Afghan Buddhas & China, Jerusalem & the SCOTUS, &c.

In the same way that people are outraged over China's handling of Afghanistan's ancient Buddha statues and other Buddhist architecture, people would be more outraged about Jerusalem being stepped on by the SCOTUS and other (unintentional and intentional) Anti Semites if the Government of Israel held to the "Declaration of Establishment".

In other words, the SCOTUS and others, instead of doing what is right, are saying to Netanyahu and Agudat Yisra'el, "Why should we care about Jerusalem when you all are stepping on it, anyway? After all, you arrest an American oleh for eating a ham sandwich!"

By the way, I told you that Netanyahu and Agudat Yisra'el were trying to sell Israel to the "Palestinians"—you don't for example, propose an "establishment of a confederate Israeli-Palestinian state encompassing the territory of Israel, as well as the West Bank and the Gaza Strip" if you do not want a "Palestinian" state.

Madame Noire, J. Edgar Hoover & Clark Gable, And Ethnicity & Religion

I'd read about J. Edgar Hoover being Black on Madame Noire​ and thought it a bubbe meise once they claimed that Clark Gable was Black. Either way, Madame Noire can kindly give us Clark Gable* back—we don't go claiming that everyone is Jewish**.

*Clark Gable was the son of a "Hersh", and that spelling of "Hirsch" is exclusively of Naftali.

**In fact, those of us who are b'nei-Anusim have a hard enough time proving that we are Jews; and that's why we cringe at self loathers like George Soros—if we have sekhel, anyway—and gentiles who claim to be Jewish just because they're gerim—especially if they're Messianic ones.

To the goyim whom claim to be Jewish just because they're grafted in: get real! You do not suddenly become Jewish just because you're grafted in—"spiritual" does not equal "physical". I don't become Black just because I become a member of an AME church or a Rastafarian congregation—I also don't become gentile just because I become a Christian (as opposed to a Rabbinical or a Karaite Jew. By the way, "Christianity" means "Messianism"; so, one couldn't become a gentile by joining a different Jewish sect even if becoming a gentile by joining another religion was possible).

How Many Jews Really Died During The Holocaust, And When Did The Holocaust Really Begin And End?

We have to be honest: if we say only 6,000,000 Jews and go from 1933-1945, we're not even looking beyond what we knew at one point in history. The moment that the Great Depression began, the Anti Semitism that a then-still-relatively-marginal group known as the Nazis began to gain a scarily-massive affect. Also, Stalin wanted to destroy particularly Jews in the gulags and otherwise within the USSR. So, quite technically, the Holocaust began on October 24, 1929 and didn't end until the gulags closed. Also, how many Holocaust survivors (including Jewish-American and other Jewish Allied soldiers, Navymen, etc.) died post liberation and post war due to illnesses and injuries that they sustained while they were held in the murder camps and/or fighting against the Axis of Evil?

That doesn't even touch, e.g.:

1. The Jews who died and were left uncounted because they did not count as Jews by Rabbinical and/or Karaite standards (or even by their own standards). 
2. Unborn Jews who were miscarried and died in wombs, often with mothers whom knew of their pregnancies and were not spared the gas chambers, crematoriums, and other horrors despite their pleas for their babies to be saved.
3. The Jews who died in hiding.

How Popular Is One's...

1) Identifying as a Messianic Jew on his or her Facebook profile—not to mention constantly making known his or her Messianic faith on Twitter, Blogger, etc.—especially when his or her ancestors were Anusim?

2) Staying a Christian after he or she has found out that he or she is Jewish, and even because he or she is Jewish—not to mention that saying that b'nei-Anusim who convert to Non-Messianic Judaism have fallen away—and not to mention refusing to make aliyah as a "Non Jew of Jewish descent" and wanting to even make aliyah "illegally" if he or she can?

3) Noting that Psalm 18 (מזמור חי\יח) prophesies Yeshua?

4) Calling out Michael Freund, Benjamin Netanyahu, Agudat Yisra'el and many other Haredim, etc?

5) Wearing tzitiyot techelet that haven't been dyed with chilazon?

