Jews – We The People

Survivors in Trouble

Today is International Holocaust Remembrance Day. It has been seventy-seven years since the Shoah ended, and the number of Shoah survivors is shrinking rapidly as many of them reach their nineties even turn one-hundred. In a very short amount of time, there will be nobody left to tell their stories. Tragically, those who are still with us are living in poverty.

According to the United States Census Bureau, only ten percent of adults sixty-five years of age and older are living in poverty. According to The Blue Card, a 501(c)3 non-profit organization that provides Shoah survivors financial and living assistance, an estimated one-third of the 100,000 survivors in the country live at or below the poverty line.

Survivors like Madga Rosenberg, who lost her entire family in Auschwitz in occupied Poland and now lives in Long Island, are living in poverty.

We’re dying out. In ten years, there won’t be a Holocaust survivor left.

Of the 50,000+ survivors residing in the New York Metropolitan area, 52% are considered “poor,” meaning that they are living below 150% of federal poverty guidelines or with an individual annual income fewer than 18,000 dollars, according to Selfhelp, an organization that has been helping victims of Nazi crimes since 1936.

Hanan Simhon, the vice president of the Holocaust Survivor Services at Selfhelp, says survivors from the Soviet Union have it particularly bad—eighty percent of them living in poverty.

They came here much later in their life at the fall of the Soviet Union, with no Social Security, pension or any type of supporting income for retirement.

Marsha Pearl, the executive director of the Blue Card, lists many factors as the reasons why the Shoah survivors are struggling.

They tend to be very isolated, losing their families during the war and then either did not or could not have children. Many started working in menial jobs because they did not have the language skills. Today they are in their eighties and nineties, and it is beyond difficult to make ends meet.

The victims’ troubles are not only caused by their advanced age and language barriers but medical experiments that put them at higher risk for diseases such as cancer.

Sami Steigmann spent his early childhood years in a Nazi labor camp. He was told by his father, years later, that he was subjected to various medical experiments which still cause him pain today at age seventy-eight.

I’m a proud person, I never wanted to reach out for help.

After years of struggle and “getting involved with the wrong people,” he found himself homeless. That was when he finally agreed to be recognized as a survivor and mentally disabled, receive reparations from Germany, and move into subsidized housing.

Marsha Pearl recognizes this unwillingness to step forward and accept help due to embarrassment, even when there is nothing embarrassing about it.

Many are embarrassed to be in this situation, feeling as if they’ve failed twice—not being able to save their family and now having to turn for help. People with food stamps in the grocery store are trembling and afraid that someone will see them. Many of them wait to come forward because they are too ashamed.

Today, Sami Steigmann lives in a tiny studio apartment in New York, but he now must leave his home for twenty years because the building has recently been sold. Steigmann fears he will no longer be able to volunteer as a tutor to teach students about the Holocaust.

The Blue Card, which serves 2,500 survivors nationwide, experienced a 20% increase in requests for assistance in 2016. Of those they service (77% female), 67% cannot leave their homes without aid, and 78% have trouble performing everyday activities such as getting dressed, washing, and cooking.

Selfhelp has 1,400 residents in ten affordable housing sites throughout the New York area and a waiting list of 4,000. Two-hundred fifty survivors are sitting on a waiting list in Brooklyn to be assigned to a social worker with about three to four new clients registering daily.

Hanan Simhon reminds us of one critical fact that nobody thinks about.

These are limited resources for a limited time—there won’t be new Holocaust survivors taking their place.

Personal stories and quotes: CNN

Stop Pretending That Hanukkah is so Important

Image: My Jewish Learning

Let me start with this: I am a Jew (with a bar mitzvah and all). Now that I have put it on the record, I am safe from hate and people automatically jumping to the conclusion that I am anti-Semitic before they even reach the next paragraph (or even past the title). Of course, it is possible for a Jew to be anti-Semitic just any other self-loathing person, but then again, I am on the board of my congregation, the president of my congregation’s youth group, a new member of NFTY, and I just got back from the URJ Biennial in Boston last weekend. I think that just about sums it up.

