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January 24, 2007
Jews of Yemen, Liberals, & Modern Kapos
Many of Yemen's Jews this weekend fled their homes for a hotel after receiving death threats from Islamic militants accusing the country's tiny Jewish community of serving as agents for "global Zionism." The Jews said they feared for their lives. It was disclosed they had been forced to pay special taxes that Islam imposes on Jews and Christians in return for protection and security. About 45 Jews left their village in Sa'ada county in Yemen after Dawoud Yousuf Mousa, one of the heads of the local Jewish community, was warned Jan. 10 if the Jews don't leave within 10 days they would be exposed to killings, abductions and looting.
I suppose we thought that all the the Jews of Yemen emigrated to Israel.
Not so.
A tiny remnant exists in a state of siege, a state of fear, living under Dhimmitude. And recently, conditions for this embattled community have taken a turn for the worse.
About 45 Jews left their village in Sa'ada county in Yemen after Dawoud Yousuf Mousa, one of the heads of the local Jewish community, was warned Jan. 10 if the Jews don't leave within 10 days they would be exposed to killings, abductions and looting.
Four masked militants approached Mousa and delivered a letter to him warning the Jewish community had been under Islamic surveillance.
"After accurate surveillance over the Jews residing in Al Haid, it has become clear to us that they were doing things which serve mainly global Zionism, which seeks to corrupt the people and distance them from their principles, their values, their morals, and their religion," the letter stated.
In other words, the Jews of Yemen, have been observing the age-old rituals of Judaism: praying three times a day, eating kosher food, studying Torah, sanctifying the 613 positive and negative mitzvot. To the Arab/Muslim mind, this is defacto "serving global Zionism." And this cannot be dismissed as just one isolated incident. Just tune in to Al Jazeera, this is mainstream thinking, beamed out and into the Arab world 24/7.
"Islam calls upon us to fight against the disseminators of decay," the letter said. The threats have been attributed to disciples of Shiite religious leader Hossein Bader a-Din al-Khouty. Mousa reportedly told local authorities the militants told him if the Jews don't flee within 10 days "The Jewish community would bear the consequences." According to a recent Yemeni immigrant to Israel with contacts in Sa'ada, the Jewish community there received another letter Friday warning, "whoever remains at his home, will be killed or his children will be taken away."
Ah, the religion of peace. It is worth noting that Osama Bin Laden is from Yemen. It is also worth noting that the most fanatical terrorists in Iraq, those who are slaughtering Iraqi citizens--preferably women and children--are Yemenites. That's right, not Iraqi "freedom fighters" as the liberals in the west would have you believe. No, the terrorists in Iraq are, for the most part, foreign killers: Yemenites, Saudis, Palestinians (big shock, huh?) Islamic totalitarians, all.
Sa'ada's Jewish community had lived in the village for generations. They were forced to evacuate their homes and leave some of their possessions with local sheiks. The displaced Jews are staying at a hotel in the center of Sa'ada, where they have been petitioning local authorities for protection. The Yemen Jews say the government has refused to offer assistance other than to temporarily pay for the hotel stays.
The Jews reportedly spoke of long-term Muslim intimidation and of having to pay special taxes because they were Jewish. Salem Al Wehayshi, Sadaa deputy governor, told the Gulf News agency the Jews are being asked to go home. "Yes, they received threats from Al Houthi supporters. They are now here in the hotel but I can assure you that the problem will be solved today, and they will return to their villages," Wehayshi said.
Uh-huh.
The Jewish community in Yemen consists of several hundred members. According to recent immigrants to Israel, the Yemeni Jews don't want to leave their country. Yemen's Jews have faced persecution since Israel's establishment in 1948. After the declaration of the Jewish state, Muslim rioters killed 81 Jews in Aden, a large Yemeni city, and destroyed many Jewish cities. Most of Yemen's Jews were evacuated to Israel in Operation Magic Carpet, a series of semi-secret airlifts between June 1949 and September 1950 that brought 45,000 to the Jewish state with the assistance of Britain and the U.S.
A smaller, continuous migration was allowed to continue until 1962, when a civil war in Yemen put an abrupt halt to any further Jewish exodus. Several thousand Jews remained. Then in the early 1990s, after years of petitioning by a group led by a professor at New York's Yeshiva University, most of the rest of Yemen's Jews were brought to Israel, except the few hundred who decided to stay in Yemen.
