Faith

‘The Hand of God’: How My Father Survived the Nazi-Inspired Farhud

Dec. 6, 2012 12:34pm

Tiffany Gabbay has been a writer and communications specialist for the past decade. Her passion for politics was fostered at an early age by her father, a successful entrepreneur and war hero. Tiffany worked as a Journalist on Capitol Hill where she interviewed some of the Beltway's biggest names, and also served as Deputy Director of a Republican Women’s advocacy group. Prior to her time in the beltway, Tiffany spent a number of years in the U.K. where she began her career in publishing. She started out in London's insurance and risk management industry as associate publisher for a popular trade publication, and later served as global communications manager for an international insurance trade body based in Manchester. She is a graduate of the National Journalism Center in Washington, D.C. and studied communications at the London Institute.

 

In the wake of the U.N.’s predictable yet galling vote to move the Palestinians one step closer to statehood as reward for targeting Israeli men, women and children with 12,000 rockets, I realized that we are, in the truest sense, living in an Orwelian universe where evil is good and good is evil and those who commit unspeakable ill are gifted with moral equivalence and, at times, even their own countries. It is a place where that sacred vow, “never again” — a solemn oath once repeated like a mantra — has, in the end, been relegated to the dustbin of history.

Iran is now a force with which to be reckoned, nearing the finish-line of its nuclear weapons program and pumping a seemingly boundless supply of money and arms into the hands of Hamas, Hezbollah and other Islamic extremists bent on liquidating the Jewish people. In turn, the cooling of relations with Egypt following Hosni Mubarak’s ouster, and with the Muslim Brotherhood now circling King Abdullah’s Jordan like a vulture, it appears the Jewish State could soon find itself less two friendly neighbors in the coming months and years ahead. Thus, Israel faces the same if not greater existential threat today than it did 65 years ago.

Reflecting on the past, present and future, I was prompted to ask myself once more: Indeed, whatever did happen to “never again?” Are our memories so fleeting?

There are few chapters in history that have ever revealed the face of evil, or that were wrought in more human suffering and degradation than the Holocaust, or Shoah. What many do not realize, however, is that the poisonous barbs of Hitler’s Final Solution were not confined solely to Europe, but stretched far beyond to the East, where my father, and his father were born.

 

Tiffany Gabbay: The Hand of God: How My Father Survived the Nazi Inspired Farhud

Members of the Gabbay family in Baghdad. Joseph is featured standing in the back, wearing suspenders.

Abba

My father, Joseph Gabbay, was an Israeli hero who served proudly and bravely in the Jewish State’s War of Independence in 1948. From as early as I can remember, he would tell me stories of his journey from a life of wealth and privilege in Iraq, embraced by the warmth of family and educated at the prestigious Alliance School, to a humble, solitary existence of labor and study on a kibbutz in Haifa where he first learned to speak Hebrew and would later prepare for war.

As I grew older, and my “Abba” (father) felt I was mature enough to handle greater truths, his stories became more piquant, filled with details of his pains and struggles, joys and triumphs. Each retold memory was imbued with a sense of pride and humility; reverence and awe at how he and his lonsmen in battle, so severely outnumbered, were at the mercy of the “Hand of God.” For as much as he witnessed, although his own blood had been spilled, my father would never have traded it for the world. He was a part of Israel. And so, too, became I.

Though it was clear Abba restrained himself a great deal, never wishing to frighten me with the disturbing details of the horrors he endured, he said enough. I knew he suffered. The greatest, kindest man I have ever known, who was filled with an infectious light and beloved by all he encountered, was forced to survive a barbarism few, save those who have faced evil in war, could fathom even in the darkest recesses of the mind.

Some of the most poignant of my father’s true stories revolved around two fateful operations during the War of Independence. They are as relevant today as they were then. But to get to that story, I must first tell you how my father came to be an Israeli.

Baghdad

Tiffany Gabbay: The Hand of God: How My Father Survived the Nazi Inspired FarhudMy father was born in Baghdad, as was his father before him. In fact, our family lineage can be traced back to Babylonian times. Throughout history, various forces came to rule over Iraq, from the Ottomans, to the Mongols, to the British, but in all its incarnations there was only one constant. Indeed, since the 6th century BCE, the Jewish people maintained a consistent presence in Iraq, hundreds of years before Islam arrived in the 7th century.

