls of whataboutery.

Linda Sarsour is just one data point about an insidious jihad taking place in the United States.

On April 20, 2019, another Muslim woman – this one, an elected official, Ilhan Omar (D-MN) – posted a feed on her Twitter account that rebuked Christians for not realizing that Jesus was a Palestinian, the same sort of inanity produced by Sarsour on July 6.

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) before Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT)
A few days later on May 9, the most power Democrat in office, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, invited Imam Omar Suleiman to give a prayer before Congress. Suleiman was the original source of Omar’s retweet.

In reaction to Suleiman addressing Congress, Rep Lee Zeldin (R-NY) rebuked Pelosi for inviting such a divisive person to address the august body, stating.

“Totally unacceptable that @SpeakerPelosi had Omar Suleiman give the opening prayer yesterday in the House. He compares Israel to the Nazis & calls them terrorists, supports Muslim Brotherhood, incites violence calling for a Palestinian antifada & the end of zionism, etc. Bad call”

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) went into high gear with accusations of “Islamophobia,” rather than address the issue that a national platform was given to a virulent basher of a strong American ally. As described in cnsnews.com:

“Ekram Haque, acting executive director of CAIR’s Dallas-Fort Worth chapter, accused “anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian groups” of having “launched a smear campaign against yet another person of color and American Muslim leader in the hope of maligning and marginalizing our communities.”

A brilliant continuation of lies whereby the anti-Zionists deflected the charge with charges of Islamophobia.

The CNS news site continued that Suleiman has 1.35 million followers on Facebook and 282,000 followers on Twitter where he posted comments like these:

Facebook post, May 15, 2018: “Apartheid Israel, with American funding and cover, continues to terrorize with impunity.”
Facebook post, 10 August 2015: “Want to know what its [sic] like to live under Nazis? Look no further than how the Palestinians are treated daily by apartheid Israel. Sickening.”
Twitter post, 30 October 2014: “A third intifada is near insha’Allah.”
Facebook post, 3 August 2014: “How symbolic: 2 books buried in the rubble of a destroyed home in Gaza: One about Moses and the other about Muhammad (peace be upon them both). The Zionists are the enemies of God, His Messengers, sincere followers of all religions, and humanity as a whole.”
Twitter post, 24 July 2014: “God willing on this blessed night as the 3rd Intifada begins, the beginning of the end of Zionism is here. May Allah help us overcome this monster, protect the innocent of the world, and accept the murdered as martyrs. ameen.”

Suleiman/Omar/Pelosi are far cries from an innocuous and impotent “social activist” making silly remarks about Jesus being a Palestinian. This is a man calling for the destruction of Israel who is parroted by a congresswomen and speaking before Congress.

Sarsour herself has many other friends at the top of the Democratic Party that are furthering the demonization of Jews and the Jewish State.

Linda Sarsour and Cornel West, right, listen as Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders speaks in a roundtable discussion April 16, 2016, at the First Unitarian Congregational Society in the Brooklyn borough of New York. (Mary Altaffer / AP)

Sarsour has developed a very close relationship with one of the leading Democratic presidential candidates, Sen. Bernie Sanders. Sanders proudly posted her endorsement of his 2020 presidential run on his website. He clearly believes that her voice carries weight and will win him votes. (It should be noted that Sanders also posted the support of another loud anti-semite, former British MP George Galloway as well as Cornel West and James Zogby.)

Another 2020 Democratic Party presidential candidate Kirsten Gillibrand loudly and proudly complemented Sarsour for her role in the Women’s March stating: “It was an honor to write about them.” In addition to Israel-hater Sarsour, the other women Gillibrand wrote about were people like Tamika Mallory who is proud of her relationship with noted anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan, leader of the Nation of Islam. (Gillibrand has company in another Democratic presidential hopeful Senator Cory Booker who also stands with Farrakhan).

Sarsour is also close to current Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, a fellow Israel-basher (who happens to be Muslim) who was the Vice Chairman of the Democratic National Committee. The two back each other all the way.

In short, Sarsour is not some low-level un-influential community organizer. She has a loud platform and ears of the leaders of the Democratic party.

These pages have focused on far-left wing anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist elected officials including “The Democratic Party is Tacking to the Far Left-Wing Anti-Semitic Fringe,“ “Black Lives Matter Joins the anti-Israel “Progressives” Fighting Zionism,“ “An Open Letter to Non-Anti-Semitic Sanders Supporters“ and “Farrakhan’s Democrats” among others.

