I want to share a piece powerfully written by my cousin, Rabbi Stephen Wylen of Congregation Beth Tikvah in Wayne, NJ. No explanations necessary: RABBINIC REFLECTIONS ON RECENT EVENTS IN PARIS Jews watched with particular interest as events unfolded in Paris a week ago. On the surface there was no particular Jewish angle - this was a conflict that took place in France, and the perpetrators and the victims were all French nationals. This was a conflict of values between Western democracy and radical Islam, between the liberal value of freedom of the press and the traditionalist value of prohibiting blasphemy. What did this have to do with Jews? But Jews instinctively understood that the attack on the newspaper Charlie Helbo was a threat against the Jewish people. The connection was made explicit a few days later, when a terrorist companion of the Charlie Helbo killers took hostages and randomly murdered four people in a Jewish delicatessen in Paris on the eve of Shabbat. Of the twelve victims in the Charlie Helbo office only one was Jewish, and this was by chance; he was murdered as a cartoonist, not as a Jew. Now, and it didnt take long to evolve, Jews were being killed just for being Jews. We Jews were not surprised. We knew it all along. Here is the fact: radical Islam, anti-Semitism, and anti-Zionism are so deeply connected that any one of the three always includes the other two in its orbit. Radical Islam, anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism are like three stars that orbit and rotate around each other. Last Friday morning, on the day of the deli hostage crisis, CNN reporters bizarrely insisted over and over again that the choice of a Jewish deli was purely random. The CNN correspondant whom I watched as he stood in front of the police lines claimed that the hostage taker took over a deli so that he could be assured of a supply of food during a possibly long seige. CNN maintained this weird fiction until the terrorist himself stated that he took over the deli with the intention of killing What was CNN doing? They were trying to deny the lines of connection between the threads of the three-fold cord of radical Islam, anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism. They were insisting that radical Islam in not necessary anti-Semitic. Why were they doing this? One can only imagine. French President Hollande is to be commended for making explicit the connection between radical Islam and anti-Semitism. Hollande understands that whenever Western liberal values are under attack, Jews are specifically under attack, and so conversely whoever defends and protects Jews is defending and protecting Western liberal values. Hollande spoke out against the scourge of anti-Semitism in France; he spoke of Frances need for her Jewish citizens. France would not be France without her Jews, said Hollande. It would have been nice if French leaders had said such things when the terrorists were attacking only specifically Jewish targets. Still, it is never too late to say the right thing, especially when you are the leader of the nation. Good for Hollande. Hollande is to be praised for acknowledging that whoever supports radical Islam, supports anti-Semitism. Yet even Hollande declined to make the final connection, that anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism. Hollande attempted to disinvite Israeli PM Benjamin Nethanyahu from attending last Sundays Day of Unity observance. As he said, he did not want to tie in the Israeli-Palestinian issue to Frances fight with radical Islam. It was impossible for Hollande to succeed in this, because in fact anti-Zionism is the third cord in the rope, and it goes hand in hand with radical Islam and anti-Semitism. Enemies of Israel like Jimmy Carter openly acknowledge this, as do friends of Israel like her own national leader. In the end Hollande invited the Palestinian and Israeli leaders to walk in the front row of marchers with him, and Hollande attended the synagogue ceremony on the Day of Unity, sitting next to Netanyahu. Good for him! It must be said: whoever stands with anti-Zionism and BDS - boycott, divestment and sanctions - has made common cause with radical Islam. They cannot be separated. The Presbyterian Church in the USA and half the college student councils on the West Coast are allies and supporters of the terrorists who murdered the Charlie Helbo magazine staff. However the BDS supporters might justify their stance in moralistic language, they have chosen their bunkmates and they are sleeping with the enemies of freedom and liberty. The three-fold cord will not be broken - radical Islam, anti-Semitism, anti-Zionism. I must say that I found Netanyahus remarks disappointing. On a day when France, the mother of liberty, was re-committing herself to liberal values and support for the Jewish people, this would have been a great day to announce an end to settlements and a new initiative to make peace with the Palestinian people. Instead, Netanyahu contented himself with babbling the expected platitudes. Netanyahu decided to go to Paris after Lieberman and Bennett, the most extreme right-wingers from his cabinet, decided to attend. Netanyahu was defending himself against the Israeli version of the Tea Party, with elections looming. Not that Bibi has ever shown himself to be a visionary for peace, but he certainly passed this time on a great opportunity. The murders committed by the French terrorists were so disgusting in the eyes of the world that even the Arab terrorist organizations Hamas and Hezbollah denounced them as immoral and as inconsistent with Islam. I wish that someone has asked the leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah the important question: When you say that terrorism is inconsistent with Islam, do you mean that even when the terrorists are attacking Jews? Those who renounce terrorism, except against Jews or the Jewish State, have not renounced terrorism at all. It has long been said that Jews are the barometer of civilization. As a society treats its Jews, that is how it will come to treat everyone. That is still true today, and the events of the past week demonstrate the power of this truism. The French people did not speak up loudly enough against terrorism on their territory when it was affecting only Jewish institutions and people. Now they must kill the monster they have allowed to grow. My pet peeve - I am tired of liberal Protestants and Western journalists solemnly proclaiming that Islam is not a religion of murder and hatred. Islam is a religion of peace and co-existence. I would like to hear more Muslim leaders saying this. There were some hopeful voices heard last week, from Moslem leaders in Europe and also from Egyptian President Sisi, dictator though he is. Lets hear some more voices! Moslems, like all people, must be allowed to define themselves. If they define themselves as haters of Jews, supporters of terrorism and enemies of the West, as so many millions of Moslems obviously do, then thats who they are. If Moslems want to be known as people of peace, they must say it and demonstrate it in action. Not being a Moslem, I cannot decide for them. I know that Islam expanded in the century after Mohammeds death through the greatest battle of conquest and empire the world has ever seen, and this experience of military victory had a profound effect on Moslem self-awareness. This contrasts sharply with the Jewish experience. Our submission to five great world empires in our first millennium of existence - Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Greece and Roman -taught us the power of Shalom. What will it take for the rest of the world to get this message? I do not know, but may it happen soon and in our own lifetime. Amen.
Posted on: Fri, 16 Jan 2015 23:09:29 +0000