Shema, Goyimah

"Hear, O' ye nations...."
I don't know what gets into us. I've felt it too, almost like something that runs in the blood, something visceral. Let's face it, let's get real: we don't like Jews. In fact, some of us hate them. Hate them enough to kill.
According to news reports, 5 Israelis were killed today and 7 wounded. 2 Palestinians from East Jerusalem entered the Kehilat Bnei Torah synagogue armed with knives, axes and guns and then attacked worshipers there. It is of interest that initial reports describe 4 of the Israelis slain as American Jews (3) and one Briton, one of which was a Levite of the priestly tribe according to Biblical reference. The morning attack ended in a shoot out with responding Israeli police followed swiftly by security forces and, interestingly, spurring an investigation by the FBI. The extension of jurisdiction of the Federal Bureau of Investigation overseas, while not unprecedented, is of interest.
For once, however, I will set aside the "why" and look into the deeper implications of this vicious assault described in some reports as a "holocaust". This is not an investigative report, mostly because I am not so quick to trust the sources that feed us our brain batter even when they agree with my spiritual predilections. Mostly, I want to know why we as consumers of this information, regardless of its veracity and accuracy, are unresponsive and passive. And that why leads to another why: why do I care? That much I can answer.
The Jewish people gave us, inspired by God if you're a believer, the very Words of God. They received, cherished, transcribed, preserved and thrust forth into the future that all-time bestseller translated into innumerable languages...the Bible. Torah scrolls have survived impossible synagogue fires, been stashed in the ruins of crumbling temples, been smuggled in unmentionable places using unthinkable means, memorized, loved, followed, translated and altogether conveyed that Word to humanity for its betterment. When the British empire sailed upon seas beneath a sun that never set, nearly every vessel carried that Bible to unknown lands. And when American astronauts orbited and then landed on the moon, it was the Bible that was in at least some of their hearts, including the heart of Buzz Aldrin who conducted the Lord's Supper on the surface of our nearest celestial neighbor. I will not write nearly so eloquently about the heritage of Christ Himself and will content myself merely to point out...He was (and remains) utterly Jewish.
So why the hate? Or even, why the general dislike? I can understand, knowing what I know about the history of the GOP and the republican party's pervasive distaste for all things Hebrew, so the attraction of the Jewish people is no mystery to me. They number 14 million on Earth, a population statistic only recently returned to its pre-World War II level after the Nazi decimation. No, decimation is not the proper term, as it comes from Roman sources that reduced the number of people they didn't like by 1/10th. What happened to our Jewish brothers and sisters can only be described as a halving. Naturally they became democrats, by and large. As a minority of minorities it is likewise no mystery that they will lock arms with others of diminished status and number, but there is also the matter of conscience. Many times I've heard the story of New York Jews of affluence and means who forgo their fortunes and futures and take cause with blacks suffering in the rural South. There's genuine humanity there, even applying to those who may not have taken the front lines in the battle for social justice but continue to donate time and money to protect and defend those they do not know, that have no relation to them philosophically or religiously or spiritually, but who simply suffer in ways similar to how they suffered. That's why they're primarily democrats, or better yet liberals. Mainly because they empathize with others likewise suffering but also, as a very honest Jewish person once said to me, because they can afford to be liberal and giving and consumed with charity and compassion. They learned, and having learned they continue to love...and that kind of transcendent love is what this blog is all about. So as you can see, I'm pretty keen on Jews. Mostly.
Now, confession time! I personally have been irritated, affronted, insulted, demeaned and downright injured by my beloved brothers and sisters of the Jewish persuasion, and in no greater way than in divorce proceedings from a Jewish wife of 10 years who burnt every bridge imaginable in her departure. That alone was quite close to being enough to tempting me to join the ranks of man who hold and display a very rabid dislike that may or may not have similar cause. I loved her and she hurt me...so why NOT scream bloody murder about those "dirty Jews"? Well...it would be inhumane, that's why. Even if some stereotypes are steeped in truth it is unconscionable to categorize an entire people based upon the opinions and actions of one, so I won't. But I was tempted, for a time.
Then there was Florida. You'll like this, it was funny. I was on a business trip, parked in the sub-level of a shopping mall away from the sunlight and the humidity and the heat. I may have been looking at a map but I don't recall. An elderly lady, undoubtedly more Jewish than the most black-hatted Hasidic rabbi, stopped by my rolled-down window and asked for directions to a place I don't recall. And the reason I don't recall the specifics of her request was due entirely to her response.
"Excuse me, sir. Do you know how to get to such-n-such?"
"Hmmm...." I pondered out loud, taking my attention away from the map that was as useless as the words about to escape my lips. I may have even put my hand to my chin in contemplation, wondering how I could properly answer this person when I was, quite obviously, an idiot with no idea where I was or what I was talking about...or about to talk about. I never got the chance.