This problem is systemic and growing.

The “progressive” intersectionality movement is merging the radical Muslim jihadist sect like Sarsour/ Omar/ Ellison with the far-left Democratic leadership like Sanders, Booker and Gillbrand as well as Senators Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris who both excused Ilhan’s Omar’s anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist comments. Rather than criticize the essence of the hateful American jihadists comments, the Democratic leadership is opting to condemn the targets of the smear attacks (including pro-Israel Republicans, religious Christians and and Jews) as racists. Appreciating the results, the jihadists do it again, further binding the alt-left to its cause, as the Democratic leadership seems unwilling or unable to pull itself out of the tailspin.

The insidious jihad is just getting started, and will roll over the Democratic Party should it elect a member of the far-left as its presidential nominee.

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Linda Sarsour as Pontius Pilate

Posted on July 7, 2019 by First.One.Through

The term “cultural appropriation” (or sometimes “cultural misappropriation” ) is defined by Dictionary.com as “the act of adopting elements of an outside, often minority culture, including knowledge, practices, and symbols, without understanding or respecting the original culture and context.” It has been used by some “social justice activists” to attack the majority culture who use certain foods, clothing or symbols of a minority ethnic or religious group in a manner that is viewed as demeaning.

How much worse is it to not just use articles of clothing or food but to abuse a group’s ancestors and history? How much more sinister is it to do it to deliberately anger and attack a group, rather than take an action meant with no malice?

Leaders of the Palestinian Authority and its founder Yasser Arafat had often declared that Jesus was a Muslim Palestinian Arab in interviews, press releases and their official TV. Their transparent goal was to make it sound that Jesus was not a Jew but a Muslim Palestinian Arab like themselves. They manufactured a fake history that not only did Jews have no history in the region, but Palestinian Arabs did, in an effort to undermine the claims of Jews as being indigenous to the holy land.

The argument was also designed to enable Muslim Arabs to assert control of Christian holy sites in the holy land, not just Muslim ones, and align themselves with billions of Christians around the world. The actual Judeo-Christian history in the holy land with Muslim Arabs as foreign invaders over six centuries later was repackaged and retold as a Palestinian Muslim Arab-Christian story, with Jews coming as the foreign invaders two millenia later in creating Israel.

But you can almost forgive the Palestinian Authority for their insults and lies. They have cornered themselves into asserting that their entire claim to the land is that they are indigenous. The much older and deeper Jewish history undermines the very foundation to their claim.

Further, the Palestinian Authority lives in a third world backwater of their own making in the Middle East. Rather than create a liberal society like Israel, they cling to their repressive brothers which afford little to no rights for women and minorities.

So how should one consider the same remarks coming from a “progressive, social justice activist” like Linda Sarsour on July 6, 2019?

Sarsour lives in the United States of America, a predominantly Christian country. She was a co-founder of the “Women’s March” in Washington, D.C. and claims to care about oppressed minorities – even Jews, the most persecuted group on the planet. She has the background to know better and speak clearer than a bunch of old Arab men in the Middle East.

So why did she choose to insult billions of Christians and a couple of million Jews with the notion that Jesus wasn’t a Jew but a Muslim Arab? Why attack the faith of billions of others?

Sarsour is part of a new wave of Muslim jihadists. Not the ones who used physical force to invade lands like the jihadists from Arabia who swept through the Jewish holy land and north Africa in the 7th and 8th centuries killing and converting non-believers. Sarsour describes herself as a jihadist in the mold of using words “of truth” to form a particular narrative. As she said in July 2017:

“What is the best form of jihad, or struggle? And our beloved prophet … said to him, ‘A word of truth in front of a tyrant ruler or leader, that is the best form of jihad. I hope that … when we stand up to those who oppress our communities, that Allah accepts from us that as a form of jihad, that we are struggling against tyrants and rulers not only abroad in the Middle East or on the other side of the world, but here in these United States of America, where you have fascists and white supremacists and Islamophobes reigning in the White House.”

Are her words “of truth”?

Jesus was not an Arab. Arabs didn’t come to the holy land en masse until they invaded in the seventh century, over 600 years after Jesus lived.
Jesus was not a Muslim. He was a Jew and father of the Christian faith.
Jesus was not a Palestinian. In the time of Jesus, the area was known as Judea. After the Bar Kochba Revolt (132-135CE), well after Jesus lived, the Roman conquerors changed the name of the province to “Syria Palestina.” The word “Palestine” didn’t even exist while Jesus was alive.

