"Until we meet again and touch our hands together in another land."
Hanukkah will be here again on December 6th. My wife and I
won't be going to the Lubavitcher festivities in Taipei; we will be on the east
coast of Taiwan in Taitung gazing at the mighty Pacific Ocean, the beautiful
mountains, and enjoying the clean air without pollution. By the time we get
home, we will have missed the first night of lighting candles. That is good
because I have a leftover box from Brooklyn that's missing about nine
candles.
I will light the candles, say prayers, make potato latkes and eat
doughnuts when we get back from our trip, but the miracle of the candles is
more important than the festivities. I see it as a miracle that our Jewish
traditions have lasted over two thousand years despite the Spanish inquisition
and the holocaust.
Muslims and Jews had gotten along very well in the Middle World
and Iberia until Spain and the Pope deemed our blood filthy and worthy of
knights to slaughter. Britain and the U.S. got involved in the 20th century and
took colonial land in Palestine for a Jewish state after World War II for their
own purposes, despite the idealism of Zionism.
Jews and Muslims are closer in beliefs than Jews and Christians, yet someone in the Jewish hierarchy decided to be allies with the goyum who
murdered us and millions of Muslims in the Inquisition, six million souls in
Nazi Germany, and a million now in the Middle World in their endless war for
economic dominance. One hundred million, a hundred million Native
Americans were slaughtered to steal their land and resources! Those racist Christians would have done the same thing in Asia if Japan, China and Vietnam had not stopped them.
One death of a Jew is not more important to me than the death of
anyone for their religious beliefs. I have a T-Chart in my mind in which
I compare atrocities. There are many many more Muslim victims of the
U.S. war than there are Jewish victims of it in the attacks coordinated by the
U.S. and Israeli military; not individuals who pick up a stone to defend
themselves or join a ragtag group for jihad, unless, like ISIS, they are being
supplied by the very same military to destabilize their homeland for plunder.
As I told my Mandarin teacher yesterday, I am a Jew; I am not
"white," and my secular kind are all over the world; not only in
Israel. We spread love of humanity and share it with all races and religions.
This is the miracle of Hanukkah to me: to spread our Jewish heritage and
respect for life and education and tradition around the world; not suffer under
a cloud for the sake of U.S. European hegemony in the Middle World.
A friend of mine in Budapest, well aware of Antisemitism (look
what Hungary did to the Syrian refugees!) invited me to take a 20 hour train ride with him to
Auschwitz to feel the pain of my Jewish brothers and sisters in WW II. Riding
through Middle Europe, with too many ignorant fascist wannabes, flush with
hatred for anyone not white and Christian, I could never stand the ride to the
destination; I know how our story ends. But we can change the story's ending by
changing allies to our Semitic Muslim brothers who also pray directly to one
Gxd, not through a mythical intermediary.
A culture - one bitten, twice shy – sometimes rebounds in the most
horrible way. Do the survivors of a holocaust arm themselves so it will 'never
happen again' or, as in the case of most Jews, find the next closest bully - as
in a "Stockholm Syndrome" - in forlorn reaction, for false protection from
the oppressor, and allow their new host to break all the rules of war, as the
U.S. has done, so long as it doesn't affect them?
In the 19th century in the U.S. Northeast, some Irish
American merchants, after establishing themselves in the U.S., put want ads in their
store windows: "Chinese and Dogs needn't apply"? Just a generation
before, the signs read: "No Irish or Dogs need apply."
I feel the pain of the Jewish Holocaust victims but not more than the pain of the slaughter of Muslims and one hundred million Native Americans; few of my relatives were
victims of Hitler which, perhaps, changes my outlook.
There can be peace in the world, but it depends on U.S.
military-industrial imperialism. I am only a working man; a tool
for the capitalists to use, break and get a replacement for. I am to the ruling
class that would exploit me if they could.
After reading about the Jewish youth
murdered in Israel by one hateful assassin, about one young man, though sad, it
gives me no impetus, no credence to anyone to visit Israel to support and show I am not afraid, until President Netenyahu and the hawks, who killed that boy by
their policy, are dumped. Only then will peace come to Israel and avenge the
cycle of violence. When Israel professes peace with its neighbors, I will go
and visit my historic homeland.
We are never too old to think of
changing heart and doing the right thing; forget the prejudices that keep us
behind high walls blaming others. As my mother once said, "You don't make
peace by building walls." My Mom was right.
Despite the hate used to divide us by the oppressors of the world, we should never give up hope for a miracle of peace. David was the slayer
of Goliath with a rock on a rope; it is written in the book. The powerless will
beat the powerful again. Happy Hanukkah to all!
