Archives for 2018

December 31, 2018 By Olivier Melnick Leave a Comment

Christmas with Hizbollah: There is Fake News, and then there is Propaganda!

There are not that many countries in the world that wouldn’t define Hezbollah as a terrorist organization. We don’t need to look very deep into their methods to come to that conclusion. Hezbollah in Arabic means “the Party of Allah”. The group is considered to be a terrorist organization by many countries including the United States, Canada, Israel and even the Arab League. Iran, on the other hand, doesn’t worry about Hizbollah’s reputation as a terror organization, and as a matter of fact, has become a huge financial backer to the Lebanese organization, financing their armament and even the recent tunnels.

Currently, Hezbollah is digging terror tunnels on the northern border of Israel akin to those built and used by Hamas to funnel terrorists underground from the Gaza strip to Israel. The IDF has been working hard to put a stop to these tunnels, including the destruction of several of them. They also discovered that the tunnels lead to urban areas on the Lebanese side, proving once again that one of the preferred methods of the terrorists, is to use civilians as shields for their operations. On one hand, the United Nations, always eager to pass one more resolution against Israel, is doing absolutely nothing about the tunnels. They have discussed them but have not taken any actions to put a stop to them. On the other hand, Benjamin Netanyahu is determined to do all in Israel’s power to destroy them in an effort to protect the country.

So it is clear that “Iran backed” Hizbollah is on a terror mission to destroy Israel, and yet they have received praise from the New York Times for their recent “Christmas spirit efforts”. In a tweet, they even stated “Even Hezbollah, the Shiite political movement and militia that the United States has branded a terrorist organization, has helped ring in the season in previous years, importing a Santa to Beirut’s southern suburbs to distribute gifts”.

Hezbollah is a Muslim organization at the core, and that means that Christmas has no place in their ideology. Whatever the reason for them to advertise a Christmas spirit and support of the Christian community is unclear, but that should never exonerate them for their crimes against humanity perpetrated in their numerous acts of terrorism. The “appearance” of one right absolutely cannot erase so many wrongs.

Personally, I have given up the hope of integrity from the New York Times for a while now. This is not even an issue of political leanings anymore but an issue of evil propaganda. I wish I could say that the reporters and journalists at the New York Times didn’t know any better, but what would that say about the state of journalism in 2018? Well, maybe it does?

Any time a media outlet, an NGO or a famous person endorse the actions of a terrorist organization out of ignorance or willful defiance, it emboldens the terrorists to do more damage. It softens their image to a world that already doesn’t look for factual truth anymore. So the world concentrates on the false positive about Christmas in Lebanon with Hezbollah and completely misses the real issue.

Propaganda worked well for the Nazi war machine. They made the world believe that Jews were going to nice camps where children played together and stayed with their families, like in the staged location at Theresienstadt. Within days after the International Red Cross came to visit the “ideal” camp and give a positive report to the world, the children were sent to gas chambers.

Propaganda works best when the receiving party can be deceived. The world today is easily deceived by the media, political entities and even famous personalities all in the name of social justice. This recent article by the New York Times is propaganda promoting an organization that only has the complete destruction of Israel on their radar. There is fake News, and then there is propaganda! Nothing less than full retraction will work in this case, but who am I fooling?

December 27, 2018 By Olivier Melnick Leave a Comment

Anti-Semitism in 2018: A Year in Review – Part 1

Year after year, anti-Semitism continues to rear its ugly head all over the globe with what appears to be increasing frequency and intensity. 2018 was no different as most of the world recorded an increase in the numbers of anti-Semitic incidents. In this first part of a two-part series are some highlights from January to June 2018.

