Sirach or Ben Sira--it's all interesting and inspiring

Today's reading was in Sirach 10. I just love this book of the Bible, because as a Protestant, I'd never heard it or read it until a few years ago--probably didn't know it existed. The Catholic, Orthodox, Syriac and African canons have it, so well over half of all Christians have an opportunity to hear or read its wisdom, at least in a church service during certain seasons or festivals. It's like the book of Proverbs, but much more in depth and more topics. Chapter 10 concerns governments and rulers. So true for today and regardless of your political leanings, it can comfort you. God is in control. See verse 4.

Chapter 10
A wise magistrate educates his people,
and the rule of an intelligent person is well ordered.
2 As the people’s judge is, so are his officials;
as the ruler of the city is, so are all its inhabitants.
3 An undisciplined king ruins his people,
but a city becomes fit to live in through the understanding of its rulers.
4 The government of the earth is in the hand of the Lord,
and over it he will raise up the right leader for the time.
5 Human success is in the hand of the Lord,
and it is he who confers honor upon the lawgiver. [a]

The book of Ben Sira was collected around 130 B.C and was used by Greek speaking Jews, and the early Christians. Jesus himself probably knew this book. However, in 1896 the Hebrew manuscripts from 180 B.C. were found by 2 British sisters. (see The sisters of Sinai by Janet Soskice which our book club read). That's what got me really interested. Since joining Academia.edu web site I've found hundreds of scholarly papers on this fascinating book.
https://www.bensira.org/introduction.html

Edith Stein, August 9 memorial

Today, August 9, we Christians and Jews memorialize the death of Edith Stein, Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross. She was killed in Auschwitz on August 9 for both her ethnic Jewish heritage (had converted to Catholicism in 1922 after being an atheist) and her Catholicism. After the Dutch Catholic Bishops had condemned the Nazis for the persecution of the Jews in 1942, Roman Catholics were rounded up and sent to the death camps.

 
The Collect for her memorial in the "Episcopal Book of Common Prayer" reads as follows:

"Pour out your grace upon thy church, O God; that, like your servant Edith Stein, we may always seek what is true, defend what is right, reprove what is evil, and forgive those who sin against us, even as your Son commanded; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom with you and the Holy Spirit be all honor and glory, now and forever."

Yad Vashem, the memorial to the victims of the Holocaust in Jerusalem, commemorates Edith Stein as a Jewish woman murdered by the Nazis: “Edith Stein was born in Breslau, Germany in 1891. Prior to WWII she lived in Koeln, Germany. Edith was murdered in the Shoah.”

 
Pope John Paul II canonized her in 1998.
-----------
Let's remember on this day that Nazi (National Socialists) totalitarianism was against Christians as well as Jews. To revere God as higher than the state is a crime in totalitarian societies. Today we need to watch for that evil as the creeping socialism in our own country becomes an open, in-your-face marathon. We see attacks on Jews in our elite universities and the FBI has been found spying on traditional Catholics. Parents lose their rights for fighting against the agenda of radical trans activists who deny God's plan of Creation of male and female.

(Information from Magnificat, August 2023, pp. 117-118 and Praytellblog,com)

Is Biden demented or does he want to destroy Israel?

Let's stop making excuses for Biden. He's old. He's demented. He's just a puppet. No. He's just abandoned our closest ally in the middle east, and maybe our closest in the world. Our friends know we will abandon them; our enemies know we won't fight back.

If you are a Democrat, flee the party so you're not culpable like the driver of the car that chauffeurs the gunman. This is not about Israel any longer; it's about wanting to destroy the Jews.

"When Hamas launched its Oct. 7, 2023, rape, kidnap, and murder killing spree against Israeli civilians, President Joe Biden quickly traveled to Israel and pledged that America would have its longtime ally’s back. Since then, he has repeatedly affirmed his “ironclad” commitment to the security of the Jewish state.

But the “ironclad” pledge should concern Baltic states as they face Vladimir Putin’s invasion threats. It should also concern the Philippines as it faces Chinese efforts to carve out an exclusive economic zone. And it should concern Japan as it faces Chinese and Russian affronts to its territorial sovereignty. Because Biden’s support for Israel is molten rather than ironclad.