For more information go to International Sephardic Leadership Council.
The Arab world is basically Judenrein.
In contrast, approximately a million Arabs, Sunni, Shiite, Christian, and Druze, are citizens and live in the State of Israel. These Arabs have more civil rights in a Jewish state than Arabs have anywhere else in the Muslim world.
Yet for some reason it has become perfectly acceptable that a Jewish citizenry not be permitted to live in Gaza. In fact, we witnessed Jews expelling Jews, by force, from their homes. This horror was cheered on, characterized as "a step forward for peace" by large segments of the elites in western democracies.
Hours later, the Arabs commenced an orgy of looting, burning, and destroying Jewish homes and greenhouses in Gaza. Nothing was built by the Arabs of Gaza in the wake of the Jewish withdrawal. No, as always, destruction prevailed.
I'll never forget how the NY Times "journalist" Steven Erlanger, described the burning of the Gaza Synagogues:
"Fires and pillars of smoke climb into the sky."
In other words, the fires started all by themselves. Spontaneous combustion. G-d forbid Erlanger should be do his job, be accurate, tell the truth: the Arabs immediately set the Synagogues on fire. The "journalist" well knows that this is the action of barbarians -- and the N.Y. Times, liberal/progressive, defends barbarians, enables barbarians. Thus, as the Israelis were expelled from their homes in Gaza, as Synagogues were consumed, the Arabs also set up their rocket launchers --
-- this is known, children, as cause and effect.
And the rockets were immediately labeled by these same liberal/progressive journalists as: "crude, inaccurate, ineffective."
This is not only the death of language, but language that defends and justifies terrorism and terrorists; language and concepts that enable terrorists to continue their butchery; language that makes it easy for the terrorists to escalate and improve their killing methodology. Here the bloodless language of murder gradually, seamlessly becomes respectable under the black banner of: "All the News That's Fit to Print."
Thus, terrorizing and killing Jews is, in true Stalin-speak, downgraded, rendered as "just a crude rocket" launched by "militants." Note that according to the N.Y. Times and their fellow liberal/progressive there are no terrorists any longer on planet earth.
In Paris, they are distilled into "angry youths." In Pakistan, those who behead are reamagined as, at worst, "shadowy militants." In Israel, most often, terrorists are defanged into "security forces," or "angry, unemployed militants." Indeed, the Palestinians, who invented and perfected modern state Arab terrorism, have been given the gift of Orwellian double-speak on a truly colossal scale.
Here we have language that is comlicit in the murder of innocent men, women and children.
It is well worth quoting from our Rabbis: "Death and life lie in the power of the tongue." (Mishlei, Proverbs 18:21.)
Liberal/Progressive Jews support this same position in regard to Jews living in Judea and Samaria. Need we add that so do the bloody PA and Hamas, as do Hizbullah, Syria, Iran, and every Jew-hating regime on the face of the earth.
--this is known, children, as trading land for war.
For some reason, policies that are clearly a prelude to Dhimmitude, policies that support state sponsored terrorism, policies that cozy up to regimes that deny the Holocaust are supported by so-called Liberal/Progressives. Perhaps Liberal/Progressives are, in fact, not so liberal, not so progressive. Perhaps we Conservatives are the true liberals, the true progressives. Anyway, for some perverse reason, these policies, already proven not just wrong in Gaza, but murderous and strategically disastrous, are still supported by the intellectual elites. Yes, they assure us, if the "West Bank territories" are vacated, well, there will be fewer obstacles to peace.
INTERPOLATION
Have they bothered to ask King Abdullah of Jordan his opinion of this brilliant withdrawal plan?
I'll bet they have not.
For it spells doom for the Hashemite Kingdom. Most definitely a bloody civil war, but when Arabs slaughter Arabs -- who cares, right? Certainly not Arabs.
Remember what happened when Arafat and the PLO tried to overthrow the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan back in September 1970. So murderous were the Jordanian attacks on the PLO, men, women and children, that the Palestinians crossed the River Jordan and begged the Israelis for protection, sanctuary from their brother Arabs. This butchery became known by various names, my personal favorite: "The Era of Regrattable Events." But you will know it by the label that has the most blood on it -- Jewish blood: Black September.
