James M. Redwine

Torah

Another Trail of Tears

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Israel’s actions in Palestine’s designated future capital, East Jerusalem, and in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, are a conundrum to many Americans. How can a country that arose from the ashes of the Jewish holocaust of World War II inflict similar atrocities on its neighbors? A related mystery is why the United States enables and abets Israel’s actions? In a country born out of occupation and oppression from our closely aligned cultural “First Cousins”, we yearned to breathe free. This is much as the Jews and their first cousins, the Arabs, are embroiled today.

Jews, Arabs and Muslims are intertwined by history, genetics, geography and religion. Hebrews look to the Torah, much of which is reflected in the Arab and Muslim culture and beliefs via the Quran. Religion is visceral to many Jews and Muslims who call themselves People of the Book. We Americans were similarly bound together with Great Britain. Christian religious beliefs were and are integral to each people’s psyche and Volksgeist. America’s Colonists and Revolutionaries as well as the people of Great Britain found inspiration and justification for their actions from The Book. The Book still provides much of the reason many Israelis want to expand their territory. And The Book provides much of the reason given by many Americans for supporting Israel’s actions.

Manifest Destiny divined from the Bible and Zionism with reference to the Torah have numerous similarities with one another and with the tenants of the Quran. There are countless distinctions in the Torah, the New Testament and the Quran. However, the adherents of all three see themselves as believing in the same god but with different rituals for each faith and with dizzying variations of beliefs within each faith.

Christians, Jews and Muslims all profess a belief in justice, equality and a version of the Golden Rule. It has been demonstrated countless times that members of each group turn to their faith to support their actions that are sometimes diametrically opposed to their professed faith. This phenomenon has occurred repeatedly over many years. In America, many people of European descent drew upon their god for divining guidance each time they saw Native Americans as obstacles to territorial expansion. Manifest Destiny was often a deeply ingrained belief that justified the desires of the powerful; the Trail of Tears was one of many such divine tragedies.

In her book When the Wolf Came, Mary Jane Warde cites the account from a survivor of the forced removal from the Native Americans’ homes and traditional lands in the eastern states to Indian Territory. Sallie Forney, who was a member of the Muskogee-Creek tribe, described her experience:

“The command for a removal came unexpectedly upon most of us. There was the time that we noticed that several overloaded wagons were passing our home, yet we did not grasp the meaning. However, it was not long until we found out the reason. Wagons stopped at our homes and the men in charge commanded us to gather what few belongings could be crowded into the wagon. We were to be taken away and leave our homes never to return This was just the beginning of much weeping and heartaches.

…

Many fell by the wayside, too faint with hunger or too weak to keep up with the rest. The aged, feeble, and sick were left to perish by the wayside.”

One of the four carvings of U.S. presidents on Mount Rushmore is of Theodore Roosevelt who is quoted by writer Alysa Landry as having said in a January 1886 speech in New York City:

“I don’t go so far as to think that the only good Indians are the dead Indians, but I believe nine out of every ten are. And I shouldn’t like to inquire too closely into the case of the tenth.”

Such a cavalier attitude by an American President towards Native Americans sounds remarkedly similar to the Zionists’ view and actions toward Palestinians today. One might wonder if much of America’s support for Israel’s actions arises from a subconscious conflation of Native Americans and Palestinians with America’s faith in Manifest Destiny being morphed out of a Chosen People cultural myth.

It is difficult for us to do the right thing in Palestine when we built our empire using the same tactics the Zionists are using. However, we owe it to “ourselves and our posterity” to not aid and abet another Trail of Tears in Palestine. We certainly sinned ourselves, but we can partially atone by helping to alleviate the great Nakba being wrought by Israel’s Zionists today.

Ah, Spring!

