Category Archives: Jews

The Insidious Jihad in America

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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 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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Bernie Sanders is the Worst U.S. Presidential Candidate for Israel Ever

#NeverGillibrand #NeverSanders #NeverHarris #NeverDeBlasio

Please Don’t Vote for a Democratic Socialist

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

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

Rep. Ilhan Omar and The 2001 Durban Racism Conference

Politicians React to Vile and Vulgar Palestinian Hatred

Ben & Jerry’s New Flavor: Milano Zio

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Linda Sarsour as Pontius Pilate

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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.

Related First.One.Through articles:

Considering Nazis and Radical Islam on the 75th Anniversary of D-Day

Criticizing Muslim Antisemitism is Not Islamophobia

The Mourabitat Women of Congress

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

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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

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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’

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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

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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.

Related First.One.Through articles:

Abraham’s Hospitality: Lessons for Jews and Arabs

Taking the Active Steps Towards Salvation

A Seder in Jerusalem with Liberal Friends

Here in United Jerusalem’s Jubilee Year

The Jewish Holy Land

Today’s Inverted Chanukah: The Holiday of Rights in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria

The Nation of Israel Prevails

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Mayor De Blasio is Blind to Black Anti-Semitism

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New York City has seen a large spike in anti-Semitic attacks according to recent reports. According to the New York Police Department, the vast majority of hate crimes in the first quarter of 2019 were against Jews.

Anti-Jewish 59%
Anti-White 10%
Anti-Black 8%
Anti LGBT 8%
Anti-Muslim 3%
Anti-Asian 3%

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio condemned the attacks, but repeatedly falsely attributed the incidents as stemming only from “white supremacy.” In May 2019, de Blasio said “The forces of white supremacy have been unleashed and … those are profoundly anti-Semitic forces,” and yesterday he doubled down on the sentiment stating “I think the ideological movement that is anti-Semitic is the right-wing movement,… I want to be very, very clear, the violent threat, the threat that is ideological is very much from the right.”


NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio
(photo: Gregory P. Mango)

De Blasio is correct in stating that white supremacy is a force of antisemitism, but he routinely refuses to acknowledge that black antisemitism is just as large a factor in hate crimes in New York City. In a city with a population which is roughly 43% white and 24% black, white people commit 58% of the anti-Semitic crimes while black people commit 36%. The ratios between white-black populations and white-black anti-Semitic attacks are virtually identical. It is the Hispanic and Asian communities which live in New York City who do not commit many hate crimes against Jews.

But De Blasio is a liberal mayor married to a black woman, and is running for president as a Democrat. As such, he believes that his pathway to higher office is to minimize black antisemitism and inflate charges against the right. It is a motivation of personal gain rather than fighting against a surge of attacks against Jews.

An average NYC Jew is now 13 times more likely to suffer a hate crime than an average NYC black person, but the mayor is protecting blacks against the charges of antisemitism in a reversal of protecting the accuser over the accused.

De Blasio is putting personal gain and politics over protecting the innocent. What kind of president do you think he would be?

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Time to Define Banning Jews From Living Somewhere as Antisemitic

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The German government voted in May 2019 to officially label the boycott, divestment and sanctions (B.D.S.) of Israel movement as antisemitic.

The resolution entitled “Resisting the BDS movement decisively –fighting antisemitism,” calls on the German government to “cease providing premises and facilities under the administration of the Bundestag to organizations that use anti-Semitic terms or question Israel’s right to exist.” This marks the first time a major European parliament has defined the BDS movement as antisemitic.

It is highly appropriate for the European country which led the charge to annihilate the Jews in the 1930’s and 1940’s to lead the way for curtailing the mainstreaming of Jew-hatred today. The noxious B.D.S. antisemitism is being championed by the far-left, Islamic radicals and the alt-right, so Germany’s voice in protesting the activity as it recalls its own actions during the Holocaust is a clarion call for the the world to eradicate pernicious evil at its roots.

Nazis labeling Jewish stores for boycott in 1933. An den Fenstern j¸discher Geschte werden von Nationalsozialisten Plakate mit der Aufforderung “Deutsche, wehrt euch, kauft nicht bei Juden” angebracht.

It is similarly time for the United Nations to call out the Jew-hatred in its ranks and acknowledge and label that the banning of Jews from living anywhere is antisemitic.

The UN devolved into its current antisemitic state over the decades from the 1950’s to 1970’s, as many Muslim countries hostile to the Jewish State were admitted as members, and the former Nazi Kurt Waldheim served as the leader of the United Nations from 1972 to 1981. Over Waldheim’s watch, the organization passed many anti-Israel and anti-Semitic resolutions. They included:

  • UN Resolution 3236 (1974) declaring that Palestinians have – uniquely among all people in the world – an inalienable right to sovereignty and to return to a house where an ancestor lived (even if they were just renters and lived there for a short time).
  • UN Resolution 3379 (1975) declaring “that Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination.“

The United States helped repeal UN Res. 3379 in 1991, but the absurdity of UN Res. 3236 lives on, perpetuating a simmering battle between Arabs and Jews.

