Posted on 06/28/2015 5:00:25 PM PDT by Nachum
This persecution is coming to Israel. The secular State of Israel always apes the dominant secular nation-states in Western Civilization.
It's unlikely that there are a higher percentage of traditional Jews in Israel than there are traditional Christians in America, so political relief is unlikely.
I would agree to disagree.
Orthodox Jews have large numbers of followers and power in Israel that far exceeds anything in any city in the US. Whatever persecutions come to Jews in other countries, Jews would fare better in their own country. There is a large reason why the orthodox Rabbinate holds power of marriage and coversion in Israel and it is not because they lack political power.
In addition, the birth rate of the religious far exceeds that of the non-reliegous. It is a huge reason why Netanyahu crushed the Obama-led effort to remove him from his office.
If things become dicey for observant Jews in America, Israel is indeed a real option for many. I hope it does not come to that, but my family ran from Europe for similar reasons.
There is a Yiddish saying "America ess nisht andresh" = America is no different.
He remarked that there would probably be similar attacks on the Baptists, because they're strict on this too.
there are a lot of ramifications of this that haven't been fully thought through.
Well, you’re certainly right long-term.
I’m just skeptical that the anti-religious in Israel aren’t going to make a fight of this particular issue. They’re going to make a last stand somewhere.
The enemy is thataway.
It will work exactly the same way for othodox Jews. Orthodox and Christian clergy will probably be specifically targeted to force them into a rejection of the request to 'marry' the homosexual or lesbians.
When the clergy refuse, they homosexuals/lesbians then sue. The federal government will accuse the synagogue and or church of 'discrimination' and demand an end to the tax-exempt status of the church or synagogue.
And-
Don't think it will stop there. They will demand to go into Jewish and Christian schools and monitor curriculum to demand that children are 'taught' about 'equal rights'.
This fight is only just beginning FRiend.
Not true. There have been riots in Jerusalem over Gay parades and the police were specifically warned by certain orthodox Jewish leaders that if they marched, that there would be violence. The government and homos backed down. The orthodox in Israel won't tolerate it and they have been in violent fights with the secular all their lives.
Battle lines have been drawn on this issue.
May you and yours never find it necessary to leave and may you all be blessed!
Thanks.
The doctrine of the Catholic church is that marriage is a sacrament and is a union between one man and one woman. What I believe will evolve is that most religious institutions will stop the practice of witnessing/validating a marriage certificate. Let the secular government legalize the union as they do now with the justice of the peace. The church conducts the religious ceremony but that has no bearing on whether or not the marriage is legal in terms of the state and/or federal government.
When I heard the news, I immediately felt like a German Jew hearing about Hitler’s appointment to Chancellor, in 1933. I am dreading the future in a country that has clearly gone off the rails.
Unfortunately, Hassidic communities take some of the blame, since many voted Democrat in order to keep the welfare checks coming. Their rationale, a combination of selfishness & short-sightedness, was probably that the gays wouldn’t have anything to do with them anyway.
They will be proven tragically wrong. There will be the militant who has to make a statement & have a “frum” (Torah-observant) wedding, or put his/her/its kids into an Orthodox school. They will complain about being excluded from social or communal activities. I can imagine gay pride parades in Brooklyn neighborhoods (e.g. Lee Avenue in Williamsburgh, or Kingston Ave in Crown Heights), especially as many of them have already moved there.
The vast majority of the Orthodox world in the U.S., including the Hassidic community voted Republican. Most people in the Orthodox world have very strong ties and possibly family in Israel. There is and was much fear over Obama.
Unfortunately, this is the attitude of almost all religious communities outside white Fundamentalist Protestants and white Catholics. These religious communities are treated as if they too would all be hung from lamp posts if anyone so much as suggests trying to do something about the moral sewer because "the same people" who are against the sewer are also against them. Black Baptists, Hispanic Catholics, Chasidic and other Orthodox Jews, etc., are all told their own rights and freedoms stand or fall with the "rights" of perverts and degenerates. Let the "intolerant majority" vent its displeasure on spiritual filth and you'll be next. They've been told this for decades. I've been hearing it for decades.
The late, unlamented Gore Vidal once on TV smirked that he often told Blacks and Jews that "the same people who don't like you don't like me." At the time (this was probably between thirty and forty years ago) such a claim infuriated me because I understood nothing of ethnic politics and simply assumed that Blacks and Jews or anyone else was just as disgusted by homosexuality as any Anglo-Saxon oppressor. You have no idea with what I witnessed his conversion into an anti-Israel spokesman who played footsie with Pat Buchanan. "The same people" indeed. Boil in hot ******** in Tofet you insufferable systematic torturer of Bible Belt love for Judaism.
And then again, many Chasidim simply vote for whomever will keep the Yeshivah funds flowing (and unfortunately they wine and dine and have their pictures taken with and endorse these "schmutzes"). Yeshivah funds are very important; these are places where genuine Torah learning takes place. Certainly that's no better or no worse than any other form of "welfare." Whatever problem there is about Yeshivot receiving government money to learn Torah (and it is forbidden to profit monitarily from the Torah) is first of all a Halakhic issue.
I don't know if "Blacks and Hispanics" will or will not suffer (they may genuinely be exempt to buy their continued loyalty to the Grand Coalition of the Oppressed). I've been waiting for years for Black pastors to draw the line and I've given up all hope or expectation. As for the Hispanics, this is not even part of their world and won't be as long as they empower the perverts with their votes.