JANUARY: Antisemitism in classical literature: Where do we draw the line?
Literary works like “The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion“ published in 1905 by Russian writer and mystic Sergei Nilus, are openly anti-Semitic. They depict a global Jewish conspiracy as recorded in the minutes of a group of influential Jewish leaders.
Hitler’s “Mein Kampf”, first published as Hitler’s autobiography written in prison between 1925 and 1926., was virulently anti-Semitic. Mein Kampf (My Fight,) has become part of history and can be used as such to study the person of Hitler and that period of Nazi Germany with more details.
Louis-Ferdinand Céline (1894-1961), was a French novelist who introduced a new style of writing in literature. He used a more spoken style akin to the working class way of communicating. He published three very anti-Semitic essays. Bagatelles pour un massacre (Trifles for a Massacre) (1937), L’École des cadavres (The School of Corpses) (1938) and Les Beaux draps (The Fine Mess) (1941.) The French publishing giant Gallimard has been considering re-publishing these works that have been out of print for quite a few years. They have received a lot of criticism, especially from members of the Jewish community. The consensus was that these virulent essays should not be reprinted.

FEBRUARY: Should Poland’s Recent Holocaust Law be Considered Historical Revisionism?
Poland is not exactly remembered for being friendly to the Jewish people during World War II. A country that was once the home of over three million Jews, now only has about 10,000, and even they, don’t feel very safe in Poland. The once vibrant Jewish community of pre-World War II has been drastically reduced by the Nazi war machine and the Death Camps–many of them erected in Poland. The most destructive being Auschwitz-Birkenau. There is no possible way to deny that millions of innocent Jewish victims were murdered in those places, not to mention other minorities.
It is also very difficult to completely separate the Death Camps destructive agenda from Polish involvement, and yet this is exactly what a new law passed in February 2018 is attempting to do. President Andrzej Duda of Poland signed a bill that became law, making it a crime (up to three years in prison, plus a fine) to call the German death Camps built on Polish soil, “Polish Death Camps.” He has made several public speeches stating that signing the bill into law was not meant to erase or diminish the fate of the victims of the Holocaust, but that is exactly what it could achieve!

MARCH: We Will not Survive in this Irrational World of Political Correctness!
Even though French Marine Le Pen’s party is thinking of re-branding and changing its name to appeal to a broader audience, they continue to promote a highly xenophobic agenda. Although she received the most votes her party ever received in its history since the mid-1970s, Marine Le Pen lost the French presidential elections in the Spring of 2017 to “Centrist” Emmanuel Macron. These elections were upsetting on many levels. Primarily, it was horrifying to France and much of the civilized world that an Alt-Right candidate would be in the running in the second and final round of the elections. Even though she lost, she managed to garner 35% of the votes. If I were Mr. macron, I would make sure that I remember the promises made to the voters, and I try to fulfill as many as possible. Much of Europe is very unhappy with the current migrant situation and the open borders, and that includes France.
I would never vote for Miss Le Pen or anybody from Front National, but I must voice my support for her attempt at exposing ISIS for who they are while much of the Western World has its proverbial “head in the sand.” This is a slippery slope leading to slavery to an ideology opposed to Western, Judeo/Christian values, and I am convinced that we could not survive in this irrational world of political correctness!

APRIL: Is the Muslim Brotherhood Losing its Grip on America?
Many people use the name “Muslim Brotherhood” (MB) around without really knowing what it means, who is behind it AND how many people it affects and controls. The MB was founded in Egypt in 1928 by Hassan al-Banna after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. After a while, it ended up being a powerful organization aiming at integrating Muslims all over the world. It sends two different messages to its adherents and to the West. Its motto continues to be“Allah is our objective. The Prophet is our leader. Qur’an is our law. Jihad is our way. Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope.”
Its eighth Supreme Guide and current leader, Mohammed Badie recently declared in a sermon: the only way to deal with Israel is “Holy Jihad”. Some in the Middle East AND in the West see the MB as an organization responsible for Islamic terrorism. So it is very hopeful to see the current US administration cracking down on the Muslim Brotherhood. With the recent appointments of John Bolton and Mike Pompeo, we might see the beginning of a shift in US support for Muslim organizations. Before I am accused of Islamophobia, let’s be clear that not all Muslims are a threat to the West and to Israel. Those who are a threat, are connected to the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood and they must be exposed.