The same Roman Empire that crucified Jesus, destroyed the Jewish Temple, slaughtered the Jews of Judea and built pagan altars throughout the holy land, renamed the province to destroy the Jewish and nascent Christian spirit in the land. To call Jesus a Palestinian is not just incorrect, it is a highly charged insult which brands him with the signatures of his killers and everything he loathed.

Sarsour is seemingly happy to dress the part of Pontius Pilate, the Roman prefect of Judea who sentenced Jesus to death: destroy those who believe differently, rebrand the land, retell a new story to define a new narrative to your liking. In a “progressive social activist” world where “my truths” are more potent than facts, the alt-left audience is ripe for her fabrications. In rallying to her support, they won’t even pause to consider the outright lies or cultural appropriation.

Sarsour is not bringing words “of truth” to America, she is bringing a highly-charged jihad to destroy the Judeo-Christian roots of America.

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Bitter Burnt Ends: Talking to a Farrakhan Fan

Where’s the March Against Anti-Semitism?

“Protocols of the Elders of Zion – The Musical”

The Cave of the Jewish Matriarch and Arab Cultural Appropriation

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The Remarkable Tel Jerusalem

Posted on July 1, 2019 by First.One.Through

Archaeologists spend their time excavating and examining sites where humans lived in an effort to better understand the nature of societies from long ago. They let the physical evidence provide clues as to how people lived, what they ate and how they existed as a community.

Some of the best places to explore ancient history are found in tels, hills where one society was built upon the ruins of an earlier society. Such ruins are common in the Middle East, where there has been continuous human presence in many of the same locations for 4-5,000 years.

The issue confronting archaeologists excavating any tel is that one layer of history must be removed to be able to explore the next layer of the human past. Removing the ruins of a floor of a 13th century mosque may reveal a 5th century church, while clearing the 5th century level may reveal a municipal building from the first century BCE. History must be destroyed to find yet more ancient history. Peeling back time yields discovery via destruction.

In the holy city of Jerusalem, the challenges for archaeologists and historians becomes further ensnared in religious and political battles. Why should the ruins of a 16th century mosque be cleared to reveal an ancient Byzantine church? Why should the church be dismantled to uncover an ancient Jewish ritual bath house? Is one truth more significant than another? Does the exposure of ancient Jewish edifices impact today’s realities and political considerations? Is the destruction of an ancient house of worship in favor of another religion’s house of worship an act of historical exploration or a crusade?

The city of Jerusalem became central to the Jewish people 3,000 years ago, when King David sacked the then-Jebusite city and made it the official capital of the Jewish people in roughly 1000 BCE. His son, King Solomon, built the First Jewish Temple in the city in 950 BCE, making the city both the religious center and the political center of the people. Jews made pilgrimages to sacrifice at the temples during both the First Temple period (950 BCE – 587 BCE) and during the Second Temple period (515 BCE – 70 CE). Since the destruction of the Second Temple, Jews continued to live in and make pilgrimages to the city to pray, but without the ritual sacrifices, as Arab Muslims and Christian Crusaders took turns dominating the landscape.

City of Jerusalem during First Temple Period covered a portion of the current
Temple Mount and an area south of today’s Old City walls

Over the last several years, a team of archaeologists has been excavating an old road used by the Jewish pilgrims of two thousand-plus years ago. The “Pilgrimage Road” was one of a series of pathways that facilitated the flow of hundreds of thousands of Jews into the Jewish Temples. It’s route must have changed during the centuries as the walls of Jerusalem changed, and as archaeologists continue their excavations, undoubtedly, more facts will emerge.

The Pilgrimage Road from the Shiloach Pool to the Temple Mount, used by Jewish worshipers in the late Second Temple period, was excavated over the course of six years and unveiled by the City of David organization on June 30, 2019.
(Source: City of David.)

The road now exists as a tunnel lying beneath a predominantly Arab section of Jerusalem, called Silwan. The area was originally settled in modern times by Yemenite Jews in the 1880’s, who were then expelled when Jordan attacked Israel in 1948 and annexed the area in a measure not recognized by almost every country in the world. Just as in ancient history, the sacking and rebuilding of the city continues to play out.

