Joan Swirsky
“Though marked by levity, Purim is deadly serious: We are reminded that Haman exists in every generation and that we Jews dare not ignore our own identity.” —Rabbi Meir Y. Soloveichik
This year, the Jewish holiday of Purim begins on Monday, March 9th and ends on March 10th. It is a significant holiday that has everything to do with Jewish survival, which today is as relevant as it was throughout Jewish history, not only 75 years ago in Nazi Germany when six-million Jews were savagely incinerated in burning ovens while the entire world looked on, but also 3,000, 4,000, 5,000 years ago!
The story of Purim takes place in ancient Persia (now Iran). The Holy Temple in Jerusalem had been destroyed more than 50 years earlier and the Jews had become servile subjects in Persia.
The King of Persia, Ahasuerus, who was drunk at the time, became furious with his exquisite wife Vashti when she refused to undress 
before his court, so he ordered her execution. But after her death, he became lonely and had his servants orchestrate a beauty contest so he could pick another wife. When Esther appeared, he was enchanted with her great beauty and married her, making her the Queen of Persia.
Unbeknownst to the King, Esther was a Jewish orphan who had been raised by her cousin Mordechai. Shortly after she became queen, Mordechai overheard two of the king’s chamberlains discussing a plot to assassinate him. Mordechai reported the plot, and the traitors were hanged.
But one of the king’s ministers, Haman, was a fanatical Jew hater, exactly like so many Democrats are today––“Rev.” Louis “the powerful Jews are my enemy” Farrakhan, “Rev.” Al “Jews are bloodsucking Jew bastards,” “white interlopers” and “diamond merchants” Sharpton, Democrat Linda Sarsour, the “official surrogate” of Democrat Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign, “Jew-hater-on-steroids musician Roger Waters, the list is endless.
And that is not to omit Democrat Rep. Ihlan Omar (MN), Democrat Rep. Rashida Tlaib (MI)––who was recently nominatedas anti-Semite of the Year by StopAntisemitism.org.––Democrat Rep. Ayanna Pressley (MA), and Democrat Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY), all of whom appear to loathe America and detest Jews and Israel, sentiments they often express. In addition, they have lamented the death of the Iranian arch-terrorist Qasem Soleimani, steadfastly refused to condemn the epidemic of anti-Semitism on campuses across America, and engaged in a steady stream of anti-American and anti-Semitic rantings.
That’s right, the very people presidential candidate Joe Biden (D-DE) cannot bring himself to condemn! No surprise here, as former VP Biden presided over the illegal and unconstitutional Iran Deal, which gave the virulently anti-American, anti-Semitic mullahs in Iran $150 billion dollars in cash to create nuclear weapons with Tel Aviv’s address on them!
Can’t get more Jew hating than that!
Oops, did I forget to mention the other presidential front-runner, Democrat Bernie Sander (VT)? As Daniel Greenfield writes: “Like Karl Marx, Bernie Sanders is one of those non-Jewish people of Jewish derivation whom Jews hate and anti-Semites love.And Bernie keeps pouring fuel on the fire, expressing his disdain for Jews and Jewish causes, while cozying up to anti-Semitic figures…”
Getting back to the story of Purim, when Mordechai refused to bow down to Haman, Haman ordered the Persians to rise up against the Jews and kill them all––men, women and children. However, Mordechai learned of the plan and pleaded with Esther to intercede with the king on behalf of all the Jews who were targeted for death.
Through both intelligence and guile, she ultimately succeeded. She revealed that she was Jewish to the king, Haman was exposed and hanged, Mordechai was elevated in the king’s court, and the king allowed Esther and Mordechai to issue a decree allowing the Jewish people to attack their enemies preemptively, a successful campaign that resulted in saving the Jewish people from annihilation.
NOTE: FDR, to his everlasting shame, clearly never read the Book of Esther!
PLUS ÇA CHANGE…
Today, two decades into what we would like to believe is an evolved 21st century, the same obsessive hatred––based largely on psychotic jealousy––is fueled by:
- The vast networks of unregulated social media that spread anti-Semitic blood libels with maniacal glee and total impunity.
- DNA anti-Semites––in America, Europe, et al––once again emerging from their hate holes.
- A growing number of Democrat elected officials.
- The Democrat Party whose members, by their thunderous silence on the anti-Semitic statements and votes of their colleagues, de facto encourage and indeed sanction the widespread dissemination of the oldest hatred of mankind.
Here are just a few out of thousands of examples:
- Maniacal Tiffany Harris, who makes a habit of slapping and spewing vulgarities at Jewish people on NY City subways, has been repeatedly released without bail in the city run by Democrat Mayor Bill Di Blasio and in the state run by Democrat Governor Andrew Cuomo, both of whom support and embrace the new no-bail law.