MAY: Are we Inching our Way Towards the Fulfillment of Zechariah 12?
The United Nations General Assembly voted 128-9 (35 abstentions) in favor of condemning an embassy move from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, even though US ambassador to the UN, Nikki Hailey vowed that the United States would remember those who voted against the move. This was done in the form of an attempt at rendering the “Trump decision” null and void. The 9 countries that voted against it were: Guatemala, Honduras, Israel, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, Togo and the US.
Then came the move to Jerusalem. President Trump chose the symbolic date of May 14, 2018, since Israel was declared a modern nation on May 14, 1948. Palestinian Authority and its close supporters declared that the move was counterproductive to any peace efforts. Simultaneously, Hamas tried to breach the Gaza/Israel border. The days leading to the move to Jerusalem were supposed to be the “Palestinian March of Return” coinciding with the date of May 14th, considered by Palestinians as the Nakba or “catastrophe.”
There is an interesting prophecy in the Jewish Scriptures found in the prophet Zechariah 12:1-9 . In it, we are told that at some point in future history, the whole world will turn against Israel. “Behold, I am going to make Jerusalem a cup that causes reeling to all the peoples around; and when the siege is against Jerusalem, it will also be against Judah….“It will come about in that day that I will make Jerusalem a heavy stone for all the peoples; all who lift it will be severely injured. And all the nations of the earth will be gathered against it. Bible students know that to be true. The day is coming when the whole world will turn against Jerusalem. 128 countries out of 193 is definitely a move in that direction.

JUNE: Are the Jews Poisoning the Wells Again?
With the mid-1300s advent of the “Black Death” or “Black Plague”, the world was about to experience death like never before. It was the most devastating pandemic in the history of mankind, from 1347 to 1350, that was responsible for the death of about 75 million people worldwide (25 million in died in Europe alone from a bacterium found on fleas carried by black rats from Asia onto ships sailing to Europe). As the rest of the continent appeared to be on its way to total extinction, people started to look for a cause and it was not long before the Jews were once again used as the convenient “scapegoats of humanity.”
Jewish people also died during the “Black Death”, but generally in much lesser numbers. Many reasons can be at the root of the smaller number of casualties (communal isolation, mandatory liturgical washing of the hands before meals and the strict kosher laws) resulted in less death in the Jewish communities, but it didn’t stop the masses from slaughtering and destroying over 200 Jewish communities, numbering Jewish fatalities in the tens of thousands.
Such an accusation would stick for a while, but eventually would be debunked, at least one would think. Fast forward to 2018 and the accusation is back in the news, not from a Middle Eastern country indoctrinated to hate the Jews, as one would expect, but by a Daily Mail British columnist who wrote on June 26, 2018: “ In an unequivocal breach of international law, Israeli settlers have taken much of the best agricultural land, while depriving the Palestinians of water supplies and, according to a number of respectable sources — and I have witnessed this for myself — burning their olive groves and poisoning their wells.”

To be followed by Part 2 ( July-December 2018).

December 15, 2018 By Olivier Melnick Leave a Comment

Be Careful when you use the words Holocaust, Nazi or Migrant!

There are historically charged words that are better left alone lest we use them in a contemporary way that will either misrepresent or diminish their true meaning. Such words are “Holocaust”, “Nazi” and “migrant”. Recently, we have seen a resurgence in the use of these words to describe current events in a most dramatic way sure to get people’s attention. If people would spend a few moments looking up the real meaning of these words, they would be more inclined to choose other words to describe some of the recent current events. Some clarification is necessary to understand what these words really mean and what they don’t.

The word “holocaust” actually comes from the biblical record. It originates from the Hebrew word ´olah, meaning “burnt offering” or “burnt sacrifice” and is found over 280 times in the Tenach (Old Testament). The context usually refers to a burnt offering to G-d like in the case of Noah in Genesis 8:20. The word “holocaust” in Greek is holokauston and it is also a translation from the Hebrew word ´olah.

The connotation of a “sacrificial” offering to G-d has led Jewish scholars over the years to prefer a different term to describe the Nazi genocide since they believe that describing it as anything remotely resembling a sacrifice is a misnomer. The Hebrew term shoah meaning “catastrophe” or “calamity” has been preferred. It is mostly in the English language that the word Holocaust is being used.

Additionally, in recent years, the word has been used to describe other tragic events that even though they deserve our attention, shouldn’t be described as another holocaust. The reason is actually quite simple, and it has to do with Nazi methodology.

There have been many ethnic cleansings and genocides in the history of mankind. Each and every one of them is a tragic example of the depravity of men. Greed, political control, the quest for power and even religious jealousy have led to unnecessary massacres in the millions. Eastern Europe, Africa, the Middle East, South America…It seems that no continent is exempt from man’s desire to destroy and control. Yet, in the tragic cases of all genocides and ethnic cleansings, the unwanted people groups of religious communities always had the opportunity to flee the conflict and become political refugees. It wasn’t always simple, and many lost their lives in the process, but those who managed to get out were free to move on to a different life in a different country.

What makes the Holocaust so unique, is the fact that when many of the 6,000.000 innocent Jewish victims tried to flee, the Nazi death machine went out of its way to go after Jews in many Europeans countries, as far as the railroads would allow them to go. This systematic attempt at annihilating all of European Jewry almost succeeded because whenever Jews would try to flee, they would often be caught, gathered, packed on trains and deported to an almost certain death in one of the numerous Eastern European death camps.

No matter what people group is persecuted today, none of them are running the risk of having their enemies go out of their own countries to round them up, bring them back and murder them, NONE! This is not intended to minimize the horrors of the many genocides that we have been witnessing, and this isn’t an attempt at placing the Holocaust on a pedestal, as some have suggested. This is simply to state that the Holocaust was a unique event in history, unlike any other genocide. So today, when people use the word Holocaust to describe genocide, they should tread lightly.

Similarly, the use of the words “Nazi’ and “Migrants” is also creating a bit of controversy. Nazis were the willing executioners of Hitler’s regime and as such, they became the bloodthirsty hunters seeking their Jewish victims at every corner of the European continent. Today’s “Neo-Nazis”–a fringe group to start with–are not going around rounding-up people. They are simply trying to dispense their ideological spin in their respective communities, with little or no success. When Israeli’s are accused of being the “New Nazis of the Middle East”, it is a libelous description made in an attempt at demonizing Israelis, nothing else.

Then you have the word “migrant” that has been in the news on a global scale. Nobody can deny that there is a “migrant crisis” in the world today. One thing that shouldn’t be done though, is to link the migrants of today with the Jews fleeing their certain death in the 1930s and 40s. Maybe some leftover corporate guilt is leading some world governments to open their doors to any and all migrants without questions, but that is very dangerous. A lot can be done to take in migrants and political refugees, as long as they are properly vetted. As much as people want to be inclusive, tolerant and multicultural, we live in a different world when only one person can walk into a synagogue and kill a dozen people, or another can dive a truck through a crowd and kill over 80. That has to be taken into consideration.

I am a Jewish immigrant from France. I came legally to the USA in the mid-eighties, and today I am a legal American citizen. Anybody who wishes to make America their home should be able to do it LEGALLY! I also lost family members in the Holocaust at the hands of Nazis, so please don’t recycle the words so freely, because it is an insult to me, my family and the Jewish people in general.

November 14, 2018 By Olivier Melnick Leave a Comment

To the antisemite, we are all Jews!

In the aftermath of the Pittsburgh Synagogue massacre, a lot of Jewish people are starting to ask themselves the same questions that European Jews have been grappling with for a couple of decades.
• Are Jewish people no longer safe in America?
• Do we all need to move to Israel?
• What can be done to fight the evil of antisemitism?

The Tree of Life Synagogue massacre might have appeared like the act of an isolated deranged person, but it was a symptom as much as it was a problem. The problem of evil in our postmodern world cannot be ignored. When we relegate the actions of an evil person to insanity, we exonerate personal responsibility. Evil is willful while insanity is often uncontrollable. Hitler was evil not insane!

There is a real danger today for Jewish people everywhere except in Israel because except for the Jewish State, all foreign governments approach antisemitism differently and they are not necessarily very efficient. Definitions of what constitutes antisemitism vary from country to country and sometimes even from various organizations within the same country. That is one reason why it is difficult to fight since acts against Jewish people are often under-reported, misreported or worse…not reported, especially if it involves a Muslim. The politically correct fear of insulting a particular group is so prevalent in the United States that an antisemitic crime might simply be categorized as a violent crime in fears of reprisals.

It is time for all Jews to unite against antisemitism, but unfortunately, we are far from being united, and it helps the enemy greatly. Jewish people define themselves in a variety of ways including religiosity, ethnic origins, and Zionism to name just a few. It can get confusing when one doesn’t differentiate between Jewishness (ethnic connection) and Judaism (religious affiliation). But really, one can be ethnically Jewish without practicing Judaism and one can practice Judaism without being born Jewish.

Then you have messianic Jews. Those of us who claim that you can be Jewish and believe that Yeshua (Jesus) is the Messiah. Truly if one can be Jewish (ethnically) independently from believing in anything, one can remain Jewish (ethnically) when they believe in anything, including that Yeshua of Nazareth is the Jewish Messiah (Isaiah 52:13-53:12). Unfortunately, the vast majority of the Jewish community who doesn’t recognize Yeshua as Messiah, also rejects the idea that once we follow His teaching we remain Jews. This 2000-year old debate is far from over, and it must be noted that Christian antisemitism hasn’t helped the matter.

Considering all the ways we can define who is a Jew, there is one fact that the antisemites are right about…We are all Jews, and as such we are a nuisance, and in some cases, as we witnessed during the Tree of Life bloody massacre “All Jews deserve to die”. My point is that to an antisemite if a Jew is Ultra-Orthodox, agnostic, Reconstructionist or even Messianic, he remains a Jew. The antisemite is an equal opportunity xenophobe. He does not discriminate. To that person…We are all Jews indeed!

Fighting the monster of the New Antisemitism is akin to fighting the mythological Hydra of Lerna. Whenever you cut one of its many heads, two more grew in its place. Mythology tells us that Heracles had to enroll the help of his cousin Lolaus to cut all the heads at once and cauterize the neck with fire so that they wouldn’t grow back. I don’t ever want to be seen as promoting mythology over biblical truth, but by analogy, this story teaches us that antisemitism is a regenerating monster that will grow exponentially until all Jews will put their differences aside. Now is the time to join forces and cut off all of antisemitism’s ugly heads such as Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS), Christian Palestinianism, Replacement Theology, Campus Intifada, and anti-Zionism.

Jesus will still be here tomorrow and we can debate His claims of being the Messiah of Israel and Savior of the world later. Yet, if we don’t fight antisemitism together NOW, there might not be enough Jews to hold hands tomorrow. Incidentally, there are still quite a few evangelical Christians who love Israel and the Jewish people, and their hands are also worth holding in solidarity against the monster of antisemitism.

October 29, 2018 By Olivier Melnick Leave a Comment

All hate crimes are a slap in God’s face!

