#there are plenty of Jewish people against what Israel is doing right now and asking for a cease fire | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

edenfenixblogs · 6 months

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I don’t think most non-Jews understand how disappointed we are in the left right now. How completely abandoned we’ve become. How our contributions to progress for other groups have been erased or disavowed or hidden. How the actual tangible things that Jews have contributed to black rights and civil rights are being ignored. How we’re being told we contribute and have contributed nothing.

How we are being told that the world has been kind to us when it never has. As if my mom didn’t grow up getting called a Kike and getting beat up for being Jewish. How I thought I had friends until I caught them saying “xyz was beautiful until Jews showed up.” How people told me I was pretty “for a Jew.” How I grew up hearing stories about bombs being set off in Israel in buses and markets. How I couldn’t even go two weeks without hearing that and how nobody cared and somehow, every time that happened, the whole world became more hostile to me for some reason.

I just don’t understand. I don’t understand what leftists are doing. Or why. I hate that I have to say—of course, I support a free and self determined Palestine (which I truly do)—in order for you to decide I’m worthy of care and support.

We showed up for you. All of you. And the entire movement is abandoning us at best or targeting us at worst. Celebrating our deaths. Saying we deserved it. How are we supposed to trust you ever again? How are we supposed to feel safe ever again?

A very few select people who are in my life have taken the chance to actually learn about and dismantle their own unconscious antisemitism during this time. And I’m eternally grateful for them. But most people haven’t reached out at all. Most people are still sharing hateful things that could get me hurt and they don’t care. Most people Reblogging my posts are still Jews. Because we are alone. And it sucks. You need to be as loud about antisemitism as you are about Palestine or you’re an antisemite (unless you’re Arab/Muslim/Palestinian—I totally get that these groups are also doing damage control in their own communities just like Jews are).

But we are all in tremendous pain right now.

This moment will pass. And when it does, I will remember how many people let me down. I will remember that when I needed support more than I’ve ever needed it in my life, people fucking vanished. They pretended violence against my people wasn’t happening. They ignored and rewrote the history of Israel to suit their own narratives.

You don’t know what it feels like to be hated this much for opposite things. PoC hate us for being too white. White supremacists hate us for not being white enough. Europeans hate us for being middle eastern. Middle easterners hate us for being western/European. Everyone hates us for being settlers but continually kicks us out of their countries so that we have to settle somewhere else.

I saw a post going around from a Black person who said that the reason he and his fellow black activists go protest for Palestinians instead of fighting antisemitism (as if it’s a binary, which it’s not) is that Jews don’t show up. Muslims and Palestinians do. And honestly? Fuck that guy. Heather Heyer died standing shoulder to shoulder against racism in 2017. [CORRECTION: When I first wrote this post I was under the impression that Heather Heyer was Jewish. I want to correct to avoid spreading misinfo. She was just the first (and incorrect) Jewish civil rights activist I thought of. However there are plenty of other actual Jewish civil rights activists to choose from. If you have reblogged this post from me, please feel free to add a link to the permalink version of this post with my correction to your reblog.]I have devoted substantial time and effort and money that I don’t even get paid a lot of because I don’t get paid a living wage. I have continually reached out to PoC people in my life of all religions to ask how they are doing and what I could be doing to help more—both for them personally and how they would best like me to help their community. I have elevated their voices at every opportunity. And not one person I checked in with has done the same for me or for my community.

And it’s bone chilling. It’s awful. And it’s even worse knowing that when it’s over, people will want to go back to normal. They won’t apologize. They won’t self reflect. They’ll just live their lives, maybe a little more aware of how much they hate us and completely indifferent to the harm they’ve caused us. How disposable they made us feel. And the thing is…it’s not hard for you to know. You just have to ask.

Too many people are cowards. Too many people care about looking good than actually learning something or making the world better. And to those people: you should be ashamed of yourself.

I don’t have any hate in my heart. Truly. Not a drop for any group of people. But I have a tremendous lack of trust that anyone would actually lift a finger to keep me safe.

#antisemitism #leftist antisemitism #anti zionisim #I dare a goy to republic this challenge #goyim ID yourself in the tags if you reblog this #cuz i straight up don’t believe goyisch activists give a shit unless they straight up say they do #i’m not okay #honestly #this is the Nazi stuff I am most scared of #sure the Nazis rounded us up #but you fuckers were the ones who watched and did nothing #you’re the ones who voted the Nazis in #you’re the ones who didn’t stop them #fuck all y’all for real #i/p #israel #palestine #correction issued

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bringmemyrocks · 5 months

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hey i've been reading what you've posted about "normalizers" etc and when you mentioned rim abdellatif i realized that a while ago the organization shoresh (anti-zionist israelis in the usa) posted something and she commented that it's a nonsensical psy-op for them to say they're anti-zionist israelis. i saw a few american anti-zionist jews agreeing with her but i'm not sure what to make of it tbh. like i've seen people renounce their israeli citizenship and i think that's good and members of shoresh could probably do that i guess, but idk. what you've posted about religious chauvinism is spot on from what i've seen so maybe i should talk to the jews i know who hold her as the standard to follow :/

Hi anon, so a few things. Please tell your Jewish friends why she, and the strict definition of antinormalization she espouses.

More info on my blog, specifically the antinormalization tag. I also have tags for JVP, etc.

TL;DR Reem Abdellatif is an antisemite, conspiracy theorist, and transphobe. Nobody should treat her as an authority on anything. She’s also not Palestinian. She is Egyptian and lives in LA. Most Israelis are not dual citizens and are not eligible for dual citizenship. Shoresh is anti-Zionist org for Israelis in the US. Plenty of its members do not have US/other dual citizenship. Requiring them to renounce their Israeli citizenship would render them unable to leave Israel, unable to “just leave” like Reem and her peers want.

Please do your own digging before accepting someone's evaluation of an org, including my own.

Elaborating:

For any non-followers, I support a free Palestine from the River to the Sea. This does not mean that no Jews are allowed to live there. That’s never what it has meant. Most questions about “what about the Israelis” rn are a distraction from the ongoing genocide, but I believe that anon is asking in good faith.

Note that Palestinians who engage in “normalization” (definition debateable) are tortured. This is not just about getting canceled online, or even losing your job.

Sorry for NYT but it's the best summary of what happened: https://web.archive.org/web/20230316191855/https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/10/world/middleeast/rami-aman-palestinian-activist-arrested.html

Disclaimers: Israel is a racist society, and most Israelis polled right now do not support even a ceasefire. https://time.com/6333781/israel-hamas-poll-palestine/

Thus “what if all Israelis renounced their Israeli citizenship” is a total hypothetical. I know people who have renounced their Israeli citizenship. It is a powerful mode of activism if it is accessible to someone. These now former-Israelis had dual citizenship with the USA or another country. If these people did not have dual citizenship, renouncing would not help Palestine as they could not leave Israel. Note for any JISR types that I will be using the term “Israel” rather than “zionist entity” because I’m talking about citizenship and passports.

Rim Abdellatif is a conspiracy theorist whom nobody should treat as an authority, regardless of their politics. (For anyone who doesn’t know who she is, she’s a big #notonormalization English-language Instagram influencer. She is Muslim but not Palestinian. Neither of those two things should discredit her, obviously)

Parroting Joe Rogan, claiming Epstein was a Mossad agent: https://www.instagram.com/p/C0ok6UeruE3/

Anyone who doesn’t share her strict beliefs is being paid off by zionists: https://www.instagram.com/p/C0uEB4wILwQ/

Opposing permanent ceasefire, claiming it’s a Zionist plot:

https://www.instagram.com/p/C0atdDIuD3R/?img_index=1

https://www.instagram.com/p/CyjrqtjvJ-d/

Railing against the “emasculation of men” (not using any of the Palestine hashtags she usually uses when talking about Palestine–this is not about Israel and a comment clearly calls out the transphobia) https://www.instagram.com/p/CzNV4KkrWyU/

A few examples of Islamic chauvinism

Only admitting Muslim victims of Israeli apartheid and genocide (Nov 8): https://www.instagram.com/p/CzaVLoZLLDV/

https://www.instagram.com/stories/highlights/18023925487682417/ (second half of stories)

Plenty more on her stories and Instagram posts but this post is too long already.

JVP is an antizionist organization that calls for a free Palestine from the River to the Sea. It does not get money from liberal Zionists (no liberal Zionist will go near them.) It’s clear here that Reem’s issue is that JVP are not Muslim.

George Soros theorizing... (pics 2, 3, and 4 currently sequential on her story)

She also claims that any Jewish mention of the Holocaust said in solidarity with Palestinians is centering Jewish settlers, which is… Note that she’s accusing American Jews of being “settlers” in Israel. I’m very hesitant to throw around accusations of antisemitism, but this isn’t a great look.

She has since claimed that Chabad (the Jewish org) is running a child sex trafficking ring out of their basement, pizzagate-style. (Note that there was an instance of some Chabad teens digging a tunnel in the basement, but it was a weird religious prophecy thing, not related to human trafficking jfc.) Article on harmful conspiracies like this.

Moving on. Israel, dual citizenship, and Shoresh. I can't find the specific comment you're talking about, so I'll talk about the general ideas instead.

Israel is absolutely privileged by the US, not just by $4 billion/year for military aid, but also because Americans can serve in the Israeli military without consequence. Israel also allows dual citizenship for new (Jewish) immigrants, so an American Jew relocating to Israel keeps their US citizenship.

Israel’s Jewish Israeli population is 9 million. Depending on your source, between 300,000 and 1 million Jewish Israelis have dual citizenship with another country. Around 200,000 of them are US-Israel dual citizens. This means over 8 million Jewish Israelis do not have dual citizenship. Say for the sake of argument another 2 million Israelis have an easy way to get citizenship in another country. That still leaves 6 million Israelis who do not have dual citizenship.

Most American Jews (by birth and by practice–born Jews who convert to other religions are not eligible) are eligible for Israeli citizenship, but this does not mean they actually have Israeli citizenship.

If you renounce your Israeli citizenship, you lose your Israeli passport. Stating the obvious just in case it’s necessary.

Thus, if your only possible nationality is Israeli, if you renounce your Israeli citizenship, you become stateless and cannot travel anywhere, including “just leaving” Israel.

People saying “omg just leave” are understandable, coming from a place of pain, but it is not a statement that could apply to most Jewish Israelis. Again, this is hypothetical.

It would be interesting to see what percentage of antizionist Israelis have dual citizenship and what percentage do not, but I don’t have a way to find that out.

Shoresh is an organization for anti-Zionist Israelis living in the USA. Per their own description “We are a movement of anti-Zionist Israelis in the U.S. for freedom and justice for all from the river to the sea.” https://www.instagram.com/shoresh_us/ This is the section most prone to errors as I don’t know a ton about this organization. As with previous posts, I am not here to do PR for this org.

Shoresh is an anti-zionist organization. This is a big deal in the Jewish world. Even some anti-occupation orgs won't use the label "anti-Zionist" but JVP and Shoresh both do. Good for them.

Shoresh allows activists to protest in the USA in ways that they could not under the current Israeli regime.

Shoresh is not exclusively Israelis with US citizenship. It is simply a group of “Israelis in the US.”

Thus much if not most of Shoresh’s membership is not capable of renouncing their Israeli citizenship because they are not dual citizens. If most of Shoresh is dual citizens (no way of telling,) they still do not restrict their membership to dual citizens. Some still wouldn't be able to renounce.

Even if all of Shoresh renounced their citizenship, they would lose their ability to leave Israel.

Israeli passport holders can stay in the USA for a max of 6 months unless they have a work or student visa.

Thus, “Everyone in Shoresh should renounce their Israeli citizenship and never return to Israel” doesn’t really work.

It would still be powerful if the members of Shoresh who could renounce their Israeli citizenship did so. But I don’t get to tell people how to do their activism, (that's something everyone should internalize) and ultimately I don’t know which members are dual citizens. (NB: Their insta also shows Abby Stein and Peter Beinhart, both American Jews, neither of whom has Israeli citizenship to renounce.)

General thoughts: Shoresh is not the most radical organization in the world, but that does not mean they are actively harmful (see J Street and other “pro-Israel pro-peace” orgs). You do not have to support Shoresh, but you also don’t have to say nasty things about them. You can ignore orgs you don’t like! You can march alongside them or even with them if you're comfortable and not agree with their positions. (And I wish “influencers” on Instagram would realize this.) I haven’t interacted with Shoresh, so I can’t speak to how much change they’re effecting. I know that they’ve been disrupting a lot of pro-IDF fundraising events in the USA, as well as going to/hosting rallies, and that’s substantial.

They're located in NY so I have no direct experience with them. Again, not here to do PR for orgs.

