Zion is the cure

Randy/Yisroel Settenbrino is the artist and developer of the Historic Blue Moon Hotel, The Sweet dreams Café and the Last Jewish Tenement Tours, His project was chosen by National Geographic as one of 150 in the Western Hemisphere. He writes on art, psychology, theology, and practical philosophy.He and his wife are also the proud parents of two IDF soldiers serving in Handasah Kravit.

Cynthia Ozek:Moralists of the world! Here is the way it is. This is the only way it is. You cannot separate parent from child, the Jews from Zion. And if you do, you are known for what you are.

As an ancient deadly contagion sweeps across the world, masses of susceptible, weak-minded people are infected with the scourge of Jew-hatred. The affliction cunningly incubates and infiltrates amongst derelict unmasked academia, pervasive carriers of the pathogen, known to long exhibit extensive symptoms of malice, and have unleashed a lethal epidemic to their student bodies.

“ My eyes saw what no person should witness: gas chambers built by learned engineers. Children poisoned by educated physicians. Infants killed by trained nurses. Women and babies shot by high school and college graduates. So, I am suspicious of education.” -Psychologist Haim Ginott

Adoration of secular education and the ambition to worship at the altar of the Ivy League has left a sever vulnerability amongst unsuspecting myopic Jews who are oblivious to life’s essential creed, one cannot have more, without being more; they labor to attain social and economic advancement for their progeny at the expense of spiritual moral betterment.

“Help your children become human. Your efforts must never produce learned monsters, skilled psychopaths or educated Eichmann’s. Reading, writing, and arithmetic are important only if they serve to make our children more human.” -Haim Ginott.

Jewish Emancipation

Detachment from the esoteric and spiritual component of Judaism was initiated by the advent of secularism which arose out of the Jewish 18th century emancipation which brought unprecedented opportunities for the Jews and wonderous achievements for the western world.

"It was in vain that we locked them up for several hundred years behind the walls of theGhetto. No sooner were their prison gates unbarred than they easily caught up with us, even on those paths which we opened up without their aid." -Leroy Beaulieu

Alien Resident not a Compatriot

Despite vast contributions the Jew was held in contempt and void of the fidelity of his fellow citizens. “If my theory of relativity is proven successful, Germany will claim me as a German and France will declare me a citizen of the world. Should my theory prove untrue, France will say that I am a German, and Germany will declare that I am a Jew.” ― Albert Einstein

The People of The Book

During emancipation Jews eager to participate in society, but not ready to exit Judaism responded by compromising Jewish law and shedding customs that distinguished them from their neighbors. Jews ascended in gentile society both physically and mentally and at the same time descended spiritually, forgetting precisely which book they were the People of.

A Reflection of a Reflection

Berlin became the new Jerusalem, and a reformation was formed which mimicked Christian services: architecture, prayers and sermons were held in the vernacular, Easter and Christmas were celebrated as national holidays, what followed reflected a reflection, shallow, and bare of authenticity.

Neither Jew nor Christian

Hundreds of thousands of Jews wanting acceptance, life without quotas and restrictions opted for perfunctory conversions. Conversion, integration, and assimilation are how many Jews responded to the challenges brought on by Emancipation, yet the lack of acceptance in the host society revealed with great clarity that there was no amount of assimilation that would ever rid the Jew of his stigma, since, even after conversion animosity prevailed.

Heinrich Heine, one of the most significant German poets: "I am hated alike by Jew and Christian," "I regret very deeply that I had myself baptized. I do not see that I have been the better for it since. On the contrary, I have known nothing but misfortunes and mischances." "From my way of thinking you can well imagine that baptism is an indifferent affair. I do not regard it as important even symbolically, and I shall devote myself all the more to the emancipation of the unhappy members of our race. Still, I hold it as a disgrace and a stain upon my honor that in order to obtain an office in Prussia—in beloved Prussia—I should allow myself to be baptized."

Nor could it save them from the ovens.