While many people continue to compare Hanukkah and Christmas from organizations like Jews for Jesus (an extremely offensive pretense to convert Jews to Christianity without them even knowing it), Affinity Magazine, FOX News, Independent, The Religion News, it is ignorant to jump to the conclusion that they are alike just because they fall within the same month (typically). The Independent went as far as to say:

Hanukkah is often known as Jewish Christmas.

I am really only here to vent my frustrations with this common belief. It is not.

I am not one of those people who will get mad when somebody tells me “Merry Christmas,” because I assume that they probably just do not know I am Jewish (How would they with a name like “Romero?”). I take it just as any Christian would: a compliment. That is what it is meant to be after all. While I may correct them if I know them well enough, I would almost never get offended—unless it was intentional, knowing that I am Jewish, to show disdain over the fact that I just do not celebrate Christmas. On the other hand, I do get angry about people who go ballistic whenever they hear “Happy holidays,” because it is the same principle. It is just a compliment, so just take the compliment for crying out loud! Hats off to the person who said it for making an effort to be more inclusive as well!

What you need to understand about Hanukkah is that it is not even a holiday— it is a festival. That is right, and to add to it, Hanukkah is not even the most important of the festivals—Pesach is. You might be shocked, but it is true.

First, let’s go over the history behind Hanukkah.

During the period of the second Temple, Israel was controlled by the Greeks. The Greeks were cruel, robbed Jews of their property, and set up idols in Beit HaMikdash. They accepted the Torah, the first five books of the Old Testament, as a book of wisdom, but not as something holy that connects us to God. In turn, they made Torah learning illegal, and outlawed Mitzvot (good deeds) like Shabbat (the Sabbath), Rosh Chodesh (first day of every Jewish month), Brit Milah (baby-naming ceremony), and the holiness of Jewish marriage. The Maccabees, the ancient Jewish army, revolted against the Greeks to keep the Torah and Judaism alive and won.

When the Greeks had stormed their land, they had ruined everything in Beit HaMikdash—including the oil—and making it impure. Miraculously, the Maccabees found one last jar that had been overlooked, but it only had enough oil for one day. Again, God performed another miracle and made the oil last for eight whole days—not just one! That is the reason why the chanukiah (not a menorah) has eight candles on it and one shemash.

Not one of the things in the story of Hanukkah is ever mentioned in the Torah. The name, “Hanukkah,” is not even said once—proving its unimportance again. Instead, the story comes from the books of the First and Second Maccabees.

You will probably meet Jews that will tell you that I am wrong and that Hanukkah is “the Jewish Christmas,” but I really consider myself to be well-versed in my religion—educated enough to, as I mentioned earlier, be on the board of my congregation at age fifteen, be the president of my congregation’s youth group, and very active in my Jewish community. I must be doing something right. Yet again, you could just as quickly say that I don’t know what I am talking about and turn off your computer right now, but I trust you take what I say at face-value (or at least after checking my resources and doing the research yourself as I did).

When you think of Hanukkah, what else do you think (things that have not been mentioned yet)? Presents? Latkes?

When it comes to food, from my understanding of the Catholic tradition, people have big Thanksgiving-like feasts for dinner on Christmas. Hanukkah, against what you might believe, is a pretty forgetful time for most Jews (I cannot speak for everybody.). At least for my family, we eat dinner as usual, we go to work as usual, we go to school as usual, and much more. None of those things apply to Christmas (for most families), where people have big get-togethers with their extended family.

For Jews, that big get-together happens during the High Holidays. The High Holidays are the two most important holidays in Judaism (hence the name), Rosh Hashanah (Jewish new year) and Yom Kippur (day of atonement). It is kind of funny that nobody talks about the most popular holidays of the religion.

As for presents, I can tell you that Jews do exchange small gifts for Hanukkah, but never to the extent of what is exchanged on Christmas. Jews will exchange smaller presents on the holidays, and the gift-giving is even somewhat outgrown once children get older. In fact, the entire origin of gift-giving is extremely modern.

It was always customary for Jews to exchange small gifts on Pesach, Jonathan Sarna, a professor of American Jewish history at Brandeis University, explained that gift-giving among American Jews shifted from Pesach to Hanukkah in the late nineteenth century. Christmas itself became enlarged in the late nineteenth century when it became a national holiday in America, and the Jewish custom just shifted in imitation of Christmas, as the Christian holiday’s consumerism grew.

Gifts and gift-giving are not the measures of a holiday, and just because Jews exchange small gifts on Hanukkah as Christians give gifts on Christmas, it does not mean that they are equivalent in terms of importance.

While it would make our lives so much easier to have every major religion’s biggest holidays at the same time, we cannot pretend that is the case at hand. Christmas is in December; Easter is in April; Ramadan is in May/June; Rosh Hashanah is in September/October; Yom Kippur is ten days after Rosh Hashanah; Vesak is in May; Diwali is in October; The Asian Lunar New Year is in February. If you couldn’t tell, the biggest holidays/festivals in most religions do not fall at the same time.

I say that we should never stop trying to be inclusive, and I love hearing people tell me “Happy holidays!” It shows me that people are making a conscious effort to be inclusive of everybody, and it is greatly appreciated. My goal is to just educate everybody so that they understand that Hanukkah is not “the Jewish Christmas,” not so they think that they should ignore Hanukkah.

For what it is worth, anything people say about Jews is almost unanimously bad, but the fact that people are changing their traditions to be more accepting towards any aspect of Judaism, even if not the one that we would like could be considered a win in the sense that it may help popularize the fact that Jews are just human beings like you and—well—you. Who knows? Maybe this can help end the anti-Semitism that sadly engulfed Europe during the Bubonic Plague, Spain during the Spanish Inquisition, Nazi Germany during the Shoah, and what looks like could even be America in the near future.

Terror in Barcelona

Image: Gone Fishing

Fifteen people have been killed in a terror attack on Las Ramblas avenue in Barcelona on the 17th of August. Over 80 others were injured. An attacker drove a large white van down Las Ramblas Avenue, a pedestrian street packed with tourists and Barcelonians, plowing through crowds of people, killing and injuring many while causing mass chaos and a mini stampede. The attack happened before 5 pm Central European Time (11 a.m. Eastern Standard Time), and the Police acted quickly, evacuating the area and closing nearby Metro and train stations while getting aid to the victims.

The attackers reportedly had fled on foot. Four men were arrested for their alleged involvement in the attack. Also, police found another van they believe was going to be used as a getaway vehicle and found Moroccan passports. Driss Oukabir, one of the arrested suspects, claims his documents were stolen to rent the vans. Adding to the confusion, a hostage situation was reported by the media, but it is unclear whether it actually happened. ISIS has claimed responsibility for the attack, but this does not mean that the attackers have any direct ties with ISIS. Furthermore, an explosion the day before that killed one person and injured 6 has been linked to the attack. Our hearts are with Barcelona, the victims of this callous and unwarranted attack, and the law enforcement and medical staff dealing with its fallout.

Many politicians and famous people tweeted their support. President Macron of France, Prime Minister Trudeau of Canada, President Vladimir Putin of Russia and many other world leaders also issued statements or tweets expressing their solidarity with Barcelona, including our own President, Trump. Trump originally told Barcelona to “be tough & strong, we love you” in a kind, heartfelt tweet of solidarity, but then proceeded to tweet a bizarre statement mentioning a claim he made on the campaign trail about an American General in the Philippines during the early 1900’s dipping bullets in Pig’s blood before shooting 49 captured terrorists and sending the 50th back to report what had happened. Trump said it stopped terrorism for 35 years in his tweet. First of all, this piece of made up “history” has been debunked, and second of all, let me recount a bit of history to explain how truly atrocious and dehumanizing this urban legend is. When America invaded the Philippines, there were protests against it in America with supporters saying the invasion was cruel and unfair and supporters saying that we had to bring order and civilization to a “barbaric race,” in the words of a United States Senator at the time. The Muslims we were fighting against were the native Filipinos who were trying to protect their country. We were the terrorists. We put people into “reconcentration camps” and killed somewhere between 200,000 and a million civilians in a war that only killed 16000 Filipino soldiers. It is possible Trump’s story is true, except we weren’t killing terrorists, we were committing an atrocity against a country and race based on racist stereotypes. The answer to Islamic extremism is not to make the West seem barbaric or aggressive towards Islamism or people in general. Trump has been inadvertently helping ISIS recruit with his aggression and insulting speeches towards all Islam (and humanity) instead of violent Islam, even having been featured in ISIS recruitment video.