In my grandfather’s prime, Iraq fell under the auspices of the British Mandate and Jews, who until then were vehemently discriminated against, finally became recognized as full-fledged citizens. They were given the right to vote, hold political office and indeed, attain their rightful place in society.

Although the British Mandate of Iraq officially ended in 1930, the Baghdad of my father’s childhood was still highly influenced by the monarchy and was a flourishing metropolis if ever there was one. Members of the city’s established Jewish community, which comprised one-third of Baghdad’s population, along with its Christian counterpart, played an indispensable role in shaping the land into a thriving paradise that enjoyed economic, agricultural and societal prosperity.

Still, as they are wont to do, the primitivity and tribalism, the jealousy and loathing, the anti-Semitism that has long-served as hallmarks of the Arab world, reared its ugly head eventually. It Tiffany Gabbay: The Hand of God: How My Father Survived the Nazi Inspired Farhudwas not before long that a pro-Nazi prime minister took hold of the kingdom and, just like that, the nearly three millennia-old Iraqi Jewish community was faced with outright extinction (sound familiar?).

Many, including some students of history are unaware of the fact that the Holocaust was not confined solely to Europe, but that its reach stretched as far as the Middle East and North Africa. While Arabs certainly needed no help fomenting hatred of their Jewish neighbors, it was Adolf Hitler who solidified, in their minds, the belief that the genocide they had always dreamed of was actually attainable. As the Final Solution raged in the West, Muslims in the East saw Hitler’s Third Reich as the model to emulate. And so they tried.

The Mufti and the Fuhrer 

Just as there is a Pope in the Vatican who represents the whole of Catholicism, Muslims, too, revere a singular spiritual leader, and that figure is called a “grand mufti.” In 1941, Grand Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini, took a shine to the teachings of the fuhrer and began conspiring with the Nazis to exterminate another contingent of the Jewish population — this one in Baghdad.

In 1941, al-Husseini traveled to Germany to meet with Adolf Hitler, Heinrich Himmler, JoachimTiffany Gabbay: The Hand of God: How My Father Survived the Nazi Inspired Farhud Von Ribbentrop and other prominent Nazis to enlist their help in bringing the Final Solution to the Arab world. Through no less than 15 drafts, the Mufti told Hitler that the Jews were his arch enemies and urged Germany and Italy to declare Jewish homes illegal in the British mandate of Palestine. He also called on the two fascist nations to grant Arabs “the right to solve the problem of the Jewish elements in Palestine and other Arab countries, in accordance with the interest of the Arabs and, by the same method, that the question is now being settled in the Axis countries.”

After all, reasoned the Mufti, “the Arabs were Germany’s natural friends because they had the same enemies.”

Tiffany Gabbay: The Hand of God: How My Father Survived the Nazi Inspired Farhud

Nazi Muslim Brigades’ Anti-Semitic “education”

Hitler replied that Germany would “furnish positive and practical aid to the Arabs involved in the same struggle” and that his country’s ”objective [is]… solely the destruction of the Jewish element residing in the Arab sphere.”

“In that hour the Mufti would be the most authoritative spokesman for the Arab world,” he concluded.

While Hitler refused al-Husseini’s plea for an official declaration, he agreed to furnish aid to the Arabs in their opposition of a Jewish State. In the end, despite their shared anti-Semitism, the fuhrer was too much a racist to fully engage the Muslim world, but nonetheless proved to be a powerful ally for the Arabs in some very measurable ways, namely by introducing them to the highly effective tool of propaganda.

Tiffany Gabbay: The Hand of God: How My Father Survived the Nazi Inspired FarhudPrior to the mufti and fuhrer’s meeting and until 1941, the German embassy in Iraq was  headed by famed Nazi diplomat (an oxymoron if ever there was one) Dr. Fritz Grobba, who markedly increased the dissemination of anti-Semitic propaganda material throughout the Middle East by purchasing Arab newspapers. One such newspaper, Al-alam Al-arabi (“The Arab world”), published the first Arabic-language translation of Mein Kampf. The German embassy also supported the formation of “Al-Fatwa,” the Muslim counterpart of  Hitlerjugend.