But today’s Israeli archaeologists managed a new feat: they did not destroy the layers of recent history above the Pilgrim Road; they burrowed a tunnel which left the current residents of Silwan still living in their homes. As opposed to the living history of tels which builds one reality on top of another, and excavations which destroy one history to unveil another, both the ancient Jewish history and modern Arab homes coexist.

Historians celebrated the event as did the State of Israel which plans to develop the road as a tourist attraction as an important part of understanding the history of Judaism’s holiest location. Even foreign dignitaries came to the June 30 opening dedication including U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman, White House Middle East envoy Jason Greenblatt and United States Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC).

But Palestinian Arabs cried foul. Palestinians like PLO veteran Hanan Ashrawi said that the United States “will go to any length to show collusion, identification with and support for all these illegal acts, for the transformation of the character of Jerusalem.” A ridiculous charge which prompted Greenblatt to reply on Twitter that “we can’t ‘Judaize’ what history/archaeology show. We can acknowledge it; you can stop pretending it isn’t true! Peace can only be built on truth.”

Traditionally, archaeologists need to destroy one layer of history to reveal the more ancient, but in Jerusalem today, the Israelis managed to uncover a 2,000-year old road used by pilgrims to ascend to the Jewish Temple Mount, while leaving the homes of modern day Arabs and Jews intact. It is a feat which sustains all truths, and underscores both the deep historic and religious ties of the Jewish people to their holiest city, while also respecting the modern sensitivities and political realities of the diverse modern capital city.

Related First.One.Through articles:

The Jews of Jerusalem In Situ

Gimme that Old-Time Religion

The Cave of the Jewish Matriarch and Arab Cultural Appropriation

Squeezing Zionism

Tolerance at the Temple Mount

The New York Times will Keep on Telling You: Jews are not Native to Israel

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All About the Benjamins: Jordan Sells Citizenship While Women Left In The Cold

Posted on June 26, 2019 by First.One.Through

In February 2019, new Congresswoman Ilhan Omar (D-MN) accused members of Congress of selling their votes to the Israel lobby saying “it’s all about the Benjamins.” While the comment was condemned by most members of Congress, her alt-left progressive comrades stood by her, including fellow female Muslim Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib and Woman’s March organizer Linda Sarsour, also a Muslim woman. Sarsour had loudly attacked Israel with comments like “there’s nothing creepier than Zionism,” while defending sharia law and the actions of Muslim countries.

Ilhan Omar (D-MN) and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI)

Curiously, just one year before Omar’s antisemitic “Benjamins” smear, the Arab Muslim country of Jordan was busy selling off rights to citizenship for huge stacks of Benjamins.

On February 19, 2018, the parliament of Jordan passed the Jordanian Citizenship by Investment Programme (JIP), which proudly declared “High-net-worth individuals can now become Jordanian citizens!” (exclamation point NOT added). How sweet! Citizenship in Jordan is so coveted, they’ll sell it to anyone – as long as they have at least $1 million to fork over to Jordan.

Personally, I think a country can make whatever rules it wants about citizenship. I would likely value Jordanian citizenship at about a single dollar (Canadian), but that’s just me.

However, what’s beyond insulting is that thousands of people – specifically women and Palestinians just like Linda Sarsour – are DENIED citizenship in Jordan, and stripped of citizenship they once had.

In Jordan, a male-dominated society, citizenship is controlled by men. By law, only men can pass on citizenship to their wives and children; a woman cannot pass on citizenship to her children or spouse.

And rather than rectify the situation when making adjustments to citizenship laws, Jordan simply went for the Benjamins and didn’t offer a morsel to women. Many activists in Jordan were outraged. But not a peep from Omar, Tlaib or Sarsour.

Linda Sarsour, herself a child of Palestinians and a woman’s rights advocate, could not arch an eyebrow about the insulting practice of Jordan selling a right it won’t even extend to women in the country.

For Palestinians, the insult is particularly insulting. Those people living in the West Bank which Jordan illegally annexed in 1950, were given Jordanian citizenship in 1954 until Jordan revoked such citizenship on July 31, 1988. The Jordanians have since started removing the citizenship of thousands of other people of Palestinian origin living inside of Jordan. It’s almost as though Palestinians were transforming into Jews, who were specifically denied Jordanian citizenship in Article 3 of the 1954 Citizenship Law.