I highly recommend this article on IDF fundraising parties in the USA and Shoresh’s disruption. It’s a bit long, but very worth the read. https://www.thenation.com/article/activism/friends-of-the-idf-gala-protests/

#rim abdellatif #reem abdellatif #anti normalization #shoresh #activism #antisemitism #antinormalization

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emptyanddark · 3 years

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re: antisemitism

so there’s a lot of racism of many backgrounds around the world. as a jewish-born person i want to highlight some disturbing trend that is rampant, especially now that social media sites are basically running our lives.

if you search “antisemitism” online, one of the top results is going to be from the IHRA, the international holocaust remembrance alliance, and i’m quoting here:

“Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.”

seems legit, right? but the disturbing details are when you scroll down to the examples that are given:

“ Manifestations might include the targeting of the state of Israel, conceived as a Jewish collectivity. However, criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic. “

"Accusing the Jews as a people, or Israel as a state, of inventing or exaggerating the Holocaust”

this, conflating Jews with the state of Israel is extremely harmful. THESE ARE NOT THE SAME. the Jews are a religious group, you may argue cultural or ethnic or whatever - it’s not my point. however, Israel is a setteler-colonial country and any criticism or support against/for it is POLITICAL. these are very basic concepts.

also one of the examples for antisemitism in that page:

“Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.”

just, think about it for a moment. when criticizing a policy, or a politician, or a country, unjustifiable or not, they may be compared to Nazis, either because of fascism, totalitarian tendencies, racial superiority etc. can you think of any other example for when you do that, you’re committing a hate crime against a religious group? if i criticize government policies in Qatar, for example, am i immediately Islamophobic, regardless of the content of my criticism? this quote is a direct line from israeli propaganda and has nothing to do with actual antisemitism, but EVERYTHING to do with silencing Palestinians and their supporters from expressing themselves, from protesting and resisting Israel.

as someone who knows these talking points closely, it’s not surprising. it’s drilled down by any Israeli that any criticism towards Israel is in fact antisemitic, because other countries don’t get nearly as much criticism (side note: this argument is fucking preposterous, and you may quote me on that).

here you can see a list of countries and organizations that have adopted the IHRA’s definition of antisemitism. this endorsement includes not only the definition, but also the examples that follow. this is a further obstacle for pro-Palestinian sentiments and a tool against free speech. this is oppressive and a dangerous weapon that can and has ruined lives of people.

while this false narrative has existed for decades, what’s even more concerning for me about it is how it’s handled on social media; there are many instances of social media removing posts or flagging posts for being “antisemitic” or “hate speech” when they actually just show israel in a bad light as the colonial oppressor that it is. the algorithms also do their job hiding Palestinian voices (ask yourselves, why in the recent war against gaza people had to post under the tag black lived matter and stop asian hate to gain traction). this is extremely worrying because social media has been a powerful tool for Palestinians to document and share their lives under the Israeli occupation, the violence, pogroms and conditions they suffer under this repressing apartheid regime.

tl;dr///my point is: of course antisemitism is horrible, but be very fucking careful about how it’s defined.

for further info:

i recommended reading this page, it’s detailed with plenty of examples and refers to other resources

here is a letter by 122 academics regarding the IHRA definition for antisemitism

Israel’s digital apartheid is silencing Palestinians

listen/watch this podcast talking about the recent IHRA confress

HRW report

#long post #palestine #free speech #discrimination #free palestine #solidarity #israeli apartheid #antizionism #mine #op

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beckzorz · 5 years

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Pizza Night (one-shot)

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x reader Words: 1967 Summary: What makes this pizza night different from all other pizza nights? A/N: Happy holidays ;-) Something of a companion piece to Snowed In (thematically, anyway). Hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think.

The third Sunday of every month is pizza night at the compound. Tony gets pizza delivered straight from the city, usually from a different place every month, for absolutely everyone—janitors, Avengers, programmers, medics, doctors, physical therapists…

And you.

Pizza night is one of your favorite traditions here. It’s less classy than the cocktail party-type get-togethers that Tony likes to throw; no mixed drinks, just water, soda, and beer for those inclined. And yes, you do like getting dressed up once in a while, but there’s effort involved, and your job is enough work, thank you very much.

Unwinding without expectations is nice.

Also, pizza.

—

“Hi Paul!” You slide into the passenger seat of your neighbor’s car and tuck your shopping bag between your feet. “Thanks so much for the ride.”

“No problem,” Paul says. He pulls away from the curb and drives towards the compound. “It’s literally five houses out of my way.”

“Yes, but still.” It’s cloudy but warm, so you open the window and let your hand dangle, catching the wind between your fingers. “How’s it feel to have tax season over?”

Paul groans in relief. “Oh my god, like freedom herself came and blessed me with those lottery days off last week.”

You laugh. Most accountants are dull as the grave, but Paul’s pretty funny, all things considered.

“What’s in the bag?” he asks.

“Oh…” You shift a little in your seat. “Just some stuff for tonight.”

“Fun,” he says.

“Mm.”

Your noncommittal answer doesn’t lead to a reply, and Paul turns on NPR. All Things Considered is good as far as radio shows go, but tonight your mind is wandering.

Pizza night’s going to be a little different this time around, and the thought of standing out makes your heart squeeze painfully. You’ve only been at this job long enough to take part in five, maybe six pizza nights, and you’re just starting to feel comfortable enough to make some waves. A suggestion for implementing a new project, a few more personal effects by your desk… It’s all gone well, but tonight?

You’re not sure.

It’s another fifteen minutes before you and Paul flash your security badges to the gate guard. There’s already a bunch of cars in the front lot—no surprise; the compound runs 24/7. Paul squeezes into a spot between two SUVs, and you suck in your breath to slip out of the car with your bag.

The second you walk into the right building, your mouth starts to water. You can smell it all—the bakery smell of the crust, the gooey cheese, the garlic. Even the tang of pepperoni, which you don’t eat.

It smells like a greasy pizzeria, replete with checkered tables and silvery napkin holders and rotating countertop displays with slices waiting to be shucked onto paper plates. It smells like a hole-in-the-wall with a gruff chef whose mouth would give Gordon Ramsay a run for his money. It smells like the kind of place you don’t wear white to.

It smells like heaven.

“Fuck,” you mutter, and Paul chuckles beside you.

“Eager, huh?”

“Not exactly.” You shift your bag to your other hand and try to keep your breathing steady.

Paul gives you a funny look, but he doesn’t push as you both climb up the lobby stairs to the lounge. He nods at you and makes a beeline straight for the buffet table. You don’t follow quite yet.

You pause by the top of the stairs as you take it all in. Maybe it’s a little cliché, but you still can’t quite believe your luck. How many people can say they work with superheros? Eat pizza with superheros? Sure, some of them are away right now—it’s Easter today, after all—but there are still plenty here tonight. Steve Rogers, of course, and his cute friend Bucky Barnes. Natasha Romanoff, Vision, Wanda Maximoff. Plenty of people.

Someone bumps into you, and you tighten your grip on your bag and make your way to the kitchen. It’s commercial-sized, with an oven the size of a closet full of oozing pizzas waiting to replace the ones on the buffet. You pause in front of it, gazing longingly at the rotating rack of pies, before one of the outside waitstaff ushers you aside.

You snag a plate from a cabinet and a spoon from a drawer. With a heavy heart, you open your shopping bag. Out comes a box, a bag of shredded mozzarella, a glass jar of marinara sauce. You carefully spread the sauce and sprinkle the cheese. Sixty-six seconds in the microwave, and you sigh as you pull the warm plate out.

“What’s that?”

You jump out of your skin. Natasha Romanoff is at your elbow, eyeing your plate curiously.

“Oh, uh, hi, Natasha.” You shift your weight, cheeks hot. “It’s matzah pizza.”

“Oh right,” Natasha says. “It’s Passover, isn’t it?”

“Yep.” You force a smile and squeeze by her to get back to the lounge, but she sticks to you.

“Isn’t all this—” she gestures to the pizza buffet as you pass by— “awfully tempting?”

You snort. “Of course! And it’s only day two.”

“Eight days?”

“Outside of Israel, yup.”

“And no bread?”

“No bread, no cake, no pasta—well, no normal pasta, anyway—no cereal, no oatmeal, no beer, no cookies,” you rattle off. “And I’m sure I’m missing something.”

Natasha puts a hand on your arm and leads to the couch she usually shares with some of the other Avengers. You sit down, head swimming with surprise. You usually hang out with coworkers from your department, not… the department.

Still, you do your best to smile at Steve, who’s next to you.

“How are—oh,” he says. He blinks at your pizza, then looks back at you with a sympathetic wince. “You’re brave.”

“I would go with masochistic before brave,” you reply. You take a deep breath, eyes fluttering shut for the briefest moment before you pull yourself together. A bite of matzah pizza does nothing to resolve the craving for real pizza. “This is hell.”

Steve chuckles. “So why’d you come?”

“Yeah, seriously,” Natasha chimes in. She’s perched on the arm of the couch beside you, a half-eaten slice of pizza folded in her hand.

“Eh, pizza night’s my favorite thing we have here,” you say. “It’s nice to hang out without having to think about work, you know?”

“Fair enough.”

“Bucky,” Natasha says suddenly, amusement dripping from her tone, “you look like a fish.”

You turn to look up at Bucky. His eyes are glued to your plate. To your pizza. He snaps his mouth shut and swallows, glancing down at his own plate. He’s got two big pieces of pepperoni pizza, one piled on top of the other.

“Something wrong, Buck?” Steve asks.

“No,” Bucky says, but you don’t buy it for a second.

Based on their raised eyebrows, neither do Natasha and Steve. Bucky nudges Steve’s leg with his boot, and Steve shifts over as much as he can.

Bucky sits down next to you, his thigh pressed against yours. He discards his pizza on the coffee table and sits back, still looking at your plate. Your mouth suddenly goes dry, pizza smell be damned. So close to Bucky, you’ve caught whiff of something a million times more intoxicating. He smells intoxicating, all heady and exhilarating and distinctively unique.

Greasy pizzeria as heaven?

No, heaven is sitting next to Bucky Barnes, his solid thigh against yours and his hand brushing your arm from where it’s slung on the back of the couch.

“You know,” he says, voice small and almost faraway, “the missions used to come to the front for Passover.”

You blink. Bucky is still looking at the matzah pizza on your plate.

“The front? You mean, during World War II?” you ask.

“Yeah.” His eyes flit to yours, his lips quirking up just enough to set your heart beating a little faster. “Those seders were the best part of the year.”

You gape. It can’t be attractive, but—Bucky Barnes is Jewish? Like you? It’s impossible.

“I don’t remember any,” Steve says. “What about ‘44?”

“Eh, by the time you came along, we had other things to do,” Bucky tells Steve, but he’s still facing you. He lowers his voice, ducks his head a little as his gaze tightens on yours. “Can I—did you bring that?”

You nod, thoroughly speechless.

“Can I have one?”

“Just one?” Natasha teases. You huff a little, half amused, half offended on Bucky’s behalf, but he’s rolling his eyes fondly.

“Of course,” you tell him. You force yourself up from the couch, left thigh cold from the loss of his leg pressed against yours. Is your face as warm as it feels? Can they all see? “Be right back.”

But Bucky jumps to his feet before you can make your escape. “You gotta show me how,” he says. He puts a hand on the small of your back and guides you through the crowd to the kitchen, greeting some of the waitstaff by name.

You’re not just speechless now; you’re breathless. His hand on your back, with just a thin shirt between his metal hand and your skin. His rich baritone, the gentle smile you can see out of the corner of your eye if you turn your head just a little.

Out comes the matzah, the sauce, the cheese. Bucky grabs a fresh plate and watches with careful focus as you assemble a matzah pizza for him.

“Can I do more cheese?” he asks.

“Eh, you could, but if you do too much it gets soggy.”

“Fair.”

You stand side-by-side in front of the microwave as you punch in sixty-six seconds. The microwave comes on with a whoosh.

“So,” Bucky says. “I didn’t know you were Jewish.”

Your lips twitch. “Bucky, I don’t think we’ve exchanged more than half a dozen words before tonight.” You raise an eyebrow at him, and he purses his lips in reluctant agreement. “But I didn’t know you were. And we learned about you all in school!”

“Well, my mom was. We didn’t practice or anything.” He tucks his hair behind his ear. “Not like you.”

“Everyone does it differently,” you say. “It’s all about what works for you.”

The microwave beeps, and Bucky pulls the plate out. “I haven’t really thought about it in ages,” he says. “But…” He smiles at you, eyes crinkling. “Maybe it’s time to see what works for me now that things have changed.”

“Hear hear!” You grin back. Never mind the heat in your cheeks—Bucky is smiling. At you. Who cares if you’re blushing? “No time like the present.”

“Amen,” he says. He lifts the plate close to his face and tries a bite of matzah pizza. His expression is thoughtful by the time he swallows. “I mean, it’s not as good as the stuff out there usually is, but it’s not bad.”

“I’ll be honest, I’m going to eat a whole pizza next month,” you tell him.

“Next month?” Bucky asks through another bite.

“Next pizza night,�� you clarify.

He swallows, Adam’s apple bobbing on his pale neck. “How long is Passover? Eight days, right?”

“Yeah…?” You tilt your head, confused.

“Forget next month. We can go for some proper pizza next Sunday. I mean—if you want?”

Bucky’s blue eyes are wide, hopeful as he looks at you. You can’t help smiling. Pizza to end Passover is an old family tradition, one you thought you’d miss out on now that you’re living so far from home. But it’s like Bucky said.

Time to see what works, now that things have changed.

“I want,” you say, and he grins back, smile as bright as the moon.

“To pizza night,” he says, lifting his matzah pizza in a toast.

You bump elbows with him, heart soaring. “To pizza night.”

#bucky barnes imagine #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes x you #bucky x you #bucky barnes x y/n #winter soldier imagine #becca writes #jewish bucky barnes

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dailyaudiobible · 4 years

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06/09/2020 DAB Transcript

1 Kings 5:1-6:38, Acts 7:1-29, Psalms 127:1-5, Proverbs 16:28-30

Today is the 9th day of June welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I’m Brian it’s great to be here with you today as we move further into our week, further into the Scriptures. So, we’re working our way into Solomon's reign as we read through the books of the king's, first and second Kings, and that's what we’re reading about, the different reigns of the different Kings of Israel. But we’re kind of at the beginning. We’ve learned of Saul, the first king, we learned of David who is the second king, and now David's son Solomon is the third king of Israel and we’re learning of Solomon's wisdom and the way that he organized and governed his people. So, from the Good News Translation, which is what we’re reading this week. First Kings 5 and 6.

Commentary:

Okay. So, in the book of first Kings we see the construction of the temple. This is the first Temple ever in Israel. So, like when we think of the New Testament or even when we think of ancient times, we think about the temple usually. The temple features in a lot of stories. Like it’s the centerpiece because it's the centerpiece of the Hebrew culture. So, even in the time of Jesus, the temple is the center. Previous to this, it had been the tabernacle, right? When we were in the books of Moses we went exhaustively through the construction of the portable tabernacle right down to the hooks that would hold the curtains, like all of it. And this was the portable tabernacle that’s gonna move around with the people, God among his people. So, this is the first permanent structure where the name of the Lord will dwell. And this template we’re watching being built right now is known as the first temple and the place that we’re in in history in the Bible is the first temple period. Later on, that temple will be destroyed and then later on it will be rebuilt and then later on it will be destroyed again. And will get to that. But right now, this is the first temple. So, what we’re watching happen here is Israel reaching sort of an apex and in their culture and in their existence, a permanent temple for God, a place of identity, a national identity. And we gotta watch close because we reach this apex and then we began to move down the other side so quickly. It's taken us so long to get to this point where the land is really the Promised Land where prosperity is abounding where peace is all around where happiness is plentiful. We read it and then we move through it so quickly that it's almost like, “wait…that was a big, big, big moment that we just read through. And, so, I’m just pointing it out now because we’re kind of at this place where things are reaching their culmination. This is the best of the best for the ancient Hebrew people.