END INTERPOLATION
Conveniently they forget the two biggest obstacle of all:
1. The State of Israel.
2. The existence of living, breathing Jews, in Muslim "Holy Lands."
Personally, I think that Jews should be able to live wherever they want to live: Jerusalem, London, Judea, Ankara, Damascus, Gaza, Brooklyn, Los Angeles, Samaria, Melbourne, Tokyo, Beijing, Hong Kong, -- sigh, even Paris.
The only reason there is any debate about Jewish so-called "settlers" is because the Arab world, an overwhelmingly Islamo Fascist culture, has played on the comfortable, self-induced guilt of the liberal west, and thus, once again the Jews have been scapegoated.
And when we point out the oh-so-obvious pathological Jew hatred, they revert to their most comfortable default position: victimhood, shrieking:
"You have a lot of nerve calling me an anti-Semite. I am merely anti-Zionist. Typical of your kind, unable to debate the facts, therefore you end up making ad-hominem attacks."
My kind, indeed.
And this private e-mail, one of our absolute favorites:
"How dare you accuse me of anti-Jewish hatred! I'll have you know that I am Jewish. In fact, several of my ancestors perished in the concentration camps!! Hence, my sensitivity to the truly oppressed of the earth! And my shame at the vile behavior of the Israelis--who should not be there in the first place!!--occupiers/oppressors/war mongers!!! Long live Palestine!!!"
Eva, yup, that's how she signed her e-mail, priceless, huh? Anyway, Eva uses more exclamation points in one short e-mail than I use in an entire screenplay. Note: So many !!! tend to diminish their collective and singular power. Less is more. Is it any wonder I tend to think of liberals as, er, somewhat shrill.
My response:
"Dear Eva:
Biology and bloodlines are the private obsessions and public fixations of Nazis, the Ku Klux Klan, the Aryan Nation, and other such incendiary knuckleheads. We, on the other hand, like Viktor Frankl, are more concerned with values over biology. In other words, the quaint notion of good vs. evil. As Mr. Frankl famously said: "I recognize only two races of man: the decent and the indecent."
Thus, morality transcends DNA.
You, Eva, cannot hide behind the holy neshamas, souls, and the holy deaths of those who were martyred in the Holocaust. In fact, to do so marks you as one whose moral compass is not just broken, but shattered beyond repair.
Further, we close with this: we well recognize you Eva, we well recognize your fractured discourse for you are just another murderous, self-justifying kapo.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at January 24, 2007 09:36 AM
Comments
Seraphic Secret is private property, that's right, it's an extension of our home, and as such, Karen and I have instituted two Seraphic Rules and we ask commentors to act respectfully.
1. No profanity.2. No Israel bashing. We debate, we discuss, we are respectful. You know what Israel bashing is. The world is full of it. Seraphic Secret is one of the few places in the world that will not tolerate this form of anti-Semitism. That's it. Break either of these rules and you will be banned.
My response to Eva has less to do with ideology than character.
Societies, cultures, religion and people are judged on what they build, not by what they destroy. In other words, it is the actions and not the words, that are in the end, most relevant.
For decades, the Palestinians have made their intent known.
'Slaughter the Jews!' they say- repeated daily in school, media and repeated in from the pulpit, all to often.
Nursery age children are taught to hate and are applauded at home and again at home, when they mimic and parrot the hate they have learned. A recent favorite nursery school slogan and song that has become popular among children is 'Hamas! Hamas! Jews to the gas!'
In recent elections, 25 or so Palestinian candidates used the moniker of 'abu Hitler' or a derivative thereof.
Eva has no credibility whatsoever, lost relatives notwithstanding.
Indeed, if she thinks that relatives lost in the Holocaust endows her with a certain morality, she needs to be reminded that for more people that lost relatives in the Holocaust find her position repulsive, ugly and hypocritical, at best.
Eva's lost relatives can no doubt be found on the shores of the Heavenly 'waters of Babylon, sitting and weeping.'
She has made them so proud, as she casts her lot with those that would kill her. She and her ilk live as long as they dance and entertain the murderers. She needs us to believe that she, and not us, are in the wrong, even as Hamas refuses to recognize Israel's right to exist. Hassan Nasrallah, (Hamas idol) is grateful for Israel, "Because we won't have to round the Jews up. They are already in one place."
These are the people with whom Eva has cast her lot. In my business we call that 'projection' and 'denial.'
Dance, Eva, dance.
