by Wyatt Peterson, The Unz Review:
“Hence, no Jew, whether orthodox or not, can conscientiously refrain from cooperating with the rest for the elevation of the entire Jewry.” — Moses Hess, pioneer of Zionism and Communism, The Revival of Israel: Rome and Jerusalem (1862)
Matthew the Apostle records Jesus as teaching that “Every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit.” (Matthew 7:17) This is certainly true of Judaism, the ‘bad fruits’ of which include Zionism, Communism, Feminism, Talmudism, predatory Capitalism, Holocaustianity, pornography and gay marriage, just to name a few. With Israel’s “war” entering day 457 at the time of writing, and the Israeli Defense Forces continuing to use American munitions to destroy the last remaining hospitals in Gaza, it has finally become socially acceptable to criticize Benjamin Netanyahu and aspects of his military campaign in the Middle East. Many newfound critics, however, are not inclined to utter a single disparaging word about ‘the Jews’ or the sacrosanct Jewish religion, despite Netanyahu invoking Amalek to justify slaughtering men, women and children in the region.
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Last week I received an email from an old friend of mine who has been supportive of Israel for as long as I’ve known him. We worked together for six years beginning in the mid-2000s, and during that time the Israel/Palestine conflict was one of the issues we disagreed most strongly on. Being somewhat of a cementhead whose brain fossilized during the Reagan-Bush era, he was often a difficult guy to have a conversation with, especially if it involved abstract themes. (His response to my contention that 9/11 was an inside job was something to the effect of ‘How dare you! A lot of Americans died that day!!’) That being said, I was pleasantly surprised to see that his email included a link to a New York Times article titled ‘State Dept. Tells Congress It Plans to Send $8 Billion in Arms to Israel.’ Below the link was a short comment lamenting the fact that the American government can’t even feed and house its own veterans, yet somehow manages to send billions of dollars in foreign aid and military equipment to Israel.
In my response I thanked him for sending the NYT article and indicated it would be nice to meet up for coffee sometime soon to discuss things further. I informed him that the foreign/military aid America gives to Israel is just the tip of the iceberg and I provided a few links to additional news items that I thought he might find useful, including one to a recent article I wrote called ‘The Jewish Stranglehold,’ in which I mention that after Hurricane Harvey devastated the city of Dickinson, Texas in 2017, city officials made federal relief funds contingent on support for Israel. Knowing that he fancies himself a true ‘America First’ patriot, I thought for sure the inflammatory information would dovetail nicely with his newfound skepticism vis-à-vis America’s “special relationship” with the Jewish state. Needless to say I was disappointed when he wrote back and reprimanded me for my use of the term ‘Jewish Stranglehold,’ suggesting that in future articles I might consider replacing ‘Jewish’ with ‘Zionist’ to avoid upsetting ordinary Jews who have nothing whatsoever to do with nefarious activities. Like everyone who writes and/or speaks out about Jewish supremacism, I’ve encountered this suggestion many times before. It’s rather typical advice, often furnished by some puffed up know-it-all who recently watched an Abby Martin video and emerged from the experience as an expert on world affairs.
The problem with my friend’s reasoning lies in its imprecision; there are many problematic aspects of Judaism that don’t fit neatly under the ‘Zionist’ canopy. Indeed, oftentimes some of the worst elements of Judaism manifest within ultra-Orthodox sects that wholly reject Zionism and the state of Israel on religious grounds. In fact, Orthodox traditions maintain that the founding of the true state of Israel is not to precede the coming of the Jewish Messiah:
“the people were adjured not to return collectively to the Land of Israel by the exertion of physical force, nor to ‘rebel against the nations of the world,’ nor to ‘hasten the End.’ In short, they were required to wait for the heavenly, complete, miraculous, supernatural, and meta-historical redemption that is totally distinct from the realm of human endeavor.”
Ultra-Orthodox opposition to modern Israel doesn’t ipso facto render these groups any more saintly than Netanyahu’s IDF butchers, however, contrary to what gatekeepers who limit their grievances to Zionism alone might contend.
The bedrock teachings of Orthodox Judaism are derived from the Babylonian Talmud (aka Torah SheBa’al peh), a collection of rabbinic works described by Wikipedia as “the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary text of Jewish law (halakha) and Jewish theology.” The Talmud is divided into two sections: the Mishnah (instruction) and Gemara (completion). The Mishnah is a written collection of Jewish traditions that comprise the Oral Torah, supposedly transmitted by God to Moses on Mount Sinai and orally preserved for roughly 1600 years until it was committed to writing in the third century AD; the Gemara is a compendium of commentaries and debates on the Mishnah. I’m not an expert on world religions but I’d venture to guess that Orthodox Judaism is the only one whose holiest texts contain elaborate debates on the permissibility of sexually abusing children. For example, Talmud tractate Sanhedrin 54b, confirmed by 12th century halakhic authority Moses Maimonides to be correctly interpreted Rabbinic law, states in part:
