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Monday, October 13, 2008

The Jewish Stockholm Syndrome

Some of you may remember the Stockholm Syndrome. It's a psychological response whereby the hostage shows signs of loyalty and attachment to the hostage-taker, regardless of the abusive conditions they've been subjected to or the risk to their own survival.

This election cycle has given us a classic example. No matter what else happens, you can be sure that at least 60% of the Jewish vote, if not more, will go to Barack Hussein Obama and the Democrat ticket.

It's passing strange that this should be so, to say the least.

Barack Obama's past associations, not to mention his present ones ought to set off warning signals to most Jews equivalent to a three alarm fire in a crowded city.

Here we have a presidential candidate who's avowed hero and role model was the renowned anti-Semite Malcolm X; who's spiritual mentor at the church he chose to belong to for two decades was a vicious Jew hater and racist named Jeremiah Wright, who supports Jew-hating Louis Farrakhan, the Nation of Islam and Hamas; and who's long time associate and benefactor, black separatist and radical Islamist Khalid al-Mansour provided Obama's close connection to both the Nation of Islam and the Saudis.

None of that seems to be a warning signal to the majority of American Jews. And neither is Obama's instant flip flop on Jerusalem, his endorsement by Hamas, Louis Farakhan, Ahmadinejad, Hezbollah and virtually every other Islamist on earth, Obama's observation that ‘Nobody is suffering more than the Palestinian people’or the quaint little fact that just about every prominent member of his foreign policy team (with the exception of the newly arrived Dennis Ross) is overtly hostile to Israel and considers the Jewish State the 'problem' that's needs solving in the Middle East.

Mere details. Total silence. Besides, to these people, there's a truly dangerous person running for the White House..Sarah Palin.

Now, there's someone worthy of being demonized.

Never mind that Sarah Palin and Senator McCain are both fervently pro-Israel, and that both Palin and McCain are outspoken on the need to stand with Israel against Iran and prevent a second Holocaust and refuse to consider dealing with Iran until they drop that little item from their agenda.

No matter that Sarah Palin has an Israeli flag in her office, that every Jew with personal knowledge of her from the head of Chabad in Anchorage, Rabbi Josef Greenberg on down has praised her support of Israel and the Jewish people.

None of it matters. To listen to the screams of outrage from certain quarters, you'd think that Sarah Palin was der Führer reincarnated as a yahoo redneck from America's outback.

This insanity has included obscene rants from completely secular Jews like Sandra Bernhard,and has even extended to successful pressure from the Jewish Left to exclude Sarah Palin from speaking in solidarity with the Jewish people at an anti-Ahmadinejad demonstration in front of the UN when Iran's president and resident Holocaust denier-in-chief visited New York City...an amazingly short-sighted insult towards someone who might one day be a heartbeat away from the presidency.

What's going on, cousins, is that the majority of Jews in America have been hostages of the Democrats for so long that they will willfully ignore their own real interests,side with their captors and adopt their interests as their own, no matter what. Classic Stockholm Syndrome.

All we have to do to prove this is to look at what Sarah Palin's biggest crimes are in their eyes.

For starters, Sarah Palin is an Evangelical Christian.That alone is enough to start these people salivating about burning her at the stake.

The idea of Jews demonizing Evangelical Christians, who are beyond a doubt as a group the most fervent non-Jewish supporters of Israel and the Jewish people might seem odd, even self-destructive until you realize that for a lot of secular Jews on the Left, Israel is far down the list of important issues, if it even appears on the list at all.

For most of these people, abortion, homosexual marriage and mouthing the catechism of the Left to keep favor with their ideological captors are far more important. I remember a conversation I had a couple of years back with Natan Sharansky during a university tour he did here, and I'll always remember his shock at how little so many Jews he ran into knew or cared about Israel and why it should matter to them personally.

They simply don't get it.

The absurd thing is, a lot of Leftist Jews try to justify this attitude by claiming that Evangelicals only support Israel so that all the Jews can be gathered there and either convert or be destroyed at the End of Days. To understand how ridiculous this is, you actually have to read Scripture and look at the Bible and the Gospels to understand where the Christian Evangelical regard for Israel and the Jews really comes from.....but then again, that's something almost none of the people regurgitating this urban legend have ever done in their lives.

Then of course, there's abortion.

It's abortion in particular that makes a lot of Leftist Jewish women froth at the mouth, to the point where poor Sarah Palin might as well have a huge scarlet "A" pinned to her chest. Imagine this trailer trash breeder, with five kids.. and not only that, one of them is a baby with Down's Syndrome that not only didn't she abort but says she feels blessed to have given birth to. The nerve! How dare she not endorse Obama and the pro infanticide ticket? Is she trying to shame us and make us look bad?

Given their attitudes on Israel and on these social issues, it's no wonder spokesmouths of Leftist secular Jewish opinion like Ira Foreman and Sarah Silverman continue to whine that Sarah Palin is 'totally out of step’ with American Jewish public opinion. And of course, they're largely correct..at least when it comes to secular Jews on the Left. Most of them would vote for Hermann Göring himself if he had a small 'd' after his name, made some vague, innocuous remarks about supporting Israel and embraced the abortion sacrament.