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Joseph Campbell (1904-1987) was one of America’s best-known authorities on the universality and similarity of religions and myths we humans have created and lived by for hundreds of thousands of years. Campbell saw these recurring cultural explanations and superstitions as deeply imbedded in our daily lives. One similarity many of these phenomena have is they often center around springtime. While mankind has left countless records of beliefs in supernatural beings long before Judaism, Christianity and Islam, these three currently ascendant faiths each reflect the significance of spring’s influence, especially in stories of rebirth. The famous prosecutor of the Charles Manson Family, Vincent Bugliosi (1934-2015), even based his understanding of Manson’s motives for murdering people he did not even know on Manson’s convoluted interpretation of the Biblical Rapture myth (Revelation: Ch. 14, 15-20).

In the springtime, Jews celebrate Passover with eight days of special prayers and a Seder supper. The Judaic legend is that God gave Moses the laws of the Torah and Moses passed those commandments for living onto the Jewish people. The Torah is the record of those guidelines.

Christians celebrate their belief in a promised rebirth and their God’s instructions on behaving, as delivered directly from God – the Son, Jesus. Christians have a period of Lent leading up to Easter Sunday and an Easter dinner. The New Testament contains those principles to live by.

Muslims venerate the Quran as the word from their God spoken through Muhammad for a period of time they call Ramadan. Each day starts with a meal, Suhar, then a period of fasting ending with a second meal, Iftar.

Jews and Muslims view themselves as descendants from the same progenitor, Abraham, and worship the same God. Christians also worship that God but further deify Jesus as God. These ostensibly symbiotic religious phenomena have not produced consistently symbiotic relationships between and among the three groups.

Repentance, reflection, prayer, forgiveness, generosity, hope and joy are some of the elements in each of these three religions springtime celebrations of rebirth. For Christians, Easter Eggs are a ubiquitous symbol of what many so-called pagan cultures use to represent these same important rituals.

However, springtime is not just for organized religions. It may be mere coincidence that our government sees springtime as a propitious time to suck tribute from us, but I doubt it. When April 15 rolls around the IRS starts its period of concentrated accounting for any money we may have somehow managed to stash aside. It is time for what President Abraham Lincoln, the creator of the income tax to finance the Union’s Civil War, called “A new birth of freedom”, yeah, right.

Call me a cynic, but I do not see it as a mere happenstance that as most of America is awash in the good feelings brought on by Passover, Ramadan and Easter our government is demanding from us what it wants to spend on its own priorities. I see method in the timing of TAX-TIME and spring flowers. I am even a little superstitious that the first hummingbird that appeared at Peg’s feeder showed up April 15. Its avaricious slurping reminded me of other blood suckers that appear for “rebirth” along with the dandelions.

Cultural Myopia

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It is no one’s fault. It is a universal curse. We often can recognize virtues in our friends, but may misinterpret the motives of strangers. What someone from another culture means to be irony, sarcasm, humor, even friendly banter or simply an off-the-cuff comment we may take with umbrage.

If a university student calls out “From the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea”, that student may mean two countries that include Palestine and Israel. Whereas, another student may conclude it is a call to eliminate either Palestine or Israel. The cultural history of both students can lead to ascribing ill will when none is intended. The odds of misinterpretation are greatly increased when people from neither student’s culture see fit to project their ignorance of both students’ backgrounds upon the controversy.

Another near-sighted source of misunderstanding is the overlaying of at least three religious traditions upon all involved. Fundamentalist Christians may conflate their interpretation of the Old Testament’s Book of Isaiah with the New Testament’s Books of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John when the topic of a Messiah arises. Confusing matters further is the Quran’s teaching in Surah 3; Jesus is revered by Muslims, but as God’s messenger, not His biological child.

The most puzzling aspect of all the armed and unarmed conflicts among the three Abrahamic religions is each emphasizes making peace and performing good works such as healing the sick, giving charity and forgiving others. Yet, for at least fifteen hundred years each faith has often been used as a sword against those of differing religious and other cultural practices. One wonders if those who profess to venerate their Torah, Bible or Quran have truly studied them or are simply regurgitating coffeeshop/barstool catchphrases.