It was just another peaceful Shabbat morning at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. Jewish worshippers had gathered as a community to spend time together and with G-d. Before they knew it, antisemitic Neo-Nazi Robert Bowers barged in with a semi-automatic weapon, screaming “all Jews must die!” and aimed at the crowd. By mid-day, the death toll had reached 11. It is believed that this tragedy was the largest and deadliest attack on Jews on American soil. One of the victims was a 97-year-old woman who had survived the Holocaust. Our prayers go out to the community, the families who lost loved ones and those of the Jewish community, left behind to move on. How do you move on from such a bloody massacre?

The safety of Jews is becoming a real challenge on a global scale. What do we Jews have in common over the rest of the world? We could easily answer that we are equally hated no matter where we go, except maybe for Eretz Yisrael. I would much rather spend time reflecting on all the other things that connect Jewish people around the world such as culture, traditions, language, history and more, but the sad reality is that the irrational hatred of our people is becoming more and more of a common denominator. What can men and women of good will do about this?

First, we need to realize that hate crimes are increasing exponentially. When we speak of hate crimes, we don’t just speak of crimes against Jewish people, but crimes against any group based on race, creed or religion. The FBI defines a hate crime this way “A hate crime is a traditional offense like murder, arson, or vandalism with an added element of bias. For the purposes of collecting statistics, the FBI has defined a hate crime as a ‘criminal offense against a person or property motivated in whole or in part by an offender’s bias against a race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, ethnicity, gender, or gender identity.’ ”

While the FBI insists that hate itself is not a crime and works hard to protect our freedom of speech, the line is being crossed more often than not to transfer hatred into actions against many different groups. Is there a difference between a hate crime and an act of terrorism? Since terrorism’s primary goal is to disrupt the normal flow of everyday’s life, upset the normal and put people on edge, so they start fearing their every move, the answer is NO! Hate crimes against Jews, Muslims, Christians, homosexuals or any other group are wrong and punishable by law.

According to a 2016 FBI study, over half (54.4%) of all hate crimes in the US are committed against Jewish people. The numbers are probably a bit higher if we take into account the crimes that are not reported and those not recorded as hate crimes. In comparison, hate crimes against Muslims only account for 24.5%. Those numbers come from a category titled “religious bias.” For Jewish people, it even gets a bit more complicated because one can be Jewish and not religious. In fact, about 85% of all Jewish people are not religious. This, unfortunately, doesn’t exclude them from the danger posed by hate crimes.

According to another study by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), antisemitism has surged 60% in 2017. Jewish people in America are starting not to feel safe anywhere. The sad part is that sometimes, the hatred coming against us, that materializes into hate crimes, is at the hand of people who have never had any interaction with Jewish people. Their antisemitism is viral and irrational. In their warped minds, the Jews are responsible for the ills of the world. Ask them for the reason why they think that way, and they are at a loss, except that “Jews must die!”

Jewish people have been victims of hate crimes more than all other groups combined, but this is not a competition. Hate crimes are an abomination and shouldn’t happen anywhere, especially in the United States and in 2018. Beyond the tragedy that they create in communities and families, they are a slap in G-d’s face Who created man in His own image. They are also a poke in G-d’s eye who calls the Jewish people “The apple of my eye” in Zechariah 2:8. It is because of man’s self-ruling outside of G-d’s will that hate crimes become possible.

We shouldn’t succumb to the temptation of politicizing this horrible tragedy, because it was not political but spiritual. When the enemy of G-d (Satan) is at work against the people of G-d, it is no time for political bickering, but it is time for prayer more than ever.
Let’s start by lifting up the memory of the victims (Joyce Fienburg, 75; Richard Gottfried, 65; Rose Mallinger, 97; Jerry Rabinowitz, 66; Cecil Rosenthal, 59; David Rosenthal, 54; Bernice Simon, 84; Sylvan Simon, 86; Daniel Stein, 71; Melvin Wax, 88; Irving Younger, 69) and their families.

Tomorrow is the day to get educated and stay alert. If you are Jewish, while you shouldn’t yell it on rooftops, you also cannot live in fear. Otherwise, people like Robert Bowers have won the battle.

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