Of course this all rings eerily familiar.

How often have we seen children today in Gaza or West Bank, indeed across the Arab world, chant anti-Semitic slurs in much the same way Hitler Youth did decades earlier? It is a well-established fact that Hamas, Hezbollah, al-Qaeda and other Islamic militant groups have been deeply inspired by the Nazis, from whom they acquired their tactics of propaganda. Whether it be doctored photos of a wounded or “killed” Palestinian child, or modeling children’s school textbooks after Mein Kampf, the influence rings loud and clear.

Given the background, should it come as a surprise then that upon returning to the Middle East in 1941, the Grand Mufti helped to orchestrate the beginnings his own Final Solution?

The Farhud

On June 1, 1941, as Jews in Baghdad were preparing festive meals in anticipation for the holiday ofTiffany Gabbay: The Hand of God: How My Father Survived the Nazi Inspired Farhud  Shavuot, a heavily armed mob of Iraqi Muslims took to the streets in a vicious rampage, targeting the city’s Jewish communities. Thousands of Islamic men equipped with guns, swords, knives, homemade grenades and other crude weapons searched out and slaughtered any Jewish man, woman or child they captured.

An image of a “hamsa,” or “Hand of God,” was painted on Jewish homes to single them out for attack. Ironically, this symbol is meant to be used as a talisman for protection. The families inside had no choice but to band together and steel themselves with whatever weapons they could muster.

My father was there. He recalled the savagery in complete and utter detail for the entire duration of his life. Although he was only a child at the time, the situation demanded he become a man, and he did.

Reliving the events for me on numerous occasions, Abba said that as the oldest son, he felt an onus to stand by his father and protect the family. Thankfully he was himself a hellion and shrewd as they come, devising a plan of ambush that, in the end, helped saved him and his family from extinction.

Somehow numb to the fear that should have, by right, overcome anyone such tender age, my father resolved to fulfill his duty and positioned himself on the roof of his house, poised with metal buckets brimming with scalding hot cooking grease, heavy stones and bricks, knives, metal pipes and any other makeshift weapons he could devise.

As several of the marauders rushed the grounds of my family’s home, my father launched his defensive, dumping the buckets of piping hot grease and hurling the projectiles he’d had on hand with all of the nerve and sinew in him. My grandfather (“Saba”), meanwhile, remained below, armed with a plan and weapons of his own.

Tiffany Gabbay: The Hand of God: How My Father Survived the Nazi Inspired FarhudHow they managed to stave off that violent mob and certain death remains one of the great and many mysteries of my father’s life. To be sure, it would not be the last time the Hand of God would play a role in delivering him to safe harbor.

In the end, British forces came in to disperse the rampaging mob and restore some semblance of order, but it was too little too late. While estimates differ, those gleaned from the Babylonian Heritage Museum reveal that 800 innocent Iraqi Jews were killed — 180 identified and 600 unidentified that were later found buried in a mass grave. In addition, 1,000 Jews were injured, nearly 600 Jewish businesses were looted, and another 1,000 Jewish homes ransacked and destroyed.

The bloody, two-day massacre was called the “Farhud,” Arabic for “violent dispossession” and came to be known as the “forgotten pogrom of the Holocaust.”

It was also the beginning of the end of Iraq’s 2,700-year-old Jewish community.

“From that point on, I was a Zionist,” my father told me. “I saw evil. I saw how primitive and barbaric they were. All they wanted, all they wanted,” he repeated, “was to see us dead.”

“I couldn’t live like that. I just couldn’t.”

Obsessed with the thought of Israel, my father began courting his mother, my “Safta,” begging her Tiffany Gabbay: The Hand of God: How My Father Survived the Nazi Inspired Farhud to send him to live with an uncle in Jerusalem. Despite the fact that he had already proven he could take care of himself, she refused. Still, he would not relent and being the ever-resourceful boy that he was, attempted all modes of appeal until he finally threatened to fling himself from the nearest cliff if she continued to rebuff his pleas. Yes, my father had a flair for the dramatic, but it worked, and not before long Abba found himself on a train to the Holy Land.

Though he was just a young boy not much older than my youngest nephew is now, my father was indeed every bit the adult the times required him to be. Determined, he set out to build a new life for himself and his family in Eretz Israel, far from the murderous grip of Islamists bent on annihilating them.

