Some Jewish History

15 Dec 22

 

 

 

 

Steve Pavlina

 

Some Jewish History:

 

Jewish families, fleeing religious persecution (mostly in Europe and the Ottoman Empire), have been immigrating to the USA since the early 1800s. Many fought during the American Civil War, on both sides!

 

In the early part of the Twentieth Century, the Russian Army was a brutal place (much as it still is today). “Traditional” Russian wartime strategy was to combine an incompetent officer corps (due to rampant nepotism), stupid tactics, and the routine pitiable sacrifice of masses of soldiers (that hasn’t changed much either).

 

Russian army recruitment quotas had to be filled, and among Jews it was the poor ones who were drafted, because they couldn’t afford to pay required bribes.

 

From that depressing domain, and desperate to escape the Czar’s (and later Lenin’s) Army, we saw a large (5,000,000 at least) Jewish immigration to America from 1880-1920.

 

Jewish religious leaders of the era actually discouraged such emigration, particularly to America, as they saw America as a place where Jews would lose their piety, traditions, and eventually their identity.

 

Jews who came over here during those years possessed a naive but universal sentiment, long-held by Jewish families, that Jews represent such a minuscule minority, that their only hope is to be so useful to local ruling regimes that their presence is tolerated, even protected.

 

Today, this is laughingly referred to as “The Pre-Holocaust View!”

 

Today, the majority of “orthodox” Jews in the USA originated with WWII refugees.

 

“Kristallnacht” took place in Germany on 9-10 Nov 1938. Many Jews of the era plainly saw the “Handwriting on the Wall” and came over shortly before the shooting war in Europe broke-out (Nazi invasion of Poland in September of 1939), seeing a bright future neither in Germany, nor Russia, nor the Balkans, nor most of Western Europe!

 

A few survivors arrived here after the War, and they were greatly influenced and disillusioned by the Holocaust.

 

Many lived to see virtually every relative they had murdered by Nazis!

 

Once here, they tended to cohesive, have large families, and set-up religious schools for their children. Unlike their kinsmen who came over in earlier times, post-WWII Jewish immigrants take their Second Amendment Rights seriously!

 

And, unlike their kinsmen from previous decades, post-WWII Jewish immigrants no longer cling to NYC as their “spiritual home,” but have spread-out coast to coast. This is particularly true since NYC denies all citizens (excepting the “politically-connected”) their Second Amendment rights, and always has!

 

I have many Jewish students in my classes, including a number of rabbis. Like professing Christians, some take their religion seriously. Most, not so much!

 

Yet, all remember what happened in Europe during the last Century to anyone whom Nazis identified as “Jewish,” even when the “connection” was several generations distant! And, they’ve also not forgotten that Nazis had and bore guns, while their hapless (now deceased) relatives possessed none, having been universally disarmed shortly before they were all herded aboard cattle cars and subsequently transported to death camps (by the millions)!

 

What many don’t know is that something very similar happened in Spain in 1492, just as Columbus was discovering America! Then Queen Isabella engineered her own Holocaust, driving Jews out of Spain and murdering more than a few. Mass murders of Jews in Spain began with the 1391 massacre in Navarre (coinciding with arrival of the “Shepherd’s Crusade”). In fact, many among Columbus’ Crew were probably Jewish, having quietly changed their names so as not to be so easily classified!

 

Similar Jewish “Holocausts,” big and small, are not atypical of European history since way before 1000AD!

 

Unpleasant history is easily forgotten, but age-old ethnic and religious animosities are alive and well to this day!

 

And as many have unhappily learned, “protection” supposedly provided by government is mostly myth, as many formally-naive Jews, particularly in NYC, are now re-discovering!

 

In America, our Constitution’s Second Amendment confirms our (all of us) individual right to employ deadly force, including gunfire, in legitimate self-protection, based upon our own summary command and judgment.

 

Be suspicious and frightened of those who seek to take that right away.

 

It’s happened before!

 

 

 

AE Samaan

 

/John