Okay. So, then we move into the New Testament, which is in the book of Acts and we read of the diaconate…of deacons or what would become deacons being appointed, helpers, people to help in the ministry, especially to the widows. One of these men was named Stephen and he was captured. He was arrested and there was a bunch of debate. And, so, Stephen has been brought before the high Council to be questioned because, in part, Steven’s being accused of customs and traditions that do not apply to the people that are like new inventions. And, so, Stephen begins today to testify on his own behalf before the Council. And what Stephen is doing in his defense is telling the Hebrew story. For us, reading this now, this is incredible review of the territory that we have, that we have moved through since we began our journey at the beginning of the year. But for Stephen before the Jewish Council, he's establishing that he is truly a Hebrew, he’s not inventing…like he knows the Hebrew story. So, he's recounting the Hebrew story in all of its detail because he's a Hebrew who grew up as a Hebrew. So, let's watch his story because we're in the…the church era in the book of Acts, the formation of the early church. We watch his story but while we’re listening to his testimony, we have the opportunity to review back those stories that we moved through in detail as we’ve been moving through the year so far.

Then the book of Psalms, one of my very, very favorite Psalms, one that I keep with me, that…that guides my life. “If the Lord does not build the house the work of the builders is useless. If the Lord does not protect the city it does no good for the sentries to stand guard. It’s useless to work so hard for a living getting up early and going to bed late for the Lord provides for those He loves while they are asleep.” This…this Psalm reminds us that all that we are trying to achieve in our own strength, the things that we’re willing to exhaust ourselves over. We need to look deep inside why we are doing what we are doing because if we are trying to do it without the Lord it's a waste of time. Yeah…yeah…and I’ve wasted plenty of time…and I …in my life and I just…yeah…when I…this verse has kind of guided me for, man, well over a decade but when I encountered it, which was early on in my relationship with the Bible, it’s kinda stuck with me. And knowing it and living it, you know, those are different things. You can find yourself exhausting yourself in some direction for some reason lots of times, but to remember, “if the Lord doesn't build the house the labor is in vain.” May we remember that.

And then, as if that weren't enough for today, we flip the page into Proverbs. “Gossip is spread by wicked people. They stir up trouble and break up friendships.” Gossip. This won’t be the last time that this comes up in the Bible. The things that we say to other people about people who are not present. The little stories that we carry around trying to fill in the blanks for people to kinda…to kinda give ourselves a sense of being in the know of being connected, the things that we can spread around my friends. And are we not acutely aware of how things spread around these days. I mean like isn't that the world we've had to kind of encounter and live in this year trying to avoid this read things. Gossip spreads around and infects things in the same way. The Proverbs say that there end result may not be like pneumonia or something like that. The end result is that they stir up trouble and break up friendships, which is a devastating thing. So, yeah, we've learned how to social distance this year better than maybe…well…better than I've ever known how to do in my life, more than I've ever had to do in my life. But maybe we should consider distancing ourselves from gossip. It's only going to stir up trouble and break up friendships. Maybe instead of a mask we just bite our tongues and not say that thing and not spread it any further. Nothing good can come from it.

Prayer:

Father, we thank You for Your word and we thank You for its instruction and its counsel. It…thank You and that it shows us the way to go. And, so, we acknowledge, unless we are laboring with You, we are laboring in vain. If we are building our own kingdom in some way, we are exhausting ourselves for no reason. It doesn't matter without You. And we have also taken into heart today that what we say matters. It can break up friendships and stir up trouble when we spread gossip. Help us not to spread gossip any more than we spread anything else that's destructive. Come into this Holy Spirit, we ask in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Announcements:

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And that is it for today. I'm Brian I love you and I'll be waiting for you here tomorrow.

Community Prayer and Praise:

Good morning DAB family this is Paula calling from Albuquerque it is Thursday, June 4th. Just finished listening to the podcast and I just love, I just love, I don’t know how to say it…else to say it but every time we have one of these days where the proof of Brian’s words of the rhythm of the Scriptures is so profound. All four areas that we read today were connected, just beautiful. I just love it. So, __ if you will with all of us in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Hi this is Teresa from Missouri and this week Brian mentioned the achievements that we get when we finished the Gospels and I noticed I hadn’t gotten mine so I went back to look at previous broadcasts to see which one I had missed and I found myself on January 23rd and I heard Heather from Atlanta. And Heather you are crying because you had wanted to be a missionary or a ministry…to do a ministry and then Satan unleashed all kinds of evil against you and it just made me think of the book of Job. And I wanted to tell you that someone’s still praying for you and let you know that you’re not alone and that we care, and we love you. So, hang in there, girl. And I also heard God’s Smile from England and I love your voice and you talked about having a Nana or that was a not proper Nana that would hold you and read to you. Your voice just sounded like someone that…that would be a Nana that I could go and give you a big hug and sit and we could read to each other. So, I just wanted to tell you that, that you are special to me today too. So, it’s June 4th but I was listening to the January 23rd podcast. Love you guys, have a good day.

Good afternoon DAB family my name it is Vincent from Connecticut and I walk in love or at least I try to. I first found you in January. I can’t believe you’ve been around for so many years. You people are absolutely amazing. I’m asking for your prayers and I’m embarrassed to ask because there’s so many of you that I hear in deep distress and pain suffering and the pain I have is simply in my heart. I believe that I have not because I ask not, and I believe that you seek ye first the kingdom of God and all things else will be added unto you. Well, I love someone, and I’ve loved them for some time. She is a nurse and I am unable to see her now because of the virus or because perhaps her heart has changed. But this pandemic and this violence has made me painfully, painfully alone and I don’t think that’s what God wants for me. God bless you. And as Brian says, I love you.

Hi family this is His little Cherry in Canada and I am just sitting here looking at my pillow ready to go to bed and I wanted to call and pray again for everyone who has sleeping problems. Oh, daddy here we are again and I’m so grateful that I’m not here alone, so grateful that You’re with me. Lord thank You for Your presence. I pray for everyone in this community who dreads going to bed because they have sleeping issues of one kind or another. Lord, please help each one of us who are facing another night of restlessness, insomnia, pain, whatever it might be. Lord, I ask that in Your mercy You would help us to be able to sleep. I pray for those with insomnia that You’d help their minds to slow down and to drift off and to fall into deep restful sleep. I pray for those who have pain. I pray that You would give them relief, that it would lift, that they would be able to sleep. I pray for those who have to get up many times in the night for whatever reason Lord. I just pray for each one of us that You would comfort us, that You would banish fear, that You would speak peace straight into our hearts. Lord, that You would do a miracle for us and give us good restful restorative sleep I ask You for this in the name of Your son Jesus. Amen.

Hey family it’s Jesse from Washington I need prayers…I don’t know…just for so many things. I’ve been putting off calling the last few days just because it’s just so many things but it’s so clear that it just, you know, an attack on…like a coordinated attack on every aspect of…I guess…really mostly my wife through mental health. She is taking to heart rumors that she’s heard from gossiping friends and gossiping people at church. And, I mean, I know in my heart that I didn’t…I didn’t do anything wrong, I haven’t done anything wrong but the thoughts that are coming from this gossip that’s been being absorbed…I can understand why it would cause somebody pain but it’s just…I mean…there’s no accountability from the other side, there’s no…I don’t know….I don’t know how to explain it. I just know…I mean…I can take accountability for being in situations but…and…it…it...I can’t say to my wife, well I haven’t done anything wrong. It drives her crazy and she’s just so angry and like so hurt. So, I mean all I can do is do my best to just take the verbal and emotional stuff and…but I just…I…it’s… it’s difficult. I’m being humble about it but I…I just know I can’t logically explain to somebody…I don’t…I don’t…I don’t know. I don’t know what to say family I really don’t…

Hello DAB family I’m calling today Friday, June 5th my name is Veronica and I’m a first-time caller. I want to thank Brian for this great community. I have struggled to ask prayers for this, but God has been pressing it on my heart for weeks. Please pray for my husband and I as we pursue medical treatment for infertility. We have gone through multiple miscarriages. We have been married for 15 years and we are well into our 40s. Our chances to conceive are very low but God has brought us to a place where medical treatment is within our reach. I’m praying my insurance company will cover this procedure as we are still appealing for this. We have grieved and cried over all our losses and we have prayed for God to take this desire from our hearts, but we still have desire like never before. I ask if it’s His will that this procedure will work, and we will finally bring home a healthy baby. I’m pleading that God will give us a miracle and to give us peace no matter what, but above all I pray for His will to be done and to have His way in the situation. Thank you DAB family for your prayers. Bye-bye.

Hey, my wonderful DAB fam this is Kingdom Seeker Daniel from Chicago. Mr. Brian Hardin, or as one of our dear DABbers refers to you, Pastor Brian Hardin. My friend, my brother, my leader in this incredible ministry, to God be the glory for the great things He has done, is doing, and yet going to do through you, your precious bride, this incredible DAB team behind the scenes and everyone that’s associated to you. I just want to thank you from the very depth of my soul for your candid words of expression but even more so your story. Oh…as a black man, Brian, it was so refreshing hearing you talk about being given a shot coming up in music era that you were by a black man. And, so, that was absolutely awe-inspiring to say the least. So, I just want to say thank you sir. Thank you so, so very much for all that you do, all that you represent, what you stand for, how you lead this incredible ministry. I thank the living God for you, Pastor Brian Hardin. Keep up the great work sir.

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jewish-privilege · 5 years

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Last week, Rachel Shabi, a left-of-center British journalist, warned American progressives that anti-Semitism could one day tear apart Democrats just as it is now doing to the Labour Party. When I read her essay, just ten days ago, it seemed fantastical. Today, after watching progressives floundering about in the wake of Ilhan Omar’s smearing of pro-Israel activism as a form of dual loyalty, Shabi’s diagnosis looks prescient. It can happen here.

Shabi’s argument is that three conditions exist to help spread anti-Semitism among even progressives who are not inherently predisposed to it. The first is the right uses hyperbolic accusations of anti-Semitism to close off legitimate criticism of Israel. Second, the right is comprehensively more bigoted than the left. And third, the left itself is divided, so that when a member of the more radical faction is identified with it, “anti-Semitism quickly became part of an ongoing factional battle.”

All these conditions drive many leftists to form a protective cordon around their allies who promote anti-Semitic tropes. Only the most hard-core members actually defend anti-Semitic ideas on the merits. Most of them instead are driven into this position by polarization, defending anti-Semitism as an act of defiance against political enemies inside and outside the party.

The source of their ire at the moment is a new resolution by House Democrats denouncing anti-Semitism. It defines the term. In an implicit rebuke to Omar, to include ‘‘accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel, or to the alleged priorities of Jews worldwide, than to the interests of their own nations.”

If Omar merely spoke clumsily and didn’t intend to question the legitimacy of Jewish participation in the foreign policy debate, they could happily endorse the measure. It does not censure Omar, or even name her. The resolution also cites “the post-9/11 conditions faced by Muslim-Americans in the United States, including unfounded, vicious attacks on and threats to Muslim-American Members of Congress” as a form of unacceptable bigotry.

So, what is it about the resolution they object to? They resent a rebuke of their political ally. One viral tweet scolds Democrats for proposing a resolution against anti-Semitism while ignoring the much worse racism of Steve King. In fact, two months ago, Democrats also introduced a resolution denouncing King (by name, unlike Omar.)

The main theme of the defenses of Omar is deflection. Mehdi Hasan’s pro-Omar column lists all the anti-Semitism on the Republican side that has gone unpunished, and devotes not a single word to defending or even minimizing her offense. This has been a running theme of pro-Omar commentary on social media...

All these people are making the same argument: We must choose between condemning the greater evil of the opposing side and condemning the lesser evil of our own. We cannot do both. Obviously, this kind of logic is not peculiar to arguments from the left or arguments about anti-Semitism. It is a broadly popular form of deflection.

Daou’s phrase — “the problem,” which is also sometimes expressed as “the real problem” — is usually a tip-off that this kind of deflection is being employed. The very term “the problem” primes you into thinking there can only be one kind of problem. And since we know the other side is worse, it follows that our side cannot be the problem. Therefore, to criticize one’s own side is to ignore “the problem” (or “the real problem”). To rule out the possibility of multiple problems is to preclude internal criticism altogether.

In the Israel debate, like most issues, there are multiple problems. One is anti-Semites smuggling their biases into criticisms of Israel. Another is Israel supporters using hyperbolic accusations of anti-Semitism to shut down criticism of Israel. (Progressives sometimes use hyperbolic accusations of racism and sexism to shut down criticism also.) The trick is to navigate a middle ground that allows both calling out real bigotry and permitting open debate.

...Whether or not the United States should treat Israel as that kind of ally is a completely legitimate subject of political dispute. The place to make the argument is in the facts of the case — specifically, whether Israel merits such a level of support. Over the last decade and a half, as Israel’s rejectionist right has cemented almost permanent control of its foreign policy, I have grown more skeptical of the merits of the alliance. There is plenty of room to be much more critical than I am without falling into the trap of anti-Semitism.

Shabi’s advice analyzes the dilemma from the perspective of a party in a much more advanced stage of crisis. “Viewing American progressive politics today is like seeing the beginnings of a slow-motion car crash, one we’ve already been through,” she writes. As the Labour Party has embraced Jeremy Corbyn, acceptance of left-wing anti-Semitism has become a kind of totem of ideological virtue. The addictive pull of factional partisanship has produced an outbreak of anti-Semitism so deep and wide, the Jewish community is abandoning the party en masse.

...Progressives are right to object to bad-faith charges of anti-Semitism closing down questions about Israel. But defending anti-Semitism as “just asking questions about Israel” is not a solution. It is the opposite of a solution. Casting harsh condemnation of Israel as a stalking horse for anti-Semitism is easier if anti-Semitic insinuations are routinely smuggled into the debate.

Progressives are also right to object to the implication that bigotry should be thought of as a Democratic Party problem. The Democrats are a multicultural party that has built a strong culture of tolerance. This is of a necessity: The party could not survive without finding a political language that creates respect for religious and racial minorities as well as the majority. Those high standards can only exist if they are maintained. To change the subject to the lower standards of the Republican Party is eventually to adopt those standards as your own.

#long post #jonathan chait #antisemitism #Labour Party #democratic party

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tzedektzedek-tirdof · 6 years

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(The article is probably behind a paywall, so I’ve copied it below)

As the United States opened its new embassy in Jerusalem on Monday, tens of thousands of Gazans gathered at their territory’s boundary fence to protest the loss of Palestinian homes and villages when Israel was founded 70 years ago. Most were unarmed, but some protesters lobbed flaming tires or Molotov cocktails at the Israeli side. Israeli soldiers opened fire, killing more than 60 Palestinians and wounding thousands. Pro-Palestinian voices often described the Israeli response with words such as “murder” and “massacre.”