Little did he know at the time, his battle had just begun.

 

I will return with Part Two of my father’s story, “The Hayot HaNegev,” next week.


Comments (63)

1 2
  • txannie
    Dec. 7, 2012 at 4:17pm

    “Farhud” sounds exactly what the nbpp and most of obama’s kind want to do with the rest of us in this country. Won’t happen as easily as they might hope for, guarantee it. We all haven’t forgotten history.

    Report this comment

    txannie  
  • discus02
    Dec. 7, 2012 at 2:33pm

    Maybe Allah’s real name is Hitler!

    Report this comment

    discus02  
    • Captain Crunch
      Dec. 9, 2012 at 12:24am

      No his real name is Lucifer the Lying Thieving Murdering Child Molester. His followers are of the same evil spawn. And it is no sin to kill as many of them as you have to to defend yourself, your family, and friends.

      Report this comment

      Captain Crunch  
  • aconstitutionalistlivesinbrooklyn
    Dec. 7, 2012 at 2:32pm

    Thank you for sharing your family history with us. It’s very moving.

    Report this comment

    aconstitutionalistlivesinbrooklyn  
    • nzkiwi
      Dec. 7, 2012 at 9:04pm

      I also thank you. I’m looking forward to the next part with anticipation.

      Dare I say that this would make the basis for a very good book…

      Report this comment

      nzkiwi  
  • seriouslywhy
    Dec. 7, 2012 at 2:27pm

    Excellent article…I fear America is or will soon go through its own “Farhud”…

    Report this comment

    seriouslywhy  
  • Luke21
    Dec. 7, 2012 at 12:58pm

    Magnificent history lesson on a very personal level & a fitting segue into the present. While Orwell may have written of a “universe where evil is good and good is evil”, it didn’t originate w/ him – those words were uttered by the Lord through the prophet Yesha`yahu (Isahiah) chpts 3-5 (5:20) speaking of a day yet future, a day we are on a collision course w/ & approaching rapidly.

    The rapid shift in the political makeup of Isra’el’s neighbors, is setting the stage for the battle foretold by Adonai to Yechezk’el (Ezeki’el) the prophet (chpts 38 & 39) – which was preceded by the rebirth of the nation (chpt 37).

    Extraordinary evil is upon the earth, the same evil of 75 yrs ago, only this time there will be few to stand up to it – for the world is arrayed against the apple of God’s eye (Zechariah 2). And His anger will be kindled on her behalf once again. Woe to a wicked world, which refuses to bow a knee to her Creator. Repent while you still may.

    Never the less, Yeshua (Jesus Christ) said “when you see these things begin (Mattityahu/Matthew 24; Luke 21), look up! Your redemption draws near!” (Luke 21:28). Amen. Even so, come Lord Yeshua! (Revelation 22:20).

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    Luke21  
  • gentugo
    Dec. 7, 2012 at 12:56pm

    Thank you. I was not aware that there was. A Jewish community in Iraq. This is valuable information. I am fed up with all the hatred in this world for Israel. No matter what the Obama administration does, I will always support Israel.

    Report this comment

    gentugo  
    • revb
      Dec. 8, 2012 at 10:38am

      The full story of how the Jews got there is in II Kings 24 & 25 & whats amazing is how they thrived even in captivity also read the book of Daniel who was a Jewish captive in Babylon (Iraq) and his friends Shadrach – Meschach – Abednego

      Report this comment

      revb  
    • BondmanPhil
      Dec. 10, 2012 at 12:51pm

      Not only in Iraq, but there were ancient Jewish communities is Iran, Egypt and throughout Northern Africa as well. Some 800,000 fled with little but the shirts on their backs from violence in those countries when the State of Israel was founded in 1948. Funny, you don’t see anybody crying about these 800,000 refugees. That’s because, unlike the Arab countries which have abused the Arab refugees as political tools, Israel fully integrated these Jewish refugees and made them citizens. Once again, there is no moral equivalence between Israel and her Arab enemies.

      Report this comment

      BondmanPhil  
  • sparkyrules
    Dec. 7, 2012 at 7:39am

    Your a Journalist,Tiffanny .Thanks much for the insight.I love Israel for so many reasons.Merry Christmas!