Posted by: sigmund, carl and alfred at January 24, 2007 02:28 PM
Do you know if there is any sort of plan or campaign to rescue the remaining Yemeni Jews and bring them to Israel? Is Yemen preventing them from leaving?
Posted by: Fern R at January 24, 2007 02:33 PM
Fern:
Just guessing here, but there are so few Yemenite Jews, and Yemen is such a llunatic country, a tribal society really, more Kalachnikovs than people, that I'm almost certain that no official plan exists to rescue this remnant.
Far more numerous, and greatly in play are the Jews of Persia. Don't even ask.
Posted by: Robert J. Avrech ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.seraphicpress.com/nav-commenters.gif)
at January 24, 2007 03:40 PM
Simply revolting.
Posted by: Jack at January 24, 2007 09:07 PM
I read the words of an "Eve" or the many Jews that hate their own...and I just shake inside. I can almost understand (though not forgive or be complacent and not fight against) anti-Semitism from the truly ignorant Muslims in the Arab lands.
How can Jews espouse these kinds of positions? I know there are the psychological explanations, as above, but it just overwhelms me to think that someone who lost family in the Holocaust could be so sick inside, so completely delusional, that they would cheer for the new set of murderers.
It's madness or evil or both. The softer idiocies of the "Peace Now" groups, of the liberal Jews who while still say they support Israel, come from blindness too, but Eva goes to self-hatred in a way that just scares the living heck out of me.
How to really explain the madness of the Neturei Karta and Eva...to paraphrase, with "relatives" like these, who needs enemies?.
Posted by: Maurice at January 24, 2007 10:49 PM
Bravo, sir.
Focussed and very nicely worded. I am perpetually bemused by creatures such as Anthony Lowenstein, notorious (here in Australia) for being a self-loathing, pro palestinian, pro islamofascist Jew.
I simply cannot understand the basic lack of moral and ethical foundation in such people.
Regards: MarkL
Canberra
Posted by: MarkL at January 25, 2007 03:22 AM
Sadly, Rob, your words are true about the language dying. It is my belief that among other things, a language is the life and strength of a people. A good language makes good ideas easier to understand; a bad language makes them harder.
Ethnically speaking, I'm mostly British, (Welsh/Anglo/Saxon/Irish) though I am actually just an American. I would like to believe that I am counted among the decent, among the men; the honorable and reasonable.
It pains me to see how our language English, which is become one of the most powerful languages in the world, is so readily abused and taken for granted. It is not just the language of the English or the Americans, but the language of anyone who learns it and speaks it in their daily life.
But I fear that the degradation of our language is just a symptom of a deeper illness. Our culture has begun (Americans) a slow rot since the end of The War Between The States. Not that the American Civil War itself was the cause. It actually saved us from ourselves for a good long time.
It began when men substituted Truth for 'Darwinian truth' - that is, a literal application of Darwin's theories to everything, including metaphysical truth. When they stopped saying, "What's true is true" and started saying, "What's 'true' is 'true' because of an evolutionary accident; There is no truth but what I conceive..." they twofold abused on one hand a brilliant insight into the nature of biology and on the other planted a lie deep within our nation's heart.
When good men turn away from their nation and back to their families and clans, the age of civilization is over.
Posted by: RiverCocytus at January 25, 2007 05:52 AM
Jack:
You write: "Simply revolting."
We admire your brevity.
Posted by: Robert J. Avrech at January 25, 2007 10:37 AM
Maurice:
I have given up "understaning." Really, did our parents sit around analyzing the motives of the Nazis and the Japanese during World War II?
No, they did not.
They bravely went to war, and they defeated the barbarians. They killed them. They also killed plenty of civilians--and understood that the civilians supported the armies hence had to pay the price for their enthusiastic support of evil regimes.
Our post-modern obsession with "understanding the other" is--there is no other word for it--counterproductive.
It's what they want. It's what they count on. Inevitably, it can only lead to a shrugging off of personal responsibility.
I don't care why Eva is the way she is. It's enough that she and they exist, and that she is my enemy, the enemy of the Jewish people, the enemy of civilization. Eva's fate goes hand in hand with all terrorists. That's all we need to know. The rest is just commentary.
Posted by: Robert J. Avrech at January 25, 2007 10:52 AM
MarkL:
Good to hear from you again. Quck aside: My father-in-Law, ZT'L, was invited on a speaking tour of Australia's Jewish community about 15 years ago. When he returned he told me that Australia was a "delight." He just could not stop smiling. Till the end of his days his fond memories of Australia never dimmed.