The reaction fit into a long rhetorical battle in which harsh criticism of Israel’s actions leads to accusations of bias against Jews. The right-wing Israeli news outlet Arutz Sheva, for instance, accused the United Nations agency that administers aid to Palestinians of encouraging anti-Semitism, citing a Fox News video that showed Gazan children chanting about the right to return to former Palestinian lands. Pro-Israel institutions have tried to blunt what they see as hate speech: South Carolina just passed a law deeming any criticism of Israel in public schools or universities to be anti-Semitic. More than 20 states have banned public contracts with companies that boycott of Israel. Meanwhile, fierce arguments have broken out over whether critics of Israel within Britain’s Labour Party are ignoring anti-Semitism.

Yes, anti-Semitism is alive and well, and increasingly it masquerades as criticism of Israel. But as the executive director of T’ruah, a Jewish organization dedicated to protecting human rights here, in Israel and in the occupied Palestinian territories, I know it’s possible to criticize Israel without veering into anti-Semitism. I do it every day.

People who pay special attention to Israeli policy are not necessarily anti-Semites: Human rights activists and organizations almost always choose a focus for their efforts. (One may reasonably work to end the genocide of the Rohingya community in Burma, for instance, without simultaneously addressing Bashar al-Assad’s slaughter of his people in Syria.) Israel attracts additional scrutiny because it is a top recipient of U.S. foreign aid and the only Western nation currently carrying out a military occupation of another people. Its territory is sacred to three major world religions. The existence of a strong U.S.-based lobby dedicated to promoting the policies of the Israeli government unsurprisingly generates a counterresponse. And Palestinians have built a national movement over the past five decades, unlike more recently displaced people. These trends shape a legitimate political dynamic.

But I also see plenty of criticism that crosses the line. Jews increasingly feel unwelcome on the left unless they abandon their commitments to Israel. A University of Virginia student told me that some progressive campus groups responded to the neo-Nazi incursions there (anti-Semitism on the right is often easier to spot) by dismissing Jewish students as “Zionist baby killers.” At rallies on college campuses, speakers regularly list “Zionists” in the same category as white supremacists and Nazis. Progressive leaders circulate lists of acceptable Jewish organizations, including only those that do not address Israel or that define themselves as Palestinian solidarity groups. If the left continues to ignore this trend, most of the Jewish community will be pushed out of progressive spaces.

*** *** *** ***

Despite what some pro-Israel organizations would have us believe, not all criticism of Israel is anti-Semitic. Like all countries, Israel has a duty to uphold international human rights laws and to protect the rights of those living under its control. One may protest the use of live fire on unarmed protesters, the closure of the Gaza border and the subsequent humanitarian crisis, the military occupation of the Palestinian territories, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s attacks on democracy and incitement against human rights leaders without invoking anti-Semitic tropes. Such policies would be wrong in any country, whether carried out by Jews or other people.

Although I do not believe that Israel is purposely carrying out a massacre in Gaza or attempting an ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, such accusations are not, on their face, anti-Semitic. One may even boycott Israel without stepping into anti-Semitism if it’s clear that the tactic aims to pressure Israel to change its policies, just as many Americans recently boycotted North Carolina over now-overturned laws discriminating against transgender people. (I personally do not support boycotting Israel, partly because so much of the movement is rife with anti-Semitic undertones.)

So how can you tell the difference between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism? Here are five useful markers.

Seeing Jews as insidious influencers behind the scenes of world events

On the left and the right, anti-Semitism often manifests in a nefarious belief in a worldwide Jewish conspiracy that wields outsize power. On the right, it’s “globalists” and “elites” who manipulate events. On the left, it’s “Zionists.” The terms may differ, but the fundamental conspiracy theory is the same. For example, after news broke that a private investigative firm made up of former Mossad officers had been digging up dirt on Obama administration officials who helped broker the U.S. nuclear deal with Iran, Columbia University professor Hamid Dabashi tweeted, “Every dirty treacherous ugly and pernicious act happening in the world just wait for a few days and the ugly name of ‘Israel’ will [pop up].” This language parallels the last ad of Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign, which flashed pictures of George Soros, Lloyd Blankfein and Janet Yellen while warning of a “global power structure” that had damaged the U.S. economy. In another case, when professor Steven Salaita was denied a tenured position at the University of Illinois after a series of anti-Israel tweets, he wrote: “Support for Israel . . . exists in sites of authority, often an omnipresent but invisible accoutrement to swivel chairs, mineral water, and mahogany tables.”

Also in this category is the theory, popular on the left, that Israeli trainers are to blame for racism and violence against people of color by U.S. police. (Durham, N.C., for instance, recently barred its police department from partnering with the Israeli police or military for training, citing this notion.) This includes insinuations that American Jewish organizations that help send U.S. police officers to Israel for counterterrorism training should be held responsible for the shootings of unarmed people of color. American police have used violence against marginalized people since long before Israel existed. White people have never needed Jews to teach them how to brutalize people of color on American soil. There are reasonable questions to ask about the content of training programs in Israel, but the suggestion — absent supporting evidence — that Jews bear guilt for U.S. police killings merely updates the old anti-Semitic trope that falsely accused Jews of managing the global slave trade .

Using the word “Zionist” as code for “Jew” or “Israeli”

“Zionism” denotes a movement, forged in the late 19th century and evolving ever since, for the existence of a modern Jewish state in the land of Israel. A Zionist, as I define myself, supports one or more of the many variations on this vision, which differ wildly in their political, religious and cultural emphases.

Critics of Israel sometimes use “Zionist” to assert a global power structure without specifically calling out Jews as its masterminds. After Salaita, the Illinois professor, also lost a position at the American University of Beirut, he wrote, “I was shocked that Zionist pressure could succeed in the Arab World.” The Nation of Islam’s Final Call newspaper asserts that “Zionist pressure ” will not stop Louis Farrakhan from continuing his anti-Semitic pronouncements, which have included calling Jews the “synagogue of Satan.”

The “Zionist” label attempts to reduce a state full of living, breathing humans to a simplistic political notion. It’s common for Palestinians and their supporters to refer to “Zionist occupation forces” instead of the “Israeli army,” or to the “Zionist entity” instead of “Israel.” At a demonstration I walked by this past week, protesters held signs mourning 70 years of “Israel,” in quotes.

One may disagree with the decision of the United Nations to recognize Israel decades ago, wish that the state had never come to be or aspire to the establishment of a binational state in its place without necessarily stepping into anti-Semitism. But refusing to call Israel or Israelis by their internationally accepted names denies the very existence of the state and its people’s identities. These coy linguistic tricks are as unacceptable as the right-wing penchant for denying the existence of Palestinians and Palestinian identity.

Denying Jewish history

As a means of rejecting the legitimacy of Israel, some stoop to asserting that Jews have no national history there — that they are, in other words, nothing more than European colonizers. For instance, the website Middle East Monitor referred recently to the “alleged Temple”in ancient Jerusalem (the ruins are still there). Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, likewise, resurrected the old canard that today’s Jews descend from Khazar converts in a recent and much-criticized speech.

The Jewish connection to Israel goes back millennia. After their expulsion by the Romans in 70 A.D., Jews continued to pray for a return to the land and to observe four fast days each year to mourn the exile. Zionism’s revolution came not in creating a new connection between Jews and the land of Israel, but in suggesting that a return to the land could be achieved through modern political means, rather than by waiting for the messiah.

Some critics also reduce Judaism to religion, in the mold of Western Christianity, rather than acknowledging our more complex sense of ourselves as a people with a history and an ancestral land, as well as religious and cultural practices. This includes dismissing Zionism as “white supremacy,” as the Chicago Dyke March did last year when its organizers argued that Zionism had no place in an anti-racist movement and that it “represents an ideology that uses legacies of Jewish struggle to justify violence.” Statements like these ignore the fact that, unlike most white people here and elsewhere, Jews have been subject to racially based discrimination — and that more than half of Israeli Jews are not Ashkenazi, meaning their families did not come from Europe.

Finally, disregard for Jewish history may take the form of using Nazi imagery to depict Israel or its army. This tactic cynically manipulates the greatest modern trauma of Jewish history to attack us, while minimizing the genocide of 6 million Jews. Israel may be violating its human rights obligations, but is not carrying out a Nazi-style extermination operation.

Dismissing the humanity of Israelis

In a conversation about terrorist attacks by Palestinians, one young activist told me, “I can’t judge how other people carry out their liberation movements.” Such lack of concern for Israeli lives is evident in failures to condemn rocket attacks against civilians, in the rejection of the term “terrorist” for anyone who acts against Israelis and in statements blaming Israelis for their own deaths. A movement motivated by concern for human rights requires caring about the dignity, well-being, concerns and self-determination of all people.

This means opposing the military occupation of the Palestinians, with its attending violence, as well as rejecting terrorism or rocket fire against Israelis. Human Rights Watch, which right-leaning groups often accuse of being anti-Israel, has modeled such an approach by regularly condemning Hamas for launching rockets at Israeli civilians. This approach also means standing with Israeli human rights leaders, who increasingly find themselves the targets of dangerous incitement by the country’s political leaders.

Assuming that the Israeli government speaks for all Jews

Rabbis who speak at rallies on domestic issues (the Trump travel ban, police killings, etc.) regularly tell me that audience members shout at them, “What about Palestine?” An explicit disavowal of a connection to Israel shouldn’t be a prerequisite for Jewish involvement in broader social justice issues, as has become the norm on college campuses and in many progressive spaces.

Imagine assuming that all Americans support President Trump’s policies, or asking Americans to expressly disown their own country before engaging in any international human rights campaigns. Reasonable people may disagree about Israeli policy, about nationalism or about whether the solution to the conflict should involve one state or two. But Jews who care about Israel — many of whom revile Netanyahu and his politics — should not be excluded from progressive spaces based on their answers to such questions.

Jews, along with other groups, must fight for human rights, in the United States and abroad. This work means insisting that Israel, like other countries, live up to its human rights commitments. The case can be made without bigotry and hate speech.

#antisemitism

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the-christian-walk · 3 years

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Send any prayer requests to [email protected] In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

On their release, Peter and John went back to their own people and reported all that the chief priests and the elders had said to them. When they heard this, they raised their voices together in prayer to God.

“Sovereign Lord,” they said, “You made the heavens and the earth and the sea, and everything in them. You spoke by the Holy Spirit through the mouth of Your servant, our father David: ‘Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth rise up and the rulers band together against the Lord and against His anointed one.’”

“Indeed Herod and Pontius Pilate met together with the Gentiles and the people of Israel in this city to conspire against Your holy servant Jesus, whom You anointed. They did what Your power and will had decided beforehand should happen. Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable Your servants to speak Your word with great boldness. Stretch out Your hand to heal and perform signs and wonders through the name of Your holy servant Jesus.”

After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly.

Acts 4:23-31

How do you handle adversity when it comes your way, especially when it serves to challenge your faith?

There are plenty of options but as we see in today’s passage, there is only one right one.

For fresh off of their encounter with the Sanhedrin, who had taken Peter and John captive after they healed a lame man in the temple courts and ordered them to stop speaking in the name of Jesus, the two apostles could have done many different things.

They could have allowed themselves to be intimidated and frightened by the Jewish religious leaders, giving into their orders to stop evangelizing as Jesus had commanded them to do.

They could have decided to still speak in the name of Jesus but do so secretly, discretely doing as Jesus told them to in order to avoid any further confrontation.

Or they could have done what they did do, turn to God in prayer, placing their faith and trust in Him.

For the scriptures tell us that Peter and John went back to their people after being set free by the Sanhedrin. I’m sure everyone was eager to hear what had taken place and how the apostles managed to gain their pardon. The two apostles didn’t leave them wondering for we read where they “reported all that the chief priests and the elders had said to them.”

How did the people respond?

The scriptures tell us that they “raised their voices together in prayer to God.”

Friends, this is always the right answer when we face difficulty and uncertainty. We need to go to the Lord who cares for our every need and places His protection upon us always, especially when we are involved in the work He calls us to do. He is the One who shows us the way when we can’t see one for ourselves and we have no more trustworthy source of wisdom and direction than Him.

And so the people joined together and lifted their voices in the following prayer:

“Sovereign Lord, You made the heavens and the earth and the sea, and everything in them. You spoke by the Holy Spirit through the mouth of Your servant, our father David: ‘Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth rise up and the rulers band together against the Lord and against His anointed one.’”

Note the key elements of this prayer because in it we find a framework we can follow ourselves.

First, the people acknowledged God for who He was.

Sovereign Lord, You made the heavens and the earth and the sea, and everything in them. You spoke by the Holy Spirit through the mouth of Your servant, our father David.”

Here we see God elevated to His proper place of authority as the great Creator of all things. There wasn’t anything in the heavens or on the earth or in the sea that God hadn’t formed with His almighty hands. He made all things to include the people who were giving Him their praise and He possessed the power to help them with whatever they were going through. All they needed to do was place their hope in Him.

Second, the people acknowledged that God had designed and was executing a perfect plan.

Yes, there was a vast conspiracy that worked against Jesus, a plot that resulted in His wrongful conviction and execution, but it wasn’t as if God was just idle, standing by helplessly as the Jews and Gentiles murdered His one and only Son.

Rather, God knew well in advance how things would play out. What happened to His Son was necessary, a short term loss to achieve a longer term glorious gain. In Jeremiah 29:11, we’re reminded that God knows the plans He has for us, plans to give us hope and to help prosper our future. We see a perfect fulfillment of His promise in the life of Jesus, the Messiah God sent from heaven to earth to save all mankind. And if we maintain our faith and trust in God, no matter what life brings, we’ll see His promises come to life in our own lives as well.

Finally, we find the people asking God to keep them in His care and defend them against their adversaries. The Sanhedrin rained threats down upon Peter and John with the intent of intimidating them and shutting down any further proselytizing in Jesus’ name. But the believers knew where their strength came from. They knew God was their refuge and a very present help in times of trouble (Psalm 46:1) so there was no need to be afraid. They believed with all their heart that God could enable them to speak with the very boldness that Jesus did when He ministered. And they asked for God to work in and through them so they could heal, as well as perform other signs and wonders, in the name of His Son.

So how did God respond to the spirited prayer of His people?

