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Yitzchak Ginsburgh |
Under the pretext of a “chosen people and promised land”:
They have invaded and colonized Palestine for decades, they have imposed on Palestinians abject racist laws inspired by supremacist ideology, causing and continue to cause unimaginable suffering to indigenous Palestinians for many generation.
They have caused the destruction of 531 (five hundred and thirty one) Biblical villages of World Heritage and still continue their destruction.
They have ethnically cleansed more than 70% of native Palestinians, throwing them into the cruelty of refugee camps or the Chilliness of Diaspora.
Under the pretext of “security” and “war on terror”:
They have promoted Islamophobia and through their media outlet continued to incite hatred, fear and suspicion against Islam and against its almost two billion adherent Muslims.
They have designed the war on Afghanistan causing millions of some of the poorest nations on Earth to suffer for more than a decade.
They have pushed for the war on Iraq, and have already succeeded in destroying one of the world oldest civilizations.
Not yet satisfied, they continue to “teach” and “train” Americans the “art” of war, and continue pushing and planning for a new war on Iran and fantasizing and drooling over yet another war on Egypt.
The boil that festers underneath all this aggression and destruction appears to have stemmed from one misperceived misconceived word which turned sour, nay, in the eyes of the nations it looks atrociously hideous, and on their tongues it tastes awfully bitter: CHOSENNESS
This one word, a taboo not to be mentioned, uttered or discussed, seems to be the engine behind what we see in the arrogant behaviour of Jewish-Zionist colonizers in Palestine and the contempt they exhibit when dealing with Palestinians, the “unchallengeable” sense of entitlement: to world leadership, divine ownership and uncontrollable drive for power and control.
Once and for all, let us poke that boil, before it burst into a global catastrophe, dragging the entire world into a nuclear biocidal war causing the destruction of all what we cherish in our beautiful planet and what humanity has achieved throughout its history.
In the subsequent two articles quoted towards the end, we get a glimpse into the mind and psychological state of two people who were religiously educated and indoctrinated with that concept.
The first being Dina Avramson, we feel her agony struggling to reconcile her intrinsic egalitarian humanity with such indoctrinated irrational supremacy, as she explains: “I would laugh if it wasn’t so sad – the self-conviction that Jews possess all that is pure andnoble and maintain a constant connection to divinity and to infinite light, while all other nations of the world are overcome by promiscuity, lust and robbery. We are holy, yet they are filled with darkness and spiritual impurity.”
Then she goes on to say: ” As a graduate of religious Jewish education, I notice that to this day I face a mental-psychological barrier when facing non-Jews. I discover that deep within me I believe that I am nobler than them and I stutter when I need to explain why I cannot marry a gentile. What can I tell them, that a Jew must not mix in with a gentile soul because it is of lower strata? When I search for the word “soul” online, I find explanations on religious websites noting that Jews have two souls, a beastly one and a divine one, while non-Jews only have one, beastly soul.”
The following links give an introductory taster to that misperceived concept of CHOSENNESS.
“70 % “Israeli Jews believe they are the chosen”
“Safed rabbi: Gentiles jealous of chosen people”
Palestinians are the prime victims of this “Chosenness”
Secular manifestation of chosen-ness: “elitism and specialness”
Other manifestations: “tribal loyalty and exclusivity”
“A chosen people that believes in its God. That is Israel, circa 2012. God have mercy on us”
The first article:
Op-ed: Dina Avramson says Jews should dispose of notion that they are superior to other people
Dina Avramson
Published: 05.28.12, 10:02 / Israel Opinion On the eve of Shavuot I dressed up in white; they say it’s the wedding day of God and His people, so I was ready for it. I prepared all the requirements: Plants to adorn the table and a cold cheese cake in the fridge. All that was left was to clarify the essence of this prominent day, decide to again assume the Torah’s burden upon myself, and read it the whole night as one reads love letters; to recall how God chose us from all the nations and what this really means.
