As the son of a woman from Vienna who spent years 11 through 20 of her life in hiding, in prison, in Auschwitz, and finally making ammunition as a slave in Germany before being liberated by young Americans who sacrificed to free her, I am most amazed at the pompous audacity of today’s antisemites.
Modern-day antisemites pompously, audaciously, and for the majority clandestinely bear the double-edged sword of antisemitism. One side of the 3,000-year-old sword is honed to cut the Jews down, and the other sharp metal edge is unsheathed against the Jewish State. Today’s mutant rationalization of age-old antisemitism simply aims to ostracize or murder Jews and destroy their homeland. This mutation, inherited by antisemites, has always proven disastrous to those who express it somatically.
As noted by Author Dara Horn, references to the Holy Land as divine Jewish Inheritance are repeatedly expressed in Hebrew in the Zionist Amidah prayer written by Jewish rabbis 2,000 to 3,000 years ago. These same Rabbis and scholars penned the prayer books and sacred scrolls guiding Jewish life and prayer, all containing hundreds of references to Jerusalem and Israel, wrapped in peace and light. Hebrew, originating in Israel, is one of the two oldest written languages on Earth. Thousands of years of written and oral Hebrew traditions expressing Jewish life in Israel beg for peace and have, unfortunately for Jews, always existed in counter- parallel to antisemitic chants, violence, inciting text, and nowadays blood-libelous videos. Despite this, we Jews, in every shape, size, and kind, are still here! Pause and think about it. Modern-day antisemites refuse to note that all those societies and civilizations that lifted their voices against us, who took violent economic and societal actions against the Jews and the Jewish State, have disappeared into nothingness.
Modern-day antisemites carry the failed torch of prior millennia of generations of antisemites who, frankly, were much more accomplished at both ostracizing, physically and economically harassing, and murdering Jews and damaging the Jewish homeland than today’s rank amateurs, many of whom can be monitored spewing their hate on MEMRI.ORG, the majority of which, fortunately, are all talk and no action.
It’s pompous audacity by Nick Fuentes, Lucas Gage, Jake Lang, Dan Bilzerian, Sneako, Kanye West, Jack Shields, Candice Owens, Tucker Carlson, Geta Thunberg, Mark Ruffalo, Omar Suleiman, Anastasia Loupis, Benjamin “Macklemore” Haggerty, and Ian Carroll to believe that their expressed screed against the Jews and the Jewish State would be any more successful at destroying the Jews or Jewish homeland than Manetho, Lysimachus of Alexandria, Apion, Seneca the Younger, Tacitus, Juvenal, Henry Ford, Father Charles Coughlin, or Joseph Goebbels. All have disappeared into nothingness. The Jews and their Jewish state are still here.
It’s pompous audacity by the BDS, Boycott Divest and Sanction, movement and its people who also deface Jewish homes, businesses and houses of prayer on all continents to think they will be more successful using economic warfare to destroy the Jewish People and their Jewish state than the Byzantines, the Medieval Guild Restrictions, 19th-century Europe boycotts, The Ireland Limerick Boycotts of Jews, the French-Canadian nationalist boycott of Jewish businesses in the 1930’s, The Nazi Economic Boycott of 1933 which failed, Kristallnacht, The Arab League Boycott of 1945 and countless others. All those who boycotted the Jews and attacked the homes, businesses, and synagogues of the Jews have disappeared into nothingness. The Jews and their Jewish state are still here.
It’s the pompous audacity and apparent suicide by the Islamic Republic of Iran and its patron mafias of Hamas, Hezbollah, the Popular Mobilization forces of Iraq, and the Houthis of Yemen to pledge in their charters, streets, and constitutions to destroy the Jewish state and kill all the world’s Jews. Do these theocratic necro-mongering dictatorships along with their suppliers and enablers in China, Russia, North Korea, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar think they will be more successful destroying Jews and the continuous Jewish life of Israel than the Pharos of Egypt, the Assyrians, Babylon, Seleucids, Romans, Crusaders, European Monarchs, England in the 1100’s, Spain in the 1300’s, Odessa in the 1800’s, The pogroms of the Ottoman empire in the 1800’s in Jerusalem, Safed and Tiberias and Haifa, Kishinev in 1903, Ukraine and Poland in 1918, The Hebron Massacre of 1929, Kielce in 1946, Nazi Germany and the Gazans who filmed themselves massacring Jews on Oct. 7, 2023? All those who fought to destroy the Jews, their homes, their livelihoods, and their houses of worship, and remove the Jews from Israel have disappeared into nothingness. The Jews and their Jewish State are still here.
The Arab and Muslim world of the Middle East and North Africa had quite successfully ethnically cleansed their territories of a million Jews just 75 years ago. Before their expulsion, Jews lived on the land for hundreds, if not thousands, of years (think Maimonides) as peaceful, contributing members of society. Yet, the expelled Jews and their descendant families from those regions are still here on this Earth, many living in Israel. Several of the residual Arab nations and their societies- dictatorships and monarchies that expelled the Jews are gone or exist on a time-limited, evaporating lake of oil, continuously flailing Quixotically with pompous audacity at the land of Israel and the Jews. Long after their petrochemicals and their innovation-poor states dry up and disappear into nothingness, the Jews and Jewish state will still be here.
It’s nothing short of pompous audacity for those who decry, as the mayor of New York did about Israel: “Any state that privileges one religion, I can’t tell you I support.” People whose “standards” force them to slam Israel’s national religion as egregious and don’t speak out about the national religions of 50 Muslim, 20 Christian or Hindi nations, many of which claim their religion as the official state religion and are now “Juden Frei” have apparently never read the Israeli constitution, attended an Israeli public school, travelled in Israel on public transportation, witnessed a supreme court hearing or Knesset session in Israel, walked down any street in any neighborhood in Israel where the street signs are in Hebrew, Arabic and English, climbed the cliffs of Masada, visited the tunnels under Jerusalem, walked open-eyed through Yad Vashem and the Israel Museum, visited Gaza before the Hamas Coup d’etat or have been awed by the archeology and liturgies of Jerusalem, Safed, Herzliya, Bethlehem, Haifa, or Eilat.
I STOOD OUTSIDE AN ARMORED SYNAGOGUE IN ISTANBUL AND REALIZED WHY I’M A ZIONIST
People who learned, like all those before, to express their hatred of the Jewish homeland, like Hizzoner, will never publicly reveal what their parents taught them about Jews and the Jewish nation growing up, or how they turned on their somatic mutation of antisemitism. Was it a college course, a perceived unpleasant run-in with a Jew, or family and friends that made them hate? Long after the failed policies of Jew hating Democratic Socialists of America politicians have dried up and disappeared into nothingness, the Jews and the Jewish state, which was ironically founded on several “democratic socialist” tenets, will still be here.
So, what do I want all you antisemites to do? What’s the solution to the curse of antisemitism? The truth is, I want you to do nothing. Your doing nothing is good for us, the tiny band of Jews on this planet, and you’d better get used to nothing. It’s your chosen and learned future.
Howard A. Green, MD, FACP, FAAD, FACMS, is a board-certified dermatologist who graduated from The George Washington University in Washington, D.C., and obtained his medical degree from the Boston University School of Medicine in Massachusetts. He completed a residency in internal medicine at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and became certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine.