Parsha Vayechi — Dehumanization
In these trying dark and confusing times, I am sharing this video to give us strength.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbMtverCmjM
This featured video is Shomer Yisrael — Guard Israel. The video beautifully produced by R’ Shlomo Katz (and composed by Reb Shlomo) is a heartfelt prayer based on the words we say in daily prayers.
“O Guardian of Israel, guard the remnant of Israel, and suffer not Israel to perish, who say, Hear, O Israel”
So here we are at the end of the book of Bereshit and the nation of Israel, the family of Jacob are now dwelling in Egypt and Jacob dies and is buried in Hebron and soon we are going to be coming to the book of Exodus.
The main story of Exodus is how the children of Jacob and Israel became enslaved and eventually how God brought them out of Egypt. I want to stop here and reflect for a second here.
Today the nation of Israel has been dehumanized and there are many so many blood libels and lies going around about Israel and support for those who support evil and those who destroy us.
I think there is one story that really really is highly disturbing is a talk given by Biden saying that “Settlers” are extreme and they need to be stopped and everything else and in the video it said the opposite is true and without going into details and I urge you to see this very powerful video and how this is such a blood libel and just undermining Jewish presence in our country. This just continues the centuries of the Church, Islam and the Nazis dehumanizing the Jews.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72pKLHKPtbg
This concept of dehumanizing which is defined as depriving a person or group of positive human qualities started with in Egypt when the Jewish people were enslaved facilitating a rational that people can treated inferiorly.
This battle is ongoing today in the same way that God took us and redeemed us at that time we have today a process of redemption that God has started, and God will help us overcome our enemies and usher in a new world of peace and prosperity. Israel seeks the betterment of mankind and betterment of the world and it’s so hard for us who believe in a better world to see this evil and that so many people support evil and it’s just so unbelievable.
I’m sitting here reflecting on the dehumanisation of Israel and the Jewish people today. The Nazis practised this, and now this is led by the Arabs in the form of vile rhetoric, lies and cartoons.
I refer to this article in the Jewish Front Post highlighted it a year ago — “Nazi propaganda shows role of dehumanizing Jews in Holocaust — study” https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/antisemitism/article-721949
We saw no condemnation of, by the UN, of the Terrible Acts on October 7th. It was as if already pre-programmed into the United Nations and the world, a dehumanization of Jews and Israel. It is like we are animals, like, like insects, it’s not a crime to kill, rape or kidnap them. Not only was there no condemnation, but there was and is support for Evil. (How sic)
So, we see these double standards and when you compare the words anti-Semitism and dehumanisation. Anti-Semitism is one thing, but dehumanisation takes it to another level. And today we are in a double or triple battle, and one cannot just fathom where this dehumanisation came from. And how prevalent it is, it’s pretty sad and it’s also sad how real is it.
It’s just sad when you look at history, and I just want to go back to 1929, where the massacre in Hebron led to the ethnic cleansing of the Jewish population from Hebron and today we see the colonisation of Hebron by the Arabs, it took place over many years, and how the population increased is beyond belief and it always puzzles me that when you talk about ethnic cleansing while the Arab population is thriving and despite that thriving they still want to exterminate the Jewish state.
I love sharing this photo as shows Hebron in 1853 as a small village with no or little Arab population. Hebron is mentioned again in this week’s Parsha when Jacob is buried. So, I ask when see Hebron today — who are the occupiers? Who has legal and historical precedence here?
And when we look at the battle between good and evil and we see that the whole Hamas-Gaza enterprise was built for the destruction of the Jewish state, and we were blind to that. And today we are in the midst of a terrible war, and we need to be strong and need to show resilience and we need to value the lives of Jews more and especially soldiers who are dying because we are over-valuing the lives of these evil people and that is sad. Now is a time for a stronger strategy, a stronger nation and our boys (soldiers) into booby big trap alleys and buildings. This battle is for our sanity, for our future. And if we won’t be strong then the world is lost and I’ve already reported even the Abraham Accords would evaporate because they’re looking to us to be the strong man.
It’s time to stand up to tell our American “friends” that don’t agree with the approach. Look at what they did in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“More than 432,000 civilians have been killed in the fighting since 2001. Millions of people living in the war zones have also been displaced by war. The U.S. post-9/11 wars have forcibly displaced at least 38 million people in and from Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, the Philippines, Libya and Syria”
Sourced:
Unfortunately, we see so much hypocrisy, lies, coverup and silence of the truth — Where are the protests about the other wars and civilization deaths. Just this week there was a massacre this week 120 Christians were butchered to death. The silence is deafening, silence by the church, silence by the UN, silence by the world.
Yet they’re just fixed on one thing, Israel and Jews and all they want to see is see us dead, how sad.
But this Parsha is Vayehi is about Jacob Lived. It is about Living. Life. The Jewish and Israel are alive. We are not going anywhere. We have nowhere else to go to. We will only have one Home — from the river to the see.
I want to share what I wrote last year as it is a timely reminder of our lives before 7th October.
Yayechi — Lies, Murder, Hebron
This week’s Torah portion highlights the burial of our forefather, Yaakov, in Hebron and the historical and eternal connection to the Land to Israel by the Jewish People.
Genesis 50:13
וישאו אתו בניו ארצה כנען ויקברו אתו במערת שדה המכפלה אשר קנה אברהם את־השדה לאחזת־קבר מאת עפרן החתי על־פני ממרא׃
For his sons carried him to the land of Canaan and buried him in the cave of the field of Machpelah, which Abraham bought with the field for a possession of a burying place of Ephron the Hittite, before Mamre.
So, how Ironic and sad is the delegitimating of Israel in the world, the non-acceptance of the Palestinians of our historical and legal claim, and their hatred and unwillingness to live in peace and share the land.
Israel is a beacon of religious freedom and rights for minorities. We did not ethnically cleanse the Jews like the Arab countries do and did so in 1948.
Indeed, as this photo shows Israel is tolerant and welcoming of all people. While we have a particular message and role, Israel is seeking to spread the light of good and Tikkun Olam in the world.
So, how ironic and sad ….
Not only that, but we as Jews are also still the only country in the world where our rights to our land and to exist are questioned. As we see in the Parsha our roots go back to eternity. So, why is there an obsession with the Jews and Israel? I will not even try to answer that. This is very prevalent, and this article highlights some of these prejudices — THE LUXURY BELIEFS OF WESTERN ANTI-ZIONISTS
and this leads to ..
Murdered because he is a Jew
Yehuda Dimentman, 25-year-old husband and father of a toddler, was murdered by Palestinian terrorists.
They murdered him because he is a Jew living in the Jewish ancestral and biblical homeland.
May Yehuda’s family be comforted among the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem.
This was before October 7th.
Photos sourced from Facebook