He chose us? From all nations? Really? I read online one story of how God went from one nation to another and offered His holy Torah, yet no one wanted it. The Ishmaelites wanted to keep murdering, the Edomites wanted to keep committing adultery, and only the righteous and pure Israelites, who never murder and never commit adultery, told God: “We shall do and hear.”
Religious singer Avraham Fried went even further. Instead of singing about Ishmaelites and Edomites, he sang about adulterous French, greedy Brits, Americans who don’t know how to honor their father and mother, and thieving Arabs. Yet only the Jew with the prayer shawl is the righteous hero and is given the Torah. We’re so lucky.
I would laugh if it wasn’t so sad – the self-conviction that Jews possess all that is pure and noble and maintain a constant connection to divinity and to infinite light, while all other nations of the world are overcome by promiscuity, lust and robbery. We are holy, yet they are filled with darkness and spiritual impurity.
So is that the case? No, would say those in the know. It’s not about us being above them; we are simply like an elite unit. We chose to assume the burden for the sake of the others. We took upon ourselves tougher missions in order to lead the world to a better place. I may be able to accept this explanation – the understanding that we chose strict laws in order to achieve lofty goals – yet I most certainly cannot accept the distinction between us and the rest of the world, as if we are the chosen son.
Does God love them less? Based on my limited knowledge, I believe that every nation has its way of connecting to God. The Indians, who hail from the element of wind, do well with lengthy meditations, while Islam, which hails from the fire element, is required to assume great modesty. The Sufis connect via dance and song, and native Americans who come from the element of earth drink a muddy beverage that that leads them to divinity.
Does God love them less? Does He appreciate their work less? Is a Buddhist monk who sits in a cave for three years less connected than me?
As a graduate of religious Jewish education, I notice that to this day I face a mental-psychological barrier when facing non-Jews. I discover that deep within me I believe that I am nobler than them and I stutter when I need to explain why I cannot marry a gentile. What can I tell them, that a Jew must not mix in with a gentile soul because it is of lower strata? When I search for the word “soul” online, I find explanations on religious websites noting that Jews have two souls, a beastly one and a divine one, while non-Jews only have one, beastly soul.
I realize that my knowledge is only akin to a drop in the ocean and that had I immersed myself in studies I would be able to understand the issues more thoroughly. However, most people do not spend hours upon hours studying and are therefore left with the superficial knowledge of the chosen people’s superiority. Only this week I received an invitation on Facebook to join a group called “Let’s show the Sudanese that we rule!” This is what happens when you think you’re better than someone else.
Perhaps the time has come to leave behind this flawed way of thinking, as though we are favored and better understand what’s right for the world, as though our Torah is the exclusive truth across the universe and there are no other ways to experience a revelation, and as though any foreigner who wishes to live in our country is a threat.
So on the eve of Shavuot I got dressed in white and headed to the synagogue to read, with love, the words of the Torah. I know that for me this is the most suitable way to connect to the infinite light, but I also know that somewhere on the other side of the planet there are different people who connect to it in a different way, and they are considered no less precious children.
END QUOTE
The second article:
QUOTES
“A recently published book written by a Skver hasidic rabbi and endorsed by the Skvere Rebbe himself tells Skvere hasidim and other Jews to hate all gentiles. Gentiles are wholly evil, the book says. They spiritually pollute the world, and even looking at their faces is harmful.”
“However, to separate with a million degrees of separation, a gentile is an impure thing. The entire essence of the gentile is evil and impure. Even if he occasionally does good deeds he does not thereby become good.”
“As is also well known, even educated gentiles who guarded themselves because of their clear understanding of what is right, nonetheless failed when they were tested, because a gentile has no power for goodness within him.”
“On the contrary, the evil thoughts of gentiles contaminate the world’s atmosphere and create ordeals for Jewish children. As the Remnant for Pinchos {i.e., the author of the book Sheairit L’Pinchas} says, the thoughts of gentiles, even when they are dead, still linger in and contaminate the atmosphere.”