    Report this comment

    sparkyrules  
  • TEARS FOR AMERICA
    Dec. 7, 2012 at 7:29am

    Hauntingly beautiful reminder that our God has plans for us and He certainly preserved your family so that we could be blessed with your remembrances and truths, for many people have gone blind with lies from the MSM regarding “Palestine” and its hatred of your people. Thank you, Tiffany.

    Pray for the peace of Jerusalem.

    Report this comment

    TEARS FOR AMERICA  
  • songbird7
    Dec. 7, 2012 at 5:46am

    nice story about your father

    i hope for you , that you dont live in israel

    Report this comment

    songbird7  
    • BondmanPhil
      Dec. 10, 2012 at 12:53pm

      What a silly thing to say, Songbird7. I hope she does live there. I hope every Jew will live there. It is where Jews belong; the only place Jews have ever belonged. I am jealous of my fellow Jews who live there, and wish I had the courage to move their myself.

      Report this comment

      BondmanPhil  
  • SaturdaysWarrior76
    Dec. 7, 2012 at 4:03am

    Beautifully written, compelling story. I can feel your heart in every line you’ve written and the great love and respect you have for your father. Looking forward to part 2!

    Report this comment

    SaturdaysWarrior76  
  • VanceUppercut
    Dec. 6, 2012 at 10:50pm

    22 July 1946, The King David Hotel bombing, by a militant right-wing Zionist underground organization on the British administrative headquarters for Palestine. 91 people of various nationalities were killed and 46 were injured.
    18 December 1947, Al Khisas massacre, 10 Arabs dead, including five children.
    31 December 1947, Balad al-Shaykh massacre, between 21 and 70 Arab villagers killed.
    14 Feb 1948, Sa’Sa’ massacre, 60 Arabs killed, including small children.
    29 October 1948, Saf Saf massacre, between 52 and 70 Arab men shot.

    Sorry, forgive me for interrupting you, go on with your story of “heroism”.

    Report this comment

    VanceUppercut  
    • Walkabout
      Dec. 7, 2012 at 12:13am

      Troll,
      Your statistics are self serving & dishonest without the full context. You cite up to 301 people killed. But you only cite the dead on one side. You did not cite all the kibbutz’s that were raided or all the Jews that were shot by Arabs/Muslims, merely for being Jews from 1880 to 1947. the acts that you cite were not done in a vacuum.

      I’ll play with you. I’ll support the right to return. So long you support the right of Jews to return to every Muslim country they left under duress & get their land back. One more thing, you & people like you have to stand in as surety in case anything happens to those returnees.

      Until you act as a surety, then anything you say about what a happy world your principles & the policies that follow from them are mere rhetoric & crap.

      Report this comment

      Walkabout  
    • The_Cabrito_Goat
      Dec. 7, 2012 at 1:37pm

      Do you go to funerals and tell the grieving their departed family is just worm food?

      You need to take a look at the content of your posts, Vance. They’re really nasty.

      Report this comment

      The_Cabrito_Goat  
  • Chancellor
    Dec. 6, 2012 at 10:31pm

    Funny how the “Obamanites” follow the same path as the Hitler youth and Germany.

    How they long for the 1933-38 hatred for anyone or thing that reminds them there are things bigger than themselves!

    Report this comment

    Chancellor  
    • txannie
      Dec. 7, 2012 at 4:08pm

      “Funny” is not how I would describe it. Scary is what it is for Christians, especially “white” Christians in the Obama era of “redistribution” and “payback” for the blcks. You can really see the Nazi propaganda machine being implimented by Obama’s media and minions. Scary.

      Report this comment

      txannie  
  • TheVolleyballGod
    Dec. 6, 2012 at 9:55pm

    As time goes by these type of stories become more an more suspicious a few photos and a fairytale can pay big if Spielberg wants to make a movie out of your cooked book

    Report this comment

    TheVolleyballGod  
    • Yakov-Yurovsky
      Dec. 6, 2012 at 10:15pm

      Ya, but you have to admit that it not the same without the music; enjoy! (2:17)

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDUhp-ZIwJQ

      Report this comment

      Yakov-Yurovsky  
    • Walkabout
      Dec. 6, 2012 at 10:34pm

      There are travelers who published journals of what they say. There are also record form the Ottoman era.