6) Citing Da'at Emet and others who know what the Talmud really is?

7) Saying, e.g., "Yeshua, Hu gam l't'chiyah"?

8) Pointing out that HaNeged Mashiach (the One Against the Messiah) will be a Karaite, not a Muslim?



I could go on, but the point is that it's not popular. When my sister even wondered if I would convert to Non-Messianic Judaism ("I never know what's next with you.") just because I thought about going to a mikvah "just because" (since it is a part of my heritage), I asked her "How popular..."?

So, how popular is one's, e.g., identifying as a Messianic Jew publicly, especially when his or her ancestors were Anusim?...

Didn't think so! So, don't ever let anyone tell me that I might convert to Non-Messianic Judaism!

Stubborn Yemenim, And An Even-Worse Israeli Government

According to Ynetnews:

The Jews living in Yemen - most of whom had the opportunity to leave for Israel or another country, but refused – face an approaching danger from the advancing rebel forces, who have repeatedly made statements against Israel.
"We don't want to leave. If we wanted to, we would have done so a long time ago," Sanaa's chief rabbi Yahya Youssef said in February.

So, many of them are doing what G-d warned against through Yirmiyahu (cf. Yirmiyahu 8:1-7). By the way, for The Jewish Agency for Israel and the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs to focus on those of us who Agudat Yisrael doesn't consider Jewish enough and would still like to go home to Israel would be nice, especially since (as YNet reports), "The Foreign Ministry and the Jewish Agency have been in an ongoing state of frustration over the refusal of Yemen's Jews to leave".

If they can and won't leave Yemen, perhaps they'd like to give the aspiring olim among them and us "not-Jewish[-enough]" Jews their opportunities, since they won't take them. Then again, Netanyahu and his government may not allow that to happen, since that might actually bring in Yehudim and others whom would vote Likud, Agudat Yisra'el, etc.. out of office.

"Stand With Israel, Not Netanyahu"

Even I, a staunch Zionist who was already mad enough at Netanyahu and his Haredi Judaism which he attempts to disguise as Yahadut Chilonit, took a few steps back and thought:

If Netanyahu was largely passive while Arab citizens were being assaulted, he led the demonization campaign against the 47,000 African refugees and asylum seekers who entered Israel without permits. Despite reducing the number of refugees entering Israel to practically zero, thanks to the Sinai fence, he continues to lock up thousands of these desperate people – who, like our own Jewish ancestors, sought to escape persecution and poverty. Netanyahu’s policies flout Jewish values, and have been overturned multiple times by the High Court as immoral and unjustified. But they play well to his xenophobic base. 

Good points and reminders. In fact, I wager that some of the Sudanese and other refugees may even be Falasha and Lemba Jews who are making aliyah in what many would call an illegal way—and if any "illegal" olim are among the Sudanese refugees, the Government of Israel has no right to deny those olim ("eleh Kushim!") their taglit. Also, think about this: what if some illegal immigrants from Mexico, Guatemala, etc. are Anusim who'd make aliyah if Netanyahu and his yadidim let them? After all, they're not considered Yehudim al pi HaHoq Shivut. They otherwise have to be under the auspices of nasty people such as Dr. Michael Freund. (Just like Netanyahu, Dr. Freund can fool people. That's even part of why I save most of my e-mails in my backup folders—that is, so I do not ever lose the proof of when I run into mitchazim like Dr. Freund. That's why I still have the link to the 2012 conversation.).

 Likud-led fear and hatemongering hardly stops with our non-Jewish minorities. Progressives, civil rights activists, leftists, the judiciary and anyone who criticizes the occupation have all been accused of being enemies of the state. So much for Jewish solidarity or democratic discourse. 

Indeed. I've experienced this myself. I even have a Facebook friend who called Senator Diane Feinstein (with whom I myelf hardly ever agree) a "witch" for standing against Netanyahu, and I've seen others harp on the fact that Senator Feinstein comes from a Jewish Catholic family (which I did not know until they harped on her for it. As I learned, the Feinsteins and the Rosenburgs were and are Russian Byzantine Catholics.).

