Monday, January 6, 2020

Jews felt safe in Germany, too - Jack Engelhard


by Jack Engelhard


Can it happen here? Never here, says the optimist in me. Think again, says the pessimist.


We’ll get to The Jerusalem Post’s Herb Keinon in a moment. For now, and related to his complaint, this question -- 

Can it happen here? Probably not. But a few more like Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib and AOC, and all bets are off.

It doesn’t take much to tip the scales. People forget. Jews in Germany thought they were safe, too. They thought they were Germans.

People, like my parents, in Toulouse, France (after surviving pogroms in Poland), thought they were home…home at last…in that place of Enlightenment…equality, liberty and fraternity.

To know what happened, I do not need to read the books. I only need to ask my sister. She remembers streets being cordoned off, and that day when Germans were directing traffic. 

Vichy had come to town.

Sarah remembers the day when her best friend, Incarnacion, didn’t answer the doorbell, and when she did, told Sarah that she cannot go to school with her anymore.

Because, she explained, “You are a dirty Jew.”  

It can happen that fast. Yes, it can. You may want to read this.

Again…can it happen here? Never here, says the optimist in me. Think again, says the pessimist.

The signs are not encouraging. Nancy Pelosi is Speaker of the House. But AOC is her boss. Pelosi knows this. Everybody knows this. The Squad runs the House.

Straight from tending bar, AOC introduces a (catastrophic) green new deal, and all the leaders of her party fall right in, down to their knees.

The Democrat-dominated House could not muster the votes to condemn Omar after she accused Jews of dual loyalty and of using money to buy political influence. 

Chutzpah? Starting at the Revolutionary War, altogether some one million American Jews fought and thousands died on the battlefields in all wars in service for their beloved America...Now let’s hear her people’s contribution. History finds mostly blank pages. Yet Omar questions our patriotism. 

Now she is “outraged” that President Trump eliminated Iran’s terrorist general Soleimani. Tlaib and AOC feel the same way.

The Mean Girls of your high school run half our Congress.

Imagine more districts bringing us more Omars, Tlaibs and AOCs. What country will this be? 

We are a good people...but suppose the 20 to 40 million illegals go voting? Equally so the millions here legally, but here with an ancestral grudge. 

We may be facing the biggest issue of our times, as to whether the United States is really our final destination, aside Aliya, which is the holy quest and the ultimate answer, but a different topic altogether and for later.

For now, is this where we unpack our bags for good and breathe a sigh of relief? Is this, as per the prophet, where we sit under the shade of the vine and fig tree and no one shall make us afraid? 

But suddenly, we are afraid…  and is this just another Resting Place? There were 42 of them for our ancestors in the wilderness before they reached the Promised Land.

Which stop is this?

It got me thinking after I was notified that, writing for The Jerusalem Post, columnist Herb Keinon mentioned me, and my column, “Climate change in Monsey,” and my use of the word “Kristallnacht” to describe the recent wave of attacks against Jews in and around New York City. Keinon thought I was being too over-the-top.

Kristallnacht was too much for him.

I thought so too for about a minute when I lit up my pipe to write the column, and whether or not I should use that word.

Then I asked myself this – are Jews afraid to walk the streets? If yes, then Kristallnacht it is.

Keinan did not provide a link to my column. That would have been the polite thing to do. So anyway…some people just don’t get it, the seriousness of what’s happening.

Can they really be so naïve? Or are we into another generation who choose willful blindness?

Too bad Keinon wrote before he read, that in fact our laws do favor the lawless, and render our courts and police as helpless bystanders…and Jews as primary targets. 

As of Jan. 1, and the “no-bail” provision, the streets belong to the brutes, as noted from The New York Times, which pleasantly explains: “Under the new law, judges will no longer be able to set bail for a long list of misdemeanors and nonviolent felonies, including stalking, assault without serious injury, burglary, many drug offenses, and even some kinds of arson and robbery.”

You don’t have to wait for them to start breaking glass to know (with Bob Dylan) the times, they are a changing.

This doesn’t mean we should panic. But it also doesn’t mean we should ignore the signs staring us in the face…as we have done throughout our history, with disastrous consequences.

New York-based bestselling American novelist Jack Engelhard writes regularly for Arutz Sheva.


Jack Engelhard’s classic international bestselling novel Indecent Proposal, which later became a worldwide hit movie, has been republished to meet readers’ demands. His other major works include Compulsive: A Novel, his award-winning post-Holocaust Montreal memoir Escape from Mount Moriah, plus Slot Attendant: A Novel About A Novelist. His website: www.jackengelhard.com

Source: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/24987

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