- The Boycott-Divest-Sanction (BDS) movement seeks to destroy Israel through economic sanctions. And yet House Democrats––including Long Island Representatives Tom Suozzi and Kathleen Rice––demonstrated their anti-Israel, anti-Semitic bias by voting to block an anti-BDS bill which would have forbade domestic support for foreign boycotts of Israel from organizations like the anti-American, anti-Semitic United Nations Human Rights Council and European Union (which still refuses to designate Hezbollah and Hamas as terrorist organizations).
- The cases of Jew and Israel hatred on campuses all across America are too numerous to mention here, although the Middle East Forum’s Campus Watch does an excellent job of monitoring the frequent and often violent acts that take place routinely on U.S. college campuses, which blogger Pamela Geller says have become cesspools for left-wing Jew hatred and totalitarianism.
The august Melanie Phillips spells out in ghastly detail (read the entire article!):
A recent carnival in Belgium featured floats depicting Jews as insects and participants in Nazi uniforms;- A carnival in Spain, ostensibly to commemorate the Holocaust, featured dancing Nazis, concentration-camp prisoners in sequined tights and Israeli flags, and a ‘gas chamber’ float with a giant Hebrew menorah between two chimneys;
- In Britain, anti-Semitic incidents rose last year to an unprecedented high;
- In France, anti-Semitic attacks soared by more than 75 percent last year;
- In Germany, anti-Semitic incidents are rising at a similar rate;
- In the United States, more than 50 Jewish community centers in 23 states have received e-mailed bomb threats, attacks on Orthodox Jews are reported daily, there have been synagogue murders in Pittsburgh and Poway, and widespread bullying of Jewish students on college campuses.
“This is all inextricably tied up with hatred of Israel,” Phillips says. “Better advocacy for Israel, necessary as that is, will not address this anti-Jewish derangement…and the problem—and tragedy—for the Jewish people is that so many of those subscribing to this liberal onslaught are themselves Jews.
But Democrats will still vote for a clinically diminished Biden and whomever actually runs the country in his stead. Why? Because of their holy grails: abortion, open borders, a weak military, unemployed blacks, gay marriage, fidelity to globalism, and the hoax of climate change, et al.
The survival of Judaism and the safety and security of Israel don’t matter to them!
WEAK JEWS, A STRONG ISRAEL
Unfortunately, these Democrats include a large Jewish community that has been tethered to the Party for 100 years, not because it is empirically the “party of the people,” or has done anything to improve the lives of its most devoted adherents, but rather because American Jews have largely been spared the ravages of the 5,000-year history that saw Jews enslaved in Egypt for 400 years, marginalized in pogroms and ghettos, victimized in the vicious Crusades and Inquisition, wandering the world in a cruel Diaspora, and murdered in cold blood in the Holocaust.
Spared to live life in freedom in America, spared to not have to look over their shoulders or cower in fear, and spared to invent a new form of Judaism in which, ironically, victimization became enshrined and their new calling card was Social Justice––a movement more based on narcissistic self-aggrandizement than do-gooderism.
No one describes the devolution of America’s leftist-liberal-progressive Jews more powerfully than Lauri B. Regan in her stunning article, “G-d Is Testing American Jews. They Are Failing.” Regan compares today’s leftist Jews to those who distrusted Moses on Mt. Sinai and created a golden calf to worship.
“Today’s Diaspora Jews,” Regan writes, “are worshiping a different type of false idol. For eight years, it took the form of Barack Obama, but he was only representative of a progressive ideal for which Jews are constantly searching. Our history of slavery, torture, dhimmitude, persecution, and genocide has led to a people who desperately seek peace, obsess over “tikkunolam” and social justice, and worship at the Torah of Liberalism.” American Jews are fixated“on every victim class but their own…and the Democrat Party…is harming the survival of our people.”
“Our national population is minuscule––approximately 2%,” Regan continues. “Our power is not in our numbers, but in our voices––and our voices are becoming dangerously self-destructive.”
Yet, it is also true and thrilling to people like me that Israel is now a strong and thriving democratic state with a military of immeasurable strength, capable of taking on and annihilating those who wish her ill, and that includes not only bellicose enemies in the Middle East but, on a morale basis, also her ideological enemies like the thugs in the United Nations and the anti-Semites in the U.S. Congress and the Jew haters throughout the world.
Again, for the remaining Jews like me who care very much about the magnificent culture of Judaism, our disproportionately huge contribution of ethics, law, art, music, literature, science, medicine, and technology to the world, and the true social justice that demands equitable treatment and not blind, envy-fueled hatred, the resolve to defeat our enemies never flags.
To combat the rising tide of Jew hatred, Charles Jacobs and Avi Goldwasser, co-founders of Americans for Peace and Tolerance, have created An Action Plan for a New Jewish Leadership, which, among its 10 bullet points, includes:
- Increase Physical Security to Protect the Community, including increased police presence, neighborhood security patrols, facilitation of gun ownership, and holding public officials accountable for indifference or willful inaction to confront Jew-hatred.
- As sanctity of life is the highest Jewish value, allocate more resources for the defense of the Jewish community and less for projects of social justice.
