by Lauri B. Regan
In an age of extreme danger for Jews, both in Israel and in the West, this is what the Union for Reformed Judaism has decided to focus on.
On
my way back from David Horowitz's Restoration Weekend in Charleston, I
opened up the Post and Courier newspaper to Section D, entitled "Faith
& Values." What struck me was an article
on the second page reporting that the Union for Reform Judaism (URJ)
had adopted a resolution supporting transgender rights. The resolution
calls for congregations and camps to have gender-neutral bathrooms, use
gender-neutral language, and train religious school staff on gender
issues.
I have no idea what any of this gender identity noise really means, but I have concluded that this whole movement (together with the delegitimization of Israel, the legalization of marijuana, demonizing those who are offended by Planned Parenthood's fetal tissue trade, push for single-payer health care, and prosecution of those who question the scientific basis of man-caused global warming) is just one giant progressive wave to further supplant Judeo-Christian values and alter the moral fabric of our society.
Jews are being stabbed, run over, and shot on streets across Israel on a daily basis; they are fleeing Europe en masse as anti-Semitic attacks have become common place; and BDS (the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement) is flourishing across the globe as the number of hate groups continues to grow and their influence continues to be peddled. The streets of American cities are becoming unsafe, as Jews become victims of attacks with Molotov cocktails and knives, our college campuses have become anti-Semitic centers of pro-Palestinian/pro-Hamas hate including violence and intimidation by members of Muslim hate groups, and liberal American Jews, including mainstream Jewish establishments, welcome anti-Israel groups into their open tents.
But the URJ has its priorities straight, and transgender rights are at the top of the list.
Perhaps we should not be surprised. After all, last week the JCC-Manhattan hosted a Shabbat dinner with the virulently anti-Israel, pro-BDS New Israel Fund (NIF) and featured a far-left speaker who regularly criticizes the IDF. The UJA-Federation in NYC permits anti-Israel groups like B'tselem, NIF, and J Street to march in its annual Israel Day Parade. Rabbi Gordon Tucker of the Conservative Temple Israel of White Plains donated funds to NIF and boycotted a Stand in Solidarity with Israel rally that I organized in front of a venue hosting the virulently anti-Semitic Jewish Voice for Peace hate-fest. And Rabbi Tucker was not alone. The entire Westchester County Jewish community – each and every synagogue and Hebrew day school – was advised by the Westchester Jewish Council, an umbrella group that includes NIF and J Street as its members, to boycott our pro-Israel rally, and so they did.
If there is one thing that I have learned since Barack Obama was elected with 78% of the Jewish vote in his first election and 68% in his second, it is that American Jews do not prioritize Israel. But gender neutrality issues? Really? I was aware that liberal Jews were inexplicably obsessed with abortion and witnessed it firsthand when I spoke on a panel in front of 200 wealthy Jewish women in the month before the 2012 election. They grabbed the microphone from each other yelling at me that Obama was a terrific friend of Israel and that Romney was going to take away their daughters' and granddaughters' right to an abortion. This was particularly inexplicable given that every single woman in the room lived in the bluest of blue states across the country, but the psychosis pervaded the room.
I became aware of how ingrained the Jewish establishment is with its all-inclusive policy of welcoming everyone into the tent (which is what this whole transgender nonsense is about) when I sat on a panel designed to fight BDS two years ago. The meeting was organized by America's largest Jewish umbrella group and included 80 influential representatives from members around the world. Alas, a woman from the pro-BDS Americans for Peace Now took her turn at the microphone to announce that her group does not support boycotts of Israeli products – just products from the West Bank (to the rest of us in the room, that would be Judea and Samaria, historic land of the Jewish people and part of Israel). And yet, the minute I called out this woman and the idiocy of including boycotters in a forum designed to fight BDS, I was cut off, and my turn was over.
The hypocrisy among our people has no end. While the transgender resolution was designed to be inclusive of all walks of life, those with dissenting views are shot down, whether through our own people boycotting a pro-Israel rally or being silenced while calling out the haters in our midst. Several years ago I wrote about my former rabbi asking me to leave his synagogue after I questioned his decision to proclaim in his Yom Kippur sermon that it was God's commandment to support universal health care. So much for the open tent. Perhaps, had I been seeking an abortion or about to undergo a sex change operation, my views on Obamacare would have been more acceptable.