The absurd resolution is matched by explicitly antisemitic resolutions, such as UN Security Council 2334 (2016). By liberally switching between the concept of “settlements” and “settlers” as well as “Israel” and “Jews,” the UN pushed forward the notion that Jews should be forbidden to live in huge swathes of their homeland, including their holiest city of Jerusalem. An Israeli Arab moving to the West Bank is considered a non-issue, while a Jew buying an apartment in the Old City of Jerusalem is considered “a flagrant violation under international law.” It’s outrageous, it’s antisemitic, and it’s considered perfectly acceptable by the UN today.

In a similar vein, the UN has refused to comment of the Palestinian Authority law which calls for the death sentence for any Arab selling land to Jews in eastern Jerusalem and all lands east of the Green Line (EGL), as the UN would rather state that the PA is a credible partner for peace. Imagine the uproar at the UN if Israel had a law which forbade Arabs from living in the country.

Perhaps, just as Germany took the lead in labeling the B.D.S. movement as antisemitic, Russia should take a leadership role in noting that the banning of Jews from owning property and living in certain areas is antisemitic, to acknowledge its role in limiting Jews to just the Pale of Settlement. Maybe the United Kingdom will admit that evicting all Jews from the city of Hebron in 1929, and from all of England in 1290 was wrong. Better still, the UK should state clearly that it fiercely objects and opposes the currently outstanding terms of the Treaty of Utecht which bans Jews from living in Gibraltar, and together with Spain which drafted the language, officially remove it.

How can we expect the world to recognize the antisemitism of BDS, when it hasn’t clearly condemned the laws which ban Jews from living in certain locations?

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The Antisemitic Youth

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To better understand the current risk and future of antisemitism, it is useful to examine the level of antisemitism in the younger generation, those aged 18 to 34 years old, the demographic which normally carries out terrorist attacks.

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) did a comprehensive global poll of antisemitism in 2014. It found that there were 24 countries/ regions in which over half of the youth harbored antisemitic feelings.

Gaza/ West Bank 92%
Iraq 92%
Yemen 89%
Libya 89%
Algeria 87%
Morocco 84%
Tunisia 83%
Kuwait 82%
Jordan 80%
Lebanon 78%
Bahrain 77%
Qatar 76%
UAE 76%
Egypt 74%
Oman 74%
Saudi Arabia 73%
Turkey 71%
Greece 66%
Armenia 62%
Malaysia 58%
Senegal 54%
Iran 53%
Panama 52%
Hungary 50%

The most antisemitic youth were found in Muslim majority countries in the Middle East/ North Africa (MENA) region. In every Muslim country in MENA (with the exception of Syria which was not polled due to the civil war raging in the country), over half of the youth hated Jews. Greece and Armenia which both neighbor Turkey, also had a majority of their youth being antisemitic. Senegal, close to Morocco, is 94% Muslim was also on the hateful list. Panama and Hungary were the outliers, with a high percentage of antisemitic youth despite not being Muslim-majority nations nor located in the region.

Hungary stood out in another negative aspect as well.

In comparing the rate of antisemitism between the youth and older generation (aged 50 and over), the Jew-hatred was relatively uniform in the Muslim countries, meaning basically all Muslims hate Jews. However, looking at the gap between the antisemitism of the youth and the older generation yielded a different set of countries:

Country 18-34 35-49 50+ Hate-
Age Gap
Hungary 50% 45% 33% 17%
France 43% 43% 30% 13%
Botswana 34% 37% 24% 10%
Yemen 89% 92% 79% 10%
Morocco 84% 79% 75% 9%
Khazakstan 36% 32% 27% 9%
Montenegro 33% 29% 25% 8%
Turkey 71% 75% 63% 8%

Hungary and France showed much higher levels of antisemitism among the younger generation. There was some commonality among the youth of the two countries regarding their rationale towards despising Jews:

  • People hate Jews because of the way they behave (27% and 13% difference in Hungary and France, respectively)
  • Jews are responsible for most of the world’s wars (25% difference in Hungary)
  • Jews think they are better than others (16% difference in Hungary)
  • Jews don’t care about anyone but their own (11% and 16% difference in Hungary and France, respectively)
  • Jews have too much power in the business world (15% difference in France)
  • Jews have too much control over the US (15% in France)

The radicalization of the youth might show a trend for greater antisemitism in the years to come as well as a greater probability for antisemitic terrorism today.

Areas of Risk

The fact that Iraq and Yemen have some of the worst levels of antisemitism is not that relevant in that there are almost no Jews living in either country today. However, the level of antisemitism in some countries with a significant Jewish population is worrying.

Jewish Antisemitic
Country / Region Population Youth
USA      5,700,000 9%
France         453,000 43%
Judea and Samaria/ West Bank         400,000 92%
Canada         391,000 7%
United Kingdom         290,000 7%
Argentina         180,000 20%
Russia         172,000 27%
Germany         116,000 15%
Australia         113,000 17%
Brazil            93,000 13%
South Africa           69,000 38%
Ukraine           50,000 31%
Hungary           47,000 50%
Mexico            40,000 21%
Netherlands            30,000 4%
Belgium            29,000 16%
Italy            28,000 14%

According to the table above, there are over 1 million Jews living among highly antisemitic young people. While Israel provides active protection for the Jews living in the Israeli territories of Judea and Samaria / the West Bank, the Jewish communities in France, South Africa, Ukraine and Hungary are highly vulnerable.