Neither the Palestinian part of her persona, nor her women’s warrior mantle could stir Sarsour to denounce the actions of the Jordanians. A country where only the wealthy can get citizenship while poor women worry over the fate and future of their own children.

Linda Sarsour

When observing Omar, Tlaib and Sarsour, one can only sigh that “there’s nothing creepier than Muslim antisemitism dressed up as progressivism.”

Related First.One.Through articles:

The Mourabitat Women of Congress

Criticizing Muslim Antisemitism is Not Islamophobia

Bitter Burnt Ends: Talking to a Farrakhan Fan

The Palestinian-American You Never Heard Of: Issam Akel

Politicians React to Vile and Vulgar Palestinian Hatred

Examining Ilhan Omar’s Point About Muslim Antisemitism

Ilhan Omar Isn’t Debating Israeli Policy, She is Attacking Americans

Rep. Ilhan Omar and The 2001 Durban Racism Conference

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Ilhan Omar and AOC Try To Reclaim The Word ‘Holocaust’

Posted on June 25, 2019 by First.One.Through

A satire.

Inspired by the ground-breaking work of Dr. Nira Cain-N’Degeocello (Sasha Baron Cohen in ‘Who is America’), Congresswoman Ilhan Omar (D-MN) and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) are advancing a bill to reclaim the word ‘Holocaust,’ much as their liberal champion is fighting to reclaim the word ‘pedophile.’

“I am a pedophile in that I love children. And I reclaim that word because it has been stolen by the abusers. I love children and I am a proud pedophile.”

Dr. Nira Cain-N’Degecello in Season 1 Episode 4

AOC had channeled her scorn against the Trump Administration and said that the U.S. was making ‘concentration camps’ for Latin immigrants in the United States and that Jews should be the most sensitive to the crimes of the Republican administration which is waging a Holocaust against Hispanic children. Newsweek came to AOC’s defense by listing various academics who pointed out how concentration camps existed long before World War II.

Ilhan Omar said she was disgusted by alt-right Jews attacking her fellow liberal colleague. She held up a Merriam-Webster Dictionary and said “the word ‘Holocaust‘ is defined as ‘a thorough destruction involving extensive loss of life especially through fire.’ No ‘Jew’ in the definition. It is a word that existed long before Zionis… excuse me, Jews, died in World War II. We cannot continue to allow Zioni.. excuse me, Jews to steal our language from us, or buy it off with a bunch of Benjamins.”

AOC said Republicans were missing the critical point of her comment: “Hispanics in this country are being forced into death marches to get here and are suffering pogroms under the direct orders of this Republican Nazi government, just as the Jews suffered under Germany’s government. All my Jewish coastal liberal latte-drinking out-of-touch politically-correct constituents agree with me.” She then added, “and you know I’m part Jewish too.”

Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) on Twitter

Omar was more direct. “Holocaust imagery has been stolen by Zionist abusers. They don’t own all of the world’s suffering and they cannot steal everything they want. I am a black woman Muslim refugee. I have suffered a thousand times more than the millionaire Jewish bankers who attack me. I stand with AOC and we will reclaim all of these words on behalf of the downtrodden including: ‘Holocaust,’ ‘concentration camps,’ ‘death march,’ ‘pogrom,’ ‘crematoria’, and anything else we accidentally say in the future and need to defend rather than admit stupidity and guilt.”

David Duke, former Grand Wizard of the KKK even chimed in to defend AOC: “The Nazis didn’t create the swastika; it was around for a thousand years. But the German government bans its use today as a cowardly retreat to Jews because they’re sensitive about some Jews dying a generation ago. I hope that AOC starts to wear one to congress to shut them [the Jews] up.”

Palestinian Authority President-for-Life Mahmoud Abbas cheered the initiative. “It’s well passed time for the Democrats to take back words which Jews stole for themselves years ago. They colonized language like they do everything else. I’ve been using the terms ‘genocide‘ and ‘ethnic cleansing‘ for years and the United Nations never complained. Matter of fact, they cheered. J Street even complemented me.”

Brant Rosen, an alt-left anti-Zionist on the board of Jewish Voice for Peace penned his agreement with both Omar and AOC: “You know, even the word ‘Jude‘ was around for a long time. It was really the Beatles who made the word famous, even though right-wing and Orthodox-looking Jews would have you believe otherwise.”