She took one look at me, saw through my ridiculous charade and said brusquely, "You don't know!" and walked away. How dare she! How dare she call me out in my unadmitted ignorance? How dare she see through me and the meaningless self-affirming banter I was about to bless her with that would serve as much purpose to her as a screen door on a submarine? It was rude! It was callous! It was impertinent...and it was 100% correct. She was right. I didn't know, and for one brief awful moment I hated her for being right and me for being an idiot. The doors of my ego were blasted wide open and the terrible sunlight of truth inundated my tidy little Gentile world of white lies and hypocrisy. In that moment, as she stomped away in a huff, I have to admit I hated her just a little, and utterly without cause for I did not indeed have the faintest idea of the place she was asking about and I had every intention of wasting her time with a shallow, deceptive response just to avoid looking like an idiot. It didn't work out to my liking, and later I reflected on her quick, sharp tongue backed by an equally sharp and aggressive brain that, quite frankly, didn't have time for my bullshit. She was old. She could have easily spent the last moments of her life listening to me drone on and on majestically about a subject (her intended destination) that I quite literally knew nothing about.
Shall I go on? Sure, they irritate us with their tiny little sliver of a country surrounded by a billion Muslims that hate them but don't dare attack them. Sure they offend us with their top-notch soldiers, unparalleled intelligence agency and an army of scientists, entrepreneurs and industry movers who have more patents than Edison and Telsa put together. Why shouldn't we be a bit put off when they seem to unashamedly be the funniest, most talents, most inventive and entertaining souls in a Hollywood that they pioneered out of a featureless California desert? Watch the credits of most any major motion picture and you'll see more Goldberg's and Silverstein's than in a directory of New York jewelers. They can't help it. As my biggest, bestest brother once put it so eloquently: when God was handing out brains and talent the Jews kept sneaking back into line.
So are we just jealous, or is it something deeper. As I said, I was married for 10 years to a fine, if troubled, Jewish woman and I loved her fiercely. In her childhood, already brimming with common sense and honesty, she watched on television a political gathering of the KKK and neo-Nazis. This little girl scratched her head at an array of people who hated her though had never met her and said to her mother, "But they're all right there." Meaning, just nuke 'em. They're all bunched up. Her mother just smiled as if to say, "That's not how we do things. It was done to us once and we're not going to go there." Both the little girl's question and her mother's response were equally charming and illuminating. Since boyhood I have wanted little more than to be adopted into the Jewish lifestyle, into a Jewish family, and be a part of that culture and history that brought me my salvation custom tailored by God Himself. And ironically one of the most common prayers of a Jewish rabbi or spiritual leader, be he Tevye from Fiddler on the Roof or the unknown counselor to the Bielski brothers hiding in the forests of Belarus, is this: "God, I know we are the chosen people...but couldn't you have chosen someone else?" Their status in the spiritual realms, as well as the price they've paid for all that talent and history and character, is heart-wrenching.
I don't have any answers in this monologue, only questions. I faced a terrible fact once, not too long ago, when I was more deeply hurt than ever before in my long, strange life by someone who just happened to be Jewish. Her family was as toxic and unhappy as my own. Her life equally tragic. Her sufferings undeserved and unimaginable...but she was Jewish and that was a perfectly plausible reason to hate her on the grounds. It took some real thought and genuine soul-searching to avoid that trap. It's a trap that something in our blood calls out to us to wander into. It's easy to hate Jews, just for being Jews. They're not on my land, they've taken nothing from me and in fact have given me more than I think about on a daily basis, not least of all a Bible to believe in and the bloodline of a Messiah.
I decided to love, just as I once decided to love someone who was at times quite unlovable...just like we all are in God's penetrating eyes. And that decision I will not walk away from, and not solely to avoid or avert the actualization of another Holocaust which seems more and more to be a soberingly real possibility. I have decided to love them because that's what God would do, has done and will always continue to do. They're special: irritating, obnoxious and painfully charming in their abrasiveness and that alone (being abrasive myself) is enough to love them. And I won't even quote the plethora of Bible verses basically commanding us to love them and to pray for their homeland whose peace continues to be wrecked.
Here's what a pragmatic, irritating Jewish person might say to you on the subject of hating Jews with or without cause:
"What good would it do you? Harboring hate only hurts you. And if you're going to hate Jews then maybe that's not such a bad thing. Good luck with that, but if you don't mind I'm going to go stand over here for a little while." A little tolerant, abrasive, pragmatic, irritating and oh-so-wise Jewish common sense would do us all a world of good in a world that seems to be running pretty short on good...especially in the sacred temples of their own historic and hereditary homeland on this bloody, terrible day.
Bless you, my Jewish friends and brothers and sisters. I love you.