“So many people converted…thinking that if you could show false papers, or birth certificates…it would save you, but nobody was saved.” – Holocaust survivor Olga Steward

Edith Stein canonized as a saint was an ordained a Carmelite nun and her sister Rosa, converted to Christianity. When they were collected by Nazi officers. “Come,” Edith said to her sister, “we are going to our people."

No Exemptions

Jewish French prime Minister Leon Blum was sent to Buchenwald, generals, war heroes, scientists, celebrities, and Olympians were sent to concentration camps. “When the Nazis were implementing the Final Solution, which was of no significance to Olympians and they were mowed down like all the other Jews of Europe,” Grunwald-Spier

Emancipation Derailed the Transmission of Values

Theologian, philosopher, and polyglot Moses Mendelssohn advised “Adapt yourselves to the morals and the constitution of the land to which you have been removed; but hold fast to the religion of your fathers.”

Most Jews were not able to straddle two worlds, Mendelssohn’s children could not “ hold fast.” Only two of his six children remained Jews, four exited via Christianity, and despite integration into Prussian life they still suffered anti-Semitism.

Der Juden Staat

"The Jewish question persists wherever Jews live in appreciable numbers. Wherever it does not exist, it is brought in together with Jewish immigrants. We are naturally drawn into those places where we are not persecuted, and our appearance there gives rise to persecution. Theodore Herzl

Herzl was an assimilated Germanophile Jew who once thought Jews could be accepted through high culture after attending the Dreyfus affair as a correspondent it became painfully clear, culture was not a panacea; Jews would be targeted regardless of, or because of accomplishments and advancements. Herzl observed and experienced the indignities and trespasses of day-to-day Jewish life; Conversion, assimilation or intermarriage could not alter the outsider status of the alien Jew, directing Herzl to the realization through Zion the Jew will gain respect as a nation.

By persecution we cannot be exterminated...the strong Jews turn proudly to their race when persecution bursts out. Entire branches of Judaism may disappear, break away; the tree lives. Theodor Herzl

Max Nordau an intermarried German Jew, shared his perspective of the Jewish dilemma “The Jews are not hated because they have evil qualities; evil qualities are sought for in them because they are hated.”

Herzl founded The World Zionist Congresses and Nordau became the vice president. Jews have always religiously supported existing communities in Israel and now they were provided with the impetus to work together to promote seemingly impossible tasks of emigration from the bloody European continent, the revitalization of spoken Hebrew and to develop the inhabitable arid typhoid ridden expanses into new viable communities. Zion inspired unity and the momentum required to provide a sanctuary in the motherland, for pursued, homeless and beleaguered Jews.

Redemption Lies in Zion

Repetitious patterns are reoccurring with frightening similarity. Menacing crowds bombarding Jews; around the world Jews are killed for being Jews; in France, Holland, Belgium, Sweden, Ukraine, Argentina, in the US murdered in cold blood.

We’ve seen pogroms in real time, in all their variations, restrained in Crown Heights Riots, isolated in Jersey City Shooting, and r October 7th, an all-out savage murderous Chmielnikiesque pogrom.

Over 70 years of monuments and Holocaust Museums in diaspora and still Jews are held in contempt, Jews cannot make the world like them let alone have empathy. Museums can change with seasons of ethnicities, and political agendas even hijacked for the pseudo-Palestinian cause. Only Yad Vashem was worth the investment since it serves to prepare the next generation for their battle with Amalek, to learn.

Never again is a credo not a slogan, it is an oath as is in Shema with all my heart, all my soul and all my possessions; an oath meant to harness our lifeforce for the highest purpose. An investment of this magnitude belongs to proliferation and promotion of the future of Jewish life, assuredly the land and people of Israel are the essential future. Imagine where Israel would be now had world Jewry opted out of Museums for dead Jews and opted for investment in living Jews, opting out of institutions and into growing the Heartland of Shomron and Yehudah. The world would swallow hard on their contempt and gain respect because the magnitude of strength and beauty are irresistible.

Although security for the Jew is tenuous, I often pray all Jews should be able to return home on their own volition and from a position of strength.

May the LORD grant strength to His people;
may the LORD bestow on His people Peace. Psalm:29