RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/04/notre-dame-cathedral-fire-religion-decline-western-civilization/

We are not much interested today in building such expressions of transcendence.

The recent fires at the medieval Catholic cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris almost immediately were seen as a referendum on the West, even by those who are not Christians.

How at the supposed apex of Western technology, science, and affluence could a sudden inferno devour the spire, roof, and some of the interior icons of the nearly 800-year-old cathedral, itself perched on the bank of a river, and the survivor of centuries of desecrations, remodels, expansions, and repairs, when the arts of preservation, fire prevention and response, and engineering were supposedly backward by our standards?

Logically or not, many saw the fire as a curtain call for the West, or at least an eclipse of the ancient marriage of European Christian belief and scientific brilliance that together produced the most impressive and beautiful expressions of Western transcendence.

And now the second-most-revered church in the West smolders — something that neither French revolutionaries nor World War II bombers could accomplish.

In our smug era of high tech and conspicuous consumption, Western Europeans and Americans do not build Christian cathedrals anymore. Our challenge is simply to keep standing — at least sort of — what we inherited.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/273491/progressive-religion-and-ritual-scapegoating-sir-jules-gomes

“We are not religious,” screech the vulturine volt of jeering, sneering, secular, postmodern, cultural Marxists. The high priests of secularism are pious and pompous, even Pecksniffian, in their iconoclastic vandalism of religion and ritual. Yet, one week before Good Friday, they orgiastically partake in one of the oldest religious rituals—a rite going back three thousand years.

In this ancient rite, the people choose a goat. The high priest lays his hands on the goat’s head and confesses over it the sins of the people. He symbolically transfers the sins of the nation on to the goat and banishes it to the wilderness (where nothing human lives). William Tyndale, in his 1530 English translation of the Bible, coined the word “scapegoat” (literally the goat that escapes) for the animal.

In popular parlance, a scapegoat is one who is blamed or punished for the sins of others. Sir James Frazer, social anthropologist, in The Golden Bough (3rd edition)—his 12-volume study on comparative religions, titled Volume 9 The Scapegoat. He packed it with “countless instances of irrational mass violence against individuals, from all periods of history, and every imaginable country.”

There is another goat in this Yom Kippur ritual. This goat is slaughtered. Its blood is used to cleanse the “mercy seat” in the inner Tabernacle. This goat pays for the sins of the people with its life. Thus, the people ritually deal with their sins in two ways.

The new religion of progressivism both plagiarises and perverts the scapegoat ritual. It does this in three stages: first, it creates its own theology of sin.

https://thefederalist.com/2019/04/17/allied-powers-won-fight-sky-world-war-ii/

To achieve air supremacy in war means to be able to put your assets in the air with the ability to destroy your enemy’s cities, troops, and ability to fight back. In the online course, “The Second World Wars,” Professor Victor David Hanson discusses the technological advances in air power made by German, American, and Japanese forces throughout the course of World World II, and how one side slowly achieved air supremacy.

Before 1941, there was a clear pattern to the victories achieved by German forces. Germany invaded Poland, Denmark, Luxembourg, Holland, Norway, Belgium, France, and Yugoslavia. Each one of these victories was against an unprepared neighbor and a surprise attack. Germany shocked everyone with their sudden domination of European democracies, especially with their success with a new military tactic: blitzkrieg. The blitzkrieg method involved violently and quickly mobilizing forces in the air and on the ground, defeating opponents with series of short attacks.
What we know now is that Germany’s opponents, presumably stunned and alarmed by the attacks, never stopped to evaluate the limitations of Germany’s power, specifically in the air. Could they defeat an enemy in a battle that was not a surprise attack? Could their planes reach the United States? Britain? The answer was no.

With increasing popularity of assorted overt and covert anti-Semitic causes and individuals, such as those camouflaged by the so-called Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement and characterized by folks like the plethora of duplicitous academics and emerging superstars of the Democrat Party like The Three Amigas (https://ekurd.net/the-three-amigas-2019-02-19), perhaps it’s time to consult a real expert on these matters…my cat, of blessed memory.

Please allow me to backtrack a bit, and I guess it was my own fault.

Way back in late 2004, my two elder daughters brought home a momma cat and two small kittens they had found late at night wandering on the road. Another kitten was allegedly spotted not far away which lost out in its chance encounter with a car…Who could say no to them?