The one group I am absolutely certain will never have to deal with this are the moslems. The otherwise atheistic and anti-moral Left has found in moslems the next poor persecuted victims of "the same people" who don't like Blacks and Jews. And loudmouthed homosexual activists attack (unfortunately) homosexual-friendly Israel and align themselves with pseudo-theocratic "palestinian" moslems, even going so far as to label any mention of Israel's liberal policy as "pink-lining" and insisting that homosexuals don't care how well treats them so long as the poor oppressed pseudo-theocrats aren't given their own country in which to stone sinners.
I've been in a bad mood for three and a half days. Sorry.
Now all my life I have noticed something and wondered about it. People attack Catholic theology, Protestant theology, moslem theology, etc., but no anti-Semite ever attacks actual Jewish theology or religion or practice. Apparently there is no such thing as "Judaism" to be against; there is only "the Jews" and prejudice against them.
I have been around the block a time or two and was always puzzled to the point of madness as to why no Jewish spokesmen ever responded to higher criticism, attacks on the Torah and Na"KH as a savage and primitive document, denials of Biblical Jewish history, or the Jewish understanding of G-d and reality. All Jewish spokesmen always and only attacked ethnic prejudice against Jews, and the puzzling fact that all the "bigots" assumed the truth of the TaNa"KH (however imperfectly) while the "anti-bigots" all seemed to blame anti-Semitic prejudice on the influence of the Bible almost drove me out of my mind. I regarded the whole thing as crazy. I still do.
Well now we know why. Because Judaism doesn't count. Only Jews count, and they count only insofar as they can be used as an excuse to secularize the country (because the influence of Judaism is allegedly deadly to Jews).
This is the great mystery of Jewish liberalism, a liberalism that constantly boasts of immense pride in four thousand years of history but who never deal with anything beyond the past two millenia. The persecution of Jews in the pre-chrstian era can't be used to protect "gays," Jews, and Blacks from "the common enemy," so none of these things are ever mentioned. Who knows? Maybe the ancient pre-chrstian persecutors and mass murderers of Jews didn't count as "anti-Semites" at all but were fully justified because they were attacking people who practiced the religion upon which anti-Semitic chrstianity was based.
Maybe Judaism causes anti-Semitism. Maybe it deserves to be destroyed for that reason. (I hope a "/sarcasm" tag isn't necessary here).
Just think of it. When has any "Jewish activist" protested the blasphemous higher criticism of liberal universities (all of which have a large Orthodox Jewish student presence)? When has any "tireless fighter against anti-Semitism" ever responded to an attack on the veracity of the Torah by atheist liberals (who insisted on making chrstianity the punching bag for all the Hebrew Bible's "offensive" and "primitive" content??? Not only liberal Jews, but Orthodox Jews--even the so-called "Ultra-Orthodox"--have never felt the slightest compunction to join this debate. Instead the Torah, the Book of Joshua, the Megillah, Daniel, and Jonah are contemptuously referred to as "the chrstian bible" or even "the chrstian old testament" and Jews are assumed to be completely non-affected and unconcerned about the whole issue. Instead you have Judaism on one side and "the Jews" on the other. The ancient Biblical religion becomes less and less Jewish, more and more chrstian, and more and more responsible for anti-Semitism. You have Judaism on the Right and "the Jews" on the Left. And never the twain shall meet.
You have no idea how many questions this attitude of Nietzsche's has answered for me. No wonder the "official Jewish leadership" has no use for people like me, much less pro-Israel chrstians. We were drawn to Judaism by the Bible, not by the alleged historical role of "the Jews" to suffer at the hands of "religion" and eventually be invoked as the number one excuse for getting rid of it. The TaNa"KH is out. They aren't interested in anyone drawn to the beauty, antiquity, and Divinity of the actual Torah religion. They want people who have dreams about being part of the I.M. Peretz Workman's Circle or present for a dirty Lenny Bruce routine.
To be fair, Nietzsche isn't the only famous "philo-Semite" who hated the ancient religion of Israel. Two more--considered heroes by many Jews--were Thomas Jefferson and Mark Twain. Noble suffering Jews teaching the world by example that religion is poison is one thing. Burning bulls on an altar just because G-d said to do it is something else entirely.
I am a Noachide because of Moses and Pinechas and Joshua--not because I am inspired by the predicament of a generic "minority group" which is shared by all such minority groups. The Jews are different. The Jews are special. And they are so because of Judaism--the "primitive oriental despotism" Mark Twain so loathed (while praising suffering Jews to the skies) and not for any other reason.
I will never regard Jews as merely one more "minority group" in need of protection from "the same people" who "hate Blacks and gays." In fact, I derive the entirety of what right and wrong consist of from that primitive despotism--not any humanistic rational "ethic" that logically cannot and does not exist in a random, meaningless, and self-existent universe.
Fire away, all of you.
The radical left & the Moslems (especially the Arabs) share the following philosophy: The enemy of my enemy is my friend. They are so obsessed with an agenda they'll team up with anyone who will help them further it. They will most likely change their tune once the Moslems, who are finished using them, will show their true colors. Evil always destroys itself.
Your defense of the frum (ultra-Orthodox) communities is apt. My apologies for generalizing. I hate to criticize my brethren, and I know that many are truly struggling, but I always had trouble watching so many work the system. "Better us than a goy," one of them said, about welfare. Maybe she's right. Better my tax dollars go to a kollel (professional student) family, rather than a single mother with five kids from five different baby daddies.
Maybe in the merit of funding Torah institutions, our country will survive, at least a little longer. But I promise you: gays will raise a mighty howl about government funding. It is already happening, as liberals are demanding that churches (& presumably synagogues) lose their tax exempt status.
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