We read where He first showed them a sign, indicating that He had heard them loud and clear. For after the people had finished praying, the scriptures tell us that their meeting place was shaken. Imagine a mini-earthquake right after a prayer meeting and you would have a decent idea of what happened but as we see, God had much more in mind than just shaking things up a little. For after their meeting place had been shaken, all the people were filled with the Holy Spirit which empowered them to speak God’s word boldly.

The people’s spirited prayer led to the Holy Spirit being imparted, a Holy Spirit that empowers and protects, a Holy Spirit who is just as much with us today as he was well over 2,000 years ago.

Friends, when adversity and difficult circumstances come knocking at the door of our life, we need to pray and follow the blueprint of the New Testament believers in the fourth chapter of Acts.

First, we need to acknowledge God for who He is, in power and authority over all things.

Second, we need to confess that God’s plan is always at work and that plan is perfect, even if it might not seem that way on the surface. We need to need to trust His promise to prosper us and grant us hope for a future.

Finally, we need to seek the Lord’s power to help us boldly speak in His name and carry out His will. We also then need to be prepared to receive the Holy Spirit to help us do just that.

In the end translation, spirited prayer results in the power of the Holy Spirit being imparted to help us carry out God’s perfect plan. We’re going to see this on full display as we continue our study of this book and follow the development of the Christian church.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it. Send any prayer requests to [email protected]

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dfroza · 3 years

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our Creator told stories

explaining the significance of eternal things.

and these have been conserved for us in the Scriptures as read in Today’s chapter of the New Testament in the book of Mark which is a story that offended some of the people listening:

Then He told a story.

Jesus: There was a man who established a vineyard. He put up a wall around it to fence it in; he dug a pit for a winepress; he built a watchtower. When he had finished this work, he leased the vineyard to some tenant farmers and went away to a distant land.

When the grapes were in season, he sent a slave to the vineyard to collect his rent—his share of the fruit. But the farmers grabbed the slave, beat him, and sent him back to his master empty-handed. The owner sent another slave, and this slave the farmers beat over the head and sent away dishonored. A third slave, the farmers killed. This went on for some time, with the farmers beating some of the messengers and killing others until the owner had lost all patience. He had a son whom he loved above all things, and he said to himself, “When these thugs see my son, they’ll know he carries my authority. They’ll have to respect him.”

But when the tenant farmers saw the owner’s son coming, they said among themselves, “Look at this! It’s the son, the heir to this vineyard. If we kill him, then the land will be ours!” So they seized him and killed him and threw him out of the vineyard.

Now what do you suppose the owner will do when he hears of this? He’ll come and destroy these farmers, and he’ll give the land to others.

Haven’t you read the Scriptures? As the psalmist says,

The stone that the builders rejected

has become the very stone that holds together the entire foundation.

This is the work of the Eternal One,

and it is marvelous in our eyes.

The priests, scribes, temple leaders, and elders knew the story was directed against them. They couldn’t figure out how to lay their hands on Jesus then because they were afraid the people would rise up against them. So they left Him alone, and they went away furious.

Then some Pharisees and some of Herod’s supporters banded together to try to entrap Jesus. They came to Him and complimented Him.

Pharisees: Teacher, we know You are truthful in what You say and that You don’t play favorites. You’re not worried about what anyone thinks of You, so You teach with total honesty what God would have us do. So tell us: is it lawful that we Jews should pay taxes to the Roman emperor or not? Should we give or not?

Jesus (seeing through their ruse): Why do you test Me like this? Listen, bring Me a coin so that I can take a look at it.

When they had brought it to Him, He asked them another question.

Jesus: Tell Me, whose picture is on this coin? And of whom does this inscription speak?

Pharisees: Caesar, of course.

Jesus: Then give to the emperor what belongs to the emperor. And give to God what belongs to God.

They could not think of anything to say to His response.

Later a group of Sadducees, Jewish religious leaders who didn’t believe the dead would be resurrected, came to test Jesus.

Sadducees: Teacher, the law of Moses tells us, “If a man’s brother dies, leaving a widow without sons, then the man should marry his sister-in-law and try to have children with her in his brother’s name.”

Now here’s the situation: there were seven brothers. The oldest took a wife and left her a widow with no children. So the next oldest married her, left her a widow, and again there were no children. So the next brother married her and died, and the next, and the next. Finally all seven brothers had married her, but none of them had conceived children with her, and at last she died also.

Tell us then, in the resurrection [when humans rise from the dead], whose wife will she be? For all seven of them married her.

Jesus: You can’t see the truth because you don’t know the Scriptures well and because you don’t really believe that God is powerful. The answer is this: when the dead rise, they won’t be married or given in marriage. They’ll be like the messengers in heaven, who are not united with one another in marriage. But how can you fail to see the truth of resurrection? Don’t you remember in the Book of Moses how God talked to Moses out of a burning bush and what God said to him then? “I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” “I am,” God said. Not “I was.” So God is not the God of the dead but of the living. You are sadly mistaken.

One of the scribes who studied and copied the Hebrew Scriptures overheard this conversation and was impressed by the way Jesus had answered.

Scribe: Tell me, Teacher. What is the most important thing that God commands in the law?

Jesus: The most important commandment is this: “Hear, O Israel, the Eternal One is our God, and the Eternal One is the only God. You should love the Eternal, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.” The second great commandment is this: “Love others in the same way you love yourself.” There are no commandments more important than these.

Scribe: Teacher, You have spoken the truth. For there is one God and only one God, and to love God with all our heart and soul and mind and strength and to love our neighbors as ourselves are more important than any burnt offering or sacrifice we could ever give.

Jesus heard that the man had spoken with wisdom.

Jesus: Well said; if you understand that, then the kingdom of God is closer than you think.

Nobody asked Jesus any more questions after that.

Later Jesus was teaching in the temple.

Jesus: Why do the scribes say that the Anointed One is the son of David? In the psalms, David himself was led by the Holy Spirit to sing,

The Master said to my master,

“Sit at My right hand,

in the place of power and honor,

And I will gather Your enemies together,

lead them in on hands and knees,

and You will rest Your feet on their backs.”

If David calls Him “Master,” how can He be his son?

The crowd listened to Him with delight.

Jesus: Watch out for the scribes who act so religious—who like to be seen in pious clothes and to be spoken to respectfully in the marketplace, who take the best seats in the synagogues and the place of honor at every dinner, who spend widows’ inheritances and pray long prayers to impress others. These are the kind of people who will be condemned above all others.

Jesus sat down opposite the treasury, where people came to bring their offerings, and He watched as they came and went. Many rich people threw in large sums of money, but a poor widow came and put in only two small coins worth only a fraction of a cent.

Jesus (calling His disciples together): Truly this widow has given a greater gift than any other contribution. All the others gave a little out of their great abundance, but this poor woman has given God everything she has.

The Book of Mark, Chapter 12 (The Voice)

Today’s paired chapter of the Testaments is the 4th chapter of the book of Job:

[Eliphaz Speaks Out]

[Now You’re the One in Trouble]

Then Eliphaz from Teman spoke up:

“Would you mind if I said something to you?

Under the circumstances it’s hard to keep quiet.

You yourself have done this plenty of times, spoken words

that clarify, encouraged those who were about to quit.

Your words have put stumbling people on their feet,

put fresh hope in people about to collapse.

But now you’re the one in trouble—you’re hurting!

You’ve been hit hard and you’re reeling from the blow.

But shouldn’t your devout life give you confidence now?

Shouldn’t your exemplary life give you hope?

“Think! Has a truly innocent person ever ended up on the scrap heap?

Do genuinely upright people ever lose out in the end?

It’s my observation that those who plow evil

and sow trouble reap evil and trouble.

One breath from God and they fall apart,

one blast of his anger and there’s nothing left of them.

The mighty lion, king of the beasts, roars mightily,

but when he’s toothless he’s useless—

No teeth, no prey—and the cubs

wander off to fend for themselves.

“A word came to me in secret—

a mere whisper of a word, but I heard it clearly.

It came in a scary dream one night,

after I had fallen into a deep, deep sleep.

Dread stared me in the face, and Terror.

I was scared to death—I shook from head to foot.

A spirit glided right in front of me—

the hair on my head stood on end.

I couldn’t tell what it was that appeared there—

a blur . . . and then I heard a muffled voice:

“‘How can mere mortals be more righteous than God?

How can humans be purer than their Creator?

Why, God doesn’t even trust his own servants,

doesn’t even cheer his angels,

So how much less these bodies composed of mud,

fragile as moths?

These bodies of ours are here today and gone tomorrow,

and no one even notices—gone without a trace.

When the tent stakes are ripped up, the tent collapses—

we die and are never the wiser for having lived.’”

The Book of Job, Chapter 4 (The Message)

my personal reading of the Scriptures for Sunday, April 11 of 2021 with a paired chapter from each Testament of the Bible, along with Today’s Psalms and Proverbs

Today’s message from the Institute for Creation Research

April 11, 2021

Remember His Benefits

“Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits.” (Psalm 103:2)

The benefits of the Lord are, indeed, great and marvelous, and it would be an act of ingratitude not to remember and appreciate them. Note the following partial list in this psalm:

Forgiveness. “Who forgiveth all thine iniquities” (v. 3). God forgives all! He “cleanseth us from all sin” (1 John 1:7).

Healing. “Who healeth all thy diseases” (v. 3). The greatest and ultimate disease is that of aging and death, but one day “there shall be no more death” (Revelation 21:4).

Redemption. “Who redeemeth thy life from destruction” (v. 4; see also 1 Peter 1:18-19).

Glorification. “Who crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies” (v. 4)

Provision. “Who satisfieth thy mouth with good things” (v. 5; see also James 1:17).

Strength. “Thy youth is renewed like the eagle’s” (v. 5).

Protection. “The LORD executeth righteousness and judgment for all that are oppressed” (v. 6).

The greatest benefit of all, of course, is the gift of salvation, by the mercy of God. Note the testimonies of God’s mercy: “Who crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies” (v. 4). “The LORD is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy” (v. 8). “For as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is his mercy toward them that fear him” (v. 11). “But the mercy of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him” (v. 17).

Infinite as the universe, enduring as eternity—these are the dimensions of God’s mercy! “As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us” (v. 12). No wonder this great psalm both begins and ends with the inspiring exhortation: “Bless the LORD, O my soul!” HMM

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kentmwz-blog · 3 years

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Daniel Hannan: Why do so many on the Left have a blind spot when it comes to anti-Semitism?

Daniel Hannan MEP, Mar. 3, 2016 People seem oddly shocked. Anti-Semitism at Oxford University’s Labour Club? The Labour Club? Aren’t Leftists meant to be empathetic and compassionate and interested in the welfare of minority groups? Evidently not when it comes to this minority. Anti-Semitism has an old and cruel history on the Left. The man who coined the word “socialism” was an anti-Semite; the man who popularised the phrase “anti-Semitism” was a socialist. The former was the nineteenth-century French radical, Pierre Leroux. “When we speak of the Jews,” he wrote, “we mean the Jewish spirit – the spirit of profit, of lucre, of gain, of speculation; in a word, the banker’s spirit.” The latter was a German Leftist called Wilhelm Marr. “Anti-Semitism is a Socialist movement,” he pronounced, “only nobler and purer in form than Social Democracy”. Before going any further, I should make clear that Oxford’s Labour Club is as entitled as any of us to the presumption of innocence. The seriousness of an allegation doesn’t shift the burden of proof. The accusation in this instance is certainly serious: Labour members are charged, not just with being too aggressively pro-Hamas or too free with their anti-Zionist rhetoric, but with making Jewish students feel targeted and uncomfortable. Then again, anyone who has been involved with undergraduate politics knows that wild accusations are sometimes thrown around. The rest of us should let Labour conclude its investigation. Let me, instead, address a broader and perhaps more alarming trend. It may be social media, or it may be the way that the far Left was galvanised by the recent Labour leadership contest, but I’ve noticed that anti-Semitism these days often dispenses with the traditional circumlocutions (“It’s only Zionism I have a problem with, not Jews”). Here is a selection of quotations, taken more or less at random from the Twitter accounts of self-declared Corbyn supporters: “We’ve had the Holocaust rammed down our throat by Zionists forever ensuring only Jewish suffering counts.” “Jews and Zionists own the whole world.” “Zyklon B was used for delousing”. I don’t mean to suggest for a moment that Jezza himself is anti-Semitic. The self-righteous old boob, who seems to go out of his way to cultivate the appearance of a Reform rabbi, is sincere in his dislike of racism. But the same is plainly not true of some of his most enthusiastic backers. What is going on? In part, we’re seeing the ugly alliance between Islamist radicals and parts of the fringe Left that Nick Cohen keeps writing about, based on a curious my-enemy’s-enemy’s-enemy-is-my-enemy logic. If your starting point is that the Western powers are responsible for the ills of the world, you can easily find yourself in a mésalliance with movements which, while they might be anti-feminist, anti-gay and anti-secularist, are at least satisfyingly anti-American. The more time you spend with these groups, the more you start sympathising with their world-view. And Jews generally don’t occupy a positive place in the jihadi world-view. Not that Left-wing anti-Semitism is a new phenomenon. The two Victorian socialists I quoted at the beginning may not have represented the majoritarian strain of the Left in their era; but they were by no means exceptional. Anti-Semitism was bound up with a dislike of capitalism, banks and markets. Jews were portrayed, in much Leftist propaganda, as a living off the honest toil of the workers. “How, as a Socialist, can you not be an anti-Semite?” Hitler asked his party members in 1920. Listen, to pluck an example more or less at random, to the French socialist (later communist) deputy, Pierre Myrens, in 1911, “The Yid [‘Youtre’] is an Israelite by religion, a Jew by race and, what is more, a capitalist!” I could fill the rest of this column with similar quotations, but I find them as distasteful as I hope you do. My purpose is simply to wipe away the self-righteousness, the smugness, that is slathered over large parts of our contemporary Left. Quotations like these have been edited out of our collective memory, because the dominant narrative of our age is that Left-wing means nice and Right-wing means nasty, ergo anti-Semitism must be Right-wing. Sorry, comrades, but that’s not how it was – or is. Yes, I know that there have been plenty of bigots on the Right, too. I know there have been many principled Jewish socialists. I know that Karl Marx was the grandson of two rabbis. But listen to the way he wrote about Jews: “The essence of Judaism and the root of the Jewish soul is expediency and self-interest; the God of Israel is Mammon, who expresses himself in the lust for money. Judaism is the embodiment of anti-social attitudes.” It’s true that the odious cadger disliked all religions, but he never wrote about Christianity that way. Indeed, he could be quite sentimental about it – though he deplored its corruption by “the Jewish spirit”. Marx’s dislike of Judaism did not remain confined to his turgid books. It found expression in the anti-Semitic campaigns of the Comecon regimes: the purges of Jews by Poland’s Communists; the show trials in Czechoslovakia and Hungary of “Israeli spies”; Stalin’s “Doctors’ Plot”, which accused Jewish physicians of conspiring to assassinate the Communist leadership, and which was intended as a prelude to the mass deportation of Soviet Jews to Siberia (fortunately, the old monster died first, and Khruschev dropped the policy). In all these cases, “Zionist” was used as an unsubtle code-word for “Jew”. Why do so many people, who think of themselves sincerely as anti-racists and opponents of discrimination have a blind spot when it comes to this one minority group? Largely, I think, because anti-racists rarely push disinterestedly for equality before the law. Their real motive – and it’s not, in itself, a bad one – is the desire to stick up for the underdog, to help the underprivileged. When it comes to, say, quotas in university admissions, they can be quite enthusiastic about racial discrimination. Jews haven’t always fitted easily into the role of underdog, especially since the birth of Israel. Indeed, that state exists precisely because its founders had had enough of playing such a part. Israel’s success against the odds is one of the wonders of the twentieth century. In a region where autocracy is the normal form of political organisation, it has remained a democracy – a gloriously cussed and disputatious democracy. In a strip of land without natural resources, it has created wealth from the greatest resource of all: human ingenuity. That very success means that, not only the state itself, but some non-Israeli Jews, now forfeit the sympathy of those who insist on seeing the world as a hierarchy of victimhood. It’s regrettable; but, in the circumstances, I’d say it’s a price worth paying. http://www.conservativehome.com/thecolumnists/2016/03/daniel-hannan-why-do-so-many-on-the-left-have-a-blind-spot-when-it-comes-to-anti-semitism.html

#oldblog

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tpanan · 4 years

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My Saturday Daily Blessings

October 24, 2020

Be still quiet your heart and mind, the LORD is here, loving you talking to you...........

