"Until
we meet again and touch our hands together in another land."
Hanukkah will be here again on December 6th. My wife and I won't be going to
the Lubavitcher festivities in Taipei; we will be on the east coast of Taiwan
in Taitung gazing at the mighty Pacific Ocean, the beautiful mountains, and
enjoying the clean air without pollution. By the time we get home, we will have
missed the first night of lighting candles. That is good because I have a
leftover box from Brooklyn that's missing about nine candles.
I will light the candles, say prayers, make potato latkes and eat
doughnuts when we get back from our trip, but the miracle of the candles is
more important than the festivities. I see it as a miracle that our Jewish
traditions have lasted over two thousand years despite the Spanish inquisition
and the holocaust.
Muslims and Jews had gotten along very well in the Middle World
and Iberia until Spain and the Pope deemed our blood filthy and worthy of
knights to slaughter. Britain and the U.S. got involved in the 20th century and
took colonial land in Palestine for a Jewish state after World War II for their
own purposes, despite the idealism of Zionism.
Jews and Muslims are closer in beliefs than Jews and Christians,
yet someone in the Jewish hierarchy decided to be allies with the goyum who
murdered us and millions of Muslims in the Inquisition, six million souls in
Nazi Germany, and a million now in the Middle World in their endless war for
economic dominance. One hundred million, a hundred million Native Americans
were slaughtered to steal their land and resources! Those racist Christians
would have done the same thing in Asia if Japan, China and Vietnam had not
stopped them.
One death of a Jew is not more important to me than the death of
anyone for their religious beliefs. I have a T-Chart in my mind in which
I compare atrocities. There are many more Muslim victims of the U.S. war than
there are Jewish victims of it in the attacks coordinated by the U.S. and
Israeli military; not individuals who pick up a stone to defend themselves or
join a ragtag group for jihad, unless, like ISIS, they are being supplied by
the very same military to destabilize their homeland for plunder.
As I told my Mandarin teacher yesterday, I am a Jew; I am not
"white," and my secular kind are all over the world; not only in
Israel. We spread love of humanity and share it with all races and religions.
This is the miracle of Hanukkah to me: to spread our Jewish heritage and
respect for life and education and tradition around the world; not suffer under
a cloud for the sake of U.S. European hegemony in the Middle World.
A friend of mine in
Budapest, well aware of Anti-Semitism (look what Hungary did to the Syrian
refugees!) invited me to take a 20 hour train ride with him to Auschwitz to
feel the pain of my Jewish brothers and sisters in WW II. Riding through Middle
Europe, with too many ignorant fascist wannabes, flush with hatred for anyone
not white and Christian, I could never stand the ride to the destination; I
know how our story ends. But we can change the story's ending by changing
allies to our Semitic Muslim brothers who also pray directly to one Gxd, not
through a mythical intermediary.
A culture ,one bitten, twice shy, sometimes rebounds in the most
horrible way. Do the survivors of a holocaust arm themselves so it will 'never
happen again' or, as in the case of most Jews, find the next closest bully - as
in a "Stockholm Syndrome" - in forlorn reaction, for false protection
from the oppressor, and allow their new host to break all the rules of war, as
the U.S. has done, so long as it doesn't affect them?
In the 19th century in the U.S. Northeast, some Irish
American merchants, after establishing themselves in the U.S., put want ads in
their store windows: "Chinese and Dogs needn't apply"? Just a
generation before, the signs read: "No Irish or Dogs need apply."
I feel the pain of the Jewish Holocaust victims but not more than
the pain of the slaughter of Muslims and one hundred million Native Americans;
few of my relatives were victims of Hitler which, perhaps, changes my
outlook.
There can be peace in the world, but it depends on U.S.
military-industrial imperialism. I am only a working man; a tool for the
capitalists to use, break and get a replacement for. I am to the ruling class
that would exploit me if they could.
After reading about the Jewish youth murdered in Israel by one hateful
assassin, about one young man, though sad, it gives me no impetus, no credence
to anyone to visit Israel to support and show I am not afraid, until President
Netanyahu and the hawks, who killed that boy by their policy, are dumped. Only
then will peace come to Israel and avenge the cycle of violence. When Israel
professes peace with its neighbors, I will go and visit my historic homeland.
We are never too old to think of changing heart and doing the
right thing; forget the prejudices that keep us behind high walls blaming
others. As my mother once said, "You don't make peace by building
walls." My Mom was right.
Despite the hate used to divide us by the oppressors of the world,
we should never give up hope for a miracle of peace. David was the
slayer of Goliath with a rock on a rope; it is written in the book. The
powerless will beat the powerful again.
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