This is a good piece for Muslims and Jews to study. I have always stood up against stereotyping any people. I have had so many instances where I have caught people off guard in their prejudices, and then they courageously got rid of their bias.
This is powerful, "Leyden used his digital marketing expertise to set up a Trump outreach campaign in New Hampshire with its own Facebook page. Separately, he also launched a �Jews 4 Trump� Facebook page and a Twitter account. Then he comes up with this proposed ban on Muslims,� Leyden said of Trump�s December 7 statement. �That really turned me off big time.� Please know this formula, and you can conclusively stamp it on any group, it will fit right in, be it a social, religious or corporate group. 90% of the people will be invariably moderates, 4.5% tilt towards the left and 4.5% tend to be right leaning, and only less than half of one percent go to the extremes, for them it is their way and no way.
These were the yiddishisms that Republican Jewish Coalition board member Abbie Friedman deployed when he introduced Donald Trump at the group�s candidates forum last December. It was, in part, an effort to ease the palpable discomfort of wealthy RJC donors with the brash billionaire who would be president.
The problem, though, is that for many Jewish Republican voters, the New York billionaire�s ratio of chutzpah to mensch leans too heavily to the former, leading them to throw their support behind other, more conventional contenders. Still, the GOP front-runner, now preparing for the official kickoff of primary season, has succeeded in charming some Jewish voters with his outsized personality and trademark bluntness.
Jewish Trump supporters have their own Facebook page, a Twitter account and even a rabbi. One rabbi. Many of these supporters and sympathizers seem to be drawn to the candidate more for his swagger and his image of business success than for what he is saying and proposing to do if elected president. Most important, they relish the prospect that he will bring this spirit to the presidential race to ensure that the Democrats don�t win another four years in the White House.
�I�m a NFH � Not for Hillary,� said Joan Rubin, a Jewish Chicago native who spends her winters in Florida. �I don�t know who will win the nomination, but I will definitely vote for Donald Trump if he�s nominated. We can�t have what happened in the past seven years continue.�
Anti-Trump: Jewish attorney Marty Rosenbluth and Rose Hamid, a Muslim flight attendant, stand silently in protest at a Trump rally in Winthrop, South Carolina, on January 8.
Almost across-the-board, mainstream national Jewish groups have denounced Trump for his call to indefinitely ban entry of all Muslims to America, and his suggestion that authorities should close mosques judged to be extremist. They view Trump�s move as an affront to American Jewry�s own history, which included the government�s exclusion of their European brethren when they sought to flee Nazism. But even before Trump�s Islamophobic comments, his soaring popularity in pre-primary polls raised concern within the Republican Jewish establishment, which has traditionally sought to back candidates closer to the political center.
Some Jewish supporters of Trump still feel uneasy identifying publicly as being in the Donald camp. �I don�t need people asking questions,� said a Florida Jewish resident who strongly supports Trump but asked not to be named. She argued that the media has distorted Trump�s message and therefore expressing public support for him is considered socially unacceptable in her circles. She expressed full support for Trump�s call to ban Muslim entry to America, arguing that Muslim immigrants have shown no willingness to assimilate into society and that the local Muslim community has not sufficiently condemned terrorist attacks carried out by violent Islamists. �Trump�s the only one forcing the press to report things they don�t want to report,� she said.
But not everyone is embarrassed about going on the record. Trump recently got an unexpected endorsement from the legendary Jewish comedian Jerry Lewis. �I think he�s great,� Lewis said in an interview with Raymond Arroyo on �The World Over.� �He�s a showman, and we�ve never had a showman in the president�s chair,� the octogenarian comic explained.
Jewish backers of Trump interviewed by the Forward sought to distinguish between the outspoken candidate�s achievement-driven personality, which they find attractive, and some of his positions, especially those relating to women and ethnic minorities, which they find unappealing.
�In the beginning I was very, very excited with Donald Trump. I admire his business ability and I think he is an amazing man,� Rubin said. �But I was shocked by some of the things he said.� But these comments did not make Trump any less of a legitimate candidate in Rubin�s eyes. She initially thought that Chris Christie would poll more strongly and that Jeb Bush (�He�s so nebbish, I can�t believe it�) would be a top-tier candidate. Trump, now in the lead, is just as good for Jewish voters, she said, as long as he defeats Hillary Clinton.
Some GOP candidates, mainly Bush, Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, have already built bridges to the Jewish community, cultivating donors and arranging meetings with community leaders.
�Do me a favor, just relax,� he told one of the people booing, in a trademark display of his accent on the chutzpah side of the ledger.
Trump also seemed to suggest that the wealthy Jewish donors in front of him sought to put a puppet in the White House. �You�re not going to support me even though you know I�m the best thing that could happen to Israel,� Trump said. �I know why you�re not going to support me � because I don�t want your money. You want to control your own politician.�
Image: Getty Images
No Joke: Jewish comedian Jerry Lewis recently endorsed Trump.
This approach has done little to build more bridges for Trump into the Jewish world. But one Trump enthusiast, Rabbi Bernhard Rosenberg of Edison, New Jersey, tried to change this reality, setting up a �Rabbis for Trump� Facebook group, only to learn he was the sole rabbi in the group. Rosenberg changed the name to the singular form, and now he runs the �Rabbi for Trump� page.