From a family of Roman Catholic Anusim and b'nei Anusim, I know that feeling ("You're not Jewish!"; "Your family betrayed their people!"; "They're meshumadim!"; "They're bogadim!"; "Oh; no wonder your Hebrew's not good: your family didn't tell you that they're Jewish!")

Perhaps, by the way, maybe the Anusi and "meshumad" minds are among the ones which are quickest to pick up on trouble. Our ancestors knew when trouble was coming and/or already came, and at least two of us (Senator Feinstein and me, though I suspect that there are more who) knew that Netanyahu and the Haredim were trouble (By the way, I'll have some kavod for Taylor Swift if she goes to Israel and dedicates her famous song to Netanyahu.).

Anyway:

This week’s Netanyahu drumbeat claims that the Iranian threat trumps all traditional diplomatic considerations. But those who, like me, believe that Iran is an existential threat to Israel, and fear that the agreement currently being negotiated will be too forgiving and trusting of Iran need to acknowledge that Netanyahu has blown it. 

His anti-Obama tirades, his support for West Bank settlements over all other considerations, his efforts to undermine the Palestinian Authority, his expropriation of 988 acres of Palestinian land at the end of the Gaza War not only wasted the new diplomatic opportunities he promised toward the war’s end, but alienated and antagonized the very European leaders who, along with U.S. President Barack Obama, are the partners necessary to stop Iran’s nuclear program. 

Excellent reminder and point as well. For being such a Zionist, Netanyahu isn't taking the higher road. He also is not trusting יהוה. For example, bulldozing the houses of innocent Bedouins does not help—and deliberately failing to distinguish between the innocent and the guilty is a chillul יהוה.

Bulldozing the houses of terrorists and their accomplices is fine. Destroying terrorists and their accomplices is fine. Stereotyping all Arabs as terrorists and bulldozing their houses is not fine.

As for (and back to the point about) taking the higher road, to stoop down to the level of an enemy or even lower is a chillul יהוה (cf. Tehillim 25:21-22 and Mishlei 26:4). The applicable mitzvot, after all, say to love your neighbor as yourself (not be like him or her in doing evil), treat the stranger well (not do as he or she has done to you), and let יהוה avenge you. Netanyahu is doing the exact opposite when he has the IDF go beyond proactive counterproliferation, preemption, and deterrence.

By the way, counterproliferation, preemption, and deterrence are obviously mitzvot and acts of kiddush יהוה.

Netanyahu plays the statesman abroad, but back home he is known for his paranoia, his self-aggrandizement, and his lashing out against the courts, the universities and the media. Netanyahu aspires to be Israel’s Churchill, but in nurturing a nation divided against itself he has become our Nixon. 

I and others who follow news from and about 'Eretz Yisra'el keep trying to say that, though nobody believes us. Hopefully, Director Futterman (despite that he's looking at the situation from a leftist perspective) can affect you to get that through your head.

Speaking Of Stereotypes...

I had to deal with, quite frankly, slander against me because I pointed out that the policepersons who saluted their murdered colleagues had Black men among them. As I told her:

To assume that I put Michael Brown and Eric Garner in the same category is wrong. Also, I've even gone out of my way to support certain politicians because they are Black (e.g., Charles Lollar and Pinkston Harris. I'm glad that Larry Hogan has a Black Lieutenant Governor, Boyd Rutherford). I don't like the WASP and WEC mentality that some in the GOP have held for years. I come from Jewish families on both sides even (long story), and I've defended the Lemba Jews and Falasha Mura. As an Ashkenazi Jew from Crypto-Jewish families, I could easily back off and not defend the Lemba (who were slandered in a bogus study by an Indian oceanographer who claims that the CMH type that they have is not a kohen one). You can't assume, then, that I have contempt for Blacks.

I suppose, then, that I was stereotyped as much as she alleges that I stereotype Blacks.

