Humble Opinions

Mass Jewish Grave
Berlin 1945

“Never Again” is the powerful response the Jewish people proclaimed after the Nazi Holocaust took 6 million of its brothers, sisters, parents, and cousins. Although it appears a statement of determination, I would argue that at this point, it is merely a paperweight.

When the Jews were expelled from France in 1182, from England in 1290, from Spain in 1492, from Portugal in 1497, and when the Communist revolution masacred 250,000 Jews between 1917 - 1922, ever wonder what their responses were?

For the last 6 months, the world has been twiddling its thumbs as Iran has been actively developing a nuclear bomb. Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said it is for peaceful purposes. I’m glad the Islamic Republic with the world’s 2^nd largest oil reserves has flagrantly ignored the world’s 7 most powerful nations’ demands to halt its development, in order to make earth a more peaceful place. Phew! I suppose his statements that Israel is a “stinking corpse” and that “Soon this stain of disgrace will be cleaned from the garment of the world” were also said for the purpose of peace.

No one seems to be doing anything about it, few seem to really care, and a lot of people actually think Iran should possess a nuclear weapon. American Jewry is too busy supporting movie stars, bars, and vacation spots to worry about Israel.

At this rate, what will the world look like in 2090? Many people already claim the holocaust is a Jewish myth (such as Mel Gibson’s father), and revisionist historians have already rewritten the Zionist immigration to Israel and founding of the State of Israel as an imperialist Jewish plot to drive the Arabs out of Palestine. Nothing could be further from the truth. By 2090, I’m sure the existence of Jews in Eastern Europe will be a myth as well. Some Jewish cemeteries have already been plowed over, and just last week, vandals desecrated a Jewish cemetery in Bucharest.

Actually, while we’re on the subject… In hope that the World Wide Web is still around by that time, I would like to go on record saying: I swear to G-d that I have met, and spoken with multiple holocaust survivors. My friend’s grandmother was the 48^th Jew into Auschwitz, and she has the tattoo on her arm to prove it. I ate lunch with her.

My grandparents lived in Germany, and were rich. They fled to America in the early 1930’s, forced to leave everything behind, and start from scratch again. That’s how scared they were. If you are Jewish, I ask: What will YOU say if G-d forbid, Iran succeeds in developing a nuclear weapon, and bombs Tel Aviv with it? “Whoops, okay we meant only one more time… now it’s Never Again for real!!!”

When will Jews and the rest of the world open their eyes?!

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Jews are often referred to as “the people of The Book.” Which book is this phrase talking about, and how is an entire nation of people, living all over the world, with sometimes vastly different lifestyles and life outlooks all clumped together with some book? The obvious answer to my first question would likely be The Bible, aka the Torah, aka the five books of Moses, aka the Old Testament - however, I think it goes far deeper than that.

As I have discussed in previous posts, Jews have not had such an easy past. They’ve been enslaved, attacked, beaten, pillaged, raped, pogromed, crusaded, burned at the stake, burned in ovens, gassed to death, and exploited an almost countless number of times. Yet, despite all this, Jews have arguably the largest accumulated wealth of information, books, and writings, vastly exceeding any group of people in all of human history.

Jews throughout the ages have had a higher rate of literacy than literally anyone. This was illustrated quite clearly in the Middle Ages, when literacy in Europe was close to 0%, while Jews maintained at least majority literacy, if not more. So, why is this, and what is behind all of this?

The Jewish people have an unbroken chain of authors, books, and writings that currently spans from 1312 BCE - 2008 CE, a remarkable 3+ millenia of authorship. Not only that, but the power with which the Jewish people disseminated said information and writings amongst its own has been nothing short of miraculous. The earliest copies of known Jewish writings are the Dead Sea Scrolls which date to slightly before 100 CE.

Printing Press in 1725

The printing press was invented in 1439 by Johannes Gutenberg (surprise, surprise, a Jew). I think this invention is greatly under appreciated. However great you think the computer, and the Internet are as inventions, I would say the printing press was greater than both, combined. The knowledge it took to later invent the computer was due solely to the widespread availability of information, made possible by the printing press. This dissemination of knowledge that followed changed the face of the world in drastic, unrecognizable ways. People could now duplicate books with around 1/1000^th the effort, and probably 1/100^th the cost (wait, did they even have money back then?!).

I need not describe to you what it took to create a book before 1439, let alone before 439. Just to gather and prepare enough papyrus, ink, and writing utensils was a daunting task, let alone to find and afford to pay a scribe to record one’s dictation. All the more difficult was it to duplicate an already existing book, as even the most talented of human beings are prone to error (even I have made two or three mistakes in my lifetime!!).

