Friedman: "As racial upheavals in major American cities spread across the land, reaching a crescendo of violence following the murder of Martin Luther King, Jr. in Watts in l968, a new group of African-American leaders arose who challenged the integration strategies of King and other Black moderates."
After King's assasination and Jesse Jackson asserted himself as his heir apparent, he made his famous quip about "all the Hymies in Hymietown." My retort: "There arose a shvartze who knew not Philadelphia."
This is a parody of the line at the beginning of the book of Exodus: "There arose a Pharoah who knew not Joseph." Toward the end of the book of Genesis, Joseph, who had been sold to Egyptians by his brothers, worked his way up to what essentially amounted to the Pharoah's Prime Minister. Thanks to his foresight -- both in interpreting Pharoah's dreams to understand that a famine would hit the land and in helping Pharoah to prepare and thereby profit from it -- Joseph saved Egypt from starvation and made the Pharoah a very wealthy man in the process.
Cut to the beginning of Exodus, about 150 years later. The current heir to Pharoah's fortune had no idea know where his enormous wealth came from. All he knew was that these Jews who were living in his land were becoming too powerful and if they ever decided to side with Pharoah's enemies, could defeat him. So he enslaved them and you know what happened from there.
During the "Freedom Summer" of 1964, two Jewish field workers, Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman, were shot down along with James Chaney for their part in helping Mississippi blacks register and organize. Their bodies were discovered several months later in an earthen dam outside Philadelphia, Mississippi.
I suppose when Jesse Jackson made his "Hymietown" remark, he "knew them not."
Friedman: "The radicals...called also for African-Americans to identify with the struggle of colored peoples throughout the world against colonial imperialism. In this new paradigm, Israel came to be seen—and portrayed—as an outpost of Western imperialism in the Middle East."
In 1972, while living in Israel, I was invited to a lunch hosted by the mayor of Jericho. I was seated next to a Palestinian representative to the UN who had just returned to Jericho after living in Washington DC. I asked him how he liked Washington, and his answer shocked me: "I hated it...too many niggers."
The Palestinian authorities have always used American blacks to their political advantage. After that lunch, I realized how much they actually despise them.
Friedman: "The refugees had been urged to leave during the war by invading Arab nations who promised they could return as soon as the war was won."
I've heard this all my life, but I've never seen any proof of it. I wonder if (or to what extent) it's true.
Friedman: "As a result, beginning in the 1980s, a number of Jewish bodies, including the American Jewish Committee, began reaching out to evangelicals."
I really believe that we will live to regret this. The evangelicals have one objective in mind: the return of all Jews to the Holy Land and their subsequent realization of Jesus as their savior. Once they tire of waiting for us to fulfill their messianic vision, they'll likely react the same way as any other Christian zealots throughout history.
"Israel betach b'Shem, ezram u'maginam hu," says the Psalm. "Israel (ie. the Jewish people) trusts in God, He is their Helper and their Shield." Trusting anyone else has always led us to nothing but disaster.
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