There's a verse in Deuteronomy 30:19 traditionally read at Yom Kippur services that says: "I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Therefore choose life, so that you and your descendants may live."

The current election underlines the divide between those Jews who've embraced a culture of life and those who've embraced a culture of death and continue to be hostages to their Leftist captors, no matter how many betrayals have occurred..always to their intense shock and surprise, when they finally realize it.

And yes, I realize what a harsh statement that is.

This goes beyond mere party identification and cuts to the core of whom someone is and what they believe in their heart of hearts.

And the most bitterly ironic joke of all is that someone like a Sarah Palin or a Pastor John Hagee would be demonized by people who claim to represent `Jewish values' but who almost always lack even a remote clue as to what those values actually are, ('tikkun olam', anyone?) and have little or no understanding of their past.

Instead, they eagerly embrace and articulate the values of people who mean them no good whatsoever and thus are condemned to repeat the cycle.

Like I said, classic Stockholm....



15 comments:

  1. Anonymous1:31 PM

    I have never understood the Jewish community's affinity with the American left. Stockholm syndrome is a wonderful explanation.

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  2. Anonymous1:32 PM

    Unfortunately you are absolutely correct. The Democrats have such a stranglehold on my fellow Jews, I just want to scream. My cousin once said that any Jew who votes for Obama should have his head examined. Unfortunately, this is 60% of American Jews.
    What can be done to change it?
    Eric.

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  3. Thanks for the kind words, both of you and welcome to Joshua's Army.

    Eric, over time, the problem is fixing itself, believe it or not. Sadly, most Leftist Jews have little connection with Judaism
    or Israel, intermarry and/or have none or few kids whom also tend to intermarry.

    If you look in your own community, you'll see that the Jews that are having the kids, sending them to dayschool, and continue to have an involvement with Jewish life are almost always the Orthodox and the observant..who tend to be unabashedly pro-Israel and who mostly vote conservative.

    Let me not be misunderstood..there are indeed non-observant Jews who are passionate Zionists, but by and large what I'm saying is easily seen as a trend.

    All Best,
    ff

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  4. Anonymous12:32 PM

    I know this is not the whole story, but the problem with Evangelical Christians is the missionaries. That hatred of the people who saw in Jesus the Jewish Messiah, and who have not stopped saying so, trumps everything else. As another of that dread band, it seems to me that the Chasidim would sooner march willingly and directly into another holocaust than accept support from Evangelical Christians.

    Which is quite sad, because we know that Christianity is nothing if it is not Jewish. We know that much done in the name of christianity has been pagan and abhorrent to God, but is a result of the nationalisation of the church by Constantine to solve his own political problems. But then I doubt that those who take their spiritual guidance from the black hat brigade would even venture here.

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  5. Oi Yokel!
    How goes it on your side of the pond?

    We agree on most things, you and I, but based on my own experience, I would differ with you on which part of the Jewish community is Christianophobic.

    Most Chassidim and Orthodox Jews have no problem with either Evangelicals or with the likes of Sarah Palin or Pastor John Hagee, (a)because they have enough knowledge of scripture and history to understand where these people are coming from and (b) because most Evangelical Christians would never even attempt missionary activities on a committed Jew.

    I can testify to both of these facts personally.

    The outrage directed at Christians comes, oddly enough, from Leftist/secular Jews with little or no religious inclination for exactly the reason you bring up..because Christianity's moral codes contradict the Leftist cathecism.

    A good example of this is Sandra Bernhard's obscene rant, which you can find by searching this site.

    All Best,
    ff

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  6. Have you heard that Sarah Palin is Jewish? Read the story here. I wonder if that will change any of the liberal left jews' minds, I doubt it; they will believe in Barack Obama right up until the time when it is too late for Israel and the rest of the civilized world.

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  7. Anonymous4:53 PM

    I think you've written something very important here, and am email it to every Jew I know.

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  8. Ms. Bookworm, I'm honored and flattered.

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  9. I do know Orthodox Jews that send their kids to Jewish day school and *still* support Obama. And they are working on convincing other Orthodox Jews to support Obama. I guess the non-Israel issues are that important to them? I don't get it.

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  10. If you look in your own community, you'll see that the Jews that are having the kids, sending them to dayschool, and continue to have an involvement with Jewish life are almost always the Orthodox and the observant..who tend to be unabashedly pro-Israel and who mostly vote conservative

    And yet there are far more of us who send our kids to dayschool, who are not Orthodox and who are Pro-Israel that are Independent than you realize.

    It is a mistake and a mischaracterization of far too many to try and paint things in such black and white terms.

    There is absolutely nothing wrong with being concerned about evangelical support and its origins.

    There is nothing wrong with being offended by the millions of dollars that are spent by those who support missionary groups on trying to convert us.

    Palin is an ignorant tool whose inclusion on the ticket killed untold numbers of votes for McCain.

    People can call that what they want, but it doesn't mean that critical reasoning and logical thought were not applied to the decision not to support that ticket.