Refocusing on the attack, this is the ninth vehicle attack in Europe. Seven previous vehicle attacks were committed by ISIS affiliated attackers and one was committed by an extremist who drove into a group of people outside of mosque saying “I want to kill all Muslims.” There was also a vehicle attack on the home front in Charlottesville just this Saturday. White Supremacists had gathered for a rally protesting the taking down of a Robert E. Lee statue, their chants and messages couldn’t possibly be misconstrued as not hateful, with chants like “Jews will not replace us” as they held Hitler signs. Counter-protesters formed a line in front of them, refusing to let them pass. The protesters violently charged through them, and the two groups broke out into fighting. Luckily, police were there to disperse the two groups. While the governor of Charlottesville called it a state of emergency. Nobody had yet gotten killed or seriously injured and both groups were leaving. Then, a white nationalist drove a car into a group of counter-demonstrators, killing one and injuring nineteen. When the attack happened, the groups of protesters and counter-protesters had already split up, there was no violence or skirmishes going on between those groups at the time of the attack. In a statement after the attacks, our President refused to condemn the White Supremacists, even when asked direct questions about his view of them, instead, he blamed violence on “many sides.” Two days later, Trump claimed that he didn’t support the KKK or White Supremacist groups in a scripted speach, however, on Tuesday, he had undone the comments that he had made on Monday by going as far as defending the white supremacists. By any account, his statement of condemnation came too late and was too ambiguous. White Supremacists took his failure to condemn them as support, and it seemed a lot like support to everyone else as well.

As a nation, and as a world we are left with these facts; vehicles are easy to get and large groups of innocent people are easy to find. Having one group of crazy extremists inspired by ISIS to attack people was scary enough, but now because of the amount of xenophobia, fear and hate that has been caused by ISIS and how our countries have handled ISIS, anti-Muslim extremists and white supremacists are also attacking innocent people in their twisted war on people who are different.

There is no sign this is going to get any better. The leader of the KKK said of the attack in Charlottesville “we’re going to see more stuff like this happening at white-nationalist events.” He could absolutely be right. As more terrorist attacks happen, charged by different groups all of whom are growing and possibly becoming more violent, we need a leader who’s going to condemn all people who kill innocent civilians or attempt to whether they are White Supremacists, Muslim extremists or anti-Muslim extremists, without insulting any groups who did not kill innocent civilians. Unfortunately, Donald Trump has demonstrated how he is completely incapable of confronting many of his base supporters.

Why Call it the Shoah?

Image: World Atlas

The event that resulted in the death of six-million Jews and mentally handicapped, physically disabled, Romani, homosexuals, prisoners of war, and countless other groups of people simply because of the color of their skin, the way they prayed, or their sexual orientation is commonly referred to, in the English language, as “The Holocaust,” but many Jews, including myself, prefer the term “The Shoah.”

The word “holocaust” is the Anglicization of a Greek word, ολοκαύτωμα, meaning ‘complete combustion.’ That same word, “holocaust,” is used in translation of the Hebrew word עלה, meaning ‘offering that will be completely burnt’ and can even be found in many Catholic Bibles such as the Douay-Rheims Catholic Translation. This word had been used to describe the offering to God in Genesis 22:7.

Isaac said to his father: My father. And he answered: What wilt thou, son? Behold, saith he, fire and wood: where is the victim for the holocaust?

In the same verse published by the Jewish Publication Society, they replaced the word ‘holocaust’ with ‘burnt-offering.’

Isaac then said to Abraham his father, “Father!” He answered: “Here I am, my son.” And Isaac said, “Here is the firestone and the wood, but where is the lamb for the burnt-offering?”