Addendum To the Postcript In My TOI "Wuerker" Post

Addendum and disclosure: 

I'll admit that finding sources that are neutral about (e.g., neither hostile against nor favorable toward) Jewish Christians is hard (I try to use sources that, even if they're not Jewish Christian/Messianic Jewish, accept that there are Jews who actually believe in a Jewish man named Jesus as the Jewish Messiah. I don't want to support sources that are hostile toward Jewish Christians, given that I am a Jewish Christian). Sadly, I kept Googling and ran into well-written articles that came from hostile sources (e.g., The Jewish Daily Forward, despite that they concede that Jews are an ethnos. Their article about Jewish Christians by Rabbi David Wolpe and most comments on the article were incredibly hostile.).

If only there were more sources that were neutral, even sources from those such as Dr. Amy-Jill Levine, Rabbi Carol Harris-Shapiro, Dan Cohn-Sherbok, and Ya'akov Ariel. While I won't agree with all of their conclusions (e.g., Dr. Levine's conclusion that the New Testament does have Anti Semitism), I can be thankful that they at least accept Jewish Christians as Jews.

I will add, too, that for them to accept Jewish Christians despite that they've received backlash that's similar or equal to what we Jewish Christians receive takes a lot of ko'ach; and if only we were that strong in our faith, Emateinu HaMeshichi (and that phrase I had to only confirm with Google translate. The case was the same for "ko'ach" and some other words and phrases. ראה? אני לומדת. :-) )

(By the way, yes, I checked: there are forms of "re'eh" that I need to learn.).

"'Reform Jews' DNA"?

That's about one of the most-insulting search results that I've ever seen. Just because some Anti Messianics (including some Reform Jews), Anti Semites, Self-Hating Jews, and others choose to play games regarding Jewishness and DNA does not mean that Messianic and Non-Reform Non-Messianic Jews ought to be playing games regarding Jewishness and DNA. We do not have to sink to Jesse Straus' and others' levels.

Let them be the fools who claim that Jewishness is religious and not ethnic. Besides, of course "Judaism is a religion and not a race"! Judaism has always been the religion and Jewishness the ethnic ("racial") identity.

Search Keywords

Entry	Pageviews
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natalie wood jewish	2
"reform jews"dna	1
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christmas envy and jewish	1
facebooknicole59100@hotmail .google.fr	1
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Two Observations To Close Out the Night

• I will never read "The Jewish Daily Forward" again. They belong right with "Tablet Magazine" among the intolerancia of the Jewish community, especially since that automatically deleted a comment just because I quoted Dr. Ya'akov S. Ariel, who said to the "Washington Jewish Week" 

“I see Messianic Jews as a legitimate group. It’s an outcome of the engagement of evangelical Christians with Jews. This is a new way for Jews who have accepted Christianity to maintain their ties with Judaism. And in the last 30 years it has become much more Jewish.” 

(The "Washington Jewish Week" is also among the intolerancia. Edith Brown was no "victim". She simply could've taken the pamphlet and read it or trashed it.)

To quote someone to make the point that some mainstream Jews actually do consider Messianic Jews as Jews is not proselytizing, much less sharing the Messianic faith (asked or unasked). I also quoted Dr. Amy-Jill Levine, by the way, to make that point.

• To take a rabbi like Rabbi David Wolpe (who questioned the historicity of the Exodus, and during—of all times—Pesach) seriously is laughable, if one wants to talk about something that is actually laughable. Hediyotot like Drs. Amy-Jill Levine and Yaakov S. Ariel are more credible than rabbonim like Rabbi Wolpe will ever be.

וזה, הוא כל ללילה הזה. לילה טוב.

How A Skewed Taglit-Birthright Study Endangers Both the Jewish Community At Large And Will Taglit-Birthright's Reputation

I see plenty of issues with this study:

1) "Saxe and research associates Michelle Shain and Shahar Hecht collected data from August 6-11 via an online questionnaire, which included versions of the Pew survey questions. It was sent to eligible US Birthright Israel-Taglit candidates who had applied for a trip between summer 2011 and winter 2013/14."

There is no real "control" group. There are only Birthright applicants.

2) "Encouraged through an an opportunity to win one of two $100 Amazon.com gift cards, 1,756 young Jewish adults filled out the survey. The respondents included 1,122 who actually did go to Israel on a Birthright trip, and 634 nonparticipants."