“He says that to be protected from this there is only one solution; to completely despise the thoughts of gentiles and to realize that all their thoughts are only evil. (Hate doesn’t mean wanting to do something to a gentile, but it means not being able to tolerate him, not being able to stand him, because of his great impurity, especially when one realizes how harmful this {impurity} is {to Jews and to the world}.) Understandably, loving a gentile is the exact opposite of this.”
“So also the Holy Light of Life {i.e., the author of the book Ohr HaHayyim} writes, in the portion of Vayigash {in his book entitled Oh HaHayyim}, that the nature of the righteous ones is to hate gentiles.”
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| “the nature of the righteous ones is to hate gentiles.” |
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| Armed French citizens responded to the call of Jewish Defence League and came to lend a hand to their brethren |
“The second point is; one is not to concentrate on the face of a gentile. As the Willows of the Valley {the author of the book Arvei Nahal} writes on the Talmudic passage, “it is forbidden to look upon the face of an evildoer”, because the other side [the devil] {the sitra achra} cloaks himself in the guise of an evildoer and it is a danger to look at him. This passage refers to a Jew who has, God forbid, become an evildoer. Certainly, beyond any doubt, a gentile whose whole nature is essentially evil, looking at his appearance is defiling.”
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| “one is not to concentrate on the face of a gentile… it is forbidden to look upon the face of an evildoer…even looking at their faces is harmful.“ |
You can even find this troubling concept mentioned on Wikipedia:
A number of medieval Kabbalistic sources contain statements to the effect that the Jewish soul is ontologically different from the soul of non-Jews; for example, it is held by some that Jews have three levels of soul, nefesh, ruach and neshamah while non-Jews have only nefesh. The Zohar comments on the Biblical verse which states “Let the waters teem with swarms of creatures that have a living soul” as follows: “The verse ‘creatures that have a living soul,’ pertains to the Jews, for they are the children of God, and from God come their holy souls….And the souls of the other nations, from where do they come? Rabbi Elazar says that they have souls from the impure left side, and therefore they are all impure, defiling anyone who comes near them” (Zohar commentary on Genesis).
Some later Kabbalistic works build and elaborate on these ideas. One point of view is represented by the Hasidic work Tanya (1797), in order to argue that Jews have a different character of soul: while a non-Jew, according to the author Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi (b. 1745), can achieve a high level of spiritually, similar to an angel, his soul is still fundamentally different in character, but not value, from a Jewish one.[49] A similar view is found in early medieval philosophical book Kuzari, by Yehuda Halevi (1075-1141 AD).
Another prominent Habad Rabbi, Abraham Yehudah Khein (b. 1878), believed that spiritually elevated Gentiles have essentially Jewish souls, “who just lack the formal conversion to Judaism”, and that unspiritual Jews are “Jewish merely by their birth documents”.[51] The great 20th century Kabbalist Yehuda Ashlag viewed the terms “Jews” and “Gentile” as different levels of perception, available to every human soul.
Racism, supremacy, specialness, entitlement, arrogance and tribal elitism are an inevitable outcome cultivated and nurtured from that one seed of chosenness.
The burden of challenging and fighting that concept to the point of total defeat lies within the Jewish communities themselves. It is of no good to keep denying the existence of this elephant in the room… It is of no good to keep pointing fingers and screaming “ANTI-SEMITE”, at gentiles who feel extremely alarmed and distressed with that concept. Fair minded and principled people from Jewish background should take it upon themselves to go inside their communities and convince them to abandon that concept and pull it out from its roots.
Failing to do so, will no doubt have dire consequences not only on Palestinians and other gentiles who feel the brunt of this racist ideology but also on decent Jews who with all their heart reject this concept and feel ashamed and shackled by it.
As long as the concept of chosenness is not challenged and eradicated, once and for all, it is not possible to dream of a just world or imagine an egalitarian society built on brotherhood and equality.
Get rid of the CHOSENNESS in theory and practice, and watch Anti-semitism shrivel away.
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Poetry for Palestine 
