Rambling Thoughts

It's been a long day today. A lot of things have been going on this week. Some of them distressing and even have made me question certain things in my life, only to find out that some of them were unfounded known or unknown because of how people perceive things. Sadly one of them came as a response when we questioned the wisdom of someone else's action and it gets turned around with the finger pointing at you.

This all aside, I went to the gas station today to get some fuel for the mower. As I pulled in, I saw a young man with short hair and the Swastika shaved on the right side of his head. I brought it up with the cashier and it turns out that he had a problem with it too since his grand-parents are/were Holocaust survivors. I couldn't help but think of the many warnings that you hear from Jews who want to urge Jews in the diaspora to make aliyah to Israel. Too many feel comfortable where they're at. Only a few actually consider the matter. Yeshivas don't even address it with the young students and very rarely does it come up in synagogues. Just like with the German Jews, the thought of discrimination and possible genocide was out of the question. Why, they were an important part of German society. They were integrated, assimilated. Surely Hitler's "Mein Kampf" couldn't really be taken seriously. It was just his way to get to power. No, no, the Nazis would never consider doing something like that. And even if, they won't be able to prevail. History tells us a different story!

I'm not saying that America is at the same point today as Nazi Germany. But there are distressing signs on the horizon. One of them is mentioned in the Texas Chronicle. The State Department put into consideration to make the issuing of a pass port, even a pass port renewal, dependent on the ability to answer certain questions. These questions are primarily addressed to Jews who had a ceremonial circumcision. They want to know where and by whom. If there are no hospital records where they were born. Further on they could ask about the residence of their mother at the time of birth or before and after. Where their mother was employed before, during, and after. Where did the mother go for her prenatal care? To fail to answer any of these questions could result in a denial of obtaining a pass port.
Don't get me wrong, but this is akin to the beginning of the persecution of the Jewish people in Nazi Germany. Want further proof?

In several cities in the U.S., one of them in San Francisco, circumcision is on the platter in order to outlaw it because of humanitarian reasons. 7000 of San Franciscans are in favor of it. While many more are outraged it is still very disconcerting because it is the minorities that dominate the peaceful majorities. It always has been in history. The Islamist Jihadists who, as fundamental believers of the Qur'an and the two other books of the Islamic trilogy, it is the majorities who do not want to get serious about their faith but rather believe in a more peace loving version of their religion. In Nazi Germany it was the minority that out weight the peace loving majority of the Germans. Even so most of them did become member of the Nazi party, it didn't make them Nazis. It was only the few and their elite political and Waffen SS. But it was them that hurled the world into a conflict of unknown magnitude.

Now the latest thing that came on the cutting board is kosher butchering. There is a word for it in the English but in German it's "schaechten." PETA mad a big case of it in 2004 when it filmed footage at a slaughtering house in Iowa. However, the main difference between kosher butchering and the way many slaughter houses do it as I am familiar with, is that: Typically the animal is knocked on the head with a mechanical device. By the time it gets butchered, it may not even be dead yet. In kosher butchering the cutting device has to be ultra sharp, approved by a halachik rabbi who oversees the slaughtering. In one swift swoop the guttural tubes are cut in two. The animal looses consciousness almost immediately caused by the dramatic loss of blood and is dead within a few seconds. It's kind of like someone cutting their arteries and loosing consciousness and death within minutes. Now, of both these practices, kosher butchering is the most humane. Yet several cities or even states in the U.S. (not totally sure but heard it a few times on the radio now YOU WANT HEAR IT IN THE MAIN STREAM MEDIA) want to outlaw this procedure. Guess what? Hitler did the same thing before he started to come up with the Nuremberg race laws. It all starts the same way. But what we always seem to forget, whenever Jews become persecuted others will end up suffering as well. We see what happened in WWII. Jihadists threat against the Jews is only the beginning. The extension is the persecution of everyone else who is a none Muslim. Where and when do we make our outcry heard. Are we willing to stand up and write to our Senators and State Representatives enough is enough? Where do we stand in the gap if it becomes evident that even America will turn against the Jews. What will the silent majority do. God help that it will be a majority. But not one that is silent but cries out on behalf of God's chosen people and everything that's righteous. What will we Christians do?