This Monday, national security spokesman John Kirby refused to say whether the U.S. suspended an agreed arms shipment to Israel and also refused to offer American support for Israel’s effort to eliminate Hamas’s last bastion in Rafah."   https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/editorials/2993208/biden-abandons-israel/?

A church joke from an internet friend

Subject: Squirrelly

The Presbyterian church called a meeting to decide what to do about their squirrel infestation. After much prayer and consideration, they concluded that the squirrels were predestined to be there, and they should not interfere with God’s divine will.

At the Baptist church, the squirrels had taken an interest in the baptistry. The deacons met and decided to put a water-slide on the baptistry and let the squirrels drown themselves. The squirrels liked the slide and, unfortunately, knew instinctively how to swim, so twice as many squirrels showed up the following week.

The Lutheran church decided that they were not in a position to harm any of God’s creatures. So, they humanely trapped their squirrels and set them free near the Baptist church. Two weeks later, the squirrels were back when the Baptists took down the water-slide.

The Episcopalians tried a much more unique path by setting out pans of whiskey around their church in an effort to kill the squirrels with alcohol poisoning. They sadly learned how much damage a band of drunk squirrels can do.

But the Catholic church came up with a more creative strategy! They baptized all the squirrels and made them members of the church. Now they only see them at Christmas and Easter.

Not much was heard from the Jewish synagogue. They took the first squirrel and circumcised him. They haven’t seen a squirrel since.

What is Woke and where did it come from?

This is a Wikipedia definition of WOKE. "Woke is an adjective derived from African-American Vernacular English (AAVE) meaning "alert to racial prejudice and discrimination". Beginning in the 2010s, it came to encompass a broader awareness of social inequalities such as racial injustice, sexism, and denial of LGBT rights. Woke has also been used as shorthand for some ideas of the American Left involving identity politics and social justice, such as white privilege and reparations for slavery in the United States."

That was then, the old days of 2010s, and you never know where a word will go once it escapes prison or academe and others start to use it. *Woke is now just shorthand for Critical Theory, or Critical Race Theory, and those are at their core, just Marxism--i.e., the American Left. The Left are a murky, tasteless porridge created by a bunch of old European (mainly German and French) white guys with a few other nationalities: Hegel, Marx, Engels, Nietzsche, Sarte, Foucault, Feire, and others. Hate for the Jews is several thousand years old, and God only knows where the gender lies and binary fiction came from, maybe Kinsey. In any case, it looks like black folk and the Squad can blame white academics for misleading blacks and causing so much mayhem.

 * WOF 416: The Philosophical Roots of Wokeism - Word on Fire

A friend we met in Scotland: "I went to school in Scotland. An ‘accident’ of choosing the wrong parents, I was born a Jew (my mother). Raised Presbyterian. In my childhood there was no way I would admit to having any Jewish ancestry. Even then extreme wokeness existed. Jews were degraded and abused verbally and physically. Interestingly (and sadly) Catholics were treated even worse in that solidly Protestant country. Wokeness has existed for ever. We (they) just found a new name for it. I don’t know if Webster has it as a formal word yet. It’s all about prejudice in any form. To paraphrase Rodney King (again) “ why can’t we all get along?”

Conservatives Owens and Shapiro fighting each other instead of their enemy

When it comes to famous people, even famous conservatives I like who are much less duplicitous and nasty than leftist famous click baiters, I'm never sure what's true and what's media. But apparently Candace Ownes, famous black conservative who is a Christian and Ben Shapiro, famous Jewish conservative journalist and speaker who both work for the same company are having a spat.

 
Truly, no Christian should be telling a Jew how the Hamas Jew haters and terrorists should be handled by Israel. Hamas picked this fight and put the Palestinian people in grave danger--they plotted to bring on this war so Israel would retaliate. I haven't read anything but the bare bones of the Owens/Shapiro argument, and Tucker sure didn't help. But I'm horrified that Owens was quoting Jesus to Ben. Really? How's the historical record for Christians on that? Has she read what Luther said about Jews? And btw, what did she or Tucker or Ben say about the half a million killed in Ethiopia, or the thousands of women raped and terrorized in Sudan? Have any of them asked about the grannies in Russia mourning their grandsons who died in Ukraine? Why be so selective on deaths in war time? Let's calm down and let the people who have been chased out of every country on earth for 2,000 years figure out the best way to stop the killing and rebuild a better world.