Saturday of the Twenty-ninth Week in Ordinary Time Lectionary: 478

First Reading: Ephesians 4: 7-16

Brothers and sisters: Grace was given to each of us according to the measure of Christ’s gift. Therefore, it says: He ascended on high and took prisoners captive; he gave gifts to men.

What does “he ascended” mean except that he also descended into the lower regions of the earth? The one who descended is also the one who ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things. And he gave some as Apostles, others as prophets, others as evangelists, others as pastors and teachers, to equip the holy ones for the work of ministry, for building up the Body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of faith and knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood to the extent of the full stature of Christ, so that we may no longer be infants, tossed by waves and swept along by every wind of teaching arising from human trickery, from their cunning in the interests of deceitful scheming. Rather, living the truth in love, we should grow in every way into him who is the head, Christ, from whom the whole Body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, with the proper functioning of each part, brings about the Body’s growth and builds itself up in love.

Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 122: 1-2, 3-4ab, 5cd

"Let us go rejoicing to the house of the Lord."

Verse before the Gospel: Ezekiel 33:11

R. Alleluia, Alleluia.

"I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked man, says the Lord, but rather in his conversion that he may live."

R. Alleluia, Alleluia.

**Gospel: Luke 13: 1-9

Some people told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with the blood of their sacrifices. He said to them in reply, “Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were greater sinners than all other Galileans? By no means! But I tell you, if you do not repent, you will all perish as they did! Or those eighteen people who were killed when the tower at Siloam fell on them– do you think they were more guilty than everyone else who lived in Jerusalem? By no means! But I tell you, if you do not repent, you will all perish as they did!” And he told them this parable: “There once was a person who had a fig tree planted in his orchard, and when he came in search of fruit on it but found none, he said to the gardener, ‘For three years now I have come in search of fruit on this fig tree but have found none. So cut it down. Why should it exhaust the soil?’ He said to him in reply, ‘Sir, leave it for this year also, and I shall cultivate the ground around it and fertilize it; it may bear fruit in the future. If not you can cut it down.’”

Readings for the Optional Memorial of Saint Anthony Mary Claret, bishop

*Meditation:

What can a calamity, such as a political blood-bath or a natural disaster, teach us about God's kingdom and the consequences of wrong-doing and turning away from God? Jesus used two such occasions to address the issue of sin (wrong-doing) and judgment with his Jewish audience. Pilate, who was the Roman governor of Jerusalem at the time, ordered his troops to slaughter a group of Galileans who had come up to Jerusalem to offer sacrifice in the Temple. We do not know what these Galileans did to incite Pilate's wrath, nor why Pilate chose to attack them in the holiest of places for the Jews, in their temple at Jerusalem. For the Jews, this was political barbarity and sacrilege at its worst!

The second incident which Jesus addressed was a natural disaster, a tower in Jerusalem which unexpectedly collapsed, killing 18 people. The Jews often associated such calamities and disasters as a consequence of sin (doing what is wrong and contrary to God's law). Scripture does warn that sin can result in calamity!

Though the righteous fall seven times, and rise again; the wicked are overthrown by calamity (Proverbs 24:16).

The time for repentance and forgiveness is right now! The real danger and calamity which Jesus points out is that an unexpected disaster or a sudden death does not give us time to repent of our sins by acknowledging our wrong-doing and asking for pardon here and now before we die and are brought face to face with the Lord of heaven and earth when he calls us to his judgment seat. The Book of Job reminds us that misfortune and calamity can befall both the righteous and the unrighteous alike. Jesus gives a clear warning - take responsibility for your actions and moral choices and put sin to death today before it can poison your heart, corrupt your mind, and bring destruction to your body as well.

Allowing sin and sinful attitudes to go unchecked in us is like a cancer which spreads and corrupts us from within and causes death if it is not cut off.We must honestly and humbly acknowledge our sins before God and ask for his forgiveness and for his healing grace to restore and change us so that we may grow day by day into the holiness he desires for us. Holding on to sinful attitudes, and refusing to confess our wrongdoing (sins) before God to receive his pardon and healing, can only lead to one result - a corrupt heart, mind, and soul that is dead spiritually. Paul the Apostle reminds us that "the wages of sin in death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 6:23). Spiritual death and separation from God is a far worse condition than any physical harm or loss we might experience in this present life.Choose today for the abundant life and grace which Christ has won for you through his victory over sin and death on the Cross.

The sign of the barren fig tree Jesus followed his warning to turn away from sin and not allow it to corrupt our minds and hearts with an illustration and story (parable) from nature and farming which his listeners would have easily understood. Good land for growing crops and fruit trees were sparse in the arrid climate of Judae and the surrounding desert regions. One very common and important source of food for the people who lived in the region of Galilee and Judea was the fig tree. Its fruit was highly prized and became a symbol of God's fruitful blessing and provision for his people. A fig tree normally matured within three years, producing plentiful fruit. If it failed, it was cut down to make room for more healthy trees. A decaying fig tree and its bad fruit came to symbolize for the Jews the consequence of spiritual corruption caused by evil deeds and unrepentant sin.

The unfruitful fig tree symbolized the outcome of Israel's indifference and lack of response to God's word of repentance and restoration. The prophets depicted the desolation and calamity of Israel's fall and ruin - due to her unfaithfulness to God - as a languishing fig tree (see Joel 1:7,12; Habbakuk 3:17; and Jeremiah 8:13). Jeremiah likened good and evil rulers and members of Israel with figs that were either good for eating or rotten and wasteful (Jeremiah 24:2-8). Jesus' parable depicts the patience of God, but it also contains a warning that we should not presume upon God's patience and mercy. God's judgment will come in due course - very soon or later. Jesus' parable of the barren fig tree illustrates his warning about the consequences of allowing sin (wrongdoing) and moral corruption to take root in our hearts and minds. We must turn away from sinful atttitudes and sinful habits and turn to God for his transforming grace and power to change us.

Why God judges Why does God judge his people? He judges to purify and cleanse us of all sin so that we might grow in his holiness and righteousness (being in a right relationship with God). And he disciplines us for our own good, to inspire a godly fear and reverence for him and his holy word. God is patient, but for those who persistently and stubbornly rebel against him and refuse to repent and change their course, there is the consequence that they will lose both their soul and body to hell.

Are God's judgments unjust or unloving? When God's judgments are revealed in the earth, the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness (Isaiah 26:9). To pronounce God's judgment on sin is much less harsh than what will happen if those who sin are not warned to repent and turn back to God.

Don't tolerate sin God, in his mercy, gives us time to get right with him, but that time is now. We must not assume that there is no hurry. A sudden and unexpected death leaves one no time to prepare to settle one's accounts when he or she must stand before the Lord on the day of judgment. Jesus warns us that we must be ready at all times. Tolerating sinful habits and excusing unrepentant sin and wrongdoing will result in bad fruit, painful discipline, and spiritual disease that leads to death and destruction. The Lord in his mercy gives us both grace (his gracious help and healing) and time to turn away from sin, but that time is right now. If we delay, even for a day, we may discover that grace has passed us by and our time is up. Do you hunger for the Lord's righteousness (moral goodness) and holiness?

Lord Jesus, increase my hunger for you that I may grow in righteousness and holiness. May I not squander the grace of the present moment to say "yes" to you and to your will and plan for my life.

Sources:

Lectionary for Mass for Use in the Dioceses of the United States, second typical edition, Copyright © 2001, 1998, 1997, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine; Psalm refrain © 1968, 1981, 1997, International Committee on English in the Liturgy, Inc. All rights reserved. Neither this work nor any part of it may be reproduced, distributed, performed or displayed in any medium, including electronic or digital, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

**Meditations may be freely reprinted and translated into other languages for non-profit use only. Please cite copyright and original source at dailyscripture.servantsoftheword.org

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dailyaudiobible · 4 years

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01/23/2020 DAB Transcript

Genesis 46:1-47:31, Matthew 15:1-28, Psalms 19:1-14, Proverbs 4:14-19

Today is the 23rd day of January, welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I am Brian and it's great to be here with you today as we continue the journey through our week and continue the journey through the Scriptures. So, let’s dive in. We’ve been reading from the English Standard Version this week, which is of course what we’ll continue to do. And in the Old Testament we are working our way through the book of Genesis and we've settled into this story about a man named Joseph and we’ve talked quite a bit about Joseph so we don't need to do a recap, we know where we are, but we’re continuing the story today with Joseph reaching out to his family and…and…and Jacob, his father being able to lay eyes on a son that he thought had been long, long dead. So, we pick up the story with Genesis chapter 46 and we’ll read 46 and 47 today.

Commentary:

Okay. So, Jesus has plenty…plenty to say in the Gospel of Matthew today, plenty that we really, really, deeply need to pay attention to. So, there’s several things here. Let’s kind of work in reverse order, because some of these are things we really, really need to pay attention to and then one of these things is for context. So, Jesus is moving around the region doing ministry as we know, and He went to the district of Tyre and Sidon and…and a non-Hebrew woman, a Canaanite woman comes to Jesus and asked for mercy, that her daughter is oppressed by a demon and…and she needs help. So, obviously Jesus could perform miracles, or that miracles, that the miraculous of the supernatural was happening around Jesus was spreading all over the place. And Jesus didn't answer her. And she kept asking and she kept begging until the disciples…like she kept asking the disciples to go to Jesus. And, so, they finally come to Jesus and say, “hey, can you send her away. Like, she's bugging us now.” And then Jesus says, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” And she's like, “please help me, please help me.” And He's like, “it's not right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs.” And she's like, “but…but even the dogs get to eat the crumbs when they fall off the table.” And that changes everything and Jesus is like, “wow” basically. “Great is your faith. Be it done for you as you desire.” And the daughter was healed. And we can look at this and go, “well, why didn’t He just do that in the first place? Doesn't Jesus love everybody? I mean, like, why is He being so exclusive here and excluding people? Like, what's going on?”

We’re not too far into the story so we can remember. If we go back to the book of Genesis, we remember the fall of Adam and Eve, we remember that that separated them from God. We’ve talk about all of this. We watched the world use…you know…we watched humanity use their knowledge of good and evil to try to make themselves a God and we watched things fall apart and disintegrate to the point that the world was destroyed by a flood. We've watched what the knowledge of good and evil has done to humanity. We've also talked about the spiritual realms and God's divine family and…and how that pops its head up in different stories from time to time. We also see in the Scriptures that there are times where God essentially releases people to go to their own destruction, to go to the way that they're demanding to go. And then we saw this story of the Tower of Babel and everybody trying to unite themselves to essentially deify themselves and try to become unstoppable. And God comes down and confuses the language and sends people all throughout the earth. Many biblical scholars view this as like exactly Lord we’re talking about, God sending them off on their own way to go the way that they wanna go and disinheriting them because they have chosen to worship false gods. Immediately after that story is when we meet this man named Abram and the story turns from there because the world, humanity has essentially rejected God and now they're being allowed to go their own way and follow whatever their own path is going to be, which will lead them to destruction. But then we meet Abram, this one man. And God appears to this one man and says go into a land that I will show you. And we've been following his family since. So, it's as if at ancient times, people went their own way, but God would not stop trying. And He goes to Abram and says I will be your God and will create a people out of you that will be my people and I will be there God. So, in the midst of the chaos and anarchy of the world God chose one person to create a people out of that would be His people on the earth because all the other people had given themselves to other gods. So, he would use Abram and this people that would be formed to show the light to the rest of the world, to bless all the nations through Abraham. Well, that story has a lot of fits and starts. It's the story of the Bible. So, we’re gonna read that story but if we zoom forward into the book of Matthew now and we come back alongside Jesus, we have to first understand that it's still the same story, we have just zoomed forward significantly. Jesus has come to earth among those people, the Hebrew people. He was born as one of the people that God had predicted, had chosen through Abram so long ago. But by the time that Jesus arrived on the scene all that the Hebrew people understood of God, their God and their chosen-ness, their exclusivity, their holiness, their set-apart-ness to God had become nothing more than a religious ritual and…and…and power. We’ll get to that in the second. And Jesus is talking to this Canaanite woman…and we know that Jesus talked to other women. Like, there's gonna be this story of the woman at the well, right, where Jesus talks to her and she's a Samaritan, but in this particular exchange Jesus is saying what His mission is, that He's come to this group of people that had been set apart among all the other peoples, not because they were special, like not because they deserved anything, but because everyone else had given themselves to other gods. And, so, God created a people for Himself upon this earth to reclaim things. So, Jesus is stating His mission. This is who I've come to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And we’re reading this. Israel is Jacob. Jacob's children are the children of Israel, the house of Israel. There are reasons that this matters to us now. A couple that I can think of right off the top of my head, the first is, Jesus came to earth as a Hebrew in a Hebrew context and taught as a Hebrew rabbi from the Hebrew Scriptures. So, it becomes difficult to understand Jesus without understanding the Hebrew story because this is the context that He is ministering in and these are the people that He's ministering to. And they understand Him, which doesn't mean that they accept everything that he's saying. Some do, some don't. But they understand Him because He's in the context of their worldview, they understand what's happening even though they mostly miss who He is. This is gonna start mattering more and more as we continue our journey forward, especially when we get into…into books like the book of Acts and we get into the church era, because Jesus Jewishness, right, His Hebrew ethnicity and His understanding of the Hebrew Scriptures, this is the context that He's ministering into and it will matter later to the early church when all of a sudden non-Hebrew people known as Gentiles begin flooding in to the kingdom. Then they have a problem to figure out because this is an exclusive people with an exclusive religion and there are steps that need to be taken if you want to become Jewish and it causes some tremendous unrest that eventually causes the very first church council, which we will read about when we get into the book of Acts.