�Cruz already had his following of rabbis, and I didn�t see a lot of effort with regard to Trump,� Rosenberg told the Forward. �Politically, it�s not right to put all your eggs in one basket.�
Rosenberg, who is rabbi emeritus of Congregation Beth El in Edison, chose Trump because of his �personality, character and vigor to make change in this country.� He dismissed Trump�s use of offensive language toward women, Mexican immigrants and even to Jewish listeners as �his sense of humor,� which is �part of his personality.� If Trump gets elected, Rosenberg added, he�ll have to �tone it down a bit.�
As for Trump�s call to ban entry of Muslims to America, Rosenberg thinks it �didn�t come out correctly.� But he agrees with the need to halt absorption of refugees �until we know exactly what�s going on with the Muslim community coming from outside.�
For other Jewish backers of Trump, the call to ban Muslims was a breaking point.
Jeremy Leyden, a journalist and international media consultant, was drawn to Trump�s success story. �The man is successful; he knows business, knows how to negotiate and has a daughter who is an Orthodox Jew. I put it together, and it sounds very good,� said Leyden, who divides his time between the United States and Israel. �His personality is very Israeli,� Leyden observed. �He�s very confident, just like Israelis are, and you need to be confident in the Middle East. If you�re not, they�ll treat you like a rag.�
Image: Getty Images
Leyden used his digital marketing expertise to set up a Trump outreach campaign in New Hampshire with its own Facebook page. Separately, he also launched a �Jews 4 Trump� Facebook page and a Twitter account.
�Then he comes up with this proposed ban on Muslims,� Leyden said of Trump�s December 7 statement. �That really turned me off big time.�
Leyden asked the campaign for clarifications, and when those weren�t sufficient he raised his concerns on the New Hampshire Facebook page he had created, only to have the Trump campaign try to shut down the page. Leyden said he is now �moving away� from the Trump campaign and looking toward Cruz as his candidate. But the �Jews 4 Trump� page will remain active in the hope that the candidate will change his views on banning Muslims from entering the United States and state that he supports the unity of Jerusalem.
�There were many Jews who were initially turned off by Trump�s bombastic nature, and others were turned on by it but later became turned off because of the ban on Muslims,� he said.
Jonathan Gould, a New York entrepreneur, expressed the dilemma facing voters who see value in Trump�s anti-establishment posture while rejecting his policy on many other issues.
�I feel Donald Trump�s anti-Washington stance is worth continuing to hear even when it�s contrary to core Jewish values along the way,� he said. �Our country�s suffering from the lack of an effective government assaults my Jewish sensibilities.�
Spare a thought for the racists. They�re having a really hard time lately. They keep trying to oppress Muslims in a liberal, rational way but accidentally end up looking like Nazis.
Take, for example, recent discussions of banning halal meat. On the surface, it looks perfect for the racists. It involves animals, which everyone loves, so they can dress up the issue as about the welfare of cuddly sheep and, because making meat tends to involve killing animals, they can blow up the issue so it looks like killing animals is an exclusively Muslim practise.
They feign outrage at halal slaughter � you can�t kill an animal by slitting its throat! You�ve got to chase it through woods and have it ripped apart by dogs! That�s the civilised way of doing things.
But, the thing is, Jewish and Muslim methods of butchery are pretty much identical. The traditions barely diverge at all, except for the languages in which prayers are said. Personally, I�m happy to see halal as basically the same as kosher and, unless a rabbi is willing to sanction a chicken house that will give me six nuggets and a can of Coke for �3, I won�t be convinced otherwise.
What that means is that racists � when they do try to attack Muslim eating habits � end up attacking Jews� too. This puts them in quite an uncompromising position. When Jewish News recently asked UKIP how they could justify banning Jews from eating meat, their agricultural spokesperson, Stuart Agnew,stammered over the phone: �This isn�t aimed at you � it�s aimed elsewhere � it�s aimed at others. You�ve been caught in the crossfire; collateral damage. You know what I mean.�
Oh yes, Mr. Racist, yes we do. You�d like to persecute Muslims but � oops � some Jews just got in the way and made you look, well� like a racist.
I�m under no illusion that the racists don�t want to appear anti-Semitic because they actually like Jews. Far from it. They still hate us. It�s just that now we�re not numerous enough or obvious enough to be the principal target of their ire. Think that might be because we went through a bit of a genocide seventy years ago that we�re still trying to cope with.
And that�s why the racists don�t want to appear anti-Semitic. Everyone schoolchild learns the facts of the Holocaust and how awful the toxic combinations of nationalism and capitalism can be. Everyone � well, almost everyone � now agrees that it was one of the worst things Europeans have ever done. Jews are living reminders to those racists of where their policies actually lead. They can�t get away with doing it to us, because it just makes them look too obviously like Nazis.