Linda Sarsour, a founder of the ‘Woman’s March’ said the whole thing stinks. “This a blood libel if there ever was one. The Judenrat are trying to kill Hispanic babies while pointing fingers at AOC as a distraction. I suggest doing a DNA test on all babkas and challahs in Jewish neighborhoods along the border.”

Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) added “the final solution to this Fuhrer – er, furor – is to stop the blitzkrieg against our human rights leaders like AOC and recognize that it’s the Republicans that are Nazis. I swear on my grandmother’s original edition of Mein Kampf.”

“It’s this whole evil hypnosis thing all over again,” Omar sighed. “I say, ‘Never Again.’”

Related First.One.Through articles:

“Protocols of the Elders of Zion – The Musical”

The Cave of the Jewish Matriarch and Arab Cultural Appropriation

The Left Wing’s Accelerating Assault on the Holocaust

The Ultimate Chutzpah: A New Form of Holocaust Denial

Seeing the Holocaust Through Nakba Eyes

Ilhan Omar Isn’t Debating Israeli Policy, She is Attacking Americans

Palestinians of Today and the Holocaust

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Ruth, The Completed Jew

Posted on June 10, 2019 by First.One.Through

On the holiday of Shavuot which celebrates the giving of the Torah, we read the story of Ruth. It is, at first glance, a particularly strange choice. Why would Judaism, which has a prohibition against marrying a Moabite (Deuteronomy 23:3) use the story of a marriage to a Moabite, on any holiday, let alone one of the three festivals of pilgrimage, and the one devoted to the giving of the laws?

Peoplehood, Land and Religion

The three festivals represent three parts of the collective Jewish nationhood as told in the five books of Moses:

Passover tells the story of Jews becoming a nation, a single people. While they entered Egypt as a single family of 70 souls, they left Egyptian bondage as a people numbering 600,000 men. Their vast numbers yet common experience of slavery and freedom bound them together as a singular nation.
The holiday of Sukkot, Tabernacles, represents both the travels and protection of the Jews as well as their final destination in the land of Israel.
And the third of the festivals, Shavuot, is about religion. God gave the Jewish people the 10 Commandments on this day, just seven weeks after leaving Egypt.

These three elements are critical to understanding the nature of of the the Jewish people. At the most fundamental level, any Jew is part of the Jewish people, whether or not they observe the commandments in the Bible or live in Israel. A religious Jew who lives in the diaspora or a secular Jew living in Israel appreciate two of the three aspects outlined in the Bible. And a Jew who lives in Israel and observes the Torah’s commandments covers all three elements.

Which brings us to why the Book of Ruth is read on Shavuot. Other than Abraham, the patriarch of Judaism who came to the holy land hundreds of years earlier, she is the only person in the Bible who takes upon all three elements upon herself.

Ruth told her mother-in-law Naomi (1:16-17):

וַתֹּ֤אמֶר רוּת֙ אַל־תִּפְגְּעִי־בִ֔י לְעָזְבֵ֖ךְ לָשׁ֣וּב מֵאַחֲרָ֑יִךְ כִּ֠י אֶל־אֲשֶׁ֨ר תֵּלְכִ֜י אֵלֵ֗ךְ וּבַאֲשֶׁ֤ר תָּלִ֙ינִי֙ אָלִ֔ין עַמֵּ֣ךְ עַמִּ֔י וֵאלֹהַ֖יִךְ אֱלֹהָֽי׃

But Ruth replied, “Do not urge me to leave you, to turn back and not follow you. For wherever you go, I will go; wherever you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God

בַּאֲשֶׁ֤ר תָּמ֙וּתִי֙ אָמ֔וּת וְשָׁ֖ם אֶקָּבֵ֑ר כֹּה֩ יַעֲשֶׂ֨ה יְהוָ֥ה לִי֙ וְכֹ֣ה יֹסִ֔יף כִּ֣י הַמָּ֔וֶת יַפְרִ֖יד בֵּינִ֥י וּבֵינֵֽךְ׃

Where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. Thus and more may the LORD do to me if anything but death parts me from you.”

Ruth accepts becoming part of the Jewish people, travels with Naomi back to Bethlehem in the Jewish holy land, and accepts the Jewish God. Ruth, more than any person in the Bible, represents the essence the three pillars of the Jewish Nation. It is for that reason that she was given the honor of being the great grandmother of King David, who united the Jewish people in a single kingdom with Jerusalem as its capital.