Shapiro Owens war escalates conservatives take s​ides | Blaze Media (theblaze.com)

Naomi Wolf discovers Donald Trump in person--what a wake up

 https://naomiwolf.substack.com/p/on-hearing-president-trump-in-person?

I wish all liberals / progressives / Democrats could read this. She's got a few things a little off, but mostly she remembers her own errors in believing media lies and how she and others have misjudged Trump. And because she is a Jew, she gives a new slant on Trump's programs and behavior. As a real journalist, she has done her homework like Jason Whitlock, Matt Taibbi, Elon Musk, Dave Rubin and a few others.

JP Morgan Chase cancels Ye

I heard on the radio that Chase has "cancelled" Ye (Kanye West). They can say it's his anti-Semitic remarks, but we know what it's about.

• He supports Trump;
• he appeared on the Tucker show;
• he had the audacity to say publicly white lives matter;
• he doesn't buy into the BLM nonsense;
• he speaks out for divorced fathers;
• he believes blacks don't have a place in the economy like other groups as long as they are on the dole;
• and he's a Christian.

But Trump is the #1 reason, The same Trump who has a Jewish daughter, son-in-law, and grandchildren. And the same people hiding behind this story ridiculed and insulted the Kushners and tried to destroy her business. The same ilk is OK with Berkeley, on the left coast, having "Jewish Free Zones" on its campus. These same hypocrites on the Left are OK with slaves in China and OK with the published death threats from Muslims against Israel. If I knew how to cancel my Chase account, I'd do it. Maybe someone can send me the name of the guy to write to. I do a lot of that.

JPMorgan Chase Terminates Relationship With Kanye West (businessinsider.com)

Prominent bank abruptly cancels Kanye West, gives him just weeks to move accounts to another bank - TheBlaze

I watched the Tucker interview and was very impressed. I didn't know much about Ye (his new self-chosen name), in fact, didn't even know he was divorced.

Why did Ezra tell the Jews to send away their foreign wives and children?

The command by Ezra to divorce the foreign wives certainly sounds cruel and not inclusive by our modern values.  We're reading Ezra today in our Women's Bible Study at the Lakeside Women's Club.  I'm not sure I ever read it, but it was very interesting.  I even did some deep diving into Bible commentaries on the internet.  Would you believe there are some Christian authors who treat Ezra-Nehemiah as leadership guides or building programs for churches!  Whoa. But to our modern values, separating families sounds very harsh. Read what this commentator on the Hebrew Bible has to say:  https://elwynshebrewbiblepage.weebly.com/the-inter-marriage-crisis-in-ezra-and-nehemiah.html

"Ezra 9 blames the intermingling of the races as the cause for his people’s woe, and why it should be forbidden[2]. This “intermarriage crisis”, as Ezit is commonly referred to, is therefore very important. For Ezra, the problem with foreigners and other non-returnees is that they were associated with “abominations and uncleanliness”, and intermarrying with them threatened Israel’s stability and its prosperity, as represented by land ownership, since God required the people to be clean and free of abominations in order to possess it.

A code in Ezra specifies who could marry who. A Jew could only marry another Jew who had experienced the Exile. Those who had remained in the land during the Exile were unacceptable. Ezra provided a genealogy distinguishing between those who were considered acceptable and those who were not, but it is suspect. Those who had married “other” women were commanded to divorce them. This was motivated by a fear of pollution of the Holy Seed and uncleanliness.

A Holiness code is also described in Ezra Ch 17, holiness being the antithesis of impurity. Ezra’s command was not to mix the Holy Seed. This was a means of consolidating a new identity. On the other hand, Nehemiah offered other, potentially more concrete, reasons for the denunciation of mixed marriages: such marriages produced children who could not speak the Judean language (Neh.13:24), and Solomon’s experience showed that foreign wives can cause a man to sin (Neh. 13:26). Solomon tolerated the worship of gods other than Yahweh, and did so because his foreign wives gave him the opportunity to do so (1 Kings 11).