Yes, we have have heard of this creature Anthony Lowenstein. What can we say, we Jews seem to spawn an overabundance of self-loathing traitors. My only comfort is that these Quislings are recognized as such by history and labeled Amalek.
Posted by: Robert J. Avrech at January 25, 2007 11:03 AM
The forgotten Millions, edited by Malka Hillel Shulewitz, tells of the Jews of Najran, (Asir) and Jizan formerly provinces of Yemen but annexed by Saudi Arabia in 1934 who were expelled by the thousands. I haven't found any online source for this. (Other than a blog entry I wrote.)
Posted by: soccerdad at January 25, 2007 11:08 AM
RiverCocytus:
Thanks so much for your most interesting and original comment. The original title for my post was: The Death of Language. However, it sounded too academic.
Here's a thought: Every country on the face of the earth that speaks English is free: America, Canada, England, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, Wales, Scotland...
Coincidence?
I think not.
One country on the face of the earth that speaks Hebrew, the Holy language: Hebrew, Also free: Israel.
Coincidence?
Meanwhile, Arabic. 22 Arab countries, 22 throat-slitting tyrannies.
Coincidence?
I think not.
Any thoughts?
Posted by: Robert J. Avrech at January 25, 2007 11:17 AM
Soccerdad:
Great book. I read it a few years ago and mean to blog about it, and then somehow got sidetracked. Yes, Yemen and Saudi Arabia have had bloody border wars forever. No one cares. Least of all other Arabs.
P.S. Mazal Tov, I see Jules Crittenden has linked to you recently.
Posted by: Robert J. Avrech at January 25, 2007 02:08 PM
this piece is brilliant, Robert; simply brilliant. Kol Hakavod !!
Posted by: Daniel Wohlgelernter at January 25, 2007 11:05 PM
Daniel:
Thanks so very much.
Posted by: Robert J. Avrech at January 25, 2007 11:33 PM
Rob,
In the beginning God spoke the world into being.
God's words created all--
Our words cannot actually alter or create the fabric of reality directly; but our words shape and create the way we see this, same reality. And to man, how he sees the world is his totality of it.
In short our words create the internal reality of our mind through which we sense reality.
As someone said, "Same earth, different universe..."
Is it any surprise that Greek, with its four 'if's, became a great language of thinkers, and the conduit of much philosophy?
One little interesting test that I recently stumbled on (in the metaphysical sense) was to look at a collection of names that derive from a particular language.
What names people bother naming their children and remembering says a lot about that language.
Interestingly, English has a plethora of Hebrew-derived names, which are mostly biblical names. Which in turn are mostly forms of 'God loves.. God saves... God redeems...' etc. There are warrior names from Gaelic, Welsh, Norse, like 'Randolf' which means 'Shield Wolf', female ones like 'Emily' meaning 'rival'. The most peculiar thing about English is the number of names we have that are derived from place-names; cities, lands, buroughs. Names like 'Raleigh', 'Leslie', etc.
Anyway, I've yet to do a really, really deep study of it, but it struck me when I was flipping through names.
Your first name, and everyone's: is the blessing (or burden) given to them by their parents. So long as we remember what they mean. Your last name is like a blessing (or perhaps a hard calling) from God.
My own name means 'Garden' or 'Gardener'. It is another way our language itself shapes who we are.
I wrote once:
"For when the word 'discriminate' can no longer used to mean 'discern between' or cut into 'dis' and 'criminate' freely, the language is becoming a cage."
I would go so far as to say-- if and when we (the west) are finally carried off in cages, it will not be because of them; but because of the cages we built in our minds long ago.
The French, on the other hand, have a ministry of language to make sure that their cages are beautiful and well-kept. (Bit of sarcasm there...)
Man, its such a deep subject. I guess it would be of some interest to you as a screenwriter. Someone called Van turned me onto this article recently from over at Gagdad Bob's (One Cosmos) -- Witnit on shakespeare - read past his part on being a heretic on shakespeare down to his January 1st post.
Posted by: RiverCocytus at January 27, 2007 07:30 PM
RiverC:
Thanks so much for all the input. You have me running to the internet, looking up sources all over the place now. So little time...
Posted by: Robert J. Avrech at January 29, 2007 10:07 AM