The one group that there was, was pooled and divided unevenly. There should've been a total of either:

1.  878 Birthright travelers and 878 non travelers (still 1,756 people total, and and bringing in a control subgroup of 878 people—because, again, there was no control group; and a control group within a group does not count as a separate control group), or 
2. 1,122 travelers and 1,122 non travelers (keeping the 1,122 travelers who filled out the survey and bringing in a control subgroup). 

Either way, the surveyed ("treatment")-to-control group ratio is completely absent, let alone lacking.

3) "For the study, the Birthright applicants’ results were compared to a recent Pew survey and a Gallup poll, both of which were completed at the end of July."

The same problem regarding the subject pool and control groups is here, and data collection is also a problem here. Data from June 21, 2011-December 21, 2013 is older and more plentiful than data from July 2014, for example. Thus, there is no adequate amount of recency and amount of data to compare. In other words, the study would have been less skewed if both sets of data were from June 21, 2011-December 21, 2013; June 21, 2011-July 31, 2014; or July 31, 2014.


4) "Saxe feels the young Jews polled are a representative cross-section of young American Jews for several reasons. Primarily, bluntly, “because Birthright is free — and fun,” said Saxe, meaning the trip doesn’t only draw those who think it’s worth spending money on  a trip to Israel."

Any "representative cross-section of young American Jews" would include Messianic Jews (who are banned from applying to [and even specifically targeted for persecution by] Taglit) and others who Taglit bans .

In fact, the specific wording is in part:

"Eligible individuals are those who identify as Jewish and are recognized as such by their local community or by one of the recognized denominations of Judaism. Applicants must also have at least one Jewish birth parent, or have completed Jewish conversion through a recognized Jewish denomination. 

"*Those applying for trips leaving from the Former Soviet Union are eligible if they have at least one Jewish birth grandparent. The accuracy of information pertaining to the heritage of an applicant for a trip leaving from the Former Soviet Union is also verified by a local Consul before an applicant is considered eligible."

This on an international level alone would single out Karaites (who Rabbinate Judaism often slanders) and many other Jews, including Lemba Jews (who go by Patrilineal Descent and are mostly Messianic— despite that most sources try to separate them from the Jewish community at large because they "are Christian" [as if Christianity is not Jewish], etc..). Therefore, this certainly would not allow for just a "representative cross-section of young American Jews".

5) "Saxe said his team has analyzed the backgrounds of those who responded and the profiling is in context with last year’s massive Pew survey study of American Jews. The years of Jewish education, day school all look just about the same, he said, noting one slight difference — Birthright draws a lower proportion of children from intermarriages."

This skews the study as well. The "cross-section" are mostly Rabbinically-Jewish Rabbinical Jews (with a Rabbincally-Jewish Rabbincal Jew being a Jew who has at least one Matrilineally-Jewish parent "[and/]or have completed Jewish conversion through a recognized Jewish denomination".

([Do not kid yourself; Taglit would not look twice at Jews whose family was raised outside of a Rabbinate shul for two or more generations. In other words, for instance, Isaac Kaganowicz would not be considered a Rabbincally-Jewish Rabbincal Jew if both of his parents were Atheistically-raised Jews who were raising Issac in the same way that their parents raised them.)

"Since Taglit was founded in December 1999, annually some 20-25% of candidates have had no prior involvement in Jewish life, said Saxe. “The great piece of Taglit is that it levels the playing field,” said Saxe."

They do go to shul, though. In fact, I had a peer at UMBC who is an Atheist and whose family goes to a Reform shul. So, the "20-25% of candidates" have either parents and/or grandparents who at least go to shul.

6) "Pew doesn’t consider many of the people who went on Taglit to be Jewish because they don’t call themselves Jewish by religion, rather by parentage. “They might not count themselves as Jews until they go on Birthright,” added Saxe."

The Pew data also skews the study.

In other words, the Taglit study (which is called a "Brandeis University" study) is flawed and both dangerous to the Jewish community at large (who, for example, loses numbers according to Taglit-Pew-Saxe standards) and Taglit Birthright itself (and Taglit Birthright has had trouble in the past).