Related factors include concern about the influence women have on their families. Children would likely learn the language of a foreign mother, and within the household a woman’s religious practices could influence the beliefs and practices of her children and her husband. The culture and religion of the father and the family’s feelings of connection and deference to them could conceivably then be threatened. Marriage also affected property ownership and inheritance, geared as they were in order to protect land tenure. If the wife or the children had strong connections to a community other than that of the husband/father, the land could effectively leave the community’s sphere of influence. In certain circumstances, Jewish women could possess and inherit land[3] and this may also have been the case in Judah. During the post-Exilic period, there was an attempt to reconstitute a new tradition: that the land has been polluted by the intermarriage of those who stayed behind during the exile, so the returnees had to distance ourselves from that.

The consequence was that the local residents - Samaritans who thought of themselves as the direct descendants of the original Northern Kingdom - were without any right to the land, and those who had been deported and gone into Exile, or rather their descendants, those of pure blood, came back with the message that the land belongs to us and we are going to seize it and settle there[4]."

The Museum of the Bible--a treasury of information and history

Today I've been listening to podcasts from The Museum of the Bible. https://www.museumofthebible.org/museum-of-the-bible-podcast   Great programs and panels. If you thought diversity and inclusion weren't possible, you need this channel. This is true diversity--of ideas, of history, of stories. Today I've listened to programs on the Mayflower Compact, the origins of the Armenian Bible and Christianity in the 400s, and the Jews in England in the 1100s. Fabulous stuff. Others I'll check out later are at least four presentations on the Haggadah, the Bible and the Qur'an, Shroud of Turin, and the Bible and War.

 Also, how do you teach middle school students about American history? USE PRIMARY SOURCES. Let them speak for themselves if you want to smash the lies of the 1619 project. Let President Lincoln remind you what he believed about slavery, and not "woke" ideologs from the NYT. A real treasure.

From the website: "On November 18, [2021] the museum will host a panel discussion on the 1620 Mayflower Compact — the shortest American political document of enduring significance. With these few words, however, the Pilgrims sowed the seeds of liberty and self-government that made their small New England settlement a cradle of American democracy. This event will explore the idea that these seventeenth-century Pilgrims were the true forerunners of America’s Founders and examine the Compact as a blueprint used to frame this nation's founding principles as embedded in the US Constitution."

"On October 21, 2021: Does the importance of the Bible extend beyond Jewish and Christian traditions? How has the Bible played a role in the origins and development of Islam? Join Museum of the Bible for a discussion about the relationship between the Bible and the Qur’an. Hear from Dr. Gabriel Reynolds – author of The Qur’an and the Bible and Allah: God in the Qur’an – on how the Qur’an is part of the larger story of the Bible’s impact on the world. The evening will include a panel of engaging respondents and an audience Q & A. This is both an in-person and virtual event."

Christian singing groups in India

Yesterday I found a source of beautiful hymns, including “All glory laud and honor” for Palm Sunday, and was surprised they were from India—St. Andrew Kirk in Chennai, the capital of Tamil Nadu, and other cooperating Christian groups. According to the tradition of Indian Christians, the Christian faith was introduced to India through Thomas the Apostle, who is said to have reached the Malabar Coast (Kerala) in 52 AD. From this album I looked at a few more sites, and found this lovely group, BESY. But they looked Asian, not Indian. And they are indeed, Asians of many diverse tribes, but an Indian state.

“Mizoram is a state in northeastern India, with Aizawl as its capital city. The name is derived from “Mizo“, the name of the native inhabitants, and “Ram”, which means land, and thus Mizoram means “land of the Mizos”. Mizoram was previously part of Assam until 1972, when it was carved out as a Union Territory. It became the 23rd state of India, a step above Union Territory, on 20 February 1987. Mizoram’s population was 1,091,014, according to a 2011 census. It is the 2nd least populous state in the country.

