April 4, 2003

“Phony Europe, Blessed America”

Our world is rapidly changing. America is being awakened from its long deep euphoric sleep. Our lovers of old are now, when you need them most, almost enemies. Western Europe enjoys its economy and freedom because of America. We defended them in a bitter war against the Nazis and Fascists and saved Germany from Fascist ruin and the French from vichy dominance. Save for England and little Spain, Western Europe’s phony preachers of democracy won’t help in the war against Saddam, Hitler’s successor.

And why should they do battle against terrorists and murderers, in European eyes only money counts. America and its Allies are motivated to oppose terror and were it not for 9/11, who knows if the Americans would worry about Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction. Eastern Europe’s countries, the former republics and satellites of the Communist Soviet Union, to the surprise of many have joined ranks with the United States in this war. They do so as the wounds of tyrannical exploitation are fresh in their memories. Only fools who forget Stalin would not want to destroy
Saddam, Stalin’s most avid fan.

Western Europe has also become home for reemerging antisemitism. From Scandinavia to the French Riviera, a hate Jew process grows stronger each day. While many attribute this to European compassion for Arabs and Israel’s treatment of Palestinians, the cause has little to do with either. European antisemitism is as old as the continent itself and today’s events are but an excuse to do what they love most, blame the Jews.

Hate for America is most often a byproduct of antisemitism. It’s the Americans who have declared religious and racial bigotry non-acceptable social attitudes and it is in the United States where Jews have achieved prominence in all walks of human achievement and endeavor. For hundreds of years, Europeans denied Jews access to Universities and to many enterprises. Most Europeans knew about the German plan to exterminate the Jews, but only a few courageous and righteous non-Jews mad any effort to save their neighbors from destruction. Alone, Hitler could not have killed six million.

American Jews find it difficult to understand how France, with its six hundred thousand Jews could be so hostile to the United States and so indifferent to the raging first of antisemitism. But no one should be
surprised. The French have a long history of hypocrisy. Its poets and artists extolled the virtues of love, defined as power and money, narcissistic fulfillment and hedonistic obsession. The French could do no better than make pretensions of peace but are delighted to see pro-Israel America fight a war all by itself.

Not alone did the United States save the Germans from the tyrannical rule of Adolph Hitler, the worst of all murderers known to man, but America’s Marshall Plan gave that cursed country a chance to live as no country before ever did. Germany’s economy became the world’s strongest and Germans enjoy affluence as few other societies do. Could it be that Germans oppose the war because of their great “love for peace?” The blood of World War I and II has yet to dry. German opposition to the war fits the old Prussian lust for power and admiration for crazed demagogues of the Saddam and Hitler caliber. The Germans would let the terrorists do their killing and the suicide murders perpetrate their horrors, as they love the smell of blood pouring and the sounds of children crying.

This is as good a time as any for freedom’s lovers to sound a patriotic bugle. Never mind the analysts and the paranoiac interpreters of America’s involvement in this war. I am an orthodox Jew, who believes that these United States of America are a Divine gift. On this day in America’s history, I proudly raise the flag of red, white and blue as my heart looks upward in prayer. G-d Bless America.

Shabbat Shalom