The problem was that we already had three established cats. While we earlier had similar situations involving the two original females, it was Binx, the young male, who (even after being neutered) really proved to be a pistol regarding the newcomers. And I suspect he began by first blaming me.

I kept a box in my bedroom closet with some important material and memorabilia in it. Not a problem–until after our new feline additions entered the picture. Soon after their arrival, Binx was caught in the act of leaving unpleasant souvenirs, if you get my drift, in the box.

Not having much of a choice, I next had to gingerly weed through decades of materials I had saved. Funny what you’ll find when you do this sort of thing.

https://www.jewishlinknj.com/features/30756-fear-and-panic

Part XVII
Throughout April, May and June 1940, the Nazis continued their drive to dominate Europe by conquering Denmark, Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg and France. As Saul Friedlander noted, the stunning Nazi victories caused panic in the U.S. and fear that an invasion of the Western hemisphere might be imminent.

The Germans understood that America was impotent as a result of the defeat of the Allies, and that no matter how vociferous their verbal objections might be, they were not in a position to initiate practical action. The U.S. was virtually in a state of paralysis in light of a looming election campaign, the speed in which 120 German divisions attacked the entire length of the Western front and the complete lack of preparedness on the part of the American armed forces.

The Jews had “worked themselves into a state of panic, verging on catastrophic despair,” observed Salo Baron, professor of Jewish history at Columbia University in the July-August 1940 edition of the Contemporary Jewish Record. An ever-increasing number of Jews began to believe that there was little use in attempting to ameliorate even a “small fraction” of the distress, for the refugee crisis seemed to be growing beyond their ability to cope with it.

The point had been reached where some Jews were “beginning sincerely to favor, or else find a ready excuse for, complete inertness and a fatalistic suspension of all activities, including even the financial contributions for relief of European Jewry and the reconstruction of Palestine.”

https://www.andrewbostom.org/2019/04/ahmed-al-tayeb-sunni-islams-jew-hating-papal-equivalent-in-his-own-words/

Since its founding in 973 C.E., Al Azhar University (and its mosque) have represented a pinnacle of Islamic religious education, which evolved into the de facto Vatican of Sunni Islam.

Grand Imam of Al-Azhar University, Ahmed al-Tayeb, was the number 1 ranked Muslim figure for 2017 in “The Muslim 500”. His “The Muslim 500” profile states,

Influence: Highest scholarly authority for the majority of Sunni Muslims, runs the foremost and largest Sunni Islamic university.

School of Thought: Traditional Sunni

During an interview with Al-Tayeb, which aired on Channel 1, Egyptian TV, October 25, 2013, he gave a brief explanation of the ongoing relevance of the Koranic verse 5:82 which has been invoked—“successfully”—to inspire violent Muslim hatred of Jews since the advent of Islam:

A verse in the Koran explains the Muslims’ relations with the Jews…This is an historical perspective, which has not changed to this day. See how we suffer today from global Zionism and Judaism…Since the inception of Islam 1,400 years ago, we have been suffering from Jewish and Zionist interference in Muslim affairs. This is a cause of great distress for the Muslims. The Koran said it and history has proven it: “You shall find the strongest among men in enmity to the believers to be the Jews…”

https://pjmedia.com/homeland-security/removing-jew-hatred-from-the-mosque-a-vatican-ii-paradigm-for-islam/

Pope Francis made an unscheduled visit to the campus of St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia on September 27, 2015, to view the sculpture by artist Joshua Koffman commemorating the 50th anniversary of Nostra Aetate, the Second Vatican Council Declaration on the Relationship of the Church to Non-Christian Religions, in particular, Judaism. Koffman’s bronze work “Synagoga and Ecclesia in Our Time,” depicts a female figure representing the Church sitting next to another female figure representing the Synagogue, each holding their holy scriptures, which they appear to be discussing. It is meant to oppose centuries of art in which the triumphal Christian “Ecclesia” stood wearing a crown, while a woman representing “Synagoga” stood blindfolded and drooping, cradling a broken lance in one arm (likely an allusion to the lance that pierced Jesus), while tablets of the Torah appeared to be slipping from her opposite hand.

