Reader’s Links for September 11, 2021

Each day at just after midnight Eastern, a post like this one is created for contributors and readers of this site to upload news links and video links on the issues that concern this site. Most notably, Islam and its effects on Classical Civilization, and various forms of leftism from Soviet era communism, to postmodernism and all the flavours of galloping statism and totalitarianism such as Nazism and Fascism which are increasingly snuffing out the classical liberalism which created our near, miraculous civilization the West has been building since the time of Socrates.

This document was written around the time this site was created, for those who wish to understand what this site is about. And while our understanding of the world and events has grown since then, the basic ideas remain sound and true to the purpose.

So please post all links, thoughts and ideas that you feel will benefit the readers of this site to the comments under this post each day. And thank you all for your contributions.

This is the new Samizdat. We must use it while we can.

About Eeyore

Canadian artist and counter-jihad and freedom of speech activist as well as devout Schrödinger's catholic

90 Replies to “Reader’s Links for September 11, 2021”

  1. Loss of perspective – and respect – “cause covid” have yet to plumb their depths. A tweet:

    Daniella Greenbaum Davis
    Jews have kept Shabbos through 3000 years of oppression. Through the Holocaust, the inquisition, the expulsion from Arab lands.

    But per this email from a @BarnardCollege employee, Jews were expected to throw that all away bc of covid protocols.

    https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1436329219202732032.html

    Read the DEMANDS – in tone and substance they just blow THIS Orthodox Jew away.
    But the comments are even more shocking, they’re so shallow and stupid. That’s why I just linked to the threadreader.

    • As a young man I once lived in an area with Hassidic Jews and had been asked by a woman on a few occassions when passing a house to turn on her light switch on the Sabbath. I thought nothing of it, and was willing to help.

      “There are numerous restrictions[1] and certain types of work are prohibited, such as contractor work.[2] The rabbis ruled that asking a non-Jew to violate Shabbat for oneself is generally forbidden,[3] but under certain circumstances the rabbis allowed it, especially to heat the oven on winter days in northern countries.[4] A shabbos goy is not needed where life is at stake (pikuach nefesh) or in the case where there would be a reasonable chance of danger to life (safek pikuach nefesh).”
      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shabbos_goy

      So a ride to hospital is never a problem. Therefore, cannot a Covid-19 alert be a medical exemption too, Yucki? Or should a Rabbi make it so?

      Would an eruv put around the city where Bardard College is, help in this matter?
      https://nypost.com/2015/05/24/high-wire-strewn-through-city-lets-jews-keep-the-faith/

      Where does conscience and common sense meet G_d’s wrath where you will willingly be stoned to death for your transgressions? Where is that eruv line?

      Could I be asked to do the stoning if it is on the Sabbath? (Of course I won’t do it for any transaction).

      So, much more precisely, what does “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” mean if not this?
      https://biblehub.com/mark/2-27.htm

      • “but under certain circumstances the rabbis allowed it, especially to heat the oven on winter days in northern countries”

        If you allow a gentile to do a task by your own command, then by moving your own arm it is also for the same good cause, to which it was intended.

      • This is where the letter of the law runs roughshod over the spirit of the law. Taking a day off once a week for family seems like a good idea. Spending that whole day trying to get non-Jews to flip switches, or walking 5 miles in the hot sun or freezing rain because driving is work, this is absurdistan.

        It also seems a little control freakish. I have heard a lot of stories where usually newly orthodox Jewish people attempt to reorganize reality around insane rules creating 50X the work for themselves and everyone else.

        I did know of a family that used to move the cars around in the driveway then walk to Synagogue. I kinda get that. Sacrificing for your faith, I get that if its not sacrificing someone else’s efforts.

    • “Read the DEMANDS – in tone and substance they just blow THIS Orthodox Jew away.”

      The tone is appalling. To identify a person as a Sabbath-Observer is to a Christian as a Happy Holiday.

      To remember G_d is the most important salvation to humanity not to be treated as slaves. No one has that right.

      Period.

    • Where does conscience and common sense meet G_d’s wrath where you will willingly be stoned to death for your transgressions? Where is that eruv line?

      Could I be asked to do the stoning if it is on the Sabbath?
      ………………………..
      We don’t do stoning.

      Your hypothetical participation in such punishment for “transgressions” – the word itself, an absurd distortion – is lurid fantasy.

      We’re communities, not cults.

      Wikipedia and the NYPost are less than useless. They describe Orthodox Judaism as medieval quirks that do indeed defy common sense. While there are small cults among haredim, they’re as foreign to me as they are to you.

      Sorry, one-line truisms from Christian scripture don’t resonate with me.

      The context is the same as portions of the Talmud written at the same time and some are very similar. They offer a way to survive spiritually at a time of immense loss.