Okay so there's our context peace. Now let's look at what Jesus was saying today. We began Matthew 15 and it says, “the Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem.” Let’s just pause for a second. Jesus was on the map at this point if Pharisees and scribes are walking 90 miles up into the Galilee to hear Jesus. So, we notice that there's momentum, energy building around the message that Jesus is sharing as He moves around the region. So, people come all the way from Jerusalem to check Him out and there like, “so, you know, why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders?” Now, the elders here would be the Sanhedrin, they would be the leaders at the time, those who interpreted the Hebrew Scriptures and wrestled through how to interpret them so that they could pass those rules and traditions onto the people so that they could honor God. So, what Jesus is being asked here is essentially, “hey, you seem to be a rabbi, you seem to have a following, people seem to be listening to what you're saying and you have disciples that are your inner circle and everybody's watching all of this. Why are your disciples breaking the traditions of the elders because they're not washing their hands before they eat?” Jesus just, in this instance, just flat out peels back the layers and exposes what is going on among this chosen people. And we can go back and read Matthew 15 and we don’t need to re-quote Jesus. We've already read it. He's basically saying, “you have made tradition the thing. You have made yourself the keeper of the tradition and you have lost the plot of the story.” To quote Jesus now, “for the sake of your tradition you have made void the word of God. You hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy of you when he said, “the people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. In vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.”” That is hard core right there, friends. And we can go, like, “well…yeah, He was he was calling out those religious leaders because they were hypocrites and they were against Him and who would want to be against nice, sweet, healing loving Jesus” and “yeah…they’re the bad guys.” But yeah, like we don't have to look so far today before we can find this same thing going on. Who gets to make the rules? Who gets to be the keepers of the rules? Who gets to pass judgment on those who don't keep their traditions or rules? Though it’s bit of an ongoing problem and in our own lives in our own hearts posture, we need openness not closed fistedness. We need openness to the Spirit of God, not a closed heart that says, “I have the rules and regulations. I'm gonna try my very, very best to obey these rules.” We need an openness. Jesus told the Pharisees that for the sake of keeping the traditions they made the word of God void. Let’s make sure we’re not the same thing. And then Jesus actually takes the time to flesh out what He’s saying, because those people, those leaders from Jerusalem had come to Jesus asking why they weren't obeying the traditions of the elders, not…not why are you disobeying the Scriptures. Why are you becoming a heretic and disobeying God? No, they're asking why He's not obeying the traditions of the elders. And He shows them, “like, you've made traditions that break God's rules. You've lost the plot. Even when it comes to washing hands, you've lost the plot. It's not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person it's what comes out of a person's heart that defiles them. And yet you're trying to ritually wrought wash your hands, thinking that somehow that's gonna wash your insides. You've lost the plot. It's not outside in. That is a complete backward way of living. It's inside out. That is how you were made.”

Prayer:

And, so, Jesus…there's…there’s plenty…I mean, we can…we can hang on Your words for the rest of our lives, and we will. So, we've we spent some time just exploring today. And now that we've done that exploring, we invite You, we open ourselves to Your Holy Spirit. Where have we lost the plot? How are we living completely backward to the way that we were made and to the ways of Your kingdom? How will we ever see Your kingdom if we are backward to it? So, come Holy Spirit. We thank You for context. We thank You for challenge. We thank You for disrupting us and we invite You to lead us into all truth. And we have no doubt that You would do that if we will listen. And, so, we invite ourselves to pay attention. Come Holy Spirit we pray. In Jesus’ name we ask. Amen.

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And that is it for today. I’m Brian I love you and I'll be waiting for you here tomorrow.

Community Prayer and Praise:

I want to say thank you to Daily Audio Bible. I was 38 years old about three years ago when I had a stroke, a massive stroke that left my left side weak and it really difficult for me to read the Bible. So, without the Daily Audio Bible I wouldn’t be able to enjoy the word of God. Again, thank you for what you do. I play…I pray blessings upon the people at Daily Audio Bible. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.

Good morning Daily Audio Bible family this is His Beloved I’m calling in to pray for, I don’t believe you left your name sweet brother who called in for his mother Diana who has stage IV brain cancer. We heard you, we’re praying with you brother. God bless your heart. He just really touched my heart. And, so, we hold your mother up. We asked her to desire of these foods and fruits and vegetables that you wish to help your mother nourish her with. Father God we ask You to heal his mother from the top of her head to the bottom of her feet Father God, that anything that is not of You would be bound and cast out of her Father God, that You would heal her Father God and bless her family and her son with peace and endurance during this time they would keep their eyes on You. In Jesus’ name we pray. I’m also calling for Broken Hearted and that Your husband left, and this breaks my heart, of course. So, I pray Father God that You would give her hope and joy and love and peace. Holy Spirit restore her and fill her with anything that is not of You, that she would…we would right now I hold this situation her marriage up Lord and I put it at the altar Father God, that You would bless or if it’s abusive as she kind of said Father God that You would take it from her and You would give her so much more Father God, that she’s a daughter of the most-high King, that she should be adored and loved and worshiped Father God. I ask during this time that You would bring peace that passes all understanding Father. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.

Diana Davis, your doctors may have done all that they can, but our ultimate healer is God. Now that you have prepared for the care of your children should you die, let’s prepare for the possibility that God will heal you. So, in Isaiah 1…Isaiah 40, I want to read that for you. ah…I just lost it…here it is…okay. “That those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength, they will soar on wings like eagles, they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.” And I also want to give you Romans 15 verse 13. “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” So, Lord I lift up Diana to You because You are our healer. We ask for the healing of Diana’s Spirit, mind, body and soul and Lord please strengthen her faith and her body. Give her a hope and a future and fill her life with love and joy no matter how long or short her life is. Show her how to use her bounty of food that You give us to heal her body. Show her how to avoid foods that beat cancer and foods that…and herbs that starve cancer. Restore her to life Lord so she can continue to mentor her children on Your ways. We thank You Lord. In Your name we pray. Amen.

My name is Heather and I’m in the Atlanta. I…I am consumed with fear, even making this call. Five years ago, I was embarking on a journey in ministry and Satan unleashed a wrath on my life that I can…I cannot handle anymore. I am asking for prayer, for God to please reveal Himself to me. Help me. I have never been so low in my life. My family has been destroyed. I’m so tired. I’m so tired. I just ask for prayers for endurance to be able to be strong, to be where my kids need me to be, when everybody has left us. Thank you.

Hey Daily Audio Bible is Dr. Kinai from London I pray that everyone is well and it’s the 16th of January and I just wanted to raise a prayer point for the lady who called in who said that she’s separated from her husband of seven years and it’s likely to end in divorce. And I just…I just had the Lord saying to me that she needs to be reminded that she is seen, and she is known by me. God sees you. God knows you, and there’s nothing in life that takes Him by surprise, and He’s journeyed with you through this. And I just pray that your identity in Him will be restored. I pray that you will know that you are loved, you are cherished, and you are wanted. And while the situation looks dark and bleak, I pray that you would turn to Jesus, our Hope, the One that brings light into dark situations. And I pray for your husband as well, that he will come to the knowledge of God and God’s perfect will will be done in Jesus’ name. And…and just allow praise to be on your lips. You know, there’s this wonderful psalm that says, I vow to praise you through the good and the bad, I vow to praise you whether happy or sad. I pray that you will offer of the Lord a sacrifice of praise. You may not feel like praising but you do it and it ushers you into His presence. You may not feel like worshiping but it’s a sacrifice because it cost you something. And I encourage you to press in through worship. Surrender your thoughts, surrender your heart, the pain in worship and trust that God will indeed restore you. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Hello everybody God’s Smile here from England. I am just a bit tearful, actually. You know how just when we listen, and we’re blessed with the words from Brian as he reads God’s word. And it just really…I couldn’t help but cry and thank God because you are my church. I’m not able to get to church and there’s no…there’s not many around my area. And I remember how I just loved sitting on by Nana’s knee. She wasn’t a proper Nana, but she was like it and adopted Nana and she used to read. And my mom didn’t read to me and I would just soak up the close comfort that I never had as a child with my parents through this lady. And she would read and I…I…I so enjoyed those moments. And it just hit me…though I’ve not sat on Brian’s knee…I felt like I was sat on God’s knee and He’s just reading His word to me and is just wonderful, isn’t it? And these are tears of joy. And yes, I’m still smiling. It just…it just really broke me. I’m so thankful that He cares about such tiny details, which are not that tiny. But you know how He just speaks to you your hearts and you’re just so thankful. Anyway, I’m gonna go and blow my nose. Bye-bye everybody. I love you all and I love this community. I love my church. Bye-bye.

Hi this is Mary and Colorado and I’m calling for I believe you said your name was Kimberly and that you’re struggling with PTSD over childhood sexual abuse. And I just want to reach out and tell you that I know exactly how you feel and that I experienced the same thing from a member of our church when I was a child and I often feel very triggered when I go to church. And I just want to pray for you. Father God would You give her Your piece and Your strength. Help her to know that You have not given her a spirit of fear but of love and of adoption and that she is Your child and that You care for her. Kimberly, I would just encourage you to reach out to those in your church and just talk to them about how you are feeling. It may be scary, but it really has helped me to have someone who knows, just even how I respond when I am feeling triggered and that they can sit there and hold my hand and tell me that everything’s okay. So, I just want to encourage you. Love you sister and God bless you too and I hope that you’re doing okay.

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seekfirstme · 4 years

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Meditation: What can a calamity, such as a political blood-bath or a natural disaster, teach us about God's kingdom and the consequences of wrong-doing and turning away from God? Jesus used two such occasions to address the issue of sin (wrong-doing) and judgment with his Jewish audience. Pilate, who was the Roman governor of Jerusalem at the time, ordered his troops to slaughter a group of Galileans who had come up to Jerusalem to offer sacrifice in the Temple. We do not know what these Galileans did to incite Pilate's wrath, nor why Pilate chose to attack them in the holiest of places for the Jews, in their temple at Jerusalem. For the Jews, this was political barbarity and sacrilege at its worst!

The time for repentance and forgiveness is right now!

The real danger and calamity which Jesus points out is that an unexpected disaster or a sudden death does not give us time to repent of our sins by acknowledging our wrong-doing and asking for pardon here and now before we die and are brought face to face with the Lord of heaven and earth when he calls us to his judgment seat. The Book of Job reminds us that misfortune and calamity can befall both the righteous and the unrighteous alike. Jesus gives a clear warning - take responsibility for your actions and moral choices and put sin to death today before it can poison your heart, corrupt your mind, and bring destruction to your body as well.

The sign of the barren fig tree

Jesus followed his warning to turn away from sin and not allow it to corrupt our minds and hearts with an illustration and story (parable) from nature and farming which his listeners would have easily understood. Good land for growing crops and fruit trees were sparse in the arrid climate of Judae and the surrounding desert regions. One very common and important source of food for the people who lived in the region of Galilee and Judea was the fig tree. Its fruit was highly prized and became a symbol of God's fruitful blessing and provision for his people. A fig tree normally matured within three years, producing plentiful fruit. If it failed, it was cut down to make room for more healthy trees. A decaying fig tree and its bad fruit came to symbolize for the Jews the consequence of spiritual corruption caused by evil deeds and unrepentant sin.

Why God judges

Why does God judge his people? He judges to purify and cleanse us of all sin so that we might grow in his holiness and righteousness (being in a right relationship with God). And he disciplines us for our own good, to inspire a godly fear and reverence for him and his holy word. God is patient, but for those who persistently and stubbornly rebel against him and refuse to repent and change their course, there is the consequence that they will lose both their soul and body to hell.

Don't tolerate sin

God, in his mercy, gives us time to get right with him, but that time is now. We must not assume that there is no hurry. A sudden and unexpected death leaves one no time to prepare to settle one's accounts when he or she must stand before the Lord on the day of judgment. Jesus warns us that we must be ready at all times. Tolerating sinful habits and excusing unrepentant sin and wrongdoing will result in bad fruit, painful discipline, and spiritual disease that leads to death and destruction. The Lord in his mercy gives us both grace (his gracious help and healing) and time to turn away from sin, but that time is right now. If we delay, even for a day, we may discover that grace has passed us by and our time is up. Do you hunger for the Lord's righteousness (moral goodness) and holiness?

"Lord Jesus, increase my hunger for you that I may grow in righteousness and holiness. May I not squander the grace of the present moment to say "yes" to you and to your will and plan for my life. "

“A TIME TO UPROOT THE PLANT” (ECCL 3:2)

“Through Him the whole body grows.” —Ephesians 4:16

God began His cultivation of the earth in the Garden of Eden (Gn 2:8ff). Man was assigned to care for the Garden of Eden, but man and woman didn’t care for the garden. Instead, they cared for their own curiosity. So man was banished from the garden. Then Jesus came and restored man’s access to God’s gardening. To do this, Jesus had to be betrayed, suffer anguish, and be arrested in a garden, Gethsemane. Finally, “in the place where [Jesus] had been crucified there was a garden” (Jn 19:41).

Mary Magdalene on the morning of the Resurrection thought Jesus was the Gardener (Jn 20:15). In a way, she was correct. Jesus restored the garden and made it surpass even the original beauty of Eden. He now calls us to join Him forever in “the garden of God” (Rv 2:7).

We are to grow from little plants (Eph 4:12-15) to full, fruitful plants. Jesus the Gardener gives us everything needed to flourish in His garden. But we don’t have unlimited time to bear fruit. There is a time of reaping fruit from our lives (see Lk 13:8-9). We have a merciful Gardener Who gives us every opportunity, and does so far more patiently than most gardeners ever will. So let us surrender all to the cultivation of Jesus the Gardener.

Even if we have had many fruitless, sinful years of life, Jesus the Gardener can make our lives beautiful and fruitful — by His grace and not our efforts. Like Mary, let it be done to us according to God’s will.

Prayer: Father, do in me whatever You must, to do through me whatever You will.

Promise: “Let us profess the truth in love and grow to the full maturity of Christ the Head.” —Eph 4:15

Praise: St. Anthony Claret is known as the spiritual father of Cuba. In his popular missions he placed emphasis on the Eucharist and the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

Reference: (This teaching was submitted by a member of our editorial team.)

Rescript: "In accord with the Code of Canon Law, I hereby grant the Nihil Obstat for One Bread, One Body covering the period from October 1, 2020 through November 30, 2020. Most Reverend Joseph R. Binzer, Auxiliary Bishop, Vicar General, Archdiocese of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio February 25, 2020"

The Nihil Obstat ("Permission to Publish") is a declaration that a book or pamphlet is considered to be free of doctrinal or moral error. It is not implied that those who have granted the Nihil Obstat agree with the contents, opinions, or statements

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swawesome-wow · 7 years

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If you wanted people to be informed, you'd have mentioned Palestinian terrorists and Hamas. You'd have mentioned the suicide bombings and hundreds of murdered innocent Israelis. You'd have mentioned the Palestinian leadership that first declined coexistence in 1948 and rejected every offer of peace since then. You'd have mentioned lies and propaganda and blood libel against Jews, thought in Palestinian schools. You care about playing the victim. But it's an old game. And you'll lose.

I wasn’t going to take the time to respond, but it’s summer break, and I refuse to let you hide behind anonymity and not learn a little something while you’re there.

1. “If you wanted people to be informed, you’d have mentioned Palestinian terrorists and Hamas. You’d have mentioned the suicide bombings and hundreds of murdered innocent Israelis.”

Oh yes, how could I forget to talk about Palestinian terrorists and Hamas. The thousands upon thousands of innocent Israelis killed. Wait, what’s that? 1,213 Israelis have been killed since September 29, 2000. 9,478 Palestinians have been killed since September 29, 2000. I have never claimed that Palestinians have not killed innocent Israelis. Those numbers are only since the year 2000. Israel has occupied Palestine for 50 years, give or take, as you yourself aptly admitted by bringing up the conference in 1948. There is immense loss on both sides, though one has lost nearly 9x as many lives. However, comparing it numerically is extremely reductive, not only are you wrong numerically, you’re ignoring why people have been slaughtered on both sides, and what brought everyone to this point. There is no “justifying” the murder of Israelis by Palestinians, there is only understanding why these killings happened, holistically, and understanding the context.

People refer to it now as the Israeli-Palestinian “Conflict, Divide, etc.” But before recent, heavy political and monetary support of Israel, it was called the Palestinian Genocide, for good reason.

2. “You’d have mentioned the Palestinian leadership that first declined coexistence in 1948 and rejected every offer of peace since then.”

Let me make this very, painfully clear.

Palestine does not owe coexistence to Israel. Israel is an occupying state, an oppressive state, and one that has committed genocide against the Palestinian people.

To bring it down to your level of understanding, the Palestinians were there first. Palestinians of EVERY religion, including Judaism, though I’ll touch on that later. The Palestinian leadership has been lamentable, no one is denying that. But let me put it this way:

Let’s say America was invaded today, by, say, Canada. (Sorry Canada, you were the first country to pop into my head, since I owe half my citizenship to you.) After things calm down enough for the leaders to meet, Trudeau says to *shudder* Trump (or even Obama, in this fake scenario, would make the same decision), “Hey man, I know you were here first and everything, and I know we bloodily invaded you, but like, let’s just coexist, like on that bumper sticker you guys are so fond of.” Do you honestly think the President of the United States of America, would EVER agree to something like that? Seriously? Of course not, that would be ridiculous. Even 50 years later, America would still be fighting for its freedom from its maple-drenched oppressors. So why are you holding Palestine to such ridiculous standards?

I am truly saddened by the violence that has stemmed from this entire situation, but until Israeli soldiers stop wrongfully arresting, imprisoning, and killing Palestinians, even children, I don’t think you can possibly hope for “peace.”

My grandmother, a few years back on a return visit to Palestine after she fled so many years ago to Canada, was stopped at the border wall (yes, there is a wall there, in case people were unaware) for eight hours, for no reason. She was not charged with anything, neither were her daughters, my aunts, that were with her. Her crime was being Palestinian. I wonder what that sounds like.

Oh yes, and because of that wall, the already pitiful economy of the Gaza Strip has crumbled, and they have no way of rebuilding it. Even if Palestinians find jobs in Israel, they’re backed up for hours each day just trying to get processed through the wall in either direction. They’ve been economically choked off from the rest of the world, yet Israel continues to receive monetary aid as if they’re in desperate need.

3. “You’d have mentioned lies and propaganda and blood libel against Jews, thought in Palestinian schools. You care about playing the victim. But it’s an old game. And you’ll lose.”

Once again, I need to make something crystal clear. So listen up. \

Palestinians do not hate Jews. They hate the Israeli government. Not Israelis, not Jews, the Israeli government, because that is the body that is responsible for Palestinian suffering.

Since I was in elementary school, any time someone found out I had Palestinian parents, they immediately made quips or even stated directly that I must hate Jewish people. I had someone say “oh, so you’re anti-Semitic.” I’ve had people ask me if myself or my parents are terrorists (and I used to be Christian, now I don’t practice anything, my point being that I can’t imagine how hard it is for any Muslims). This misconception is so widespread that it’s toxic, killing any reasonable discourse on the subject by people stamping me with the anti-Semite sticker. So, I’m sorry, I haven’t had the chance to play the victim. Let me know how that goes for you.

What I said earlier, about all religions coexisting? Let me elaborate.

For the thousands of years that Palestine has existed, Christians, Muslims, Jews, ~whatever~ lived side by side, happily and comfortably. Another misconception is that the Israeli movement came from within Palestine, which is just plain misinformation. This is a very, very reductive explanation of what actually happened, forgive me for not being more detailed:

When the second World War ended, there were thousands upon thousands of displaced European Jews (mostly German as you might imagine, but elsewhere as well). When Europe (and America) tried to figure out where to help these people relocate, no one wanted to take them in, deciding it would be too difficult to reintegrate. Palestine had the room and the kind heart needed to take them in, so that’s where many were relocated, en masse. But it was a finite time that Palestine agreed to host these refugees as refugees, they would eventually need to either integrate with the Palestinian people (gain citizenship, etc), or decide where they would want to move, if not stay there. But the relationship began to change, as some began to perpetuate the idea that they belonged there all along, and that the Palestinians were the ones that needed to leave or integrate elsewhere. As with most conflict, religion took a match and set it to kerosene, as suddenly Jerusalem was the center of the occupier’s claims to the land. While I won’t try to argue about it as I’m not informed enough on religious history, I will say that it is entirely possible to create a religious homeland without literally invading the country and creating a religious state. Church and state are separate for a reason, and have to cooperate, not override one another.

So there are plenty of Palestinian Jews that understand and are outraged at the Israeli government, though they have been left out of intentional eviction, arrests, torture, and killings.

COMIC RELIEF BREAK that is actually somewhat related but I promise it’s funny:

One time my mom was telling me about something that happened over in Palestine to friends of our family so word made it back to us. Like I said, the three major religions were living pretty happily together, especially where these friends lived. The IDF was evicting all the Palestinians from a neighborhood to allow Israeli settlers to take over. Our friends were one of the families kicked out, and they were best friends with the Jewish family next door! So when the IDF came knocking on the Jewish family’s door to offer them the keys to their best friends’ house, (they were Jews so they were allowed to stay with the new Israelis coming in), the husband of the family was FURIOUS. He started to back-talk, offended at the very thought, but his wife (the really clever one in this story) shut him up and took the keys. The husband couldn’t believe his wife would betray their best friends like that, but she just rolled her eyes in a “you idiot” fashion. They had the keys now, and they promptly gave them back to their best friends so they could reclaim their property! I always thought that story was hilarious :D

While I am disgusted at the thought that you could somehow compare this entire subject to a game, if that’s the only way you can comprehend such a vast discourse, I’m happy to oblige the metaphor: The only “loser” here is the one who can’t think for themselves and hasn’t done a little goddamn research, you soggy walnut.

Speaking of research! Here are a couple of resources for those who have been following along! I honestly can’t say that the second is an unbiased source, however if you’re looking for straight statistics and numbers, check out the first link! It’s where I got the exact numbers I used above. If you want the international law/human rights perspective, check out the third link. Thanks y’all!

http://ifamericaknew.org

http://www.globalresearch.ca/israels-genocide-towards-palestinian-arabs/5591341 (thanks canada)

https://ccrjustice.org/genocide-palestinian-people-international-law-and-human-rights-perspective (really good source explaining the international law and human rights perspective on the issue)

#palestine #israel #palestinian #palestinian genocide #israeli occupation #international law #human rights #anon #swawesome is pissed right off

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esrescuer · 7 years

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Sunday, June 25, 2017 David Schraub Sometimes lawyer, sometimes law professor, all the time awesome. UC-Berkeley Law & Political Science. Follow me on twitter @schraubd

I briefly posted last night about the exclusion of queer Jews carrying a rainbow flag with a Star of David on it being excluded from a Chicago gay pride parade. The march was not the main Chicago Pride parade but a smaller "Dyke March" which claimed to be specifically interested in fostering greater inclusion and diversity.

The Windy City Times (a gay periodical in Chicago) now has some more information on the exclusion. While the march organizers have yet to issue a statement, defenders of the expulsion of Jewish marchers have unsurprisingly seized upon the “pinkwashing” claim as their best gambit. Given that one of the expelled marchers is an officer with the LGBT group A Wider Bridge – anorganization often unjustly accused of pinkwashing on the basis of little more evidence than “they work with queer Israelis" – I expect we’ll hear plenty more contentions that a rainbow flag with a Star of David is actually best thought of as a propaganda arm of the Israeli government seeking to downplay the occupation.

I’ve written quite a bit about why pinkwashing is an absurd charge, and one that is only intelligible throughantisemitic notions of Jewish conspiracy whereby any actions Jews take is presumed to be part of some sort of plot. This shows the inevitable endpoint of that analysis: If you’re a Jew, and you’re open about it, the presumption is you must be an agent of Israeli hasbara unless you engage in public self-flagellation demonstrating the contrary. A Star of David suffices to show you’re in on the plot. A Star of David with a rainbow is enough to infer your true objectives. What else could you possibly be doing at a gay pride parade other than serving as an agent of a foreign power?

Simply put, when you can’t conceptualize Jewish political action but through the lens of some sort of conspiratorial effort to prop up Israeli policies in the West Bank and Gaza, it’s utterly unsurprising that simply carrying a Star of David will become sufficient proof of "pinkwashing”. “Pinkwashing”, as a concept, merges entirely into a politics of antisemitic exclusion precisely because it is predicated on being unable to hold multiple thoughts in one’s head at the same time – the Star of David is a Jewish symbol and it’s on the Israeli flag! Jews may be proud of Israel’s relative protections of LGBT rights and sharply critical of its policies towards Palestinians!

One final thing. On twitter, some people questioned if the expulsion of these marchers might be unlawful as a form of anti-Jewish discrimination. I believe that the answer is clearly no, under the precedent set by Hurley v. Irish-American Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Group of Boston. But there is some irony: Hurley allowed an Irish pride parade to exclude gay marchers from the proceedings insofar as the parade organizers disagreed with the “message” of their would-be co-marchers (the message, apparently, being that there were Irish-American gay people who were proud of that identity). And the same rule that permits an Irish pride parade to be homophobic, allows a Gay pride parade to be anti-Semitic.

UPDATE: I’ve finally seen a statement by a march organizer, Iliana Figueroa:

“Yesterday during the rally we saw three individuals carrying Israeli flags super imposed on rainbow flags. Some folks say they are Jewish Pride flags. But as a Collective we are very much pro-Palestine, and when we see these flags we know a lot of folks who are under attack by Israel see the visuals of the flag as a threat, so we don’t want anything in the [Dyke March] space that can inadvertently or advertently express Zionism,” she said. “So we asked the folks to please leave. We told them people in the space were feeling threatened.”

First of all, these flags were not “Israeli flags super imposed on rainbow flags." They had a Star of David on a Rainbow background. This is an"everything is critical of Israel" move, where an antisemitic action is reformulated as anti-Israel expression, which then will be lobbed back at Jews accused of being unable to tolerate "criticism of Israel” and/or (ironically enough) unwilling to cease “conflating” Israel and Jewishness.

Second, the “we don’t want anything in the space that can inadvertently or advertently express Zionism” – as applied against a visible Star of David – couldn’t illustrate my above points better if I had written it. The point of “pinkwashing”, as an accusation, is to render any organized act of queer Jewish agency that is not torch-and-pitchfork anti-Zionist into the equivalent of an Israeli governmental press release. Once that’s the standard, it is unsurprising and predictable that basic expressions of Jewish identity will become illicit as “inadvertently express[ing] Zionism,” and the upshot is that Jews are excluded virtually in toto.

Figueroa said that a full statement will be forthcoming “after it finishes crafting one, and that members have asked pro-Palestinian organizations and others to release statements of solidarity with Dyke March as well.” Again, note how the easiest move for many groups, when faced with Jewish claims of marginalization, is to shift as quickly as possible onto the “Israel” terrain as a means of delegitimizing the Jewish narrative. This response doesn’t remedy the anti-Semitism (indeed, it scarcely seeks to address it) – it doubles-down on it.

UPDATE 2x: Statement is out, and as predicted “A Wider Bridge” gets exactly the treatment I anticipated. On the other hand, the Human Rights Campaign issued a statement of condemnation.

#magen david #chicago #pride #pride flag #israel #jewish pride #dyke march #Little Village #lgbtq

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