Vatican II/Nostra Aetate, as illustrated by two sentences from a pronouncement issued October 28, 1965, unambiguously condemned anti-Semitism. From the Church’s perspective:

Moreover, mindful of her common patrimony with the Jews, and motivated by the gospel’s spiritual love and by no political considerations, she deplores the hatred, persecution, and displays of Antisemitism directed against the Jews at any time, and from any source

https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2019/04/22/the-forgotten-americans-who-died-fighting-communism/

Remember the Polar Bears

Troy, Mich. — At sunrise, following a sleepless night of trudging through the cold swamps of northern Russia, a couple of men from Detroit made breakfast. Corporal Morris Foley and Private Bill Henkelman brewed tea and opened a can of corned beef. As Foley prepared to finish the last of the beef, Henkelman spoke up: “Let’s save enough for after while.” Foley refused. “There might not be no after while.”

It turned out there wasn’t, at least not for Foley. Later that morning — on September 20, 1918, by the village of Seltso on the Dvina River — his company formed a skirmish line and charged a nest of Russian machine gunners. Bullets ripped through Foley’s face and neck. “Foley had his jaw shot off,” reported a sergeant. Somehow, the young man survived his brutal injury long enough to join a retreat. He died near his original position and was buried close to where he had scarfed down his beef.

Today, Foley’s recovered remains rest in Troy, Mich., in the 200-acre White Chapel Memorial Park Cemetery, alongside the graves of 55 other American soldiers who died fighting Communists in the frozen wilds of northern Russia in 1918 and 1919. They’re marked by one of the most striking sculptures to be seen anywhere, let alone at a cemetery: a snarling polar bear, carved in white marble by the artist Leon Hermant. It’s a tribute to what some U.S. soldiers took to calling themselves a century ago: the “Polar Bears.” They were the first and only Americans to fight a shooting war against Russian Communists.

http://q4j-middle-east.com

So, unless you’ve been away in another galaxy (but pay attention to what’s happening in our world otherwise), you’ve heard of the BDS movement, “Progressive” higher indoctrination instead of education on too many campuses, increasing worldwide anti-Semitism, and the exploits of The Three Amigas and their abettors in the USA and elsewhere by now.

My friend Cathy recently asked for help to provide a response to Arab assertions that Abraham was a Muslim and possibly Arab, and that Jews were nothing more than Arabs in disguise–unbeknown to themselves. Hey, they both like falafel.
Before tackling these subjects head-on, please permit me to provide a little background…
During the 19th century, European scholars of the Middle East–German Jews in particular–were prone to paint a picture of a tolerant Muslim world which treated non-Muslims admirably.
While it’s true that live Christians and Jews could be a better source of continuous revenue for Muslims via special taxes (the Jizyah) and such than dead ones, even though there was no Holocaust per se of Jews under Muslim domination, it’s also true that dhimmipopulations never knew what the morrow would bring.

Massacres, forced conversions, subjugation, and so forth were no strangers in the realm of Islam. And forget about non-dhimmi “Peoples of the Book”–Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs, pagans, and so forth points east either converted and saw the Islamic “light” or were slaughtered. A reading of Middle Eastern Jewish scholars such as Norman Stillman, Sir Martin Gilbert, Albert Memmi, and Bat Ye’or is a must on this subject, as is newer work edited and/or authored by others like Andrew Bostom and the much maligned (especially by those who could not factuallydispute her) Joan Peters.

It seems that 19th century whitewash of Islam–which still continues–was largely done to contrast an allegedly tolerant Arab/Muslim East–where Jews are commonly known as kilab yahud, “Jew dogs,” and killers of prophets–to a historically intolerant Christian West, complete with its inquisitions, crusades, blood libels, demonization, forced ghettoization and conversions, massacres, Holocaust, and branding of the Jew as the deicide people…and that’s just for starters.
So (you ask), what does all of this have to do with Abraham?
First, keep in mind that all that we know of Abraham comes via the Hebrew Bible. That is our one and only original source.

Thomas Sowell @ThomasSowell”More whites were brought as slaves to North Africa than blacks brought as slaves to the United States or to the 13 colonies from which it was formed. White slaves were still being bought and sold in the Ottoman Empire, decades after blacks were freed in the United States.”  1:03 PM – Feb 27, 2019