Tuesday, December 24, 2019

I'm not willing to ignore Antisemitism on Christmas Eve (or ever).

Unless the name of Jesus is entirely unknown to you, you probably know that Jesus was a Jew.  He was born of Mary, and raised by Joseph as his earthly father, both of whom were of the tribe of Judah, one of Jacob's sons, who was himself Abraham's grandson.  He was raised in an observant household, circumcised on the eighth day, and went with his family every year to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover.  It is for this reason, among others, that Antisemitism by Christians is a slap in the face of God, it is a stain upon the Bride of Christ, and the greatest shame of the people called by God to form the New Covenant.  That being said, it is particularly galling to hear of antisemitism, and from an extremely famous and well connected American, at Christmas.  In this case, the person wallowing in the old racist trope that Jews control the world, is the former mayor of New York City, Rudy Giuliani.  The target?  The favorite punching bag of white nationalists and neo-nazis: Jewish billionaire George Soros.  I have no interest in engaging in a debate about the politics of George Soros.  It is well documented that he funds causes that he believes in, much like millions of people all over the globe.  It is his right to support and fund these causes, and it is the right of others to oppose those same causes.  One can disagree with the politics of George Soros, and express that disagreement, without painting him as a nefarious puppet master, and without denigrating his Jewish heritage.  Rudy Giuliani has chosen, and not for the first time, to engage in the latter.  In an interview with New York magazine {A Conversation With Rudy Giuliani Over Bloody Marys at the Mark Hotel By Olivia Nuzzi}{Rudy Giuliani says he's "more of a Jew" than Holocaust survivor George Soros BY SOPHIE LEWIS} he said the following,

“Don’t tell me I’m anti-Semitic if I oppose him,” he said. “Soros is hardly a Jew. I’m more of a Jew than Soros is. I probably know more about — he doesn’t go to church, he doesn’t go to religion — synagogue. He doesn’t belong to a synagogue, he doesn’t support Israel, he’s an enemy of Israel. He’s elected eight anarchist DA’s in the United States. He’s a horrible human being.”

It is perfectly possible to oppose the politics of George Soros without being anti-Semitic, just as it is possible to oppose the politics of Benjamin Netanyahu without being anti-Israel.  What is not possible, is to declare a HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR to be a non-Jew, or to declare yourself (as for example, a person of Italian descent raised as a Roman Catholic) as 'more of a Jew' than any person of Jewish descent, no matter their politics, or lack thereof.  When the Nazis murdered more than 6 million Jews, they didn't ask them what their politics were, and they didn't spare those families who had served the Reich faithfully during WWI, nor even those who were not practicing the faith of Abraham.  Jewish blood, even if only two grandparents were Jewish, was enough for a death sentence (and sometimes not even that, suspicion alone could prove fatal).  {The Nuremberg Laws: Holocaust and Human Behavior}

The family of George Soros faced extermination during the Nazi reign of terror, that of Rudy Giuliani did not.  How did Soros' family in Hungary survive?  By faking documents and pretending to be Christians until the war ended.  It doesn't matter to me, at all, what political party Rudy Giuliani supports, or if he wasn't involved in politics at all.  Antisemitism is a cancer, a despicable stain on the human condition, and an example par excellence of fallen human nature.  It must be condemned, it must be opposed, or in future generations they will wonder how anyone could have forgotten the Holocaust and let it happen again.

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