About 95% of the current population is of diverse tribal origins who settled in the state, mostly from Southeast Asia, other waves of migration started about the 16th century but mainly in the 18th century. This is the highest concentration of tribal people among all states of India, and they are currently protected under Indian constitution as a Scheduled Tribe. Mizoram is one of three states of India with a Christian majority (87%). Its people belong to various denominations, mostly Presbyterian in the north and Baptists in the south.”

BESY Choir of Aizawl, Mizoram – India – In The Word

https://youtu.be/3ajY-xEw6ZU

https://youtu.be/NKz8CBY_Stw

Some of the Mizo tribes claim to be Jews, of the lost tribes of Israel. They had first converted from animism under European missionaries to Christianity, then in the 1950s became Jews. Some have immigrated to Israel.

Hallelujah. Jesus is Lord

I can't verify the Hallelujah story, but it's a good one.

Erling Olsen in his Meditations in the Book of Psalms writes in 1937 (on Ps. 147, p. 1013) that the word Hallelujah (Praise the Lord) was taboo in Germany because it is a Hebrew word.

His book is enjoyable not only for all the history and analysis of the Psalms, but because he was living in and comments on the era of terrible economic depression, a time of terrible drought and crop loss, and the build up to WWII.

Hitler tried to blame all Germany's problems on the Jews and diminished them as human beings. Forbidding certain words is not new to our era--like stolen election or even an acronym like MAGA. It's typical in power grabs. Hitler considered Jews inferior to the German master race. He convinced many Germans that Jews weren't worthy of the rights enjoyed by other Germans even thought they'd been neighbors and friends for decades and centuries. That power enhancing trick is being used today by certain totalitarians in government, entertainment, business and education aided by Big Tech. Demonize Trump supporters and then on a larger scale, all white people, and on to Western Civilization and its core values. It's been a growing crescendo for at least 3 decades, maybe more. It's in "studies" curricula, "woke" speech, intersectional group speak, behavior demands, shadow banning and cancel culture. It's in the 1619 myth and in the climate change hysteria. We've been here before. The House Un-American Activities Committee lasted from 1938-1965, then got a name change. If you look at a list of the committee members in Wikipedia, by far the majority were Democrats.

Olsen says (it was a radio show later published in book form) Hallelujah is the language of heaven. Brush up on it now, he says, so you will be fluent when you get there. Olsen also warns us not to forget our knee exercises--don't forget to pray and praise. Our hearts can grow cold without praise.

Why I still support President Trump, musings and opinion

In 2016, I was not an enthusiastic Trump supporter. But I saw results in his presidency I hadn't seen in my entire life.

1. Lots of presidents have claimed to be supporters of the unborn, the weakest and most fragile of all Americans. He's the only President who has been their advocate, both in supporting the larger political pro-life movements and organizations, but in attempting to reduce the demonic threat of Planned Parenthood. I'm a one issue voter, because without life, the other advantages of being an American don't matter. His was not just a campaign promise. He took action and provided moral support.

2. Being a Trump supporter is an adult education like we've never had before. He was not indebted to either party and we really saw the fangs and claws come out when he began calling out the good old boys' club that is DC politicking. We saw the unelected bureaucrats rise up and defend their lives at the public trough. We knew the legislatures at the state and federal level had become very weak, but we really took notice on how the most insignificant judge on the lowest court could take on the president and prevent him from undoing the shady Executive Orders of the previous president.

3. We began to see why his slogan "Make America Great Again" was such an anathema to Democrats, increasingly controlled by its left flank. Why the red hats had to be snatched from heads, and ugly arguments started. Why the pink hats had to make women look like blood thirsty baby killers.