All this taken into account, let’s review the history of Jewish writing:

In 1312 BCE, the Jewish people received The Ten Commandments, authored by G-d Himself, coupled with an explosive, ever-lasting oral tradition of deep, inner knowledge and understanding of how the world works and its purpose. As an aside, it is said that when G-d spoke the first commandment to the Jewish people, everyone instantly died on impact. G-d resurrected them, spoke the second, and they all died again, to be again resurrected by G-d. Taking that into account, the oral law given to the Jewish people through Moses took a remarkable 40 day and 40 night face-to-face between G-d and Moses to be fully transmitted. Shocking.

Throughout their 40 year sojourn in the desert between the years 1312 BCE and 1272 BCE, Moses transcribed the words of the Torah, as dictated by G-d. The Jewish people entered the Land of Israel in 1272 BCE under the leadership of Joshua, and inhabited the land until 70 CE. Throughout that period of time, 19 additional books were authored which describe the Jewish conquest of the land, division of the land, subsequent ongoing warfare and outside attacks, the establishment of its monarchy and Holy Temples, and the Jewish people’s unfortunate downward spiral and eventual defeat by the Romans in 70 CE.

These 24 books are commonly referred to as Tanach, which is a Hebrew acronym for Torah (the five books of Moses), Neviim (the writings of the Prophets), and Ketuvim (writings). Throughout this period of time, the Jewish people did not record a single word of the powerful oral tradition, as it was forbidden. The reasons for this are many, which I will not go into here. In addition to these 24 holy books, much other writing occurred. We have the books of the Maccabees, which describe in great detail the battles of the Hasmonean revolt against the Seleucid Greeks, the writings of the Jewish historian Josephus Flavius, and more.

After their defeat, the Jewish people stepped up the proliferation of their writing. The great rabbis of the time decided that because of the extreme persecution that was going on, there was a great need to write down the oral law, lest it be completely forgotten, and all their trials and tribulations would be for naught. A great man named Rabbi Yehuda HaLevi wrote the Mishnah which was 6 orders of writings that, in a very cryptic, and terse manner, encompassed the oral tradition. He selected his words precisely and carefully, to be able to imply many things by saying one, and so on. It is truly a work of genius, in my humble and correct opinion.

In the several hundred years that proceeded, Jewish scholars and students spent their days studying, memorizing, and debating the works of the Mishnah. They would sit around tables in large groups and try to discern exactly what Rabbi Yehuda HaLevi meant, and to disprove each other using quotes from other parts of the Mishnah, as well as from the 24 holy books. In addition, they also told many stories, jokes, and allegories related to the subjects. Their discussions make up the infamous monster-of-a-work known as the Talmud, aka the Gemara. The subjects that the Talmud touch upon include: human behavior, ethics, morality, prayer, math, astrology, Jewish laws, biology, guidelines of conducting business, guidelines of human interaction, family life, marriage, raising children, and much much more.

Folks, let me just say right now, the Talmud is probably the most monstrous work ever written in human history - I kid you not. Sporting a devastating 2300+ pages, the Talmud takes 7 years to complete at a pace of 1 page per day, and let me say - one page per day is a pace only for masters. The Talmud is exceedingly difficult to comprehend, and takes an unbelievable effort and toll on a person to learn.

First, before even cracking it, the Talmud assumes that the reader knows the 24 holy books, and 6 tractates of the Mishnah by heart. For someone to explain the Talmud to a beginner, 1 - 2 lines could literally take hours to explain - no exaggeration. Second, the degree of intellect that the rabbis in the Talmud possessed is simply not understandable by 21st century Western man. I am a computer programmer, and think through complex math and logic almost on a daily basis. That being said, I am no match for the difficultly of logic found in the Talmud. I’m in over my head almost right away.

The Talmud was completed by around the year 500 CE, give or take 50 years. From that point, there are many letters and books rabbis and other great men wrote, which we still have today. Throughout the exile, it was not uncommon for all the Jewish books in the town to be gathered, and burned. In the 13th century, there was a book burning of 26 copies of the Talmud, which was every copy in France. Let’s see, 26 copies x 2300 pages would mean 59,800 pages were burned that day. The thought of how long it took to write those pages is frightening. How did the Jews respond? They moved to England and began to rewrite them from the copies there.