Perhaps that�s why Scotland Yard were so quick to say that the white supremacist Joshua Bonehead probably couldn�t march through Stamford Hill. Thepolice�s responsewas that �it is unlikely to faciliate an event that would itself faciliate someone breaking the law. Using threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour� can be prosecuted as a criminal offence.�
Oh really? Where was this application of the law for ten years of English Defence League thugs storming through British streets? Why wasn�t that the case when the BNP and the National Front wanted to march?
I�m sure Bonehead�s White Power clan will still have a go at marching anyway, and I�m sure we�ll need to resist them anyway, but the utter hypocrisy from the police is astounding. On anti-fascist marches, I�ve seen police forces throughout the country casually facilitate racist thugs walking past mosques, through mixed residential areas and across town centres using plenty of threatening, abusive and insulting behaviour. In nearly every case, it was the people who came out to oppose them that were arrested, not the fascists.
I�m glad, I genuinely am, that the police want to take action to stop neo-Nazis in London. It makes a welcome change from them joining in and helping out. But it pains me that this policy is applied only to attacks on Jews, and not to all of Britain�s minorities.
This goes far deeper than obviously racist organisations like UKIP, National British Resistance and the police. Every lie in the establishment press that is told about Muslims today was told about Jews in the 1930s. Now, I�m not trying to be a hipster about this and say they�re copying our style, but the evidence speaks for itself.
The lie that Muslims are trying to take over the country? Told all the time about Jews in the 1930s. So pervasive was that belief that George Orwell dedicated an essay to debunking it.
The idea that Muslims are trying to impose their own laws here? Yeah, that�s exactly what the Jews were accused of too.
Even the claims of paedophile grooming gangs and gangsters are a re-hash from previous centuries. Dickens� character ofFaginwas based on pretty much that exact anti-Semitic trope. (Obviously there are Jews and Muslims who do such unspeakable things, as there are from literally every group on the planet � but if you�re looking for a private club that does them then colludes together to cover it up, I�d take a look at theHouses of Parliamentand theRoyal Family, rather than Britain�s minorities.)
Intelligent people would now never fall for such smears against Jews. They�ve learnt their history and they understand its lessons. So why do people continue to believe these lies about Muslims?
I think it�s clear that Jews need to step in to defend against the virulent Islamophobia in Europe. At every turn, we need to make clear that racists all begin in just the same way and that it will end up in just the same way. We need Jewish communal organisations to be at the forefront of fighting prejudice against Muslims. And if you�re not convinced by every moral and ethical argument there is, just remember: they�ll come for us next.
Would Jews who suffered enormously in holocaust could have imagined that their State would one day kill innocent children, almost the same way, as the Nazis did in Hitler's Germany?
And that many would term Israel as Nazi state! Further, the state of Israel would defend itself despite the wanton killings, refuse to accept the truth, disregard international opinion, and remain adamant, just like the perpetrators of Holocaust, seven decades ago.
What is happening today in Gaza [Palestine] is a tragedy. And how, the country [homeland] of the most persecuted group of people on earth, gets involved in such massacres, is equally a tragedy for mankind.
Across, the world, organisations, leaders, individuals of standing, are equating Israel's brutal killings of children, women and elderly, with Nazi Germany.
Even more, the Jews themselves, are saying it. Gaza is a virtual prison and is termed as 'concentration camp'. In America and several other countries, Jews are opposing Zionism and the policies of Israel. There are Jews protesting against the bloodbath in Gaza, and raising banners, saying that they are opposed to Israel's aggression.
How world sees Israel, which isolates itself, refuses to learn from its own experiences
African National Congress (ANC), the ruling party in South Africa, has termed Israeli military operation in Gaza strip, with the Nazi war against Jews.
ANC condemned the action as 'barbaric attacks' and that 'Israel has turned occupied territories into permanent death camps.
See the link comparing Israel's offensive to atrocities by Nazis, at this link, HERE
Many countries in Middle East, Asia and other parts of the world apart from Human Rights group have made similar comparison.
But what should serve as a wakeup call for the state of Israel is that even Jews are openly speaking up against the country's acts against civilian population in Gaza. TV star Roseanne Bar, who has Jewish ancestry, said that Israel was acting like Nazis.
She wrote this on her blog when there was similar attack on Gaza, last time. The comments drew strong reactions. She had written, "Israel is a NAZI state. The Jewish soul is being tortured in Israel". Read about it HERE.
Then, musician Roger Waters [who was earlier with Pink Floyd] made a similar assertion.
He compared modern state of Israel with Nazi Germany. The veteran rock star's comments had angered Zionists and pro-Israel lobby.
But he said that it was not anti-semitism. The report is HERE.
Brett Wilkins, in Digital Journal, wrote the article under the headline, 'Israel is much closer to Nazi Germany than Iran is'. [LINK].
The Committee for Remembrance Education, [Belgium], equates treatment of Palestinian Arabs by Israelis today with the treatment of Jews by Nazis in the 40s. See an earlier part to this article below:
MUST-READ Jews suffered holocaust, now inflict it on Palestinians Read to find out the historical issue, the problem of Palestine, how Europe persecuted Jews and later shifted the problem to Middle East, the sufferings of Jews, the manner in which Muslims saved persecuted Jews, and then the modern era--the Israel-Palestine conflict. READ IT HERE