The word, “holocaust,” was adopted by English writers to mean “complete destruction by fire.” It was first used in modern times in reference to the treatment of the Jews in a British newspaper, the News Chronicle of December 5, 1942. The usage spread, and has finally become the most commonly used name of the tragic event that happened in the early 1940s.

What’s the big deal? Why can’t I just call it the Holocaust?

“Holocaust” was first used in the English language as a term for a sacrifice, specifically for the sacrifices asked of the Jews by God. That still is a primary meaning of the word for those who have used the Douay-Rheims Bible. This definition implies that the murder of the Jews was a sacrifice for God, and therefore God accepted the sacrifice of the Jews.

I always try my hardest to use the word, “Shoah,” unless I am speaking with someone who is likely to not know the word. Even though “Holocaust” is generally in use as a term for the Nazi “Final Solution,” it still has the power to suggest that there was something acceptable to God in those events, even though most people who use the word do not mean it this way.

Now, I would never judge anyone for calling it “The Holocaust” because I know that they would probably not be implying that the murder of the Jews is acceptable to God, but I feel that educating people on the meaning of the word (most timely on Yom HaShoah) can help people know what they are really saying and possibly think about it in the future.

Topic inspired by Coffee Shop Rabbi

Why I have Recently Decided to Disavow the Black Lives Matters Movement

Image: Charisma News

Everybody has heard of Trayvon Martin walking home from the corner store when George Zimmerman began following him and shot and killed Trayvon only seventy yards from his home. We all remember the trial where he was found not guilty, claiming “self-defense.”

In 2013, after the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the tragic shooting of Trayvon Martin, #BlackLivesMatter began trending on Twitter. The official international activist movement was founded that same day.

In 2014 and beyond, there was a myriad of innocent, young, black citizens killed, frequently by police officers, resulting in media coverage, public outrage, and growing protests. The killings of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Eric Garner in New York City, and Tamir Rice in Cleveland are only a few examples of the victims of the violence and culture of prejudice and profiling. With each death, the public outrage grew—as did the protests. We frequently saw visions of the protests in cities across America on the evening news, and still, the number of deaths grew as did the protests, often becoming more violent or militaristic in nature. The Black Lives Matter movement grew and gained national recognition. The movement became more active over time, regularly holding protests against police violence, killing of black people, and broader issues of racial profiling, police brutality, and racial inequality in the United States criminal justice system.

Since its inception, the movement has expanded their mission to include issues unrelated to their primary goals, such as the 2016 United States Presidential Election and the Israel-Palestine conflict.

For as long as I can remember, I have been a steadfast supporter of the Black Lives Matter movement, but learning of the issues placed in the Black Lives Matter platform has led me to the conclusion that, in good conscience, I could no longer fully endorse them.

Before delving into my concerns, I want to state, once again, that I firmly believe in the movement to reduce police violence against the Black community, reduce racial profiling, and promote the transparency necessary in our police and government agencies. With the abolishment of slavery, the long and hard fight of the Civil Rights Movement, and the election of our first African-American president, we like to think that we have moved beyond the prejudice and discrimination of our past. Sadly, hate, prejudice, and fear of others different from ourselves are very much alive today. The need to reduce discrimination and excessive violence against the African American community today has prompted the need for the Black Lives Matter movement.

However, leaders of the movement made a decision to include in the platform, issues beyond its original goal, resulting in discrimination against those who have time-and-again been an ally and a great supporter of their cause: the Jewish community.

Historically, the American Jewish community has been active in the Civil Rights Movement. Cooperation between the two communities peaked after World War II. The Jewish community, through their newspapers and other media, started to draw parallels between the experience of African Americans in the South and the Jewish Exodus from Egypt. They focused on how both groups would benefit from a society free of religious, racial, and ethnic restrictions. The American Jewish Committee, American Jewish Congress, and Anti-Defamation League all played significant roles in the movement against racial prejudice. They made substantial financial contributions to several organizations like the NAACP, made up approximately fifty percent of the civil rights lawyers in the south, and half of all the white protesters who went to Mississippi to challenge the Jim Crowe laws in 1964. In the landmark ruling of the infamous Brown v. Board of Education case, the Supreme Court accepted the research of two married, black sociologists named Kenneth Clark and Mamie Clark that found segregation gave black children the impression that they would always be inadequate. The Clarks’ study had been commissioned by the American Jewish Committee.

