Committing High Reason

At this week's gala WZO 125th Anniversary soiree in Basel, Switzerland, Israel's "Minister of Diaspora Affairs" made mentioned a "deal" between Ben Gurion and Jacob Blaustein regarding the relationship between American Jewry and Israel. He called for a renewed such "agreement" to be made today. But the way the story was described is fiction. American Jews complained to Ben Gurion that Israel was putting American Jews in danger. Ben Gurion promised to change Israel's presentation of itself as the Jewish state, but he betrayed his promise, as did Zionist leaders, repeatedly. In this podcast, the real story of Israel's betrayal of American Jewry.

The Times of Israel article
Ben Gurion's letter to the AJC

Photo: Jospeh Proskauer. Bain, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

SInce 1996, Israel has had elections more often than any democratic country in the world, according to a report by the Israel Democracy Institute. What is ti about the state of Israel that makes its government so unstable?

Episode Photo by Laliv g - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=77887884

Why the terrorists will not win, and how Zionism prevents Israelis from stopping it.

Links:
Officials expect terror wave to last all year
Killing Sinwar is not a solution

"It's worse than the McCarthy era".

Veteran Ambassador Chas Freeman discusses the astounding and unprecedented level of disinformation and propaganda produced today by our politicians and the media, especially as it relates to what he learned in his many years as a US diplomat. 

Boruch Mordechai was an Orthodox Jewish USAF airman who was constantly asked why he is serving in his own country's military and not Israel's. That is, until he served in Qatar.

Journalist Lee Stranahan posted this on Twitter:

Dear @yaakov_shapiro
 Do you think it's fair to call the state of Israel a "Psuedo theocracy?"It seems to use The APPEARANCE of being a religious government, but in reality it only has all the authoritarian bigotry and none of the actual reverence of religion.

Great question, Lee. The answer is no. Here's why.

Zionist lore says Herzl became a Zionist after witnessing the Dreyfus Affair and hearing the crowd chant "Kill the Jews." But historical evidence shows that's not what made Herzl into a Zionist, (and also the crowd did not chant "Death to the Jews").

Links to Sources Cited

• The Jews' state, Theodor Herzl; translated, and with an introduction by Henk Overberg
• The Diaries of Theodor Herzl, Edited by Marvin Lowenthal
• Herzl's Vision: Theodor Herzl and the Foundation of the Jewish State by Shlomo Avineri
• Cohn, Henry J. “Theodor Herzl’s Conversion to Zionism.” Jewish Social Studies 32, no. 2 (1970): 101–10. 

Photo of Alfred Dreyfus by Aron Gerschel, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Many Judaic Studies instructors have been found to harbor a disdain for ultra-Orthodox Jews, which skews their academic portrayals of them and their ideology. Prof. Norton Mezvinsky explains.

Episode photo: In the 18th century, as interest in the "curiosities" of the Jewish religion rose, some non-Jews had models of synagogues erected, furnished with a full array of Jewish books and ceremonial objects, and accessible to a broad public, constituting the world's first "Jewish museums." This title page is from a book by Moritz Wilhelm Christiani, which describes such a replica, owned by Georg Serpilius, a Christian Hebraist. (Picture and text from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_studies ).