• 3-a The United States has been horribly weakened by foreign infiltrators who fund and support Communist movements within. These movements rewrite history and try to destroy positive gains in the last decades in race relations, class distinctions, and age discrimination.  Peaceful, cooperative Americans are a threat to global power.
• 3-b Hard work and ambition were renamed by these demonic forces as "white privilege" even as blacks had become some of the wealthiest opinion makers and most powerful politicians in our country, and there are 2 full time cable channels (all white) devoted just to Spanish language programming.
• 3-c Every difference in culture or preference or speech was shouted down as microaggression and dog whistles.
• 3-d Minorities were demeaned by the Democrats and Never Trumpers as being helpless victims if they tried to leave the party or start a successful business.
• 3-e The police were caricatured as criminals even though statistics for police violence were at an all time low, and black on black crime was rising again. The leftists were so panicked that with the help of members of Congress, they began demands to "defund" the police and replace them with social workers, as though criminals were just misunderstood children.
• 3-f National pass times and leisure industries like sports, late night TV "comedy," social media, theatre, movies and the overwhelming liberal and classist academe industry joined forces to ridicule and finger point at the outsider in the White House, who knew a better way to reduce the size of government and raise incomes for all.
• 3-g While Trump worked quietly to get a better balance in the courts, he was very successful, and unless the new appointees lose their love for the Constitution, future Americans will not have the burden of a plastic ever changing law based on the feelings and personalities of the judges.
• 3-h The international events have been incredible. The Leftists gnashed their teeth when Trump soothed the little North Korean despot, and they swore it would be WWIII. Trump got us out of ridiculous international agreements which would allow China and India to move ahead, while we Americans paid higher taxes for their pollution. The accomplishments in the Middle East should be his biggest legacy and the previous presidents from Carter to Clinton to Bush to Obama, should hang their heads in shame for at least not moving the capital of Israel as they all promised and then "forgot" has their loyalty to Muslim dictators took over.
• 3-i  The virus that began in Wuhan, China, and spread all over the world, the leftists finally had to blame on President Trump. His operation warp speed they’ve tried to belittle and demean because it’s never been done before as a business man would tackle a problem. The Left can’t let this stand, and will blame every death on Trump rather than those politicians who continue to welcome foreigners (especially Chinese) into their cities where it spread beyond control.

4. Perhaps we were most educated about the role of media in our culture and politics. Never (with the exception of Mrs. Abraham Lincoln) has a FLOTUS been so maligned or ignored, criticized for her accent, her good works, and even her Christmas decor! Never has a president with Jewish in-laws and grandchildren been called a Nazi--but then, have we ever had a President with a Jewish daughter? The media criticized his business acumen and properties, while ignoring the clear criminal behavior of Joe and Jim Biden, and Hunter Biden. We saw a news media who were completely not interested in investigation, truth, history, the Constitution, or anything other than the commands from above, like Zucker on CNN. Although we have many more outlets for information, with hundreds, maybe thousands of podcasts, blogs, vlogs, "expert witnesses," independent researchers and writers, we also have a constipated traditional media begging for clicks on their websites, and being wolves in sheepskins. We’ve seen the media report only on “peaceful” protests of BLM and Antifa, for fear it might anger their growing left wing audience. And then blame their crimes on the President.  Yes, we’ll all remember the summer of 2020 as many blacks died but the media only cared about George Floyd.

5. We've seen how words that used to have meaning, like racist, Nazi, white supremacist, terrorist, have all been made meaningless by the new "woke" mentality--pieces of rope on garage doors or hoaxes perpetrated with great attention like Jesse Smollet's, when in fact President Trump has done more for minorities in education, prison sentences, rising income and lower unemployment than any president in my life time. And he's done it by NOT treating them as helpless victims who need government assistance. He's treated them as people worthy of respect--and for that he's called a Nazi. As an aside, we've been educated that half of educated Americans don't know that a National Socialist (Nazi) and a Communist are brothers under the skin, one with local plans to invade and take over, and the other with global plans. Either way, Trump has done neither--hasn't invaded any countries with which we share a border, and he hasn't worked with China to infiltrated other countries. 

We’d met before, when he was not a happy camper

I'd seen an article in the Columbus Dispatch, and decided to write a note to a doctor who was mentioned as the expert. I've been fiddling with the draft for a week or so, when finally it dawned on me his name sounded familiar. So I did one of those internet people searches where public information is collected on one site, and sure enough, I used to work for his mother. We'd actually met. I had attended his bris, the Jewish ceremony in which a baby boy is circumcised.