As a conservative (religiously, not politically) Jew in America, agreeing with the Black Lives Matter movement’s stance on education, criminal sentencing, policing, and many other issues, I am personally devastated by their beliefs about Israel. I don’t know How they could completely disregard the history of the country that has lived with constant threat and been under attack literally since the day it became a nation.

I don’t understand how it is even possible to pass judgment on the State of Israel without a full evaluation of the facts and understanding of the history. They still judge Israel even though it is exactly like how it is impossible to judge their own movement without understanding the prejudice and the challenges for the African-American community in America.

[Israel is] a state that practices systematic discrimination and has maintained a military occupation of Palestine for decades.

Why should this even be a part of their platform?

With such beliefs about Israel, a lack of understanding of the history, and the constant threat, violence, and attacks launched upon Israel and its people, I can no longer, in good conscience, put my full support behind the Black Lives Matter Movement because of my firm support of Israel.

Both sides of the argument at hand between Israel and Palestine are strongly influenced by religion. According to the Talmud and Eretz Yisrael, Israel was promised by God to the Children of Israel. In his 1896 manifesto, The Jewish State, Theodor Herzl who has commonly been referred to as “the founder of the Zionist movement,” repeatedly referred to the Biblical Promised Land concept.

Muslims also claim rights to the same land in accordance with the Quran. Contrary to the Jewish claim that this land was promised only to the descendants of Abraham’s younger son Isaac, they argue that the Land of Canaan was promised to whom they consider the elder son, Ishmael, from whom Arabs claim descent. Additionally, Muslims also revere many sites holy for Biblical Israelites, such as the Cave of the Patriarchs and the Temple Mount. In the past 1,400 years, Muslims have erected Islamic landmarks on these ancient Israeli Jewish sites, such as the Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount, the holiest site in Judaism. The site was where according to the Bible Abraham took his son Isaac, offering him as a sacrifice as ordered by God.

Christian Zionists often support the State of Israel because of the ancestral right of the Jews to the Holy Land, as suggested, for instance, by the apostle Paul in his letter to the Romans in the Bible. Christian Zionism teaches that the return of Jews in Israel is a prerequisite for the Second Coming of Christ, also suggested from the Letter of Paul to the Romans, specifically chapter eleven, saying, “The Deliverer will come from Zion.”

The roots of the modern Arab–Israeli conflict lies in the rise of Zionism and the reactionary Arab nationalism that arose in response towards the end of the 19th century. Territory regarded by the Jewish people as their historical homeland is also regarded by the Pan-Arab movement as historically and presently belonging to the Palestinian Arabs. Before World War I, the Middle East, including Palestine (later Mandatory Palestine), had been under the control of the Ottoman Empire for nearly 400 years. During the closing years of their empire, the Ottomans began to espouse their Turkish ethnic identity, asserting the primacy of Turks within the empire, leading to discrimination against the Arabs. The promise of liberation from the Ottomans led many Jews and Arabs to support the allied powers during World War I, leading to the emergence of widespread Arab nationalism. Both Arab nationalism and Zionism had their derivative beginning in Europe. The Zionist Congress was established in Switzerland in 1897, while the “Arab Club” was established in Paris in 1906.

In the late 19th century, European and Middle Eastern Jewish communities began to increasingly immigrate to Palestine and purchase land from the local Ottoman landlords. At that time, Jerusalem did not extend beyond the walled area and had a population of only a few tens of thousands. Collective farms, known as kibbutzim, were established, as was the first entirely Jewish city in modern times, Tel Aviv, when the Jews had been kicked out of Jaffa Port.

