A candle is a brief flare of light. A wick dipped in oil burns and then goes out again. The light of Chanukah appears to follow the same narrative. Briefly there is light and warmth and then darkness again. Out of the exile of Babylon, the handful that returned to resettle and rebuild the land faced the might of new empires. The Jews who returned from the exile of one evil empire some twenty-six hundred years ago were forced to decide whether they would be a people with their own faith and history, or the colony of another empire, with its history and beliefs. Jerusalem's wealthy elites threw in their lot with the empire and its ways. But out in the rural heartland where the old ways where still kept, a spark flared to life. Modi'in. Maccabee. And so war came between the handfuls of Jewish Maccabee partisans and the armies of Antiochus IV’s Selecuid empire. A war that had its echoes in the past and would have it again in the future as lightly armed and untrained ar
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A Tiny Minority of Half a Million Jihadists
Islamic terrorists are a “tiny minority of extremists”. That’s the message we’ve been hearing ever since 9/11. They’re only a handful of “guys in a cave” or a few “lone wolves” radicalized over the internet. How tiny is that tiny minority? According to a study by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, there are 230,000 Jihadists. Put this tiny minority of extremists together in a city and you would have Boise, Idaho, or Richmond, Virginia, or Des Moines, Iowa. But that’s not a roster of Muslim civilians who support Islamic terrorism, just active members of terrorist groups. And so a better point of comparison is to national armies. At 230,000, Sunni Islamic Jihadists outnumber the British Armed Forces (149,000), the French Armed Forces (117,000), and Germany's Bundeswehr (179,753). That should be troubling since those are some of the militaries and countries on the front lines of Europe’s reluctant fight against Islamic incursions. The list of Sunni fighters has a
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First They Came for Confederate Generals, Then for Black Conservatives
The Benjamin Carson High School of Science and Medicine near the Detroit Medical Center has an ambitious program of preparing its mostly African-American students for careers in medicine. Students from Ben Carson High recently toured a hospital and experienced what it’s like to be doctors. The school’s name, in its own words, honors “Dr. Benjamin Carson whose journey from impoverished, inner-city Detroit youth to acclaimed neurosurgeon is remarkable and is a constant reminder to Benjamin Carson students that their career dreams are achievable.” Or maybe not. The Detroit school board voted to rename the school under guidelines that say a school can be renamed when it doesn’t reflect the student population or when “information newly discovered about the current name of the school is negative in nature.” LaMar Lemmons, a Democrat, was the leading advocate for removing Ben Carson's name from the school. Lemmons, who along with his wife, Georgia Lemmons, sits on the school bo
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Fake Orthodox Jews Against Trump
You could find Rabbi Mike Moskowitz protesting for illegal aliens at “Moral Mincha” rallies organized by Torah Trumps Hate (TTH) and Hitoreri: An Orthodox Movement for Social Change. Both lefty groups claim to be Orthodox Jewish organizations and with his black hat, dark suit and black beard, “Rabbi” Mike Moskowitz certainly looks the part of a real Orthodox Rabbi. But he’s as real as Hitoreri and Torah Trumps Hate. “Rabbi” Moskowitz is actually employed by Congregation Beit Simchat Torah, a gay non-Orthodox institution. Its clerical leader, “Rabbi” Sharon Kleinbaum, was ordained by the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, a movement that rejects the idea of both God and the Torah. While Beit Simchat Torah’s views aren’t unusual within its movement, its anti-Israel politics have made it controversial. During a previous war with Hamas, an exodus of pro-Israel members occurred at Beit Simchat Torah after it was caught praying for Hamas terrorists and hosting BDS bigots. “Recent ev
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How Ohio Democrat Corruption Killed a Black Woman
On the way back from a funeral, Judge Lance Mason beat his wife so badly that he broke her orbital socket. A woman who called 911 had described a horrifying scene of “fists flying” inside the car. Their two children, ages 4 and 6, were in the SUV when their father assaulted their mother, choked her and bit her on the ear and the cheek. According to Aisha, Judge Mason "struck me in the face, yanked my hair, slammed my head into the dashboard and armrest of the car." She later called the police, telling them, "I'm afraid he's going to hurt my daughters.” Aisha had to be hospitalized and required reconstructive surgery to repair the damage to her face. When the cops came to arrest Judge Mason, they found semi-automatic rifles, 2,500 rounds of ammunition, a bulletproof vest and a sword. Judge Mason wasn’t just anybody. He had deep roots in the local Democrat machine. He had been appointed to the bench by Governor Ted Strickland. Before that he had worked a
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Black Supremacists Terrorize New York Jews
Last November, Jews For Racial & Economic Justice (JFREJ) released Understanding Antisemitism. The bizarre tract had as much in common with the reality of anti-Semitism as Marxism does with economics. JFREJ, a radical leftist group, claimed that “white Christians” in Europe had “invented anti-Semitism”. That would have come as news to Pharaoh, Haman and Mohammed: in JFREJ’s parlance, “people of color” who had innovated and spread anti-Semitic ideas, while seeking to exterminate the Jews. “Antisemitism was something European Christians created and brought to the Middle East within the last 150 years,” JFREJ insisted. There was no such thing as Muslim anti-Semitism, the leftist group, which collaborates with Linda Sarsour, a Farrakhan supporter who had urged dehumanizing Jews, insisted. Black and Muslim anti-Semitism are occasionally justified as a response to white Jewish oppression. But mostly their existence is denied. Racial anti-Semitism, JFREJ insisted, only existed as wh