Congress woman Tlaib is just wrong

Rashida Tlaib, the Michigan Congress woman of "Palestinian" ancestry, was definitely NOT taken out of context in her hurtful, hateful comments on Yahoo News about the holocaust, Israel and Jews. Democrats who are defending her are on their way to apologizing for the Nazis, the National Socialist party of Germany, just as over the years they accepted and apologized for former KKK members into their ranks.

The Jews are the modern indigenous people of Israel, not the Arabs who call themselves Palestinians. The Jews are the original Palestinians--they have 3,000 years of history on that tiny speck of land in a sea of Islamic countries. Israel gained independence from Britain in 1948 and the people who now call themselves Palestinians didn't exist. They were a group of Arabs who needed an identity and the rest of the Arab world didn't want them except as a tool in their war chest. It was the UN that gave the Jews that tiny piece of land which they turned into a magnificent, fruitful country.

So if the Palestinians of recent origin have a complaint it is with the entire Arab world and the UN. They could have participated in the new country that offered them health, education, freedom of religion, the right to be elected to the national parliament, freedom of speech, employment, equal rights for women and gays--all the things they can't have in Arab countries where they live in camps, but they chose to be controlled by Hamas and to be mistreated and weaponized by Arab states that hate Jews.

If the Arab world powers had accepted the 1947 UN partition plan, there would not be a single Palestinian refugee today living in camps--a terrible mistake. But it has suited the Jew-haters, including many American Jews and Christians. The Arab world could take in these Arab refugees who call themselves Palestinians, they could give them the rights they have in Israel, but they won't (although most Arab countries don't have those rights even for their own citizens).

Israel is a country which has over 6 million Jews, and nearly half are Israeli by country of origin and the rest are Jews with origins from Africa, Russia, Asia, Europe and North America. 20% of Israel is Arab by ancestry, mostly Sunni Moslem. 10% are Druze (11th c. Islamic sect, not Arab). About 10% of Israel's population is Christian of different sects--Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox. The principle of equal rights for all Israeli citizens–including minorities–is expressed explicitly in the Israeli Declaration of Independence.

Jewish Arabs have had to flee their homelands of hundreds of years and take refuge in Israel, but the Arab countries won't take the Palestinian Arabs. For 70 years the Arab countries have kept the original 700,000 refugees and all their descendants in stateless camps. The Arabs do not want this problem solved, so Ms. Tlaib's argument and hostility should be directed at them.

https://news.yahoo.com/rashida-tlaib-defends-holocaust-comments-143517031.html

https://amp.theatlantic.com/amp/article/589417/

The churches and BDS

IF you attend a liberal, mainline church (can be either Catholic or Protestant) you'll hear about BDS (boycott-divestment-sanctions) as a response to Israel. It's plain and simple Arab anti-Semitism and you've been snookered. Its advocates swarm on college campuses, social media and late night TV. Liberals particularly seem to love BDS. The objective is the killing of Jews and returning those who are left to the statelessness of pre-1948. I don't know exactly how they got such a foothold in academe, the founder, Omar Barghouti attended university in the U.S., so we must have birthed him. Can someone shake the money tree?

Which churches?

Here’s the ELCA, Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, a merger of 1988 of 3 major Lutheran synods. download.elca.org/ELCA%20Resource%20Repository/PNW_elca_bds.pdf?  Our church, UALC is no long in that synod.

Here’s Church of the Brethren, UCC, Disciples of Christ,  UMC, Presbyterian Church (USA)   https://disciples.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/2016DNSStatement-on-Anti-BDS-legislation-Aug-22.pdf

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/121645/chutzpah-omar-barghouti-daniel-greenfield

210th anniversary of Lincoln’s birthday

“While the Civil War raged in late 1862, Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant wanted to stop the trade of Southern cotton. A number of Jews were involved in the cotton trade, including some in black market activity, and on Dec. 17, Grant issued a shocking order calling for the expulsion of all Jews from a wide swath of the South.

Fortunately the order had little impact because of faulty army communications – and to President Lincoln. When Lincoln heard that Grant was attempting to banish Jews, he quickly reversed the order.

“To condemn a class is, to say the least, to wrong the good with the bad,” Lincoln said. “I do not like to hear a class or nationality condemned on account of a few sinners.””

https://www.jta.org/2019/02/12/opinion/when-president-lincoln-fought-for-the-jews?

