Posted on 12/13/2004 8:27:28 AM PST by Lando Lincoln
Up and down the street where I live, half the homes are lit up with Christmas trees, the other half with menorahs. The days are good and the nights are silent. Most of the time we can’t tell the difference between Christians and Jews. We’re too busy being just plain old Americans.
You have Christmas. We have Chanukah. You have Easter. We have Passover. Does this separate us? No, this unites us, for together, this land is our land.
If this sounds corny, well it is.
I am offended, however. Across this nation, in cities, towns, villages and school districts, Christians are being told that they cannot celebrate Christmas openly. Here, there and everywhere, Christians are being sent into hiding if they want to sing carols, display nativity scenes, herald the Ten Commandments, or praise Jesus. Even Santa is not kosher.
I am Jewish, and Jesus is not my God…so why am I so offended at what I take to be an agenda of persecution against Christians?
This is not a scholarly approach, so let me simply say that American Christianity is a marvel, a near miracle of tolerance and, better yet, loving-kindness. American Christians do love their neighbors as themselves. I know this from the pavements I walk, the streets I drive, the sandlots where I root for the home team. I am free to visit your church, and you would be most welcome in my synagogue.
How this happened is a mystery. But the difference between European Christianity and American Christianity is as vast as an ocean.
Let others provide the history and the details. For me it is enough to remember that Europe plunged its Christianity into the Nuremberg Laws and a Holocaust that has existed in one form or another for some two thousand years, and continues to this day. Europe finally produced Hitler.
AMERICAN CHRISTIANITY produced Jefferson, Lincoln, and a document that opens with these words: “We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility… and secure the blessing of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do order and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
Sound familiar? It should if you know the Hebrew Bible, as this from Leviticus: “Proclaim liberty throughout the land unto all the inhabitants thereof.”
Here, in this land, more often than not, those words have been turned into deeds.
Yes, we are a Judeo/Christian nation, and if it gets any better than that, I don’t know where.
Only Israel itself compares, the Israel of before, and the Israel of today. Israel is where our American heritage begins.
As Jews, we do not pray to Jesus, but we stand in admiration that true Christians adhere to His message of love, taken from our Scriptures. We respect your devotion as you respect ours. We honor your faith as you honor ours, even as we pray separately but live equally, in friendship.
From “The Hebrew Impact on Western Civilization,” we get this: “How closely the Puritans identified themselves with the Israelites is hard to over-emphasize…They actually thought of themselves as a new Israel…If Israel had its Pharaoh, so did the Puritans in King James 1. The Atlantic Ocean was to them the Red Sea. America was the new Canaan…The first book printed in America was the Bay Psalm Book.”
Of course we have our self-haters, bigots and anti-Semites. Openly or in secret, they pray in favor of America’s enemies and promote any cause that would harm or even destroy Israel. But they do not define this country. Let their curses turn into blessings.
Give me, instead, those Christian Evangelicals, all 70 million of them, or those 60 million Gentiles who turn Christian but once a week or twice and year.
Away with the restrictions and laws that deny Christians their Christianity.
Let me watch them praise their Lord with Christmas trees and jingle bells, for these are a reminder to me, a Jew, that I live in this land, this land of mostly Christians that have kept the promise of my ancestor, the prophet Micah, that this house be blessed by the shade of that vine and fig tree, and none shall make us afraid.
About the Writer: Jack Engelhard is the author of the bestseller "Indecent Proposal," the award-winning "Escape from Mount Moriah," and the novel "The Days of the Bitter End," which is being prepared for movie production. Jack receives e-mail at viewopinion@aol.com.
Bookmarked.
Great post. Merry Christmas all
Oh really? Is it Bruce Jacobs?
Ditto to that well put sentiment.
Watch out for the islamic cabal lurking about on this thread--they will begin with posts proclaiming jews to be socialists and communists. Israel is not socialist; and has no more socialists within its borders than America does. And most of American homespun socialists are aetheists, whether or not they had jewish mother is moot, they are not practicing jews.
Thanks for the ping... great article!
BUMP.
I've heard it said that only one nation recieved a land deed from God, and only one nation has offered it's land deed to God.
There are also conservative and traditional Catholics who are with the American Jews and Evangelical Christians against the PC thugs, the culture of death, and the PC-Bolshies attacks on all religion. When the PC-Bolshies attack any of us, our beliefs, or our expressions of belief (Nativity Scenes, the mention of God or Jesus, the display of Menorahs, etc.) they attack all of us.
I don't think many people on FR will be wanting to save the list. It reminds them of failure and a significant portion of them claim we haven't lost any ground, that we are actually freer than ever before.
They see the world as they want to see it, not as it actually is. And people like me are just whiners. Oh well.
(They also see any reminders of these losses as an attack on thier beloved Republicans for whatever reason.)
'(They also see any reminders of these losses as an attack on thier beloved Republicans for whatever reason.)'
I hope you're not talking about me. I couldn't bring myself to vote this time.
I totally missed that. Thanks for pointing it out.
I want to be nice on this thread, so I will refrain from being explicit. But the author should investigate the little known fact that they have been their own worst enemies. Michael Hoffman and Anthony Sutton might be two good places to start. The truly impenitent of their own people, have thought nothing of stepping over their dead bodies to get to ours. When they allow the veil to be lifted, the whole world will see a difference. It's not like God didn't warn them:
Jer 9:16 — I will scatter them also among the heathen, whom neither they nor their fathers have known: and I will send a sword after them, till I have consumed them.
http://www.blueletterbible.org/kjv/Jer/Jer009.html#16
http://www.blueletterbible.org/tsk_b/Jer/9/16.html
Isaiah 65
http://www.blueletterbible.org/kjv/Isa/Isa065.html#12
Hsa 13:9 — O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself; but in me [is] thine help. http://www.blueletterbible.org/tsk_b/Hsa/13/9.html
It's frightening how widespread this tripe has become.
Is this what they're teaching in public school history curricula these days? Something like this:
"Europe = 2000 year Holocaust against Jews"
"America = 250 year Holocaust against Native Americans"
BTTT
Just the Evangelicals (Protestants?) ? Was there a specific reason for stating it that way?
An encouraging op-ed. :-)
Bump! Honk if you're a Jew who likes right-wing Christians!
Michael A Hoffman II is a Holocaust Revisionist who considers the protocols to be a valid document. It says nothing good about you that you would bring him up.
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