This brings me back to the transgender issue. The URJ's resolution also impacts pre-schools and religious schools. I think back to my days attending Hebrew school and Shabbat and High Holiday services as well as those of my own children. The best place to hide was the ladies' room, where all of the young girls congregate to escape the boring teachers and rabbis. Parents never worried about their children in synagogue or Hebrew school – until now. Now the ladies' rooms will be open to boys and young men who may or may not be "gender-confused," and we are all supposed to take comfort that those in charge have been properly "trained" to keep our children safe.
The resolution also provides that kids will no longer be divided by gender in programming, gender titles such as "Mr." and "Mrs." will no longer be used, and resources will be developed to train rabbis and other leaders on how to deal with bathrooms, language, and prayer. Prayer! The URJ are going to now alternate male and female pronouns and will change "king" to "guardian." Just wait until Hillary is in office, at which time it will take a lot less than a village to create a population of little gender-neutral village idiots.
And while the URJ views this as inclusion, I view it as one more nail in the next coffin the Jewish people are destined to face – and each time it seems as if our people hammer that nail in of their own volition. And if they do not get their heads out of their Torah of Liberalism and put it back into the Torah of God, the price will be especially huge for our brethren in Israel.
A column in the Post and Courier on prayer shared stories about the way in which faith helped people deal with "healing … death, life, and miracles." In a blue state, the focus would be on liberals' perceptions that God's commandments include supporting transgenders, global warming boondoggles, gay marriage, abortion rights, and Obamacare.
This is not limited to the Reformed Jewish movement. In a recent vote on a World Zionist Congress proposal on the "Recognition of the Jewish People as Indigenous to the Land of Israel," the Conservative movement joined J Street and its Reformed colleagues in opposing the resolution. So while American Jews will be able to give their six-year olds sex change operations, have their daughters get abortions behind their backs at just about any age, and support Al Gore's latest global warming charade, the BDS movement will grow, anti-Semitism will flourish, and Hillary, whom they will vote for en masse, will further isolate, demonize, and endanger Israel, picking up where their prior Messiah left off.
Perhaps it will take a miracle to alter that state of affairs. As one of the Chosen People, I do feel confident that we will eventually prevail. But that does not mean that we do not eat our own through our arrogant, destructive, holier-than-thou attitudes and unethical value systems that have harmed us in the past. And it certainly does not mean that large-scale pain and death will not occur before we wake up as a people and realize that God's commandments have absolutely nothing to do with progressive garbage and everything to do with saving Israel and fighting together for our and her survival.
I have no idea what any of this gender identity noise really means, but I have concluded that this whole movement (together with the delegitimization of Israel, the legalization of marijuana, demonizing those who are offended by Planned Parenthood's fetal tissue trade, push for single-payer health care, and prosecution of those who question the scientific basis of man-caused global warming) is just one giant progressive wave to further supplant Judeo-Christian values and alter the moral fabric of our society.
Jews are being stabbed, run over, and shot on streets across Israel on a daily basis; they are fleeing Europe en masse as anti-Semitic attacks have become common place; and BDS (the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement) is flourishing across the globe as the number of hate groups continues to grow and their influence continues to be peddled. The streets of American cities are becoming unsafe, as Jews become victims of attacks with Molotov cocktails and knives, our college campuses have become anti-Semitic centers of pro-Palestinian/pro-Hamas hate including violence and intimidation by members of Muslim hate groups, and liberal American Jews, including mainstream Jewish establishments, welcome anti-Israel groups into their open tents.
But the URJ has its priorities straight, and transgender rights are at the top of the list.
Perhaps we should not be surprised. After all, last week the JCC-Manhattan hosted a Shabbat dinner with the virulently anti-Israel, pro-BDS New Israel Fund (NIF) and featured a far-left speaker who regularly criticizes the IDF. The UJA-Federation in NYC permits anti-Israel groups like B'tselem, NIF, and J Street to march in its annual Israel Day Parade. Rabbi Gordon Tucker of the Conservative Temple Israel of White Plains donated funds to NIF and boycotted a Stand in Solidarity with Israel rally that I organized in front of a venue hosting the virulently anti-Semitic Jewish Voice for Peace hate-fest. And Rabbi Tucker was not alone. The entire Westchester County Jewish community – each and every synagogue and Hebrew day school – was advised by the Westchester Jewish Council, an umbrella group that includes NIF and J Street as its members, to boycott our pro-Israel rally, and so they did.