      Be skeptical. But if you are extremely vocally skeptical & never do any digging then it will help Arabists. I am sure once they get there way here there will not be any new demands.

      Even Islam has better than thou groups. It would not be all lollipops & candycanes if we were all Muslim. We would still have wars.

      Report this comment

      Walkabout  
  • Walkabout
    Dec. 6, 2012 at 9:30pm

    No trolls after 8 hours. It would too hard for them to argue.

    Report this comment

    Walkabout  
  • TROONORTH
    Dec. 6, 2012 at 8:52pm

    My Uncle, my hero, flew Spitfires in the blue skies of England and later Europe. He was shot down in front of the American lines just before the Americans liberated one of the Camps ( sorry I can’t remember which one). Rescued by the Americans, he accompanied them into the camp. He saw things that no man was meant to see. It changed him to the core and from that time to his death he was a Zionist at heart though his roots lay in Scotland.

    For my Uncle; God save Israel.

    Report this comment

    TROONORTH  
  • Elaine P
    Dec. 6, 2012 at 8:43pm

    This true story needs to be put on You Tube, Facebook and all other social media. From all that I am reading, history is fixing to repeat itself, only this time, JESUS CHRIST, will be entering this war to destroy all those nations who are coming against Israel.

    Report this comment

    Elaine P  
    • The_Cabrito_Goat
      Dec. 7, 2012 at 1:39pm

      I often like your posts, Elaine. And I agree. Let’s write down the history of what happened in Germany in stone, rather than sand, so that it may never be blown away.

      Report this comment

      The_Cabrito_Goat  
  • rw2161
    Dec. 6, 2012 at 8:24pm

    This history lesson needs to be told again and again, especially in these times. As long as we have young people in college who still don’t know who Adolph Hitler was, people need to be reminded that anti-Semitism was alive and well in the Middle East long before they were born. One might take note that we invaded Germany and Hitler removed himself from this earth, but that did not cure the scurge that still existed when Hitler took the cowardly way out. Fact is, Hitler was mentally ill and a nightmare to the civilized world. His spirit lives on in the hearts of some in the Middle East and North Africa, and just about everywhere else.

    Report this comment

    rw2161  
    • SREGN
      Dec. 7, 2012 at 4:48pm

      One thing baffles me though, how is it that the family members of those who endured the holocost could overwhelmingly elect a rabid antisemite to the highest office in our land? I hear all the time about how we should never forget. And I can’t. My Dad liberated the first death camp, and he still can’t think about it without crying. But how come the Jews of today vote for those who would ally themselves with the Nazis of our age who want to push Israel into the sea. If the American Jews won’t stand up and fight, how can they expect us gentiles to?

      Report this comment

      SREGN  
    • HappyGirl537
      Dec. 9, 2012 at 8:37am

      This is why progressives wanted control over out education systems. Rewrite history and the truth would be lost.

      Report this comment

      HappyGirl537  
  • americansfightingforcommonsense
    Dec. 6, 2012 at 6:22pm

    I will be looking for Part 2. This the kind of information that the rest of the world needs to know. THERE IS NO WAY TO PLEASE THESE SAVAGES! THEY WANT ALL NON-MUSLIMS DEAD! It’s time that the truth be known, and these people be put in their place. The genocide was stop!

    Report this comment

    americansfightingforcommonsense  
    • muffythetuffy
      Dec. 6, 2012 at 8:30pm

      So?

      The Jews made their mistake by attacking Christians in America every chance they had. Jews traded their own safety for abolishing Christmas Decorations. More Jews voted for Obama than voted for Hitler. You made your bed and must now sleep in it.

      Report this comment

      muffythetuffy  
    • Walkabout
      Dec. 6, 2012 at 9:43pm

      muffythetuffy

      Don’t confuse secular (Jews in Name only or cultural Jews) & religious Jews. Not all Christians are friendly. Some are so liberal that they bend the scripture so far out of shape so as to be almost unrecognizable. Not all religious Jews are worth much. One orthodox branch of Jews, a recent immigrant or recent group formed, voted for Hillary Clinton when she ran for senate the 1st time. They wanted their Welfare payments. 60 minutes or someone did a story on them. They had large families. But it was supported by the Husband’s hard work, but by welfare. Hillary didn’t care. All she wanted was the voting bloc 7 they had a lot of votes. So she courted them. they were white & they were & are trash.