We currently appear to be carrying on our ancient traditions of denigrating those whom we see as apostates. In the past this may have been simply illogical, immoral and ignorant but of only transitory and limited concern. However, today we may not have progressed in our mutual understanding but we certainly have matriculated from slingshots and lances to weapons that truly are god-like or, perhaps, Satanic. Unfortunately, unlike the gods, we cannot reverse the effects. Perhaps we should actually implement the sage actions each religion’s sacred tome champions and beat our swords into ploughshares before we have no arable lands left to plow or peoples to plow them.

Get Out Now!

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If one credits the Jewish Torah, the Christian Bible and the Islamic Quran, the Hebrews and Arabs are descended from Abraham who was born in Ur, modern day Iraq. Abraham’s sons, Ishmael and Isaac, were also born in Ur. They are the progenitors of today’s Arabs and Jews, according to the folklore of both groups. Therefore, Arabs and Jews are one people.

 When Abraham led his family and flock out of Ur, they went to Canaan which was already inhabited by several peoples who were probably the ancestors of modern-day Iranians (ancient Babylonians/Persians). If there was an actual Abraham, scholars estimate he arrived in Canaan sometime between 2,000 and 1,700 B.C. And that would have been about the time the internecine bloodbath among numerous peoples of the Middle East had its genesis. Naturally, humans being human, each group has its own version of the truth usually attributed to revelations from their own, self-created, deities.

Jesus was born in Bethlehem that was then and is now Palestine. Jesus’ mother was a Hebrew girl, Mary, and his father was the god of both Hebrews and Arabs (Book of Matthew, Chapter 2). Therefore, Jesus was a Palestinian Jew, although neither Jews nor Islamists consider him to be the son of a god as Christians do. Of course, Jesus is the original Christian according to the New Testament that is revered by modern day Christians.

Regardless of the religious beliefs of Christians, Islamists and Jews, the oral and written traditions of all three groups establish their cultural and historical connections. Assuming there is some factual basis for these indigenous myths, a modern D.N.A. analysis should prove close genetic ties among Hebrews/Jews and Arabs. As an aside, the same could be true to a lesser extent among Arabs, Jews and Iranians.

And to introduce more obfuscation and mendacity into the cauldron, Christians from Europe decided their god had ordained that they should install their faith into what was a family feud. We Americans did not seek salvation in what became called the Holy Land until about the time of the First World War. However, beginning in 1948, we bullied our way into the heart and soul of the “strange mournful mutter” of the dead and dying civilians who are but pawns in the schemes of Middle Eastern and European tyrants.

It is only American might that allows and facilitates the slaughter of innocents and the conquest by those who see themselves as chosen by their gods to impose their evil upon their relatives and neighbors. And it is only American decency, if such there be, that can encourage morality to what started 4,000 years ago and remains today, an immoral war, and help bring about a just and lasting peace.

A Capital Idea

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President Trump has decided to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. The Administration’s two main stated reasons for doing so are: (1) it simply acknowledges the reality, i.e., the Jews of Israel already say it’s their capital; and, (2) America’s decision will promote peace among the Jews, Christians and Muslims who live there. Of course, many of the residents of Jerusalem are sectarian and do not ascribe to any religion. However, none of them can escape their own or their neighbor’s cultural heritage.

According to the Old Testament people were already living in the areas we now call Palestine and Israel when the Hebrews migrated there. And according to the Torah, the Bible and the Quran, Arabs and Jews have the common founder, Abraham. They are genetically half-siblings at their origin.

This makes some sense to me as science has established all humans arose from one source in Africa and the Middle East is geographically connected to that source. We are all connected genetically, although it seems unfair I cannot understand nuclear physics nor run a 4.3 forty.

It is our elected federal government’s function to set and execute our foreign policy. I am good with that. But I would like to respectfully suggest to President Trump that if we want to truly recognize the reality on the ground in Jerusalem and promote peace as an honest broker, we should also recognize East Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine, just saying.