Eventually, the British Foreign Secretary proposed the Balfour Declaration of 1917 which addressed the link between the Jewish people to the land and the development of a homeland for the Jewish people in Mandate Palestine. After World War I, the British were given a Mandate for Palestine, and in 1937, the Peel Commission suggested partitioning British Mandate Palestine into two states, an Arab state and a Jewish state. This idea was rejected at that time as “unworkable” and is blamed for the renewal of the Arab Revolt. After World War II, in 1947, the British turned the issue over to the newly formed United Nations. The result was the passing of Resolution 181, the partition of British Mandate Palestine into two separate nations, an official Arab state and an official Jewish state with a different internal regime for the city of Jerusalem, on 29 November 1947. The vote result was thirty-three to thirteen with ten abstentions. This plan of partition passed but was rejected by the Arab nations. Despite the fact that there was a formation of two separate nations, with the Arab state slightly larger than the proposed Jewish state, the Arab Nations found it more important to deny the formation of Jewish State than to have a new Arab State.

On May 14, 1948, Israel, accepting the United Nations resolution of partition, declared its independence, forming the State of Israel. Within hours, the combined forces of Egypt, Syria, and Jordan, with some troops from Iraq, entered the newly formed nation and began an attack on Israeli forces and settlements with the declared intent to destroy the new country and, once again, kill or exile all Jews. The war went on for approximately ten months with periods of cease-fire. As a result of the attack on Israel, Israel retained the original land from Resolution 181 in addition to increasing their land area by almost 50%. Egypt, specifically the Gaza Strip, and Jordan, specifically the West Bank, took the rest of the Arab territories. On December 1, 1948, there was a Jericho Conference that called for the unification of Palestine and Transjordan as a step toward full Arab unity, but no Palestinian Arab state was ever formed. As a result, there was a dramatic change in the region. Approximately, 700,000 Palestinians fled from their homes in the area that became Israel, and are now called “Palestinian refugees,” because their Arab neighbors refused to take them in. Additionally, approximately 700,000 Jews were expelled from their countries of residence in the Middle East. They immigrated and became citizens of Israel. The people of Israel had no intention of attacking of removing anyone from their home. They were happy to exist as two separate nations, yet the Arab countries were the ones who could not live with this solution. The Palestinian people are the unfortunate victims of the war and conflict started by their ancestors and Arab neighbors, not Israel or being expelled from the land.

In 1948, an Egyptian activist told reporters, “We are fighting for an Arab Palestine. Whatever the outcome, the Arabs will stick to their offer of equal citizenship for Jews in Arab Palestine and let them be as Jewish as they’d like. In areas where they predominate, they will have complete autonomy,” but the Arab League later contradicted this statement by saying that some Jews would have to be expelled from a Palestinian Arab State. Haj Amin Al-Husseini, possibly the most influential leader that ever rose from British Mandate Palestine said in that same year that the Palestinians “would continue to fight until the Zionists were Annihilated.” The entire conflict is sad and horrific, but blame cannot be placed wholly on the State of Israel. I don’t get how blame can be placed solely upon a group of people constantly under the threat of annihilation, and only act in self-defense?

If one looks closely at the history and the decisions that have been made concerning security, borders, and access in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, they will see that the actions taken by Israel have all been tied to safety and are in response to terrorist attacks. I can’t wrap my head around how the leaders of the Black Lives Matter Movement can realistically expect anyone, especially an American ally, to live every single day with such threat of terror and take no action to protect themselves. How can they expect Israel to not defend themselves when, under less risk of attack, we are willing to take greater steps right here in our country?

The recent rise in the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement (BDS) puts pressure to boycott, divest from, and sanction Israel and Israeli companies. The movement’s goal frames Israel as an “apartheid state,” discriminating and oppressing the Palestinians, and wants these sanctions in place until Israel no longer exists. This, unfortunately, misconstrues history and makes the Palestinians look like victims of the Israelis, when really, they are the victims of the unfortunate conflict started so many years ago by the Arab nations because they would not accept the creation of a Jewish state. They, in reality, are anti-Semitic Arab protesters who chose not to create their own state because they would not accept the United Nation’s resolution due to the inclusion of the creation of a Jewish state. If they had accepted the resolution in 1947, today, there would be two nations, an Arab state and a Jewish state, and hopefully, there would be more peace in that region of the world.