This blog post is getting quite long, and I haven’t even come close to the great writings of the Middles Ages, and Modern Ages. I could go on and on about the works and great authorship of the Jewish people. I’m just hitting the tip of the iceberg, seriously. In conclusion, I implore every Jew to look into their past, and into the unbroken chain of Jewish literature, to see what makes his/her heritage fascinatingly unique.

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Short answer: They don’t.

Long answer: On the contrary, Jews are amazing. They defy description on literally all accounts. With a current standing of 1/5 of 1% of world population, Jews find themselves in some of the most prominent positions in many countries, spread out over many continents, in an enormous range of professions.

Jews are leading physicians, surgeons, actors, politicians, musicians, software developers (ahem), scientists, chemists, economists, physicists, accountants, lawyers, and businessmen of all kind, to name a few. In fact, if you look through the ages, Jews have also excelled in many other professions you may not have thought very Jewish (stevedores, agriculturists, poets, and philosophers for example).

Jews are the recipients of over 20% of worldwide Nobel Prizes, which include the Nobel Peace Prizes given to such saints as Yasser Arafat & co. The leading physicist of the 20^th century best known for his theory of relativity, Albert Einstein, was quite Jewish. I would never claim that Jews saved the Western world from Nazi defeat, but in August 1939, Einstein personally urged President Roosevelt to order the development of an atomic weapon in fear of German scientists already having begun to do the same. This effort later became known as The Manhattan Project. (this is the actual letter Einstein sent FDR).

How many nations have been conquered and exiled, only to later re-emerge? And how many nations have done it twice? The answer to both questions is one. How many nations have been marched into gas chambers and ovens by the millions, only to establish a country of their own, not a decade later? One.

In fact, let’s look at some of modern day Israeli military history:

• In the 1948 War of Independence, Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria invaded Israel 1 day after its declared independence (with additional troops sent from Saudi Arabia). Not only did Israel survive the invasion, but they captured areas of Arab territory.
• In the weeks leading up to the 1967 Six Day War, Egypt (armed and trained by Russia), Syria, and Jordan teamed up to attack Israel. Jewish Israeli population was roughly 2 million, while the Arab nations were 45 million. Not only did Israel survive, but more than doubled its territory in a record six day war. No military computer simulation can re-enact this war and produce an Israeli victory.
• In the 1973 Yom Kippur War, Egypt and Syria simultaneously attacked Israel on its holiest day of the year, when practically the entire population was in synagogue. Syria attacked the Golan Heights with roughly 1300 tanks, and the Israeli forces guarding the area were outnumbered 12 to 1. Egypt broke through Israel’s Bar Lev Line of defense in the Sinai desert with ease. Israel should have been demolished. Not only did they survive, but after making a decisive comeback in the war, OPEC had to resort to an oil embargo of all Western nations in order to force Israel into a ceasefire.

I would be doing you a disservice if I led you to believe this is a modern day phenomena. The Jewish people have been experiencing miraculous military victories its entire history:

• Israel defeats Amalekites in roughly 1311 BCE, in the desert without a single weapon.
• Israel defeats the city of Jericho in 1272 BCE by surrounding its walls while Israeli Priests each blow a Shofar.
• In 167 BCE, the Jewish Maccabean Revolt successfully deters and holds off the Seleucid army in a number of battles while incredibly outnumbered.
• And how could I forget: David slew Goliath.

The Jewish people have survived literally every major empire since ancient Egypt. To name a few: Ancient Egyptian Empire, Phoenician Empire, Canaanites, Philistines, Assyrian Empire, Babylonian Empire, Persian Empire, Greek Empire, Roman Empire, Byzantine Empire, Spanish Empire, Austro-Hungarian Empire, Ottoman Empire, British Empire, Nazi Germany, Soviet Union… where’d they all go?

Not only that, but modern day Israel has produced some of the most magnificent advances of our time (agricultural, medical, and technological among many other).

That leads us to the obvious question: What’s your point?

Karl Marx

My point is as follows: Jews are a talented bunch. On the one hand, they have made unbelievable contributions to civilization, but on the other, they have also been the leaders of certain disastrous movements (communism [I refer you to Karl Marx, Leon Trotsky, and Rosa of Luxemburg - all Jewish], and the anti-Jewish, anti-Israel, self-hating Neturei Karta to name two).

The Jewish nation was not established to dominate all other nations [even though we DID develop PHP :p ]. Rather, I recall a well-known saying: With great power comes great responsibility. Jews have an ability to repair, and build this world in ways other nations do not. I implore every Jew to ponder this, and consider the fact that their actions have serious impact on the world.

Please do what is right

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