"War Movie" by Jefferson Airplane
In nineteen hundred and seventy-five all the
people rose from the countryside locked together hand in hand all through this unsteady land to move against
you, government man, d'you understand?
Gonna roll roll roll the rock around roll roll roll the rock
around lift the rock out of the ground
At the Battle of Forever Plains, all my people hand
in hand in hand in the rain. The laser way won the day
without one single living soul going down. The government
troops were circled in the sun gun found themselves on the
run from our nation. The rock is raised. No need to hide from
the other side now... transformation
Call high to the constellation headquarters, call high to the
most high directors, send out the transporting systems and
send out the sun finders
thirteen battalion of mind readers, three hundred master
computer killers from great platforms in the mountains
twenty mile lasers & great giant trackers... twenty miles
south now. Roll roll roll the rock around. In 1975 all my people rose from the countryside, so until we
meet again and touch our hands together in another land
until we meet again and see each others minds, we
three have met again and touched our hands, talking of
Napoleon in the garden, we will muffle the drums tomorrow
morning. Gonna roll roll roll the rock around, gonna roll roll
roll the rock around, lift the rock out of the ground
Epilogue:
Over the weekend I dealt with internet schmucks; schmucks you meet on the internet, like ghosts. The schmucks you meet in person are meatier, but schmucks nevertheless. There was an anti-Semitic schmuck and a Semitic schmuck. Neither had anything to do with the reality of the article I wrote for Pioneer Searcher Refugeeblog entitled “Home in Taichung for Hanukkah.” If I called the article “ISIS Beheads Jews in Taiwan” perhaps I would have gotten more views on-line from the ex-pat goyum community in Taiwan and folks around the world, but I’m not a travelling salesman for my literature.
The first schmuck, an English teacher in a Taiwan technical college, one who saw the intro but didn’t read the article, was offended by the picture I downloaded depicting David slewing Goliath. The schmuck fancied himself a pacifist. His opinion was that the Bible story I alluded to was believed to have really happened. I begged to differ in my reply to his comment. I replied three of four times, taking the high-road of metaphor as he tried deeper into the corner of hate against eye-for- an-eye Judaism while I gave example of how the oppressor should, at last, be destroyed in the head because of his heartlessness. I knew the clown wouldn’t understand so I just blocked him on Facebook, the only way you can kill someone legally without joining an army.
The second ghost appeared when my daughter IM’ed me on WeChat while I walked along the dyke of the wash towards the ocean Sunday morning. Somehow, a fellow Jewish netizen of Taiwan, Joe materialized out of the intermist. I put him back, I thought, but he came back to haunt me an hour later asking on Messenger if I had a “Hanukkah emergency” contacting him at 7:43am. I replied that it was “accidentally,” but then later flowed with the contact, as karma, and asked him about that Hanukkah party at Jew’s place he had invited me to a week earlier, in lieu of accepting my invitation to come to our home for latkes. We had it out while I was on the diesel train heading south on Taiwan’s east coast and west from Ping-dong to Kaohsiung. “Hadn’t Nathan invited me on an e-mail,” he asked? “I was incommunicado,” I said, but I’d rather get an invitation in a purple envelope, written in gold leaf on doily paper. I told Joe that an internet invitation should come from him, reminding him that it was he I invited to our home before he side-stepped me into a “Jew list” party we had no intention of attending. When Joe said it was too bad, mate, if I didn’t get an invitation, I asked Leona to use her internet skills to block this ghost so I never make the error of contacting him again by mistake. I’m sorry I wished him a “Happy Hanukkah” in the first place. I must clean my cell phone list of ghosts more often so this doesn’t happen again.
At the worthless bushiban teacher’s meeting, the six-foot-four-with-tons-of muscle South African of recent employ, asked if I celebrated Hanukkah. When I gleefully said I did, expecting some connection from the Jew he had said a few weeks ago he was, he informed me, to the enjoyment of the ex-pat limey goyum present, that he didn’t believe in Gxd; that he was “only a Jew by blood.” I informed him that ‘Jewish’ was not a race, dope (I didn’t say it out loud; only thinking it of him) and even an African could be a Jew by choice when I forgot that he was, technically, African, of the colonist derivative. To think that I had considered inviting this muscle-bound clown to share homemade latkes with us and Amy, the unfortunate wife of a Taiwanese dingbat male who couldn’t please his Jewish wife to travel down and join us, made me cringe. I will make latkes for Leona and myself. We appreciate it.