Today, more than eleven organizers of the Black Lives Matter movement have signed the Black Solidarity with Palestine Statement—one of many statements from the African American community confirming their support that for the Palestinians—which states they support the Palestinians because:

Israel’s widespread use of detention and imprisonment against Palestinians evokes the mass incarceration of Black people in the US.

I find this statement to be incorrect, misguided, and offensive in so many different ways. The utter lack of correlation and logic of this premise escapes me. Taking this view is turning a blind eye to the long-standing terrorism perpetrated against the citizens of Israel, the constant attacks against civilians, specifically children, restaurants, buses, and ambulances. The constant rejection of peace offerings makes clear that the only acceptable resolution is the destruction of the State of Israel in the eyes of the Arab nations, leaving the government no other option but to act to protect its citizens. It negates the role the Jewish community has played in the Civil Rights Movement in the United States, shows a lack of respect and understanding of the history of Israel, and the devastation, torture, and genocide of the Jewish people over the years. To view the Palestinian people solely as victims when the Arab nations were, in fact, the aggressors is a “slap in the face” to history and facts. To blame everything Israel is simply ignorant. The Arab nations exiled the Jews from their countries and then would not accept the Palestinian people into their land.

This is all just a sad consequence of the fact that so many years have passed and most people have forgotten how the whole situation and conflict began.

I will admit that Israel is not perfect. I, personally, do not care for the Likkud, Benjamin Netanyahu, or many of the actions Israel has done to further themselves from any chance of finding peace. Personally, I believe some of the policies implemented by Netanyahu are hurting Israel. For instance, the party’s increase of Jewish settlements in the West Bank, an area where the Jews who have agreed are Palestinian territory, thereby violating an agreement made between Palestine and Israel, is helping movements such as BDS or BLM paint a picture of Israel making them as the aggressors in this conflict.

No nation is perfect. Look at America’s history: slavery was legal and integrated into our culture. Even after it was abolished we have a long history of segregation, discrimination, and inequality (a fight that continues today). The American government placed Japanese in internment camps across the United States after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, and then, there was the St. Louis, a ship carrying 935 Jews escaping the Nazis and heading towards Cuba which was, controlled by the United States at the time, and how only 26 of the 935 passengers were allowed to disembark. Many of the passengers had already filed for visas and made arrangements, granting permission to stay in Cuba until they received their United States visas. When US-based Jewish organizations tried to negotiate with the Cuban government to let the rest of the passengers in, the United States, felt it was a “specific and internal matter of Cuba,” and didn’t feel any need to intercede on the refugees’ behalf, sending them back to Europe facing a certain death. Months before the incident with the St. Louis, the 76th United States Congress rejected legislation that, would have allowed 20,000 Jewish German children to come to the United States to seek refuge. After all of this, how can Americans hold Israel to a higher standard than themselves?

To this very day, African Americans, Muslims, Jews, Latinos, and countless other ethnicities, races, religions, and nationalities are targeted in America, however, these same Americans fight Israel’s right to exist.

To blame Israel for protecting itself from the constant attacks seems hypocritical, even worse it is unacceptable. The BLM knows they would not accept it for themselves, and therefore, why should they expect Israel to live under such conditions?

To sum it all up, I still question why the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is included in the Black Lives Matters movement’s platform, especially when this is a movement based on issues that need attention and with the right impact could do tremendous good here in the United States—to free a country from racism, prejudice, and racial profiling. I support the ending of all of these things and will do all that is in my power to help end prejudice and racism, to educate and bring equality for all, but if their purpose is to end all discrimination and racism, this cannot be achieved through the furtherance of discrimination and prejudice of others.

As Martin Luther King Jr. said in response to one student’s question:

When people criticize Zionists, they mean Jews. You’re talking antisemitism.

As long as the Black Lives Matters Movement has included these misguided and offensive issues in their platform, I sadly can no longer endorse such a movement.

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