If there is one thing that I have learned since Barack Obama was elected with 78% of the Jewish vote in his first election and 68% in his second, it is that American Jews do not prioritize Israel. But gender neutrality issues? Really? I was aware that liberal Jews were inexplicably obsessed with abortion and witnessed it firsthand when I spoke on a panel in front of 200 wealthy Jewish women in the month before the 2012 election. They grabbed the microphone from each other yelling at me that Obama was a terrific friend of Israel and that Romney was going to take away their daughters' and granddaughters' right to an abortion. This was particularly inexplicable given that every single woman in the room lived in the bluest of blue states across the country, but the psychosis pervaded the room.
I became aware of how ingrained the Jewish establishment is with its all-inclusive policy of welcoming everyone into the tent (which is what this whole transgender nonsense is about) when I sat on a panel designed to fight BDS two years ago. The meeting was organized by America's largest Jewish umbrella group and included 80 influential representatives from members around the world. Alas, a woman from the pro-BDS Americans for Peace Now took her turn at the microphone to announce that her group does not support boycotts of Israeli products – just products from the West Bank (to the rest of us in the room, that would be Judea and Samaria, historic land of the Jewish people and part of Israel). And yet, the minute I called out this woman and the idiocy of including boycotters in a forum designed to fight BDS, I was cut off, and my turn was over.
The hypocrisy among our people has no end. While the transgender resolution was designed to be inclusive of all walks of life, those with dissenting views are shot down, whether through our own people boycotting a pro-Israel rally or being silenced while calling out the haters in our midst. Several years ago I wrote about my former rabbi asking me to leave his synagogue after I questioned his decision to proclaim in his Yom Kippur sermon that it was God's commandment to support universal health care. So much for the open tent. Perhaps, had I been seeking an abortion or about to undergo a sex change operation, my views on Obamacare would have been more acceptable.
This brings me back to the transgender issue. The URJ's resolution also impacts pre-schools and religious schools. I think back to my days attending Hebrew school and Shabbat and High Holiday services as well as those of my own children. The best place to hide was the ladies' room, where all of the young girls congregate to escape the boring teachers and rabbis. Parents never worried about their children in synagogue or Hebrew school – until now. Now the ladies' rooms will be open to boys and young men who may or may not be "gender-confused," and we are all supposed to take comfort that those in charge have been properly "trained" to keep our children safe.
The resolution also provides that kids will no longer be divided by gender in programming, gender titles such as "Mr." and "Mrs." will no longer be used, and resources will be developed to train rabbis and other leaders on how to deal with bathrooms, language, and prayer. Prayer! The URJ are going to now alternate male and female pronouns and will change "king" to "guardian." Just wait until Hillary is in office, at which time it will take a lot less than a village to create a population of little gender-neutral village idiots.
And while the URJ views this as inclusion, I view it as one more nail in the next coffin the Jewish people are destined to face – and each time it seems as if our people hammer that nail in of their own volition. And if they do not get their heads out of their Torah of Liberalism and put it back into the Torah of God, the price will be especially huge for our brethren in Israel.
A column in the Post and Courier on prayer shared stories about the way in which faith helped people deal with "healing … death, life, and miracles." In a blue state, the focus would be on liberals' perceptions that God's commandments include supporting transgenders, global warming boondoggles, gay marriage, abortion rights, and Obamacare.
This is not limited to the Reformed Jewish movement. In a recent vote on a World Zionist Congress proposal on the "Recognition of the Jewish People as Indigenous to the Land of Israel," the Conservative movement joined J Street and its Reformed colleagues in opposing the resolution. So while American Jews will be able to give their six-year olds sex change operations, have their daughters get abortions behind their backs at just about any age, and support Al Gore's latest global warming charade, the BDS movement will grow, anti-Semitism will flourish, and Hillary, whom they will vote for en masse, will further isolate, demonize, and endanger Israel, picking up where their prior Messiah left off.
Perhaps it will take a miracle to alter that state of affairs. As one of the Chosen People, I do feel confident that we will eventually prevail. But that does not mean that we do not eat our own through our arrogant, destructive, holier-than-thou attitudes and unethical value systems that have harmed us in the past. And it certainly does not mean that large-scale pain and death will not occur before we wake up as a people and realize that God's commandments have absolutely nothing to do with progressive garbage and everything to do with saving Israel and fighting together for our and her survival.
Lauri B. Regan
Source: http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/11/american_jews_new_obsession_transgender_rights.html
Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.
No comments:
Post a Comment