- Educate the community and the public about the nature and sources of Jew-hatred. Like all hatred, Jew-hatred is based on envy and resentment (in this case, of Jewish success) and the tendency to blame others for the haters’ failures and inadequacies. Jew-hatred has always been aimed at the elimination of Judaism (forced conversion), or of Jews (Final Solution), or of the Jewish state (anti-Zionism). Jew-hatred is promoted by lies and demonization, propelled by class warfare, and now also by identity politics.
- Build alliances based on mutual interests and honest reciprocity, not virtue-signaling.
I would add the following….it is clear that the Jewish organizations that once strongly advocated for Jewish issues and fought anti-Semitism aggressively no longer do so unless they involve politically correct issues that won’t inspire the vindictive wrath––and financial support––of Jewish Democrats.
These include: the UJA-Federation, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), the American Jewish Committee (AJC), the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the Hillel chapters on college campuses and the Reform movement.
So don’t count on these organizations and don’t send them another dollar!
The good news is that, along with wide support from political conservatives, most Republicans, and the Christian Evangelical community, other Jewish advocacy organizations and publications are working tirelessly to combat the relentless assaults of the Jew- and Israel-haters among us.
They include:
AFSI (Americans for a Safe Israel)
1751 Second Avenue
New York, NY 10128
www.AFSI.org
Tel: 1-212-828-2424
Mark Langfan, Chairman
Americans for Peace & Tolerance
5 Main Street, Suite 118
Watertown, MA 02472
https://www.peaceandtolerance.org
Founder: Charles Jacobs
CAMERA–Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis
PO Box 35040
Boston MA 02135-0001
Andrea Levin, Founder
Campus Watch (a project of the Middle East Forum) monitors bias on American campuses, issues reports, and takes strong action where indicated.
https://www.meforum.org/campus-watch/
E-mail: info@meforum.org
Tel: 1-215-546-5406
Canary Mission
www.canarymission.org
Canary Mission documents individuals and organizations that promote hatred of the USA, Israel and Jews on North American college campuses.
Coalition of Pro-Israel Advocates (COPIA)
10507 Tanager Lane
Potomac, Maryland 20854
info@copma.net
Combat Anti-Semitism
www.combatantisemitism.org
info@combatantisemitism.org
Email: sacha@combatantisemitism.org
Tel: +1- 646 417 4046
EMET (Endowment for Middle East Truth)
PO Box 66366
Washington, DC 20035
https://emetonline.org
Sarah Stern, Founder
Gatestone Institute
14 East 60 Street, Suite 705
New York, NY 10022
Www.GatestoneInstitute.org
HonestReporting.com
165 East 56th Street, 2nd Fl
New York, NY 10022-2709
Tel: 1-847-745-8284
E-mail: action@honestreporting.com
Jews Choose Trump
62 William Street
New York, NY 10005
Jewschoosetrump.org
www.jewschoosetrump.org
NCJA (National Conference of Jewish Affairs)
90 Washington Valley Road, Suite 1261
Bedminster, NJ 07921
www.conservativehq.com
Attn: Rabbi AryehSpero
Republican Jewish Coalition
50 F St NW, Suite 100
Washington, D.C. 20001
www.rjchq.org
The Exodus Movement, founded by Elizabeth Pipko for “proud Jewish Americans who reject the hypocrisy, anti-Americanism, and anti-Semitism of the rising far-left.”
Elizabeth Pipko, founder and president of The Exodus Movement.
The Exodus Movement
740 South Mill Avenue, #200
Tempe, AZ 85281
www.theexodusmovement.com
Elizabeth Pipko, Founder
https://theexodusmovement.com
The Lawfare Project
633 3rd Avenue, Fl 21
New York, NY 10017-8157
https://www.thelawfareproject.org/
Brooke Goldstein, Founder/Director
PRIMER- Promoting Responsibility in Middle East Reporting
P.O. Box 0591
West Hartford, CT 06137-0591
http://primerct.org/index.php?content=index&title=PRIMER-Connecticut
info@primerct.org
Founder: Alan Stein
President, Mark Fishman
http://www.jewishledger.com/2014/07/primer-israel-advocacy-in-good-times-and-bad/
Stop Anti-Semitism,org
https://www.stopantisemitism.org/
Features Anti-Semite of the Month and Anti-Semite of the Year
Contact: LioraRez at Liora@stopantisemitism.org.
Understanding the Threat
Provides tools to leaders, police and citizens to identify and dismantle jihadi/terrorist networks in their local communities.
P.O. Box 190772
Dallas, TX 75219
www.UnderstandingtheThreat.com
Founder: John Guandolo
ZOA (Zionist Organization of America)
633 Third Avenue, Suite 31-B
New York, NY 10017
https://zoa.org
Morton Klein, President
© 2020 Joan Swirsky – All Rights Reserved
E-Mail Joan Swirsky: joanswirsky@gmail.com