    The reality is that for millions of people this election is viewed as having choices,bad and worse.

    I don't trust either party to be a friend to Israel.

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  11. Hi Leora and Jack, and welcome to Joshua's Army.

    Guess what? Support for Israel is an important issue for both Jews and non-Jews, religious or secular..but most people, Jews or Gentiles could not begin to tell you why.

    To me, aside from basic considerations of fairness, morality and/or tribal loyalty, it is a matter of cold pragmatism and patriotism.

    Leora , I don't know your locale but based on what I've seen, there's a real divide between the observant Jewish community and the secular one, although these are generalities and there are obviously non-observant Jews who see how dangerous an Obama administration would likely be and a few Jews who consider themselves observant who obviously support Obama.

    There's a reason for that. Aside from the Jew haters and Islamists swarming around him, his economic policies ( `spread the wealth around!') are socialist in the extreme, his stance on infanticide ( and I am by no means a hardliner on abortion)is morally indefensible, his role as the head of the Annenberg challenge in foisting Leftist propanga on the public schools and his resistance to school choice and vouchers,his support for huge tax increases on all income levels of working Americans to fund his dubious programs, and lastly, his two decades long membership in a racist and anti-Semitic church ought to be enough for ANY thinking American to reject his candidacy, let alone anyone who considers themselves religious, or even moral.

    Plus, as an added incentive an Obama/Biden administration will be a foreign policy disaster, and not just regarding Israel.

    The above issues ought to particularly resonate with Jews, and the fact that they don't is something I've attempted to explain here.

    Jack , I don't regard Jews supporting Obama as being `independent' but sheeplike hostages to people who mean them no good.Plain and simple.

    And as for your take on missionary activities, as I said, few Christians would attempt to convert a committed Jew for religious reasons.

    However, non-committed Jews with little or no Jewish identification is a different matter ( which is what Ann Coulter was actually talking about)..and might I point out that Chabad spends millions of dollars going after the same clientle? Are you likewise offended by Chabad? I'm not.

    Judeo-Christian ethics are the foundation of Western civilization and this country, and anything that gives people a sense of that and provides them with some spiritual armor is fine by me. Perhaps we would both rather it was Chabad, but that's a choice people have to make for themselves, and better something than nothing, sez I.

    Thanks for dropping by.

    ff

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  12. However, non-committed Jews with little or no Jewish identification is a different matter ( which is what Ann Coulter was actually talking about)..and might I point out that Chabad spends millions of dollars going after the same clientle? Are you likewise offended by Chabad? I'm not.

    Chabad's efforts don't bother me at all. They are Jews who are trying to keep other Jews from leaving the flock.

    To me that is far different than trying to "witness" them into converting.

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  13. Hello Jack,
    I understand where you're coming from,and forgive me - I have no intention of trying to be offensive.I too would love to see more of these people become committed Jews, and I support Chabad.

    My point was that the vast majority of Christians would never even attempt to convert a comitted Jew.

    Christianity is a missionary faith,(like Islam) and a big part of it's raison d'etre is `spreading the good news' and gathering conversions. Asking them to not go after non-committed, secular people of any persuasion is like expecting a particularly motivated shoe salesman not to at least try to sell shoes to a barefoot man walking by his store.

    And at that, a lot of pro-Israel groups like Pastor Hagee's and Calvary Chapel make a point of eschewing missionary activities among Jews.

    I should add something else here, something I'm afraid will upset you but I can't lie about it. If I have to make a choice between these people being secular Leftists with no feeling for Torah values, Israel and the Jewish people or being moral, pro-Israel Christian converts who are allies to the Jews,I'd have to pick door number two.

    We had best stop demonizing our allies.

    B'Shalom,
    Rob

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  14. Palin is an ignorant tool whose inclusion on the ticket killed untold numbers of votes for McCain.

    As if people who wouldn't like Sarah also would have voted for McCain against Obama. As if. Pardon me if I don't buy into that particular delusion.

    Also, the idea that Sarah actually decreased McCain's votes is indicative of the same rotten reasoning as produces the analysis that one is a pro-Israel support while doing anything but.

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  15. Anonymous5:17 AM

    Palin is far from ignorant , her IQ is well above 125, she is who she is..A very strong conservative who changes what needs to be changed. Watching her for years now, her style may not be a phoney Hillery Clinton..Pelosi.Boxer..her Style is to get things done as the people she represents want it done, with less government. She is as Honest as the day is long, which is more than I can say for Anyone in our government , period. She bends to no one, and never a lobbiest, she learned allot this time out, she was beat down like a dog..when the Real Enemy obama was never questioned once about anything..America gave a monster a free pass. No..its plain most people are a poor judge come election time. Palin would Never do what Obama is now doing to America. McCain was a fall guy..never intended to win, we all knew that.Palin will be the choosen one, she will be the only one who can beat Obama. Obama was put in office to get the democrates agenda done, and to destroy America as best he can, he will probably give his live to this cause. Palin is being groom as we speak, get to know her, she is America.

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