Hakim Awad, 18 and Amjad Awad, 19, Palestinian Arab murderers
of two Jewish parents and children aged 11, 4 and 3-months, in Samaria

The most antisemitic youth are located in lands with a majority of Arab Muslims, from which Jews have been expelled over the past decades, with the exception of Judea and Samaria / the West Bank. Outside of the Muslim antisemitism potentially impacting the Jews of Turkey and Iran today, the small Jewish communities in Greece (est. 6,000 Jews), Panama (est. 14,000) and larger Hungary (est. 47,000) must be very mindful of the noxious Jew-hatred prevalent in the overall young populations which could overwhelm and terrorize their small communities.

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Seeing the Holocaust Through Nakba Eyes

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People have accused U.S. Representative Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) of getting her facts wrong about her version of history as it related to the Holocaust in stating that Palestinian Arabs helped European Jewry when they did the exact opposite. Her defenders explained that her words were misconstrued and taken out of context and that she merely suggested that it was the Palestinian Arabs who were the principle party who were left to deal with the “Jewish Problem” after Europe murdered its Jews.


U.S. Representative Rashida Tlaib (D-MI)

The direct connection of the “Nakba” of Palestinian Arabs to the Holocaust of European Jewry is not simply a falsification of history by a lone congressman. The connection is widely promoted in progressive circles.

The New York Times suggested that both Jews and Palestinians have endured suffering, and the key to the parties living with each other is for the Palestinians to understand the Holocaust and for Jews to understand the Nakba.

Putting aside the fact that comparing the Holocaust and the Nakba is akin to a ten-car fatal accident relative to a parking ticket, the two parties comprehend each other’s narrative completely differently.

Jews understand the Nakba. They are a people consumed with guilt for anything and everything they may or may not have done. What other people could produce comedians plagued with anxiety like Woody Allen and Richard Lewis or psychologists like Sigmund Freud? This is a group of neurotic people who, upon accusation of doing something intentionally or not, real or imagined, will immediately ask for forgiveness before they even know the topic of discussion. While the Bible asked Jews to feel empathy, Jews contorted that message into always feeling guilty.

Israelis appreciate the Nakba from an ARAB POINT OF VIEW. They understand the Arabs’ grievance and position about Jews coming into Palestine and changing the demographics of the land. The Arabs were a majority and now they’re not; they were under Muslim control (Ottomans) and now they’re not; grandparents used to live in Israel and now they don’t. Further, the ongoing situation of many Arabs being stateless is understood as a fact. While Jews might use different language – for example, not saying that they are “colonizers” since they are indigenous to the land – and have a wide variety of opinions regarding the methods of paving a path towards an enduring peace, the Palestinian Arab perspective is not distorted by Jewish claims.

For Jews of all political leanings, the Palestinian narrative has been heard and internalized.

However, the situation is not remotely the same for the Arabs regarding the Holocaust. Palestinians have been taught that they cannot accept the Holocaust from a Jewish perspective, as IT MUST BE TIED TO AND SEEN THROUGH THE NAKBA.

  • The Holocaust showed off the worst side of humanity: To acknowledge Palestinian Arab participation would be to admit that your ancestors were evil anti-Semites. Maybe it would imply that current Arabs are as well, and their desire for a Jew-free country has nothing to do with ancestral claims, but naked antisemitism.
  • The Holocaust was a uniquely European affair and it was the western world’s guilt that made them vote at the United Nations to create a Jewish State: Convincing the West that it made the Palestinians pay the price for European crimes might change their behavior to favor Palestinians in the Arab-Israel conflict today.

For Palestinian Arabs, the Holocaust is used as a vehicle to undermine Israel today.

Just as over 3,000 years of Jewish history in the Jewish holy land is ignored because it undermines Arab claims that only they are indigenous to Palestine, rewriting the history of the Holocaust can burnish the Palestinian position.

Mahmoud Abbas wrote his doctoral dissertation on a particularly noxious form of Holocaust denial in which he claimed that Jews around the world had no interest in moving to Palestine in the 1920’s and the 1930’s. Therefore, to encourage immigration to Palestine, a number of leading Zionists conspired with the Nazi regime to make life unbearable for Jews so that they would flee to Palestine to create a viable Jewish State.

Rep. Rashida Tlaib’s recent comments are complements to the theme, claiming that not only did the Palestinians not conspire with the Nazis, it was the Palestinians who gave the Jews a state.

When Palestinians view the Holocaust, they think Jewish suffering literally CAUSED Arab suffering in losing the land, while they see Palestinian suffering of the Nakba as causing Jewish joy in creating Israel. This clouded vision leads Palestinians to believe that misery can yield a global reward, so they will continue to distort the actual history of the Holocaust and Nakba to get the outcome they desire today.

It is a sick by-product of ignoring the history of Jews, denying the rights of Jews, and refusing to accept Jews.

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