The Jews of India

The Christian missionaries couldn’t convert them, but did aid in their scholarship which benefitted the community. A fascinating article on how the culture is resisted, yet absorbs minorities.

“In the 20th century, the Bene Israel Conference (1917-37) and the All India Israelite League (1918-25) became foci of Bene Israel communal development. Both organizations deliberated upon social, religious, educational, and economic matters affecting the community.

At the end of the 1940s, with India’s total population at 350 million, the Bene Israel population in India peaked at an estimated 24,000 to 25,000.

After 1948, many members of the community began emigrating, mainly from the cities, to the new State of Israel. They were motivated by a combination of three equally compelling factors: a sense of Jewish identity, Zionist idealism, and concern over Bene Israel economic prospects in the newly-independent India.

A minority of Bene Israel emigrated to England, the United States, Canada, or Australia. Large-scale emigration from the Villages did not occur until the early 1970s. Since then, the total number of Bene Israel remaining in India–almost all in urban centers–remains fairly stable at around 5,000.”

https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/the-bene-israel/?

Airbnb removes listings from Israeli settlements

Have the billionaires of Airbnb looked at a map of the world lately? Why in this day and age are Jews such a threat to rich Americans? And why does this hyper-morality only apply to Israel where 1/3 of the world's Jews live? Airbnb is established in Cuba! The 3 founders of Airbnb are billionaires imposing their political biases on a few folks who want to rent their apartments to tourists. These Big Tech billionaires are giving Capitalism a bad name.

"Last week, Airbnb announced that it would be removing all listings from Israeli settlements in the West Bank. The news came after supporters of the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement campaigned for Airbnb to remove the listings."

https://capitalresearch.org/article/caving-to-bds-activism-airbnb-pulls-west-bank-listings/?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/world/middle_east/group-files-rights-suit-over-airbnbs-israel-settlement-ban/2018/11/29/5bcdc864-f43e-11e8-99c2-cfca6fcf610c_story.html

“Gov. Bruce Rauner [IL] attempted Thursday to pressure Airbnb into reversing its ban on lodging listings in the disputed West Bank, calling for an investigation into whether the company is violating Illinois laws prohibiting backlash against Israel's treatment of Palestinians.” (Belleville News Democrat)

“Jews have owned property in places like West Bank towns Gush Etzion and Hebron for centuries. Under the new Airbnb policy, rooms and units located in those places will not be listed by the company.

But if an Arab owns some property a hundred yards away and purchased it a week ago, it can be listed. That is religious profiling.” Letter to the editor, LA times

Clearly, Airbnb’s foray into foreign policy is naive and discriminatory.

Anti-Semitism and the Liberals

Donald Trump was called an anti-Semite for calling out George Soros who supports all manner of leftist organizations and infiltrates Christian groups, but Marc Lamont Hill, a CNN employee, is allowed to advocate for the destruction of the country Israel and jihadism. He claims it wasn't MLK Jr. using peaceful protests to push the Democrats to give up Jim Crow in the South, but the slave revolts of the 19th century that set the stage. I wonder if he knows that today, November 29, 2018, black Africans are still being sold into slavery to the highest bidder by Muslims. https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-11-15/libyas-slave-auctions-and-african-genocide-what-hillary-knew

If Roseanne and Megan can be fired for far, far less, this man deserves to go. If Info Wars is a threat to the nation through social media, then this guy is a ticking time bomb. He used to (or maybe still does) preach his filth and hate on Fox News but I haven't seen him for awhile.  He’s chummy with Farrakhan.

https://www.thewrap.com/cnn-contributor-says-he-supports-violent-palestinian-resistance-to-israel/

https://www.newsweek.com/who-marc-lamont-hill-cnn-commentator-defends-comments-palestinian-state-after-1235759

He is a Professor of Media Studies and Urban Education at Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

I can’t understand why American Jews support the Democrats and their hatred for Israel.  And this is not about Trump.  I remember this from 30 years ago, and mainstream Christians getting all weepy over poor little Palestine.  Have they even looked at a map of the Middle East in recent years?