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Identity Politics and American Anti-Semitism
When Robert Bowers walked through the door of the Tree of Life synagogue with murder on his mind, he was propelled by identity politics. As a white supremacist, his brand of identity politics is more politically incorrect than the ones that led Tamika Mallory and Linda Sarsour of the Women’s March to support Louis Farrakhan, but it’s no more violent, racist or evil. Before the massacre, the most recent high profile anti-Semitic attack had been carried out by a Muslim who was caught on video beating a Jewish man while shouting about, “Allah” and his hatred for Jews. Another hate crime, also caught on video, was a violent assault with a baseball bat by a black man. Such assaults are less devastating than the mass murder of eleven people, but also much more commonplace. They repeat from month to month and year to year. They make up much of the toll of anti-Semitic hate crimes so that they top the list of hate crime statistics every single year. The Tree of Life massacre has been g
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God and Guns in the Synagogue
There are two types of synagogues: those that believe in G-d and those that believe in government. After the mass shooting in a Pittsburgh synagogue, the government synagogues turned to the government with calls for gun control. And those that believe in G-d, turned to the Almighty. And then, trusting in the Almighty to stand with them against danger, they went out and got their guns. Morning services at the synagogue these days begin and end with guns, with talk of tactical courses, firing ranges and concealed carry permits. “If someone comes to kill you, get up early to kill him first,” the Gemara, the Babylonian Talmud, that massive encyclopedic work codifying Jewish law, advises. In synagogues across America, the teachers, actuaries and small businessmen rising early for morning prayers are preparing for a mass shooting attack. Every synagogue I have been to lately has members who carry concealed firearms. Members are attending security courses, training to identify, disarm or
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Harvard's Racist Diversity
“Diversity and excellence go hand in hand," Harvard College Dean Rakesh Khurana had declared two years ago. “Diversity is at the heart of the mission of the College." Now, at the trial over Harvard’s racially discriminatory admissions policy, Khurana was asked about a different type of diversity by a lawyer representing Students for Fair Admissions. The group representing 20,000 students, parents and others was challenging Harvard’s discrimination against Asian students. “Don’t you actually think that Harvard’s class should have a socioeconomic makeup that looks a lot more like America?" Khurana demurred. “We’re not trying to mirror the socioeconomic or income distribution of the United States,” he insisted. Why is racial diversity at the “heart” of Harvard’s mission, but not socioeconomic diversity? The lawsuit against Harvard by Students for Fair Admissions has successfully raised that question. "The admissions process is designed to identify those s
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A Leftist Hatefest in Pittsburgh
As President Trump arrived in Squirrel Hill to pay his respects to the 11 Jews brutally murdered in the Tree of Life synagogue, If Not Now, a leftist anti-Israel hate group notorious for targeting Jewish charities, unleashed an ugly hatefest that defiled the solemnity of the day. Keffiyahs, a symbol of Muslim anti-Semitic violence, SEIU shirts and multicolored wigs were visible in the mob. A handful of protesters misused ‘shofars’, a religious ritual item sounded on the holiest Jewish days of the year, and not meant to be desecrated in street protests. Despite attempts to appropriate Jewishness, there was nothing Jewish about the ugly hatred and exploitation of murdered Jews. Even though three police officers had risked their lives and were wounded trying to stop the gunman, the If Not Now flyer for the event condemned the “police state” and touted the black supremacist hate group, Black Lives Matter, alongside Free Palestine. An If Not Now speaker bizarrely bleated, “More cops in
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If the Synagogue Shooter Were Muslim, the Media Would Be Defending Him
Two types of people plot attacks against Jewish synagogues and community centers: Nazis and Muslims. In 1999, Buford O. Furrow, a white supremacist, opened fire at a Jewish Community Center in the Los Angeles area. He wounded three little boys, their teenage female counselor and an elderly female receptionist. He told the FBI that he wanted this to be "a wake-up call to America to kill Jews." While Furrow was carrying out his attack, President William Jefferson Clinton was in the White House. In 2000, Ali Hassan Abu Kamal and Mazin Assi attempted to firebomb a synagogue in New York. “A bias-motivated attempt to firebomb a synagogue?” the New York Times wondered. “Or a misguided message critical of Israeli policies against Palestinians?” In 2006, Naveed Afzal Haq used a teenage girl as a hostage to force his way into the Seattle Jewish Federation where he shot 6 women. The Muslim attacker shouted, “You Jews” at the non-Jewish marketing director and shot her in the s
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