      This orthodox trash is not conservative. They are not fiscally conservative; they are welfare leeches. They do the same thing in the state of Israel. They are so busy studying that they are supported by their wives or the public dole. That is not devout. If you work hard & then spend your spare time studying scriptures & try to get enlightened that is devout. It is not saying you serve the country as a solider, I’ll do the dangerous work of studying. Or do your share of supporting state function with tax money, I’ll go on the dole because I have to study.

      There is nothing religious or good about having too few or too many children. It is in fact sacrilege.

      Report this comment

      Walkabout  
    • Walkabout
      Dec. 6, 2012 at 9:52pm

      We cannot survive this. To be a true conservative, you have to carry your own weight. They are missing fiscal conservatism. They are a pox!.

      “A different Jewish operative a spoke to described the district’s typical Orthodox voter as a “social Republican and welfare Democrat.”

      http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/politics/2012/09/6537501/unorthodox-senate-race-orthodox-brooklyn

      Report this comment

      Walkabout  
    • Walkabout
      Dec. 6, 2012 at 9:54pm

      Voting Democrat is just a way to eventually impoverish yourself. They provide just enough to maintain life support.

      Eventually they might use you like cattle. Cull you when they like.

      http://forward.com/articles/158169/the-undeserving-poor/

      Report this comment

      Walkabout  
    • Walkabout
      Dec. 6, 2012 at 10:05pm

      Kiryas Joel

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiryas_Joel,_New_York

      This is the community that is all too happy to have supported Hillary Clinton for her senate race in order to ensure slop is continued to be put in the trough.

      You can’t be a true religious person & expect others to feed you when you can work.

      Report this comment

      Walkabout  
    • BondmanPhil
      Dec. 10, 2012 at 1:06pm

      @Walkabout: I take no issue with your characterization of small rather small groups of ultra-orthodox or chassidic Jews who abuse entitlements and vote for politicians who promise more. That said, the vast majority of the 1 million + orthodox-affiliated Jews in America are indeed hard working, self-sufficient and roughly 2/3 identify as conservatives. Please do not over-generalize that all Jews in America are either liberal or abuse entitlements. We are more diverse in our politics than many other ethnic groups in America.

      Report this comment

      BondmanPhil  
  • PK_SEA
    Dec. 6, 2012 at 4:39pm

    Can’t wait for part 2…

    Report this comment

    PK_SEA  
  • freedom4ever
    Dec. 6, 2012 at 4:36pm

    excellent article. reading your article reminds me of the close tie i had with my father. he shared many things about WWII that he wouldn’t share with others. we developed a very strong tie and pride of country. can’t wait to read the second part.

    Report this comment

    freedom4ever  
  • ellietoo
    Dec. 6, 2012 at 3:51pm

    Although I realize that the hatred of the Jew is spiritual in nature I still find it hard to understand how an intelligent and educated person can excuse their hatred of any particular ethnic group. Yet, we see this seething hatred of Jews and Christians on our college and university campuses despite the illogical and immoral reasons for it. Misinformation through the propaganda machine of the left (the same source as Hitler) are fed into minds that do not bother to question because they want to hate. Now we see the left and the Arab world joining together again to hate and destroy a people group that does not look to harm anyone.

    Report this comment

    ellietoo  
  • ThomasUSA
    Dec. 6, 2012 at 2:39pm

    Very Interesting! Very good article… Thank you!

    Report this comment

    ThomasUSA  
  • SouthWestPatriot
    Dec. 6, 2012 at 2:37pm

    Nice writing. I wish everyone could read this and understand what is happening. True history is amazing. Thank You for Sharing your story.

    Report this comment

    SouthWestPatriot  
  • spfoam1
    Dec. 6, 2012 at 2:01pm

    Another excellent story. I have enjoyed every one of your contributions to the Blaze.

    Report this comment

    spfoam1  
  • Slowman101
    Dec. 6, 2012 at 1:56pm

    Very interesting article. God Bless Israel.

    Report this comment

    Slowman101  
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Restoring Love