      Suffering as subjects or slaves under mad Roman emperors like Nero and Caligula, their world was shattered. Homilies in synagogues throughout the Empire had similar messages. The best parts are eloquent paraphrases of verses from the Prophets.

      But later parts of Christian scripture preached explicit supersession; the Apostle to the Gentiles was intent on attracting converts. Make it easy, trash the “Old” to bring in the “New Testament”. First and second century pagan myths became anti-Jewish screeds.

      The great Rabbi Jesus would’ve been appalled.

      • If you get bogged down in the trivia – as some observant Jews do – you miss the gestalt of Sabbath observance. Not restrictions, but freedom to enjoy much that gets lost in daily routine.

        It’s a holiday!
        Something to look forward to every week, a complete break from the mundane for pleasure.

        Luxuriate in free time – to BE together with family and friends, no pressure to rush off to do chores or catch that last Tucker Carlson. You don’t recognize that as pressure till you’re relieved from it from sundown to sunset.

        One day a week.

        Prohibitions from some activities free us to enjoy others: bonding experiences we cherish, spiritually refreshed – each and every week. They tend to separate the observant from those who are not, but they bring us closer together.

      • I always enjoy your observations Yucki, because you bring a better one.

        We started from the insult from the Left of “Sabbath Worshippers’ to get people to take swab checks every day.

        I wanted to look at the straining of a knat to keep shabat when there are domestic and medical needs that require flexibility and common sense that is the intention to give everyone, including owned slaves (food and bed in return for work) at the time of Moses, their day of rest too.

        “We’re communities, not cults.”

        The Ten Commandments are still as liberating then, as they are today
        https://www.the-ten-commandments.org/the-ten-commandments.html

        Moreso, as an escape from the bondages of Communism, islam and Sexualism are to go by. These who make Gods of men.

        • Nobody there believes “covid” in a population of 2x-vaxxed college kids is an urgent medical issue.

          It’s an excuse to rein in those “Sabbath-observers”. (Like Easter/Ishtar-worshippers in Sri Lanka.)

        • Your donkey and horse and camel are entitled to their day of rest too!
          ………………
          How to describe Sabbath…?

          Traveling is big. Especially when festivals fall close to Sabbath, it’s like the day before Thanksgiving here. Riding for the weekend to Montreal, flying to Detroit. Staying in touch is literal, we grow to crave it.

          It’s Friday afternoon already! Ezra’s coming and he’s gluten-free, Leah’s gone vegan…

          When’s candle-lighting tonight? Is it too late to call Haifa? Days are getting longer/shorter…

          Then it’s time. Women and girls light the candles, a ritual that flips the switch.
          ………………
          There are blessings for wine and bread. Fresh flowers, the festive meal. Around the table telling stories, listening to the old folks’ anecdotes from the old country, Minsk or Marrakech.

          (And, yes, ARGUING. About history, philosophy, everything. But you’re face to face, others are paying attention. It’s okay.)
          ………………
          It’s a mitzvah for married couples to make love during the Sabbath. Man and Woman become as one, the magnificent creation of a loving G-d.
          ………………
          I haven’t even gotten to Saturday yet!

          If the Commandment is what leads you to Sabbath observance, experience will teach you a secret: it’s really the greatest gift. A tree of life that’s yours to have and hold.

  2. AfD reply to a7 news piece: The German Jewish Council does not speak for our Jewish voters

    Arutz Sheva reported in a news article on September 10th that sixty Jewish organizations, headed by the German Jewish Council, released a joint appeal against voting for the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party in Germany’s upcoming elections, charging it with “anti-Semitism, racism and misanthropy”.

    The AfD sent us this reply.

    The German Jewish Council is the only organization of its kind world-wide which is financed almost exclusively by the government, with €13 million a year. So it is no surprise that they would come out against the AfD, as they did in the last federal election. Those responsible can only act this way because they do not have to fear any internal opposition due to the undemocratic structure of their organization.

    Trust us, the Jewish grass roots in the communities thinks very differently. They know from first-hand, lived experience that left-wing and Muslim anti-Semitism are far more dangerous than the obviously crass but ultimately totally marginalized far-right in Germany, or the isolated use of the yellow star at German corona-virus demonstrations.

    This political interference by the German Jewish Council is self-serving and obsequious, and Jews in Germany are in no way helped by it.

    Significantly, only state-financed Jewish organizations took part in this appeal. Independent Jewish organs such as the monthly newspaper “Jüdische Rundschau” and conservative Jewish associations such as Chabad Germany are not represented, and that’s no surprise.

    It is after all not in the interests of Jews in Germany for the established parties to be able to ram through their anti-Israel policies without any serious opposition. The AfD is the only party in Germany that seriously criticizes this policy….

    We therefore expect to get a lot of votes for the AfD from German Jewish voters on Sept. 26. This letter by government-funded apparatchiks will not change that.

    https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/313269